Death

What should death look like? I made a thread that got buried.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=blood-and-gore-animationsphysicsactions


Permadeath is a very exciting idea. What if it was just included as a server type?

From a role-playing aspect, what if in PvP you could just be "downed"?

While you crawl, what if you could be picked up, carried, or tied-up by whoever beat you?

What if they could carry you to their guild castle to put you in a stock?

 

Allow me to preface this by saying I am a bit late to the design and still reading, so if something here blatantly violates an existing design please correct me.

I am a fan of perma-death but not without a continuance structure around it. By this I mean I would favor a lineage system whereby achievements and wealth can be passed on to heirs - re-roll but with starting advantages. This approach provides some interesting opportunities to socialize players as families and explore the effects of simulated culturation. Your character was Master smith, so your immediate heir gets a bonus to smithing and perhaps even an unusually powerful trait. This kind of approach is definitely hard-core, doesn't greatly support MMO socialization practices and goes best with other 'fun' designs like real character aging and enfeeblement! Still for me, it would be fun.

Without some larger framework like families/dynasties I suppose creating a game around the death state is preferred. Lots of options here. How about different options depending on your chosen religion? With a type of eastern religion you reincarnate if you have sufficient karma (spirit?), but perhaps only as a beast or insect. That could be fun, depending on the pace and implementation (of course). Did you choose a monotheistic/sin-based religion? Uh oh. Fight your way out of hell then. What if you are skilled in Necromancy? From a story standpoint, death should provide opportunities to increase your power, at the cost of being shunned by most civilized societies.

 

I'm for permadeath, in the same way that they've implemented PvP.

Story / quest-based, zone based, and guild based. It's optional, the risks will be greater, but so should be the rewards.

Just like the story Richard tells, about the contested rare resources that only spawn at night on a full moon in a PvP zone. Sure, create something similar, but flagg as permadeath and make the reward even greater. If you want to take that quest or go to that dangerous area, it's up to you. Or only do the non-permadeath PvP one. Or don't even take the quest or go there.

On the flip side, if you kill someone in that mode, the virtue system should recognize it differently than just a standard non-permadeath kill. Gives greater meaning to consequences and being responsible for your actions in-game. Again, it was your choice to make the permadeath kill.

The meaning of death and killing should be given greater depth in games.

 

If someone has the experience of logging into the game, playing for a few hours, and ends up losing more than they gained, they will stop playing the game. Not everyone, ofc, but enough. People are addicted to games for that small dose of accomplishment. I realize there are thrill seekers who love the risk even more than the reward...but there aren't enough of them to make a game. You need to appeal to everyone.

 

Again, just make it a type of server.

Everyone makes the character they care about (and wouldn't want to see die) in one server, and then in the "perma-death server" everyone has their gladiator that they try to keep alive, but not have any personal investment in.

 

Rasaro there is only ONE server, the actually game will be "sharded" by YOUR computer

 

Richard and team are currently sticking to their one server design, such that the multiplayer tech they've created takes care of matchmaking and who you see in your world. This is not a classic client-server MMO where they create different servers for different play styles.

And the comment that you keep a character that don't have any personal investment in exemplifies even further why Richard wants one character per account. He wants you to feel consequences for your actions and the virtues that drive it. On a similar note, it also speaks volumes as to why death and especially killing are meaningless in games.

And to reiterate, these permadeath zones or quests or optional, just as PvP zones and quests. Just as crafting is an optional play experience. Or fishing. Or guild wars. Or whatever. Nothing is forced upon you. That's what makes SotA so great -- gives players choices, when they want it, without the hassle of multiple characters and multiple servers to manage.

 

Why is it people seem to think that there playing experience should come at the detriment of mine?

If you want permadeath then impose it on yourself and delete your character when you die
you want open PVP then set it on and fight with OTHER people who want open PVP
If you want one character THEN ONLY MAKE ONE CHARACTER

why do you think you should IMPOSE these on anyone who ISN'T interested in playing that way?

 

No to perma-death and a "he!! no" to corpse-runs. I did that for years in EQ and I refuse to do it again. I only did it in EQ because I had to; it's just not fun. Also, if by "losing exp" you also lose the time that you spent playing, again, I will refuse to play. I hated losing hours or days worth of playing time just because I happened to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time or died because of lag. Again, EQ showed me what to avoid in the games that I play. The same goes for "inheritance". If I have to start over questing from the very beginning with a new character because I died, this game will go in the trash bin immediately. I'm in this for the story and some of the social aspects of playing and whatever detracts from that experience hastens the time in which I stop playing. I don't mind a money-sink in terms of weapon/armor damage or even a minor time-sink in terms of waiting to "respawn". However, if it requires me to take more than 2-3 min to "respawn" to continue questing, again this will hasten the time towards stopping playing, because playing these games is about having fun, not wasting my time trying to find the closest "shrine" or area that can "rez" me back so I can continue on my way.

I'm primarily a solo-type player that's interested in the story. I like to occasionally group with others, especially friends, in order to have some of the fun of socialization while playing through the story. I might even consider testing the waters of PvP just to see what might happen; however, that will be a rarity. I consider myself to be a "hardcore" casual gamer. I have a little more time to spend playing than the average casual gamer yet my tendencies are towards casual gaming. Anything that detracts from the fun of playing the game, learning the story and progressing into the next area to see what's there (I also like to explore), hastens the time in which I will stop playing the game.

Death, and how it's handled, is right up at the top of the list of reasons why I stop playing a game.

 

@Sir Asguard @Carillon: Yep, agreed. How would you like to see death handled?

That's why this should be an option for a particular style of game play for SPO/FPO/OPO, or as a difficulty mode/slider for offline mode. Not a requirement for everyone, and certainly not the default.

As with all things in the game, make this optional, just as PvP is an optional style of play that you might want to dabble in. Or dabble in crafting, or farming, or fishing, or even combat. Take different quests as you see fit. Some quests will take you into PvP zones if you choose. And some quests will take you into permadeath zones or only specific scenes. That's the proposal -- as an option, not a requirement for everyone.

We still don't know how death will be handled in the game, as they are still working out the design and how it fits in with the lore/story. We don't even know if there will be stat loss, ghosts, corpse runs, cooldowns, etc.

Death and killing should be taken seriously in SotA in terms of story context and virtues, but how it is handled will be key in achieving both an emotional connection as well as still making it fun to play for everyone.

 

I have long been an advocate of permadeath, depending on how it is handled, though I can certainly see the controversy behind it and reluctance to adopt or accept it by many. I do think that it would add an interesting element to the world of MMOs, if done correctly.

My own thoughts on death in SotA are that it needs to be meaningful (i.e. unpleasant), whether a character dies in PvP or in PvE. I am also in favor of a full loot system, and think that UO's ghost/resurrection system worked quite well. This method is certainly not the only option, but I think that a no (or even low) risk situation, such as was implemented in WoW, would not be something I could get into. Likewise, I am not a fan of item insurance (or of games in which items figure to any great extent).

I likewise do not think that there should be any starter zones, in game tutorial areas, or newbie status; just some how to info on a web site, and hit the ground running, learning gradually through trial and error. Since PvP is not mandatory, this should not affect a great deal.

 

Smack the way I play games even combat is a puzzle, that's why I like PVE because the main monsters stay relatively the same so you can try different ways to defeat them. So if you die it's a case of "ok that approach didn't work, what if I try this..."

So my feeling is that death should be an inconvenience, nothing more. I don't mind a hit to weapon health the way Chris described as long as it doesn't take me too long to get everything fixed so I can get back to the puzzle of that battle. Gold and XP penalties that other games like Diablo use are ok though Diablo can frustrate me when it ends up what I'm doing is just spending lives to bring down a group of impossible monsters, but that is different from the death itself.

 

@smack, I'm actually in agreement with @Sir Asguard on this one that inconvenience rather than severely limiting would be my preference, although I think I/we are probably somewhat in the minority. Personally, I like the way that SWTOR handles death. There's a damage penalty to armor/weapons and you "ghost" for about 20sec before appearing right where you left off (potentially in trouble if you don't move out of aggro range of the mob that killed you in the first place). I'm also ok with rezzing back at some designated respawn point like LotRO and others because it's usually not necessarily too far from where I left off and it's just a matter of running back.

I will never play another game that forces me into item loss (by pvp gankers) or level loss due to exp debt. It's just too frustrating and I play to have fun rather than being frustrated.

 

Most people wont play a game where they feel that a death costs an hour of "progress". There are plenty of way to make a game appealing to these types of players but also to players who wish to opt in to greater risk. Some people just enjoy the thrill.

I see progress in this game as a very sideways endeavor. i.e. you dont just pile up more xp and more loot. Some people will want the "achievement" for exploring 80% of the map, some will want to go 100 fights without dying, and some will want to craft and sell 100 swords. Note that if you're trying to go 100 fights without dying, it's effectively a permadeath to lose, because you start over.

I'm OK with having a story point where you can say "I want to take up the cause of valor" and "I want to be a bandit" and that flags you to drop full loot when you die. But most people would never want this.

 

@Sir Asguard @Carillon: Cool, thanks for your thoughts on how you would like death be handled for your style of gameplay. Hope the devs read it for a different perspective.

Also, I think some of the ideas proposed here aren't to suggest there be only one way of dying and how that's handled. Perhaps they will keep the game's death mechanics simple at first, and they can expand on it later.

I think the general intent here is that perhaps death can be treated differently depending on how you die and what your situation was.

Death types:
1) Any player killed by any NPC or MOB. This is a PvE-mode kill, can occur anywhere.
2) Non-PvP player killed by any player. This is a non-PvP-mode kill, can occur only in PvP zone.
3) PvP player killed by any player. This is a PvP-mode kill, can occur only in PvP zone.
4) Player kills himself (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=i-want-to-gank-myself). This is suicide, can occur anywhere.

I would further add that the permadeath proposal simply be all of the above duplicated, so it would 5,6,7,8, but "only in permadeath zone" for each.

Almost everyone will face #1 at some point.
Only those players who take PvP quests or go into PvP zones will face #2, #3.
Anyone can do #4, regardless of their reasons. This one is tricky -- see my thread above regarding it.

So the game can handle death differently depending on how you die, where you die, and especially your karma / virtues. When we discuss further about the penalties for death, we should think of these different ways and how they apply, and not treat all death the same. The results may or may not end up being the same, but consideration should be taken for all modes.

 

Just for the sake of clarifying my position I thought about it further and I suppose the way I view dying is in general well suited to the checkpoint savepoint systems because you die and then think about it some more and try a different way to solve "the puzzle"

That doesn't mean I am opposed to other ways of handling this, or that I want these systems implemented here, just saying this to show where I come from

 

@smack Good ideas

It appears several people didn't read others' posts before responding though.

My suggestion was to add permadeath for the sake of making a more realistic and enjoyable story/world with the caveat that permadeath can only occur under certain circumstances so as not to drive people away (though that's already quite a compromise for some people e.g. historically people often fell victim to a wild boar, rabid wolf, or territorial cave bear while they were just out hunting or gathering in the forest... they didn't get to turn into a ghost, res and try again just because otherwise death would be such a huge inconvenience that they would stop trying to play the life game).

I find the inheritance idea very intriguing but the first question it brings to mind is whether it requires that the player has children running around somewhere? Anyone with a house might appreciate their runts running around the garden playing with the house pet.

 

If we can't have permadeath server, it would be interesting to include areas in the game (a Dungeon maybe?) that characters can risk their life, or lose it forever!. There would have to be unique items in the dungeon to make the risk verse the reward. maybe each level lower the difficulty increases but so do the rewards. this would give a pseudo-hardcore-diablo-esque mini game. we all love mini games

 

Yeah, imagine a dungeon crawl, where the deeper and lower you go into it, the more valuable ultra rare magical gems you can find. However the risk would increase as you descend each level, with more difficult challenges (MOBs, puzzles, etc.). And one such risk could be, at the very bottom level, permadeath.

Completely optional, as you don't have to take that risk and descend down into it -- but only if you want that ultimate prize.

@Nietzsche: So yeah I would support it as long as it's an optional challenge. I'm sure the Devs and the player community can come up with insanely devious challanges with epic rewards for permadeath zones/quests.

 

It would be fine with me if people could flag themselves for higher death penalties at any time. The can even get small bonuses for doing so. As long as others aren't subject to them.