My two cents about Permadeath

[Quendus]

Note that I wasn't savescumming, I was using the game's built-in "cheat death" option. One non-death per character level would come to 50 non-deaths, which is probably less than it took to win even playing very lazily with unlimited saves.

I think of I played in such a mode, I would either play exactly as I do (but win every game and lose interest), or develop bad habits while my life is protected that persist while it isn't. In that case I would lose much more often.

I don't think I would be interested in playing that game. If I'm going to cheat to get infinite lives and an unlosable game, I'm going to do it right.

[Endorya]

Note that wasnt savescumming, I was using the game's built-in "cheat death" option. One non-death per character level would come to 50 non-deaths, which is probably less than it took to win even playing very lazily with unlimited saves.

I think of I played in such a mode, I would either play exactly as I do (but win every game and lose interest), or develop bad habits while my life is protected that persist while it isn't. In that case I would lose much more often.

I don't think I would be interested in playing that game. If I'm going to cheat to get infinite lives and an unlosable game, I'm going to do it right.

It's only considered cheating when you're altering the way the developer intended it to work. I said once per level as I have no idea how much this turns out to be, plus the game play should be definitely re balanced.

I find it hard to believe that someone would loose interest that fast over a hypothetical game featuring controlled saved games, several classes and races and containing fully procedural generated worlds, therefore capable of producing unlimited and unique playable scenarios.

[Paul Jeffries]

I find it hard to believe that someone would loose interest that fast over a hypothetical game featuring controlled saved games, several classes and races and containing fully procedural generated worlds, therefore capable of producing unlimited and unique playable scenarios.

But surely the fact that it could produce unlimited scenarios is irrelevant in this case, if you are just going to be re-loading and re-playing the same variation of it over and over again?

[reaver]

My 2c:  depends on how one enjoys the game. Allow the option, probably at the start of the game. Easy, normal, hard. Hardcore mode of Diablo/Torchlight/Tales of Maj' Eyal. It's not rocket science. Do vendors sell balls saying "Only play football with this product"? Why would you handicap the product? So that elitists/zealots can cheer? Define the game in the scope of the session ("I'm gonna play normal difficulty - hardcore mode", or "I'm gonna play basketball") and don't change the rules as you see fit midway through.

[Hi]

But when you try to play soccer with a football it doesn't work how you expect.

[reaver]

1: I'm European, so my football is your soccer
2: Even if it didn't work as I expected, does it really matter to some 3rd party? It matters to *me* how I play it. If we are talking about high-scores/rankings, then a common ground needs to be established.

One can give all the suggestions in the world on how to play a game, but in the end it should be up to the person playing it.

[Eben]

You seem to be saying that you don't like roguelikes because they're not RPGs. Nothing wrong with that opinion, but maybe you would find more satisfaction in finding games that are what you want in a game instead of trying to make a game that's not what you want into what you want (via save scumming for example).

There are games with permadeath that are no roguelike nor RPGs. I do know where I get satisfaction from what types of games. It seems that for you and for many people a roguelike is only a roguelike when it has the permadeath feature implemented. Sorry, but I think a roguelike is much more than featuring permadeath. I did mention what people (including myself) enjoy about roguelikes:

"Wikipedia"
Roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by random level generation, tile-based graphics and permanent death.

I'm not really sure what your reply has to do with my comment. You seem discouraged that ADOM was not built with an internal save feature and compelled to state that the lack of a save feature makes the game less interesting for you. All of which is fine. The problem is that you then suggest it should have a save feature, which is akin to saying that you wish it didn't have random level generation or randomized anything. If you only play a game once from start to finish then you'll see exactly one thing, which is not random at all, effectively. If you don't want randomized content you'd be better served with non-roguelike RPGs with an intentionally built story and experience.

Personally I'm not really for or against permadeath in roguelikes as a general rule. Some of my very favorite roguelikes have explicit save games, like Toe Jam & Earl, or have semi-death with partial resets, such as the Mystery Dungeon games.

[Morcrist]

I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:

1) have the ability/skill/power to resurrect it then you can do so and lead the character back to town, or leave it and chance the AI getting to it before you log back in on it

or

2) carry the body back to town and have a healer resurrect it

or

3) re-animate it as some form of undead inheriting some/all of the character's abilities/skills

You could add more stuff to make it more interesting...for example, the longer you left the body the more "deteriorated" it would be. If you ended up taking a long time before you resurrected it then the character could take a temp/permanent hit to various stats and/or abilities.

There could be a Soul Departure stat which places a hard cap on the amount of time you could wait before rezzing the character. Various races could last longer than others before their souls departed.

It would be really interesting to have an entirely new game once a character "died". They could then go on to adventure/game in the "after-life". It could be possible to gain enough favor with your patron deity (kill enough angels/demons) to actually get a second chance at life.

The list goes on. My motto is the more gameplay options the more longevity the game has. And we're not talking complicated gameplay. Tons of simple options synergize to produce near inifinitely varied gameplay!

My two cents!

Take care.

[chooseusername]

I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:

By at least one of your definitions, your game has as much permanent death as Pacman.  Pacman gets resurrected.  When he fails to acquire the right knick knacks to notch up more pending resurrections, then his death is permanent.  Or a Pinball machine, and the same for extra balls.

Pacman probably costs a dollar to play these days, and not 2 cents! :-)

[Aukustus]

My favorite thing is optional perma-death as a hardcore game mode. That's what I did in my game.

[Endorya]

But surely the fact that it could produce unlimited scenarios is irrelevant in this case, if you are just going to be re-loading and re-playing the same variation of it over and over again?

I rather replay my death 10x times from a saved point at level 20 than restarting my char 10x times at level 1, replicating the skill developing, collecting and selling early equipment also 10x times. My point about unlimited scenarios comes exactly to this as you should not feel scared for finishing the game in much less time or having it feel less challenging due to controlled saved games as the key lies with the right amount of difficulty; challenge is not something exclusive to permadeath. Each time you start over you will play a new and different game promoting a unique experience, as long as the game features procedural algorithms naturally. You would probably try a different class or race or investing in a different skill tree once you've finished the game.

[Endorya]

My 2c:  depends on how one enjoys the game. Allow the option, probably at the start of the game. Easy, normal, hard. Hardcore mode of Diablo/Torchlight/Tales of Maj' Eyal. It's not rocket science. Do vendors sell balls saying "Only play football with this product"? Why would you handicap the product? So that elitists/zealots can cheer? Define the game in the scope of the session ("I'm gonna play normal difficulty - hardcore mode", or "I'm gonna play basketball") and don't change the rules as you see fit midway through.

Couldn't agree more.

[Endorya]

My favorite thing is optional perma-death as a hardcore game mode. That's what I did in my game.

By doing that I believe you expanded your game's audience. I would do exactly that.

[Endorya]

I'm not really sure what your reply has to do with my comment. You seem discouraged that ADOM was not built with an internal save feature and compelled to state that the lack of a save feature makes the game less interesting for you. All of which is fine. The problem is that you then suggest it should have a save feature, which is akin to saying that you wish it didn't have random level generation or randomized anything. If you only play a game once from start to finish then you'll see exactly one thing, which is not random at all, effectively. If you don't want randomized content you'd be better served with non-roguelike RPGs with an intentionally built story and experience.

Personally I'm not really for or against permadeath in roguelikes as a general rule. Some of my very favorite roguelikes have explicit save games, like Toe Jam & Earl, or have semi-death with partial resets, such as the Mystery Dungeon games.

I guess we are having communication problems as what you just said is also not exatly what I said previously . No worries though, maybe I didn't explain myself that well; I do love procedural generation worlds because it adds tremendous replay value. What I mean about ADOM is that it has a fixed world map with fixed locations for random generated dungeon spawn points giving you a certain feel of progression when replaying it, even when you start again from scratch. I personally prefer having world maps fixed when permadeath is the only option, or at least I find it less harsh.  But I definitely prefer fully dynamically generated worlds with controlled save points for all the reasons I've mentioned previously:

"I rather replay my death 10x times from a saved point at level 20 than restarting my char 10x times at level 1, replicating the skill developing, collecting and selling early equipment also 10x times. My point about unlimited scenarios comes exactly to this as you should not feel scared for finishing the game in much less time or having it feel less challenging due to controlled saved games as the key lies with the right amount of difficulty; challenge is not something exclusive to permadeath. Each time you start over you will play a new and different game promoting a unique experience, as long as the game features procedural algorithms naturally. You would probably try a different class or race or investing in a different skill tree once you've finished the game."


@Everyone else.
I just want to make sure that I'm fully comprehended with this thread of mine. My objective here is not to imply that those who prefer permadeath are wrong or that they should change their view about such feature. I'm simply stating that there should also be room for players who dislike starting everything from scratch due to wrong choices or through unfortunate events passing too high over their heads to be controlled by the player.

[Endorya]

I've always wanted to do a game with permanent death BUT...more. For example, if your character dies and you either:

1) have the ability/skill/power to resurrect it then you can do so and lead the character back to town, or leave it and chance the AI getting to it before you log back in on it

or

2) carry the body back to town and have a healer resurrect it

or

3) re-animate it as some form of undead inheriting some/all of the character's abilities/skills

You could add more stuff to make it more interesting...for example, the longer you left the body the more "deteriorated" it would be. If you ended up taking a long time before you resurrected it then the character could take a temp/permanent hit to various stats and/or abilities.

There could be a Soul Departure stat which places a hard cap on the amount of time you could wait before rezzing the character. Various races could last longer than others before their souls departed.

It would be really interesting to have an entirely new game once a character "died". They could then go on to adventure/game in the "after-life". It could be possible to gain enough favor with your patron deity (kill enough angels/demons) to actually get a second chance at life.

The list goes on. My motto is the more gameplay options the more longevity the game has. And we're not talking complicated gameplay. Tons of simple options synergize to produce near inifinitely varied gameplay!

My two cents!

Take care.

Those are interesting ideas!