Death Penalties

I like these ideas mostly because i enjoy Arcadey gameplay in my games.

The idea about the Death Penalty bar:

How can you deal with death penalty and at the same time make it fun to deal with?

Every time you die, you add to a death xp bar.
Once you reach a certain level of death xp.
Certain things will happen.


Only way to clear the death xp is to do the following;

1) Killing mobs. (this is good thinking)
2) Buying potions that clear xp dept, (this could be $$$, if you like). (this is a bit less)

I also loved the idea of random generated death dungeon however that has to be thought through and planned well.

I still love my idea about the Blood Pool/spot but im not that sure about my Treasure idea anymore.

Awesome reading in this thread its a good topic and there have been many great ideas.

I hadn't even read half of them yet.. :P

If you die you must complete a randomly generated but quick to complete Death level.

You have the gear you started with at lv 1 and you "see your life flash before your eyes" and you re-fight much easier versions of important bosses in the Acts you completed, and then yourself prior to dieing.

All at the same time its a very eerie realm with many layers of whispering and screams of agony.

If you survive the death realm, you ressurect where you stood 30% health and mana 0 charges on flasks.

If you die in the death realm you return to the Acts Town with 70% less chance to find magical items or currency items for 15min

my 2 cents,apon dieing an losing exp perhaps skill gems could drop a lvl or lose exp as well, seems losing game exp isnt enough in normal play imo
another thought maybe u could do a protection scroll that u can only buy or sumthing, that reduces the -exp% cost of dieing or stops skill gems from dropping a lvl .

Dieing should give you an MF (magic find) penalty which disappears after killing a few mobs.

follow what titan quest and even everquest did before just give a small penalty to xp (which would add up if a player died repeatedly) and drop a marker on the corps of your character which once it was received would give half (or all) the xp back. the reason i say all is because if you give a player enough incentive to return to where he/she was slain then they will go. make the death too penalizing (like a loss of items) or send them to some nonsense underworld will just force players to lose interest once they have died

I say make it so its really beneficial to retrieve your corpse and make a super hard secret snuffleupugus level where we can have old school planes type corpse runs for 14 hours! / lol ok? Is it bad that i really do miss that?

I guess its hard to decide because the Default option should be rather none punishing right?

I been thinking and if the Developers meaning with the "default" mode is to give players a easy time is it really then a good idea to give any form of Punishment ? but the overall feeling i get from this game is very dark and un-nerve feeling so i thought this game should punish a game really hard if they do faults, either forcing players to restart there character or get mighty frustrated that the game is so unfair. I mean with this sort of Artstyle and overall Feeling the game has does it really make sense? that the game should just have a Walk in the Park mode? if then i would say that mode should be called "Baby Steps" instead of actual Default :) while i don't have a nearly as good skill to be able to get through Hardcore i think i would definately like a game that wouldn't stop punishing me and be played as the Developers are intending it should be played.

So i would like to really know what are the developers intention with the Default mode, is it a mode everyone and their moms would be able to complete?

I say what is the meaning if the Punishment doesn't feel like a Punishment why even bother making a slight punishment? something losing %5 experience or 5% life.
what is the point? i mean its just slightly it should be something so that you are like really annoyed you are dying. it should be something to fear. Especially in this dark world your trying to make.


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The other way of thinking would be to like Change the mode so its harder to die but if you die its cruel. That way its just hard to die and you have to make a whole lot more mistakes before that happens. But the punishment is just a severe as on the harder Difficulties.

And please don't say this won't sell or work. I think Demon's Souls proved that there is market for this sort of more Hardcorish thinking. I believe the popularity in your game is exactly because gamers are feed up with those Easy walks in the park games. The AAA games are offering.

Blizzard is linking their main death penalty to item durability because it is smart. The main addictive hook of this type of game is the little rush of happy chemicals in your brain when you find a rare item. They rely on fun gameplay to keep you engaged so it's more than *press button, get random reward*, but item finding is at the core.

Therefore, I think any death penalty that involves a tedious chore is a big mistake. It breaks the illusion and makes you remember that you're in a pretty Pavlovian experiment, pecking at buttons to get random* little rewards (*which are proven to be the most addictive type).

What I proposed a couple pages back gets around this problem and also engages another addictive behavior: gambling :-)

Sorry for posting this if it has been posted earlier, but new to the forums 58 pages of ideas to read is allot.

An interesting mix would be to have the player who has died build up a "fear" of the creatures race who has slain the player in order to overcome this fear the player has to actively go out and slay this kind of creature to overcome his/her fear of this kind of creature. If the player slays the exact creature who killed the player, he/she could be given some kind of bonus item (memory shard) of his kill, this he/she can then later use (remeber) to confer a buff/bonus to the character which consumes the item, and also clears the creature type of the players fear list.

Looking at this from a parent and husband’s point of view (I have 3 boys)

Maybe the death penalty could mean spending 5 minutes in a hospital room and while you are being treated back to full health by medics this will give you

For the younger players

1) Time to cool down
2) Time to get a drink and or food
3) Make mum/dad cup of tea (hmmm maybe a step to far)
4) Feed the hamster

For the more Mature

1) Time to get a beer and or food
2) Time to talk to kids/wife/husband/partner (at least a grunt)
3) Let the dog out (its sat by the back door with legs crossed long enough)
4) Make the wife/husband/partner a cup of tea (keep them sweet)

posted on behalf of all the diablo/wow and now Poe widows :)