How the hell would that be any fun at all? When I play games I like having fun, not getting pissed at a set of completely retarded rules.
Permanent Character Death
- Thread starter SquirrelPants
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i like the idea as long as im going to play tactically and plan out how im going to go about things, but otherwise it would piss me off more than anything in the world.
if your going to put that mechanic in a game make sure it fits.
for example lets say you are playing a game where your getting briefed on a mission where you have to kill hundreds of people/monsters/flowers/neighbors/or in-laws etc..., and you only get one life. im talking about the reflex games (run n gun games) like halo, grand theft auto, and gears of war where you die alot (if you play on the highest difficulty). starting over from the beginning and going through the game to where you die then back to the beginning again would only make the game intolerable. it would frustrate me and make me want to destroy the game by throwing it in a wood chipper. then record the sound of the game being shredded and set it as my new ringtone.
if your going to put that mechanic in a game make sure it fits.
for example lets say you are playing a game where your getting briefed on a mission where you have to kill hundreds of people/monsters/flowers/neighbors/or in-laws etc..., and you only get one life. im talking about the reflex games (run n gun games) like halo, grand theft auto, and gears of war where you die alot (if you play on the highest difficulty). starting over from the beginning and going through the game to where you die then back to the beginning again would only make the game intolerable. it would frustrate me and make me want to destroy the game by throwing it in a wood chipper. then record the sound of the game being shredded and set it as my new ringtone.
There should always be 2 kinds of "death" one is where your character has the shit knocked out of them but is able to get up and walk away after some time.
The permanent kind of death is rather obvious, you are dead.
The question then becomes how can this be weaved into a game well any game can have "playing possum" where most instances the AI disregards you if you are still enough then from there either friendly AI being able to teleport yourself out or setting up a event where a day passes and most things ignore you you could have rats annoy you now and then or even have thieves come upon you then depending on how you are healed up from it and the encounter there after drag yourself back to town badly hurt this could also be implemented by not spawning many if any "opposition" on your journey to sanctuary.
This could be simplified into something that would not be to annoying to causal players then up it to where you are basically crippled from a bad fight and you must rest and you must take a few game weeks to recover you having money will make the process faster but if you have none you can relie upon charitable organizations and the groups you have allied with to heal up, this of course is a RPG/living world type of deal that requires auto save to be used before a encounter starts up.
In a less RPG driven game just being still for a few minutes so you can pop up and hide could work but I think it disrupts modern design themes so much no one would bother with it.
Now lets get back to the meat of the OP as for making a game with permanent death it truly has to be an option, then you have death where you die that character is gone done over if you wish it to be so.
Then you have the next character able to get a hand full of items(1-5) and a portion of combined wealth to the next character, you receive it from family,ect but indirectly to the bloodline/story of the old character, plus you can visit where you died and find all the items within the region(at stores or in pack rat animal/monster locations )or on the body itself.
Combat would have to be tweaked so you have half or less damage to your locations,ect where enemies are rather easy to kill or at the least easier to kill than you, also a need different kind of health system needs to be used perhaps have a heath meter and a "threat needle" that jumps all over the place when damage is calculated, most damage cools off quickly and dose not harm you to the point it lowers your health if this kind of damage continues then it drains you, this means most damage that is accumulated is a warning that your health is at risk rather than a direct assault upon it.
If tuned and polished it could be used without making enemies too weak .... now that I think this is akin to a regeneration system think halo ONE (when you think halo think 1, 2 and 3 suck >>) with a larger shield, the shield is your sense of pain and of lite wounds that can be ignored. If you use items that are meant to distract when you get low on health you can bolt from a fight.
You health is everything if its low you need to find cover or die.
The permanent kind of death is rather obvious, you are dead.
The question then becomes how can this be weaved into a game well any game can have "playing possum" where most instances the AI disregards you if you are still enough then from there either friendly AI being able to teleport yourself out or setting up a event where a day passes and most things ignore you you could have rats annoy you now and then or even have thieves come upon you then depending on how you are healed up from it and the encounter there after drag yourself back to town badly hurt this could also be implemented by not spawning many if any "opposition" on your journey to sanctuary.
This could be simplified into something that would not be to annoying to causal players then up it to where you are basically crippled from a bad fight and you must rest and you must take a few game weeks to recover you having money will make the process faster but if you have none you can relie upon charitable organizations and the groups you have allied with to heal up, this of course is a RPG/living world type of deal that requires auto save to be used before a encounter starts up.
In a less RPG driven game just being still for a few minutes so you can pop up and hide could work but I think it disrupts modern design themes so much no one would bother with it.
Now lets get back to the meat of the OP as for making a game with permanent death it truly has to be an option, then you have death where you die that character is gone done over if you wish it to be so.
Then you have the next character able to get a hand full of items(1-5) and a portion of combined wealth to the next character, you receive it from family,ect but indirectly to the bloodline/story of the old character, plus you can visit where you died and find all the items within the region(at stores or in pack rat animal/monster locations )or on the body itself.
Combat would have to be tweaked so you have half or less damage to your locations,ect where enemies are rather easy to kill or at the least easier to kill than you, also a need different kind of health system needs to be used perhaps have a heath meter and a "threat needle" that jumps all over the place when damage is calculated, most damage cools off quickly and dose not harm you to the point it lowers your health if this kind of damage continues then it drains you, this means most damage that is accumulated is a warning that your health is at risk rather than a direct assault upon it.
If tuned and polished it could be used without making enemies too weak .... now that I think this is akin to a regeneration system think halo ONE (when you think halo think 1, 2 and 3 suck >>) with a larger shield, the shield is your sense of pain and of lite wounds that can be ignored. If you use items that are meant to distract when you get low on health you can bolt from a fight.
You health is everything if its low you need to find cover or die.
Pen & paper RPGs comes with a pretty permanent character death, especially at low and mid-range levels. There are no savegames and since the resurrection spells are usually high level spells, you don't have early access to them. This makes that you really think about every step you take, and that you really care for your character.
I remember when my Half-Elven Paladin died during what was supposed to an easy encounter because of a critical hit (the DM rolled a natural 20 twice in a row nonetheless). When it happened I think we said nothing for about 5 minutes. Then we spent the rest of the gaming session to give our hero a proper burial. I didn't roll a new character until the next session.
I remember when my Half-Elven Paladin died during what was supposed to an easy encounter because of a critical hit (the DM rolled a natural 20 twice in a row nonetheless). When it happened I think we said nothing for about 5 minutes. Then we spent the rest of the gaming session to give our hero a proper burial. I didn't roll a new character until the next session.
There is one in steel battalion. Basically it's a mechwarrior clone. You can eject and lose the match of your health gets low. If you die however it deletes all your game info from the hard drive, wiping your character. That seems to work for me.
Simply put if you think about it, it wouldn't work. The game would have to be designed around this consept and even then the game would be either really short or made to have alot of alternate paths and you still wouldn't get a sense of growing as your character progressed becasue you prolly already did the exact same thing before. From a PvP perspective i think this could work well assuming it was only the PvP asspect and you didnt loose your character you just started a new one. Sorta like if you survive long enough you get harder and harder to kill.
I always liked playing Diablo 2 on Hardcore. It certainly gave the game a bigger thrill. Even the average XP and loot go-round became spectacularly tense from time to time.
Also, there are a few Neverwinter Nights persistant worlds (basicly home made mumorpegers) that uilise hardcore rules; ie one character per player, perma-death (ie, if you are not friends with a highlevel cleric in posession of a rare diamond: tough!) etc. It requires that you really like in character roleplaying, moreso than XP and gold at least.
One that I know of is A Land Far Away (http://www.alandfaraway.org/), which have very high standards, but there are more available on neverwinter connections (http://www.neverwinterconnections.com/).
Also, there are a few Neverwinter Nights persistant worlds (basicly home made mumorpegers) that uilise hardcore rules; ie one character per player, perma-death (ie, if you are not friends with a highlevel cleric in posession of a rare diamond: tough!) etc. It requires that you really like in character roleplaying, moreso than XP and gold at least.
One that I know of is A Land Far Away (http://www.alandfaraway.org/), which have very high standards, but there are more available on neverwinter connections (http://www.neverwinterconnections.com/).
Yeah, I want the frustration of spending 60+ hours playing a game only to lose all my progress and return to start. Games are too big and complicated to enable that these days. Fallout would be unplayable as a return-to-start-game.
People saying "NO THIS SUCKS" probably haven't actually played a game in what is typically called 'hardcore' mode. Diablo 2 has such an option, and it's a blast to play.
And that's the key word. Option. I'm playing Oblivion and Fallout 3 like this currently and it's going really well. I'm using spells and taking skills I normally would never have used before and it's a blast.
Quick edit: I'm also playing on the highest difficulty settings.
I mean, if you really think that then that's cool... but all it takes is some simple planning, good character development, and a pace that is slightly slower than break neck.
And that's the key word. Option. I'm playing Oblivion and Fallout 3 like this currently and it's going really well. I'm using spells and taking skills I normally would never have used before and it's a blast.
Quick edit: I'm also playing on the highest difficulty settings.
The irony of reading this post after making mine made me smile.TheSunshineHobo said:
I mean, if you really think that then that's cool... but all it takes is some simple planning, good character development, and a pace that is slightly slower than break neck.
Apart from the P&P RPGs I think this would work in other games as well if the rewards are also great. For instance the MMORPG Dofus has a Heroic Server [http://www.dofus.com/en/mmorpg-game/heroic-server.html] where deaths are permanent but XP and drop rates are multiplied, and players get the complete inventory of the enemies they defeat (PvP). So although the game is much more lethal, it also levels you up a lot quicker and you get access to better equipment much faster. Basically it comes down to your own skill and experience.
NO THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA FOR MMOS!!!
Never ever ever should this be implimented in MMOs as you will lose your character(as is the point of this) and lose everything on that character weapons exp etc. so in short for that its a no.
For a dungeon styled game it might work in if you have a large enough party and can get more people but say there is a limited amount per class even then only for a party wipe.
Guild Wars has a good death system you lose 15% of your health and energy max of 60% until you go back to an outpost and I know this doesn't seem like much or too bad it it is a huge pain in the ass. In Guild Wars to get rid of it you need either a morale boost or gain2% of exp to your next skill point ususally as everyone in it and their grannies is level20(max level).
Never ever ever should this be implimented in MMOs as you will lose your character(as is the point of this) and lose everything on that character weapons exp etc. so in short for that its a no.
For a dungeon styled game it might work in if you have a large enough party and can get more people but say there is a limited amount per class even then only for a party wipe.
Guild Wars has a good death system you lose 15% of your health and energy max of 60% until you go back to an outpost and I know this doesn't seem like much or too bad it it is a huge pain in the ass. In Guild Wars to get rid of it you need either a morale boost or gain2% of exp to your next skill point ususally as everyone in it and their grannies is level20(max level).
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good, now that i have your attention (i don't wanna post then be dismissed (yes haha you can still dismiss me)) i would like to propose an idea, although i do not know if anyone has said it. Instead of the permanent death thing, which would suck, just have Save points further apart and have "checkpoints" at closer intervals (in case you need to go and don't want to have wasted an hour. Then make the deaths more permanent by instantly loading the previous save point (not checkpoint) if your characters all die. The instant thing is to stop people quickly turning their console on and off and the checkpoints after the last savepoint get erased so they cannot just load them. Just to make it more concrete, make it so that you cannot save the game on more than one file so that people can't just put checkpoints on different files to preserve them.
good, now that i have your attention (i don't wanna post then be dismissed (yes haha you can still dismiss me)) i would like to propose an idea, although i do not know if anyone has said it. Instead of the permanent death thing, which would suck, just have Save points further apart and have "checkpoints" at closer intervals (in case you need to go and don't want to have wasted an hour. Then make the deaths more permanent by instantly loading the previous save point (not checkpoint) if your characters all die. The instant thing is to stop people quickly turning their console on and off and the checkpoints after the last savepoint get erased so they cannot just load them. Just to make it more concrete, make it so that you cannot save the game on more than one file so that people can't just put checkpoints on different files to preserve them.
I've been known to play Oblivion on "hardcore mode", but always with the difficulty dialed so far down that I'd be a complete idiot if I did die. Never succeeded on better than 1/4 difficulty (as in the slider 1/4 of the way from the far left). I'm pretty sure I'm getting something like a 9x damage advantage (3x for me, 1/3 for the enemy) on that setting...the absolute far left is a 36x advantage (6x for player, 1/6 for enemy).
I think it works best in Rogue-esque fashion. Quick, short sessions where you will probably die numerous times. In something like The Elder Scrolls or Fallout, where you spend ages getting to a point where you are powerful enough to take on any foe, carefully crafting your character, it somewhat undermines the concept I think.
In those games you're working toward a goal...in Morrowind it was the day I didn't die from a light breeze, in Oblivion it was improving my various skills. These games reward exploration and risk, which ultimately ends in death every so often. As such, I do not think permanent death works in most situations, but in some games (see my current favourite, Spelunky) it most certainly does.
In those games you're working toward a goal...in Morrowind it was the day I didn't die from a light breeze, in Oblivion it was improving my various skills. These games reward exploration and risk, which ultimately ends in death every so often. As such, I do not think permanent death works in most situations, but in some games (see my current favourite, Spelunky) it most certainly does.