Morbo''s thought of the day: "Learning through death sucks." What do I mean? For example, in Prince Of Persia 3D, one would often find oneself walking down long, empty hallways, and suddenly die because an unseen row of spikes popped out of the floor. "Well now I know to jump there!" Great, I had to die in order to figure that difficult puzzle out. And no, there was NO way to see that trap. I looked, a lot. First, it''s frustrating! It takes too much out of my control. If I die, I want to know I died taking down an army! I want it to mean something, not ''gee, another trap I couldn''t see''. And secondly, it makes death cheap. If I detect a pattern of dying-to-learn-things, then I begin to accept death as a normal part of the game. "Oops, I died again. Oh well..." I should fear death! Dying should be a nerve-wracking experience where I find myself running in terror from some great evil (or whatever doesn''t like you because you go around looting their dungeons). Death should tell me, "You failed! YOU, and only YOU!". It should make ME feel bad for screwing up. I should go ''damn, what did I do that for?'', not ''goddamn trap''. This does not just apply to traps (they''re just the best example I could come up with this late sunday night). It applies to any aspect of the game: gameplay, levels, enemies, etc... I should have a chance to learn how to solve a puzzle/get past a level/kill an end guy, WITHOUT dying. Not saying I shouldn''t be able to die from my own stupidity, but if I''m good enough I should be able to make it through with my soul intact. How do you avoid this? Aside from playtesting, and NOT by your level designers, give the player a hint, a clue, even a nudge. "Psst...there''s a trap over there. Jump or you''ll die." If you die, then you just suck, and deserve to die. This doesn''t mean you can''t make your traps tough, just give me a chance! I don''t want to die! I doesn''t give me a warm fuzzy to avoid a trap AFTER I''ve died to see it. My new commandment: Thou shalt not kill me in order to teach me Morbo

Depending on the game it might frustrate me is i get killed in a way that i couldn''t avoid. If i couldn''t see a trap but i should have known that it would be there then thats a different matter. If these sorts of traps are going to be emplaced in a game then i don''t think they should BE kill-player traps, they should be damage-player traps. But i still think that players should be allowed to use there reflexs or judgement to avoid traps.

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Our Goal is "Fun"!

quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

Well, this is something I couldn''t avoid:

I was in Nightmare difficulty, just in the first act at the point in time, I came across the Armourer... I was sure that it was going to be a hard battle, so I was prepared. I had a lot of health potions, and a portal off to the side... I run up to the nasty beeaatch... I start laying into him, I hit him pretty hard and his health was going down at a constant rate (I have zeal with 8 attacks and they are all super-super-fast ) and it came time for him to hit me....

... I was on full health (thank god to steal life ) and then I was dead... 1 hit had killed me... how do you combat that?

The way to do it? Multiplay with a rogue with a Valkyrie and let them do all the work!


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The only way i can think of is using range attack the second time round and never let it touch you. Is that what you meant by rogue, valkarie?



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!