"Soft" Permadeath

[Caldeon]

I would like to have a Permadeath or Hardcore-like option. Getting killed leads to deletion of the player.ttp and player.map, so you respawn on the map randomly like a new player would spawn w/o any mapinfo. The complete backpack remains in the world, so you can find it again (if it is not destroyed by zombies) but w/o any marker on your compass or map. Even your base would be unchanged, except for the doors which are then set to locked. So after Death the world remains like before, but your map is empty and you have to break into your old base (if you find it), as if you are another player. Oh and learned skills and recipes are wiped also. This would add a reason to avoid abusing death like now (you can actually just get rid of infection or broken legs by dying, or just exploit bloodpack farming) and give a good reason to stay alive instead, but as an option, so the casuals are not harmed :)

[Ben2150]

Sounds interesting, perhaps have Default, Hardcore, Ultra Hardcore? With HC being your suggestion, and UHC being temp-ban (server) and deletion of the map once everyone is dead.

[lazerblade01]

If you're true to your play style, why would this be needed? If you die, then start over. It's not difficult to do. In SP, it's as easy as deleting your save game, but if you want to keep your base, then simply have it delete all on death. You can easily mod that in. If you only play MP, then simply don't retrieve your backpack and drop all on death. It's not that hard to get some water and a bandage, and food can still be looted. What you're asking for sounds like a role-playing option. So play it that way. I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, and I'm certainly not trying to call anyone out, but it seems to me that a lot of these "hardcore" modes being requested are for players who "think" they're hardcore, but want the option to actually PLAY hardcore be forced instead of opting to do so, because perhaps they feel that if the option to go retrieve their backpack and run into their safe base is too alluring? If you don't want it to be easy, don't take the easy route, simple as that.

[Ben2150]

I don't see this request as a question of hardcore or not. I see it as something easier than manually deleting the game or removing the icons. I am not a hardcore player, but I would like it if they had these options available to them. Even Minecraft has a hardcore mode, and it is considered a game for kids.

[grades]

I enjoy this idea since there is no penalty for death. Lazy people suicide just because they are hungry / thirsty or have a sprained ankle. +1 to some sort of death penalty.

[Guppycur]

I've said this before, but also remove access to their claim block. Dying means you are a new person entering the world. New fog of war, your body walks off as a zombie with your stuff, and your old claim block is gone.

[lisaknittycsi]

I wish the infection would finally kill me and then my old body would keep my stuff and attack my fellow players. Imagine having to kill your old self to get your stuff. :D

[Habeo]

I found it quite annoying when raiding someone's base that they could constantly respawn on me and try to fight. I like the idea of spawning randomly every time you die, (Or perhaps an X minimum distance from where you died) but wiping the map may be useless if the person simply writes down the coordinates of their base. [QUOTE=lisaknittycsi;142716]I wish the infection would finally kill me and then my old body would keep my stuff and attack my fellow players. Imagine having to kill your old self to get your stuff. :D[/QUOTE] I had similar thoughts. It would be really cool, and deter death abuse to have to fight a zombie you with all the stuff you had. Even cooler if it were a special zombie that tried to use the axe you had...

[HerbKerbal]

[QUOTE=grades;142302]I enjoy this idea since there is no penalty for death. Lazy people suicide just because they are hungry / thirsty or have a sprained ankle. +1 to some sort of death penalty.[/QUOTE] Sorry but thats just stupid. So you dont even want this option for you want to to force others to play a certain way - you want them to - and punish them for not doing so. But for what reason - to make waht you "achieve" in game have more "value" or something like that? Just to make this clear - in reality nobody cares about any in-game achievements. Spending time is not a skill ... On the idea - why not as an option - but as someone else pointed out it seems pointless. The reason why you want this option is because you wouldnt choose to do so yourself. Which means you are probably also too tempted to player differently. So if the option would be in as an extra option with no reward whatsoever would you even use it?

[Caldeon]

[QUOTE=HerbKerbal;143354]...On the idea - why not as an option - but as someone else pointed out it seems pointless. The reason why you want this option is because you wouldnt choose to do so yourself. Which means you are probably also too tempted to player differently. So if the option would be in as an extra option with no reward whatsoever would you even use it?[/QUOTE] The Reason is, i cant delete the .ttp or .map, when i am not the hoster. I already play the game in a realistic way. I still do everything to avoid death, when my leg is broken or when i got infected even in the first hour of a new game. Then when i try to find some antibiotics, i may die by some dogs and what happens then? I am cured, its a miracle! I got rewarded for death, no penalty Dying and having the same map with the blue icon for my backpack dont give me a good way to do so, is if i am not seeing it. You know, looking on the map, ignoring the fat blue icon doesnt really add to immersion. Same for my Basedoors, yea i could destroy them, as if these arent mine, ignoring the fact, that i actually could open them with one click on the E-button. To answer your question: Yes, i would use this option. Even a much harder one, whatever the Fun Pimps implement. And im also absolutely certain, that penalties will come. I was just writing down my idea to that.

[bobster]

You guys are all way too 'soft'... I say they should implement the one and only real 'hardcore' setting: on death, uninstall the game and never be able to install it again. Anything else is just weak. Anyways, on a more serious note: whatever, let them add options for stuff like this. I guarantee that the bigger part of the player base does not want "delete all on death" or similar, but that doesnt mean it cant be added for those who do want it. I personally find it's pointless to play a game like this if you lose everything on death... it would feel like a huge waste of time to do anything that takes any effort to accomplish. I would just play the 'easy' way by not building anything substantial, etc... and that ruins the reason why I play an open world/sandbox/building game. I could just go play a storyline-type of game for that...

[Canute]

[QUOTE]I personally find it's pointless to play a game like this if you lose everything on death.[/QUOTE] Isn't this a survival game ? So it is pointless to stay alive ? At last for a SP game it is a good option. On MP it looks different. When you got killed on a server and got a perma ban for this season, some people maybe don't got any MP left to play.

[Hinado]

[QUOTE=Caldeon;142248]Getting killed leads to deletion of the player.ttp and player.map, so you respawn on the map randomly like a new player would spawn w/o any mapinfo. The complete backpack remains in the world, so you can find it again (if it is not destroyed by zombies) but w/o any marker on your compass or map. Even your base would be unchanged, except for the doors which are then set to locked. So after Death the world remains like before, but your map is empty and you have to break into your old base (if you find it), as if you are another player. Oh and learned skills and recipes are wiped also.[/QUOTE] This option would be amazing. I don't like getting banned/kicked from a server like other people mentioned but dropping your backpack and start as a new person would be amazing. Ofc XP would need to be wiped, too and later if classes are implemented you should be able to choose a new one. Right now I play with delete all on death what is fine but still feels a little awkward sometimes. I'd rather just drop my backpack and start as a completely new guy.. Ofc you could just start a new game (what I sometimes do if I'm playing singleplayer) but most of the time I play coop with friends and I can't just tell them: "Well I died but you stayed alive.. Let's restart or I'm afk until everyone of you died and we restart!" Although right now a feature like that isn't really needed.. it will become much more amazing as soon as leveling and a skill system is out there and death means that you start from lvl 1 again. It would also bring so much to PvP servers. [QUOTE=lazerblade01;142271]...it seems to me that a lot of these "hardcore" modes being requested are for players who "think" they're hardcore, but want the option to actually PLAY hardcore be forced instead of opting to do so, but want the option to actually PLAY hardcore be forced instead of opting to do so, because perhaps they feel that if the option to go retrieve their backpack and run into their safe base is too alluring? If you don't want it to be easy, don't take the easy route, simple as that.[/quote] Yes many people (including me) want to be forced to play hardcore. We don't just want difficult gameplay we want to be forced to use EVERYTHING that is possible to survive that difficult gameplay.. For example: We don't want to play RPGs and distribute our skills in a non-optimal way, don't skill at all or don't use certain mechanics/items to increase difficulty. We want to be forced to do everything as optimal as we can instead of making custom rules to play bad. Would an option like that hurt your gameplay? It would only be an option.. [QUOTE=bobster;143371]I personally find it's pointless to play a game like this if you lose everything on death... it would feel like a huge waste of time to do anything that takes any effort to accomplish. I would just play the 'easy' way by not building anything substantial, etc... and that ruins the reason why I play an open world/sandbox/building game. I could just go play a storyline-type of game for that...[/QUOTE] Well you are saying you play an open world/sandbox/building game while infact this is a survival game what means we need at least the [U]option[/U] to get punished really hard if we don't manage to survive. I can understand that you want to run arround, explore, build your stuff and just do whatever you like but there are also a lot of people that play with the goal to survive as long as possible. A waste of time to do anything that takes effort to accomplish? If it helps you survive longer that's fine for me.

[bobster]

[QUOTE=Hinado;143437]Well you are saying you play an open world/sandbox/building game while infact this is a survival game what means we need at least the [U]option[/U] to get punished really hard if we don't manage to survive. I can understand that you want to run arround, explore, build your stuff and just do whatever you like but there are also a lot of people that play with the goal to survive as long as possible. A waste of time to do anything that takes effort to accomplish? If it helps you survive longer that's fine for me.[/QUOTE] That's why I said 'I personally' - meaning for me. For others it can be a completely different story, I agree with that. :) I just know that if it were normal to 'lose everything on death', then I wouldn't put much effort into 'creating pretty things' - if you know what I mean with that. Because hey, effective isnt pretty. I'd just make the most effective thing to keep zombies away from me, which is usually done in a very short amount of time. And everytime I start a new game I'd do the exact same routine - because it's obviously the most effective to 'survive'. Obviously this gamestyle would make it very boring for me very fast. So that's what I love about this (and similar games like Minecraft), where you can go the extra mile in creativity, size, decorations, details, etc... when building things. Totally useless, but fun and endless amounts of possibilities/projects. :)

[Lordicon]

You could do this now with some batch files and perl I believe, It would take a bit of time to setup and test but it could be done. Its just simply watching for death getting the players steam64id that died deleting the save files that match the steam64id and delete keystone from player.xml where the steam64id matchs. However I do believe server would have to restart after each file is deleted or it wont take effect. Not 100% on that.

[Seniae]

I can only remember a few games where death was perma death, where you lost everything you ever created, leveled, gained or explored. Most games, mostly older games used a few life system where you only had 3 or 4 life and where you could gain a life doing this or that. This way you'd be "forced" to value the life you have and the ones you have left. It is less harsh as perma death but still a lot harder than it is at the moment.

[Hinado]

[QUOTE=Seniae;143478]I can only remember a few games where death was perma death, where you lost everything you ever created, leveled, gained or explored. Most games, mostly older games used a few life system where you only had 3 or 4 life and where you could gain a life doing this or that. This way you'd be "forced" to value the life you have and the ones you have left. It is less harsh as perma death but still a lot harder than it is at the moment.[/QUOTE] Well you can't mix genres here. In a survival game like 7dtd having multiple lifes would feel very weird and wouldn't be fitting at all. There are a lot of survival games out there that have a perma-death function.. "Don't Starve" is a survival game that was released last year and has perma-death. It's survival mechanics come pretty close to the ones announced for 7dtd (hunger, thirst, weather, seasons,... ). "Routine" is a first person survival horror game announced for this year, it will also have perma-death. "Starforge" is a rts/fps survival game that has a mode which features perma-death (released a few days ago). Same goes for "Unturned", another multiplayer apocalypse survival that was released this year. "Nether", "Zafehouse: Diaries" and "State of Decay" are also survival games, all of them released 2013 and all featured perma-death. As you see even in 2013+2014 there are plenty of survival games that have a perma-death function. It's nothing uncommon at all.. Afterall the goal is surviving what normally implies game over as soon as you don't. Having multiple (less than infinite but more than 1) lifes is something that wasn't featured by any survival game I ever played.. Most games with multiple lifes that come to mind are jump and runs, platformers and the like.. Even a lot of non-survival games (mostly strategy games or RPGs) have an ironman function (you can't save or load unless you close the game) where if you loose the game is over. Why shouldn't 7dtd as a survival game have at least an option for something like that?

[Roland]

There already is a "destroy all" on death option and I have never found a server that uses it. True it only destroys what you are currently carrying but usually you are carrying the things you need to survive so losing it all with no way to retrieve it is a serious blow. I used the setting one time in a SP game and when I eventually died I chose not to continue but instead started over. I haven't used that option since. As I said there is a more hardcore option already in the game with no modding necessary and it is tougher than even "drop everything" and it is already available and while a very few servers do use "drop everything" I haven't yet found even one that uses "destroy all". So why should time and energy be spent working on an even harsher death penalty if the current harshest setting is never used and even the second most harsh setting is rarely seen in servers? The server I most recently have been playing on is "drop everything on death" and "drop everything on quit". Most people who join our server just quit immediately once they find out that those are the parameters. I love harsh death penalties, myself, and can't wait for experience loss to be a part of death to deter more people from using death as an easy debuff avoidance. I just don't see most people choosing an option that is harsher than the option most people never choose to play with already...

[Hinado]

[QUOTE=Roland;143496]There already is a "destroy all" on death option and I have never found a server that uses it. True it only destroys what you are currently carrying but usually you are carrying the things you need to survive so losing it all with no way to retrieve it is a serious blow. I used the setting one time in a SP game and when I eventually died I chose not to continue but instead started over. I haven't used that option since. As I said there is a more hardcore option already in the game with no modding necessary than even "drop everything" available and while a very few servers do use "drop everything" I haven't yet found even one that uses "destroy all". So why should time and energy be spent working on an even harsher death penalty if the current harshest setting is never used?[/QUOTE] Well I use "delete all" and all of my friends use it as well.. So there's that. I find that option okay but dropping your inventory and starting with a [U]new character[/U] in the [U]same world[/U] would be a completely different (and way better) experience in my opinion. There are also public servers that use "delete all" (I myself am currently playing on 2 of those and don't think I will go back) so we are not the only ones. Spending time and energy? Implementing something like that is no hard work (I don't know if you are experienced in programming..). Also getting inventory deleted is not as bad as you think.. most of the time you can reproduce everything you lost pretty fast.. You'll just start to not take everything with you when playing on that setting so most of the time you maybe loose 1 meele and ranged weapon as well as 1 or 2 tools and a little food/water as well as the ressources you recently gathered.. This option can not be called "hardcore" by any means.. Still don't understand why people are so strictly against a mechanic that is quite normal for survival games. Must be that 7dtd attracts many non survival game players that wish that the game becomes something completely different than a survival game.. Is the only argument really that you guys think that it will take "to much ressources and time" to implement an option as simple as that? Just because you don't need something doesn't mean that no one else wants it.. I myself found 7dtd while searching for a survival game, not for minecraft with some zombies. Can you really complain if people ask to get what the 2. word of the games subtitle promises? The [U]survival[/U] horde crafting game. Wikipedia: Survival games [I]The principal goal of these computer and video games is to merely stay alive; defeating enemies or solving puzzles may be incidental. Key elements include: - Resource conservation (of health and ammunition, for example) - A hostile environment (typically post-apocalyptic or supernatural)[/I] If the goal is surviving than dying is loosing. Right now there is no option where dying really hurts (as I said: delete all isn't really bad, most of the time you have your stuff back in 5min). I'm fine if there are options for people who don't emphazise on surviving why aren't you the other way arround?

[Roland]

What I think would be hilarious is if the devs changed it so that debuffs remained with the player after "death". Just imagine the face of the person who killed himself after getting infected or a breaking their leg only to respawn on their bedroll still suffering from the debuffs they tried to avoid. They could call it the "Rage Quit" setting.....lol Priceless!

[Caldeon]

Just to make it clear: My suggestion for a Soft Permadeath Option means, your character is totally dead (like Permadeath). You can still join the same server. You respawn in the random wilderness, have no map, no items, no kills, no skills, no learned recipes (as if you are a new player). But "Soft" means: Your former Base, everything you built and your corpse/backpack still remains on that server until someone or you finds it, breaks in and places new owned doors etc. (Keystone would have to be destroyed with the old player data, too) Player dies: Player is wiped, world remains.

[Roland]

[QUOTE=Hinado;143503]Well I use it and all of my friends use it as well.. So there's that. I find that option okay but dropping your inventory and starting of with a new character in the same world would be a completely different (and way better) experience in my opinion. There are also public servers that use this setting (I myself am playing of 2 of those at the moment) so we are not the only ones. Spending time and energy? Implementing something like that is no hard work (I don't know if you are experienced with programming..). Also getting inventory deleted is not as bad as you think.. most of the time you can reproduce everything you lost pretty fast.. You'll just start to not take everything with you when playing on that setting so most of the time you maybe loose 1 meele and ranged weapon as well as 1 or 2 tools and a little food/water as well as the ressources you recently gathered.. This option can not be called "hardcore" by any means..[/quote] That's true once you are established. But the hardest part of the game when you are most likely to be killed is the first couple of days when you are still carrying most of what you own around with you. Dying at that point and losing it all and then having to start anew without even a can of chili or a bottle of water can be devastating depending upon which biome you respawn into. A lot of people also enjoy playing nomadic and the drop everything would also be a hardcore setting for that playstyle. [quote]Still don't understand why people are so strictly against a mechanic that is quite normal for survival games. Must be that 7dtd attracts many non survival game players that wish that the game becomes something completely different than a survival game.. Is the only argument really that you guys think that it will take "to much ressources and time" to implement an option as simple as that? Just because you don't need something doesn't mean that no one else wants it.. I myself found 7dtd while searching for a survival game, not for minecraft with some zombies. Can you really complain if people ask to get what the 2. word of the subtitle of the game promises? The [U]survival[/U] horde crafting game.[/quote] I don't know who "you guys" are but I am also all for harsher death penalties myself. The only reason I assumed it would take time and effort to come up with permadeath is that Madmole himself said it was problematic back when the whole controversy over getting rid of "drop nothing" sparked these exact conversations about death penalties. But I don't know a lot about programming myself. I just happen to also see beyond my own nose and have noticed that the vast majority of players and server hosts do not use even the top two harshest death penalties already available. You and your friends are the first people I have encountered who use it all the time and I guess you have been luckier than I to have found additional servers that use it. I haven't found any... [quote] Wikipedia: Survival games [I]The principal goal of these computer and video games is to merely stay alive; defeating enemies or solving puzzles may be incidental. Key elements include: - Resource conservation (of health and ammunition, for example) - A hostile environment (typically post-apocalyptic or supernatural)[/I] If the goal is surviving than dying is losing. Right now there is no option where dying really hurts (as I said, delete all isn't really bad, most of the time you have your stuff back in 5min). I'm fine if there are options for people who don't emphazise on surviving why aren't you the other way arround?[/QUOTE] I guess you misunderstood my post. I was not calling for a ban on harsher death penalties. I was simply pointing out that the current demographic of players does not seem to really support something harsher than what is already not being used. In my mind if you get to the point where lose all on death is not going to affect you at all then you probably already "won" the survival game anyway. If it truly is a negligible thing to do to program in permadeath or even a lose everything and all your locks and landclaim blocks revert to neutral out of your control and bedrolls have no function "soft permadeath"-- then I am all for it. I will try it on SP I suppose because I doubt I will be ablt to find a MP server anywhere with that setting enabled...

[Hinado]

[QUOTE=Roland;143508]I guess you misunderstood my post. I was not calling for a ban on harsher death penalties. I was simply pointing out that the current demographic of players does not seem to really support something harsher than what is already not being used. In my mind if you get to the point where lose all on death is not going to affect you at all then you probably already "won" the survival game anyway. If it truly is a negligible thing to do to program in permadeath or even a lose everything and all your locks and landclaim blocks revert to neutral out of your control and bedrolls have no function "soft permadeath"-- then I am all for it. I will try it on SP I suppose because I doubt I will be ablt to find a MP server anywhere with that setting enabled...[/QUOTE] Yeah I suppose so.. I noticed you adding a small paragraph via editing after I posted my reply what made your point a little clearer. Well right now we play on custom settings with zombie damage increased above the maximal possible option and with zombies always run but decreased run speed a little (just as far that it changes from frustrating to hard, I think it's 10 or 15% slower than normal runspeed). In fact we hardly die at all.. In our current coop game we are on day 22 and over 3 players we have 2 deaths so just increasing penalty of dying wouldn't change much for us at the current state of the game. In my opinion it's better for games to be to hard than to easy. If games are balanced for unexperienced gamers it won't take to long before it get's to easy and therefore boring because players will improve over time. Also you are saying that most people don't use the delete all setting what is probably true but I think there still are a lot of people using it. You have to keep in mind that there are way more people playing on private coop servers and singleplayer than there are people hosting (and probably also playing on) public servers. I don't doubt that most people playing on public servers have their own singleplayer games/private servers with friends in addition to the public server they play on and that they most likely use different settings in those games. That's why I'd be careful with stuff like "almost no one plays with setting XYZ at the moment so adding ABC is unnecessary". Also note that the suggested soft-permadeath is way different than delete all. You wouldn't loose anything that is not recoverable.. You would be able to get your backpack back and reestablish your base again --> loose no items at all. Only thing that would really be lost is XP and learned recipes and in a way also scouting intel (well you yourself would probably remember the location of POIs..). I could see a lot of people that don't want to use "delete all" play on that setting instead because they don't have to risk loosing their precious auger/chainsaw (well you could also just not engage in dangerous situations while carrying them like we do..). I have no doubt that a lot of people will be very disappointed if 7dtd won't support hardcore survival players that want to be challanged to the max.. At least mods will be able to fix a few things.. but a death option like that is way harder to implement as a modder than it is as a developer.

[angelz84]

[QUOTE=Caldeon;142248]I This would add a reason to avoid abusing death like now (you can actually just get rid of infection or broken legs by dying, or just exploit bloodpack farming) and give a good reason to stay alive instead, but as an option, so the casuals are not harmed :)[/QUOTE] Pimps said they will be penalties for death when they add RPG elements to the game later on, I think after A11, but I might be off so, take with grain of salt.

[Roland]

@hinado: True enough that my own small sampling isn't enough to truly determine how many people are using hardcore settings and I will also concede that the soft permadeath as described by the OP is different than "lose everything". I wish they would do more polls. The cheating poll generated some good discussion flawed as it was as a poll and it would be nice to get a sense of what people would want as far as penalties for dying and what should be optional and what should be forced as far as death is concerned.