Post by jackofools on Mar 11, 2011 11:37:36 GMT -5
I love the penalty of permanent death. It makes games more thrilling. Especially if you can choose at the outset to enable or disable this feature. That way if you wanna play a huggy-feely game, no sweat, but if you want to be forced to consider your actions, then you can do that as well.
The only problem I've had personally with permanent death is that so often its the ONLY severe penalty. It should be layered. There should be several possible penalties, such as skill loss, character mutilation and branding.
In Star Traders perma-death is automatic starting at the "Challenging" difficulty. But how about, instead of immediately dying of hull crush when you lose a fight there is a chance of death, prison time/enslavement (depending on if a military vessel is fighting you or a pirate), or even escape. If you are imprisoned or enslaved you lose time, faction rep and ability/skill, and when you get out you basically have a reduced amount of money to buy a shuttle and work your way back up. This could make dry docking much more important, as well as faction-independant locations, since you don't need to worry about rep loss. Damage from combat or exploration could permanently mar you, effectively capping a skill or ability at a certain level never to be improved. Things like these have the same permanence, and in some ways can even be more interesting, as character death results in a loss, and you just roll up another. But what about a crippled character, whose quickness and quickness skills are reduced to and capped at 15? Plus, since you would need rehabilitation, your pilot and quickness (in addition to being capped at 15) have now also been dropped to 5. Do you give up on this character? Maybe, but I don't think the players who like a perma-death game will stop. Instead it becomes a new challenge to overcome. If you have a rep of -45 with Javat, and you get caught with contraband you are brought in, fined and sent on your way. If you can't afford the fine, you do jail time, or maybe your ship is auctioned off. But if you are caught at all when at rep -100 you go to jail, do not pass go, do not pay a fine and walk. There you lose skill, ability and assets. On getting out, you maybe even gain a little rep back with Javat for having served your time. However its now 10 years later, and things have changed. Your rep is less all across the board because people have forgotten who you are. Sure it means some of your negative rep might get better, but your positive rep is hurt a lot more. What do you do? Shoulder your rucksack and head to the star dock, muttering to yourself: "The wheel never stops turning. Right, but what happens when you're the one on the rim?" </fireflyquote>
There could even be varied levels of this. You could be wounded terribly and lose quickness (and applicable skill) but be able to re-learn the attributes and skills. You serve time and your ship is impounded, but you can get it out of impound for a price once you get out. At perhaps less than mint condition. Maybe pirates don't kill or enslave you, but they torture the location of a cache out of you. You still have your ship, and your health (more or less) but that 80 units of metal you were waiting on the right time to sell is now gone. On the lighter side, instead of having your trade permit revoked (especially when you have high rep and can thus simply buy it again right away), have it suspended for a time. This imposes a penalty that requires more thinking. Sure it sucks to have to shell out the money for a new permit, but in the long run wouldn't it suck MORE to lose the permit for 100 weeks, no matter what? That whole time you would need to either avoid that faction's space, or run the risk of further rep loss when you run from inspectors.
To touch on an earlier point, this could also make independent locations much more important. Don't dry dock your ship at Syndicate Core, because if you get arrested they will impound all your possessions. Instead, go to Rift-Leporis 4. Its central to one sector of space and close to all factions. If the crap hits the fan you can hide out there and still be near everything.
So thats what I want: more varied consequences. Less death perhaps, but more possible permanent consequences. It'll keep me playing the characters I've invested in much longer, but still keep me looking over my shoulder. Additionally, a lot of these could (or should) hurt late game characters more, eliminating that feeling of invincibility you can get.
Long post I know, but let me know what you think.
Side note: I just thought of this while proofreading my post, and I couldn't figure out where to put it. How about rep gains with individual independent locations? So you can't gain rep with all of the "independent" faction, but if you do lots of business at the aforementioned Rift-Leporis 4, shouldn't your name get around? If you do lots of contracts out of that place, shouldn't people realize you aren't such a bad guy? Maybe let you earn a little discount, and a nice place to store your stuff. Just a thought.
The only problem I've had personally with permanent death is that so often its the ONLY severe penalty. It should be layered. There should be several possible penalties, such as skill loss, character mutilation and branding.
In Star Traders perma-death is automatic starting at the "Challenging" difficulty. But how about, instead of immediately dying of hull crush when you lose a fight there is a chance of death, prison time/enslavement (depending on if a military vessel is fighting you or a pirate), or even escape. If you are imprisoned or enslaved you lose time, faction rep and ability/skill, and when you get out you basically have a reduced amount of money to buy a shuttle and work your way back up. This could make dry docking much more important, as well as faction-independant locations, since you don't need to worry about rep loss. Damage from combat or exploration could permanently mar you, effectively capping a skill or ability at a certain level never to be improved. Things like these have the same permanence, and in some ways can even be more interesting, as character death results in a loss, and you just roll up another. But what about a crippled character, whose quickness and quickness skills are reduced to and capped at 15? Plus, since you would need rehabilitation, your pilot and quickness (in addition to being capped at 15) have now also been dropped to 5. Do you give up on this character? Maybe, but I don't think the players who like a perma-death game will stop. Instead it becomes a new challenge to overcome. If you have a rep of -45 with Javat, and you get caught with contraband you are brought in, fined and sent on your way. If you can't afford the fine, you do jail time, or maybe your ship is auctioned off. But if you are caught at all when at rep -100 you go to jail, do not pass go, do not pay a fine and walk. There you lose skill, ability and assets. On getting out, you maybe even gain a little rep back with Javat for having served your time. However its now 10 years later, and things have changed. Your rep is less all across the board because people have forgotten who you are. Sure it means some of your negative rep might get better, but your positive rep is hurt a lot more. What do you do? Shoulder your rucksack and head to the star dock, muttering to yourself: "The wheel never stops turning. Right, but what happens when you're the one on the rim?" </fireflyquote>
There could even be varied levels of this. You could be wounded terribly and lose quickness (and applicable skill) but be able to re-learn the attributes and skills. You serve time and your ship is impounded, but you can get it out of impound for a price once you get out. At perhaps less than mint condition. Maybe pirates don't kill or enslave you, but they torture the location of a cache out of you. You still have your ship, and your health (more or less) but that 80 units of metal you were waiting on the right time to sell is now gone. On the lighter side, instead of having your trade permit revoked (especially when you have high rep and can thus simply buy it again right away), have it suspended for a time. This imposes a penalty that requires more thinking. Sure it sucks to have to shell out the money for a new permit, but in the long run wouldn't it suck MORE to lose the permit for 100 weeks, no matter what? That whole time you would need to either avoid that faction's space, or run the risk of further rep loss when you run from inspectors.
To touch on an earlier point, this could also make independent locations much more important. Don't dry dock your ship at Syndicate Core, because if you get arrested they will impound all your possessions. Instead, go to Rift-Leporis 4. Its central to one sector of space and close to all factions. If the crap hits the fan you can hide out there and still be near everything.
So thats what I want: more varied consequences. Less death perhaps, but more possible permanent consequences. It'll keep me playing the characters I've invested in much longer, but still keep me looking over my shoulder. Additionally, a lot of these could (or should) hurt late game characters more, eliminating that feeling of invincibility you can get.
Long post I know, but let me know what you think.
Side note: I just thought of this while proofreading my post, and I couldn't figure out where to put it. How about rep gains with individual independent locations? So you can't gain rep with all of the "independent" faction, but if you do lots of business at the aforementioned Rift-Leporis 4, shouldn't your name get around? If you do lots of contracts out of that place, shouldn't people realize you aren't such a bad guy? Maybe let you earn a little discount, and a nice place to store your stuff. Just a thought.
