Death Penalties

NO LEVEL LOSS... Games with this idea in mind absolutely frustrate the crap out of a lot of players because if they enter an area and get slaughtered, what is going to happen EVERY TIME THEY GO THERE?

ANSWER: They will get slaughtered.

Question 2: What if they are in a group?

Answer: Monsters strength is usually relative to party size in games like this, earlier player will get slaughtered.

Question 3: Why does the idea of losing levels suck if for no other reason?

Answer: I DON'T WANT TO LEVEL GRIND FOR 5 LEVELS IN ONE AREA, FOR EACH AREA I COME TO JUST IN CASE THERE IS SOMETHING THAT COULD KILL ME AND "EAT MY F*CKING LEVELS"...

Cheers cybrim - you expecting to always die in certain areas? By logical extention, you're going to reach a point where you aren't going to progress. At that point, might as well start a new char or find another game. (Edit, this does occur with poor skill selection where you find you've got a neutered char after a truck load of grinding)

Still, I'm with you on the grinding front. I admit I hate grinding away only to come up with didly squat at the end of it.

Just trying to suggest an approach that meets Dev's stated aim to make it hard and is less worse than loss of gear/gems etc, or the annoying get thrown back to town in generic char and you have to get back to a tombstone (through whatever killed you in the first place) to get your goodies back again. THAT can be f'ing frustrating because you might as well say goodbye to gear, due to;
a) if you can't defeat mobs in the gear you had, what f'ing chance have you got in generic char
b) random nature of gear drops means limited ability to re-acquire that hard earned gear through trading or slaying

You die and instead of losing xp the required amount increases by 5%ish of the original xp cost for the current level your working towards.
SO:

LV1->LV2=100xp, you die, 105xp, you die again it is now 110xp, you die again and it is 115xp, by this time you should level up.

SO: LV2->LV3= LV1-2XP modified from death (this will be involved for each time you die)=115xp+ LV2-LV3(300?)= LV3 requirement of 415xp (as total XP) because you DIED 3 F*cking times in the first to second level... you apparently are a NOOB, so you should probably try a NOOB League (which should reset your xp penalty). If anything you gain from your failures but you also have to make up for them.

LV3 with 3 First level deaths is achieved at 415, but if you die once at level 2, 415 + 15xp= 430.

I hope this makes it into the game, it seems logical to me, it prevents the STUPID BUILD UP for NOTHING, Titan Quest got VERY Frustrating at times because everything leveled up with you and you didn't get xp from creatures 6 levels lower than you.

I think you should gain at least .01xp/kill for "improving your swing" (golf joke).

This way the penalty is NOWHERE NEAR AS FRUSTRATING FOR THE PLAYER AS LOSING OFTEN HARD EARNED EXPERIENCE...

Interesting thought - but does that compress the xp required for subsequent levls?
Advancing levels is typically a fixed table, based on expontentially growing xp required to level up, and monsters provide more xp the higher the char level.
So, l1 -> l2 at 100xp, you die, and it pushes that threshold up by a % to say 105xp. Die again and same % is applied. Does that mean it reduces the xp required to go l2 -> l3, assuming xp table is fixed?

No, for instance if level 5 requires 1000xp.

LV1= 100xp (Normal) to next
you die 3 times. 115xp (total adjusted) total to next.

LV2= 300xp (Normal) to next
you die 1 time. 315 (total adjusted) to next.

if you die 3 times @ LV1 and 1 time @ LV2=
430xp to LV3 as TOTAL, your penalties add on to all subsequent levels accordingly, it still costs the same if you don't die from Level 98 to 99 (5 million) as an example but 30 xp will be added to the end of all levels as this only affects the total accumulation of XP and not affecting level gain unless you die while earning your current level.

I hope this makes sense...
LV1 +15 (total 3 deaths) required xp to all levels gained after this point with this character.
LV2 +30 (total 4 deaths, 3 on LV1) required xp to all levels gained after this point with this character.

So is death penalty a % of current leveling xp requirements, to arrive at fixed amount of xp, which is then added to levelling requirements for the entire table?
If my understanding is correct, that means the net effect of the death penalty is significant to playing current level, but progressively less so to subsequent levels as you progress, unless you die multiple times at every level (so noob factor is weeded out).
From a big picture perspective, it still adds to the grinding factor, but because it's not in your face, as with level drop penalty, it doesn't p!ss off the players?

Yeah essentially.

The idea of Death = perm leveling modifier, that affects the rest of your entire game, isn't hugely appealing. Though I think the principle of xp mod is sound. Death has to be perceived as having consequences, but not perceived as so severe as to turn away players. And affecting xp in some fashion is probably the fairest/least unfair factor to use.

How about a tweak on your idea - death affects xp leveling requirements for a limited number of subsequent levels, where death adds a reducing % to each level up.
Say over next 5 levels, add %s of 5,4,3,2,1.
Or over next 3 levels, add %s of 10,5,3.
If you die too many times, continuing becomes pointless (noob factor), but you can eventually overcame the consequences.

No you misunderstood, 300 will the total amount of exp needed for level 3 however if you die once at level 1 the total accumulation of experience will be 305 to reach level 3

so 5% of whatever the BASE experience is added on to your next acquired level, your total experience gained will be different from a character that died 30 times at level 5 then a character that died 5 times at level 5, it is the same as taking experience by adding the necessity to gain MORE in order to acquire a level this way players play smarter but WILL NOT LOSE A LEVEL.

Look you die you need to earn 5% more experience towards the level you were working on, once you gain that level you need say 1000xp to reach the one after that, that does NOT change, the player's total amount of experience to reach that milestone will vary depending on how many times and at what levels that character died, but the levels after the one you are working towards don't require any more xp than before you died, having died you will have to work harder to get to that point than a character that hasn't (should be obvious).

1 2 3 4 5
0 100 400 800 1300
+ + + + +
5 15 40 65 5%/1900

See 5% of each level required experience/death you suffer, this is cumulative in the amounts of death you suffer. thus turning that 1300 into 1310 with 2 level 1 deaths because everything is increased but the starting point of level 4 would be 810 with 2 level 1 deaths so either way you'd need 500xp to gain that level...

it doesn't line up... because it formats it differently... F*CK so hard to explain... the edit is for horizontal work... I am leaving in the vertical for observation.

1=0,(required 100) +5 per death
2=100, (required 300) +15 per death
3=400, (required 400) +20 per death
4=800, (required 500) +25 per death
5=1300, +5% of 1900 per death.... AND SO ON>
6=1900, AND SO ON...