Dying to monsters?

[Gullis]

So I just got to the first monster encounter at the Quartermaster office. I ran down the stairs, but went left instead of the door to the right, resulting in getting caught. I respawned at the radio, but the monster was gone, and I could get the Saltpeter. Is there no penalty to dying in this game? or was that supposed to happen? I wanted to try again, not have the game babysitt me, and just assume i'm a baby, that can't handle losing, and progress the game anyway. The dark descent had the same garbage system, and it killed the experience for me. Its such a huge flaw, it's hard to ignore, so the "inmersion factor" gets ruined too.

[Jeba]

there is usually no penalty for death in frictionals games

[Gullis]

Originally posted by Jeba:

there is usually no penalty for death in frictionals games

I'm not asking for big penalties, just a reset to chekpoint without removing the threat would be nice.

Last frictionals game I played was SOMA, and at least there, it reverted to a checkpoint, but kept the "monsters" around, for you to try again.

[Gullis]

Had another encounter, where game tries to tell me I should hide. To test my theory, I just ran up to the monster. it threw me away, and ran away in a hole with his tail behind his leg. What a joke.

[Scriptimus]

THEROY JENKIES!

[Kwazymofo]

Originally posted by Gullis:

Had another encounter, where game tries to tell me I should hide. To test my theory, I just ran up to the monster. it threw me away, and ran away in a hole with his tail behind his leg. What a joke.

The monster encounters seem to be very scripted in this game, only some seem to be actually threatening encounters and others are intended just to be spooky moments. Based on my experience you're smack on the money, the game has relatively few moments where you'll actually have the chance to get a soft fail state. I will say that later on there are increasingly more encounters wherein you can get the soft-fail state you were talking about in your first post, but I believe it will often remove the monster from your path entirely.

[joseph160]

There is not penalty for "dying" because you don't really die just get caught. The number of times you get caught seems that affect at in one of the endings but it's little.

[Aeternum]

Getting caught triggers anger and staying too long in the dark triggers fear, both of which prevent you from getting one of the achievements.

When Anastasie experiences these things she loses consciousness and wakes up somewhere else. As you progress through the story you understand why this happens. It is not because the game is babysitting you, but rather it is a part of the story.

[Kwazymofo]

Originally posted by joseph160:

There is not penalty for "dying" because you don't really die just get caught. The number of times you get caught seems that affect at in one of the endings but it's little.

Could you elaborate on how it effects one of the endings at all? I've been very curious about this since I heard Tomas Grip say that there are "higher level consequences" for not managing your fear level well.

[Chris]

There is also a hidden achievement i think for not ever needing to do the WASD struggle. Also you probably shouldn't be able to die because Spoiler: Tihana won't let you die, like when she repairs your broken ribs when the tank main gun falls on you.

[gRRRz]

Originally posted by Gullis:

. Is there no penalty to dying in this game? or was that supposed to happen? I wanted to try again, not have the game babysitt me, and just assume i'm a baby, that can't handle losing, and progress the game anyway. The dark descent had the same garbage system, and it killed the experience for me. Its such a huge flaw, it's hard to ignore, so the "inmersion factor" gets ruined too.

it's a very deliberate choice the developers made. It says right in the beginning to not "play to win". when you fail to escape a monster you don't die; you just let the monster inside you control you and lose consciousness; that ties up nicely with the story of the game. The devellopers consider that putting you back to a checkpoint and do a thing again and again completely ruins the immersion because you're not living an experience anymore; you're trying to beat the game. And I think he's right; the fear goes completely when you have to do things again and again; but maybe it's not for you. For some of the scripted scenes the monster is despawn; but for some other; specially later in the game; you wake up somewhere where you do have to escape the monster.
If you're really unhappy with that you can reload the last checkpoint and try to get a different outcome.

[gRRRz]

Originally posted by Kwazymofo:

Originally posted by joseph160:

There is not penalty for "dying" because you don't really die just get caught. The number of times you get caught seems that affect at in one of the endings but it's little.

Could you elaborate on how it effects one of the endings at all? I've been very curious about this since I heard Tomas Grip say that there are "higher level consequences" for not managing your fear level well.

I don't think it does. unless I'm missing something there are three endings.

[NO THIS IS HATTRICK]

If enough people request it I'm sure they'll eventually implement a perma-death mode, maybe even an ironman mode. Doesn't really change the gameplay experience all too much in my opinion. Even in games where 'the threat is real and the monster kills you' you just end up reloading from a save anyway.

[Gullis]

Originally posted by Aeternum:

Getting caught triggers anger and staying too long in the dark triggers fear, both of which prevent you from getting one of the achievements.

When Anastasie experiences these things she loses consciousness and wakes up somewhere else. As you progress through the story you understand why this happens. It is not because the game is babysitting you, but rather it is a part of the story.

Does not make it any less ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Like who cares about achivements? As far as i know, you can still choose between the 3 endings regardless of how many times you get caught, so the story reason is kinda pointnless. actually did a hard restart of the game, and played it as a adventure game, rather than horror, and had a better time. got the achivement for not getting caught once too.

[Gullis]

Originally posted by gRRRz:

Originally posted by Gullis:

. Is there no penalty to dying in this game? or was that supposed to happen? I wanted to try again, not have the game babysitt me, and just assume i'm a baby, that can't handle losing, and progress the game anyway. The dark descent had the same garbage system, and it killed the experience for me. Its such a huge flaw, it's hard to ignore, so the "inmersion factor" gets ruined too.

it's a very deliberate choice the developers made. It says right in the beginning to not "play to win". when you fail to escape a monster you don't die; you just let the monster inside you control you and lose consciousness; that ties up nicely with the story of the game. The devellopers consider that putting you back to a checkpoint and do a thing again and again completely ruins the immersion because you're not living an experience anymore; you're trying to beat the game. And I think he's right; the fear goes completely when you have to do things again and again; but maybe it's not for you. For some of the scripted scenes the monster is despawn; but for some other; specially later in the game; you wake up somewhere where you do have to escape the monster.
If you're really unhappy with that you can reload the last checkpoint and try to get a different outcome.

I just played it again and treated it as an adventure game instead of a horror game, and had a better time. I see the story angle, i just don't like it. I'd rather have a game over screen.

[_filosofem_]

I can't remember where I read that but developpers said they prefer to have the player fear the consequences of too many times being caught rather than just having a Game Over screen and checkpoint reload. This implies that there SHOULD be consequences for being caught too many times, which is not really the case (or very minor changes in one ending sequence).

I remember they also said that they wanted the player to BELIEVE that such consequences would exist even if it is not necessarily the case. Which is somehow a rather smart idea but in the mean time can only be disappointing in the end.

I think this is the reason why we get hints about Laudanum having bad consequences for pregnancy and stuff like that. They probably intended the player to fear the idea of having to drink Laudanum while it has no real consequences in the end (at least none that I am aware of).