A Little Pain with my Pleasure

[Lirion]

I'll say it again, reversing progress doesn't add a lick of challenge, all it does it waste time. Having a hard boss beating you is challenge, getting punished by reversing your progress because you did not beat him is not challenge, it's fucking retarded.

I'm all for penalty with deaths but never if I have to feel like "well, there goes the time I spent on those points down the drain."

Thank God Yoshi is not the masochist Tanaka was.

[Klefth]

It's funny how people always argue that exp loss is horrible because it makes you waste your time getting your buffer back and whatnot. Why? Well... we're taking a hit on our gil in this game whenever we die, right? And, as opposed to exp loss, this in no way wastes our time ever, right? Annnnd gil is an infinite resource, right? ...What? It runs out? And it takes time to get gil? What do you mean repairs aren't free? You mean NPCs charge for it and dark matter isn't actually unlimited? My... I think I've been fooled all this time!

Both things ARE a penalty, and likewise, both things, in one way or the other DO consume your time.

Now, I'm not trying to advocate for one or the other here. I really could care less about which one we get because, well... they're pretty much the same shit!

(though honestly, I usually found it easier to just solo my buffer back after dying a couple of times than building up some gil; never been the insanely rich kind of guy in a MMO myself :P)

[Lirion]

If I lose gil it doesn't make me unable to equip my gear if I delevel. Is it really that hard to see why losing exp is worse? Say you get invited to fight a boss "Sorry mate, if I die one more time I'll delevel and wont be able to use my stuff. I have to go get some more exp."

Yeah, no thanks I rather lose gil.

[Klefth]

If I lose gil it doesn't make me unable to equip my gear if I delevel. Is it really that hard to see why losing exp is worse? Say you get invited to fight a boss "Sorry mate, if I die one more time I'll delevel and wont be able to use my stuff. I have to go get some more exp."

Yeah, no thanks I rather lose gil.

I bet you'd have a fun time joining for a boss fight with your gear around 20%, huh?

Oh, but of course you could just stack up on DM or get your gear repaired before joining up, or just make sure your gear doesn't go down below a certain percentage. Hm, that seems mighty different from building up an exp buffer or making sure it doesn't go too low, huh?

No, it doesn't. Both things are pretty much the same thing.

[Lirion]

Haha keep on thinking that. It's not the same.

I don't have to go do quests, gather a party to go fight mobs just to repair my shit before I go fight a boss.

One thing takes more time than the other, time rather spent on something else.

[Klefth]

Haha keep on thinking that. It's not the same.

I don't have to go do quests, gather a party to go fight mobs to repair my shit before I go fight a boss.

Neither did I. Lolibries, spiders and Marids were pretty much right outside Al Zahbi (yeah, I solo'd T~VT Marids on my MNK for fun - and a bit of buffer. Talk about a badass). Not to mention I got quite a bit of exp farming qyps (chips) in Sea. 7k or so was enough of a buffer to keep me going, and since I'd lose 1k exp tops from dying (if I got R1; it was only 250 exp with R3 - that's an easy prey mob), it never was much of an issue.

Oh, and that was in old XI. Exp is easier (WAY EASIER) to get in this game.

[Lirion]

Neither did I. Lolibries, spiders and Marids were pretty much right outside Al'zahbi (yeah, I solo'd T~VT Marids on my MNK for fun (and a bit of buffer). Talk about a badass). Not to mention I got quite a bit of exp farming qyps (chips) in Sea. 7k or so was enough of a buffer to keep me going, and since I'd lose 1k exp tops from dying (if I got R1; it was only 250 exp with R3 - that's an easy prey mob), it never was much of an issue.

I'd rather use that time on crafting and/or leveling new jobs/classes.

[IndigoDarkwolf]

In the end, gil and XP are both types of currency if you can lose them in exchange for attempting a fight. I think losing gil is the better choice for two reasons.

First, it provides a controllable gil sink that can help to control the economy. Players getting too rich? Raise repair costs. Players too poor? Lower repair costs. Controllable currency sinks are considered very good things in MMO design, and tend to be pretty important to regulating the long-term health of the economy. Considering that gil storage is essentially "infinite" whereas XP is most-decidedly "finite", the game needs sinks to remove gil from the economy and prevent over-inflation.

Second, it doesn't potentially rob players of skills or abilities if they run low. After all, you want players to learn how to use their abilities, and taking those abilities away if they initially fail is counterproductive and instead teaches them to rely on what they already know rather than learn how to use their new techniques.

Edit: Ramblings on the history of XP loss.

I wouldn't be surprised if EverQuest's implementation of XP loss was inspired by the tabletop RPGs of its time, including Dungeons and Dragons, which caused a character to de-level if they were killed and later revived. In any event, I don't recall XP having any use in EQ except to advance your character level, so losing XP was nothing more than a penalty for failure; and, really, quite a mild one considering that EQ also caused you to drop all of your gear, if memory serves, and required you to loot your own corpse to get it back... or risk losing it to a later passerby.

Really, it's probably fair to say that EQ stumbled on the notion of penalizing a player's time investment in exchange for failure. Why people are so attached to the details of it implementation are beyond me. Time lost is time lost, and I think there's a better fit for FFXIV, and more generally in many modern MMOs.

[Pseudopsia]

Third: You're able to trade gil. If your friend needs gil to repair you can give it to them instead of saying "Get !@#$ out of the party and go farm some exp you lazy !@#." Stopping the raid because a few people delevel isn't only a pain for the people who delevel, it's also a pain for everyone else.

[IndigoDarkwolf]

Third: You're able to trade gil. If your friend needs gil to repair you can give it to them instead of saying "Get !@#$ out of the party and go farm some exp you lazy !@#."

I like this point, too. Group efforts FTW.