Death Penalty in modern titles

UnknownXV

Excuse me if I have missed it, but I do not see a general or off-topic forum section to post this, so I'm going to post it here.

This thread is meant purely as a hypothetical discussion. To toss around ideals and discuss the general state of death penalties in recent MMORPGs. It is not a suggestion to implement what I will talk about into ESO. An MMORPG must be designed around it to function properly.

What am I referring to? Think back to the days of Ultima online and Runescape. Upon death, you were not given a helping hand up, or a small slap on the wrist. Upon death, you were wrenched forthwith from the depths of hell and cast back into the world with naught but a pair of rags to cover your bones. Your gear and inventory lay bare on your corpse wherever you perished in the world, for any fellow adventurer to wander upon to claim as his own. Sounds intense does it not? Thrilling to those who've experience the indirect consequences imbued in a system such as this. To most players now however, it is simply scary. I fear they will never understand how heightened and impactful every little event is when real danger is present in the world with genuine consequences. A simple hike to a neighboring village is suddenly an adrenaline fueled fight for survival. Note the thrilling part I was discussing prior.

Where did those games go? Why are there no modern MMORPG titles even contemplating such a concept? Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience? And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat? I ask this because frankly, I am bored of modern titles. They offer no excitement comparable to what I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and it makes me very sad.

Mmm, that's all I have to say for now. Feel free to shoot in your thoughts on the matter, if you think there's any hope for players like me who want a more difficult and perilous experience or if I am merely an antiquated relic of days long gone never to return...

Hardvark

UnknownXV wrote: »

Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience?

The short and simple answer is yes. That's how they make a profit.

UnknownXV wrote: »

And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat?

No. There really isn't a large market for this sort of thing. The lowest common denominator, as you put it, doesn't want to put their valuable and possibly limited time into gaining items that are then stolen from them when they inevitably die. You might find an independent title that caters to that sort of thing, but it's simply not going to appear in a big budget mainstream game.

Grayphilosophy

I absolutely agree. Not just MMOs, I feel a lot of newer games in general have become bland and lack challenge. And when you do fail, there's hardly any consequence.

Awacs_Tragedy

I kind of understand you, as I played Runescape for many long years I understand how you miss it... somewhat.
As you said games need to be build around this kind of feature and I'm afraid its a feature defined as hardcore or maybe even elitist now which means not a lot want it and as games are (sadly) only here to milk money from us it makes sense to not have features only a minority likes.

Even in Runescape this lose your items on death feature was made easier, if you will, with the addition of gravestones. It might have been too punishing and open to exploit and I just can't see this being made in any new MMORPGs.
Personally I like this where I don't have to be on my toes all the time, I just like to look back at the good old days with my nostalgia glasses on.

I'm afraid the closest you might come to that again are single player games like dark souls (well I've heard it is hardcore but I don't know really) or pray to the gaming god that someone somewhere will make an oldschool MMORPG with the features and excitement you miss.

Shimond

Complaints from players drove the evolution of reduced/lax death penalties. Very few look back at UO and EQ (and SWG even, initially) corpse runs with fond memories. They were painful systems that received a well-deserved death in the industry.

Andy22

Hardvark wrote: »

UnknownXV wrote: »

Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience?

The short and simple answer is yes. That's how they make a profit.

UnknownXV wrote: »

And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat?

No. There really isn't a large market for this sort of thing. The lowest common denominator, as you put it, doesn't want to put their valuable and possibly limited time into gaining items that are then stolen from them when they inevitably die. You might find an independent title that caters to that sort of thing, but it's simply not going to appear in a big budget mainstream game.

Its not all this grim, Day-Z proofed that u can sell a supposedly "niche" game to a very large audience. SoE doing Landmark and EQ-Next seemed also not possible a few years back.
Also who would have guessed that a Bioware MMO using Starwars license, with a mega budget would not be profitable 6 months after release.

What i want to say is, that these days betting on concepts that a few years back would have seen as niche, strange or indie becomes a viable investment option for MMO's. Thats not to say all those concepts will success, but risk investors seem to-be more interested in more unconventional aka "none WoW clones", than a few years back.

I'm getting a little exited on what we will see next.

rawne1980b16_ESO

I played games like UO, Runescape and Everquest that had death penalties.

DAoC had them too.

Darkfall is another.

Do I want to go back to that?

Do I hell. I didn't enjoy them then and I wouldn't now.

RylukShouja

I can't speak for other games, but in RuneScape...it was pretty damn hard to die. In this game, you just have to be the victim of an unfortunate group member training an instance upon your head, or even a complete stranger training a group of mobs past you as you aoe down the group you are fighting.

Do you want a harder game with a lower death tax or an easy game that punishes stupidity?

PBpsy

Permadeath for a dungeon crawler ARPG ?
- Yes Always.
Somewhat punishing death in pve and pvp like in Dark Souls?
-Yes. Unfortunately it will eventually be doomed due to cheaters.

Glitchy twitchy fast paced mmo PVP with an overabundance of really crappy people ?
-No.

Zubba

UnknownXV wrote: »

Excuse me if I have missed it, but I do not see a general or off-topic forum section to post this, so I'm going to post it here.

This thread is meant purely as a hypothetical discussion. To toss around ideals and discuss the general state of death penalties in recent MMORPGs. It is not a suggestion to implement what I will talk about into ESO. An MMORPG must be designed around it to function properly.

What am I referring to? Think back to the days of Ultima online and Runescape. Upon death, you were not given a helping hand up, or a small slap on the wrist. Upon death, you were wrenched forthwith from the depths of hell and cast back into the world with naught but a pair of rags to cover your bones. Your gear and inventory lay bare on your corpse wherever you perished in the world, for any fellow adventurer to wander upon to claim as his own. Sounds intense does it not? Thrilling to those who've experience the indirect consequences imbued in a system such as this. To most players now however, it is simply scary. I fear they will never understand how heightened and impactful every little event is when real danger is present in the world with genuine consequences. A simple hike to a neighboring village is suddenly an adrenaline fueled fight for survival. Note the thrilling part I was discussing prior.

Where did those games go? Why are there no modern MMORPG titles even contemplating such a concept? Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience? And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat? I ask this because frankly, I am bored of modern titles. They offer no excitement comparable to what I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and it makes me very sad.

Mmm, that's all I have to say for now. Feel free to shoot in your thoughts on the matter, if you think there's any hope for players like me who want a more difficult and perilous experience or if I am merely an antiquated relic of days long gone never to return...

This a very insightful post. I have felt the same for years. I can not find the fun with no risk involved. But I am afraid we will not see such games again. Simply because the game industry is Worth alot of Money. Sad, very sad.

I Think we can blame WOW for alot of this.

Alurria

One word......de-level. If it never happened to you then you don't know the pain in the butt it really was.

Zubba

pieceofyarnb14_ESO wrote: »

One word......de-level. If it never happened to you then you don't know the pain in the butt it really was.

Drop percentage of inventory and gear, or why not all of it is to prefeer.

Altheina

To OP, you are right that gaming companies nowadays think about the larger audiences when developing their mmos. This seem logical to ensure that their products satisfy majority of their target audiences.

Let's look at TESO, a game that's recently released and there are already so many complains about bugs, exploits,etc... Imagine what would have happened if there was severe death penalties imposed, people would be complaining left and right demanding compensations or whatnot due to lag or bugs. How are you going to justify that?

While certainly implementing severe death penalties would add challenges into an mmo, unfortunately, it's rather impractical in the sense that there are more things at stake than we all can imagine and it's safe to say that gaming companies would rather focus on satisfying the larger crowds to ensure that they can maintain their products.

Gillysan

"I was there" - EVE Online. 10+ years and going strong.

Zubba

Gillysan wrote: »

"I was there" - EVE Online. 10+ years and going strong.

Ten years is a long time

I was there for many years as well (maybe 5 years). And the risk vs reward is one of the main things that kept me for that long.

Phadin

There are some niche titles, even among the MMO market, that have some vicious death penalties. For example, there is a Wizardry MMO that has the threat of permadeath. In that game, if you die, you get a chance at resurrection. If you fail that, you become ash, and have one more res chance. Failing that, your Lost... gone... done. Delete your character, it isn't coming back. The higher level you are, the lower the chance you can successfully revive.

Of course, that game is F2P, so I'm sure you can spend items, gold, or $$$$ to increase the chance or guarantee you can revive... but the threat of permadeath exists.

Darrett

The UO death penalty wasn't a big deal because you were wearing full suits of cheap, crafted gear. Nobody used magical items because they'd be lost so frequently.

In a game where items take a time or money investment to earn and can take significant resources to create, dropping items on death would be a terrible idea that would limit the risks people were willing to take.

If they'd made this game based on skill lines rather than on levels, and made crafted gear easy to acquire and with no +stat bonuses for the most part, then it could be possible to implement a full looting system. It just wouldn't work in a level based, gear dependent game.

Zakua

Yeah SWG and EVE, my two all time favorites.

Risk/Reward is awesome but many players do not care for such harsh consequences. The rage threads in a game like this one would fill these forums if ESO had such a system.

I miss it but the fact it is not implemented in a lot of the newer titles has not ruined those games for me...but I do often sit back and think how cool it would be in certain games.

nimbli

I remember naked corpse runs in early EQ (sorta fondly), but I like that I can try stuff that isn't really in my level range here. Push the boundaries. If I'm not dyin', I'm not livin in this game.

UnknownXV

Thanks you for the interesting comments folks. I just wanted to reiterate that this is not a suggestion for ESO. It wouldn't work here as dying is meant to happen a lot. For instance in Runescape, death was almost entirely your fault and it was not easy. You could teleport away in an instant, eat food to regenerate health, use prayers to mitigate most damage (at least in pve). You had options. It was more about careful meticulous planning. But it still felt risky, and I do miss that.

Also, in Runescape, you did keep 3 of your most valuable items, so there was "some" leniency. Also, if you managed to run back to your corpse quickly enough it was indeed possible to retrieve your items before someone else gets them.

demendred

pieceofyarnb14_ESO wrote: »

One word......de-level. If it never happened to you then you don't know the pain in the butt it really was.

Reminds me of the good ol days of FFXI.

Redegaus

I quite liked the de-level mechanic myself. Punishment enough that you really didn't want to fail, but not so bad that you lived in fear of it.
Besides, re-levelling is no big deal, and still fun enough to while away the time, right?

demendred

This MUD I used to play, Nodeka, if you died by a mob, you lost your eq and had to run out and grab it again. If you didn't get it in time, your corpse vanished and your loot able to be looted by other players. There were players who were notorious for MPKing(Mob player kill) other players and taking and selling off their gear. If you got PKed, you just lost your health, magic, stam.

Gedalya

UnknownXV wrote: »

Excuse me if I have missed it, but I do not see a general or off-topic forum section to post this, so I'm going to post it here.

This thread is meant purely as a hypothetical discussion. To toss around ideals and discuss the general state of death penalties in recent MMORPGs. It is not a suggestion to implement what I will talk about into ESO. An MMORPG must be designed around it to function properly.

What am I referring to? Think back to the days of Ultima online and Runescape. Upon death, you were not given a helping hand up, or a small slap on the wrist. Upon death, you were wrenched forthwith from the depths of hell and cast back into the world with naught but a pair of rags to cover your bones. Your gear and inventory lay bare on your corpse wherever you perished in the world, for any fellow adventurer to wander upon to claim as his own. Sounds intense does it not? Thrilling to those who've experience the indirect consequences imbued in a system such as this. To most players now however, it is simply scary. I fear they will never understand how heightened and impactful every little event is when real danger is present in the world with genuine consequences. A simple hike to a neighboring village is suddenly an adrenaline fueled fight for survival. Note the thrilling part I was discussing prior.

Where did those games go? Why are there no modern MMORPG titles even contemplating such a concept? Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience? And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat? I ask this because frankly, I am bored of modern titles. They offer no excitement comparable to what I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and it makes me very sad.

Mmm, that's all I have to say for now. Feel free to shoot in your thoughts on the matter, if you think there's any hope for players like me who want a more difficult and perilous experience or if I am merely an antiquated relic of days long gone never to return...

I personally am in favor of having a 'Hardcore' mode available; maybe a separate server with consequences and demands as you describe. I'm thinking actually back to hardcore related to the Fallout 3 series; but having real consequences for death is a nice idea.

Giraffon

Maybe in a controlled one on one PvP arena style battle, you could pick one item from your opponent's equipped gear if they were higher level than you and you beat them anyway. Otherwise just experience points rewarded and maybe some sort of prize money from the venue.

As far as what the original poster was talking about, I don't think I would like that in a PvP environment because some folks level a lot faster than others.

Jeremy

UnknownXV wrote: »

Excuse me if I have missed it, but I do not see a general or off-topic forum section to post this, so I'm going to post it here.

This thread is meant purely as a hypothetical discussion. To toss around ideals and discuss the general state of death penalties in recent MMORPGs. It is not a suggestion to implement what I will talk about into ESO. An MMORPG must be designed around it to function properly.

What am I referring to? Think back to the days of Ultima online and Runescape. Upon death, you were not given a helping hand up, or a small slap on the wrist. Upon death, you were wrenched forthwith from the depths of hell and cast back into the world with naught but a pair of rags to cover your bones. Your gear and inventory lay bare on your corpse wherever you perished in the world, for any fellow adventurer to wander upon to claim as his own. Sounds intense does it not? Thrilling to those who've experience the indirect consequences imbued in a system such as this. To most players now however, it is simply scary. I fear they will never understand how heightened and impactful every little event is when real danger is present in the world with genuine consequences. A simple hike to a neighboring village is suddenly an adrenaline fueled fight for survival. Note the thrilling part I was discussing prior.

Where did those games go? Why are there no modern MMORPG titles even contemplating such a concept? Are high budget games always going to try and appeal to the largest audience? And if so, will the lowest common denominator ever be willing to accept, perhaps even embrace, the idea of risk in combat? I ask this because frankly, I am bored of modern titles. They offer no excitement comparable to what I've had the pleasure of experiencing, and it makes me very sad.

Mmm, that's all I have to say for now. Feel free to shoot in your thoughts on the matter, if you think there's any hope for players like me who want a more difficult and perilous experience or if I am merely an antiquated relic of days long gone never to return...

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree.

I don't like overly-punishing death penalties on games. And I think one of the worst things you can do on your game is attempt to punish the people who play it.

In my experience, harsh death penalties usually just end up stifling gameplay - because they encourage the player not to take risks or push themselves against content they are not first familiar with.

Just death alone and the need to re-trace your steps is sufficient in my mind. No need to pile on when the player is obviously already having a bad time at it.

UnknownXV

It encourages players to take calculated risks, and the excitement that flows when you do is unparalleled. I've taken many risks in Runescape, Ultima Online, Darkfall, etc... even knowing that death had serious consequences. It simply made it more fun for me, but it also spoiled me. That level of thrill is unavailable in safe MMOs. Nothing comes even close, and unfortunately it is impossible to truly convey through words. You have to experience it to understand.

SadisticSavior

Gillysan wrote: »

"I was there" - EVE Online. 10+ years and going strong.

The best game ever made on any platform. The only reason I do not still play it is time. It eats time like candy.

I was there for the beta as well.

SadisticSavior

I think Mortal Online is basically like a harsh version of this game.

I actually like it a lot, but it will never have the appeal of a mainstream title like this. And because of that it will be doomed to a slow death.

liquid_wolf

In the standard Elder Scrolls games you didn't lose your gear on death.

The death penalty was: You lost the progress since your last save.

Then they introduced auto-save.

Honestly, the Elder Scrolls Universe has never been one of "harshness". No real penalties or punishments for your actions and deaths.

They practically let you tear the world apart. You could kill every character in the entire world, and the game would still, somewhat, go on.

I believe a lot of people believed this would translate to a "free-for-all Steal and Loot" game, but the majority of Elder Scrolls fans would NOT carry over to that style of game very well.

You can not have a free-for-all game without the harshness of losing all your stuff and needing to start from scratch. Most Elder Scrolls players don't want that aspect of it.

Jeremy

demendred wrote: »

pieceofyarnb14_ESO wrote: »

One word......de-level. If it never happened to you then you don't know the pain in the butt it really was.

Reminds me of the good ol days of FFXI.

Oh yes, I remember those precious de-level moments.

UnknownXV wrote: »

It encourages players to take calculated risks, and the excitement that flows when you do is unparalleled. I've taken many risks in Runescape, Ultima Online, Darkfall, etc... even knowing that death had serious consequences. It simply made it more fun for me, but it also spoiled me. That level of thrill is unavailable in safe MMOs. Nothing comes even close, and unfortunately it is impossible to truly convey through words. You have to experience it to understand.

I never played any of those games you listed. So I can't refute what you say.

But I recently quit playing Path of Exile mostly due to the death penalty on that game. It was just too frustrating to lose a week's worth of experience when I died. And It made me fear death to the point I wouldn't even attempt a lot of the harder content because the rewards just weren't the risks.

It basically ruined the game for me.