Friday, July 8, 2011

Failure at what ?

Armadillo has made a post related to my recent series about death penalties. In the comments section I read something that I have read quite often already:

"Failure is enough of a penalty"

Actually, I agree. I just ask: Failure at what?

Failure to not die to the last blow? Let's rewind until before that blow.
Failure to not die during the last 10 seconds? Let's rewind the last 10 seconds.
Failure to not die to a mob? Let's reset the mob.
Failure to not die in one encounter? Let's reset the encounter.
Failure to not die in a dungeon? Let's reset the dungeon.
Failure to not die with while playing a fantasy character? Let's reset the character.
Failure to not die while playing a RPG? Let's reset until before you owned the game.
Failure to not die with a fantasy character while living real life? Let's send the death squad.

I think failure is not just enough of a penalty. I think failure is the penalty!

3 comments:

  1. What will be the next thing? Games are for fun that's why let's remove penalties = chance of failure. Everyone is happy now while being a demigod...

    If people aren't penalized for failure (and praised for success) they don't learn anything.
    Of course, if you can't fail you can't be baddie... But imo it's better to have games with challenge which bring up skilled generation of players.

    As for Armadillo's points... Everything comes to "winning = fun, not winning = not fun" which is sad. Loosing due to being bad/unskilled/not cautious should be fun, since next time you are (hopefully) better.

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  2. What will be the next thing? Games are for fun that's why let's remove penalties = chance of failure. Everyone is happy now while being a demigod...

    That does not follow. What do penalties have to do with chance of failure? What extra penalty is there for Solitaire? Or with that game Nils posted yesterday? Are you a demigod when you play Chess against a person/computer and don't bet money on the outcome?

    If you are playing to win, not winning is a penalty.

    If people aren't penalized for failure (and praised for success) they don't learn anything. Of course, if you can't fail you can't be baddie... But imo it's better to have games with challenge which bring up skilled generation of players.

    Err... what? Any discussion about game difficulty seems to dredge up this ridiculous notion that game companies (should) have some kind of responsibility to make people "better gamers," whatever that even means. So you bring up a skilled generation of players... now what? Are they better people now? Do they enjoy life more? It is ridiculous.

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  3. I agree with your second paragraph, Azuriel.

    'Death penalties' and that abstract game I posted a few days ago are actually worth an extra post.

    In some way the penalty for losing the game is very harsh: You lose everything. You also always lose eventually!

    Winning is impossible and unimportant for this game. The penalty for failure is a reset of the entire game. Looking at it like this, that game is hardcore ;)

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