Tactica Playable Characters Deaths

Tactica: Maiden of Faith

How do you feel about the permanent death of playable characters?

  • Absolutely not, this is a game stopper for me.

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Yes, that sounds really cool.

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • Yes, but only if it happens under very special circumstances

    Votes: 11 52.4%
  • I am not sure, maybe....

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • Other please specify in the thread.

    Votes: 3 14.3%

  • Total voters
    21

GothicGothicness

SasqWatch
Joined
October 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
How do you guys feel about characters dying permanently?? Is it a game stopper? is it cool? does it depend on in what situation they would die ?? I really want feedback on this.
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
If the character has to die or transpose into another form from death (undead, semi-undead etc') to further the storyline, then he/she may 'need' to die.
For example - a saint may need to die to prove their faith, then continue as a saintly spirit etc' - possibly to resurrect back to life form later.
The storyline/core concept is paramount by design to the death system used, it has to be 'given' to the gamer by the writer and not 'asked' for.
The writer must dictate, the gamer must follow as you may suit the wishes of one gamer but not the other.

(voted 'other')
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,105
Location
North-West England
Perhaps I should clarify what if characters could die permanently, because the player failed to complete a gameplay related task and/or the character dies in combat ?
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
Permanent death is fine by me. I prefer it that way. I always have the option to reload and try a different tactic.

I do not like the 'unconscious' condition at all. To explain it a little better, if your party is wiped out except for one guy then everyone, no matter what happened, gets up with 1 hp. You rest a little bit and just like magic everyone is healed.

I think the old AD&D rules had it perfectly balanced with bleeding wounds and if your character suffered -10 hp he/she was dead.

Another example that isn't P&P. The Ultima series did death very well. Lost you're last HP and your dead. Then you have to either reload or visit the healer.

There is nothing wrong with making the game more real or difficult. There is too much hand holding in RPG nowadays.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2007
Messages
5,347
Location
Taiwan
I don't like 'permanent' deaths, characters can die, and it can be painful to bring back (expensive spells or trips to the temple), but let's face it, if there's no way to bring back a character, 99.99999% of the players will just reload the game before the fight if their "Grunk the barbarian" dies.
Now, it's ok for characters to permanently die as part as the storyline, like the paladin deciding to stay guarding the bridge to give time to his/her friends to escape or something.

I think the old AD&D rules had it perfectly balanced with bleeding wounds and if your character suffered -10 hp he/she was dead.

Yes, but even then you had raise dead spells and you could bring dead characters to a temple.
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
5,645
Location
Tardis
Yes, but even then you had raise dead spells and you could bring dead characters to a temple.

Nothing wrong with that as long as it costs an arm and a leg. ;)
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2007
Messages
5,347
Location
Taiwan
I was going to go with "under special circumstances" with reference to both Wulf's and wolfing's argument that if it is a part of the story/plot it can be a valid death, so to speak. However, as a part of a lost battle or a poor choice? Absolutely not. Unless you can just reload a savegame from before the battle … but that makes the whole point of permanent deaths pretty moot because all you have to do is reload and voila, no dead people.

I'm playing games to have fun and I don't find it funny to have invested dozens of hours into a game only to have single mistake or a moment of inattention force me to start over because my party (or at least key members of my party) is permanently dead with no option to bring them back. So REALLY permanent death is an absolute showstopper for me.

I have NEVER played Diablo or other Action RPGs on "hardcore" mode (1 life; die and you have to start over) and I NEVER will.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
805
Location
Just outside of Copenhagen
If I can reload, then that's fine for me. ;)

However, My style of playing consists of trying to bring all characters (if party-based) or the main character through the whole story ... Even in strategy games I do everything I can to avoid deaths. (Age of Wonders series, especially, I would often relead several times in order to save more troops, or highly valuable ones.)
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
As everyone has said, death will generally just result in a save/reload cycle. If that's OK with your game design, then rock on. Story-mandated death is a totally different situation, so I won't even touch on that. Personally, I don't have the time nor energy anymore to do too much of the save/reload dance, so I'd favor a game that doesn't force me into it. I get a little too attached to my meticulously molded characters to go recruit and develop a new party member if one happens to get himself dead.

If you simply must have a hardcore death system to satisfy your vision of your design, I'd mention that Wiz8's Ironman approach might be something to think about. Iz optional.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,535
Location
Illinois, USA
At my age, I don't have time to re-start games. I don't buy any games with perma-death an essential part.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,806
Location
Australia
If it's part of the storyline, great. Otherwise, no. It might as well be a "game over" screen then, because noone would consider continuing a game with a permanently dead NPC when they might as well re-load.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,583
Location
Bergen
Thanks a lot for the feedback so far, I can assure you will NOT need to restart the game, it will not be like hardcore or ironmen.

The game will not have the save/re-load thing, if something happen or you make a certain decision you have to deal with it. Thus the save and reload comments are irrelevant :) If all your chars die you'll NOT need to restart the game infact you'll not need to replay any part which you already played. The system is quite complex, but I think no other game had it so far.. so it will be a kind of unique :D
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
You're teasing us with these comments ! :lol:
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
I just wanted to clarify since many people said you could just save/reload :p I think some people will find the idea that you can't save and reload completely awful and drop the game off their radar…… but I think what most people do anyway is just load the latest save game, I think there are few players who would load a savegame several hours earlier in the game….. so it will not make a huge difference acctually.
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
I like the option to have an 'ironman' mode, but never use it my self because I'm not hardcore enough :)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
I just wanted to clarify since many people said you could just save/reload :p I think some people will find the idea that you can't save and reload completely awful and drop the game off their radar…… but I think what most people do anyway is just load the latest save game, I think there are few players who would load a savegame several hours earlier in the game….. so it will not make a huge difference actually.

What I do usually is just use the quick-save/quick-reload but every few hours I save a separate slot for a few reasons:
- In case when I quicksave it's already too late (say, I press quicksave just as the killing blow is on the way, so when I reload I die anyway)
- In case when I quicksave it's past a point of no turning back
- In case the quicksave file gets corrupted and unusable
- Just before big decisions in the game, so I can come back later if I didn't like the decision I made or just to replay the game selecting the other option without having to repeat all the content before the save.
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
5,645
Location
Tardis
Apropos deaths : Has anone ever incorporated a thing like the "bones" from Nethack in an RPG ?
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
In case when I quicksave it's already too late (say, I press quicksave just as the killing blow is on the way, so when I reload I die anyway)

This will not happen.

In case the quicksave file gets corrupted and unusable

I am taking measures to avoid this happening, it would be a disaster if it happend. We would work hard to restore the save if it happend to anyone.

Just before big decisions in the game, so I can come back later if I didn't like the decision I made or just to replay the game selecting the other option without having to repeat all the content before the save.

I kind of want to avoid this, my thinking is that the when the player plays a game he has to carefully think of the decision and stick with it, instead of saving and loading until he finds the best outcome ( Sometimes it might also be fun to stick with your decision, you just don't know it yet..... since you saved and loaded too fast ), but the most important is if you do something which has a random outcome like gambling/pickpocketing, etc etc, that you could not save and load again.
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
I kind of want to avoid this, my thinking is that the when the player plays a game he has to carefully think of the decision and stick with it, instead of saving and loading until he finds the best outcome ( Sometimes it might also be fun to stick with your decision, you just don't know it yet….. since you saved and loaded too fast ), but the most important is if you do something which has a random outcome like gambling/pickpocketing, etc etc, that you could not save and load again.

I know what you mean, but let's say there are different endings. Once I finish the game I'm usually not in the mood to replay the whole game again from scratch to experience the other paths (specially if that decision is, say, 20 hours into the game). Maybe provide automatic saved 'points' before the big story path splits, so you can go back to those and continue from there?
I'm curious, what do RPGWatchers here usually do, replay from scratch to explore the other paths or from a saved game? Or not explore other paths at all for games that have them?
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
5,645
Location
Tardis
Back
Top Bottom