Death Penalties

I've found the losing X% of EXP to just be well, damn frustrating... if I was at level 99 and lost 20% of my EXP thats hours and hours and hours of work. Fairplay if i'm on hardcore, thats what I signed up for, but I hate this idea of getting to a higher level (and i've noticed it already with my 50+ witch) of losing 20% of my EXP to have to spend another hour grinding back what I just lost, death should not be something you get punished for, sometimes you just cant help it :S

add something INTERESTING and not something that makes me want to stop playing for a good couple of days, I think the majority of the community would start to feel this way too

I'm sure this has probably been mentioned, but one of my favorite ways I've seen death penalties enforced in other games is in degradable/breakable equipment. Constant degrading through use and repairing gets old, but maybe if you die a random piece of armor breaks and has to be repaired at an in-town blacksmith type NPC before it's back to 100% stats?

Or going with the skill gems already in-game, you could incur some sort of temporary amnesia from recently dying, and "forget" how to use a randomly selected skill gem you currently have equipped, and have to visit an in-town witch doctor-type NPC to restore your memory... possibly even having to run an errand quest for them in lieu of any kind of currency payment (collect X of some kind of herb, perhaps).

"

xskyx wrote:

pvp shouldn't be a carebear game. you should have a penalty for dying, along with a reward for killing. not some boring ranking crap.

Yes! The one thing that was awesome about Diablo pvp was getting the ears. Bragging rights are an kick ass reward.

Hear me out on this idea here:

A benefit to death, not so beneficial that it outweighs the mechanic of the game that instills the desire to stay alive, but a benefit. Warning: I'm going to be somewhat brief the actual system would require more depth.

- You lose a set percentage of exp when you die dependent on your level (standard)

- You are returned to town when you die (standard)

-* You gain a specialized buff dependent on how far along your level you progressed and how you died upon walking over a shadowy remnant of your corpse that lies where you had died (can only happen once per hour)*

Buffs(General as possible concepts below):

Get killed by ranged physical attacker: Attack speed bonus

Get killed by a melee attacker: Phys/Mag defense and movement speed bonus

Get killed by a magic based attacker: Attack damage bonus

Buffs Continued

The amount of experience per hour you gained in the last hour before your death (associated with level, possibly by percentage) determines the level or intensity of the buff (with a maximum achievable rating, 1-5 maybe)

Buffs Continued

- Each possible buff gets a unique visible effect on your character (doesn't have to be anything crazy, I find that connecting a visual with a buff gives it a greater feeling)

- Each possible buff has a time limit (not to long)

- Each possible buff only applies toward PvE

- To reinforce the concept of walking to the shadowy remnants of your corpse even when you can't receive a buff the player is granted a small portion of their exp from death back upon walking over them after all deaths.

- The above point also means the exp penalty on death may need to be particularly hefty, likely varying in difficulty level

- At high difficulty levels you could keep the exp return mechanic except employ a debuff of the same aspect as the buffs were

- Instead of by general time (countdowns) on the buffs another idea would be time spent in combat, it might employ greater effect on both buffs and possible debuffs

hmm theirs not many viable other options other exp loss, sadly

u could give them a debuff timer penalty but that would just cause people to go afk for that set time

based on how ur handling upgrading equipment through all the differemt stones and whatnot u could downgrade equipment by a level or 2 and if their weapon is already bottom level then they just wont be effect but im sure at higher levels when u want people to pay for their death then they will have upgraded items, now im not in the beta so i dont know how big an effect that would be and how the actual mechanic would work.

When you die, you receive a debuff that decreases earned experience by 25% and itemfind quantity and quality by 15%.

The debuff lasts 2 hours.
Each monster you kill within X levels of you drops 1 minute off the timer.

If you die while you have the debuff, the timer resets with an additive effect.
That is, if you die 3 times in a row, you are up to -75% experience and -45% itemfind quality (and quantity).

The timer continues to run while offline or afk, so you can just idle.

Why this idea is good:

1) It doesn't ACTUALLY remove anything from the character. You can just take a break from the game for 2 hours, cook dinner, do homework, whatever. Come back, and zero death penalty.

2) It encourages players who die on a boss to go do something else instead of just running back in to try again (which results in their next attempt having better gear/skills/level).

3) It *does* punish players who are trying to farm a boss that can kill them. Typically players doing this kill only the bare minimum of monsters, fight the boss, and reset the instance/game/etc. If you do this, and die once, you have to stop killing the boss until you recover from the debuff, or suffer the reduced drop qualities.

4) If you are simply playing through the game and die due to lag/etc, you will suffer the penalty for about 100 monsters (a bit more if you kill over 100 in under 20 minutes). But this will then be the equivilent of "not" getting any xp reward from 25 monsters, and no loot from 30 (85%^2). Which is a VERY light penalty compared to typical xp loss systems at high levels (how many monsters do you have to kill to recover your xp after dying at level 90 in Diablo 2?).

Maybe there should be a penalty (or several) on attack speed/accuracy/skill efficiency that is weakened with time AND with monster kill.

So after you respawn, you are weaker, but the faster you get in combat, the faster you normalize. If you die several times in a row, you get several penalties, so that WILL make you to think again of your tactics.

I like wyldmage's idea.

I need to reread the question... how about a naming penalty?

Die once and I'm Underscore.
Twice, Underscore the weak.
Thrice, Underscore the inept.

So on and so forth.

"

Chris wrote:

The purpose of this "Developer Discussion" forum is for us to discuss topics with you that we feel we need feedback on.

We haven't decided on a system for death penalties in Path of Exile. Clearly in specific leagues like hardcore there is a well defined death penalty, but we haven't come up with anything solid for default play.

I understand that this has already been discussed here, but I'd like to build a bigger discussion that hopefully results in some kind of decision.

Currently, when a player dies, they can respawn (with no penalty) in that act's town. We will probably be introducing something like town portals, soon, so we're going to need a more appropriate penalty.

We don't like the idea of dropping an item upon death, because players of the default league have specifically chosen to not suffer permanent loss when they die.

Having an experience penalty is possible, but maybe there's something more interesting we can do.

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

Just throwing another idea into the pot:

-Like in Guild Wars, you get a penalty to all/some stats , which decreases as you continue to kill mobs, or resets when you return to town. If you keep dying continuously the debuff will keep stacking. A very elegant solution, for when there's no currency.

-You drop/lose your scrolls of identification, non-rare items which you get from trading.

-You get a humiliating title/effect/aura on your character. Death doesn't have to be too punishing.