Ooh! I just watched">this video
Thank you for posting that, he brings up some interesting thoughts.
What I learned from 21 games on permadeath
This thread makes me think that maybe it should be hard to be a Navy Seal, or Spiderman, or whatever larger than life character you take on. The tasks that such characters would take on are pretty extraordinary. Typically I look at hard level of difficulties as just being a few arbitrary adjustments to damage calculation formulas. It might be cool to know that one mode represents reality a little more closely.
Author
[quote name='kseh' timestamp='1356576019' post='5014585']
This thread makes me think that maybe it should be hard to be a Navy Seal, or Spiderman, or whatever larger than life character you take on. The tasks that such characters would take on are pretty extraordinary.
[/quote]
Agreed, it ought to be hard to be a hero, but the game still has to naturally progress in difficulty in the "flow channel" (or does it?).
That also makes me think, if you have a procedural permadeath (or similar) game, technically you could make the difficulty progression constant across deaths. Maybe in a zombie apocalypse game you would start out in a low population town with only a few zombies spawnable at all. The player then dies, and some difficulty->performance metric is taken. When they start their new life, they might be in a city with even more zombies than the town had, depending on how well they did in the town. That would keep every new life unique and keep them in the flow channel. This also poses some problems with development time as well as makes death a little less permadeath-y.
[quote name='kseh' timestamp='1356576019' post='5014585']
Typically I look at hard level of difficulties as just being a few arbitrary adjustments to damage calculation formulas. It might be cool to know that one mode represents reality a little more closely.
[/quote]
Do you mean having a "Relaxed" mode and a "Realistic" mode? I suppose as long as you made both equally exciting to play that would work (if that's even what you mean).
This thread makes me think that maybe it should be hard to be a Navy Seal, or Spiderman, or whatever larger than life character you take on. The tasks that such characters would take on are pretty extraordinary. Typically I look at hard level of difficulties as just being a few arbitrary adjustments to damage calculation formulas. It might be cool to know that one mode represents reality a little more closely.
">this video this morning, and am impressed by things like that (not the shot, but the amount of time they invested just to line up the shot). Role-playing of realistic military situations.
I wouldn't invest that kind of time, but I think there might be a decent niche market for games that cater to gamers without huge amounts of time to spend, but wanting semi-realistic simulations. One game that I enjoyed very much that would almost fit in such a category was a Halflife 2 mod called 'Insurgency' (now defunct). Not a 'realism' sim, but not a run-and-gun FPS either.
If you haven't played it, Eve Online is another good demonstration of tough punishment heavily shaping the game, with pretty much the expected results. It's not permadeath, but permaloss, and the emotion it drums up is just as heavy I would say. Honestly a loss of a good ship in Eve hurt more than the loss of a good permadeath RAcast in PSO, but Eve isn't bittersweet. Just bitter. It is incredibly punishing when something goes wrong in PvE, to the point that you basically don't want to risk something going wrong. While the same system makes PvP super un-rewarding to get into for quite some time.
As expected, this all means that there is much more meaning to everything. Much more harsh than most games, but the game is in its 10th year now and is only more popular than it has ever been, and I'm pretty certain that would have been a completely different story if losses were softer on the player. Again it shows that maybe permadeath is better suited to games where there's an online community within which the player can be proud. As JTippetts said, solo permadeath play means needing to find a way to make all the replaying not suck.
So on that note, forever run games work. Jetpack Joyride, Agent Dash, or Ski Safari (which I love) are examples. So maybe this means that if you want to design a good permadeath game, you're limited to either arcadey blasts or online communities.
I can't think of both happening in one game. How cool would that be... to watch the playerbase of something like Ski Safari fizzle out, live, as you progress further and further.
Author
[quote name='Servant of the Lord' timestamp='1356583851' post='5014603']
I wouldn't invest that kind of time, but I think there might be a decent niche market for games that cater to gamers without huge amounts of time to spend, but wanting semi-realistic simulations.
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Definitely. It seems that some people's primary turn-ons are the realism of the game, even if it's brutally difficult. I've never really played one, but flight simulators tend to be massively realistic and not very nice to new players, but people still like to play them.
[quote name='Defend' timestamp='1356600845' post='5014650']
If you haven't played it, Eve Online is another good demonstration of tough punishment heavily shaping the game, with pretty much the expected results. It's not permadeath, but permaloss, and the emotion it drums up is just as heavy I would say. Honestly a loss of a good ship in Eve hurt more than the loss of a good permadeath RAcast in PSO, but Eve isn't bittersweet. Just bitter. It is incredibly punishing when something goes wrong in PvE, to the point that you basically don't want to risk something going wrong. While the same system makes PvP super un-rewarding to get into for quite some time.
[/quote]
When games like Eve Online have that kind of punishment, everything has much more value. When you do complete a challenge that you might not have been completely prepared for and it was a close match, nothing is better than that feeling. Taking risks than having them come out fruitfully is a very satisfying feeling. All that tension is released and you are rewarded with in game items and a blast of happy drugs from the brain.
[quote name='Defend' timestamp='1356600845' post='5014650']
I can't think of both happening in one game. How cool would that be... to watch the playerbase of something like Ski Safari fizzle out, live, as you progress further and further.
[/quote]
That would be a pretty sweet effect. Then once you get further than the 99% you're all alone, feeling like a total boss.
Fascinating how such a simple experiment can yield such interesting results. Thanks! +1!
Author
I was thinking about having even more permanent deaths than normal permadeath, such that the game itself would be deleted and the player would effectively be banned for life from the game. If it was a physical copy they would have to return it to the store. I usually label it "PERMAdeath" when it is really permanent.
The only problems with PERMAdeath would be that it might seriously turn off the player from experimenting with the game. This could be especially disastrous with a game involving frequent risking of life. It would likely get in the way of learning the game system and potentially turn the player off for future releases/sequels. It could succeed in small scale mini/casual games where the game itself doesn't mean nearly as much.
Basically, PERMAdeath would be even more difficult to succeed with than normal permadeath.
Also, a version of permadeath multiplayer could exist if the player was kicked from the server as soon as they died. This could result in more detachment from the server because they fear that they will never see it again if they perish (which could be a hefty price indeed). That sort of system might also result in players dying on a server to make the future players on that server's lives a little easier (ie by constructing more defences against the undead but dying from them eventually).
I have something to add.
I grew up on the Pokemon generation of games. You catch pokemon, raise them, and battle them. I've played these since I was 5 and most of them I've restarted 3 or 4 times. Then my friends introduced to me something called the "Nuzlocke Challenge". When you fight with Pokemon, if they lose their health, they faint and must be taken to a health center to be revived, meaning they can't be used in battle.
In the Nuzlocke challenge, when a Pokemon faints, it is considered dead and you must release it or put it away until the game has been finished. You can also only catch the first pokemon you find in each area, which means rare pokemon are incredibly rare and you may end up with multiple of the same species that you don't want. In addition, there are certain moves (Flash to light up a cave, Cut to cut down trees blocking paths, Surf to swim across water) that take up one of a Pokemon's four move slots. You must carefully balance these moves with the other battle moves as you must have pokemon that can do these functions and you must be ready to have a plan if one of your pokemon with Cut dies and you have to get across an area that needs it.
It also means that when you meet one of the few "legendary" pokemon in the game, which can take 15-20 restarts to catch, you either have to risk missing it forever or using the one Master Ball in the game (if you've found it) that will catch anything.
This was a very fun challenge for me since I had pretty much mastered the game at that point. However, I did get disheartened with it after I lost 3 of my strongest party of 6 at one time
I grew up on the Pokemon generation of games. You catch pokemon, raise them, and battle them. I've played these since I was 5 and most of them I've restarted 3 or 4 times. Then my friends introduced to me something called the "Nuzlocke Challenge". When you fight with Pokemon, if they lose their health, they faint and must be taken to a health center to be revived, meaning they can't be used in battle.
In the Nuzlocke challenge, when a Pokemon faints, it is considered dead and you must release it or put it away until the game has been finished. You can also only catch the first pokemon you find in each area, which means rare pokemon are incredibly rare and you may end up with multiple of the same species that you don't want. In addition, there are certain moves (Flash to light up a cave, Cut to cut down trees blocking paths, Surf to swim across water) that take up one of a Pokemon's four move slots. You must carefully balance these moves with the other battle moves as you must have pokemon that can do these functions and you must be ready to have a plan if one of your pokemon with Cut dies and you have to get across an area that needs it.
It also means that when you meet one of the few "legendary" pokemon in the game, which can take 15-20 restarts to catch, you either have to risk missing it forever or using the one Master Ball in the game (if you've found it) that will catch anything.
This was a very fun challenge for me since I had pretty much mastered the game at that point. However, I did get disheartened with it after I lost 3 of my strongest party of 6 at one time
On a completely unrelated note to the conversations going on here... really completely totally not related in any way...
Everyone here should try THIS GAME.
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