Death should not be discouraging

[Nerdtendo]

So recently, I've tried two popular games that I never had a chance to and they both turned me off for the same reason. The games were Hollow Knight and Dark Souls. What do these games have in common? Gloomy atmospheres, difficulty, and a horrible way to handle death. If you die in either game, you return to your last checkpoint. Pretty basic stuff. The other punishment is that you leave behind all of the currency you've earned. You then have one shot to go back to where you died and pick it back up. The catch however, is that if you die again before picking up your stuff, all of your stuff disappears never to be seen again.

What's wrong with this system? Well, both games are built with failure in mind. They're both difficult in their own ways but Dark Souls especially was crafted to be the most brutal experience in modern gaming. Losing all of your stuff, especially currency isnt a good punishment. Instead of wanting to push forward after this happens, I want to turn off the game and play something else. This is because losing your money means grinding. Instead of throwing yourself back into a tough section, the pace of the game is broken while you slaughter enemies until you get back to where you were.

So to keep the pacing of the game, what would be a good punishment that's harsh enough to know you failed but lenient enough to keep you encouraged? Honestly, what they already have is good. Returning to a previous checkpoint is punishment enough. If checkpoints are sparse enough (they definitely are in DS) then, just fighting back to where you were is punishing without being discouraging.

Of course, too many checkpoints remove challenge, Breath of the Wild would be a fairly challenging game early on if it didn't let you save scum through anything. Same with Skyrim. Both are great games but the challenge is nearly removed with a hearty dose of checkpoints.

Now of course, there's the argument that I just need to "git gud". This is true enough but I don't want to get good at something if I lose progress every time I try. A game can be tough as nails without being frustrating. I don't think Dark Souls would be any less hard without the money loss.

Some final notes I forgot to hit earlier and when I edit on mobile, the whole article goes crazy. Earthbound has a good money loss system where you lose half of what you're carrying at the time with plenty of ATMs. You decide what you want to risk. Minecraft has a horrible system where it encourages you to use your best items but you lose ALL of them if you die.

TL;DR Games can be hard without stupid punishments for dying.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

I can kinda agree. It's something I found I liked with games like Celeste. There's no penalty for death except retrying the section you died on. This encourages you to keep getting better so you can pass that challenge and go onto the next.

 

[Taleweaver]

Hmm...I haven't tried neither game yet, but the system sounds the same as in Dandara. So let me ask the main question: are there sufficient options to use your currency? Can you use it to buy stuff (gear, character upgrades) that you won't lose when you die?

Dandara (a pretty niche indie game) handles this very decently: the campfire* not only acts as the checkpoint but also the main "store", if you will. The stuff you buy there is permanent, whereas it uses the "lose your currency if you die and dying also removes previously dropped loot" for currency. I found that this just encourages me to go further. You can't just grind your way to max from the intro, because that way you steadily increase the risk to lose the progress. On the other hand: the option to increase isn't really locked behind anything...it's just that it makes much more sense to venture out in the harder areas because you get more currency there (and they become gradually cheaper as you manage to get enough currency to buy a permanent upgrade).

Of course: that's just one way to handle it. Games like Ori and the blind forest (that let you keep everything) are fun in and of itself. There, you can't upgrade yourself to a demi-god, but a bit of grinding can really make things easier on you. It's just a different preference.


*yes, it's a campfire there as well

 

[Deleted User]

The title is a bit missleading. At first glance I got the impression you talk about death in life and not about death in videogames.

 

[Nerdtendo]

Hmm...I haven't tried neither game yet, but the system sounds the same as in Dandara. So let me ask the main question: are there sufficient options to use your currency? Can you use it to buy stuff (gear, character upgrades) that you won't lose when you die?

Dandara (a pretty niche indie game) handles this very decently: the campfire* not only acts as the checkpoint but also the main "store", if you will. The stuff you buy there is permanent, whereas it uses the "lose your currency if you die and dying also removes previously dropped loot" for currency. I found that this just encourages me to go further. You can't just grind your way to max from the intro, because that way you steadily increase the risk to lose the progress. On the other hand: the option to increase isn't really locked behind anything...it's just that it makes much more sense to venture out in the harder areas because you get more currency there (and they become gradually cheaper as you manage to get enough currency to buy a permanent upgrade).

Of course: that's just one way to handle it. Games like Ori and the blind forest (that let you keep everything) are fun in and of itself. There, you can't upgrade yourself to a demi-god, but a bit of grinding can really make things easier on you. It's just a different preference.


*yes, it's a campfire there as well

"Souls" the currency of dark souls in used as both currency for items (potions, equipment, etc) and points to level up your stats.

In Hollow Knight, "Geo" is used to purchase maps, perks, upgrade your weapon, and to unlock entire areas of the game. You also use it to open fast travel areas so it is very versatile.

Dandaera sounds like a good way to handle it, as it seems none, or at least not many of the upgrades are necessary to beat the game.

The title is a bit missleading. At first glance I got the impression you talk about death in life and not about death in videogames.

Apologies. There is a reason that it's in the "general gaming discussion" forum

 

[Hells Malice]

Get good.

Dark Souls punishes you for dying, but you should also be perfectly capable of returning to where you died. Given you had already made it that far previously. Thus you know any tricks that might be along the way. It's a punishment for carelessness, rushing, making big mistakes, etc. However 9/10 times the souls you lose aren't a big deal. Only really in Dark Souls 2 is it a bit annoying because of the horrible soul memory system. Meaning your soul memory still goes up, and you're put against players of similar soul memory. I remember near SOTFS' release, I was trashing noobs because I hadn't lost a single soul and was going up against people who had lost a ton and thus were weaker. But that's a pretty specific example from only one game.

Most of the time you won't have a giant amount of souls on you unless you're careless, at which point it's your fault. 2 and 3 have very generous bonfire placements. But even if you lose your souls, you'll get more back as you go through the area again anyway. I have never grinded in a Souls game, except to get upgrade items like twinkling titanite in Dark Souls 1 before they patched it to be way easier and more abundant. Losing souls sucks, but it's not the end of the world.

Hollow Knight is basically the same, except dying matters even less. Your character doesn't level up or gain stats. Losing currency is kind of annoying but again, most of the time it's a non-issue. It's very rare you die and can't get back to your money. Even if you do lose it, it's not a big deal. You'll get more.

 

[SagaP]

I disagree, you want to discourage player from loosing, there are some games were failure doesn't matter at all, making the gameplay less impactfull and stories less engaging. i don mean that in every game needs to have a big penalty for loosing, or even be difficult or a have fail-state in the first place to be enjoyable, each game handles failure according to what it wants to achieve, be it the instant rewspawn of Super Meat Boy with it's fast action gameplay, or the slow and consequential death of Dark Souls with is dark atmosphere and setting.
Different games offer different experiences.

Dark souls gives a vibe that you will lost everything upon dead and that is very unfair and difficult but that's far from the truth:

First Leveling up just increase 1 single stat making the difference between Lv 1 and 2 imperceptible, meaningful improvement in stats come gradually building up in the course of 5 o
more Lvs.
Knowing this, loosing any amount of souls less than the amount required to level-up is not really a big lost.

This is the base of what people meant when talking about Risk vs Reward.
Big losses only occur when you take big risks, going around with twice or trice the amount needed to level up you are being careless being greedy and wanting to farm Lv and equipment is what put you in situation that end in you in losing a lot of souls. In the end you don't need any of this you ability with the game will take you farther that any stat or item.
It top of that there are system in place to help if you are in a bad situation like an item that gives you souls when consumed to name just one example, they drop from foes and stay in your inventory even after death.

Even if you get this or not in the end you don't need to like this game or it's mechanics and that is perfectly fine.
edit: spelling and gramar

 

[Taleweaver]

Dandara sounds like a good way to handle it, as it seems none, or at least not many of the upgrades are necessary to beat the game.

Erm...I think I explained it wrong, then.
The upgrades mostly improve your health bar and your ability to pack more 'health kits', with every next upgrade costing gradually more (and the location gradually gives you more currency, the further you progress).
While it's strictly true that you don't NEED these upgrades, you'll certainly want them as otherwise some more advanced enemies can just kill you in one hit.