Dying Really Sucks... [Updated]

At least give us something, the cloning idea is terrible! I'm just taking a little bit more of a proactive approach then saying "grrr, I don't like!" And trolling the forums.

 

Good point. Or you can give more meaning to the mission itself, by having simply missions inside of the research facility/metropolis so that you can get slightly more items, so that you can better your chances at going back to the place you've died, and get your items back. I would also recommend that when the character's HP goes down to 0, they don't actually die, but rather, you need to control a rescue character in order to bring him back to life. That may also help.

 

Polls been added, albeit a little late I know. If anyone's still following this thread throw in your vote!

 

I don't like games that punish me much for dying. It causes me to play cautiously, which is less fun for me.

Take D&D for example. You roll dice to determine the success or failure of a given task. In most cases, the chances are not in your favor, and you must make multiple attempts to succeed. However, the punishment for failure is usually quite small. This results in a situation where if you succeed it feels really good because it was unlikely, but if you don't it isn't worth getting upset about.

Another example is Super Meat Boy. It is a very difficult game, so for most players it takes many tries to beat each level. However, each time you die you respawn at the beginning within less than a second, ready to jump back into the game. Dying is still frustrating, but when you finally reach the end of the level you feel a huge sense of accomplishment.

So that's what I like, but here's why it's better:

In Rogue-likes (a rather popular trend lately, but I expect it is a flash-in-the-pan) you are forced to start over from the beginning each time you die. It is a crushing blow, especially after many hours of collecting rare items and building up resources. As a result, the player plays more cautiously and avoids taking risks. There may be a rare item deeper within the monster's cave, but the player feels nervous and decides not to have fun explore the dangerous dwelling. Later, having obtained powerful weapons, the player returns without fear and excitement and defeats the beast and takes the treasure. When players aren't adjusted to perma-death yet, they still take risks like they normally would, and the increased severity when they fail creates a cheap thrill. The novelty wears off when they start playing cautiously, and then the only way to keep the game fun is to ramp the difficulty up to insane levels so that the player ends up in risky situations anyway.

On top of that, perma-death is a crude ploy to artificially inject replay-value into a game. In other games, you continue to progress until you have experienced the entire progression of the game, and then you might restart in order to experience anything you may have passed over (such as other classes or characters, items you have missed, etc...). In a rogue-like you most likely die at some point, so the game dev holds the ending of that path hostage, forcing you to play with that same class or character a second, third, even fourth time until you finally complete it and find out what you would have missed if you had just moved on to another class or character. Then when you finally see all that the class has to offer, you have to do it all again with the other classes, effectively multiplying the time you would normally have spent on the game.

In the end, your idea is actually a very good compromise between Perma-death and Instant Cloning. For those who love Rogue-likes in spite of the downsides I mentioned, this might be an excellent mod or Hardcore mode feature for them. After all, perma-death creates a very different game atmosphere than respawning does, which can be very appealing when creating an RP server or trying to create a survival type of game. Since your idea, mission and all, is excellent for building atmosphere and such, it would be even better for said RP/survival style plays than regular perma-death, imo.

 

I'd like to provide this idea into this thread... what about PvP battles and wars and whatnot? Just putting it out there whether you get fighters who plan out battles/duels or the troll or thief who decides to stab someone in the back to steal stuff.... I think it would be interesting still to have the research adventure method, just how it should be handled is with PvP my question...

 

(I haven't read everything on the thread so forgive me if anyone else said what I'm saying.)
I like the idea that you mentioned about resurrecting. With something like this I could see a lot of role-play start to form. It would be nice to play with friends and everyone have their own roles. What you said would be including a sort of medic role. Then you could have the engineer who maintains the vehicles and have scouts., etc, etc. In my opinion this would make for some really awesome game-play in addition with the party system.
As for your original idea, I think what you said is really good but imagine if you're trying to find your body and you died on a level 100 planet? You would be starting off with absolutely nothing to protect yourself and it would most likely end up with you raging at your computer in frustration after dying to the same monster 5 times in a row. Plus you would have the quest to find your most recent body and lose track of the original.

 

In events like those, and multiplayer mode in general. The game could go to the time systems that mmo games use, to more you die, the longer you wait. But for the single player story, even if you're playing with a few friends, I would really like something more than, you're a clone of yourself, and the more you die the more you're cloned.

 

If you're powerful enough to be regularly going to level 100 worlds. You would have built up a NPC crew. They gather you're remains and return them to your ship. Which would allow you to ressurect yourself there, in safety. Or in your base, if you had already developed the tech their. The only need for the research facility is as a starting point, or if you don't have the technology yourself. Once you do have the tech, the '"restart story" could get creative, maybe the new toon you create could be a wondering explorer, a hapless miner, roving bandit, whatever story the game can randomly generate. And you can either remain as them or have them use your equipment to bring you back. Then they would just become an NPC part of your crew and you could return to your old character if you choose to, and are fine with "I'm a clone".

 

I still believe the current system of cloning after you die would be most efficient. A perma-death system would add a deeper value to gameplay; although, I think this would eventually turn into an annoying task that people grow tired especially if you were just messing around. You don't want the game to be so serious all the time. And don't forget about the multiplayer!

While this could work for multiplayer, I don't think it would be very fun. Nobody wants to wait around because they accidentally died or they were joking around in PvP. Tiy also mentioned that he wanted the game to have a DayZ feel if you turn on perma-death (Don't forget this is toggled) for a server. Your idea would kinda ruin this if you were able to go back and find your stuff. It's a great idea but in the end I don't think it would be worth the hassle.

 

Just a suggestion. It wasn't a part of the original plan. It does have it's fault. I know for a fact that Tiy wants death to be serious and bad. He probably wouldn't even mind true permadeath himself. He went with cloning so not to cause an uproar. And he STILL got backlash from the community... Becoming a clone just for the sake of being a clone, because a block of text tells you hey now you're a clone is the easy way out. This game does not skimp on creativity, don't let death change that. Cloning is fine, but make it a part of the story line. First you tell me that you just barely escape your home planet, just to become a clone literally on the next planet you land on (entirely possible)? Why weren't you killed on your home world, and have been someone important enough to be cloned then. That way, you're a clone anyway and you're just be re-cloned.

 

That's a good point. Maybe there should be cloning more towards end-game? Maybe you could repair a cloning machine in your station and you have to find some kind of core (probably a rare drop) to make it operational again? Then the core burns out after one use?

 

I just want the Devs to work with us a little.

 

Yeah, but they've got enough to do as it is. I'll just wait it out till after release. That is most likely when they'll start looking over these suggestions.

 

After the beta, story line continuity should be the focus. Cuz I definitely agree there is enough on their plates ATM.

 

My approval or disapproval depends on how easy or hard it is to die under normal circumstances.
If the player can do everything quite well, but slips up once and dies instantly, without the help of a boss, then this might be a bit much punishment.
If, on the other hand, a good player, who has a good grasp on the mechanics can make one mistake and still have opportunities to thinkfast and not die. Which means that survival falls to making sure that you follow some basic rules (think Zombieland). Then balance falls to how much punishment Vs how often you die.

 

I have to say that a game that doesn't punish me much for dying gives me no incentive not to die.
It is not the dying, but living that sucks the fun out of the game. I want to know that if I mess up, I messed up bad. Otherwise there is no excitement.
If I go into a really hard battle with a monster of some kind and die, just to be able to jump right in and do it again, I feel pretty empty when finally winning.
Its a hollow victory when nothing was at stake.

 

What I think you are getting at is that after determining how difficult the game is, Chucklefish should decide to set the punishment for death proportionate to that difficulty. The problem is that difficulty is much easier to adjust than death mechanics. There isn't much middle ground between temporarily losing all of your items and simply taking a monetary penalty, for example, but with difficulty levels you can simply adjust the stats of items and mobs. They should set the death mechanic and then adjust the difficulty to match that, not the other way around. Otherwise I agree that it should be balanced.

What are you even talking about? If there is no incentive "not to die", that's effectively saying there is no incentive to progress in the game and beat it. If avoiding death is the only reason you are playing a game, it seems like it is probably a very bad game. Discovery, adventure, combat, improving your skills, enjoying a story, solving puzzles, building things, etc... All of these things are good reasons to enjoy a game, even without any sort of death mechanics involved! Of course, I do still think death serves an important purpose.

Death should be an obstacle, not a punishment. Death should be a setback, of course, but making it set you back even further (to the beginning of the game) is just a more extreme version of the same thing. Even in rogue-likes you can try to beat the same boss as many times as you like without any urgency, you just have more of a chore getting back to the same level of progress, which means you play more cautiously and take fewer risks. Therefore, since taking risks is fun and exciting, mechanics that encourage you to play cautiously are less fun and exciting.

Beating Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts was not a hollow victory. It was a huge accomplishment for many casual players to finally defeat this Uber Boss after possibly hundreds of tries. In fact, there wasn't even much motivation to fight him because there is practically no reward for beating him, other than the challenge he presented.

Heavy punishments for death don't make the game more exciting. Rather, the game itself is or isn't exciting. When you die there is first a moment of shock and disappointment, no matter what the penalty is, THEN in rogue-like games you have a secondary crushing moment of realization that you have to start ALL OVER. You've lost everything-- It's depressing, not just disappointing. Then the long trek back to your old progress becomes a chore because more of it is game content you've already experienced (artificial replay value).

I mean, think of creepers in Minecraft. It doesn't matter if the game is rogue-like or not, it's the death itself and how it happens that can be exciting. Since there is always some penalty for dying (lost progress, annoying animations, sad music, etc...) you will always avoid it, so instead of ramping up the penalty the developers should think of creative ways to make it happen so that you are constantly faced with new challenges.

 

Good read, a few things I disagree on though. Classic gaming, Super Mario, Contra, Metroid. The goal IS not dying. So much so that people post speed runs using only one life, to show the accomplishment. Next, I admit Starbound is a different type of platformer yes, but the main story is you just barely escape your world with your life intact, just to be able to go on and die whenever you want at anytime, with relatively little consequence? Why not just have the main character die on his planet since death is a small thing. And spin the main story around that? Death as an obstacle is trivial, a puzzle is an obstacle, a boss fight is an obstacle, not the end of a characters life.

Short of having a check point Mario-style. Or a save room Metroid-style. Or even a bed respawn point Minecraft-style. Which form of existing death can the Devs follow to get their desired affect? According to Tiy: Slow, methodical combat, dramatically slower gameplay than traditional platformers, a painful death "you really don't wanna do", planning before going planet-side. How can someone check all those marks other than a fearful, painful death. It solves all those goals. If all I lost is some pixels, I'd stash all my pixels on my ship and spam the final boss to get endgame content. If I can't store pixels I'd buy the most expensive things I can find, spam the final boss for endgame content, and sell back the things I've brought to get my pixels back. If I'm a clone after the first time I die, not only will the main story be inconsistent (there was no point in escaping with my life if I'd just lose it with little consequence) but I'd only fear dying that first time. After that? "Aww, f*ck it I'm a clone anyway" time for a final boss endgame content run! I get that they need to appeal to everyone, use that difficulty slider for that. But they need more than, um well you're a clone now...

 

If that were true, then players would not move to the right. They would stay put at the left edge of the first level and never encounter a single foe. Victory! You never die, so you won, because the goal IS not dying, right? Wrong.

This video illustrates exactly what I'm talking about. The goal in any game isn't to avoid death, but to overcome the obstacles you face.

Maybe you only obtained cloning technology once you got your ship, or maybe it is at the Space Station. Also, even if I found out I was a clone, I'd still fear pain and death. As a player, you avoid death even if you know it will only set you back a little ways, because it still sets you back. So-called perma-death only sets you back further-- You can still get right back to that boss again. It's just more annoying.

You could add more viable defense options. In traditional platformers you usually die in one or two hits. Compare this with Metroid or Castlevania, which give you a life bar and multiple attack options so that you can fight from a safe distance. Defeating bosses isn't about DPS, it's about being able to avoid the attacks and prevent damage while waiting for the boss to reveal an opening. The best offense should be a good defense, not the other way around. By supporting this approach as they balance the game, the developers will naturally create a combat system that relies more on strategy and rewards planning, while lasting longer and allowing players to react more during battle. In other words, there ARE other ways to achieve this besides making death more painful.
I shouldn't even have to explain how perma-death also creates a lot of problems in PvP.

Anyway, I've said what I have to say. I don't have anything more to add, so this is probably my last post here.

 

Don't forget that they want the game to give you more rewards if you take more risks! Death would be a major factor if this is true.