Punishing or Challenging? A game can't be both.

Challenge is what you face before you die. The punishment is what happens after.

All the death penalties do is drive players to be risk-averse and stick to "safe" content. Worse, it prevents the devs from making challenging content in the game, making the game EASIER, not harder.

When you come up to a new boss, you should expect to die three or four times while you learn the mechanics, then a few more while you learn to execute everything properly. Dodge rolls, movements, using the right skills at the right times, etc...

Normal maps should always have the potential for packs of mobs and difficult rares to surprise and defeat you.

If a player can regularly go for ten or more maps without a death, either they are an elite player (which the game should never be balanced around), or the content is too easy and needs to be reworked.

Problem 1) Bosses can't have mechanics, because as soon as you die you lose the map, so who knows when you'll meet that boss again.

Problem 2) All those deaths will have your character moving backwards.

So the devs are forced to design simple content that can be over-leveled and over-geared.

Sure, it may take longer to progress this way, but it's an easier climb. All it takes is sticking to content you know you clear and an investment of time.

The hardest video games have no death penalty. Players are willing to fail dozens of times or more as they master the mechanics of each boss or level.

TLDR: Drop the punishments and make the game a challenge.

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Mouser#2899 wrote:

Problem 1) As soon as you die you lose the map, so who knows when you'll meet that boss again.

Problem 2) All those deaths will have your character moving backwards.

I die few times per hour, and the "devs" started "holding me back" after lvl 90 (and my build is done now, and I do not care at all)

And I will keep zombie rush at that level till the end of the league. Clearing everything off-screen.

(Unless they nerf-hammer me, but I really doubt they will touch my class, but even if they do, backup plan is already formulated)

It seems like we are playing two different games.

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Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

And I will keep zombie rush at that level till the end of the league. Clearing everything off-screen.

So... not challenging.

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Mouser#2899 wrote:

Problem 1) As soon as you die you lose the map, so who knows when you'll meet that boss again.

Problem 2) All those deaths will have your character moving backwards.

1) No, you lose a waystone. The map didn't go anywhere, it's still right there. The original plan actually was for you to lose the map, making you have to path around it, but they decided against that and now you just lose the waystone and bonus content.

2) No, your character NEVER moves backwards (unless you are playing hardcore). You cannot lose gear from deaths, or gold, or currency. You also cannot lose levels through death. Your character stays exactly as it was when you walked in, you just have a slightly longer path to the next level.

Challenge and punishment very often go together and are complementary.

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

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Mouser#2899 wrote:

Problem 1) As soon as you die you lose the map, so who knows when you'll meet that boss again.

Problem 2) All those deaths will have your character moving backwards.

1) No, you lose a waystone. The map didn't go anywhere, it's still right there. The original plan actually was for you to lose the map, making you have to path around it, but they decided against that and now you just lose the waystone and bonus content.

2) No, your character NEVER moves backwards (unless you are playing hardcore). You cannot lose gear from deaths, or gold, or currency. You also cannot lose levels through death. Your character stays exactly as it was when you walked in, you just have a slightly longer path to the next level.

Challenge and punishment very often go together and are complementary.

1) "Now you just lose the bonus content" so the reason the player traveled to this node in the first place instead of literally going in any other direction in the atlas. The node is gone from the players minds eye and its the same effect as pathing around it ("why would I use my waystone on this empty node when there's a modified one over there")

2) You move backwards in the sense that you moved forward towards the next level by gaining xp, now when you lose xp you moved in the opposite direction (backwards)

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

1) No, you lose a waystone. The map didn't go anywhere, it's still right there. The original plan actually was for you to lose the map, making you have to path around it, but they decided against that and now you just lose the waystone and bonus content.

Ok, waystone instead of map. I stand corrected on that point. But it's still a problem.

How popular would Elden Ring be if every time you died to a boss you had to go grind for a keystone to fight him again. Would players be able to improve at fighting the boss with that much downtime between attempts? Would players be willing to go through the process time after time?

Players will endure a harsh challenge so long as their time is respected and they can spend it facing the challenge (and the game feels fair). Once you make it punishing, you've taken up a lot of their frustration so they won't have any left to be frustrated at redoing the content due to their failures.

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Mouser#2899 wrote:

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

1) No, you lose a waystone. The map didn't go anywhere, it's still right there. The original plan actually was for you to lose the map, making you have to path around it, but they decided against that and now you just lose the waystone and bonus content.

How popular would Elden Ring be if every time you died to a boss you had to go grind for a keystone to fight him again.

Ok, we might be talking about two different things.

Map boss nodes stay (but the boss "runs away") when you fail them, just another waystone is needed (and those drop pretty frequently once you get a handle on sustain).

Citadel bosses are one time, the node gets locked on failure. Unsure if that was their intention or a hold over from the original design.

Arbiter (top boss available atm) is 1 time as well (but takes 3 entry tokens to fight, so worse than you described).

My comment was about map boss, as that is what I thought you were talking about. I have no issues with how it is.

The Citadel and higher I'm personally undecided on where I fall on this debate. I have failed citadels, and just went and found another one of them. It didn't really bother me, but I'm also not making that the focus of my gameplay. I haven't tried arbiter yet.

AFAIK the map is infinite, losing a map node is not a big deal at all except maybe those rare pinnacle tower bur for those you need to be very strong and prepared anyway. Comparison to Elder Ring is nothing but apple and orange.

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Warrax#2850 wrote:

AFAIK the map is infinite, losing a map node is not a big deal at all except maybe those rare pinnacle tower bur for those you need to be very strong and prepared anyway. Comparison to Elder Ring is nothing but apple and orange.

IIRC the devs have said they want 200 different bosses in the game. If you don't fight the same boss again multiple times in a row, you're not going to learn its mechanics (assuming the boss is actually challenging - meaning you should expect to die multiple times learning the mechanics and patterns).

No, this game isn't Elden Ring (but it's inspired by it). The point is punishment prevents challenge. People are willing to die to the bosses dozens of times because they can get right back into it and try again.

There's no reason this game can't have Elden Ring/Dark Souls level challenge for the bosses, except for the harsh punishments.