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What Happens when your hero is defeated?

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rookslide
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This is true at max level I

This is true at max level I wasn’t really thinking about max level just the journey to max level I’ll have to give that more thought.

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

ivanhedgehog
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Project_Hero wrote:

Why does a pvper not need to be driven by death penalties to get better? But a pveer does?
XP debt doesnt take away something the player already owns, like money or reputation. It slows the acquisition of more.

At this point, we have made our positions clear, the devs will be building the system they want.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

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.

True. While I thought XP debt was a good death penalty because it was a penalty you paid while actually playing the game, not by waiting for a timer to expire while watching others play the game. It reaches the end of its usefullness as a punishment when the player reaches max level. I suppose we could keep it as a potential XP debt for when/if an expansion comes and the level cap is raised... but we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

Project_Hero wrote:

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.

I agree with and would support these proposals wholeheartedly.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Having read the link to the

Having read the link to the definitions behind positive/negative rewards and punishments there seem little we can do to actually remove death penalties, only reduce them, since not-dying is not something you "increase" due to that it's the default state. You don't reward nor punish people for being in or "doing" the default state. When they deviate from it you either reward or punish them depending on if the deviation is desirable or undesirable respectively.

Project_Hero wrote:

Have different reward tiers. Win the map without dying, all the bonuses, win without dying 3 times, lesser bonus, so on and so on.

Right, so what is a reasonable max for such no-die counter and how many tiers should it have? Sooner or later it will run out but a death penalty practically can't do so. Even if it's capped in amount reducing the debt by just one single point makes it possible to gain it back on the next death. So, rewards will have a very fixed cap while death penalties may have a concurrent cap but not a total cap for the entire run.

Quote:

You can also add in various rewards for other things. In a raid type thing you could award people for not getting hit by certain attacks or whatever. You want the rewards/penalties to teach people things, right? Then reward them for doing whatever right.

And what has that got to do with death penalties?

Quote:

You could have rewards give you better shots at better loot, Vermintide 2 does this. Though granted in that game that's more or less the only way to get loot, but still. Grind for hours having a tiny chance to get a rare loot drop, or do a mission and net all the rewards for a guaranteed rare drop.

Certain badges could require you to do a number of certain missions with specific conditions.

Right, but this goes beyond death penalties and touches on the whole rewards structure. No one here has argued against those types of rewards, just the specific one of replacing death penalties with rewards.

Quote:

Reward set ups can be a lot more flexible than death penalties.

But it's even more flexible to combine both.

Quote:

But yeah, these aren't going to motivate everyone but then neither do death penalties. You'll still run into people either way who just won't care all that much.

Yeah, but if you never aimed at getting a reward or even knew a specific one existed then you won't miss it when you don't receive it. That's kinda hard to do with a death penalty.

Quote:

I'm not explicitly arguing against having death penalties in games but the idea that games -need- them is ludicrous.

So how do you make a character die without having any form of penalty attached to it?
This also ties in to what said at the very top. Not-dying is the default state and being rewarded for it is ridiculous imo. That is like saying that everyone should be rewarded for not breaking laws, instead of punished for breaking them. I know that dying in a game is nowhere near bearing a "law" but the principle is the same, you don't reward nor punish the default state.

Quote:

It's probably best to have a good mix of both in a game, "you died, back to a point" is the most common penalty in games and there really doesn't need to be any more than that.

Of course it is best to have a mix of them. You seem to be the only who have argued in a black and white setting of only penalties or only rewards.

Quote:

Edit: having death penalties for high end players is also pretty useless as they either don't suffer them (in the case of XP debt for max level players) or very easily mitigate them (in the case of spending IGC to repair gear).

So... having to pay more gold in repairs than you made from the run is "very easily mitigated" compared to not repairing and just upgrade it instead to something better? Yes, grinding for IGC is most likely much easier at max level depending on the rewards structure but ime you don't need as much while leveling due to getting new gear and such fast enough.
Sure XP could perhaps be blocker but, again ime, most games level you a bit faster than you need to get between areas. And if you're a completionist and do every area in level-order then you might even welcome XP debt or even reductions since you won't outlevel areas as fast.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

Having read the link to the definitions behind positive/negative rewards and punishments there seem little we can do to actually remove death penalties, only reduce them, since not-dying is not something you "increase" due to that it's the default state. You don't reward nor punish people for being in or "doing" the default state. When they deviate from it you either reward or punish them depending on if the deviation is desirable or undesirable respectively.

Project_Hero wrote:

Have different reward tiers. Win the map without dying, all the bonuses, win without dying 3 times, lesser bonus, so on and so on.

Right, so what is a reasonable max for such no-die counter and how many tiers should it have? Sooner or later it will run out but a death penalty practically can't do so. Even if it's capped in amount reducing the debt by just one single point makes it possible to gain it back on the next death. So, rewards will have a very fixed cap while death penalties may have a concurrent cap but not a total cap for the entire run.

Quote:

You can also add in various rewards for other things. In a raid type thing you could award people for not getting hit by certain attacks or whatever. You want the rewards/penalties to teach people things, right? Then reward them for doing whatever right.

And what has that got to do with death penalties?

Quote:

You could have rewards give you better shots at better loot, Vermintide 2 does this. Though granted in that game that's more or less the only way to get loot, but still. Grind for hours having a tiny chance to get a rare loot drop, or do a mission and net all the rewards for a guaranteed rare drop.

Certain badges could require you to do a number of certain missions with specific conditions.

Right, but this goes beyond death penalties and touches on the whole rewards structure. No one here has argued against those types of rewards, just the specific one of replacing death penalties with rewards.

Quote:

Reward set ups can be a lot more flexible than death penalties.

But it's even more flexible to combine both.

Quote:

But yeah, these aren't going to motivate everyone but then neither do death penalties. You'll still run into people either way who just won't care all that much.

Yeah, but if you never aimed at getting a reward or even knew a specific one existed then you won't miss it when you don't receive it. That's kinda hard to do with a death penalty.

Quote:

I'm not explicitly arguing against having death penalties in games but the idea that games -need- them is ludicrous.

So how do you make a character die without having any form of penalty attached to it?
This also ties in to what said at the very top. Not-dying is the default state and being rewarded for it is ridiculous imo. That is like saying that everyone should be rewarded for not breaking laws, instead of punished for breaking them. I know that dying in a game is nowhere near bearing a "law" but the principle is the same, you don't reward nor punish the default state.

Quote:

It's probably best to have a good mix of both in a game, "you died, back to a point" is the most common penalty in games and there really doesn't need to be any more than that.

Of course it is best to have a mix of them. You seem to be the only who have argued in a black and white setting of only penalties or only rewards.

Quote:

Edit: having death penalties for high end players is also pretty useless as they either don't suffer them (in the case of XP debt for max level players) or very easily mitigate them (in the case of spending IGC to repair gear).

So... having to pay more gold in repairs than you made from the run is "very easily mitigated" compared to not repairing and just upgrade it instead to something better? Yes, grinding for IGC is most likely much easier at max level depending on the rewards structure but ime you don't need as much while leveling due to getting new gear and such fast enough.
Sure XP could perhaps be blocker but, again ime, most games level you a bit faster than you need to get between areas. And if you're a completionist and do every area in level-order then you might even welcome XP debt or even reductions since you won't outlevel areas as fast.

You do reward people for being or doing in the default state. That's kind of what playing the game does, defeating enemies, reward. Going around and defeating enemies is the default state of playing the game. It is expected that if you're playing the game, you're actually playing it.

How many tiers? Dunno, that's what playtesting would be for. And yeah, death penalties are more or less unlimited, but it's always going to be the exact same thing, every time. Rewards can be pretty varied, and changed depending on mission, etc.

That was to indicate that a rewards structure doesn't just have to be about not-dying. (And yes I understand that there's nothing precluding these kind of rewards from being placed alongside death penalties)

Shifting a focus from death penalties to rewards would have the "penalty state" be the "normal state" which is how you would fully replace penalties with rewards.

True, but then you'd have to have even more additional penalties for death which at some point becomes rather excessive, no? When you die on this mission not only do you suffer this penalty but you also suffer this one (and perhaps more). Otherwise it's exactly as flexible as a reward set up but with a number of death penalties tacked to it.

That's why you'd clearly advertise the rewards that a player will get before hand... Or after on a mission clear prompt. So the players know what they need to do to get the goodies. Technically a player could not know about a death penalty for a long time in a "gear degradation" type game. Early on changing gear out faster than they die only eventually becoming aware of it as something tells them that, hey this thing is about to break, but then they could also at that time that gear just degrades naturally on it's own and doesn't put two and two together. I have seen noobs ask questions in games like "Hey, what's this red helmet symbol that just showed up?" So people can miss a death penalty (hard to miss the respawn mechanic, though I will grant you that.)

A lot of games have characters die without any sort of penalty for it. Heck some games you can't even die. Heck some you can't even lose. If you adjust your view point a little you could say that suffering the effects of breaking laws is the normal state and those who continue to not break laws are being rewarded with freedom. See, and that's kind of the crux of how it all works. You turn the penalty state into the "normal state" then the normal state into the "reward state", so with something like XP debt you change it so leveling up goes at the rate it would if someone had XP debt, then you "reward" players with XP multipliers that make them go at a "faster rate". It does the exact same thing as XP debt, slowing down XP gains after dying, but does so by "rewarding" players who aren't dying. Then you have people avoiding death because they don't want to go back to the "normal" speed of leveling. Works the same with IGC sinks like gear repair, lower IGC gains across the board, then grant people "bonus" IGC for completing tasks.

I argued that you can set up it with just one or the other. Likely we'll never be rid of having to respawn after dying in an MMO format, if there's a way around that... I haven't thought of it.

I have never, in my life had to pay more gold in any game than I made from a run. I think in my over level 100 characters in WoW even if my gear was practically broken a few items I weren't going to use more than paid for the repairs. Granted this is probably a failing of WoW not ramping up the costs enough to compensate for the level or money earned. As it definitely -should- be the case that an excursion can end up being more costly than rewarding to make the actual penalty a penalty. About the only time I ran out of money to repair things was if I had spent practically all my IGC prior to dying a few times... Or forgetting to repair my gear then spending a ton of IGC on something unrelated, like glamour stuff.

And yeah, someone could have games the systems to use XP debt as a tool to experience more content at a level appropriate level... But if people are doing that isn't it better to just add in the option of doing content set at a level, or having a way you can toggle how much XP you gain? Just because some players found out something good to do with the penalties doesn't make them better or any more necessary.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

Huckleberry
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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

You do reward people for being or doing in the default state. That's kind of what playing the game does, defeating enemies, reward. Going around and defeating enemies is the default state of playing the game. It is expected that if you're playing the game, you're actually playing it.

Be careful, those are not the same thing. Rewards upon successful mission completion are positive reinforcement. They are the accomplishment we are striving for. That has nothing to do with whether or not we had any failures along the way. Playing without failure along the way is the default assumption Blacke4dawn was describing. One could make an argument for both sides whether that it is a correct assumption, but I find myself in agreement with Blacke4dawn on this one.

Project_Hero wrote:

Shifting a focus from death penalties to rewards would have the "penalty state" be the "normal state" which is how you would fully replace penalties with rewards.

And this is exactly one of the reasons I do not like the method you are proposing. The "normal state" for any player just trying to have fun playing the game should not be a "penalty state".

Project_Hero wrote:

That's why you'd clearly advertise the rewards that a player will get before hand... Or after on a mission clear prompt. So the players know what they need to do to get the goodies.

Indeed, this would be the only fair way of doing it, even of the rewards or even the challenges themselves were not the same every time. Random challenges that provide a different bonus each time could spice it up a bit, but the players should know at the beginning what is at stake. Dofus and Wakfu do this to great effect. It makes normal battles more challenging when all killing blows need to be made with melee attacks and you're playing an archer, for example.

Project_Hero wrote:

A lot of games have characters die without any sort of penalty for it. Heck some games you can't even die. Heck some you can't even lose. If you adjust your view point a little you could say that suffering the effects of breaking laws is the normal state and those who continue to not break laws are being rewarded with freedom. See, and that's kind of the crux of how it all works. You turn the penalty state into the "normal state" then the normal state into the "reward state", so with something like XP debt you change it so leveling up goes at the rate it would if someone had XP debt, then you "reward" players with XP multipliers that make them go at a "faster rate". It does the exact same thing as XP debt, slowing down XP gains after dying, but does so by "rewarding" players who aren't dying. Then you have people avoiding death because they don't want to go back to the "normal" speed of leveling. Works the same with IGC sinks like gear repair, lower IGC gains across the board, then grant people "bonus" IGC for completing tasks.

You have effectively just made an argument for the punishment form of death penalties. You realize that, don't you? You switched to the punishment model, but then changed the names so you made it seem like it was a reward-removal model.

So, in effect, the default state of your proposal would not be what you say it is. You say it would be the penalty state. But it would not be. The way you just described it, the default state would actually be the reward state since the player would get the reward by not failing. And the only way to enter the penalty state would be to fail. So, what you have just described is identical to the punishment model; you just used different words to describe it. (I'm assuming that for this exercise you made it such that the reward is lessoned by the equivalent of one stack of death penalty for every death suffered, right?)


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Project_Hero
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

You do reward people for being or doing in the default state. That's kind of what playing the game does, defeating enemies, reward. Going around and defeating enemies is the default state of playing the game. It is expected that if you're playing the game, you're actually playing it.

Be careful, those are not the same thing. Rewards upon successful mission completion are positive reinforcement. They are the accomplishment we are striving for. That has nothing to do with whether or not we had any failures along the way. Playing without failure along the way is the default assumption Blacke4dawn was describing. One could make an argument for both sides whether that it is a correct assumption, but I find myself in agreement with Blacke4dawn on this one.

Project_Hero wrote:

Shifting a focus from death penalties to rewards would have the "penalty state" be the "normal state" which is how you would fully replace penalties with rewards.

And this is exactly one of the reasons I do not like the method you are proposing. The "normal state" for any player just trying to have fun playing the game should not be a "penalty state".

Project_Hero wrote:

That's why you'd clearly advertise the rewards that a player will get before hand... Or after on a mission clear prompt. So the players know what they need to do to get the goodies.

Indeed, this would be the only fair way of doing it, even of the rewards or even the challenges themselves were not the same every time. Random challenges that provide a different bonus each time could spice it up a bit, but the players should know at the beginning what is at stake. Dofus and Wakfu do this to great effect. It makes normal battles more challenging when all killing blows need to be made with melee attacks and you're playing an archer, for example.

Project_Hero wrote:

A lot of games have characters die without any sort of penalty for it. Heck some games you can't even die. Heck some you can't even lose. If you adjust your view point a little you could say that suffering the effects of breaking laws is the normal state and those who continue to not break laws are being rewarded with freedom. See, and that's kind of the crux of how it all works. You turn the penalty state into the "normal state" then the normal state into the "reward state", so with something like XP debt you change it so leveling up goes at the rate it would if someone had XP debt, then you "reward" players with XP multipliers that make them go at a "faster rate". It does the exact same thing as XP debt, slowing down XP gains after dying, but does so by "rewarding" players who aren't dying. Then you have people avoiding death because they don't want to go back to the "normal" speed of leveling. Works the same with IGC sinks like gear repair, lower IGC gains across the board, then grant people "bonus" IGC for completing tasks.

You have effectively just made an argument for the punishment form of death penalties. You realize that, don't you? You switched to the punishment model, but then changed the names so you made it seem like it was a reward-removal model.

So, in effect, the default state of your proposal would not be what you say it is. You say it would be the penalty state. But it would not be. The way you just described it, the default state would actually be the reward state since the player would get the reward by not failing. And the only way to enter the penalty state would be to fail. So, what you have just described is identical to the punishment model; you just used different words to describe it. (I'm assuming that for this exercise you made it such that the reward is lessoned by the equivalent of one stack of death penalty for every death suffered, right?)

The player would be having fun Playing the game, as the "penalty state" would be the normal state, in that instance and the player wouldn't be any the wiser. But it they complete challenges/play well they get a bonus (which in reality would just bring them to normal/expected levels.)

It's more or less just shifting things around. And yeah it'd be the normal state. You boot up the game and before doing anything at all you'd be earning less rewards than in the same game with death penalties, but as you win you get "bonuses" that would bring you in line with the expected amount of rewards. The trick is the player wouldn't know this. The "normal" of game 1 is the "bonus" of game 2, the "penalty state" of game 1 would be the "normal" of game 2.

It is more or less exactly like the punishment model but players -think- they're getting more. You just change how the game is viewed by the player.

It's sneaky and a bit manipulate, but then death penalties and rewards are manipulate by nature.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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This whole thing has spun

This whole thing has spun back around to semantics.

If the penalty state is the normal state then yes rewards will feel better. However, as you said the is all the the background. But it changes the premise of how to play the game, which I believe most of the players here have kind of agreed upon which is that it doesn't feel right to them to have the mechanics you are suggesting. It feels like it will cheapen the gaming experience. I want to see it when I have xp debt. I don't want that to be hidden from me with the guise of a reward system that takes away things I didn't know about anyway.

I guess it is because of how I think, how I grew up, I don't know but the concept of everybody getting treats for showing up to the game sounds hollow and cheap as does me not accepting when I've screwed up and seeing the xp debt I accrued through my play choices. XP debt mechanics feel right to me where as the background mechanics of built in rewards and lessened rewards just feels wrong. If it took me four deaths to complete a mission I don't want to feel less bad about it by not seeing the xp debt I want to remember what happened and learn from it, taking xp debt away will lessen the learning curve in my opinion.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think at least part of the XP debt mechanism is to help the general populous to progress in a way that is readily understood rather than everyone running around dying all the time regardless of the mission because they don't see any reason (xp debt) not to, especially if the "rewards" are built into the background mechanic. There is no reason to develop skills and tactics. How would one even know that was going on if they didn't get told through the game tutorial or some other help screen? I think the "knowing before the mission starts" concept for the potential reward scenarios will drive people to only try to achieve the "tier" they care for and not really try to complete missions in their entirety. The rewards system you are promoting isn't intuitive to the game premise and if feels like the game will be cheating me somehow. The transparency of XP debt "feels" legit in comparison. Yeah we did it, at a cost sure, but we did it!

It's childish to feel like you are getting more because of the how the reward mechanism is set up, and what you describe does not make me feel like I would be getting more. Manipulative hidden mechanics tend to offend players much more than make them feel good. It just doesn't sound like a healthy tactic to use in game development. It lends itself to the whole culture of instant gratification and rewards for little or no real participation but just for showing up.

Personally, I prefer the straight forward mechanics of XP Debt. Reap what you sew! You know at the start of the mission whats at stake and what happens if you fail, or repeatedly fail. As I've said before this all comes down to how one "feels" about the semantics involved.

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

Project_Hero
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Manipulative mechanics only

Manipulative mechanics only offend players when they discover they're being manipulated. If the game designers do a good job you as the player will never even realize it.

Your fine to feel the way that you do, but likely the only reason it "feels wrong" to have it based on rewards rather than penalties is because we're discussing the mechanics behind it.

Rest XP in WoW (I know it's been mentioned before/to death) makes people feel like they're getting more when in actuality they're not. I don't think it's childish to be taken in by systems and mechanics you may not be aware of. Loot boxes run on the same premise as giving the illusion of getting more, when you're more often than not getting less.

Likely you've played games before that have had a set up like the ones I've described and haven't even noticed. Most action hack and slash games have a similar rewards set up with combo systems and such.

But people feel how they do, and feelings are tough to change. It's been an entertaining discussion either way.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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My suggestion for those that

My suggestion for those that want a penalty for death...easy peasy and its a self imposed penalty. Whe your character is defeated/killed, you must immediately delete the character and start a new character. There ya go, a real penalty that is completely on the client side of the fence.

...my money is on very few people actually doing this though, for as much as people call for 'realism' few want to actually want to take part in such a system.

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rookslide wrote:
rookslide wrote:

This whole thing has spun back around to semantics.

That tends to happen when someone resolutely REFUSES to accept the validity of anything you're saying and keeps insisting on using "Look over there!" to distract you from what they're doing.


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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

My suggestion for those that want a penalty for death...easy peasy and its a self imposed penalty. Whe your character is defeated/killed, you must immediately delete the character and start a new character. There ya go, a real penalty that is completely on the client side of the fence.

...my money is on very few people actually doing this though, for as much as people call for 'realism' few want to actually want to take part in such a system.

And for those who don’t want a death penalty, don’t play the game.

See, it’s easy to make false dichotomies and childish ultimatums! Anyone can play! :D

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

My suggestion for those that want a penalty for death...easy peasy and its a self imposed penalty. Whe your character is defeated/killed, you must immediately delete the character and start a new character. There ya go, a real penalty that is completely on the client side of the fence.

...my money is on very few people actually doing this though, for as much as people call for 'realism' few want to actually want to take part in such a system.

And for those who don’t want a death penalty, don’t play the game.

See, it’s easy to make false dichotomies and childish ultimatums! Anyone can play! :D

problem there..if hardly anyone plays...they dont pay. the devs want to eat and not live on a park bench. I dont think yours is viable.

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I think he was just making a

I think he was just making a point...

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Wolfgang8565 wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I think he was just making a point...

I was. The point was that the argument was ridiculous. It’s not even really worth refuting. Instead I just countered with something just as ridiculous.

I mean, why not just say, “If you want a death penalty every time you die you punch yourself in the face.” That kind of talk is basically trolling. Not worth anyone’s time.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I think he was just making a point...

I was. The point was that the argument was ridiculous. It’s not even really worth refuting. Instead I just countered with something just as ridiculous.

I mean, why not just say, “If you want a death penalty every time you die you punch yourself in the face.” That kind of talk is basically trolling. Not worth anyone’s time.

I find it completely viable to set myself standards to add difficulty into the game. Not mailing my new character credits etc, just to increase my own difficulty. Iron man characters have been a thing for a long time. I see players in other games complaining that "it is too easy" yet they will not take any effort to adjust their own difficulty for themselves. They want the entire game adjusted to suit themselves. WOW just did it and it is still very buggy.

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ivanhedgehog wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
Atama wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I think he was just making a point...

I was. The point was that the argument was ridiculous. It’s not even really worth refuting. Instead I just countered with something just as ridiculous.

I mean, why not just say, “If you want a death penalty every time you die you punch yourself in the face.” That kind of talk is basically trolling. Not worth anyone’s time.

I find it completely viable to set myself standards to add difficulty into the game. Not mailing my new character credits etc, just to increase my own difficulty. Iron man characters have been a thing for a long time. I see players in other games complaining that "it is too easy" yet they will not take any effort to adjust their own difficulty for themselves. They want the entire game adjusted to suit themselves. WOW just did it and it is still very buggy.

Agreed! I set little challenges for myself too. Getting through a task without healing myself, trying to speed run something, etc.

Suggesting that people who want a death penalty should delete their characters is just trolling though. Nobody is suggesting a death penalty is asking for permadeath. Those kinds of posts are intentionally trying to escalate the conversation which is especially reprehensible in a thread that has already had some “vigorous” discussion.

So I treat those comments with the credit they deserve (none).

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
Atama wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I think he was just making a point...

I was. The point was that the argument was ridiculous. It’s not even really worth refuting. Instead I just countered with something just as ridiculous.

I mean, why not just say, “If you want a death penalty every time you die you punch yourself in the face.” That kind of talk is basically trolling. Not worth anyone’s time.

I find it completely viable to set myself standards to add difficulty into the game. Not mailing my new character credits etc, just to increase my own difficulty. Iron man characters have been a thing for a long time. I see players in other games complaining that "it is too easy" yet they will not take any effort to adjust their own difficulty for themselves. They want the entire game adjusted to suit themselves. WOW just did it and it is still very buggy.

Agreed! I set little challenges for myself too. Getting through a task without healing myself, trying to speed run something, etc.

Suggesting that people who want a death penalty should delete their characters is just trolling though. Nobody is suggesting a death penalty is asking for permadeath. Those kinds of posts are intentionally trying to escalate the conversation which is especially reprehensible in a thread that has already had some “vigorous” discussion.

So I treat those comments with the credit they deserve (none).

What’s more it shows they haven’t taken the time to read the thread throroughly from the beginning. Hardcore character setting were discussed long ago.

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
Atama wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I think he was just making a point...

I was. The point was that the argument was ridiculous. It’s not even really worth refuting. Instead I just countered with something just as ridiculous.

I mean, why not just say, “If you want a death penalty every time you die you punch yourself in the face.” That kind of talk is basically trolling. Not worth anyone’s time.

I find it completely viable to set myself standards to add difficulty into the game. Not mailing my new character credits etc, just to increase my own difficulty. Iron man characters have been a thing for a long time. I see players in other games complaining that "it is too easy" yet they will not take any effort to adjust their own difficulty for themselves. They want the entire game adjusted to suit themselves. WOW just did it and it is still very buggy.

Agreed! I set little challenges for myself too. Getting through a task without healing myself, trying to speed run something, etc.

Suggesting that people who want a death penalty should delete their characters is just trolling though. Nobody is suggesting a death penalty is asking for permadeath. Those kinds of posts are intentionally trying to escalate the conversation which is especially reprehensible in a thread that has already had some “vigorous” discussion.

So I treat those comments with the credit they deserve (none).

Actually, thats called ironman character. The character is deleted upon 1st death. It is the ultimate self imposed death penalty. It would be way too extreme for general use, but it is a thing.

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I think that part of what we

I think that part of what we're talking about here too is the difference between a game and a toy. A key difference is that games have rules, and thus success states and fail states when you play them. You can win a game. And you can lose a game. This idea can even apply to MMOs where the idea is to keep playing even after a win or loss.

When playing with toys, on the other hand, you can set rules for yourself, but ultimately those rules aren't an intrinsic part of the toy.

Me, I'm looking for City of Titans to be a game.

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PeaceMack wrote:
PeaceMack wrote:

I think that part of what we're talking about here too is the difference between a game and a toy. A key difference is that games have rules, and thus success states and fail states when you play them. You can win a game. And you can lose a game. This idea can even apply to MMOs where the idea is to keep playing even after a win or loss.

When playing with toys, on the other hand, you can set rules for yourself, but ultimately those rules aren't an intrinsic part of the toy.

Me, I'm looking for City of Titans to be a game.

This is why Disney Infinity fell flat for me. The concept seemed cool but you had very little structured play and once that hour or so was over you had the “toybox” where you could do anything you want. That got old fast. And the platform died, I believe largely as a result of that. (At least I have some cool Marvel and Star Wars figures left over.)

But that system is I think a perfect example of what a totally free-form “game” looks like, and shows how it’s not a game at all but really a virtual toy as you stated.

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That's not a totally free

That's not a totally free form game. Gurps (a TTRPG) is closer.

And there's other TTRPGs with even looser rules.

The thing with free form games is you only really get out of them what you (or others) put into it.

Also video games are toys. They can be well made and mean something, but they're toys.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

That's not a totally free form game. Gurps (a TTRPG) is closer.

And there's other TTRPGs with even looser rules.

The thing with free form games is you only really get out of them what you (or others) put into it.

Also video games are toys. They can be well made and mean something, but they're toys.

I got curious about official definitions of “game” and “toy”. Going by Merriam-Webster, a video game is a game by the 3rd definition:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/game

Basically it needs to be a competition that involves a rules structure. The competition in many cases is the player vs the computer but of course you also have competition against other people if you’re trying to be a higher rank in a contest or doing PvP combat.

A toy has a very different definition:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toy

You see there that for something to be a toy, it is implied that it is geared toward play by children or is “trifling” or can be “toyed with”.

Which I think illustrates the point well. Once you remove any challenge, by definition a game stops being a game and becomes a toy. Or it fits the first definition of “game”, which is generic and unfocused entertainment. A real video game is not that kind of “game”.

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Also, GURPS is a structure

Also, GURPS is a structure for a game, a set of rules that you can add content and plot to later (or buy a genre supplement for). Note that the Generic Universal RolePlaying System is careful not to call itself a game. It’s a set of rules waiting for content to become one. Or waiting for a supplement.

But that’s really veering off-topic. You can’t equate tabletop to a video game. You can argue that all tabletop games are free form because it’s just a shared narrative story between players and GM and they can change the rules as they see fit (house rules). That’s a bad comparison to a video game which lacks all of that agency. Apples and oranges essentially. Let’s stick to the same fruit please. :)

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Or this; something (such as a

Or this; something (such as a preoccupation) that is paltry or trifling.

And this from the literal first line in the entry for toys on Wikipedia; A toy is an item that is used in play, especially one designed for such use.

You can play a game with toys, but games can also be toys.

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Ok so both games and toys are

Ok so both games and toys are trifling but so are sports and puzzles neither of which is a toy. All can be used for learning and passing time.

Personally I agree with the thought that the difference is defined by the amount of authorship the player has over the experience... as such I don’t classify a game with a potentially involved amount of personal customization as a toy where as something like a handheld video game might better fit the toy definition.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:

Also, GURPS is a structure for a game, a set of rules that you can add content and plot to later (or buy a genre supplement for). Note that the Generic Universal RolePlaying System is careful not to call itself a game. It’s a set of rules waiting for content to become one. Or waiting for a supplement.

But that’s really veering off-topic. You can’t equate tabletop to a video game. You can argue that all tabletop games are free form because it’s just a shared narrative story between players and GM and they can change the rules as they see fit (house rules). That’s a bad comparison to a video game which lacks all of that agency. Apples and oranges essentially. Let’s stick to the same fruit please. :)

Gurps is a system used to play a game.

Disney infinity isn't really all that free form. It has some elements that allow you to craft your own games and enjoyment with it but you're limited to the set pieces and stats and abilities of their various characters and items.

You can do similar things on minecraft if you put in the work. I've seen a computer made in mine craft, rock 'em sock 'em robots, and all sort of other games made within the game.

They are certainly less structured than other games (with the exception of the Disney Infinity playsets, as those were very structured), but they're not free form by any real stretch.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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rookslide wrote:
rookslide wrote:

Ok so both games and toys are trifling but so are sports and puzzles neither of which is a toy. All can be used for learning and passing time.

Personally I agree with the thought that the difference is defined by the amount of authorship the player has over the experience... as such I don’t classify a game with a potentially involved amount of personal customization as a toy where as something like a handheld video game might better fit the toy definition.

Sports aren't toys as they're not a thing created to be played with, you could classify certain sports equipment as toys, however.

Puzzles are an oddity I'll grant you, they're often put in toy sections and are built to be played with for a very loose definition of play.

Video games, at least when they were revitalized after the crash, were for a while sold along side toys. And they are created for the sole purpose to be played with. With the forwarding of games as art and interactive media likely they'll eventually shed this definition as time goes on.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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You play a game, you don’t

You play a game, you don’t play *with* a game. Just like you don’t play with a sport, you play a sport. I think that grammatical norm is pretty indicative of how we think of games in our culture and distinguish them from toys.

I worked at Toys R Us and while we sold games we segregated them just like we did books and clothes. Again, they’re related because 1) children play games too and 2) they’re entertaining like toys. The similarities end there.

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Though they are or may be

Though they are or may be side by side in a store has little to do with it. It comes down to tangibility. A game carries concepts and dare I say rules by which it is played where as a toy is a rigid item. True one may purchase a game off the shelf but they won’t be playing physically with it as they would a toy.

I believe Atama summed it up succinctly, you play a game you don’t play with a game.

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

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I'm still not convinced that

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Agreed Lol

Agreed
Lol

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

That’s cool. It’s a big sidetrack anyway, I’ll admit. When I went into the “dictionary says...” argument I asked myself, “Do I really want to go down this route?” Then I submitted it anyway.

I feel like this thread has run out of steam. Which is maybe a good thing after 8 pages. :D

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

That’s cool. It’s a big sidetrack anyway, I’ll admit. When I went into the “dictionary says...” argument I asked myself, “Do I really want to go down this route?” Then I submitted it anyway.

I feel like this thread has run out of steam. Which is maybe a good thing after 8 pages. :D

I’m inclined to agree. Been following this thread and occasionally commenting, but for the last week or so I’ve watched the same set of arguments come back, and it seems like we’re all talking in circles. Everybody has just become more entrenched in their own views about “whether or not there should even be death penalties” and I haven’t seen much sign of anybody willing to consider other positions. I’m all for healthy debate but there comes a time when you just have to accept the “agree to disagree” bit and step away.

My only last input I have here is that I’ve been playing a game called Dead Cells. The entire game is centered around death and death penalties. It’s a tough game, and every time you die you lose almost everything, minus some major power ups and upgrades, and go back to the beginning. I have died a lot - I mean... a LOT - but unlike so many games of this kind I play I haven’t been frustrated. Every death I think “yeah okay that was on me” and the game really makes it impossible to make excuses (such as “I totally hit him!” “Why did I glitch out?” “Ugh I definitely dodged that”). Well designed, with tight controls, and death penalties that somehow don’t feel as punitive as I had thought they would be.

If there are going to be death penalties I would like to have a feel like that: instructive and clear, with the ability to teach without overly frustrating players.

Name: Safehouse
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I think CoH was a virtual

I think CoH was a theme park with sandbox elements--a virtual place that included both games and toys. I think CoT will be too.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Safehouse wrote:
Safehouse wrote:
Atama wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

That’s cool. It’s a big sidetrack anyway, I’ll admit. When I went into the “dictionary says...” argument I asked myself, “Do I really want to go down this route?” Then I submitted it anyway.

I feel like this thread has run out of steam. Which is maybe a good thing after 8 pages. :D

I’m inclined to agree. Been following this thread and occasionally commenting, but for the last week or so I’ve watched the same set of arguments come back, and it seems like we’re all talking in circles. Everybody has just become more entrenched in their own views about “whether or not there should even be death penalties” and I haven’t seen much sign of anybody willing to consider other positions. I’m all for healthy debate but there comes a time when you just have to accept the “agree to disagree” bit and step away.

My only last input I have here is that I’ve been playing a game called Dead Cells. The entire game is centered around death and death penalties. It’s a tough game, and every time you die you lose almost everything, minus some major power ups and upgrades, and go back to the beginning. I have died a lot - I mean... a LOT - but unlike so many games of this kind I play I haven’t been frustrated. Every death I think “yeah okay that was on me” and the game really makes it impossible to make excuses (such as “I totally hit him!” “Why did I glitch out?” “Ugh I definitely dodged that”). Well designed, with tight controls, and death penalties that somehow don’t feel as punitive as I had thought they would be.

If there are going to be death penalties I would like to have a feel like that: instructive and clear, with the ability to teach without overly frustrating players.

Sounds like a rogue-like or a Rogue-lite game. Possibly leaning closer to Rogue-lite as you don't lose -everything- upon death.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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rookslide wrote:
rookslide wrote:

Though they are or may be side by side in a store has little to do with it. It comes down to tangibility. A game carries concepts and dare I say rules by which it is played where as a toy is a rigid item. True one may purchase a game off the shelf but they won’t be playing physically with it as they would a toy.

I believe Atama summed it up succinctly, you play a game you don’t play with a game.

the small handheld football games from the 70's and 80's..you both played them and played with them.

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ivanhedgehog wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
rookslide wrote:

Though they are or may be side by side in a store has little to do with it. It comes down to tangibility. A game carries concepts and dare I say rules by which it is played where as a toy is a rigid item. True one may purchase a game off the shelf but they won’t be playing physically with it as they would a toy.

I believe Atama summed it up succinctly, you play a game you don’t play with a game.

the small handheld football games from the 70's and 80's..you both played them and played with them.

Yes this is exactly the type of video game I suggested in a previous post here. Pretty much the only type of video game I would consider a toy.

"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle

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rookslide wrote:
rookslide wrote:
ivanhedgehog wrote:
rookslide wrote:

Though they are or may be side by side in a store has little to do with it. It comes down to tangibility. A game carries concepts and dare I say rules by which it is played where as a toy is a rigid item. True one may purchase a game off the shelf but they won’t be playing physically with it as they would a toy.

I believe Atama summed it up succinctly, you play a game you don’t play with a game.

the small handheld football games from the 70's and 80's..you both played them and played with them.

Yes this is exactly the type of video game I suggested in a previous post here. Pretty much the only type of video game I would consider a toy.

Agreed. And I had an old football game that was just your red dot dodging other red dots, it was more fun than it sounds like. :)

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Safehouse wrote:
Atama wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

That’s cool. It’s a big sidetrack anyway, I’ll admit. When I went into the “dictionary says...” argument I asked myself, “Do I really want to go down this route?” Then I submitted it anyway.

I feel like this thread has run out of steam. Which is maybe a good thing after 8 pages. :D

I’m inclined to agree. Been following this thread and occasionally commenting, but for the last week or so I’ve watched the same set of arguments come back, and it seems like we’re all talking in circles. Everybody has just become more entrenched in their own views about “whether or not there should even be death penalties” and I haven’t seen much sign of anybody willing to consider other positions. I’m all for healthy debate but there comes a time when you just have to accept the “agree to disagree” bit and step away.

My only last input I have here is that I’ve been playing a game called Dead Cells. The entire game is centered around death and death penalties. It’s a tough game, and every time you die you lose almost everything, minus some major power ups and upgrades, and go back to the beginning. I have died a lot - I mean... a LOT - but unlike so many games of this kind I play I haven’t been frustrated. Every death I think “yeah okay that was on me” and the game really makes it impossible to make excuses (such as “I totally hit him!” “Why did I glitch out?” “Ugh I definitely dodged that”). Well designed, with tight controls, and death penalties that somehow don’t feel as punitive as I had thought they would be.

If there are going to be death penalties I would like to have a feel like that: instructive and clear, with the ability to teach without overly frustrating players.

Sounds like a rogue-like or a Rogue-lite game. Possibly leaning closer to Rogue-lite as you don't lose -everything- upon death.

Yeah they call it a “roguevania” because it combines elements of roguelike games (new map each time etc etc) and metroidvanias. Very very cool game and I highly recommend it!

Name: Safehouse
Ranger: Gunner
Primary: Force Blast
Secondary: Atrophic Aura
Tertiary: Kinetic Melee
Travel Power: Parkour
Status: Traveling. Following rumors of a huge city in Massachusetts that is teeming with supers.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Safehouse wrote:
Atama wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I'm still not convinced that video games aren't toys.

I get what your saying, though some of those arguments don't work all that well, but I don't think I can make a compelling argument that games can be toys.

We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

That’s cool. It’s a big sidetrack anyway, I’ll admit. When I went into the “dictionary says...” argument I asked myself, “Do I really want to go down this route?” Then I submitted it anyway.

I feel like this thread has run out of steam. Which is maybe a good thing after 8 pages. :D

I’m inclined to agree. Been following this thread and occasionally commenting, but for the last week or so I’ve watched the same set of arguments come back, and it seems like we’re all talking in circles. Everybody has just become more entrenched in their own views about “whether or not there should even be death penalties” and I haven’t seen much sign of anybody willing to consider other positions. I’m all for healthy debate but there comes a time when you just have to accept the “agree to disagree” bit and step away.

My only last input I have here is that I’ve been playing a game called Dead Cells. The entire game is centered around death and death penalties. It’s a tough game, and every time you die you lose almost everything, minus some major power ups and upgrades, and go back to the beginning. I have died a lot - I mean... a LOT - but unlike so many games of this kind I play I haven’t been frustrated. Every death I think “yeah okay that was on me” and the game really makes it impossible to make excuses (such as “I totally hit him!” “Why did I glitch out?” “Ugh I definitely dodged that”). Well designed, with tight controls, and death penalties that somehow don’t feel as punitive as I had thought they would be.

If there are going to be death penalties I would like to have a feel like that: instructive and clear, with the ability to teach without overly frustrating players.

Sounds like a rogue-like or a Rogue-lite game. Possibly leaning closer to Rogue-lite as you don't lose -everything- upon death.

Yeah they call it a “roguevania” because it combines elements of roguelike games (new map each time etc etc) and metroidvanias. Very very cool game and I highly recommend it!

Name: Safehouse
Ranger: Gunner
Primary: Force Blast
Secondary: Atrophic Aura
Tertiary: Kinetic Melee
Travel Power: Parkour
Status: Traveling. Following rumors of a huge city in Massachusetts that is teeming with supers.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR HERO

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR HERO IS DEFEATED?

Simple. I win.

Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...

Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain

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(No subject)

would love to see a cameo/homage to this:


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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So, here's my two cents:

So, here's my two cents:

What if, for missions, we had a ranking system (S/A/B/C/D/F or Gold/Silver/Bronze) that gave you a better ranking depending on your performance, and showed it on an Achievements tab or something when people viewed your character profile? You'd get a higher rank for not being defeated, for completing the mission within a certain time limit, for completing side/hidden objectives. I know that's enough for plenty of people to want to re-run content, just for the higher ranks. I mean, it works for action RPGs; I don't see why it wouldn't be effective here.
Maybe tie badges or titles to it, too. "Earned Gold/S Rank in _ number of missions," "Beat X Boss without being defeated," etc.

Actually, I personally like the idea of viewable achievements & wearable vanity titles (a la COH) in general. YMMV.

As for respawning, why not just have strategically-placed spawn points that can be explained in-universe as emergency transporters that heal/repair the heroes within their radius? Like DocWagon meets the Borderlands checkpoints. Maybe have it cost a level-scaling amount of IGC as a sort of insurance co-pay, since XP debt stops being effective at max level.

I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas here.

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Mask-of-Many wrote:
Mask-of-Many wrote:

So, here's my two cents:

What if, for missions, we had a ranking system (S/A/B/C/D/F or Gold/Silver/Bronze) that gave you a better ranking depending on your performance, and showed it on an Achievements tab or something when people viewed your character profile? You'd get a higher rank for not being defeated, for completing the mission within a certain time limit, for completing side/hidden objectives. I know that's enough for plenty of people to want to re-run content, just for the higher ranks. I mean, it works for action RPGs; I don't see why it wouldn't be effective here.
Maybe tie badges or titles to it, too. "Earned Gold/S Rank in _ number of missions," "Beat X Boss without being defeated," etc.

Actually, I personally like the idea of viewable achievements & wearable vanity titles (a la COH) in general. YMMV.

Pretty sure their Challenges system is close enough to what you propose since iirc they can make almost anything into a "challenge". Personally though I wouldn't want to be "judged/ranked" on each and every single mission I run, just the ones that I enable extra challenges for. Also maybe it's my lack of imagination but I can't really see any way for them to implement this "performance screen" that wouldn't be jarring and break you out of the experience, I just can't see it fitting into the overall experience.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Mask-of-Many wrote:

What if, for missions, we had a ranking system (S/A/B/C/D/F or Gold/Silver/Bronze) that gave you a better ranking depending on your performance, and showed it on an Achievements tab or something when people viewed your character profile? You'd get a higher rank for not being defeated, for completing the mission within a certain time limit, for completing side/hidden objectives. I know that's enough for plenty of people to want to re-run content, just for the higher ranks. I mean, it works for action RPGs; I don't see why it wouldn't be effective here.
Maybe tie badges or titles to it, too. "Earned Gold/S Rank in _ number of missions," "Beat X Boss without being defeated," etc.

Pretty sure their Challenges system is close enough to what you propose since iirc they can make almost anything into a "challenge". Personally though I wouldn't want to be "judged/ranked" on each and every single mission I run, just the ones that I enable extra challenges for. Also maybe it's my lack of imagination but I can't really see any way for them to implement this "performance screen" that wouldn't be jarring and break you out of the experience, I just can't see it fitting into the overall experience.

I agree with @blacke4dawn on this. While I'm not as against being "judged" or "ranked" when I play, that is certainly a detractor for some. There is another reason why I dislike it for CoT. In my opinion, that kind of scoring system breaks the fourth wall too greatly for this game, causing players to play the game system and not the game mission. That kind of grading system is great for a game in which the game designers make a very concerted effort to balance and control the efficacy of the various possible character builds that can run the content. I think it would be a very ill fit in a game like CoT in which the players can customize their character to play more in accordance with a character concept than with clearing an instance with an S score.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Mask-of-Many wrote:
Mask-of-Many wrote:

What if, for missions, we had a ranking system (S/A/B/C/D/F or Gold/Silver/Bronze) that gave you a better ranking depending on your performance

"... and a 2.3 from the Romanian judge ..." as the joke goes.

The biggest problem that I have with any sort of metrics ranking system like this is that it very (if not all too quickly) devolves into what amount to DPS Checks, because ... who is doing the judging? If it's going to be a computer doing the judging, the only thing the computer can (objectively) use are going to be performance metrics ... and what do those performance metrics tend to wind up measuring in aggregate? Right, they don't measure how much FUN you had, but rather they'll all too often simply wind up being glorified Damage Meters, and we have PLENTY of experience and history with Damage Meters to know how a community will react to the presence of such systems (especially if it's handing out "grades"). You only need to hop (never mind the skip or jump) from that towards turning the game into the equivalent of a Gear Score for your PC's build ... and look how well that's turned out everywhere it's been implemented, let alone how it winds up being used by the community at large (to enforce elitism, usually).

This is why I'm (still) of the opinion that it would be better to have a Badge that simply counts the number of missions begun and completed WITHOUT being Defeated, which gets reset to zero when you get Defeated. So it will count up and up and up until you're Defeated, at which point it resets, and if you keep playing it will just start counting up again. That's all it does. The Badge just records how many missions you started and finished without being defeated in a continuous streak. It records your "run" of undefeated mission start+complete, and it resets to zero when you're Defeated. That's basically as close as I'd want to get to any sort of "ranking system" like you were describing, and the "value" of the Badge itself is entirely up to the determination of the individual Player(s) to decide for themselves. Beyond "bragging rights" (which is purely a SOCIAL aspect), the Badge would serve no other discriminatory purpose.

To be honest, I'd rather be able to say "I've gone undefeated for 30 missions" and have the in-game proof to back up that boast, in the form of a Badge that is publicly viewable as part of the Inspect UI, than being told I got an "A rank" for completing a mission.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
Mask-of-Many wrote:

What if, for missions, we had a ranking system (S/A/B/C/D/F or Gold/Silver/Bronze) that gave you a better ranking depending on your performance

"... and a 2.3 from the Romanian judge ..." as the joke goes.

The biggest problem that I have with any sort of metrics ranking system like this is that it very (if not all too quickly) devolves into what amount to DPS Checks, because ... who is doing the judging? If it's going to be a computer doing the judging, the only thing the computer can (objectively) use are going to be performance metrics ... and what do those performance metrics tend to wind up measuring in aggregate? Right, they don't measure how much FUN you had, but rather they'll all too often simply wind up being glorified Damage Meters, and we have PLENTY of experience and history with Damage Meters to know how a community will react to the presence of such systems (especially if it's handing out "grades"). You only need to hop (never mind the skip or jump) from that towards turning the game into the equivalent of a Gear Score for your PC's build ... and look how well that's turned out everywhere it's been implemented, let alone how it winds up being used by the community at large (to enforce elitism, usually).

This is why I'm (still) of the opinion that it would be better to have a Badge that simply counts the number of missions begun and completed WITHOUT being Defeated, which gets reset to zero when you get Defeated. So it will count up and up and up until you're Defeated, at which point it resets, and if you keep playing it will just start counting up again. That's all it does. The Badge just records how many missions you started and finished without being defeated in a continuous streak. It records your "run" of undefeated mission start+complete, and it resets to zero when you're Defeated. That's basically as close as I'd want to get to any sort of "ranking system" like you were describing, and the "value" of the Badge itself is entirely up to the determination of the individual Player(s) to decide for themselves. Beyond "bragging rights" (which is purely a SOCIAL aspect), the Badge would serve no other discriminatory purpose.

To be honest, I'd rather be able to say "I've gone undefeated for 30 missions" and have the in-game proof to back up that boast, in the form of a Badge that is publicly viewable as part of the Inspect UI, than being told I got an "A rank" for completing a mission.

That is what he Undefested Achievement is.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

That is what he Undefested Achievement is.

The 'Undefenestrated' Achievement?

No, I read typoese just fine, that's 'Undefeated' Achievement. The first one sounds cooler, though. So the 'death amination includes a cut-scene of couple of goons tossing your unresisting corpus into the street?

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The question I'd have about

The question I'd have about the Undefested(sp) Achievement is whether you'd just have to achieve a certain number of "non-defeats" ONCE to get that badge(s) or if it would keep a dynamic running count like Redlynne's idea. Turns out Redlynne's idea here reminds me of what many military bases tend to do with running DUI/crash totals:

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The Achivevement is

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

It only applies to content played through. Resetting won’t work. UGC doesn’t apply. Repeating old content will be flagged to not apply.

It is also useful for those who want a personal “hardcore” mode.

And this won’t be the only such challenge that leads to an concurrent Achievement.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

It only applies to content played through. Resetting won’t work. UGC doesn’t apply.

I didn't say anything about resetting missions and players will -always- find the easiest farm content regardless if it's player generated or not.

Tannim222 wrote:

Repeating old content will be flagged to not apply.

If you're actually going to keep track of uniquely completed content will the log of that completed content also be deleted/reset once you get killed so that you can start over? This seems to imply this "non-defeat" number could actually have a maximum total value (assuming you can do "everything" in the game without being killed once).

Tannim222 wrote:

It is also useful for those who want a personal “hardcore” mode.

Obviously, which is what I meant about making people become too timid to even want to play a given character for fear of ruining a super-high non-defeat count.

Tannim222 wrote:

And this won’t be the only such challenge that leads to an concurrent Achievement.

I don't technically have a problem with the idea. It's just likely going to produce some interesting unforeseen play strategies.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

As long as it is within their intended performance and rewards metrics then who really cares?

It's really hard to not making a rewards system farmable. From what I have heard you don't get a reward each and every single time you increase the counter but rather only at specific tiers so there is some "mitigation" already in. Add to that that its farmability potential also heavily relies on the rewards structure and how easy it is to farm specific missions.
Also, how is it "artificially" inflating the counter since the counter is only no-death, not a no-death at this difficulty or higher?

Not aimed specifically at you Lothic but whenever someone brings up the "dangers" of something being farmed I envision them thinking that farming that something will yield 10x the rewards for half the effort in the same time as someone playing normally. If farming instead yields something like 10-15% more than I don't see why it would be a problem worth mentioning, let alone cautioning against.
Yes I know about things like the Destiny loot-cave but afaik there were fundamental flaws with that location, like near instant respawn (or at least a rolling respawn that effectively mimics it) and them almost always dropping way way more than average.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

As long as it is within their intended performance and rewards metrics then who really cares?

It's really hard to not making a rewards system farmable. From what I have heard you don't get a reward each and every single time you increase the counter but rather only at specific tiers so there is some "mitigation" already in. Add to that that its farmability potential also heavily relies on the rewards structure and how easy it is to farm specific missions.
Also, how is it "artificially" inflating the counter since the counter is only no-death, not a no-death at this difficulty or higher?

Not aimed specifically at you Lothic but whenever someone brings up the "dangers" of something being farmed I envision them thinking that farming that something will yield 10x the rewards for half the effort in the same time as someone playing normally. If farming instead yields something like 10-15% more than I don't see why it would be a problem worth mentioning, let alone cautioning against.
Yes I know about things like the Destiny loot-cave but afaik there were fundamental flaws with that location, like near instant respawn (or at least a rolling respawn that effectively mimics it) and them almost always dropping way way more than average.

The problem with having a "stat" like this is that people may actually decide to discriminate against players for teams if their "non-defeat" value is not high enough. Thus a motivation for artificially farming this value up. A new source of angst like this might not be as helpful to the game as it seems.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Interesting. I could see where people would start to get "hyper-timid" if they managed to rack up a high score for this and became paranoid about getting killed. That and it doesn't really mean that much when there will be people who'll figure out the easiest mission to get credit for this and farm it to artificially inflate this value.

As long as it is within their intended performance and rewards metrics then who really cares?

It's really hard to not making a rewards system farmable. From what I have heard you don't get a reward each and every single time you increase the counter but rather only at specific tiers so there is some "mitigation" already in. Add to that that its farmability potential also heavily relies on the rewards structure and how easy it is to farm specific missions.
Also, how is it "artificially" inflating the counter since the counter is only no-death, not a no-death at this difficulty or higher?

Not aimed specifically at you Lothic but whenever someone brings up the "dangers" of something being farmed I envision them thinking that farming that something will yield 10x the rewards for half the effort in the same time as someone playing normally. If farming instead yields something like 10-15% more than I don't see why it would be a problem worth mentioning, let alone cautioning against.
Yes I know about things like the Destiny loot-cave but afaik there were fundamental flaws with that location, like near instant respawn (or at least a rolling respawn that effectively mimics it) and them almost always dropping way way more than average.

The problem with having a "stat" like this is that people may actually decide to discriminate against players for teams if their "non-defeat" value is not high enough. Thus a motivation for artificially farming this value up. A new source of angst like this might not be as helpful to the game as it seems.

Only if it's actually visible to others.

My understanding is that only actual badges will be visible to others, not ones challenge progression.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The Achivevement is concurrent. The more you remain Undefeated in completing content, the badge counter goes up.

Tannim222 wrote:

It only applies to content played through. Resetting won’t work. UGC doesn’t apply. Repeating old content will be flagged to not apply.
It is also useful for those who want a personal “hardcore” mode.
And this won’t be the only such challenge that leads to an concurrent Achievement.

Two things.
Note that Tannim did not use the word "reset" in the way that I was using and meaning the term. Tannim only talks about the counter going up, with the strong implication being that once you get defeated, the counter STOPS GOING UP ... presumably forever ... and because the word "reset" is omitted from the behavior being described, it implies that your first defeat is a permanent demarcation for this particular Badge. It counts up until you're defeated, at which point it stops and never counts anything ever again. In that respect, it's more like a "Diablo Hardcore" measure, except that the character doesn't become unplayable after being defeated. If this interpretation is correct, I find that problematic because it means that the Badge is only counting missions completed until your FIRST defeat ... as opposed to counting missions started and completed since your most recent LAST defeat, hence why I recommend a counter reset upon defeat, rather than a halting (and staying stuck forever) after your first defeat.

Furthermore, note that Tannim (rightly) says that User Generated Content won't count towards this, since UGC can be deliberately biased to skew risks HEAVILY in a Player's favor, or be so trivially short/easy as to barely count for anything, making it the mission complete equivalent of "empty calories" (so to speak). However, he also says that repeating old content will be flagged to not apply. This means that the Badge will only count missions completed the first time you complete them, resulting in the Badge only counting "new" missions you've undertaken while discounting any Flashbacks or repeats of any "old" missions. This has implications for this Badge specifically as well as the game generally, owing to the fact that the number of missions available to be completed will increase over the lifetime of the game as content gets added, meaning that there will be a "ceiling" of sorts for how high you can go that becomes a moving target over the lifetime of the game as content gets added (particularly when the Level Cap gets raised, for example). Combine this with a "stop and never start up again" behavioral dynamic as is strongly implied by my point above and you have a situation in which characters started early are strongly biased against, when content is smaller in quantity, over characters who are started later on, when content quantity has been increased, which effectively puts something of a "cap" on how high the Badge can count depending on when the character was created. I find the asymmetry of opportunities over the lifetime of the game represented by such a formulation to be potentially problematic.

It is because of both of these concerns that I find a Badge counting missions completed until your FIRST defeat to be inherently flawed, as well as being of little use in a game meant to be played for years on end.
This is why I have a strong preference, via a counter reset mechanic, of counting missions started AND completed since your LAST defeat ... rather than just merely recording how many (new only) missions you completed before your FIRST defeat.

A missions completed since LAST defeat counter is recording CURRENT information and your character's recent history.
A missions completed until FIRST defeat counter becomes increasingly ancient history over the lifetime of the game with diminishing relevance to the present state of your character as time goes on. Not to put too fine a point on things, but how long my character went before being defeated the first time in 2004 carries very little weight or relevance for how I was playing that same character, 8 years later, in 2012.

Lothic wrote:

if it would keep a dynamic running count like Redlynne's idea. Turns out Redlynne's idea here reminds me of what many military bases tend to do with running DUI/crash totals:

Right. You basically want (or at least, I want) the Badge to work like this for being defeated:

That means counting up until a defeat occurs, at which point you reset the counter to zero and start counting upwards again.


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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The problem with having a "stat" like this is that people may actually decide to discriminate against players for teams if their "non-defeat" value is not high enough. Thus a motivation for artificially farming this value up. A new source of angst like this might not be as helpful to the game as it seems.

That's a SOCIAL problem, not a game mechanical one, and it relies upon Players making an issue out of something that they don't have to make an issue of. In other words, some people will "care" and be jerks about stuff (news flash, this sometimes happens on the internet), but there will be no mandate from on high that they engage in elitistjerk behavior. That means there will be plenty of opportunity for people to not take the time (or have the inclination) to check the Badges of every PC they run across.

In other words, while I'm reasonably certain that this sort of thing will occur to someone somewhere at some point, I sincerely doubt it will either become a behavioral "norm" of the game, nor will it threaten the health of the game's community. Haters gonna hate and all that, but I sincerely doubt they'll find enough "fellow travelers" to form a powerful clique consumed by arrogant entitlement on this specific issue ... and the reason that I say that is because the opportunity for an "oops" moment of getting caught with your pants down is just too great. After all, someone who makes a huge fuss over how imperative it is to maintain a "high" missions completed since last defeat counter will have a lot of egg on their face and very rightly be accused of hypocrisy if they get defeated during whatever mission(s) they're recruiting for that haven't been completed yet. Like Wall Street says, past performance is not a predictor of future results, and all that.

And besides, someone who raises a "stink" about it so as to get on their high horse and sit in judgement of everyone else is probably not going to be someone you want to associate with long term anyway. So it's a SOCIAL problem ... but also a self-correcting social problem, since the "shoe on other foot" potential is always there with the formulation I've given involving resets of the counter upon defeat.


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Not to discount any of the

Not to discount any of the points here which all seem valid but I imagine if there is a badge for achievements for completed missions without deaths (cumulative or otherwise) then perhaps there are other similar badges related to this matter. Seems silly to assume there wouldn’t be. So perhaps each point made is true but applies to variations of achievement badges.

Personally I see an Undefeated badge meaning you have never died up to point x where we drew a line and decided it was noteworthy.

Assuming undefeated is applying to character deaths through each mission then, if I already completed a mission without dying then why would it count again? Are we itemizing the kills within the mish or counting the mish as x number of kills upon completion once done further kills in this mish don’t count toward badge? In which case I would think deaths in subsequent runs of a completed mish also not counting as it was completed undefeated once already.

This doesn’t even address a death while street sweeping which never happens right? (remember the Hollows street sweeping)

I would think there would be other badges that operate under similiar but different rules where defeats don’t hinder badge progression, cumulative without a failed to achieve rule.

I am just saying there are likely a variety of badges we haven’t been informed of that lay very near each other in scope. These are all just counters with specific rules applied to each one. Something to consider.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The problem with having a "stat" like this is that people may actually decide to discriminate against players for teams if their "non-defeat" value is not high enough. Thus a motivation for artificially farming this value up. A new source of angst like this might not be as helpful to the game as it seems.

That's a SOCIAL problem, not a game mechanical one, and it relies upon Players making an issue out of something that they don't have to make an issue of. In other words, some people will "care" and be jerks about stuff (news flash, this sometimes happens on the internet), but there will be no mandate from on high that they engage in elitistjerk behavior. That means there will be plenty of opportunity for people to not take the time (or have the inclination) to check the Badges of every PC they run across.

In other words, while I'm reasonably certain that this sort of thing will occur to someone somewhere at some point, I sincerely doubt it will either become a behavioral "norm" of the game, nor will it threaten the health of the game's community. Haters gonna hate and all that, but I sincerely doubt they'll find enough "fellow travelers" to form a powerful clique consumed by arrogant entitlement on this specific issue ... and the reason that I say that is because the opportunity for an "oops" moment of getting caught with your pants down is just too great. After all, someone who makes a huge fuss over how imperative it is to maintain a "high" missions completed since last defeat counter will have a lot of egg on their face and very rightly be accused of hypocrisy if they get defeated during whatever mission(s) they're recruiting for that haven't been completed yet. Like Wall Street says, past performance is not a predictor of future results, and all that.

And besides, someone who raises a "stink" about it so as to get on their high horse and sit in judgement of everyone else is probably not going to be someone you want to associate with long term anyway. So it's a SOCIAL problem ... but also a self-correcting social problem, since the "shoe on other foot" potential is always there with the formulation I've given involving resets of the counter upon defeat.

One of the reasons I’m not concerned about this being a large issue is because the Achievement counts for all ranges of difficulty. Players have no way of knowing if a player with a large Undefeated counter did so at the base difficulty or at max difficulty.

Or conversely a low counter could eventually be the result of a player spending most of their time leveling up in user generated content, or repeating older content and thus they level up bet without dealing with fresh content very often.

I’m sure there will be some players who try to use the Undeated counter as some form of elitism. They essentially end up isolating themsves since in the large scheme of things, it is ultimately pointless to try and distinguish “who is hardcore of the hardcore”.


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rookslide wrote:
rookslide wrote:

Assuming undefeated is applying to character deaths through each mission then, if I already completed a mission without dying then why would it count again? Are we itemizing the kills within the mish or counting the mish as x number of kills upon completion once done further kills in this mish don’t count toward badge? In which case I would think deaths in subsequent runs of a completed mish also not counting as it was completed undefeated once already.

This doesn’t even address a death while street sweeping which never happens right? (remember the Hollows street sweeping

Remember the way that I structured my version of the Badge.
If AT ANY TIME you are defeated, the count resets to zero. The reason for the defeat doesn't matter. If you're on a mission or not doesn't matter. Get defeated, the counter resets to zero.
The only way to +1 the counter is to be a team member BEFORE the mission begins. Note that as a soloist, you're always "counted" as being on your own team as far as this goes. So if you're on the team when the mission gets selected as the active mission (meaning you don't get swapped in later mid-way through) then you're eligible to earn the +1 to the counter upon Mission Complete. If the mission isn't completed, there is no +1. If you join a mission already in progress, there is no +1.

So if you have a mission to street sweep, that "counts" and if you're on the mission from beginning to completion then you get a +1 to the counter if you were not defeated during the mission.
If you're defeated at any time, for any reason, the counter resets to zero.
This means that if you're defeated during your current mission and the counter resets to zero, you will need to either complete or abandon your current mission and start a whole new mission before you can begin to accrue +1 to the counter for missions completed without being defeated.

Which as you'll notice, takes care of the edge case of street sweeping that you mentioned.
If you're street sweeping absent a mission objective to do so, then your street sweeping won't complete a mission and therefore you won't get a +1 to the counter for missions completed without being defeated when you stop street sweeping ... and if you do get defeated while doing that street sweeping the counter resets to zero anyway.

Trust me, I covered all the edge cases with the proposal.


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We can also have a

We can also have a distinction between Personal Defests and Group Defears. Where if you are in a group and someone else is defeated, you won’t get the Group Undefeated Achievement. But if you weren’t defeated, you stii get youn own.

Being Defeated is just that, defeated at any time. Red pretty much has the gist of where we are going with this sort of Achievment.

And we can use it to apply as a bonus to other Achievemnts earned.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Trust me, I covered all the edge cases with the proposal.

Tannim222 wrote:

Red pretty much has the gist of where we are going with this sort of Achievment.

I don't really care whether the Devs have managed to "ensure" that such a "non-defeat count" indicator is "legitimate" or not. I simply believe that if such an indicator was publicly visible to others it would become a data point for discrimination and also would engender a sort of "paranoid timidness" in people the same way games that support a pure "hardcore" mode do. By the time a person has racked up a large value for this so-called achievement they would become abnormally reluctant to do anything even remotely "dangerous" for fear of ruining their count.

I'm simply not convinced such a thing serves an overall useful/beneficial purpose for a game like CoT. I probably wouldn't mind if a counter like this was kept completely secret from the public so that the player could use it for their own motivation/satisfaction. Making such a thing "publically visible" is where all the problems arise.

Now just to be clear I have no problem with having "undefeated" badges for staying alive for certain periods of time or certain numbers of missions as SINGLE events (as opposed to dynamic running counts). For instance I had at least two characters in CoH who between them had ALL of the "Master of" badges for TFs/trials (that usually required zero deaths during the entire run). I just don't think that having the equivalent of a "DUI/crash" counter would be helpful for CoT.

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Lothic, I think you are

Lothic, I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

The Undefeated Achivement isn’t a “badge” like the old game that you have listed for everyone to see.

It is an Achivement you earn, personally, that provides a bonus upon contralto comleltment if content.

Just like completing content via stealth continually is a personal achievement .

Or exploring the a new map compeltmely. Each an be counted cumulatively.

Now, you are saying hat it can also cause people to become too timid in engaging content for fear of defeat.

It is almost as if there is now a risk to being defeated...


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Lothic, I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

The Undefeated Achivement isn’t a “badge” like the old game that you have listed for everyone to see.

It is an Achivement you earn, personally, that provides a bonus upon contralto comleltment if content.

Just like completing content via stealth continually is a personal achievement .

Or exploring the a new map compeltmely. Each an be counted cumulatively.

Now, you are saying hat it can also cause people to become too timid in engaging content for fear of defeat.

It is almost as if there is now a risk to being defeated...

Right but "accidents" always happen no matter how good you are. I just know that if I was playing along and had managed to get that counter up to say a few hundred (or whatever value would be considered super-high for it) that I would be super bummed/pissed if I managed to finally get killed and have that counter zeroed out. It's not really a "good" achievement as much as it is a "I'm eventually going to get screwed and lose it" achievement.

Sorry, but I just ultimately see it as a "negative" achievement - not one I'd be proud to have but one I'd become paranoid of losing.

How about this as a compromise: Keep the "non-defeat" counter and make it count how many missions or whatever you manage to stay non-defeated. But once you die instead of zeroing out the counter just keep it frozen at your "top personal best" until you manage to work your way back through a long string of non-defeats. The only way the count can ever start incrementing upward again would be that you've managed to exceed your pervious personal streak of non-defeats.

By keeping the counter from zeroing out you can still "show off" your best run of non-defeats without having the occasional defeat actually hurt. The "penalty" for a defeat simply becomes the time it'll take you to get back to a point where you can start increasing your "top personal best" count again. If you're one of those people who manages to die every 10 seconds your achievement count will -never- be high. But if you're the type of person who rarely dies then your count will reflect your overall trend without letting one defeat completely screw you.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Lothic, I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

The Undefeated Achivement isn’t a “badge” like the old game that you have listed for everyone to see.

It is an Achivement you earn, personally, that provides a bonus upon contralto comleltment if content.

Just like completing content via stealth continually is a personal achievement .

Or exploring the a new map compeltmely. Each an be counted cumulatively.

Now, you are saying hat it can also cause people to become too timid in engaging content for fear of defeat.

It is almost as if there is now a risk to being defeated...

Right but "accidents" always happen no matter how good you are. I just know that if I was playing along and had managed to get that counter up to say a few hundred (or whatever value would be considered super-high for it) that I would be super bummed/pissed if I managed to finally get killed and have that counter zeroed out. It's not really a "good" achievement as much as it is a "I'm eventually going to get screwed and lose it" achievement.

Sorry, but I just ultimately see it as a "negative" achievement - not one I'd be proud to have but one I'd become paranoid of losing.

How about this as a compromise: Keep the "non-defeat" counter and make it count how many missions or whatever you manage to stay non-defeated. But once you die instead of zeroing out the counter just keep it frozen at your "top personal best" until you manage to work your way back through a long string of non-defeats. The only way the count can ever start incrementing upward again would be that you've managed to exceed your pervious personal streak of non-defeats.

By keeping the counter from zeroing out you can still "show off" your best run of non-defeats without having the occasional defeat actually hurt. The "penalty" for a defeat simply becomes the time it'll take you to get back to a point where you can start increasing your "top personal best" count again. If you're one of those people who manages to die every 10 seconds your achievement count will -never- be high. But if you're the type of person who rarely dies then your count will reflect your overall trend without letting one defeat completely screw you.

It is possible to do. I have to make note of asking to reflect both “best” and current values.

I just don’t think keeping the bonus to content completion for remaining undefeated should still apply if you are defeated. It rather defeats the purpose. Pun in mtended.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

It is possible to do. I have to make note of asking to reflect both “best” and current values.

TBH I would only have the "best" value ever be visible. If you're still going to show the "current" value (assuming that "current" value is currently less than the "best" value) then you've basically ignored the intent of my compromise with this. Let the game maintain the "current" value invisibly. The player will know when the "current" value exceeds the "best" value once the "best" value starts incrementing again.

The point here would be to only show a player's best total value. If the total is a wickedly high value then the player should NEVER LOSE that achievement even if he/she just died 5 seconds ago. The trend and skill of the player would be obvious regardless. The only "penalty" a defeated player should have to face is the loss of time having to work their (undisplayed) "current" total back to a point where it begins to exceed the "personal best" value again.

Tannim222 wrote:

I just don’t think keeping the bonus to content completion for remaining undefeated should still apply if you are defeated. It rather defeats the purpose. Pun in mtended.

Sure if you're actually considering to allow for any "bonuses" related to being on your "current best non-defeat streak" then I'd have no problem with those bonuses being "greyed out" if you get killed and remaining "greyed out" until your current total begins to exceed your "best" total again.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

It is possible to do. I have to make note of asking to reflect both “best” and current values.

TBH I would only have the "best" value ever be visible. If you're still going to show the "current" value (assuming that "current" value is currently less than the "best" value) then you've basically ignored the intent of my compromise with this. Let the game maintain the "current" value invisibly. The player will know when the "current" value exceeds the "best" value once the "best" value starts incrementing again.

The point here would be to only show a player's best total value. If the total is a wickedly high value then the player should NEVER LOSE that achievement even if he/she just died 5 seconds ago. The trend and skill of the player would be obvious regardless. The only "penalty" a defeated player should have to face is the loss of time having to work their (undisplayed) "current" total back to a point where it begins to exceed the "personal best" value again.

Tannim222 wrote:

I just don’t think keeping the bonus to content completion for remaining undefeated should still apply if you are defeated. It rather defeats the purpose. Pun in mtended.

Sure if you're actually considering to allow for any "bonuses" related to being on your "current best non-defeat streak" then I'd have no problem with those bonuses being "greyed out" if you get killed and remaining "greyed out" until your current total begins to exceed your "best" total again.

I'm not so sure that "freezing" the counter when you're defeated and wait for it to count up to that value gain behind the scenes is such a good idea. Unless it's explained in no uncertain terms and probably reinforced at times there will be (probably high enough amount) people who will get annoyed that it doesn't move/increase even though they are completing missions under the correct conditions. I think there would be more people annoyed with not being able to see how much they have left until they get to their personal best than there will be people who are annoyed by "loosing" the achievement.

I feel that having two tabs that essentially looks the same with one for Personal Best (probably best as default) and other for Current Streak would be the best compromise overall.

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Ok, I haven't read every

Ok, I haven't read every single sentence of every post, so forgive me if someone has already floated this idea, but couldn't the undefeated counter just be an optional feature that can be turned off or on as desired?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

It is possible to do. I have to make note of asking to reflect both “best” and current values.

TBH I would only have the "best" value ever be visible. If you're still going to show the "current" value (assuming that "current" value is currently less than the "best" value) then you've basically ignored the intent of my compromise with this. Let the game maintain the "current" value invisibly. The player will know when the "current" value exceeds the "best" value once the "best" value starts incrementing again.

The point here would be to only show a player's best total value. If the total is a wickedly high value then the player should NEVER LOSE that achievement even if he/she just died 5 seconds ago. The trend and skill of the player would be obvious regardless. The only "penalty" a defeated player should have to face is the loss of time having to work their (undisplayed) "current" total back to a point where it begins to exceed the "personal best" value again.

Tannim222 wrote:

I just don’t think keeping the bonus to content completion for remaining undefeated should still apply if you are defeated. It rather defeats the purpose. Pun in mtended.

Sure if you're actually considering to allow for any "bonuses" related to being on your "current best non-defeat streak" then I'd have no problem with those bonuses being "greyed out" if you get killed and remaining "greyed out" until your current total begins to exceed your "best" total again.

I'm not so sure that "freezing" the counter when you're defeated and wait for it to count up to that value gain behind the scenes is such a good idea. Unless it's explained in no uncertain terms and probably reinforced at times there will be (probably high enough amount) people who will get annoyed that it doesn't move/increase even though they are completing missions under the correct conditions. I think there would be more people annoyed with not being able to see how much they have left until they get to their personal best than there will be people who are annoyed by "loosing" the achievement.

I feel that having two tabs that essentially looks the same with one for Personal Best (probably best as default) and other for Current Streak would be the best compromise overall.

Well considering that I've listed numerous problems with having the (as you call it) Current Streak value be visible I wouldn't consider it part of the "compromise" to still have that number be visible. The whole reason I came up with the Personal Best idea was as an -alternative- to showing the Current Streak number.

But if you're worried that people would not understand what was happening if you got defeated and were working your (hidden) Current Streak value up again the Devs could simply turn the Current Streak icon/indicator grey which should be easily explainable as "this will remain grey after a defeat until you exceed your original Personal Best value". That seems easy/straightforward enough to me.

Again one more time the whole point of coming up with the Personal Best idea was to eliminate the problems with having a visible Current Streak value in the first place. If that value remains visible in any way then there's no point to considering the compromise I suggested.

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Ok, I haven't read every single sentence of every post, so forgive me if someone has already floated this idea, but couldn't the undefeated counter just be an optional feature that can be turned off or on as desired?

I suppose if a player had the choice as to whether they even wanted their "undefeated streak" and/or "personal best" numbers be visible to other players or not that would also be a reasonable compromise to the problems this concept would cause. People might still discriminate against other people who did not show that data to potential team leaders but at least the "involuntary hardcore" aspects of this thing would be mitigated.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Lothic, I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

The Undefeated Achivement isn’t a “badge” like the old game that you have listed for everyone to see.

It is an Achivement you earn, personally, that provides a bonus upon contralto comleltment if content.

Just like completing content via stealth continually is a personal achievement .

Or exploring the a new map compeltmely. Each an be counted cumulatively.

Now, you are saying hat it can also cause people to become too timid in engaging content for fear of defeat.

It is almost as if there is now a risk to being defeated...

If I understand you correctly, your design is that the counter stops upon defeat and that's it. That's our score forever with this character, correct?

If so, it will DEFINITELY drive timidity to the point of paranoia. It would far exceed the fear of death when one considers the purpose such a fear is supposed to have in a game like this. But if you want to drive a sort of iron-man feeling into the playerbase, then that's a good thing.
The resultant behavior in our player characters will consist far more running away and a lot less trying to pull victory from defeat. It will consist of setting up easy one-sided fights and avoiding the challenge of parity. And that will result in a lack of challenge and players leaving the game because they've lost interest because of all the easy battles they will only allow themselves to experience. So while it would end up being more realistic, it would also be less heroic.

I would like to see the NPCs want to run away as well, if that's the case. (at least, the NPCs who are mortal or who can actually suffer a preservation complex)

If I misinterpreted your statements and it is not a one-time only frozen forever count, then please disregard the above comments. In such a case, I will reserve the option of re-assessing the design when/if I understand what it is.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The question I'd have about the Undefested(sp) Achievement is whether you'd just have to achieve a certain number of "non-defeats" ONCE to get that badge(s) or if it would keep a dynamic running count like Redlynne's idea. Turns out Redlynne's idea here reminds me of what many military bases tend to do with running DUI/crash totals:

My search-fu fails me, but I know there was a pic of one of these with a pickup truck crashed into one of the posts....

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The “forever score” sounds

The “forever score” sounds just like the LotRO scenario I described earlier which I used as an extreme example of how a positive, achievement-based death penalty can be so much more demoralizing than a negative penalty. I certainly hope CoT doesn’t have a system that replicates that. That can induce rage quitting.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Lothic, I think you are looking at this the wrong way.

The Undefeated Achivement isn’t a “badge” like the old game that you have listed for everyone to see.

It is an Achivement you earn, personally, that provides a bonus upon contralto comleltment if content.

Just like completing content via stealth continually is a personal achievement .

Or exploring the a new map compeltmely. Each an be counted cumulatively.

Now, you are saying hat it can also cause people to become too timid in engaging content for fear of defeat.

It is almost as if there is now a risk to being defeated...

If I understand you correctly, your design is that the counter stops upon defeat and that's it. That's our score forever with this character, correct?

If so, it will DEFINITELY drive timidity to the point of paranoia. It would far exceed the fear of death when one considers the purpose such a fear is supposed to have in a game like this. But if you want to drive a sort of iron-man feeling into the playerbase, then that's a good thing.
The resultant behavior in our player characters will consist far more running away and a lot less trying to pull victory from defeat. It will consist of setting up easy one-sided fights and avoiding the challenge of parity. And that will result in a lack of challenge and players leaving the game because they've lost interest because of all the easy battles they will only allow themselves to experience. So while it would end up being more realistic, it would also be less heroic.

I would like to see the NPCs want to run away as well, if that's the case. (at least, the NPCs who are mortal or who can actually suffer a preservation complex)

If I misinterpreted your statements and it is not a one-time only frozen forever count, then please disregard the above comments. In such a case, I will reserve the option of re-assessing the design when/if I understand what it is.

I don't think the original idea was that the counter would increment ONCE and then be permanently frozen. I think the original idea would be that the counter would increment UNTIL you're defeated and then counter would be ZEROED out to start over again. I think either of these scenarios would be bad.

Again my idea would be that the counter (which in this case would represent your "personal best" value) would rise until you're defeated. At that point the counter would stay frozen UNTIL you've achieved a new string of non-defeats that EXCEEDED the original frozen value. Once that happens the counter would be allowed to increment upward again. The net effect is that the value shown would always reflect whatever your "personal best" was or is regardless if you've never been defeated or if you got killed 5 seconds ago.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:

The “forever score” sounds just like the LotRO scenario I described earlier which I used as an extreme example of how a positive, achievement-based death penalty can be so much more demoralizing than a negative penalty. I certainly hope CoT doesn’t have a system that replicates that. That can induce rage quitting.

Exactly. There's a way to do this that would not be "negatively oriented" and I've offered an idea here in my last several posts that would avoid the negative connotations you're referring to. By making this thing simply record your "personal best non-defeat streak" the value will always be one that can potentially go up instead of something that would be permanently frozen or zeroed out.

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chase wrote:
chase wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The question I'd have about the Undefested(sp) Achievement is whether you'd just have to achieve a certain number of "non-defeats" ONCE to get that badge(s) or if it would keep a dynamic running count like Redlynne's idea. Turns out Redlynne's idea here reminds me of what many military bases tend to do with running DUI/crash totals:

My search-fu fails me, but I know there was a pic of one of these with a pickup truck crashed into one of the posts....

There's a particular base I visit several times a year (no point in calling them out directly) that maintains several stats like these on signs (days since crash, days since DUI, etc.) and sadly it seems this particular base can never go more than say 5 or 10 days without one of these bad things happening. I almost consider it a strange sort of ironic dark humor that this base seems compelled to remind everyone how relatively BAD it is at preventing these kinds of things from happening.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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The idea was never to

The idea was never to permanently freeze the Undewfeard counter. The original concept was as Lothic described - you can work your way back up to your previous best. Along the way you begin ontaining the bonus again.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The idea was never to permanently freeze the Undewfeard counter. The original concept was as Lothic described - you can work your way back up to your previous best. Along the way you begin ontaining the bonus again.

Thanks for the clarification. I was mistakenly under the impression (based on either what I read from you or Redlynne) that this thing was going to be zeroed out (or permanently frozen) whenever you were defeated.

If this thing will work more like a "personal best" tracker that never gets zeroed out and can be increased each time a player attains a new highest "personal best" undefeated streak then it sounds like it would avoid the key problems I had concerns about. This version would allow players to display their ability to achieve very long undefeated streaks without the fear that one or two "unfortunate accidents" would totally ruin their otherwise impressive records.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The idea was never to permanently freeze the Undewfeard counter. The original concept was as Lothic described - you can work your way back up to your previous best. Along the way you begin ontaining the bonus again.

Thanks for the clarification. I was mistakenly under the impression (based on either what I read from you or Redlynne) that this thing was going to be zeroed out (or permanently frozen) whenever you were defeated.

If this thing will work more like a "personal best" tracker that never gets zeroed out and can be increased each time a player attains a new highest "personal best" undefeated streak then it sounds like it would avoid the key problems I had concerns about. This version would allow players to display their ability to achieve very long undefeated streaks without the fear that one or two "unfortunate accidents" would totally ruin their otherwise impressive records.

Me too. I think it was the following quote that threw us:

Tannim222 wrote:

It only applies to content played through. Resetting won’t work. UGC doesn’t apply. Repeating old content will be flagged to not apply.

So Tannim probably meant resetting the mission if you die before the mission completes doesn't keep the death from still counting.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

It is possible to do. I have to make note of asking to reflect both “best” and current values.

TBH I would only have the "best" value ever be visible. If you're still going to show the "current" value (assuming that "current" value is currently less than the "best" value) then you've basically ignored the intent of my compromise with this. Let the game maintain the "current" value invisibly. The player will know when the "current" value exceeds the "best" value once the "best" value starts incrementing again.

The point here would be to only show a player's best total value. If the total is a wickedly high value then the player should NEVER LOSE that achievement even if he/she just died 5 seconds ago. The trend and skill of the player would be obvious regardless. The only "penalty" a defeated player should have to face is the loss of time having to work their (undisplayed) "current" total back to a point where it begins to exceed the "personal best" value again.

Tannim222 wrote:

I just don’t think keeping the bonus to content completion for remaining undefeated should still apply if you are defeated. It rather defeats the purpose. Pun in mtended.

Sure if you're actually considering to allow for any "bonuses" related to being on your "current best non-defeat streak" then I'd have no problem with those bonuses being "greyed out" if you get killed and remaining "greyed out" until your current total begins to exceed your "best" total again.

I'm not so sure that "freezing" the counter when you're defeated and wait for it to count up to that value gain behind the scenes is such a good idea. Unless it's explained in no uncertain terms and probably reinforced at times there will be (probably high enough amount) people who will get annoyed that it doesn't move/increase even though they are completing missions under the correct conditions. I think there would be more people annoyed with not being able to see how much they have left until they get to their personal best than there will be people who are annoyed by "loosing" the achievement.

I feel that having two tabs that essentially looks the same with one for Personal Best (probably best as default) and other for Current Streak would be the best compromise overall.

Well considering that I've listed numerous problems with having the (as you call it) Current Streak value be visible I wouldn't consider it part of the "compromise" to still have that number be visible. The whole reason I came up with the Personal Best idea was as an -alternative- to showing the Current Streak number.

But if you're worried that people would not understand what was happening if you got defeated and were working your (hidden) Current Streak value up again the Devs could simply turn the Current Streak icon/indicator grey which should be easily explainable as "this will remain grey after a defeat until you exceed your original Personal Best value". That seems easy/straightforward enough to me.

Again one more time the whole point of coming up with the Personal Best idea was to eliminate the problems with having a visible Current Streak value in the first place. If that value remains visible in any way then there's no point to considering the compromise I suggested.

As far as I can see those "problems" you list are either based on the notion that too many players will be too "distraught/hurt" from loosing the achievement or that elitists will use it to "judge" people by and thus the only way to remedy that is to have max reached be the only thing displayed. If it's not publicly visible then it will take care of the elitist "problem", and I don't think there will be that many persons who will be that distraught/hurt that it will outweigh any other problems it will introduce. Besides, iirc they won't remove the achievement itself (even though Tannim says so I think he is actually talking about the challenge milestone) but only the count since on any subsequent run you won't get the rewards for reaching milestones that you have reached before, only for the ones that you haven't yet reached on any "run".

The problems I see being introduced with your system would be:
People who due to their own subjective feeling think it takes way too long time before it starts moving again. Personally I think that would lead to more frustrations over time than just straight up loosing it.
Removing the possibility of making an informed decision on willfully "sacrificing" it (mainly by engaging in high risk content) due to the current streak being, to them, low enough that the time "lost" with the current streak isn't that big a deal.

You also keep saying your suggestion is a compromise but I fail to see what two (or more) points you are compromising against/between.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

The idea was never to permanently freeze the Undewfeard counter. The original concept was as Lothic described - you can work your way back up to your previous best. Along the way you begin ontaining the bonus again.

Thanks for the clarification. I was mistakenly under the impression (based on either what I read from you or Redlynne) that this thing was going to be zeroed out (or permanently frozen) whenever you were defeated.

If this thing will work more like a "personal best" tracker that never gets zeroed out and can be increased each time a player attains a new highest "personal best" undefeated streak then it sounds like it would avoid the key problems I had concerns about. This version would allow players to display their ability to achieve very long undefeated streaks without the fear that one or two "unfortunate accidents" would totally ruin their otherwise impressive records.

Me too. I think it was the following quote that threw us:

Tannim222 wrote:

It only applies to content played through. Resetting won’t work. UGC doesn’t apply. Repeating old content will be flagged to not apply.

So Tannim probably meant resetting the mission if you die before the mission completes doesn't keep the death from still counting.

As a corollary to this I don't necessarily have a problem with games like this providing features/mechanics that support "hardcore" playstyles as long as those things are 100% optional. I simply felt the notion of "zeroing out" (or permanently freezing) any kind of achievement counter to be a little too close to an "involuntary hardcore" mechanic that players would have no way to avoid or opt out of.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Yeah, what will happen is

Yeah, what will happen is that, if players are even paying attention to it, when they get close to completing their achievement they will do so in the least risky way possible so as to get the achievement. Then once the achievement is accomplished, they will go back to playing as usual.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

As far as I can see those "problems" you list are either based on the notion that too many players will be too "distraught/hurt" from loosing the achievement or that elitists will use it to "judge" people by and thus the only way to remedy that is to have max reached be the only thing displayed.

Yes. If this was a value that could be "zeroed out" upon a single defeat then the higher the value a player obtained the more likely they would become fearful/paranoid of doing anything even remotely dangerous or challenging that would risk losing that value. It might make people even unwilling to play characters for fear of ruining that record.

Also if this value was a "pure hardcore" stat (which it would be if you could lose it with one defeat) then it would much more likely become a data point for discrimination or worse yet for griefing with people intent to invite you to a team with the sole nefarious purpose of getting you killed on purpose.

blacke4dawn wrote:

You also keep saying your suggestion is a compromise but I fail to see what two (or more) points you are compromising against/between.

I originally thought the game was going to "zero out" the undefeated counter if you got killed. My "compromise" was to have the game NOT do that and according to what Tannim just said it sounds like NOT zeroing out the value is the current way this is going to work.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Huh, seems that exact

Huh, seems that exact terminology needs to be more and more "exact" since I see more and more people (for a lack of a better term) "go alternative". In fairness though it doesn't help when the devs seem to be using several different terms for the exact same thing, especially when those terms can be (and sometimes is) used for other things as well.

I believe Mask-of-Many "initiated" this latest round of "argumentation" here and I mentioned MWM's challenges system in my reply to that. Later when Tannim chimed in it was obvious to me that he was talking about the challenges system and previous talks about that had made it clear that they only restart the counters (not badges/achievements or rewards gotten from them), not freeze them or just zero out to never be used again.

The challenges system, as far as I have understood it:
Extra challenges on both personal and group level, majority seem to be of the concurrent streak kind.
At certain milestones you'll get an achievement and its associated reward, but only the first time you reach said milestone.
Break the streak and the counter restarts from zero, possibly but hoping not that the "achievement" gets reset too though I see no good reason to doing so.

Anything "hardcore" (as in one mistake and you're screwed) should be an explicit opt-in choice upon character creation, not a part of the base game.

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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

Huh, seems that exact terminology needs to be more and more "exact" since I see more and more people (for a lack of a better term) "go alternative". In fairness though it doesn't help when the devs seem to be using several different terms for the exact same thing, especially when those terms can be (and sometimes is) used for other things as well.

I believe Mask-of-Many "initiated" this latest round of "argumentation" here and I mentioned MWM's challenges system in my reply to that. Later when Tannim chimed in it was obvious to me that he was talking about the challenges system and previous talks about that had made it clear that they only restart the counters (not badges/achievements or rewards gotten from them), not freeze them or just zero out to never be used again.

The challenges system, as far as I have understood it:
Extra challenges on both personal and group level, majority seem to be of the concurrent streak kind.
At certain milestones you'll get an achievement and its associated reward, but only the first time you reach said milestone.
Break the streak and the counter restarts from zero, possibly but hoping not that the "achievement" gets reset too though I see no good reason to doing so.

Anything "hardcore" (as in one mistake and you're screwed) should be an explicit opt-in choice upon character creation, not a part of the base game.

Yes it's always a challenge to make sure everyone's referring to the right Apples and Oranges when talking about things like this. If I had to simplify my point here it's that nothing in this game should be "hardcore oriented" unless it's an option chosen by the player.

I simply don't like the generic idea of anything that's referred to as an "achievement" be something that can be "zeroed out" based on something like being defeated. Again that was the origin of my "compromise" to come up with a game mechanic that did not involve having to "zero out" anything that a player has already achieved.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I my or may not pay attention

I my or may not pay attention to this counter. My normal playstyle is to strongly avoid any defeats and to take them seriously. Getting defeated even just once before finishing any mission or even a TF is a big "BAH!" moment for me, though not the end of the world. But I'd personally like a way to hide it from myself and others if I want, if not totally turn it off. Out of sight, out of mind when desired could solve many possible negative aspects of this counter without losing the positive. Options!

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

I my or may not pay attention to this counter. My normal playstyle is to strongly avoid any defeats and to take them seriously. Getting defeated even just once before finishing any mission or even a TF is a big "BAH!" moment for me, though not the end of the world. But I'd personally like a way to hide it from myself and others if I want, if not totally turn it off. Out of sight, out of mind when desired could solve many possible negative aspects of this counter without losing the positive. Options!

This. So much this.

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As long as we get revived it

As long as we get revived it REALLY doesn't matter how that happens. Because as soon as you are revived you'll no longer be thinking about what revived you. If you want some super random 'lore' reason why you got revived, just picture that in your head. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

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