The Death of the Death Penalty

[CrystalShadow]

I think they have to lighten up death penalties in games because they actually might be getting HARDER these days.


Some people like to rage that casuals are making games released these days easier, but I think that's only because death is less noticeable. Look at a game like mirror's edge or Call of Duty, if you pay attention, you might notice you die more times in games like that then in "Super Mario Brothers" or even demon souls. If they were to add a penalty to that, it would make the game near impossible to play.

I think people are claiming games are "easier" just because death isn't as noticeable now, just a simple save and load, etc. But imagine every time you die in a game like Prototype, or Call of Duty, that you had to restart the whole level over again? You probably would be throwing your controller at the TV at that point because you can't pass a certain level without checkpoints.

Heh. You make an interesting point. Although using Super Mario Brothers as a counter-point is a bit misguided.

There are places in most games in the series where it's very likely you WILL die repeatedly in the same exact spot, or close to it.

Super Mario Galaxy even has a level in it that if you pull it off should take less than 2 minutes, but is so mind-breakingly difficult to do that I think my personal best for completing it is losing 25 lives.

And the first time I did it, it cost me 50, if not 75 attempts to do it.

Be careful what you proclaim to be easy. XD.

 

[F-I-D-O]

I like LOTRO's
You die in the early levels, you can't get a bonus title. So sad. /sarcasm
But, as you progress in the game and die in later ares, you get variations of dread. These lower you health, mana, and even attack (depending on the area you died in) for various amounts of time (5m-1h). Dieing in the shire is better than dieing in Angmar. That's regardless of whether or not you are revived, so there is always a penalty, but you can still function in a raid. There are also items and spells that reduce/stop the penalty. It worked well.

 

[F-I-D-O]

le snip

There's another game, Vindictus, which has a different take on death penalties. In Vindictus every character has the option to resurrect themselves... for about 0.30 USD in real world money. Soloing in Vindictus thereby becomes extremely fun. $0.30 is not much but just the fact that you might lose something real gives every threatening boss fight real dramatic weight.

In every other narrative medium death is very often permanent. When a character dies in a book or film and later returns perfectly fine the book or film is met with a lot of hate (see: Highlander: Endgame) Without death resulting in real loss it's impossible for fights to have significant emotional impact.

Gandalf. Didn't see the LOTR books/movies met with a lot of hate over that. Even Harry Potter in book 7

Spoiler

he dies, but comes back fine

.
And charging to come back? That's just stupid and cheap. Please tell me you can come back without paying, as that is just a TERRIBLE idea. Charging for failure + an online fee does not look like fun for me. I get "I might lose something" being fun, but charging for making a mistake is NOT A GOOD IDEA. We'll have activison charging a nickel for every online death on CoD if you want to keep playing.

 

[F-I-D-O]

triple post to get second to show. Damn elves always causing a forum death penalty...
Sorry.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Experienced Points: The Death of the Death Penalty

Is it time to retire the death penalty in games?

Read Full Article

I'm suddenly wondering your opinion on Demon's Souls...

 

[LTK_70]

Is it time to retire the death penalty in games?

How about we reverse it? Don't add a death penalty, but give an incentive not to die! You've probably played some of those flash games divided in levels where every death is counted against your score. This is not a death 'penalty' in the sense that you're using it, since it doesn't impede your progess in any way: You immediately start over from the beginning of the stage. Example: K.O.L.M. [http://armorgames.com/play/7446/kolm] In this case, your death is utterly meaningless in terms of gameplay, but you will still have that death counter glaring at you every step of the way, reminding you of just how much of a failure you are at this game.

Would it be a good idea to add a reward for a low death count in games, such as unlockables in a mission with zero death count? I would think positive feedback is a better reinforcing mechanism than punishment, even though death is intuitively punishing.

 

[Optimystic]

Is it time to retire the death penalty in games?

How about we reverse it? Don't add a death penalty, but give an incentive not to die! You've probably played some of those flash games divided in levels where every death is counted against your score. This is not a death 'penalty' in the sense that you're using it, since it doesn't impede your progess in any way: You immediately start over from the beginning of the stage. Example: K.O.L.M. [http://armorgames.com/play/7446/kolm] In this case, your death is utterly meaningless in terms of gameplay, but you will still have that death counter glaring at you every step of the way, reminding you of just how much of a failure you are at this game.

Would it be a good idea to add a reward for a low death count in games, such as unlockables in a mission with zero death count? I would think positive feedback is a better reinforcing mechanism than punishment, even though death is intuitively punishing.

No, those are infinitely worse - for the simple reason that screwing up even once makes you feel like your entire playthrough should be canned no matter how far you managed to get.

At best you will force completionist players into compulsively saving-and-reloading to avoid tarnishing their record - the very behavior you're trying to get away from. At worst, they won't be ABLE to save and reload, and instead be trapped at the mercy of checkpoints, at which point they will play frisbee with your game disk and play something that won't immortalize their failures in carbonite.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Shamus,

I think I fall into what you call the "hardest of the hardcore masochists" group, though I don't consider myself remotely masochistic.

I like games with a DID (dead is dead) or "hardcore" mode (e.g. Diablo II and Solomon's Keep) because they're much more exciting and, in my opinion, more immersive. Maybe I'm just an adrenaline junky, but the rush of nearly losing a DID character far surpasses anything that I experience in games where death=reload. DID also creates situations in which one must think and act quickly, which I enjoy (okay, strictly speaking those same situations do arise without DID, but when I know I can just reload at a cost of two minutes I tend to take the lazy option). Last but not least DID forces the occasional retreat, which adds some depth to the gameplay.

For me, the enjoyment and immersion of DID is especially high in RPGs with randomised loot and/or character development, because in those games each character ends up being unique and so their death truly is a death, not just a time penalty.

I understand DID isn't for everyone, but that doesn't mean you have to label those of us who like it as masochists!! ;-)

 

[Varewulf]

Now, if Blizzard wanted to inflict XP debt on people who roleplay badly-spelled romantic encounters in open chat, I would cheerfully support it.

Hear hear!

 

[Fearzone]

(Reportedly. I didn't play online games back then because I was on dial-up, broke, and I hated other people. Two of those problems have since been cured.)

Games played pretty well on dial up connections, even first person shooters with 16 people as long as the lines were mostly clean, and on player to player connections, or at least as one player being the host. Always surprises me the level of problems with online connections nowadays.

 

[Fearzone]

A broader question here is frustration in gaming. While nobody says frustration is fun, and everybody would choose not to be frustrated over being frustrated, is it perfect game design then to have no frustration in your game? Obviously not, and it is frustration I think that builds an emotional connection with games--where you can love it despite the grief it causes.

I have to admit, it was WoW that taught me to go straight to the Internet as soon as I encounter the least difficulty in a game. Before WoW I would try to solve any stumbling block, and the Internet would only be the last, desperate, humiliating option. After WoW, if I spend a couple minutes struggling with anything, Google is as automatic as my pupil constricting to light.

On topic, the death penalty in WoW is pretty mild, but the game has plenty of frustrations particularly around gearing up, at least the older versions of the game did. I pretty much lost interest around that time they were making it more accessible. While games should be more accessible to new players, which WoW does an admirable and lucrative job of being, it should not be so accessible for seasoned pros. A game has to have a little edge.

There is probably a right frustration limit out there somewhere. Demons Souls proves that it can be pretty high and a game can still be successful. Remove it totally though, and things get bland real fast.

 

[Something Amyss]

Experienced Points: The Death of the Death Penalty

Is it time to retire the death penalty in games?

Read Full Article

A good chunk of the problem with Too Human was the fact that the animation was boring and unskippable. I know it seems counterintuitive, but people don't complain as much when you have to replay the last five minutes. The "time out" is a relatively unfamiliar concept in single player gaming. It's not that the penalty is harsh, but that it's alien and kind of dumb compared to its peers.

Even Harry Potter in book 7

Spoiler

he dies, but comes back fine

.

Harry Potter is a polarizing series. If you got to the end, you were likely in love with it enough to ignore the fact that the last book is one giant asspull. I'm sorry to offend Harry Potter fans, but it really is. I read the series, I anticipated the new books, and when I read the last book, I proceeded to chuck it against a wall. It's not that I'm a "hater," I just expected an actual conclusion. One in keeping with the franchise thus far, etc.

Gandalf? Gandalf is an iconic character whose death and rebirth is pretty well crafted. Even if I'm not a Tolkien fan. There are a lot of classic, iconic fictional characters who get away with it. There are a lot of contemporary asspulls which don't. The reason is a pretty good one: They're generally done poorly.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Most single player games, the penalty for death is going back to the last save. You can't really do that in MMOs. The other, main, most important penalty, for both MMOs and single player games, is that you get kicked out of a specific fight, so next time you do it, you have to do it over, and better, rather than just keep eating away at it through lives. I can't think of many games that lack that (Bioshock is one of those. If a big daddy was near a vita-chamber you could happily beat it senseless, ressing every time it killed you). Whether or not the fight gets reset is the main distinction between invulnerability and no-penalty death.

 

[LadyRhian]

I have played quite a number of games, including one that, when you died, would take all the gold you had obtained up until that point. The game actually threw this in your face. "Scavengers thank you for the 2000gp left on your body!" And this was money you couldn't get back. And I've played Roguelikes, which have "Dead is Dead" all mapped out. I generally get to level 30 and end up dying and ragequitting for months until I decide to roll a new character and start again. Obviously, my inner masochist enjoys these games.

I end up somewhere in the middle. I want some penalty for dying (obviously, one that makes it a good thing to not die), but not to the point of ridiculousness.

 

[The Random One]

I think it's all a matter of building your gameplay around it. Someone mentioned Bioshock in which death is a slap to the wrist. I didn't like it but I can see someone liking it. And there are games with crazy death penalties, like roguelikes, that literally have you start over. Roguelikes wouldn't be half as fun if that didn't happen, because it's a genre built on the variety of experiences that you have with every new 'life'.

Okay! I get to toute Guild Wars again!

In Guild Wars there IS a death penalty. Every time you die, you get a semi-permanant condition called Death Penalty. It shows itself in the corner of the screen(or whereever you put your conditions) as a red box with a number percentage. What that number is is the percentage of your max heath and energy that is taken away from you. Each time you die, you take 15% DP, so if you had 100 health, now you have 85. And it's cumulative to a cap of 60%. Short of missions, if you die and there is nothing to raise you, you and everyone else that's dead will pop back to the nearest resurrection shrine and you can go at it again, but with that death penalty. The incentive to avoid dying is simply this: 15% DP is easy to live with. You can kill monsters and work it off easily enough. at 60% DP, you're minus more than half of your health and energy. Warriors no longer have the energy to use their skills. Mages no longer have the health to survive a battle. It can't go any higher than 60, but depending on where you are it doesn't have to. Now you can keep plugging away and you may be able to finish what you were doing, but each time you die it gets harder.

That's touting? That's a horrible mechanic. If you're doing well you're you'll keep doing well, but if you screw up once it'll get harder and harder until you can't finish the level at all. That's the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

 

[GothmogII]

The way Torchlight had it laid out was pretty neat:

Resurrect where you fall = Lose a lot of gold and fame.

Resurrect back at the start of a level = Lose some gold.

Resurrect back in town = Lose Nothing.

It's of course little more than a making you make a choice as to how much time you want to waste getting back into the game, but it's a nice set of choices to have all the same.

Also, loading kind of bugs me, it's not a punitive death penalty, but with all the advances in game tech, why is it exactly we're still forced to load the game again to re-do a level/area when we fail? I not all that savvy on the technical things, but can someone explain why I have to load a save/watch the loading screen again after dying in an area that's -already- been loaded? Is there not some way to have that info. stored in some kind of temporary buffer when your character dies and make the process instantaneous?

I mean, Prince of Persia seemed to do it fine, and many games that use checkpoint systems also have minimal wait times between deaths, why can't all games have something similar? Are games like Oblivion or Fallout 3 simply too large and system heavy to implement this? BioShock, woeful as the Vita-Chambers were, was pretty comp. intensive at times but didn't seem to struggle with regards to this.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Diablo 2 did it right. You got to play the training wheels game until you learned it. Then when you were ready you played the "real" game on hardcore mode.

WoW needs a hardcore server that you can't play on until you already have an 85. But without pvp deaths (or deaths caused while recently in combat with other players) counting, because WoW pvp is hideously broken and unbalanced.

 

[ShadowKatt]

I think it's all a matter of building your gameplay around it. Someone mentioned Bioshock in which death is a slap to the wrist. I didn't like it but I can see someone liking it. And there are games with crazy death penalties, like roguelikes, that literally have you start over. Roguelikes wouldn't be half as fun if that didn't happen, because it's a genre built on the variety of experiences that you have with every new 'life'.

Okay! I get to toute Guild Wars again!

In Guild Wars there IS a death penalty. Every time you die, you get a semi-permanant condition called Death Penalty. It shows itself in the corner of the screen(or whereever you put your conditions) as a red box with a number percentage. What that number is is the percentage of your max heath and energy that is taken away from you. Each time you die, you take 15% DP, so if you had 100 health, now you have 85. And it's cumulative to a cap of 60%. Short of missions, if you die and there is nothing to raise you, you and everyone else that's dead will pop back to the nearest resurrection shrine and you can go at it again, but with that death penalty. The incentive to avoid dying is simply this: 15% DP is easy to live with. You can kill monsters and work it off easily enough. at 60% DP, you're minus more than half of your health and energy. Warriors no longer have the energy to use their skills. Mages no longer have the health to survive a battle. It can't go any higher than 60, but depending on where you are it doesn't have to. Now you can keep plugging away and you may be able to finish what you were doing, but each time you die it gets harder.

That's touting? That's a horrible mechanic. If you're doing well you're you'll keep doing well, but if you screw up once it'll get harder and harder until you can't finish the level at all. That's the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

If you don't like having a DP, go back to town and start over? What, do you want someone back at the res shrine with a cookie to make it all better? It's a PENALTY for dying, and a hell of a lot better than losing your inventory to other players as they loot your corpse. Besides, if "you're doing well" then you shouldn't die, should you? Dying means you screwed up, and so you get penalized.

And yes, sometimes you die enough that you can't finish the quest or the mission or clear the map, and you have to start over. Like the article said, if you're going to take away the penalty, then you're just invicable with a temporary lapse of consciousness, and there's no incentive to do well or get better. I tend to think Guild Wars has a very good system that's punishing but not damaging to the players.