[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Perma-death

[Ammon Lauritzen]

Soy weiser wrote:
>> On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 12:08:52PM -0500, Tess Snider wrote:
>> > 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.
>
> 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.

FFXI doesn't have permadeath but they do have obnoxiously painful death
penalties ;) They also have crazy powerful heroic abilities available to
every class on a 2 hour cooldown.

In my experience (which was admittedly a while back), use of those
abilities was often treated with a great deal of seriousness.

The long cooldown meant that you couldn't use the ability more than once
or twice a play session and weren't liable to burn it on something
trivial and risk not having it when you need it - unless it was going to
save your life somehow.

The nature of these abilities was also such that they generally provoked
a tremendous amount of aggro from your enemies - pretty much
guaranteeing that your tank would lose control and that you'd be taking
a few hits from a mob that you can't handle solo.

Scenareo:

Take my character, a healer type whose heroic ability is to instantly
heal the entire party to full health. A particular fight drags on and I
start running low on mana. The tank takes an enormous hit probably won't
last another blow.

I now have a choice to make: - - Do I use my 2-hour ability, saving the
tank and probably allowing the rest of the party to mop things up at the
risk of a really bad death penalty myself since I'm probably going to
die if I do so? - - Do I conveniently forget about the ability and sort
of let the tank die to save myself in the hope that the party is capable
of finishing off the mob without him?

It's not a black and white decision. If the group's only healer dies,
who's going to rez him? If the entire party wipes, leaving the healer,
at least the party can be back up and moving quickly.

Ammon