Does Permadeath Work In MMOs?

Permanent death is a mechanic that is hotly debated. Some MMO players are convinced that there isn’t enough risk for the rewards earned in modern MMORPGs. Others like the concept in theory but in practice find it too harsh. Others still are remiss to put their time into a game if it means that they might have to start all over at the first misstep. Thanks to Haven and Hearth’s sudden comeback, I am thinking about the implications of permadeath in MMORPGs again. Today, I am going to look at a few different implementations of permadeath and evaluate whether they actually provide any benefit to the experience.

Haven and Hearth

As Haven and Hearth has spurred this editorial it only seems fitting that it is discussed first. Haven and Hearth’s form of permadeath is fairly simple. If you die, you’re dead. You must then go back to the character creator and create a new character. Interestingly, there is a minor system of inheritance in that the new character is your previous character’s descendant, but in terms of game progress you must start over.

How you reach death is a bit more complex. There are three different types of hitpoints in Haven and Hearth: hard, soft, and maximum. Your maximum HP is a number representing the maximum amount of hard HP you can have. Soft HP is HP that regenerates if you are not “very hungry.” If you run out of soft HP you are temporarily knocked unconscious. Hard HP is a form of HP that takes a small amount of damage when you are attacked, but only barely. If you are knocked unconscious this changes and all damage taken is subtracted from hard HP. When your hard HP hits zero, you die permanently. Hard HP is fairly difficult to recover with only a few items, such as gauze and leeches, able to do so.

As far as permadeath systems go this one is rather fair. Even if you die by normal standards you may yet be able to recover, as you essentially have an entire second health bar that determines whether or not you die. I suppose you could call it “regenerating shields that need the batteries recharged.”

But this system causes problems. Haven and Hearth is largely time-consuming. It’s a survival MMO that can take absurd amounts of time to build up your character. This has lead to an environment in which solo players become hermits that don’t communicate with anyone is commonplace. While some are willing to risk their characters for glory, many others are not. And when anyone around you could decide that you are going to fall victim to them at any time, it can seem like it isn’t worth it to socialize at all.

Shaiya

Shaiya has a unique form of hardcore permadeath mode, in that it isn’t forced and you don’t just die. Players unlock the “Ultimate” permadeath mode by reaching level 40 in Hard mode. Players who take on the challenge will level at a crawl, comparatively, but they will be awarded nine stat points and five skill points per level, compared to Hard mode’s seven and four respectively. Ultimate characters are also able to use the highest level of gear and unlock several skills not available to other characters. The trade-off is that if you die you must be resurrected within three minutes or your character is deleted. The only ways to do that are to be resurrected by a level 31 Priest or Oracle who has the level two Resurrection skill or to buy Resurrection Runes with real money.

Shaiya’s permadeath system could be considered fairly rewarding. As long as you have a friend on hand with the proper skill you can survive indefinitely. The amount of power earned by playing the game as an Ultimate character, rather than buying it in the cash shop, is impressive as well. But the fact that you can buy your way out of permadeath is a bit disappointing. Part of being a rewarding mode of play is the fact that it is dangerous. The fact that you can purchase a form of resurrection in the cash shop betrays this.

Wizardry Online

Wizardry Online’s implementation of permadeath was a bit like gambling. The ill-fated dungeon crawling MMORPG based on the classic Wizardry franchise started players out with a 100% chance to revive upon death. Upon leveling, or other factors, your chance to revive would decrease. Failing to revive after becoming a Corpse turned you into Ash. Failing to revive after becoming Ash resulted in becoming Lost. Lost was the game’s term for permadeath.

When I played I found this system to be incredibly unrewarding. Fairly often, I found myself wondering, “why bother,” as continued progress would reduce my chance of survival if I ever slipped up. Considering that the game allowed open PvP your chances of survival were left in the air, dependent entirely upon whether a stronger player than you felt like ruining your day. Should you not be turned to Ash instantly by a hard-hitting attack you were then left to gamble for your character’s continued virtual life.

Face of Mankind

Face of Mankind’s system of permadeath was incredibly simple. In Face of Mankind, you were given a number of lives between eight and twelve—I can’t remember the exact number. Every time you died, you lost one. If you were running low, you were required to buy more or face permadeath, should you die with zero lives left.

I always found Face of Mankind’s permadeath system fairly pointless. Lives were always far too cheap and I can’t remember a single case in which I ever lost more than two or three. Even in longer battles you would always respawn close enough to a life vendor to be able to restock if you needed to. It was a novel idea but it was simply too easy to avoid permanent death.

Trials of Ascension

Trials of Ascension is looking to do things differently. The in-development permadeath MMORPG will grant each character 100 lives for, as one user put it, “general wear and tear.” Supposedly, the developers want you to grow, make mistakes, and not feel as if your character is instantly in danger.

The problem that I foresee is that players will start out far too reckless. They will get it in their heads that they “have 100 lives and can do whatever they want.” They will build up these characters, be down to about five lives or less by the endgame, and either be paranoid for the rest of their time in-game or lose those lives quickly, get angry, and quit. Perhaps some players will even forget, or maybe never even realize,that the game has permadeath. Unless it’s made painfully obvious—if you die twenty times and you’re still respawning what reason is there to believe that the game has permadeath?

Divergence Online

Divergence Online hasn’t detailed its system of permadeath yet but I felt it was worth a mention. The plan is to have “limited perma-death depending on location and species.” Right now, it is unclear exactly what that means. What I am concerned about already, however, is the very real possibility that even if kept secret these conditions will be well-documented within a month of launch. Once documented I am concerned that permadeath will become a moot point as implemented and that players will actively work to avoid said conditions by either avoiding those locations or not playing as those races. This may lead to a counterintuitive design in which content may as well not exist because no one will dare to explore it.

Conclusions

It’s hard to believe that any MMORPG has found a way to properly incorporate permadeath yet. The risk and reward of every one of the current systems is vastly disproportionate. Many of the games that incorporate permadeath simply require too much of a time investment to not feel as if permadeath takes far too much away. Even worse still are those that offer a permadeath mode and then allow you to pay your way out of it, negating the entire point of that mode.

Personally, I feel that permadeath has to be specific. There has to be a certain set of conditions met that players can avoid if they want to. Many games even incorporate resurrection into their lore in a way that makes sense. Inescapable permadeath may even be harmful to immersion. But there also has to be a reason to not avoid these conditions. You want to entice players to cast aside their doubts and risk their characters’ lives for the reward at the end. Currently, I don’t believe that any MMORPG on the market has done such a thing.