An open discsusion on the consequences of death

[Choc]

That is another good argument for not enforcing an overly strict death penalty.

I tend to play a mage in most games I play. In group play, it's very easy for mages to die. Especially when people in the party are stupid. For example... I'm a Conjurer, and right before a fight in Behest, I buff up the whole party with Prot, Shell, Shock Spikes and SS. However, it's inevitable that some moron will rush in and aggro before I'm finished. In case you didn't know, AoE party buffs are a HUGE hate spike for mobs. So when that moron goes rushing in, all the mobs rush for me and I die.

The point is, quite often by no fault of your own, you can die in group play. This was also a problem in FFXI. You get one idiot in your party and he ruins the whole experience for everyone else. So that is an argument against severe death penalties.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a significant death penalty, but some of the suggestions here are far too severe. At the moment, the death penalty is fairly decent but could use a little "umph". The "zombie attack" cycle that Yoshi-P mentions doesn't really happen all that much... the weakness is enough to pretty much prevent you from rejoining a significant group fight, since if you grab aggro you're assured to die again.

But I don't have a problem with the gear damage. However, I would actually prefer an SP loss, with buyback. Treat it much like Aion does. Every time you die, you lose SP... say 5%. However, you could go to an Aetheryte crystal and pay to get back a portion, or even all of it. As for how to pay... if you don't want to use Gil, you could use Anima.

Alternatively, you could make it so you lose Anima upon death.

The key is finding a balance... too harsh of penalties will turn off casual players. Too lax of penalties will turn off hardcore players.

Well you probably shouldnt be buffing before behests. The are insanely easy to do solo, having 8 people on those people are unlikely to even fall below 80% hp, so its kind of a waste of time also the buffs dont help all that much and only last 5 mins.

But the death "penalty" currently is nowhere near enough. You get reduced stats and hp for a couple minutes, not really anything to worry about unless you have everyone weakened, which still doesnt matter too much since it may already be almost off by the time you get back to where you died. Yoshi mentioned "death porting" as a big reason he wants to change this, as people should not be intentionally dying. Weaknesses or status reductions dont do anything for that although he mentioned they might make return cost 0 anima. Still it proves the fact that nobody cares at all about dying.

SP penalty doesnt need to be anything drastic, something like 1,000 sp would encourage people not to die as every little bit helps, but thats really only a few kills anyway. Unless your chain dying I dont see how that would handicap anyone. If they fixed our economy I could see some sort of money sink as another viable option though.

[Kaedan]

Well you probably shouldnt be buffing before behests. The are insanely easy to do solo, having 8 people on those people are unlikely to even fall below 80% hp, so its kind of a waste of time also the buffs dont help all that much and only last 5 mins.

But the death "penalty" currently is nowhere near enough. You get reduced stats and hp for a couple minutes, not really anything to worry about unless you have everyone weakened, which still doesnt matter too much since it may already be almost off by the time you get back to where you died. Yoshi mentioned "death porting" as a big reason he wants to change this, as people should not be intentionally dying. Weaknesses or status reductions dont do anything for that although he mentioned they might make return cost 0 anima. Still it proves the fact that nobody cares at all about dying.

SP penalty doesnt need to be anything drastic, something like 1,000 sp would encourage people not to die as every little bit helps, but thats really only a few kills anyway. Unless your chain dying I dont see how that would handicap anyone. If they fixed our economy I could see some sort of money sink as another viable option though.

I mostly agree with the rest of your post, but the bolded line is ridiculous. It is always more beneficial to have buffs than to not have buffs. And if I'm telling people I'm buffing (and it's not useless, especially when you're fighting in behests that are equal to or greater than your level), there is no excuse for people to rush in like an idiot. I've got a level 27 Conjurer that's been doing Behests at Nanawa Mines. It's quite common for people to lose 25% of their HP in one hit (or one set of hits from a group of mobs), and I find myself having to heal quite a bit. But none of that changes the fact that even when I tell people I'm going to buff, they run in stupidly anyway... which they shouldn't be doing.

[Choc]

I mostly agree with the rest of your post, but the bolded line is ridiculous. It is always more beneficial to have buffs than to not have buffs. And if I'm telling people I'm buffing (and it's not useless, especially when you're fighting in behests that are equal to or greater than your level), there is no excuse for people to rush in like an idiot. I've got a level 27 Conjurer that's been doing Behests at Nanawa Mines. It's quite common for people to lose 25% of their HP in one hit (or one set of hits from a group of mobs), and I find myself having to heal quite a bit. But none of that changes the fact that even when I tell people I'm going to buff, they run in stupidly anyway... which they shouldn't be doing.

If buffs lasted longer than 5 minutes max I would agree, but behest mobs usually die in 2 seconds. I dont think ive ever been in a group that had trouble with one except for the first month the game was out. On something like 4-5 star leves that are very difficult then I buff but behests....no.