Death Penalties

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Chris wrote:

Do you guys have any ideas for how we can handle this in an interesting way?

Yes. No penalty other than respawning all the way back at town and no where near the party.

If I want penalties then I'll play hardcore.

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Kalyndrel wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Do you guys have any ideas for how we can handle this in an interesting way?

Yes. No penalty other than respawning all the way back at town and no where near the party.

If I want penalties then I'll play hardcore.

Your realize the penalty in hardcore is permanent death right? Your character is removed from the league.

There will be a death penalty. It's necessary for the game to be fun and interesting. The only question is what it should be.

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tpapp157 wrote:

Your realize the penalty in hardcore is permanent death right? Your character is removed from the league.

There will be a death penalty. It's necessary for the game to be fun and interesting. The only question is what it should be.

+1. There must be a penalty to stop recklessness and add a dimension of strategy.

My 2 cents worth without having read the rest of the thread.

I played D2 at times when I had 6 Lvl99s on the same account and other times where Lvl90 to 91 took 3 months of play and the number of Lvl 92+ players on the realm you could count on your fingers.

During the 3 months for L90 to L91 time I quite liked the idea of an exp removal death penalty. Players would stop at a level where they died enough to negate exp gain. High character levels were a real status symbol, they didn't just mean you had played a lot, they meant you had played smart a lot without dying. It kinda gave the softcore end game a hardcore element.

Of course it depends on exp gain rules vs. character levels to work that way.

I just scrolled down and see someone mentioned classic D2 and getting 'stuck' at L80-85, that's just what I meant. Oh and the %age gold loss on death in D2 is about the dumbest thing in the game.

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tpapp157 wrote:

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Kalyndrel wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Do you guys have any ideas for how we can handle this in an interesting way?

Yes. No penalty other than respawning all the way back at town and no where near the party.

If I want penalties then I'll play hardcore.

Your realize the penalty in hardcore is permanent death right? Your character is removed from the league.

There will be a death penalty. It's necessary for the game to be fun and interesting. The only question is what it should be.

U wrote hardcore but this is an MMO game i think all players will play in the same level of difficulty, if im wrong, write how it's going to be :D

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Sakulos wrote:

U wrote hardcore but this is an MMO game i think all players will play in the same level of difficulty, if im wrong, write how it's going to be :D

There will be different leagues with different rules. There will be a hardcore and softcore league for sure => There will be time based leagues as well but you will never loose your character ,so if you die in a hardcore league or if a time based league ends your character will be transfered to the permanent league! You can find more informations about that here: Leagues

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Sakulos wrote:

U wrote hardcore but this is an MMO game i think all players will play in the same level of difficulty, if im wrong, write how it's going to be :D

This isn't your run-of-the-mill MMO game.

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resira wrote:

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Sakulos wrote:

U wrote hardcore but this is an MMO game i think all players will play in the same level of difficulty, if im wrong, write how it's going to be :D

This isn't your run-of-the-mill MMO game.

This isn't an MMO at all. It's an online multiplayer ARPG.

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Fluffy wrote:

During the 3 months for L90 to L91 time I quite liked the idea of an exp removal death penalty. Players would stop at a level where they died enough to negate exp gain. High character levels were a real status symbol, they didn't just mean you had played a lot, they meant you had played smart a lot without dying. It kinda gave the softcore end game a hardcore element.

At least someone who knows how it worked properly in D2 early times.
You're my man fluffy :>

Aside from before mentioned that system has one more nice effect, especially for game like POE which wants to attract many players well after the launch.
New players could contest more experienced ones, those who started playing earlier.
It will not demand play a lot more time for them to catch up. Just play better :]
I think it's a huge advantage.

But such system needs proper implementation to not being too much annoying and/or oppressive.
Good server latency and low packet loss, little if any number of critical bugs/errors (freezing/hanging game) to begin with. Good netcode.

Death Cannot
1. create boredom (time base penalties are out... penalties should not mandate going afk)

2. Require you to restart the instance due to loss of some major benefit

3. cannot cap... each death must be worth something

4. become overwhelming... death cannot put a player into a state of unplayability or unrecoverability

5. reverse huge amounts of time via xp penalties ie. progressive loss of chunks of xp amounting to losses of hours and hours of play

Given this list of things that death cannot do...

Things death could do:
1. reduce your xp gains increasing the amount of time for gain (time based is out, so the pool concept could be used to give you X% to pool 100-X% to you... however that suffers from problems 3 & 4 at the extremes. The penalty can become overwhelming and caps. Item sink could be used to remove parts of xp debt pool.)

2. Alter your appearance as a status symbol. This was suggested by someone else, and it's a good one. It doesn't affect players who do not care about appearance though. The algorithm should include a 'time since last death' absolute factor to make sure players that had a bad time don't get permanently hit with the ugly stick. This could be quite art costly unless a system of 'shine' or other procedural UI effect could represent this. Players love to sparkle :P Height/size of avatar could also be used.

3. Reset at beginning of instance or waypoint. This is the biggest penalty of all really, since you have to run back (time) and you already died so who's to say you won't die this time? Ultimately getting to the big end goal with the best loot is a big deal, and continual death reduces your loot/time significantly.

4a. Dropping of a nominal amount of gold/currency items. A single death isn't a big deal, but multiple deaths might make you take notice that you should go somewhere else. This method promotes the use of 'mules' though, and might not work so well in a goldless economy.

4b. A universal prize mechanic. When you choose to exit an instance (or perhaps when any instance you visited closes if players can enter and exit various parties in progress) you would be rewarded with a final prize based on what you accomplished (possibly a chance at currency items.) Death would reduce your probability of achieving a tier drop from this bonus prize pool. (beware of exploits where people hold instances open, party with lots of guildies getting them credit, and then everyone gets a bonus drop chance from multiple zones closing... metering must be smooth)

5. Provide an incentive to not die, by a nominal progressive increase in drops/xp, but not so much that its loss is grounds to restart. The loss could be progressive also, and proportional to how far you got since your last death. +x per kill -x per death, x caps at some nominal amount like 5%, but even if you die you can earn it back (works for guitar hero)

6. Capping the total death penalty over time. I feel that a bad player should only be screwed so hard before you don't want to penalize them anymore. A good death penalty system should ameliorate RAGEQUIT at the extremes. Nobody wants to get into a situation where they've lost a ton and even if they leave and come back they've still lost a ton. Unfortunately time here is the only factor I think will work, but time should heal all wounds as they say... nobody wants to come back to the same misery they left with.