Permanent Character Death

[Deacon Cole]

the point is the knowledge that you will lose everything if you die is extremely immersive in the right games.

I don't think so. I just find it annoying.

Ideally, the player should fear death so much that they tread carefully enough to never actually die.

That may be ideal, but I do not think it works in actual practice.

I don't think it works even as an ideal, but that may be just me who finds that to be the, well, antithesis of what I would want in a game.

I think largely the idea of character death is an illusion that doesn't even have greased tissue paper concealing it. Because no matter what, the risks are not real because you can always replay the level or the game in it's entirety.

I don't think character death is in any way a useful tool for designers to use because it just doesn't even apply anymore. The only reason to have character death is to allow repetition of the same actions carry some merit, like seeing how many Space Invaders you can shoot before you lose all three laser bases. But today's games with their plots and/or multi-leveled gameplay, repeating the same stage over and over again is no longer a virtue so much as an outdated annoyance. It's an old way of playing tacked onto new games and it's not a good fit. Games need to evolve beyond what they have been and be what they need to become.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yhelothar Nethack.

 

[SimuLord]

It's an excellent feature in Fire Emblem, it really makes not fucking up all the more intense.

It also makes Fire Emblem one of the most frustrating, irritating games in existence for people who prefer lighter fare on handhelds (I liked Disgaea DS and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and A2 far more because they seemed to understand what platform they were on.)

 

[Kajt]

It would be great for singleplayer games, but it would probably do more harm than good if it was implemented into a MMO.

 

[FinalHeart95]

It gives realism, but on fucking Oblivion? Are you insane? That game is way to long to have to start from the beginning every time you died.

 

[walls of cetepedes]

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

This would mean that there would be little or no PvP battles.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

There could be some sort of penalty or challenge when you die other than "Revert to last save or checkpoint" like let's take oblivion for example. You die, then you get put into an oblivion gate with no gear locked in one of those cage things. Some plot important item allows you to escape this cage, and you have to make it back through the gate which is located far away with monsters in between. If you die you go back to the cage. If you get out, be it by sneaking past the enemies, killing them, or just running your ass off, your character gets up where he "died" with low health. Problem is games that implement something like this like "prey" end up being way too easy, so the death penalty challenge would have to be very difficult to instill some kind of fear of dying. Also, perminant stat reductions are always a bad idea. Just throwing that out there.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

A lot of games have auto-save. This is because people generally don't like being frustrated to find out a game is too hard. Permanent death keeps interesting content out of the hands of non-hardcore gamers, which is why we have terms like "10 hour game" to assess whether it's worth it to spend money.

Have you ever beaten the original Golden Axe in the arcade? It would take about $20 worth of quarters, and about a half hour to see the stupid ad-plastered cutscene. The addition of the save gave us the ability to have longer games for the same value, and to replay specific parts we liked best. I have a few saves for GTA missions that I really liked, just so I can play them again. The auto-save took it a step further, by eliminating the need to wrench your mind from the gameplay to make sure you can get back to a part you liked. Again, more potential value, more potential gameplay.

I'm totally fine with permanent death, so long as the gameplay satisfies a need for it. Otherwise, I just want to keep having fun until I run out of things to do.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

(Searched, didn't find anything. Inb4 search button trolls. =P)

Alright, so. I remember playing games in which character death was permanent. You played, and if you failed, you were done. Start over at the beginning. Simple concept, right? I'm sure it wouldn't work well in games like Halo or Gears, but in games in which you make your own characters, such as Fallout, Oblivion, and the like. Having savepoints and stuff really takes away from the feeling that you're going into the next room, or fighting the next boss. You're not risking anything.

Now, on occasion, I'll play Oblivion like that, dying and building a brand new character, but even then I know that if anything goes wrong, there's always my last save to revert back to. Even though you play it like you're not going to be able to go back, the feeling is no longer there. Dungeon Crawl does this well. Even newish mainstream games, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and EVE online are reminiscent of this. FFTA had quests in areas which had no 'judges', meaning that if your characters died, they friggin' died. In EVE online, character death isn't permanent, but if your ship were to get attacked and destroyed, you lose the ship and everything on it.

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

So my question to all my fellow Escapists is this: What do you think about permanent character death? Is it a good idea? Does it ruin an otherwise good game? Does it thrill or annoy you?

And also, are there any newer games out there that do this? I know of Dungeon Crawl, and I think Ghost Recon does it, but that's about it...

I think that after pumping 150 hours into Oblivion I would be mighty pissed off if my level 36 Orc were to be permanantly offed by some pissed of Trolls.

It's fine in short games but in RPGs it would ruin the whole fun of the game if you were in constant fear of losing all the hours you put in.

 

[Xorghul]

I think it would be very interesting too play a game where the death is final, but I don't think it could ever work, especially not in a MMO because the players will put a lot of time into the character and if one mistake could end it all, they most likely would just quit playing the game. And the game designers would never risk that since that would mean they'd lose money. So unfortunately I don't believe that it'll ever get a major break-through.

 

[Nutcase]

OK, the "play something else" card that you seem to be playing here is totally irrelevant. If I didn't like a game, I would play something else, of course. That hardly affects the fact that the idea is dumb.

It's related, because you are saying the entire idea is dumb. But it fits some games perfectly, such as Nethack. I'm just asking for *some* more games to do this - games which you don't have to play unless you want to.

Yes, games have rules. Of course they do, but, again, this has nothing to do with the issue at hand. If a gamer wants to try something out, they should be free to do so without the fear of having hours of hard work brushed into the bin.

You aren't using your imagination. A perma-death game can have a mechanism like that of Steel Battalion, where you can save yourself by ejecting out of your Vertical Tank before it is destroyed. That puts you close to death at all times, which is enough for the psychological effect, but you won't die as long as you don't fumble the eject.

Likewise, you could have a simulator or training area within the game where you can try out stuff to see how it works, and then apply them in the "srs business" game world.

If I want to attempt a shortcut in a racing game, my car shouldn't be at risk of exploding, because it would make the risk-taking and excitement that people play games for redundant.

That is a very strange claim, because you need risk if you are to have any risk-taking, and people tend to get excited when risks are big. In some games the penalty of failure is as small as losing a few seconds as your car is warped back on track. In some, the car breaks and you forfeit the race. In some, if you were in the middle of an endurance championship series, the failure might undo hours of driving. So is it really that unthinkable that some driving game would kill your character?

I actually think it might be very cool to have a driving game (say, an online multiplayer touge battle) where your character dies if you have a really bad crash, and the goal is to build up a famous characters. Legendary characters could leave their mark on the game world in different ways: showing up in audiences if you chose to voluntarily retire them, have a small memorial on the roadside at the site of their final crash, etc.

You didn't answer the question - what could Steel Battalion do that would provoke fear in the player as well as the permanent death mechanic does?

 

[SquirrelPants]

It gives realism, but on fucking Oblivion? Are you insane? That game is way to long to have to start from the beginning every time you died.

I'm more talking about screwaround characters in Oblivion. You know, where you just run around and explore. Story characters? Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellll no.

 

[Gerazzi]

No. Just no. It's a horrible idea, it's would be annoying as hell, and not all players are as masochistic as you.

...
I agree.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

snip

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Steel Batallion the mech game that came with that preposterous controller? If it was, I've never played it (although I have heard plenty about it), but I assume the permanent death mechanic incited more frustration than genuine fear when (as Capcom games are wont to do) it shafts you with a difficulty spike. I'm not saying it was good or bad, because as I said I never played it, but a game should never rely on a simple, cheap mechanic to make you afraid of failure. I question why a mech game would want to incite fear anyway. Isn't the point of those games to make you feel like the biggest badass in the world as you punch through the levels? Shouldn't they be more about giving gamers the carrot when they succeed, rather than a hefty stick when they fail? Certainly, in my experience, a good reward was more, well, rewarding than a simple sigh of relief and a wipe of a sweaty brow when you finally beat a tough bastard level.

A game can make you feel a lot of things, but frustration should never be one of them. This is the opposite of what games exist to do. You can fear the characters, you can be angry at yourself for failing, but you should never be left with the gut-wrenching feeling all your hard work on a game simply wiped clean. How the feature is implemented is irrelevant. Games are there for entertainment, and there is no entertainment to be had in seeing your data wiped because you happened to put a foot wrong. Yes, it makes you afraid, but for all the wrong reasons.

Claiming that I don't have to play a perma-death game is irrelevant. It does not address the fact that the idea is flawed and goes against the grain of a videogames' purpose. I fail to see how it would be improved by, as you say, having a training mode. Trying out stuff will only last for so long, and why would any developer want to restrict a gamer to spending most of their time in a practice arena? Given all the avenues open to devs today, permanent death shuts a great many of them. Why bother writing any decent scenarios for a player to experience? Why bother making genuinely threatening enemies? Why bother with variety? We'll just include this perma-death thing so they HAVE to play it our way! People are not afraid of anything in the game, they are afraid of the mechanic and the mechanic alone, and a good game should not require a gamer to be fraught with worry, not of anything in the game, but of the fact that the previous umpteen hours of their spare time will probably be cruelly snatched away by a laughing, lazy developer. Again.

 

[SquirrelPants]

People are not afraid of anything in the game, they are afraid of the mechanic and the mechanic alone, and a good game should not require a gamer to be fraught with worry, not of anything in the game, but of the fact that the previous umpteen hours of their spare time will probably be cruelly snatched away by a laughing, lazy developer. Again.

I fail to see how that's relevant. The PURPOSE of a video game is to entertain you and eat up a lot of time. If you pour a hundred hours into a WoW character, your time would be just as wasted as if you put five hours into a Dungeon Crawl character, and they die. The time would be just as wasted if you were to make a very intricate and dynamic D&D character, give them an amazingly written backstory, spend hours reading from tables to find the best spells to use for your build, and they are killed off early in the game. Your point doesn't make much sense.

 

[naab]

Well I for one think it's kick ass to have responsibility of keeping oneself alive!!!

I mean imagine if life had a save feature, and a factor in if where you died all you had to do was finish the Battle, and you would come back to life!

We would have no responsibilities, ANARCHY!?!?

 

[Raregolddragon]

Humm I could see losing all armor weapons and suffering a level and skill penitently and make you have to redo any quest right from the start you were doing.

You could make it like Dead Raising or Kingdom Hearts where you cloud only save in predetermined spots and not have a save every time you fast trail or open the door.

There needs to be balance but I could see this working.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

People are not afraid of anything in the game, they are afraid of the mechanic and the mechanic alone, and a good game should not require a gamer to be fraught with worry, not of anything in the game, but of the fact that the previous umpteen hours of their spare time will probably be cruelly snatched away by a laughing, lazy developer. Again.

I fail to see how that's relevant. The PURPOSE of a video game is to entertain you and eat up a lot of time. If you pour a hundred hours into a WoW character, your time would be just as wasted as if you put five hours into a Dungeon Crawl character, and they die. The time would be just as wasted if you were to make a very intricate and dynamic D&D character, give them an amazingly written backstory, spend hours reading from tables to find the best spells to use for your build, and they are killed off early in the game. Your point doesn't make much sense.

I don't understand your point here. Are you saying all games are just a waste of time or something? Genuinely, I don't get what you mean. In D&D you can usually get back up again with some penalties using a spell anyway, and if not you can resume with another character, and even if not that, you can still socialise while you're there. That's on of the key facets of D&D. The purpose of a game is to entertain, the time-sinking is purely a by-product of that. It's not just your time that's been wasted with perma-death, it's everything that you did within that time, all those memories, achievements and wonderful moments, washed away, and you are forced to slog through it again.

 

[SquirrelPants]

People are not afraid of anything in the game, they are afraid of the mechanic and the mechanic alone, and a good game should not require a gamer to be fraught with worry, not of anything in the game, but of the fact that the previous umpteen hours of their spare time will probably be cruelly snatched away by a laughing, lazy developer. Again.

I fail to see how that's relevant. The PURPOSE of a video game is to entertain you and eat up a lot of time. If you pour a hundred hours into a WoW character, your time would be just as wasted as if you put five hours into a Dungeon Crawl character, and they die. The time would be just as wasted if you were to make a very intricate and dynamic D&D character, give them an amazingly written backstory, spend hours reading from tables to find the best spells to use for your build, and they are killed off early in the game. Your point doesn't make much sense.

I don't understand your point here. Are you saying all games are just a waste of time or something? Genuinely, I don't get what you mean. In D&D you can usually get back up again with some penalties using a spell anyway, and if not you can resume with another character, and even if not that, you can still socialise while you're there. That's on of the key facets of D&D. The purpose of a game is to entertain, the time-sinking is purely a by-product of that. It's not just your time that's been wasted with perma-death, it's everything that you did within that time, all those memories, achievements and wonderful moments, washed away, and you are forced to slog through it again.

The memories remain. What you did is still THERE, but point is games are timesinks. Entertaining, really great ones, but timesinks nonetheless. If you spend tons of time doing something in a game, and you die, the things you did still existed. Nothing gets washed away. Sure, you may be a little ticked off, but everything is still there.

EDIT: Also it's still fun, and if it's not then you're doing it wrong.

 

[Nutcase]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Steel Batallion the mech game that came with that preposterous controller? If it was, I've never played it (although I have heard plenty about it), but I assume the permanent death mechanic incited more frustration than genuine fear

You assume a lot.

I'm not saying it was good or bad, because as I said I never played it, but a game should never rely on a simple, cheap mechanic to make you afraid of failure. I question why a mech game would want to incite fear anyway.

Apparently because it's trying to be a war game. If you have seen great war movies like Deer Hunter, Platoon or Das Boot, you know they aren't exactly cheery or full of badass action either. The very best parts of Das Boot are about a bunch of men sitting still in silence and being very afraid.

Claiming that I don't have to play a perma-death game is irrelevant. It does not address the fact that the idea is flawed and goes against the grain of a videogames' purpose.

Videogames only have one purpose now? What is it, and does it apply to movies as well?

I fail to see how it would be improved by, as you say, having a training mode. Trying out stuff will only last for so long, and why would any developer want to restrict a gamer to spending most of their time in a practice arena?

Who said anything about spending most of the time in a practice arena? You said, "If a gamer wants to try something out, they should be free to do so without having the fear of having hours of hard work brushed into the bin." If you get some wild tactic idea, need to test a weapon or something, then popping into an in-game simulator for a minute would be a reasonable way to try it out - without fear - before you take it to battle. Doesn't break the immersion, either.

Given all the avenues open to devs today, permanent death shuts a great many of them. Why bother writing any decent scenarios for a player to experience? Why bother making genuinely threatening enemies? Why bother with variety?

There's no logical conflict whatsoever between perma-death, decent scenarios, variety and genuinely threatening enemies. Nethack, for instance, has perma-death, extreme variety, and plenty of enemies which can kill you instantly in interesting ways.

We'll just include this perma-death thing so they HAVE to play it our way!

Perma-death doesn't prescribe a specific style of play. Nethack can be beaten - among other things - as a vegan, as a pacifist (never kill anyone in a hack-and-slash game!), as an atheist, and without weapons.

People are not afraid of anything in the game, they are afraid of the mechanic and the mechanic alone, and a good game should not require a gamer to be fraught with worry, not of anything in the game, but of the fact that the previous umpteen hours of their spare time will probably be cruelly snatched away by a laughing, lazy developer. Again.

There is a game mechanic in Mario which kills Mario when he ends up at the bottom of the screen. When you play, are you afraid of the mechanic? Nope, you are afraid of falling into a pit.
And likewise, if your character can be permakilled by getting hit by an airstrike and not ejecting in time, that makes you afraid of missiles and bombs and possibly fumbling the eject.

Anyway, how can the devs of a mech game make the player fear the enemy as hard as they could with perma-death? You claimed this is possible.