How can Em8-er punish death and require skill?

[SirSam]

Old beta player here. Started right before .5

Things I just wanna state: You don't want...."punishment" to be exponential. You want it to be a baseline. So ixnay on the skills that recharge slower and slower the more you die. I'm also against the "downed" mechanic where you get killed yet you can "fight your back to health". Not because its unrealistic but because its cheap. It cheapens your "first death" so to speak.

"Oh I'm just downed its cool." To me that takes away from....your character's life meaning.


My vote? A baseline percentage (I personally like 8%) of durability on hit on equipment on death.

When durability first launched....Wow what an outcry from some of the community. Me? I was usually in tier 1 gear fighting tier 4 enemies because I like a challenge. But I still made and lost tier 4 gear sometimes to durability. It was no big deal. You get money and resources again....spend it.

Plus there was such a large outcry against durability after its initial implementation that it barely even got time to be tweaked and just got shot down to basically meaning nothing. So like I said, I'm all for durability hit on death. The hard numbers can be tweaked to where it matters but its not ridiculous.

I think people made a hyperbole of the whole situation because they held a super strong sense of attachment to their gear. I saw it as a business in an economy and a crystite-sink. I saw the big picture of interconnecting systems within games. See if you interconnect combat with the economy, then you interconnect different types of people in a virtual world. It gives the players who craft tangible purpose. Not just like their making another (Gun +1) x 9999 in the marketplace. They know that someone will not only buy their crafted product but will then Use it. It gives the items purpose. Just like it should happen with classes. You should rely on others or we have a gw2 situation where its everyone for themselves.



And one more point that I have to say about comments like these - "The game should purely be about fun", or "There shouldn't be a punishment because people will quit the game if its too harsh."......

Its like if I was to pick up Mario and...say I die once or twice.

Me - "Well....dang I have to improve? Nah. I'm done. I quit."

I could care less about those players leaving. Good riddance. We're in a war for a planet here. This isn't Farmville. This isn't Destiny 2 where your enemies serve themselves on a platter and you just have to click your mouse (go look it up I'm not kidding).

If people quit over something like that, they have no place beside the warriors. Some will take this as "elitism" but its not. Games started as some sort of challenge being apart of the design and should remain that way. And alongside the challenge I too like the OP think there should be incentive not to die alongside the actual challenge of the combat.

 

[Dark]

Couple of things

Punishing people for dying is a terrible idea because it will force people who are just simply not that good not to play. Second the way to encourage people to better is simple, reward them based on how well they do? games been doing this for a long time. Still gives good players their reward and gets players to try harder.

I do like the idea about durability, i even like games were gear breaks and cant be fix or fixed only to a point. This helps in 2 areas, people wont want to die and if you have an in depth crafting system keeps crafters relevant (even low lvl crafters)

You also need to be very careful not to disadvantage players who may not appear to be that good but have issues due to ping (aka us poor Australian's who's internet is 2 foam cups at the end of a piece of string)

P.S to the post above mine with regard to caring less about people leaving. Don't ever make a game or start a business.

 

[frzn]

I'm of the opinion that death should guide/shove players towards improvement rather than punish them for being at their current skill level. A good death penalty doesn't just tell the player to git gud, it actually teaches them how to.

I think that games like Dark Souls and Nioh have an excellent failure system. After dying you are set back to a checkpoint and drop all the resources you were carrying. You have a chance to get them back (carrot) but they will disappear if you die again before reaching the point where you died (stick). Since you have already reached the point where you died once, the carrot is definitely within your reach but you should still play cautiously to avoid the stick. This makes you pay more attention to the game, observe enemies more carefully, and generally creates a good learning opportunity. If you fail and get the stick, you don't become any weaker than you were before so there you can't get trapped in a negative feedback loop.

Games like Dead Cells and Hand of Fate are similar except you get sent back to the start of the game with no ability to retrieve what you dropped. However, you do keep some kind of progression you have achieved between checkpoints (unlocks rather than power so primarily horizontal progression and new content) and the procedurally generated levels make replaying the game from the start more engaging. Replaying the game from the starting point forces you to practice all the gameplay skills you were required to have up to the point where you died, making you improve skills that may have been adequate but still fell short of mastery.

MMOs sometimes have good loops as well. A good loop will not diminish your power and ability to complete the content you are currently facing, but rather slow your progression toward the next tier of content. This is a punishment because one of the main goals of the game genre is progression, but it also helps you spend more time learning about how to play the game well and acquiring power at that content tier (eg, replaying a dungeon to get xp also gets you the rarer, higher powered loot drops and more resources). It gradually decreases the difficulty for less successful players while still punishing them. This sort of soft gatekeeper effect often goes along with a hard gatekeeper in the form of a boss that has to be beaten before advancing to the next area.

As a game without a progression system, Overwatch had an interesting idea that wasn't completely successful. When you die there is a respawn timer, and during that time you are made to watch a clip of how you got killed from the perspective of the person who killed you. The idea was to show you your mistakes so you could fix them, but many players felt like it was mocking them (which is understandable because when you're frustrated from dying you're not necessarily in the most receptive mood for a personal critique). I suspect players would be more receptive of it if the cam played in third person, even if that would make it ineffective at times.

Another aspect of improving players through punishment is the kind of gameplay you want to encourage, ie what does "playing better" mean in the context of your game? In a slower paced game that might mean playing cautiously so you want to discourage recklessness, but in a fast paced game you may want players to push their abilities and take risks so punishing failure too harshly could actually prove counterproductive to their improvement.


I was against durability loss on death in Firefall as it was implemented and I stand by that, but it's not something that I'm always opposed to as a punishment. If gear acts a gatekeeper determining what tier of content a player can tackle rather than determining their ability to succeed within a content tier then it makes a lot of sense; a player who is failing at a certain content tier is pushed down toward easier content to work on more fundamental skills (assuming the content is engaging enough that they'll keep playing it instead of just quitting). One of the ideas in this thread that I really like is temporarily disabling an equipped frame, weapon, or piece of gear after dying because it forces players to try a different approach.

monthly thread revival complete

 

[Pandagnome]

The thing i like about dieing is it gave me time to get a drink/eat/open door/even take the annoying phone after game over for me!!
Since there was no pause button in online games or just not playing unless there was a place to go back in the ship or
HQ while an A.I took over your character until you clicked back, an example in l4d2 co-op but by doing that would not get achievements/resources if done too many times.

I think it should have stages like this before death

Armor/shield - issues/degrade From using it too often, taking too much damage getting old and needing replacement parts
can be fixed if taking appropriate fixes even temporary one's that can be used once and disposed but wouldn't last for long durations. However fixing an issue before it gets too critical would be in the best interest of the pilot so that he or she can continue on for longer.

Injured/Injuries - Without or lower shields/armor the pilot is more prone to receiving further damage which would directly impact pilot controls this would mean the controls would not be smooth or response certain functions would shutdown eventually such as radar etc.

Incapacitated - Pilot can still control auxillary weapons and certain things to a limit but would not be able to move at all

Unconscious/Blood-loss/Death - the pilot would loss consciousness and risk losing blood which could lead to their death
unless someone does something the pilot would be gone unless a medic came to the rescue. This would not fix everything but would let the pilot get back to safety or to a repair station or someone that can fix tech too?


At the death stage maybe there could be a computer tactical User Interface that can give the option to look at things from different perceptive like it could have a tips section and percentage of hits most coming from what enemy, and angles and its weapons etc. Position of group in comparison to your location, Area for improvement in the pilot or Mech for upgrades or fixes, etc.
So while your not in the game for a bit there could look at all the information/tips that can be closed whenever than receiving a message that came across with your dead or game over, or some annoying death music bla bla which sounds very disheartening but as a computer tactical User interface it makes it seem like a simulation and just more cool i think.

If that sort of makes sense?

 

[Carter154]

There does need to be a penalty for death. Just not related to gear durability. People get very attached to their gear.

I like the idea that if you die the timer starts. Maybe 15-30 seconds or so. If your allies don't or can't revive you in time, you re-spawn at the nearest allied base. You must then use in-game currency of some kind to repair your frame and get back to full strength. Or maybe use a repair module you've crafted. Something.

Then you must travel from the base back to the front lines. If you have a vehicle, getting back in the fight is faster.

You get a base vehicle with the game. But you can work towards other vehicles that are faster and look cooler.

Those are my thoughts.

 

[Pandagnome]

I have to admit i do get attached to the gear its all that hard work to get those Ultimate gear only to be pooped away after all that hard work :O Saying that there is always a risk to take for the chance of higher rewards !

You get a base vehicle with the game. But you can work towards other vehicles that are faster and look cooler.

That would make it more fun the urgency of getting back to the team as you race to their location could even be some nice loot hotspots on the way .

I like the idea that the vehicles do have a purpose too so this could be it even to get into smaller areas that mechs struggle to get to. Depending on which vehicle is chosen and having the ability to upgrade certain things like the boosters, traction and skin etc etc

Even having vehicles that can be upgraded to provide ammo, deploy small repair drones, or a medic that has to get somewhere and use the bike to get into a smaller tunnel to the kajiu lair !

 

[Mallot]

We don't even know what the gameplay is like, or what features will be in it.

While thumping, you'll assuming get more resources the longer you fight. If people start dying you'll be at a disadvantage and won't be able to thump as long. Pretty simple reward for being better, you get better resources. This way people can also clearly specify how long they intend to thump for, then people of enough skill level can apply for it.
If you die you need to be revived, which may take a while, and you could also get -x% total HP until you repair your omniframe at the base. That way you don't immediately fail the mission, but you may want to rethink how far you want to go.

If there's some cave exploring thing, it's the same thing, the deeper you get the better rewards.

Punishing people too harshly for dying will only cause frustration, elitism, and toxicity. Same goes for extra rewards for "perfect" runs, people will omit others because they're worried they won't get the "perfect" clear, as anything like that will become the standard.

 

[Mahdi]

Elitism and what you said about perfect runs are spot on. This has been a very balanced community and I indeed hope the game stays as balanced.

Fact is, people on one side or another will be unhappy, unavoidable. But finding balance and not overhauling due to the current "cry of the masses" (talking about you WoW), is honestly what will show Em-8ERs true form and intent/direction of the dev team.

 

[Terib.Shadow]

I've seen a fair bit of this thread, and I haven't said anything yet, I'd love to state my opinion on this matter. So here I go, I too am for having little to no punishment for death, in itself, going back to the last location is already sufficiently punishing, not dying means you can keep fighting, and that also rewards skill, for both yourself and your allies.

Grummz has considered putting a durability system in EM-8ER similar to the one we had in the firefall beta (according to what he told me that is, it was long ago in PM), though it probably won't as bad, it was really laborious to have to prepare 4-5 exactly identical weapons to be fine for a while, which I did for exemple.

This of course is only still in theory as EM-8ER is far from done and such a mechanic doesn't need to be worried about this early in development. I personally would prefer if the durability cap didn't go down but perhaps had a lower cap, so we still have to go and repair ourselves every once in a while, instead of having to not go and repair often but eventually losing said item.

Also, to correct a few things said in some of the previous posts, the only known form of "fast travelling" we've been informed of was with the omniframe's skimming mode, or whatever it was called, which allows the omniframe to go around quickly while out of combat, there won't be bikes like we had in firefall (well technically there will but there's only 1 and it's cosmetic, also only available to milestone 3 backers, and not as good as the omniframe skimming/much less practical) so there shouldn't be anyone able to go faster than someone else, that is unless we get to upgrade our skimming mode, though that sounds like a waste of ressources and upgrade slot just to save a few seconds. There will eventually be other vehicles however, like tanks and such, that won't be in the game right away but we'll see where that leads. (And while i'm on this subject, firefall-like planes are thought about, I can't remember if it was talked about just between Grummz and myself or if it was during a chief chat, but we should be able to actually drive them to the battlefield, instead of boarding one at cities just to get to other cities, I absolutely love this idea and hope to see it in the game, i've got tons of ideas on how to make it look and feel awesome as well.)

Anyways, thanks to all who read this bit of text, hopefully you learned a thing or two, and I also hope this cleared up a few questions you might've had.

 

[Ronyn]

Grummz has considered putting a durability system in EM-8ER similar to the one we had in the firefall beta (according to what he told me that is, it was long ago in PM), though it probably won't as bad, it was really laborious to have to prepare 4-5 exactly identical weapons to be fine for a while, which I did for exemple.

This of course is only still in theory as EM-8ER is far from done and such a mechanic doesn't need to be worried about this early in development. I personally would prefer if the durability cap didn't go down but perhaps had a lower cap, so we still have to go and repair ourselves every once in a while, instead of having to not go and repair often but eventually losing said item.

Because this is a sort of a polarizing issue, I'm going to clarify what kind of durability system has been considered for Em-8ER:
Durability, as in a system where items take wear and tear and have to be repaired using resources, is what has been considered, examined, and discussed internally.
Durability, as in primary items eventually breaking and needing to be replaced, was ruled out internally before the earliest indiegogo campaign more than a year ago.
So nothing that is really like firefall beta (between 6.0 and 9.0) has ever really been considered for Em-8ER.

 

[Terib.Shadow]

Because this is a sort of a polarizing issue, I'm going to clarify what kind of durability system has been considered for Em-8ER:
Durability, as in a system where items take wear and tear and have to be repaired using resources, is what has been considered, examined, and discussed internally.
Durability, as in primary items eventually breaking and needing to be replaced, was ruled out internally before the earliest indiegogo campaign more than a year ago.
So nothing that is really like firefall beta (between 6.0 and 9.0) has ever really been considered for Em-8ER.

Thanks for precising that, good official info.

 

[Hybelkaninen]

Aaaaah....death penalty is always fun to discuss with the spectrum of peoples preferred punishment ranging from "run back to the fight" to "rubbing your eyes with salt while sticking your wiener into a hornets nest and flailing it around with hip movements like Shakira on crack".

Personally, punishment enough for me is a currency/resource cost for repairs and having to get back to the action.

But to make a suggestion I would go for both a carrot and a stick.

-You get an increasing buff for being in on the action and staying alive, derping around doing nothing will decrease the buff and death will reset it to zero.
-You need to pay for some extra repairs upon dying.

...values will of course need to be adjusted and balanced in according to....balance.

 

[Hotel6]

I personally against the death punishment and forces you to git gud.
You know, for games like Dark Souls its alright to git gud like that. But as for something like this ? Well most new peoples are just gonna throw their hands up into the air and said "eff this" and will be turned away from the game.

As others have said, the costs to takes and the time it takes you to get to the spawn point to where you was is punishing enough. That alone makes you don't wanna die. And dont just think of it like "if you dont have the skill for it you gonna have a bad time in this game because the game will punish you for being not skilled enough"

Why should it stay that way, instead, reward them or add in secondary objective like don't die and you'll get bonus credits or resources, or extra stuff, that would make peoples want to stay alive and have a meaningful way to actually skill up and have fun, not frustration.

We should encourage peoples to git gut the positive way, not the other way around.

But death penalty like repair costs after each death, well that i don't mind. Just don't fiddle with debuffs. If you die it proved that you are not good enough, and now you also have a debuff to go with it. Think it's gonna be even harder and you gonna die faster.

 

[Maven]

I should think the game mechanics itself substitutes as punishment for death. Death during a fight should have a time impact. It should put the player out of the fight for a certain duration. If the AI is as tough as promised, this should lend to a snowball effect. Each death makes the fight tougher for the remaining players, setting off a chain which would result in loss of a zone.

In turn, loss of a zone would mean lesser resources, overall drop in world level and gimping the tech level. Which means the next fight is automatically tougher. That, in itself, is your debuff for having died in the last battle.

While this seems to promote a zerg-style of play, it lends to the theme of the game. Its a war out there. Players will have to come together to decide which zones are worth fighting for and defending on a priority basis.

The whole issue about players giving up over the difficulty of a game is debatable. Someone who quits over a few deaths would just as easily quit over someone being rude to them. As long as the core game is enjoyable, you will have players sticking around and duking it out.

Durability and repair costs: Such a polarizing topic. I've never really had an issue with gear breaking. The only issue was the rate at which they degrade. The tricky part is the impact of using damaged gear and balancing the resource costs for repairing said item.

Damaged gear should have proportional reduction in efficiency. If gear were to be fully efficient till the point it reaches 0 durability, at which stage it simply ceases to function, there's bound to be a pool of resources that will sit idle in the market. This automatically lends to devaluation since players will, and they definitely will, start to undercut in order to get returns on their effort. I'd rather have continual reduction in efficiency which requires constant repairing prior to every battle. This keeps the resource pool cycling on a regular basis.

I'd also like it if we had a limit on the number of times an item can be repaired. The number should be significantly large so that players get to use their preferred weapon over a long enough period of time. This also ensures additional resource consumption spikes which further promotes resource pool cycling and flow.

 

[Eccentric Song]

How about just having the respawn points away from the battle in most cases? I mean, it is an open world map, so having to travel back would be a considerable setback, right?

If there are manufacturable items which can revive players (one's self (more expensive, maybe?), or other players), then the cost & time of manufacturing these items would act as a "punishment" beforehand (while also encouraging preparation, which is often a satisfying gameplay mechanic). The insta-revive items prevent respawning far away, so you can jump right back in.

 

[EvilKitten]

Because this is a sort of a polarizing issue, I'm going to clarify what kind of durability system has been considered for Em-8ER:
Durability, as in a system where items take wear and tear and have to be repaired using resources, is what has been considered, examined, and discussed internally.
Durability, as in primary items eventually breaking and needing to be replaced, was ruled out internally before the earliest indiegogo campaign more than a year ago.
So nothing that is really like firefall beta (between 6.0 and 9.0) has ever really been considered for Em-8ER.

While I am not a fan of death being anything more than a pause in combat. *IF* Grummz decides to link durability into dying, I'd like to make a suggestion. Rather than making it a flat rate on death (FF had 10% durability cost per death), instead link it to how *often* you die.

Anytime you die you have to be resurrected back at a base, this would be the point when durability costs are factored in. Say the machine is able to salvage all of the resources (biological and otherwise) from your fallen corpse and then recreate it back to whole. As it is a fresh copy you will always start at 100% durability, however damage to your previous corpse means that resources must be expended at that point to bring you back to full, also the resurrection process would not actually be instant but rather take some time to completely settle.

So at death you will be charged the resources needed to bring you back to 100% durability, but it will also slap on a durability timer wherein durability loss would be increased for a time post death at a diminishing rate. Because the revival utilizes the construction of the previous corpse the error would compound.

 

[Pandagnome]

I might of said this before, but in the film chappie he found out how to transfer consciousness, so instead of dieing as in dieing the body would die but the consciousness could be transferred to a computer where the body would be reconstructed by stem cells or constructed using synthetic and other means.

The pilot could have a choice to be cyborg/human/mutant/fully robotic for rp/appearance.

If there was a spare mech/body outside in the wasteland abandoned mech/body couldn't we have the ability to transfer our consciousness to that mech and use it as a temporary option. This would perhaps be an older model or not 100% but if it gave the pilot the choice to stay and take a risk could help.

if there were other mech/pilot bodies but with higher spec laying around or in hidden locked areas, would need hacking or some key created from crafting earlier so that if they found say a big mama mech it could be used as a tactic when things get more insane.

Even if the mech/pilot body laying was not usable perhaps it could be used to extract parts to temporary repair the current mech but this point would leave you vulnerable so unless it was in a hidden area or you have at least cover or a team member to distract the enemy while you are doing this could be very tricky.

Say for specialist recon mech pilots they could have easier access to drones and mini bots !!!

 

[SirSam]

P.S to the post above mine with regard to caring less about people leaving. Don't ever make a game or start a business.

I can completely understand how my statements of -

Me - "Well....dang I have to improve? Nah. I'm done. I quit."
I could care less about those players leaving. Good riddance.

could seem like I know nothing about business or games. But its quite the contrary. I've owned my own construction business before and all businesses are different. If I were to ever make a game, I would have the same sentiment as I quoted.

Niche > Mass appeal through making the game easier.

If a player quits because of difficulty or losing something, then my game wouldn't be right for them. Therefore I really could care less if they left. Also your statement was very 'general and blankety'. I agree in most other business geared to make the most profits, then you'd want to keep as many customers as possible.

But I would make a game out of passion with a clear vision. Not to appeal to the masses for profit. Just wanted to clear that up. It wasn't just some statement I threw out there with no thought behind it.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

You can't please everyone when making a game. Going down that route will just fuck your game over.

I have seen many indie games die because their devs listened to much to their players and kept adding stuff or changing stuff until the devs burned out and couldn't do it anymore.

 

[Aphaz]

It should get to the point where you can't succeed. Not inevitably, but our enemies should be able to beat us. Skill should be a factor but there should be fights that we lose-not that it's decided that we'll lose, but if we can't keep up skilled play and we get steamrolled that's how it should be.

i totally agree with you on that. there should be situations that "can't be resolved with the current forces present" (it doesn't have to be often but it could spice things quite up). in that regard, each player dying in such a situation could "simply give the enemy a morale boost" (like a temporary increase of speed or damage, or a few hit point healed).
the analyze / steal an ability from a dead player thingy is also an interesting option (the sheesh that gets to the downed omni and "spends a few seconds poking around the omni" gets an ability to use for a time).
you can also make that any omni that blows up "opent a mini portal that spits out a few random tsihu" (that is, any omni that was not revived or smt...)