An open discsusion on the consequences of death

[Jinrya-Geki]

I just rather never loss any sp at all, I'd give up anima over sp any day.

Could make sickness last longers.

Seriously anything is better than sp loss. D:

[Neogohan1]

Maybe if we had a death penalty where you lose gold upon death and maybe even some items (restricted to only losing crafting materials and not equippables) will make players really dislike dying?

[Argh]

regarding battles)

•Thinking of 2 kinds of death penalties
1.Definite occurrence of a ”Temporary status down” effect upon recovery of death (Wears off after a set time OR by paying gil to an NPC)
2.Occurrence of an ”equipment degradation” effect only when using return after death (Recovered by repair)
•Not currently planning on having a loss of SP/XP at this point in time
•Equipment repair cost relief countermeasures will also be made alongside this.

Please discuss the above points and any comments such as the below would be really helpful:

•This penalty is weak!
•This is perfect!
•Do something else!

mr. Yoshi P,

this penalty is weak!

gear degrade / repair penalty is weak because;

1] Gil is too easily obtained in the game. repair costs would be trivial. it would be cheap to die, thus players would continue blood-porting.

2] the anima-based teleportation system has eliminated the need for traveling, and this is a really bad thing. it further weakens the death penalty by not forcing a player to travel for repairs when he /she can simply teleport anywhere.

temporary status ailment penalty is weak because;

1] nobody takes a 5-10 minute debuff seriously. anything more than 10-15 minutes would aggrevate players because a status debuff can actually prevent the player from playing in specific situaions, like fighting tough monsters, if stats are crippled.

2] again, due to the anima-based teleport system, even a requirement to travel back to a city to have your "soul" repaired in order to remove the death ailment debuff won't work because players would teleport instead of travel.

having said this, i propose a tiered level-based death penalty system that will keep the casuals quiet and at the same time allow the advanced and hardcore players to have their sense of adventure, danger, and risk vs. reward.

-there are 3 types of death penalties; an xp loss including down-leveling, a short stat debuff like the one already in the game, and gear degregation. up to all 3 of these can be inflicted at once on the player depending on the situation. the situation is based on what type of monster killed you, or laid the final blow (KO).

-a tough to incredibly tough monster would inflict all 3 penalties on you.

-a medium monster would inflict 2 of the penalties, the stat debuff and the gear degregation.

-an easy monster would only inflict the stat debuff.

this tiered system would assure that a party or player that wishes to farm / fight the tough and incredibly tough monsters has the ability of achieving the best XP per hour but also has the danger of a solid death penalty. a party or player that wishes to farm / fight weaker monsters without the harsher death penalty can also have this choice. and of course, the casual party / player that wants to avoid the death penalties (and only really have to worry about the harmless 3 min stat debuff) will have an avenue as well by farming / fighting the weakest monsters.

this system would also provide additional elements of RPG into the game. as you level up those monsters that were dificult are now much easier and they won't KO you as hard as they used to. so you don't have to be affraid of them. it would allow a player to travel the zones they graduated from with less danger as their character(s) become stronger. at the same time the player will be looking at the next zone or place to challenge them. so as someone progresses through the game the sense of fear, danger, and adventure will be awaits at every step ahead while the steps behind provide the sense of accomplishment and memories.

now this system won't work with the current game mechanics. after the party and combat system is implemented they need to adjust the dificulty rating of monsters the same way as FFXI has them. whereas for example, an incredibly tough monster would remain incredibly tough even if you are in a party. currently when you party up the monsters are labeled as less dangerous to you and this would either confuse players if an easy monster inflicts xp loss upon a KO or it would create exploits where players can still quickly hunt for bloodports via weak monsters in the vicinity around them. the zones must be altered so they have a close-nit level range of monsters in them.

man, i wrote way to much! oh wel.

[Kaedan]

Experience based "death penalties" are nothing else than a timesink. They don't add challenge, they don't add fun. They simply are a (quite antiquated) way to add more time to the grind.
No thanks, really.

Well, there has to be a deterrent for dying (otherwise you can just zerg content), so what do you suggest? The current penalty is not enough to discourage zerging content and using death to save Anima.

It doesn't help if you shoot down options and don't add an alternative yourself.

[Abriael]

Maybe if we had a death penalty where you lose gold upon death and maybe even some items (restricted to only losing crafting materials and not equippables) will make players really dislike dying?

Why would they make players "really dislike" dying?
Actually, why would a developer in his right mind want players to "really dislike" anything in their game?
The golden rule should (and normally is) "If it isn't fun, it has no place in the game". They already broke this rule enough at release, and the team is trying to adress it now. Not a good idea to go back to square one.

Well, there has to be a deterrent for dying (otherwise you can just zerg content), so what do you suggest? The current penalty is not enough to discourage zerging content and using death to save Anima.

It doesn't help if you shoot down options and don't add an alternative yourself.

The fact that there's zergable content has to be solved by making the content not zergable (changing position, ability to fight immediately after death and so forth), not by uselessly adding to the grind, and implementing "features" that actually are detrimental to the enjoyment of the game.

You don't break a nut by running it over with a truck. You get a nutcracker.

[Betelgeuzah]

Well, there has to be a deterrent for dying (otherwise you can just zerg content)

Except if the content is so hard that you can't.

Death penalty can make up for easy encounters, but that's a upside down way of doing it.

mr. Yoshi P,

this penalty is weak!

As it should be.

[Kaedan]

Except if the content is so hard that you can't.

If there is no penalty for death, this is impossible to design/accomplish.

[Betelgeuzah]

If there is no penalty for death, this is impossible to design/accomplish.

What am I reading

FFXIII didn't have a DP whatsoever and surprisingly I had my fair share of challenging encounters in that game. How odd!

And the same somehow applies to Dissidia Duodecim I am playing currently, how peculiar!

[Abriael]

If there is no penalty for death, this is impossible to design/accomplish.

Not really. Challenging content cannot be zerged, especially if it's at a reasonable distance from respawn points. Why? Because if the group loses it's integrity too much (if it doesn't, then it isn't zerging), it's a wipe way before anyone makes it back. If the content can be zerged, it means that it isn't challenging enough, and that's what needs adressing.

Again, death penalty is just a lopsided placebo in order to avoid adressing the real issue. Not to mention, a nostalgic's delusion of challenge where no actual challenge exists.

[Jinrya-Geki]

Ok how about this.

When raised/returned your movement speed is reduced by 75%. You can't use anima at all while weakened. While in weakness you also have blood rite effect. If you attack while weakened, you lose health and you can die from over exerting yourself. Depending on how much damage you do is half of the hp you lose. Die again and your movement speed is just utter crap, and anything you do will probably cause you to die instantly.

You accumulate a sp debt. Ok I am rank 43 and my sp bar is 0/81000. If I die at my level my sp debt should be 30000. So if I get 100 sp, 50 goes to the debt, while the other 50 goes to my regular sp. The debt gets larger the more you die.

If a merit system is added like FFXI, then this still hold effect for rank 50 people as well, only harsher.