Death penalty

[BloodLustAlpaca]

So I was just curious what every thinks about different death penalties. I'm not to sure what MJ has said besides there will be some. My thoughts are I think a res sickness style death penalty is stupid, all it does is cause me to afk for the timer.

I was a little disappointed when he said that there wont be looting of people you killed. I used to be against the idea of losing what is on your body, but after playing eve it makes a lot more sense in pvp. What kind of penalties can there be that dont just make you stop playing? Loss of Exp can be annoying. I am against the res sickness idea for sure. I hope the soul idea is expounded on a little more.

I could understand the idea of losing confidence in a fight after you are defeated making it more difficult, but to gain it back you would have to do well. if we are going to respawn with our weapons I would be ok with it being costly, or having several "fits" in my house to equip

What do you all think?

 

[Vesir]

i think the biggest death penalty will be just how far you will have to run to get back into the action again

 

[boxfetish]

I would love item loss or xp loss, but we won't see it. I don't think timers (whether run time or rez sickness) are true penalties. The idea of a death penalty is to make someone think twice before being reckless. Item loss or xp loss will do this. a few minutes worth of time sink will not.

I am in the minority on this and MJ doesn't want these things in the game it seems.

 

[Vesir]

pretty sure MJ said no to item loss, not sure if he's addressed xp loss yet

 

[Atoka]

I haven't heard anything about the "Founder's Death Marker" that is on some of the tiers from the KS/Paypal, but it seems like there might be something similar to what DAoC has in terms of the death penalty.

 

[Strone]

i can only imagine that the people who think rez sickness is not a true penalty and only a time sink, whereas looting is the only meaningful deterrent to dying, are people who either only run solo or with the zerg. if you have ever experienced 8v8 or 8vZerg (or any combination of coordinated group play, really), you would recognize how very meaningful and important rez sickness was to the game mechanics in daoc. rez sickness was a huge pain in the ass. being essentially globally debuffed for even a short period of time during an intense fight was a significant disadvantage - as it *should* be. to be killed in a battle only to pop up and be ready to go 100% with no repercussions is just.... dumb. it is one of the many elements that made combat in daoc exciting. it would force you and your entire group to adjust accordingly. at the same time, daoc added a nice balance by providing a few, limited (especially depending on spec) rez spells that allowed you to get back in the fight at 100% (or close to it), but healers had to manage those very carefully.

there were so many things about combat in daoc that made it meaningful and exciting, which other games have still not been able to match (at least the ones i've played). i'm looking forward to a successor to daoc, not a successor to gw2...

 

[acron^]

Rather than speculating, I'd love to hear MJ expand on his 'BSC' idea of souls and their role in death. To recap, I believe he was toying with the idea that when some one kills you they possess a slice of your soul (a 'soul piece') which it's in your best interests to retrieve (this then filtered into the idea of bounties you could set, essentially offering a reward for anyone who could return your 'soul piece'). I think the downside to losing a piece of your soul would most obviously manifest in the form of a debuff, but I'd like to see an interesting mechanic such as...you lose your debuff - or even gain a buff - when fighting in the proximity of the person who possesses your soul piece. You don't want a situation where you become too gimped to get your piece back, nor do you want the debuff to be something that adversely affects you if we work on the principle there's no time out associated (ie, until your soul piece is actively retrieved, you ain't getting it back).

 

[BloodLustAlpaca]

Ya im not saying that rez sickness does not hurt you, im just saying i think it just makes it pretty much so you die, and afk until it goes away, that doesnt encourage fights, and it doesnt penalize me because i wont even try to go out and kill anyone if its bad enough all ill do is sit and wait for it to go away. I have not had the experience in Daoc, so I cant speak on that.

 

[professor nomos]

Ya im not saying that rez sickness does not hurt you, im just saying i think it just makes it pretty much so you die, and afk until it goes away, that doesnt encourage fights, and it doesnt penalize me because i wont even try to go out and kill anyone if its bad enough all ill do is sit and wait for it to go away. I have not had the experience in Daoc, so I cant speak on that.

That's a PvE way of looking at Rez Sickness. Rez Sickness in RvR is a debuff that makes you weaker in combat. Granted you're more combat effective than if you're dead but if you're combat rezz'd with a 10/20% debuff you're not necessarily getting off "easy" and you can hardly afk the Rez Sickness in the middle of a RvR fight.

 

[Strone]

That's a PvE way of looking at Rez Sickness. Rez Sickness in RvR is a debuff that makes you weaker in combat. Granted you're more combat effective than if you're dead but if you're combat rezz'd with a 10/20% debuff you're not necessarily getting off "easy" and you can hardly afk the Rez Sickness in the middle of a RvR fight.

^^^ this

 

[BloodLustAlpaca]

Ok that does make sense. if you dont go back out and fight then your house burns down so you couldnt afk lol

 

[Tanos]

You will die over and over in a Tri-Realm RvR game just because of bad luck. If dead penalties get too hard (e.g. corpse looting or XP loss) no one will be willing to take that risk. If you try to balance between challenge and frustration you must be very carefull.

 

[Mkilbride]

http://camelotunchainedfaq.wikispaces.com/Death

Everything Mark Jacobs has said about Death.

Q: Will there be penalties for dying?
A: Yes. Since this is a PvP game, death has to mean something. The intent isn't for your enemy to kill you so that you are taken out of the game for a few minutes until you are resurrected quickly by your realm mate. Death should mean something and should have an effect on how your realm is able to react to situations. In a game where death doesn't mean anything, numbers will win every time but in a game where death means something, strategy can win over numbers.

Q: Will death be permanent?
A: No. The principle is death should mean something, not that it is something you can't recover from.

Q: Will there be corpse looting?
A: No but there will be rewards for killing.

Q: Will any class be able to resurrect themselves after dying?
A: No

Q: Will any class be able to resurrect someone after they die?
A: Yes but it won't be instant. There will also be an effect in the term of some type of sickness. The formerly dead teammate will be slightly hampered in some way.

Q: Will you lose items from your inventory due to dying? Such as a crafter losing materials they mined?
A: No, items from inventory will not be lost due to death.

Q: Will those who have been killed be able to still see the action around them so they can report activities to their realm?
A: There will most likely be some game mechanic to prevent spying while dead.

 

[Vesir]

oh god, i hope that he will change his stance on 'will any class be able to resurrect' cause that was part of what made GW2 annoying

 

[professor nomos]

oh god, i hope that he will change his stance on 'will any class be able to resurrect' cause that was part of what made GW2 annoying

I will agree that too easy of a rez will be annoying. How the Rez works will be important.

 

[boxfetish]

oh god, i hope that he will change his stance on 'will any class be able to resurrect' cause that was part of what made GW2 annoying

I think you are reading that question and answer differently than was intended. The questioner was asking if there "are any classes in the game that will be able to rez" and MJs answer is also meant as "Yes, there will be classes in the game that can rez"

 

[Ctuchik]

oh god, i hope that he will change his stance on 'will any class be able to resurrect' cause that was part of what made GW2 annoying

It's about as annoying as in DAoC, it just takes fucking ages in GW2..

 

[Vesir]

It's about as annoying as in DAoC, it just takes fucking ages in GW2..

i'm going to have to disagree, GW2 rez system was orders of magnitude more annoying than in DAoC. DAoC had a cost to rez someone, GW2 you didn't give up anything except a little time and the person came back fully capable and you weren't charged (half of your mana cost in DAoC) anything

 

[Mkilbride]

Yes, you misread MJ's post.

He meant there will be a class that can resurrect. Saran is Korean, so sometimes small things like that happen.

 

[Atoka]

i'm going to have to disagree, GW2 rez system was orders of magnitude more annoying than in DAoC. DAoC had a cost to rez someone, GW2 you didn't give up anything except a little time and the person came back fully capable and you weren't charged (half of your mana cost in DAoC) anything

GW2 rez system was a joke. There is absolutely no punishment for being a horrible player. It's was incredibly frustrating to kill a few unaware players only to have them jump back up and run you over. I don't see how you can have a system, especially in a RvR environment, that doesn't actually punish players who make stupid (obvious) mistakes.

 

[Abriael]

I would love item loss or xp loss, but we won't see it. I don't think timers (whether run time or rez sickness) are true penalties. The idea of a death penalty is to make someone think twice before being reckless. Item loss or xp loss will do this. a few minutes worth of time sink will not.

It also makes everyone think twice before having fun.

Discouraging any risk-taking is good for real life. You can have a significant death penalty without turning large segments of the population into cowering cowards that will do nothing else than crafting behind safe walls.

 

[boxfetish]

Item or xp loss does not unquestionably mean "not fun' or "nobody will fight". I know that some who become very attached to their pixels or progression will try to frame it as "always", but the amount of items/$ lost or xp lost can be adjusted downward so that it still makes a player cautious, yet isn't so harsh as to cause them to not have fun or quit the game.

TBH, I shouldn't have brought it up since we already know these things will not be in the game and even mentioning the subject just results in the usual /wrists hyperbole.

I do have another question regarding item loss (NOT player looting) in this game, but I will ask it in it's own thread as I doubt it would even be noticed in light of what I just wrote above.

 

[Mkilbride]

FFXI's death penalty was not a bad one.

Here is what happened:

You died. You lost 10% of your total XP. In FFXI, pre-abyssea, this set back could be hours, and at higher levels, days. However, being revived allowed you to gain back 5%, and higher revives allowed higher percentages until the highest level revive gained you like 8% back. Res sickness was a reduction of stats by like 60-70% for 5 minutes or so. I rather liked that. Wasn't too hash, but it definitely made you not want to die.

Later on they removed such penalties, not entirely, but lessened them considerably, and also made leveling faster. I can recall once upon a time playing that game and dying being a 'No!" moment, where you truly felt frustrated.

I liked that. I liked dying being something more than "Oh, I died, time to pay some repair fees and respawn" like most games.

 

[Abriael]

FFXI's death penalty was not a bad one.

Here is what happened:

You died. You lost 10% of your total XP. In FFXI, pre-abyssea, this set back could be hours, and at higher levels, days. However, being revived allowed you to gain back 5%, and higher revives allowed higher percentages until the highest level revive gained you like 8% back. Res sickness was a reduction of stats by like 60-70% for 5 minutes or so. I rather liked that. Wasn't too hash, but it definitely made you not want to die.

Later on they removed such penalties, not entirely, but lessened them considerably, and also made leveling faster. I can recall once upon a time playing that game and dying being a 'No!" moment, where you truly felt frustrated.

I liked that. I liked dying being something more than "Oh, I died, time to pay some repair fees and respawn" like most games.

That's justified by the fact that FFXI is almost exclusively a PvE game. In PvE death is very much under your direct control, or at least under the direct control of your party and avoiding it is mostly *easy*. I can count the times I died a month in FFXI on my fingers.

In PvP that's not true anymore, and especially in RvR. Not only you die a LOT, but a lot of the deaths will be completely out of your control. You go around in a small group and you get jumped by a zerg of 100 angry enemies? You die. You can do nothing about it, and a harsh penalty completely out of your control is simply a source of frustration.

A harsh death penalty will simply encourage most people either not to go in RvR at all or at the very least to continuously look for safety in numbers, and I doubt we want a game in which most people will just zerg all the time.

 

[Mkilbride]

"I want choices and death to matter, to be meaningful" - Mark Jacobs.

 

[eksdee]

You only have to look at Aion as a prime example of how too harsh a death penalty - in Aion you lost RPs when you died and the more RPs you had, the more you lost - can completely ruin PvP. In Aion people avoided PvP entirely unless they were in the safety of a massive zerg or until they were in BGs (which only spawned twice per day) where you couldn't lose RPs for dying. It's a shame because it meant one of the best combat systems in an MMO outside of DAoC never had much PvP at all.

With that said, I think it's important that dying doesn't just become a non-factor - see GW2, which was basically built for lazy/bad players and was all the worse for it.

I personally don't see much of a problem with XP loss, but perhaps limit it to when you /release. If you die and get rezzed you don't lose any as you potentially still won the fight despite dying, but if you /release that means you lost the engagement and therefore are punished with XP loss.

 

[Ctuchik]

i'm going to have to disagree, GW2 rez system was orders of magnitude more annoying than in DAoC. DAoC had a cost to rez someone, GW2 you didn't give up anything except a little time and the person came back fully capable and you weren't charged (half of your mana cost in DAoC) anything

It's just annoying in a different way.

Sure it cost a lot of mana in DAoC, but with all the RA's, buffs, gear charges and potions that helps regain it you can still rezz a good amount of people and still be fit for fight.

And you do get penalized for dying to often in GW2, the more you go down the easier it will be to kill you outright. After 3 downs you basically have no "safe" life left to try and get up with.

I personally don't see much of a problem with XP loss, but perhaps limit it to when you /release. If you die and get rezzed you don't lose any as you potentially still won the fight despite dying, but if you /release that means you lost the engagement and therefore are punished with XP loss.

That would depend on how hard it is to get the XP back, if it's like in vanilla DAoC then it's a horrible idea...

 

[eksdee]

That would depend on how hard it is to get the XP back, if it's like in vanilla DAoC then it's a horrible idea...

True, true. And of course the severity of the XP loss etc etc. It's all about that magic word... balance.

 

[Tanos]

Basically i don't like it but there is one big thing if you implement some sort of xp loss that you have to be very carefull with: Some classes are much more likely to die then others. No one will choose to play e.g. a caster if it means you need twice to time to level it up.
I would rather try to find some sort of tactical element that influences big fights than to look after hard death penalties for individuals.

 

[Jairon Kalach]

What I find interesting is that the few times I've seen MJ give examples about death meaning something, he's talked about the long runback. However, based on the conversation in this community, that seems to be something of a fun-sucker, as opposed to an interesting penality. I almost wonder if for "fun" purposes it doesn't make more sense to have you lose items in your inventory or lose XP, or lose one of those things, but be able to stay in the action/get back in the action more easily.

On the other hand, for long term strategy, being able to easily get into the action is completely against one of the things that MJ has stated as a goal: Enabling strategy to beat numbers.