Penalty for death? Nah. Extra-curricular reward for staying alive!

[x4000]

I just wanted to point out this Character Stats and scores concept from Bluddy, because I think it's very much what we need to be doing in terms of the permadeath system.

When I lose in Jetpack Joyride or Tiny Wings or Canabalt or similar, I don't feel bad -- the loss was inevitable, right?  It's just a matter of time with those, and those are extremely casual games.  The thing is, I just posted a high score and now I'm incentivized to see if I can't beat that high score that I just had (or whatever my prior high score was).

The idea probably needs more fleshing-out, but I think that ultimately this is the answer to the whole "what is the penalty for death?" debate.  I always wanted death to not feel punitive but instead more like a story element.  And with this sort of thing, you can feel the satisfaction of actually posting your score for your character (since it wouldn't register in your local high scoreboard until you actually died, I imagine).  This seems really to be the direction to be focusing in, so I wanted to go ahead and make sure this was called out in the forum for discussion.

[zebramatt]

Haha, brilliant! 

[x4000]

Oops, sorry, I missed your thread: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10777.0.html

I'll lock that one just for tidiness, and feel free to cross-post any of your points from there to here that you want to move over.  Mea culpa!

[zebramatt]

The idea's more important than the author, is my view!

[zebramatt]

Bluddy, had a related idea which I think is rather wonderful: Basically, you have a multiplier which increments based on you doing things of significance with a particular character, and that multiplier grants you one or more bonuses of (somewhat minor) significance. When you die, it resets to zero. And the only way to get it back up again is to invest some serious time pursuing a variety of important goals - i.e. playing the game. Go have a read on Mantis if you're curious to see it in all its glory: 0008017: Character growth in non-strength-oriented ways.

[x4000]

The idea's more important than the author, is my view!

You know I feel the same!  Half the best ideas in AVWW and AI War did not come from Arcen staff, though we tend to massage them quite a bit.

Bluddy, had a related idea which I think is rather wonderful: Basically, you have a multiplier which increments based on you doing things of significance with a particular character, and that multiplier grants you one or more bonuses of (somewhat minor) significance. When you die, it resets to zero. And the only way to get it back up again is to invest some serious time pursuing a variety of important goals - i.e. playing the game. Go have a read on Mantis if you're curious to see it in all its glory: 0008017: Character growth in non-strength-oriented ways.

I think that's also cool, but it presupposes more macro-game work.  I'd rather defer on something like that until the first expansion time period at the earliest, honestly, just because that would have to be heavily revised when more strategic options and components are put in, anyway.

But in either case, I think the score thing is something to do, and the other is something that would be in addition to the score and not instead of it.

[Vinraith]

As someone's that's never given a toss about high scores, this translates to "death is meaningless" to me, which isn't very interesting. A reward with gameplay value for staying alive would be vastly more interesting.

[x4000]

As someone's that's never given a toss about high scores, this translates to "death is meaningless" to me, which isn't very interesting.

Well, there are still the vengeful ghosts.  And I think those could be built out more interestingly and varied than they currently are.

But... yeah.  In the grand scheme of things, if you're getting punished for dying then you're not free to explore and experiment.  That's just kind of how the game has evolved, and if death becomes something that is driving players away from actually experimenting and playing (in the sense of being "at play" versus "solving a problem"), then I think that's a negative thing.

This is also the sort of thing that could vary by strategic difficulty level as needed, though.  And I think that having the scores system wouldn't take anything away from you, while it would be very motivating to a lot of players.  There's also the thing about the built-in minor enchants on characters that you'd lose on death of a character (in that "solving the divide" thread) that would make death a bit more meaningful across the board.

And beyond that... yeah, there could be other penalty systems that get put in place when the strategic difficulty level is higher.  If you're playing at a higher strategic difficulty level, the idea is that means "I am wanting to solve a problem" more than "I want to play around."  I just don't know what that system would be yet, and the scores thing would work in a carrot sort of way across all difficulty levels instead of being just a stick at certain ones.

[zebramatt]

Bluddy, had a related idea which I think is rather wonderful: Basically, you have a multiplier which increments based on you doing things of significance with a particular character, and that multiplier grants you one or more bonuses of (somewhat minor) significance. When you die, it resets to zero. And the only way to get it back up again is to invest some serious time pursuing a variety of important goals - i.e. playing the game. Go have a read on Mantis if you're curious to see it in all its glory: 0008017: Character growth in non-strength-oriented ways.

I think that's also cool, but it presupposes more macro-game work.  I'd rather defer on something like that until the first expansion time period at the earliest, honestly, just because that would have to be heavily revised when more strategic options and components are put in, anyway.

But in either case, I think the score thing is something to do, and the other is something that would be in addition to the score and not instead of it.

Oh, agreed. I think at the very least, you could (should!) implement a multiplier for completing pivotal tasks - as opposed to a fixed number of points for them - so that your score grows somewhat exponentially; and so that you have further incentive to do the things the game wants you to do.

In fact, if you had a multiplier system you could also discourage people from doing things you don't want them to do - like a secret mission multiplier for completing them all in one run, or a tower one for same, or even - perhaps controversially - a multiplier which clocks up only between Ilari full health top-ups.

More broadly (quoting context from Mantis for Chris's post below):

You could almost certainly pivot other things on that core idea too. Some sort of system of fame within the world would be brilliant, for example - where you start off as a relative unknown (with an appropriate title and reactions from NPCs/enemies/etc.) but become increasingly well known throughout the world. You might even then have enemies react to you based on that level of fame, making the game harder. At which point you definitely COULD give the player bonuses for their longevity to offset the heat you've generated. But I digress.

[x4000]

Quoting myself from the mantis side re: multipliers, etc:

Yeah, that sort of fame system would be brilliant, actually -- it would play into a lot of the things we've wanted to do with the game for a long time, and would also serve to make it so that keeping a character indefinitely gets harder and harder.

With something like an endless runner (Canabalt, etc) your speed goes up as your score does, so it gets progressively harder to get the highest scores. That sort of feedback system is really important, I think.

That would let us build in a system of:

1. Named ranks for hero fame, as you noted (which people would love).

2. Extra monster agression and difficulty arising from increased fame (thus making death truly inevitable and keeping a character around for a really long time a tricky proposition -- and yet more reason for the Retirement scrolls mentioned elsewhere).

3. Some minor benefits from fame for your character, so that you feel more powerful and special from the fame even if the world is ganging up on you because of that fame.


That's a more complex system, but I think that's really worth it. That's something that is really striking me as a feature for 1.2 rather than 1.1, but it's going to be one of those changes-everything features for that version. Because then it really _would_ feed back into gameplay, in both positive and negative ways, and the fact that your actions matter get reinforced in a whole new way.

[madcow]

What would be cool is if there was a sort of "hall of glyphbearers/legends/heroes" or something similar.

It could be a building in the settlement, or it could be seeded out in the world map. The doors would be locked except for if that character has beaten X number of missions/bosses killed, it would let them go up higher (or lower, whichever) into the tower. And each level would require more and more missions/bosses. It could even require higher tiers for missions to count at higher levels - so people aren't just spamming tier 1 missions.

Glyphbearers that die could have their name put in the hall at whatever level they made it up to. Or perhaps interesting lore/mystery puzzles or other challenges could be put in. What sort of rewards should go in, I'm not really sure to be honest, but I think it seems like a more interesting way to reward staying alive while still accomplishing missions and is appealing to me than just a highscore screen or anything like that.

[Martyn van Buren]

I would definitely favor a list of deeds along with / over a simple high score box. Scores are often pretty meaningless but it would be cooler to say "I did these unlocks, killed those two lieutenants, and reached the twelvth level of a dungeon". Presumably the potential deeds could be the same as the Steam achievements and the same mechanism that does them for players could track them per glyphbearer?

[LintMan]

I like the fame idea a lot. 

One thing that might make it even cooler is to add some benefit to retiring a famous character (beyond just resetting any extra difficulty due to the added fame).  Perhaps the retired famous character adds some small bonus to the settlement (ie: as a "mayor") or the player's current character (ie: as a "mentor"), with more fame meaning a better bonus.  This way, there is some incentive to retire a famous character rather than run him/her into the grave, beyond the difficulty spike.

[Vinraith]

I like the fame idea a lot. 

One thing that might make it even cooler is to add some benefit to retiring a famous character (beyond just resetting any extra difficulty due to the added fame).  Perhaps the retired famous character adds some small bonus to the settlement (ie: as a "mayor") or the player's current character (ie: as a "mentor"), with more fame meaning a better bonus.  This way, there is some incentive to retire a famous character rather than run him/her into the grave, beyond the difficulty spike.

And, in turn, there's a gameplay incentive to keep a character alive long enough to become an "elder." I like it.

[Misery]

Being someone that pretty much always plays for score when the game allows it (shmups), this whole thing sounds really great.

Do this one!   That's my input on it.