Games with High Risk

[StaceyPowers]

In another thread on what makes for a good MMO, @Empire made the brilliant observation that an element many games are missing these days is risk, and that when games have higher risk, they have greater rewards and often tighter-knit communities.

What games have you played that have the highest risk? The one that comes to mind for me is an old MUD which I think is called Armageddon, where character death was permanent, and making a new character involved an application process.

[killamch89]

That's a valid point actually. In most games nowadays, the consequences of failure are absolutely non-existent. If I were to put a game on this list, it has to be Dark Souls. The checkpoints are few and even if you pause the game, the game itself continues so if you were getting murdered and thing you could take a break, the pause button won't save you.

[The Blackangel]

A lot of games have a "hardcore" option that if you die once it's all over. You go all the way back to square one. You might be one step from winning and beating the game, but are killed by a surprise attack. Well you are now at the beginning of a new file.

[killamch89]

10 hours ago, The Blackangel said:

A lot of games have a "hardcore" option that if you die once it's all over. You go all the way back to square one. You might be one step from winning and beating the game, but are killed by a surprise attack. Well you are now at the beginning of a new file.

They also have a mod like that for Skyrim. I have so many dead characters right now...R.I.P Hector the Dragon King. They even give you a Eulogy for the dead character in the form of a note.

[StaceyPowers]

On 12/5/2020 at 5:51 PM, killamch89 said:

That's a valid point actually. In most games nowadays, the consequences of failure are absolutely non-existent. If I were to put a game on this list, it has to be Dark Souls. The checkpoints are few and even if you pause the game, the game itself continues so if you were getting murdered and thing you could take a break, the pause button won't save you.

I must admit I found this too stressful to play =D I play single player games to relax, and thus actually want the stakes to be low. But with multiplayer, I want them to be higher to facilitate better social experiences and also to reduce griefing.

[killamch89]

37 minutes ago, StaceyPowers said:

I must admit I found this too stressful to play =D I play single player games to relax, and thus actually want the stakes to be low. But with multiplayer, I want them to be higher to facilitate better social experiences and also to reduce griefing.

I'm a bit of a masochist so I love extremely challenging games. Just like in most multiplayer games I won't pick fights with weaker opponents unless I have no choice but to fight them.

[Empire]

On 12/6/2020 at 4:07 PM, The Blackangel said:

A lot of games have a "hardcore" option that if you die once it's all over. You go all the way back to square one. You might be one step from winning and beating the game, but are killed by a surprise attack. Well you are now at the beginning of a new file.

I had games also like that or at least played them, Green hell is one of those games that is just hard to play and easy get very farsighted. All you do is looking for food and water for hours and once you feed and drink you start over again. But you build a save point and you save the game. If you die, no need to start over again. But in terms of Deadside, once you get killed, you start over again plotting for the lot.  

Dead Cells also passes as high risk, high reward. It's a roguelike with a permanent upgrade system. You can make permanent upgrades to the quality of equipment found, but you can only invest your EXP at specific points in the run. And there are diminishing returns to playing too much on safer difficulties. You end up in a lot of situations where you have to choose between saving your EXP for a point where you can invest it after a tough level, at the risk of losing everything, or bank the EXP immediately on something less useful.

[Reality vs Adventure]

Any game that has different endings or consequences from the choices you make. 

[Steerminator]

Well they're not MMOs, but many of the games I grew up with were extremely challenging games on the NES, like Ninja Gaiden, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Ninja Turtles (the one with the water level), etc.  Perhaps because of this I developed a great love for fun games that challenge me in the extreme.  Having said that, a game doesn't have to be challenging to be fun for me.  I've always been a big fan of Kirby games, most of which are pretty easy.  One of the best games ever made (in my opinion) is Castlevania Symphony of the Night, and that game isn't particularly difficult. 

 

Having said THAT, if there's one thing I cant stand, its a game where there is literally no incentive not to die.  There aren't a lot of games that I would describe in this way, but there's one that is very popular that I can think of off the top of my head:  Diablo 3.  In this freaking game when you die you can respawn infinitely on the very spot you died at, without the enemy(s) regenerating or anything .  If memory serves, the worst case scenario is that you might have to wait a minute or two before you can revive, and the only loss you actually do suffer is to your weapon durability.  So, if you stand in a spot and die over and over again eventually your weapon will break and you'll deal a lot less damage.  But you can still just keep standing there and hitting whatever you're fighting until its dead.  So it makes it seem pretty pointless to putting in any effort in the first place.

 

Oh yeah, the game with the highest risk... Well, I dont know.  Ive played so many games it would be virtually impossible to pick one.  One that comes to mind though is Azure Dreams.  This is a roguelike-type of game where you keep going into this tower, and you always start at LVL 1.  There are weapons you can find and level up, but if you die in the tower, you lose ALL your items.  I know Terraria has a hardcore mode.  Ive never been a fan of that kind of thing though.  I mean, I love a good challenge, but I also love being able to make progress.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Steerminator

[Steerminator]

13 hours ago, Reality vs Adventure said:

Any game that has different endings or consequences from the choices you make. 

This makes me think of Undertale.  In that game, once you get a certain ending, it makes a permanent change to all future endings you get, which cant 't be undone, if that makes sense.  I really hated that, hahaha...

[Shagger]

On 12/6/2020 at 1:51 AM, killamch89 said:

That's a valid point actually. In most games nowadays, the consequences of failure are absolutely non-existent. If I were to put a game on this list, it has to be Dark Souls. The checkpoints are few and even if you pause the game, the game itself continues so if you were getting murdered and thing you could take a break, the pause button won't save you.

 

Dark Souls as a single player RPG that lacks this basic feature of convenience to accommodate a completely pointless online mechanic is one of several reasons I can't stand those games. This doesn't make the game more challenging, just more annoying and that makes it a flaw and a major flaw at that. All to appease the game's own ego, it's ridiculous. At least in Deamon's Souls enemies stayed with certain areas and didn't respawn, so they was safe places to stop if you had to stop playing for a moment, the same way as MMO's tend to work.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Shagger

[Syntax]

If we exclude out the MMOs like WoW/RuneScape/Ark, we're left with some multiplayer games but some that are also singleplayer. Some that come to mind are definitely games like Dark Souls. It appears that 98% of other games just give you that screen "You have died - load from last save/checkpoint?" which makes dying pretty much useless overall. 

[Kane99]

I think there are more games coming out with permadeath as an option. I love when games offer this, because it makes that game that much more intense. That's why when I play the new Watchdogs, I plan to use the permadeath option, so that I have to get new people to join the crew. 

[m76]

Risk does make games a more profound experience. The only game where I felt actual risk was Quantic Dream games. Because in that if you fail at something or make a bad call, you don't get a game over screen. You get consequences. Usually someone gets hurt or even dies .

It's not everyone's cup of tea, and some people didn't even realize when playing these games how many actual forks have they passed in the story.

In their latest game Detroit Become Human they needed to include a crutch showcasing every little nuance that represents a branch in the story knowing how most players missed that in the previous game, thinking their way of completing the game was the only way.

Edited December 26, 2020 by m76

[Heatman]

On 12/6/2020 at 2:51 AM, killamch89 said:

That's a valid point actually. In most games nowadays, the consequences of failure are absolutely non-existent. If I were to put a game on this list, it has to be Dark Souls. The checkpoints are few and even if you pause the game, the game itself continues so if you were getting murdered and thing you could take a break, the pause button won't save you.

Seriously, the feeling of playing Dark Souls only is scary to begin with. It's not a game that I easily jump into because I know the consequences of what I'm getting if I'm not prepared.