Death and respawn?

[phoenix]

From a lore perspective.

There simply aren't enough trigger happy morons willing to go to dangerous places, there is a shortage of terraformers. Whenever one dies there is no one to replace him. Years of training, discipline and resources have been pored to develop a hardened combat veteran and all of that effort goes to wast when he/she dies.

Solution? Replace them with a clone, that way all the training doesn't go to wast. Sure it's bad for the original character but he knew the risk and dangers when he signed up but to the outside world as long as they don't know that it's a clone then they won't notice a thing. This also fixes lore problems with NPCs respawning in cities/outposts.

You could have NPCs periodically enforce this narrative with strangers sometimes telling stuff like:
"You know, I died once, as heartless as it may sound I am happy, it's what brought me into this world in the first place. I'm happy to be alive."
"The relationship with my wife has never been the same after me and my squad got annihilated a few year ago."
"Ever seen a dead man walking? They are all around you."
"Dying for glory and honor is absolute bullshit, you can take that from me."

 

[Dubbelklik]

@Dubbelklik XP is a vertical progression mechanic, really hope there is not even a hint of XP in Ember.

It was only an example.

Whenever a clone dies in starwars then he doesn't re spawn as another clone, no he is just dead, end of story for that character. That is what I propose, you play as a mercenary clone on adventure with a death-whish to terraform another planet. You do quests, interact with other people and build relationships when suddenly you die on the battlefield, end of story. Another clone inherits your stuff, face, voice and memories and now you play as that new clone.

So how does that make me feel guilty? What do I care as a player that clone #1 dies? Clone #2 steps in with all of clone #1's possessions, memories, etc. etc. and the game rolls on without a hitch, as though nothing ever happened.

There's no penalty there, so why should I feel guilty?

 

[phoenix]

It was only an example.

So how does that make me feel guilty? What do I care as a player that clone #1 dies? Clone #2 steps in with all of clone #1's possessions, memories, etc. etc. and the game rolls on without a hitch, as though nothing ever happened.

There's no penalty there, so why should I feel guilty?

Maybe you don't but someone other surly will. It really depend on what mood Ember sets and what lore/story it has. In any case it's definetly something I've never seen before exept in one game called "The Talos Principle" where whenever you die time rewinds back to the entrance and your characters version increments.

 

[EvilKitten]

@phoenix liking cause Talos Principle is an awesome game

@Dubbelklik Sorry I mistyped, what I meant to say was personal progression system (not personnel progression system of course). Er which I suppose doesn't really change anything but er, yeah. Perhaps as a negative you could have a tiered negative impact on your mods. like -10% mod effect per tier, stacking up to 3 deaths. You can either wait the timer out or go collect your tombstone to reduce the stack by 1 each.

EDIT: Which of course assumes the game is going to be mod centric...though I am still holding out hope given Mark's comments.

 

[phoenix]

Open world deaths are one thing but instanced deaths could have other systems. When you die in an instance you drop your instance loot and need to go back to recover it.

 

[MattHunX]

Guys, you remember Ophanim? They had arcporters on their most important commanders. They teleported injured soldier to a base. IMO we could have the same thing.

When we are laying on the ground screaming "help!" we are already ready to teleport. When we are respawning or our backup hp reaches 0, we are teleported to the nearest man-arcporter. We are than healed and we can go back to fight. How about that?

That's good! It's a good explanation for respawns. But, then...couldn't they teleport us to any location, in the first place?

As I recall, in Firefall, that personal arc-folder tech was very dangerous and even revolutionary, even in the game's time-line. It was said in some side-mission, or perhaps in the campaign that using arc-folding on a person was never successful before and it resulted in serious injury and/or death.

The Ophanim are cybernetically enhanced, btw. I think it was also commented on, in-game that they were more machine than human. I think. Hence, why they could use the arc-folding on themselves so often.

 

[MattHunX]

You know, back in 2013 at Omnicom (Arsenal launch) Red5 gave a more or less explanation about what happens when pilots die...

"(...) The Omnidyne-M molecular printer has been printing trial Arsenal battleframes as fast as it can manage, empowering newcomers to roll immediately into combat. Some of these recruits are so green, it makes a grown man like myself wince seeing them charge off bravely into the thick of it, knowing they've yet to feel the sharp burn of being genetically reassembled. I've adopted the rather macabre practice of guessing how long a new recruit will last in the Arsenal before I see them at the repatterning station next to me. (...)"

Source: http://www.firefall.com/news/chosen-invasion-at-omnicon

Oh. So they went one step further than Borderlands and instead of digital clones, they literally reassemble the person from their genetics.

I mean, clever. Impressive. But....eww.

 

[NitroMidgets]

Ahhhh, think of the mistakes the machine could make randomly and change our appearance? Hey, did you notice that Ronyn has fricken antlers? Yeah, he died earlier and the cloning didn't turn out exactly as planned. Oh, well I guess that explains my scale covered ass.

 

[TankHunter678]

Could just pull a borderlands. In the Lore of the game you never died (cause you are that much of a badass) but mechanically there is a respawn system for gameplay sake. Borderlands uses this as a reason for why they can permadeath ex-player characters in their games. Since they are no longer a player character they do not get player character plot armor.

For NPCs ones with storylines get Plot Armor (aka unkillable) any other NPC gets replaced with a randomized NPC that performs the same functions.

 

[Alfonso]

It was only an example.

So how does that make me feel guilty? What do I care as a player that clone #1 dies? Clone #2 steps in with all of clone #1's possessions, memories, etc. etc. and the game rolls on without a hitch, as though nothing ever happened.

There's no penalty there, so why should I feel guilty?

I think 'making players feel guilty for dying' and 'penalizing players for dying' are two different things and the former is a lot harder to achieve than the latter.

Penalizing is easy. It is like you get 1 of ## yellow card if you don't follow the rules. Just take anything that players put their effort on, such as xp, money or items. Penalty is quantified and anyone can see what that is. Therefore, even if you haven't died yet, you know what will happen to you if you die.

Feeling guilty is something else. People have different criteria about when they feel guilty. Maybe for some people it is not directly related to possesions in game. In that case, you can't make them feeling guilty by taking items away.

I thought numbering clone was a good idea but at the same time, it makes sense that it won't work for you.

 

[taiiat]

having serious, long lasting penalties to death works, if.... you can be sure that cheesy unfair crap doesn't happen.
that's..... pretty difficult to ensure.

 

[Torgue_Joey]

The best thing I can come up with is some sort of Lazarus pit or Lazarus project (mass effect style). Every player get a chip implant from the Lazarus insurance. When a player dies, it sends out an distress signal or signal of it current location, where the Lazarus team or insurance pick you up and throw your corps in the pit (where player would respawn and pickup their frame in the nearest repair shop) or resurrect you through Lazarus project (like mass effect).