Death penalty.
-
If you're a heavy armour wearing fighter then let the scouts do their job. Do not travel too closely to them and when they come back, give them time to type their report before you move forward. Scouts will also check the flanks as well as in front so allow time for that.
I can't stress this enough, and yet I have seen this done two times in my entire time here, and almost all my characters have been scouts! Two times! And that is on a lot of quests. I always ask if my character should scout ahead, but either it gets ignored or the fighter rushes ahead into the unknown mob before I have the time to do anything.
Realistically: a party in a cave facing unknown (amounts of) monsters would want to know what they are facing, right? Nobody would charge mindlessly into a battle only to find themselves against a legion of ogres if they KNEW they had been there. Strategy and tactics. This seems to be forgotten since most quests have been done before, and the players have OOC knowledge of what is around the next turn and know they can handle it. Their character however, don't.
What is the point of even employing scouts if all you want them for are disarming the traps and unlocking your loot, while not doing any scouting? And seeing characters with no search running into walls where they OOCly know a secret door is just annoys me. Plain and simple, its ridiculous. If you don't know it's already there and have to find it, please… its metagaming too. Always searching for hidden doors and portals once the battle is over is fine, as long as you RP it and search the whole room properly.
To answer the topic and OP. Death has to be harsh, but while a 40% is a bit rough at higher levels, prehaps a steady loss of one level, regardless of level could work? IE. in NWN you need (your level1000) exp to gain the next level pre-epic. So a penalty where you lose (your current level1100) exp for instance could work, no? This ensure you will awlays lose a level, but not as devastating as today. That is, after you pass lv 4 or so... Anway, just a suggestion.
I'm fine with the current death penalty, it has me spending those potions and healing kits until I'm broke. And healing other useful characters when I can. For the good of the group. It adds to the game, the fearing of death. It happens, it sucks, but at the end of the day: if the levels matter more to you than the plot; you have a lame character. -
Actually, this is the first On-line Mod that has been able to keep the PC's at a correct level. Every other Mod I've been on, the PC's don't get every magical Item in the game, with No one respect what they have! They'd get so angry, because they didn't get the Sword +5 of Sharpness with Improved Dodge, Improved Knockdown, Cast Darkness and Time stop 3x a day,With Improved Parry… you get the point... I actually feel like I'm Role playing.
When I played PnP Fearun, I hated it. I always felt there was a 22nd LvL Assassin, Behind one Bush along with a 44th lvl Mage behind the other.
I understand this was the DM's Fault. But More than anything I enjoy the story. I really love playing weaklings, With no hope in the world of survival. I enjoy the struggle and the conflict, the solving of puzzle, the Cloak and Dagger, the Politics. This is all Why I enjoy George R.R. Martin so much. I know, in the end if I use my wit... I can solve Many problems, I many not survive, But I've done the best I could with what I had. If I make the best of my allies, the Smoother the game will go, and the less I have to work, with no reward.
Just a thought.
-
-
Permanent exploration XP in my opinion
-
the death penalty should be harsh, because death is death, but that said how many times has a person in game lost a lot cause of lag, where had there been none at the time they would have stood a better chance of surviving the encounter, the larger events with the city are fun, to a point, when the lag becomes the major factor it could frustrate some
i had seen significant lag during one of the banda events in the city, it was quite bad, though my character was not a fighter and did not die in the event, i found healing those on the front line a bit hard, i tried to (i was able to heal some during the event, but do not know if i really made much of a difference) use a wand to heal some of the front liners and found they had fallen before the wand actually did its thing (i realize that they may have fallen before i could see the event that made them fall)
is it possible to make some kind of a exception during events where considerable lag has occurred, like making raises and resurrections significantly cheaper during such events, resetting to the normal price after the next reset, which usually come after the event has finished. This i feel would not lessen the sting of death but be a way for the DMs to say that we will give the players the benefit of the doubt during times of lag.
-
I recently played on another server where the death penalty was more like a credit card.
If you died, you lost a percentage of XP but you could only lose a max of one level. If you lost more XP than that, it went into a debt system that you had to pay off before you could start to actually level again.
It also came with a fee.
While I'm not sure how this would work for RP purposes, it might be an idea worth taking a look at?
Perhaps having a level cutoff? Sure, die three times and you pay for each of those three, but if you get to level 10 and take an Insta-kill spell to the face and die, you would only drop to the level 9 base rather than level 6 or 7.Not trying to rock the boat. Just throwing it out there.
-
I actually like the suggestion Alonsis2 made. You still lose plenty of xp, and have to get it back, but you do not lose the levels when forced to respawn.
-
We'll likely never introduce a system where death doesn't mean level loss–we want people to consider death a risk-not a mild annoyance.
At the same time, I still am fond of the idea of reducing death penalties if you're under level 7, which is the average level we want for the server.
-
I like that death is harsh, because it makes going questing proper heart pumping stuff. If you're stuck behind a legion of Ogres, it makes your heart race trying to plan tactics to get out alive.
-
I think the death penalty should stay the same. I also think that true ressurection should come back. Yeah, you didn't lose exp, or hardly any, but it was -expensive.-
-
We'll likely never introduce a system where death doesn't mean level loss–we want people to consider death a risk-not a mild annoyance.
At the same time, I still am fond of the idea of reducing death penalties if you're under level 7, which is the average level we want for the server.
Lets look at death.
Death Risk gets you on the edge of your chair. if you didnt lose levels, you wouldnt care. It hasto be there.On the other hand it sucks. You have to "grind" to get back to your mental picture of your capabilities. And put up with the PITA of choosing between doing little-xp granting plot and political activities vs XP-granting questing.
So what can be done to make it not as bad ?
Many things have been suggested:
1. less XP loss. Personally, I don't like this. takes away the fear.2. Permament RP/Explore XP. I REALLY don't like this. It sets up "minimum" levels. It creates castes of adventurers. Its elitist. It means that characters of veteran players will REALLY REALLY run to get all the Exploration XP, as oppossed to only when it made sense.
3. lessened chance of dieing. Hmm. What makes one die?
Any of overconfidence /poor strategy /not good enough /poor luck /reallypoorluck.
With really poor luck being crits. I know my last three deaths were due to crits. I doubt it's possible, probably in the engine, but what if it could be setup so that if you were lvl 1-5 you were immune to NPC crits ?4. faster recovery.
This is a bastardization of the "permament XP" and "Less loss" suggestions.
What if - if you have died and are getting back to where you had been.. you got XP twice as fast ? Limited to lvl 1-5, that is.(Crits. Crits really suck. if you suck like me… so your buddies are all lvl 7-9 with 60-100 hp and your sitting at 30 hp... but you want to at least show you are contributing, so you decide, ok, I'll flank the NORMAL minotaur at least until i take one hit, then standback and shoot... Sure enough, that first hit is a crit for 50. or you stand back to provide spells and support... and sure enough the Elite Snipers decide to target YOU... and start critting faster than you can heal.. Removing crits from low levels would take away a big source of death that adds a LOT of frustration. Its not THAT bad to die if you see yourself getting worn down... but those crits that just take you out all at once with nothing that can be done about it... Sigh. I can't believe I'm the only one that doesn't mind TOOO badly about non-crit death, but is really frustrated by crit or multi-crit death)
-
lower the death penalty to 25%, it still hurts but is recoverable from. going from lvl 9 to lvl 6 sucks. anything you could do now you can't, and there's no good way to Rp-it that you "lost" your ability to do something.
Cuz saying, "that goblin broke my spell book and gave a bad concusion" sound really lame.
even just dropping it another 10% from its standing of 40% woudl make a good sized difference
a lvl 7 dies adn if respawns is going to lvl 5. at the current
the same at only 30% penalty is lvl7 to lvl 5 but only 300xp away from regaining one of the lvls back.
Still hurts, but recoverable.
-
Cuz saying, "that goblin broke my spell book and gave a bad concusion" sound really lame.
To be honest, saying that "the goblin stabbed me several times, but I'm still fine," sounds equally "lame" in my opinion.
I'm sure that through the seven pages of this thread, a general consensus has been reached. Does this thread still serve a beneficial purpose?
-
Does this thread still serve a beneficial purpose?
Therapeutic release.
I'd personally like to see the death penalty slightly reduced, perhaps to 30% or so as darkelf suggested.
-
33% respawn, 16.66% raise dead, 11.11% rez.
Make it so!
Hey games, if you have only 30 HP and the enemies can do as much with critical hits, don't flank. IMHO hide invisibly and heal people with wands if you can. (TBH I think the AI on CoA is a bit extreme with its bloodlust for the lowest AC character. Sometimes, they'll charge straight past the killers to get the lightly armored rogues and mages, only to be cut down by AoO.)
-
Lose the XP but not the levels. Or, really, don't lose any XP but take on an XP debt. Until you pay it back you have reduced stats. -1 on STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Obviously, you also can't gain any extra XP to advance a level until the debt is paid.
That could mean that you're unable to do some things you could before, but I think is easier to RP than suddenly dropping 1-3 levels.
-
I rather like Jasede's 1/3|1/6|1/9 policy, being the kind of player who dies a lot.
-
Lose the XP but not the levels. Or, really, don't lose any XP but take on an XP debt. Until you pay it back you have reduced stats. -1 on STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Obviously, you also can't gain any extra XP to advance a level until the debt is paid.
That could mean that you're unable to do some things you could before, but I think is easier to RP than suddenly dropping 1-3 levels.
Hey, I've just logged in to post something like this! :)
I've read the last few comments here and was thinking on a suggestion.
However, I would only suggest this for quests. In case you die on a harder quest, and loose a few levels, you are most likely to die again, so I'd only give the XP penalty after finishing the quest. (also a DM wand with a timer could be implemented for DM quests… but I guess it can be handled by the DM giving out 'technical XP' and taking back it after he finishes stuff as well.) -
I actually like that idea. You lose the exp, but not actually the levels. It can't be abused really since you have to earn that experience back anyways. You can't redo any of the lower leveled quests with your awesome gear, so it's not just a "Walk in the park. Oh look, free gold." And let's face it. I won't say all, but most of the epic things we do in CoA involve high leveled people. If there was a chart or something you could look at, you would see that the majority of people involved in super heavy plots that effect servers/factions outweigh the lower leveled ones. This would keep plot important characters from being "suckish" when it comes to plots like this.
-
Too easily exploitable IMO, and people shouldn't bounce right back to their prime right after a death either. Ressurections only take away 15% of your experience, dropping you one level TOPs. You might not even drop a level, if you're close enough to the next level. At level 7 and below, respawns aren't that bad. At level 8 and above, you should already be carrying around enough money for a Ressurection anyways.