An open discsusion on the consequences of death

[Stilla]

Introduce bonus effects for not dieing, so when you die, you loose the effect of the bonus.


For example:

Slaying and defeating adversaries currently gives players experience points. If in addition to the level progression experience points they give you for killing beasts, you also received points for staying alive. The points gained are used to reach milestones which result in attribute bonuses.

With each milestone you receive, you will enhance certain aspects of your Player Character.

Lets just say there are 5 tiers.

* Rank 0 – No effects.

* Rank 1 (5,000 points) – Raise all Attributes by 1

* Rank 2 (10,000 points)– Raise all Attributes by an additional 1

* Rank 3 (20,000 points)– Raise all Attributes by an additional 1 and gain an additional effect to increase running speed.

* Rank 4 (30,000 points) – Raise all Attributes by an additional 3

* Rank 5 (50,000 points) - Raise all Attributes by an additional 5 and gain an additional effect to increase running speed.

If you obtained rank 5 and you died, you would fall to rank 4. If you were rank 1 and died you would fall to rank 0. If you are rank 0 and die there is no loss as you are have no bonus effect.

[Rowyne]

6.) Durability hits to gear is a great idea for a penalty. Again, it won't affect the casual players too much. But it will provide a reason to avoid the repeated deaths. Until the repair system is improved, however, it is pointless. As has already been said, there needs to be a tiered system. a 10% loss of your max durability would be worth while if and only if there was a difference between 90% damage and 1% damage. It is very simply. If your gear is "white", it costs what it costs now to repair. If your gear is "yellow" it costs double mats/double gil OR a +1 of the mat. If your gear is red, it should be triple cost in mats / gil OR a +2 mat. IF you let your gear get all the way down to 0 dura, I am all for a x4 cost multiplier for gil / mats, OR a +3 item to do it to full. Hmm. I think I will make this a new thread topic, too. I like that idea. But then, I am a crafter!

I like this!

*thumbs up*

[kukurumei]

Hi. Thought I would chime in. Some things to know about me first, I played 11 for 8 years, as a WHM with reraise/raise/sneak/invis. I hated crafting in that game. In this game, it is opposite. I love, love love, the DoL/DoH jobs and play them exclusively.

/wave

So, that said, here is my 2cents.

First, I do believe there needs to be a penalty to death. However, as many of the arguments stated, doing so at the detriment to casual players (of which I am not) is not exactly fair. Yes, I want to the game to be scary, nerve wracking, and to actually feel like I am ADVENTURING. That is, after all, why I play this game. Likewise, I don't want the penalties to scare my girlfriend from the game - she is the very definition of a casual player, and I like playing with here.

So where is the happy medium? I think, personally, that there can be a lot done to the current system to improve it, make dying something to avoid but not a deterrent to actually playing.

1.) There is no need for an SP/XP loss. Aside from all the arguments against that have been made already, think about this: It was not added to the game from the start. Adding it now would do more harm to the game's already bad reputation and is counterproductive to what SE is trying to do with the game, which is save it from becoming a such a monetary sink that they HAVE to shut it down.

2.) Lets look at death in leve: The penalty for repeated death (not -a- death) should be failure of the leve. Very simply, if you don't get your shit together, you shouldn't get shit for reward. Pardon the language. I think this will be addressed in part with the game optimized for lower party sizes. If the game is balanced for 8 people, or 6, then one person dying is much more noticeable than than with 15 people. More so, two or three people dying, and you have a serious issue. Even if they continued to allow 15 person parties on 8 person leves, and balanced it right with an SP hit, you are now having to make the choice. Learn the job and stop dying to get better SP, or take the SP hit. A proper balancing of party dynamics, size, and mob difficulty is its OWN incentive to keep from dying.

3.) And yet that does not address the issue of solo/duo play, grinding, exploring etc. This can be simply addressed with a multi-faucet approach. First, place a 1 anima cost on returns (0 anima cost if you are out of anima). For casual players this does not hurt them much, but that's the point. You want the casual play to stay casual. For hardcore players constantly on the go, 1 anima is a lot. But more importantly it CAN be managed (I for one, plan my travels carefully enough to the point where I can tele-taxi on my main.) or averted by not dying.

4.) Also allow for the removal of fatigue by the use of Guardian's Favor is a good thing... Especially if you have to choose between running back at full health into your leve so you don't fail it OR... waiting for it to expire after Raise / Re-Raise - thus saving yourself the anima for the return and the guardian's favor. Whether or not Pheonix Down is added is for a whole different topic Point is, balance this right with the difficulty of leves and you either avoid the death OR have to make a tough choice.

5.) As a crafter, I honestly SHOULD be fearing death. There isn't anything what-so-ever to me dying. It just does. not. matter. People frequently forget that DoL/DoH is a class in this game. Whatever happens regarding death, has to affect us crafters, too. I already manage my anima well; that's because I covet it. Even though I rarely drop below 60 anima, I would HATE loosing 1 anima on death.

6.) Durability hits to gear is a great idea for a penalty. Again, it won't affect the casual players too much. But it will provide a reason to avoid the repeated deaths. Until the repair system is improved, however, it is pointless. As has already been said, there needs to be a tiered system. a 10% loss of your max durability would be worth while if and only if there was a difference between 90% damage and 1% damage. It is very simply. If your gear is "white", it costs what it costs now to repair. If your gear is "yellow" it costs double mats/double gil OR a +1 of the mat. If your gear is red, it should be triple cost in mats / gil OR a +2 mat. IF you let your gear get all the way down to 0 dura, I am all for a x4 cost multiplier for gil / mats, OR a +3 item to do it to full. Hmm. I think I will make this a new thread topic, too. I like that idea. But then, I am a crafter!

So, in summary: 1 anima to return. 10% dura hit (or another % as needed for balance) with tiered repairs. Guardian's Favor to instantly remove weakness (I think I called it fatigue above; my bad). Raise/Reraise to avoid the anima cost. With leves balanced so that a death or two doesn't matter but three or four might, and a one full wipe puts you at serious risk unless you kick ass, and you have your solution!

And that's my 2cents.

Casual semi-casual and hardcore will never see eye to eye. There has been no system that does not get into controversy.

The only system that has worked so far is FtP solutions of RMT. It's not a scheme, but it's something of a weird divide where real money for some reason is worth it to a person who wants to keep up with his in game guild, but the guild would never even pay a cent for moral reasons.

That's the only way I'll ever see it workable if you want different groups to be treated equally. Because it'll never happen as drama will unfold between the casual who recklessly destroys a group unintentionally and then you have a big dramatic spam-a-ton in chat.

And while the obvious thought process is that casuals won't pay and rather go away...well FtP business models somehow shows that to be the opposite. It's an odd thing.

[Rowyne]

The only system that has worked so far is FtP solutions of RMT.

OMG the minute they put in a cash shop for rez potions, I'm out.

[Rebellion]

I'd welcome SP loss when you died.

When you hit max level on a job... It's like you're done without a merit system which will probably come in the future but... After that what?

in IX I enjoyed still having to party with my my 75 jobs in parties to keep up my buffer and as a testing ground for gear set ups.

i'm with you on this 1

[Rentahamster]

I like this!

*thumbs up*

I dunno about that, it overly complicates the repair system, and would make people have to deal with multiple qualities of mats.

[Benediction]

Oh dear god no. I would INSTANTLY quit the second they announce they're implementing sp/xp loss upon KO. So would more players because no one in this day and age want to spend MORE time grinding getting back that lost sp/xp than exploring or w/e it is we do in an MMO. SE cannot afford to piss off anymore people at this point in the game.

I don't know about you but I don't like spending 2-3 hours just grinding getting my exp up to a certain amount JUST SO I don't delevel upon death. Grinding sucks. Period. I'd rather do an instance or a faction leve with a tough boss that involves actual strategy and intelligence (and not the 1 hit KO bullshit that some of these mobs have... that isn't challenge).

Some of you people forget how horrible FFXI was from beginning till about middle-end.

1. It was totally unsoloable, the party system sucked (and still does)
2. You always needed other people to help you with quests that requires them to be on the same quest
3. The economic system in the game was not set up right (so it was easily exploitable by RMTs and created a wide gap between the very rich and the very poor)
4. The abilities in that game were very generic and did not invoke skill and strategy (it was always who had the better gear, and overall more powerful)
5. Endgame was horrible. Oh so horrible.
6. And last but not least, everything you did in that game was a huge time sink.

I don't understand this mentality of time sink = challenge. No. It isn't. Challenge is when you're fighting Rotface and he inflicts you with one of his abilities, that causes 6k dmg every second and reduces movement speed which you then need to run into a pool of slime to remove it (especially hard when you are a healer and you're inflicted with this).

SP/EXP loss upon death? No. Just no.

[Rowyne]

I don't understand this mentality of time sink = challenge. No. It isn't. Challenge is when you're fighting Rotface and he inflicts you with one of his abilities, that causes 6k dmg every second and reduces movement speed which you then need to run into a pool of slime to remove it (especially hard when you are a healer and you're inflicted with this).

Hello fellow ICC raid healer /wave

[Benediction]

Hello fellow ICC raid healer /wave

haha /wave XD

[origamikitsune]

I dunno about that, it overly complicates the repair system, and would make people have to deal with multiple qualities of mats.

I posted a little more in depth about it here.

I think that, especially with the changes to the durability, the repair system needs a little bit of tweaking. Not a complete revamp, really, but something more to it. I would love to hear your detailed reasons for not liking it. For non-crafters, it doesn't change anything except how much you pay (assuming they didn't adjust the price down to reflect the increased cost of repairs). For crafters however, I think we NEED these little tweaks to make the game more interesting.