An open discsusion on the consequences of death

[Dekken]

I think that the time delay for weakness and having to run back to the location you died is penalty enough. FFXIV was supposed to be a less time consuming, casual game and I think weakness is penalty enough to suit that. I could handle maybe a hit to armor durability. Visible armor damage would be kinda cool. :P

[Rowyne]

....and having everyone needing to repair repeatedly after deaths would take money out of the economy and make it more valuable.

I agree with this. FFXIV is a crafting-centric game with a player-based economy. Why not let gear repairs be something that help support crafters?

Money as it stands currently is worthless, and durability is more worthless in terms of death. Repairing something at 10% is the same as repairing something at 74%, and given the fact you can repair via materials, it's static on some levels.

I think this is the first thing you've said that I agree with. Self-repairs in FFXIV don't scale with durability loss, like they do in other games (the more damaged your gear is, the more it costs to repair it). Maybe at different tiers of damage it should cost more in materials. That would be more realistic, anyway.

For example, at 10% it takes one piece of cloth to repair your robe. 20%, it takes two pieces. 30%, three pieces. And so on.

I would be absolutely fine with this idea. But no exp loss.

[kukurumei]

I think that the time delay for weakness and having to run back to the location you died is penalty enough. FFXIV was supposed to be a less time consuming, casual game and I think weakness is penalty enough to suit that. I could handle maybe a hit to armor durability. Visible armor damage would be kinda cool. :P

Funny how casual types were the first to disappear then.

[Jabo]

I'm just curious why there are so many people who want to impose their will upon me. I haven't heard a good reason for why SP loss is necessary. All I have heard is it makes the game more scary, for YOU.

You want to be punished when you die that's fine, some people are masochists and it is their own prerogative to find enjoyment in that. Why not impose your own sort of death penalty.

Than you have not read one of my postings.
It's about an overall feel of the world. Where people want to help eachother and where they are concerned about their own actions.
This effects not only heavily party play but also a general "don't care" attitude.
And that is in a world where the story is all about people need to join forces, help eachother because of a bigger threat.
In FFXIV people join forces to get more SP...where is the threat?

[Raim]

You say this now, but I know just how bad experience loss can be in some games. FFXI, Tibia, RO. Now you are recommending 5%? Im sure SE will jump on the idea to lose a very large chunk of potential players, just as they did with the fatigue system. Do I want a casual game? No. Do I want a timesink and penalties for errors that are often out of my hands? Of course not.

[Jabo]

You say this now, but I know just how bad experience loss can be in some games. FFXI, Tibia, RO. Now you are recommending 5%?

I'm not rcomending anything specific like that. I'm recomending a harder death penalty. Thats all.

Im sure SE will jump on the idea to lose a very large chunk of potential players, just as they did with the fatigue system. Do I want a casual game? No. Do I want a timesink and penalties for errors that are often out of my hands? Of course not.

Why is it out of your hand?
You can always better watch out and if someone in the party is the problem, you simply explain to him what to do. Also other people will know dying isn't nice so they will watch out for you. Help you if you can't.
Not only in party, thinking of every WHM in FFXI helping you out when passing by and you are soloing. Or higher Level Players take aggro, after they saw you ran away from enemys.
In FFXIV no one would care. Why would they? Because you have to wait 3min and walk a little bit (whitch cencels eachother out)

Considering this i realy can not understand the time sink argument, because you dont have to die. There is no time sink if you are more concerned of your actions and the health of others.

For me it's seems very much like people are complaing because they get something taken away from them and especially today videogames are all about simple fast content. No real challanges anymore, because taking time to undertsand something and do something well takes time and seems to be too hard...

We play a game where everything is about fighting monsters to safe the world. But it feels more like im picking up skill point chunks to get to Rank 50 asap.

[Nharil]

Funny how casual types were the first to disappear then.

You can't really correlate casual players leaving with a lack of a death penalty though; that's just grasping at straws.

To those who have been against the idea of a penalty because it's a time sink, I propose this question. In MMORPGs, what ISN'T a time sink? MMORPGs, by design, are built to take a standard RPG experience and stretch it out over a longer period of time. The perspective of what is a 'time sink' and what isn't in the game sounds easily distorted as well as a subjective problem. What feels like a time sink to one player is a prominent important element to another. Consideration for a balance between the two needs to be taken -- There needs to be some element of death that prevents players from being apathetic over death, but not to the point of complete frustration.

Experience loss has been used as a bartering chip for death penalties across many past MMOs for one real reason: It makes you fear it; loathe it. You do everything on your power not to die, because you don't want to lose what you have worked hard to obtain. It's both a good and a bad thing to have in that it instills a feeling of self-preservation among players, yet when it DOES happen, it's all the more devastating. I originally suggested an SP/XP loss not because I'm a sucker for punishment, but because it's one of the only things that would legitimately force me to pay attention in the game and to tip-toe through dangerous areas instead of just run bull-headedly through them. Fear is something that many modern MMOs stay away from because they want their games to be all fun, all the time, and it hurts the world and the atmosphere in some ways.

This issue has never been a game-breaker for me from the start, but when I sit and talk to friends about why the game seems to be lacking in emotional attachment, that seems to be one of the first things that comes up.

This is really awesome that people are so passionate about the subject on both ends of the spectrum, though. This has been a really great read on what each player seeks to get out of the game. Keep it up!

[Kurokikaze]

This is really awesome that people are so passionate about the subject on both ends of the spectrum, though. This has been a really great read on what each player seeks to get out of the game. Keep it up!

You don't really care about this thread... You're just flamebaiting.

[Elcura]

Reading this topic I can only say one thing:

Not all MMO players are masochists.

[Nharil]

You don't really care about this thread... You're just flamebaiting.

How so? That's pretty harsh.