Death Penalties

@Guy above me.

If there is no penalty, then it becomes an accessory to your abilities. IE: Using it to teleport to town.

Death serves in videogames to create tension and make the user have something to fear, which, in turn, if intelligently executed, can create a better experience (not for the death itself, but for the fear).

If you ask me the more level you got the more death penalty is good.

No death penalty should be only in "Babies league" :)

Edit: Also not to make it "a pain in the ass" for high level players ,the more you die in a row the peanlty must be lowered.

Any idea on having some kind of "fighting through hell" to get back is horribly tedious and pointless from my perspective, a real game turn off.

I like EXP penalty, but it is pretty old school, can be tedious, and doesn't impact max level characters unless you can de-level. I don't know if you want a "de-level" kind of game, but it is an option in certain difficulties.

I like the idea of a monster group getting a buff based on your death, this hurts your team, makes you really sorry you died, makes you feel like an idiot, and makes you want to hurry up to get back and help. Some kind of area wide buff on the monsters that remains until they die. I would encourage that combined with a personal xp loss, and I vote for being able to lose a level. I also think it is reasonable to have these penalties increase in effect to be stronger for rapid deaths of the same player in a row, to a max. Maybe 1 monster, the one who lay the final blow or whatever, becomes a morphed version or something in the same persons 3rd death in a row over a time period.

I don't know if you really need a death penalty, tossing the player to town is enough in my opinion. Maybe if you'd grant the player the possibility of choice - either you resurrect in town, at no penalty, or you ressurect at the spot, but get a weakened debuff for like 1 minut or whatnot.

EXP loose,boring,dropping items,no way,but i have an idea,when you die,the Death Ripper stands behind you,and follow you,run baby run,or the Death Ripper will Steal your Gold and EXP and damage your Armor,everytime he can Catch you,the Death Ripper follows you longer,for more Death,max time 5 mins,that is a mini game,and a fear,and a fun^^

Got my idea after reading trough first few pages of this thread.

When you die you get a small moral penalty. This works like a debuff decreasing all or some major stats. But the debuff persists even trough time so only way to get rid of this morale debuff is to kill enough enemies... you could have like this special bar on top of your screen or something. If you die constantly the bar rises bigger and bigger and debuff would become stronger too, until it reaches some fixed value.

You could also kill lower level enemies to "rise you self-esteem" lol... but that would take longer.

yeah something like that.. that way it would not be permanent penalty (unless you really suck and die all the time) but would be harsher than just sending you to town.

I think it should be incremental for the difficulty levels. So in the first you just get sent back to town, then maybe halfway through the game you start losing exp or in game currency (if implemented), then the next difficulty you get a debuff or the monsters get a buff, then in the highest level and I don't know if it is possible, but perhaps the monster takes posession of one of your items and you have to hunt that monster down to get it back.


This type of system integrates many of the suggestions on this forum into one scheme. It allows newer players to adjust and improve their playing in the earlier areas without fearing too much consequence. Then as you improve as a player the cost of death increases. Losing the item even if just briefly will make even the best player cringe, but not stop playing the game because they get it back.

Personally I would hate dying because of my idea, but that doesn't mean it isnt good.

Overall, a system like this would allow players to gain comfort with the game at the early levels then weed out the weaker players at higher levels, successive deaths, successive loss of items, will force players to bring an enhanced level of strategy or call in the help of friends.

Death penalty should have money/exp penalty and a way to reduce those paneltyes (+ more than 1 way to revive is a bonus).

Loosing your equiped item is too hardcore for most players and loosing stuff from inventory makes alot of running back to your stach/bank thing.

Having more than one way is the best revive. Corpserunning is ok, but these days it's way too common mechanic. If you can invent a good minigame it would be perceft for reviveing (ie. get send to nether/void where you hafto find a way out)

Also it's good to have the "i don't care about the cost, i just want a ress" is important to be there too. For those who can afford the (whatever it becomes) penalty of death.

All in all. Have multiple ways to ress. Giving players options is always good for the gaming experience.

PS: if you want to have exploration a major factor (if not then just ignore) it should be able to prepare your character for that (ie put money and exp in somwehere safe) so ppl will be like "you will probably die if you go there, but it's ok... lets go see whats in there!"

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TiKels wrote:

@Guy above me.

If there is no penalty, then it becomes an accessory to your abilities. IE: Using it to teleport to town.

Death serves in videogames to create tension and make the user have something to fear, which, in turn, if intelligently executed, can create a better experience (not for the death itself, but for the fear).

Im agree with this. I think a death penalty is necessary. But I think a reward for being alive more time is viable too. Using both will make the player to have more intention in being alive and not to die.

"Oh! If I dont die, I gonna get a reward. Oh! If I die, I gonna lose this thing or this other thing. OK, let's survive!"

That reward could be a random special/rare (or something) item, or additional experience points.

I dont know what penalty would be the better. But I think the monster buff around your corpse it's a good idea. I would add that the buff will long an amount of time. If you get your corpse in that time, the penalty will be lesser than if you get your corpse when the monster buff has expired.

I always liked Demon Souls' death penalty. That decreased permanent health and loss of all your souls (currency) until you got your body back, and sent to the last "checkpoint". But then again, it made people get better at the game till the death was little more than an inconvenience.

I suppose a death penalty is entirely dependent on how hard you want the game to be. You could always make death make you a ghost and you lose the ability to use vendors until your body is back. That would decimate the ability to farm items/currency for bartering but make the game harder overall as well.

@Chaber unless everything no longer spawns, replaying a section with no penalty just means more chance for xp/items. If you are the type of person that dislikes replaying a section, any MMO or action/adventure is not your type of game. A debuff or penalty of SOME sort is a great way to punish the inevitable botters. It also makes people learn their limits and grind where appropriate.