I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
I don't understand why people want to have such a complicated system for death. Experience loss and corpse recover works and is simple and fair. This unluck thing someone mentioned for raids, I guess would be ok for later raiders who have notes and the step by step instructions from the net. But I can tell you it would suck for early raids as the people (at least in EQ) that do it first, die a lot until they figure it out. I rather they worked on other things in the game than trying to make some unneeded and overly complicated death system. Anyway in EQ at least you always had clerics around on raids and got back most of you experience on res so it was not that big of a deal.
I don't understand why xp loss is of any significance. Basically everyone will adapt and have a buffer making death mostly meaningless. Gear loss is the same imo. People will just bank backup gear. The problem with mmorpg is they have never evolved into something with meaning. Character creation has devolved into the basics. Choice rarely matters. You own little to nothing so you have little to nothing to lose.
Lands need to be available for player control so lands may be gained or lost. Cities need to be destructible to some degree. Characters need much more variation. You need people making what others would call "gimped builds". Some people would rather have gimped characters and they enjoy doing menial things such as crafting, fishing, hunting, cartography, etc. We need more fluid games.
The problem is that companies see profit in simplifying games. WoW is the beacon others will follow. Reduce options because we are lazy and want balancing to be easy. Such a mistake...
Actually games like that have been tried in the past before everyone started making WoW clones. Horizons early on tried it. They had great ideas but could not pull it off. I not sure if it was poor programming or just that the computers back in 2002 were not up to it. I would love to see someone try something similar now days. Maybe they could pull it off. I don't ever expect to see one though.
Seriously I have no issue with a small amount of XP being lost but there would have to be a limit per day/week and it should not be able to take you down a level. That is far better than any sort of looting, I don't want to fly someone's pants from the top of my fort thanks.
Seriously I have no issue with a small amount of XP being lost but there would have to be a limit per day/week and it should not be able to take you down a level. That is far better than any sort of looting, I don't want to fly someone's pants from the top of my fort thanks.
No in game limit is needed as that would defeat the whole purpose of having a death penalty. The limit would be that you would stop doing what ever stupid thing you were doing to die over and over. I have to wonder if you ever played a game with this type of death penalty as in early EQ it was not that bad. On raids in EQ I only remember one person ever getting locked out and have to re-level before coming back into the raid zone. This was because they just leveled to 50 right before the raid and had no buffer. If the zone had not been level locked, it would have made no difference as there was little different between a level 49 and a level 50 skill or ability wise. We have no clue if this game is going to have level lock areas but I sort of doubt it.
Seriously I have no issue with a small amount of XP being lost but there would have to be a limit per day/week and it should not be able to take you down a level. That is far better than any sort of looting, I don't want to fly someone's pants from the top of my fort thanks.
No in game limit is needed as that would defeat the whole purpose of having a death penalty. The limit would be that you would stop doing what ever stupid thing you were doing to die over and over. I have to wonder if you ever played a game with this type of death penalty as in early EQ it was not that bad. On raids in EQ I only remember one person ever getting locked out and have to re-level before coming back into the raid zone. This was because they just leveled to 50 right before the raid and had no buffer. If the zone had not been level locked, it would have made no difference as there was little different between a level 49 and a level 50 skill or ability wise. We have no clue if this game is going to have level lock areas but I sort of doubt it.
The limits are needed because the mechanic should be a penalty not a punishment. Losing 1XP will make players take notice of something, though of course I am not suggesting something so ridiculously minuscule. But players are like that, you don't need hefty XP fines for players to stop doing what caused them to lose xp.
Seriously I have no issue with a small amount of XP being lost but there would have to be a limit per day/week and it should not be able to take you down a level. That is far better than any sort of looting, I don't want to fly someone's pants from the top of my fort thanks.
No in game limit is needed as that would defeat the whole purpose of having a death penalty. The limit would be that you would stop doing what ever stupid thing you were doing to die over and over. I have to wonder if you ever played a game with this type of death penalty as in early EQ it was not that bad. On raids in EQ I only remember one person ever getting locked out and have to re-level before coming back into the raid zone. This was because they just leveled to 50 right before the raid and had no buffer. If the zone had not been level locked, it would have made no difference as there was little different between a level 49 and a level 50 skill or ability wise. We have no clue if this game is going to have level lock areas but I sort of doubt it.
The limits are needed because the mechanic should be a penalty not a punishment. Losing 1XP will make players take notice of something, though of course I am not suggesting something so ridiculously minuscule. But players are like that, you don't need hefty XP fines for players to stop doing what caused them to lose xp.
Who said they were going to be "hefty"? They certainly were not in early EQ but they were enough that you didn't try and use death to get around game mechanics as happens in some games and it was enough to keep you from doing stupid things over and over. I really doubt they are going to make the exp loss and such worse than EQ was back in the day if that is what you are worried about.
I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
And there are games like this; e.g. I play hardcore league in Path of Exile.
Pantheon is not the type of game that supports permanent death. Raiding will always involve player death to a certain extent and should be absolutely brutal during the learning curve for each raid.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
I actually would like to try that someday in a PvP game. I think it would make everyone think twice about mindless killing. Sure, it would still happen... but I think it would be very interesting to try.
Maybe on a special Crowfall ruleset server or something...
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I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
And there are games like this; e.g. I play hardcore league in Path of Exile.
Pantheon is not the type of game that supports permanent death. Raiding will always involve player death to a certain extent and should be absolutely brutal during the learning curve for each raid.
Why must it be brutal? Can’t you just slam your hand in a door or somthing when you wipe and leave the rest of us out of your strange desire for being “punished?”
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I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
And there are games like this; e.g. I play hardcore league in Path of Exile.
Pantheon is not the type of game that supports permanent death. Raiding will always involve player death to a certain extent and should be absolutely brutal during the learning curve for each raid.
Are you suggesting a different death mechanism for raids? That could be interesting, and certainly would be new. "Being on a raid" using a "raid death system" would definitely require a bit more 'suspension of disbelief' than normal, but not excessively so. After all, EQ1 had all sorts of different combat mechanics for weapons damage (and certain spells) between PvE and Dueling/PvP. So, that might be a loose precedent.
Expounding on the "different death mechanism for raids" idea. It would allow 'the raid game' to impose all sorts of even more brutal penalties that the 'regular game' wouldn't need to bother with. Maybe even including permanent death, although I doubt that the VR developers would go that far. But there could be all sorts of latitudes of harshness with a variety of "death and you're out of this raid" affects. One rez per character? Non-XP rezzes only? Naked-corpse runs? This could even be selected by the Raid leader when the raid is formed, affecting the encounter difficulty / reward. Just brainstorming a bit here.
I doubt that such a system would be accepted by the mainstream Pantheon fans. It does set up a distinct 'end game' that many wouldn't like. It would be like a second version of the game. Interesting though the idea of 2 games within a single title might be, I doubt I'd be playing; the old school end game doesn't appeal to me.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
It seems to me that in a group centric game an overly harsh death penalty punishes players for joining bad groups. This enhances the mindset that "I never join pugs because you always get noobs", which in turn pushes new players out. If people wont group with strangers then there is a problem. There must be a balance.
Nowadays if you draw a group member whose play is bad, then they just get a scarlet letter "N" for noob and are kicked from the group. Of course, they don't learn anything that way.
In older games, if someone's play was poor, people were much more likely to help them. "Hold off on the nukes until the tank has a minute to build aggro." "Come closer or you will get adds."
Hopefully Pantheon's players won't bring the worst of WoW culture to this game. If they do, it will be interesting to see whose customs and practices win out.
Maybe if the death penalty was like early EQ then the players would learn early on how to play their character and we see less bad players. I assume of course that most people playing the game wish to play their character well. If they don't then I guess they can stay level 10 or so and continue dying over and over? That was the reason we helped people in EQ, we assumed that if they made it to level 50 or whatever that they were serious and really wanted to play well but maybe they had soloed too much or not done any raids at all.
The sting of death is a big part of what keeps the world mysterious and items rare and valuable. At every time the player should have to weigh the chance of dying and loss against potential gains. When you no longer have levels to lose, you can go anywhere and risk everything, essentially gaming the system, because there really is no risk.
Experience and levels should be lost.
This right here ^^^
If you do not fear death than there's really no sense of danger. Sense of danger is one major aspect that is missing in current MMO's, something both EQ and Vanguard HAD and sometimes scared the shit out of you. Absolutely nothing to gear in these game worlds nowadays unfortunately. Bring back harsh death penalties. Both xp penalty and corpses. Right now in 99% of the games, you die, whoopdeedoo, I lose some durability on my gear or what not. We neeeeeeeeed to have that sense of danger.
Agree. Games without risk vs reward becomes boring really fast. Take WoW where all you had to risk was a corpserun.
The feeling of risk and loosing/winning something make games more meaningful, especially in the long run.
I don't see why you are bothering with looting/ xp penalties whatever, if this is about bringing meaning to kills, why don't you just have your account wiped on first death? Think of how thrilling that will be.
And there are games like this; e.g. I play hardcore league in Path of Exile.
Pantheon is not the type of game that supports permanent death. Raiding will always involve player death to a certain extent and should be absolutely brutal during the learning curve for each raid.
Why must it be brutal? Can’t you just slam your hand in a door or somthing when you wipe and leave the rest of us out of your strange desire for being “punished?”
Something as fundamental as a death penalty affects every aspect of the game. It shapes the entire community and how that community approaches risk/reward.
Simply opting out does not accomplish this.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
I say keep the deleveling/exp loss throughout the character levels and possibly allow leveling players to toggle a certain amount of exp into a temporary buffer from level to level, but when max level is reached, players to automatically earn exp regularly in a permanent (since the next level cannot be reached yet) exp buffer to the next level. You can call this," buffer " Veteran Experience or Mastery Experience?
Just remember, No matter where you go...there you are!
My hope is they stick with a fully naked CR, hefty EXP loss with level loss. There should be NO graveyards in a zone and the only way you can regain your corpse is by getting it dragged to you in the zone, or having it "summoned" to you in the zone through a spell or special skill of a certain class. Only thing I would change from original EQ concerning this is no corpse rot, it was never intended anyway, and besides, such permanent loss doesn't work well with a long term development game (ie perm death and loss is better suited for Rogue-like systems) .
Exp debt never made any sense to me. In all the games I played, it was completely irrelevant to me, it didn't make me fear anything, it didn't have any negative other than it meant I had to wait longer to gain my next level. With exp loss and a chance to de-level, there is the threat of losing abilities and spells you obtained at that level (ie you need to level again to use them) or in some cases, it really created a threat of being locked out of a zone or area).
If the worry is people will be capped and ding to the next level on any new expansion, well.. you can make the last level of the current content be a "shallow" level while it is the "end level". That is, make the exp amount be small enough into that level that it is easy to lose the level if you die too much. Make it something like 3-5 deaths without a rez will de-level you from 50 back to 49.
This way, death still has a threat, and people can't simply cap out the level and never worry about losing too much exp to de-level.
I would do that, and then on each expansion release, you expand that level to its natural exp amount which may make the exp bar look as if it is barely filled. This way, you don't get Day 1 people spamming into the first level. The entire server has to then earn its way through the level before new levels are gained.
Just a thought and I really don't care too much about how that end cap is handled, just as it isn't a hand out.
My hope is they stick with a fully naked CR, hefty EXP loss with level loss. There should be NO graveyards in a zone and the only way you can regain your corpse is by getting it dragged to you in the zone, or having it "summoned" to you in the zone through a spell or special skill of a certain class. Only thing I would change from original EQ concerning this is no corpse rot, it was never intended anyway, and besides, such permanent loss doesn't work well with a long term development game (ie perm death and loss is better suited for Rogue-like systems) .
This may actually be a hard sell for the newer generation. The naked corpse run implies a loss of items, which was definitely in the Apr99 version of EQ through that corpse rot function. I have also heard that corpse rot was an accidental feature, but it fits in the mentality of the naked corpse run. If you don't get your corpse back, you could lose your stuff. Loss of items probably wouldn't fly with the younger generation players.
Exp debt never made any sense to me. In all the games I played, it was completely irrelevant to me, it didn't make me fear anything, it didn't have any negative other than it meant I had to wait longer to gain my next level. With exp loss and a chance to de-level, there is the threat of losing abilities and spells you obtained at that level (ie you need to level again to use them) or in some cases, it really created a threat of being locked out of a zone or area).
I totally agree here. The concept of experience debt has never made sense to me. I hope that Pantheon will find a better alternative than this kind of system.
If the worry is people will be capped and ding to the next level on any new expansion, well.. you can make the last level of the current content be a "shallow" level while it is the "end level". That is, make the exp amount be small enough into that level that it is easy to lose the level if you die too much. Make it something like 3-5 deaths without a rez will de-level you from 50 back to 49.
This way, death still has a threat, and people can't simply cap out the level and never worry about losing too much exp to de-level.
I would do that, and then on each expansion release, you expand that level to its natural exp amount which may make the exp bar look as if it is barely filled. This way, you don't get Day 1 people spamming into the first level. The entire server has to then earn its way through the level before new levels are gained.
Just a thought and I really don't care too much about how that end cap is handled, just as it isn't a hand out.
Focusing on max level experience cap seems a bit odd for a progression based game. Rather than worrying about players at capped experience, I'd suggest starting a set of class-specific 1-use AAs at that level, AND have the max level be a shallow level. Purchasing an AA would reduce the XP by a large amount (2x Death Penalty). Give the players a choice when dying at max level, lose the XP and possibly de-level, or unlearn an AA.
I'd also like to see some kind of skill loss, especially if skills are going to advance like in EQ1. Maybe a 10 skill loss for the primary equipped skill for a death at every level. This makes a real functional distinction between a character who hasn't died, and one that has died several times recently. It would force groups and raids to rotate characters that might frequently die. In my opinion, a mechanism like this would add a real fear of death -- a 50th level that only functions as well as a 42nd level might. (With this kind of skill penalty, I could easily see AAs that 'purchase' 5 skill points). Removing an actual skill or spell in game might be too time consuming as the player might need to adjust hotkeys or the UI, but adjusting the effectiveness of a skill could be easily handled server-side.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This may actually be a hard sell for the newer generation. The naked corpse run implies a loss of items, which was definitely in the Apr99 version of EQ through that corpse rot function. I have also heard that corpse rot was an accidental feature, but it fits in the mentality of the naked corpse run. If you don't get your corpse back, you could lose your stuff. Loss of items probably wouldn't fly with the younger generation players.
Yeah, but I think that can easily be settled simply by being clear on the mechanic and how VR would intend it to work. When Brad has commented on such in the past, he was talking about two extremes and finding balance between, but honestly, I think nothing short of a naked corpse retrieval will be sufficient to provide the fear and balance in play.
I have played many non-MMO games (survival games and the like) where you could specify your equipped or hotbar items stayed on you upon death. This completely invalidated the point of the death and simply turned it into an "inconvenience" mechanic where you put all your important stuff on the hotbar or made sure it was equipped and then the recovery was much easier because of it. I found that such invalidated the entire point of a corpse run. If they aren't going to do a fully naked, might as well not bother with it at all.
The whole point of a the CR is to make it where you are disadvantaged in the process. This also provided layers of pros/cons to certain classes as well. Classes who were very gear dependent were devastated on the CR and those who were less dependent had an advantage.
I totally agree here. The concept of experience debt has never made sense to me. I hope that Pantheon will find a better alternative than this kind of system.
Same, Such a system would be boring and severely reduce the threat or fear in play. It would be a "Oh yawn, I died... oh well... I will grind that off tomorrow" while if you lost a level and in such lost an ability, it would be quite the disappointment.
Focusing on max level experience cap seems a bit odd for a progression based game. Rather than worrying about players at capped experience, I'd suggest starting a set of class-specific 1-use AAs at that level, AND have the max level be a shallow level. Purchasing an AA would reduce the XP by a large amount (2x Death Penalty). Give the players a choice when dying at max level, lose the XP and possibly de-level, or unlearn an AA.
Honestly I am not sure what is best, I was just commenting on the worries of others who claimed there needed to be some type of implementation for people at max level. I personally think if anything other than a small subset of your population is at max level come expansions, then the game is too easy, too fast leveling, or you are taking too long to release content (oh and the last possibility is your game is filled with locusts, and well... you don't cater to locusts, they can't be satisfied).
I'd also like to see some kind of skill loss, especially if skills are going to advance like in EQ1. Maybe a 10 skill loss for the primary equipped skill for a death at every level. This makes a real functional distinction between a character who hasn't died, and one that has died several times recently. It would force groups and raids to rotate characters that might frequently die. In my opinion, a mechanism like this would add a real fear of death -- a 50th level that only functions as well as a 42nd level might. (With this kind of skill penalty, I could easily see AAs that 'purchase' 5 skill points). Removing an actual skill or spell in game might be too time consuming as the player might need to adjust hotkeys or the UI, but adjusting the effectiveness of a skill could be easily handled server-side.
They have to be careful in such, as if you put the penalties too much, you then can't make your content severely difficult either. EQ had some insanely difficult encounters that required perfect execution over a long endurance encounter (Doing the AoW with 30-40 people during Velious was INSANELY difficult at the time) that results in numerous wipes and retry.
I like a hard penalty, but while I do like the means of possibly losing a level and that reducing capability, I don't want to see the penalties be so much that fights become a matter of "well, we wiped twice, we are done, the penalties are killing us".
Anything that is loss should not be a situation where you have characters completely invalidated due to a level drop (unless it was a special level of a key ability). The point of the death penalty is for the individual player, not to punish and penalize the groups/raids. I think if you allow that, it will make the community more volatile in how it interacts than that of WoW.
My hope is they stick with a fully naked CR, hefty EXP loss with level loss. There should be NO graveyards in a zone and the only way you can regain your corpse is by getting it dragged to you in the zone, or having it "summoned" to you in the zone through a spell or special skill of a certain class. Only thing I would change from original EQ concerning this is no corpse rot, it was never intended anyway, and besides, such permanent loss doesn't work well with a long term development game (ie perm death and loss is better suited for Rogue-like systems) .
This may actually be a hard sell for the newer generation. The naked corpse run implies a loss of items, which was definitely in the Apr99 version of EQ through that corpse rot function. I have also heard that corpse rot was an accidental feature, but it fits in the mentality of the naked corpse run. If you don't get your corpse back, you could lose your stuff. Loss of items probably wouldn't fly with the younger generation players.
You can have naked corpse runs, without corpse rot (permanent item loss). The two are not dependent on each other.
In more modern EQ, they implemented a graveyard zone that corpses would eventually show up at (after like a week of RL time passed). So if you were too lazy to retrieve your corpse from the zone you died in, you could just wait it out.
Just make the penalty that you have to be within one level of your debt. If you de-level from say 50 to 49 then lose enough xp to be 48 your true level goes down to 49. That would kinda suck because you would then have to completely do level 49 again to get to 50.
My hope is they stick with a fully naked CR, hefty EXP loss with level loss. There should be NO graveyards in a zone and the only way you can regain your corpse is by getting it dragged to you in the zone, or having it "summoned" to you in the zone through a spell or special skill of a certain class. Only thing I would change from original EQ concerning this is no corpse rot, it was never intended anyway, and besides, such permanent loss doesn't work well with a long term development game (ie perm death and loss is better suited for Rogue-like systems) .
Exp debt never made any sense to me. In all the games I played, it was completely irrelevant to me, it didn't make me fear anything, it didn't have any negative other than it meant I had to wait longer to gain my next level. With exp loss and a chance to de-level, there is the threat of losing abilities and spells you obtained at that level (ie you need to level again to use them) or in some cases, it really created a threat of being locked out of a zone or area).
If the worry is people will be capped and ding to the next level on any new expansion, well.. you can make the last level of the current content be a "shallow" level while it is the "end level". That is, make the exp amount be small enough into that level that it is easy to lose the level if you die too much. Make it something like 3-5 deaths without a rez will de-level you from 50 back to 49.
This way, death still has a threat, and people can't simply cap out the level and never worry about losing too much exp to de-level.
I would do that, and then on each expansion release, you expand that level to its natural exp amount which may make the exp bar look as if it is barely filled. This way, you don't get Day 1 people spamming into the first level. The entire server has to then earn its way through the level before new levels are gained.
Just a thought and I really don't care too much about how that end cap is handled, just as it isn't a hand out.
Corpse rot has to happen or corpses become a griefing tool.
You could have someone dying hundreds, or even thousands, of times in the same place, rezzing and leaving a single junk item on their corpse each time.
This would both clog the area with eternal corpses and add significant load to the zone.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
An extra stat related to how recently/frequently you die that provides a penalty or bonus could be a pretty interesting alternative to just experience loss.
So, I stay logged in while working / sleeping to max out my bonuses?
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
My hope is they stick with a fully naked CR, hefty EXP loss with level loss. There should be NO graveyards in a zone and the only way you can regain your corpse is by getting it dragged to you in the zone, or having it "summoned" to you in the zone through a spell or special skill of a certain class. Only thing I would change from original EQ concerning this is no corpse rot, it was never intended anyway, and besides, such permanent loss doesn't work well with a long term development game (ie perm death and loss is better suited for Rogue-like systems) .
Exp debt never made any sense to me. In all the games I played, it was completely irrelevant to me, it didn't make me fear anything, it didn't have any negative other than it meant I had to wait longer to gain my next level. With exp loss and a chance to de-level, there is the threat of losing abilities and spells you obtained at that level (ie you need to level again to use them) or in some cases, it really created a threat of being locked out of a zone or area).
If the worry is people will be capped and ding to the next level on any new expansion, well.. you can make the last level of the current content be a "shallow" level while it is the "end level". That is, make the exp amount be small enough into that level that it is easy to lose the level if you die too much. Make it something like 3-5 deaths without a rez will de-level you from 50 back to 49.
This way, death still has a threat, and people can't simply cap out the level and never worry about losing too much exp to de-level.
I would do that, and then on each expansion release, you expand that level to its natural exp amount which may make the exp bar look as if it is barely filled. This way, you don't get Day 1 people spamming into the first level. The entire server has to then earn its way through the level before new levels are gained.
Just a thought and I really don't care too much about how that end cap is handled, just as it isn't a hand out.
Corpse rot has to happen or corpses become a griefing tool.
You could have someone dying hundreds, or even thousands, of times in the same place, rezzing and leaving a single junk item on their corpse each time.
This would both clog the area with eternal corpses and add significant load to the zone.
Also, if there is no corpse rot then people will store xp in preparation for the expac that raises level cap.
Comments
I rather they worked on other things in the game than trying to make some unneeded and overly complicated death system.
Anyway in EQ at least you always had clerics around on raids and got back most of you experience on res so it was not that big of a deal.
Horizons early on tried it. They had great ideas but could not pull it off. I not sure if it was poor programming or just that the computers back in 2002 were not up to it. I would love to see someone try something similar now days. Maybe they could pull it off. I don't ever expect to see one though.
The limit would be that you would stop doing what ever stupid thing you were doing to die over and over. I have to wonder if you ever played a game with this type of death penalty as in early EQ it was not that bad.
On raids in EQ I only remember one person ever getting locked out and have to re-level before coming back into the raid zone. This was because they just leveled to 50 right before the raid and had no buffer. If the zone had not been level locked, it would have made no difference as there was little different between a level 49 and a level 50 skill or ability wise.
We have no clue if this game is going to have level lock areas but I sort of doubt it.
The limits are needed because the mechanic should be a penalty not a punishment. Losing 1XP will make players take notice of something, though of course I am not suggesting something so ridiculously minuscule. But players are like that, you don't need hefty XP fines for players to stop doing what caused them to lose xp.
I really doubt they are going to make the exp loss and such worse than EQ was back in the day if that is what you are worried about.
And there are games like this; e.g. I play hardcore league in Path of Exile.
Pantheon is not the type of game that supports permanent death. Raiding will always involve player death to a certain extent and should be absolutely brutal during the learning curve for each raid.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Maybe on a special Crowfall ruleset server or something...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Expounding on the "different death mechanism for raids" idea. It would allow 'the raid game' to impose all sorts of even more brutal penalties that the 'regular game' wouldn't need to bother with. Maybe even including permanent death, although I doubt that the VR developers would go that far. But there could be all sorts of latitudes of harshness with a variety of "death and you're out of this raid" affects. One rez per character? Non-XP rezzes only? Naked-corpse runs? This could even be selected by the Raid leader when the raid is formed, affecting the encounter difficulty / reward. Just brainstorming a bit here.
I doubt that such a system would be accepted by the mainstream Pantheon fans. It does set up a distinct 'end game' that many wouldn't like. It would be like a second version of the game. Interesting though the idea of 2 games within a single title might be, I doubt I'd be playing; the old school end game doesn't appeal to me.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
That was the reason we helped people in EQ, we assumed that if they made it to level 50 or whatever that they were serious and really wanted to play well but maybe they had soloed too much or not done any raids at all.
The feeling of risk and loosing/winning something make games more meaningful, especially in the long run.
Something as fundamental as a death penalty affects every aspect of the game. It shapes the entire community and how that community approaches risk/reward.
Simply opting out does not accomplish this.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Exp debt never made any sense to me. In all the games I played, it was completely irrelevant to me, it didn't make me fear anything, it didn't have any negative other than it meant I had to wait longer to gain my next level. With exp loss and a chance to de-level, there is the threat of losing abilities and spells you obtained at that level (ie you need to level again to use them) or in some cases, it really created a threat of being locked out of a zone or area).
If the worry is people will be capped and ding to the next level on any new expansion, well.. you can make the last level of the current content be a "shallow" level while it is the "end level". That is, make the exp amount be small enough into that level that it is easy to lose the level if you die too much. Make it something like 3-5 deaths without a rez will de-level you from 50 back to 49.
This way, death still has a threat, and people can't simply cap out the level and never worry about losing too much exp to de-level.
I would do that, and then on each expansion release, you expand that level to its natural exp amount which may make the exp bar look as if it is barely filled. This way, you don't get Day 1 people spamming into the first level. The entire server has to then earn its way through the level before new levels are gained.
Just a thought and I really don't care too much about how that end cap is handled, just as it isn't a hand out.
I totally agree here. The concept of experience debt has never made sense to me. I hope that Pantheon will find a better alternative than this kind of system.
Focusing on max level experience cap seems a bit odd for a progression based game. Rather than worrying about players at capped experience, I'd suggest starting a set of class-specific 1-use AAs at that level, AND have the max level be a shallow level. Purchasing an AA would reduce the XP by a large amount (2x Death Penalty). Give the players a choice when dying at max level, lose the XP and possibly de-level, or unlearn an AA.
I'd also like to see some kind of skill loss, especially if skills are going to advance like in EQ1. Maybe a 10 skill loss for the primary equipped skill for a death at every level. This makes a real functional distinction between a character who hasn't died, and one that has died several times recently. It would force groups and raids to rotate characters that might frequently die. In my opinion, a mechanism like this would add a real fear of death -- a 50th level that only functions as well as a 42nd level might. (With this kind of skill penalty, I could easily see AAs that 'purchase' 5 skill points). Removing an actual skill or spell in game might be too time consuming as the player might need to adjust hotkeys or the UI, but adjusting the effectiveness of a skill could be easily handled server-side.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I have played many non-MMO games (survival games and the like) where you could specify your equipped or hotbar items stayed on you upon death. This completely invalidated the point of the death and simply turned it into an "inconvenience" mechanic where you put all your important stuff on the hotbar or made sure it was equipped and then the recovery was much easier because of it. I found that such invalidated the entire point of a corpse run. If they aren't going to do a fully naked, might as well not bother with it at all.
The whole point of a the CR is to make it where you are disadvantaged in the process. This also provided layers of pros/cons to certain classes as well. Classes who were very gear dependent were devastated on the CR and those who were less dependent had an advantage.
Same, Such a system would be boring and severely reduce the threat or fear in play. It would be a "Oh yawn, I died... oh well... I will grind that off tomorrow" while if you lost a level and in such lost an ability, it would be quite the disappointment.
Honestly I am not sure what is best, I was just commenting on the worries of others who claimed there needed to be some type of implementation for people at max level. I personally think if anything other than a small subset of your population is at max level come expansions, then the game is too easy, too fast leveling, or you are taking too long to release content (oh and the last possibility is your game is filled with locusts, and well... you don't cater to locusts, they can't be satisfied).
They have to be careful in such, as if you put the penalties too much, you then can't make your content severely difficult either. EQ had some insanely difficult encounters that required perfect execution over a long endurance encounter (Doing the AoW with 30-40 people during Velious was INSANELY difficult at the time) that results in numerous wipes and retry.
I like a hard penalty, but while I do like the means of possibly losing a level and that reducing capability, I don't want to see the penalties be so much that fights become a matter of "well, we wiped twice, we are done, the penalties are killing us".
Anything that is loss should not be a situation where you have characters completely invalidated due to a level drop (unless it was a special level of a key ability). The point of the death penalty is for the individual player, not to punish and penalize the groups/raids. I think if you allow that, it will make the community more volatile in how it interacts than that of WoW.
In more modern EQ, they implemented a graveyard zone that corpses would eventually show up at (after like a week of RL time passed). So if you were too lazy to retrieve your corpse from the zone you died in, you could just wait it out.
Corpse rot has to happen or corpses become a griefing tool.
You could have someone dying hundreds, or even thousands, of times in the same place, rezzing and leaving a single junk item on their corpse each time.
This would both clog the area with eternal corpses and add significant load to the zone.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
So, I stay logged in while working / sleeping to max out my bonuses?
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin