Beefcake said:oneADseven said: But it will have an effect on you, and a constant one at that. If you rarely delevel, it's because you respect your environment and the penalty for death. That's what we need and what you are saying basically reinforces that it works. It isn't anything fancy or innovative ... just the tried and true death penalty that will always keep players in check.I have no problem with deleveling. But, the argument of it increasing respect for the environment doesn't do it for me.
If a solid group is paying attention, it's all good. But, in my experience, most deaths come from helping others. Helping in PUGs, teaching someone to pull, helping out newbies, etc. YOU can be perfect and still die from another person's repeated mistakes.
Also, with raids being competitive to pull, we know there will be asshats training something on you just as you are getting ready to pull the boss. You may be fine a few times, but now its happened three times and your raid force can no longer wear its level appropriate gear. Raid night over.
Deleveling also discourages people from grouping within a few hours of raid time. How many raid leaders are going to be happy when you deleveled 30 minutes before raid form up?
Actually delevelling doesn't happen all that often unless you are a really terrible player. We used to "pad" our new level..get something like 15% into the new level, so even if you did accidentally die, you didn't delevel. I worked on that automatically when I went back to EQ on the Agnarr server, last year, it becomes habit.
Quoting you again here Beefcake: Also, tanks take the deaths a lot more than everyone else. For this reason, I prefer the original EQ2 idea of SHARED death penalty. When one player dies, the WHOLE group takes a share of the XP debt. Keeps those with Feign Death a little more honest and not be able to avoid the death penalties they cause from the poor pulls they do. - end quote
I dislike this idea, mainly because if you have one doofus in the group that runs ahead, doesn't listen to instructions constantly gets himself killed ( I have seen this lol) in other words a Leeroy Jenkins, you're not going to enjoy sharing HIS XP debt. That just punishes the rest of the group for no reason. And the doofus definitely would get himself punted if it was my group. :)
Cana
I hope there is a final, drastic option for recovering your corpse. While I am in agreement that corpse runs should be encouraged, there should not be a point where your corpse decays and you lose all your stuff. That would absolutely kill many, many people's desire to continue playing the game if that happened to them. A final option, if you cannot retrieve your corpse, would be an NPC or other entity that would summon your corpse at a huge exp cost - like 50% of a level, and if it delevels you in the process, then so be it. That would prevent people that just gained a level from getting free corpse recovery.
I don't think it is as much of a concern as you are making it Edrick. I never knew anyone in EQ who actually had the corpse with their gear rot. As a player you can't do much until you get it back so it is always a priority.
I'm sure there will eventually be corpse summon abilities available for certain classes. Otherwise a rogue or a monk will be able to drag you. Worse can scenario is you follow another group into the area where you died in order to retrieve it. Relying on other people is intended.
philo said:I never knew anyone in EQ who actually had the corpse with their gear rot.
You never knew anyone who fell into the Hole at level 28 and had no way to get a raid group together to go down there and recover their corpse?
I remember very clearly when that happened to me. I was on my Druid, just running around exploring. I saw the Hole from afar and tried to get close to peek down into it. I was doing everything I could to move very slowly... but I probably should have clicked off my Spirit of the Wolf :)
Nihimon said:philo said:I never knew anyone in EQ who actually had the corpse with their gear rot.
You never knew anyone who fell into the Hole at level 28 and had no way to get a raid group together to go down there and recover their corpse?
I remember very clearly when that happened to me. I was on my Druid, just running around exploring. I saw the Hole from afar and tried to get close to peek down into it. I was doing everything I could to move very slowly... but I probably should have clicked off my Spirit of the Wolf :)
Didn't petition a GM? They used to help that way...specially if you fell off a boat and drowned in the middle of the ocean..or got burned up in the lava, I have had my corpse recovered in Vanilla EQ, and after a time, necromancers could help too.
I only remember one person that lost a corps. A druid friend that died somewhere hard to get to and rage quitted. He logged back in naked after it was long gone. Everyone helped him get new equipment and teased him mercilessly while helping xD
I do not like the idea of exp. debt, I'm firmly on the delevel side of the argument. Not because it increases my respect for the environment, but because it really hurts when I can't use the new spells or skills that I got with the level I just lost. That will make me careful, that will make me work on getting a buffer in the new level and plan before I start adventuring into the unknown.
In a game where each level will take time (hopefully a long time) and getting exp. will be fun and exciting, I don't care if I am forced to have fun 30 minutes longer, but I do care about keeping my spells :)
-sorte.
#livelifedebtfree
I think a good compromise is to start the death penalty off significantly less stringent, then scale it up. Gently exposing players to corpse retrival is a good idea because for many, the idea of leaving everything on your corpse and losing exp is going to be very daunting. Forcing them to face that early on may cause a lot of people to drop the game before they really get to experience all of the things that make playing worth it. Also, one supporting point for traditional corpse runs is that it gives people a reason to establish connections to other players. But when you're first starting out, you won't have a large network of friends/guild mates to support you.
My idea (and I may not be the first to propose this) is that early on you drop 1 item from your equipped items and 1 from your inventory. And as you level up, the number of items dropped increases. Tweak the progression however you want. By max level you could end up dropping your entire inventory.
Nihimon said:CanadinaXegony said:Didn't petition a GM?
It never occurred to me to petition a GM, and I'm not sure I would have if it had. It wasn't due to a bug; it was due to my own actions exploring the world.
Or you could yell for help in /ooc ..is there a necromancer or a cleric that can help me..there's the /drag corpse feature where you give someone permission to drag your corpse ..if they've found it and messaged you. It's all about not feeling vulnerable and asking for help. That is what Pantheon will be all about, community. I had a GM fish my corpse out of lava, it was my fault I fell in...if you're really stuck don't be afraid to ask. #Communitymatters
Cana
zoltar said:I think a good compromise is to start the death penalty off significantly less stringent, then scale it up. Gently exposing players to corpse retrival is a good idea because for many, the idea of leaving everything on your corpse and losing exp is going to be very daunting. Forcing them to face that early on may cause a lot of people to drop the game before they really get to experience all of the things that make playing worth it. Also, one supporting point for traditional corpse runs is that it gives people a reason to establish connections to other players. But when you're first starting out, you won't have a large network of friends/guild mates to support you.
My idea (and I may not be the first to propose this) is that early on you drop 1 item from your equipped items and 1 from your inventory. And as you level up, the number of items dropped increases. Tweak the progression however you want. By max level you could end up dropping your entire inventory.
Don't like gear loss of any kind. As I've stated before...if I have worked hard for those pieces, then losing them would be the equivalent of sticking a needle in my eye. Leave the gear alone in my view. Its hard enough when you die, have to find your corpse (ask for help always) and regain lost xps. The game will have a learning curve, for those not used to old school mmos, losing equipment would deter some from even coming back for a second go at the game. And the first few levels far as I understand it..shouldn't have penalities like the later game has. That caters to newbie players..getting a feel for the game. I would even welcome a tutorial that you can toggle off once you know what you're doing. The later levels will be tough enough, I can't see losing your entire inventory at level cap...might be a thing on a pvp ruleset server, perhaps, but not in pve.
Cana
CanadinaXegony said:zoltar said:I think a good compromise is to start the death penalty off significantly less stringent, then scale it up. Gently exposing players to corpse retrival is a good idea because for many, the idea of leaving everything on your corpse and losing exp is going to be very daunting. Forcing them to face that early on may cause a lot of people to drop the game before they really get to experience all of the things that make playing worth it. Also, one supporting point for traditional corpse runs is that it gives people a reason to establish connections to other players. But when you're first starting out, you won't have a large network of friends/guild mates to support you.
My idea (and I may not be the first to propose this) is that early on you drop 1 item from your equipped items and 1 from your inventory. And as you level up, the number of items dropped increases. Tweak the progression however you want. By max level you could end up dropping your entire inventory.
Don't like gear loss of any kind. As I've stated before...if I have worked hard for those pieces, then losing them would be the equivalent of sticking a needle in my eye. Leave the gear alone in my view. Its hard enough when you die, have to find your corpse (ask for help always) and regain lost xps. The game will have a learning curve, for those not used to old school mmos, losing equipment would deter some from even coming back for a second go at the game. And the first few levels far as I understand it..shouldn't have penalities like the later game has. That caters to newbie players..getting a feel for the game. I would even welcome a tutorial that you can toggle off once you know what you're doing. The later levels will be tough enough, I can't see losing your entire inventory at level cap...might be a thing on a pvp ruleset server, perhaps, but not in pve.
Cana
That's understandable. There are a lot of people on the other side though, who are adamantly for items dropping on corpse. And the game currently is like that. I'm kind of in the middle myself. I wouldn't mind some kind of backup system that players could use as a last resort. Maybe it's an exponentially rising experience penalty and gold cost so that if you rely on it too much, the costs get out of hand.
That the penalty should be just a rap on the knuckles at low level seems clear. You want to get people thinking about why death is a *bad* idea but you don't want to torture people at levels 1-5 - they may leave before they see a lot of the good features Pantheon will offer. Attract people with the carrot - save the stick for after they are hooked.
Even at level-cap if you lose one item that is plenty and I can see the argument that it is too much. Assuming it is random not automatically taken from the least valuable thing you owned or from the item you designated in advance to be forfeited. We all can think of one item we once had in a MMO which took enormous effort or cost to get and which we might have just quit the game if one day it poofed forever.
dorotea said:Even at level-cap if you lose one item that is plenty and I can see the argument that it is too much. Assuming it is random not automatically taken from the least valuable thing you owned or from the item you designated in advance to be forfeited. We all can think of one item we once had in a MMO which took enormous effort or cost to get and which we might have just quit the game if one day it poofed forever.
Agree. You should be heavily encouraged to seek out normal modes of corpse recovery, be it clearing a path to it, having someone res it, or asking a rogue to drag it out. But if, for some reason, you cannot do that (say you had a real life emergency) and don't have time to do that, there should be something to recover your corpse with a huge drawback so you don't lose your stuff. Losing your items would be demoralizing, to say the least.
I am all for the Everquest death penalties.
For the longest time I argued that the non-existent death penalties in MMO games would encourage YOLO playstyles and careless attitudes with players, as well as be a huge obstacle when it came to community building.
So for me:
You die then your gear remains on the corpse and you lose some XP.
This makes death a tangible thing and it adds risks when going into an area you either don't know very well or which is a bit too high for your level.
However, what are the benefits of death penalties like this?
1. It encourages players to actually think and work together to prevent dying. E.g. discussing whether doing a risky pull is worth it or not rather than just YOLO-Leroy it and if you die then /shrug.
2. It bonds players and thus reinforces the community. If you are in a team with good players you will remember them and play with them again in the future. If you have a new or inexperienced player you help them by giving tips and showing them what the dungeon looks like or where the most dangerous locations are. You do this because you don't want to die, and for you to stay alive the group needs to know what they are doing.
3. It discourages YOLO playstyles. You play like an idiot then you get killed and suffer the penalties. That doesn't mean things have to be super-serious, hard-core or "everyone is a try-hard". I played for hundreds and hundreds of hours in Everquest and we had lots of fun and goofing around, even in very tough dungeons. So just because you can't YOLO and put entire group at risk of dying you can still have a lot of fun together.
4. When the entire group dies it can be hard to get back to your corpses to loot, however this is also where item #2 comes into play. Everyone knows the risks and that death happens. So when a group wipes (at least in Everquest) it was very common to have other players and groups help you get back to loot your corpses. Again this reinforces the community and teamwork. Next time it's another group that wipes, and then you will be the one who gets to be a hero and help them get back to their gear.
5. Sometimes getting back to corpse can be too hard, but for those cases it's important that the developer has tools in place that allow the corpse to be retrieved by other means than fighting your way back to it. In Everquest the Necromancers could summon the corpse right to your feet. Bards had corpse location spells and could, thanks to their incredibly fast run-speed when using the Selo song, run past all enemies and drag your corpse back (using a command in chat). Other ways to retrieve the corpses could be added in Pantheon. The drawback of summoning corpse was the cost (expensive spell materials that were consumed when casting the spell) or risky (in the case of the bard) since a mishap could mean the bard became a corpse too :)
Overall though the death penalty played a large part in Everquest building the community it had (and still does). People knew the risks, played accordingly (teamwork) and looked after eachother both within the group, within a guild as well as going to great lengths to help others from strangers to close friends.
I fondly remember when our guild wiped on Plane of Fear in Everquest and we just couldn't get back in there without dying again. So we all reached out to friends and to those we knew in other guilds. What happened was a whole host of people came to our aid and helped us break back into Plane of Fear. It might sound like a one-off thing where everyone helped out in a moment of divine altruism, but the fact is... people helping eachother out like this was fairly common in Everquest.
What do we see in the MMO and games today?
There is no risk.
People don't care if they die.
People don't care if their friends die.
I've even seen people kill themselves and using the respawning as method to fast travel to where they need to go.
That is not the kind of game I want. I want a game where screwing up comes with a tangible and real penalty. A game where people work together to overcome challenges, to keep eachother safe, helping out their friends in their time of need and where surviving a hard fight feels like an actual accomplishment instead of just "oh, we got killed, lets YOLO back in and try again".
Summed up:
1. Loot remains on corpse.
2. EXP loss on death (how much is up for debate, but enough that it feels like a loss)
3. Deleveling possible.
4. Game must have methods to retrieve corpses if fighting back in becomes impossible.
The benefits of encouraging community building and a "look after eachother" attitude as well as making victories feel like accomplishments in the game by far outweighs the drawbacks of having tangible death penalties.
In EQOA, dying meant accruing an xp debt, which meant that you leveled at half speed until the debt was paid off. You didn't actually lose any xp, and didn't have to retrieve your corpse. It was a fairly mild penalty compared to the EQ/current Pantheon penalty, but a good deal harsher than something like WoW, and it still made people afraid of death. I've never actually had to do a corpse run, but would be curious to give it a shot, as I can see how it could be a community building exercise. The only thing I'd definitely be against is a mechanic that could possibly result in permanent item loss. I don't think the items you've worked so hard to acquire should ever go away for good.
I want death to have meaning. There are a lot of good ideas in this thread. I don't know if these would do it but it was all I could come up with.
1. You gain XP debt, you do not lose levels and as long as your in debt particularly at Max level there would be some kind of penalty that corresponds with the debt. I would hate to be level 50 die then have to level back up to level 50 just to make a new attempt at the raid. I hope lvling will take time in this game to the point were you can't regain the last level in a single night.
2. Corpse run with some way to get items back if getting back to the corps is not possible for X Y or Z. I don't want to worry about losing my gear permanently.
3. Max durability loss on gear to be regained by the items respected crafter or the salvage craft.
kreed99 said:I had a corpse rot a few times in EQ1, but if i remember it was due to scheduling conflicts with recovery efforts. If i had been able to log on during another guilds raid i could have shadowed them in. And ya, ive lost 1 in the hole too.
This boggles my mind. One corpse rot I can kind of understand happening. Bad timing and all that.
But a few?! You, sir, may need to attend a class on time management.
kreed99 said:I had a corpse rot a few times in EQ1, but if i remember it was due to scheduling conflicts with recovery efforts. If i had been able to log on during another guilds raid i could have shadowed them in. And ya, ive lost 1 in the hole too.
This boggles my mind. One corpse rot I can kind of understand happening. Bad timing and all that.
But a few?! You, sir, may need to attend a class on time management.
Not everyone has the luxury of having a 9-5 type job where you never get bothered outside office hours. You do what you can to minimize the chances but if the **** hits the fan and you get called in that's that. Over my (too many) years I've had a few cases of barely having time to type "rl **** got to go" before logging off and running for the door, let alone the time to finish any sort of corpse run/drag/equip and run back to town to log out scenario.
Zyellinia said:Over my (too many) years I've had a few cases of barely having time to type "rl **** got to go" before logging off and running for the door, let alone the time to finish any sort of corpse run/drag/equip and run back to town to log out scenario.
What kind of job did you do (still do?) ?
I worked retail and mostly at night/evening. So ya. I missed chances for rez’s and back then we didnt share account info ever... and i played a monk so i would just have a friend make me some wu’s and get back at it. This was all before i had really good stuff like my wu’s trance stick. Once i got those i never rot’d again
I will admit most of the time i wasnt overly cautious about my FD skills either. So i would explore places i shoukdnt have.... sometimes i would get so lost i couldnt have found my corpse if i tried. It was a different game in the beginning. And i didnt know necro’s for a long time. Like when velious first came out i was around 35 on monk exploring velks.... just saying...