A less frustrating deathsystem?

[Egon the Monkey]

I come back to EfU, I do OK on the PC, then I spend a week recovering  from getting steamrollered by a bugged mob. It's made me realise the  really frustrating thing on an otherwise awesome server. The number one  killer of PCs after PVP seems to me to be not enforced permadeath but  ragequits. From transition cubes, Round one Gaathmar Crits, Lagging out  surrounded by mobs. When something stupid like that rolls your PC, it's hard to  want to jump back up from it because you had no way of preventing it. If you do come back, then your immediate urge is to powerquest like a bastard to get your levels back, especially if you're involved in any sort of conflict. The worst is when you lose a level or two which weakens the PC enough that they keep haemmoraging levels because they can't deal with the monsters they're facing right now.

I know it's unlikely to happen, but I was thinking about the feasibility of changing the death system to remove the frustration of losing levels and reduce the OOC urge to declare war on every monster on a PC that's just been beaten half to death. The current system makes me feel kind of like an someone with a gambling problem.  You lose your money, you rage, you bet harder in order to win it back. Or if you're a PC that took the slow road to a high level, you accept that you just had that power knocked off and won't be getting it back. Those are usually the PCs I see being quit.

What if rather than losing XP, you took some sort of penalty that went away over several days? That way there's not an incentive to go smashing quests for XP, because it's not going to help your PC get back to where he was any faster. Instead you have to wait it out and can do some RP in the meantime. You can still quest, but there's not this big OOC incentive to. The penalty could even be a stacking reduction in the amount of XP you earn.

The other, simpler idea I had concerned the Withering system. The idea being that the XP loss from death could be reduced to a less frustrating level that still made you not want to risk your PC too much. Maybe even capped at a max of 1 level lost per respawn. However, any time you respawn, you were obviously weakened and near to death. This causes you to take a relatively large dose of the Withering as your PC's condition gets worse because of they cannot resist it as well. Now rather than trying to quest smash or attract DM attention for 'proactivity XP', you have a clear RP goal of finding someone or something to treat you for the horrible injuries you sustained from those monsters. This would cause less OOC frustration from lame deaths, increase fear of the Withering and make recovering from a close brush with death a job for IC treatment, not OOC powergaming.

[MirrorMask]

It's an idea.  Perhaps maybe even not lose 1/3 of xp, but, like with casting remove curse, make it into a debt.  But i think maybe that it might make some pc's who are already up there overpowered.  They could get to lvl 9 or so and not worry about death that much, making them more reckless than than they might be otherwise.

[Caster13]

I think some sort of XP "sink" must exist, even if it means losing XP on death, or else the entire server population would eventually reach level 11.

Reaching levels 8 and up, I think, should be a reward for your excellent PC, not merely the mechanical survivability of him or her.

[Doll Hill]

No character, excellent or not, is going to get higher than lvl 8 for long if they're involved in dangerous things(As high levels rightly should be). Doubly so if they're not viable in combat.

Honestly though, as much as I like this suggestion I can't think of a way to subvert the hiccups it would cause. Everyone would eventually be high level,  and thus out of the range of a lot of the game's scripted content, which would probably lead to people getting bored, and quickly.

This could be solved by raising the caps on quests and making them more difficult, and lowering the soft cap on XP gains so DMs would dictate who ends up leveling past level X, but that really seems to be more work than it's worth.

[AllMYBudgies]

As frustrating as the death system can be, I do believe that it is not without it's reward. I am similarly of the opinion that characters reaching level 8 and above should be wonderful examples of characterization and involvement rather than simply those that are mechanically gifted - while this is not always the case, it does generally feel that the more appropriate characters reach their peak through the current system in an adequate and fair manner.

[Ebok]

There is no reward without risk.

If you die to something dangerous and lose, maybe you should stay dead? It's not always about the rage quit, sometimes its just good to ask the question... Did my character actually survive that? The exp loss does hurt, but it hurts your combat capabilities and your performance as well, which seems logical considering the severe toll it took on your body. What I find more concerning is that the entire quest system is sometimes approached only on an ooc level. I want to levelup, therefore quest. Rather then an IC build up towards a specific end goal where the risks and aims are decided purely though ic processes. If you die within the IC arch of things, perhaps it could be more fitting. I'd be more interested in RPing the death in those situations however. I think next time I decide to permadie on a quest, I'll respawn first "regain consciousness" and play out the mortal wound and last words before ending. This way it isn't, about losing anything.

We basically auto levelup to 6th. If you just play your PC then you'll recover to this level eventually. This is essentially the baseline strength of a character taken to Ymph. Anyone that exceeds this level has honed their bodies beyond what is typical, and it takes skill (mechanical) and a bit of luck (all ooc factors) to remain at that level for long.

All in all, the Death System has been rallied against for years and hasn't changed. I doubt it will. It would be best for all involved to not strive for any particular level and let the narrative tell it's own tale. Im sure there are many factors that could kill someone that are out of their control. A withering spasm at the wrong moment (lag?), natural hazards, a seconds distraction. None of these are actually factored into the game, so you might as well play up your misfortune as something IC.

[Jasede]

I'm all for more forgiving death systems, but I am trying out EfU again and I noticed you basically get level 6 for free and can get to 7 easily doing the basically harmless newer quests.

I like this because it levels the playing field. Dying is still frustrating, but if you couldn't die, surviving wouldn't seem nearly as sweet.

And I'm the first to rage-quit FOREVER when I die to a stupid crit!

[Random_White_Guy]

Edited - non productive to the suggestion

-RwG

[putrid_plum]

No way.  The experience is SO easy to get it's infact laughable.  To the point where I think it's infact too easy.  Making it easyer by not losing any of it on death would be crazy.

[Barber]

This is not true.

Certain sorts of characters can have more difficulty getting XP than others.

If you are not part of a faction(PC or DM) or are not a tank or a buffer, you will have more difficulty getting XP.

Most quest trains(what else can I call them?) don't organize via sendings at this point, which makes it even tougher for new characters to get on board.

[Aethereal]

What if you're a really prestigious PC, the paragon of characterisation, the flower of genius role play, yet are level 2?

The question highlights the wishful thinking that can never be realised in a game with mechanical restrictions as the one we play. Face it, to achieve something interesting, aside from being a lord mayor who never leaves the office etc, you need levels. It's simply how power is represented within the constraints of the game system and everything is designed around it.

The issue here is all in the mind, where players desire to be high level so they are competitive in the PvP game. Which is fair enough for the great majority of EFU concepts and this competitiveness is what a lot of people are playing the game for. If we take that into account, this is just one of those recurring sentiments that can never really be dissipated, no matter what changes are made - unless they are made in the mind.

That doesn't make it not worth discussing of course, but I do believe it is the underlying truth behind it all.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

I did take the extra-withering idea to the other DM's, with the idea that the XP loss might get cut a LITTLE in return for increased withering upon respawn.  It's a very good idea, and actually justifies the suggestion itself.  But it probably won't happen.

To be honest though- there are certain systems already in place to cut down on the frustration of dying at higher levels.  Once you get past about 7, you should have a decent network of allies, as well as access to a combined gold pool that will allow you to be 'raised' through IG means.  The XP loss from that is cursory.

It's mostly laziness and greed that prevent people from taking this option, though people can just pick up your pack + body and it's a simple matter!

Just make sure people do this next time Egon, instead of taking the instant gratification / long term pain of respawning to corpse that everybody does.

[VanillaPudding]

Maybe if the penalty was kept the same, a withering increase added, and then  like 1/3 of that xp penalty is regained over 10 hours of playtime or something in a similar manner to the RP XP or whatnot.

[Cerberus]

My issue with it is when we're told the "your not really dead" because of course dead is dead and means you dont come back. If you're not dead then how does RPing the loss of feats and skills fit into being knocked out or even in a coma? It doesn't, I've been knocked out before in RL and still remembered everything I knew before I was knocked out. So it's never made sense to me when I can create potions one minute and can't the next...

In table top D&D we use to play a constitution point loss. Where basically you still retain all your abilities but get slightly weaker. I understand the drawback to this in game when you die to something silly like transitions etc. It would be hard to swallow a con point loss to that, but~. A con point loss would also help with the creation of min maxing where people would consider con much more important. And it would also get rid of the immortals that I have seen die 100 times yet still manage to be hanging around for some reason. It's my own personal thing but I don't keep characters that have fugued too often because I consider them a fail so I perma them...

But Con point loss is a used alternative so I figured I'd mention it here. [shrug] Just a thought.

EDIT: Full rez of course is no con point loss. And perhaps a higher level cleric spell could be made that would gain back lost con points for a high priced 'donation'.

[Vlaid]

At least for me, almost regardless of level, I would rather keep the RP rolling and respawn rather than wait for the raise and make them carry you back. Especially if there's a ways to go in whatever quest/event you're on.

It's just mostly that players would rather get back to playing, rather than spend 30 minutes to an hour staring at the fugue screen. At least that's the motivation for me to just respawn.

I have no particular comment or suggestion on the OP, but I thought I would comment on the topic of players being too lazy to wait for the raise.