In a recent interview, Star Trek Online’s exec producer Craig Zinkievich indicated that STO might need a more significant “death penalty” than just going back to the nearest respawn point. Or at least, that’s what some players are clamoring for.
Zinkievich explained Cryptic’s feelings on death penalties, saying that they are usually just a time penalty, preventing players from getting straight back into the game and having fun.
“I get that people want to feel a sense of risk when they’re fighting in battles, but if the only emotion you feel when you’re playing a game is fear that you’re going to lose some time due to an arbitrary gameplay mechanic, we’re probably not doing something right, ” he said.
However, the game’s developers aren’t against the principle entirely; “we are looking into finding a meaningful way to give players a deeper sense of loss when something bad happens. But we want it to feel right, rather than just like an arbitrary penalty.”
I’m of two minds here, of course. I don’t know about anyone else, but seeing my beloved ship blow up and suffering for 30 seconds of cooldown before getting back into action does feel meaningful.
And what are the alternatives? Thinking of CoX and CO and (I believe) WoW …
- Loss of experience or slowdown of experience gain (CoX): You could justify this as saying that Star Fleet looks askance on ships being driven to (“near”) destruction, and so your meteoric rise to the admiralty is slowed for a bit. I find this irksome, but not horrifically bad. (By the way, when is STO getting a “Level Pact” feature?)
- Loss of capability (CO): As you succeed in CO missions, you get stars, up to five, which provide a buff. As you get killed, you lose the stars. This has the paradoxical effect of making you less effective against the things you have to go up against again. I don’t like it.
- Loss of swag (WoW): I’m thinking here of the mechanic of having your body looted, etc. This is perhaps the most realistic — a finite chance of some system or feature on your ship getting wiped out, or inventory lost — even (perhaps with successive failures) the death of a Bridge Officer. Eek. Most realistic, but I’d be seriously hating it. It suffers from the disadvantage of #2 (making you less effective against a foe you’ve already established is dangerous), unless you delay it until after the battle/mission is over (you survived, but those great twin disruptor cannons that your engineer kept together with spit and baling wire have finally given up the ghost — time to return to Star Fleet for a refit). Losing a BO, though — yeah, I can see it game-wise, but I’d hate it play-wise.
So the variation on #3 perhaps makes most sense if you have to do something about deaths. And, yes, it adds some “realism.” I’m still not convinced it’s necessary, or that folks who take untoward risks now will be all that much less likely to do so even with penalties.
Thoughts?
WOW doesn’t have an item loss mechanic with death. Instead, your gear suffers a durability penalty, and can be repaired (for gold) in town. If you go too long without repairs it will become useless, but it never destroyed. You can always bring anything back to 100%. Effectively, the death penalty is cash.
This mechanic might fit STO – when you lose a ship you need to pay for repairs and medical leave for your crew. Nothing is ever permanently lost.
WOW also has a ghost run back to your corpse. A salvage mission in STO, perhaps?
I thought your body could be looted in Wow while waiting for your spirit to run back. (I’m obviously not a WoWer.)
A durability penalty is akin to what I mention above — systems failure, but *after* the battle/mission is resolved. I suppose you could do it as “repairs,” or simply replace the part back at Star Base.
I do like (maybe in extreme cases) the idea of finding yourself in a medlab back at Earth Base, and having to take a Runabout out to where your broken ship floats, cripped in space, to tow it home. But only as a rare occasion.
(That might couple with, if you die too many times, then the mission simply becomes a failure.)
In LotRO, your gear takes a hit when you’re defeated by a bad guy and, upon retreating, a feel of “Dread” lingers on you for 10 (or fewer) minutes. Said “Dread” is something like a 10% hit to your stats for those ten minutes — you’re hesitant in the face of your failure, and fear further failure, or something — nothing crippling, but you feel it.
* If you’re “defeated by misadventure” (falling off something, or into something), you don’t take equipment damage.
* If you’re rallied by a comrade, rather than having to retreat, you don’t get dread — your allies are with you, take heart.
Generally, I like it.
I’d forgotten the LotRO mechanic. My concerns about it, though it makes *great* game/story sense, is that without rallying, any reattempt means you’re starting at a disadvantage against a foe already capable of kicking your fuzzy little hobbit butt.
Plus, Star Fleet captains don’t lose heart. At worse they go homicidal/suicidal. 🙂
The LotRO system works well, and you risk the temporary loss of useful gear if you are defeated too often between repairs. Dread can be offset by items or skills, which is nice. It’s definitely better than the “corpse run” we had to deal with in SWG beta. Gad, how I hated that!
How about damage to equipment? Maybe the weapons, shields, or engines won’t work at full capacity until repairs are effected? You’d still have the disadvantage of going into combat weaker than before, but perhaps they could add skills to BOs that can speed up damage repair. A BO could lead a damage control team, rendering his normal skill unavailable for a minute or two.
Something similar could be done with ground combat, although the repair mechanic might have to be different.
On the other hand, it is kind of nice to “die” without being inconvenienced. I won’t cry if they keep it the way it is. I’ll still do my darnedest to protect my ship and crew.
And that’s the thing — I don’t feel like I’m taking stupid LEEEROOOOOYYYYY risks with my ship and crew. I’d be willing for there to be some consequences, but not much.
Ultima Online: Corpse run, full body looting, so if you did die all your stuff was gone.
EQ1: Corpse run I know for sure, not sure what the other penalties there were.
EQ2: 1% XP debt capped at 10% max (though, depending on the mob type/rating, you can gain the 1% back with one or two mobs), and a 5% to 10% ding to your equipment depending on the quality of the equipment. Though, if you are Rez’d by a PC, no penalty . You could buy or make repair kits, or get things repaired in town.
WoW: What Doyce said, though there was the ever annoying corpse run.
AoC: Spawn and go, with a ding to combat ability It was x amount of a % per death, unless you snagged your tombstone, or waited 15 minutes, capped at 3 deaths max.
To me, EQ2 had the best balance of reward to loss. Nothing too painful, but a little sting to let you know that you died.