Would you play an open-world game with perma-death, but with realistic physics and combat? Vaguely similar to a modern-set Roguelike Dark Souls?

I love Dark Souls but still no. Dying would make me cry like a baby(Edit that sounds better).

You had me until you mentioned the horrible abortion that is Dark Souls.

Give me a game with precision controls where function > animation, and I would be all over it.

Realistic physics and combat? Other than its crazy ass ragdoll, I'd say that Dark Souls' melee combat is pretty realistic in regards to physics. 
 
I'd probably try the game out, though.

Permanent death is something I enjoy in very limited and precise contexts. This doesn't look like one of those, so probably not.

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

It's hard enough to design realistic physics and combat in a game that has a large budget and mainstream appeal, but you feel this crazy niche idea is going to be able to pull it off?  I bet it just turns into exploiting the AI in doorways.
 
 
I think Roguelike is actually the future of horror games.  Essentially imagine a roguelike in 3rd person.  Add in a couple hundred little scripted events/scares to be sprinkled into the game procedurally, rarely repeating if possible.  Inventory is limited, it's less about picking up something and saving it for  long portions but of using your weapons until they break and then finding more, sometimes in the same fight.  Death is punished by waking up somewhere else on a newly randomized floor, missing whatever items you've been saving.  The problem with all horror games is death sends you back to a checkpoint,. and you see all the scares again with prior knowledge.  This lessens tension as you begin to realize it's more about knowledge control than reaction and on-the-fly thinking.  Roguelike prevents that by procedurally generating the level and spicing in a short scripted event or custom spook scenario to give it the same sense of design it needs.

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

this is a wonderful idea!

Perma-death is signing like a developer signing it's own death-wish for customer complaints. Games like Dungeon-Defenders and other smaller games can get away with, but larger pronounced AAA titles cannot because the second you put 30-40+ hours into and die because of a bug, people will get mad. I'd still play it though.

@ccampb89 said:

Perma-death is signing like a developer signing it's own death-wish for customer complaints. Games like Dungeon-Defenders and other smaller games can get away with, but larger pronounced AAA titles cannot because the second you put 30-40+ hours into and die because of a bug, people will get mad. I'd still play it though.

Well the game wouldn't be your GTA-styled long campaign story thing. It'd likely be a completely open world with different things to do and places to go, where the only thing persistent between multiple game starts is the starting character(s) you unlocked through your previous actions. Realm of the Mad God, essentially, in that sense. Enemies would be just as strong as the player, and the enjoyment would come from surviving (even a little bit) in a very realistic world with realistic consequences (more like Overgrowth). Game crashes can be detected and can be handled exactly like a power-outage, saving the game exactly before gameplay was interrupted via the last solid auto-save (would probably be like Dark Souls, where the game is saved whenever you pick up an item or just after a period of time). In the end, there'd probably be one or more ways to exploit the game if you wanted to, but at that point the player might as well go look up cheat codes. The main selling point would be its realism and perma-death, so starving yourself of that would be just plain stupid and a waste of your time and money.

If I make this game, the setting wouldn't be like anything you guys are likely imagining... not a city or anything like that... so the whole thing overall isn't actually too complicated to achieve. It'd be less level-design and more algorithms.

@RubberBabyBuggyBumpers said:

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

this is a wonderful idea!

I think I saw someone making a game like that over on reddit.com/r/gamedev. The guy was only started on getting the terrain to generate correctly, though. Even from that, though, the community's response was pretty great. Everyone seems to want this illusive 3rd person open-world zombie survival game. ...Probably why Dead Rising is so disappointing to so many people.

id play it once. until i died. then never again

@FunExplosions: It'd have to be pretty damned realistic/deep. Depth for the illusion of realism is much more impressive than "realism" is to me. Mostly because the realism isn't consistent. Look at Arma. If you want to shoot target in that game, you're getting a pretty decent recreation of how that really would work in the real world. But the instant you get a headshot on an enemy you realize how far that game has to go before it's really realistic.

Also, Perma Death should be an options. Dungeons of Dredmor is a good example of how to handle a game like that. It has difficulty levels and even an option for perma-death. That's the right way to do a Roguelike today. For those who want the Roguelike experience, it's there, but you aren't cutting people off just because their not very good at the game/games in general. If it's good, the game will be a good experience even without perma-death. You could also handle it like Diablo where death has consequenses when perma-death is turned off (like maybe there is a random chance you are saved by someone/something. Sometimes your lucky and are saved by some reasonably human individuals but as a result find yourself having to work off your debt (maybe by staying on as protection for a small farm/community), or you might be less lucky and end up robbed and left for dead, losing most of your valuable gear and currency but free to do whatever you want. Or maybe by chance your wounds heal better than expected and you have to spend time nursing yourself back to health, maybe finding a nearby natural source of food/water and spending a few weeks of gametime.

Perma-death has it's place, but making a game that is ONLY perma-death in this day and age is just lazy. It's a very niche way to go, and I think it's better to open people up to the idea of a game like that gradually. Eventually you might get someone who hates the idea of a Rogue-like but then ends up getting good at the game and wanting more immersion/challenge/thrill so they switch to perma-death. If you want to make a really good, deep game it's going to take too much time to make it worth selling to a tiny crowd. It can't look like the first Half Life, it can't have janky controls, it can't be forcing complexity from a simple engine. It has to go all the way or it's just going to be another indie darling that sells enough to make money but not enough to really effect the industry on it's own. In other words, it needs to be up to par with other games. It can't just live on it's novelty alone.

None of what you wrote, because I would like the option, but not to be forced.

So, here's the deal. I want perma-death to become a more common development option. But in a game with realistic physics and super-punishing combat? No thank you. I'd play a perma-death version of Skyrim, but forget playing a perma-death version of Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy, etc. That's just too much, and I'd never be able to finish that game.

If this game was co-op then hell yeah.

If not, then it just seems like an exercise in frustration.

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

Hmm... I said most likely no, but I'd take it back for this.

28 Days Later!

@RubberBabyBuggyBumpers said:

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

this is a wonderful idea!

Project Zomboid?

Yes i would actually.

I would probably say they would have to get rid of cheap deaths , the learn by dying is only fun if it is not having to restart a whole game a challenging combat is cool though

I'll probably be playing on a Hardcore character when Diablo III drops so yeah, I'd probably play this.

Sure, I'd give it a spin but perma death?
 
Only if done right, falling of a ledge because you're half awake or getting stomped on by a gaint or something silly and then having to start over again?
Meh, too cheap.

I think The Witcher 2 has a permanent death system if you play it on the highest difficulty level.

I don't think perma-death is fun in any way.

if everything checked out fine then i would proberly check it out

I'd never play anything with perma-death

A co-op rogue like in the Dark Souls vein sounds amazing to me. Having to bait enemies away from your partner because they're about to die permanently? I'd buy it

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

Someone needs to do this!

Interesting. I would try it though, but it would probably not be that great. Right?

@Humanity said:

I don't think perma-death is fun in any way.

Pretty much this. I do not think the idea of playing for an hour or two and then dying and having to restart that would be fun at all. In fact, it would be incredibly frustrating. Some people might do this for bragging rights, but those people are masochists.

Perma-death, at all, is bad game design. Period.

No because games that approach reality tend to not be fun to me

You people who complain about perma-death need to realize that "Losing is Fun!"

A roguelike is not about a long expansive story, it's about your character and the choices you make until you meet your inevitable doom, or not.

A roguelike with combat like Dark Souls makes me salivate but it's just too ambitious for that to ever happen soon.

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

So essentially a first-person Project Zomboid with a high production value. I agree, that would be amazing.

That really doesn't sound like my kind of game. It sounds far too punishing and I rarely find that realistic combat is a lot of fun.

@w00ties said:

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

So essentially a first-person Project Zomboid with a high production value. I agree, that would be amazing.

I'd play this.

No.

@EVO said:

@RubberBabyBuggyBumpers said:

@xobballox said:

Open world zombie survival game in a randomized city with only the objective being to survive as long as you can. Yes. Fucking awesome.

this is a wonderful idea!

Project Zomboid?

I'm aware of Project Zomboid, but I am wanting something either first-person or third-person behind-the-back. Not really a fan of isometric perspective games usually. I really do hope this happens at some point though, I've been wanting it since Left 4 Dead basically.

@Tim_the_Corsair said:

You had me until you mentioned the horrible abortion that is Dark Souls. Give me a game with precision controls where function > animation, and I would be all over it.

Pretty much this.

I would never, ever play a game with perma-death.

I would probably end up trying it, but I would never seriously give it a go.

Yes. I wish the Souls series was as physics based as I was led to believe. I thought the animations were going to be more procedural instead of being ultra canned. Weapons shouldn't swing all the way through an enemy unless it kills them. My halberd should chop into a larger dude when I swing it, instead of magically wafting through them. Bashing by mace against an enemy's shield with a swing crossing to my left should push him back and to his right, shifting his weight and possibly knocking him over.
 
There should be injuries to limbs (or even sub limbs) that affect the procedurality of the animations, altering the effectiveness of whatever needs that limb. An injured shoulder makes it harder to wind back very far for overhead swing attacks, meaning less force which hits for fewer points; or an injured hand makes it impossible to hold a one-handed weapon, but a shield or two handed weapon might work. Man, a next gen Bushido Blade RPG would be cool, but maybe fewer one-hit kills.
 
But permadeath should always be optional. For weapons that are almost always one-hit-and-quit, permadeath would probably suck.

@MrKlorox said:

Man, a next gen Bushido Blade RPG would be cool,

This is the most beautiful idea I've ever heard.

Would need more to go on then that, but I honestly have no problem with the permadeath aspect of it.

@Encephalon said:

I would never, ever play a game with perma-death.

Foolish! You should try out Dungeons of Dredmor.

I answered "probably yeah." I think the most important thing about a game like this is fairness. If the game has randomly generated content, which means you can't memorize the environment and enemy locations like in Dark Souls, you need to make sure that the player always has a fair chance to assess the situation. I.e. I wouldn't play this if you could randomly drop into a pit of spikes or get ambushed without warning. But if you get this right it could be very cool.

Other than that it depends on art style, combat system, controls, etc., the length of the game (no way I'm playing a 20 hour game with perma-death!), and general polish.

I don't know. It depends on how easy it is to die and how much fun the early part of the game is since I predict I'll be spending the most time there. Open world games tend not to get really fun until you feel confident you can take on a heavy assault alone. If I am unable to reach that level of super-powered confidence, then I'd pass on the game. I mean, I'd be so worried about dying that I'd run away from every fight. Why would I want to play a game that similar to real life?

I don't think I can ever bring myself to play a game where death is permanent, let alone one as difficult as dark souls. So no probably not.

Yes. However the game would have to be simple in terms of gear and such.

Ex:

If it was a basic game of you need food to survive (aka you must log in every so often to eat/drink or your character dies). Gear is very basic, things to protect you from sun exposure and other weather conditions. Killing someone allows you to loot everything of theirs as you wish. Characters personal appearance and physical traits would matter, big strong guy can carry more stuff but is slower and can't say climb a tree.

Hunger Games/Battle Royale esque like game could be extremely fun if done right.

Only if it was randomly generated. I guess if it was open like skyrim then I would want it to start me off somewhere different in the world each time. The reason roguelikes are able to not get boring quick is because they are usually randomly generated, and you are able to create a character fast. It would just get tedious if you started off in the same place everytime and faced the same bullshit enemies in the same spots.

@w00ties said:

@Encephalon said:

I would never, ever play a game with perma-death.

Foolish! You should try out Dungeons of Dredmor.

I wouldn't really recommend that game to anyone. It's far to inbalanced and random to be fun on the long run. It's okay for a time, but that's about it.

@Topic, Thank you, but no thank you! I'd pass on that kind of game. It sounds fun and oh so exciting and challenging. Untill you actually have to play it. Then it stops being fun pretty fast and becomes tedious and annoying.

@xobballox I'm on board sign me up! Only one life to live! If I were to make this I'd structure it so only a handful of random people could permeate your game, as to cut down on griefers. Maybe let you bring one co-op friend but introduce balanced limited consumables so you're always on edge wondering if your buddy is going to off you for the ration stash your hiding. Or how's bout a free-to-play zombie post-apocalyptic perma-death game with a business model similar to Diablo auction house whereby you buy goods, ammo, food etc. to survive using small real life money transactions (player to player) and the company skims the transactions to pay for dev costs.