Me and my devs are discussing our new project. My original plan was a PVP game with permadeath, crafting, and the advanced combat system we’ve started working on.
It came up that permadeath might be a bad idea for a few reasons, but I think it would add a level of accomplishment and notoriety to higher level players. However, the reasons not to include it, as suggested, are that PVP games tend to cause big mobs of people to appear and kill the poor soul who dared expect a fair fight. To mitigate the frustration, some suggested that I should add a system that allows you to transfer items between lives, but personally I think it feels kind of cheaty to get to start a build with high level items from before. Not to mention a lot of people would store these items in a bank and never use them if they were rare. Another suggestion was that allowing players to start with decent stuff (which was already the plan) would make permadeath acceptable, as well as having “maximum potential” be reached early. In other words, if the time spent getting to a higher level wasn’t too long, it would be less unbearable to die.
I could just sacrifice the permadeath aspect of the game, but since one of my main visions for the project is near-infinite variation, it would keep the game fresh to not have people get to a really high level and never have to worry about the new content again.
I’m open to your thoughts! Thanks for reading this far.
How abouuuut you make it really really really really really really hard for people to team up? IDK how but that would stop the constant unfair ganking.
On the other side, permadeath is only suitable for some games - not all.
Sure you’re gonna have a feeling of being a veteran og but the fact you could lose all that effort in an instance to a big group of people or meta mancers - obviously you’re gonna be really mad when that happens. Some people choose to quit when at that level so it really depends. It has its benefits, one of them being the feeling of challenge but also a feeling of constant paranoia when alone.
Permadeath adds a certain kind of toxicity that can ruin communities but other than that a sense of progression and balance.
It’s really up to you.
Being able to reach max level quickly, relative to the expected lifespan of a single life, is a good idea and I think would be required if your plan is one-death-per-life.
So I think being able to transfer items between lives is the best option. But the system shouldn’t be “upon death keep items”.
I’d implement (or try to) something like this:
Player’s inventory is checked item by item, separating each item into separate lists. List 1 stores the player’s currently equipped items, List 2 stores unequipped rare items, List 3 stores everything else (that would be considered unimportant compared to equipped and rare items).
After the player dies List 1 and List 2 are saved to the player’s new life. The player is given something as compensation based on the worth of all items in List 3, such as currency (or experience?) which the player can use at shops to quickly get past their beginning phase.
Whenever the player acquires an item they are much more likely to get an item from List 1 and List 2 (List 1 takes priority), assuming items are randomly generated. Non-randomly generated items, like quest or story rewards, shouldn’t be added to List 1 and List 2 since they are guaranteed to be given after a defined amount of effort. When an item from either lists is received that item is removed from its list.
From here it can go however you want. Maybe players keep getting items from the lists until all of them are re-obtained. Maybe players can only get so much until the lists are automatically cleared (my choice). Maybe there’s a time limit to really encourage players to get back on their feet.
My reasonings for this system are: I believe it mitigates frustration from losing progress as players do have a way of re-obtaining their items while also not taking the risks and fear of dying away, it requires players to put in effort instead of being given an immediate headstart that allows them to outcompete everything at lower levels, players are encouraged to use their rarest or best items since those have a higher chance of being found in the next life (and would otherwise be erased completely).
Alternatively you can just not give previous-life items. Players can simply start with a set of good enough gear as you said.
Edit: Regarding players being unfairly beaten (such as one player fighting a group of players or being attacked by a much more powerful player) you can allow the defeated player to directly keep their items, or choose a number of items to keep.