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As for the question, I see a lot of negative feedback so I'd be confident saying it's there because they really want it to be there. Because they see it as an integral part of their design and of how they want their game to feel and play.
Its purpose is to make it about the combat/skill even when you are trying to save the group. To create tense and dangerous moments and to balance as much as possible the experience between single and multi.
It's a bold decision but I'm happy that they are trying something new because the usual systems would throw off the balance, the flow and the level of challenge of the game and are boring and not very interesting.
Reviving is not something you have in solo and it should be very hard, risky and rare to achieve when playing multi, or it becomes way too easy to rubber band your way through the game defying the point of the challenge.
That may seem inconsequential but the challenge is clearly part of the pitch and of what makes these kind of games special and intense.
Some argue this mechanic adds strategic depth, makes the game unique, and makes sense thematically. To that, I say: let’s test this logic by applying it to other games.
Apex Legends: One teammate dies, and suddenly the rest of the team takes 200% more damage. Imagine the uproar and the inevitable review-bombing.
Spelunky 2: A single player dies, and every other player is cursed. Skilled players would find co-op pointless since it would reward solo play over teamwork.
Terraria: Mid-boss fight, a teammate dies, and the remaining players are hit with an insta-death mechanic. Sure, a "fun" quality-of-life change.
Borderlands: Every time a player is downed, all teammates suffer severe debuffs. Sounds great for critical boss fights, right?
Risk of Rain 2 (RoR2): Imagine the Artifact of Death being permanently on by default. Definitely a great way to enhance the game’s accessibility and enjoyment.
The takeaway here is that this mechanic would break these games entirely. So why does anyone think it’s a good idea here? Perhaps because it sounds unique—but “unique” doesn’t mean “good.” There’s a reason no other successful multiplayer games employ this: it’s fundamentally frustrating and shifts the punishment to players who may have done everything right.
As an optional addition or option this can be great. Challenging a group of players to see how well their teamwork is under harsher conditions. I also did a few Artifact of Death runs in risk of rain 2 with friends just to see how good we are altogether. Admittedly one always kept getting himself in dire situations. Which is why the run kept ending at stage 3 or stage 4. But that's not the point here.
The point is that this could be turned into an optional setting upon multiplayer creation. This caters towards both sides of players, so both those who enjoy this mechanic and those who don't like it. The code-work wouldn't go to waste, the devs can refine it regardless and in the future could be an integral part of score-boards.
This is an high octane, light speed and challenging roguelike and revenge is an high octane, light speed and challenging roguelike mechanic. Risk of rain is the closest and it seems like there is a function there to enable the same feature (I didn't play the game). How do you normally revive someone there? I'm genuinely curious.
Revives should come at an high cost in a roguelike. Permadeath is the whole point. Usually it costs a lot of resources or tedious mechanics in combat, but I'd argue that's quite boring.
Let's take enter the gungeon as an example. I'd trade the current revive system for something similar to this every day. Only full heart bullets, cursed enemies and after dealing x damage revive your teammate. A rush of adrenaline and if it goes well, we get to enjoy all of the resources of the run together, if it goes bad, it ends quickly and you can start again.
I think no one would argue against having the option to disable the feature. I would argue it would make for a worse game, but I'd still hope as many people as possible are happy with it because it's a project I love.
One thing I do hope they add tho, is a way for dead allies to interact or do something of use while they are dead. Even if it's just something small, it would be cool if they felt like they had a part in saving the situation.
As a closing note, I do see how this feature can feel much worse when playing with randos. People online can get quite toxic, but I wouldn't hold that against the game.
You can make players who dies catch up though by distributing items to them in the next stage, since you and other team mates received more overall items on the current one.
Neither approach is truly great. I'd argue that dead players could fight their own battle in a way, once completing the task, they get back onto the battlefield. Dying more often would make for harder challenges. Dying always has some kind of drawback in a co-op game. But in Windblown it's by far the most severe I have seen, as it doesn't just affect the player in question, but everyone else.
That revival mod seems like a much more nuanced and interesting way to implement the feature, and I'm sure it's tailored to how the game feels and plays which is important.
In all the cases mentioned tho, the surviving player is the one "being punished" and it's just normal, because in a team game the team itself is the player. In competitive environments you always win or lose together as a team. And in a roguelike, when you lose, you lose.
That would be overkill here since this is all for fun, but they are trying to go as close as they can to that concept and it's commendable imo because usually the safest approach is the one favored and I'd argue that doesn't make for the best version of what a game could be.
Anyways, thanks for the constructive and chill discussion. I do hope as many people as possible will be able to enjoy the game nonetheless.
The best approach, in my opinion, is to keep the dead player engaged by making their revival an active and interactive process - or even entirely their own responsibility. The biggest issue in co-op games when players die is that you’re often left with one of two scenarios:
-> Death feels inconsequential, like in Borderlands, where the constant cycle of dying and respawning can sometimes be more efficient than reviving teammates, as long as the resurrection station isn’t too far away.
-> Death is punishingly boring, leaving the player waiting for extended periods with nothing to do until revived. This usually results in the dead player idly staring at the screen or opening another game to pass the time, negating any sense of penalty.
Modes like Sudden Death or Revenge Mode or any abbreviation of these share this same flaw, with the added problem of severely debuffing the surviving teammates. If revival takes a long time (e.g., waiting for the boss to be defeated or only strong and singular enemies are present), the dead player can easily disengage - opening YouTube, their phone, or another game - effectively bypassing the drawback of dying. Ironically, this makes the surviving players bear the brunt of the punishment, even though they’re the ones still trying their best.
Instead, the drawback should be shifted to the dead player by giving them something meaningful to do while waiting for revival. A mini-game or a mechanic where the dead player can assist their teammates in a ghostly form would work well. For example, the dead player could “tag” enemies, marking them for priority targeting. Once the team defeats a set number of tagged enemies (e.g., five), the player is revived.
This approach adds a layer of interactivity for both sides:
-> Dead players remain engaged and play an active role in their revival.
-> Alive players are incentivized to focus on tagged enemies, adding strategic depth (which people want).
It’s a balanced system that keeps the game dynamic and ensures that all players remain involved without overly punishing the ones still in the fight. No actual downsides for the surviving player, something meaningful to do for the dead player.
The tag idea sounds really fun. Something along those lines could be the offensive option for ghosts and they could also be given a defensive one. Like a shield that can parry attacks on a cool down.
Fingers crossed for something similar to be implemented and for some refining of the mechanic. Making it fun, cooperative and challenging in a fair way could actually make everyone happy without the need to create different modes and lobbies.
No you let the players use a health potion to revive you... they are already SUPER limited, having to give that up to get a player up is objectively the easiest and simplest solution. You only get so many, and they are a precious resource.
I like the idea of revenge being a power you activate locking your health out boosting your damage and giving you a chance to down a boss if your on your last legs. But as it stands the mechanic is just awful--- all it has done for my friend and i is end our run. Either locking out our healing, or just giving high damage bosses even more damage.
It's just a bad mechanic ... full stop.
Edit:
The main issue here is Revenge and Sudden death are PUNISHING the survivors, which is an awful feeling.
A better solution might be... to have the downed player revive when they fall, but instantly revive. They gain the Revenge Buff, can only take a single hit before death and must kill the enemy that killed them in order to truly revive fully. This would put the burden of revival on the Player in question and not on his party.
What ever they do they must not punish survivors for the dead players death, it will just make people not want to co-op.
The problem with punishing the dead guy is that it will still punish the team and unlike the case of the surviving player being given the chance to have a comeback mechanic, you want to place the onus... on the one who just died. There's a compounding issue here.
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Not sure why you spent half that post arguing with yourself about why WB's death mechanic wouldn't work in other games, but I'll just answer the question of why it can work here.
(this is also for you, Z3Sleeper)
Presumably, the game is meant to be punishing, a challenge to complete. Where the benefits of coop have disproportionate risks. In solo, death would be an immediate game over, the fact is even the previous 1-hit kill counter mechanic isn't anywhere near just ending the run instantly, unless your teammate is absolutely incapable of clearing the game without dying even with the bonus of having teammates to coordinate builds, weapons, cc, debuffs, buffs, healing and split enemy focus.
That said, I do see the point that it discourages coop in many circumstances and having a more accessible gameplay experience would serve better.
Make it only part of new/existing higher difficulties.
Or have it as an optional post-max difficulty modifier.
Add unique rewards and cosmetics for it. Titles, skins, auras, etc
This way more casual players can enjoy a slightly more accessible form of the full experience, but serious players may challenge the higher difficulties (or modifiers) and still feel rewarded for their efforts.
It need not only be limited to scoreboard. Challenges should be properly rewarded.
What sets Windblown apart is its unique approach to co-op mechanics. It’s evident the developers are deliberately pushing a system that challenges traditional co-op conventions, even at the risk of backlash. I’m still undecided whether this approach is daring or simply put: dumb.
That said, there are viable alternatives to this mechanic that could resolve its lingering issues while maintaining the intended challenge. I mentioned one such option in post #8, which focuses on making co-op runs more engaging and less punishing for the surviving teammates.
As for the scoreboard suggestion, it was intended to reward players for completing co-op runs with the mechanic enabled - offering high scores for the challenge while treating runs without it as casual experiences. This kind of system is used effectively in other games to cater to both competitive and casual players, and it’s a way to encourage diverse playstyles without alienating any particular group.
It’s also worth pointing out that solo play currently feels significantly easier than co-op. Without any additional skill or knowledge, I managed to clear the game in single-player on my second attempt. In contrast, my co-op runs - with multiple teammates coordinating - barely made it past the second stage boss after 20 attempts. This disparity suggests there’s room for improvement in how co-op mechanics are balanced, and perhaps alternatives like the ones mentioned could help bridge that gap.
The biggest problem for me is not the punishment itself, but the lack of option so far to help the team. The only thing you can do so far to help someone:
- Take the shell bonus boost (which is quite a small boost and takes a while to actually build up).
- Use a health jar.
- The gift that gives lifesteal for 10s.
That's it I think. That's all you can do to help a struggling teammate, if you can really call that "help". You can't even revive anyone, or reduce the number of kills needed.
Possible change I'd like to see:
- Make the revive damage-based instead of kills. It would make it easier to revive people during the later part of the game, where there are less enemies, but they are far stronger.
- Coop-based Boosts. If you see one of your teammate having a rough time, and maybe he's unlucky and still has fairly low HP, it would be nice to have a boost that is shared with teammates. Instead of being +50 for instance, it would be like +20 for everyone (could also be done for all other stats).
- Coop-based Gifts, same idea. You already have plenty of stuff and feel comfortable? How about a gift that let you take the damage, if a teammate was hit but he doesn't have enough HP to survive it?
- Health jar throw. Using a health jar to heal a teammate is complicated. If you're hurt already, most of the heal will go to you. If you're in a fight, you have to get close to your teammate, activate the jar while staying close to him, and then he has to stay in the zone, while the boss is spamming attacks. I'd like to see a way to use a health jar directly onto a teammate instead (or, again, maybe it could be a Gift, where your health jar are used on the weakest player in the team).
Those comparisons have little merit for most of them. One is even backward.
The structure of their punishments/gameplay is either far more challenging to begin with or their existing systems are worse than what we have. Or that they are simply designed to be easily accessible instead of a challenge.
I didn't want to do this since it's meaningless, but I'll go ahead and clarify.
Apex Legends: Predicated on the game ALREADY always being at a difficulty on par with Revenge mode. Without the revenge part. The cost of being alone is that the game is likely to end if you even encounter another party while you're down members.
Spelunky, terrarria, borderlands: These games are made to be easy, barring certain optional/post-endgame objectives/enemies. They're accessible in exchange for your teammates not actually mattering. You can clear it solo and the teammate was a glorified turret that died.
Risk of Rain 2 (RoR2); The worst comparison because its current death mechanic is actually worse than revenge mode. It would actually be better if you got a damage buff, became unable to heal and killing enough enemies brought your teammate back.
Of course, it might need to be tweaked to account for any unavoidable damage.
The funniest bit is that you mentioned the artifact of death. (have you read it?)
It even acknowledges how meaningless its own system is by clarifying that it's that artifact which makes 'teamwork' have any meaning at all in the game.
Without it, what you have isn't so much teamwork a it is just people playing together.
RoR2's coop is simultaneously terribly designed for a game focused on maintaining scaling and also deprives teammates of meaning by simply giving all priority to whoever IS scaling fast enough to play/carry the game, without the artifact of Death.
The reason core vanilla ror2's best coop strat is for one player to get all the good loot and the others to just wait until a copier is found is a result of that.
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Unique? It's more prevalent than most roguelites, certainly, but no, it's not particularly unique to coops or even roguelites in general. The only unique part about it is how much cost there is to your team as a whole, which you seem to want out to make it more accessible. Could you name the unique mechanics you're talking about?
Far as I can tell, the main(only?) unique factor I can see is simply that the game is actually a challenging and beneficial as a team.
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Putting the onus of reviving on the dead person? So either it has no real cost to the worse player (presumably) or the cost is high enough that you compound the death punishment of that player repeatedly. Of course, this works if we assume the player's death was a result of chance and not skill.
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Did you just ask for proper rewards to not be handed out for challenging content... so that players who can't get them don't feel bad?
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For someone whose teammates can't beat that same difficulty, yes.
If not, then it's quite a lot easier. If you find solo that much easier, know this, it's because your coop partners are incapable of clearing that difficulty or you're not utilizing the benefits of having a partner to begin with.
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There could be improvements made, but the fact you discounted proper rewards for challenges suggests your idea of 'bridging the gap' is for the game to simply not be that hard so everyone can obtain them all.
You're not specifically interested in just having people be able to experience more of the game. Your priority seems more to be that you don't think the game should make bad players feel like they missed out by giving only intangible rewards, like bragging rights on a scoreboard, for the difficult content.
The bit about making them 'optional' is fine, but where my acceptance on that is focused on simply allowing more people to experience the gameplay, yours is to spare them the shame of not having all the loot because they can't beat the game on higher difficulties.
Hard pass on that. Not all games are meant to be participation trophies.
We have other titles like Terraria or Spelunky for that.
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You've missed a few other ways.
- Build yourself or them around CC/cooldown as a priority and have them interrupt more difficult attacks. This even works on bosses if done right, all the way up to the final boss.
- Following the one above, you CAN trade items AND see what each of you is offered as a solution. If you feel more confident in your own skills, you can bolster your teammate's builds by giving him your own upgrades.
- Split focus. Aside from stage-wide aoe attacks, the game is already easier as a team assuming somewhat competent players, enemies have to pick a target.
- Most resources you don't spend on yourself can be given to others, as mentioned above, including using your own gold or cogs to purchase thing for other players.
Your suggestions are the only ones in this entire thread to actually take into consideration the point that the game is meant to be a challenge to complete, even as a team. Bravo. Honestly pretty good ideas.
Whether Spelunky 2 should be called easy... I mean, not that it matters but it isn't called one of the hardest platformers for no reason. But that's also not the point.
Aside from Apex Legends, the four other games put an emphasis on being somewhat the same in multiplayer compared to Singleplayer. Maybe some scaling in some degree so you don't have power times X for the same game content and that's about it. No special mechanics in place. Which makes MP feel just as good as SP. Okay, we have to stay fair, dying in a Multiplayer session in RoR2 can be exceptionally boring if happening early on. Hence why I include mods. Windblown doesn't roll that way.
There is an issue if singleplayer allows to finish the game without major unlocks rather easily and multiplayer requires you to bring players of the same skill level onto the table if you want to retain the same dynamic. So friends who aren't equal in terms of skill are straight up screwed. Even worse if you're someone with considerable or a lot of knowledge, and you take someone with you who just started out.
Pre-Revenge mode, my friend noted how bad he felt for being the cause of ending the run prematurely. base-difficulty, by the way. I assured him that I didn't mind, and I really didn't, but the fact I heard him say that was one of the main reasons I even started writing in these discussions even a while ago about the mechanic. I don't know what your stance on this is, but knowing that the players feel bad for dying on a somewhat personal level feels off. After all, a game should be enjoyed and co-op should bring people together. Exceptions are UNO, mario party and mario kart.
I'll sum all of this up as I could probably go on and on about this extensively. Revenge Mode makes sense as an additional modifier for multiplayer for those who want to make their runs interesting in other ways, aside from just stat-scaling. Along with many other modifiers that could make runs reach from interesting to chaotic. As a base game addition, it requires you to find people with a similar skill level at least, prevents you from properly enjoying the game with friends who are worse or better than you and draws the attention to singleplayer if none of the prequisites are met. My opinion, at least.