Permanent Death Servers

[IloveYouPumpkin]

So, in an FF-related MMO, where progress on a character (ala FFXI) will take months, or even years to fully complete.. you'd be cool with the idea of people losing all of that progress to permanent deletion because somebody thought that was a good idea?

It's never been done in a fully-blown MMO. And don't even begin to say that Diablo 3 is an MMO, because it isn't.

Well in Diablo 2's hardcore servers, there weren't many people who even made it to the end of the game. That server was mostly filled with people starting a new character and mid-leveled players. You would think people would get bored of that but the hardcore server survived for as long as D2 has been out and even today you still see people on them.

Here's is the difference I noticed on softcore vs hardcore servers. On softcore, leveling was mostly seen as a boring thing you have to do in order to get to the endgame where can start grinding the last levels (90+ took an enormous amount of time, nothing like D3) and getting gear for PvP. On the other hand, no one pvp'd on hardcore. There was really no reason to want to be high leveled. The real fun of hardcore came from the experience of leveling up with others. It was a completely different environment. The people always stuck together, worked together, communicated.. it was a far cry from the headless chicken-like gameplay of softcore. Really, the difference in the way people played was huge. You would actually feel real adrenaline from hardcore, which hardly ever happened on the normal server. That's why people played it.

When first starting out in D2 for the first 2 or 3 years I never went on hardcore and wondered why people would want to create a character on it. I finally tried it, reluctantly, and I became hopelessly addicted to it. Softcore had nothing on this.

Sorry, in direct response to your post, I know this is an MMO and not whatever Diablo was. But the idea is the same, you have to level up by sticking together and doing the content.

[Jim01]

Let me offer another suggestion. How about removing the level cap and making a soft level cap so that you can level above 50 but if you die you get brought back all the way down to 50. This way you can have your hardcore risk taking but also get to keep the hard work that you put into your crafts and gear.

Great post, I appreciate the effort you put into it. But just thinking about perma death makes me cringe.

[Yucie]

Well in Diablo 2's hardcore servers, there weren't many people who even made it to the end of the game. That server was mostly filled with people starting a new character and mid-leveled players. You would think people would get bored of that but the hardcore server survived for as long as D2 has been out and even today you still see people on them.

Here's is the difference I noticed on softcore vs hardcore servers. On softcore, leveling was mostly seen as a boring thing you have to do in order to get to the endgame where can start grinding the last levels (90+ took an enormous amount of time, nothing like D3) and getting gear for PvP. On the other hand, no one pvp'd on hardcore. There was really no reason to want to be high leveled. The real fun of hardcore came from the experience of leveling up with others. It was a completely different environment. The people always stuck together, worked together, communicated.. it was a far cry from the headless chicken-like gameplay of softcore. Really, the difference in the way people played was huge. You would actually feel real adrenaline from hardcore, which hardly ever happened on the normal server. That's why people played it.

When first starting out in D2 for the first 2 or 3 years I never went on hardcore and wondered why people would want to create a character on it. I finally tried it, reluctantly, and I became hopelessly addicted to it. Softcore had nothing on this.

Sorry, in direct response to your post, I know this is an MMO and not whatever Diablo was. But the idea is the same, you have to level up by sticking together and doing the content.

The idea isn't the same. Diablo is much shorter, a lot less substantial, the battle systems and mechanics are entirely different, the way the game plays is different (D2, at least, had some randomly-generated dungeons and areas that changed or cycled each time you visited one), loot systems are different - Diablo is an entirely different class of game.

In D2, you can run max difficulty through in several hours, level to max fairly quickly and gear yourself like a god. FF isn't that way - clearing content can take a REALLY long time (at least it used to in FFXI), and that's a lot of time to put into the progress and advancement of a single character unlike Diablo and similar games. In shorter games, it's okay to die more often and suffer the consequences of a hardcore ladder - being deletion - because clearing the game doesn't take that long, and the game itself isn't all that deep.

This idea will NOT work in an MMO because progression is far different, and I think if people lost all of their progress to 'deletion forever', they'd never want to come back. I feel the exact same way; in FFXI and FFXIV I've put a lot of time into my characters, 500 to 1000 days of time alone on my mithra in XI, and a similar amount in FFXIV. If I lost my character data in either game, for whatever reason, you can be sure as hell I'd never restart and I'd never come back.

Permanent deletion won't fly in this game because progression takes too long, people get attached to their characters, and one death would be the end of EVERYTHING. Save that for garbage titles like Diablo and it's clones.

Let me offer another suggestion. How about removing the level cap and making a soft level cap so that you can level above 50 but if you die you get brought back all the way down to 50. This way you can have your hardcore risk taking but also get to keep the hard work that you put into your crafts and gear.

We have an MMO like that and it's been around forever. It's called Tibia.

In Tibia, you can level up as far as you want - into the thousands, if need be - and upon death, you have a pretty good chance of someone looting all your badass items and weapons since you drop pretty much everything when you die. Since in Tibia, gear is basically your progression and it makes up a major part of your stats (with lots of it being really difficult to replace) you're basically screwed. That's also a bad idea. I don't want to lose my character, my levels, OR my gear when I die.

It's not suitable for FFXIV. Period.

[Zuellni]

I would play a permadeath server from time to time. It'd be a fun change of pace even if the game wasn't at all readjusted to balance. I think despite all the naysayers here, there'd probably be a decent number of people that would play it on the side as well, whether for bragging rights or whatever.

Not sure why so many people are so loud spoken against the idea. If SE has the extra resources to pull this off, then it would be a nice optional server to join. It's not like people are going to be forced or tricked into playing a permadeath server.

[Yucie]

I would play a permadeath server from time to time. It'd be a fun change of pace even if the game wasn't at all readjusted to balance. I think despite all the naysayers here, there'd probably be a decent number of people that would play it on the side as well, whether for bragging rights or whatever.

Not sure why so many people are so loud spoken against the idea. If SE has the extra resources to pull this off, then it would be a nice optional server to join. It's not like people are going to be forced or tricked into playing a permadeath server.

They should use extra resources to make content and add things to the game that the majority will enjoy, instead of adding a hardly-used server that a fraction of the population would enjoy.

[IloveYouPumpkin]

The idea isn't the same. Diablo is much shorter, a lot less substantial, the battle systems and mechanics are entirely different, the way the game plays is different (D2, at least, had some randomly-generated dungeons and areas that changed or cycled each time you visited one), loot systems are different - Diablo is an entirely different class of game.

In D2, you can run max difficulty through in several hours, level to max fairly quickly and gear yourself like a god. FF isn't that way - clearing content can take a REALLY long time (at least it used to in FFXI), and that's a lot of time to put into the progress and advancement of a single character unlike Diablo and similar games. In shorter games, it's okay to die more often and suffer the consequences of a hardcore ladder - being deletion - because clearing the game doesn't take that long, and the game itself isn't all that deep.

This idea will NOT work in an MMO because progression is far different, and I think if people lost all of their progress to 'deletion forever', they'd never want to come back. I feel the exact same way; in FFXI and FFXIV I've put a lot of time into my characters, 500 to 1000 days of time alone on my mithra in XI, and a similar amount in FFXIV. If I lost my character data in either game, for whatever reason, you can be sure as hell I'd never restart and I'd never come back.

Permanent deletion won't fly in this game because progression takes too long, people get attached to their characters, and one death would be the end of EVERYTHING. Save that for garbage titles like Diablo and it's clones.

Okay I understand everything you're saying and in principle I agree with you except where we differ is that I would still play on that server.. You're basically outlining the reasons why you would not make a permadeath character. Yes I know progression takes a long time and I know it would be hard losing your character and it would suck really bad. Don't play on it if you don't ever want to go through that. I still want to play like that.

If you spent 500-1000 days on a character like you said, and then you lost that character, you would probably not make another like you said. Well, you just spent 500-1000 days on a permadeath character and managed to not die for an incredible amount of time so congratulations you're amazing and on top of the ladder. Everything hardcore could ever offer to you, you already experienced. I don't blame you for not playing on that server again. What if that character would then be transferred to a normal server where you can continue to play? Would that change your mind at all about this idea?

[DoctorMog]

I'll throw this in, 12 pages in...


How about an option like in D3 "Hardcore"

No perma death servers though...
On normal servers, if YOU die, YOU lose your character.

Everyone else plays normally.

To distinguish "hardcore" from "normal" characters, you get your name in a pretty color instead of white/blue.

[Renen]

In ff11 it used to take a year to upgrade relic weps.
Imagine if they had perma death servers?

[Zion_Cross]

They should use extra resources to make content and add things to the game that the majority will enjoy, instead of adding a hardly-used server that a fraction of the population would enjoy.

Agreed, I'm looking forward for the crystal tower.

[Yucie]

Okay I understand everything you're saying and in principle I agree with you except where we differ is that I would still play on that server.. You're basically outlining the reasons why you would not make a permadeath character. Yes I know progression takes a long time and I know it would be hard losing your character and it would suck really bad. Don't play on it if you don't ever want to go through that. I still want to play like that.

If you spent 500-1000 days on a character like you said, and then you lost that character, you would probably not make another like you said. Well, you just spent 500-1000 days on a permadeath character and managed to not die for an incredible amount of time so congratulations you're amazing and on top of the ladder. Everything hardcore could ever offer to you, you already experienced. I don't blame you for not playing on that server again. What if that character would then be transferred to a normal server where you can continue to play? Would that change your mind at all about this idea?

Not only am I outlining my own reasons, but I'm also outlining the reasons a LOT of people would not play this 'hardcore' server. I'm also trying to say it's a ridiculous idea.

It's a crappy feature that's a waste of dev time and it would only appeal to a small fraction of the game's community. Then it would be an even bigger waste, and they could put all of those resources and efforts into something that would actually matter. PvP, the Crystal Tower, new instances, new gear; anything that the game itself would benefit from, not just a small fraction of a lifeless hardcore community.

Also, can you name one normal MMO that has ever done something like this? I can't, and I've played a lot of them.

But please, try to advocate how such a useless feature would NOT be a waste of time for the development team.