Was reading through Star citizens version of Death Penalty and just thought how good some of the ideas in it were and thought i would post it here as I'm sure DP will rise it's head again as always ;)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12879-Death-Of-A-Spaceman
Not all of it works with a MMO but damn i like the lives idea and then you drop to a descendant etc, and your descendant is still aligned with your old faction to some degree.
Jason said:
Sevens said:
You die
you end up naked
at your bind spot
with a big chunk of xp gone
and a loooooong run back
I would love it to be that way just like OLD EQ when it first came out. I doubt they will make it this harsh in Terminus, but if they did , I would be all for it :)
This is how I would prefer it. While some people don't agree with it, the reason behind it is to have heavy consequences for your actions. It makes you act more cautious and not to do foolish things. If you do... you pay the price.
I can personally say that from my own perspective any game that does not punish me for my mistakes make the game trivial. In the instance of EQ a caster being able to bind pretty much anywhere wouldn't even have the consequence of running back to their corpse after death. Especially if they knew they were about to do something really risky. I will just run through mobs or areas and not care at all about dying and I'm sure others will feel the same way. If the sting isn't there... then that takes away from the risk vs reward. The game was memorable because it was a challenge. You had to think, you had to be careful it wasn't just a mindless time sync. If you made mistakes you paid the price and had to invest more time.
The best explanation I can give to the positives to exp loss would be a memory that I can think of dying in the Effreeti room in solb with a group. If you had a group wipe and the dungeon was pretty empty... it was pretty hard to get back to get your corpses if the mobs were around your level. You had to ask for help and depend on others. If there was no exp loss... We could have just kept training until we could get our corpses all the way back to zone, though because there was an xp loss for death, myself and my group didn't want to keep dying and losing more xp. So instead we had to either ask a necro to summon our corpses or had to ask for help from friends and the community. From my experience most people could relate and would help out and I've even met a few new friends because of it. So while it seems like a huge negative it really could have a lot of positive outcomes and help keep our recklessness in check.
Though that's just my opinion of course.
Since the thread has been necroed, I'll add vote to the harsh EQesque exp loss penalty. Yes, exp gain be regained, but typically exp is what is most valued in a game therefore it is what is most penalizing to lose. I never had a corpse rot in EQ - even during the initial Fear breaks, so obviously losing all your gear would be worse, but that's not a real fear I ever had.
The only way armor/durability would be harsh is if your gear eventually rotted, which I believe is even worse and more harsh than an exp penalty. I would never want to have an epic quest weapon break due to 0% finally obtaining durability through multiple deaths.
As others have said, having a harsh penalty made you learn your class, the skills, and ultimately want to be a more skilled player to avoid death. I would much rather be annoyed by exp loss, than to be able to run fearless through a zone.
*Edit - A fair compromise to me would be VG's system at implementation using Gravestones or some similar mechanic that if you retrieved your corpse you gained 50% exp back without a res. And to be clear, I hated losing exp in both EQ and VG, but it did make me respect death and "learn" from my mistakes.
Haseno said:
There is ways to have heavy consequence without an XP penalty.
Armor/Item durability is a common one.
durability loss is not a very good anti death mechanic because it just come back to pocketbook size. If you have enough coin its meaningless, if you dont have enough coins then you forces to farm money or buy it...
Most games that have repair costs never once made me fear death because a small bill down the road. If fact repair cost come from a small way of taking coins out of the game.
Xonth said:
Haseno said:
There is ways to have heavy consequence without an XP penalty.
Armor/Item durability is a common one.
durability loss is not a very good anti death mechanic because it just come back to pocketbook size. If you have enough coin its meaningless, if you dont have enough coins then you forces to farm money or buy it...
Most games that have repair costs never once made me fear death because a small bill down the road. If fact repair cost come from a small way of taking coins out of the game.
You're right that it doesn't make us fear death but it is usually tied in with the death mechanic because the economy needs this stimulation of item degradation and cost of repair to maintain a healthy balance and dying means that you got banged up and "lost" so your weapons and armour should reflect that in some way.
It shouldn't make you too scared to dungeon crawl or fight anything but it should be noticeable that the more you engage in combat or die, the more your armour will naturally degrade and require repair/polish/cleaning etc.
The death mechanic itself should be scary and make us think twice before leaping into battle without a fear in the world as our experience and levels will be on the line, which is a hit to our hard work and time invested, plus I would hope that our world environment will be emergent enough that you will have a greater bond with your characters and want to keep them alive and not throw them off cliffs or at impossible mobs just for the sake of it.
Xonth said:
Haseno said:
There is ways to have heavy consequence without an XP penalty.
Armor/Item durability is a common one.
durability loss is not a very good anti death mechanic because it just come back to pocketbook size. If you have enough coin its meaningless, if you dont have enough coins then you forces to farm money or buy it...
Most games that have repair costs never once made me fear death because a small bill down the road. If fact repair cost come from a small way of taking coins out of the game.
I personally despise durability loss, and prefer an XP loss. I would rather spend an extra hour grinding back my XP than spend significant small chunks of cash repairing my armor. I was merely suggesting alternatives. However, if we're looking to make an immersive game, then armor/item durability loss does add a sense of realism.
There is ways to add depth to the game with durability loss as well. Blacksmiths or Leatherworkers, for example, could make repair kits and sell them for profit. So the buyers can repair their armor without having to return to a town/city/hub/npc. It's been done before and it truly isn't a bad mechanic. The problem with those games is that often the durability loss was very significant. In Pantheon it would be very problematic with the long distance traveling.
Haseno said:
I personally despise durability loss, and prefer an XP loss. I would rather spend an extra hour grinding back my XP than spend significant small chunks of cash repairing my armor. I was merely suggesting alternatives. However, if we're looking to make an immersive game, then armor/item durability loss does add a sense of realism.
Haseno - I get your point, but I think your phrasing says it all in your response. "Spend significant small chunks of cash repairing my armor." Even if that amount is significant at level 20, it won't be at 50, and most definitely won't be after a year+ after release. A sting of death as the topic suggests will always be present with exp loss as there is no curve to make it lessened (except with exp potions etc. which I hope never are introduced).
I would also add that experience loss is no less realistic than durability. If you were to engage in combat with someone and lose, you potentially could have critical incident amnesia where you may not remember the moment. Thus, you could die and unrealistcally resurrect in-game and have experience loss of the incident.
Death sting should hurt to incentivize players to play well in groups, choose players who wont go afk during a critical moment, and form friendship with compatible players. Money penalties like durability loss doesn't do much. Experience penalties hurt and accomplish this nicely. I also don't mind corpse runs though Brad said they were "tedious" in one video.
Edit: Though I don't like the idea of level loss. When talking about level loss, the only affected level it would matter is the last level (I.e. Why care about dying at max level if there's no level loss?) I just think if a character makes it to max level, then they accomplished a feat where the die mechanic doesn't have to sting as much.
Raidan said:
Haseno said:I personally despise durability loss, and prefer an XP loss. I would rather spend an extra hour grinding back my XP than spend significant small chunks of cash repairing my armor. I was merely suggesting alternatives. However, if we're looking to make an immersive game, then armor/item durability loss does add a sense of realism.
Haseno - I get your point, but I think your phrasing says it all in your response. "Spend significant small chunks of cash repairing my armor." Even if that amount is significant at level 20, it won't be at 50, and most definitely won't be after a year+ after release. A sting of death as the topic suggests will always be present with exp loss as there is no curve to make it lessened (except with exp potions etc. which I hope never are introduced).
I would also add that experience loss is no less realistic than durability. If you were to engage in combat with someone and lose, you potentially could have critical incident amnesia where you may not remember the moment. Thus, you could die and unrealistcally resurrect in-game and have experience loss of the incident.
Heseno, having a mechanic in which maintaining the armor you wear is not only logical, but fuels a whole other sector of the economy with Master Blacksmiths fixing people's armors, etc. Albeit, Wizards & Monks don't share this armor maintenance cost so much as melee... but other classes have their sink. Ranged type players might use reagents, arrows, etc. or rare herbs.
Having worn down armor is a part of every day warfare. Having to maintain your armor, to achieve 100% potential is a great idea. This allows for dichotomy within the crafting sector. Better Blacksmith, the better your chance of repairing it to 100%, or even tempering, or ability to customize armor for you, offering an agility bonus, etc. There are endless cross-sector transaction that would take place, making a vibrant economy.
EDIT:
I think there should be level loss... it is horrid, nasty, time consuming, gut wrenching, & ******* frustrating as all hell. When you die and lose your level...
But losing your level after a death, due to loss of experience makes you a better player, makes you retrospective, and makes you more respective of a life.. and how much you could use help right then and there. And when those friends are.. it makes that moment.. what you've sought, & have been missing in all the other games.
Death means you have lost experience via the Game Master.. but he is willing to give you another chance to prove yourself at life... and not make such mistakes. Learn from them.
If you pile enough mistakes on, and lose a level... you will play more cautiously.
I have never felt fear in a video game the way EQ1 made me feel it, and always at the brink of death.
But you know, if I think back carefully to the near-death experiences I can amazingly still remember (a testament to how powerful and real the emotion was), it rarely had to do with experience loss. It almost always involved the times when I was unbelievably deep in a dungeon, or had crawled too far into an area I wasn't strong enough to be in, things would start to go bad and then the fear would hit me: if I die, I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get back to my corpse. Or I would be rooted and getting nuked to death by a Festering Hag in Unrest and realize I was still bound in Ak'Anon... or I was over-run in the Cazic Thule maze and completely lost - if I died in there, how would I ever find my body, much less get back to it - and I have to run back all the way from Freeport?
To me, 'naked corpse runs' are much more punishing than experience loss, and they actually invoked fear in me, not just frustration.
*DISCLAIMER* This post is not intended to imply any design direction we're taking with the death penalty. I think experience loss can serve a very legitimate purpose as well. I'm merely giving my opinion on what aspect of death stings the most to me!
I agree 100%...XP loss is okay but honestly its the though of the corpse run that scares me. Thats something I truly hope the Dev team keeps in mind as I know there was talk of having an alter to summon your corpse as a last chance thing...IMHO that would be a big mistake and would remove the fear of death. Nothing wrong with certain classes having the ability to summon your corpse (to at least the zone line)...that way you are once again relying on the community and not the game to help you overcome a difficulty.People may cry about the loss of items but honestly in the years I played EQ never once did I lose a corpse...and I died in all the bad places...Fear, Hate, bottome of Guk and Seb. If my friends were not on or too busy then I was always able to bride some good hearted Necro or Sk into helping me. Community, thats what MMOs should be all about.
Joppa said:
To me, 'naked corpse runs' are much more punishing than experience loss, and they actually invoked fear in me, not just frustration.
This is a good point, and after thinking about it, I probably am in agreement here that I feared the corpse recovery more - depending on the zone. Not only due to the naked corpse run, but everything that went into it. If your group wiped, the corpse recovery became a totally different dynamic as you were attempting to return gear-less to a spot where you just wiped in full gear. That alone adds another dimension of fear and strategy to the game. I never had a set of "back up" gear in any other game other than EQ - simply for corpse recoveries.
With that said, I still prefer both the Exp loss/corpse recovery mechanic due to the corpse recovery making me fear death, while having the exp loss making me respect it. I think it also added a sense of "heroism" for the tank type classes when they stayed behind to save the weaker classes from a horrible death. I remember tanking/taunting mobs as a warrior to give adequate time for all to zone in EQ. Without solid death mechanics, that server reputation that one can gain never exists.
Anyone else remember the bitter sting of death... when after returning to you bind point, you try to start to mem spells, that you no longer have the level to cast. If that doesn't bend you and make you a better player.. I don't know what will.
You learn from yourself..
Filzin said:
I cannot quote Joppa's post for some reason, but that was 100% my experience as well. That was part of what made EQ great. Well said.
Sometimes if you "thank", or "add reputation" for a post, the "quote" button disappears. (Just hit F5 reload the page.)
Joppa said:
I have never felt fear in a video game the way EQ1 made me feel it, and always at the brink of death.
But you know, if I think back carefully to the near-death experiences I can amazingly still remember (a testament to how powerful and real the emotion was), it rarely had to do with experience loss. It almost always involved the times when I was unbelievably deep in a dungeon, or had crawled too far into an area I wasn't strong enough to be in, things would start to go bad and then the fear would hit me: if I die, I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get back to my corpse. Or I would be rooted and getting nuked to death by a Festering Hag in Unrest and realize I was still bound in Ak'Anon... or I was over-run in the Cazic Thule maze and completely lost - if I died in there, how would I ever find my body, much less get back to it - and I have to run back all the way from Freeport?
To me, 'naked corpse runs' are much more punishing than experience loss, and they actually invoked fear in me, not just frustration.
*DISCLAIMER* This post is not intended to imply any design direction we're taking with the death penalty. I think experience loss can serve a very legitimate purpose as well. I'm merely giving my opinion on what aspect of death stings the most to me!
While I agree that the corpse run was just as annoying as the exp loss (if not more so), you have to admit that in EQ if you took away the exp penalty, most casters with a run speed buff could naked drag corpses while chain dying with no real issue. Being bound close it would be a minor annoyance at best. Especially with the way target and drag mechanics worked.
Also, EXP loss in EQ was only really serious at sub max level and even then only for new players with no means and/or cleric friends. Even in Vanilla a 90% rez removed a huge chunk of any of the "sting" of dying. Kunark adding in the 96% rez and later the clicky rez stick trivialized death to a fairly significant degree on the exp loss side of things.
I don't really have a good answer for how to balance these things. I just feel that everyone who is on one side or the other remembers the "good ole days" of their low level Everquest experience and forgets just how insignificant death was higher level (barring horrific death loops, being asocial and never getting a rez, etc). The worst part of dying in EQ was doing it somewhere nasty and standing around naked waiting for a small handful of rogues to drag an entire raid.
That said I have never really played an MMO where I felt that death was just way too harsh. The real key in my opinion is just to make sure everyone playing has close to the same experience. If you sell EXP potions, offer subscriptions with increased leveling rates, etc to where folks can buy their way out of the pain of dying you ruin that balance. I'm anti-permadeath as I become attached to my characters, but short of that I just think the game has to be built to accommodate the chosen penalty.
For example - Don't make a PvP game where you have zero death penalty and can immediately charge back into battle and bind rush your opponents to death. Don't design the death system so that you respawn 30 seconds after dying in the same exact location and lose exp when the mob you were fighting is still standing right there to kill you again.
jezebel said:
Also, EXP loss in EQ was only really serious at sub max level and even then only for new players with no means and/or cleric friends. Even in Vanilla a 90% rez removed a huge chunk of any of the "sting" of dying. Kunark adding in the 96% rez and later the clicky rez stick trivialized death to a fairly significant degree on the exp loss side of things.
I am currently playing P1999 and have a near max (level 58 player) and I do have many cleric friends; however, they are not always on, and I know that I fear death more in P1999 than I have since EQ launch and any MMO that I've played afterward - so it is not all nostalgia. I would agree that clerics obtaining the ability to res trivializes the exp penalty a bit; however, cleric friends or guildies are not always on. Therefore, you often have to resort to OOC (or send tells if you're desperate) for a res. And, the interaction that occurs as a result is just another dynamic that EQ had to add to community as well as adding utility to the cleric class.
Raidan said:
I am currently playing P1999 and have a near max (level 58 player) and I do have many cleric friends; however, they are not always on, and I know that I fear death more in P1999 than I have since EQ launch and any MMO that I've played afterward - so it is not all nostalgia. I would agree that clerics obtaining the ability to res trivializes the exp penalty a bit; however, cleric friends or guildies are not always on. Therefore, you often have to resort to OOC (or send tells if you're desperate) for a res. And, the interaction that occurs as a result is just another dynamic that EQ had to add to community as well as adding utility to the cleric class.
That's why my first 50 on P99 was a cleric obv lol (mostly kidding I just like the EQ cleric) Seriously though, there will always be times when you have to eat some exp loss. I'm just saying if you die every now and again it's not the end of the world. I stopped playing on there a bit before Kunark came out and I have only played for short bursts since so none of my characters are past 53. Meaning I never quite got to the point where dying is horrid there but I do remember how much it hurt on live as I was a sad little warrior then.
I know I am kinda meandering about but I guess my point is that EQ style penalty or not so long as the game supports the death penalty of choice and doesn't make it so death is actually a preferable way of accomplishing something (i.e. charging in to die rezzing running charging in again and again i.e. WoW style death to get past some way too high level mobs, or dying as a means to quick travel) I think it will be okay. Death should never be a desirable outcome (outside of role playing) for your character. Beyond that I am okay if it stings a little or stings a lot!
Exp loss (for me) is what made a death deep in a dungeon scary. Without it, I really don't mind trying over and over again getting my corpse back--especially if I was playing a class that could bind affinity. Don't know where my corpse is? Well, that's okay, I can try this way, die, and if it's not there, try a different way.
With exp loss, trying to find your corpse and successfully get it became a lot more intense. Failure again to locate your corpse had the same sting.
In other words, death had a penalty of exp loss with the addition to being a weak character (which is an increased chance of yet another exp loss) until you got your corpse back. Such an intense feeling!
i am totally for corpse runs, and xp loss. lets face it i have played most of the newer MMO's and i found myself constantly wondering how certain "Special" players make it to the PC without killing themselves. the following are just some of the most outstanding.
1. a Tank that did not purchase a taunt ability.
2. a healer specced full strength.
3. a tank who specced with no points to stamina (both at lvl 50 my cloth wearing healer had more hp).
these three caused me and themselves no end of deaths. so much so that i am sure i would not have been given the pleasure of their company if those games had any xp penalty. if you lose xp when you die you either get better playing or you stay at level 1. i am tired of seeing level 50s playing like blind monkeys with ADD.
Sevens said:
One point brought up makes sense
Maybe have it so all toons can only bind in cities
so casters have no advantage when doing CRs
(if no xp loss is the way they go)
I would agree here. Without EXP loss making it easy to bind rush just leads to...well...bind rushing. I also have to agree with the other posts that mention how the loss of exp on death really changes how you view certain activities. This is not necessarily a good or a bad thing but in a game with EXP loss a lot of people will find it hard to justify trying difficult things just for fun.
"Hmmm that monster is conning red but holy **** it has a cool looking sword! Let's try to kill it!" is way more likely in a non-exp loss game. Then again, at least for me, it's certainly a bit more exciting when you succeed if it had or at least could have really sucked getting to that point lol.
Sevens said:
One point brought up makes sense
Maybe have it so all toons can only bind in cities
so casters have no advantage when doing CRs
(if no xp loss is the way they go)
I hope there are differences like this. The idea that all classes/races have to be equal in EVERY aspect is what has been killing mmo's for me since EQ1.
An Ogre wizard should not cast spells as powerful as a gnome, but he should be able to carry more stuff.....each should have their strengths and weaknesses.