Death Penalties (now with cuter mod friendly title) :3

Kordesh

 Apparently having a fairly reasonable flame free discussion(a rarity on this forum) about people complaining about death penalties and penalties in general was too "extreme" for the forum because the OP was horribly insensitive enough to call someone the "P" word. 

So lets start where we left off

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Originally posted by Daffid011

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Originally posted by Kordesh

And believe it or not, there are ways to do this without hurting the coddled ones feelings. The best system I've probably seen was in Chronicles of Spellborne. As you spent time leveling up and not getting killed, you were granted what amounted to a "survival buff" that slowly degraded to nothing if you died numerous times. It promoted the idea of staying alive, without directly punishing the character as the worst case scenario was you just had a normal character as opposed to a uber buffed one. Unfortunately, even with this people whined and cried because they felt they DESERVED maximum buffs at all times, and kept trying to get it removed/the exp rate increased, or the loss removed (in which case why even bother having the system?). 

Even small monetary "pay to remove res sickness" or the dreaded "durability" things work well when they're implemented properly.

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 The spellborn system is a neat concept, but I can already see where it could become a problem with just a quick few thoughts.

1) Groups/Raids demanding people be at maximum buff level to join. (This is more of a community problem than a game problem however. You will find this elitist attitude regardless, be it "must have such and such a build" to something as small as "must use vent".)

2) That buff has to be accounted for and repeated wipes on group content will just remove a groups ability to complete the objective.  Eventually it would become that reason to stop raiding for the night just like the XP lose does in games that use that as a mechanic. (Not really. It's a matter of tuning it right. Ideally, the game is tuned to assume that nobody has the buff at all, and the buff just makes getting through things easier. True, it could make a situation where a group that could have just squeezed by something barely at max buff level have even less of a chance without it, but honestly I don't see how that's a problem given it was a stretch in the first place.)

 

A lot of people do not think there is anything wrong with small death penalties.  Just because you want to be punished more doesn't mean you get to talk down to everyone else as if you are some sort of elite gamer and everyone else are crybabies. (This is a misconception. Nobody is suggesting that anyone is some kind of "hardcorez" gamer here. Yes, people like that do show up and want "FULL LOOT PERMA DEATH RIGHT NAO!" because they think it makes them some kind of badass, but conversely, you have people that ARE complete crybabies who can't accept ANY challenge in their games and think that paying money means a free pass to just press a button and make things dead and collect loot. They're against ANY form of death penalty or actually having to win or beat something to be rewarded, and want to have everything given to them with no effort involved. These people are cropping up more and more, and it's pathetic. I'm not saying every game should be Eve/Darkfall/UO etc. I lost enough levels in EQ to be glad that level loss and that crap is over with, and even though I see the appeal of it in the right games, I know it doesn't belong in everything. However, I do feel that SOME form of "penalty" is required, as its the only way to foster some level of self preservation. Virtual people are remarkably suicidal.)

There are plenty of games with harsh death penalties, so play them if you want to be punished more.  Not every game has to cater to your playstyle. (The key thing to remember is this goes both ways)

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Comnitus

Pumpernickel?

DUDE YOU'RE SUCH A PUMPERNICKEL!

So is this thread promoting harsh death penalties? It seems like it. My personal take on them is that they have to fit the game. If your game focuses on action and fun over immersion and realism, then your death penalty cannot be too harsh. Getting back into the fight quickly is important, not sitting on the sidelines, right? If the game is set in a world where death is perhaps not very common (if the player is sensible and careful, of course), then a harsher death penalty would be okay. Since death is a rare thing.

cukimunga

Originally posted by Sovrath

"But it's all subjective.

Personally I like some sort of death penalty because if "dying" just means an easy port to town then something is wrong. But with that said, WoW's death penalty or LOTRO's is far more harsh than Lineage 2's or Aion's for me.

Why?

Because I HATE running to my corpse. Just hate it. I also hate a debuff that essentially makes me useless for 10 or so minutes.

I'd rather have a bit of xp loss or in Aion's case xp loss/money loss.

But then again, having said that, some people, myself included actually feel that failing is a penalty.

I could play a game with no death penalty and the idea of failing is something to keep me from "not failing".

It comes down to a sense of pride in what you do."

Yeah its true its all subjective, I don't really mind any death penalties well except for full loot which I consider a death penalty. I like keeping my gear that Ive looted or crafted. But so far my favorite game was FFXI and its death penalty was xp loss and if you got a rez you still had xp loss but it was less and then you had rez sickness for a few minutes on top of it.

There were times when I actually loss progress throughout a gaming session and even deleveled. But I still loved the game to death, I'm never in a hurry to get to max level. I just looked at like well I didn't get anywhere today that's cool, it just gives me another day to enjoy the game.

Others might be totally turned off by this experience  but if you look at the 500k subs its held for years now you can tell that people enjoy the game despite the death penalty.

Kordesh

Originally posted by Comnitus


Pumpernickel?
DUDE YOU'RE SUCH A PUMPERNICKEL!
So is this thread promoting harsh death penalties? It seems like it. My personal take on them is that they have to fit the game. If your game focuses on action and fun over immersion and realism, then your death penalty cannot be too harsh. Getting back into the fight quickly is important, not sitting on the sidelines, right? If the game is set in a world where death is perhaps not very common (if the player is sensible and careful, of course), then a harsher death penalty would be okay. Since death is a rare thing.

Not promoting harsh death penalties, but rather discussing why they exist and rather should exist in at least some form. I don't think every game should be like Eve or UO where you lose EVERYTHING, but at the same time you have people on the opposite end of the spectrum that want absolutely no obstacles and all the reward. Death penalties exist for a reason and that reason is to add some level of self preservation so that "suicide teleporting" and "suicide skipping" (bypassing mobs by respawning behind them) doesn't become an everyday thing, and that you actually have to think before just throwing yourself at an encounter over and over.

As a side note, second to exp loss(with deleveling) I think exp debt was almost as bad. Nothing sucked more than grinding away, with the bar openly mocking you by reminding you that it's all exp you had before and just lost because you went to get a sandwich and something spawned on you )=