Morbo''s thought of the day: "Learning through death sucks." What do I mean? For example, in Prince Of Persia 3D, one would often find oneself walking down long, empty hallways, and suddenly die because an unseen row of spikes popped out of the floor. "Well now I know to jump there!" Great, I had to die in order to figure that difficult puzzle out. And no, there was NO way to see that trap. I looked, a lot. First, it''s frustrating! It takes too much out of my control. If I die, I want to know I died taking down an army! I want it to mean something, not ''gee, another trap I couldn''t see''. And secondly, it makes death cheap. If I detect a pattern of dying-to-learn-things, then I begin to accept death as a normal part of the game. "Oops, I died again. Oh well..." I should fear death! Dying should be a nerve-wracking experience where I find myself running in terror from some great evil (or whatever doesn''t like you because you go around looting their dungeons). Death should tell me, "You failed! YOU, and only YOU!". It should make ME feel bad for screwing up. I should go ''damn, what did I do that for?'', not ''goddamn trap''. This does not just apply to traps (they''re just the best example I could come up with this late sunday night). It applies to any aspect of the game: gameplay, levels, enemies, etc... I should have a chance to learn how to solve a puzzle/get past a level/kill an end guy, WITHOUT dying. Not saying I shouldn''t be able to die from my own stupidity, but if I''m good enough I should be able to make it through with my soul intact. How do you avoid this? Aside from playtesting, and NOT by your level designers, give the player a hint, a clue, even a nudge. "Psst...there''s a trap over there. Jump or you''ll die." If you die, then you just suck, and deserve to die. This doesn''t mean you can''t make your traps tough, just give me a chance! I don''t want to die! I doesn''t give me a warm fuzzy to avoid a trap AFTER I''ve died to see it. My new commandment: Thou shalt not kill me in order to teach me Morbo

Death in Diablo II can actually be REWARDING... If you are in Normal difficulty and you have to face a big nasty guy who can kill you by breathing (Durial at the time ), and you just so happen to have a paladin () who has a rather chunky version of thorns (damage return: 350% at the time I think.. it''s now 490% ). I dropped my gold in town, sacrificed my life many times until the annoying prick died... In nightmare difficulty though, we actually lose XP for dying (as it should be ) but again Durial appears unbeatable, except for thorns (and a valkyrie) so.. the combination of death by my sacrifice yet again prevails over EVIL!

What a stupid system! (I had no problem with any of the other bosses, Durial seems to be the hardest... With heal life on attack, Diablo is a piece of piss! )


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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Depending on the game it might frustrate me is i get killed in a way that i couldn''t avoid. If i couldn''t see a trap but i should have known that it would be there then thats a different matter. If these sorts of traps are going to be emplaced in a game then i don''t think they should BE kill-player traps, they should be damage-player traps. But i still think that players should be allowed to use there reflexs or judgement to avoid traps.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Well, this is something I couldn''t avoid:

I was in Nightmare difficulty, just in the first act at the point in time, I came across the Armourer... I was sure that it was going to be a hard battle, so I was prepared. I had a lot of health potions, and a portal off to the side... I run up to the nasty beeaatch... I start laying into him, I hit him pretty hard and his health was going down at a constant rate (I have zeal with 8 attacks and they are all super-super-fast ) and it came time for him to hit me....

... I was on full health (thank god to steal life ) and then I was dead... 1 hit had killed me... how do you combat that?

The way to do it? Multiplay with a rogue with a Valkyrie and let them do all the work!


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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what about in Planescape: Torment? not only did you learn from dying, I read you actually had to die in some places to be able to continue...

Here we are debating how dying SUX and you are promoting it? Either that or putting forward a "worlds stupidest implementation in a game"... Anyways, Death sux, so why should we do it? I am doing hardcore character in Diablo II now... IF you die, - your dead!


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

Well, this is something I couldn''t avoid:

I was in Nightmare difficulty, just in the first act at the point in time, I came across the Armourer... I was sure that it was going to be a hard battle, so I was prepared. I had a lot of health potions, and a portal off to the side... I run up to the nasty beeaatch... I start laying into him, I hit him pretty hard and his health was going down at a constant rate (I have zeal with 8 attacks and they are all super-super-fast ) and it came time for him to hit me....

... I was on full health (thank god to steal life ) and then I was dead... 1 hit had killed me... how do you combat that?

The way to do it? Multiplay with a rogue with a Valkyrie and let them do all the work!


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet

The only way i can think of is using range attack the second time round and never let it touch you. Is that what you meant by rogue, valkarie?



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Yeah... the valkyrie has more hp than I do.. so it takes around 3 or 4 hits to die ... The range weapon does less minimum damage but a lot more maximum damage (something like 25-260 compared to my 81-120) so I just let them do the work now, and I get XP for the bastards dying... Maybe I am just too low a level, but It does seem rather pointless if Andariel was easier than the Armourer... hmmm


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
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All this talk about cheap deaths are all caused by the big bag thing that is called "saved games". If saving and restoring is too easy then the developers have to make the game harder to give any challenge. The result: Developers and gamers have today forced each other to make games so hard that you, like in Prince of persia 3D, must restore the game all the time.
Compare this with, for instance, Rogue like games like ADOM where you can save your game, but if you die the saved game is deleted. The game is also made easier to compensate for this fact and in the end the experience is (at least in my humble opinon) much better.

Jacob Marner

Boys did you ever play Prince of Persia, the first and second installment of this serie ?

one word : Pavlovian.

Everytime you miss something, you die. why did I bother finsish it ? Because I LOVED the sword fighting in it. Just way too cool. I would play the game again, just to be abl to fight the big boss that was such a good challenge. But I agree that I didn''t like being taken for one of Pavlov dogs.

youpla :-P

"what doesn''t kill you make you stronger" Conan.