[dev 1021] [Suggestion] Please consider this SP loss system for Death

So it's quite clear the community is split about a penalty system for death. Yoshi-P has put forth an idea for using Equipment degradation as a death penalty. However, many people have made a good point that that won't make enough of a deterrent. Money is too easy to come by. And, of course, there are people who would prefer no penalty.

I think I've found a great compromise that could satisfy everyone (at least to a degree):

-First death = loss of SP (ballpark figure of 5%... about half of what FFXI's was) + weakness. A portion (or even all) can be bought back using Gil or possibly Anima (Anima would be more of a deterrent).
-Second death while still under weakness (or within a time frame) = Lose more SP + double weakness. Originally lost SP cannot be bought back.
-Third death (maybe not necessary) = Permanent loss of SP (no buyback), double weakness, loss of Anima.

And keep in mind, under this proposed system, you would not delevel... lowest you could go is 0 XP (with possible XP debt). Aion does a system similar to this and it works pretty darn well.

Comments and constructive criticism welcome.


EDIT: Please Like if you agree with this idea.

Update EDIT: If the idea above seems too much for some, I would like to add support to an idea that Clawfury came up with:

While Weakness is in effect, you will gain no SP/XP. Otherwise, the system stays the same.

I agree on this.

I'm against it. EXP/SP loss never is a good idea.

Die as DoH while trying to deliver a local levequest and you might reconsider your idea ^^

Honestly I don't see why we need a deterrent though. Whatever happened to playing well for the sake of not bringing your party down? What happened to people bettering themselves simply so that they will be better players? I dunno, guess that's just how I look at it lol. Even without a penalty I still strive to be better and I kind of worry about people who only play just well enough to avoid the penalty.

I'm just against loss of SP in general. Lost SP is lost play time and honestly it punishes people for trying things they're not 100% sure they can do. Say I'm R43, about to hit R44. It would make death extremely frustrating if I were to lose all the progress I've made on R43 just because of a few stupid deaths or 1-hit KOs that are unavoidable. I'd be fine if death were 100% based on player skill but they're not.

Let's take Monster Hunter for example, a game where player death is 99% of the time caused directly by one's skill level. I'm perfectly fine when I die because I know I can learn from the experience and not do that again. In FFXIV if someone weapon skills a djigga it can take down the whole party. How is it my fault that someone else forgot about that for an instant? Honestly the entire party would then turn on that person and that doesn't make for a fun playing environment.

I think a gear damage penalty would be fine if it were severe enough.

I saw SP buy-back in Aion and honestly it was awful. The cost of buying back your lost XP drove you into poverty, especially if you were a tank. Then again in that game everything was obnoxiously expensive so that just compounded the issue.

All in all I guess I'd be okay with SP buy-back in this game as opposed to outright loss of SP but I still think they could make a better system than that.

I personally agree that some sort of deterrent, causing players to avoid death is a good thing. The specific form of the deterrent is (I think) ultimately the least important point.

I think that the balance of risk / reward is what is important. If the deterrent is essentially negligible, then character death becomes cheapened, and a large portion of the excitement / suspense is missing from the game.

If the deterrent is too harsh, then tempers rise, and people begin to play overly cautiously, thus also reducing enjoyment in the game.

Other factors to consider are deaths that are not under the players control:
a) Severe network lag or disconnect, or the infamous R0 syndrome
b) Party members making a mistake leading to deaths
c) Players deliberately griefing, in order to cause player deaths

Ultimately, I believe that the feel of the system should be (1) deaths not caused by player carelessness have negligible penalties, and (2) death cause by a player's mistake have enough of a penalty to cause a degree of anguish, but instill the resolve to learn and try better in the future.

Unfortunately, I know of no MMO that has ever been able to balance this. Just to take the loss of connection issue, if the penalty for dying due to network loss is reduced, then some number of players will exploit this by deliberately severing their network connection.

So, I'm stymied for truly constructive feedback, but maybe someone else will miraculously come up with a solution. Perhaps gear damage is the best compromise, after all.

I don't want the game to be entirely casual, but the last thing FFXIV needs now is a rigid death penalty to scare off what is left of potential customers. Just thinking from a business standpoint.

They had people flat out quit FFXI over losing exp when they die so they don't want to repeat that mistake again.

I am against lost off SP/EXP on death.

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Honestly I don't see why we need a deterrent though.

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Mainly for two reasons:

-There needs to be a discouraging penalty for people wasting other people's time. At the moment, no one cares about dying, so they do stupid stuff, don't pay attention during combat and get themselves (and their party) killed a lot. This wastes people's time. For example: I was in a leve party and half of the members would half-***edly play, not caring about their HP or if the mob was about to do a special attack. They kept getting themselves killed over and over, and each time they would just charge in while still under weakness. Their excuse? "What? You're not losing anything, so why do you care?" It wasn't until we ran out of time on a leve because of their stupidity that they realized, but even then they laughed it off saying, "it's just some gil".

At the moment, because there is no discouragement from being stupid, these type of people are wasting other people's time.

-Because people can abuse the "no penalty" system by zerging content... what Yoshi-P describes as "zombie attacking". Sure, this could be solved by making the content harder or making the mob regen HP when aggro is lost, but that carries it's own problems. Like in FFXI... you could wipe, but if you were careful, you could get everyone raised and still complete the fight. Making changes like that would prevent legitimate parties from being able to do this.

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Originally Posted by Raim

I don't want the game to be entirely casual, but the last thing FFXIV needs now is a rigid death penalty to scare off what is left of potential customers. Just thinking from a business standpoint.

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This suggestion is in no way rigid. It's actually extremely forgiving, I would say. If you limit yourself to one death in a row, you would have the option to buy back the SP lost... so the only thing you lose is some gil or Anima. I would personally prefer Anima, as the reason I made this suggestion is gil just isn't a discouragement... it's too easy to get.

EXP/SP loss is lame. Gear durability in general is lame. Just make a much longer weakness timer/ restrict peoples movement while weakend or make raise I II and III reduce the weakness times.