Dying and Respawning (very minor alpha spoilers)

[Kain067]

In the alpha test, when you die you are automatically respawned at the "single player starting point" of the map, almost as if you were in a game of deathmatch. That is, nothing in the map resets and monsters do not respawn or even change positions, you just reappear at a different place. My educated guess is that this is not how it will be in the final game. But I got to thinking, maybe it should be?

Here is my idea -- when you die in Doom 3, you should be respawned, just as you would be in a game of deathmatch, in a safe spot nearby. You will have a limited amount of spawns, though. In essence, re-introduce the concept of lives, but make them worth something. If you do this and simultaneously get rid of mid-level quicksaving, the perfect balance would be found. No more saving, peeking around a corner, getting killed, and loading. But at the same time player death would play a huge role in the game. As the alpha shows, death seems to be a lot more frequent (and graphic) in Doom III than most other FPS games. It is part of the atmosphere, part of the fear. It would be cool to have 3 or so graphic "deaths" that you could "spend" throughout the course of a map. Come around a corner, get freaked (as is the goal of Doom III), get your intestines splattered everywhare in a cool "cut scene", and then come back for more. You can't run around blindly though, because you have limited lives.

There really is no other alternative that makes for good gameplay. If you have only one life but a quicksave feature, you just save every step or two and reload when you take even one bullet (this is the state of most FPSs). If there is no quicksave but unlimited lives, it becomes very tedious restarting the level every time you die, which appears to be very frequent in Doom III. The original Dooms handled it the first way, and it sucked, frankly. Games like Turok have specific save points and it works a little better. Games like Serious Sam have quicksave, but there are intense action points where it is not wise to save, so in essence have the same deal as Turok. I think this new idea, kind of glimpsed in the unfinished Alpha test, is the best for this type of game.

What do you think?

[uniQ]

no respawn. if you die you are dead. like in real life. ;)
some autosave function seems to be implemented - a cvar spoils that.

[Tetzlaff]

Interesting concept, but I think the classic way will work best.

And remember the Save Gems in Daikatana? Those sucked.

[Kain067]

Autosave is fine, it has "worked" for years, but it has some serious fundamental flaws that can almost erase any suspense from the gameplay. Who cares if you ever get killed? Just hit F9 and there you are again. There is no challenge, and indeed no point to the gameplay at all with this. It is all just exploring the maps, no real fighting or anything. You have no way of ever 'losing' the game, only of winning, if you put in enough time. You may as well play through on God Mode -- it would save some tedious F9 pushing and slight repetition (the three secs between when you saved and when you got killed).

Also, some people might miss some pretty cool death stuff that Doom 3 looks like it will include. For example, that HellKnight that kills you at the end of the demo. Say you can autosave whenever you want, and as soon as you see you are stuck against an unopen door and the big monster is closing in on you, you, of course, quickload. Then you find a way to sneak behind it and shoot it until it's dead (this is possible, try it). There went all the awesome suspense, the great visuals, and just the overal fun gameplay from that scene. Repeat this a bunch of times, and the game is ruined.

Basically what I'm saying is that autosave will strip away all gameplay and suspense, thus making Doom 3 nothing more than a tech demo.

[Grazza]

Kain067 said:

Basically what I'm saying is that autosave will strip away all gameplay and suspense, thus making Doom 3 nothing more than a tech demo.

Only if you abuse it in the way you describe. Same goes for savegames in Doom 1 & 2.

[Kain067]

That's true. If you restrain yourself and only save every 'area' or so, it is better. But still, there is reptition involved. If you die, you have to repeat all the stuff you did in that one area. With my idea, there is no repetition, unless you lose all your lives. In which case you get "punished" more. I cannot as of yet think of a better idea than my proposal. Help me do so!

[Wobbo]

Its just a game. keep the autosave

[Grazza]

Kain067 said:

I cannot as of yet think of a better idea than my proposal. Help me do so!

Hopefully in the game itself id will have got the gameplay balance just right, so there will be very few "instant death" situations, and skilled and circumspect players (or those who choose a skill level that is appropriate for them!) will be able to complete the game without having to save/restore very often at all. Well-designed maps can catch the player in plenty of traps while still giving him/her a fighting chance to survive them at the first attempt.