Permanent Character Death

[Jinx_Dragon]

Leave it to table top RPGs and the likes...

Computer games are NOT flexible enough to allow for permi-death sadly. There is no real way to continue on with the plot line, which many people would rather do then have to restart and replay everything they have already done, without a save function. Re-rolling, for example, would require you to completely ignoring the fact the new character has to be worked into the plot from their own perspectives. This would just mimic a save function, particularly out side of RPGs, in any case.

EG: In Arcanum the main hero of the story survives a blimp crash and stumbles into filling the criteria for a prophecy. If he was to die off and be 're-rolled' then it would mean the potential for thousands on thousands of survives from that blimp crash or that the prophecy was so badly written that anyone could apply. Hence the only option, on death, would be to RESTART the game from scratch and try again to make it fit the plot.

The restarting option has a very big flaw: It gets old, FAST. Very few people have the patience to watch the first third of the plot line over and over again so unless you make the game so easy that a brain dead child could win it... well you will soon have people bitching that they can't see what is over the next cliff hanger. This does not make for good PR and likely your game will fail, and any other game you produce will carry the stigma of being made by a designer who frustrated a good 9/10ths of the gaming base.

Besides could you imagine the frustration of getting all the way to the end and then having something stupid such as your mouse batteries dieing, RL destruction or the likes killing you? How many broken computers would that cause I wonder....

 

[blaze96]

If done correctly, any idea could come off as a positive. I mean, as long as it isn't completely insane.

 

[Zayren]

Most games have an autosave function, you know.

In Oblivion and Fallout, you can turn it off.

 

[Pellucid]

I think it would be interesting if an MMO decided to do this. People wouldn't take as many risks, and the PVP would be much more interesting, because instead of a minor annoyance, they would seriously lose their characters, and all of the work they did.

If I ever get a chance to work on an MMO, I'd propose a "permanent XP" and a "temporary XP" system. Every time you gained XP, 1/10th of it would be permanent and the other 9/10ths of it would be temporary and, when you died, you'd lose all of your temporary XP and go back down to the level that your new XP total would support.

Of course, my game would be an MMOFPS and so this wouldn't be a loss of hours of work, it would be a loss of a short period of work. Really, the temporary XP would be more like a huge amount of bonus XP you'd get for long killing sprees without dying. Note also that there would be medics in the game who worked more like real-life medics, saving comrades who are bleeding out on the battlefield and thus preserving their temporary XP even though they got dropped.

 

[typhado]

trying this in a mmo would lead to a lot of problems.

 

[CuervoJoe]

Isn't this basically Iron man mode?

It would work, and make you more careful as to what you do, but I think an option to enable or disable it would be good.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

edit, posted before I intended to, sorry. Will edit it back soon.

Edit 2, apologies for the double post just below.

 

[S53]

Permanent......not so much. Trial error is important in a video game.

 

[GuerrillaClock]

Apparently because it's trying to be a war game. If you have seen great war movies like Deer Hunter, Platoon or Das Boot, you know they aren't exactly cheery or full of badass action either. The very best parts of Das Boot are about a bunch of men sitting still in silence and being very afraid.

That's a pretty poor comparison. Those films are all iconic for the powerhouse acting allowing you to identify with the characters and also very well-written stories and script, meant to incite emotion rather than just fear. Permadeath is akin to being afraid of turfed out halfway through a film if you happen to cough. You might be afraid that de Niro will end up shooting himself in the russian roulette game, however that's the last thing on your mind because you're so focused on not coughing.

Who said anything about spending most of the time in a practice arena? You said, "If a gamer wants to try something out, they should be free to do so without having the fear of having hours of hard work brushed into the bin." If you get some wild tactic idea, need to test a weapon or something, then popping into an in-game simulator for a minute would be a reasonable way to try it out - without fear - before you take it to battle. Doesn't break the immersion, either.

Of course it's an immersion breaker! The biggest one going! Having a player constantly worry about losing their save data is a massive way to lose immersion, because it stops you giving a toss about your character on an emotional level, which you do in, for example, Eternal Darkness. All you care about is saving them from being wiped. Think about it. You aren't afraid of, say, this bad guy who's shooting at you, you're afraid of the fact that if he hits you your save data will be gone! It's the ultimate 4th wall breaker, and as such the ultimate immersion breaker as well. If people are truly afraid of this, then they will not want to take the risk of losing their avatar, so they will spend more time than is reasonable in the simulator. It's a lose-lose scenario: If a player isn't afraid, then the mechanic has failed and the player loses their save data repeatedly. If a player is afraid, then you could argue the mechanic has worked to some degree but then they will not want to risk stepping out of the simulator, and will soon tire. And then their character will die.

Videogames only have one purpose now? What is it, and does it apply to movies as well?

Would you buy a game if it wasn't entertaining? True, games can be a lot of things, but of all the things a game tries to do, they all need to be done in an entertaining way. Entertainment isn't just blowing shit up, you know. It's entertaining to grow attached to a character, it's entertaining to be afraid for them, and it's entertaining to be sad as they die, because it all takes place in a fantasy world than can touch you, but never hurt you. If this wasn't true, people would never watch anything other than Michael Bay films. Why watch a film that makes you scared, or sad, if you weren't also entertained by it? The same applies to video games.

There is a game mechanic in Mario which kills Mario when he ends up at the bottom of the screen. When you play, are you afraid of the mechanic? Nope, you are afraid of falling into a pit.
And likewise, if your character can be permakilled by getting hit by an airstrike and not ejecting in time, that makes you afraid of missiles and bombs and possibly fumbling the eject.

Anyway, how can the devs of a mech game make the player fear the enemy as hard as they could with perma-death? You claimed this is possible.

In Mario, you avoid the pit because you want to get to the end of the level. You want to collect coins. You want to save the princess. It offers you a carrot for success, rather than a stick for failure. You talk as if games without permadeath somehow encourage a gamer to play as if bashing their head against a brick wall - as if they don't care when they die. With permadeath, you do not fear any objects in the game, you fear the game itself, and this is not entertainment, this is punishment. If I was playing Chromehounds, for example, I would fear death just as much as if I was playing a mech game with permadeath. Why? Because people don't want to fail! They don't like dying and realising that they just aren't good enough! I don't want to experience that, so I try very hard to pass the challenge! With permadeath, you are not fearing the death of a character or the failure itself, you are fearing your save data going out the window, along with it all your hard work and any emotional investment you may have made to that game. It's an extra stick that the game doesn't have to beat you with, but does anyway because the devs couldn't be arsed making it emotional any other way. You aren't upset enough that you failed? Well, we'll attack you, the player, personally by ripping the last 5 hours of your life out of your console and setting them on fire! Now you HAVE to be angry!

 

[Bigeyez]

If done well player death can be good. The key though is making it actually work and not be frustrating. Steel Battalion is a good example. Player death makes sense in the game because the game is striving to be a mech sim. If you don't hit eject your dead.

Player death in say Halo would be a horrible idea. Think about playing Halo on legendary where one death equals game over...not fun.

 

[Bernzz]

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is doing that, in a way. If your character dies it's not game over, but things involving your other three AI squad members is realistic. Be stupid and keep making them charge MG emplacements and they abandon you.

One of these realistic things is that if, during the single play campaign, that they die...then for the rest of the campaign on that file, they're gone. For good.

 

[S53]

If done well player death can be good. The key though is making it actually work and not be frustrating. Steel Battalion is a good example. Player death makes sense in the game because the game is striving to be a mech sim. If you don't hit eject your dead.

Player death in say Halo would be a horrible idea. Think about playing Halo on legendary where one death equals game over...not fun.

Or COD4 on Veteran. Hell, even COD2 on Veteran.

I would break my controller.

 

[soren7550]

I don't really enjoy the idea of your character's permanent death if you screw up during gameplay.

Storywise though, that's a different subject.

 

[Jirlond]

Permanent death would be a problem in modern games because of the time taken to complete them!

People would get fed up and the number of people completing games would plummet.

Permanent Death used to be a thing in M.U.Ds, but it removes from the user experience, having to play the same part of a game over and over again just to get slightly further and die each time.

All in all - adds, realism but would remove from the "anything is possible", in terms of feats and heroics

 

[jimduckie]

give us the opition to turn it on or off ,or base it on the difficulty setting

 

[Kiroshima]

Of course it's an immersion breaker! The biggest one going! Having a player constantly worry about losing their save data is a massive way to lose immersion, because it stops you giving a toss about your character on an emotional level, which you do in, for example, Eternal Darkness. All you care about is saving them from being wiped. Think about it. You aren't afraid of, say, this bad guy who's shooting at you, you're afraid of the fact that if he hits you your save data will be gone! It's the ultimate 4th wall breaker, and as such the ultimate immersion breaker as well. If people are truly afraid of this, then they will not want to take the risk of losing their avatar, so they will spend more time than is reasonable in the simulator. It's a lose-lose scenario: If a player isn't afraid, then the mechanic has failed and the player loses their save data repeatedly. If a player is afraid, then you could argue the mechanic has worked to some degree but then they will not want to risk stepping out of the simulator, and will soon tire. And then their character will die.

I believe this is the root of the problem. We care too much about US. On ONE insignificant speck in the middle of a grand universe. The problem lies not within the game, but with the player. We cannot trial and error our way through everything, after all, we only get one life to live (so it seems). You don't see people "respawn" after a car accident, as much as we want them to come back. Sure, it was a mistake, but they're still gone. We can't, we shouldn't make death out to be some light thing where it's virtually ignored due to the absence of penalties. It's more serious than that. But it shouldn't be feared, either. You can't gain anything without risking something. You can't save the kingdom without danger of failing. Bad things happen, it is inevitable. This is why life is so meaningful, because of death. Without death, life would be meaningless, undefined, lacking substance.

Or at least, that's how I see things xD.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

It'd be rather hard to apply it fairly in an MMO. Some people's internet is less reliable that others'.

I do think MMO deaths are too easily accepted. It can be sorted and cleared up as if it never happened inside five minutes, and that turns an MMORPG into an MMOG.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

That exists. Do you know what it is? A person only having enough money for one game at an arcade.

 

[freakaknight]

But how annoying and frustrating would that be? ^o)

 

[Aardvark Soup]

The only games I really played with such a mechanic are the Fire Emblem titles. Still a character's dead basically means you'll have to restart the whole chapter (the one time I didn't I seriously regretted it later in the game). Even though this is pretty annoying it does add a lot of strategy to the games and makes you think twice before doing a risky move. Also constantly being afraid something goes wrong and the relief you feel when a character just manages to survive an assault do add a lot of immersion to the games.

So yeah, I think that this can be a very good thing when executed well and used in the right game.