What if there was no respawn?

typhaon · 2013-03-12, 01:05 AM

Not suggesting SOE should make this change, make a hardcore server. or that it would even be fun... but I wonder how the game would play out if the only hope of continuing after death was through a medic's revive?

I wonder if there might be some lessons to learn about balance, tactics, base design, etc... that could help make the present version a better game.

Gonefshn · 2013-03-12, 01:38 AM

A million campers, and others getting instagibbed.

I don't think it would show any reasonable data that had anything to do with the actual game.

Interesting thought but it would be a pointless endeavor

basti · 2013-03-12, 01:47 AM

That server would be dead after a week.

Gonefshn · 2013-03-12, 01:58 AM

One day more likely.

The lack of useful data would be made worse by the 30 people still playing after a few hours.

typhaon · 2013-03-12, 02:36 AM

Ok, let's say that you have to play.

If you die in the game (and aren't revived by a medic), you die IRL.

Also, if you lose all territory, you die IRL. The warpgates are capturable.

Then... how would people play? With everything on the line, I think you'd see people gravitate toward the things that are actually the most OP.

Canaris · 2013-03-12, 04:29 AM

Originally Posted by typhaon

Ok, let's say that you have to play.

If you die in the game (and aren't revived by a medic), you die IRL.

Also, if you lose all territory, you die IRL. The warpgates are capturable.

Then... how would people play? With everything on the line, I think you'd see people gravitate toward the things that are actually the most OP.

they told us we couldn't make that game, apparently it was to much like murder

Figment · 2013-03-12, 06:23 AM

Originally Posted by Gonefshn

One day more likely.

I'd give it an hour.

camycamera · 2013-03-12, 06:32 AM

one should play Red Orchestra 2 if one would like to see what happens with no respawns.

zulu · 2013-03-12, 06:41 AM

Presuming enough people were interested by the idea to play:

Everyone would have to play hyper-conservatively. Lots of hanging back and waiting for the enemy to overextend. Soloing would be virtually impossible in any meaningful sense -- stick to the zerg, operate in a big outfit, or else never get revived. Tightly-organized outfits would have a huge advantage, simply because they can coordinate and keep everyone together better.

Vehicles might not work unless death in them was handled differently (no body to revive means you're just perma-dead). Or else everyone would try to bail before his vehicle exploded. The ejection seat on the fighters would actually have some value, I suppose.

There might be roving "search and rescue" squads looking around for downed pilots and such so they can get a revive. Some people might try to specialize in stuff like finding mines ahead of a tank column.

Some play-styles like SMG Infiltrators and close-quarters LA probably would stop existing entirely. Would be very long-range dominated. Actually, I imagine that Light Assault might go away almost entirely. A few engineers and snipers, but most everyone would be medics or Heavy Assault (though I suppose that's not very different from what's around now).

Logistics (just getting to the front) would be much more important, obviously. Might be more people dedicated to ferrying infantry around in sunderers and galaxies. There would be some value in surrounding your opponents -- if they can't retreat or get reinforcements easily, you've dealt a pretty major blow if you kill everyone in a battle. We might see things like Galaxy evacuations of defending troops.

I don't think the game would be fun, because it would become more of a futuristic war simulator rather than just a fun game, and most of what soldiers do in war is a lot of sitting around and waiting, and there's no glamor and little fun in being a logistics specialist in a computer game.

But it would undoubtedly be a very different game and foster a very different sort of atmosphere. It's an interesting thought experiment, because it does force you to think about what respawning allows players to do, and why some things that might be important in other games (namely non-FPS strategy games) aren't important here.

ChipMHazard · 2013-03-12, 06:50 AM

No respawns eh? That should make ingame nicks interesting.

ChipMHazard: "This game looks awesome! Time to kill me s.. *BAM*"
ChipMHazard1: "Ok, didn't see that one coming. Let's try th... *BOOM*"
ChipMHazard2: "God dammi... *Crunch* *Screams* *Crackle* *More screams*

--- A week later

ChipMHazard654: " *Sign* Getting mighty tired of making new toons... *BAM*"

No respawns can work fine in a match based system. Permanent death can work fine in the persistent world of an MMO, but not along with a lack of respawn possibilities.

What would this mean for Planetside 2? Well I'm sure that players would prefer to stay in vehicles as much as possible, in many cases it would be impossible to defend capture points because of AOE spam and in other cases the fights over capture points would become slower paced and possibly more tactical.... But forget about fighting in a Bio-Lab against the NC and their Scattermaxes.
The game would probably become more intense at the expense of also becoming far more frustrating.

Silent Thunder · 2013-03-12, 11:53 AM

Yea, if I wanted hard as nails "One fuck up and its game over permanently" I'd be playing some co-op Arma 3. Which coincidentially I just bought. Because that type of gameplay actually fits the game's style, unlike Planetside 2 for this.

Rothnang · 2013-03-12, 01:25 PM

That would hardly be a fun game. You need to be able to get back into the action after you die. You just shouldn't be able to infinitely get back into the exact same fight you just died in.

EVILPIG · 2013-03-12, 01:56 PM

I'll throw in that K

should be changed to K:R - Kills:Respawns. That would bolster Medics quite a bit.

DeltaGun · 2013-03-12, 05:24 PM

I would love to play a version of PS2 with 5+ minute respawns with a observer cam locked to the perspective of living players. That's how I used to roll in HC modded CoD4

Dragonskin · 2013-03-12, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by DeltaGun

I would love to play a version of PS2 with 5+ minute respawns with a observer cam locked to the perspective of living players. That's how I used to roll in HC modded CoD4

If Planetside 2 was like that I'd quit... so would most of the average gamers. I have a lot more things I could be doing in 5 mins. Plus it can take 4-5 minutes to even get to a battle only to die and wait another 5 mins to respawn.. haha screw that.

Games like Rainbow Six back in the day or like sabotage game modes where you die till the end of the match. That was fine because the game/game mode was balanced around that. Planetside 2 would be terrible for that setup.