Permadeath vs. Save/Load feature

I'd see it as a waste of time. Of course, if you find enjoyment playing with perma-death, then, by all means! :P

I already have perma-death in real life, so I don't really feel like having more of that. :P

• What Doom'er do as soon as the game loads?
• Save again.

Thats how i play games with quicksaves.

Solution: Dungeons of Dredmor. Has a permadeath mode and a non-permadeath mode.

I don't really care though. Permadeath makes a game much more exciting, but non-perma makes it less stressful(?).

I'll say this though...

WHY NOT BOTH?

I wouldn't want to play with permadeath since I would always be paranoid about internet/PC issues, not to mention how my kids tend to get my killed in games by asking for things...

Too many games, too little time to do it. But it's a nice idea to play with more immersion.

The opposite: one play through Starcraft, I saved like a motherfucker. I crossed the save limit, forcing me to back them up manually to make more space.

i hate permadeath, i always go full suicide in games, and permadeath is no-fun for me.
real life has permadeath, and that is enough for me.

It depends on the game. In games like Skyrim, I think permadeath would be interesting. You couldn't just run&gun it and kill everything in sight, and if you die, you now know what not to do. You have to make the right decisions and such.

I actually usually turn on permadeath in games that allow it. It adds in that sense of "Okay, I have no idea what's on the other side of this door, and if I open it, I could die... So lets make sure I have the right weapons and armor for what MIGHT be on the other side of this door, and take this slowly." Or if you have tank people, you have to throw yourself into dangerous situations constantly, and then get to the point of "Okay, I don't give a damn what's on the other side of this door, I can do whatever I want!" But even then, it's still not smart.

The old roguelikes handled death in that way, plus many new games inspired by those old classics. It's a fun challenge, i.e. die, learn, die, learn, die, learn, die, quit, etc. :) I only managed to "win" Nethack twice but it felt great. However, that was twenty years ago - probably wouldn't have the patience to play a modern game in that way.

Also many newer games have a "hardcore" mode, but I'm just not good enough to play something like Witcher 2 with permadeath - I can barely remember what the buttons do! :)

One problem with quicksave/quickload in modern games, it kills the challenge. You can win any battle, just reload and try again. There's no feeling of accomplishment if all you did was hit F5 every time the computer missed... :)

Played Trine 2 with HC&Hard On. Gave up after beating 10/13 levels because I get killed by a neatly placed plant you can't see until you don't fall RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE FUCKING THING SCREW YOU TRINE SCREW YOU
sheesh, that felt good.

It's definitely an interesting way to approach a game, it really adds meaning and tension to desisions and situations that could end it. An interesting read is Ben Abraham's permadeath playthrough of Far Cry 2.

My only reservation would be unstable games or buggy games that could wipe out your play session with a crash or kill or trap your character with a bug. Death by technical failure would be very gauling.

Just sharing something a little related : when I played Heavy Rain all the way, during a week-end (I don't own a PS3 so I wanted to do the whole game during an occasion, having one of my brothers at my house for a week-end)
...playing the game felt amazing due to the fact that losing a character is definitive in this game, so basically even if the game is QTEs it felt amazing to know that any mistake could cause a character's death with final consequences.
I had some big adrenaline rushes while playing because I knew : choices mattered and could have big consequences, losing a character is final (and I got attached to them), besides I knew there would not be this occasion sooner because of not having the PS3.

To sum up these conditions created an extraordinary experience - even if the game has its flaws - that I got nowhere else in gaming.

In the end I managed to have the better possible ending with the better outcome for every character.

It depends on the game. But i never really like permadeath. I'm not into that hardcore stuff man

But in a survival kind game it could add to the atmosphere i bet

It all depends on the game, can't say x is better per se. What I really dislike however is having to unlock harder difficulties by finishing the game on normal, that's utter bs.

Well, I find that Save/Load does more than stop Permadeath from happening, like a lot of Bethesda's later RPGs can be modded a LOT and have somewhat buggy code related to a few things, and crashes can happen really often. If you just don't save your character, those crashes will delete it for you, and it would be something entirely out of your hands.

I've played Hardcore mode in a few games, and it really does make it more fun—But there are those characters that you've played for 200 hours and if they just up and die, you'll probably just format your harddrive and install a different OS.

Depends. Many games are designed to teach the player by killing the player.

Often, when you die from something new, you could not have expected to know how to avoid death on your first encounter with whatever (whether it's a boss you have to defeat a certain way, a trap in a level, random chance, or choices that don't make sense). To have to repeat everything up to that point all over again is usually too much to ask of players.

Once familiar with the game though, hardcore is a nice challenge. I preferred playing Diablo 3 hardcore because the risk of permadeath adds a whole lot more tension and provides a better adrenaline rush. Also, it doesn't take too much effort, especially if you have friends to help, to quickly build up another decent hardcore character if you snuff it.

Other games, like FTL, are designed around permadeath. Random chance is usually what takes me out with that one, but again, it doesn't take much effort to restart, and it's more like reading a choose-your-own-adventure book, than re-reading the same regular book again (like most story-focused games would be).

Counter-Strike has permadeath on a small scale, and it's awesome. It's a good punishment, and again, you get back into the game quickly, plus the money system carries over from life to life, so you're not completely starting over.

I love Jagged Alliance 2, but I've never tried to do a hardcore run with it (iirc, it's called Ironman mode). I quicksave all the freakin' time. But those who do take on the challenge probably get a better adrenaline rush and more tension that way -- basically, a better experience, but not necessarily one I'm always looking for.

So, if I had to and could only choose one mode for every game I own, I would enable save/loads. Permadeath is awesome, but it usually takes too much time, especially for games that aren't designed around it (Super Meat Boy, for example).

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And then there's also games that never kill the player. Most classic adventure games, casual puzzle games, and Secret of the Magic Crystal (although, one of my horses got sick, and I made it go out on a delivery anyway, and it seemed fine still when it came back... or... not dead, anyway. I haven't yet tested if they actually can die). Different vibes for different moods. If I had infinite time on Earth, then sure, I'd go through all my games at least once in HC mode.
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Also, (and this is a design I have roughly drafted out in my "game ideas" stockpile) PERMAdeath. One life per user account. I don't know of any games that do this, but if you do, I'd like to hear about it.
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I think it depends of the game.

I'd say permadeath is only a good option for games designed around it. It'd be interesting to see 'hardcore' strategy games, where you aren't allowed to reload when something bad happens.

As it is, the amount of time invested in each game and the cheating of the AI causes players to save/load a lot, which in turn causes designers to stack the odds against the player so there's some illusion of challenge, which causes more save scumming, and so on.

Definitely depends on the game, but I'm a huge fan of permadeath.

I think in (semi) linear games, and most games are like that, permadeath would be fun...until you actually die. Because I at least would rather stop playing a game than wasting another 5 hours on game content I did already play through a few hours or days ago. In non-linear games it can surely be fun as long as the game is not too large.

FTL is a good example for a working permadeath game imo. It's random and you don't have to invest dozens of hours for a single playthrough. Dying is definitely a punishment, but it's neither boring to start over (since it's random and every playthrough is different), nor does it cause extreme frustration since you can only lose 1 hour of progress at most.

I play permadeath on games that offer it as a feature. I don't go out of my way to do it though.

I like the idea of permadeath but sometimes it just makes me throw the game away and NEVER touch it again. I guess it's just a style thing, there are some games with the option of permadeath where it just doesn't suit well, dunno.