Hollows was my absolute favorite zone of any MMO I've ever played.

I quit COH after an hour due to a painful combat system which made the early player experience terrible, so I don't know how bad or nonexistant the death penalty actually was. I'm just against death penalties in MMOs becuase of the reasons I've already stated.

I'm sure COH was a great game, but combat was not its strongest point.

jtpaull wrote:

ZeeHero wrote:

Many people simply feel that dying in a game is punishment enough. Failure does not feel good or rewarding. Why punish it even further? all this does is make sure everyone plays tanky characters with plenty of self sustain and never tries blaster types.

That was never a problem in CoH. I never played a tank, ever. The death penalty in no way decided what I played.

Same here death penalty had nothing todo with my selections or continuing content.

It’s already been heavily defended as not heavily punishing or insulting. I just feel like whining over death penalties is superfluous.

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Hollows was my absolute favorite zone of any MMO I've ever played.

Are you a masochist? Not judging, not even really asking.

Just making a joke.

? What was so terrible about the Hollows? There were enemies galore, so in a team or solo you could street sweep for hours and get xp like a mad dog. I also really liked how the zone was distributed with buildings, hills, and the pit. You could always find an area with greys, another with whites, and if you wanted a challenge there was no shortage of yellows, reds, and purples. I'm not a masochist...I just enjoyed the challenge of the Hollows and I would love for CoT to have a zone similar to it.

ZeeHero wrote:

Many people simply feel that dying in a game is punishment enough. Failure does not feel good or rewarding. Why punish it even further? all this does is make sure everyone plays tanky characters with plenty of self sustain and never tries blaster types.

Yeah right... my favorite archetypes in CoH tended to be Controllers and Blasters. Not exactly "tanky" types in the slightest.

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Hollows was my absolute favorite zone of any MMO I've ever played.

Are you a masochist? Not judging, not even really asking.

Just making a joke.

? What was so terrible about the Hollows? There were enemies galore, so in a team or solo you could street sweep for hours and get xp like a mad dog. I also really liked how the zone was distributed with buildings, hills, and the pit. You could always find an area with greys, another with whites, and if you wanted a challenge there was no shortage of yellows, reds, and purples. I'm not a masochist...I just enjoyed the challenge of the Hollows and I would love for CoT to have a zone similar to it.

The zone was too big, only one hospital, and set at a point in the game where you likely didn't have a travel power. Missions often put you going to opposite ends of the map, constantly, and without a travel power your options were to take a long time running around the pit, or to have hover and slowly fly over the pit... Taking a long time.

Enemies in the pit were far too strong for the zone and had a massive aggro range so much so that you'd get hit by a rock, usually before you knew there were even enemies around and because of the massive difference in level these attacks usually one shot a character, not helped by the fact that it was rarely one rock coming at you at once as you'd not just agro one of these things but a whole group of them.

The actual missions were fine and I liked how the zone looked but it was a mess.

Well right off the bat we already know CoT will be giving us our travel powers at level 1...

Keep telling us how you keep expecting an exact repeat of the angst you had over the Hallows...

jtpaull wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

The actual missions were fine and I liked how the zone looked but it was a mess.

I played almost exclusively in the Hollows as much as I could and you and I had drastically different experiences.

It's funny after hundreds of posts bickering about death penalties I think the -real- problem here was that Project_Hero simply didn't like the Hallows.

jtpaull wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Hollows was my absolute favorite zone of any MMO I've ever played.

Are you a masochist? Not judging, not even really asking.

Just making a joke.

? What was so terrible about the Hollows? There were enemies galore, so in a team or solo you could street sweep for hours and get xp like a mad dog. I also really liked how the zone was distributed with buildings, hills, and the pit. You could always find an area with greys, another with whites, and if you wanted a challenge there was no shortage of yellows, reds, and purples. I'm not a masochist...I just enjoyed the challenge of the Hollows and I would love for CoT to have a zone similar to it.

The zone was too big, only one hospital, and set at a point in the game where you likely didn't have a travel power. Missions often put you going to opposite ends of the map, constantly, and without a travel power your options were to take a long time running around the pit, or to have hover and slowly fly over the pit... Taking a long time.

Enemies in the pit were far too strong for the zone and had a massive aggro range so much so that you'd get hit by a rock, usually before you knew there were even enemies around and because of the massive difference in level these attacks usually one shot a character, not helped by the fact that it was rarely one rock coming at you at once as you'd not just agro one of these things but a whole group of them.

The actual missions were fine and I liked how the zone looked but it was a mess.

I played almost exclusively in the Hollows as much as I could and you and I had drastically different experiences.

Clearly. As soon as I was able to not go to the hollows I did so. The majority of my CoH leveling came from radio missions, I liked those. Quick, uncomplicated, and I could tell my own stories with them.

ivanhedgehog wrote:

rookslide wrote:

No no no. The Hollows was a large zone but that was what made it so great! It offered challenges other low level zones didn’t! This is what made it so fun! I couldn’t agree more with how great the hollows was for both player and character progression. I don’t want my game so easy I don’t care about the zones. I want to hate a hard zone and love another zone, that is spice of life! It is what makes the game more interesting and fun!

Croatoa was another fun zone.

The Spooky town? That zone was awesome. It and Dark Astoria were pretty cool.

Project_Hero wrote:

Faultline was a loooooong zone. Had a neat little secret area though.

Boomtown I didn't see that much of for actual play, I think only one of my characters actually did any missions there.

Yeah I think there was only like one story arc that took you to Boomtown but I loved the apocalyptic feel.

Project_Hero wrote:

rookslide wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

Faultline was a loooooong zone. Had a neat little secret area though.

Boomtown I didn't see that much of for actual play, I think only one of my characters actually did any missions there.

Yeah I think there was only like one story arc that took you to Boomtown but I loved the apocalyptic feel.

Oh yeah, I liked that most of the zones had a very distinct look and feel to them. Spent a lot of time in Steel Canyon personally.

Me too, I loved Steel C. I’m a Satriani fan so I loved the music traveling through the buildings there! Always reminded me of his stuff!

Yeah it was the easiest to get to. There was one in Independence Port that was pretty easy at a lower level but that was another longish zone.

ZeeHero wrote:

Many people simply feel that dying in a game is punishment enough. Failure does not feel good or rewarding. Why punish it even further? all this does is make sure everyone plays tanky characters with plenty of self sustain and never tries blaster types.

Right, but game design doesn't have to take into account what "many" people feel. Game design has to take into account the other "many" who would take advantage of the lack of a death penalty to play the game in a way the developers did not intend.

To quote MWM on this:

Tannim222 wrote:

Primarily, death penalties are meant to be a form of negative reinforcement. A dev wants players to play a certain way and the negative result of not doing so is meant encouraged the appropriate play.

[hr]

PeaceMack wrote:

Yeah, classic Hollows was challenging as a newbie. At the same time, I learned a lot about line of sight and aggro distances. And it led to the community response in the form of the Taxibots. So I actually didn't mind it too much and kind of liked the thrill of danger once I learned what I needed to know.

But then again, I cut my MMO teeth on a MUD with very significant death penalties up to and including character perma-death. As a result City of Heroes never felt particularly punishing. I might be coming at it from a different perspective than others though.

I think there's a lesson in there somewhere. I think that if we make things too easy or too convenient, we start losing the incentive to form these kinds of self-organizing social structures. You have some great memories and tales to tell, not despite the difficulties of the Hollows but because of the difficulties of the hollows.

rookslide wrote:

I remember running/hovering to the tailor when I was too low a level for the zone. That was always a fun time.

Yeah it was! You know one of the things that made death so painful at lower levels in the Hollows was the run to get back. Not having a travel power may have made the xp debt feel worse.

COT plans on having travel powers from Character Creation as I understand it. This may make a big difference to some folks too.

Yeah, it'll be easier to get back after defeat, but then the devs can put respawns further from missions to compensate.

And heaven forbid in the hollows if you died trying to get back, Sheesh. A few times I'd be almost at the mission door then get jumped by enemies far too strong and die again.

Most of the time in my early days of CoH the hollows would be where I'd go "Hmm... Maybe I'll try out a new character for a little bit." Either due to deaths, not wanting to deal with the hollows, or just my alt-itis.

jtpaull wrote:

The alt-itis was strong with me in CoH! As I'm sure it will be with CoT...although I'm trying to convince myself to create one character and play to max level without ever making an alt...that way, when I do make an alt that new class will be new and exciting. I realized that in CoH, and even WoW for that matter, because I made so many alts of every class, when I did want to not play my main I had already experienced all the classes in low-level and none of them felt fun. So I had to just pick one and play through another 10ish levels until i get enough new powers for it to be exciting again. I'm hoping I can change that in CoT.

I don’t know. I mean I had a ton of alts too but some of them were really just stepping stones to learning how the archetype worked then I would flesh out an alt that made more sense to me as I learned some key features.

Of course I’m thinking it will be a lil easier to create a concept in COT than it was in COH so perhaps the learning curve will be smoother for me...

But I definitely get what you mean about losing interest in some alts after creating a few of them of a particular archetype and not being very successful. I don’t know how many controllers I did before carrying my fire/fire troller to lvl 50. Probably a dozen or so but none were fun til that fire/fire.

Lothic wrote:

[Well I guess part of "selling" this specific idea would involve just how "customized" each version of this could be. For example you mentioned having a water-based guy needing to pop up in the nearest body of water. Could they make that be "the nearest open flame" or maybe "the nearest open sky" (for sun-based people who get killed underground).

I think the "details" would make or break this idea.

Basically what you're talking about is being able to "hospital" at places other than hospitals. Take away the glitzy Fluff Text™ around what you're doing and at the game mechanical level that's essentially what you're calling for. You can "hospital" somewhere other than hospitals.

This game mechanical difference of being able to "hospital" at places other than hospitals suffers from the same downfall as letting "weather" influence the effects/strengths of your powers. Fire is weak when it rains, Cold is stronger when it's snowing, Energy fails underwater, Dark doesn't work as well in broad daylight but works better at night ... and so on. All of these things build a sort of "favoritism" into the game's mechanics, which you better believe the Players will wind up being sensitive to, whether you think they should or not. You'd be amazed by how much the min/max mentality will infect the conventional wisdom propagated within a game's broader community of players. Net result is that people would stop playing when the conditions were adverse to their characters, or they'd just log into an alt, simply to avoid the detrimental effects of weather conditions (something they can't control, even with a weather control powerset).

Net result? You have created vulnerabilities that are all too easily avoided (just log out), thereby negating the "value" of having those vulnerabilities in the first place.

This is not a theoretical thing either, it's been tested and shown that this is the dynamic of human behavior.

With the notion of being able to "hospital" without going to a hospital, you've got the same dynamic going on respective to the game mechanical incentives. What can I pick that offers no downsides and only upsides for how I play? In that sense, it's no different than making a Fire/Fire character and playing only in AE content filled with Foes who only do Fire Damage (which you're strong against) and which are weak against Fire Damage themselves (your strength).

Just as an example of this, being able to "hospital in the ocean" is great if you're playing in a coastal neighborhood or along the seashore (Talos Island anyone?) but would absolutely suck if you're playing in any seriously "inland" zones (Colorado anyone?).

What I'm wanting to highlight here is the ... perversity of incentives ... that are involved with such an idea, where the fundamental flaw (as we have seen all too often in American History as well as in Gaming History) is that [b]Separate But Equal[/b] fails on BOTH counts ... being neither Separate ... nor Equal. But the real problem from a gaming standpoint comes in with the lack of Equality of Outcomes, such that there is always going to be a Better Path™, and you better believe that the Players will not only find it but exploit the hell out of it until it is patched.

Now, if we weren't talking about a game, with thousands of people playing it, but instead talking about a comic book or a movie script or something like that, being able to "hospital" at locations other than a hospital tailored to each character's backstory would make sense. But in an MMORPG, you NEED to have a level playing field for this sort of thing.

The closest I'd even want to get to this kind of idea would be something based on your character's Alignments ... such that there would be 9 different "hospitals" associated with 3 of the range bands on each of the 3 different alignment axes. So you'd have 3 Law "hospitals" (lawless, neutral, lawful), 3 Honor "hospitals" (honorless, neutral, honorable) and 3 Peace "hospitals" (violent, neutral, peaceful) scattered around the city, in addition to the regular "non-aligned" hospitals as well. These alignment oriented hospitals could be anything from a "police hospital" for police officers (so, Lawful) to being a Vahzilok inspired "meat wagon" chop shop back alley horror show "surgery" (so, Violent) type of deal (heck, it might even be mobile and follow a patrol route to avoid the police!). But the point is that they'd amount to "alternate" hospitals that PCs could use, but they'd be Alignment restricted, so not everyone can use them ... while everyone would have access to the non-aligned "hospital" hospitals.

Point being that when choosing between an aligned "hospital" and a non-aligned hospital, which one makes for a shorter run back to where you faceplanted could vary a fair amount, but everyone would have what amounts to at least 4 options to choose from (3 aligned "hospitals" and 1 non-aligned hospital, minimum) and that consideration alone creates a diversity of gameplay incentives surrounding the services you'd need to make use of after being defeated. Game mechanically speaking, they'd all be pretty much the same, but in terms of story, background and atmosphere they could all be remarkably different ... and they could in turn provide launching pads for a wide variety of stories and missions, particularly when dealing with opposing alignments.

Say "The Mob" managed to wound but not kill a prominent police officer who is now convalescing in the police hospital under guard. As a lawless Villain, your assignment is to go into that police hospital and kill that police officer in their bed so the officer never wakes up and passes on what information they know about "The Mob's" arrangements, in a [b]Dead Men Tell No Tales[/b] kind of way. Now you've got a location to put such a story content element into but you're also able to use that element [i]outside the confines of that story[/i] as a "public" (hospital) service to PCs, cementing the location's backstory in the game world as an enduring feature. In other words, it serves more than one purpose.

But near as I can tell, City of Titans doesn't want to go in that direction, so that's yet another idea that can be tossed on the scrap heap.

Darth Fez wrote:

That's essentially my stance, as well. I don't need a death penalty to make me want to avoid having my character die. I don't want to die because I don't want to die. When I play, I want to think, "Do I want to risk dying here?" I don't want to have to think, "Do I want to risk the death penalty?"

Which is fine ... [i]if you're dealing with a sample size of ONE.[/i]

News flash ... MMORPGs tend to handle more than one Player at a time.

So let's say, just for the sake of argument, that there are 1000+ Players concurrently online. What assurances can you give that EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM will subscribe to YOUR attitude expressed above, without failure or deviation?

The developers of an MMORPG aren't building the game for YOU personally ... they're building the game to handle each and every little thing that a "mob" of people can try and do, including the "stupid but works is still stupid, yet still works" crowd. It's the reason why roads in the real world have guardrails built into them. Even if YOU personally never need (or want!) to make use of a specific section of guardrail, SOMEBODY out there somewhere is going to need it at some point, to either save their lives (in the case of guardrails on roads) or to help guide them towards practicing better survival skills in a game.

I've never been involved (either as a driver or as a passenger) in a car accident where the guardrail on the side of the road was a factor in the outcome of that accident. So for ME, those guardrails are completely useless and I have no intention of ever "needing" to make use of them ... but that doesn't mean that I would advocate for their removal from every road in America as a wasted investment of public safety funds keeping American citizens ALIVE on a daily basis around the country. Just because *I'M* a "safe driver" doesn't mean that everyone on the road either is or will be (and I think we can all attest to how UNsafe a lot of our fellow drivers on the road can be in their driving habits!). In fact, it's relatively common to see damaged guardrails around roads in pretty much any populated city or part of the country, because at some point someone is going to crash into them, whether or not that's YOU personally.

So yeah, when you say "*I* don't want to die!" that's going to be a pretty common sentiment ... but it's not going to be the ONLY sentiment that Players of the game will have. What about the people who don't subscribe to that notion? What do you do about them? Will you ... indulge them ... or will you "correct" them with regards to this question? If there's no "corrective" action taken at the game mechanical level, isn't that tacitly tantamount to condoning their behavior, if not aiding and abetting it?

When dealing with questions about Player Behavior, you really need to use a larger sample size than [b]ONE[/b].
Just because YOU aren't going to do something stupid, doesn't mean no one else will either.

[youtube]kkCwFkOZoOY[/youtube]

Redlynne wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:

That's essentially my stance, as well. I don't need a death penalty to make me want to avoid having my character die. I don't want to die because I don't want to die. When I play, I want to think, "Do I want to risk dying here?" I don't want to have to think, "Do I want to risk the death penalty?"

Which is fine ... [i]if you're dealing with a sample size of ONE.[/i]

News flash ... MMORPGs tend to handle more than one Player at a time.

Uh, yeah. It's [b]my[/b] stance. It's my opinion. I am one person. You're responding to my opinion as though it was an argument and, as the cherry on top, you try to refute it with a straw man.

But, really, the most interest thing to me was the quote Huckleberry found from Tannim:

Tannim222 wrote:

Primarily, death penalties are meant to be a form of negative reinforcement. A dev wants players to play a certain way and the negative result of not doing so is meant encouraged the appropriate play.

The devs have repeatedly stated that they want us to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them. In my book, introducing a death penalty to "encourage the appropriate play" runs counter to that.

Lothic wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:

The devs have repeatedly stated that they want us to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them. In my book, introducing a death penalty to "encourage the appropriate play" runs counter to that.

Conversely if the "way" you want to play your characters is to face plant every 5 seconds without consequence then I'd pretty much want a game to "discourage" you from desiring that for your own good. Playstyle freedom can only be -so- free and still satisfy the greater good of the game.

What if you're playing a character like Nitro from marvel who's power is self desructing and reforming?

:P

Darth Fez wrote:

But, really, the most interest thing to me was the quote Huckleberry found from Tannim:

Tannim222 wrote:

Primarily, death penalties are meant to be a form of negative reinforcement. A dev wants players to play a certain way and the negative result of not doing so is meant encouraged the appropriate play.

The devs have repeatedly stated that they want us to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them. In my book, introducing a death penalty to "encourage the appropriate play" runs counter to that.

I’ve designed games (online and single player) and I’ll tell you that part of the design of any game involves deciding how the game should be played and ways to encourage that behavior. It could be as simple as not wanting Mario to jump in a pit so that if he does that you lose a life or start over. Just giving someone XP for killing an enemy is another example; the developers want you to fight enemies so you are rewarded if you do. If you don’t define how a game should be played, and don’t encourage that somehow, you literally don’t have a game.

Freedom doesn’t come from not having a design goal for gameplay and methods to achieve that (which is all Tannim222 was really describing). Freedom comes from having many different kinds of “appropriate play” and letting players choose which to engage in, and when to do it. You can have things like death penalties to encourage people to avoid reckless combat situations and yet give them lots of freedom by giving them a variety of things to do while avoiding death.

Remember, even a sandbox has to have sand and a box... ;)

When you die, you arrive at a funeral with a bunch of the cities big heroes there, mourning your death, when you arise from the coffin fully alive and one of the heroes remarks "I should've known."

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:

The devs have repeatedly stated that they want us to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them. In my book, introducing a death penalty to "encourage the appropriate play" runs counter to that.

I think this is true... to some degree. It's certainly not an absolute. CoT won't be a completely free-form game that allows you to level in any and every way possible; they just want you to have a myriad of options.

Hence I specifically left in that key phrase: "death penalty". That games must have rules is a given. There's no rule that a game must have a death penalty that forces, or conditions, players to play in a certain manner, any more than there's a rule that states a team must be comprised of a tank, a healer, and three damage dealers. I don't agree with this "we must herd the players because people are stupid" approach.

Huckleberry wrote:

I think it would be nifty if, when you go to the hospital, you see some NPC heroes and villians in there also. It would be especially nice if one of the NPC villians were to walk out the door alongside you and then turn give you a goodbye salute with a wink and then poof out, saying "see you again soon!"

I would be totally down for that. I love immersion stuff like that that brings the world alive. I also like the literal nod and wink ????

Brand X wrote:

Safehouse wrote:

Brand X wrote:

When you die, you arrive at a funeral with a bunch of the cities big heroes there, mourning your death, when you arise from the coffin fully alive and one of the heroes remarks "I should've known."

I’m relatively sure this was said facetiously, but it actually brings to mind an interesting idea, although it is likely entirely not feasible to implement:

I feel like it would be neat if your hero’s defeat at the hands of a powerful villain (or vice versa) led to like headlines or people commenting on the streets about it. Like the villain/hero NPC gains notoriety for defeating a hero/villain PC as notable as “____”. Even without penalizing the character from a game mechanics aspect, it would be a neat way of upping the “narrative stakes”.

From a story perspective giving your character a “why do we fall Master Wayne?” moment.

Dunno, just thinking out loud.

Yes, meant to be humorous. :p

However, CoH did hospitals, why not change it up for CoT? How about heroes rise from the grave! Imagine the awesome cinematic that could be :)

I’m all for that! Let’s change the formula and have multiple potential respawn possibilities! Rise from the grave; descend from the heavens; pull a reverse terminator and bubble out of magma!

Darth Fez wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:

The devs have repeatedly stated that they want us to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them. In my book, introducing a death penalty to "encourage the appropriate play" runs counter to that.

I think this is true... to some degree. It's certainly not an absolute. CoT won't be a completely free-form game that allows you to level in any and every way possible; they just want you to have a myriad of options.

Hence I specifically left in that key phrase: "death penalty". That games must have rules is a given. There's no rule that a game must have a death penalty that forces, or conditions, players to play in a certain manner, any more than there's a rule that states a team must be comprised of a tank, a healer, and three damage dealers. I don't agree with this "we must herd the players because people are stupid" approach.

You and I must have completely different definitions of "herding" since to me having a little extra penalty for dieing is not anywhere near the level of herding. Herding to me would be to actively steering the players in one single very specific "path" even though several are available because the devs have determined that that is the one single correct path to take through the game (especially if the community has decided otherwise).

However there will be some other rules that would also technically run counter to the "to be able to play our characters the way we want to play them" statement and those are focused around disruptive game play, that is people who play in manner as to disrupt the experience for others. Yes I fully recognize that those situations include more than just oneself so are slightly different but I don't see why a very simple/small death penalty is such a bad "break/counter" to freedom of play while rules against disruptive play is generally seen as mandatory.

Now we just animate that better in CoT! A hand darting out from the ground! :)

Project_Hero wrote:

Brand X wrote:

Now we just animate that better in CoT! A hand darting out from the ground! :)

Be a bit weird for robots, but then the hospital is too.

I liked to think that the hospitals in CoX were advanced, because of the genre and setting, and could work on both living and non-living beings. Made sense as far as RP was concerned because that is an obvious head=scratcher..."how did they rez me? I'm a robot..."

Huckleberry wrote:

All the more reason to add graveyards and junkyards to the possible respawn locations you get to pick at character creation.

I like that idea. I can see making a robot that, when I die and get rezzed, it's in a scrapyard by a group of smart 'dumpster divers' that were looking for scrap and fixed me with the intention to sell me or something and then I just get up and walk away. They'd be bummed.

jtpaull wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

All the more reason to add graveyards and junkyards to the possible respawn locations you get to pick at character creation.

I like that idea. I can see making a robot that, when I die and get rezzed, it's in a scrapyard by a group of smart 'dumpster divers' that were looking for scrap and fixed me with the intention to sell me or something and then I just get up and walk away. They'd be bummed.

Seems really disrespectful to a robot hero.

"My god... He sacrificed himself to save us all... WELP! Throw him in the garbage!"

jtpaull wrote:

Project_Hero wrote:

jtpaull wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

All the more reason to add graveyards and junkyards to the possible respawn locations you get to pick at character creation.

I like that idea. I can see making a robot that, when I die and get rezzed, it's in a scrapyard by a group of smart 'dumpster divers' that were looking for scrap and fixed me with the intention to sell me or something and then I just get up and walk away. They'd be bummed.

Seems really disrespectful to a robot hero.

"My god... He sacrificed himself to save us all... WELP! Throw him in the garbage!"

Since it would be a bad guy that 'killed' you, it would be them who threw you in the scrapyard, probably in the hopes that 'good' people don't find you and rez you.

Touché.

Really depends how you got there, some villains would likely am-scray after dropping a hero, not bothering to check if they're alive.

Edit: That might make for a good comic book story/idea. Some d-list villains manage to down (but not kill) a high profile hero, they scarper, but then some other villain comes in and finishes off the hero. Now the world thinks these schmucks did it and the rest of the heroes won't rest till they avenge their fallen comrade.

ZeeHero wrote:

Stupid people could never handle the 30 skills per class optimal rotations of FFXIV for instance.

Ah Dragoon, you beautiful bastard of a job. At one point we were using a 40+ button combo to do ideal dps to bosses. The only thing missing at that point was a system message from the game saying "You broke your combo you slut". XD

Atama wrote:

part of the design of any game involves deciding how the game should be played and ways to encourage that behavior. It could be as simple as not wanting Mario to jump in a pit so that if he does that you lose a life or start over. Just giving someone XP for killing an enemy is another example; the developers want you to fight enemies so you are rewarded if you do. If you don’t define how a game should be played, and don’t encourage that somehow, you literally don’t have a game.

Freedom doesn’t come from not having a design goal for gameplay and methods to achieve that (which is all Tannim222 was really describing). Freedom comes from having many different kinds of “appropriate play” and letting players choose which to engage in, and when to do it. You can have things like death penalties to encourage people to avoid reckless combat situations and yet give them lots of freedom by giving them a variety of things to do while avoiding death.

Remember, even a sandbox has to have sand and a box... ;)

This. I would assume most of us arguing for a "death penalty" are arguing from a development standpoint. A "behind the curtain" point of view. Freedom from "penalties" does sound very appealing. Until you take into account the consequences of what putting in the absolute minimum of "penalties" will do to the game. Of replacing the "penalties" with "additional bonuses". Extra XP for certain achievements in a dungeon run shortens even further the race to max level, or even out leveling portions of content. Extra currency leads to an inflation in game economy. Extra "gear" could both flood the economy and accelerate players racing through content. It creates disgruntled players that run out of things to do, creates unnecessary grinds just to be able to buy things, and puts extra pressure on the devs to push out content. Extra dev time to create any new shiny gear/costume pieces as part of those rewards, taking time away from meaningful game content creation. It's a delicate balance to maintain, and I'd rather they herd us a bit (even if it's only for the first year) if it's going to increase the longevity of the game and reduce dev stress levels.

Project_Hero wrote:

It doesn't shorten it at all. As gaining XP with bonuses would be the expected norm, so all XP would be calculated with that in mind.

There wouldn't be extra currency because they'd lower all other currency gains other than the bonus.

People would -think- they're getting more, but in actuality they'd be getting the expected amount.

Same with gear, you make a tier just for rewards, it would be expected for players to have some/all this tier of gear by end game.

All changing penalties to rewards does is adjust the viewpoint a bit. But if players don't know that's what is happening, and players are happy with getting "bonuses" then everyone wins.

It changes the viewpoint a lot and not in a way that everyone agrees is better. We have been over this to death. However, with your system in place you haven’t gotten any penalties and continue the same tactics regardless. I think more of us don’t agree enough with this logic than agree with it at least in this forums small sample set.

Myri wrote:

ZeeHero wrote:

Stupid people could never handle the 30 skills per class optimal rotations of FFXIV for instance.

Ah Dragoon, you beautiful bastard of a job. At one point we were using a 40+ button combo to do ideal dps to bosses. The only thing missing at that point was a system message from the game saying "You broke your combo you slut". XD

Atama wrote:

part of the design of any game involves deciding how the game should be played and ways to encourage that behavior. It could be as simple as not wanting Mario to jump in a pit so that if he does that you lose a life or start over. Just giving someone XP for killing an enemy is another example; the developers want you to fight enemies so you are rewarded if you do. If you don’t define how a game should be played, and don’t encourage that somehow, you literally don’t have a game.

Freedom doesn’t come from not having a design goal for gameplay and methods to achieve that (which is all Tannim222 was really describing). Freedom comes from having many different kinds of “appropriate play” and letting players choose which to engage in, and when to do it. You can have things like death penalties to encourage people to avoid reckless combat situations and yet give them lots of freedom by giving them a variety of things to do while avoiding death.

Remember, even a sandbox has to have sand and a box... ;)

This. I would assume most of us arguing for a "death penalty" are arguing from a development standpoint. A "behind the curtain" point of view. Freedom from "penalties" does sound very appealing. Until you take into account the consequences of what putting in the absolute minimum of "penalties" will do to the game. Of replacing the "penalties" with "additional bonuses". Extra XP for certain achievements in a dungeon run shortens even further the race to max level, or even out leveling portions of content. Extra currency leads to an inflation in game economy. Extra "gear" could both flood the economy and accelerate players racing through content. It creates disgruntled players that run out of things to do, creates unnecessary grinds just to be able to buy things, and puts extra pressure on the devs to push out content. Extra dev time to create any new shiny gear/costume pieces as part of those rewards, taking time away from meaningful game content creation. It's a delicate balance to maintain, and I'd rather they herd us a bit (even if it's only for the first year) if it's going to increase the longevity of the game and reduce dev stress levels.

Excellent point Myri.

Sadly my idea of a Mariachi band walking on-screen and performing Ring of Fire was rejected.

Whenever I hear that song anymore, I see a slow freeze-pan, starting with a town in West Virginia, then crossing the Ring into Thuringia circa 1631....

Penalties and rewards both help create the emotional experience of the gameplay. The specific type of gameplay we are discussing is the combat part of the game. It's often quick paced, team oriented, realtime action. The immediacy of the ups and downs in combat help create this emotional experience. It draws us in, focuses us for those few seconds or minutes and I believe both are required for a healthy MMO.
A close analolgy might be an action film where the risk of the hero failing to beat the bad guys creates interest for the viewer. Action scenes (similar to combat play) need risk to have meaning or the scene falls flat and the viewers lose interest. The hero also usually gets some reward but not always and even the tragedy of our hero losing (this time) is usually seen as a meaningful event to keep our interest. Rewards for the hero can likewise be meaningful but without the presence of some risk to give the reward the scene falls flat. Superman doesn't become interesting when he pulverizes a common street thug and this allows him to buy that new belt buckle he's been eyeing at Macy's. He's interesting when he fights Lex Luthor because Luther is smart and resourceful and is an unpleasant reminder of Superman's failings. This makes him a real and meaningful match for Superman's invulnerabliity during an action sequence. He has a real chance of losing a battle with Luthor. Interestingly, even if the reward is saving the world or trying redeem Luthor, that is also what is at risk...
In MMO combat we get both the risk and the rewards in combat. But they are seperated but it still helps to keep the related. MMO combat is less nuanced than an action scene so the ups and downs are more rapid and blunt. We obtain feedback immediately in the process. In combat gameplay, risk without reward is still engaging simply because it's a fun challenge in the moment. I would argue that the reverse on it's own is less often true (This is what I believe many are suggesting). It is much like in an action scene but with slightly different parameters due to the repestitiveness and lack of nuance. What the actual portions are for an MMO is actually not as important and the idea that the reward's meaning in combat requires meaningful risk more than in other areas of a game due to problems of creating a narrative with a more nuanced relationship of risk to reward. Game designers attempt to do this by creating a meaningful capital to share in common ( gold, items, mats for crsfting, achievements etc.) as a reward and require that a risk be taken to link them together in an experience.
When the value of a reward is related to the risk (of death penalty in this discussion) this enhances the experience of the combative gameplay. (I just blasted street mob #542, ohh I hear a shiney popping into my inventory... I wonder what it could be? Boy that last mob was tough, glad I didn't die or It was so tough I died X times... Wow, my shiney sure is great though !!!) All these quick thoughts in succession coincide with some of the ups and downs of the combat, correlating the risk with the common capital reward. Hence, the risk for reward congruence in a game designed around combat is a powerful motivator and especially so for gameplay where teamwork from people who may need to cooperate for a variety of reasons is an integral part of the process. It may actually be a necessary part of the design in order to cover more bases of possible interest- some like the fast paced risk of combat others like the reward (PacMan pellets) and some like both. But MOST will suffer the one for the other (within reasonable limits) because they appreciate at least one apsect. These are not the only reasons for participation in an MMO but with respect to ongoing, team-based, combat experience they are likely the strongest determinants within contemporary MMOs.
Some people like superman who can street sweep all day long with out a care in the world (wakawakawaka). Others like classic batman, where slightest mistake would result in a bullet to the head or a fall to his demise. Many like both. But they all will all see a movie with them both in it. So, I value the differences and appreciate their interdependence in MMOs, helping create a fun, collaborative combat gaming experience.

p.s. Sorry to blab but I really enjoy hearing everyone's perspectives on this interesting subject. I'm sure there a more neurochemical approach or social learning theory that might explain this but I really think the narrative angle is a nice way to describe this.

blacke4dawn wrote:

After reading Beeker's post one thing popped into my mind.

How do you design a reward that is only given once at the end of a run to be equally motivating and/or "rewarding" as a death penalty that can be applied hundreds or even thousands of times during the same run.

With a death penalty you have the same, if not even slightly higher, motivating factor to not die each and every time during the same run but with a rewards system you loose most of the motivating factor once you expend the max-die counter (which could be just 1) for that run.

Considering most death penalties amount to pay a little bit of IGC and walk back to the place you died, having to pay those as penalties isn't exactly that big of a motivating factor for not dying. Don't die or you'll suffer a very mild inconvenience isn't exactly gripping stuff.

Not wanting to lose is a big motivational factor, not wanting to miss out is a big motivational factor. I will and have attempt to run something multiple times to get it perfect to get some kind of reward, even if such a reward isn't anything mechanically rewarding (nothing to increase stats or whatever). Sometimes just because I want the thing, other times because I felt I was so close to getting the thing that I felt I could get it if I did it again.

People just don't like to lose, it doesn't really matter what bells and whistles you attach to it.

Project_Hero wrote:

blacke4dawn wrote:

After reading Beeker's post one thing popped into my mind.

How do you design a reward that is only given once at the end of a run to be equally motivating and/or "rewarding" as a death penalty that can be applied hundreds or even thousands of times during the same run.

With a death penalty you have the same, if not even slightly higher, motivating factor to not die each and every time during the same run but with a rewards system you loose most of the motivating factor once you expend the max-die counter (which could be just 1) for that run.

Considering most death penalties amount to pay a little bit of IGC and walk back to the place you died, having to pay those as penalties isn't exactly that big of a motivating factor for not dying. Don't die or you'll suffer a very mild inconvenience isn't exactly gripping stuff.

So??? Doesn't adress that death penalties are for each and every death and rewards are only "lost" for the first one on that run.

Quote:

Not wanting to lose is a big motivational factor, not wanting to miss out is a big motivational factor. I will and have attempt to run something multiple times to get it perfect to get some kind of reward, even if such a reward isn't anything mechanically rewarding (nothing to increase stats or whatever). Sometimes just because I want the thing, other times because I felt I was so close to getting the thing that I felt I could get it if I did it again.

But that is only true if the rewards are unique or can't be reasonably gotten through other means. If the reward is only a bit of IGC and/or XP (the much more used death penalty) then I would say it has a much smaller motivating factor to making that run "perfect", or even on improving your play style (as in not faceplanting as much).
Also, rewards as a motivating factor also looses their effectiveness if the player isn't actively aiming for them. It's very easy to ignore certain rewards and just plow on, not so much with a death penalty.

Quote:

People just don't like to lose, it doesn't really matter what bells and whistles you attach to it.

Right, so it doesn't really matter if it's a reward or a death penalty. It's more about how much and how "often" you get "hit" by it and thus how big of a motivating factor it becomes. So how do you design a rewards system that can make you "loose" the same amount each and every time you die, not just the first time you die during a specific run?

Using "high-end rewards" as a motivating factor for improving players "survival skills" won't do much since the players going for them are already motivated enough, and death penalties are not really aimed at those kinds of player to begin with.

@Blacke4dawn, you make a very good point that once I've lost the reward as a player, there is no further incentive provided by the reward-removal form of death penalty. Whereas a punishment can continue to motivate even after multiple failures. (at least until it reaches its [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Debt]cap[/url])

Frankly. I'm surprised that some people are still trying to advocate that reward-removal is just as effective as punishment as far as failure penalties go. I kind of hold myself partly to blame for this because way back at post [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/146319#comment-146319]#468[/url], Project_Hero had some erroneous interpretations of an argument I made and I did no take the time to correct him or her. As the old saying goes about not wrestling with a pig, there comes a time in every argument where you have to make a decision for yourself whether or not you have stated your position clearly enough and just accept that the other person is just not going to budge, is incapable of understanding, or is just enjoying the exchange for argument's sake. So if it was one of those reasons or another, I decided that I had made made my statements clear enough and let Project_Hero unfortunately continue on with a momentum that shouldn't have been.

Also, I think Scott Jackson made a post with links about Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment but then since deleted it. While I can no longer find the links he used, [url=https://explorable.com/operant-conditioning]here[/url] is one that explains the terms. They [u]all[/u] result in behavior modification, so if anyone saying they don't, stop. However, it is the [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/146124#comment-146124]unintended consequences[/url], resulting [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/146317#comment-146317]feedback behavior[/url], and [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/146296#comment-146296]final state[/url] which make reward-removal (a.k.a. negative punishment) so undesirable as the primary form of death penalty in a game. Because remember the primary goal of a death penalty in a game is not to drive behavior but to instill [i]THRILL[/i] and a sense of accomplishment. Behavior modification is secondary.

There are several interesting points made here since I last visited the posts. I guess I can see the idea of having rewards taken away but only if the portion of a mission related to that reward was not completed.

This amounts to the mission involved stopping x plot and catching y villain. We stop the plot but not catch the villa so one reward is gone. You died twice along the way and built a lil xp debt. I expect that cause when word gets out I failed twice in the same instance old jimmy olsen won’t be writing a great exposition for me so I expect some blowback for it. They are different forms of positive and negative reinforcement/punishment.

What I don’t agree with is being able to predetermine what rewards/punishments I can get beyond a generic difficulty level setting choice.

I think all the forms of reinforcement can be useful to help the immersion for my character. I just can’t agree with losing the xp debt it does serve a purpose.

It reminds us that though we are immortal we play with and amongst those that are mortal. We never have to pay the price they do when we fail.

It’s City of Titans not City of Never Failing. Are we heroes that are too good to pay a price for our shortcomings?

rookslide wrote:

There are several interesting points made here since I last visited the posts. I guess I can see the idea of having rewards taken away but only if the portion of a mission related to that reward was not completed.

This amounts to the mission involved stopping x plot and catching y villain. We stop the plot but not catch the villa so one reward is gone. You died twice along the way and built a lil xp debt. I expect that cause when word gets out I failed twice in the same instance old jimmy olsen won’t be writing a great exposition for me so I expect some blowback for it. They are different forms of positive and negative reinforcement/punishment.

What I don’t agree with is being able to predetermine what rewards/punishments I can get beyond a generic difficulty level setting choice.

I think all the forms of reinforcement can be useful to help the immersion for my character. I just can’t agree with losing the xp debt it does serve a purpose.

It reminds us that though we are immortal we play with and amongst those that are mortal. We never have to pay the price they do when we fail.

It’s City of Titans not City of Never Failing. Are we heroes that are too good to pay a price for our shortcomings?

But XP debt stops being a thing when you hit max level.

So eventually you get up to a point where you don't pay a price for your shortcomings/failures.

Honestly with the stuff you've said, and relating it to CoX, it would make more sense for characters to lose IGC when they die. Heroes lose Influence because they failed, and villains lose Infamy because they were beaten. Influence/Infamy is reputation after all.

Speaking of reputation. In CoT there's going to be factions and various rep levels with that, would a fitting death penalty not be losing some reputation for whatever faction you're helping? It makes sense to me, effects heroes and villains alike, never gets out leveled or trivialized, and directly affects reward gains.

Edit: possibly used the wrong effect/affect I can never remember which way they go.