The og Armored Core games had a pretty cool take on perma death where failing missions would cause you to go into debt. Too much debt and your body was sold for research and you had to restart the game from the beginning, but with a new augment for your pilot. It became a sign of skill to beat those games without any of the human plus upgrades.
thats a pretty cool mechanic. i love that old games had some really mature ideas like that, just wish AAA would take some inspiration from them and do something new
Yeah, it wasn't exactly permadeath but you could definitely get into a near-softlock death spiral where bad play led to more bad play. If you didn't invest your money prudently early, then your profit margins would remain slim and you'd struggle to progress. Add to this that parts were not a linear upgrade of good -> better. The starting mech was usually garbage but after that, basically any viable mech build was suitable to clear the majority of content. IF you knew what you were doing.
Some of the boss battles led straight to a Game Over condition though as far as I know, not all of one's save data was wiped so debt might be the closest thing that Armored Core had to Perma death.
The first time I played resident evil it was RE1 on PS1 as a kid we didn't have a memory card and couldn't get hold of one. We spent all summer holidays, every day trying to beat RE1, each of us handling the parts of the game we were best at, and eventually as a group we finally beat the game, lets just say and it was one of the most intense gaming experiences me and my friends ever had, we learned the game inside out and venturing into unknown parts of the game was truly scary.
Perma death as a core mechanic is fine with reasonably short games such as less than 3 hours. If its a 40+ hours game (even with no deaths) then that's a lot of extra hours for practice for one game exclusively which is an issue if you want to experience more games, you either give up other games for that one or sacrifice that Game in favor of other games, specially when you have a limited schedule for gaming you really have to choose. For those longer games it would be fine just to have the option for those who like the game enough. In RPGs though the permadeath in fire emblem it's pretty interesting because it's a different kind of skill you have to master and you don't necesarily "practice each boss" in those and all of sudden a 20 hour game becomes more reasonable
Games like pokemon nuzlocks, darkest dugeon and as you mentioned fire emblem treat permadeath more as a permanent loss of resourses that over time will show how losing that resourse makes things harder for them im the long run, it makes you value each member of the team individually and what they can specifically do way more.
Yeah, I was going to make a similar comment. A lot of old NES games essentially had permadeth due to lack of a save system entirely(even before password saves) and this felt right for the typical length of those games(Blaster Master on the NES for example) which was at most 3-6 hours or even a lot less. I don't know if I'd have "fun" playing for 30+ hours to get to a boss for the first time and learn his attack patterns knowing I'll likely die.
You touched on this a little bit but the thing I love about permadeath is that players who reset will start to truly appreciate cheese (or more correctly, playing smart instead of playing hard) and in turn put a lot of pressure on developers to tighten up their games in terms of balance, or start cutting fluff. It forcefully pushes game design forward instead of keeping it at a standstill, and it'd force developers to come up with interesting design patterns for balancing games
Yeah I think in the arcade era devs were on the lookout for stuff like this and felt "hey, I need to make sure the game is putting up resistance to cheesy strats the maintain the balance." These days I don't think that's the case as much, because devs are much more worried about what the least skilled players are having trouble with (since that translates to sales more directly) and tend to view the broken strats that the high skill players find as some kind of fun little meta-game that they can play around with in their corner of the world. Games aren't balanced to try to withstand the scrutiny of high-level play as much I don't think.
@@TheElectricUnderground Yup balancing against cheese is like a lost art outside of a small handful of niches, usually either permadeath driven or multiplayer. It's time to go back
Or, maybe devs don't want to balance their game, and end up letting players keep progression. I don't mean to trash developers, I just mean "balance" is very difficult and the effects are very subjective.
@@CrowsofAcheron That's game design in a nutshell. The fact that it's difficult is exactly why it's worth developing, instead of giving up and just making games that players have to unfuck themselves
Wipeout 2097 (Wipeout XL in the USA) had a great compromise permadeath system in its League mode: You had three lives, and if you lost all three, it was a perma-game over. You had to win gold on all 8 tracks to win the League. If you didn't get first place on a track, you lost a life and had to retry it, but if you got silver or bronze, you didn't lose a life (but you still had to retry the track, of course). This was great because there was a real risk if you didn't get a podium finish, but it wasn't so brutal that you had to win gold every time.
Most racing games at the time used points championship structure which achieve the same goals while being inherently realistic and multiplayer-friendly at the same time.
Getting rid of lives and continue system was probably one of the greatest losses in videogames. Not only they served to ask the player to reach a specific skill level with limited resources to make it to the end, as you youself mentioned, they also were used as a parameter for 1CC runs. Recently i completed my first professional run of Super Ghouls N' Ghosts and felt a genuine joy that few games could make you feel. Compare that to GNG Ressurection, where even on Legend Mode there's no lives or continues, beating that game on the hardest setting just makes me feel "eh, whatever", since there's no developer induced challenge, you can just keep dying till you brute force your way to the end, and essentially it's impossible to know what a proper 1CC of that game would be without those limitations.
The massive problem with performance based game design is that you need to have an easy access to practice features. That's where the souls series is completely unbearable for me, you have to redo terribly boring sections all the time in order to get to the spot you actually want to play. So most of the time you spend with the game is you not doing what you want to do, which is a stupidly frustrating experience. You compare this to playing the piano : I play a lot of classical piano (I made the comparison as well in my guide for Akai Katana Shin), and I can guarantee you I would never have learned any difficult piece if I had to restart at the beginning everytime I made a mistake. Being able to access instantly the interesting part is absolutely vital in providing an interesting and efficient experience, otherwise you are just boring people to death.
i think dark souls (primarily 1 and 2) were like the major contributors to the hate forced repetition gets. too many sections have dull walking for a solid 2 minutes after a death, this doesn't mean being forced to repeat content is bad, it means that the content you're being forced to repeat is bad. no wonder this series coined "runback".
@@swan-cloud Being forced to repeat content is in my opinion a bad game design choice, in the vast majority of the cases. You are trapped in a situation where you want to play one thing and are forced to play another, while at the same time this other thing is not preparing you to face the part you want to play. The game is just wasting your time. This is not the same when you decide to go for a 1 credit clear with your own free will, once you already explored the game and have experience. If we continue the comparison with music playing, I personally never learn a difficult piece sequentially, I explore the score once then start immediately rehearsing the hardest parts and finish with the easier ones. Most teachers would agree with my method, and most games that are meant to be played as a performance won't allow you to do that.
@@maitremarcadet i guess i see it more as permadeath/forced repetition revealing a problem that was already there as opposed to creating a new one. it can definitely make a game less enjoyable, but it's because it forces the player to confront the game in it's totality. like if a part of sequence is a waste of time, it would always be a waste of time even if you did it only once imo.
I think Matthewmatosis touched on this when defending lives systems in relation to viewtiful Joe's boss rush. It was something like; if a game has a large stretch of gameplay that you need to beat consistently to progress, then that stretch of gameplay needs to be consistently beatable. In other words the more the game expects of the player the more player needs to expect of the game. Introducing permadeath means every single encounter needs to be balanced with more scrutiny since an unfair death anywhere has the equal potential to end a run.
This is a very good point. For most of my PS1 cycle I did not have a memory card meaning all my games were perma death. It exposed so many shitty unbalanced games because some sections were so luck based that they were nearly unbeatable on a consistent basis. At the end I kept playing 3-4 same games because they were so well made and possible to master.
The magnificient 5 in Viewtiful Joe was such a memorable moment to me back then. I was accustomed to a more modern game-design approach (though still not comparable to todays player tampering standards) and this truly made working towards a goal. Harder versions of 4 of the previous bosses before you finally hit that saving grace checkpoint. It was a gauntlet but the challenge felt genuinely connected you gotta endure with your ressources, something which was also present in the games fairly challenging levels but this has put mastery another level and it truly kindled my love for arcade inspired design, meaningful consequences and long term challenges. To bad that the sequel already abbandoned that trait in its own bossrush. While it was still challenging in several departments I think this section fell victim to what people nowadays call "Quality of Life" although it has nothing common with it. With infinite continues, these bossfights lose their connected gauntlet appeal and once again become just slightly harder versions of previous bosses. Rather feels redundant fighting them again in this fashion.
In a game with infinite continues or where permadeath is optional, cheap deaths can be hilarious or even tutorialise game mechanics. In games which ARE permadeath, full stop, this cannot happen. (Except in the first level, I guess!)
Yes I may need to make an entire video about this, because it's really important. Gameplay is not a linguistic narrative medium like prose, film, theater, and so forth. It's an abstract rhythmic medium much more akin to music. You don't read gameplay, you feel it. It even has a rhythm and tempo when done really well. The best way I can describe it is visual music, music you see and play. It's fascinating and I think video game critique is extremely under-developed and most of it is completely misguided in this belief that somehow gameplay is a narrative medium. Narrative can contextualize gameplay just like lyrics and contextual music, but in the end music doesn't need lyric at its core and games don't need narrative.
@@TheElectricUnderground gaming isn’t dead there is a lot good indie games and double AA that are doing a lot better than triple AAA games maybe you should try out more indie games and double AA games.
@TheElectricUnderground aaah thank you so much! I've also always made a comparison to music! They're both abstract and dynamic/rhythmic! Video game stage design is a lot like deliberately composing a song :). Performing on stage is indeed like rehearsing and going for a full run! And I always said narrative in a game is like adding story type lyrics to a song, it's not essential for it to be a game/music too! But it seems like nobody seems to be able to get that through their skull?! As long as you give any kind of essential trait they grab the pitchforks but if you praise the game for thee cutscenes themselves, then that doesn't say anything about games as a medium at all it just says something about film/animation storytelling yet its often presented as a good ''games as art'' argument. I hate the whole idea that there was an academic ''narratology'' debate. That sounds like an inherent misunderstanding of what games are. Then they say you can even describe pure abstract gameplay as a story but how is that relevant. A math calculation also shows a sequence of events that doesn't stories are fundamental to it.
That IGN review of Wanted:Dead whining about having to replay 10 minutes of the game after dying is still so cringe to me. That reviewer in my head be like: “Oh no! Don’t tell me I have to play that small section again!!?!!!! Playing games the worst!!!!”
I know especially because I am very sure a lot of souls checkpoints go on longer than 10 minutes, what kind of crazy short standard is that?! Wanted Dead is pretty chill with the checkpoints actually, but I guess compared to a lot of games now that have checkpoints like every 3 minutes ha.
Who knows, but maybe if I was in the reviewers shoes, I could potentially see me having that exact same gripe. Being on a deadline and having a ticking clock in your head while playing a demanding game must be another level of added pressure. Especially if those 5 to 10 minute losses start adding up. Happy I´m not in that position.
@@pronstorestiffi Your comment made me realize that the reviewer style of rushing through games is the same as how Mark described modern players just going through one game after the next. Maybe a subconscious way reviewers have affected the regular player mindset.
@@pronstorestiffi True, but that position is the fundamental issue with reviews. It makes no sense unless players have deadlines too, thus the hype/review/FOMO cycle.
Fire Emblem perma-death without resets is a treat! 🎉 Perma-death forces you to actually think about the map layout, protecting your mages & clerics & actually use tactics! This mode forces you to think moment to moment & multiple turns ahead. It's really the only way to play Fire Emblem imo 😊
I agree completely. It's a bummer when you realize modes like this have systematic exploits that you can just reset over and over. So I find it funny, but completely natural, that the players would then create a challenge run called iron man that bans resetting in the permadeath mode ha, I think that lines up with the ethos of permadeath more.
It’s a shame modern fire emblem is no longer balanced around perma-death and actively punishes you for not min-maxing between chapters (Engage is balanced around min-maxing). As good as Three Houses is the level of investment between maps actively deters you from honouring perma-death also.
@@gpmradirgy8953 Modern Fire Emblem Iron Manners would probably have a better time of it if they embraced the built-in extra life mechanics rather than ignoring them - the games were clearly built around them. Rather than it being Game Over when the Divine Pulse procs, make it Game Over when it's Game Over. For all of Engage's MASSIVE flaws with story and characters (what in blazes even IS Rosado, and why does Soren have ANY patience for him?), in terms of raw gameplay it actually addressed this by making time rewinds a finite resource rather than renewing every battle. Do you spend one now to save an important character who just died and risk having none when you get Game Over and would be forced to use one, or soldier on without him? Sadly, that's offset by the modern Fire Emblem tradition of allowing infinite grinding. But is IS a good idea.
He believes games should be super short, without a lot of things to explore. So experimentation would be fine. He's happy to fail and restart many times.
The argument he is trying to make, though, is that very cautious gameplay only comes out as a result of you valuing your save file (or "run") in the first place - a core tenet of progression-based mentality
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Final boss isnt the best designed but I do like the idea behind fighting games bosses taking you straight to game over and a bad ending if you lose.
I think what's really important here is that there's a deeper philosophy rooted in all of this. I'd argue this modern unending "lust" for comfort is what's ruining society in the first place! Amazing video and points ❤
But my metaprogression! But seriously, I feel like it kind of comes down to: is it a game or is it more of an experience? I feel like a lot of players don't have any clear distinction between the two. No on complains about "permadeath" in chess. Just play another round! You see a similar problem with builds. Players become attached to their build. They see it as player expression and a personal experience rather than as being given a variety of tools to use and they must pick the right ones for a gameplay challenge. They would rather try to brute force a win than change their build.
@@ZorroVulpes I think a good bunch of those people are looking for something to pass the time and see games as a more interesting alternative to the NYT Crossword or whatever. The next logical step is to binge-play a bunch of games the same way people binge-watch movies. When the game presents a hurdle, they think they know what they're saying when they call the game "bad." The people attached to builds in RPGs likewise just want to "power through" the game's content and move on. I don't claim to be above that behavior btw, I constantly read stuff like visual novels and sometimes the plot is too confusing *for me*, so I proceed to enjoy the novel on a more basic level. But then you've got the people complaining that a game is broken because their build is inadequate for the task they're trying to accomplish, the ones that flood comment sections calling fighting games unironically "broken" because people have achieved a level of depth with specific characters, etc. and you can see that feedback reflected in modern game design.
@@ffmpregffmpregyeah I don’t think every game is for everyone and that’s a good thing that there’s lots of games for everybody I just wish they weren’t so vocal to the point of drowning out people who like the hobby for what it is already and don’t want it changed
@@TheCrewExpendable It's very, VERY charitable. I don't mind the casuals, they don't hurt me (until they get elitist about their casualism). Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training never negatively impacted Devil May Cry 3. It's the ideological entryism that is really ruining gaming much like it's ruining free nations. It's ~bigoted~ to have a game that's difficult, or that has women in it who are actually women, or not to have vitiligo skin options and mastectomy for "male" characters...
I understand and agree with most of your analysis except for one part where you said something like, “it doesn’t matter if it took you 6000 tries to beat a boss since you saved right before it.” The time it took to figure out how to beat the boss is enough of a cost in and of itself for players like me. Yes I value performance based gameplay, but sometimes I just want to keep trying one particular thing until I can figure it out. Then I can come back and try to beat the whole thing on one life later. Otherwise you have to play in an ultra conservatively and cheesy way that’s really boring. I want the freedom to just have fun and try stuff to see if it’ll work. Without that element the game risks becoming a homework assignment to figure out an optimal strategy for inching your way through it.
That's why you need both "rehearsal", in the form of frequent check points, save states or practice modes, and "performance" in the form of a permadeath mode. I value being able to freely learn the game and try new things and experiment without much consequences, but once you know the game well, there should be a permadeath mode that really tests how good your knowledge and skills are.
Regardless of anyones personal preference, permadeath always needs to be clearly stated or opted into. If ER just did that, had different rules with no warning, that would be a failure of a choice by the devs
@@djdedan yea but the ER example early in the vid would be a rule set change without warning. they would need to warn you "you only get 1 chance at this, and the penalty is the game being over, are you sure you want to try this fight"
@@herebedragon yea but if you die for 99% of the game with the penalty of drop your souls, then 1% with no warning out of nowhere had a penalty of "your save file is gone lol" that would be overly harsh without a warning to explain "hey,. rules just changed, you been warned"
Doom Eternal has this life system as a game mode that lets you find extra lives as a reward for exploration. It's also got a straight up permadeath mode too. Anyway, great eye opening video as usual.
ARPGs like Diablo have hardcore mode as a form of permadeath, and that's how I prefer to play them. Fortunately that genre tends to have very little down time, so you can start making progress right away after you die. I think Path of Exile has been a good case study for how people feel about permadeath. Hardcore leagues/servers always have the smaller playerbase, but since it's a live service game, as new content is added to the game, less and less people want to play hardcore. Well that along with the game being online and thus having the potential for network issues also discouraged people from playing hardcore. One of the coolest things about it, though, is when a high level player dies, there is an announcement of their death in the global chat, and everyone online will send their RIPs and Fs.
One thing you touch on in this video that really resonates with me is your example of how permadeath is the equivalent of being forced to re-read the first four chapters of a book multiple times before being able to read the fifth. I've often thought of difficult, arcade-style game design as akin to ergodic literature, which is usually defined as a literary work where the very act of reading it involves non-trivial effort. Examples would be things like House of Leaves, Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch, or Nabokov's Pale Fire. The intricate understanding and attention to detail required to make your way to the end credits of a challenging arcade game isn't too different from the multilayered effort in reading such texts, and often such texts draw extra attention to the artifice of their medium itself, much like how difficult, high-stakes games can clarify game design and highlight the artistry in the mechanics themselves. It makes for a nice change to the usual reductive way some people talk about the artistry in games, limiting it to audiovisual and narrative elements, and I suppose it would be similarly reductive to complain about Pale Fire not being a plot-driven page turner!
To be fair some books and even to a lesser extent movies kinda require multiple rereads and watches. Like the Bible for example, there is a lot of context that makes sense without progressive memorization but rather contextual reorienting. I think that's more analogous to proper metroidvania backtracking though... Unless you have wisdom from God to sequence break things.
You CAN'T truly understand the Bible without the Holy Spirit's help. That's the whole point. To put it in more secular-sounding terms, you need to be open minded, but even that's not true: the Spirit can convict you even if you're trying to read the Bible to dunk on "stupid Christians". Imagine it like a skill book that you can't benefit from until you get the assistance of a certain NPC who also happens to be the main good guy of the setting. Siding with His enemy gets you the bad ending, but you can if you want.
One of the recent games with permadeath mode is Doom Eternal. Before watching your video I was thinking it was just a gimmick for sick speedrunners or people with no life willing to spend 2000 hours into the same game because it's the game of their life or something. After your video I actually think it can be really fun... As you said, a completely new gameplay experience. Sadly most of us we have been casuallyfied by the industry. I'm thinking on it thanks to your video and actually a lot of things make sense... Like I cannot bear campaigns anymore these days, even though I was a die-hard Half-Life, Starcraft and Medal of Honor fan and I played the campaigns multiple times. At some point they just became unbearable to me and I just skipped them for the PvP. Souls games changed that, and they're basically the only SP games I can complete these days (other than retro and arcade emulation games, of course).
The average, casual player is not looking to play with any kind of mastery of a games systems / mechanics / design whatsoever. . . at least not intentionally. Save states in particular, to them and if available, are nothing more than a means to an end to effectively skip the section they've just recently failed at. Playing on NSO, misplaced a jump in Donkey Kong Country and fell into a bottomless pit? Save state / rewind, correctly jump over the pit and continue moving forward without looking back. These kind of players (the loud majority) are not interested in being better, and more importantly they are not truly self-seeking any sense of reward through overcoming difficulty - they simply want what they consider to be the sensation of difficulty, but never actually. On the larger topic of perma-death though, it definitely has its place depending what the game is offering / trying to offer. Steel Soul mode in Hollow Knight is an unlockable perma-death run that forces you to tighten up your gameplay and understanding how soon you're able to do things in the game if (if you're going for a low % clear; 112% clears on Steel Soul are obviously even more daunting). Usually if I go back to play the classic RE games (i.e. the real RE games) and want a little more zest in the experience, I'll self-impose perma-death + no ink ribbons since the runs are relatively short once you're familiar with what to do and where to go, and it really increases the stakes and tension in the experience by doing so. Having said that, I don't think perma-death is a necessity for every kind of game, but I definitely believe games need to make better efforts in deciding what death and game over's actually entail; I think it would help to view these things as extended systems / mechanics of whatever your game is with the idea that everything should have some kind of purpose in being the way that it is beyond what it tends to be, which is "convenient."
I actually started to dislike it in traditional roguelikes because it's hard to tell sometimes whether a playthrough was actually beatable or not due to the wild RNG in those kinds of games. However, I'm not completely opposed to it as a mechanic.
Yeah when it comes to rng devs need to be a lot more measured on exactly how much to add, otherwise things get insane ha. The right amount though makes games amazing, like battle garegga
The binding of Issac is terrible in this aspect, people who like randomness love the RnG, but if you like rogues based on skill (like Dead Cells where skill matters more) you will abhorre it.
@@franciscor390 Heavy RNG reliance is a fundamental part of Rogue's design, to the point where "skill-based roguelikes" honestly aren't even roguelikes, they're just permadeath games with randomly seeded procgenned maps.
Why does it matter if you died to RNG? As long as the game gave you a serious level of decisions, then you still got enjoyment out of it. Sure, you might die sometimes in Slay the Spire because you lost some 50-50s, or didn't find enough damage cards, but you got to make decisions to try to maximize your win rate, which is the entire gameplay, and it takes 5 seconds to start a new run.
This video is the reason why Mega Man 9 is the greatest piece of video game ever conceived in my opinion. I played that game for 200 hours this year to get my Mr. Perfect in-game challenge (i finished the whole game without taking a hit) and it was the most satisfying thing i ever did in a game (i am 28 years old and play video games since i was 4). I did upload my Mega Man No Damage Run here in my youtube user if anyone is interested in that game. Would also like to know what are Mark’s thoughts on Mega Man 9 (since it is very much above in quality than any other mega man game)
This is really what the game needs, esp in Elden Ring where you can use summons and other cheese techniques, scoring system would be a motivation to go more in-depth with the game for real!
You mean ranking in the sense of dynamic dificulty or in like DMC? Cause demon souls actually has dynamic dificulty in the name of world tendency, but it's inverted for some reason (die more = game harder)
@@yeti1221 It’s open ended enough to add challenge as you like like - I have a “Simon Belmont” build (whip, holy bomb, knives only, barbarian armor, gaiters), but an intrinsic reward system would be dope! Souls has a lot of community challenges but a smart dev would build them in and build on them.
The souls lives idea is pretty cool. Biggest problem for me is that a lot of games are just way too long for that. Would like to see games try that idea tho.
I think there’s so much value in the purpose of both progression and performance based games and I indulge in both (as both a fan of jrpgs and shmups). The problem is only one of these is celebrated way more heavily these days and we all know which. 😢
I wonder if you would like the blobbers/dungeon crawlers a la Wizardy with foundational JRPG mechanics but also permadeath. I’m starting to get into them and they’re very cool!
@@junpei6180 Maybe? The “dungeon” in DD is pretty limited in terms of exploring and charting out. In my limited experience DRPGs and blobbers are much more labyrinthine and DD’s roguelite loop is pretty low stakes. There’s probably a lot of crossover though I just don’t know the genre super well.
If true death were made the default way to play the game, a lot of mainstream "game journalists" would start reviewing games partially - just the chapters they were able to beat
do people still listen to them? I gave up on reviewers way back in God Hand gets a 3/10 days - hell probably beofre that when Zombie's Revenge got a low score on Next Gen... I found their opinions to be irrelevant in general. There were a handful i do remember paying attention to, like at gamefan but once they folded it become a wasteland.
@@djdedan I certainly don't consider "gaming journalism" to be a credible source of info, never did. They seem to be an external marketing team for big publishers, rather than credible gaming experts. If I had to guess - they must depend on game sales, so they promote "mass market games" to help them sell well and bash niche games, which won't sell big anyway due to a lack of a massive audience
I think it's possible, but it requires games to be shorter to some degree, or be like a classic CRPG where you continually recruit new party members as you play. If games are 80-100 hours long, it just doesn't make sense, like Souls games are far too massive to do it, the games are too big and long. From Soft DID do that "permadeath" with Human plus in the first armored core (though calling it permadeath is a bit incorrect, because it's just an easy mode reset to make you feel like a baby for losing lmao).
Imo any game that has perma death need to have robust practice mode, not having practice mode is the reason I never bother to try no death any modern game cause practicing for them is just too inefficient.
I agree, and practice modes often feel better than using save states. Save states can feel inelegant because of the constantly skipping music, having to create them at just the right time etc.
Similarly I want more timers in games. Even big bloated ones like Tears of the Kingdom. "Ganon is regaining his strength below Hyrule. Destroy him before he attains his full power or the world is doomed. *You have 30 hours*." A mode like that would really recontextualize every bit of boring, non committal aimlessness I found in that and the previous game. Or anything similar really.
There was a mod for Skyrim that I enjoyed that put you on the clock to defeat Alduin. In a similar vein to your idea of a death timer for Zelda in BotW and TotK where if she dies, Ganon wins. You could track it by number of blood moons too, adding an extra layer of tension for the player in properly managing them to extend the timer by forcing the game to resort to panic moons.
@@KopperNeoman Glad someone understands where I'm coming from. A timer would focus SO much and make everything that sucks actually kinda good. One issue in open world games, especially nuZelda, is that you can just sort of decide when you want to deal with enemies. Got a time limit? Not anymore. If you leave a fight, you better have a good reason and know what you're doing because you're just wasting time. Stupid weapon degradation system? Well now it has meaning because they're *actually* resources now and you can't spend time farming. And modding it out (like I do) would kill much of the tension from the timer. It would also massively nerf Link's hoarding which impacts stats and healing.
I've noticed that people generally hate timers in games for some reason Pathfinder Kingmaker has a cool system where you are presented with a problem in each chapter (i.e. your kingdom is being invaded by fire-immune trolls) and if you ignore it your kingdom's stats will start to go down, leading to eventual game over. The game was heavily criticized for it's timer usage and I still don't understand why
@@justtmw I remember bringing this idea up in a group and someone said "no, that would be awful. I don't want to have to be autistic and play with stupid speedrun strats just to clear a big ass game" as if Majora's Mask and Fallout 1 aren't a thing. I don't think a timer should be something wild like 30 minutes, but a timer at *all* in a game balanced around it would just enhance decision making.
@@daserfomalhaut9809 the timer in kingmaker was very generous as well, you could do absolutely everything and would still have a lot of downtime by the end of the game where you just skip days to let the next chapter start. So there wasn't even that much pressure around it. But yeah, I agree that a lot of games would've benefited from the timer, it also fixes the common problem in many RPGs, where the main plot suggests that we are in a hurry and the world is about to collapse, but there is no actual pressure in game, and you are picking flowers or whatever with no consequences
I recently ran into this conflict when I tried to play STALKER. Ideally, the gameplay of STALKER is supposed to have you go on incredibly dangerous and risky expeditions where you need to pack appropriately beforehand, carefully use detection tools to navigate the trap-filled landscape, and so on. However, because the game has quicksaves available at any time and constant autosaves, it didn't take long for me to realize that I could forgo being careful and instead just throw bodies at the problem: why bother throwing a bolt to see if there's a trap ahead if I can just save, walk forward, and immediately reload if I die upon triggering a trap? I suppose you could argue that I should self-impose a permadeath structure myself, but I'd like it if the save system fit the themes they were going for more closely. As a comparison, I very much enjoyed my time going through games like Satellite Reign, Metro Exodus on Ranger Hardcore and Baldur's Gate 3 on Honor Mode which had much more punitive save systems that did not allow manual saves, only very limited checkpoints (if any), meaning that I needed to roll with the punches and use everything to survive instead of just moving through without any tension because in the back of my mind, I know I can reload whenever faced with an issue.
Stalker is a bit too janky for permadeath to work (not dissing it, its a favorite series of mine, xray is just a very flawed and aged engine) Permadeath modes do exist in mods, but you are entirely at the mercy of the games strange quirks and limitations. As such, i dont consider stalker to be this ultra hardcore milsim GAMMA and Anomaly mods _(try to)_ make it out to be, the original games are just generally survival themed shooters and much of the time theyre paced as such.
I am mixed, but while I do think some games could benefit from a lives system; Perma death is an art that needs to be carefully balanced in order to have an appeal to more gamers. For instance, losing 10 hours or more in a game because of some forced failure state or perma death would just be punishing. That's why in say a souls game it should be optional rather than mandated. But done in a way that rewards those players, rather than it being a self imposed restriction.
I think this would have worked really well in Demon's Souls, which was supposed to have permadeath if you die in Soul Form. There could've been a starting item that you equip that causes this effect, instead of the developers chickening out and removing the mechanic entirely. Permadeath would've forced the players to engage with World Tendency, that can only be changed in Human Form. If both White and Black World Tendency made the game more difficult, it would work as an adaptive difficulty system similar to Rank in shmups. Skilled players could be rewarded with a hidden final sixth world with a True Final Boss at the end of it, if they managed to get the other five worlds to Pure White World Tendency.
i have been playing classic Tomb raider games (1-2-3) with Permadeath for years. there's nothing more entertaining than that, i have been playing games for 27 years and this feeling is UNMATCHED! Permadeath is truly something special.
I'm glad there's a lot of video after the initial Elden Ring example, because I think there's a couple fundamental issues with it. If, like you make it sound, only the final boss has this (appearently not communicated) perma death, it's sprung on the player out of nowhere, which, yes, will make people angry, because that save file probably was a couple dozen hours of play time where this rule did not exist. The ground rule for arcade games which you focus on after, is that every player goes in with the understanding, okay, death means gameover or another quarter. Elden Ring with that theoretical perma death at the end does not prepare you for that. It actually expects you to engage in trial and error, getting better and even teaches you to go elsewhere if you can't progress. It does not ever expect perfect performance from you, like an arcade game would. At the end of the video, I kinda understand what you're getting at. However, I don't think just slapping it on one of the modern games we have is the way. 60+ hours of Elden Ring just doesn't work with permadeath if the variable movesets of bosses can catch you offguard with new moves they never used because you never happened to stand in that exact way before. I mean it does work with the hours and hours of practice challenge runners have, but that only works because those checkpoints were there to let them practice bosses. I know you bring up savestates and even rewind, heck, you even talk about why "casual players" don't like these, but Souls and Elden Ring are sprawling adventures, encouraging you to push through hardship any way you can. If you beat a boss by the skin of your teeth because you never gave up, that's another page in your adventure. Some cool arc. Something you feel hype about and maybe even talk to your friends to if you played the game at the same time. Savestates and rewind completely destroys these opportunities for storytelling. And no, this does not mean these people only play the game once. What it does mean is that the first playthrough is special to them. There is a reason why the first playthrough of a Fromsoft game is considered so precious by many. The mastery comes afterwards, if they so choose. I can beat the first half of DS1 in 4 hours now. I'm proud of that even if it's not a big achievement compared to other people. But I also had a precious first playthrough in which I failed, learned and scraped by and "wrote" an adventure with ups and downs. My point with all of this is that the initial argument kinda poisoned the video for me. I get your point, I even agree with it, but the idea of slapping it onto a game not designed for that approach made it very hard to disconnect the rest of the video from that concept. Modern gamers ARE okay with permadeath, when it's properly integrated in a game. The rise of roguelike genre in recent years is proof of that. But length, consistency of rules and general developer intent must align with the inclusion of permadeath. There's a reason no roguelike run takes 60 hours.
It can work if said final boss is a lot weaker than other bosses. If that unpredictable attack only cuts off a tiny chunk of your life bar, or if the boss itself folds as fast as a PvP opponent, making you equally durable...
@@KopperNeoman That is true. I didn't want to make my comment even longer, but of course the difficulty of the encounter also ties into the severity of the punishment. But something that can one or twoshot you AND is an endurance test (takes a while) shouldn't result in a file wipe. The issue of "the rest of the game didn't wipe my save" still persists, but that's a separate issue. I could see that working though, if perma death was tied to something that doesn't immediately come up. It was touched on in the video, but if, say, complete hollowing resulted in a permanent death but regular deaths didn't, that's a rule of the game you can work into a permadeath boss (they instantly hollow you with a specific move or something). Elden Ring actually has that concept baked into its lore iirc, with the concept of the rune of death and true death. Not an expert on Elden Lore, but that could probably work. It's at least something that can communicate the stakes.
They may say they want that, but actually having it play out like that is a different story. There were so many souls vet who complained about elden ring being a challenge, only to get ass hurt with an actual challenge in shadow of the erdtree. Electric underground may talk a good talk about having permadeath in from soft games, but actually having it in? I don't think he would be able to walk the walk especially if we're considering the dlc.
Exactly! I am so excited for this vid because I think I finally found the connecting thread between my love for arcade games, and the surprising kinship my channel and analysis has among strategy game players. I think the connecting point between them is permadeath and the deep gameplay dynamics it creates.
I think BG3 becomes a lot more boring on honor mode, since it’s using 5e’s rules you can easily die to random crits. Instead of starting out with a character you have to constantly rebuild a character any time you die. At least that’s my hypothesis. I can’t ever finish a run because I get so bored with gameplay and waiting for the opponent to take their turn. Maybe I’ll try honor mode.
@@TheElectricUnderground Strategy games and arcade games have some very clear thru-lines. Arcade games are the twitch version and strategy games are the thinking versions. But it's a similar concept of a pure "game" experience. You set up the board and the pieces and then you make the decisions. Win or lose the game, wipe the board and set it up again. I alternate between action-heavy games and strategy-heavy games depending on my mood. Romance of the Three Kingdoms X doesn't sound like a game arcade fans would enjoy, but it's the very definition of that "board game" strategy. Pick your ruler, pick your time period and go! You have only one mission: Unify China by bodying everyone else! Win or lose, you'll finish your game and then the slate gets wiped.
Solution? Every game does this. Main Menu 1. Campaign Mode (Progression) 2. Dante Must Die (Permadeath with Armored Core-style Rewards) 3. Training Mode 4. Reviewer Mode (for IGN Staff only)
The biggest issue I can see rising in an RPG like the souls games is that with such a steep punishment people are likely to gravitate towards the cheesiest, meta, OP etc. strategies available. You can see this is no death no hit runs were everyone is running the same DPS maxxed builds and abusing certain game mechanics to exploit and manipulate boss AI.
That's not an issue, that's a positive! People will appreciate smart strategies and will start using them, and devs will in turn have to balance their games. Of course this has knockon effects because the bigger games are, the harder they are to balance. Which IMO is good cause it encourages elegant design where devs will have to choose which elements are actually important, instead of throwing everything in
I actually agree with this concern :-) I think because of the expansive design of the souls as they currently are, a no death style permadeath system (while awesome in some ways), wouldn't fit super well because of exactly these reasons, it's too punishing towards taking healthy risks. This is why at the end of the vid I suggest souls strongly consider using a life system (as in certain amount of allowed deaths like arcade games) and then tie in that life system with the games exploration systems. In fact, it could even add in some performance elements like if you no-hit the early bosses, you could gain extra lives that you could then use later on in the game. Man the possibilities of combining a life system into souls would be such a good fit I think, because then you need to pay attention to dyeing and being consistent overall, but you have more wiggle room in terms of playing risky or powering through some crazy rng sections. .
@@thefebo8987 To be fair, most shmup "cheeses" consist of finding a safespot that works for a few seconds, or more if you want to maximize score by milking a boss, and the rest of the time you're constantly executing and making decisions. Cheeses/metas can be okay as long as it doesn't trivialize an entire playthrough, especially if cheesing an encounter leads to interesting trade-offs.
Interesting video as always. I agree with the distinction you're making between performance and progression, but I do think that the surging popularity of roguelite/like games deserves to be a bigger part of the conversation here.
Psychologically i remember reading somewhere the satisfaction from overcoming a challenge is a lot more intense than just progressing... however once games became more mainstream the quick payoff become the norm, challenges slowly become optional and eventually faded out... Souls was a breath of fresh air as during the height of progression gaming a game with actual challenge appeared and probably more importantly marketed it's challenge, it was proud of it's challenge and a new genre was born...
Don't mind me, just dropping some engagement! This also reminds me of how some people playing ZeroRanger got salty about the Final Boss deleting their save file. At first I didn't understand the hubbub because that was typical SHMUP 1cc stuff, but then I remember how normal having saves before a boss so you could retry them was. Being forced to learn the game like that must have been a shock.
I think it would’ve been cool if you could only access that section if you actually got a full 1CC of the game, and then the score you get gets converted to a certain number of hit points for the final sequence.
Then the gaming company has to hire some contract killers, paid by your inheritance, since your consent for permadeath is in the terms of service before playing the game.
The original Dragonrot mechanic in Sekiro was a similar idea to a lives system in a soulslike. NPCs would slowly die off permanently if you died too many times, and you would need to find medicine in the world to save them. Every NPC could die, technically bricking your save. It was cut from the game for obvious reasons, but it was an interesting idea nonetheless that made it fairly far into development.
Not really "obvious". It would work as a harder mode, especially if the game catches when vital NPCs die and either changes the story progression or gives you Game Over. Like Star Control 2, if you take too long, eventually the galaxy starts getting wiped out, and you can pick plot-vital key items out of the ruins of destroyed species instead of doing the sidequests... but if that destruction gets to Earth, you lose. That's the in-game time limit.
Big missed opportunity in Dark Souls, having a lives system, because that would even work with the lore itself. Humanity should have been lives, and hollowing should have been the game over state. What a waste!
@@torrasque0151 Probably change how many you can find and the locations too. Though I think the really bad areas in the game would have to change, because lives would make it much more obvious that they're bad. Or I guess just enforcing more repetition of gameplay would make it much more obvious. Like Lost Izalith and Crystal Caves.
Mark, you are the man brother, dude! The only thing I have to say is, the developer makes a game ( to make money first) and to fulfill, hopefully a vision. Every game should have a permadeath option going forward,no hit , permadeath option, right out of the gate. For me, a father of two , full-time husband /bread winner for the family, when I play games these days,when time allows, it's retro, if I die, I start over until my personal time is over or fighters, either cpu or online . Side note. Most free time is for vf ps4/5 version because of you, I love it . Thank you
In the original Homeworld games (im not sure if Homeworld 3 does this) your fleet would carry over from mission to mission. Meaning that even though your progress was saved as you finished missions, every lost ship was a permanent loss of reasources that would impact future missions. The final stretch of homeworld 1 could be particularly brutal because the last few missions gave you no opportunities to mine reasources, and the very last mission would begin with the enemy ai dropping an endgame fleet that could delete your hq in seconds directly on top of your fleet. Homeworld cataclysm was also pretty brutal. Edit: another interesting point; you mention world of warcraft as game thats way on the progression side of the divide, which id agree with, but theres actually a stark divide in wow between "retail" wow and classic wow. And 1 of the more popular ways to play classic wow is hardcore (ie permadeath) mode. Permadeath, or at least extreme penalties tied to character death was actually the norm for mmos before wow.
The title of this video reminded me of the film Free Solo. Where this professional climber climbs up this enormous vertical rock formation (El Capitan) without any safety equipment. Putting himself into a situation where his entire biological organism is trying not to die basically induces this ultimate flow state, where as long as he can stay mentally strong and not panic, he can perform at an almost superhuman level. Free climbers describe this state as being "glued on" to the rock.
Great analysis, thank you for making me realise i'm a 100% uncut performance gamer and that it's ok :) I think Diablo hardcore mode does a fantastic job of balancing difficulty for perma "true" death. I don't know how people can play softcore, even on a first playthrough I find it boring as hell...
Permadeath's tension comes from attacking something all players care about: their time spent on the game. It can be fun in short doses with tightly crafted games, and the knife-edge tension is unlike anything else. However, the problem is that any kind of fluff bites into the player like a dagger - everyone instinctively notices it, and if you've played any kind of metroidvania with mushy design then you've definitely felt it. Remember journos complaining about "backtracking" in Metroid Prime? I think the prevalence of scoring systems and performance-based encounters in recent years is a natural response to this: you can stumble your way through if you just care about progression, but there's a clear thing to try achieving if you enjoy performance.
I favor the way Demon's Souls did in in Boletarian Palace 1-1: You really had to work your way through the level and received a very well placed short cut as a reward. It was tough and incredibly motivating.
I think permadeath is interesting, but it certainly doesn't fit every game, or most games. Arcade like action games like Metal Gear Revengeance could be fun like this, but for something like Cuphead not so much. Even Castlevania gave you unlimited continues on the NES. It's not super fun to replay sections that you can breeze through over and over just to get to the part I need to learn the patterns, at that point it just feels like the game doesn't respect my time.
I agree that having unlimited continues are good for practicing games properly. I have 250 hours in Cuphead and have S-Ranked every boss, and I have beaten Castlevania 3 a few times. Having a permadeath/1CC mode could be really exciting for both of those games for me, and people do beat Cuphead regularly while trying to not die a single time. It's not impossible at all if you've practiced the game for a while. This is what Mark meant when he was talking about rehearsing and practicing, and then the actual "performance" in the form of a permadeath run.
@@atmatey yes I certainly agree that a Cuphead permadeath run is possible and fun, but it shouldn't be the main mode. As like a new game+ I could see it, but not as a first time experience as it just takes time and practice to master each boss. I could've been more clear on that front.
@@TheNameIsSR Yeah, it could be a separate mode, but I don't like it when games hide these modes behind NG+. They should be available from the start for experienced players who want that.
@@atmatey I think Diablo 2 handles separation of modes best with a "Hardcore" checkbox at character creation. The title sets the expectation and communicates effectively to people who prefer a more hardcore experience and is available from the first time you install the game.
Dark Souls 2 actually has a ring that you can only get by beating the game without dying. There is also one for not using the bonfires. IIRC their effect was to make your left/right hand weapon invisible, making them quite an impactful flex in pvp!
Yet another victory for Dark Souls 2 being the best of the series. It gives explicitly rewards you for doing an no-death run in game making it the only game in the series that incentivizes pure performance play.
@@atmatey It gives you a ring that makes your left-hand weapon invisible when worn. There's another ring for beating the game without resting at any bonfires which does the same thing but for the right-hand weapon.
@@CottonModem Ok, but how is that a meaningful reward? I think skilled players should be rewarded with more story, content and challenge for doing something really difficult.
@@atmatey I don't know if it's meaningful, but it at least shows the developers recognise the legitimacy of challenge runs. I'm not a huge fan of Dark Souls 2 myself, so I'll defer to the original commenter for further comment.
While it isn’t for me, I’d support the option of a permadeath mode. A game with only permadeath though? Nah. Would also not be feasible economically because the vast majority of players will always want to relax and enjoy their entertainment and one big reason for the majority is limited free time.
That's why you design it with a budget to match. Nethack wouldn't be Nethack if you could load checkpoints, and that game's old enough that it has a Mail Daemon. As in, an actual character who - with trickery - you can Genocide and it will stop telling you about your e-mails in that run because it's dead.
Permadeath is quite economically feasible, doom 2016 and doom eternal had a permadeath mode and those gained a lot of traction and appreciation from the playerbase from those who could put up to the challenge.
@@zander2758 Dude, you really gotta read comments through before you post. I clearly said that a game with ONLY permadeath wouldn’t be feasible. And before that I said that I’d support the option for a permadeath mode.
@@Lock2002ful i know, i just used an example, other examples would be like how darkest dungeon and other roguelikes are also permadeath and you also don't have a option to turn it off, those games have the advantage of not taking long to beat so death doesn't feel like much of a waste of time for most people.
@@zander2758 Rogue lite or logue like is not the same as permadeath though. You cannot even compare Darkest Dungeon to that. You almost never find a game where everything will be completely reset after you died once without any form of progression system. And those few titles that do exist aren’t economically viable, certainly not for anything more than a small byte sized indie experience. And those niche titles that you can count on one hand are not the kind of game that is being talked about here. The guy in die video is talking about games like Elden Ring. But it isn’t even an issue. Just give the option of a permadeath mode and voilá, everyone is happy. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. And for games that cost millions to make, it can’t be.
This is why I really like hardcore mode in Armored Core Verdict Day, its a mix of permdeath and lives, so you get 10 or less lives, depends on which merc you pick to be, so even if you die on the last boss , if it was your last life, you still lose everything, all your data gone, and you have to start again. I wondered why FS didn't bring it back for AC6 but now I see, it was because they would scare off the progression players and the lion share of their sales. Given most AC6 players struggled with the first boss, to the point where FS nerfed him with a patch, I'm no longer surprised this mode never made it, along with many other things. Damn limewire, now you're taking me back in time with that lol, great video as always.
Permutation can shine when death has permanence, like in Gunbird's varying stage order. The performance distinction is a really good throughline between video games and music. Even reading doesn't benefit from a progression mindset since rereading is where comprehension really begins.
I never really played many arcade games (the only one I've 1CC'd is Bishi Bashi, lol), so my main interaction with permadeath was playing NES games and, later, N64 games with a third-party Controller Pak that didn't work, meaning I couldn't save in the games that relied on it. It was a different kind of fun to see how far I could get in games that were clearly designed with saving in mind, like Hybrid Heaven and Quest 64. (Also, recognised a few tracks from the Catherine soundtrack. Nice.)
You continue to outdo yourself! This script and the visuals is so good you'd think you'd always been a full time RU-vidr! I love using your videos as a resource for communicating game design. Lives, score, timers, permadeath, etc. You have such a lucid grasp on a wealth of design elements that have been discarded and misunderstood in the mainstream. People accuse arcade/classical/performance design of being outmoded, backward, and even amateurish (WHAT). But your videos provide clear and energetic breakdowns of all of these things. Bless your unapologetic defense of brilliant ideas.
I'm late to the party but once I discovered permadeath mode in "Last of Us 2" it's the only way I can play it. Every battle is truly nerve-racking and the sense of immersion is near-total. You really treat every individual enemy with respect. Also it makes me slow down and purposefully walk through peaceful areas, noticing details and getting a sense of the "personality" of each different environment, mostly to let my nerves rest. It's just so much more like life than just a fun diversion from it. I play it far less too, often when I die I'll turn off game for a day or two, which keeps it feeling fresh and prolongs the narrative relationship.
Never thought about calling "limited lives" or actual game overs as "permadeath"... I only use that phrase for games with multiple characters that can die during a mission and don't get revived lol. Also I highly doubt many of the Wanted: Dead "reviewers" actually finished the game.
Dude, I cherish your channel. I do not care about shmups whatsoever but your perspective and opinions on gameplay speak to my soul. Two of my most intense memories in gaming are getting a character to level 90+ playing hardcore in Path of Exile and mastering Spelunky to the point where I could almost run the entire game without even thinking. That feeling of getting in the zone and being reduced to pure reflexes while knowing everything is on the line is electrifying. I could probably talk about those emotions for a whole evening but luckily I don't have to because you're doing that better than I ever could. I will add some of your shmup recommendations to my todo list. Keep going strong
This is a very interesting video. I think I can understand your point of views much better now, despite being a little more critical in the past (specially your Stellar Blade review). Yeah, I totally agree. Instead of games that require rehearsal and learning, and can be replayed multiple times for fun and skill checks, we now have much longer games that you play once and never touch it again. This is hurting game design and making games take much longer to produce. Hope more people will find this video!
Maximo on PS2 has an interesting middle ground where saves are heavily limited as in a survival horror game, so resource management like whether you finish a level with full armor or not reverberates throughout your whole run. It encourages you to perfect your runs of individual levels even in a casual playthrough. It's one of those rare cases where a Japanese game having Western team leads actually resulted in more arcade-inspired design (I suspect Dave Siller's involvement in the original Crash Bandicoot was part of why it was less forgiving with its saves too, though I think Maximo's system is better).
I think casual players intuit this kind of thing for games they truly love and find themselves wanting to replay. And I don't think it's a coincidence this happens more often with older games than new. I think for modern games there's been a kind of deal with the devil where players lower their expectations in return for convenience (fast food?), so people say games are masterpieces that they would never imagine replaying because all the onboarding etc. of modern games is so tedious the second go around.
Interestingly enough you didn't mention Doom Eternal, that games pushed things in the right direction hard, featuring both permadeath with or without a life system :) I like to do it on all sorts of games however, it's usually my final verdict on if a game is truly good or not!
I wish you had talked about roguelikes. Permadeath is a key feature of the entire genre. Think of Spelunky or Downwell : short but intense games, built-in timers, built-in "challenge runs" (Hell for Spelunky, Tomato for Downwell)...
That's a problem with the game design, either for allowing the cheese, or if the "cheese" is just using the best build, for making the other builds suck.
I now understand something about myself that I could not articulate before: I exist between the performance- and progression-based player archetypes. Thank you for this wonderfully insightful video that helped me understand myself a little better.
About the Devil May Cry part... I actually really like what they do with unlocking the higher difficulties after you beat the game because it serves an actual in-game purpose that isn't just padding. I guarantee almost no one will have mastered the combat by the end of a first run. And a second run has its own unlockables (at least in DMCV) to play around with as a reward, and you get to experience these things in a new context. Taking what you've learned and adding to it and refining it. It makes for two unique experiences that you just can't have without the progression laid out the way it is. Not sure exactly how a permadeath style would benefit this type of game, honestly. I feel like I'm personally at a middle ground here. Not a fan of permadeath because even a 3 hour game is too long, but I love trying to optimize (for speedruns) small sections of a game. Individual levels. Although... One of my favorite games, Spark The Electric Jester 3, ends up using a lives system in the final area based on your performance throughout the game. The more optional content you engage with, the more lives you have for the final gauntlet.
As always Mark i agree with all of it. Unfortunately i am not optimistic about design changing for the reasons of "content". At best perma death would be a game mode which is to say an after thought so the game won't be designed around the concept (therefore may as well not be included). I see my girlfriend as the typical modern game audience. She likes ghosts of tsushima, assasine creed, tomb raider..these kind of games and she likes them on the easiest difficulty. She will put lots of hours in and collect all of the nonsense but with as little friction as possible and shes happy. She has no desire to go back through on a higher difficulty having learnt the game. They are a purely disposable experience. Increasingly games are designed to be one and done and i feel they are no different than mobile games now except in their budget and presentation. They function as the same sort of mindless distraction before moving onto the next big mac.
As someone who likes watching speedruns to learn builds, srats, cheese, I consider myself more performance based but I still value progression (new skills, powers etc). Permadeath might be kinda hard to do in RPGs that loot is RNG and the like since no two runs will be the same, but I'd appreciate it in more skill based games. In terms of the difficulty, the problem is some devs make the "Hard" mode balanced around being in NG+ or it being a 100% playthrough, sure some madlads can do it with the right strategies and/or a lot of patience but that's rare. I feel ya on DMC5, been wanting to get back into it and do the higher difficulties but I have to play lower one first to unlock em (I finally got gaming PC so got it on Steam). I miss when games were 15- hrs, not every game needs to be the length of an RPG (P5R is like 80 hrs thou, gee I wonder why I haven't replayed it...)
Was surprised honestly that you brushed over Diablo 2 and the arpg genre. Diablo 1 was originally made with the idea of permadeath being the default way to play but Blizzard put an end to that. It is based on the traditional roguelikes and was originally meant to be a turn based game. Its length is also very natural to play through it in one sitting. On top of this virtually any good arpg comes with a hardcore(permadeath) option and there is a sub culture of players who play exclusively hardcore. Path of Exile regularly runs events where people race with additional punishing modifiers with hardcore mode mandatory. Another thought about the analogy to reading in progression based games. Great literature strikes me that you actually are just exploring the book on the first read and great books are best read multiple times teasing more and more nuance out of each read. Much like a game with a lot of depth and nuance.
Yeah there is a place for both, Like maybe this is just a me thing but the way he talks about people just going through games like stories is just kinda odd to me, like, does he assume that we're not gonna play the game again sometime down the line? Using Shovel Knight for example since I've noticed he seems to use footage of Shovel Knight whenever he's talking about more "casual" things. Like yeah it's segmented into checkpoints, but to me those checkpoints help me get better at the overall game because they're teaching me something about how the game works or showcasing/expanding a mechanic. Plague Knights level was very erratic and explosive so it taught me to be quicker with my timing and put more emphasis on the breakable blocks, stuff I can apply to future playthroughs. The game also has plenty of challenges for more skilled players like no-damaging stages and such. Like just because I don't get sent back to the beginning every time I die doesn't mean I'm not learning anything, If you want to you can also break the checkpoints in each level for gold. The way he talks about people "completing the game once and saying it's done" is odd to me too, like that's just how most people play games, it just feels like a taste/opinion thing that's being framed as a more objective thing, just because I play a game once and then don't replay it or go through the challenges doesn't mean it's bad or anything, I got what I wanted from it and I'll most likely return to it at a future date and go for the achievements if I like it enough. Some games are also very longform and it takes alot to replay them again, doesn't mean they're not engaging, CrossCode is a long game and it's one of my favorite indies of all time. I learn the more I play the game and on future playthroughs I can see how much I've improved or what I've learnt and apply that, it doesn't matter if it's permadeath or not, especially since each level in Shovel Knight is pretty well designed from what I remember. I get that he likes to put alot of value onto difficulty as he is a more arcade focused player, and that's fine, as another subject he's touched on before, difficulty can be an artistic choice. But it's not everything when it comes to games. A game can still be well designed and interesting while still being easy/medium difficulty. Like Shovel Knight or Kirby or Terraria. Is this just a me thing? am I just being stupid or missing the point? I can totally see all of this text as me just missing the point of the video so if anything needs correction then just say. Like yeah permadeath does force you to experiment at times and try new things, but I can also experiment with new things on a repeat playthrough all the same. I do see the worth behind the idea and the video don't get me wrong, but again I just feel like this is more bias towards a more arcade/hardcore style of gamers, which is fine, every channel on the internet has a bias of some sort, but as someone who's probably on the other end of his bias it just feels weird to me. Thanks for reading
I really like all the old CRT/VHS effects and transitions. It really gives the video a vibe and they all fit in cohesively with your retro style. I want to develop a clear style like that for my videos eventually
i would just say right off the bat that i like permadeath but Elden Ring is way too frustrating (usually not in a reasonable/challenge based way) and messily and arguably shoddily designed for it to work there in my opinion. the souls games it would work best in are the early (and by far the best, imo) ones, like Demon Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the three true Miyazaki masterpieces of the series although i do understand for the purpose of the video you presented Elden Ring because it was a recent difficult release EDIT: made this comment before watching the full video so i didn't see you pretty much agree ahaha
Demon’s Souls would’ve worked really well with the permadeath in Soul Form idea. This would have made the World Tendency system much more meaningful, and have Stones of Ephemeral Eyes effectively function as extra lives.
Elden Ring Perma-Death could work even with its open world. The problem is a lot of attack patters are counter intuitive and incoherent at 1st encounter.
Speaking as a Progression player in some respects (I play choice games as a Performance player), there is *some* merit to higher-level "book-reading" styles of play, which I'm sure you may have considered in your analysis. The big one? Lore dives and thematic analysis. This is akin to literary criticism (not quite the level of a "musician's performance" for the Performance player, but close enough I feel), in the sense that a book's "initial playthrough" is added upon by detailed, repeat "readings" that uncover and divulge themes, inspirations, intertextuality, and ultimately, the meaning of a text. This isn't done by just reading Dostoevsky or Tolkien once. And it isn't done by just playing Dark Souls or Pathologic or Hyper Light Drifter once. VaatiVidya is the big one for Souls games, and I feel that, in your quest to retrieve the soul of the Souls player, you may have missed the big draw many have to those games. The seemingly inaccessible, ethereal lore that is not simply regurgitated and handed to the player explicitly. I think this mode of play transforms the Progression player from being just a "pulp fiction reader" into an analyst, in the same way that high-performance players who do well (play their instrument well) vindicate those who are, in essence, tryhards (those who play their instrument poorly). Great video. I don't disagree with you, necessarily. Just trying to offer a perspective you may not have considered. I think ludo-driven players and narrative-driven players can come together and agree to have their own distinct spheres. It's when action games (or, for that matter, turn-based games) become action-RPG hybrids en masse, to the exclusion of the purer genres, that we ought to both speak up and loudly condemn those trends in the unfortunate modern gaming situation.
Permadeath and adaptive difficulty (Rank) would work so well in many modern skill-based games, yet it's so rarely done well (if at all) nowadays. Demon's Souls would've worked really well with permadeath when dying in Soul Form. The Stones of Ephemeral Eyes that change you back to Human Form would work as extra lives exactly as you said in the video. The players would be forced to engage with the World Tendency system, since it can only be changed in Human Form. If both White and Black World Tendency made the game more difficult, it would work very similar to Rank in shmups. Currently the game basically encourages you to kill yourself whenever you're in Human Form in the Nexus to avoid dealing with World Tendency, which is pretty lame. It would be very cool if the game had a final hidden sixth world and a True Last Boss that you could only access if you got all the other five worlds to Pure White or Pure Black WT. This would force skilled players to keep World Tendency in mind at all times. I would also take out most of the RPG elements and massive amounts of weapons and armor you find in the levels, most of which you will never use. This would also allow the level design to be tightened up a lot to be more interesting with the level geometry, enemy placements and resource management.
I don’t think your description of how progression players treat the safety valve system of progression games is quite correct. Could you imagine if you were playing a shmup that took 30 hours to get through and each level was five hours long? How do you feel if you had to try to play that shmup? You would hate it. You would absolutely destroy it in your review. Think of the safety valve system as a checkpoint
Interestingly, dark souls' difficulty might be cheapened by the idea of the 'suicide run' where you gather resources in high-level areas to make the rest of the game easier, with no consequence... it actually applies more to the souls series than most other games I can think of (that would be considered more 'casual'), since most games don't allow you to keep the items you just picked up if you die and get forced back to a checkpoint. At least in those, you need some sort of exit strategy
I really like the playing an instrument analogy with skill based gaming and prefer games that give you an opportunity for mastery over the grind to level up or playable movie type games.
I love certain roguelikes (ones that don't rely too much on meta-progression) because they feel more like testing my ability to get good at generally playing the gameplay loop well, instead of specifically memorizing the script of each level. Some of my favorite games are Spelunky and Nuclear Throne because they test your ability to learn all the challenges in the game but quickly think of dynamic solutions to them on every run. Would love to see you do a review or video on one of those games :)
I still keep up with the lost battle of calling games with meta progression roguelites rather than roguelikes. I also think too many of them are leaning too heavily on the meta progression and to make matters worse they don't even justify it story wise so it's blatant padding rather than being an integrated element of the game.
@@G-Self The knife was designed to suck because it was your emergency option - basically pressuring you into starting the game over and sucking less this time. RE4 had a different design philosophy and made it viable, especially in combination with the new context-sensitive martial arts moves. Deadly Silence's Rebirth Mode also had a more powerful knife that didn't take a slot and a first-person slasher mode to brawl with the BOWs.
Thanks for the video, this was awesome and will influence how I think about games in the future. Completely irrelevant (I think) but I was thinking of old point and click adventure games like King's Quest 5 having permadeath where you can get into unwinnable situations. In that game, a cat crosses the screen and its vital to give it food, but if you dont it never comes back and forces you to replay the entire game. Saving was a thing in these games but you often dont even know that you missed something, so you saved an already lost state of the game. Giving the cat food isn't a challenge, you wouldnt need a checkpoint, it's more about the fact of figuring out that this cat isn't just set dressing, but a permadeath state. I wonder if the intent may have been similar? They wanted these adventure games to force players to replay the game until they find out what they missed? I know I personally enjoyed those games, and once they removed permadeath the games became quite different. A pre-LucasArts adventure game could be a year-long exploration with tons of replays required to figure out the permadeath states, whereas a post-LucasArts adventure is checkpointed; just pixelhunt for a puzzle until you find the key to the next puzzle.
