Aye, but respawning is a critical game mechanic. Doing something for no good reason that's unrealistic is utterly pointless, which is really my point at the end of the day.
No kidding, so at the point where it utterly destroys the videogame, your ability to play it, your life, your computer, your face, your family, and half a city block for the sake of realism is probably gone too far. That's a good reason to mitigate realism.
The above ^ are good reasons to mitigate realism. What's your reason for mitigating realism in this case?
Oh, look at that, here they are. >
Working in a videogame is just flat out wrong. Metagames are stupid. They are the most broken, pointless, meaningless game mechanics in the history of game design and they should die a thousand deaths in a million fires.
At the precise point at which the game transforms from fun to "work" is the point at which, for your own health and the sake of people around you, you should stop doing it. The fact that you even used the word "work," as though playing a videogame for digital breadcrumb rewards were real, constructive work, terrifies me. If you go do something in the real world and it produces a tangible reward, that is a thousand times more substantive and nourishing than any reward you will get in a videogame, I can assure you. Play videogames for their own sake and for nothing else, please, I beg of you.
I mean this is literally getting to the point where it's a health concern.
Sure, it's balanced, albeit poorly.
So the question now is whether the hit to game balanced caused by introducing this system is worth the advantage gained from getting a "simulation" type environment where progression is modeled.
Well first of all, we're getting into the territory of fabulously abstract ideas. We're literally transcending the concept of a game. We're not "simulating" the physical characteristics of weapons or corralling players into an artificial battle for dominance. Instead, what we're doing is roleplaying soldier. Yes, that's what you're suggesting, is something less along the lines of a first person shooter or a war sim and more along the lines of a roleplaying game. You want to feel like you're playing a role.
You seem to be arguing that the introduction of these roleplaying elements will have such a subtle effect on gameplay that they will be worth it to introduce some intangible "feeling" of being in war or being a soldier.
So that's not arguing from a realism perspective or a game balance perspective, or even a game design perspective in the traditional sense.
It's appealing to something that I know well, which is to roleplay a character in the hypothetical, which does tease my brain a little bit and stimulate my curiosity.
I will say I feel like the better option would be to drop the progression system and just make characters have randomized stat options and relegate this system to a side game mode for interested roleplayers, sort of in the same way that World of Warcraft has separate servers for roleplay and normal play. Or even for those that feel the progression system is worth it for the roleplay significance could have a game mode in which this progression system is included.
Approaching this from a pure game design or sim perspective, I still don't see the purpose of the system, but I see now I'm being a little hard lined when I do that.
In a real war the 10 year vet can get permanently disabled by a fragment from an artillery shell. He doesn't respawn with the same level of experience.
You can facilitate teamplay without a progression system. Like for instance, delegating certain specialized roles, or a class system like in Ost Front. The machine gunner, for instance, can't solo the team, and neither can a submachine gunner snipe at range.
