Originally posted by RamenThief7

Originally posted by Cephus404

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

1) Hardcore really is kind of stupid for the majority, and people complaining about it seem to just really want the ability to ruin someone else's day by killing their character completely.  Legal murder as it were.  Man, I can't wait to see responses for this conclusion.

I agree, there are plenty of people out there who are into that.  I think EvE is a good example, there are plenty of PvP gankers hanging around low security level gates just waiting for someone to fly by so they can wipe them out for fun.  I can't tell you how many times I not only had them blow apart my ship but purposely "murder" my "character" so that it had to respawn as a clone.  These are pathetic losers who get off on it.

Well Cephus, you just seem to have gotten really unlucky in those situations. But just because you got wasted constantly doesn't mean it was the hardcore gamer's fault. No, it was simply that a group of raiders with evil intentions decided to waste you. You could be a total bastard in the game (like being a pirate for instance), that's the freedom of choice in that game. Also, you probably didn't read my discussion of how the term "hardcore" can mean a bunch of different things and that gamers have not settled on a universal agreement of what "hardcore" should indefinitely be described as.

In the end, it's irrelevant what people think "hardcore" is.  Some people are assholes, some people are not.  People who gank are assholes, end of story.

2) Death penalties, to most people, are necessary.  Those who think WoW's is okay as it is state so because it is a very short time sink, which is sort of key here.

Reasonable death penalties are necessary, otherwise why care if you die?  If you just pop back with no loss of any kind, what difference does it make?

Having weak death penalties or low time sinks removes alot of challenge for people that favor middle-core through rogue-like styles. For gamers like me, knowing that dying will screw you over big time gives me an adrenaline rush, and adds to the excitement of making sure I plan ahead so that I don't die. There should be death penalties, whether they are light, middle-core or rogue-like, but nowadays there just seems to be too many light death penalties that I haven't really seen too many challenging games in my opinion.

At the end of the day, the only thing that makes any difference whatsoever is what makes developers the most money.  That's it.  You might not like that, but it's the simple reality.  Most people favor what you might  consider weak death penalties and therefore, most games are going to cater to that kind of sensibility.

The fact is, the harder you make the death penalty, the less risk anyone is going to take.  If you make a mistake and get permadeath and lose 2 months of work on a character, who is ever going to do anything that might risk that?  If that was what awaited a simple mistake for me, I'd never fight a mob that wasn't green.  Instead, because death is only an inconvenience, I can take chances that I'd never take otherwise.  I can fight red mobs way above me, mobs that have a very real chance of killing me, because if I fail... well, it's not really that big of a deal, I can recover and try again.

3) Time sinks are not favorable as death penalties.  Whether this is through a loss of real time, or through a loss of XP or skills, a loss of time in the most literal sense possible is just a huge bummer. 

 I don't have a problem with a reasonable time sink, maybe a couple of minutes while your toon regenerates to full health.  You can fight if you want to but low HP and low skills make that a very dangerous proposition. 

This is a good idea, and it contributes to one of many good ideas on how to balance time sinks with death penalties.

It's used in lots of games and it works.  Nobody wants to die, dying is boring, but dying doesn't spell the end of a character that you've worked hard to make.  Having full-loot death makes no sense, who is ever going to risk that ridiculously expensive armor you scrimped and saved for months to get when a bad "die roll" can cost you everything?

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

This is not a discussion of hardcore systems.  Yes, we all know they exist and have their place, but for the general MMO player base (which is definately more than WoW), death is something that has always escaped the grasp of most MMOs I can think of.

 

What death system is appropriate?  I am going with two assumptions:

1) Most people don't want hardcore, so that's off the table.

2) Most people find WoW's simple corpse run to be far too trivial.  Repair Bills oh noes!

3) The old EQ exp based penalty was probably a little stiff, simply in that loss of exp is a direct loss of time invested, to the point where you would lose weeks work of effort.

 

So the real question is: What do you want to see in a death system that has both significant consequences for failure, but also one that doesn't make the game less fun for the players. 

 

The only concept I have come up with is basically that death is another playable zone that is basically the afterlife, and the player has to perform 'quests' to get their life back.  Their first venture to the land of the dead would be the longest, and it would become easier afterwards.  It could be where they convince a god or something to give them back life, or they find a way out of the land of the dead.  Alternatively, players could insure themselves with a town cleric who would teleport their body back to the hospital upon dying.

The downside to this idea is A) It would be a lot of work for something that characters won't spend a whole lot of time in and B) it may not hold much in consequences for gameplay, overall, save time lost.  But to me the general idea of doing quests for getting life back, even short ones, might be an interesting avenue. 

Maybe it would be a better idea to do something similar to what Asheron's Call did, but not entirely the same,  as in give characters 'save points' where they have a record of all items and skills on their person, and upon death, they lose anything they've gained since the save point.  Upon death, they come back to life at that point sans their gains.

lol thats like having to play tetris and beat it to continue playing

Some games like Roma Victor have decent death systems... you lose some skill points, most of your items on your character, and you spend time trying to find your way out of the afterlife....

But otherwise its not that bad for new players but kind of hurts experianced players...  its actually not a bad system.

And there is a perma death system in the game but you have to do some AMAZING feat that no one has figured out yet to become a legend.   

Originally posted by GreenChaos

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

1) Most people don't want hardcore, so that's off the table.

And most people are wrong.

The only good online RPG I ever played was a MUD with eventual perma death. You had about 40 lives.

And if was full loot, so if you're worried about losing all your stuff that can happen anyway.

It's the only good system. Argue all you want, I'm right and your wrong. Because it's the only system where people at the top deserve to be at the top.

And it solves all of your end game issues. The end game is trying to stay alive. Trust me, you will never have a better PVP experience.

I had a two hour long fight once in that MUD and my hands were shaking most of the time. All the years I played MMOs my hands never shook.

And by the way my main character when two years max level and never died once. And yes that meant something. That will never mean something in a no permadeath MMO.

 

 

"Most people are wrong"?   Lol.  Yep, most people don't know what they like.   It's a good thing you're here to tell em.

People deserve to be at the top?     Maybe for a strict PvP game, but for PvE, I don't play MMOs to compete.

2) Death penalties, to most people, are necessary. Those who think WoW's is okay as it is state so because it is a very short time sink, which is sort of key here.

Reasonable death penalties are necessary, otherwise why care if you die? If you just pop back with no loss of any kind, what difference does it make?
 

No it is not necessary. You care about whether you bring down the boss or not (because that is where the loot is). If you keep dying, even if you have NO death penalty, you still don't get the loot.

This carrot approach is much better than the stick one.

One of my favourite dead penalties is guild wars one, you get a debuff that lowers your stats if you die and will go away eventually beating mobs. If you die more the debuff gets worse till a certian point, this way your not making it very harsh because if you get it to full then either you suck in fighting or your fighting mobs that are too hard for your lvl.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

This is not a discussion of hardcore systems.  Yes, we all know they exist and have their place, but for the general MMO player base (which is definately more than WoW), death is something that has always escaped the grasp of most MMOs I can think of.

 

What death system is appropriate?  I am going with two assumptions:

1) Most people don't want hardcore, so that's off the table.

2) Most people find WoW's simple corpse run to be far too trivial.  Repair Bills oh noes!

3) The old EQ exp based penalty was probably a little stiff, simply in that loss of exp is a direct loss of time invested, to the point where you would lose weeks work of effort.

 

So the real question is: What do you want to see in a death system that has both significant consequences for failure, but also one that doesn't make the game less fun for the players. 

 

The only concept I have come up with is basically that death is another playable zone that is basically the afterlife, and the player has to perform 'quests' to get their life back.  Their first venture to the land of the dead would be the longest, and it would become easier afterwards.  It could be where they convince a god or something to give them back life, or they find a way out of the land of the dead.  Alternatively, players could insure themselves with a town cleric who would teleport their body back to the hospital upon dying.

The downside to this idea is A) It would be a lot of work for something that characters won't spend a whole lot of time in and B) it may not hold much in consequences for gameplay, overall, save time lost.  But to me the general idea of doing quests for getting life back, even short ones, might be an interesting avenue. 

Maybe it would be a better idea to do something similar to what Asheron's Call did, but not entirely the same,  as in give characters 'save points' where they have a record of all items and skills on their person, and upon death, they lose anything they've gained since the save point.  Upon death, they come back to life at that point sans their gains.

The problem is that point #3 is not looked at properly.Sure it may equate to a loss of time,but if you died you are probably trying to push the limits of xp,so you are trying to beat the system,the game into leveling much faster than the average player.

This is is why HARDCORE is such an over used term,if you are fighting what you should be,you will almost never die,it is only from mistakes that you die or over your limit.So even if you have the most stringent death penalty,it is you the player that still has the choice,if you want to risk death,then that is your fault not the games stringent penalty.

So the type of penalty really does not matter,i can tell you that you need to look at the extreme to realize the problems with low penalties.

These are forming trains onto others,because you have nothing to lose.

Players will constantly claim bosses they have no business claiming,making for longer time periods for others to claim.Players can claim a boss and kite it until their friends show up that can kill it,so it really can dumb down a game.

You can aggro an entire zone to clear way for easy claims for your buddies,makes for zero risk.

A tough pull?no problem pull all the aggro,after all no risk,just rez up and continue like nothing happened.

Time considerations? this is the biggest cop out ever,games are meant to be time wasters,so nobody should ever try to use that lame excuse.

Really it comes down to common sense,you have to look at he whole purpose of taking on a fight in a game?Do you just want the mob to fall down as ssoon as you show your face?why not?because we want a challenge right?well with no penalty,there is NO challenge at all,if people cannot see that ,then they are blind.

Originally posted by 1977

Originally posted by Ginaz

That might be a nice theory if most of the western mmo's were RMT based.  However, most are purely subscription based (for now at least).  If your talking about 3rd party, gold seller type rmt then your off base again because the mmo creaters don't support it and will often suspend/ban people if they're caught.

I understand most do not support it in the west. Everquest did not support it and was having ebay remove character listings, but to act like this doesn't go on, and people don't sell characters, gold and everything else, I think you are being a bit naive. I and all my friends have sold every Everquest and WOW account we have had pretty much.

 

 In order for your original theory to work, though, the companies making mmo's, Blizzard/soe/Turbine etc., would have to be compliciet or the the very least turn a blind eye to whats going on.  For the most part, whenever they do find this sort of thing going on they try and put a stop to it.  Don't make the mistake and think that just because players buy and sell gold/characters that its endorsed by the companies that own mmo's.

I hate to say this, but one of my favorite death systems was AOC. NO I will not go back to playing it do to other resends. But I like the way that the death penalties stacked up.

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Originally posted by LordDmaster
I hate to say this, but one of my favorite death systems was AOC. NO I will not go back to playing it do to other resends. But I like the way that the death penalties stacked up.

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I'm trying to remember about it (didn't play AoC in forever), but didn't the penalty its self not do too much?

Originally posted by Wizardry 

So the type of penalty really does not matter,i can tell you that you need to look at the extreme to realize the problems with low penalties.

These are forming trains onto others,because you have nothing to lose.

Players will constantly claim bosses they have no business claiming,making for longer time periods for others to claim.Players can claim a boss and kite it until their friends show up that can kill it,so it really can dumb down a game.

You can aggro an entire zone to clear way for easy claims for your buddies,makes for zero risk.

A tough pull?no problem pull all the aggro,after all no risk,just rez up and continue like nothing happened.

 

What you are describing is the devs using a tough death penalty to cover up some really bad coding on their part.  None of the problems you describe should happen in a preoperly designed game.  So a game that eliminates these bugs really does not need a tough death penalty then.

Anyway, to me severe death penalties are counterproductive because they train players not to attempt challenging content and go for the easy stuff.

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Wizardry 

So the type of penalty really does not matter,i can tell you that you need to look at the extreme to realize the problems with low penalties.

These are forming trains onto others,because you have nothing to lose.

Players will constantly claim bosses they have no business claiming,making for longer time periods for others to claim.Players can claim a boss and kite it until their friends show up that can kill it,so it really can dumb down a game.

You can aggro an entire zone to clear way for easy claims for your buddies,makes for zero risk.

A tough pull?no problem pull all the aggro,after all no risk,just rez up and continue like nothing happened.

 

What you are describing is the devs using a tough death penalty to cover up some really bad coding on their part.  None of the problems you describe should happen in a preoperly designed game.  So a game that eliminates these bugs really does not need a tough death penalty then.

Anyway, to me severe death penalties are counterproductive because they train players not to attempt challenging content and go for the easy stuff.

Heh heh, this brings back so many memories with that forum I created a while back that discussed death penalties.

A game with a harsh death penalty does not always have bad coding on their part. Look at FF XI. That game is successful with 500k subscriptions for 8 straight years. In this case, harsh death penalties, coupled with mostly hardcore group aspects, taught players to be productive by working in groups and cooperating with each other. This created coordinated, serious yet fun group play and produced one of the nicest communities I've ever seen in an mmorpg (you didn't want to be an asshat on FF XI because word would get around quickly and you would soon find out that no one wants to party with you anymore).

Severe death penalties are not neccessarily counter productive. If elements are involved in which you seek rewards, this could be productive. In other words, you strive for excellence to avoid harsh penalties. A bad case is when you strive to do the right thing to avoid being punished, then you're just doing good and right things so you don't get punished for failing to do so. That installs fear and submissiveness. But striving for excellence to avoid harsh penalties means you doing the good and right thing to the best of your ability because you want to, and failing to do so would end with severe punishments (for example, you refuse to study a test because you think you know it well, so as a result, you get an F, so next time you study for the test to avoid getting a bad grade and so that you can prove to yourself that you know what you're studying).

Give me a game that has tough death penalties, is challenging to level and is tough to get the best gear and lost of money; and I will play it forever. I can't stand easy mode games.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Give me a game that has tough death penalties, is challenging to level and is tough to get the best gear and lost of money; and I will play it forever. I can't stand easy mode games.

Old School EQ 1.

Anyway, to help out what >>>I<<< meant by hardcore, I'll define it:

By hardcore death, I meant permadeath, as I was referring to the Diablo 2 term, as it is the most common game to have such a system (yet is not an MMO).

As for EQ death, I simply found it too strict, but NOT hardcore.  I find WoW/AoC death meaningless.

What I'm looking for is the possibility of a game where the death penalty is without Exp loss, or it's equivalent.  Most have replaced this with outirght time-sinks, but the sting just is not the same.  I think death should be more than WoW, but only as tough as EQ if death is fairly infrequent.  I would also like to see a form of story implementation as to why each player is immortal.

A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.

Originally posted by ArchAngel102

A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.

For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?

For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.

Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.

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Originally posted by RamenThief7

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Originally posted by ArchAngel102

A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.

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For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.

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Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.

If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.

If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.

Originally posted by Nadril

 

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Originally posted by RamenThief7

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Originally posted by ArchAngel102

 

A game shouldn't punish you for losing. Losing is punishment enough as is.

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For you and people that think that way, that might be enough punishment for you. But, what happens if you don't learn from your mistakes? You would be doomed to repeat them, over and over, until the 100-upteenth time you finally learn what you're doing wrong. Or perhaps you would simply try to beat a dungeon, over and over, until you realize you just won't beat the enemies in that dungeon at the moment?
For gamers like I, middle-core through rogue-like death punishment teaches you to not suck and learn to be on your game 24/7. I can't stand the idea of an idiot that continuously tries to beat a dungeon, continuously fails because he's not strong enough, yet he believes that with trial and error that he's actually making progress. Had a harsh death punishment been there, he would've learned the first time that he's not good enough to run that dungeon quite yet, would recooperate and become stronger, and will then beat that dungeon fully prepared.
Some games should have that type of punishment you mentino ArchAngel, people will play that type of game. Then, there should be games that follow my example, for that is where challenge comes into play.

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Isn't it obviously better to have someone who enjoys to keep on trying a challenge, even if they die a lot? Maybe it's just something painfully obvious I am missing here but the better game seems to be the one that someone tries challenging things in, because there isn't a huge risk.

If they had a high death penalty than that player would just give up, probably go grind on some easy mobs until he gained some levels and could go beat that place. What is the challenge in that? It sounds like all it does is harbor that type of mentality to where "well, if I can't beat it no point trying". Not only is that not good for a game but just doesn't seem very much fun to the player.

If developers want to make a game more challenging then they should make the actual dungeon, or whatever, more challenging -- not the penalty. Because like I said before death penalties aren't exactly challenging anyways, because its not difficult to just keep on doing what you're doing. They serve to keep someone in a game longer, where as a game with a less strict death penalty but harder gameplay would do the same thing, while being more difficult and less tedious.

Heh heh heh...I'll say this right now. DO NOT say that yellow shaded part to the 500k subscriptions of FF XI or the EVE Online crowd. I mean it, just simply avoid saying that part to said people.

By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).

By the way, that green shaded part, I'll explain this a little better. Do you actually think a person failing a dungeon the 100-upteenth time because he thinks he's making progress is actually good, when the person should realize his level is far too low to survive the dungeon? Think carefully to what you just agreed to.

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Heh heh heh...I'll say this right now. DO NOT say that yellow shaded part to the 500k subscriptions of FF XI or the EVE Online crowd. I mean it, just simply avoid saying that part to said people.

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I'll be sure not to :P.

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By the way, a harsh death penalty is challenging. You're telling me that having to replace the gear you just lost, making up the xp you lost, and basically having to recooperate back to where you were at before isn't challenging? There are many aspects of the word "challenge" that can be applied. You can make gameplay mechanics challenging AND death penalties challenging and have a good game. That's what FF XI ended up being, and I sorely wish I wasn't 9 years old at the time the game came out. Now, I will have to settle for FF XIV next year (hopefully I can afford it because of going to a trade school and all that, plus the game keeps the main aspects from FF XI, which is group-oriented hardcore play).

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I think it really depends on the penalty. An XP loss does convey some challenge because it is difficult avoiding it. You can't really slap around and still get stuff done, because if you die too much you'll end up going no where. I'm not sure how harsh FFXI's XP loss is, so I can't really say if it is something that would just extend time overall (because unless you're dying a hundred times you'll still progress, just a lot slower).

An item loss seems a bit different for me. It feels more like an annoyance because you have to spend a bunch of time replacing that gear. With that said I think EVE does it well where it allows you to insure your ship. Then again that game is something entirely different, and PvP is a bit more "realistic" in the sense that you have a point where you won't want to send out more ships and just cut your losses.

I guess I've just seen too many games that were easy and masqueraded that fact with a piss poor death penalty system.

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By the way, that green shaded part, I'll explain this a little better. Do you actually think a person failing a dungeon the 100-upteenth time because he thinks he's making progress is actually good, when the person should realize his level is far too low to survive the dungeon? Think carefully to what you just agreed to.

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I don't know, I think there certainly is a fine line to it. I do admire someone who will keep on trying -- and from a development point of view this is a great thing to have because it really ups the longevity. Still I understand what you are saying, although I've done things before in WoW that I would never have tried if a harsh death penalty was intact. (like trying to solo elites, ect.)

So I think I can see some good uses of death penalty, however it (obviously) needs to have the game built around it. I also still prefer, at least right now, PvP games without a very harsh penalty so that it doesn't keep you out of the action too long. Aion's penalty is perfect for me because it is skill based (you need a good K:D ratio in order to progress and get gear) but it won't keep you out of the fight for long at all.

I also think that death penalty makes more sense in a PvE game, or a game such as EVE. Not so much in other games.

Originally posted by Turel_Azure

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

Give me a game that has tough death penalties, is challenging to level and is tough to get the best gear and lost of money; and I will play it forever. I can't stand easy mode games.

 

Old School EQ 1.

 

Anyway, to help out what >>>I<<< meant by hardcore, I'll define it:

By hardcore death, I meant permadeath, as I was referring to the Diablo 2 term, as it is the most common game to have such a system (yet is not an MMO).

 

As for EQ death, I simply found it too strict, but NOT hardcore.  I find WoW/AoC death meaningless.

What I'm looking for is the possibility of a game where the death penalty is without Exp loss, or it's equivalent.  Most have replaced this with outirght time-sinks, but the sting just is not the same.  I think death should be more than WoW, but only as tough as EQ if death is fairly infrequent.  I would also like to see a form of story implementation as to why each player is immortal.

Unfortunately Everquest doesn't exist anymore. What is left is a ugly patched up mess that tried to copy newer games. Everquest lost everything that made it unique. Everquest is no longer the experience it once was. Classes have become trivalized with removal of game mechanics. Factions mean nothing. Lore is horrible now. The graphics do not match through out the entire game. Everquest doesn't even have anything left to call a meaningful penalty for dying. 

Also Sony is trying to get people to pay World of Warcraft prices 15/month PLUS they added an item shop for the final nail in the coffin.