Originally posted by SkipMeister Each game is different so there is no one size fits all here but here is my view from past game experiences. Corpse recoveries, like EQ had setup, was rediculous. Spending hours awaiting someone to summon your corpse doesn't exactly add to the fun factor and no reward is worth the risk of sitting in front of a computer for hours doing nothing. That's not a game, it's not even work, it's just LAME. Corpse recovery like WoW is acceptable. XP loss can be fine but losing levels seems a bit harsh, especially if XP really is a grind like in Lineage 2 or EverQuest. Permadeath would depend on how the game is structured. This would never work in games that have XP grinds or any type of required longterm building of a character. Last I checked all current MMO's take time to build a character, so count 'true' permadeath out though I'm not sure how some of you are defining this term. Will be interesting to see how Mourning actually worked this in once gold. Item loss should only be a part of PvP and each game should be different as in some games items are easy to obtain while in others losing a main item can devistate a character and halt its ability to continue the game. Dropping equipment due to a PvE death so that any newb who did nothing to earn the item can just come along and pick it up is ignoring the reward factor of a game. Lineage 2 is a perfect example of this type of sytem and has alot of risk vs reward problems when you look at the game. It all boils down to the individual system. Some games XP loss is acceptable but the same XP loss in another game is not. Same for item drops and corpse recoveries. There has to be a balance from top to bottom in risk vs reward and keeping the game exciting vs running your customers off.
Well I wouldn't exactly use the term "risk vs reward" in this case as it tends to limit the context of its ploy.
Lineage 2 is strictly set up on Hegelian Principle.
Yet don't get me wrong. Nothing's too fancy here. The backbone of this principle is plainly manifested within the game for us to clearly see it.
Fatalism (chaos' dropping out critical items on death), Brutal level grind (separating individuals with different status quo) and others are features used by the designers to serve the goal of this game.
Here the end-game is to create/generate the certain set of problems, expect its population to behave in certain ways, and finally induce them to rely on the ideaology of the "GROUP" as one solution since individual cannot provide solution to its own set of problems alone.
Its only my opinion and I already see that it's not a favored opinion, however,
mmorpg's are games where you play in a different world. A world based on some fantasy (or sci-fi or even fantasy/sci-fi) theme. In this world you have rules, these aren't laws, these are rules. Gravity works or it doesn't. Magic works or it doesn't. Within this ruleset you have to learn to grow and achieve your ends. To strive to reach the top. Within this ruleset there should be a cost for failure, miscalculation, accident or the intrusion of another player.
What and howmuch you are willing to pay for this, is up to each individual player. But I believe that if there is no cost, then there is no glory in winning.
I dislike the idea of Permadeath... but I think WoW's DP is to weak... where is the challenge? EQs DP is prolly pretty acceptable, based on your abilities to re-earn it, unpleasant but I think acceptable.
---------------------------------------- My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Originally posted by HebrewBomb Originally posted by SkipMeister Each game is different so there is no one size fits all here but here is my view from past game experiences. Corpse recoveries, like EQ had setup, was rediculous. Spending hours awaiting someone to summon your corpse doesn't exactly add to the fun factor and no reward is worth the risk of sitting in front of a computer for hours doing nothing. That's not a game, it's not even work, it's just LAME. Corpse recovery like WoW is acceptable. XP loss can be fine but losing levels seems a bit harsh, especially if XP really is a grind like in Lineage 2 or EverQuest. Permadeath would depend on how the game is structured. This would never work in games that have XP grinds or any type of required longterm building of a character. Last I checked all current MMO's take time to build a character, so count 'true' permadeath out though I'm not sure how some of you are defining this term. Will be interesting to see how Mourning actually worked this in once gold. Item loss should only be a part of PvP and each game should be different as in some games items are easy to obtain while in others losing a main item can devistate a character and halt its ability to continue the game. Dropping equipment due to a PvE death so that any newb who did nothing to earn the item can just come along and pick it up is ignoring the reward factor of a game. Lineage 2 is a perfect example of this type of sytem and has alot of risk vs reward problems when you look at the game. It all boils down to the individual system. Some games XP loss is acceptable but the same XP loss in another game is not. Same for item drops and corpse recoveries. There has to be a balance from top to bottom in risk vs reward and keeping the game exciting vs running your customers off. Well I wouldn't exactly use the term "risk vs reward" in this case as it tends to limit the context of its ploy. Lineage 2 is strictly set up on Hegelian Principle. I have posted this earlier to prove the case. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/496/loadthread/17463/setstart/1/loadclass/170 Yet don't get me wrong. Nothing's too fancy here. The backbone of this principle is plainly manifested within the game for us to clearly see it. Fatalism (chaos' dropping out critical items on death), Brutal level grind (separating individuals with different status quo) and others are features used by the designers to serve the goal of this game. Here the end-game is to create/generate the certain set of problems, expect its population to behave in certain ways, and finally induce them to rely on the ideaology of the "GROUP" as one solution since individual cannot provide solution to its own set of problems alone.
Hence the reason my L2 account has been cancelled. The Hegelian Principle can rot in H E L L.
I like the runescape system no exp loss you just lose everything you have in your inventory ( weapon armor gold everything ). But there you only loose all when you have a "skull" wich you get when you have attacked a player who hasnt attacked you b4 in the last ~5min. If you dont have a "skull" you keep you 3 "best" items..
I like it for PvP if your good ur rich if you suck go fishing or something !
Sorry for the delay, I seriously lost this thread in the mix :.
A middle ground penalty to me is a significant exp loss coupled with the loss of an item. I am old school in the sense some items are intended to be rare and should remain as such. Rare items should not be required to hunt. What happens when a death penalty becomes too lenient is rare items become commonplace and the average gamer foolishly believes these items are a right and a not a privilege. They then become hostile toward the idea of losing them. I think many MMORPGs fall prey to that mentality. New items get introduced to be rare, and the cycle continues ad nauseum.
The problem also becomes that I have never seen a game with 100% class balance, therefore a stricter death penalty will often affect one class more than others. This leads to an annoyed percentage of the population.
What most developers have failed to realize is that while a community may scream injustice at something, it does not mean that something needs to be changed. When the death penalties for Realm were reduced to their current state, which is now at least 2 years I believe, it put the game into the mentality that death is not to be feared. Now when the current owners attempt to place something that is challenging, the community screams holy murder. A game cannot evolve with risk vs. reward in a tight-knit balance. Likewise, gamers are just as much responsible for this stalemate. If you don't want risk, why play any MMORPG?
With INN being kicked out of the cano was pretty significant, it undid all of the progress you made. Some quests were 3 hours long. You didn't need to lose an item, losing three hour's effort was pretty damning. (Plus INN was 49.95 a month for 100 hours and 1.95/hr thereafter, so darn tootin 6 bucks was a stiff penalty- no more was needed lol). Obviously this was not the future, no one wants to pay that kind of cash to play a game. However, you can see where the penalty was significant. An experience point or level based loss is wonderful, play more, get it back, no big deal. Loss of an item, I believe, places fear in hunting in an area outside your level of expertise. In other words, it teaches you respect for the world you play in.
There are a number of problems that will arise both when death penalites are to severe and to lax.
It has been mentioned time and time again how frustrating a severe death penalty is but in my eyes that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem imo is that when the playerbase has adjusted to the death penalty then most players will never take any chances whatsoever. PvP will be rare and most players will hunt mobs far below the level of presenting a challenge, thus making death be mostly the result of bugs and perhaps griefplay.
When the death penalty is very light or nonexistent, people will take insane risks and PVP to their hearts content but It will be less satisfying because the essential reward of living throughout the game session is missing. Also, the risks you take are meaningless because you know you cannot lose.
I suggest a variable severity death penalty based on the players choice. A well balanced system of death severity against XP bonus would cater to different playing styles. This could be a question of XP loss, time delay, item loss, travelling or all the above for the most severe cases. Perhaps even permadeath for those who will risk it. Hardcore players could then pick the most severe death penalties and instead gain a large XP bonus, thus letting them progress much faster if they manage to stay alive but any death would be a major setback. The casual gamer would pick a milder death penalty, letting him progress slowly and steadily throughout the game.
[Edit] This would apply to PvE only of course. For PvP purposes, the penatly has to be normalized. Pretty unfair for a permadeath character to be fighing a char with hardly any death penalty at all. :P (Assuming the game has non-consentual PvP)
The death penalty system in EVE is the best one I have seen so far. You can lose a lot when you die and that makes the game very fun. When you know that you can lose a lot the adrenaline starts flowing and I have never ever tested a game where I get as excited as I can get in EVE.
When you die you lose your ship and about half your modules and cargo explodes with it. The rest drops as loot so in PvE you can get them back but in PvP they get looted. Your ship can be very expensive but you can insure it so losing your ship shouldn't be a problem. Your modules on the other hand can be quite expensive so you have to evaluate if you want to risk them or not.
When your ship blows up you stay behind in a pod. The pod has few hit points and other players can blow it up quite easily if they want to. If you are podded you wake up as your clone. If you forgot to buy a clone (not very expensive) you will lose skill points (xp). You will also lose all your implants if podded and they can be quite expensive.
So the death penalty can be quite harsh. If you are flying a top notch uninsured battleship with expensive modules, a head full of implants, carrying loads of valuable cargo and don't buy a up to date clone then you can lose hundreds of millions and set your skill training back days or weeks. If you play smart and insure your ship, buy a clone and only carry equipment you can afford to lose when you enter risky situations then the death penalty doesn't really matter at all and you only lose what a few million on your ship and equipment.
This system both encourages PvP because it can be quite profitable if you get phat l00t or ransom money and discourages it if people for example have implants which are hard to replace and at the moment can't be insured.
Sure it can be frustrating to lose hours/days of hard work but if I wouldn't risk anything at all then I wouldn't play the game. It's that simple. It is also a lot more fun to PvP when you know that when you win you are actually causing your opponent some problems and not just respawning him at a different place.
I have two characters at the moment. On my main character I have an expensive (insured) ship, all the best modules I can get my hands on, a full set of implants and a lot of skill points so my clone costs some money (not that much though, 4 million ISK). If I would be killed and pod killed it would probably cost me 300 million total and that would hurt my wallet but it would not be the end of the world and besides I don't get killed a lot cause I'm quite 1337 . On my other account I have few skill points (clone costs 8000 ISK), I fly a frigate (insured) and use basic modules. I don't have any implants. Getting killed costs me under 100.000 ISK. That character can be quite effective in combat though.
So what I'm trying to say is; games must have a death penalty that hurts you but does not cripple you. I'd say the more it hurts the better up to a point. You should not avoid dangerous situations out of fear but should have to use tactics and be careful and have an escape route planned.
Signature? I don't need no steeeenking signature!1!1!1
Signature? I don't need no steeeenking signature!1!1!1
Originally posted by bsherlock I just think the penalty for death should be being brought back to life back at your 'house' or a bind stone. I get annoyed at being killed, so why do i need a bigger penalty? i dont WANT to die, and if i get killed once at a specific location i am the type of person who will not just throw himself back into combat and die again. Death penalties are there in order to prevent people doing the same thing 100 times until they finally win. But what these people do with their game time does not have an effect on me, or you. If you dont want to be able to go back to the same spot just to die again then just show some self control and dont go back. If you think that being killed should put people off doing things that could get them killed then just dont do those things yourself, let other people do them, because what they do has no effect on you. If you want a thrill out of combat then i do not see how you get a thrill out of avoiding a 5 minute wait, or avoiding losing your sword, or your money. I get a thrill out of not being killed because i roleplay my characters as best i can, i empathise with them and when i am playing a game i almost AM that character. And to those who say that people should just get better at games that isnt always possible. Some people simply arent that good, so why punish them for it? Just let them get on with playing the game to the best of their ability and you play to yours. Your paths never really have to cross. And last point is there should be no penalty in PvP games because when i play PvP games i would say that 95% of my deaths have been when attacked by people so powerful that i cant even hit them, nevermind beat.
MUAHAHAHAHAHA
I rarely disagree that much on a topic.
Personnally I want to be as uber as possible. If the road to uberness is the less fun I will strongly consider it, yet, in a solo game, it is not bad, as if it is not fun, I will not do it.
However, in a MMORPG, I do compare with others, I always does. I want a group to think I am the best edge they can get(aside from the nasty personnality niak niak niak). If in order to get more group desired I need to do something, I will do it. If I do stuff I dislike(like raiding) to often, I just quit the game.
You can say I lack maturity, I will not even argue on this, but playing a MMORPG is not about getting more mature and accepting to be ghetto...Playing a MMORPG is enjoying your time with other fellow players that rather play on computer then meet folks in RL.
Thereby the reward and the penalty does matter a LOT to me, yet, I have no PvP blood as long as long term investment, in a PvP setting, you need different rules.
Death Penalties where thinked by PvE players(or devs) for PvE players.
For me, a lack of Death penalty is worser then a to harsh death penalty.
All in all, as far as I am concerned, EQ death penalty was okay, yet corpse decay was a very bad idea, and the CR should have been automatically done upon decaying or something like that. Folks may say I am a player and take the easiest road, it is not about a hard road or not in the case of DECAY, it is about LOSING stuff already earned. Decay and losing stuff already earned is like removing a kid a toy you let him play with for a few minutes, you just dont do that unless the kid health is in jeopardy! Yes, deaths need to be significants, especially to hardcore gamers, casuals dont need to be kicked as hard into the chin(EQ penalty was to harsh on casuals, while not harsh enought on hardcores in the long run, I never come close to losing a corpse or a level...death was a joke to me in EQ, while for my casuals friends, it was the end of the world exactly like when I was a noob), this is why I believe so much in an amount of lifes per month!
- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
A death penalty should teach a lesson without causing a player grief. In all good nature, a corpse run without experience loss is probably the best. Why? All MMORPGs are an XP grind once you get past the beginning levels, and anyone that tells you differently is lying. Having XP loss upon death is a terrible thing. Why? In some cases you lose days and weeks worth of experience for just a few mminutes or hours worth of play. You don't learn a lesson, because sometimes death is inevitable. EQ has one of the HARSHEST death penalties ever, and I don't think any game should go that far...XP loss+Item Loss w/ corpse run+Buff loss? What were they thinking? Getting a decent rez in that game doesn't even become a viable option until your high 30's or so, because before that most high level clerics will just laugh at you for asking for a rez.
Having a system with no XP loss, but a corpse run and maybe an XP debt/penalty isn't too bad. It slows you down enough to teach you to avoid death, but it doesn't create a lot of stress. Most other systems take it too far, even with the ability to ressurect and whatnot. Any 1 thing isn't bad if it's sort of harsh. Having 2 or more different penalties that are any more extreme than medium-light is too much. Yes, at high levels you should have learned to play the game so that death isn't that frequent. At the same time, there are some situations where death is either inevitable or completely unpredictable/sporadic, like in a raid where a healer gets a lag spike/goes LD and the raid starts to wipe, even though it was going fine. Spending, in some cases hours, a lot of time to recooperate from a situation like that is hell. While I'm not an advocate for no death penalty or a light death penalty, a harsh death penalty is even worse.
AHH! Run away from the monster! He's going to eat us!
Socializer 80% Explorer 73% Achiever 33% Killer 13%
Killer 100% Socializer 40% Explorer 33% Achiever 27%
Not matter how it is done, there has to be some sort of penalty for dieing. There has to be a balance between too much of a penalty and not enough. I think we will see in future MMOG's an easy or near to nothing death penalty before we see a well balanced system.
Any sort of realism is thrown out the window if there is absolutely no death penalty and if the penalty is too harsh then it is no fun. Those who think the death penalty is unimportant are ignorant of the needs of a balanced game.
Within the current xp gaining system that is standard in most current MMOG's, the average death penalty used is a simple natural evolution spawned from a system revolved around gaining levels involving xp. Before we see even close to a balanced death penalty system you will first see a change in game structure and player progression within the world.
--------------------------------------------- Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Comments
Well I wouldn't exactly use the term "risk vs reward" in this case as it tends to limit the context of its ploy.
Lineage 2 is strictly set up on Hegelian Principle.
I have posted this earlier to prove the case.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/496/loadthread/17463/setstart/1/loadclass/170
Yet don't get me wrong. Nothing's too fancy here. The backbone of this principle is plainly manifested within the game for us to clearly see it.
Fatalism (chaos' dropping out critical items on death), Brutal level grind (separating individuals with different status quo) and others are features used by the designers to serve the goal of this game.
Here the end-game is to create/generate the certain set of problems, expect its population to behave in certain ways, and finally induce them to rely on the ideaology of the "GROUP" as one solution since individual cannot provide solution to its own set of problems alone.
Its only my opinion and I already see that it's not a favored opinion, however,
mmorpg's are games where you play in a different world. A world based on some fantasy (or sci-fi or even fantasy/sci-fi) theme.
In this world you have rules, these aren't laws, these are rules. Gravity works or it doesn't. Magic works or it doesn't.
Within this ruleset you have to learn to grow and achieve your ends. To strive to reach the top. Within this ruleset there should be a cost for failure, miscalculation, accident or the intrusion of another player.
What and howmuch you are willing to pay for this, is up to each individual player. But I believe that if there is no cost, then there is no glory in winning.
I dislike the idea of Permadeath... but I think WoW's DP is to weak... where is the challenge? EQs DP is prolly pretty acceptable, based on your abilities to re-earn it, unpleasant but I think acceptable.
----------------------------------------
My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Hence the reason my L2 account has been cancelled. The Hegelian Principle can rot in H E L L.
I like the runescape system no exp loss you just lose everything you have in your inventory ( weapon armor gold everything ). But there you only loose all when you have a "skull" wich you get when you have attacked a player who hasnt attacked you b4 in the last ~5min. If you dont have a "skull" you keep you 3 "best" items..
I like it for PvP if your good ur rich if you suck go fishing or something !
Sorry for the delay, I seriously lost this thread in the mix :.
A middle ground penalty to me is a significant exp loss coupled with the loss of an item. I am old school in the sense some items are intended to be rare and should remain as such. Rare items should not be required to hunt. What happens when a death penalty becomes too lenient is rare items become commonplace and the average gamer foolishly believes these items are a right and a not a privilege. They then become hostile toward the idea of losing them. I think many MMORPGs fall prey to that mentality. New items get introduced to be rare, and the cycle continues ad nauseum.
The problem also becomes that I have never seen a game with 100% class balance, therefore a stricter death penalty will often affect one class more than others. This leads to an annoyed percentage of the population.
What most developers have failed to realize is that while a community may scream injustice at something, it does not mean that something needs to be changed. When the death penalties for Realm were reduced to their current state, which is now at least 2 years I believe, it put the game into the mentality that death is not to be feared. Now when the current owners attempt to place something that is challenging, the community screams holy murder. A game cannot evolve with risk vs. reward in a tight-knit balance. Likewise, gamers are just as much responsible for this stalemate. If you don't want risk, why play any MMORPG?
With INN being kicked out of the cano was pretty significant, it undid all of the progress you made. Some quests were 3 hours long. You didn't need to lose an item, losing three hour's effort was pretty damning. (Plus INN was 49.95 a month for 100 hours and 1.95/hr thereafter, so darn tootin 6 bucks was a stiff penalty- no more was needed lol). Obviously this was not the future, no one wants to pay that kind of cash to play a game. However, you can see where the penalty was significant. An experience point or level based loss is wonderful, play more, get it back, no big deal. Loss of an item, I believe, places fear in hunting in an area outside your level of expertise. In other words, it teaches you respect for the world you play in.
Warmest Regards,
LadyofDarkness
There are a number of problems that will arise both when death penalites are to severe and to lax.
It has been mentioned time and time again how frustrating a severe death penalty is but in my eyes that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem imo is that when the playerbase has adjusted to the death penalty then most players will never take any chances whatsoever. PvP will be rare and most players will hunt mobs far below the level of presenting a challenge, thus making death be mostly the result of bugs and perhaps griefplay.
When the death penalty is very light or nonexistent, people will take insane risks and PVP to their hearts content but It will be less satisfying because the essential reward of living throughout the game session is missing. Also, the risks you take are meaningless because you know you cannot lose.
I suggest a variable severity death penalty based on the players choice. A well balanced system of death severity against XP bonus would cater to different playing styles. This could be a question of XP loss, time delay, item loss, travelling or all the above for the most severe cases. Perhaps even permadeath for those who will risk it.
Hardcore players could then pick the most severe death penalties and instead gain a large XP bonus, thus letting them progress much faster if they manage to stay alive but any death would be a major setback. The casual gamer would pick a milder death penalty, letting him progress slowly and steadily throughout the game.
[Edit] This would apply to PvE only of course. For PvP purposes, the penatly has to be normalized. Pretty unfair for a permadeath character to be fighing a char with hardly any death penalty at all. :P (Assuming the game has non-consentual PvP)
The death penalty system in EVE is the best one I have seen so far. You can lose a lot when you die and that makes the game very fun. When you know that you can lose a lot the adrenaline starts flowing and I have never ever tested a game where I get as excited as I can get in EVE.
When you die you lose your ship and about half your modules and cargo explodes with it. The rest drops as loot so in PvE you can get them back but in PvP they get looted. Your ship can be very expensive but you can insure it so losing your ship shouldn't be a problem. Your modules on the other hand can be quite expensive so you have to evaluate if you want to risk them or not.
When your ship blows up you stay behind in a pod. The pod has few hit points and other players can blow it up quite easily if they want to. If you are podded you wake up as your clone. If you forgot to buy a clone (not very expensive) you will lose skill points (xp). You will also lose all your implants if podded and they can be quite expensive.
So the death penalty can be quite harsh. If you are flying a top notch uninsured battleship with expensive modules, a head full of implants, carrying loads of valuable cargo and don't buy a up to date clone then you can lose hundreds of millions and set your skill training back days or weeks. If you play smart and insure your ship, buy a clone and only carry equipment you can afford to lose when you enter risky situations then the death penalty doesn't really matter at all and you only lose what a few million on your ship and equipment.
This system both encourages PvP because it can be quite profitable if you get phat l00t or ransom money and discourages it if people for example have implants which are hard to replace and at the moment can't be insured.
Sure it can be frustrating to lose hours/days of hard work but if I wouldn't risk anything at all then I wouldn't play the game. It's that simple. It is also a lot more fun to PvP when you know that when you win you are actually causing your opponent some problems and not just respawning him at a different place.
I have two characters at the moment. On my main character I have an expensive (insured) ship, all the best modules I can get my hands on, a full set of implants and a lot of skill points so my clone costs some money (not that much though, 4 million ISK). If I would be killed and pod killed it would probably cost me 300 million total and that would hurt my wallet but it would not be the end of the world and besides I don't get killed a lot cause I'm quite 1337
. On my other account I have few skill points (clone costs 8000 ISK), I fly a frigate (insured) and use basic modules. I don't have any implants. Getting killed costs me under 100.000 ISK. That character can be quite effective in combat though.
So what I'm trying to say is; games must have a death penalty that hurts you but does not cripple you. I'd say the more it hurts the better up to a point. You should not avoid dangerous situations out of fear but should have to use tactics and be careful and have an escape route planned.
Signature? I don't need no steeeenking signature!1!1!1
Signature? I don't need no steeeenking signature!1!1!1
I rarely disagree that much on a topic.
Personnally I want to be as uber as possible. If the road to uberness is the less fun I will strongly consider it, yet, in a solo game, it is not bad, as if it is not fun, I will not do it.
However, in a MMORPG, I do compare with others, I always does. I want a group to think I am the best edge they can get(aside from the nasty personnality niak niak niak). If in order to get more group desired I need to do something, I will do it. If I do stuff I dislike(like raiding) to often, I just quit the game.
You can say I lack maturity, I will not even argue on this, but playing a MMORPG is not about getting more mature and accepting to be ghetto...Playing a MMORPG is enjoying your time with other fellow players that rather play on computer then meet folks in RL.
Thereby the reward and the penalty does matter a LOT to me, yet, I have no PvP blood as long as long term investment, in a PvP setting, you need different rules.
Death Penalties where thinked by PvE players(or devs) for PvE players.
For me, a lack of Death penalty is worser then a to harsh death penalty.
All in all, as far as I am concerned, EQ death penalty was okay, yet corpse decay was a very bad idea, and the CR should have been automatically done upon decaying or something like that. Folks may say I am a player and take the easiest road, it is not about a hard road or not in the case of DECAY, it is about LOSING stuff already earned. Decay and losing stuff already earned is like removing a kid a toy you let him play with for a few minutes, you just dont do that unless the kid health is in jeopardy! Yes, deaths need to be significants, especially to hardcore gamers, casuals dont need to be kicked as hard into the chin(EQ penalty was to harsh on casuals, while not harsh enought on hardcores in the long run, I never come close to losing a corpse or a level...death was a joke to me in EQ, while for my casuals friends, it was the end of the world exactly like when I was a noob), this is why I believe so much in an amount of lifes per month!
- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
-------------------------------------------
MMORPGs: Treadmills that make you fatter.
www.silkyvenom.com <-- a good site for Vanguard information
A death penalty should teach a lesson without causing a player grief. In all good nature, a corpse run without experience loss is probably the best. Why? All MMORPGs are an XP grind once you get past the beginning levels, and anyone that tells you differently is lying. Having XP loss upon death is a terrible thing. Why? In some cases you lose days and weeks worth of experience for just a few mminutes or hours worth of play. You don't learn a lesson, because sometimes death is inevitable. EQ has one of the HARSHEST death penalties ever, and I don't think any game should go that far...XP loss+Item Loss w/ corpse run+Buff loss? What were they thinking? Getting a decent rez in that game doesn't even become a viable option until your high 30's or so, because before that most high level clerics will just laugh at you for asking for a rez.
Having a system with no XP loss, but a corpse run and maybe an XP debt/penalty isn't too bad. It slows you down enough to teach you to avoid death, but it doesn't create a lot of stress. Most other systems take it too far, even with the ability to ressurect and whatnot. Any 1 thing isn't bad if it's sort of harsh. Having 2 or more different penalties that are any more extreme than medium-light is too much. Yes, at high levels you should have learned to play the game so that death isn't that frequent. At the same time, there are some situations where death is either inevitable or completely unpredictable/sporadic, like in a raid where a healer gets a lag spike/goes LD and the raid starts to wipe, even though it was going fine. Spending, in some cases hours, a lot of time to recooperate from a situation like that is hell. While I'm not an advocate for no death penalty or a light death penalty, a harsh death penalty is even worse.
AHH! Run away from the monster! He's going to eat us!
Socializer 80% Explorer 73% Achiever 33% Killer 13%
Killer 100% Socializer 40% Explorer 33% Achiever 27%
Heinricho
Plainsrunning Demo!
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/16/
Not matter how it is done, there has to be some sort of penalty for dieing. There has to be a balance between too much of a penalty and not enough. I think we will see in future MMOG's an easy or near to nothing death penalty before we see a well balanced system.
Any sort of realism is thrown out the window if there is absolutely no death penalty and if the penalty is too harsh then it is no fun. Those who think the death penalty is unimportant are ignorant of the needs of a balanced game.
Within the current xp gaining system that is standard in most current MMOG's, the average death penalty used is a simple natural evolution spawned from a system revolved around gaining levels involving xp. Before we see even close to a balanced death penalty system you will first see a change in game structure and player progression within the world.
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Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson