An open discsusion on the consequences of death

[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!

[Choc]

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!

If this wasnt a joke im really scared....

[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.

[Kaedan]

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!

You can't compare a single player game with an MMO in this way. Your comparison is invalid.

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.

People will find a way to zerg. People will kite it, turtle against it, ping pong it... any number of things to stall until members who died get back from spawn point. Hell, they will even just keep dying and raising and not care since there is no penalty.

And if you try to design your content so none of this is possible, then it becomes so hard that it's nearly impossible to complete without performing perfectly or being overgeared for it. And that is NOT fun for casuals.

[Lienn]

Death penalty right now is a bit too light. I'm 100% against exp/sp loss. This is just terrible to have in a MMO. But i believe that death penalty should be a bit harsher.

I'd put death penalty this way:

Halves all attibutes, HP and MP (since MP now can regen it should be affected by death) while weakened. Dying while weakened doubles this penalty.
+100% on all casting and recast timers
-50% of equipment's current durability (if its at 100%, it goes down to 50%. If its at 20% it goes down to 10%).

This would make death more expressive, even though it won't touch exp/sp.

About return:

When a player return he will have no weakened effect, but will receive full armor durability depletion.

About raises:

Raise should be a skill at several ranks. It is important but right now its rarely seen. Also, as a spell, it should have MP cost. Right now raise is just like a skill, not a spell. Also, as a spell, it does need MP cost and being under "area of effect" effect. I'd make raises like this:

Raise: Rank 15, MP cost 50, revives the target. He will be under a 5 minutes weakened penalty and the equipment damage from death will be lessened by 25% (so it will still receive 25% of currend durability damage)

Raise II: Rank 30, MP cost 100, revives the target. He will be under a 3 minutes weakened penalty and the equipment damage from death will be lessened by 37.5% (so it will still receive 12.5% of current durability damage)

Raise III: Rank 45, MP cost 200, revives the target. He will be under a 1 minute weakened penalty and the equipment damage from death will be fully restored (no durability damage)

However, CON should have only raise. Since we seens to be having classic classes as advanced classes someday, raise II and III should be White Mage only spells (class exclusive spells). About ressurect, it should be similar to raise in all aspects, but not having higher tier ones...this way we will have a starting raise spell at both starting mage classes that can also be used by other classes, but only the white mage, who is supposed to be the healing specialist class, will be able to cast higher tier raises.

About reraise:

Oh, yeah...i didn't forgot this one. Reraise should work the same way as raise, but being 5 ranks higher (reraise rank 20, reraise II rank 35, reraise III rank 50), have doubled MP cost (100, 200 and 400 MP respectively), Effect duration of 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 1hour respectivelly and only reraise not being class exclusive (reraise II and III should be exclusive of white mage).

I believe this way death, return, raise and reraise would be perfectly balanced in this game.

[JayvirDeforte]

I still think that just adding in destroyed gear at 0% and boosting gear damage on death would be good in a way. If every death equaled a 10-20% durability loss on gear, and said gear could be destroyed if reaching 0, that's deterrant in itself to make sure you don't die. Could you imagine losing a Mosshorn Scalemail +3 because you decided to die too many times? I would think twice. Not to mention that could get rid of a lot of surplus items in the economy if they were all breaking

[origamikitsune]

I still think that just adding in destroyed gear at 0% and boosting gear damage on death would be good in a way. If every death equaled a 10-20% durability loss on gear, and said gear could be destroyed if reaching 0, that's deterrant in itself to make sure you don't die. Could you imagine losing a Mosshorn Scalemail +3 because you decided to die too many times? I would think twice. Not to mention that could get rid of a lot of surplus items in the economy if they were all breaking

^ This, and suddenly Crafters have a place in end-game content. Party wiping to much? About to loose your gear? Np... We have an ARM standing by.

[Lionheart]

Equip damage system is already frustrating enough, there's absolutely no need to use it as death penalty and even less usefull is a "destroyed gear at 0%". I think players should feel a sense of challenge... not frustration.
That being said the only sensed penalty would be something that compromise the whole battle outcome... For example a time penalty on levequest/mission timer.