Confusing Communication Around Death of Spaceman, Respawning, & 'Permadeath' in Star Citizen 

I'm going with the Occam's Razor conclusion: Marketing dropped the ball. Maybe they gave it to a new person, maybe they weren't given enough time to have a review/oversight, but somewhere someone done goofed and that's why the message is weird and it feels so out of place lore-wise.

Do you take car commercials seriously? IMO, CIG's ship/vehicle commercials shouldn't be taken any more seriously. The lack of communication the community feels is happening is because nothing has actually changed other than respawning not being forced into clinics/hospitals or two ships. Sure it would be nice if CIG said "nothing's changed other than the number of respawn location, but you've been around long enough to know they're not going to do that. Honestly respawning in a NURSA, Cutlass Red, etc isn't bypassing our death counter, when we respawn we still need to make the choice if we go back in or bug out. If players choose to be stupid and die repeatedly in short succession its totally on them. There is no reason for CIG to increase the number of deaths we have before we're rolling up a new heir. One thing that I think would help with keeping people from just bum rushing repeatedly into a hostile situation is if lower tier med bed respawns can't remove more severe injuries. Personally, if I respawned in my Red but still had a T1 to my head and chest and was suffering their effects, I'm going home and not back into a dangerous spot.

@@fradinryth Agreed on your suggestion. The Nursa should only revive you JUST enough to get to a hospital or an Apollo rather than full combat readiness.

Exactly this. The latest information contradicts the old. One of things mentioned that can perma kill you is catastrophic damage... And they show a person reviving from falling into lava. It's a blatant contradiction and there is no way some random marketer sent out a sales video with no eyes from leadership on it. So something has changed. CIG owes an explanation. And maybe the change is just that you can expect to have thousands of lives. Rather than the implication that it was a smaller number. But we should have some understanding of the current vision for the feature.

You're absolutely right in that this was a really big communications/marketing mistake. That said, the change is fine, in the short term. I say that because in both the original DOASM, the 2020 DOASM talk with Rich and Chris, and in the Loremakers Guide to Regeneration CIG make it pretty clear that we're not going to be actually "dying" very often. They distinguish between dying where you're body is not able to be recovered, where you automatically have to regenerate, and "dying," which Chris actually puts in quotes and what Rich refers to as the downed state we have now, where you're grievously injured and you can be revived by friends or your body is recovered by NPC rescue services and you're brought back from the brink of death with the advanced medical tech we have and wake up in a med bay. And this is what the solution needs to be. We can preserve DOASM and Regeneration and not have functional immortality with the TTK changes of both characters and ships and the use of AI spawn closets and reinforcements to spawn NPCs who can either revive you on site or simulate brining you to the med bed of your choice.

Absolutely. I want DOASM in the game, but not until I'm not dying to bullshit all the time.

I think that is why they went with this re-spawn and get back in the fight quickly. They see there are alot of bugs and dont want to punish us by testing stuff till they have everything ironed out. At least that is what I think.

Who cares if they don't go over well? Gamers fuss endlessly, and devs should tune that shit out when they're doing what's necessary to make the game. It's a damn alpha. Until 1.0, y'all need to chill out takin' the shit so seriously. 🤷🏿‍♂️

I agree, I still think they could implement parts of DOASM. Say you die from falling through an elevator, now you have a mechanical leg. Even with lims getting replaced by robotic limbs, I think you should be able to get a replacement human leg again. They can make a complete clone of your body, pretty sure they can print you a new leg. Haha. Experience loss and a permanent death shouldn't be Implemented until those glitch deaths are to a minimum.

I preface this by saying that I do acknowledge that they thankfully finally HAVE addressed a lot of these issues over the years, but the point still stands that these are big enough issues that Jared practically has to meme about them in his Inside SC videos/streams: This is exactly one of the main things that I have been harping on for years. Every few patches they find a way to make death in SC feel more punishing, from switching from global to local inventories, full loot drop, tiered medical tables, etc. while you could still be instantly killed by brushing against the wrong handrail, shoulders with an NPC, clipping through floors/elevators/seats, and I could probably list off over a dozen or two more ways to die just in armistice before even getting to an ATC terminal. At the launch of 3.22 I lost a Space Kitten Helmet, a paid cosmetic that you can't (easily, currently) just recover, in the first 15 seconds of the tutorial by simply taking the helmet off to eat the burrito on the bench (yes, the first thing I usually do is full kit up in pink camo and Kitten gear with a wow blast xD).. At the end of the day I don't really care THAT MUCH about losing a medium helmet, because I'm not going to wear it anywhere but armistice, or to an event like Invictus - I know there will be wipes ahead, and historically my account almost always needs a reset 3-4 times in the first days of every wipe, but I guess that really goes off into its own direction; there is no insurance on unique, paid cosmetics, a lot of which really should just be skins you can apply in Mobi/at a terminal somewhere rather than a singular item you can lose in countless ways at any moment before you even leave armistice. Everyone always says "iTs iN aLpHa, sToP bITcHiNg", but SC has really been a Live Service game since persistence dropped; I don't think the community of any other live service game would accept the state that SC has been in without it becoming the latest gaming scandal every patch (because game journalists), but we're out here paying more money on a game than 99% of communities to playtest a tech demo because we believe in the vision

Reputation is supposed to make griefers lives a nightmare. If the information certain devs have told us remains true to it's implementation, I really don't think you'll have to deal with griefers much.

@@Eggroley Hopefully they'll also stick to the character stats talks they've recently been bringing up. To slowly "level up" your character's stats and to then lose them will be a huge deterrent to griefing on its own, especially if they make stats impactful and difficult to level up.

@@Eggroley yes "supposed to", lets see how that plays out. At the moment they cuddle griefers and I don't think they will do much to them, especially when they are high paying customers. Rest assured, those people will find a way to make other peoples game experience horrible

And we also have to consider that god forbid you may accidentally crash / not paying attention and if the imact is too huge, well for most players the fun is completely off the table. CIG opened up the game to the casual market and DOASM is a mechanic that does not harmonize very well with casual. Before any misunderstanding, with the complexity and so on SC will always remain as a somehwhat sim/mmo/definitely not arcady game.

It's certainly going to be a fun theory to test.

Still dumb.

Yeah, people badly need to stop taking ship/vehicle commercials any more seriously than a car or beer advert. When I bought a Subaru I didn't suddenly become a dog owning, flannel wearing lesbian. Well I do like flannel so I guess 1 out of 3 worked on me...

@@fradinryth 😆😆😆😆

Yep, very DP1 ish.

Definitely this! I'd also like to add that I see a lot of players discussing stuff similar to this, that was talked about 8 years ago in an interview or a design doc, and they are frustrated or angry about that thing not being true or implemented. This seems lika a waste of energy. It's an iterative process, as you said, and yet people seem to jump on every chance they see to be upset about something that was said almost a decade ago and doesn't really make a huge difference.

Of course they should do what's best for the game, but they should also communicate better on that. This video is about the COMMUNICATION PROBLEM around this, not the idea of it going away. That being said, those clips I posted were from 2021. This concept has been mentioned almost every month this year. The medical system refactor was based around this. To say this is all about JUST the design document is disingenuous.

This is the best explanation I’ve seen about DOASM. Yeah, sure, it’s not going anywhere according to Jared. Things change. If it doesn’t work and can’t be implemented reasonably/properly, it can be scrapped. Old design ideas/philosophies don’t have to persist for the sake of persistence if they don’t work.

I also get frustrated when I hear these things. They have so many systems they can work on and bugs to fix yet they chose to focus on ways to punish players. I don't want to hear about how cool and punishing all the systems will be once I have died to bugs 10 times in a row.

I am not complaining that there aren't enough consequences. I'm complaining that CIG has been confusing about it. That's it. Don't implement the system. Don't make people pay for dying right now. I'm not advocating for that. I'm just saying if there is a big change coming like that, it's not good to possibility hint at it in a trailer only to clarify right afterwards.

We went to vastly different schools 😁

I second this yeah, its really nice to listen to and see what has been said vs implemented vs intended. And I enjoy the vids a lot more than the vlogs

Yeah, we're playing a game that's in development. Some things might change, we'll get some features before others. So as you said, I'll withhold judgement until it's feature complete.

Same. I'd just like them to be more open about it.

@@SpaceTomato That's our eternal struggle!

That's not true. Look around, the Lynx is driving across a small, flat patch very, very slowly. That's totally in the game, it's just not practical. Once you try to actually get somewhere you zip through the unobstructed areas really quickly and then just stumble across the messy areas for the other 90% of the drive.

No rocks, you're absolutely right 🫠

good, because its just not fun.

"was" implied it's been diluted to trivial level. Which is funny, because it's not in the game yet. Wait for the respawn penalties that are missing to be added, for medical gameplay to be fleshed out (we know incap state will receive a full change soon) and service beacons to be changed and then you may be in position to make that assessment.

​@@rhetor4mentor13nothing is flushed out now so how can you assume after 12yrs that they will eventually flush any system out.

@@gnaruto7769 The feature doesn't exist. Nor has it been completely formulated. There is no opinion to be had. At least not one worth listening to.

What I find weird here is Demon Soul's being a source of inspiration for this system. Having to start over at a bonfire is *NOT* the equivalent of losing "stock" lives, all of your equipped equipment, or the items in your inventory. None of the Soulborne games punishes you in such ways.

Yeah, i can guarantee you griefers will find a way to work around penalties of killing people. Like circumventing reputation losses by having a friend buy them gear, money and such, so they can keep killing people without the risk of making their own griefing process harder I might honestly be too afraid to go anywhere in the game if that happens. I wouldn't be surprised if some people quit after a certain amount of deaths because they know the next one might wipe their character Death of a Spaceman just sounds like a bad idea for player retention. Its already hard enough to progress with the simplified economy after a wipe, idk how it would be having to basically start over after thats added

So what? I bet your one of those space dads that plays Elite Dangerous in private mode so you can play your Elite "DANGEROUS" game in a zero risk, zero danger environment. Protect yourself, get escorts, join an org.

Not really; cause; in Altered Carbon you CAN in fact do "Double sleeving" which is running your mind in two "sleeves" simultaneously.

good explanation, let alone perfect, is the one your target audience will understand, that was a useless reference for people like me that haven’t watched AC

@@M0ToR You're picking nits. Altered Carbon is not only a fairly successful show, but a really successful series of novels. Pop culture references are a very valid way to describe something, and a fun way to connect with people who DO get it.

100% this.

I guess it still needs pointed out that just like IRL, you shouldn't believe ads?

It's the nation point of the video. Thank you!

yep. rebuying everything and then have to travel through the metro, waiting for ship claim takes way to much time

@@ustio834 People just need to prepare better. Why are you still setting your point on a planet with all those inconveniences? You can set your imprint on a space station, buy yourself a few extra sets of kit and be back up and running in 5 minutes max, minus whatever travel time to where you are headed, but if you're participating in dangerous activities without setting your spawn point near where you're operating, that's you punishing yourself, not the game punishing you. Some players need to realize many of their missteps could be avoided if they simply planned a bit better.

Be honest. We all brag about “no loading screens” and that part is legit: you can pick any spot on any moon or planet and go explore. But how often have you gotten a 12 minute quantum jump time and wished for a fast travel system. But that time is part of the cost of this game. If you are in trouble on Dmr and I’m on crusader, I can get to you relatively fast, but if I’m at new Babbage, it’s gonna be a minute. Time inconvenience is part of the game, by design. The balance is the tough part, and I’m glad I’m not making the calls. Because as angry as everyone was about master modes, I see now why it was the right thing for the game. Not for me, maybe not for you. But “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.”

Personally I think its great that when I'm trying to secure an area, they don't just respawn right back to being a problem after I obliterate their dome. If I wanted the call of duty experience, I would go play that.

​@@ItsEpicWesley you must not play much if you dont understand the broken system transportation system we currently have. City layouts are some of the worse of any game ever.

Spectrum, due entirely to it's moderators, is easily the most vile aspect of Cloud Imperium and it's unhealthy relationship with it's backers.

@@project.jericho true and I use it as infrequently as possible, but it is their forum and it should be where they post information. Not that Reddit moderators are any better. You go anywhere and the moderators are power-mad white knights.

@@Dracounguis I believe it's different. The way Spectrum moderators attack portions of the player base while insulating other, more rhetorically useful, yet 'toxic' elements - the way they aggressively enforce their myriad of social perspectives that have not one thing to do with the game or their ToS - all within a paradigm where each user is a paying customer is nothing short of abusive. What's worse is that if you file a complaint - even well founded - the person reviewing that complaint is invariably the one that banned you in the first place so they simply verify that their behavior was correct, that you are in the wrong and then thank you for kindly fucking off.

@@project.jericho Anyone who's worked in retail or fast food knows it's not entirely due to the employees.

You engage with people where the people are. Limiting all communication through one site isn't as effective as it seems on paper

And like most issues this game runs into, communication was the problem, not these changes. This video is about the trailer, what it communicated, and how cig had to clarify afterwards.

@@SpaceTomato I can't attest to that, but I can say half-truths and misinformation get perpetuated everywhere all the time, so that alone constitutes a problem.

Nothing has been rendered irrelevant. Y'all are being melodramatic.

@@LucidStrike I'm a single person, don't know who "all" are.

The loot boxes are trash. When was the last time you or anyone you know found a full matching rare armor suit in a loot box? Never right? If you're lucky maybe you find a cool helmet and that's about it.

@@karmabad6287 correct, that is why everyone is in mismatched gear today. Take what you can and do not care about losing.

Now we would have to go search through dozens of loot boxes to get gear back and it will not match the last set of gear we looted. That is why most people just resort to heading to bunkers in their noob suit and arclight and loot first few baddies they down.

Nah, you VASTLY underestimate how little it takes for typical humans to attach to things. Yes, some people are more...emotionally muted, but Joe Average could form an emotional bond with a damn pebble. So most people absolutely will care about their characters. If some outliers don't, that's just like real life. 🤷🏿‍♂️ Besides, Skill and Attributes will MAKE players care about their characters even if not out of sentiment.

Yeah, like the reason death matters in real life is because thats the ONE chance you have. Even tho you lose all your stuff, rep and money in SC, you get to start fresh. And that forces you to basically detatch from your character, care less about it, because you have to deal with the loss of all your progress In real life, if you die, thats it. No being pissed at losing progress, no climbing your way back up, thats your only shot, and thats why we do our best to make it count cause we KNOW we dont have another chance Even with death of a spaceman, you get the same experience, only now even more punishing, and in turn, less incentive to give it your all

It depends on the "death" penalties. Every revival may incur you into some debt, prevent you from handling large weapons, from running, or maybe that "death" was a nice excuse to incorporate some better-than standard organs at a greater cost, and you might have to inpound some of your property or even default with your successor getting nothing in return. The limit may not be a hard one but a soft limit with each revival costing more, or maybe the cost actually stems from the time you've been alive since last revival so being cautious and spending time on a single character is rewarded with all these measures in place. I personally like the idea that your character may work on some self-improvement routine while you're offline, so your excuse for sticking with one character is because they can run faster and for longer, can operate at lower oxygen saturation so their life support lasts longer, they hit harder, can handle Gs better or they made some business connections and have access to better deals. Most of these can be handled with a few lines of code, the most ddifficuot thing would be making it feel more organic and spontaneous so players don't optimize the mechanic to death. Also, if you lose an arm and it must be replaced with an artificial limb, said limb might be better than a normal untrained one but that's it, no more pumping those biceps. This is not an endorsement of DOAS as they presented it because I have no idea what they have in mind. i know what might make it cool for me and that's what I jotted down. In the end, the customer doesn't always know what they want: what they do know is what they don't want, and we'll only ever know if CIG's solution is cool or not once it's actually put to testing and people get their hands on it.

It would be an absolute shit show if backers started losing their pledge ships. A tsunami of lawsuits would probably follow. So I think our ships are safe, but it doesn't hurt to remain vigilant.

@@karmabad6287 Your pledged ships wouldn't be 'lost', merely impounded until payment of those speculative taxes in the Persistent Universe. I'd imagine they'd even remain unlocked over in the Arena Commander side of things, so you'd still have some level of access. I can envision the Devs arguing for this as a rational money sink and response to the destabilizing number of capital ships treading upon CIG's vision of how we 'ought' to play the game. Once again, this is my biggest personal fear, but only a speculative one. So I do hope this worry about Death of a Spaceman does not turn out this way. It is simply that I can so easily imagine that tax unlock button on each ship.

@@jasonp.1195 if it plays out as you described they may as well start calling it "death of a spacegame" because most people aren't going to want to do that.. unless said tax is reasonably low. I'm hoping we just inherit our ships back, tax free.

@@karmabad6287 As the bulk of players are not whales (which my Top Hat tells me I am), the number of ships affected would always be small - so for the majority it would probably play out like you've mentioned. My hope is that I could narrow the tax to only the ships I've actively been using with a specific Spaceman identity, not the whole of my account.

I dont see this as a problem whatsoever unless you are dying way too much. Then have that infantryman or hyperactive combat pilot be on a different account. But think of Elite Dangerous rebuy. Always have enough for your DoaS tax and it wont be a problem. Be irresponsible and spend too much of your savings and youll suffer for it by your own choices...

Even then, griefers will still grief. I feel like all this will do is scare players from interacting with others. It was already hard to trust some people but knowing that the person next to you might put you one step closer to a character wipe just sounds like a recipie for disaster when it comes to player retention We dont have unlimited time. People have jobs, lives and things to do outside the game. If they're gonna punish us this hard for taking any form of risk in an already time-hungry game, i genuinely dont know how SC is gonna turn into the massive MMO that CIG wants it to be if anyone with a real life job cant realistically accomplish anything in a reasonable time

Does it really surprise you that the guy who has all the time in the world playing games doesnt care about wasting normal folks time?

@@Gnarfendorf Honestly, I don't think CR plays video games anymore. Why some of his ideas are stupid. They might sound good 'theoretically' but will be idiotic in reality.

@@Dracounguis I believe hes still replaying the same demo level of sq42 every day, thats all he does if hes not spewing nonsense on whatever Show he appears on

@@Gnarfendorf I wouldn't qualify that as "playing games". 😆

Lol

@@SpaceTomato XD

That absolutely was a thing when selling at Orison when PO was had linked inventory. Land at PO, BS to planet, sell, take Harold back to PO.

That is what they have in EVE Online.

Hey man, it's cool if a game that places a little more emphasis on staying alive isn't for you. Personally it's one of the things that drew me into this project.

​@@Unit-ro6kmseriously. I actually remember this post from Chris back in the day, and loved the ideas behind it.

​@@user-zj4rg9kn1cyet will never work bc they game is never stable

​@@Unit-ro6kmthat be acceptable if they game didnt kill you more than the npc, players and mistakes.

@@user-zj4rg9kn1c have fun getting spawn killed by a guy with LTI ships that has no rep and doesn’t care about their character