1                   Hierarchy of Pain

Like most games, MMORPGs have some penalty for failure. Typically this is called death, but in actually it is just some form of fine levied against the character.  Failure penalties are a necessary aspect of any game, because without the possibility of failure there can be no sense of success. For many people, great success can only be achieved if the penalty for failure is severe. On the other hand failure penalties that result in a massive loss of progress, or loss of other things that the player value, will frustrate the player. So many designers believe that the player should be forgiven for errors and the player should just be allowed to try again (which is how “save locations” in single player games came about).

So what is the right balance? Well it depends on your market. Punishment for error is typically a masculine approach to failure. Forgiveness for error is typically a feminine approach. (You can learn more about the gender differences in Sheri Ray’s book, Gender Inclusive Game Design.)

But designers should have a model to used to evaluate various death penalties. For that I use the Hierarchy of Pain that Sheri Ray and I worked out a few years ago (with Gordon Walton adding a few ideas of his own). Nice thing about the hierarchy is that is can be used to evaluate in game customer service penalties accessed to players for inappropriate behavior.

1.1           Motivating Factors

In an MMORPG, time is the player’s currency. His progression through the game is tied directly to the amount of time he is willing to devote to playing. Hence penalties that increase the amount of time the player has to spend in the game to advance should be more onerous as they increase.

However it isn’t that simple. EQ’s basic death penalty is a loss in experience points. City of Heroes uses a penalty that reduces the experience earned for future play. Mathematically both system result in a slow down of progression, but most players prefer to take the reduction for future experience gained. In sort players don’t want to lose their current level of advancement.

Why? Because the EQ model is a loss in progress already earned. It takes something away from the player. The City of Heroes model just makes the future going a bit harder. The orginal EQ’s model is even more onerous because absolute failure in the corpse recover game could result in the character losing not only more experience points but all of their gear. This would destroy months, if not years, of time invested in the game. 

The other motivating factor is status or in-game identity. For example the possible loss of highly valued gear in Asheron’s Call caused players to load up on death gear, ie things that would be eliminated when the character died, avoiding the possibility that a cherished item would be taken away. Player’s attachment to items or housing that define them in the game, regardless of their game effectiveness, is legendary amongst customer service staff who have to deal with angry customers who lost them due to bugs.

Therefore it is s safe to assume that the pain from any death penalty could be described by the following function.

Equation 1 - Pain Function

1.2           The Hierarchy

Keeping that function in mind we can evaluate various death penalties. Sheri Ray and I did this a few years ago and came up with the following chart, with the most onerous penalty on top to the less painful (more forgiving) penalty at the bottom. 

Figure 1 - The Hierarchy of Pain

The ordering maps on to this chart, for each of the three variables in the pain formula. The exact weightings of how much a player values each of the three variables is open to conjecture. But if you assume that all three variables are of equal value, then you can see how we came up with the above chart.

The lost of Name something that Gordon Walton came up with, and we pulled it out of the Perma-death penalty since we could see an MMO where the character’s suffered perma-death but the name stayed the same. From a customer service stand point it is also the harshest penalty a CS rep can impose on a player (though its normally done with a Character wipe as well).

None of these penalties are exclusive. In many cases the player can chose one or the other or the penalties are tiered. For example in WoW you can run back to your corpse, or accept a Performance degrading penalty with reduces your attributes to very low levels for a period of time and degrades your equipment.  EQ had a significant penalty where they stripped the character naked, gave a significant experience (and possibly a level penalty) and forced you to go back to your corpse. If you got to the corpse (and had a cleric with you), you recovered a potion of the experience. If not you could lose both the experience and your gear.  

Note that most MMOs, have gone away from Level Loss and Experience Loss and have centered around some form of Time Out coupled with possibly a minor performance degrading penalty. For decades, single player games have been using the Time Out penalty for failure. The “Save Game” feature is standard and allow players to save early and often.

Another thing to note is that as a character advances the higher the Recovery Time penalty, for everything but the Time Out. This means designers have to be very careful of losing their more advanced players as the pain of failure increases as the characters level.

Finally the order of some of these penalties can be switched based on the game system. For example if items don’t contribute that much to effectiveness while level does then those two penalties should be reversed.  

1.3           So Why Worry?

Game designers must travel a very narrow path between challenging their players, and frustrating them into quitting the game. In most MMORPGs the players face two types of frustration, each of which can cause them to quit the game if they reach a certain intensity.

 The first is just simply the player’s inability to beat whatever monster or challenge confronts them. As been stated in many books on design, we want the player to have some failure, so that the thrill of success is so much sweeter.

The second furstation is whatever pain the death penalty the game imposes. If the immediate challenge is too great and the death penalty is onerous, then the players are hit with a double whammy  and they will leave. Worst are the death penalties that degrade the character, making it more likely that they will suffer another failure when confronting the monster.

What is the right balance? It depends on the game, and the players. But as designers we have to understand the impact of our decisions when it comes to failure and the pain we inflict on the players.  

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