Dying in games.
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Didn't he start playing a didgeridoo when he hit a Nitro crate?nick n stuff said:
OT: I think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory had the perfect save system. The option was presented to you when you got past certain points in a level, but you also had the choice to save whenever you wanted.
Op, your opinions are opposite of mine! 
I think dying is good, depending on the game's difficulty. If a person is playing on very easy, they shouldn't die. If a person is playing on very hard, they should be struggling (assuming first playthrough). I like challenge, but I'm not a masochist or very good at games. I'll never beat the original Ninja Gaiden without cheating and I know it (but I did beat the 2nd xbox one ), but that doesn't mean it needs auto saves every two seconds. Hell, auto saves are kind of annoying. I much prefer being able to make my own system of rotating saves and a constant quicksave (I abuse that quicksave button so much...).
So my point is this: If you don't like dying, play on easy mode.
I think dying is good, depending on the game's difficulty. If a person is playing on very easy, they shouldn't die. If a person is playing on very hard, they should be struggling (assuming first playthrough). I like challenge, but I'm not a masochist or very good at games. I'll never beat the original Ninja Gaiden without cheating and I know it (but I did beat the 2nd xbox one ), but that doesn't mean it needs auto saves every two seconds. Hell, auto saves are kind of annoying. I much prefer being able to make my own system of rotating saves and a constant quicksave (I abuse that quicksave button so much...).So my point is this: If you don't like dying, play on easy mode.
Or plan a better strategy to come back and whoop the ass of whatever killed you?iBlooba said:Why don't you just uhh, get better?
Someone's cranky. You didn't mention it in your OP so I don't know if you know this, but Bioware games have a quicksave option where you just press one little button and you're all done. I spam the hell out of quicksave, good christ. You don't even think about it after a while, it's just habit. A very useful habit.
Anyway, I don't mind dying in games. I wouldn't feel any tension, excitement, triumph or fear if I wasn't under the threat of death and could just frolic my enemies to death. Challenge is neat.
Anyway, I don't mind dying in games. I wouldn't feel any tension, excitement, triumph or fear if I wasn't under the threat of death and could just frolic my enemies to death. Challenge is neat.
I got into the habit of saving every 10 minutes or so because I never knew for sure when the game might decide to freeze up on me. I actually ended up shelving the game once because my save was back about an hour and a half of really productive progress.Phishfood said:
Dying in games is as natural as the birds in the wind, fish in the sea. Of course, a touch more violent.
I would say I'm more of a .. "I'm going to keep playing 'cause I'm too good--ahahahah! Did you see her legs flail and body spaz out--kinda way"No-Superman10 said:
It's kind of interesting, but dying in a game affects me differently now that I'm older than it did when I was a kid. When I was a kid, dying seemed to inspire me to try harder, and to keep playing longer. Sure, I might get frustrated eventually and quit, but not dying was always the challenge I was fighting against. But now, if I die more than a few times in a game, I will usually quit and do something else. I might come back later, but unless the game is really, really exceptionally good it will eventually prompt me to stop playing it. I just don't have time to sink six hours of my day playing the same section of a game over and over again. Plus, I feel like I'm playing for reasons other than to just survive to the end--I try to win in a particular way, or experiment with the different options and ponder the implications, or create a particular little story within the story, etc. Dying until you win just seems overly simplistic to me nowadays.
That being said, I think it is a very hard game mechanic for designers to figure out. A game where death is entertaining is great--I still go back through my old adventure games and spend hours roaming around dying in different ways to enjoy the amusing animations and messages that accompany the many ways to die. But in some games this would undermine the atmosphere. It's a tough balance to strike between rapid reload time (making death no more than a momentary inconvenience and therefore making it have less apparent consequence) and actual punishment (death is significant and takes a bit to recover from, but you risk the players losing interest).
I would say that if it is easy to die, then generally it should be quick and easy to recover. If death is a more significant setback, then it should be harder to die. The real tough decision, however, is in horror games--the perception that it is easy to die will make the game scary, but if you actually die the tension is eliminated and from that point on it's no longer scary, because you've faced the worst the game has to offer and it's not that bad. I would say that for a horror game death should have a consequence and it should be easy to die but also easy to narrowly avoid dying--you want the player to feel fragile and vulnerable, but you want their reaction to be frantic and panic-stricken as they struggle to stay just ahead of the death nipping at their heels. If it's easy to die and hard to avoid dying without knowing what to expect (like in Resident Evil 4), the player will make their first trip into a new area a "recon" mission where they just run in and see what there is to see without trying to survive. Then, they know what to expect and can breeze through it the second time through.
That being said, I think it is a very hard game mechanic for designers to figure out. A game where death is entertaining is great--I still go back through my old adventure games and spend hours roaming around dying in different ways to enjoy the amusing animations and messages that accompany the many ways to die. But in some games this would undermine the atmosphere. It's a tough balance to strike between rapid reload time (making death no more than a momentary inconvenience and therefore making it have less apparent consequence) and actual punishment (death is significant and takes a bit to recover from, but you risk the players losing interest).
I would say that if it is easy to die, then generally it should be quick and easy to recover. If death is a more significant setback, then it should be harder to die. The real tough decision, however, is in horror games--the perception that it is easy to die will make the game scary, but if you actually die the tension is eliminated and from that point on it's no longer scary, because you've faced the worst the game has to offer and it's not that bad. I would say that for a horror game death should have a consequence and it should be easy to die but also easy to narrowly avoid dying--you want the player to feel fragile and vulnerable, but you want their reaction to be frantic and panic-stricken as they struggle to stay just ahead of the death nipping at their heels. If it's easy to die and hard to avoid dying without knowing what to expect (like in Resident Evil 4), the player will make their first trip into a new area a "recon" mission where they just run in and see what there is to see without trying to survive. Then, they know what to expect and can breeze through it the second time through.
I want this cliche to end. I have no clue how my behemoth of a man who can shrug off headshots and dismantle whole armies with his bare hands can be mortally wounded during a cutscene. All I ask for is some consistancy.