Death Penalty

[Preypacer]

First don't ever talk about realism in a fantasy game or any game as a matter of fact. Its a game. Games are not real and the purpose of games are for fun not to simulate reality. When they begin to simulate reality they become a simulation and not a game.

"More realistic" as in, there's consequences for your actions. That you can resurrect after dying, over and over again, already takes it outside the realm of being even remotely realistic. Hell, that you can play a cat-like humanoid creature that runs around fighting Molboros and Goblins and riding on huge birds (which of course we can't do *yet* in XIV) and flying in airships (again, not *yet*) and so forth... Well, you get the idea.

Secondly the death penalties you're referring to are archaic mechanisms. Probably I don't play those archaic games but I am not aware of any modern game that still gives the DP you mentioned except for FFXI. So referring to old ancient MMO or stating games in which its worse does not make the current DP in this games and other games justifiable.

And you not liking the DP in this game does not make it unjustifiable. It makes it your personal opinion.

Like you said... This is just a discussion. Right?

How does death penalty gives the player incentives to play better? Isn't it better to reward for playing better than to punish for not playing good? When you die you have been penalized by DEATH. Why add more?

Personally, I think the penalty in XIV could be a bit harsher, for a few reasons.

Let me give you just one example why... and this is further illustrated in the next bit...

On one of my previous tries of FFXIV, I got sick of doing leves with other players. Why? Because they basically failed their way to a win. In other words, they 'zombied' their way through them. They would take a leve at a higher difficulty than they could reasonably handle. They'd go in, do as much damage as possible, die, respawn... wait off their death penalty - sometimes not even doing that much - go back... do as much damage as possible... die... respawn... go back... and so on. They would continue to do this until the leve was completed...

I suggested maybe using strategy to try and take them out more cautiously so we don't die so much. The response I got was pretty much "What's the point? Death is pretty tame in this game, so there's no point in being strategic. Just as good to just rush in and do as much DPS as we can".

That should never happen. Death should never be something that's "shrugged off" because there's no meaningful penalty for it.

Though I know it sounds great in theory (and it's stated an awful lot by people who don't like DP's), "dying itself" is not a good enough deterrent to make people play more strategically or actively try to avoid it. Hell, in some MMOs, it's used regularly as a convenient means of transportation. Like a cheap and quick teleport home.

Using FFXI as an example of the other option... In FFXI death has a meaningful penalty. You lose xp and can possibly lose a level for dying. I would bet a month's salary if they had a penalty like that in XIV... You would *not* see people doing leves - or doing anything for that matter - as carelessly and recklessly as people do them in XIV. You would not see them taking death so lightly. Guaranteed, you'd be seeing a lot more strategy, a lot more planning and a lot less careless "Leroy Jenkins" type behavior. Why? Because people care about losing xp. They care about losing progress. It's something that they are *not* going to want to lose.

And while I know some like to say "oh only a masochist likes being punished for dying"... anyone with that mentality, or something similar, completely misses the point. People who prefer a harsher death penalty don't like dying either. In fact, they probably like it even *less*. What they like about it is that it gives the game that much more "urgency" and makes their actions and planning that much more meaningful. It makes surviving a near impossible encounter 'cause everyone pulled it together and prevailed that much more exciting, because there was a lot more at stake than just "having to run back from a home crystal".

I also don't understand what you mean by "zombeing" your way through challenges. I have no problem with a gamer dying and returning to the last checkpoint. Thats fine, for it works out as a reset. However, all of the added penalties are unnecessary.

My example above - where people are running into encounters only to die, res... run back... res... run back... die... res... run back... until they've defeated the encounter - is an example of "zombie" like gameplay.

Again, that only happens because the death penalty is *not* very harsh in XIV to a number of people. Rather than being something they try to avoid, they actually abuse it... almost as a "tactic" (using that word in the lightest possible way).

Something that's already light/lenient enough that people are abusing it in such ways does not need to be made more lenient.

When you die in this game you are sent back to the last crystal. Which is fine but then you are practically useless for three minutes because now its harder to play because of weakness. And this difficulty is not just because of health reduction but a reduction in everything else. Three minutes of doing more or less nothing. Yes I can browse the net, get a cup of coffee etc but the object of a game is to keep the gamer playing.

And so it should - ideally - make you and others try that much harder to not die in the first place, right?

Also, on balance, 3 minutes is really not a lot of time... unless you're dying frequently. In the times I've died, during leves, etc.. my weakness was almost worn off by the time I got back to the levequest area. If you're dying so frequently that those 3 minutes are adding up, then the problem likely isn't the penalty.