WoW's death mechanic was pretty similar to this but you spawned as a ghost so you wouldn't get ganked or killed on your way back to your corpse. That doesn't stop you from getting corpse camped by either other players or mobs, however.
Bashiok divulged some information on as to what death mechanic Diablo III is using in the current development build :
Official Blizzard Quote:
Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic. We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don't want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you're always going back to pretty much whenever you like.
The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.
On that same note we also don't want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.
So, with these things in mind we've found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each "floor" of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you're dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It's obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we're currently using and it's working really well so far.
How do you feel about the checkpoint system? It does make the gameplay go a lot more smoothly, but does it make the gameplay less challenging?
(After some investigation, it was found that this citation was based on a very old news topic, viewable here, although the base source no longer exists or cannot be found.)
wow, never thought about that. I'm sure they don't want to separate players, like if you die then you go back to the previous checkpoint and have to catch up with the group.
Maybe they could have a system like the Halo series co-op where once there is no threat anymore you could spawn back next to the person who is safe.
I also like the idea of spawning at the next checkpoint. The Halo system might be too easy.
Do we know whether or not you res naked and collect your corpse or full res at the last checkpoint. To me it sounds like you get all of your gear when you res.
I would also assume you would keep at least the items you collected from the last checkpoint when you die with no other way to save them but quit the game. How much would it suck to get a unique item, die and loose it or get a unique item and have to save and exit just to ensure you keep it.
They need to space the checkpoints out carefully, having a death reset you back a long way from where you started will piss a lot of people off making them not want to play especially if the area is really hard and you reset like 10 times.
Also when you die they need to make you invincible for like 5 seconds to regroup and not get killed right after.
Also when you are in a party and you are the only one in the party to die what the hell will they do.
Who would want to fight there way back to there party, that would take a while and there party would be leaps and bounds a head.
In the quote it mentions placing the checkpoints at the end of each "floor" in the dungeons. Does this mean we can expect a more dungeon crawling feel from D1 as opposed to the more openess of D2?
If the monsters don't respond then how is that a penalty?
That just wastes your time to get back in the action.
Not meant to sound mean like it does. lol
I for one would like to stand up as a ghost from the corpse and have to run back to where the 'Resurrection Angel' (Or Glyth, but the angel makes more sense) which would be at the check point locations proposed (With 10% hp). There are advantages to this system over the current aswell you can't be swamped by mobs at the check point with low hp (Because you can see the check point). You feel like you have taken some punishment aswell as finding no value in the death location transition.
In summery the idea of death within the players mind must be synonymous with ghosts or in some kind of graphical context. It will seem less immerse I think without graphical context deviating life from death.
? I have not heard mention of a buff which would make these statements valid. It seems like you could use a pot straight after resurrection and or a health globe. Why would you be forced to wait without a debuff of some kind?
I also think that dying once (with gold and exp penalties) was punishment enough, why die again when you are not equipped to fight? Its not skill; its how fast can I run around/teleport through this mob to get my body, then get out so I can recover, put my potions on my belt and get ready to fight again.
If you want to make dying be a punishment for lack of skill it should take skill to get back to where you were.
And to those anyone who says WoW didn't have a death penalty, I'm guessing you didn't play much at high levels with a lot of purple gear. Dying meant your items would lose durability, which may not sound like a big deal, but it cost an ass ton to repair. This was especially bad for raiders who needed money for mats, pots, etc.
Your point towards D2 death penalty is that it amounts purely to annoyance and not to punishment. The fact is that, an annoying death penalty is just one that is not severe enough to be felt as a punishment.
Both of those detriments work towards giving the player a constant (sometimes intense and adrenaline-rushing) pressure to STAY ALIVE and perfect the character skill-and-item-wise to achieve better survivability.
The balance in an RPG like this is to penalize the player here and there enough that the player is greatly contrived to worry about how he can make his character better, but still have those penalties moderate enough that they don't grief the players (too much).
@Blizzquote,
Personally like a few earlier posters, I feel that instant full-gear respawn does not by any means fit the conventional concept of "death", even when relative to any other RPG games.
We are role-playing in these video games, for god's sakes, we either play hard-core in which the role-playing is a bit extreme and when you die you die, or less than HC but still having the scene of death drawing your breath away and making you regret that last false move you did.
- I find it great! More action!
- No change in difficulty what I can see.
Penalty
- Slow regen of health, I dont know about that one but I guess its the main penalty.
- Lost Gold, seems like a natural way to curse someone but It feels dramatic and kinda annoying.
- Respawn the latest monsters you have slayen, I guess this means more action and alot more deaths in both cases?
there will be hardcore mode.
it was hinted at during wwi 2008:
again during blizzcon 2008: confirmed by bashiok on the forums:
and it was again brought up and confirmed at blizzcon 2009:
on topic, i don't like the checkpoint system.
i like being able to go to town when i want to, and this is part of an alternate setup that removes that convenience.
additionally i think this system does make softcore easier; this will inevitably lead to making the game harder to compensate, which i think could have detrimental effects on hc.
i'll give it a chance, I just am not a fan at the outset.
The only draw back to the checkpoint system is not bein able to go to town as easily. However, when you died and went to town, it's not like you actually used the town. You would just leave it to get your body. It also sounds like they are minimizing need to go to town. No pots, random merchants to sell stuff. It seems like towns will be used kore for lore than gameplay now.
Wooo stop... you find that normal dying many time and lose exp because of lag ?? I don't find it normal !
Where you see that will be LESS challenging ???
Skill capped at 5 ???? euhhh where you see that !! I'm not be noticed of that ?!
They said, they will have a penalties but they don't know actually what...
I don't understand what the problem here is. It's simply logical, players do not want to die. No one logically finds entertainment in playing a game because "they want to die." Blizzard understands this. Dying in itself is the punishment.
Now the only problem you have to deal with is when a player sees the opportunity cost of dying as being lower than the reward they'd get from doing so. For instance, beating down a boss and killing him at the cost of dying 20 times is worth it to a person than not killing him at all.
In those instances this system self regulates because dying over and over again constantly puts you no where, and you make no progress. You aren't frustratedly "punished" for the death that you don't want to happen, you just simply "go nowhere." In the game. Something that works in its most pristine form, how awesome.
Us others who want to spend some of our free time having fun, we'll enjoy this game, and enjoy the escape from real world stress, challenges, and penalties. Something games are all about in the first place.
You other guys that love challenges and penalties all the time, should try to go raise 12 children, contract HIV, and try to be a millionaire all at the same time. According to you guys, all those challenges and penalties will be right up your ally, I'm sure of it.
Blizzard already talk about that, they want the person who die, can rejoin the team fast and return to action quickly. They will have many Check point, so many and so close that you never running for a while before regroup your team.
I don't know why people ask it, all that informations is already know from long ago.
Its a waste of time to try and argue this with people like that.