Death Penalties

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ZoSoSwiM wrote:

I liked how Sacred2 used its death penalty.. The longer you stayed alive the higher the survival bonus became. The higher that bonus the better the loot!

This is a great idea. You would start with a multiplier of 1.0, each kill (within your level range) would increase this up to a maximum of say 1.5. When you die this multiplier drops to 0.75 and must be recouped.

The rate of multiplier increase would have to be dynamic also. i.e it takes far fewer kills to move from 0.75 - 1.00 than 1.00 - 1.25.

I guess there shouldn't be a penalty on normal.

On cruel maybe a tiny bit of XP loss.

On ruthless a bit of XP loss and some of the monsters in the instance respawn.


How about when you die the instance resets on merciless? And if you're in a group you can't go back in the instance the group is in until it is cleared or they go to another instance. And for training you have to fight the monster that killed you in a hell or heaven-like instance(without penalty for dying to the monster in that instance).

I didn't read the 100+ pages of replies to this thread so sorry if someone has already suggested that.

For me, a big driving force in these types of games is exploring the map and getting to the next area while still exploring the entire map I'm on. So if I had to think of a good way to penalize myself for dying, it would be having to reset the instance I died in.

I can see problems with this however, such as people killing a rare enemy and seeing a powerful item drop, then dying to poison or chaos damage right after. Maybe if the developers could devise a way to penalize you by making the explored map disappear but leaving the instance in tact, it would work.

I also like the idea someone had about gaining buffs for killing all enemies on the screen. However, I would change that to be if you explore 90% or more of a map, because it is hard to find every single enemy on a lot of the maps, especially in the jungle. Also, maybe you gain a buff (maybe 5% more magic find or 10% faster movement speed) and it transfers to the next instance. I am always up for more ideas to get people to explore the whole map.

A survival buff is a cool idea. This way you dont have to make a penalty on normal that seems like it could frustrate some people and you really motivate players to stay alive.
The buff could just be +1% damage and +1% armor for every 50 mobs with a max of +15% total.

Showing the number of deaths openly is also a great and simple to implement idea !

Semi-Perma-Death with the ability to ressurect your character limited to the use of a very rare item that can be used to resurrect an old character back into the game, or can be used to ressurect your current character when they die. The chance of finding this item should increase when you have none, and should decrease when you have one, so a given player should almost never have two. and therefore always be on edge about their character's life, while still allowing them to come back.

I don't think the death penalty should be more severe than it currently is.

In (older) games with severe death penalties, people did not take risks. This actually made the game less interesting.

When WoW launched I am sure that most of you mocked the lack of a death penalty, as I did. But after many years of consideration, it turned out that not having a death penalty made players more willing to attempt to kill tough monsters that they otherwise would of simply avoided.

What about giving an option for players?

What I came up with is something along the lines of choosing whether you want to respawn in town and have no penalty, or on the start of the field and receive about some durability and experience loss.

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zeraz wrote:

What about giving an option for players?

What I came up with is something along the lines of choosing whether you want to respawn in town and have no penalty, or on the start of the field and receive about some durability and experience loss.

What he said, it is perfect. Having a choice with both pro/cons is good. Respawn at town at no loss but having to walk back or respawn at the instance entrance and lose XP.

If I think for a bit, I recall some people said they used a little trick with portals, where they open it and when they die they use it from town back in the instance. That's a thing to look at when trying this approach of Death penalty.

With the pages in the 100s forgive me if this has been said before.

Since leagues can have variable rules, I suggest having as standard a harsh death league and a newbie death league.

I favor harsh penalties for death. It's meant to be bad.

Survivor bonuses (better loot the longer ur alive etc) are good but there needs to be another penalty to prevent repeat dying at the same point when the survivor bonus is already low.

XP losses are good but they need to be able to reduce your level, otherwise there's no disincentive if you have an empty XP bar.

My preferred option would be to just break 1 random piece of equipment (permanently). Perhaps if the item has quality it could be reduced instead, allowing you to protect certain important items by burning currency items.

Whatever the case though, there needs to be a (non hardcore) league where death is much harsher than it is now.

I don't think game deaths should every result in something like an item you own dropping. This kind of mechanic ruins a game where loot and equipment is so important. People can die in these types of games for many reasons, some of them not being of their fault. If they were punished this drastically for something that was potentially out of their control, it would really turn a lot of people off. It just reward other players who don't get killed, and I could see many people allowing others to die just to get their items. It's too extreme and too easily abused.