This week we'd like to know how you would handle death penalties...

I would probably do without them altogether. Players don't like failure and I see no reason to punish the player on top of that. Having to respawn and try again is annoying enough.

I'm for death penalties because I believe it makes combat more meaningful and mostly because I think it make people stop and think about combat more rather than just zerging everything with no strategy. I believe this is a horrible trend I've been seeing in MMOs and would have a beneficial effect on PUGs.

However, instead of a boring timer or XP penalty, the player has to fight their way out of a jail or villain hideout for reduced XP, maybe even zero XP if they get thrown in the clink multiple times in a 24 hour period. You could also tie a couple badges/achievements to it but I'm conflicted on that because that would possibly incentivize poor gameplay.

This would be interesting but unless the place you'd need to escape from was randomly generated you'd get bored after a couple times escaping.

I would like to see one like CoH. If you die, you have to run back but i would also like to see a hard-core mode where if you die, you die for good. nothing gets your blood pumping then knowing if you die, you stay dead or at the very least, lose all your gear.

Perma Death doesn't really fit in an MMORPG.

There are many different valid ways to go about this. However, whichever way you go will impact how I, at least, perceive the game. For me, if it is anything beyond CoH I'll be finding my gaming time elsewhere. I absolutely hate losing gear, or equipment degradation (having to "repair" gear). Or the worse is xp loss / penalties. I am not a "power" gamer. I don't go from level 1 to the top in a week. I work full time, and have parts of my life that keep me busy outside of gaming. Most MMOs have become grindfests as it is. XP penalties, again to me, just make it seem like more of a grind. Sure, I love challenging game play, I love an epic win moment. But, the thing most important to me is story.
TLDR: Having to respawn is "penalty" enough for me.

ZeeHero wrote:
What he said.

In my big o' notebook of game design ideas that I will never get to, I had some ideas for how to make death more interesting. Some work more in a fantasy setting but since this is the 'How would you do it' kind of thread, I will go ahead.

I like SavageFists ideas. I think a death-penalty does make combat and trying not to die more meaningful. The xp debt in CoH was pretty meaningless to me. I just ignored it and did the grind through it like it was part of the leveling. An interesting twist on it would be nice. If you randomly got intercepted on the way to the hospital and had to escape an enemy lair would be cool. Maybe there is a progression on how bad the penalty gets. First you just go to the hospital, each time after increases the change you get intercepted by enemies. Eventually you may respawn with a random disease that reduces attack power or heath recovery. There could be items that fix these problems too. To make it work, it would have to have some randomness to it. Some combination of randomness of if it triggers and what happens would be nice. It is tricky though, because you don't want it to make it a nuisance. Maybe limit it to upper level characters or more challenging areas.

As for Takrons hardcore mode, I love the mode in Diablo 3, but I am not sure how it would transfer to a superhero MMO. If it could be implemented well, I would totally be on board. Nothing makes you focus and fear more than perma-death. Obviously not a for all players, but a hardcore server might be interesting. This really makes you feel like you have accomplished something when you reach the higher levels. Not everyone can do it easily so it means more.

Star Trek Online has an injury system for instanced content above a certain difficulty level where the more you die the more you get debuffed unless you use a certain medical item to remove the injury or visit a sickbay (in hub areas only) where your injuries would all be removed for free.

This made death have a meaning for future performance without being overly annoying.

Dying and re-spawning is bad enough, but adding xp loss or even armor repair would take away the enjoyment even more in my opinion.

Captain Freedom wrote:
I always hated armor degradation in games. Also being dependent on items like gear doesn't really fit the theme of a super hero game very well. Heres hoping the "gear" is all based on enhancements we slot in our powers or something.

ZeeHero wrote:
agreed

the only way to make death in a game "meaningful" is to have a thug squad go to the players house and beat them. Having them have to break out would penalize groups because no one could rez and run back.

I'll give some thoughts. I didn't mind debt so much in CoH in later games, as it was small enough it was quickly taken care of. But I felt the amount you could accumulate was far to much; if you got in a horrible team, niceties could either go out the window to save yourself from slowing your leveling far to much, OR you'd end up with half a level of debt to deal with. Bad players had things especially frutrating in that they'd level up super slow, and while you'd think more time = learning more thats not always the case. Sometimes there isn't anything new to learn at a level range and debt keeps you there, and bad players generally don't tend to learn very well(either due to foo strat dependency or just not willing to learn). But debt didn't really mean anything at level 50; who cares if I lost some influence later, cared even less when influence became so devalued that I was more worried about things which debt could never effect: IO recipe drops and the massive profits I made from them.

I also dispise however losing max health/energy after dying to though, aka guild wars. It was impossible to avoid dying excessively if you fell below like 40% death penalty as your lowered max health made it easier for you to die, and enemy npc's would auto-target the player with the most death penalty automatically in a team, causing that player to become a perpetual punching bag.

To me, debt wasn't bad but I feel it had to be small. coH the debt per death was about right in missions later(about 1/5th an experience bar, or 2% of experience needed to level), but I felt the max debt (50% of experience needed to level) was to high. I also wouldn't want to have health loss from dying in an mmorpg where we can fight mobs in city zones.

If CoH taught us anything, player death shouldn't be a burden to advancing a character.

Games have taken various approaches to player death over the years. Respawning at the start, timers, debt, limited health. From the standpoint of a hero game I think defeat (as death is non-permanent) should be handled as actually a non-happening through the early stages of a game as a player is learning how to play their character. Then through the middle and upper stages defeat/death should be based on the average difficulty of completing missions. Thus if you have say 50 player levels, 1-15 have no penalty, 16-30 15% earning hit, 31-40 25% earning hit, 41-50 40% earning hit. The earning hit would only last 2 missions on a gameplay timer/difficulty system. Once a death occurs an in-mission timer is tripped, any subsequent deaths do not add more 'time' to the timer. If the difficulty of a mission is above a certain mark and the player completes it successfully without a death the timer is zero'd out. Thus the earning hit exists, but is limited. Earnings outside of missions such a street sweeps would have no effect on either timer or earnings.

Death penalty does not have to be harsh, but it has to be there. CoH had it right.

Without even a mild penalty, death WILL BE USED AS A TRAVEL POWER. And that's totally ridicoulus and immersion breaking.

One other thing: If i save a mate while putting my self at risk, this seems like a heroic deed. Well, it isn't if death has no meaning at all.

I guess some people do enjoy dying in games if they feel that way..

For some characters, Death is part of the character concept. My immersion is not your immersion and your immersion is not someone elses immersion. Immersion is not a universal value.

I found this line in this article and agree with it. *warning, it is a lonngg article*

"I believe it is a great disservice to these players as they will not have a deterrent like the death penalty to convince them to improve their performance and raise their level of skill."

If there is no death penalty, I will definitely be avoiding PUGs. I won't have their immersion(or lack thereof) ruin mine.

So far some really good comments.

I think there must be a penalty. The days of serious penalties (EverQuest 1 where you lost all of your gear...naked run or backup gear to go get it) are probably in the past for MMOs. I understand the appeal to make things challenging and have a real sense of accomplishment in a game. However today's market is more about the casual gamer and if VO wants a piece of the pie, then they need to set the table.

Like everything, what is needed is balance. Death needs to have meaning to the player but it can't kill the fun. Creative solutions are great (like the captured/breakout scenario detailed above) but they need to be approached with the idea or repeated deaths in mind. Perhaps if a faction/renown system is implemented, then death could impact it negatively? What about sidekicks, who wants to join a hero that is constantly defeated? Maybe repeated death will require a "Mentor Mission" where an established hero takes you under his/her wing before you can go out on your own again.

Keep in mind though that death in a solo mission is itself a penalty in time invested by the player.

A lot to consider here, glad to see the discussion.

A limited amount of XP debt would be highly preferable to a forced mentorship for dying repeatedly. that would simply make people avoid squishy characters since no one wants to be humiliated.

Preferable still to that is no death penalty. players already dislike failure.