How can gamers be made to fear ingame death?

[clippen05]

Simple Question really. I feel that gamers no longer feel scared in games, whether they be RPGS like Skyrim to FPS's like COD. In cod, no one cares when they die. If they see an opportunity to get 5 kills but know they'll die they'll take it. Similarly, in Skyrim you have a savepoint always backing you up so bosses are no big deal. I know that some people don't want to die with the stress of this, and that's fine. But perhaps there could be a separate mode in some games that caters to those who feel death is too painless. One example in shooters is long respawn times or long walks to get into battle (Both ala Red Orchestra: OST, not so much Red Orchestra: HOS. But this causes camping and that doesn't solve much. I can't really think of an example in RPGs or any better ones in shooters so that's why I ask you: what can be done? Now I know some people can say, "You can rolepay or limit yourself" Sure, ok, but I want things that are in line with the gameplay not things that I have to force on myself. Also, b4 someone says, "Play 1 life gamemodes" for FPS's realize that those gamemodes have a very narrow range of gameplay options. I want Conquest for BF3 just with an added incentive not to die? Not neccesarily ARMA level realism (which is nice) but just something that will make the player fear death. Tell me Escapists, can this be done? Again, I restate, I don't want this to be included in every game because that wouldn't be fun, I just want there to be an option where applicable.

 

[JeffBergGold]

Roguelike mechanics, you die your save file is wiped and start from scratch. I personally love the mechanic most people don't though. I can understand why.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

If it's a competitive game, then the fear of death usually comes from a fairly steep penalty, whether it be a long respawn time, losing all your weapons, or even the game outright. For something like BF3 Conquest, you can't really have any of these as it goes against the rules of the game. Maybe something like increasing respawns? If you die without your team making progress on the objective, your respawn times gradually get longer and longer. This would encourage players to play aggressively against the other team while still making them value their own lives, as each meaningless death would only hurt them more in the long run.

I always thought the CoD gametype Headquarters did this well. For those who don't know, it was basically King of the Hill. One point, which could only be held by one team. The longer you hold it, the more points you got. The twist was that once you captured the hill, your team could not respawn until the hill had been lost. It created an interesting dichotomy where the most strategically valuable place in the game was also far and away the most dangerous place to be, so long as you were winning. It also highly encouraged teamwork, as a bunch of one-lifers aren't going to stand for long against a zerg rushing team unless they've got their stuff together. For me, anyway, it made dying very painful as not only was I now out of the game for an unspecified amount of time, but I had also caused my team's effectiveness to drop dramatically by putting them a man down.

The problem with this of course is that Conquest is far too fluid for this to translate appropriately, but its still an idea. At the end of the day though you are going to find that most people aren't going to see "deaths", they are just going to see meaningless numbers that are simply part of the game. That's why people only really care about K/D ratios in terms of percentages. No one actually cares how many times you've died, so long as you got more kills. Going 25 and 20 is just as valuable as going 7 and 1, and in many cases moreso, even though the latter is technically better play.

 

[Terminate421]

Make it horrible:


Not make it repetitive or stupidly horrible, make it memorably horrible that it scars the player's psyche to AVOID dying.

Also, make actual punishment for death other than "spawn 50 feet away"

 

[SillyBear]

Simple Question really. I feel that gamers no longer feel scared in games, whether they be RPGS like Skyrim to FPS's like COD. In cod, no one cares when they die. If they see an opportunity to get 5 kills but know they'll die they'll take it. Similarly, in Skyrim you have a savepoint always backing you up so bosses are no big deal. I know that some people don't want to die with the stress of this, and that's fine. But perhaps there could be a separate mode in some games that caters to those who feel death is too painless. One example in shooters is long respawn times or long walks to get into battle (Both ala Red Orchestra: OST, not so much Red Orchestra: HOS. But this causes camping and that doesn't solve much. I can't really think of an example in RPGs or any better ones in shooters so that's why I ask you: what can be done? Now I know some people can say, "You can rolepay or limit yourself" Sure, ok, but I want things that are in line with the gameplay not things that I have to force on myself. Also, b4 someone says, "Play 1 life gamemodes" for FPS's realize that those gamemodes have a very narrow range of gameplay options. I want Conquest for BF3 just with an added incentive not to die? Not neccesarily ARMA level realism (which is nice) but just something that will make the player fear death. Tell me Escapists, can this be done? Again, I restate, I don't want this to be included in every game because that wouldn't be fun, I just want there to be an option where applicable.

It has already been done on Minecraft. Go play on a month long deathban hardcore server. Everyone deeply fears death because if they die they can't play for a month.

And yes, it is that simple.

 

[Slaanesh]

Well in Krater theres this system where every time one of your characters goes down, they sustain an injury(either permanent or a serious injury that can be healed by a doctor for a price). Said injuries have a negative effect on your character, like slower movement speed, 15% less Strength or Stamina, etc. You can have 3 injuries at a time, if you go down with 3 injuries, your character is dead. No reloading a save, he's dead. All the upgrades you spent on him, all the work you put into him, gone. Really makes you pick your battles.

 

[keybird]

Make it horrible:


Not make it repetitive or stupidly horrible, make it memorably horrible that it scars the player's psyche to AVOID dying.

Also, make actual punishment for death other than "spawn 50 feet away"

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

That was just terrifying. I mean, I remember playing Dead space, and I don't even recall having seen the gruesome sight... Good lord man. Why can't all games be like that.

 

[krazykidd]

Dark souls does this to an extent . You fear death because you a) don't want to have to fight trough everything again . B) the potential to lose all your souls ( currency ). Then again , inevitably , you will be desensitized to death . So it only applies to the first 20 hours or so and then you "get used to it" and stop caring .

Honestly , in single player games , i prefer have "save points" , because you start back where you last saved . In oldshool games , when you died , it was game over , and you started back at your save point . Nowadays ( and i don't mean this in a bad way ) with autosaves/checkpoints and the lack of a " game over" you respawn instantly about 5 feet away where you died , thus trivializing death . Death is just a minor setback .

It's a difference in mentality that gamers have . They want instant gratification and constant action . They don't want to lose progress for any reason , even if it's their fault . Understandable if you have limited time to play . But this takes out most of the challenge and "fear of death" older games had . I understand that replaying the same 10 minutes of gameplay everytime you die sucks , but when you know you have to replay a certain section everytime you die , well there is a bigger motivation not to die. In older games you had to be a quick learner and actually think ahead because if not you just wasted 10-20 minutes .

Anyways , that's my answer ( for single player i guess). Bring back designated save points AND a game over screen . And have the game over screen read " You suck because you died".

 

[TaintedSaint]

Dark souls pulled it off

 

[Cabisco]

Roguelike mechanics, you die your save file is wiped and start from scratch. I personally love the mechanic most people don't though. I can understand why.

The big problem with this is if you happen to die and it's the games fault (at least in your perspective). Imagine walking out of a cave in skyrim and out of nowhere your hit and killed by a bandit who was behind you as the game loaded, this has happened to me before and if the game reset after that I'd likely just snap skyrim in two after all those hours of playing.

It's a good idea, but could only be used with a very small selection of games without me wanting to seek revenge on the world.

The I like the idea of you loosing things though for dying (baring shooters/multiplayer games, I feel they should always be as fair a battleground as possible) like imagine if you had to wait a while before you could shout again in skyrim, you can still play etc but death means you don't get your super skills for a while.

The one problem with all of these though is that you've just died and we all seem to be suggesting ways to make the game even harder.

 

[Terminate421]

snip

Because nobody pays attention to tiny details anymore......

The death there did it's job, its a way of horrifying you for fucking up. Ironically it also does what you've been doing to the necromorphs the entire game. Did I mention it's also rather horrifying?

I have similar ideas to deaths, there is an adventure game I am writing a script for in which a ghost can kill you by throwing you against the wall, "diving" into your body and your soul is killed from the inside.

I even had a concept for a Dead Space Necromorph, it's literally a tunnel of hands, nothing but hands upon hands upon hands on the inside, they grab you at one end of the room with some kind of tentacle and if you fail at doing something to get it to let go, you're yanked in and they literally pull you limb from limb.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well firstly you need to know that not all games aim to do this, CoD was very distinctly designed for zero consequence so people can just run around freely.

But for the games who do go for it the goal is building tension and getting the player invested, so he fears loosing that investment even if it's primarily an emotional one.
Something as erratic as Unreal Tournament can do a little simply by spawning you with only the most basic weapon and then you start to build up arsenal through the level, more health, more shields, power ups... it doesn't do much but it is just enough for you wanting to keep out of harms way, and as your health doesn't just reset the tensions builds with every shot you take, you are pushed ever closer to loosing it all.

Obviously Dark Souls is mentioned a lot in this regard and rightly so, but they have some balance issues on the downward slope as most bosses can one/two shot you so that struggle between life and death is very short, and then on the upward slope bosses also die incredibly fast so I quickly find myself with "oh, was that all".

 

[King of Asgaard]

Dark souls does this to an extent . You fear death because you a) don't want to have to fight trough everything again . B) the potential to lose all your souls ( currency ). Then again , inevitably , you will be desensitized to death . So it only applies to the first 20 hours or so and then you "get used to it" and stop caring .

I don't really agree to the desensitization towards death, because there is always something that can kill you if you're not paying attention. Experience makes you take more risks, to be sure, but even then, as an experienced player, I still fear death at every turn.

Obviously Dark Souls is mentioned a lot in this regard and rightly so, but they have some balance issues on the downward slope as most bosses can one/two shot you so that struggle between life and death is very short, and then on the upward slope bosses also die incredibly fast so I quickly find myself with "oh, was that all".

I don't think this is entirely true, because very few bosses go down quickly, and a well-spec'd character can take more than two hits to kill.

 

[RustlessPotato]

Well, Counter Strike kind of makes me think 2 before I make an action. I recently played it again after a 2 year break. If I'm being reckless I die and I'll have to wait. If i die a lot i'll have to wait a lot

 

[wizzy555]

In lineage 2 death meant 4 hours of grinding down the drain.

 

[Agayek]

Simple Question really. I feel that gamers no longer feel scared in games, whether they be RPGS like Skyrim to FPS's like COD. In cod, no one cares when they die. If they see an opportunity to get 5 kills but know they'll die they'll take it. Similarly, in Skyrim you have a savepoint always backing you up so bosses are no big deal. I know that some people don't want to die with the stress of this, and that's fine. But perhaps there could be a separate mode in some games that caters to those who feel death is too painless. One example in shooters is long respawn times or long walks to get into battle (Both ala Red Orchestra: OST, not so much Red Orchestra: HOS. But this causes camping and that doesn't solve much. I can't really think of an example in RPGs or any better ones in shooters so that's why I ask you: what can be done? Now I know some people can say, "You can rolepay or limit yourself" Sure, ok, but I want things that are in line with the gameplay not things that I have to force on myself. Also, b4 someone says, "Play 1 life gamemodes" for FPS's realize that those gamemodes have a very narrow range of gameplay options. I want Conquest for BF3 just with an added incentive not to die? Not neccesarily ARMA level realism (which is nice) but just something that will make the player fear death. Tell me Escapists, can this be done? Again, I restate, I don't want this to be included in every game because that wouldn't be fun, I just want there to be an option where applicable.

The simplest way to do this would be to add an attachment to controllers that allows for the game to deliver 20 A of electric current through the players hands whenever they die.

They will fear death like no other in short order, if they survive long enough.

Edit: More seriously, for shooters there's actually a very simple way to discourage death: limit ammo. Every time an individual dies, they lose, say, one magazine-worth of ammo from their maximum ammo count, until they can only carry one unit of ammo, with some way to restore it (ie, get a multikill to fully reset it and/or one unit of ammo added to the cap for every kill). This penalizes death, while still leaving the actual fights balanced.

For RPGs on the other hand, that's a bit more difficult. The obvious solution is XP loss and de-leveling. This works fairly well IMO, though it does depend on the type of RPG. The only hard part would be how to handle reverting to old saves. Ideally, when you die you lose N XP and then if previous saves have more than that new XP value, they also lose XP back to that value.

I'm not entirely convinced I like this method though, just because I simply don't like the idea of XP loss, if for no other reason than it encourages grinding and requires the game to have respawning/randomly spawning enemies, which I'm not terribly fond of encouraging. I can't really come up with any alternatives though.

 

[KINGBeerZ]

see the following: Amnesia the Dark Descent and Slender.

 

[axlryder]

Dark souls does this to an extent . You fear death because you a) don't want to have to fight trough everything again . B) the potential to lose all your souls ( currency ). Then again , inevitably , you will be desensitized to death . So it only applies to the first 20 hours or so and then you "get used to it" and stop caring .

yeah, once you figure out how to either grind for souls efficiently or get good at pvp (yay redundant backstab fishing and spamming great combustion) it hardly matters after that. I found the beginning of the game to be absolutely pulse pounding though. Haven't had a game make me feel like that in a long time. After I beat Anor Londo it started to feel a bit more like a chore than a treacherous quest.

OT: kill them irl. Problem solved.

 

[Galaktia]

The only way to make death a penalty is with a time penalty, what form this takes
Long respawn
Time to reach point from last save
wiped out saved game
restart begining of level
time to recollect equipment
time to regain lost experience

etc etc etc, in computergames these are all time penalties of one form or another and that is the only form of penalty really avliable to give players a true insentive to avoid death. Perviously in the mostly arcade game era then the penalty was more geared towards a monetary penalty, but even then it was a form of time penalty, a limitation on the time you can play for.

At the moment games have been slowly erroding the penalty for death, 40 minutes of work, 30, 20, 10, 5, now it's 30 seconds to wait to respawn, or something similar; Or 1 death and you loose all your progress your saved file is completely wiped.

we have lost the happy medium of so many lives and continues, a lost life costs you maybe 4-5 minutes as it dumps you back to the beginning of a level, loose all your lives and have to do a continue dumps you at the beginnning of the chapter, loose all your continues end of the game. Now I know this system came about as a monetisation option for arcade games encouraging us to purchase more and more continues to not loose our progress, but it has some interesting merit.


For instance skyrim, how about a limit on being able to actually save the game yourself in a city only, then have a rolling 5 minute auto save while out in the wilderness, if you die it rolls you back 1 save, if you die more than X number of times, it rolls you right back to the last city save.
A progressive penalty for death, that does not penalise you so much you loose desire to play, but does give a real and increasing penalty for death.



One of the major issues at the moment with death not being an issue for players is the penalty for it does not increase, it's a flat rate "death tax" in time on the player, once the player experiences it once, and counters it, the fear of that "death tax" is removed. You have seen it, experienced it and conquered it; dieing no longer has the same fear in it because we know that we can easily gain back what we loose. The adjantage of an increasing death tax is players don't know where the limit of their ability to recollect, redo, reacheive will be lost, so they continue to fear deaths costs.