DEATH PENALTY FORUM (copy pasted all)

Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 2:10 pm

for the alpha, i'm gonna join up with these cats.. they are run by one of the game devs.. and test out large areas. also.. THEY ARE ALWAYS ON YOU BASTARDS!

Postby **Twystyd** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 4:33 pm

sounds good. Keep me in the loop. I believe thats Hamers group.

Postby **Twystyd** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:11 pm

So whats going on with KALI? You learning anything? Update please

Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:29 pm

never joined them lol, we are playing undead now.. and basiclly i just disliek grouping , so all i'm doing is bitching on the forums about the death-by-trvael issues, and other balance related topics.

turns out, i'm the offical alpha forum asshole, and everyone hates me becuase i don't concider any of there ideas good.

basiclly.. none of them have ever played any sorts of mmorpg.. or they have only played EQ.

they just don't have a clue.

Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:30 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 2:04:26 PM PST

1 . 2 . 3 . 6

RHSIA

Gateway: WoW

1. Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 2:04:26 PM PST

We had a spirited discussion in guild chat regarding death penalties during the weekend. It's very interesting to me to see almost everyone had a different idea of how they'd like to see it handled.

Frankly, I'm of the mind that dying is a penalty in and of itself. It sucks, it's humiliating, it drains time as you have to get back to where you were. Tacking on loss of items or xp or whatever adds nothing for me but more frustration of something lost. I know some people like to feel the sting of death to give it more of an "edge." But honestly I don't buy that it adds that much more to the game. As a player, I am going to do whatever it takes to not die regardless of the penalty (aside from the "travel by death" which I think needs to be solved as a separate issue).

Loosening penalty on death can only encourage people to *explore* more, experiment more, take a few more chances and all around have more fun. I've already done things in this game that I generally don't such as trying to solo tough mobs I am unsure of, or wander off and explore until being killed in 2 shots by a mean spider

There's nothing lamer to me than getting a group together and just hitting the same old places over and over because they are "safe." Every MMO I've played ends up like this, in large part due to the death penalties; the larger the penalty, the more the tendency for everyone to stick to standard practices.

Anyway, here are my suggestions:

1. Have an adjustable toggle on death penalty. For those hardcore people who love it, give em the most hardcore of all (permadeath). Scale an xp penalty all the way down to no loss at all and scale the xp given for mobs and quests accordingly (i.e. a hardcore player may get 50% more xp per kill whereas a no-loss player may get 10% less of the standard xp given).

2. Alternatively, stay with no penalty, but tally deaths. Maintain ladders/competition for people with least deaths vs. the level they are. Give them some sort of bragging rights title if they are the best in each category. This gives the harder core people more of an edge to compete over. So it's more of a "no death reward" vs. a "death penalty".

slipton

Gateway: WoW

2. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 2:13:04 PM PST

I heard a rumor that indeed we are experienceing 'death light', so people will level up fast and test out all the content quickly. That in later versions the penalty will still just be rez sickness, but the duration will increase with levels. Like 5 minutes every 5 levels or something. So when you're 30th and die you might be rez sick for a half hour.

lbowman

Gateway: WoW

3. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 2:56:16 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
I heard a rumor that indeed we are experienceing 'death light', so people will level up fast and test out all the content quickly.
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If that is true, I'm wondering... are we also leveling faster than intented? I'm a little concerned about how fast I have been leveling (without even trying), and I'd love to hear that it will either slow down a lot at higher levels, or be slower in general when the game goes live.

jhartgraves

Gateway: WoW

4. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 3:04:13 PM PST

I definitely agree with that rez sickness length being added on every few levels, I think I may have even done a /suggest, looks like I should be on the dev team (totally), but yeah exp loss made me quit EQ, so exp loss is horrid. It's always fun losing 2 weeks worth of playing to a few deaths in the span of 30 minutes right?

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

5. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 3:10:57 PM PST |

xp death, reclaim corpse and get the FULL AMOUNT OF XP LOST at death when you reclaim.

you can also go to a NPC and reclaim your corpse for a coin cost.

thats the way it should be

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

6. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 3:22:11 PM PST

ir is wrong.

DP should vary per server. I want the res-sickness server.

I vote ir gets the perma-death server.

KIDDING. But do give folks that want it an XP loss server. Everyone is happy. Everyone is seperate but equal :-)

TMillet

Gateway: WoW

7. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 3:25:29 PM PST

Okay we've already had HUGE multi-page discussions on death penalties on these boards just recently, it was a very heated discussion that eventually lead to flames and so on.

The original giant thread is gone now but here's a secondary off-shoot one that also went to 4 pages.

https://12.129.233.207/thread.aspx?FN=w ... 6#post3314

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

8. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 3:35:47 PM PST |

DP should no way vary per server.. for something so small, should not need it's own server, if there is no ingame punishment for death.. the challenge of the game will be lost.

level is also a hassel, i hate it.. why not make a instant level 50 server? which everyone starts off at the top level?

i also hate crafting.. so why not make a server which allows everyone to max craft by making 1 item. you know why that wont work? removes the challenge.

avoiding death.. is a challenge, and failing at that challenge should be punished. and the means which i have posted.. still allow anyone to do whatever they want. they can either RECLAIM CORPSE FOR FULL XP GAIN(that means all the xp you lost.. you gain back in full. ITEMS ARE NOT LOST IN THIS WAY JUST XP!~) but if the player doesn't wish o travel all the way back, he can visit a PREIST NPC which will summon your corpse into you for the cost of some coin depending on your level.. and if you use this route.. you also GAIN BACK ALL HE XP YOU LOSt... FULL XP WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU>!

see how that works? it's sort of simple, and i don't know why it hasn't been implyed already... i know if this game doesn't have a proper death punishment, it will have a hard time keeping me, and many other gamers which enjoy a challenge in a game interested.

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

9. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 4:54:10 PM PST

I completely disagree with ireynoso. I think the challenge of the game exists independent of death penalty. If you think the game has no challenge, try doing Pyrewood at night, or Shadowfang Keep at all. The challenge is using what you have at your disposal to defeat powerful monsters, not to grind xp safely against mobs that pose no real challenge.

In my opinion, death penalties do two things. First, they punish the adventerous, and reward the grinder. The optimum method of getting xp becomes fighting monsters slightly lower than yourself, never exploring, and never trying anything new. When you add a death penalty, that kind of behavior is heavily rewarded, while challenging and adventerous behavior is punished.

Second, you frustrate the player, frequently when he dies due to things outside of his control. I just died when the server crashed. I've died previously when other people aggro too many mobs and die at my feet, still within their normal wander area, or when my phone rings, or when we have plain bad luck on respawn. Punishing all of these things serve only to piss the player off.

I've had more fun playing WoW than I've had playing any previous game, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that there is no death penalty. The game plays like a GAME, not like a job, not like a duty, not like any kind of investment or obligation. The lack of a death penalty is an integral part of that - it creates a feel of adventerousness, riskiness, and general relaxed fun.

Adding a death penalty beyond the current res sickness would severely decrease the enjoyment I derive from the game. I would rather see the xp required to level doubled or xp rewards reduced. Penalties are just not the way to show players a good time.

TMillet

Gateway: WoW

10. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 5:09:16 PM PST

I completely agree with everything CHemple just said.

RHSIA

Gateway: WoW

11. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 5:14:04 PM PST

OMG CHEMPEL, finally someone who I can agree with 100%!!! Everything you wrote I second, it's like you read my mind and posted what I wished I had.

P.S. Sorry if this discussion was covered recently. I scanned back 3 or 4 pages and it didn't see anything so I thought it was worth discussing.

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

12. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 6:31:33 PM PST

First off, I'm not a huge MMORPG junkie, WoW being the first I've actively played.

I'm of the mind that death penalties will do nothing more than funnel most players into the level-grinder mode of play as pointed out upthread. Most of the time I'm playing, I'm playing solo; dying and having to slog all the way back to wherever it was that I got gakked (whether it from a server burp or lag or stupidly drawing aggro and having a respawn jump you at the same time) seems plenty punishment for me.

When I played Diablo 2, I _hated_ dying, particularly when it was something totally out of my control. A bit of lag could lose you a good couple sessions worth of XP. Horrendously unfun.

That said, it seems like the waystone system encourages death/travel ab/uses. XP penalties would certainly dissuade this, but would drive up frustration levels as well. Res sickness is certainly irritating, but hardly crippling (though if the ramping durations, as suggested, are implemented, I could see that driving up the frustration level far more than any XP penalty would). I'm paying to play the game, not to sit around and wait for res sickness to wear off. Downtime is downtime is downtime and it is evil.

Having bodies resurrect where they lay would certainly solve the waystone abuses, but what happens when you get in over your head and you get stuck in an area where the mobs are 2+ you and you can't realistically get out?

If death incurred a financial penalty (say 5 S to get back to the waystone), then that might discourage casual death travel. Of course, lower level folks would find themselves out of cash fast.

There certainly isn't an easy solution to this. If you throw in an XP penalty offset by recovering your body, I suppose that might, but it's going to irritate players (it certainly would piss me off if I felt forced to recover my body because the server went down and then came back and I was jumped by five angry troggs through no fault of my own.)

And if travel by death is what we're trying to discourage, then alternatives need to be provided. People are doing this simply because it's expedient. You can either add a punishment to that or give folks an alternative that works within the RPG-aspects of WoW. Frankly, I'd prefer that. Death sucks, even if we get off cheap in WoW.

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

13. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 6:57:49 PM PST

Travel by death doesn't seem like a major problem to me. It's limited to one destination, and if it removes a bunch of repetitive running, all the better. If it's the immersion factor that's being disturbed, give everyone a gate-to-bind, or a quest for a good gate to bind item with unlimited charges, or make town portal scrolls relatively cheap and stackable. In my opinion, if you're a half hour away from town, and dying saves a half hour of running through territory that you've been over thirty times, it's not a bad thing.

jdybala

Gateway: WoW

14. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 8:59:36 PM PST

I like suggestion 2 a lot, keep no penalty but keep track and sort of a ladder type thing. Death penalty blows and I have not missed it one bit since playing in the alpha.

tdresbach

Gateway: WoW

15. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 10:10:16 PM PST

I like exploring, so a death penalty is anathema to me. It makes me not want to play. Having to regain all my things from my previous body kept me from being as hardcore of a Diablo 2 player as I wanted to be.

Also, I like to solo, so I don't have a gaggle of friends to help me out if I'm having trouble. Having to walk all the way back to whatever area I was in before is enough of a penalty to me. The res sickness, although a little annoying, dissipates quickly enough that it isn't too much bother.

I don't want to spend all my time killing monsters that are lower level than me just so I can explore the next zone.

breid

Gateway: WoW

16. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/15/2003 10:12:41 PM PST

I also like having a minimal death penalty. If you consider the casual players who only play a couple days a week or an hour or so at a time, death penalties that require them to spend much more than 5-10 minutes can become a significant portion of their playing time.

As other people have said, death in and of itself is a penalty.

I like suggestion 2 as well and was thinking of something sort of similar. If you reward staying alive, then death becomes a bigger penalty on its own. I had the idea that players could accumulate some sort of bonus based on time since last death and number of mobs that they've killed without dying. It could be loot based, experience based or something else. When you die, your bonus goes back to 0 and you have to start accumulating again. The bonus should probably stay pretty small so it didn't unbalance things, but even say a 1-5% xp bonus or chance to loot better gear would be missed.

cfeist

Gateway: WoW

17. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:28:22 AM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
xp death, reclaim corpse and get the FULL AMOUNT OF XP LOST at death when you reclaim.

you can also go to a NPC and reclaim your corpse for a coin cost.

thats the way it should be
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can someone lock ireynoso out of all of the 'death penalty' and 'travel by death' threads please?

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

18. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 8:02:04 AM PST |

gawh, it's seems alot of the players here have only EQ MMORPG exp, there are other mmorpgs out there.. which handled Death in much different ways

EQ handled death poorly, and thats what you all fear.
EQ death(from reading all your post is):
-LEVEL LOST(-XP)
-LOOT LOST ON CORPSE
-ON CORPSE CLAIM YOU ONLY GAIN A SMALL% BACK
-LARGE XP LOST AT DEATH
-NO OTHER MEANS TO RECLAIM YOUR BODY

thats what it seems like EQ has done in death, which is a solid reason for having so much hate towards the game

DAOC handled death like this:
-NEVER LOSE A LEVEL (no -XP) your xp wont ever go below your level
-NEVER HAVE LOOT LEFT ON CORPSE(when you release.. your loot comes with you)
-XP % LOST AT DEATH
-CAN PRAY TO YOUR GRAVE FOR A SMALL XP REGAIN
-CAN FIND A HEALER TO CURE REZ SICKNESS FOR COIN COST

DAOC handled death much ligther then EQ, and it still had some fixed the things which players would abuse.. like "travel by death" which is a big deal. and should be dealt with.

WoW current uses:
-NO XP LOST
-NO CORPSE
-5 min REZ SICKNESS (which doens't reall affect you at all, i can still solo mobs my level and above when rez sick, you only relaly just have less mana and hitpoints.. as a mage i never took damage anyway, so it didn't phase my class at all)

those penalties are nothing.. and thus why are being abused. now if you ppl would open your eyes, and your mind.. and use some basic logic, you will see that the only proper means of death are not the "real world mental punishment and dishonor" you grief upon yourself in the real world. becuase thats just bull, having such a strong emotional attachment to your in-game charater, that when you die in-game, you mourn. thats just silly. Not everyone is so attached as you may be to the in-game video game charater, and they will.. and do.. die just to travel around faster.

the way WoW SHOLD handled death are as follows(yes posting the same old solid logic stuff as before):
-XP % LOST
-NEVER -XP (you can never lose a level or get -xp under your level)
-your items don't remain on your corpse
-when you reclaim your corpse.. you gain back ALL THE XP YOU LOST AT DEATH
-NPC Corpse summoner(if your corpse is in a spot you just wont ever be able to get to, you can use a NPC CORPSE SUMMONER for a coin cost(Depending on level determines ammount you pay for corpse reclaim) AND YOU GAIN BACK ALL THE XP YOU LOST AT DEATH.

it's simple logic, sure players can still abuse travel by death.. but it will cost them coin. so players which are abusing it, they get punished, and players that play the proper way.. get rewarded with not having to pay.

slipton

Gateway: WoW

19. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 8:47:39 AM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
ir is wrong.
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kwerle is right about ir being wrong

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Q u o t e:
I completely agree with everything CHemple just said.
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TMillet is right about Chemple being right.

Realise, we're not all grinders camping an area and only leaving when we've leveled out of it. It's really REALLY nice when someplace you've tried doesn't work out for you, and you don't HAVE TO go back there (or do some song and dance with a corpse summoner to not have to go back there).

Different rules for different servers would be good, of course, if possible.
[ post edited by slipton ]

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

20. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:17:12 AM PST |

being a level grinder has nothing to do with it, i'm not a power gamer myself, i love the fact that i have never had to level grind in Wow, that ll my levels have come from quest XP.

But, read the other suggestions on death.

-no death penalty, leave it as is.(that doens't stop the travel by death issue)
-increase the rez sickness timer per level (so that someone can have downtime for an hour waiting for sickness to go away?)
-remove the release button so i can get a cup of soda(forced downtime?)

you ppl don't ever post any suggestions that make any sence, it's like you never played a mmorpg in your life... or have only restricted yourself to 1.

how can they have ppl in the alpha to test games, which don't even have an idea how a game should work, or even when they see something which is clearly wrong "travel by death abuse" and don't even have an idea how to fix it.

how about this ppl.. instead of posting that my ideas are wrong.. how about posting ideas which will work, or even post reasons why my ideas are wrong, back them up with some facts, and not just emotional attachments to your in-game charaters.

becuase i highly doubt.. or atleast i hope, that if your in-game charater dies.. you will not take it to the extreme, and kill yourself in the RL.

so come on now ppl.. post some good ideas instend of the normal carebear gamer post you have all been posting already. put your minds to work, and try to make Wow the best mmorpg out there.

1 . 2 . 3 . 6

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Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:30 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:32:55 AM PST

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 6

slipton

Gateway: WoW

21. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:32:55 AM PST

Beta tested EQ, AC, DAOC, Shadowbane. I've played a couple games.

So far, this rez sickness system is the best I've seen. It does make for a little problem with death porting, but even that's an aesthetics issue. Seems the attitue of most people is you dont' want to fix an aesthetics issue by putting in something known from personal experience in other games to be much worse for substantive practical gameplay.

Actually, I suspect that the increaseing rez sickness timer, if that's what the plan is, would end death porting after a certain level.

Though, my concern with that is, if rez sickness lasts too long, then people will just end up perpetually rez sick. Still, I'd rather be perpetually rez sick than lose exp or have to go corpse hunting any time I died (or do the corpse sommoner buisiness).

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

22. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:36:09 AM PST

You're not paying attention, ir. People upthread have suggested a simple gate-to-bind item/spell/scroll that would solve the travel by death issue. People do that because it's a convenience, nothing more. And if you were paying attention, most people were saying that increasing downtime or Res sickness were NOT the way to go.

As for dissing people because they aren't veteran MMORPG players and shouldn't be in the Alpha because of that (as you plainly imply in your last post), all I have to say is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. You don't improve a thing by copying what came before. And frankly, I think that players new to MMOs have a lot to offer in terms of feedback, and they won't be locked into a mindset of "this is how things have to be in MMOs."

Blizzard got where they are by doing things differently, not by following the pack.

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

23. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:44:23 AM PST

What's more, ir, I find it ironic (maybe you should change your name) that most of the folks here seem to be against XP death penalties, but agree there should be hardcore servers (xp loss) for the likes of you. Yet you insist that yours is the only way and that everyone should conform.

RHSIA

Gateway: WoW

24. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:50:54 AM PST

Regarding travel by death, a gate to bind item/scroll sounds perfect to me, either bought or as part of a quest reward. If money value is an issue, you can always up the cost of the item with increasing level. Or be bold and just allow people to recall with no penalty whatsoever.

It's always interesting to me to examine the psychology of different players. Some people seem bent on making things harder on themselves and I find that fascinating. At a very simple level, I play a game to have fun, not be frustrated. We have been trained by previous games to accept and expect to be penalized and punished in MMORPGs, and it seems difficult for people to transcend this mentality. Luckily it seems the next generation of MMOs is coming around to change this.

CIANNITTI

Gateway: WoW

25. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 10:20:30 AM PST

I am currently, downloading WoW, but I've played AC, AC2, ffxi, and everquest. I have to say, that I felt ac2 had the best death penalty system i've seen. it was a combination of a total % of health lost (5%, i think) and to regain it, you needed a certain amt of xp per 1%. If you died before you regained your total hp, it stacked on to that already taken off.

It was a good deterent from dying, but I think to stop "death porting," a physical slow added to the death sickness that is currently set, could deter people from doing it. If you death port, only to be slowed by say 50% of your normal running pace for the normal death sickness time, i think it would be a nice balance. If res'd, have it be like 50% of the time. obviously, this could be tweaked for time, and balance, etc.

As for personal attachments to characters, i agree with that post, for the most part. The problem is, when I play mmorpgs, I can't level grind. I just can't do it. I have to do something else after a period of leveling, like crafting...or whatever. So, when a system of xp loss is in place, it extends the level grind to mammoth proportions. I think people need to always feel like they are moving forward in mmo's. I felt like I was going backward in everquest, and in ffxi. It's the reason I quit playing them. 10% exp loss of amt required to next level, and 4% when you were res'd. Good lord, I was at lvl 20, for like a week! It was insane. If WoW puts in a system that strict, I will probably quit it, too. If people want to play a "hardcore" character like in diablo 2, maybe have a hardcore server, but subjecting everyone to that horrible death penalty would be pushing it, I think.

MMOORE

Gateway: WoW

26. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 10:47:00 AM PST

Not a fan of heavy handed death penalties. I agree with CHempel in pretty much every regard on this topic.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

27. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 11:06:37 AM PST |

you wont be able to stop death by travel, by adding other means or reporting to town.. becuase those other means, still will cost some form of coin, being it a townportal scroll, or some rare item.. if death has no punishment, then it will still be abused to travel.

lets say the TPscroll to bind cost 5 silver. And death cost nothing.. and still gets you to the bindstone... which will you use? which will you still use? yes thats right, the cheaper, free travel to bindstone which cost you nothing. Death.

If there is no punishment for death, then it will still be abused. just how it is abused now. Traveling is another issue in itself. fixing death will then inturn fix traveling.

You come up with a way that works, feel free to post it.

Also tell me reasons why the method i posted.. doesn't work. i have yet to see any logical answers other then "wrong". post some reasons why it's wrong.. afterall, this is a dicussion.

the method i posted fixes the death penalty issue, aswell as death by travel, and also keeps the in-game economy moving, by having to pay coin to get your corpse back if you don't wish to travel yourself. So yes you still will be able to travel by death.. but at the cost of some coin(to byback your xp lost in full).

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

28. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 11:20:52 AM PST

ireynose, I've played most major MMORPG's out there. I had two doctors in AO, one in their 50's and one in their 80's. I had two 40+ characters in DAOC. I had a medic in Star Wars Galaxies, I played around with Asheron's Call 1 and 2... hell, I even beta'd Endless Ages.

Your "solutions" are worse than the problems. They damage the overall game play experience, in my opinion. Say whatever you want, but the VAST majority of players find xp death penalties to be frustrating, irritating, and often downright miserable.

If an item that ports you to bind has a trivial cost, or unlimited uses, then people will use that as opposed to travel-by-death because it will avoid the time loss trying to find something to kill you (do you have any idea how LONG it will take lava to kill you at 50 when it's doing 10 a tick, or less due to resists?) and to avoid res sickness.

Just because you don't agree with us doesn't mean we've never played anything else, ireynoso. It means we just don't see a problem with the current situation. Frankly, travel by death is not something that hurts the game for me, whereas death penalties are definately something which would damage my gameplay experience.

It all comes down to one thing: What is FUN? Less travel time is fun. Death penalties are not.

Seems like a simple choice to me.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

29. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 11:40:47 AM PST |

but Travel by death is an issue, death should not be the means as a way to get from point "A" to point "B" in the matter of seconds. and with the current system, that what is it.. and thats the way death is being used. death in the current build.. looks more like a reward in not having to travel by walking.

And chempel, the solutions i have posted you all seem to not understand, you all just see one thing.. "xp lost" and automaticlly get your "i don't wnat to lose xp" alarms going.. if you read everything you will see that, sure you LOSE XP at death.. but you GAIN ALL THE XP YOU LOST BACK, if you reclaim corpse and/or PAY COIN to the NPC to get it for you. so in theory, your not actually losing anything. But it still fixes the current issue in the game which is death travel, and death penalty.

Travel by death wont stop until there is a proper death penalty.

Everything has to cost something. it's just the way things work.. to use a stronger weapon style or spell which deals mroe damage.. it will cost you mana/rage/focus. the stronger the sell.. the more it cost. some players would rather it be free, it would be more fun if it was free, heck it would be more fun if all the spells were auto-fire.. sort of like a machine gun.. so i can pump out 10 fireballs in about 2 seconds. and kill the monsters before they even get to me. sure it's fun.. but what is it not? thats right.. challenging. and keeping players challenged is what keeps them into a game for the long run.

If a game didn't challenge you.. would you play it?

CIANNITTI

Gateway: WoW

30. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 12:02:37 PM PST

ireynoso - your reasoning is good, but the problem is, how do you decide what a proper death penalty is? i think blizzard is very keen on the "making the game fun for inexperienced players" policy, while trying to make it fun for more intense gamers, etc. In every situation, where xp loss has been the death penalty, I have stopped the game prematurely. Obviously, there has to be a death penalty, but xp loss and more level grinding make the game less fun for a wide variety of people. while some people see that as a "challenge" others regard it as a waste of time, or too severe, and force them to lose interest. I understand the urge to make the game challenging, I really do. I enjoy difficult games, myself...but when you factor in the long term ramifications to a character you have devoted hours to, it ends up being a penalty that is way too severe. There has to be some kind of happy medium between xp loss, and a weak time-delay death penalty.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

31. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 12:26:38 PM PST |

ahh finally a voice of reason! and i totlaly agree with that a death penalty which is to severe bring away from the fun factor of a game, if i would have played EQ in the long wrong, and lost all my items simply becuase i died.. i would have quit aswell.

but lets try to change up the wording on the idea.

Lets say, your figthing a fire breathing dragon, and you you kill it, and gain 3000 xp from it, SWEET! then some lil troll comes out, and crushes your skull! ouch! at death.. you lose 500xp total.(ouch!) which brngs you down to 2500xp and you release, feel a tad depressed. and think, hrm should i fight my way back into the dragons lair to get that 500 xp back? or pay 2 silver over at that NPC, and pull the 500xp out of him? if i go back to the dragon, i can pop another 3000 xp, and have another fun time slaying him again.. if i talk to that npc over there.. i can go do something else with my guild. and still regain my xp.

i'll use the NPc this time, and boom, you gain back your 500xp, and thus bringing you back to 3000xp, and short 2 silver... which you can earn back by selling those useless dragon scales you got from looting the foul dragon from beyond.

so ya see there.. there really isn't xp lost, no real leveling grind to maintain. just a small way to stop death by travel.. not really stop it.. becuase it will always be done.. there will always be the players that don't mind the penalty, no matter how extreme it is. but puttng a small coin cost on something which everyone does need, and will always want to reclaim the lost xp, will put a tigther grip when a player decides to slay himself to travel to town.

dlyons

Gateway: WoW

32. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:08:22 PM PST

I'm getting pretty annoyed at the rez sickness crap...can't fight at all with it on. Which, I suppose, is good. I shouldn't do something stupid enough to get killed in the first place.

I pretty much played EQ exclusively, and a lot of it, mostly high end. The death penalties were annoying, yeah, but I liked them. Here's why:

It was nice taking one group and having the skill to not just survive, but THRIVE in an area that most people could only do with 2+ groups. It was awesome going into places where there was a good chance of being killed, but going forward anyways and pulling through on skill, even knowing what a pain it would be if you failed. There were real consequences if you died, and you did NOT want to go through that. It furthered your sense of accomplishment when you succeeded, and it was a clear warning of the drawbacks of failing.

I didn't mind being the guy getting a guild's corpses back after a failed raid attempt. Everyone (nearly) wanted to stick it out and try again for pride's sake. It wasn't that you fell down, it was how quickly you got back up.

I just don't think the same attitude will be there without a penalty. I really don't care if I die in game right now, since the only real drawback is running back to my group. I can run into a ?? level mob like an idiot just for the hell of it with no repercussions. It doesn't feel right to me. It feels goofy and comical, a lesser God mode. And i think IR is right, death porting won't be stopped without a penalty of some sort.

What IR proposed is an excellent middle ground for this. I'll agree with any death penalty simlpy because the game still takes my breath away. I'll play it either way. But what IR is saying is you can die with minimal downtime, with minimal risk or penalty, but still have that slap in the face to make you hop back up and go get some more!

I know a lot of people don't feel this, especially from an EQ stand point. A lot of people got frustrated after a failed raid, and wanted to just leave. IR addressed this though, and I'd love to have a penalty like this BE IMPLEMENTED IN ALPHA so people can test it out, try it out...can't hurt, right? You might like it.

All in all, I agree completely with IR.

-D
--Tanner--
---Ashen---

epribish

Gateway: WoW

33. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:19:07 PM PST

Ok you took 2 hours to get a group together to kill the dragon. You have died once...so you are 500 down (2500) left. You think I almost made it to the entrance so I'll run and get my corpse. You go LD while running and log back in to find you died 500 more down (2000 left). You head back and when you are almost there someone comes running out with 4 trolls on him. He dies and the trolls switch to you and stomp you flat! 500 more exp down (1500 left). So once again you head out (you love the challenge) you make it to you corpse only to be killed on the way out by some more of those uber trolls. +500, -500 (1500) left. Total time spent 4 hours+ now. You work on getting another group after 1 hour (some friends were on) you party heads out to get your corpse +500 (2000 left). You message your friend that was just camping a safe spot to tell him that he you have 2000 to next level, he replys "I already dinged twice camping this spawn. Now how do you feel??

E

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

34. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:27:47 PM PST |

then knowing that you died in a hard place to return to.. you should have look towards the corpse summoner NPC and have him relcaim the corpse for you for the cost of some coin, so then you would be back up to 3000xp, and if you die again heading towards the cave.. you can either go and reclaim corpse (becuase the front of the dragon lair isn't as hard as the dragons den) and reclaim corpse from there.. or you could have just looked towards the NPc yet once again and pay up more coin.

Or you can just have your friend rez you.. for the cost of lets say...No xp? sounds always like a way to promote waiting for a priest/paly to rez ya i think.

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

35. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:32:05 PM PST

Ya know what I like?

I like the death penalty the way it is. I find the game to be a lot of fun.

Why should they change it?

dlyons

Gateway: WoW

36. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 1:36:13 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
Ok you took 2 hours to get a group together to kill the dragon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doubt I'd spend 2 hours looking for a group, but ok...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
You go LD while running and log back in to find you died
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sh*t happens. I wouldn't be surprised if I LD'd into a death.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
You head back and when you are almost there someone comes running out with 4 trolls on him. He dies and the trolls switch to you and stomp you flat!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This wouldn't happen unless you were at the spot where the trolls spawn, since they run back there first (unless you aggro'd them). I've been in this situation already countless times and watch the mobs run back right past me without attacking.

Trains dont seem to be an issue in WoW.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
So once again you head out (you love the challenge) you make it to you corpse only to be killed on the way out by some more of those uber trolls. +500, -500 (1500) left. Total time spent 4 hours+ now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, there's no way I would spend this amount of time doing it. I'd have paid 2 silver to summon the corpses for the lost xp already and moved on, and this would be around 45 minutes after I started looking for a group I'd imagine. BTW, if you spend 2 hours getting a group together for something, what do you do while you're looking? You probably XP grind. Factor in that XP.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
You message your friend that was just camping a safe spot to tell him that he you have 2000 to next level, he replys "I already dinged twice camping this spawn.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's what happens when you XP grind. Since I decided to go after a bigger mob, an "event mob" I'd call it, I would expect different rewards other than XP. Good for your friend tho, but not sure if you're promoting XP grinds or not here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
Now how do you feel??
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, to be honest, I'd feel pretty damn stupid. No offense to you or the way you play, but if I have the option of getting a corpse back for a couple silver and being all patched up with full XP, I'll take it if I think I need to. If I'm continuously getting killed trying to run back to a corpse for no reason other than camp/solo or kill another dragon, it's going to dawn on me at some point that I need to use a different tactic or get more help. And while my friend is grinding and leveling, I'm learning how to complete a new encounter, and having fun doing it. So there's no real loss in it, only gain.

Your example is a bit exaggerated IMO.

-D
--Tanner--
---Ashen---

[ post edited by dlyons ]

epribish

Gateway: WoW

37. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 2:43:21 PM PST

Yes it is a bit over the top and you are right I would just spend the coin and get it back as well. No I dont like the grind just trying to point out that a big death hit rewards the grinder and punnishes the player who just takes chances and explores. Players like water will always take the path of least resistence. Also with your idea to just pay coin to get the exp back people will still death port just at higher levels. Money in these games becomes something that you have quite a bit of as time goes by. I like it how it is now as I am willing to try a quest they I may not be able to do. I have done this with several quests and barely managed to do it and felt great! If I was playing EQ I would not try because I dont want to lose hours of progress that I have done.

E

dlyons

Gateway: WoW

38. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 2:59:39 PM PST

Yeah, I mentioned that casual gamers wouldn't feel the same way I do in most instances (even though I consider myself casual so far). But I don't think the idea that IR posted was a heavy hit death penalty. I think it's a nice balance of risk vs reward for exploration.

I agree that at some point in higher levels that death porting would once again be an issue even with the "buy-a-summons", but then again, there could be a price curve on that. All in all, if you pay a bit for a death port, I wouldn't complain. You paid for it. You got the Rez effects. That's penalty enough IMO (I just want to discourage death porting).

In EQ you might not have gone after the dragon because if you died you would lose XP and get a ton of downtime no matter what, with a chance of losing your gear. With the above ideas for death penalties, you would lose a bit of gold, and that's about it, but you'd still be a bit apprehensive about trying to solo something you shouldn't---but upon succeeding you'd be that much more excited about cheating death.

I think you can agree with that, E.

-D
--Tanner--
---Ashen---

epribish

Gateway: WoW

39. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 3:15:31 PM PST

Yes I do agree. The real way to "fix" death porting is to give a cheaper way to port. If death costs you 5 min of rez sickness, have a port to bindstone scroll cost you none. If you have to pay for scrolls then you have to make death cost just a little bit more and no-one will death port anymore. Personaly I would say have death be free in coin or exp cost. Just the rez sickness, and make townporting have a 1 min port sickness or no downside and death porting will drop quite a bit. The downside of course is the in pvp you will have whole groups porting away when they see a larger force on the field.

E

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

40. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 3:26:52 PM PST |

if death is the cheapiest way(free) an doens't cost a thing(no death penalty) then no one will use any other means other then death by travel.

and just puting a larger timer on rez sickness will just force my downtime.. and thats what this game is not about.

and as you said.. money wont really matter at higher levels.. thats true and false in a way.. if you notice why almost everything you do in this game cost coin.. it's to force a money sink.. even buying new skills as you level cost coin. so players will have to use lots of money, and sort of save up to buy what they want.

and per level the coin cost relcaim your corpse via corpse summoner would increase.

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Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:31 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 3:35:37 PM PST

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6

epribish

Gateway: WoW

41. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 3:35:37 PM PST

Right so if you make the cost enough to matter then people will get upset and angry that they can't afford gear or spells. So instead of exploring, taking chances and trying fun stuff they will go grind at the same old easy mobs as always or that the web sites tell them to. Cheap or expensive people WILL still death port so why do it if you will not fix the problem?

E

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

42. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 4:04:45 PM PST |

i don't understand what your trying to say anymore epribish, have you ever read any of the post in this topic?

the solution to the issue i posted is a fix for the problem.. yes ppl will still port death.. but it will cost them, and thus they wont be able to afford that fancy new sword they wanted.. and thus the punishment for abusing death.

epribish

Gateway: WoW

43. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 4:17:15 PM PST

What I am trying to point out is what is worse? Death porting or everyone level grinding at the same old mobs like we have done in every other MMO game out so far? I know what I would prefer...

E

RGROBINS

Gateway: WoW

44. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 4:20:41 PM PST

Frankly, I like the current system. And if the rez sickness increases with the level, then you satisfy the casual/hardcore gamer issue

Casual gamer = usually lower levels = less rez sickness = less frustration

Hardcore gamer = higher levels = more rez sickness = treat character more preciously

I solo 5/4 of the game. I explore A LOT. The current system is perfectly fine by me, because if I die, by the time I have walked part of the way, the rez sickness has worn off anyway. Which basically means there is no penalty.

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

45. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 4:21:34 PM PST

ir, all your system is going to do is establish a death tax. 90% of players are just going to decide that they're too far out and don't want to hike out to save themselves the coin.

I might point out that this punishes solo players (who are more likely to be casual player) far more than party players over 10th level (assuming there's a priest who can res them). Party players will almost never have to pay it while solo players will lose time (fetchng the body) or money (summoning the body).

However, losing a bit of money is FAR less irritating than losing any XP, but I'm still not a fan of either idea. The death penalty as is is fine. If anything, travel-by-death is the only subject that needs to be addressed by leaving the existing death model in place, and I think it could be by setting up a cheap gate-to-bind that can't be used in combat.

Death already sucks. It doesn't need to be any harsher.

epribish

Gateway: WoW

46. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:03:21 PM PST

Agree 100% Mmax!

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

47. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:20:25 PM PST |

but you see.. setting up a method which cost money to by a Teleport.. or a 30 second cast time portal spell... wont fix the issue, becuase it wont effect the player.. they will still just port death.. becuase it's free. you can't just fix one thing,, without fixing both, and my solution.. fixes both.

as for putting a longer rez sick timer on higher level players.. thats insane. forcing downtime is not what this game is trying to promote.

Players that solo, are taking the risk for soloing, you can either fight mobs your level,, and kill them with utter ease.. or fight mobs above your level, gaining alot more xp.. without the risk of losing xp when you die, and thus the no death penalty issue shows itself yet again. thuse the price for soloing. it's meant to be harder.

Paying up some coin to refund your lost XP from death, is the only way proper balanced way to fix 2 things, travel by death, and, death penalty.. i would love to see some other ppl post some ideas.

Death currently is nothing, as a tank, i can still wack away on mobs my level.. as a caster i can still nuke with utter ease. the current state of death has no affect on my placestyle or my charaters effectiveness in battle.

and i don't understand how you guys keep saying your gonna keep on dying traveling from point a to point b. as a paladin, i would run right threw camps and have mobs chase me and i would never die, i did the same thing with my mage, i would autorun all the time.. WoW doesn't train for days.. mobs stop chase.. they also the prev patch adjusted the speed-up of how mobs chase.. so you can outrun them. so chances are.. you should look at your own playstyle if you die so much. or stop trying to solo mobs which are 5 levels above you, and then maybe.. ya wont die as much =)

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

48. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:35:51 PM PST

Ireynoso, it's quite simple.

Any additional penalty at death frustrates you more when you die. It's already frustrating to die. There's no need to make death more frustrating.

That's all it is. The game doesn't need to be frustrating. Your suggestions involve it becoming more frustrating. Therefore, I don't agree with you.

The current death penalty is fine. I'm enjoying the change from previous MMORPG's considerably. I would *hate* to see it changed.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

49. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:45:05 PM PST |

explain to me why my solution would be more frustrating? when your only gaining back in full what you lost? where does the frustation part come into play?

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

50. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:49:50 PM PST

You die and want to go to sleep. Wait. You have to go back and get your corpse. You get lost. You die somewhere you can't make it back to. You lose xp. You fall off a cliff into a pit of 60+ mobs. You can never get it back.

Or, if you're referring to the cash solution... you pay to get it back. That's frustrating, especially when you have all kinds of spells to buy and are broke as it is.

The addition of ANY additional death penalty is just that - a penalty. Penalties are, by definition, not fun. It's simply the psychological aspect of penalizing a player for death, when often the death is not his fault. The penalty can be almost insignificant... but the effect it has on the game is substantial. And very negative.

bmcleod

Gateway: WoW

51. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 5:50:54 PM PST

Along the lines of the "pay for death" idea:

Dark Age of Camelot did something like this and worked out quite nicely. The full system was something like, upon death:
- first death per level is free
- second death causes loss of 1 con
- all subsequent deaths cause loss of 3 con
- all deaths cause res sickness
- all deaths cause xp loss (yuck!)
- about half of the lost XP could be regained via being ressurected, or praying at your grave (no corpse/item loss)

Aside from the XP loss, this system was pretty great because getting your lost constitution back costs money. The cost is scaled by your level, so it's not like death gets cheaper as you play. At 50th level, the money to regain your con was enough to make your think about death while still being affordable. Repeated deaths result in lower and lower con scores, which in turn means less hit points, so you definitely have incentive to get it restored.

Of course my pet peeve with MMORPGs is XP loss. Nothing seems more evil than to take away a chunk of my time, which, depending on how well I was doing, could be anywhere from a few minute to a few days. In well organized, fast XP groups, I would often not mind a death or two. But at other times, when soloing for a few hours, a single death can actually take away everything you've done and then some. Since there's no way for the game to know which of these is the current situation, sometimes XP death isn't so bad, and sometimes it's horrible. That being the case, I'd rather there not be any XP loss at all.

In the end it may be decided by Blizzard that there must be some XP loss upon death. While I don't particularly like the idea, I can see why it would be necessary. If they do decide to go with some XP loss, there's still some hope for those that dislike it.

For example, I have yet to see an MMO cap XP loss. Imagine if you could never drop below 10% less than the highest XP you have been at within your current level. So if you're at 70% of your level and you die, you drop to 65%.. then you die again, which drops you to 60%. But if you die any more after that, you still never drop lower than 60%.

Another idea would be to "lock in" XP over time, so that you could never loose more than n minutes or hours worth of playing. So if you'd only just logged in, and were killed immediately, you'd loose nothing since that XP was from a previous play session that was a few hours old, and was therefore "locked in".

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

52. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 6:07:32 PM PST

ir, it's pretty clear you're not interested in any ideas but your own. You're not reading what people are posting. Instead of seeing that I'm 100% UTTERLY AGAINST ramping up res sickness or forced downtime of any kind. You seem to think that I'm for it.

The only way, and absolute only way to keep people from using death-as-travel is to remove the travel component from it, not to put in more punishments for dying. If we didn't blink back to the bind stone after death, then boom, no death-as-travel. For the last time, people use death-as-travel because it's convenient. If you give them an alternative to it, I'd bet that they'd take it.

Again, it's clear that you don't want to believe that. You'd rather have a death tax. That's fine. If you want to simulate your death tax (no XP loss for a fee), then feel free to buy items from a vendor and sell them back for a loss. Boom, instant death tax.

Finally, "You should look at your own playstyle if you die so much..." Now that's a nice way to call folks a n00b and boost your own argument. Not. The lion's share of the deaths my characters suffer are due to things like server burps or lag spikes, not play style.

ckillough

Gateway: WoW

53. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 6:21:57 PM PST

I have to toss my hat in with ireynoso and dlyons. I've played my fair share of MMOs and have found that when there is no penalty for dying, the game really looses its edge.
I agree, EQ is a bad example, the possibility of losing your entire corpse, while it almost never happens, is really just too much to gamble all the man hours you have put in to your character.
Funny thing was, while this boardered on 'hardcore' (ie losing your character forever when you die) the actual xp lost was almost a non factor because there was almost always a res available. What you REALLY lost was the time that it took to get back to your location, get your bod, get buffed and get rolling again.
The opposite of this I experienced in EQ for playstation believe it or not. While I though the death penalty pre-50 was fine (gaining an xp 'debt' for dying rather than actually losing xp) , once you hit level 50, experience didn't matter at all. We died to go everywhere... forgot something in the bank? Just go die! Res back, great, free port both direction. It was a bit much. It also combined with the lack of upper end content to make most level 50s quit long before the 1st expansion could even have the design docs finished.
Something between the two is definitely called for. Death should matter. It should matter more than emotional 'sting' and more than just running back to where you died.
Unfortunately, I can't think of anything new or innovative at this point other than what I've seen in other games. I do favor more DAoC style (die and go pray at your grave for most xp back, pay for res effects) or EQOA pre 49 xp debt.
Also, whatever the decision, it should be universal. No dividing the death system by server. This would create a potential for large discrepancies between servers as new content (read upper end) is released. If all the 'death light' servers get to fly head long zerg style at new encounters one of two things will happen.
One: Mad fearless rushing through new encounters works. Death light servers see all the new content 1st. Or Two: Mad rushing doesn't work, and a lack of strong leadership and planning means the death light servers fall way behind the others because most of the tacticians are on the full death penalty servers.
But thats not really a huge issue. The truly huge problem would come from server populations being unbalanced. I believe most people, given the choice, will pick a nil or light death penalty. Death light servers will fill up quickly and become more crowded. Crowded servers are bad. Server growth is an exponential thing as friends always want to play with friends. You want to do everything you can to keep populations as even as possible among servers. Each one has a max number of active players based on both hardware, and what the game world can comfortably handle before player begin getting in each others faces over competition.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

54. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 6:26:41 PM PST |

maxwell.. notice how BMC above you.. actually posted suggestions which might work.. see how other ppl can bring something postive to the discusion table.

And how you keep on posting without nothing postive to bring into ideas on how to get the system to work.

Eveytime you post about my solution, it seems to me, that you totally don't understand how my suggestion works out.. you can't get by the whole XP death thing.. try reading it all.. as a unit. try reading pass the line that says XP death, and try reading it slowly and take it all in so you can properly understand it.

also, why don't you post some ideas for your travel methods which will be as convenient as death, which will give players reason to use that method over just death(which in the current state of the game.. is a FREE METHOD of travel). lets see some ideas max.

bmoro

Gateway: WoW

55. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 6:33:04 PM PST

I've played all the major (and quite a few lesser known) MMOs and I definitely prefer the current lack of death penalty for the aforementioned reasons (definitely explore more, less grind in the same safe areas, etc). I think adding much of a death penalty (be it money, xp, etc) would really be a bad move towards the other MMOs.

I think rez sickness would be fine, but I don't think it should scale so much by level. 5 minutes is quite a long time when playing a game...if there is going to be rez sickness I don't think it should ever be longer than 5 or so minutes. You could possibly partially implement the AC system whereby you can lower the amount of your rez sickness through gaining xp (but there should still be an overall time limit).

As far as using death to teleport, I'm not really sure how much of a problem that is? Sure its cheesy, but I'd definitely prefer that over a more harsh death penalty. You can only go to 1 place (and you had to bind there first), so I don't think it really eats into the usefulness of Teleport spells/abilities too much (especially ones like Ritual of Summoning, etc).

One possible way to curb death teleporting would be to only allow a player to release every 5 minutes or so. If the player dies before this timer is up that have to wait (or get a rez).

Being relatively unafraid to explore the world is really a great feeling, something that is definitely lacking in other MMO. Having to walk back to where you were (if you are planning on going back) and some (not over the top!) rez sickness seems like just the right amount of penalty.

-Mobius

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

56. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 6:41:40 PM PST

Uhm, I have been reading your suggestions. I've also been posting alternate travel suggestions (such as, oh, an item that zaps you back to your bind that costs almost nothing and takes long enough that you can't use it to warp out of combat.)

Let's call it a 'Thingamajig of Recall'. The 'ToR' will hold twenty charges and can be fully recharged by an NPC for the cost of say, 1S. It'll take fifteen uninterrupted seconds to use (though I'll admit that it could be a great way to hose your tanking player...). It takes up one space in your backpack and looks like a gold shoe. You'll be able to use it after say, level 5 (should you want to pay for it.)

Oh yes, the 'ToR' would automatically be triggered at death after 5 minutes, or by hitting the dialog, much as it's done now. That's a tiny little death tax.

There's a suggestion. Same as I've been doing so for the last couple of days, only a little more fleshed out.

I understand your suggestions just fine. Your suggestion of recovering XP by either walking to your body or paying an NPC to bring it back will do nothing more than tack on a money cost to death (or an additional time cost). People are not going to spend ten minutes getting their body back when they can pay someone to do it for them. So you may as well just call it a death tax for soloists, because that's what it'll be. Party players will have resurrection at their disposal, but soloists won't.

Out of curiousity, how much time do you have per day to play WoW, ir? I don't have much. I have two kids and work out of my home. Going to retrieve my body is a drudge. Paying someone to get it back for me is only slightly less of a drudge. Dying already sucks, given the dispersion of bind stones throughout the world. It does not need to be made worse.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

57. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 8:17:48 PM PST |

NOW your thinking max!

your starting to put the pieces of balance togther.

what happens if you don't have this ToR tho? which cost 1S? do you have to wait 5 mins for a real rez from a player? now you notice your death taxes? first you have to buy an item ToR, then you have to keep it rechaged.. you also have to give up a item slot for this item.

what happens if you don't have this item and you die?

as for my playing time.. in Alpha phase humans, i put in about an hour a day+, many horus on weekends =), during AP_dwarfs, much much less time becuase i wasn't a fan of the dwarfs quest cuasing the player base to to do much level grinding.. during AP_undead, on and off.. varies nothing to great, becuase it was jut released and most of my playtime is weekends =).

i'm a casual gamer, if thats what your trying to find out. but i'm a dedicated gamer at that, i enjoy my games, and i enjoy games that brings me a challenge.. and i also beta/alpha test many games and understand game balance and logic =)

epribish

Gateway: WoW

58. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 8:32:43 PM PST

Just a quick note on a DAOC comment from above, the price you pay at level 50 IS nothing. I know many people that at the end of a night of hunting go running into the mob field to die, or every time they gain a level. It is just a little annoyance and does not stop anyone from using death for transportation. This game if it had a "death tax" in it would be the same.

E

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

59. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 8:39:06 PM PST

Everyone gets a ToR. It can't be traded or sold. It starts fully charged. Costs might have to be scaled for lower-level characters, but it would have to be cheap. 1S to recharge from an NPC.

Costs of 5C per death are just a teeny little less irritating than the suggested 2S to retrieve a body from an NPC (assuming that was ever put into play.)

Caveat, I can't see Blizz really adopting this. It still makes instant intercontinental travel possible, which might not be one of their design goals. However, that doesn't change my stance that death is irritating enough and punishments don't need to be racheted up.

tweidner

Gateway: WoW

60. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 9:48:39 PM PST

This game is about FUN, is it FUN now? sure is to me, why would you want to add frustration and a needless time sink ( corpse run ) to it?

So people may be able to use death as a means of travel to ONE spot? so what? this game will have all types of travel as well as SUMMONING, and mounts. Death will have a price, a 5 minute rez sickness is not something to take lightly especially in times of PVP battles etc.

I really don't get these people who won't let go of the crappy death templates instituted in first and 2nd generation MMORGS. We have all played games with these different penalities and guess what? THEY DONT ADD TO THE FUN.

Just my 2 cents as always
[ post edited by tweidner ]

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Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:31 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 10:21:19 PM PST

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ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

61. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 10:21:19 PM PST |

and what if your out of charges on the ToR? and the player dies, is he forced to wait for a normal rez? or can he just release like how he does now? and if he releases as the player does now.. does he have to pay any sort of cost for not using the ToR?

AEBMEIER

Gateway: WoW

62. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/16/2003 11:02:51 PM PST

WEll, part of the FUN to me is RISK. As it is, there is no RISK involved in the game. That's not saying it isn't fun now (it is) , but I would like to see more risk, because risk adds to the reward.

just my 2 cents

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

63. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 12:15:01 AM PST

I guess if you run out of charges on the ToR, then you're SOL and you wake up where you were standing, or you get a normal rez if you're in a party.

But this is a lot of talk over something that isn't likely to be implemented anytime real soon. I don't think that the designers wanted folks to be able to blink across continents in an instant, which means we're likely to see a change in the way bind stones work. What that might be, I don't know.

cfeist

Gateway: WoW

64. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 1:53:13 AM PST

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Q u o t e:
WEll, part of the FUN to me is RISK. As it is, there is no RISK involved in the game. That's not saying it isn't fun now (it is) , but I would like to see more risk, because risk adds to the reward.
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Huh? There is still plenty of risk taking in WoW. Just because you don't pay a severe death penalty and have to retrieve your corpse doesn't make certain zones, mobs, quests less risky.. However, the result of risk taking in WoW are much less painful, and in my opinion, is a major reason why WoW is so much more fun than any other RPG on the market. I believe a number of people have summed up what I feel already, so I will save my breath. It boils down to having FUN, and right now, WoW is a perfect example of a FUN GAME.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

65. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 8:48:28 AM PST |

So if you have no ToR left, you get to auto rez automaticlly right where you die?

is this after the 5 mins?

so thats forced downtime?

" don't think that the designers wanted folks to be able to blink across continents in an instant,"

and thus the travel by death. the designers don't want travel by death, and thus why it's an issue.

"which means we're likely to see a change in the way bind stones work."

bind stones are not the problem, the problem is not having a penatly for death, if there is not death penalty, then there will always be an issue with abusing death as means of travel.

Now do you see what what i suggested actually works out well?

Buying back your XP you lost at death from a NPC CS, and the cost of coin depends on your level.. so a level 10 guy would have to pay.. 50c or soemthing.. and it's increases as the levels go by.

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

66. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 9:28:10 AM PST

Wow, you're just determined to browbeat anyone who doesn't agree with you, aren't you, ir? You demand alternate suggestions and then hammer on them incessantly once they're offered.

I reiterate. You're not interested in any ideas but your own. You're not interested in debate on the issue. You're interested in misreading at every opportunity and putting words into people's mouths. I'm not advocating forced downtime, never have. The only thing I'm advocating is a minimizing of death penalties, period. But then I don't want people to take fall damage either...

I might point out that your plan doesn't change travel by death, ultimately. Once I hit say, level 10 or so, it's never going to be too hard for me to come up with the NPC body retrieval fee. There will still be travel by death, only there'll be a minimal fee attached to it. That certainly won't dissuade people. If they're willing to pay 1.5 S for a griffon ride from SW to Westfall, then they'll pay 2 S to zap from Redridge to Westfall (as a number of quests require you to do). They'll do this particularly if they're goal-oriented players who don't have a lot of time.

So long as death involves teleporting a body to a safe place, folks will use that to their advantage. You'd have to make the body-retrieval-fee prohibitively expensive in order to keep the deterrent in place. The only solution to death-travel is having bodies res where they lie, which has its own host of problems.

But I'm going to say that this discussion stopped being useful a long time ago. Perhaps we should find something else to pick on and then come back to this once we've had some more time to consider it. Let's tackle another burning issue, like...why aren't Priests allowed to wear leather?

rshrider

Gateway: WoW

67. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 9:46:02 AM PST

Body retrieval sucks. It sucked in EQ and it would suck if they put it in WoW. I cant even count the number of times I died when I was close to logging for the night and then I got stuck with a 30min-1hr corpse retrival. And of course theres the issue of camping some place safe for the night so when you log in you dont get gak'ed right away and spend another 30min getting your corpse. Then there's the lag issue of all the bodies around. Especially when you get some bored moron that makes a lvl 1 char and keeps suiciding to see how many bodies they could stack up...

Exp loss sucks.
Reguardless of how brilliant the uber guilds think or say they were, the one reason they defeated the bosses long before everyone else was persistance. They had and were willing to spend the time dying over and over to figure out an encounter. Its why all of the "2nd & 3rd" tier guilds stayed 2nd and 3rd tier. I was in an uber guild and lets face it, when you encounter a hard boss you end up dying alot to figure out the encounter. Loss of exp thrashes the causal player.

Ive said it before and Ill say it again, make a hardcore mode(or server) and put in major exp loss on death, steeper exp curve, double mob hps, and let all the powergamers pick that server if they want. They can have the prestige of being uber because they beat the game when it was really hard and brag to their buddies about how L33t they are..etc..etc. The rest of us like the game the way it is now.

Edit: Oh yea and about traveling quickly all over the game world: I never understood this about EQ or any MMO that tries to make it take a long while to get places. The friggin point of a massively MULTIPLAYER game is so that people can hook up and play!! Making it take 30+ minutes to get to your group of friends so you can play together(Evercrack) is moronic at best.
[ post edited by rshrider ]

BEaslick

Gateway: WoW

68. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 9:46:09 AM PST

Maybe I have an unusual perspective. Just before I got into the WoW Alpha, I purchased FFXI. So I now have two, wonderfully new games to entertain me, and each have been competing for my attention since day 1. FFXI has a straight 10% exp loss for death, AND you can loose your level (this is opld school and severe). WoW just returns you to your bind with a bit of rez sickness. I enjoy both styles, to be honest. However, I find WoW's style more arcade, and less "invovled" . It is a number of things, including the more lenient death penalty that make up this feeling. When I want to do some serious gaming, integrate with a team to do interesting things, and feel very challanged, I pick FFXI. When I want to casually game, like I come home from work and I am really tired, I don't want to deal with people, and don't want to take a lot of time, I play WoW. I play FFXI to WoW 6:1, and if I had to pay for both, I probably would have dropped WoW until I got bored with FFXI.

Levelling in WoW to me seems easy. There are a lot of things to kill, everywhere, and they so far have been easy to single out. The battles are fast, and just about any tactic you use allows you to kill atleast one mob before resting, which means you really don't have to use much in the way of tactics at all. Last night I was running around with my bare hands, casting no spells, and melee'ing things as a level 8 Warlock! I can cast damage over time spells but I can juse as easily, eaasier in fact, use my main bolt spell over and over until my target dies. I can throw myself headlong into any stupid situation with little or no regard for tactics or strategy because if I die I just respawn and do it again. I have to kill Maven what's his name in the middle of the Scarlet camp? I blast in there with guns balzing, throwing everything at him, dying just after he does, and compelte the quest. I trail across the contryside with little respect for the creatures around me, training things for fun, jumping off cliffs, and largely being a total moron in just about every situation because there is no drawback whatso ever for doing so. The game feels geared to 13 year olds, and judging by the rampant kill stealing, it seems they may be out there in force.

In FFXI, I am cautios. I almsot alwasy travel with a gorup of fellow players for prtection. There are several parts of dungeons we have yet to see because of the risk of dying, but are planning to see one day. The encoutners are hard, and you are almost always trying to devise new ways of handling something. There are debates on tactics, and methods, which debuffs to use, how best to employ your party's resources. Encounters require palnning. In one case, we had to kill a dragon at around level 20 as part of our mission. We tried it once, came close to defeating him, but were wiped out. We spent the next three levels training together, and discussing tactics, and growing stronger for our next bout with dragon. When we finally took him again, and won, we were all on an incredible high. It was one of the best gaming experiences I had in along time, sinc ethe early days of EverQuest ...no one died, but some were close...we were so happy, it was SO intense. We were so jazzed we formed a guld afterwards, we all felt so close. If FFXI had WoW's death penalty, we would have just kept going and attacking the dragon over and over again at level 20, until we finally defeated him, becuase there would be no penalty for death. We would have been frustrated, it would have been tedious, we would have defeated him ...eventually. We never would have had that overwhelming sense of accomplishment that comes from using the correct tactics and effectively working as a team, defeating the "risk" of death.

They are different games, and each game is good in its own right, but in the end, I prefer soemthing more like FFXI. It is just weak to me to port back to your bind point to sell by dying deliberately. But I will do it, because it is convenient, and there is no drawback to it.

..just my two cents.

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

69. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 10:18:26 AM PST

BEaslick, out of curiousity: what level have you reached in WoW?

Does FFXI have a /played feature? What is the real ratio?

RHSIA

Gateway: WoW

70. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 10:27:21 AM PST

Hehe, FFXI would be my perfect example of what NOT to do in a next-gen game. FFXI was so casual unfriendly that 3/4 of our guild left the game before the first month was up.

I stuck it out for over 120 hours, and spent probably 100 of those hours mindlessly grinding at mobs. Every time I took a risk by trying something even slightly off the beaten path, I was rewarded with -10%xp and a possible level drop. The level drop is not that big a deal when you boil it down to numbers, but it is clearly a form of *psychological* punishment. What this does is ultimately force you to constantly play it safe, killing the same mobs over and over to level. Even when you hit a good pace, people will complain they are bored and want to try something slightly harder. Result? Group wipeout and more wasted time. So then they learn their lesson and go back to safe grinding. If that's your idea of fun, more power to you. But my sense is that the general MMORPG audience, and the newer casual gamers, have grown weary of this style of play. The changes in EQ (and the popularity of LDoN) are clear evidence of that.

The fact remains that while you do get a sense of accomplishment with *calculated* risks (such as the dragon example where you had to level up 3 more times to kill it), I submit you can have just as much (if not more) excitement with uncalculated risks, taking chances and winning (or losing) without being penalized. It's all in a) your mindset and b) the content you are presented with.

dlyons

Gateway: WoW

71. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:00:31 AM PST

"Death penalties aren't fun. It's fun to NOT have a death penalty and progress the way I wan't to without worrying about what happens."

sounds like...

"Work isn't fun. It's more fun to win the lottery and not have to go into the office, and not have to worry about what happens."

(there's a reason why they aren't in quote format, no one said this to such detail)

Both situations feel too fake to me. Don't get me wrong, if you win the lotto and want to give me all the cash, I'll take it...but still...too fake (it gets BORING without balanced risk vs reward, even when it's something as basic as survival).

Give me SOME realism. (and I'm not a masochist because I want a death penalty for the same reason I'm not one for wanting falling damage at certain drops...u figure it out)

-D
--Tanner--
---Ashen---

rshrider

Gateway: WoW

72. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:30:05 AM PST

hehe we've been through this battle before dlyons

Ill stick by my suggestion. Make some servers hardcore and others normal. If you feel you need the challenge then select a hardcore server (not diablo type hardcore when death is perm, just with death penalties and slower exp curve) and allow the rest of us to pick a normal server(the way the game is now). Everyone has already suggested it for pvp types where there is a server for full pvp and the rest are partial pvp, I dont see why the powergamer vs casual gamer cant work the same way.

I dont want things to be "fake" or easy but some of us that enjoy games quite a bit also have real world commitments and we just cant put 60 hours a week into a game and its not fair to say if someone cant put 60 hr/wk into a game they dont deserve to see half the content.

You obviously favor the powergamer side and we have different ideas about what is fun. I wont try and convince you that something that is fun shouldnt be alot of effort. What I will suggest is people find enjoyment in different ways and designing a game for just one type of person makes it boring for the rest. Since the powergamers dont want to compramise I suggest a seperation. Make seperate servers and disallow server transfers. Ill play the game the way it is now(very fun!) and you can play it on a hardcore server and work for your reward. Everyone is happy end of story.

mlandry

Gateway: WoW

73. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:39:54 AM PST

(Didn't read the whole thread cause I'm at work and don't have the time/patience)

Why not just change the system so that Bind Stones are like Cell phone towers. When you die, the game calculates which is the closest friendly bind stone, distance-wise, and drops you off there when you die/release. Most people always bind at their closest one they fight at and it will effectively eliminate long distance death travel.

jhugard

Gateway: WoW

74. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:50:54 AM PST

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Q u o t e:

CHEMPEL
I've had more fun playing WoW than I've had playing any previous game, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that there is no death penalty. The game plays like a GAME, not like a job, not like a duty, not like any kind of investment or obligation. The lack of a death penalty is an integral part of that - it creates a feel of adventerousness, riskiness, and general relaxed fun.

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I totally echo this opinion... I'm not even near the end of this thread, but this is exactly the way I feel too.

Jay

Beaslick

Gateway: WoW

75. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:57:40 AM PST

Sorry Kwerle, at work right now...shhhhh...don't tell anyone! I can't give you a slash /played on FFXI, but it is obscene amount. WoW has had much less game time. So far I have played up to about level 8-10 with the Humans, the Dwarves, and now the Undead. WoW has been fun, but underwhelming.

Bear in mind, I am a hardcore gamer. I like to have a really fast computer, with a top notch video card (infact two atm, one of whcih occasionally runs bots). I play FPS games, I enjoy RTS games, flight sims, and I have played almost every MMORPG out there, going back to several text base muds. I remember the launch of UO and EQ. I probably don't fit into the "casual gamer" gamer mold. I don't mind "casual gameing", in fact I felt that way myself at times, but I do grow quickly bored with games that seem menial, trivial, or without challenge. This also means I do not "grind". In EverQuest, I played on the Test server instead of their production servers because of the Test server's chronically low population, and regularly mob rich dungeons made for some very scary hunts. I dungeon crawled very tough dungeons with my single group that other people would consider raid worthy for 2+ groups, and rearely if ever "camped". I played SWG in beta, the ultimate "casual gamer" experience this side of SIMs on-line, and I hated it thouroughly. So you have to take this persepctive into account, when listening to my arguments about WoW.

I want SERIOUS challenge and extreme fun. I quickly grow tired with poor implementaitons and lack of content. I am probably the worst customer that a MMORPG company could have. I have high exptactions, I play ALOT, for a shrot time, then get bored if the game is not "finshed". I could potentially expire the game's content within the first free month, if the world is small enough and it was the only game I was currently playing.

The argument of a death penalty is basically trying to place a game between two extremes, permanat death vs. god mode. Neither game is "fun" in my perspective. And if I had to choose, I would pick God mode because no one, including me, likes to die and suffer penalties. However...

If you were playing a game chess, but each time you made a stregically poor move, and lost your peice, and you could just get it right back again and place it on the board because there was no signifigant penalty for loosing a chess peice, would that make chess a better game? Well, you could try more unusual and less safe strategies to be sure, because now you have realitvely little to loose. You might even start deliberately killing some of your peices to teleport them to the back of the board for convenience. You might try new tactics you never even consdiered before. ...but in the end, would your inevitable victory taste as sweet? Is it really worth any time at all playing such a game, where you really can't loose? Some people will say yes, and for them, I guess there is WOW.

I like WoW, I like running around brainlessly bashing things. I liked Diablo for the same reason, and the venrable arcade classic Gauntlet. WoW is more complex then those games, but to me it gives the same feel. I like exploring and seeing the pretty graphics in WoW. I enjoy trying each class, none of which I have felt the need to place in a group, and I tend to be a very social role-player and avid grouper in other MMORPGs. I am however consuming the content of WoW at an alarming rate vs. the amount of time I have played it. I am levelling rapidly without even trying. I acutally thought exp was amped for the alpha, before I realized that this was just how the game was set up. If I did not have a much stronger distration of FFXI, I would have capped all my WoW characters. I am not saying that WoW should cater its design to me. But I can clearly see the cost of a missing death penalty in terms of strategic and tacical play in WoW (or lack there of). When you lower a penalty, there is a cost. It doesn't just make the game better with no change in how the game works. The cost to WoW is there is less risk, and risk = strategy. The less risk a game has, the less stretegy you need to counter it. If you do not need to have strategy to defeat a challenge, you start picking the most convenient tactic as opposed to the most strategic method. Like nuking somethign over and over again with one spell as poosed to carefully stretching your mana through teh use of damage over time spells. Convenince can be fun too, but utilmately, is more boring then a grinding camp in EverQuest. The less strategy a game has, the more simple the games become. It is a difficult game design decision with no clear right and wrong. All I can say, is that from my experience, WoW has a less challenging feel, and is drawing me less strongly then a game like FFXI. But maybe that is good for Blizzard, maybe they do not want their game too challenging, and chase away the coveted casual gamer market. I can understand this marketing decison. There is no way the game can be eveyrthing to everyone. And hardcore players will STILL play WoW, if maybe only for a time.

rnichols

Gateway: WoW

76. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 11:58:29 AM PST

It seems that the purpose of this "death penalty" proposed in the original post is to simply eliminate the free means of travel... not to enhance the challenge of the game.

I've played various single player and multiplayer games for about 15 years now... Everquest being the most dominant over the last 3.5 years.

While I agree that boredom, "finished it", or "too easy" was the main reason for me quitting most games, I know that the risk of dying was not what kept me focused on EQ as it has. I am a member of one of the supposed "uber" guilds in EQ and the thing that has kept me playing is the challenge to defeat the next encounter and progress to the next level of play. If WoW provides me with a challenge at every level of the game, I'll stick with it. I don't want to EVER BEAT the game.

If WoW were to implement a death penalty, it wouldn't cause me to lose interest in the game, nor would it make me feel it were more challenging. It would just be an annoyance. The real challenges in all the games that Blizzard has made thus far lied in the overcoming of a tactical disadvantage, and coming out on top. THIS is what would keep me playing WoW.

If I were faced with a choice of dying to get back to my bind point, and having 5 minutes of "death sickness" versus using a potion or scroll to teleport back there, I would pick the potion every time... provided there were no "penalty" envolved for having teleported.

Perhaps an additional concept that could be added to this "recall" idea mentioned upthread would be to implement a release delay, which prevents you from releasing your corpse the instant you die. Maybe make a two minute waiting period when you die before you can release. This might go into effect after level 10 or something.

Death porting would certainly become less viable as a fast means of travel if you had to wait 2 minutes prior to release after you died. A recall scroll or potion would be a more efficient means if this were implemented, and thus people would almost always use it instead of death.

If you find yourself stuck out in the middle of nowhere and no potions, you could buy one from a nearby player (who makes the potions with alchemy), or if you so choose, you could suicide and release yourself to bind after two minutes.

No matter what penalty you put in place, some people will still use death as a means of travel. Give them other options that are more viable, and it will decline drastically.

dlyons

Gateway: WoW

77. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 12:04:22 PM PST

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Q u o t e:
Why not just change the system so that Bind Stones are like Cell phone towers
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Can you kill me now? GOOD!

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Q u o t e:
Make some servers hardcore and others normal
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Please don't waste valuable resources for "please don't hurt me" difficulty servers. And the above suggestions are in no way hardcore.

What will happen is you'll end up with a clump of server types (pvp based, dont hurt me based, pin-in-my-eye-cuz-you-died-from-server-crash based, and acceptably balanced death penalty based servers)...You'll have so many people trying to get in the X amount of server Y, or Z and...it will be a clusterphuk. BAD BAD BAD idea. NO NO NO. PLEASE NO. (note I'm against this.)

and again, NO!

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Q u o t e:
You obviously favor the powergamer side and we have different ideas about what is fun.
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You missed where I wrote out how I've been a power gamer full-on in the past, but can't now, and am definately casual...I juggle around 60 hours a week of work/school on average, unless it's this week...where I snuck in waaaay too much gaming time without sleep

And your assumption that we have different ideas about what is fun is clearly wrong. We both have fun arguing with each other on the forums when we're stuck at work

(and don't argue with that...er...)

Anyways, I knew my post would get me an elbow in the ribs, but I did it anyways cuz I haven't slept in a couple days and the caffene won't wake me up. There isn't anything hardcore about the penalties suggested.

-D
--Tanner--
---Ashen---

dwalker1

Gateway: WoW

78. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 1:07:08 PM PST

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Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:
Why not just change the system so that Bind Stones are like Cell phone towers

Can you kill me now? GOOD!

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In catching up on this thread, I too thought of this (nearest bind stone resurrection) before I saw that someone else had posted it. So what do you see being the problem with being resurrected at the nearest bind stone? It would solve cross continent death-travel without costing the player through the use of a stronger death penalty as a deterrent.

I also don't see how different death penalty servers are any more of a waste of resources than PvP, PvE, full co-op, RP, non-RP, etc. servers. All of the above require special attention by way of the GMs/devs for either balancing or policing.

That said, I liked corpse retrieval in sub lvl 30 or so EQ

rshrider

Gateway: WoW

79. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 1:48:35 PM PST

Having the different servers isnt a waste of resources. Our dollars pay for those servers and just like with EQ if you release with both server types availible I think you will find most people will gravitate to the non-hardcore servers. If they dont blizzard will simply consolidate the populations of the unpopular servers and free up machines to use for the more popular ones. It wont change the number of total machines they buy or the overall population.

Dlyons,
What I just dont get is your aversion to letting people play the game the way they want. You say that if two people are playing the same game but in different places(servers) and one person gets something faster(easier if you prefer) then you it cheapens the game for you ? Why do you care what someone else does ? You ever played neverwinter nights ? people mod games all the time to make it more to their liking, do you hunt them down and make em stop ? You know Canada has 5 pin bowling, does that ruin it for you if you ever go bowling here in the states since they only have to knock down half as many pins ? Stop trying to beat people down if they dont agree that your way is the only way.

If it makes you feel better they can label the harcore servers "Im a total badass and I own you" and the normal ones "Im a sissy, please dont hurt me". Ill still play on the sissy server if it allows me to progress through the game at a decent pace without having to dump 60 hours a week into it. (and yes I know you said you arent a powergamer any more, but I also recall a line where you stated that you would jump right back into it if the uber guild system sprang up in WoW and everything got alot harder).

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

80. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 3:10:53 PM PST

Beaslick, you've played up through about level 10, and you're saying it hasn't been too much of a challenge: you're right.

OK, no offense, but...

Try to hit 20th. Try to work your way through a dungeon that's L+2 to L+4. Then talk to me about challenge and reward in WoW.

Up to level 10, Blizz figures you're just learning the ropes, not hanging you with it. Hell, you've barely experience the res sickness death penalty as it is!

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Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:31 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 4:02:40 PM PST

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MROBAINA

Gateway: WoW

81. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 4:02:40 PM PST

I really think you need to have a death penalty, but I'm all for making it as flexible as possible. Here is the way I'd do it:

Death causes a 7% exp (of current level) penalty.
Ressurection spells can mitigate this bringing it down 2% per Res rank, so rank 1 brings it down to 5%, rank 2 to 3%% and rank 3 to a 1% penalty. There would also be an NPC in each major city that allows you to COMPLETELY mitigate the penalty for a certain coin cost. And finally you could just do a corpse run to reduce the penalty to 3.5%. So essentially you'd have several options for reducing or eliminating the penalty completely.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

82. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 5:13:34 PM PST

finally read all the posts in here. here's my 2 cents. first of all you can die in this game. That right there is already downtime and a penalty in and of itself. You either have to a) wait for a priest to res you (if you're in a group no problem) or b) you have to go back to your bind point. both cases currently you have a res penalty. If you chose a then you have to wait for the priest to get his/her mana back before you can continue attacking and you have to get everyone back together in a safe place before going back at it (more downtime). if you choose b) then you have to walk back to the place you were fighting (again more downtime) which can be several minutes depending on how far away you were. Because of the downtime death already causes that should be enough of a penalty in my opinion.

When you really think about it the game is challenging by making it so you character CAN be killed. Think about it. You're in a group you fight a really tough monster. You die and your party runs to the zoneline so they don't die as well. 1 maybe 2 others die. The priest has to be careful when ressing because they dont' want to agro anything and die themselves or res someone and they die cause they were to close to an agro mob. No one in the party wants to go back to the bind point cause it's too far away and would take time to run back. Finally, after 10-15 minutes the priest has ressed everyone and you're finally organized again and ready to do battle. That's penalty enough in my book, and combat/exploring is still challenging because you don't want to have to take the time to reorganize after a death has happened, nor do you want to wait for everyone to run all the way back to the spot you were fighting. Soloing is even worse penalty cause you don't have the luxury of having a priest with you at all times like in a group situation so if you die you most likely will have to go back to your bind point which could be a 10-30 minute run just to get back to where you were at.

So I really don't see any need for taking XP hits from death. To me that ruins the fun of the game if you are undoing everything a person has worked for by taking away their hard earned xp. Especially since death can come in many forms and a lot of which might not be the fault of the player. It might add a bit more risk involved to the challenge but it doesn't add or take away from the challenge of defeating a monster or completing a quest.

As far as the whole death travel issue I don't really consider it an issue. Death travel is involved in most MMORPG's that I've played. If you plan on grouping you will most likely bind to the closest point to the zone you are gonna group in cause groups hate to wait for people to run back from far away especially in the case the priest has died as well. You can only go back to your last bound place so you'd have to travel far enough away to make it worth your while and hope to god you don't die before you're done doing whatever it is you're doing before your planned death. And if it really is an issue then blizzard could implement something like on death you get transported to the nearest bind stone like someone suggested or you get transported to the zoneline. since the zoneline might not be the safest place you could implement something where you can't attack/be attacked for 60 seconds or until you zone out of the zone. that way people couldn't kill you repeatedly at the zoneline by training and you can leave the zone safely.

Anyway, I say no to xp loss of any kind (even temporary ones) and that the currently penalties for death are fine. Any more death penalties would just make the game more frustrating when you die and hence make the game less fun.

jhugard

Gateway: WoW

83. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 5:22:20 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:

ireynoso
but Travel by death is an issue, [...]

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You appear to be the only one that thinks so :-)

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

84. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 5:23:02 PM PST |

The "release to closiest tower" idea, is one that just might work.

You see ppl, there are still ideas out there which work, "release to closiest tower" denies players to warp cross country in death, and thus the death by travel is solved.

Sure it would be a tad of a headache, but it will also force players to use griffs to travel aswell as mounts.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

85. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 5:28:58 PM PST |

i guess i'm the only one that cares about game balance then, and i guess i'm the only one that should be a tester..

if you other "testers" don't see travel by death as an issue, then i really don't think you should be alpha testing this game. when things are clearly being abused becuase they are wrong, and you think it's ok.. you shouldn't be testing at all.

thats like if a vendor was selling level 50 swords for 1 copper, isn't it wrong to not report it as an issue? why should the level 50 sword be 1 copper, but the level 10 sword be 8 silver.

why should someone have to use a griffen ride to travel and pay 2 silver, when he can just kill himself.. and travel for free?

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

86. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 5:56:27 PM PST

two things IR. 1 that's only one way travel and not round trip so you're getting travel for half price and will have to take the griffs or whatever at least once. 2 you'd have to be doing something that doesn't require you to kill mobs because you'd be risking death and going back to your original bind point half way across the world before you were done doing what you wanted to do and thus would have to make the trip all over again to do what you originally set out to do. Sure some people might take that risk but for the most part I think you'll find people won't really care to take that risk. To me it's something very minor and like i said you will still have to use the griffons or whatever at least once to get where you're going. You won't be able to group because in general most parties in MMORPGs tend to want people who's bind points are relatively close to where they're fighting. I've had several people ask where my bind point was before letting me group with them. You gotta realize it's limited travel and risky as well to save a such a small amount of money. And really people will only death travel for one reason and one reason only. Not for the money like you keep saying but for the time it saves them from having to run back home. So I say I see this as a non-issue because it is very limited in it's use and you really aren't gaining much from it.

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

87. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 7:01:13 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
i guess i'm the only one that cares about game balance then, and i guess i'm the only one that should be a tester..
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Glad to see you're so open to differing points of view, ireynoso. Had that ego checked lately? =)

Edit: Added quote to make everything just THAT much clearer. =)
[ post edited by CHEMPEL ]

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

88. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 7:21:20 PM PST |

i'm into many point of views.. when they promote a postive solution.

And ok, i have an ego =), but for a reason.. i'm always right =) teehee.

you post a postive solution which will fix the issues, and then maybe you can post against my solutions. i hate yet to see you post anyway to fix the issues.. other then saying "there is no issue with the current death penalty, and travel-by-death is not a bad thing".

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

89. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 7:29:15 PM PST

There is no issue. It is not a bad thing.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

90. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/17/2003 9:47:16 PM PST

IR there is no issue here. the only issue is in your head. there are bigger things that actually matter more in the game than something so insignificant as death travel. the only way you're truely going to get rid of death travel is if you get rid of bind spots all together. You can add xp loss you can add death tax it's still not going to matter. Time is money to people and if dying will get you someplace faster than the normal modes of transportation then people are going to do it. It's inevitable. Hence why it's a non-issue. Not to mention it's really silly to try to do in majority of cases. The only time someone would consider it is if they need to get back to town really quick. People most likely won't do it from half way cross the world especially if they're going that far to find a group to fight in. Maybe you could explain why exactly it's going to be such a problem? And don't say it's because they're getting out of paying for a griffon ride. I'm sure theres other ways to bypass the griffon ride. Unless blizzard plans on making zones that are only accessible by taking a griffon or other air transport.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

91. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 7:38:54 AM PST |

you can't stop ppl from death travel.. but you can put a fee on it, and thus what my solution suggests. and the only way to force that fee to be paid is by, attaching a XP lost to the death.

And when they pay the fee they get the XP back. and problem is solved.

traveling for free is an issue. Death by Travel wouldn't be an issue is Griff rides were free.

mmaxwell

Gateway: WoW

92. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 9:09:30 AM PST

You're not making any sense, ir. XP loss isn't essential to make sure the fee is paid. Simply assess the death tax when someone accepts the 'release spirit' or 'accept res' conditions. Boom, instant death tax.

And travel-by-death would still be an issue if griff rides were free, because t-b-d is instant and griffs still take a fair amount of time.
[ post edited by mmaxwell ]

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

93. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 9:12:27 AM PST

So, ir, what your saying is this:
Using bind stones should cost silver.
Solo players should be penalised because they don't have a priest around to res them.

I disagree. I think the current system is fine. I would say res sickness should be level/2 minutes (unless you touch your corpse), but it's no big deal either way.

eklem

Gateway: WoW

94. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 9:21:28 AM PST

This discussion has been handled in other posts, many times, I have contributed my 2 cents in those other posts. And as such, there's no way I'm reading 5 pages of this thread.

That being said:

My 12th Warrior, who is completely dependant on his Str/Sta stats to survive, has many times gotten into a death cycle that only stops when I quit.

Log in, run down Silverpine road, get jumped by bear + wolf + wolf = dead. /release

run down road, still trying to get to where I was trying to go, jumped by equal level bear (while I am rez sick) = dead. /release

Repeat the above until I am so frustrated I quit playing for a few hours.

The res sickness is IMO a perfectly functional death penalty. Enough so, that now with my Warrior, I sit my butt down at the bind stone and wait the full 5 minutes before trying to leave Sepulcre.

slipton

Gateway: WoW

95. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 9:25:42 AM PST

Another advantage of just having rez sickenss, and not leaving a corpse behind at all, is it cleans up the silly business of being in two places at once, being in your own body but also having other bodies of yours laying around somewhere, which so many games do that veteran gamers don't even notice the silliness anymore.

I mean really, what's happening? Are you getting cloned? And if so, what's going back to an old body of yours have to do with anything?

Straight ressurection makes a lot more sense; You die someplace, and either a person with the power brings you back to life, or a magic stone with the power teleports your body to it and brings you back to life. A side effect, however, is you need time to fully recover from the process. It's a neat, clean & elegant in a thematic sense, while doing the job in a gameplay sense.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

96. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 10:50:16 AM PST

IR you've completely overlooked my points and don't even respond with any counterpoints. People don't use death travel to save money. They use it to save time. Even if you made griffon rides free people would still death travel because it saves more time than taking a griffon. Even if you made a fee for res to gain xp back people would still death travel because it SAVES TIME. And really so what if someone decides to take the risk to travel halfway across the world to do some minor task there cause they won't be killing things i can guarantee that unless they feel really really lucky. So what's your beef with death travel? If it's because someone can get around paying for a griffon ride so what? I bet you can get around taking the griffon anyway by just walking. So what are you going to force people to start paying 2s just to walk somewhere? Are you gonna force teleporters to pay a price for each teleport? If griffon rides cost 2s that's nothing. And you would have to make your res xp cost a lot more than 2s to stop people from still doing death travel because they will still do it even if it's just a little more silver than taking a griffon because it saves them time I can't repeat that enough. Time is the big factor and anyone knows travel takes a lot of time in MMORPGs even if you take a griffon you're still losing time. However, death travel even though it's instant travel has a lot of cons. It's only 1 way travel. You have to plan far enough ahead to know for sure that you want to come back to that bind spot when you're done with what you're doing. You have to avoid death as much as possible before you're ready to go back to your bind spot. You still have to travel by foot to where you want to go before you death travel back to where you started from. The only pro to death travel is the instant travel and hence the time saved. The amount of money you save by doing this is so insignificant that it can hardly be considered a pro. I really doubt death travel is going to be abused all that much.

pcarver

Gateway: WoW

97. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 10:56:18 AM PST

i think when people die just to save time as a form of travel, that shows there is a need for a death penalty.

I personally like the idea of a seperate xp meter so you have to work that off before you can progress any further on your level instead of actually xp loss.

aarellano

Gateway: WoW

98. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 11:12:38 AM PST

As for me I think that the current penalties are fine, RES sickness is a major deal to me concidering I'm a warrior and depend on my DEF and STR to tank and take on mobs.

Travel by death has always been used as a quick mode of travel in almost every MMORPG adding an XP penalty sucks and I don't think that's a good way to go about it. Adding any "Tax" as a death penalty cheepens the game IMHO, Just look at SWG, they Tax everything, from skills to items to money to xp as a death penalty.

Do you even understand on how irritating it can get? specially when you get Lag death, or die by server crash or some glitch kills you. There is no true way to stopping travel by death w/out making some aspect of the game horrible, thus cheepening the thrill you get from playing especialy weekend warriors or flyby players, "Hardcore" gamers will sometimes over look it but they want everyone to enjoy it, not just the "1337". Perhaps, just to mak ir happy they can go and do the Diablo2 death penalty, everything equiped is dropped and you have to go and pick it up again. Personally I wouldn't want that, but I didn't mind it in D2.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

99. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 11:35:21 AM PST |

"i think when people die just to save time as a form of travel, that shows there is a need for a death penalty. "

bingo.

"I personally like the idea of a seperate xp meter so you have to work that off before you can progress any further on your level instead of actually xp loss. "

And please notice this... another idea which can work. from reading it, it seems you wont lose any xp either.. but you have to work up some extra xp in order for your current level to advance. But i think this is what all the players are afriad of, they don't want to be forced to "level grind" monsters over and over again to regain lost xp. doens't mean is not a good idea.. it's a fine idea.. and a fine punishment for death, hell i would make sure i never travel by death ever again if i had to level grind.

thankyou pcarver for posting another postive idea, and for showing the need for a death penalty.

Basiclly what you others which are agaisnt the death penalty are trying to say is.. you want another form of travel, which will allow you to not focus on mounts, and/pr griff rides, But you also want it to be free?

So you have as means of travel
-50g Mount you have to buy at level 40.
-2 silver griff ride.
-Your legs
-Free Death travel for no penalty
Or the new option which all you anti-lost have mentioned..
-Teleporter for all classes(which would take a slot in your bag? would it cost money? would it allow you to travel to anytown? what if you don't have this item.. do you not need this item, becuase it does the same thing as death travel, but just takes up room in your bag)

if the teleporter is free.. would you still use it being that it still takes a slot in your bag? when you can just die instead without the wasted slot being used by some unneeded item.

Is the teleporter an instant TP, which allows anyone to abuse when "battle gets to rough". if battle gets to rough.. why bother TP'ing out if you don't suffer any lost at death.

Is the TP on a 15 second uninterput timer? wont it still be faster to have a mob kill ya? afterall you wont have to wait 15 seconds for that.

Your ideas are not have no logic, break them down before you post them, and think "would this work". Think why would someone use that item IF death is still the best option.

You'll see that death will always be the best option, until death is punished. and putting a cost fee on death, being XP , Coin.. something that they TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR FORCFULLY for dying is the cost. most games make this cost unrefundable, the solution i posted makes this cost 100% refundable(he XP cost that is) it will still cost you coin(becuase one has to suffer a tad to use a better means of travel).

Now your TP idea would work, IF there was a punishment for death. and then i will be all for it. have the item cost 50 gold.. i would pay it if the death punishment was so painful, that i would use any other means other then death to travel. make the death punishment so drastic that i would fear dying. and that i would seek out, and pay insane ammounts of coin, just to be able to buy this lil item, which will allow me to travel to my bindstone.. without having to die.

So in order for one to work the way it is designed to work, you must frist change the way death works.

other ideas i see posted are.. increaseing the rez sickness based on level. so a level 50 player will have to wait 2 hours for his sickness to finally be cured. so your basiclly forcing a player, to wait 2 hours.. before he can even do anything? SAY NO TO FORCED DOWN TIME.

another idea i see posted.. not allowing players to release until the 5 min death timer is done.. which will auto release them to bind stone.. and i say yet again.. SAY NO TO FORCED DOWN TIME.

if your playing and paying for a game, you don't want to be forced to do nothing for 5 mins.

the solution i posted allows you to release your corpse(grave whatever) it still gives you all the options you have now to abuse, but at the small cost of coin. so sure, you can die over and over again, traveling back to your bind stone til the end of time. BUT it will put a drain on your wallet. If that is your corpse is not in range.

but lets say.. you die on the outskirts of town, you lose XP from the death and release.. your short 5 coper to buyyour corpse back form the npc.. so you head out to the outskirts of town, and just reclaim your corpse, you save your cash, and you regain your lost xp back in full.

can anyone please explain why this is a bad idea?

have i not explained over and over why travel by death is a bad idea? please do the same for me. with real logic.. not just your mindless commets "becuase they are" back it up with some in-game facts, on balance, ingame economy(sp?).

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

100. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 12:13:49 PM PST

IR you just don't get it. Your solution is not a real solution because you're just transfering the cost of riding the griff to death travel. And you're making it cheaper to do death travel than riding the grif. I've used real in game scenerios to describe why death travel is not an issue. You have not come back with any support for why we need to have an increase death penalty to stop this non-issue or even why it's such a big issue to begin with. Death penalties are not put in place in a game to stop death travel. On large death penalties are put into games to add a sense of risk to the game and a real sense of loss when you do die. Your price for resurrection is going to have to be at least 1gold to really put a slight damper on people doing death travel. If you want to keep it cheaper than the grif ride then why even have it? If you make it expensive to the point that it actually does what you're intending it to do then most low level people won't be able to afford the res so they're going to lose the xp. Adding a xp meter is essentially equivalent to losing xp and will make the game just as frustrating as well.

You keep saying no to forced downtime. If you're so adament about that then you wouldn't be in favor of a death penalty to begin with. Because any death penalty you enact will result in forced downtime to recover that which you lost. Hence why it's a "penalty." Be it trying to find the npc to pay the price of a xp res, trying to find your corpse to get get your xp back, or trying to even come up with the money to do the xp res.
[ post edited by jarnold ]

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Bulor · Postby **Bulor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:31 pm

Main Friends and Family Page > WoW Alpha General Discussion | WoW Alpha Tech Support

Topic: Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 12:26:12 PM PST

1 . 4 . 5 . 6

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

101. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 12:26:12 PM PST |

and if you would just travel currently, you wouldn't be forced to "track down' the NPc to bring back your corpse... or you find some extra cash becuase you keep on killing yourself as means of travel.

you do the crime.. ya gotta pay the time =) and travel by death is the crime.. and the time will be trying to find that so hard to find npc (which can even be standing right BEHIND the bind stone).

yea.. thats some harsh downtime right there., heck this same NPC can even cure rez sickness for a coin cost aswell. just to take more cash from ya!

slipton

Gateway: WoW

102. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 12:26:59 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
People don't use death travel to save money. They use it to save time.
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I used to not death port at all, but I also didn't do any interplayer trading (wanting to see how hard the game was playing it 'totally on your own').

Now that I am doing more trading, I find I feel almost obligated to death port, because if I make a deal with someone I'm keeping them waiting while we meet up, and vice versa.

It makes for a conflict (or contradiction); you can make a deal instantainiously, no matter where you are, through the trade channel and tells, but you can't conclude the deal without factoring travel time. It's a pushme-pullme which results in aggrivation, from people seemingly needlessly having to wait around, or death porting to try to avoid this, or both.

It's unsuprising, really. the trade channel's an abstract and totally unrealistic element, they're trades ngotiated by mental telempathy on some metagame level, so of course that'll result in consequense to other aspects of game realism in other ways.

Adding additional penalties or other measures to force slower travel won't fix this aspect of the issue, that'll only exacerbate it, by adding to player frustration of being able to make a deal immediatly in a metagame way, but only conclude a deal in a time consuming in-game way.

I heard that they're planning on creating an auction-house system, possibly though the banks. If that's the case, and we'll get a system involving vendor concepts where we don't have to use the trade channel at all, then I think you'll see a lot of the death porting go away as well.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

103. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 12:52:01 PM PST

IR you still haven't addressed the price issue. And either way you look at it it's downtime more from the point that you need to have the amount of cash needed to pay for the res.

Actually if I die now I don't have to track down anyone and I still have downtime due to the res sickness. You seem to think everybody is going to be doing this. Yet you haven't proven that it's a worthwhile way to travel. I have pointed out several of the pros and cons to death travel and the cons severly outweigh the pros. Not to mention the only possible heavy use of death travel will be for fairly short distances anyway and most likely wouldn't be circumventing any griffon rides.

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

104. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 1:23:34 PM PST |

the price issue? what price issue? the price is not an issue, becuase everything in woW cost money, food cost money, new skills cost money, new wepaons cost money, new armor, griff rides, quests, tools, EVERYTHING but one thing... death.

From what your trying to say JA, is that anything that cost money is force downtime(which is true.. the game is designed so that you can work save up, work in a way to purchace or do things you wish to do) thus why new spells and skills and weapons/armor cost money.

So putting a cost on death.. would complete the the balance between travel and death.

Thankyou for puting that out to me, so i could explain to you how the game works =)

you die now.. you have 5 min res sickness, which is basiclly a small hitpoint and mana lost. which by the time it takes you to travel back to your battle location, it's already gone.

and actually JA, you have not proven any pros and cons about traveling by death.. you simply have shown that it IS being ABUSED, and that it needs to be FIXED.

durng the alpha_test_humans, there was many missions which forced the players to go from westfall to lakeshie.. about 4 times back and fourth, and yes, becuase death had no penalty, i would have mobs kill me to instant travel back to my bind at westfall.. saved tons of cash on bypassing griff rides, and time. is that abusing a the system? sure has hell is it. would i have done it if there was a death penalty, chances are yes.. but i would have paided the price in order to save time.

TIME IS MONEY!. you want things the fast way.. YOU PAY FOR IT!

walking - free - slowiest
griff ride - coin - speedy
mounts - much coin - fast w/ freedom
death - free- instant speed

ways of travel are not balanced with the current system.

RHSIA

Gateway: WoW

105. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 1:36:17 PM PST

"walking - free - slowiest
griff ride - coin - speedy
mounts - much coin - fast w/ freedom
death - free- instant speed "

One thing that may or may not be obvious, but you can't compare some of these forms of travel as equals.

Walking I can go absolutely anywhere I want (assuming I can survive).

Griff ride is from one set location to another.

Death travel only allows travel to a single set location at a given time. Sure you can change where that location is, but you will have to use some other form of travel to get to the new bind spot.

These are clearly not equal and can only be compared in the specific case where the desired locations happen to be the same. Blanketing them into the same category is misleading.

kwerle

Gateway: WoW

106. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 1:37:15 PM PST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
everything in woW cost money..., EVERYTHING but one thing... death
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and

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Q u o t e:
TIME IS MONEY!.
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Death is almost always a time sink. So in most cases, death is a cost.

If you wanna make griffon rides bind to the destination, that will kill the griffon skipping (one-way rides with a death back).

Really, though, I think cheap scrolls of TP would be great. Maybe you should suggest that, ir.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

107. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 1:43:08 PM PST

I already know how the game works thank you for being arrogant and egotistical. The difference here is you're looking at it that it's some big huge issue that MUST be fixed otherwise the game is completely broken and worthless and I'm looking at it from the side "what's the point?" So you can die and get back to your homepoint big deal.

Let's take a look at you're list and add one more variable:

walking - free - slowest - can go anywhere
griff ride - coin - fast - can go to certain places
mounts - lots of coin - fast - can go almost anywhere
death - res sickness - can only go to 1 place

ways of travel balanced based on the limitations of where you can go. of course i agree with RH you can't really blanket them together.

If you really truely feel that death travel still needs to be taken care of then get rid of bind points all together. It's simple and easy solution.
[ post edited by jarnold ]

ireynoso

Gateway: WoW

108. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 3:26:31 PM PST |

blanking them togther becuase thats the way it's being used.. if death is being used as a mens of travel, then it is viewed as a travel method.. until the point in time where as it is not a method of travel.

But becuase the players will ALWAYS use it as a way of travel, it should be placed in the balance by putting a cost on it, and a way to put a forced cost, is by jointing death travel with xp lost.

Sure you can choose to NOT pay the coin cost to reclaim your corpse.. and sure you can NOT head back and reclaim your corpse on your own. and then you will pay the XP cost of XP lost.

I would suggestion a cheap TP scroll concept IF the player base would first understand that in order for one to work.. another change must take place first.. and that change is death penalty.

so JA, what would removing bind stones do? how is that a solution? please explain yourself when you post random ideas. anyone can just throw out random ideas like "lets just not have us die", or "when we die, after 3 seconds, we auto rez 15 feet from our current location". if you post a solution, please explain how it would work, explain how it solves the issue.

If there are no bind stones.. then what happens when someone dies? do they just remain where they die til the end of time? heck, thats a fine way to solve the travel by death issue if thats what your aiming at.. but what would that force? for you the dead player.. to wait for a rez?

if you still have a hard time understanding the simple solution i posted, then maybe you should take a look at the other suggestions other players posted. what about the "release to closiest bind" idea. that would seems like it would work just fine with the current system. but then you will also loose a feeling of exploration if you happen to die a tad closer to some bind stone you have never been to, and you end up entering a town with no griff rides out, and then you find yourself.. traped in a town wish is way to above your level. but eh, would be a nice punishment for tyring to travel by death if you ask me =).

and JA, your forgot to remove the word INSTANT from my list under the travel by death list., and if you also notice, the other means of travel actually have somewhat of a permnant effect. minus walking that is.. which is free.. but the others mounts, and griffs, take money away from you. but death.. you seemed to have labeled the cost as res sickness... res sickness isn't permnant.. it's not really a cost.. becuase you don't have to do anything to get that cost undone. so it's not really much of a lost. if a lost at all for what you gained.

and what you gained was a faster trip without cost when you compare to the other means of travel. so until there is a cost for death, it will remain the fastiest means of travel.. without the cost.

so i ask you one more time .. post reasons and explain your solutions.. before just posting.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

109. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 6:54:18 PM PST

i have posted reasons several times you just don't seem to be able to understand them. i've also already explained the removal of bind spots but you must've already forgotten that you commented on it already, or you just read a post and don't give it a second thought cause you prefer your own ideas rather than be open to differing opinions(and i have no intention of reposting my idea). You're like talking to a brick wall. I have a complete understanding of your solution. It's not the best solution out there because people will still rather pay that small amount money that you suggested for the npc rez (i believe you said something like 5cp per rezz) than take the griffon. So you're solution really does absolutely nothing. I however, don't have an issue with death travel because I know how limited it is which you obviously can't seem to grasp what exactly is entailed with death travel. The way you talk you seem to think people are gonna travel everywhere via death travel when that's not the case.

CHEMPEL

Gateway: WoW

110. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 7:09:37 PM PST

Ireynoso seems to believe that death is currently only being used as a form of travel, and has ignored the fact that 90% of all deaths occur involuntarily. He would like to punish people 100% of the time for something that occurs 10% of the time. I find that rather foolish.

jarnold

Gateway: WoW

111. Re: Discussion: Death Penalties | 12/18/2003 7:16:41 PM PST

yeah i kind of got that idea from his posts. And it's more like 1% of the time heh

Bloodwinter Clan

DEATH PENALTY FORUM (copy pasted all)

DEATH PENALTY FORUM (copy pasted all)

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