OldBoy

Sure, going back to a checkpoint is fair, but when they take $ or points and penalize you, sometimes significantly, depending on how many times you die.

i'm not the greatest gamer (as surprised as you may be), but i persevere and finish most games i start. sometimes i get a little help, sure, but make it to the end. whichever ending or whatever that may be.

but, i do die. a lot sometimes before i figure out the pattern or strategy and just get frustrated when i get penalized in games like Borderlands (playing through 1, again now, loving it still. got the revamped GoTY edition for One. as if playing for the first time which i love in a replay which i hardly ever do). And, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Love the games to death, but hate the significant penalty.

thoughts?

Adam Tyner

I can't think of a game I've played (and been really into, anyway) where I felt unduly punished for dying. I mean, losing power-ups or currency, meters resetting, etc., sure, but it's always been bearable. Either I didn't die enough for the penalties to sting too harshly, it's an arcade-y game where that's part of the process (hey, I grew up with shmups!), or the penalties weren't beyond the pale. Or I dropped the game because I just wasn't that into it (like ZombiU) rather than because of the penalties. I'm fine with deaths meaning something, even if that means taking things away from me, as long as I have a path forward.

But I'm also in the camp that not every game is meant to be for everyone, so I don't have a problem shying away from games that are savagely difficult, force perma-death, etc. I dunno. I'm 40. I don't want to blitz through a game on my first try, but I have zero interest in fighting a boss for 3 hours to memorize its patterns. I'm pretty content with the far-from-sexy middle ground of 'Normal' difficulty. And if that means I never get a taste of Dark Souls or survival games like Project Zomboid, that's okay. I don't blame the games. I don't expect them to conform to me. It's just not meant to be, and it's not as if I'm at a loss for other games to play instead.

RichC2

You should try Sekiro. You lose exp and money when you die. Additionally, the town folk catch a progressive disease called Dragon Rot the more you die, making certain items and conversations unavailable until you cure them (which can be done, everybody at once, with proper items)

plus the ones with the disease are hacking up a lung and terrified when you run into them, just to make you feel bad.

either way it doesn't really bug me.

Jeremy517

What penalty for dying? You can easily quicksave. Even if you're trying to take over a guarded area, you can temporarily leave, save, then go back in.

brainee

I can't think of many games I've played that penalize you besides reloading the last checkpoint or save. The only one I remember is one of the Dark Souls ... which I bailed on after a few hours because I found it just wasn't my thing. I guess that would be standard in MMORPGs though.

Like Adam, I don't care for games that force me to replay long stretches.

Nesbit

Noonan

Depends on the game. It works well for games like Souls but I definitely wouldn't want it in every game I play. I'm also somewhat used to it with MMOs. They often penalize getting killed.

james2025a

Well I know you get penalized for killing innocents by increasing the bounty on you and sending more mercenaries out after you. Personally I love that. Like GTA I try getting the maximum and taking on all comers. Its fun to have 4 mercs coming out you when you have attacked a large base. I have had times where I have taken on 6 Mercs and around 30 soldiers at once. And this on a high difficulty setting. Great fun.

Obi-Wanma

I'm thinking that may be one of the games that inspired this topic. Oldboy commented in that thread and seemed to have bought it, but hasn't said much about it since.

Jeremy517

He is talking about penalties for you dying not for you killing people

Decker

Yeah, I played many, many hours of that game and have died many, many, MANY times. I don't think there is even an insignificant penalty for dying. You just reload at your last quicksave or checkpoint.

OldBoy

actually it was Borderlands. i guess i forgot AC doesn't, but know something else i played recently. maybe Just Cause 2? i dunno...

mndtrp

Borderlands is the only game series I can recall that I noticed being penalized for dying, outside of restarting an area. Even though I lost a substantial amount of money in Borderlands, it never really bothered me because it was easy to accumulate more pretty quickly. For everything else, put me in the same camp as Adam. Not all games are made for me, and I'm ok with skipping them.

Groucho

After doing corpse runs in Everquest that would take several hours, the penalties in most modern games just don't bother me as much.

Noonan

Same could be said for most older MMO games. FFXI was brutal as well.

Obi-Wanma

Well yeah, I saw that in the OP, but I was just speculating that if you had started Sekiro at all, you may have put it down for this reason (and its brutal difficulty).

Ginwen

OldBoy

i got it, but yet to play. B1 caught my attention first and for some reason, i'm hooked all over again...

The Questyen

Yeah that's high up on my list. Also games that take forever to load you back into the game after you die. The Rocksteady Batman games are extremely bad at this.