I like death, except for the way it's actually done in most games.

The core of what I dislike about death as done in games is the step back. Being forced to redo what I just did, loosing experience, whatever -- it's annoying, it's frustrating, and it leads to repetitious situations where for every step forward you take it's two steps back. That's not fun.

Planetside had the closest thing to what I'd call "well done death". You didn't
lose experience, you'd didn't lose much other than your time -- half a minute to respawn, another minute to load up your gear and grab a vehicle, for example. You'd respawn at your forward base and continue on. Not great so far, just inconvenient.

The interesting part came about when you upped the stakes. You could try to flank the enemy and hit less defended outposts. However, without the support of the rest of the "Zerg" (as we called the main force that would constantly take the shortest path to the fight with the enemy), it was also the less supportable. I grouped with an outfit that specialized in this -- in our heyday flying platoons of infantry to drop and hold enemy bases until they flipped to our side.

Here's where the fun part of death came in. You'd often end up in situations where returning after respawning was downright impossible -- the enemy would reenforce en-mass and carpet bomb the hell out of their own base, destroying your AMSes (forward spawn positions) and trapping you inside, covering the base trying to work their way back in. If you respawned, at the extremes you could be facing a 10 minute flight back to the battlefront (at the extreme), and being forced to assault a base full of minefields and automated turrents -- not to mention the enemy. At times it was downright impossible to return to your defensive position. You often wouldn't get another chance at that base for quite some time if you lost, either -- the enemy outnumbered you to kick you out, and will continue to outnumber you there for awhile as they repair and rearm the base. Even when they've left, someone will be keeping an eye on it the next time to get the reenforcements there much faster.

So you'd have these alamos -- limited supplies, hunkered down around their command console desperately trying to hold on for the 15 minutes you needed to hold the base. Between exchanges of gunfire, you'd pass around dwindling supplies of ammo and healthpacks and trying to resurrect any of your dead comrades hanging around not hitting the respawn button.

No repetition -- just do or die.

And, in the grand scheme of things, you didn't loose anything you got to keep if you died and had to respawn. There'd be other bases to assault, others to kill, you lost no XP, equipment, or much else.

But at the same time, death was your doom. If you died anywhere but around the command console, you were out of that fight. If your valuable medics tried to come resurrect you, it could easily cost your team that battle if they too died -- so they usually wouldn't! If most of your team (or even just your medics) died just once, you lost that entire battle. And that gave meaning to holding out against superior numbers for those 15 minutes, meaning beyond just "pwning them noobs lol".



There's a mechanic I want to see tried sometime. I call it "semi-perma-death". Sure, allow players to resurrect each other if they can. But if you die downright proper and will need to respawn? Give them a nice jolly roger across their screen.



Don't let them back in game for, say, an hour. Maybe a day. Maybe a week if you're a real bastard (I know I am!). Make death something to be feared... without coercing the player into carebearing the entire way to level 99 if they ever hope to reach it. They'll get to do exciting risk taking things. Not because they're risking having to grind another million EXP, but because they're risking being dead to the world of the game. Gone. Downright proper.

At least for a minute ;-).

-- Michael B. E. Rickert

"Without defeat, you can not appreciate victory."
- Gone in sixty seconds.

I think there is a relation, in some games, between the penalty of death and the reward of cheating it.

For instance in a game like Pac-man. You want to win from the ghost, because you know, when they get you, you are death. The enjoyment of these games, comes partly from the high cost of dying.

There are some 'stealth' shooters like this. In which you have to achive a whole level without saving. Because the pressure is higher, you try harder not to die. Thus increasing the enjoyment for some players (like me).

Some games, like Fallout, are not just about winning from the enemy, but also about exploration. Here the relation is not as apperent and death should not be treated by penalizing the player greatly.

I think MMO games are a nice example. The first time I die in a MMO, I really worry about the cost. You will try to avoid it. Because it is something to be avoided, it brings enjoyment to the game, by increasing pressure on the gamer.

What is it players don't like about death. the root of the annoyance and displeasure? Is it lost progress? Is it being faced with load times? Or is it the idea that you "lost"?

I figure most of the time its not really losing, but the sudden stop to game play or even the back step. How do we make it such that the player feels a punishment for unskilled playing without disrupting the game?

I think the best model for this is that when you fail, you are presented with an alternative situation that will bring you back to where you were before death when the challenge is completed. The player isn't faced with a lose of progress or a break in gameplay, but is delayed.

I think the real problem with it is the immersion that it breaks you off. If I die that's when I go to get a drink or something.

The easiest way to counter the immersion break is by figuring out how to explain why you just called something dying and you aren't permanently dead. Some games call it a knock out, but then they send you back to the beginning any how and breaks there... but if you take the route of what City of Heroes (explained when you hit 0hp there is an auto-teleport safety device that brings you to the nearest hospital for healing) does or what DC Universe online (you are knocked out and have to wait an amount of time before reviving where you are)is going to have you take a step closer to keeping a player immersed in the game.

Apply something like this to spy games, where you have the knockout/death be more realistic and what you end up with is a sorta lives system where you get knocked out and brought to a prison for questioning as a spy would, but if you don't succeed after a number of attempts you get killed permanently. Combine that with save points and you have an excellent system to keep a person immersed in the world, provide that challenge, but allow players to have that natural break from the game with the save points.

You know, another game handled death interestingly is Legacy of Kain: Sou Reaper. Raziel when he died he moved over to the spectral realm and after sucking in enough souls could revive... that was a cool game play feature.

Quote:Original post by Sandman
Death in games is generally such a pointless affair; a short trip to the Load Save Game screen, followed by a small bit of frustration at having to redo part of the game, and then you're back to where you were.

What is particularly interesting about this point, and identified in OrangyTang's player-story, is the failure of death as a game mechanic to actually force a player to adjust their play style. It is interesting because death as a mechanic is applied broadly across all methods of failure. A player who charges in recklessly receives the same response from the game as a player who runs out of ammo at a bad time.

Which begs the question: Are some of the issues resulting from death as a mechanic a failure of a mechanic, or a fault of the broad application of it?

Should we be applying separate mechanics based on the conditions of failure?