>>718447112
Too easy. We came up with a potential cool idea for this a few days ago

>take away the mechanic of extra lives entirely
>make it so dying loses ALL your Notes
>however, the new purpose of the gold trophies is they permanently safeguard 20 Notes each (so if you die with 3 trophies, you always keep 60 Notes after death. Die with 61 Notes you lose 1. Die with 99 Notes you lose 39)

Put 5 trophies per level. Now this makes it so PRACTICALLY, losing Notes isn't much of a punishment because you'll probably die with at least a FEW trophies on you. The amount of Notes you'll need to recollect in the vast majority of cases will be so low it's negligable. A very soft punishment. At the same time it means you REALLY want those trophies, they are now valuable in a highly concrete way and it will really motivate people to go out of their way for them. It's a very tangible way to directly reward the player for exploring thoroughly.

Also you could do challenge runs where you don't get trophies on purpose. Perhaps give the player a special reward for finding all 100 Notes without getting any trophies, since they've proven themselves worthy.

>>717783276
If you think Xbox went too far with Notes (I agree) making Notes only reset after a game over ain't gonna fix anything. It would functionally still be a punishment-free system because game overs are extremely rare and unlikely in this game, and would just make small children who keep dying repeatedly cry. Also, smart people who are about to game over would just leave the level to go get health and come back lol

Tying Notes with the golden banjo trophies could totally work tho. Make it so you spend trophies whenever you die. Maybe each statue you find saves you from recollecting 20 Notes, you can choose to spend them after death or save them. That would materially incentivize you to get the trophies and reward you directly for exploring thoroughly.