Since we were discussing it in IRC earlier:
I am of the mind these penalties should be reduced, or a cap be placed on the amount of XP and/or levels you can actually lose.
Lets look at the math here. When dead on the experience required for each level, this is what you lose when you respawn.
Level 5 : 3333.33^e - Leaves you barely above level 4
Level 6 : 5000 - Leaves you exactly at level 5
Level 7 : 7000 - Leaves you at level 4, 1000 XP to level 5
Level 8 : 9333.33^e - Leaves you at level 6, 2333 xp to level 7
Level 9 : 12000 - Leaves you at Level 7, 4000 XP to level 8.
Now, for some people it takes them days, maybe weeks to manage to attain a level. Some people will quest for an entire day (when lucky enough to get a train), only to die at the end of the train, and lose all their experience progression. Yet, they will continue to have the supplies and consumables the lower level quests afford, which will build up.
From my personal experience, I can say that my PCs who have had bad luck and continually died, have been far more wealthy for the most part than my PCs who nearly never died and made it to 8 and nearly 9 with little to no difficulty.
The current system feeds consumable bloat, and presents an undue amount of frustration for those who are not necessarily skilled at surviving, and I have seen many PCs perma'd over the fact that they just lost a day's worth of work.
My suggestion is to change the death penalty system, obviously.
Possible changes could be along the lines of:
(First death per reset cannot make you lose a level, subsequent respawns will shave 1/8th of total XP)
(Death penalties changed to 1/8, 1/10, 1/16)
(If a respawn would make you lose a level, the loss is capped at 1000 XP below the required XP for your current level)
Just tossing some ideas out there. Feel free to suggest your own changes to the penalty system, if you have a good idea.
This thread is going to be fun.
I agree with Scotty.
I understand harsh penalty, especially at high level when a character may be known and in middle of conflict filled life and experiences. Losing 2 levels at that point is a killer, no uncertainity there.
However, I have always been a guy who also likes and wants the penalty for something like death, to be as grave as it sounds, even if we're allowed to come back alive by respawning.
I heartily believe, that the penalties excist and bring a purpose. I know it, since unfortunately most of my characters have ended because they have been at situations, where they cannot afford falling back to lower level. That would force them to do quests that don't fit their current situation, or act much more carefully if they don't wanna throw their life away on purpose and so on.
Death is however just as grave as we know it to be. It's an important factor for fear, excitement and it makes people careful as they should be, mostly. Now lets forget the fun-game-factor, because what's the point on fearing death if you lose only a tad bit small piece of it when you -die-. Then there would not be real death in the game without DM events or PvP. Quest deaths and random encounters with beasts or beings would not matter, which also is not right in my opinion.
I think the death penalties are pretty much perfect. Nothing essential has changed since they were first implemented by Howland and the original DMs roughly three years ago.
To insure realism death should be something that you crap your pants at the thought of.
I believe it has been achieved pretty well.
I have to agree with Caddies here. Death affects so many aspects of an rp server, without a very stiff death penalty the server can quickly loose a lot of its flair. PvP becomes not a huge issue, exploring is not nearly as exciting, questing doesn't have the danger flair or demand you to really learn how to play your character in combat, and DM quest's can loose a lot of their zest. I guess at the end of the day, dying really really sucks. However, if you don't have a huge consequence then the reward for winning isn't that large either.
More Random Perma Death.
Quote from: FleetingHeart;163513More Random Perma Death.
I agree
i think the low levels the death penalty is perfect (i die alot and it really sucks hard but keeps me coming back)
i however think that lv 6 and above should have the xp loss capped to 1lv and 1000xp
1000xp is not insanely hard to get at any lv really.
i think its just a bit of a joke that you will some times loose 2 lvs and other times only 1 lv at the higher levels, and it doesnt make sence that at one level if you die, there goes two lvs of work where as at the next level your only down to the previous lv, kinda sucks really and makes no sence
i think that death is very important influence for a character. Id like to one day play a cowardly bastard that will be Perma deathed the very first time he is killed, it is ment to be hard to stay alive but heck its ment to be hard to live on Ymph but the point is, the death system is an imperfect calculation because the xp gain is not consistant.
FFXI uses 10% of your total xp needed to level as what you loose from death, that system works because in that game you only need another 1k xp per level up to level compared to the previous
1k xp for lv 2, 3k xp for lv 3, 6k for lv 4 (i think lol) its a bit all over the shop so a single core value you lose is not going to work the further you get away from the begining...
RL adaptation, the Patriot missile when it was first developed in 1984 was potentially a brilliant anti-air weopon system, it had a good long range flight time and a rather advanced radar system for its time and should have provided a good coverage against airborn targets. Its failing was that there was a software error, the error ment that the longer the missile was in flight the worse its calculations got. A great example of its failings was in '91 when during the gulf war Patriot missile batteries tried to intercept 40 odd SCUD missiles but the result was far from the success people wanted, most of the missiles were not taken down by the Patriot missiles. Granted the proximity warheads on the patriot missiles are not well addapted for anti missile capabilities but reguardless many of the missiles simply didnt find their mark because their calculations were off...
now being rather drunk as i am i have forgotten exactly how that was supposed to prove my point but im sure some sober people will see it and either get the gist or completely ignore it either way, there is a usefull if rather redundant factoid for you
I have not changed from my original opinion that the server is too hard for me.
The massive death penalties are part of the problem obviously, but perhaps not the bit that can/should be fixed.
Losing two levels wouldn't suck so much if it didn't result in so much time grinding statics.
But the observation that people are losing good characters to routine quests it true, which is a pity.
I also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.
Well it does suck to die. At low levels it doesn't matter as much, but at high levels it hurts a lot.
Sometimes, players will spend weeks gaining a level, just to loose it to an unfortunate situation die to the throw of a dice. This means they are back to doing trogs and harpies.
And i hate trogs.
One of the things that can be frustrating about EFU is to have to spam the same quests because you keep getting killed.
Only because of this i'll agree. Pretty sure some DM will just say "no" and lokc the thread though.
Right, going to take a rudimentary crack at this, and just share that I disagree.... because I originally came from a server where the death penalties were arguably harsher... The penalties there were 2 1/2 levels for using a fugue respawn, 1 1/2 levels for using a Ressurection, and 1/2 level for using True Ressurection (which never happened).
This server also had lower magic, less gold for the most part, no scripted quests, and... yeah.
This experience has left me beleiving that EFU:A is easy sauce. Granted, I'll still gripe when I die. It's harsh no matter what. But that's life (Or death... PUN POINTS).
Something you brought up is interesting though...
The thing that really hurts people isn't a -single- death... but multiple deaths. I've noticed that people become quite depressed at times and consider quitting when they suffer two or more deaths in a row.
As such, if we could reverse your original suggestion, and instead... before a reset... every death that you acquire after the first could have the penalty reduced. How much the penalty would be reduced should be considered carefully, as this sort of thing does have the possiblity of being abused. But I think this would do more good than harm.
Thoughts?
I'm actually fairly neutral on the subject, I want EfU to be difficult however:
Quote from: scrappayeti;163519I also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.
This is the best point made in this thread, in my opinion, and I don't think it can just be ignored. That doesn't mean that the death penalties should change, but I see a lot of PCs who, upon reaching higher level, plain stop taking risks for fear of dying.
QuoteI also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.
I've never really found this to be true, generally speaking. Whether or not people are going to take risks or not is usually a function of their playstyle rather than a matter of levels. Most past PCs that got to exceptionally high levels (L9+) routinely did the highest most riskiest quests. I could read out a massive list, but yeah, its not really needed.
BTW, while the thread is appreciated, I can safely say now that EFU's death penalties will not be changing. Feel free to discuss the subject though, I won't lock it.
I try to get to level 9 to do the highest risk quests lol. They are awesome
My EFU career kind of revolves around that motto. I like taking risks in almost every way I can and hope they pay off in return! While the death penalty is harsh I do not believe that it needs to be changed in any manner. We should be thankful that we can come back without only the use of resurrection spells if you ask me :)
Death penalty is fine, if you make it less harsh people will just have even more consumables.
I've said it time and time again. If you don't want to die, Use Your Consumables I have still seen instance of people dying and then being all "wtf" and then later saying, "oh yeah but i didnt want to waste my stoneskin potion on a quest."
Well, then don't whinge. Your pc cares about lviing more than anything else. Doa ll you can to ensure that.
Threads like this is why they'll never remove the sewer disease >_>
Since the penalties won't be changing, here's a thought - Make it easier to regain the lost XP to put them back at par. People gripe and rage when they lose all that XP and then have to grind hard to get it back.
Why not apply a temporary 50-75% bonus or so to XP gained that lasts until they get back to the amount of XP they had before the death?
Obviously if it was a simple set duration based only on an arbitrary amount of time, people could conceivably use this to boost their XP to even higher than what it was before their death, and would be unfair. On the other hand, if it was based on a arbitrary amount of time, if the PC were to logout shortly after finishing the quest/exploring they died on, they would miss out on the bonus XP.
However, if we made the bonus dependant on the XP they had at the time of their death, it wouldn't matter if they played for hours after the death or mere minutes and didn't log in again for days, whenever they had time to log in they would still get the bonus, and the grind wouldn't be so horrendous. Which would result in less whining, (somewhat) less unhappy players, and less angsty permadeaths of cool PCs.
I think the XP penalties are fine as they are. I really doubt anything like this is going to alleviate people feeling bad when they die, and that's how it should be. I think a lot of players and DMs overestimate the value of levels.
The death system is fine as is. If you rp your PC, lvl doesn't matter. If you game your pc, then you're the only one putting pressure on yourself about lvls.
Here's what I hate about dying: losing the experience points that DMs gave me. If I could change the death system, I would make it so that you never lose DM exp.
The only other change I would ever support would be a single free respawn per character. It's the "get out of fugue free card" you save for lag deaths and those moments when your fingers just can't seem to find the right keys in the right order.
Quote from: Letsplayforfun;163595The death system is fine as is. If you rp your PC, lvl doesn't matter. If you game your pc, then you're the only one putting pressure on yourself about lvls.
Lies and more lies. If you character's roleplay involved fighting, you need levels else you'll meet an early ending.
I followed your advise with Magon Barcide, guess what happened?
Either way, there was a thread that proposed before about making efu less dificult, where i raised the same opinion i raise here. Being killed is not as bad, having to do barrows then trogs, then harpies over and over because every time you are level 7 the damn druegar roll a couple 20s in a single round, is bad. Repeating the same quests to earn the levels and be able to start doing the more dangerous quests gets tiresome. Also gets tiresome when you spam trogs so you gain levels so you can do another quest with good loot so you'll survive PvP, so it's not just about quests.
I'm sorry, but i find non-conflictive RP boring. If your suggestion is to remain in that line, where leves truly don't matter, it's a good advice for some, terrible for others, like me.
If more XP was given PCs wouldn't be as frustrated to die. Mostly because they wouldn't need 2 weeks to regain their levels, just one.
I'll give the same suggestion i gave there, increse the XP gain at levels 2-6, so reaching 7 is easy, reduce the XP gain after level 7.
Do remember sometimes you die to to some crap roll or bad luck. I've seen a PC nearly getting killed by a shargass diciple during the day, something that is just bad luck. I've died to a shargass spawning behind a great lizzard i was fighting, i've died to random parties of 3 wild orcs who coincidentially roll 3 20s in 2 rounds, in between them all, and i don't even have chance to heal, sometimes 1.69 pathfinding gets you screwed, smetimes lag happens just when you were about to drink that potion, sometimes you distract yourself for a second and find you you've been sneaked by a couple jungle panthers and created a couple AoOs when your character automatically tried to attack one, other times your mouse will fall and while you pick it up two ymphian werewolves hit you for 17 because they spawned behind you during a DM event... all this things have happened to me with med-to-high level characters and i must say, it's a pain to have to go back to trogs due to this things, i can live with getting killed because i miscalculated, because i was too trusted, because they got me for surprise, i'm even fine with the kinda events i mentioned before if they are not too common, but when i have to go back to the same old quests i'm tired off, or holding back my agenda 'till i can earn enough XP from DM events it is just frustrating.
Quote from: Letsplayforfun;163595The death system is fine as is. If you rp your PC, lvl doesn't matter. If you game your pc, then you're the only one putting pressure on yourself about lvls.
Yeah, that's not really true even if I agree with the death penalty being as it is. Levels do matter to a great extent and go on a parallel path with roleplay. They are not separate things just like questing and roleplaying are not separate things. Level are a -direct- measure of your characters experience in the game and their personal power, if they didn't matter we would all be playing level 2s in the most boring world ever!
Levels are only a portion of your power. A level 2 character that freely commands an 8 man militia of midrange PCs is far more powerful than any one of those PCs individually.
Quote from: FleetingHeart;163693Levels are only a portion of your power. A level 2 character that freely commands an 8 man militia of midrange PCs is far more powerful than any one of those PCs individually.
But the nature of man is such that no level 2 will command that kind of power unless he acquired in a roundabout way. I used to think our death penalties were fine, I liked that they were harsh. Keeps away the pleb and the carebears. I still don't think the penalties are unreasonable or badly in need of adjustment -- but I am in complete agreeance with Scotty that a
superior system would scale.
I do understand RP is a big deal. However, lets say that you play a intimidating fellow, who also gives a tough image as warrior. If you are being challenged to duels and in other ways to show your match, what then? I mean, it's brave and all but this commander who commands a good troop, surely isn't going to be the most respected or feared one when he gets whooped ass in every battle. And you surely can't squirm out of every challenge without coming out as a total coward. Unfortunately Everyones power to fight is tested all the time along your status, and if you can't match, you won't keep your status either.
It's just a general rule. If you can't stand behind your words, you aren't worthy of listening. There has to be something that makes you the teacher, rather than student. For merchants it's RP easily, they can go around with many, influence and merchandise.
For warriors and thugs and what so ever, it's always the strength to battle and be tough, and that just cannot be matched any other way than level. If you are at that status finally, losing those levels hits hard. You cannot hope to match a guy who's been challenging you all along, if you both were at lvl 8 and suddenly you lost couple levels, falling to 6 or 5 perhaps. At some occasions that may mean couple good AB lost, perhaps attack round, perhaps even 20 or more hp, ac, or anything from between. It's a huge hit to your actual power to hold the status of warrior.
If you're some tough badass warrior you should not be dying to monsters anyways.
On a more serious note, I find the death penalties mostly fine.
Gaining level 7 is easy enough. The quests are not very difficult, and there is no need to make it even easier. Aside from incredibly bad luck, such as multiple crits in a round, or encountering a monster such as Ymphian Werewolves when unprepared, the chance of dying is not that high if you are not being reckless. Levels can be regained quickly enough if you died before 7.
Respawning should have a dramatic effect on you. You will most likely have beaten brutally, and returning at the same strength woukd be silly. If I was beaten brutally, it would take time for me to recover. XP loss it the best way to do that. If instead there was some stat loss instead of major level loss to replace that, then many people would not log until the stat loss is gone. If the stat loss was administered until you gain a level, that would be even worse than a level loss. People losing levels gives them a reason to stay in game to regain those levels. It can be discouraging too, yes, but at least you can return.
Just be a man, take the level loss, quest hard, and crush.
Quote from: Caddies;163508I think the death penalties are pretty much perfect. Nothing essential has changed since they were first implemented by Howland and the original DMs roughly three years ago.
Caddies fails at math.
Quote from: AfroMullet;163744Gaining level 7 is easy enough. The quests are not very difficult, and there is no need to make it even easier. Levels can be regained quickly enough if you died before 7.
Totally disagree. I don't know how much time you spend IG. I consider i spend quite a lot of time IG yet if i die at level 6 it takes me quite long to get to level 6 again.
Sometimes i'll catch a powerquest train and it will take me 2 days, other times it takes me a week. Maybe i'm not much of a powerquester as i thought, but the thing is it does take me long.
The death penalties are fine, i agree. But the XP gain should be faster.
I think it is fine for the most part, but would love to see it capped so that only one level can be lost per death.
Dying sucks, I'd be happy if we just bled to negative 15 or 20, gives you more of a chance to be saved, despite having already lost. I'm also of the opinion that instant death effects should drop someone to a high negative number, so there's a chance not to die. But you know, I doubt either would be considered too much. <_<
Quote from: Ebok;163831I'm also of the opinion that instant death effects should drop someone to a high negative number, so there's a chance not to die.
That chance is known as a "death save". if you are worried about these, stock up on some of the many handy +deathsave items in the mod. I've managed to get something like +23 vs death, although that was on a guy with cleric levels. Also Death Ward items can be acquired a few placed.
TBH I find death effects less annoying than:
Lightning Traps
Greataxe Crits
Scythe Crits
Paralysis Save Spamming Mobs.
Lightning Traps ( Lightning traps are so hideously powerful and large AoE I'm mentioning them twice. Every time I've been badly fried by one, another PC has triggered it and lived)
Short of a driveby PhKing you can generally anticipate them and ward by boosting your saves, Deathwarding, invising or runnign away.
I do like Box's idea though. My general response to a fugueing is to start questraining like mad to get back my hard earned XP I lost to something stupid. That would put a L5 PC who gets fugued from 7 in a better position to get back than a guy who just reached L5, and reduce the case where you can bizarrely end up slightly better off from taking a hit because of the chance to hit low level quests with high level equipment and amass consumables.