watertreatmentRL wrote:@bel: Obviously if the player has entered a fatal game state, the game should end as quickly as possible. The natural inclination of players will be to hang on as long as possible even when the game is lost. There is no point in allowing them to linger.
This is assuming the conclusion. Nobody can know that the game has entered a "fatal game state" two hours before the actual fact. As a practical matter, virtually all of these "fatal game states" aren't fatal at all; it depends on what you do in those two hours and the RNG.
With an attrition based mechanism, you take stock of your current consumables and the prospects of battle ahead, and there is a certain probability that you will survive. This chance can go up and down based on how many consumables you have, and how skillful you are. This chance is rarely zero percent. The road ahead may be painful; you might be forced to avoid some monsters, keep your eye out for lucky breaks, and so on. With this mechanism, it is up to the player to decide whether they want to continue or type ctrl-Q.
With the other system (it's not clear what is being proposed), some person who thinks that they know better, decides that the "game has entered a fatal game state" (how?). So the player is killed. Of course, it's for the player's own good: they shouldn't be allowed to waste their time when this knowledgeable person has already determined that it is a "fatal game state".