[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Soy weiser]

On 5/22/07, Phillip Lenhardt <philen at monkey.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 12:08:52PM -0500, Tess Snider wrote:
> > 1.) Death must be rare.
> > 2.) Death must be meaningful.
> > 3.) Death must be noteworthy.
> > 4.) Death must be avoidable, and it should be a *consequence* of
> > something the player has consciously chosen to do.
> > 5.) The player must be able to make a new character with the same --
> > or roughly the same -- level of ability as the old one.
> >
> > #4 sounds hard to implement, but here's one example of how you could do
> it:
> >
> > Every player has a "Heroic" special attack/heal/buff that is wildly
> > more powerful than her other actions, but if she uses it, any death
> > for N seconds is permanent.
>
> This is a great example.  I've been mulling it over for a week, and
> frankly
> I'm surprised no one else has responded to it.
>
> I think implementing a Heroic Ability addresses not only #4, but #1, #3,
> and (to a lesser extent) #2.  Permadeath will be rare (#1) because players
> will rarely use their Heroic Ability in order to avoid the possibility of
> permadeath.  Permadeath will be noteworthy (#3) because of that very
> rarity and because it will always be coupled with the use of a Heroic
> Ability.  Permadeath will be somewhat meaningful (#2) because it will be
> the result of risk knowingly taken by the player, though the player may
> have incorrectly assessed the risk/reward and thus feel cheated into a
> meaningless death.
>
> The biggest problem I see with Heroic Abilities is impressing upon a
> player exactly what they have at stake by using it.  I would only allow
> a player to earn a Heroic Ability after completing a very difficult
> quest series designed to make the player aware of the risks inherent in
> actually using it.  Further, the interface for actually triggering the
> Heroic Ability should be different enough from other abilities and/or
> require a confirmation step as to prevent accidentally using it.
>


I don't think that is the biggest problem. I'm afraid that the ability just
won't be used against powerful opponents (which have a risk of permanently
killing the player). Just against the normal low level (assuming a level
based system) mobs which pose no risk. So there isn't enough added benefit
of such a system.

Also you should be careful in allowing this in pvp, or else 'Killer' players
will just look for other players that just activated their heroic ability
and quickly kill them to frustrate them. You should either not allow players
to be permanently killed by other players. Which allows players to use their
heroic ability once against an strong npc and then just get killed by an
fellow player to avoid permanent death, which is also preventable by using
not a heroic ability that just is one powerful action but an increase of
power over the duration N (or perhaps N - X, so that there is still some
risk after the ability use).

I think it is a hard ability to implement right, while a permadeath pvp
result can be very rewarding and thus satisfy conditions 2 and 3. But random
killings will not be. But this is the same as normal random pvp killings,
and some ways are there to solve these problems right? (taking in account
level differences and pvp flags).

Actually alerting the players that they can be permakilled isn't that hard,
it think that before allowing the players to use it it should be obvious
that this ability is dangerous. Perhaps only allowing the player to access
the ability if he first set a special check box in the inn (at a special npc
that carefully explains the risks). And while the kill time is on (during N
so to speak) you could give visual clues that  the player is at risk. The
color red comes to mind

-- 
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Soyweiser