What's your preferred death disincentive in a game?

[Cinder]

I saw this question on reddit and thought it was a good one. I will frame the conversation differently, however. In your opinion: what is the best way to integrate death as consequence into a game without it ruining the experience you want to get out of it?

Some examples:

 

Loss of progress on death (perhaps in games with no quick save)

 

Loss of money on death (and sometimes also loss of other resources spent before dying)

 

Perma-death, no measurable downside besides the time you sink into it (like super meatboy)

 

And the only other example I can think of: the Shadow of Mordor thing where when you are killed your enemies are rewarded for doing so and thus they become more powerful and have more underlings at their disposal (they call it the 'nemesis system'...sounds much better). 

 

This relies heavily on the game type I realize so caveats are fine when picking your favorite.

[Strangelove]

I never thought about this, but I guess I like the Bioshock/Borderlands method. You pass through a "save spot" and if you die you come back to it with a full health bar for a fee.

And you get to keep all your progress. All the stuff you got, all the enemies you killed will stay dead and the damage you did on enemies will also remain. You just run back to the fight or go do something else to better prepare.

[Eleven]

^

 

I really don't like death penalties. Frequent checkpoints, even if the enemy respawned, would be what I prefer. Even just losing money is annoying. Losing shit in death has a negative effect on me. It never makes me want to do better or be more careful. It just annoys me.

 

Permadeath? Waste of time.

 

I don't mind having lives vs infinite continues though, I guess that's a bit related. That one does make me want to do better. Usually though games like these are different and having lives are built into gameplay like platformers. Wouldn't really work on a skyrim or a diablo.

[Cinder]

You pass through a "save spot" and if you die you come back to it with a full health bar for a fee.

And you get to keep all your progress. All the stuff you got, all the enemies you killed will stay dead and the damage you did on enemies will also remain. You just run back to the fight or go do something else to better prepare.

I used to be crap at FPS games and in the late game of bioshock I'd run out of ammo occasionally and then have to wrench a big daddy to death over the course of several reincarnated Jacks haha.

Now, I like this system a lot more. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense (it made more sense in Borderlands at least).

 

 

It never makes me want to do better or be more careful. It just annoys me.

 

Permadeath? Waste of time.

Yup and yup. Though if permadeath was tied to narrative somehow, then I'm okay with it. Like in Bioshock: Infinite

where each death is actually a death of a Booker in a separate universe where you failed your mission. It's permadeath in the game without it being permadeath for the player.

 

Edited September 3, 2014 by TheMightyEthan
Spoilers

[Alex Heat]

I also like BioShock's system.  Time is a pretty precious commodity, so anything that opts to flush it down the toilet just grates my nerves.

 

I can deal with it in older games (which weren't as long), but definitely not modern ones.

[Opabinia]

^

 

I really don't like death penalties. Frequent checkpoints, even if the enemy respawned, would be what I prefer. Even just losing money is annoying. Losing shit in death has a negative effect on me. It never makes me want to do better or be more careful. It just annoys me.

 

Permadeath? Waste of time.

 

I don't mind having lives vs infinite continues though, I guess that's a bit related. That one does make me want to do better. Usually though games like these are different and having lives are built into gameplay like platformers. Wouldn't really work on a skyrim or a diablo.

Might as well remove obstacles and enemies heh. Sucks that penalties are becoming taboo now it makes death seem almost uncessary.

[Vecha]

I don't mind there being more "hardcore" DON'T DIE incentives...I feel it should be an option.

[Opabinia]

I don't mind there being more "hardcore" DON'T DIE incentives...I feel it should be an option.

Easy doesn't have it, but anything higher does. Unfortunately developers are usually fixated on punishing or lenience.

[Mr. GOH!]

What a bunch of wuss-ass wimps you all are.

 

Game over and save wipe is the only real death disincentive in video games. Any other method is training wheels.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Mr. GOH!

[Alex Heat]

 

 

 

I went into the light once.

[Cinder]

What a bunch of wuss-ass wimps you all are.

 

Game over and save wipe is the only real death disincentive in video games. Any other method is training wheels.

I will admit that it's very tempting to makes games this way. Game designers like holding you down and making sure you see every amazing thing they sunk time and money into (you see this mostly with AAA games). Because of this they don't have faith in people persisting in a system like that enough to actually experience their game, which is all they really want...if they aren't just after money. Like alex said though, it always is an option in games to do perma-save-file-death (I even plan to do it in Fallout 4 when that comes out).

/rant thing

[Thursday Next]

Prince of Persia Sands of Time death always made me laugh. I believe there was a comic strip or something along the lines of Prince Dastan enthralling people with tales of his exploits.

 

"Then I jumped over the spike pit, did a wall run on the left, then the right, then I missed the platform and fell to my death, and because I had no sand I couldn't rewind... No... That didn't happen..."

[SomTervo]

Very, very nice topic.

 

I personally like the idea of Time Advancement. It looks like Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is gonna nail it with this mechanic.

 

When you die, game-time advances a several days' worth while you are being 'reborn'. During these days, the orcs who are your targets will defeat other orc clans, get stronger, kill each other off, gain new immunities and abilities and kit, and just generally become tougher. The whole tribal-political landscape may change, leaving you with a drastically new set of objectives after death.

 

So basically the game will procedurally/systemically get tougher every time you die. No Darks Souls-style contrived difficulty increase, just the enemies actually learning better stuff.

 

So much potential. I'm also disappointed games like GTA don't use this. GTA already advances time 6-12 hours if you get "killed", so why not implement a Dead Rising style mission system where a mission's "ideal time" runs out after a few days, and dying will change how the mission develops, perhaps making it more difficult? (Rather than Dead Rising's "oh you missed the mission start time limit by 5 seconds? TOUGH LUCK BOZO")

 

EDIT: Cinder, I just noticed you mentioned this! But as well as the enemies being rewarded, as you said, time also advances. Which is awesome. (Chances are in the old-gen versions, there will just be the reward- they have a stripped-back Nemesis system.)

 

What a bunch of wuss-ass wimps you all are.

 

Game over and save wipe is the only real death disincentive in video games. Any other method is training wheels.

I totally agree with this - my problem is that most games which give you such an "Iron Man" option don't let you save your progress at all.

 

I wish more games would let you save, but automatically delete the slot when you die. That would be so amazing and not enough games do it.

 

Perfect example: Dead Space 2-3 or Max Payne 3. Both have difficulty modes where you only have one life. But quitting also counts as dying- it doesn't save your progress at all. You can't really take your time- it feels like the game is forcing you to do a speedrum, which is what the mode is really for.

Edited September 23, 2014 by kenshi_ryden

[Cinder]

can't agree more about GTA 5. They're already going the extra mile to rationalize your death by saying "you're not really wasted, you just had to go to the hospital" they may as well actually give it gameplay implications. They kind of get a slide from since they already make so damn much content, asking for more just seems greedy haha.
 

And I didn't know those Dead Space games and that Max Payne game did that. It's kind of interesting.

I would suggest that maybe some of these game should start doing the harder modes as the default play mode and have the easier modes be the special alternative modes. However, Gods Will Be Watching did that and honestly it just sucked the fun right out of the intended game mode (of course part of that is the randomization where just 'oh, you lose now, sorry you wasted 20 minutes' can happen).

[IDDQD]

Losing is a bummer in itself, I think. If you really need an extra motivation to not lose then there's something missing from the game or it's way too easy. Besides, it depends on the genre. Personally I find the system from Dark Souls the most endearing, because even though the game's difficulty is punishing, at least it gives you a chance to remedy the situation by recovering lost XPs (that is unless you fell from a cliff like an idiot). However, I can't see it being implemented in, say, Call of Duty because it's a game that relies heavily on fast paced setpieces.

 

 

When you die, game-time advances a several days' worth while you are being 'reborn'. During these days, the orcs who are your targets will defeat other orc clans, get stronger, kill each other off, gain new immunities and abilities and kit, and just generally become tougher. The whole tribal-political landscape may change, leaving you with a drastically new set of objectives after death.

 

I agree that the nemesis system is really cool beacuse it adds a lot of depth to the game world, but gameplay-wise it could really use some tweaks. Specifically I'm talking about the fact that the game pauses every time you encounter a captain. It gets especially ridiculous and frustrating when you stumble upon several captains at a time. Not only this leaves me with massive blue balls from interrupting the heat of battle, but it looks kind of stupid when everyone stops dead in their tracks only to listen to some dude repeat one of the several taunts ad nauseum. Also, getting mocked by the enemy who has defeated you only makes me want to launch my TV through a window.

[TheMightyEthan]

I kind of agree that the intros can get ridiculous, but I loved how they would taunt me when they've killed me before.

[SomTervo]

I agree that Nemesis has a few shortcomings, but I think the idea that death isn't a game-halting experience is what makes the problems 100% worthwhile. The fact that when you die your game doesn't 'stop' in an abstract sense is just game-changing (though not original obviously.) In so many games dying is just the shittest thing and it wastes your time. Usually a game has to really, really be fun moment-to-moment and have very quick respawn times to make dying bearable. But if a game can have a system where dying isn't an ending and you keep going in some capacity... That's the way to go.

 

Heavy Rain, as backwards as it is in many ways, nailed this. As did the Souls' games- because you still keep all your kit, your levels, your progression- you just have one chance to get your currency back. Also Roguelikes and games like Spelunky go the opposite direction - death is so quick and so common and so twitch-based that it becomes almost meaningless as a setback.

 

Rogue Legacy's got a really unique way of dealing with this, no?

 

In Rogue Legacy when you die some of your attributes + a random mutation or two get passed down to your next character, because you play an entire lineage of adventurers who all try the same dungeon once they come of age. The time difference means the dungeon is slightly different each time. Phenomenal concept. I might buy it tonight actually.

 

Edit: it's also worth noting that the more emergent a game is the more bearable death is. In the sections of The Last Of Us where they force you to fight, I was actually fine with it, because every fight would go so differently. It was like every time I died I'd get a new action scene straight out of a movie. The stealth sections were actually far more frustrating from a death/failure standpoint, but were still fun.

Edited October 21, 2014 by broom_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

I couldn't disagree more with TLoU: the combat was so terrible I avoided it whenever possible (which luckily is almost always).  Great game overall though.

[SomTervo]

Yeah that's a really interesting discussion I've had with several people actually. Some people detest TLoU's combat, but I felt it fitted with the world and the character perfectly. I still happily load up some of the bigger fights just to engage in the emergent combat. Like the bit when Ellie's watching over you in the square with a rifle. Had so many unique situations happen in that one context.

 

Offtopic rant, and maybe we should move this into the appropriate thread:

The principle of being able to only really fight one person at a time and being locked into a tight camera angle, even in big fights, is horrible on paper, but in practice I found it just promoted the reality of the world and the strategic nature of the gameplay. Gunfighting was good- totally mundane but made special by the high-risk nature of low health/high damage/slow weapons/tense story- but fistfighting would fit into it only in a scrappy, opportunistic way. Like when you saw an opportunity to beat the shit out of some guy and it would be as visceral and savage as in a John Hillcoat movie. And the better you knew the game, the more aware you were of using tables, walls, bricks etc. to make it quicker. Fighting the infected was worse because it was so one-dimensional, but it was still worth it for being the only one left standing, panting and breathless, after an intense fight.

 

On the whole it made you become Joel, which is why I think the game is a masterpiece. I felt it fit with the world and the character perfectly even if it was mechanically unsound.

 

 

Subjectivity, subjectivity, subjectivity. I could totally understand how you might not be able to get over these issues when there's a high risk of losing hard-earned resources. On Grounded it becomes like a puzzle game (ala Halo on Legendary)- even when you've got 2 bullets in a gun, an empty inventory, and 5 infected to get through, you will find a way of dealing with them after 10 tries or so. And each try is so broadly different it's still fun. Death is a five second setback.

Edited October 21, 2014 by broom_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

I agree the combat fits in with the themes really well, I just found it unpleasant to actually go through so I avoided it when I could (again, fits in with the themes perfectly).

[IDDQD]

In the sections of The Last Of Us where they force you to fight, I was actually fine with it, because every fight would go so differently

 

Yeah, that's also a good point. I don't mind dying in a game if the encounters can be as random as possible with each try. Thankfully you can find that in many games to a varied degree, but I would also name Max Payne 3 as a good example. Mainly thanks to the realistic physics engine and rather unpredictable A.I. (even though sometimes it has scripted events that play out roughly the same). On the flipside, some games are based on repetition, and the only trick is to memorise stuff, but I find it peculiar that it works in some games and makes others boring.

 

 

Again, being a winner and not a loser should be a motivation enough for me, but the only time I really hate dying is when I made a significant progress and death means losing some valuable stuff or replaying a large portion of the game. Plus repeating the same thing makes it feel like a massive waste of time and I end up resenting myself for being careless.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I don't like death if it makes you repeat a significant period of time, especially if that period is easy.  It's why I couldn't stomach Dark Souls.

[IDDQD]

True, I guess that's why I eventually stopped playing it myself. I guess that's why there's an open world so you can have an option to turn back and check out what lurks in another areas, but eventually it all boils down to grinding XPs in the same sections over and over.

[SomTervo]

I never thought of it that way - that when the gameplay is easy, losing progress is a far more bitter pill to swallow. Very, very true.

 

I think this is the worst in games where the difficulty balance suddenly spikes. From easy to hard, unfairly, and you lose a lot of progress. I remember getting really frustrated with many Bethesda Softworks games because of this. Eg in Fallout 3 or Skyrim, creeping through a place for ages, finding loads of good loot in really unique places which would be agonisingly irritating to re-find, then getting killed by one super-OP enemy. Then having to exactly retread your steps from the last half hour... Shudder. I think a few games, like Dark Souls, have decided to totally sidestep this by making your inventory always-saved regardless of environment progression.

Edited October 21, 2014 by broom_ryden

[TheMightyEthan]

Bethesda games side step it by letting you save whenever you want. You have no one to blame but yourself for lost progress.