Perma-Deaths?

[Lord Vectra]

How would you feel about perma-deaths? If the player dies, they must start all the way from the beginning whether they stick with character or make a new one (and yes, start at level 1 too). Now, of course, some may not like this, but I figured it may make the game more strategic and such. Now, I would have escape available too. I imagine most games who do perma-deaths would allow unless you're gonna make your game a "fight or die" type of game (which actually sounds kinda cool).

What do you guys think?

 

[kirbwarrior]

Fire Emblem is known for perma-death. However, you can reload save files.

Minecraft has a Hardcore mode that erases your map (save) when you die, undoing any sense that you ever existed in the first place. It's reminiscent of rogue-likes that don't have saves and the entire point is that you die often and have to retry constantly.

I love the Fire Emblem series. I think the second is a fine thing to exist but it's not my cup of tea. Which were you thinking of?

 

[Lornsteyn]

There was a time when I liked permadeath, but nowadays I start to despise it.
Games like Fire Emblem and X-COM are still fun sometimes, because you have the option to reload.

 

[Amarok]

that is something i have been trying to implement in my game for some time, since i love games with that feature if its done well.
The main problem i found is that people (me included) just reload the file when someone dies.
So maybe something like the hardcore mode in diablo would be better in some cases.

 

[Poryg]

Permadeaths are more challenging if done right, because you have to make sure the characters don't die. It opens not only possibilities, but also compulsions towards radical strategy changes and trying to keep the damage as equally spread as possible to ensure the survival of whole group. However, if you do it like this, someone takes care of making the damage as equally spread as possible, and then boom, a big pig comes and takes away 60% of one hero's hp, that completely reduces the player's efforts to zero, so watch out for that.

 

[Philosophus Vagus]

I like them in games with systems built around them, such as X-com and Final Fantasy tactics where aside from the protagonist the game continues regardless of who dies and you can have generically hired allies to replace them but am not so much a fan of rogue-like games that make you start over as described.

It can add a sense of realism and tension if done right, but I still don't like having my saves deleted because of rng or a trap that I couldn't see coming until falling for it at least once and starting from the beginning, though that genre has never been my niche anyway. Life is to short to play a game's prologue-midgame twelve times due to death, just let the failure be it's own punishment is my advice, because a lot of people don't have the time to replay your game until they succeed without a single failure from start to finish, unless they pull it off on the first couple tries anyway.

I think the only exception to this I would consider would be something akin to the way of the samurai series where the game is actually designed around playing it over and over again with a short, fluid narrative to get all kinds of different results. Even then though, I don't think that game actually utilized perma-deaths, but I've done runs of it where I started over instead of reloading when I died just because one playthrough is only a couple hours long anyway.

 

[readydotexe]

As many have said, Fire Emblem it's my example that comes to mind, there's just something beutiful playing perma-death, since when you finish the level you'll feel god like, and if you play without restarts that I only done that once, when you finish the game the units that were left feel like family

 

[Lantiz]

It's good for games in which the gameplay changes (even a little) every time you start over.
The reason is why it's not funny to keep doing the same thing over and over again.

 

[Lord Vectra]

@kirbwarrior I was thinking Perma-Deaths in general, nothing specific.

 

[kirbwarrior]

To answer the question more eloquently;

Games that have permadeath with individuals to reward you for good gameplay and to take away options like easy sacrifices can be fun. Fire Emblem is set up so you don't want to sacrifice your units because you actually care about these people and want them to live and help.

Games that don't let you save in a real sense (Minecraft on Hardcore, older Mario games, Rogue-Likes) are either relics of the past becaue saving was hard or the point is that you can't undo mistakes whatsoever and must either put up with them or restart from the beginnings. They can be fun, but are pretty niche and largely seem to exist to fulfill masochism.

The first one is fun because I like getting rewarded for perfect play. The second isn't that fun because I'm getting punished for not having perfect play. It looks similar, but the end result feels quite different.

 

[onipunk]

Fire Emblem's permadeath works because you usually have multiple characters that fulfil a specific role, so if your primary archer dies then you can use another one, but their stats will typically be worse overall and they'll be a lower level too. That's if you choose not to reload, of course. As punishment for failing to think strategically, it works, and if you do reload you have to play the entire chapter again to avoid your mistakes. It's a direct response for the player failing to think critically and tactically about unit placement, but it also gives you all the information you need to make those decisions. You can see enemy attack ranges, their equipment and their stats easily, and the same rules of the weapons triangle, the trinity of magic (in titles that have that) and weapon effectiveness that apply to you also apply to your enemies in the exact same way. If you leave your pegasus knight in range of three archers and they die because archers > fliers, that's entirely on you because you didn't pay enough attention to the game's systems and information and should be punished for it.

However, in a standard JRPG, I'd hate this. The usual 4-member limit means that you likely will not have the ability to replace these characters in the same way you could with Fire Emblem, and in addition, enemy stats are usually a lot more obfuscated than in strategy games. RNG is also a huge factor, while you can see the critical chance of an enemy in FE, this is hidden in RPGs, and an unlucky critical that you had no idea was coming could ruin your game. Forcing a new character to start at level 1 again would be way too much of a time investement as well - if you're at the final boss at level 80 and get unlucky with its speed, a critical hit or whatever, then you now have to train your character up 79 levels to stand a chance again.

 

[jkweath]

Eh... I guess it really depends on what type of RPG it is. A relatively light, short RPG with permadeath is fine, maybe something like the Pixel Dungeon game on mobile. Hardcore modes on hack-n-slash RPGs like Diablo are fun too.

But just having your average story-driven JRPG and adding in permadeath, though? No. Thanks.

Besides Fire Emblem, there is one game that sort of has this idea: LISA. It's an RPG maker game too, at that! I never actually played it, but apparently when party members die, they die for good--this is balanced out by having lots and lots of recruit-able party members.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Fire Emblem's permadeath works

you didn't pay enough attention to the game's systems and information

However, in a standard JRPG, I'd hate this.

a lot more obfuscated than in strategy games

RNG is also a huge factor

lots and lots of recruit-able party members.

Not going to lie, an rpg without much rng influence where you can see all information does sound like fun. And having tons of recruitables can, with all that, let permadeath work or even be a good thing.

 

[XIIIthHarbinger]

Personally I love permadeath, because it makes you more circumspect with how you use your characters.

Right now my game of choice is Mordheim City of the Damned, & along with Permadeath your characters can pick up permanent injuries that effectively cripple them. For example, say one of my archers gets ambushed & taken out, after the battle is over assuming he wasn't just outright killed, an injury role occurs & he loses an arm, now he can't use ranged weapons or climb anymore. & if that archer was high level, such a loss can be very frustrating.

So one bad battle can effectively destroy your entire warband, depending upon the death & injury rolls. Those kinds of consequences make you become invested in your characters well being, & sacrificing a character, becomes truly a sacrifice.

I am not using it my current project, however, I am considering implementing it in my next one.

 

[10kk]

One big problem is, your game needs to have a ton of replayability (such as a very non-linear world) and also needs to be VERY carefully balanced so players can learn and overcome difficulties with proper strategy. I'd say as little RNG as possible goes a long way if you're going with battle system that takes Accuracy/crits into account.

It would be a lot of fun if made well, and of course that is the main difficulty in dev. The genre is called rogue-like.

 

[kranasAngel]

For me, I don't like most Permadeath mechanics even in games like fire emblem because it feels meaningless. There's no impact on me as I never have to deal with the loss of my party. While this isn't permadeath in the traditional sense, I think Lisa the Painful handles it quite well offering you at many points in the story decisions which can result in the deaths of party members.
(YouTuber HBomberguy made a great more expansive analysis of Lisa which goes into the points I'm going to make in way more detail and more, it's a good video.)

There are two main reasons I think it works well though. In most games with Permadeath, the units which die are either too valuable to lose, forcing the player to reload, or easily replaced by another NPC with near identical functionality making the death seem rote and meaningless.
This makes it so that the player never feels that they've lost a character, either because they reloaded every time the character dies, or the character wasn't distinct enough for it to matter when they die.
With Lisa, each character functions differently enough that losing one means changing up your battle style, but there are enough that it's not the end of the road.

The other reason is that Lisa's save points are sparse, and it's world dangerous enough that reloading a save to try and save a character could result in more character deaths. Thus forcing the player to accept the loss they were dealt and move on.

So because of this, the deaths of each individual character feels more real and impactful, than just a minor setback, or a temporary reload.

 

[Plueschkatze]

I like the perma-death option in FE, but I keep reloading everytime I lose someone.
It's been the same with Suikoden II where at some points within the game you could lose a character but it has not been part of the story, I think mainly during strategic battles. (I remember Kiba and Luc and others missing on my table of stars and reloading, haha!)
It gives a certain difficulty and you care much more about the outcome of the battles, since you know you'll have to make it out with all of them alive OR you'll have to redo it. At least in my "OMG I need to reload again!" playstyle, haha.
BUT this works best if you really care for the character and it's not only like losing battle resources, but valued characters.

Otherwise... this perma-death situations that include losing EVERYTHING like all of your inventory and progress are not for me, haha.

 

[onipunk]

For me, I don't like most Permadeath mechanics even in games like fire emblem because it feels meaningless. [...] In most games with Permadeath, the units which die are either too valuable to lose, forcing the player to reload, or easily replaced by another NPC with near identical functionality making the death seem rote and meaningless.

To offer a counterpoint: in Fire Emblem you absolutely do feel the loss. Not just in a story aspect, but in a mechanical one. I'm referring mainly to the GBA games, here, not Awakening and Fates since permadeath was mandatory in earlier titles and the expanded class system of the 3DS games has made a lot of this design philosophy redundant (for the worse, in my opinion), but if you lose a unit there may indeed be another unit to replace them but they're almost certainly going to be an objectively worse unit numerically speaking. You're never not going to be using the most powerful unit of any given role, because there's no reason to use a statistically worse unit if you have a better option available. If your best unit of any role dies, you're going to have to use a worse character for the rest of the game, they'll be way lower levelled than everyone else in your army because you haven't been using them, and due to limited experience (in Fire Emblem 7, anyway) you can't train them up to the same level as the now-dead character they replaced because the rest of your army will suffer for it since you'll be feeding valuable experience they need to the replacement unit to bring them up to par. Not to mention the support and affinity system in the GBA can debuff your surviving characters horribly if one of the members of a pairing dies. Functionally each archer may be the same, but numerically they absolutely are not, and if you lose your best units you will absolutely feel the impact of that throughout the entire game.

 

[kranasAngel]

@onipunk I don't quite agree, but I want to preface this by saying that what I'm about to say doesn't indicate that I dislike Fire Emblem, in contrast, I'm a huge fan of the series as a whole, that being said:
For me losing strong units never really bothered me because:
1) Using weaker units was just fine for me, I never had to change up my play style much.
In Lisa each unit is so different that it's not just a difference in raw numbers, but playstyle
2) I would usually reset after losing a particularly beloved unit rather than taking the loss.
In Lisa resetting often costs far more progress and creates more risk than accepting the loss.

I don't think what I wanted to say came across properly, and I'm interested to hear your point of view.

 

[kirbwarrior]

In most games with Permadeath, the units which die are either too valuable to lose

since you know you'll have to make it out with all of them alive

In newer Fire Emblems, you can turn off Permadeath (Casual Mode). I haven't done it, but I watched a friend play with it off. And because he was allowed to continue with his units dying, that meant he was allowed to use them as meat shields or use sacrifices to win. You can't do that if you want to keep the character. You have to reload if you want to keep someone alive. It changes how you approach tactics, and subtly makes you care about the characters because now you actually want to keep them alive instead of casually sacrificing them for victory. A similar game that doesn't have permadeath AND is built around that being known is Advance Wars, since you will be sacrificing units to win.

save points are sparse

I don't know enough about the game, but that already sounds like a bad things, unless "bookmarks" are implemented (FE lets you save mid battle, but loading the save erases the battle save or "bookmark"). And, like FE, if a unit I liked died, I wouldn't let them stay dead, I would reload and probably get annoyed at having to lose so much progress if I have to go back so far in time.