The Death of the Death Penalty

[VentilatorOfDoom]

<p>The Escapist <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8450-Experienced-Points-The-Death-of-the-Death-Penalty" target="_blank">takes a look</a> at the continual reduction of penalties for dying in video games.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>The single-player game <em>Too Human</em> was widely criticized for its lengthy death animation. It was twenty seconds long, which is far shorter than even the relatively gentle penalties of <em>World of Warcraft</em>. So one of the most punishing single-player games is less severe than one of the gentlest online games. Why is this? People making online games have decided that games need to punish players for failure, but I wonder how many of them have stepped back and asked why this is and what the punishment is supposed to accomplish.</p>
<p>We can look at this by taking these ideas to their extremes. A game where death is permanent would only appeal to the hardest of the hardcore masochists. On the other hand, you can imagine a game where there was no death penalty at all. If you fall in battle, you pop right back up at full health with no interruption at all and keep playing. Since this would basically make you invulnerable, I don't think that would be fun either. There would be no reason to learn to play well, because it wouldn't be any different or more rewarding than playing ineptly.</p>
<p>So games do need some sort of death penalty, but I don't think they need very much. Single player games are still fun, even though they never inflict more than a minute or two of entertainment damage on the player. People still work to get good at them and desire to learn to play them well. Death brings about a break in forward progress and flow, and I think that very little additional punishment is needed to make death unpleasant for most people. I know when I play <em>World of Warcraft</em> I strive to avoid it, even when I'm under level ten and death has no penalty. I don't like failure, and I suspect that's true of most people that sit down to play a videogame. The desire to learn and the drive to do well provide a great deal of incentive for players to avoid dying, and is probably a far better motivator than grind-inducing XP debt.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The first step is the removal of punishment for failure, the next step is to make sure the player can't even fail. Because failure is not fun. And when I say failure I do of course mean deferred success.</p>
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<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/100796-the-death-of-the-death-penalty.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>

 

[Konjad]

One of the reasons why Haven & Hearth is the best MMO: Permanent Death.

 

[jiduthie]

Running around as a ghost in UO screaming "oOOOoooOO0O" was half the fun for me. Wasn't there even a skill that let you understand what a ghost was saying? Bloody useless that was. He's dead, why do I give a fuck what he's saying?

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

So we are moving toward a PST revival?

 

[SkepticsClaw]

What this guy apparently doesn't get is that death penalties change the feel of a game. Permadeath, especially, makes the feeling of dying actually a bad and frustrating one. Much like dying in real life, this will influence the player to avoid this outcome. The pressure to avoid dying therefore increases the tension and excitement of the game, making it more interesting to play. Possibly the most simple argument since forever, so why do people find this so hard to understand?

Really, the idea that no player should feel negative emotion while playing a game is just fucking dumb. It's like that crappy art movement that insisted all true artwork should be happy and uplifting and edifying. And consequently, desperately boring.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Running around as a ghost in UO screaming "oOOOoooOO0O" was half the fun for me. Wasn't there even a skill that let you understand what a ghost was saying? Bloody useless that was. He's dead, why do I give a fuck what he's saying?

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Wow he is right and that is why no one likes Demon souls becaus that game punishes you A LOT for dying.

Yep no one likes Demon souls in any way.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

What this guy apparently doesn't get is that death penalties change the feel of a game. Permadeath, especially, makes the feeling of dying actually a bad and frustrating one.

I find permadeath much less frustrating than reloads. Also, it allows a high score table and YASD posts :D .

 

[SolipsisticUrge]

From now on, all damage taken from enemy bullets/swords/magic/whatever will only affect your character's demeanor. More damage, a frownier face. "Healing" spells will restore the character's good will and generally positive disposition on life and plowing through hordes of nameless, inefficient foes with reckless abandon.

 

[Yeesh]

The issue is important yet tired, while the "article" is trivial. The difference between MMOs and single player CRPGs is that in MMOs you can't save. Lots of CRPGs (and other games) have so-called permanent death, but when you reach that game over screen, you just revert to your last saved state. In MMOs you can't. That's why the death systems are night and day. Seems pretty obvious.

Anyway, tough death penalties in SP games just leads to reloading. Most game developers strive to find the sweet spot where players have the incentive to keep characters alive, but are willing to play through instead of reloading every time one dies. And that's a very tricky balancing act which doesn't make anyone around here very happy.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Wow he is right and that is why no one likes Demon souls becaus that game punishes you A LOT for dying.

Yep no one likes Demon souls in any way.

I can't even believe that the Demon Souls death penalty was considered 'hardcore' or whatever. All you did was drop all your experience on the ground in a place that was guaranteed to be reachable. It didn't even respawn, so the only way you could lose anything was if you weren't paying attention and fell off a cliff while running back to your body.

If anything, Demon Souls should be the bare minimum of what a death penalty should be. In 99% of cases its no penalty at all, just a bit of tension over whether you will lose some XP or not. Contrast this to Diablo 2, where you lose all your equipment (and therefore are most likely 80% weaker while running back), in addition to permanent XP loss regardless of what you do.

 

[Radisshu]

Demon's Souls is pretty difficult, but it doesn't punish you a lot for dying at all. You drop your souls, but get to keep all your stats and your phat loot.

 

[Hamster]

Running around as a ghost in UO screaming "oOOOoooOO0O" was half the fun for me. Wasn't there even a skill that let you understand what a ghost was saying? Bloody useless that was. He's dead, why do I give a fuck what he's saying?

 

[PorkaMorka]

One (of the many) things that makes single player RPGs and strategy games so shitty compared to multiplayer games and roguelikes is reloading/lack of death penalty.

KoTC is a pretty sweet game, but it is dragged down by the (correct) feeling that nothing I'm doing really "matters" at all, since I will just reload and try again if I fail. I may have started out with a desire to avoid reloading, but the game is designed around a certain amount of reloading.

This saps all the tension out of the combat, as there are no consequences to failure.

Compare to combat in say DC:SS or (old school) Ultima Online, where there are permanent in game consequences to death. This adds incredible tension to the combat and actual feelings of exhilaration when you survive a close one.

The adrenaline rush I used to get in UO was an incredible achievement for a video game, something I've only otherwise had on the sports field, in a fight, or in a near automobile collision, despite UO combat being relatively slow paced and simple, the consequences of it really made that struggle to survive one of the best game experiences ever.

 

[Melcar]

Running around as a ghost in UO screaming "oOOOoooOO0O" was half the fun for me. Wasn't there even a skill that let you understand what a ghost was saying? Bloody useless that was. He's dead, why do I give a fuck what he's saying?

 

[SkepticsClaw]

I agree with PorkaMorka.

Some of the absolute best gaming experiences I've had was with the old (awesome) hardcore driving sim Grand Prix Legends - online, realistic damage, no resets. Even something as simple as making a simple pass was about the peak of gaming excitement, because you knew you'd done something that was actually skillful and on the knife edge between triumph and disaster; get your lines even a foot wrong and you would be upside down on fire in a ditch. I never came close to winning, but even finishing a race and being competitive felt like a triumph.

It's pretty interesting to note that you could of course just stop playing the game and delete your save file if you get killed in a game. There's nothing stopping you. But who would actually do that? Nobody. Nobody likes losing, even if you rationalise it as improving the game experience. I like evil failure penalties, but in the aftermath I'm always pretty pissed off because I *know* there's nothing I can do to get it back.

 

[DraQ]

One (of the many) things that makes single player RPGs and strategy games so shitty compared to multiplayer games and roguelikes is reloading/lack of death penalty.

Itz like this thing DraQ was talking about.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Running around as a ghost in UO screaming "oOOOoooOO0O" was half the fun for me. Wasn't there even a skill that let you understand what a ghost was saying? Bloody useless that was. He's dead, why do I give a fuck what he's saying?

Tell me they didn't fucking add that for real.

 

[racofer]

Well.... they did :/

 

[GarfunkeL]

One (of the many) things that makes single player RPGs and strategy games so shitty compared to multiplayer games and roguelikes is reloading/lack of death penalty.

Not necessarily.

This saps all the tension out of the combat, as there are no consequences to failure.

While what you say about UO is absolutely true and I experienced it as well, there is that factor in SP-games as well - sure you can reload but reloading is always, to an extent, banging your head against the wall. There is an inherent frustration in that you are not progressing and you have to rely on loading. You might lose some game-time, you definitely lose some RL-time and there might be other repercussions. So it's not like there are no consequences at all.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One (of the many) things that makes single player RPGs and strategy games so shitty compared to multiplayer games and roguelikes is reloading/lack of death penalty.

Itz like this thing DraQ was talking about.

Itz like this thing Awor Szurkrarz was talking about.

Also, people reload in strategy games? Seriously, how lame can it get?

 

[GlutenBurger]

KoTC is a pretty sweet game, but it is dragged down by the (correct) feeling that nothing I'm doing really "matters" at all, since I will just reload and try again if I fail. I may have started out with a desire to avoid reloading, but the game is designed around a certain amount of reloading.

This saps all the tension out of the combat, as there are no consequences to failure.

This is very true when you're a kid and feel like you have infinite time, but I find that now I'm a grown up with proper responsibilities there's a greater sense that time spent reloading computer games is a very real drain on the actual timeframe of my actual life. I don't want to reload the same battle 20 times when I could be doing something productive with that extra time, so every death feels like a very real stab to the heart.

I'm not saying you're childish for reloading, just suggesting that perhaps the cost of time involved in a reload is underrated. It's certainly something that I want to avoid. That 20 second death sequence in Too Human, for instance, would really have grated on me if it was unskippable (I haven't played it so I don't know whether it's skippable.)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Demon's Souls is pretty difficult, but it doesn't punish you a lot for dying at all. You drop your souls, but get to keep all your stats and your phat loot.

It's also kinda part of the experience, what with the messages / warnings you can leave to other players.

Also, in mmos it takes longer to recover from death because mmos are designed to be as time-consuming as possible - the time you spend running back to your corpse is time you spend playing the game and getting involved with it. Any other argument about "proper punishment" or whatever is design wankery.

 

[Yeesh]

One (of the many) things that makes single player RPGs and strategy games so shitty compared to multiplayer games and roguelikes is reloading/lack of death penalty.

KoTC is a pretty sweet game, but it is dragged down by the (correct) feeling that nothing I'm doing really "matters" at all, since I will just reload and try again if I fail. I may have started out with a desire to avoid reloading, but the game is designed around a certain amount of reloading.

This saps all the tension out of the combat, as there are no consequences to failure.

Compare to combat in say DC:SS or (old school) Ultima Online, where there are permanent in game consequences to death. This adds incredible tension to the combat and actual feelings of exhilaration when you survive a close one.

The adrenaline rush I used to get in UO was an incredible achievement for a video game, something I've only otherwise had on the sports field, in a fight, or in a near automobile collision, despite UO combat being relatively slow paced and simple, the consequences of it really made that struggle to survive one of the best game experiences ever.

I mean, really? You're going to say that outside of roguelikes, there's no single player game with challenging gameplay because you can reload? That's quite an indictment of single player gaming.

Listen, you can get a rush from car crashes (you should see Crash, obviously), but just like the tortured, sexy souls in that movie, you have to recognize that that's just you, man. It's ok to be yourself, but just because you're the minority that thrives on the idea that one wrong move can cost you 50 hours of gameplay doesn't mean that kind of gameplay is inherently more compelling. Because most of us aren't that fond of it. Even here, most people don't play iron-man until they're familiar with the game inside and out.

And of course said iron-man modes do exist, self-imposed and otherwise.

Also, in mmos it takes longer to recover from death because mmos are designed to be as time-consuming as possible - the time you spend running back to your corpse is time you spend playing the game and getting involved with it. Any other argument about "proper punishment" or whatever is design wankery.

An MMO like WoW (which is to say, the way they all want to be) relies not at all on the time you spend being dead. There's plenty to keep you busy while you're alive.

But I still can't believe we're talking about MMOs and SP CRPGs at the same time, since the mechanics of death in them are completely separate due to their being played so vastly differently.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I mean, really? You're going to say that outside of roguelikes, there's no single player game with challenging gameplay because you can reload? That's quite an indictment of single player gaming.

I said tension, not challenge. Two very different things. There are plenty of challenging single player games, but if you know you can try again after 15 seconds of quick loading, it's more of a puzzle than a struggle to survive. Calm and measured trial and error to figure out the strategy to win with a low cost, whereas in DC:SS you might end up desperately trying to survive through a very sub optimal strategy as your mistakes pile up and get you deeper and deeper into a hole.

My tolerance for single player gaming has significantly declined over time, but sometimes a sufficiently well done puzzle is still interesting. (like in KOTC)

Listen, you can get a rush from car crashes, but just like the tortured, sexy souls in that movie, you have to recognize that that's just you, man.

No, it's normal to get an adrenaline rush when you think you're going to die in real life, that's the purpose of adrenaline, fight or flight. What's impressive is for a video game to do it, especially one based on cute 2d sprites.

Not necessarily something every game has to aspire to, but still something noteworthy.

Even here, most people don't play iron-man until they're familiar with the game inside and out.

And of course said iron-man modes do exist, self-imposed and otherwise.

Yeah but ironman in games designed for reloading isn't really fun, as you'd have to have a hell of a lot of free time to sit through 80 hours of baldur's gate 2 ironman if you died on the final boss or whatever.

Games with strong death penalties need to be designed with that in mind obviously.

 

[Kraszu]

It's ok to be yourself, but just because you're the minority that thrives on the idea that one wrong move can cost you 50 hours of gameplay doesn't mean that kind of gameplay is inherently more compelling.

I like how permanent death change the gameplay, but I don't want to replay the same content so too me perma death works only in games that are build to support it.

As for loosing 50h that depends on how you approach the game, if I liked the game then I don't consider that time lost even if I didn't complete the ending criteria of the game. As long as the game is randomized enough to not make replay the same content.