I see no reason that reduced xp gain should *ever* wear off merely through the passage of time. That is why I, perhaps wrongly, viewed it as essentially identical to xp debt.
Even requiring it to be time played rather than real world time may not do much other than encourage a long afk - I see no benefit to encouraging such.
Beefcake while I was more often a healer than a tank in EQ2 I share your view of the benefits of shared penalties. But any such system can be gamed if not carefully crafted. We don't necessarily want people frantically logging out if they think someone is about to die and that *can* happen in a PUG I have seen it. As doubtlessly have you.
My friend’s idea could easily be altered to not violate a game tenet, and all of the other concerns. This debuff could not timeout while logged out, it could be account wide across all characters, etc. I mean it is only an idea, and is subject to be tailored to the spirit of what VR wants to do.
It was also not intended for max level since there is no further leveling to be done. I am glad you pointed this out to others since I did not when I was attempting to not make my post to lengthy.
Your concept is intriguing, but I am not sure if I agree with the idea of using spirit power to purchase something. I have reservations about what might be offered to be purchased and how it may or may not impact the game or experience. If it is too inconsequential, why bother? If it is that important or desirable so everyone has an incentive, is it over-the-top?
The idea of how harsh, strict, or detrimental a penalty to enforce for a death is always subjective. Reading all of these different ideas how to enforce a penalty is very interesting.
Thanks for some very insightful information, particularly with the link you provided regarding the death xp penalty. Because I did not play EQ and experience it, I do not have any attachment to it beyond hypothesizing. Because that article, I am definitely more enticed by the xp loss, and yes, even the deleveling.
As stated, my first, and really only MMO experience was WoW. It was a fun introduction to playing MMO style games, but there was so much more to be had that WoW did not offer, and still does not. I tried EQ, but aesthetics are an important aspect to me. I am so very excited for Vanguard. I have confidence in VR, and look forward to whatever death penalty they implement.
What if instead of a timed debuff, it was a debuff that lasted through a certain % of XP? Like "You earn 50% reduced XP until you've earned 50% XP" or whatever. Then you can't just wait it off. But you can also still feel forward progression without feeling like you just had all your progress yanked away.
Naunet said:What if instead of a timed debuff, it was a debuff that lasted through a certain % of XP? Like "You earn 50% reduced XP until you've earned 50% XP" or whatever. Then you can't just wait it off. But you can also still feel forward progression without feeling like you just had all your progress yanked away.
Intersting idea, but me personally, I'd rather they just take it and then I know where I am at and what I have to do.
This would be like garnished wages. You get your paycheck, a little goes to your debt, a little goes to you.
Just send me the bill and let me pay it in full.
Naunet said:What if instead of a timed debuff, it was a debuff that lasted through a certain % of XP? Like "You earn 50% reduced XP until you've earned 50% XP" or whatever. Then you can't just wait it off. But you can also still feel forward progression without feeling like you just had all your progress yanked away.
This sounds like a standard XP debt system. Player dies, receives 5% debt, and then has their XP reduced by 50% until that 5% is worked off. Debt systems don't really bother me until you get to max level. Assuming a level cap of 50, I could live with a debt system being used for the first 49 levels, as long as pure loss and de-leveling becomes possible at max. If it burns, it's working. As soon as the mechanic stops working it needs to be replaced with something else. I don't want the death penalty to be diminished in any way just because I hit max level.
Personally I still can't imagine a situation where I would ever enjoy watching my character get deleveled, and it could definitely be something that completely pushes me away from the game. I really, really dislike just grinding mobs for XP. Not to mention the implications for boss encounters - you can't design boss encounters so challenging that they'll take hundreds of wipes to figure out and clear.
Of course you wouldn't enjoy watching your character get de-leveled! Penalties aren't supposed to be enjoyable. I'm going to cite the summary of that loss aversion article.
"The TL; DR version of this article is this: When death is painful, MMO players hate dying and will do all they can to avoid and mitigate it. MMO designers since World of Warcraft have largely failed to understand and leverage this powerful human tendency to avoid loss. When dying becomes trivial and rewards dwarf any form of risk, the MMO player experience is greatly diminished."
I feel this is appropriate as well:
"By failing to understand and leverage the proven psychological power of loss aversion via the death penalty, MMO designers have done the genre a great disservice and cheated their players from experiencing the pulse-pounding immediacy and gripping excitement only possible in virtual worlds. As a result, most MMOs have become day care centers where players dress up and pretend to be heroes all from the safety of their computers."
I have played games like EQ2 where some of the raid bosses were so mechanically challenging that they required hundreds of wipes to figure them out. While beating bosses under those conditions was most certainly gratifying, I still prefer an experience where every death matters. The end-game raiding scene was pretty good in EQ2 and the entire experience was centered around learning the various encounters and mastering their mechanics. Anything outside of that, though, felt really dull. The world feels more alive when danger can be lurking around any corner and where our character lives are actually viewed as precious. If death is nothing more than a 5 minute timeout between pulls then life is taken for granted and our actions/decisions feel less meaningful.
dorotea said:Beefcake while I was more often a healer than a tank in EQ2 I share your view of the benefits of shared penalties. But any such system can be gamed if not carefully crafted. We don't necessarily want people frantically logging out if they think someone is about to die and that *can* happen in a PUG I have seen it. As doubtlessly have you.
This is honestly a better result than people training mobs to avoid dying...
Kilsin said:How would you describe the perfect Death Penalty in an MMORPG, and how would you like to see it implemented into Pantheon?
Well for me I would like to see 5% to 10% exp loss with corpse run. Not sure on yet on on the gear staying on the corpse but I am leaning towards yes. If corpse is recovered you receive 50% of exp loss back.
oneADseven said:Of course you wouldn't enjoy watching your character get de-leveled! Penalties aren't supposed to be enjoyable. I'm going to cite the summary of that loss aversion article.
"The TL; DR version of this article is this: When death is painful, MMO players hate dying and will do all they can to avoid and mitigate it. MMO designers since World of Warcraft have largely failed to understand and leverage this powerful human tendency to avoid loss. When dying becomes trivial and rewards dwarf any form of risk, the MMO player experience is greatly diminished."I feel this is appropriate as well:
"By failing to understand and leverage the proven psychological power of loss aversion via the death penalty, MMO designers have done the genre a great disservice and cheated their players from experiencing the pulse-pounding immediacy and gripping excitement only possible in virtual worlds. As a result, most MMOs have become day care centers where players dress up and pretend to be heroes all from the safety of their computers."
I've said it repeatedly, but I just do not agree with that article. XP penalty is simply not necessary for me to feel "danger" when approaching an encounter. Dying and wiping and running back to my body is enough on its own. Much more than that (and especially XP loss and deleveling) tips the scales into so unenjoyable that I would rather not play.
Naunet said:oneADseven said:Of course you wouldn't enjoy watching your character get de-leveled! Penalties aren't supposed to be enjoyable. I'm going to cite the summary of that loss aversion article.
"The TL; DR version of this article is this: When death is painful, MMO players hate dying and will do all they can to avoid and mitigate it. MMO designers since World of Warcraft have largely failed to understand and leverage this powerful human tendency to avoid loss. When dying becomes trivial and rewards dwarf any form of risk, the MMO player experience is greatly diminished."I feel this is appropriate as well:
"By failing to understand and leverage the proven psychological power of loss aversion via the death penalty, MMO designers have done the genre a great disservice and cheated their players from experiencing the pulse-pounding immediacy and gripping excitement only possible in virtual worlds. As a result, most MMOs have become day care centers where players dress up and pretend to be heroes all from the safety of their computers."I've said it repeatedly, but I just do not agree with that article. XP penalty is simply not necessary for me to feel "danger" when approaching an encounter. Dying and wiping and running back to my body is enough on its own. Much more than that (and especially XP loss and deleveling) tips the scales into so unenjoyable that I would rather not play.
On that same note, Dying and wiping and running back to my body, even add to that a little experience loss is just a game to me and not a virtual world. And that I would rather not play.
Naunet said:What if instead of a timed debuff, it was a debuff that lasted through a certain % of XP? Like "You earn 50% reduced XP until you've earned 50% XP" or whatever. Then you can't just wait it off. But you can also still feel forward progression without feeling like you just had all your progress yanked away.
Why do we need all these different ways to do exactly the same thing? Effectively how is this different than exp debt, and how is exp debt different than losing exp. Deleveling is such a minor issue that doesn't require convoluted systems to solve.
plain and simple XP loss.
you die,
if you release and run , you lose lets say 5% XP needed to next level.
if you are resurected you lose less, how much less?
for example: low level rezz with cheap ingredient, you lose 3% xp, medium level rezz with moderate ingredient you lose 2%xp, highest level rezz with expensive ingredient you lose 1% XP only.
no deleveling.
MyNegation said:plain and simple XP loss.
you die,
if you release and run , you lose lets say 5% XP needed to next level.
if you are resurected you lose less, how much less?
for example: low level rezz with cheap ingredient, you lose 3% xp, medium level rezz with moderate ingredient you lose 2%xp, highest level rezz with expensive ingredient you lose 1% XP only.
no deleveling.
There has to be deleveling or debt, period.
The Death penalty should be strong enough to keep people from running around doing stupid things, like training other people. XP loss, Deleveling, Corpse runs, gear left on corpses are all good. There should be a level where the major penalties start to kick in to give players time to learn how to play their class. There can be a time period required for your corpse to appear at a towns graveyard to prevent the permanant loss of your gear.
Naunet said:oneADseven said:Of course you wouldn't enjoy watching your character get de-leveled! Penalties aren't supposed to be enjoyable. I'm going to cite the summary of that loss aversion article.
"The TL; DR version of this article is this: When death is painful, MMO players hate dying and will do all they can to avoid and mitigate it. MMO designers since World of Warcraft have largely failed to understand and leverage this powerful human tendency to avoid loss. When dying becomes trivial and rewards dwarf any form of risk, the MMO player experience is greatly diminished."I feel this is appropriate as well:
"By failing to understand and leverage the proven psychological power of loss aversion via the death penalty, MMO designers have done the genre a great disservice and cheated their players from experiencing the pulse-pounding immediacy and gripping excitement only possible in virtual worlds. As a result, most MMOs have become day care centers where players dress up and pretend to be heroes all from the safety of their computers."I've said it repeatedly, but I just do not agree with that article. XP penalty is simply not necessary for me to feel "danger" when approaching an encounter. Dying and wiping and running back to my body is enough on its own. Much more than that (and especially XP loss and deleveling) tips the scales into so unenjoyable that I would rather not play.
I respectfully disagree. Time is time, it's a fixed parameter. The only varaiable is how much time I have to play. Dying and running to my corpse takes time and is annoying, but it has never stopped me from taking risks I wouldn't normally take. XP loss on the other hand does make me rethink, because not only do I lose time to get my corpse, I have lost progress. Progress being a measurable entity in my characters life.
Deleveling sucks yes, but it just made you WAY more aware of your surrounding until you had that XP buffer.
I can count on 1 hand with a couple fingers cut off how may times I actually De-leveled in EQ. Unless you are a hardcore raider, chances are death won't be something you experience daily. We played more carefully, worked in conjunction with the group and were well aware of our abilities and what we could handle. And even then, most clerics had sympathy for deleveling to come give you a rez to recoupe xp.
Large death penalty really only limits me in one way: I will almost never join a PUG. Even in Vanguard when there was a moderate death penalty I would find in too many pugs they were afraid of dying. They would not test themselves, not pull until all health 100% and timers reset. Guild groups were fine, as were groups with other good guilds.
The top guilds would chain pull, gain massive xp and level the fastest, learn the edges of their characters abilities. They would also consistently have the most deaths.
Generic pugs would often wait until the pather is all the way to the other side. Have the CC ONLY do CC, focus on one npc at a time, give the tank 15 seconds to build aggro. Not learn to play.
Often, Alephen, it worked the other way. PUGs in Vanguard would be too aggressive, try too much, and be too stubborn about trying again and again when it was clear they weren't that close to success.
Content had to be pretty straightforward and not that hard to have confidence that a PUG would neither be way too cautious or way too aggressive.
I hope that in Vanguard the early levels are relatively easy to encourage people to group-up for it. If we learn by level 5 or even 10 that PUGs are a nightmare and we should never group outside of our guild it will take a lot away from the game.
Naunet said:I've said it repeatedly, but I just do not agree with that article. XP penalty is simply not necessary for me to feel "danger" when approaching an encounter. Dying and wiping and running back to my body is enough on its own. Much more than that (and especially XP loss and deleveling) tips the scales into so unenjoyable that I would rather not play.
Naunet, is it possible you are contradicting yourself a little bit? On one hand, you are saying you hate the idea of losing xp and having to grind it back. On the other, you are saying xp loss won't give you a sense of danger.
Perhaps I'm not understanding you, but isn't that exactly why xp loss has an effect? Because you are afraid of having to earn it back? Now, perhaps it won't give you a true sense of 'danger', but it will add a degree of fear in the sense that you won't want to die, because you dread the idea of having to regain lost xp, yes? No one likes losing xp or de-leveling, that's exactly why it makes death matter.
