Dropping items on death = worst design choice ever

[Tigerhawk71]

Not only is it just kindof an annoyance, it actively discourages impulsive exploring and it's also not entirely clear what DOES and DOES NOT drop on death - forcing you early game to basically build platforms out of stone or whatever and drop boxes on them.

Coupled with the horrible inventory management it's a real ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I like the hunger mechanic. Thankfully there's a mod for what is easily the single worst thing about the game currently.


Nice to see the game actually didn't get abandoned and was actually finished though - it was enough to bring me back to it.

[OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO]

Originally posted by Anarchy Blues:

It's bad game design. 1.0 is full of them.

Originally posted by smh tbh fam:

You could always play the game on casual if it's too much for you

That's how I've been playing for the past year or more. Now I'm a casual?

If you're complaining about a death penalty after playing a game for a year; yeah you're a casual.

[Avarice]

Originally posted by RacooO:

Originally posted by LokiFM:

You lose all resources (Ore/wood) & placables as well as upgrade items (such as Manipulator Modules.

Other than that you keep all your weapons/armor etc. + you can go and pickup your items from the spot where you died.

Doesnt work if you died in an instance/quest related area which is generated, you lose everything that is dropped in there.

You don't drop items in story missions or challenge rooms *instances*.

[Kurzidan]

You seem to be mistaken about something.
There was "Casual" (standard) before
and Hardcore
Now there's Survival.
It's your Normal, hard, Permadeath choices.
If you don't like hard, go back to normal.

Another tip is... Don't friggin Die then. It's really weird that you want to die and not have consequences for it.

and plenty of games do that.
Some that Are similar to this.
Minecraft - You die, you drop your inventory. You've got an insanely small amount of time to get back to it or its gone. You drop the entire inventory, no matter the difficulty.

Terraria - Softcore, Mediumcore and Hardcore - > Softcore drops money, Medium drops items, Hardcore kills you dead.... (if I recall right)

Junk Jack (and JJX) Peaceful - no mobs, heavy regen, no death penalty
Easy - Weak mobs, stronger pc, regen, no death penalty
Normal - Drop items - Mob normal, pc normal, no regen, normal loot rarity
Hard - drop items and equipment (Armor) - Mobs are tougher, pc is weaker, no regen, higher loot chance
very hard - drop everything (inv, equip, quickslots) - Hordes of mobs, mobs are tougher, pc is weaker still, no regen, best drop chances

7 days to die - don't remember all the difficulty settings - Drop inventory, keep hotbar (I believe there was a choice to alternate those, and not have it drop anything at all as well, there was likely also a permakill feature)

Empyrion Galactic Survival (when I free-tested it during that weekend) Drop everything into a case that disappears at some point in time. you can respawn sorta close to your death location though.

Subnautica - Lose items you obtained since the last time you were in a base/ship (last I knew)
afaik these items are just /gone/ and don't drop but I can't sweat to that.

If you consider any game similar to DayZ to be "close enough" you drop pretty much everything there too, fairly certain Ark is that way as well.

You know something they all have in common though?

if you don't friggin die, Those penalties are never an issue

[ostar]

Originally posted by Anarchy Blues:

Originally posted by smh tbh fam:

You could always play the game on casual if it's too much for you

That's how I've been playing for the past year or more. Now I'm a casual?

Seriously butthurt because the difficulty setting is called "casual".

lulz

[Kurzidan]

Dear god how could I forget Stardew Valley in that list of games earlier.
In stardew valley you get it all.
Money loss by what is essentially starving and/or passing out
item loss (small) in early risk sections
Item loss (large) in medium risk sections
and potentially, every item can be dropped is massive risk sections.

[Vardis]

So do we need a mod now that changes the wording on the difficulty modes so people don't feel insecure about picking "casual"?

[Avarice]

Originally posted by Vardis:

So do we need a mod now that changes the wording on the difficulty modes so people don't feel insecure about picking "casual"?

They should change them to Infant, Baby, and Toddler.

[Kurzidan]

bet if they made it soft/medium/hard core like Terraria it'd be fine, though they'd likely be called for ripping off on them.
if they called it normal/standard/classic/old - Survival/hard - and permadeath/hardcore - it'd be fine.

[Pancakes]

I like the idea of needing to eat but have never liked dropping everything I had upon. For now, as it's been a while since I last played, I'm starting wih Casual to get the feel of the new combat and crafting. It did bum me out that I can't starve and keep inventory at the same time but you can't always get what you want. Either way I'm still having fun.

[Inny【🐭】Nazrin]

Originally posted by Pancakes:

I like the idea of needing to eat but have never liked dropping everything I had upon. For now, as it's been a while since I last played, I'm starting wih Casual to get the feel of the new combat and crafting. It did bum me out that I can't starve and keep inventory at the same time but you can't always get what you want. Either way I'm still having fun.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729439608

Alternatively if you've already started a survival character:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729746228

[sebukku]

get good?

its not hard to die if youre careful or good at pve, last time i died its bc i miss dashed off a cliff, and that was entirely my fault.

dropping loot is a valid death penalty, makes it so i care if i die and be more careful.

just play casual if youre so worked up on it, on there you can do rash decisions and not get hurt

[Inny【🐭】Nazrin]

Originally posted by Seb Ores:

get good?

No you.

[Tigerhawk71]

Thanks for all the replies saying "you want to play Casual". That was SUPER helpful and totally not missing my point about it being horrible game design. :)

Originally posted by ★★★ ZIOM5000 ☭²:

What's not good is that hunger is only limited to Survival and Hardcore. While the item dropping is annoying, I prefer having the hunger bar.

Thankfully, as always, mods will fix that.

It took over a page of comments before someone worked out that "YOU WANT CASUAL" isn't the correct answer.

[BornFlunky]

Originally posted by Tigerhawk71:

Thanks for all the replies saying "you want to play Casual". That was SUPER helpful and totally not missing my point about it being horrible game design. :)

Originally posted by ★★★ ZIOM5000 ☭²:

What's not good is that hunger is only limited to Survival and Hardcore. While the item dropping is annoying, I prefer having the hunger bar.

Thankfully, as always, mods will fix that.

It took over a page of comments before someone worked out that "YOU WANT CASUAL" isn't the correct answer.

It is the correct answer. Difficulty modes are modes that affect difficulty, surprisingly. And difficulty in this game is measured by what happens when you, essentially, get a Game Over. In this case, it's items and their reobtainability. (And, I suppose, the presence of a secondary bar you have to fill which, let's be honest, is a trivial task In the first place. There's food everywhere. Everywhere.)

The risk of losing elements of your inventory is not inherently poor game design. Your mention of how it "actively discourages impulsive exploring" is true, but that's because there's a measure of risk involved. I fail to see how an element of risk in a game where one of many goals is to survive constitutes poor game design. I fail to see how "building boxes on platforms" -- also known as managing your inventory -- is inherently poor game design.

The game has risks, and the game has gratuitous options to modify those risks. You have complete agency over what risks you wish to take while playing this game. You can turn item drops on. You can turn them off. This option is not a mod -- it's built into the game.

Which brings me back to my original point -- In the examples you've provided, Casual Mode -is- the correct answer. If you don't enjoy the game's risks with regard to its definition of difficulty, they've provided you with rather generous settings to change your risk to an acceptable level.

And no, you haven't sufficiently proven why an element of risk is inherently poor game design.

Cheers.

[Dosino]

Originally posted by Tigerhawk71:

Thanks for all the replies saying "you want to play Casual". That was SUPER helpful and totally not missing my point about it being horrible game design. :)

Originally posted by ★★★ ZIOM5000 ☭²:

What's not good is that hunger is only limited to Survival and Hardcore. While the item dropping is annoying, I prefer having the hunger bar.

Thankfully, as always, mods will fix that.

It took over a page of comments before someone worked out that "YOU WANT CASUAL" isn't the correct answer.

Well survival is for the people who wants a penalty on death, if you feel like death consequences are bad ("it actively discourages impulsive exploring") and there is a option to disable it there is not much else to say.
Just because a feature has a consequence for dying doesn't mean it's a bad feature, especially when it's in the survival gamemode.