tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post4828243210148689942..comments2024-01-18T16:20:09.743+01:00Comments on Nils' Blog: A Death PenaltyNilshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-23822448245442374792011-06-22T02:57:50.405+02:002011-06-22T02:57:50.405+02:00@Nils: I agree with you on that last point, uncond...@Nils: I agree with you on that last point, unconditionally.<br /><br />In an MMO, I think older games addressed penalties for death best, tbh. But I don't think newer games will every turn back. Designers dont even remember why we had it in the first place and seem to arbitrarily toss it out as something grassroots gamers merely tolerated, not enjoyed. I think many of the things mentioned in the comments and article are some great ideas.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-8629612610040184792011-06-22T01:38:21.788+02:002011-06-22T01:38:21.788+02:00I just think death penalties which don't encou...<i>I just think death penalties which don't encourage game play, but which over time discourage gameplay, don't work.</i><br /><br />That sounds like a very logical statement. The question, of course, is how death penalty can encourage play. ;)<br /><br />I think a death penalty should make a game fun. And a MMOROG is not only an abstract game, but also a simulation (I'm not just a guy with gameplay abilities but I'm also a guy in a fantasy world). <br /><br />When the game's rules break the rules of the simulation, that harms the fun. And fun is how a death penalty can encourage play ;)Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-896632519917204662011-06-21T23:34:31.853+02:002011-06-21T23:34:31.853+02:00@Nils: Point taken on boxes sold. But boxes sold ...@Nils: Point taken on boxes sold. But boxes sold "by now" means its quality over time has continued to attract the players would otherwise not try a difficult game. Its an excellent RPG through and through and it's "multiplayer" ghosting system should be stolen throughout the industry.<br /><br />Also ...hate? there's no hate! :) Im sorry if I said something that wasn't clear. But fear not, there was no hate or anything like that. I just think death penalties which don't encourage game play, but which over time discourage gameplay, don't work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-30445811246813835742011-06-21T23:34:11.909+02:002011-06-21T23:34:11.909+02:00Azuriel, I won't reply to your entire comment....Azuriel, I won't reply to your entire comment. If I did I could just as well make a new post ;)<br /><br />I thank you for the time you invest to discuss this, but to use this<br /><br /><i>The "simulation" argument is pretty weak, because we are already assuming a fantasy setting with fireballs and castles built on labyrinths full of monsters (who does that, really?), and infinite resurrection.</i><br /><br />argument on my blog is really .. brave, you know. Have you even noted the subtitle of the blog? ;)<br /><br />I'll give you the answer I give to everybody who starts to argue the way you do there:<br /><br />I am talking about <b>simulation</b>, not about realism. No fantasy game is ever realistic, but it can be good simulation. In fact, it should be. <br />If the simulation were not important, then you could just as replace the character models by squares and the NPCs by circles. <br /><br />I want a credible and consistent simulation of a fantasy world. Not a copy/paste of (1) real life and not an (2) arcade game, but a (3) fantasy world simulation.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-71570335550802003702011-06-21T23:08:24.374+02:002011-06-21T23:08:24.374+02:00The goal of death penalties? They should make you ...<i>The goal of death penalties? They should make you not want to die really hard. As I said: The perfect death penalty is an extremely effective deterrent, but completely harmless once it has actually happened.</i><br /><br />That isn't good enough. And I think you understand this, because your objection to my "embarrassment death penalty" is:<br /><br /><i>Also, this is the opposite from a clear cut. Means you are not free to experiement ever, because people will see the result of this experiment for forever on the char.</i><br /><br />There is nothing to say that experiment = death, <i>unless</i> we are operating under the assumption that death comes quickly to people who aren't playing at 100% capacity. You can experiment in WoW for example (new rotation, specs, etc), and the chance of dying is pretty low. Indeed, WoW could make it so you lost everything you carried when you died, and while everyone's blood pressure would be high, the odds of casually dying is remote.<br /><br />The "simulation" argument is pretty weak, because we are already assuming a fantasy setting with fireballs and castles built on labyrinths full of monsters (who does that, really?), and infinite resurrection. As the old joke goes, we have already established what you are madam, we are simply haggling over the price.<br /><br />So, again, what is the <i>goal</i> of a harsh (or lenient) death penalty? Having one for the sake of having one is not particularly compelling game design. The penalty should fit the mood of the game, but also how you want players to play. EVE, for example, has a "realistic" death penalty, but it also serves another purpose: to prevent veteran players from rampaging across the galaxy with their capital ships and wiping out everyone. They would likely win every encounter, but there is always the outside chance they would run into someone else's capital ship, or a large collection of newbies who could potentially gang up and wipe them out. That threat (presumably) keeps capital ships outside trivial battles, while also forcing players to pool their resources since it's difficult for just one player to shoulder such a risk by themselves.<br /><br />You implicitly agreed with me that harsh death penalties reduce exploration/experimentation, which are two of the things you LEAST want to discourage in a game. So... why advocate for harsh penalties? My "embarrassment penalty" wouldn't really affect new players, or even many veteran players who have decided not to strive for the leaderboards (just like Arena rating isn't a deterrent from casual players wanting easy Conquest). And everyone gets to keep their stuff. Win-win, right?Azurielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16581263347888757710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-90278956719925644722011-06-21T21:41:18.553+02:002011-06-21T21:41:18.553+02:00I don't think you can make a world with any ki...I don't think you can make a world with any kind of persistent information and not expect that information to end up online. That being said, I think just the fact that you can learn about the dungeon solves the problem I was raising. As I said, I think if there is no positive feedback then you will hit a wall at some point. If you can explore and make maps and plan how to get further in next time or look for things you haven't seen then you won't hit that wall (if it's randomly generated every time rather than persistent then the things you haven't seen quickly become the same as the things you've seen since they are all random).<br /><br />I would just hope that the dungeons would have really interesting things in them, not just corridors and monsters.Sthennohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05429676469805661834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-27695717467350602622011-06-21T21:21:12.525+02:002011-06-21T21:21:12.525+02:00Doone, Demon's Soul has sold over 1.1 million ...Doone, Demon's Soul has sold over 1.1 million boxes by now. That's not something I'd call niche for a PS3 game. <a href="http://gamrreview.vgchartz.com/sales/31689/demons-souls/" rel="nofollow">(Link)</a><br /><br />Sure, it's not a Call of Duty with 10 mio, but it's still extremely profitable. Add in how much more CoD cost to produce and add in the much higher popularity of the series, and add in the money spend on adds(!).<br /><br />Anyway, I could live with Demon's Soul being niche. What I don't understand is where your hate and despise come from ?Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-91684618098250687722011-06-21T20:53:31.069+02:002011-06-21T20:53:31.069+02:00Hehe, some of your game's rules and suppositio...Hehe, some of your game's rules and suppositions are genuine fantasy :) the mechanisms don't do much to encourage you to keep playing. That is, it would only attract the kind of gamer who enjoys gambling.<br /><br />here's what I mean. You say the game explains that even though you loot an item, you don't own it until you store it in your house. this is so irrelevant to the player that its hard to attack this with enough fire. If I, as the player, pick up an item, it is mine. it doesn't matter that Ive been briefed that I dont have anything. I saw it, i picked it up. Dying and starting without it does not erase the sense that I have lost all I gained. I did, in fact, lose all I gained. I agree with Kring: if I sit down at a poker table with a shot at winning 100 bucks in exchange for the pleasure of my company, I lose nothing. If I find 100 bucks on the ground, but get robbed on the way home before I can spend it, I still lost 100 bucks. And it still sucks.<br /><br />There is a modern game on the market which hit about 2 years ago, called Demon's Souls. It plays almost exactly like your scenario. You start at level 1 and kill enemies, find objects, etc. If you die at any point before completing level 1, you start over with nothing. What keeps players playing that game? Not much, and that is why to this day its a very niche game. Few players want to *spend time* on that sort of game. That's the ultimate penalty if your game doesn't give more for effort.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-50548152002659878412011-06-21T17:30:10.405+02:002011-06-21T17:30:10.405+02:00Scrusi, I agree. I seems that exploiting cognitive...Scrusi, I agree. I seems that exploiting cognitive biases is possible, but just not very powerful. Still something to keep in mind, I think.<br /><br />Sthenno, I probably expressed myself poorly.<br />The labyrinth is perfectly persistent (and huge). The players have an incentive to restrict access to the dungeon to the own social group. And they have a strong incentive to prevent players outside their social group get to know the layout of the dungeon beneath their castle.<br /><br />Thus, nobody would want to put the labyrinth online and more importantly, not enough people have access to make crowd-sourcing feasible.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-29522870159216116422011-06-21T17:20:42.418+02:002011-06-21T17:20:42.418+02:00I think I misunderstood part of this. It seemed t...I think I misunderstood part of this. It seemed to me you were saying you enter a completely new dungeon every time. If you can learn about the dungeon by exploring it, an the dungeon is persistent, then I feel a bit differently about it.<br /><br />Just to clarify, though, if everyone has the same dungeon then it will be on the internet. If everyone has a different dungeon then when we play together do we get to decide whose dungeon we go into?Sthennohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05429676469805661834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-10813502494148092012011-06-21T15:38:43.087+02:002011-06-21T15:38:43.087+02:00Nils, a much better example. Here, losing the mone...Nils, a much better example. Here, losing the money you already picked up should feel worse than losing the option on money.<br /><br />That said, visibly losing "quest progress" might feel just as bad or even worse than simply losing gold. One has to be careful how one presents the deal.scrusihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03972625255456523061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-69069079166629181212011-06-21T14:33:13.967+02:002011-06-21T14:33:13.967+02:00Thanks for the comment, John.
The system you prop...Thanks for the comment, John.<br /><br />The system you propose is already in place. You keep your character progression (gained skills/exp/etc). You also keep the knowledge of the labyrinth and the game in general. You keep the social ties you created. Finally, you had fun, I hope, and nobody can take that away from you.<br />Focus on the character progression, if that's the most important thing for you ;)<br /><br />About the time argument: Most of this post is about trying to exploit a cognitive bias to make the player fear death more than he regrets it after it happened.<br /><br />To lose time in some indirect way is almost impossible to avoid. Especially, if you want death to be a clear cut that players forget after it has happened and only feared before it was about to happen.<br /><br />Finally, the simulation aspect of a MMORPG is important to me. I understand that coming from WoW this may be hard to understand, but to be revived seconds after you were killed and to empower other players to magically see how often you died, doesn't sit well with me. <br />I want a virtual world, not an arcade game.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-9339341888247512782011-06-21T14:21:13.713+02:002011-06-21T14:21:13.713+02:00Azuriel already made my point -- that "time i...Azuriel already made my point -- that "time is exactly the factor that you are ignoring here.". But you didn't really address it in your response to him imo.<br /><br />I love the idea of your death penalty, and agree with what you are basically trying to argue. But for me, loss of time is an extremely harsh penalty. If I only have 3 hours to play today, and I spend those three hours with no reward, then there's really nothing harsher.<br /><br />What would you think about augmenting this concept such that there are 2 distinct types of things you gain while exploring the dungeon (I won't specifically suggest what they might be because it isn't relevant). One type of thing would be lost completely if you die without getting back to the surface, but the other type of thing would remain with you. Depending on what this second thing is, make up your own rationale as to why or how it persists after death.<br /><br />JohnJohn Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13904635378293419363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-66638669865214283342011-06-21T13:09:11.478+02:002011-06-21T13:09:11.478+02:00Kring, Scrusi, I think you are right. Thanks for p...Kring, Scrusi, I think you are right. Thanks for pointing this out.<br /><br />Perhaps it is a mistake to use outside examples at all. So, let me try once again ;)<br /><br />Imagine you are about to venture into the labyrinth. Your king approaches you and says: <i>"Kill these three beasts and if you return alive I will reward you with a bag of gold. "</i><br />You venture into the darkness, kill two of them, but the third kills you. Your King tells you: <i>"You didn't do as I asked. Therefore you get no gold.</i><br /><br />On the other hand, imagine you venture into the labyrinth (no king). You kill two beasts and they each drop 1/3 bag of gold. You put that gold into your backpack. Unfortunately, the third beasts defeats you and you lose it all.<br /><br /><br />Both systems can be designed in the game to make the player receive 1 bag of gold only if he defeats all three beasts without dying. Thus, it is really the same from a reward point of view.<br /><br />Which failure feels worse ?Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-61571307298781836392011-06-21T12:52:58.403+02:002011-06-21T12:52:58.403+02:00Your rewriting of the 100€ example made clear what...Your rewriting of the 100€ example made clear what bothered me about it the first time around: The two examples are functionally different (unlike the cinema ticket example).<br /><br />In case A I stand to lose €100 in the game of dice and will, if the game is fair, break even on average. Deciding to participate is a net neutral option.<br /><br />On the other hand, deciding to participate in case B is net positive as it will gain me €50 on average. <br /><br />Now, if the two events ("find €100" and "play dice") were connected, I might see what you mean. Maybe if you found a €100 voucher for a game of dice, compared to being offered a free game. But then those really are the same thing so maybe I'm not on the right track either. <br /><br />I suppose the point is that the "play dice" decision seen independently (as it should) is a good one in one case and a neutral one in the other case. In your cinema example, the "buy ticket" option, seen individually, is the same in either scenario.scrusihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03972625255456523061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-5317160663077195862011-06-21T12:09:00.060+02:002011-06-21T12:09:00.060+02:00How can only being defeated with a dagger through ...How can only being defeated with a dagger through your heart be immersive? :)Kringhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03128630042421602039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-68190087754139986592011-06-21T10:31:52.439+02:002011-06-21T10:31:52.439+02:00Azurial, you say:
Imagined pain is still real pain...Azurial, you say:<br /><i>Imagined pain is still real pain.</i><br /><br />and I agree. If this imagined pain is less 'ex post', but higher 'a priori' then the death penalty is a good one.<br /><br />The goal of death penalties? They should make you not want to die really hard. As I said: <i>The perfect death penalty is an extremely effective deterrent, but completely harmless once it has actually happened.</i><br /><br />In addition to that, many people like death penalties that make a lot of sense from a simulation point of view. Most of them like harsher death penalties, because it makes them feel more at risk when exploring.<br /><br />Now, I guess, you are not one of them. But these people exist. You can't just write them off as masochists. And even if they were masochists; they are paying masochists.<br /><br />Your proposed death penalty is interesting. It scales with the pride of the player. And that pride usally grows with involvement in the game. Which leads to hardcore players being more heavily punished than casuals. Nice. However, I have problems thinking of a simulation background, in which this makes sense.<br /><br />Also, this is the opposite from a clear cut. Means you are not free to experiement ever, because people will see the result of this experiment for forever on the char.<br /><br />Still an interesting idea, thanks.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-20825667114521619122011-06-21T03:32:34.821+02:002011-06-21T03:32:34.821+02:00The death penalty, in this game, exploits mental a...<i>The death penalty, in this game, exploits mental accounting to make people afraid to lose potential future gains. But since it's just potential future gains, they aren't that painful to actually lose.</i><br /><br />Imagined pain is still real pain. The soldier who feels phantom limb pain in an arm that is no longer there still feels pain. There is no distinction. The only people going down into that dungeon after dying the first time are the people who enjoy playing Fallout Tactics or Diablo 2 on Hardcore mode, e.g. masochists. The only difference between your proposed death penalty and games with absurdly distant save points is (presumably) the carryover in terms of XP or skill point gain such that you did not *completely* waste your time.<br /><br />And time is exactly the factor that you are ignoring here. Death in any videogame already has built-in deterrents: it indicates failure, and you spend X amount of time getting back to where you were. Hell, even when you look at Battlegrounds in WoW you see how much death is a deterrent despite there being mass-resurrection every 30 seconds. Are there people who "suicide" into zergs in BGs or try and defend a flag to the death? Yes, of course. But those kind of deaths are not the sort of thing you want to deter people from doing. Why would you? <br /><br />And so it really comes down to something not expressed in this article, vis-a-vis the goal of death penalties. A (even purely psychological) harsh death penalty does *what* for your game? Make people more paranoid? Stress the player more? Put more emphasis on quick decisions (since if you can see death approaching a long way off it's less of a concern, unless it's inevitable)? Make the game more "realistic?" When you look at WoW, do you see anyone *not* caring about getting ganked? I don't. I feel miserable getting ganked on an alt by a high-level character I have no chance of touching, let alone a main vs main scenario where there is the added embarrassment of losing in a (more) fair fight. And I technically lose nothing more than time!<br /><br />People are still afraid to die in games with quick-save features where you can literally reload 5 seconds after any bad decision, let alone in games with "soft" death penalties in WoW, so I am not sure what this is all about. It is an interesting discussion, but I am not convinced anything needs "improved." <br /><br />If you really want a psychological solution to death penalties with no practical long-term effects, I have a much easier suggestion: make death embarrassing. In your dungeon delving game, let players keep everything they find down there even after they die... just give them a "black mark" of some sort. "Times killed by slimes: 5." Maybe give forced titles like "Bob, the Defeated." In PvP situations, let the winner take the loser's dog tags, or have a personal announcement when you die like "xxSephirothlolxx has killed you twice in a row. Ouch." Perhaps have some way of showing off the dog tags you have taken, including being able to link them in global chat for everyone to see. See someone talking smack about how good they are in Trade chat? Link the dog tag(s) you took from their corpse. Maybe put the top-scoring (or richest from delving dungeons) players up on a public leaderboard, thus encouraging people to kill those players to knock them down while simultaneously increasing the psychological death penalty for those same players (who are obviously the most serious about the game, and implicitly need a greater challenge). Bam! Done.Azurielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16581263347888757710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-67203333063023080202011-06-21T02:03:32.156+02:002011-06-21T02:03:32.156+02:00You make a lot of excellent points in this post, a...You make a lot of excellent points in this post, and I really like the idea you put forth for a "death penalty." I'm not even sure WoW couldn't utilize something like that (you mention that something like this would be too harsh for WoW in your previous post). <br /><br />What if you lost everything in your backpack but not on your character? Since we have access to bank vaults in many situations now, people could store their "off sets" in bank vaults (or even make a feature for guild bank vaults to allow a "closet" section for individuals or the like). You'd only bring enough food and flasks as what you'd need. If people had to nip back to town, we have PLENTY of ways to summon. This would allow people to carry only what they could reasonably expect to lose even when raiding. During leveling, it'd reward living for a long time, and it would certainly induce some terror in farmers who spend hours upon hours just farming without every checking in. <br /><br />All of this is just off the top of my head, so I'm sure it's riddled with problems, but you made a very interesting point and I've been writing about perma-death recently (and my character finally died after living for 38 levels - bummer) so I thought the topic was too good to pass up as a WoW topic. <br /><br />Great post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-12729681758697074132011-06-20T23:52:17.057+02:002011-06-20T23:52:17.057+02:00Hehe and there we get into nitty gritty detail. So...<i>Hehe and there we get into nitty gritty detail. So labyrinth will be magically generated so its always new? And still be interesting to actually go in and explore? :)</i><br /><br />Yeah, that's quite a designer-deed, is it not ? :)<br /><br />The labyrinth isn't always new. It's always the same, although the monsters behave according to rudimentary AI and thus unpredictably, yet not arbitrarily.<br /><br />Point is that the people in the castle, have a very strong incentive not make a map about it public. They might want to create one for own use .. but they don't want it to get into the wrong hands ..<br /><br />Since there's relatively few people in control of such a labyrinth's entrance, there were won't be enouth potential for crowd-sourcing. So even the best maps will be pretty bad. Which is a design goal.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-10317460860972094742011-06-20T21:09:27.267+02:002011-06-20T21:09:27.267+02:00In addition you get better yourself and got to kno...<i>In addition you get better yourself and got to know the labyrinth better (that won't be on the internet, but is still not randomly generated whenever you enter; hehe). </i><br /><br />Hehe and there we get into nitty gritty detail. So labyrinth will be magically generated so its always new? And still be interesting to actually go in and explore? :)<br /><br />Here is my problem - to make interesting dungeon it needs to be pretty finite and well designed by actual humans (we do not get tools to give us interesting procedurally generated dungeons yet). <br /><br />So you cant have "increase difficulty" going deeper. -how many levels you want it be "deeper" -cant be infinite? how many % of your people will see last levels? and so on<br /><br />And all the basic scaling problems come in - designing for various composition, group sizes ,etc. <br /><br />Therefore I pulled another "magic" trick -let players do it. Reason I think it will work better than "procedural" trick just because we already have working examples. Players do create great content . For free. (e.g. mod communities) <br /><br />Big design problem is give players tools simple enough for them to create content complex enough to be interesting. You give them tools to simple - nothing interesting comes out. Too complex? - too few will bother<br /><br />And you have to have boundaries so those tools do not simply become cheat shortcuts (like some of player created missions in COH)<br /><br />On paper my solution is partly in the main feature (minecraft like ability to design buildings and environment from elementary blocks) , tied in with certain tools to match players with dungeons and rate dungeons by qualityMaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14814638059509556522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-88337283366519002312011-06-20T21:00:15.269+02:002011-06-20T21:00:15.269+02:00I like your ideas about death penalties because th...I like your ideas about death penalties because they take into account what I feel is an important point:<br />a death penalty should be there as a potential consequence for taking a risk and not just to slap the player on the wrist for messing up.<br /><br />I believe that death penalties should be there in order to add balanced risk to the game, and they should have an understandable context.<br /><br />I have a problem with death penalties when it feels like I don't have enough control in order to avoid them. If I get penalized for death I want to be able to feel that the penalty is balanced for the amount of risk I was taking, as well as rationalize that there was room for aversion (either from skill or better planning). <br /><br />I think many games are too keen on the "penalty" part, and kicking players while they're down.Gildedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10405106959355145426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-16781028488039253602011-06-20T20:28:27.245+02:002011-06-20T20:28:27.245+02:00Hagu, you write
I do think for many in your exampl...Hagu, you write<br /><i>I do think for many in your example, the most annoying will not be the lost loot but the "having to redo upper levels while knowing the only reason you are doing so is because you died."</i><br /><br />Point is that this is not just a game about this dungeon. The dungeon is one feature of this game; it's an MMORPG. It's not like Diablo or any dungeon crawl, or Terarria. Once you died there' really no incentive at all to get back into that dungeon. That's really very important!<br /><br />You went into that dungeon, you tried to get some stuff, you advanced your character. After your died, your character is now still a bit more advanced, but you didn't get anything else out of the dungeon. That's sad, but now you can do something else. <br /><br />Sure, you can try it again, but that's not encouraged at all. There are probably new monsters around. You could now decide to just stay at the (rather safe) upper levels and farm some resources. Or get out into the world and do some trade; anything.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-44669401494113640992011-06-20T20:21:32.377+02:002011-06-20T20:21:32.377+02:00Is it just me or is part of the human engineering ...Is it just me or is part of the human engineering the "transaction" aspect. I spend x (risking time and lost gear) in the hope of gaining y. Versus ganking.<br /><br />Buying Apple stock and seeing it decline is annoying but part of the risk/reward "transaction." Losing the same money because someone broke into my house would be far more annoying. (i.e. ganking/griefing)<br /><br />So if there is a higher level NPC by a resource node, I may die three times before I mine it. For me, that will generate minor frustration and less than getting randomly killed three times running around a dungeon.<br /><br />I maintain a non-dying % of about 80-85% is the least fun. If you win there is little satisfaction and yet you lose a non-trivial % of the time.<br /><br />I do think for many in your example, the most annoying will not be the lost loot but the "having to redo upper levels while knowing the only reason you are doing so is because you died."Haguhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03726885305104254286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7801344413612447717.post-4920452905883624182011-06-20T19:13:45.381+02:002011-06-20T19:13:45.381+02:00Max, compared to what you had when you entered the...Max, compared to what you had when you entered the labyrinth you never lose much. Looking at it this way, this is a very lenient death penalty.<br /><br />However, if you die your current adventure ends and you lose everything you gained during it. Looking at it this way, the DP is rather serious. <br /><br />In the end it just depends on how long you have been in the labyrinth. 30 minutes? Then dying is really just annoying. But the labyrinth is tuned in a way that you likely won't die after 30 min, unless the only thing you did is going ever deeper. It's perfectly reasonable to farm resources at higher levels. It's not risky and does give 'rewards'.<br /><br />If you have been in there for several days in a row (you can safely log out), then the death penalty might become really annoying. But if you do that you are hardcore enough to live with it.<br /><br />--<br />You know this blog, Max. Do you think I like badges? ;)<br />There are more immersive ways to reward people. I just listed some in the last comment.<br /><br />--<br />The labyrinth is self-balaning. No need for ELO ratings. The deeper you can go, the more determined, risk-loving and, obviously skilled, you are. You can mostly choose your fights - until very deep when the mobs will also start to move around a lot and there's generally a high mob density.Nilshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06468755466492675831noreply@blogger.com