Current Events > Starting to think death in open world games is stupid.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, by open world, I mean the bethesda style "live your life" rpg or simulation kind of open world games.

If the consequence for death is just "reload your save".... then there is really no consequence at all. My solution is I usually play these games "dead-is-dead"/ironman, ie only one life. Much more enjoyable and intense that way.

But these kind of games really ought to incorporate many more alternatives to death.... getting captured by the bandits instead of killed, getting arrested (bethesda has this but its very shallow), waking up at a doctors, wake up having been revived by a necromancer. Or death alternatives based on your characters spirituality, such as in elder scrolls, if you followed one of the divine or daedra, have that somehow play into what happens in a situation where you'd normally die. Or, continuing as another character. \

Not saying there should never be death. But I think just reloading is kind of shitty.

Struggled with this for years myself. Death in games feels very strange and kind of is a relic from arcades.

If you die in the game, you die in real life

Try playing Verdun with that mind set...

Though I do get what you're saying

JimmyFraska posted...

waking up at a doctors

The one game that I know does this thr character you play doesn't even get hurt.

Pokemon

more alternatives to death.... getting captured by the bandits instead of killed, getting arrested (bethesda has this but its very shallow), waking up at a doctors, wake up having been revived by a necromancer. Or death alternatives based on your characters spirituality

so -- you're suggesting something that would pose the player more friction and you don't expect them to just reload out of it.

Fluttershy posted...

more alternatives to death.... getting captured by the bandits instead of killed, getting arrested (bethesda has this but its very shallow), waking up at a doctors, wake up having been revived by a necromancer. Or death alternatives based on your characters spirituality

so -- you're suggesting something that would pose the player more friction and you don't expect them to just reload out of it.

.depends how long ago I saved. I have grinned and bared consequences a lot of times in a game cause I forgot to save for like a hour.

beard consequences

i moustache you what this means

also there is a way to combat savescumming, and that's through taking control of saves away from the player.

like, the thing you're designing against here is the player's desire for convenience. that's the first water test that players subject your game to. what's the easiest way through it? what's most effective? what hits hardest, takes the least amount of time, and has the highest effort:reward ratio? everyone min-maxes.

Fluttershy posted...

so -- you're suggesting something that would pose the player more friction and you don't expect them to just reload out of it.

It would just encapsulate an entirely different way of looking at these kind of games. More as tools to create stories, rather than "beat the objective". The game should be designed to encourage that approach from the start.

Fluttershy posted...

beard consequences

i moustache you what this means

also there is a way to combat savescumming, and that's through taking control of saves away from the player.

like, the thing you're designing against here is the player's desire for convenience. that's the first water test that players subject your game to. what's the easiest way through it? what's most effective? what hits hardest, takes the least amount of time, and has the highest effort:reward ratio? everyone min-maxes.

Damn I was doing something while typing lol

Fluttershy posted...

beard consequences

i moustache you what this means

also there is a way to combat savescumming, and that's through taking control of saves away from the player.

like, the thing you're designing against here is the player's desire for convenience. that's the first water test that players subject your game to. what's the easiest way through it? what's most effective? what hits hardest, takes the least amount of time, and has the highest effort:reward ratio? everyone min-maxes.

My solution is, these alternatives should be more enjoyable in creating a better story for your character than what you thought was going to happen.

Imagine you go to jail, and there is a chance you'll have a random encounter of having a crazy cellmate that will put you in some predicament, or any variety of situations.

Imagine if a developer of games like this, if instead of building pre determined quests that go the same way every time, instead put that effort into making these random "scenarios" based on common situations a player might get themselves into.

Like, the mentality of something like Crusader Kings or the Sims, but applied to an RPG.

So instead of an update that adds a new pre built, pre determined faction questline, or landscape with limited content, the update would be "more scenarios for when you go to jail" "more scenarios involving bandits and the wilderness" "more scenarios involving the church". Essentially building an RPG more like a strategy game.

Despite RPGs being the genre that focuses on stories, you can usually generate much more interesting player driven stories in a strategy game.

OLD Western Rpgs, like in the 80s and 90s, were doing what I'm talking about here. Check out Darklands. But after the mid 90s, I haven't seen this mentality applied to a AAA game.

Damn I was doing something while typing lol

i meant no offense i just wanted to do a pun

It would just encapsulate an entirely different way of looking at these kind of games. More as tools to create stories, rather than "beat the objective".

hey, look, i really like the idea from a creative standpoint. it would give the game more ways to be adversarial, like that one chest in elden ring. but once you get into the territory of 'it takes players' stuff/money away' or 'the player is locked into this area until completion', again, you have save manipulation and least-resistance pathing to compete with.

i might also want to say that i'm not sure having these things really let players create stories, moreso it gives them a chance to check off a chapter or complete a dialogue tree of some larger story they can 100% complete once all the front-facing cardboard cutouts are knocked over. different rant for a different time, but i think the stories really start being made once you have a multiplayer playspace and roles people can fill. like, that one time the dude saved the raid with 1% of his health and everyone won, or the time the invader killed all four guys and slow-walked away.

more scenarios

i think that goes back to the issue of everything being intended, indexed, and part of a checklist. you brought up strategy games and they're actually a really good example of what i was trying to explain above, as they are a playspace and the story emerges out of the established rules.

Fluttershy posted...

meant no offense i just wanted to do a pun

Didn't take it that way I just hate making typos or misspelling a word

Those all sound terrible and unfun. We have terrible consequences like that already, it's called Reality, maybe give that game a try.

Load times in a Bethesda RPG are the punishment

Smashingpmkns posted...

Load times in a Bethesda RPG are the punishment

Morrowind on Xbox was the worst I swear I could smoke a whole cigg waiting through the load screen and I'm a slow smoker

Fluttershy posted...

i think that goes back to the issue of everything being intended, indexed, and part of a checklist. you brought up strategy games and they're actually a really good example of what i was trying to explain above, as they are a playspace and the story emerges out of the established rules.

Exactly. I guess that's what I'm craving out of these RPGs, and it's just not what they're trying to do at all. But the first AAA developer that makes a large scale RPG in this way and commits to it.... they're gonna do really well for themselves