The point of permadeath is to allow randomly generated worlds1 to be introduced to a game for the sake of constant replayability. If a game with permadeath doesn’t have any such randomness, it would become stale as nothing would be new.
That is to say that most games on this platform (Roblox) which make use of this feature do not understand its purpose and instead use it as a way to artificially inflate risk alongside playtime.
If you were to look for games that make good use of permadeath, what you would be looking for (usually) are true roguelikes2 in which most aspects of gameplay are randomised, providing a fresh3 experience after every loss/death.
There also are some genres that make appropriate use of this mechanic, such as Tower Defense games, Zombie Survival games4, Arcade games, and likely many more which I cannot recall.
Examples of good usage of permadeath in the roguelike genre
On-Platform (Roblox)
Hours
Many other dungeon crawler with randomised elements which I forgot the name of
Off-Platform (not Roblox)
Dead Cells
Noita
Risk of Rain (1&2)
Nova Drift
One Step From Eden
Footnotes
1 - Not necessarily covering the entirety of the world, but most of its gameplay aspects.
2 - Not to be confused with ‘Rogue Lineage Clones’
3 - Not to be confused with ‘new’, as it only serves as refreshment
the point of that is to continuously allow you to shake up your build, instead of the gameplay, as shown with talents being random and the numerous oaths, resonances, etc. etc.
Which is a flawed premise in and of itself as there are many ways to do so outside of having to start all over again. It is merely for the sake of artificially increasing the game’s lifetime that such a mechanic would be added to an RPG.
If you wish for an example, look at Elden Ring for a minute. The only way to reinvest your stat points is to use up a limited resource at a specific point of the map/world after having beaten said area’s boss enemy.
The resource itself is scarce in amount, but becomes increasingly more common as you play through the game as you would rarely need to use them in the first place.
Alternatively, you could literally just have a singular button allowing you to do so (cough cough, Arcane Odyssey if stat resets weren’t limited to acrimonies), or have permanent access to something similar.
little known fact, that graph is completely unrelated to the dunning Kruger effect they just slapped the labels on it
also, riddle me this; if its so trash and bad game design, then why does it have 10x the players of AO?
people enjoy the game its not objectively bad because you say so
Yeah that’s just not true for many permadeath games on Roblox. Deepwoken Verse 1 used to be that way, but now almost everyone uses the builder maker and plans out their talents. You didn’t get the talent you want? Just reroll for it with knowledge.
There’s no randomness in builds anymore endgame, only really when you’re progressing from power 1-20. I just find the permadeath cool since it makes the Depths actually mean something
wrong.
if that was actually what they cared about, they would simply introduce ingame ways to change your build like AO, Voxlblade, and many many other games have.
they just want to artifically increase playtime and add an equally artifical sense of “risk” because lineage game players are adrenaline junkies.
If this were not the case, they wouldn’t froth at the mouth when I tell them that “risk” and “adrenaline” aren’t what make games good.
I’d like to bring up that we’re on roblox and only the most shit games imaginable recieve large player counts. (see: simulators and RNG games)
Recieving a large playercount on this god forsaken platform shows BAD game design if anything.
