to piggy back a bit on cyonide, what if some zones had slightly different death penalties? (xp debt would still apply)
a zone dominated by undead, could use something like what cyonide is saying - you rise as a ghoul, ghost, or zombie, and your corpse run becomes a search for this undead version of yourself. killing it would be what allows the regular corpse recovery mechanics to occur. they could make a really short timer, so if you get rezzed immediatly you wont become undead, but waiting even a few too many seconds causes it.
maybe a there is a hellish zone dominated by a demonic force. rather than going back to your bind point, you are sent to an unerground purgatory of sorts that you have to make your way out of. perhaps there would be no 'corpse rrun', the time/effort to escape this cavern filled of tormented souls replaces it (no xp is gained from fighting denizens of this area).
possibly there is a really nasty group of orcs that likes to decorate the walls of their fort with dead bodies. get back in a hurry or you may have to deal with that.
just spitballing ideas, to add a little flavor to the thing. obviously most zones would just have the regular penalty.
Quoting Venjenz "Anarchy Online - All exp earned since last "save" goes poof and gets added to your lost exp pool. While you have exp in your exp pool, you gain exp 30% faster via killing and quest rewards. Saves happen automatically at every new level (autosave, no deleveling) and/or when you find an insurance terminal and pay the fee. The insurance terminal then becomes your bind point as well. In a fantasy game, I'd envision it as some relic you place an offering at, or a bind caster in some town you pay a fee to, or a monument you kneel at, etc. Pay some fee, and your exp is locked at that level as a minimum, and all deaths return you to that exp point and physical location, with all lost exp going to the exp pool."
I would like some variation of this as it allows me to warm up each night or if i haven't played in a few days and feel rather rusty or if I had a few too many drinks but still want to play without fear of destroying all progression on that character. I would prefer to be able to lock experience loss if I pay a fee however still be able to de-level, not bind to that Altar(as I would imagine it) and if death occured to have to rebind to that Altar. Consider it the new gear durability money sync. I'd rather not have a 30% faster pool either. It could help ease the frustration of getting stuck at certain levels without making it too OP. Heck even put a 4-6hr timer on the Altar between uses so it Falls in line with keeping the game Hard and to prevent people from overusing it and not taking risks. Put it under the lore guise of the gods are too busy to answer your problems all the time and tell you to figure it out on your own until theyve had a break or something. Maybe the Altar only has so much power and has to recharge.
Gawd said:i would like to see about a 10% of level exp penalty with deleveling, but im not too keen on corpse runs so i would like to keep my gear when i die.
i really just want enough of a penalty that it makes you stop and think when you are about to do something stupid. i am tired of mmos where people run around doing stupid things like puling mobs they are fairly sure will kill them and their group just because there is no real penalty to death. i think a good 3 hours or more loss of xp (in a great group) is a fine death penalty.
oh and there should be ways to recover the xp... like cleric rezzes
Well said Gawd +1
Xaleban said:I still prefer the old school EQ way. Death = a free TL to bind naked with xp loss. There is no need to get all fancy when the best way has been around for 17 years =)
Yeah. Keep the old EQ death penalty. It worked well and sometimes the corpse run themselves were some of the most memorable experiences you had in the game (anyone who wiped in Plane of Fear knows what I am talking about).
Xaleban said:I still prefer the old school EQ way. Death = a free TL to bind naked with xp loss. There is no need to get all fancy when the best way has been around for 17 years =)
Fully agree. Either accept the risk (and implied reward) or don't be risky and don't die. There should be a harsh penalty.
When you die, instant xp loss. Hover camera over your coprse, with a 5 min timer, get a res while in that mode, respawn and regain some lost xp according to the level of the ressurectors spell. (Like in EQ varies from 10% up to 96% and the extra special 100% one)
However, you may have other choices, respawn in zone (in a safe place, and not always in every zone) but lose say 25% off the maximum xp you could regain from a rez, or respawn at bind for no additional penalty. Eitherway, after that 5 minutes is up, your corpse starts to decay, and the maximum xp you can get back from a res begins to reduce. Never to 0, probably down to a min of 50% of the value of the res spell, so faster recoveries are always more valuable.
As to gear, respawning in zone (if available) should keep your gear on you (but no the content of your inventory or coin), returning to bind leaves it on the corpse. However, there should be a way to retrieve a corpse via both player spells (summon corpse) and at a vendor (say in a temple). Though using an NPC to get your corpse back, should make the corpse un-rez-able; making the corpse run that more desired, but not making you lose all your stuff if you can't get to it.
P1999EQLandmark said:Xaleban said:I still prefer the old school EQ way. Death = a free TL to bind naked with xp loss. There is no need to get all fancy when the best way has been around for 17 years =)
Fully agree. Either accept the risk (and implied reward) or don't be risky and don't die. There should be a harsh penalty.
Gonna play devils advocate here.
Lets slightly change it from risk vs reward to risk and punishment vs reward and availability. By this I mean there should be 2 guides perepandicular to one another. Yes there should be risk vs reward but what if there was also higher or lower penalty based off of investment. So the casual guy doesnt have the time to invest in the ultimate risk vs reward. Fine he doesnt have time to do it so he doesnt deserve to get access to the content or potential loot. By the same token this other guy is involved in the highest level raid content. He has made time and effort for it. He deserves the access and potential loot. But with the level of the risk vs reward should we not have a change to the access vs punishment? So the casual guy has a very minor death penalty because he is doing the "trivial" content and the elite guy is bound (by choice) to have a much more harsh death penalty (nothing specific in mind, just the general idea) for doing Raid content.
I liked my Dark Souls like death penalty idea. But funny thing, the first criticism of it was that it wouldnt be fair because the people that would suffer the most would be raiders. :D
@Amsai
I see where you're going with it - but it makes me think of normal vs. heroic dungeons in WoW. I'd rather not split the playerbase further in a game that ultimately will be niche based off additional regulations within the game itself. I'd rather the game just be hard and the players determine what is easy vs. hard. Let those don't want to die because they don't have enough time (casual) fight near the zoneline, while those who willing to invest the time (hardcore) venture further into the dungeon at a greater risk for greater reward.
Raidan said:@Amsai
I see where you're going with it - but it makes me think of normal vs. heroic dungeons in WoW. I'd rather not split the playerbase further in a game that ultimately will be niche based off additional regulations within the game itself. I'd rather the game just be hard and the players determine what is easy vs. hard. Let those don't want to die because they don't have enough time (casual) fight near the zoneline, while those who willing to invest the time (hardcore) venture further into the dungeon at a greater risk for greater reward.
Maybe I did a poor job explaining . But Im not seeing anything I said that wouldnt be in line with what you just said. True its an additional layer but I cant see if fractioning off the playerbase anymore than they would already be. There will be people that can raid and those that cant even without that extra layer. And I didnt say anthing about modes or instancing. This would be open world and player choice. Anyone could at anytime choose to engauge in the casual vs the not-so-casual.
Anyways it was more a test of conviction to the degree that people would except risk vs reward, than a real suggestion. I just kicked it up a notch to see if people would still feel the same. I know Id be on board with it, though I know there are plenty that wouldnt want hardly any penalty as well. And yet still people that basically say to "deal with it" while they themselves couldnt deal with this. Just as I myself cant deal with item loss. So just how hardcore are we really was more the direction I was going.
The world already scales the risk beyond just the penalty itself. Dying as a low level character is usually much less risky because the content is easier and more accessible to more people. Assuming that Pantheon will follow the similar pattern of EQ, mobs become much stronger than the player as you get higher level, and stronger still with raid content. That means recovering from death and retrieving items that may be dropped requires considerably more people, and thus, equates to higher risk.
Im also one that liked the way EQ handled death. I'd probably tweak it so that you respawned with your stuff, but I'd leave the rest just the way it was including effects of cleric rezzing giving more exp back.
The leveling made it different though because it took so much longer. Losing 20% of a level would not be very painful in today's faster leveling as it was back in EQ.
Dullahan said:The world already scales the risk beyond just the penalty itself. Dying as a low level character is usually much less risky because the content is easier and more accessible to more people. Assuming that Pantheon will follow the similar pattern of EQ, mobs become much stronger than the player as you get higher level, and stronger still with raid content. That means recovering from death and retrieving items that may be dropped requires considerably more people, and thus, equates to higher risk.
I see what your saying. And Im not disagreeing so much as saying there is always room for more penalty. Like permadeath for instance. Im pretty sure most people here wouldnt want that at all. But as you can see its not like the way EQ did it is the only way to have a harsh death penalty. Also Im not sure what direction VR will take, but I do see a trend of taking some from EQ and some from VG. I wonder what the combination of aspects of VG and EQ death penalties would look like?
It seems to me that the environmental factors are one of the best mechanisms to scale penalty of failure to the risk.
If I choose to solo all the time in open areas, near guards, pulling wandering solo creatures that are not notable challenge to me, the rewards are few : It will take me a long while to accumulate xp. The risk of my dying is relatively low. And although it might take me longer to recover the xp lost on death, the return to gaining xp is essentially trivial in that very little prevents me from getting back to the corpse to get my gear.
Conversely, if it takes a raid of 40 people an hour or more to fight to the depths of a dungeon, and another hour to prep and engage in an attack on the boss of the zone and you wipe, the recovery is painful. How do you fight to the bottom of the dungeon to get all the gear for those 40 people back? Do you pay for an expensive item that summons the corpses like EQ necros did with coffins? Do you wait for an hour or more for the small quantity of rogues to sneak all the way down to the corpses and drag them up one at a time?
The point being, it's not just the amount of xp lost in the encounter. It's the time investement to recover. You might spend an entire night with absolutely nothing to show for your efforts. You might well show a net loss in both xp and in cash. Whereas the casual guy might gain some small degree of advancement but almost no other tangible reward. A group that plays somewhere in between those extremes is likely to see greater gains in xp and cash with a potentially difficult recovery if they fail, but not one that could take hours to complete.
Environment is the key factor. Not an arbitrary sliding scale that attempts to deduce how great a challenge the thing might be to you, and apply a greater or lesser xp loss, for instance.
Feyshtey said:It seems to me that the environmental factors are one of the best mechanisms to scale penalty of failure to the risk.
If I choose to solo all the time in open areas, near guards, pulling wandering solo creatures that are not notable challenge to me, the rewards are few : It will take me a long while to accumulate xp. The risk of my dying is relatively low. And although it might take me longer to recover the xp lost on death, the return to gaining xp is essentially trivial in that very little prevents me from getting back to the corpse to get my gear.
Conversely, if it takes a raid of 40 people an hour or more to fight to the depths of a dungeon, and another hour to prep and engage in an attack on the boss of the zone and you wipe, the recovery is painful. How do you fight to the bottom of the dungeon to get all the gear for those 40 people back? Do you pay for an expensive item that summons the corpses like EQ necros did with coffins? Do you wait for an hour or more for the small quantity of rogues to sneak all the way down to the corpses and drag them up one at a time?
The point being, it's not just the amount of xp lost in the encounter. It's the time investement to recover. You might spend an entire night with absolutely nothing to show for your efforts. You might well show a net loss in both xp and in cash. Whereas the casual guy might gain some small degree of advancement but almost no other tangible reward. A group that plays somewhere in between those extremes is likely to see greater gains in xp and cash with a potentially difficult recovery if they fail, but not one that could take hours to complete.
Environment is the key factor. Not an arbitrary sliding scale that attempts to deduce how great a challenge the thing might be to you, and apply a greater or lesser xp loss, for instance.
But dont we both want and deserve that time investment in that adventure and recovery? Sounds like a good Friday night to me. Why do we care if casuals have less penalty and we have even more? They do what they do and we do what we do.
@ Amsai
It has been awile so no exact details.
When you died in VG you went into XP debt (basicly lost) that you would have to earn back. I remember it being pretty high around 15-25% of the level. You were respawned at the nearest respawn point with any equipment that was bound to you, the rest of your gear was left on your body. Here you had 2 choices: summon your corpse to an alter and take the full xp hit or with in a time limit (2 hours?) get back to your corpse/recieve a rez and loot it earning back most of the debt you incurred by dieing.
Beyond that, cash sinks for gear repair and time lost. You could not lose levels so once you hit max level dieing was mostly wasted time and money.
Hieromonk said:When dead, you should enter an altered state, much like in Mortal Online. With limited mobility and sight, other can see your ghost (if they have ability) and rez you, etc. IMO..
So, like WoW? This actually makes it a more trivial task to get back to your corpse because you are incorporeal. You can walk unmolested thru any dangers to your corpse. And if someone can rez your corpse without your presence, why do you have to run back? Or are you suggesting you have to run back before you can be rez'd? If that's the case, are you suggesting that you cannot continue playing at all until you both run back and recieve a rez from a player?
Feyshtey said:Hieromonk said:When dead, you should enter an altered state, much like in Mortal Online. With limited mobility and sight, other can see your ghost (if they have ability) and rez you, etc. IMO..
So, like WoW? This actually makes it a more trivial task to get back to your corpse because you are incorporeal. You can walk unmolested thru any dangers to your corpse. And if someone can rez your corpse without your presence, why do you have to run back? Or are you suggesting you have to run back before you can be rez'd? If that's the case, are you suggesting that you cannot continue playing at all until you both run back and recieve a rez from a player?
I'm just going to guess he was referring to the period of time before you select to return to your bind point.
I agree that after dying and before returning to bind, you should have limited vision of what is happening around you. Otherwise, players will die in convenient places to spy on players, mobs or spawnpoints.