Do you believe in the death penalty?

TianFeng · July 2004

Recently, I have been giving quite a lot of thought to the systems running behind MMORPGs. I have had some good discussions about various aspects that people think are good, bad or need tweaking. I've heard many ideas, most of which sound like they would make a brilliant game. The one thing I havn't thought much about, is death. I don't want to talk about permadeath (at least not in particular), or even bind points. Just the penalty for dieing.

Almost every MMORPG has their own death system.

Asheron's Call 1 gives you a statistic penalty (decrease to your vital statistics, health etc.), and the higher level you are, the more severe the penalty is. Its called 'Vitae'. You work your vitae off by gaining a specified amount of xp. The xp isnt used up, but your character will not function so well until you have gained this much. This means, that when you die, you will probably need to fight some slightly easier mobs, so you can get that required xp to remove your vitae. If you die again, your vitae is increased again (but not so much as the first time). This means that if you continue to die again and again, you will accumulate more and more vitae (though at a slowing rate) and your character will become more and more inept. Basicly, death temporarily negatively effects your characters stats, and therefore, performance.
On top of this, when you die, you leave behind a corpse. This corpse will contain a few items from your inventory, and money that your character was carrying in coins. The items dropped are selected by their value, and the higher level you are, the higher the value of the dropped items.
The system means that death will mess up your character. It also means that higher levels will suffer more than lower levels. To begin with, death hardly effects you at all, but slowly it creeps in, until the point at which a player will avoid dieing if they can.

The AC1 system, can however have a negative impact on your gameplay. Obviously, you need to be punished for screwing up - but vitae can quickly accumulate, especially when trying to get back those precious items that you dropped. When I played AC1, I remember a few times when I got angry, frustrated and upset when I was helpless to stop the spiral of death leading to deterioration, which would in turn cause death again.

What about some recent games?

SWG's system didnt really make death a problem at all, until more recently. The only problem, until they introduced item degrading, was that you had to respawn and run all the way back to your group. When I played it, I really didnt mind whether I died or not at all. Once item degrading came in, I changed my tone a bit. It was now costing me lots of money to die, or it would cost me damage to my items.
This system made death more problematic in the long run. Quite different to AC1's relatively short term effects. If you died, you would suffer. There was no running to collect your corpse or other ways out of a punishment.
I don't like this death system. It promotes a more weary, problematic take on death. In my eyes, I would like to see players get another chance to show that they arent so bad after all. Slowly, bit by bit, loosing my precious composite armour was horrible. With the annoying repair system, it meant that death was depressing, and made me not want to hunt at all. It put a large dampener on PvP too, for me at least. I wouldnt want to PvP, due to the greater chance of dieing, and therefore screwing up my items. They fixed this with no decay on items from a PvP death, but this was a bit of a quickfix for a system that just didnt work very well.

What about future games?

EQ2. What we know of it so far is that items will degrade on death. Also, they are using a rather new and different system, whereby death causes the loss of an xp bonus. The xp bonus can be regained, by either collecting a mystical soul shard that your character drops when they die, from the corpse of your character, or by just letting the soulshard grow back over time.
I have to say, I quite like this system. It doesn't screw up your playing, as your character wont be rendered useless. It also wont mean that death wont matter at all, no one wants to gain less xp for the same amount of effort. It also means that long term effects are reduced, which I feel is a good thing. The corpse run means that it also gives players a chance to get back what they lost, almost immeadiatly. If they cant do it, then they will suffer for a while, but not permanently. I very much like the idea that your character will still be able to fight just as well, so you wont have to leave a group because of a few deaths, but it will just mean your xp coming in will be slower. But perhaps this system is too soft? People may not want to gain less xp, but they might think "What the heck, I cant be bothered, im lazy so I wont go and collect the shard".

What do you guys think? What system do you all prefer? What would you like to see in an MMORPG as a death system? How hard, or soft, should the punishment be, to a player who carelessly got themselves killed?

jimothypetro · July 2004

I like the idea of a very, very small death penalty.

I think one of the worst ideas ever was the death penalty in Lineage 2. I don't mind the chance to drop equiment in PvP(though IMO you should never be able to drop an equipped weapon) because I like the risk vs. reward, but the XP penalty being so high in a PvP game is horrible.

In castle sieges you can lose 2+ levels. At 60+ that is 2 weeks of grinding for most people. And then after 2 weeks of grinding its time for another castle siege, so you really never get any progress. No time to level up another character, no time to PvP outside of castle sieges, no chance to do anything but grind for 2 weeks, then participate in a castle siege(and alot of people won't even get to participate in castle sieges, unless you're in a top clan).

In PvP games I like the idea of NO XP loss on death, and a small chance to drop an item(money should be fairly easy to farm though).

In PvE game there should be no chance to drop items, and have a small XP loss.

If no there was XP loss on death I would still be playing Lineage 2. Well, no I probably wouldn't. If there was no XP loss on death and adena and material drops were tripled, then I would still be playing.

heinricho · July 2004

I like WoW's go back to your corpse and keep going, or you can let the spirit healer resurrect you for an exp penalty (which you regain, eventually) You have to be within 30 meters so you don't have to worry about fighting off the mobs that killed you. also the graphics are sweet.

Heinricho
Plainsrunning Demo!
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/16/

jimothypetro · July 2004

Somehow I think that no matter what the death penalty was in WoW, it would still be heinricho's favorite..

el_Slacko · July 2004

Actually, that isnt precisely how AC1 does the death penalty. The DP consists of 2 parts in AC1. Vitae and Items Dropped

1) Vitae: For each death, you accumulate a 5% vitae penalty. This subtracts 5% from all your skills and secondary attributed(health, stam, mana). It takes experience to work the vitae off, but unlike EQ, the xp is shadowed. Meaning, the experience used to work off vitae ALSO goes to your next level and skills. The amount of experience needed to work 5% off is rather trivial, the only thing it hurts alot is rebuffing yourself as your magic skills are usually 300+ for the best level of spells and if your not way over 300, it can be difficult. Normally it takes me 5 minutes to work 5% off outside and less than 1 minute in a dungeon after rebuffing. Very trivial penalty.

2) Death Items: This part drops a certain amount of items and HALF of the hard currency you are carrying(Trade Notes are never dropped, just coins). The number of items dropped increases with your level base 10(10-19, 20-29, etc) and starts at 1 item and can get to about 12-14. The items selected are done based on their item type(armor, weapons, wands, etc) and their value in coins. Before level 25, you never drop any item that you have equipped. After level 25, you can drop anything. This penalty is usually negated by having Death items or DIs. These are functionally worthless items that have great value in coins(Master Mage Robes, Master Mage Portal Gems, obscenely over-valued loot )

I just wanted to clear that up in case anyone at all cared

Confronted · July 2004

WoW's death system seem quite reasonable. I like the idea of how you could be a ghost if you die. Anyway, I don't really support tiny death penalties, makes the game kind of uncompetitive. It's like you can go all out and do risky stuff and not care about whether you die or not. I like reason and competition, isn't multiple player games all about competition?

el_Slacko · July 2004

Since I didnt reply to the actual question, Ill do that now.

I think there shouldnt be any type of hard penalty to the death system. Experience and item loss just makes people act more cautiously. In AC1, almost noone PKd until they introduced the PkLite system(no vitae, item loss upon death, just buff loss), but after they did, tons more people hunt other Pink Dots

The worst a penalty should be, IMO, should only cause you to have to rely on another person to ressurect you, or cause you to journey back to where you were. No corpse to fret over, no uber lewt to lose forever to lag, no exp debt to slow your leveling cycle, and best of all, Noone to blame for letting you die No more "Goddarnit Healer! You let ME DIE!" Without penalties, youll only need a res or a short trip back to hunting grounds to compensate for your otherworldly visit.

I actually think Tabula Rasa has a system like this, but dont know the specifics on it.

fulmanfu · July 2004

im for permadeath ::::08::

you trot into an area you cant handle, you get jumped, whatever. your fault. move your items to your heir(lvl 1 toon) and try again ::::02::

el_Slacko · July 2004

You should try playing Diablo 2 on Hardcore mode then Fulmanfu, scary stuff

Kriminal99 · July 2004

IMO the absolute best system to have would be where you level very quickly, and the death penalty does not have any kind of absolute effect on your ability to play the game. Not that it can't be severe (in fact I think it should be), but you have to still be able to do whatever you did before you fought. Maybe you lose levels but there are other people or mobs your new level you can fight without fear of being slaughtered by higher levels.

Annekynn · July 2004

Stupid Death penalties are the #1 reason why I quit mmrpgs. There is nothing more frustrating than dieing because of external reasons (connection cuts out, lots of lag, someone trains a mob at you etc) and then paying a big price for it. I hated AC1s death system as it was originally, as id spend countless hours sometimes doing a massive search of an area trying to find my damned corpse. On the other hand, I totally loved DAoCs death system. You got a 5% (or less) exp penalty and a trip back to the last stone you bound to.

In my opinion, nothing penalizes me more than TIME. If it takes me 30 minues to get back to where I was because I had died, then that is a big penalty for me. Thats 30 minutes of having no fun.

I really like how blizzard is taking the approach to the death penalty. In WoW you will have a choice. You can lay there as a corpse and get ressurected, you can do a corpse run as a ghost back to your corpse (unlike AC1 originally, in WoW you will get an arrow showing you were your corpse is AND there are very few enemies to encounter in ghost form), or you can respawn immediately at the graveyard with an exp penalty. Choice is good, and I think WoW is going to appease a lot of people with its system.

--------------------------------------
Played: AC1, DAoC, E&B, SWG
Tested: AC1, AC2, DAoC, Eve, Planetside, Rubies, Lineage 2

heinricho · July 2004

Originally posted by jimothypetro
Somehow I think that no matter what the death penalty was in WoW, it would still be heinricho's favorite..

ha....ha....

you know what's funny is.. you're probably right!

Heinricho
Plainsrunning Demo!
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/16/

ramadin · July 2004

Whats to discourage dying if theres no penalty?

Laying in bed, looking up at the stars, a single thought passed through my head. Where the fuck is my roof?

Wicked_Edge · July 2004

no I don't and this topic should be in the off-topic forum.

---------------------------------
UO - 4 years
AC - 2 years
AC2 - 6 months
DAoC - 1 month
FFXI - 7 months
Diablo2 - 9 months
Shadowbane - Beta tested
Lineage2 - Beta tested
mmoRPG'er since October 1997

Worf · July 2004

Death penalties in games simply PISS me off.

If I wanted to sit on the DAMN bench, I'll go join a pickup basketball or baseball league. (or the like)

I come to PLAY not be put in a forkin' DEATH PENALTY BOX.

::::25::

none

gaeria84 · July 2004

Yeah, death penalty really gets my blood boiling. Want my vote? WoW's death system is the most lenient so far.... I gladly favor WoW's over other MMORPG's.

*anticipating WoW*

Xzaro · July 2004

Originally posted by jimothypetro
I like the idea of a very, very small death penalty.
I think one of the worst ideas ever was the death penalty in Lineage 2. I don't mind the chance to drop equiment in PvP(though IMO you should never be able to drop an equipped weapon) because I like the risk vs. reward, but the XP penalty being so high in a PvP game is horrible.
In castle sieges you can lose 2+ levels. At 60+ that is 2 weeks of grinding for most people. And then after 2 weeks of grinding its time for another castle siege, so you really never get any progress. No time to level up another character, no time to PvP outside of castle sieges, no chance to do anything but grind for 2 weeks, then participate in a castle siege(and alot of people won't even get to participate in castle sieges, unless you're in a top clan).
In PvP games I like the idea of NO XP loss on death, and a small chance to drop an item(money should be fairly easy to farm though).
In PvE game there should be no chance to drop items, and have a small XP loss.
If no there was XP loss on death I would still be playing Lineage 2. Well, no I probably wouldn't. If there was no XP loss on death and adena and material drops were tripled, then I would still be playing.

Oh please, get your facts straight. In higher levels, you don't lose the 10% exp when you die, it gets lower as your level grows. So at level 60 it would be more like 2% or something close to it. And during castle sieges you lose LESS exp than you normally do.

IMO, Lineage 2 has a good death penalty system. It makes people stay focused and not think dieing won't do anything to them. I'm all for perma-death also
::::20::

_______________________________________________

TianFeng · July 2004

El Slacko - I am sorry I left AC1 about two years ago, so it's a little hazy in my mind. Thankyou for clearing it up.

Originally posted by Wicked_Edge

no I don't and this topic should be in the off-topic forum.

Wicked_edge, did you even read any of the thread?! There are no 'yes' or 'no' questions set, by me at least. Why should this be in the off topic? This is 100% about MMORPGs! I think someone has read the thread title, been too lazy to read the posts, and thinks this is about real life death penalties ... .

I think so far, death can be divided into 3 neat categories.

Inconvinience. - The player dies, and has to travel back. Perhaps they are hit with a soft xp punishment, but nothing that will stop them from being the same fighter they were when they died.
Punishment. - The player did get themselves killed. Death should be avoided by people, and so this system makes sure that death is something to worry about. It usually combines several aspects such as item degrading, an inconviniencing run, and a loss of property if they cannot reobtain their corpse. Death becomes a problem, which will have long term effects on the player.
Permadeath. - This really sits in its own category. If you die, you lose everything and start again.

I think permadeath damages the gameplay too much, but I still think death should be meaningful. Players shouldn't be allowed to die whenever they feel like it, should they?
That said, I do enjoy dieing now and again - whilst playing AC1, I remember competitions with my friends, who could hit the ground first after jumping off greenspire (A veeery tall tower). Death wasn't too bad then, I could work of the vitae with a bit of effort, and I hadnt died in a swarm of monsters, so I could easily get my corpse back.
I would like to see a punishment for dieing, but at the same time, don't want to see a system that will upset players. It is after all a game, and it isn't any fun if you aren't enjoying yourself.
I don't think the inconvinience system of dieing and having to run all the way back, should ever be removed. I think there should be some immeadiate punishment to hinder the player.

Item degrading. If a game has a well established crafting and trade system, then this could be used to promote/force social interaction. If you have to go to a crafter to get your armour repaired, then I think this is a good thing. I wouldn't mind too much. What I didn't like with SWGs damge to items, was that repairing them often could damage the item more. I guess this is a little more realistic, but I still don't like it. I can also understand that the devs did not want easy repairs to make death's damage to items too trivial. This still doesn't make me like it. I think that the inconvinience in a system can always be juggled around a bit, and put somewhere else. Rather than making repairs fail, I think making a repairer hard to find would have been better. Im not sure how you would do this, perhaps repairing would be a high level crafting skill, or something similar.

Ill imagine im playing a fun MMORPG, im in a group, we just charged at some ferocious monsters, and I died. What would I feel comfortable with at that point.
Well firstly, I would want to be able to go back and still fight alongside my friends, so that means no negative effects to a player's skills, and possibly no dropping of any items. If I drop items, I may not be able to fight, heal or do what ever I am meant to do.
I wouldn't mind running back, as long as it isn't overly far or dangerous. I also think that I should be punished in some way for dieing, and it should be a punishment that requires me to fight a bit, and gain xp, to lift. But what should the punishment be? Something non-damaging to my characters usefullness, so maybe an xp reduction. The trouble with this, is that if it takes xp to lift, but I am getting less xp since i died, and even less if I die again, the amount of xp I am getting will decrease, heading in the opposite direction to the amount of xp needed, which will increase. This will cause a huge divide to open, that I probably wont be able to fill, which is very very bad. But I still think that xp should be required to lift it, the player should show they have learnt from their mistakes.

Right now, I can't think of a suitable punishment that will hinder the player, but will not stop them from performing should be, bearing in mind that it is a punishment that requires xp to be lifted. Any ideas?

nooblet · July 2004

i like perma death....its cute

Seravajan · July 2004

Originally posted by nooblet
i like perma death....its cute

LOL! The play Nethack or similar games! ::::08:: ::::20:: ::::28:: ::::02::

Betatesting: Unknown game coming soon! :P
Betatested: AC2; Lords of Everquest; Horizons; Fung Wan Online; Wish; Saga of Ryzom.
Testing: AC1; AC2
Playing: Horizons
Retired: EQ; DAoC; SWG; Shadowbane; UO free shards, Ashen Empires
Attempt to test or play: Darkfall; EQ2; Dark & Light, WoW, Mourning

iddmitri · July 2004

Perma death. If you die you loose all your inventory or one item from your inventory but NOT expirience.

∙name: EViLD0G
∙clan: [EXE]
∙playing: EQ, SIMS, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, AW, RS
∙planning: WoW, GW

TianFeng · July 2004

Well that isnt permadeath then, is it. Permadeath means that you lose everything, especially xp. You can't have a character die permenently, but then the heir (or what ever you want to call the 2nd version of the character) recieve all of the expereince. What you are talking about is just item drop on death, not permadeath at all.

Redfoot · July 2004

I like EVE's almost 'darwin' approach to death penalties.That game has almost zero death penalty or perma death, depending on how you play it.If you go around with all eggs in one basket, or some insanely expensive setup battleship+clone+implants and you get killed, thats 600-700 million ISK down the drain.Go around in a frigate and get blown up, you only loose about 1 million tops.

Its all about risk assesment, and not risking that which you cannot afford to replace.Dumb people quit the game early on going 'waaa i lost my battleship and now i have nothing but this lowbie cruiser' whereas smart people would never be in the position to loose their un-replacable assets.Ofcourse there comes a point where loosing 700 million is no sweat, but once bigger ships get released (titans etc.) that all changes.

Annekynn · July 2004

"Its all about risk assesment, and not risking that which you cannot afford to replace.Dumb people quit the game early on going 'waaa i lost my battleship and now i have nothing but this lowbie cruiser' whereas smart people would never be in the position to loose their un-replacable assets."

That is an incredibly stupid way of playing any game, and the reason why I quit AC1 and Eve. Storing your best stuff in a station or on a mule because you dont want to risk it being lost or destroyed is ridiculous. What is the point of having those items in the first place? Why have a battleship if you cant use it because its irreplaceable? That is no fun way of playing a game. If I have something good, I want to use it. I want to be proud that I have it. I want to show it off. I want it to elevate me to god status. I dont want to go "hey all, I have Uber Armor of Pwning but its stored in a bank because I dont want to lose it!".

There are plenty of other ways of penalizing a player, without risking his/her possessions. Corpse runs (to avoid exp penalties), exp penalties, stat penalties, time penalties etc. that can be used appropriately to provide a reasonable death penalty. DAoC penalized you with time (pvp), and exp (pve). WoW will penalize you with time (corpse run) or exp (instant respawn). Both are fine examples of a good death system.

--------------------------------------
Played: AC1, DAoC, E&B, SWG
Tested: AC1, AC2, DAoC, Eve, Planetside, Rubies, Lineage 2

Umbrood · July 2004

I liked AO's old DP system, you simple lost all XP you had gained since last you saved. It was annoying, but you could mimize it if you were careful. And it could be insanely hard if you had forgotten to save. Now the penalty in AO is zero, mostly due to an insanely bugged SL were dieing happens 90% to no fault of yourself, so they just had to scrap the DP, all XP now goes into a pool, and that pool is almost the opposite of DP.

Worst DP system ever was EnB, similar to AC but 50% of all XP you gained until the "vitae" was gone you lost. Meaning as an explorer that liked to see places I played 95% of the time only gaining 50% XP. Dont need to ask if I played that game for long. It actually was a perma death system, cause I never played again, wich I prolly would have if I could have been able to gain XP normally.

There should be some penalty to dieing of course, but hard DP's is the death of a game unless that game is 100% bug free, if you die due to lag or something that you have zero control over then most people will be so mad as to just jump ship, specially if it happens repeatadly, like if AO had kept old DP system in SL that game would be totally barren, even more so then it is now.

Also, all DP's should be one hit, you loose something or whatever, but nerfing you future play for some time is just horrible bussiness sense, it is NOT a great idea to make people hate to log in due to they being gimped cause of a death, like EnB system. Whatever you loose, and it can be pretty rough, you loose when you die, but it should NOT hinder your future play, that is just asking players to not play, in other words leave.

Loosing say more then 5-10 hours is also totally unexcaptable, that might work for the hardcore player, but a casual player loosing weeks of time, well it could just as well be perma death cause most people live under time constraints, and having time taken from you is worse then being robbed.

In essence, there needs to be a insentive not to die, but there also needs to be one to continue after you do, this is bussiness after all. Specially now with a gazillion games around.

LadyofDark · July 2004

I've never understood the idea of dyingwithout a penalty. But we seem to have entered a pixel-addicted era of gaming that is almost sickening. Then again, I never clicked saved 500x on Doom either. I love community and interaction, but why play a game for that? Part of the game is to hunt/level with the new friends you made. Why even bother if dying holds no penalty? I've played games that range from pathetic death penalties to ones that have made me want to throw my monitor on the floor.. Something in the middle would be preferable.

On INN you got your butt kicked out of the cano, don't recall dropping any items?
On Empiriana (based from INN) same deal.
In 8 years Realm has tried them all I think..
-First you lost all your stuff and were logged out (that was rough trying to get back in)
-Then you lost your stuff and got sent to your hut (and had to remember where you were) eh, that was ok. Met lots of nice people who held your stuff.
Then we migrated to 2.x and it got a bit tougher..
-10% experience loss on death +1 item. This hurt, especially for wiazards/thieves who didn't level easily.
-Then it got chopped to -4% and still the item. Still hurt, but exp is regainable, you didn't lose skills for lost levels.

Now.. well unless in a PVP zone where the loss is 1 level and up to 3 items, you now lose 1k exp and 1 item. so 1/10 of a level and an item. Worse yet, people can't stand to lose the item so they put scores of daisies into backpacks to increase the chance of dropping a flower instead of a helmet.

Personally, I think it's sad. I love my pixels too and all, but why hunt in the first place.. stay in town?!!
I would like to see death penalties hang around, even if it's just a significant exp loss. IT seems the wave of the future is pixel-addicted though, hopefully they'll get bored quick.

Warmest Regards,
LadyofDarkness

Howdy, Stranger!

Do you believe in the death penalty?

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Do you believe in the death penalty?

Comments