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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Though the appearance of gear seems like it would relate more to the current durability of the item, how much it has worn down, ect.. but it would be interesting to have a visual indicator for someone that has negative xp
Thanks for the link. I don't think the devs said quite what you said they did.
I'm going to quote verbatim instead of notes in a bit, but even just from the Lazy Peon notes:
What are the punishments for dying in this game? Do they differ for PvP and PvE?
36:25
What are the punishments for dying in this game? Do they differ for PvP and PvE?
STEVEN: Do they differ for PvP and PvE? At the moment they do not and I don't think they will, but that's something we're still discussing.
Penalties include things like experience debt penalties -and that's not like to a de-leveling sense- you're going to accrue negative experience that may have an impact on your performance in the game with certain skills and abilities.
And we're still talking about what exactly those death penalties are going to be.
OK so maybe like debuffs and stuff?
STEVEN: Mmm hmmmn. Could be things like debuffs that might have some time to allow you to re-enter combat or something so you just can't just spawn run.
It could include penalties on you overall health. It could include penalties on your skill damage and percentages, your casting time. I mean, there could be certain things that are associated with this that we're still discussing.
Also your death respawn timer temporally increased with every death, but that also was to make farming your own character with other account/friend harder.
Also if there would be stat punishment when you have loots of negative xp, then it's basically equals with deleveling, even if you call it on a different name.
Heavy punishment for deaths impact the PvP negatively. One can say that be good and not die, but that's not work this way. If you got ambushed by a 10man group you will die, your skill doesn't matter. Losing hard earned xp or items cause you got ambushed isn't fun, it just forces geared players to stay in safe zones whole day, which will eventually kill the PvP.
Not to mention that a good player needs to die some times. It's better sometimes if you sacrifice yourself for your teammate. Well it would, but you will going to get punished for defending your teammate?
Not to mention that while a skilled one can stay safe and it maybe just end in a boring game, a casual one will going to die loots, and will quit fast when he would need to re level/gear in the 20th time.
Simply a heavy durability lose is enough. It's not that big punishment to make someone quit the game, but it's very good for the economy, as it makes constant need for new gear.
It's also much more easy to implement a simple durability lose, than calculating every possibilities to when and how much xp/item should a player lose on death. Not to mention that random item drop is much worse than losing every item, and stat dampening is just ****.
Loosing xp is certainly valid for PVE. I don't mind you leaving certain items on your corpse so you have to go back and recover them i think it is totally valid and adds to realism. I think the Vitae system they HAD in AC was great, first death 5% loss ( 5% per death) to all stats up to a maximum reduction of 40% in PVE. This was great because as you recovered your xp your vitae would diminish until you were back at 100% stats. This encourages thoughtful play as the player is now sensitive to and respectful of the xyz mob that just kicked their butt. In the process you may have to ask others to go help retrieve your corpse and recover your vitae in a group. I think it builds better community and gives players pause before they decide to just jump in on something without penalty. It builds community, character and may actually improve us as human beings (not that, that is the job of the game) which i think is incredibly positive. So please lets have a death penalty, simple durability loss is not sufficient because repairs are NOT a huge economic motivator.
I believe both need xp loss especially in an open PvP enviornment. Without any loss there is less of a fear of death correct?
Now i firmly believe that PvP death should be more or less than PvE depending on the circumstances. I will be using PvE as a base model of what 100% would be. These are just examples to show that I believe it's never just a fixed number of percentage loss and many factors should play a role. Such as:
- Level difference = An equation should be implemented for level differences prior to the above percentages being applied. such as: [100 - ("level difference" * 2)] So, if a level 50 kills a level 40 in a fair fight this would cause the level 40 to lose only 80%. If that same difference was a PK. It would translate to 75% of the currently calculated 80%. Coming to only a loss of 60%
- No percentage number should ever fall below 50%
Using any remainer beyond that 50% should be multiplied by 2 and added as a percentage of corruption accrued So..Using the same equation if a level 50 pks a level 1 the level 1 would only lose 50%.
BUT. Because that would normally come to 1.5% there is a remainder of 48.5% that was ignored and will be applied to the PKers Corruption as [(48.5 * 2) + 100] = 197% the normal corruption that would have been obtained.
This solves a lot of issues I experienced and some of you are worried about such as:
- high levels ganking lower levels still is a loss but less
- Farm/botters deliberately killing their crafters to bring them to a lower level (this also needs all skills lost if a level is lost)
- PK's of mass level difference would drop and PKers would focus more on people their level.
- PK still serves a purpose but at a higher cost to the one killing if the levels are too far difference. This would make the kills have to be more meaningful or have a better reason for it
****ALL OF THE ABOVE SHOULD ONLY APPLY TO OPEN PVP. THIS EXCLUDES ANYTHING SUCH AS GUILD WARS, NODE BATTLES, CASTLE SIEGES AND MORE.**** I believe those should all stay 100% regardlessthoughts?
I mean that I often do stupid things such as falling off cliffs etc.
The extra added panic that I probably ought not to walk off that cliff is a great incentive to use my brain more often
However I can't say I'm not concerned with player death around a jumping puzzle etc that would require a higher level of dexterity.
Being physically disabled I tend to die a lot when doing jumping puzzles.
And whilst I have to turn off any voice chat whilst doing them to hide the torrent of swearing... I love doing them...after the event of course...after I've achieved it and calmed down.
I would really appreciate a death penalty free zone surrounding the ground underneath jumping puzzles...
I played UO, SWG, and FFXI before WOW even came out. I know how these games push players to be better. However the best method I found of keeping players around and pushing them to be better was the SWG model. In SWG if you died and didnt clone near by you ended up with a Stat penalty and had to spend time getting the stats healed by a doctor and a dancer. Also the Gear broke fairly fast in SWG. It was punishment enough that players didnt just go around being stupid because it cost credits and time. It didnt de-level you or perma death unless you were a jedi.
SWG had very good death mechanics that can be used in Ashes. Let's make it so a Cleric can heal a persons stat loss due to death. Let them buy gear to replace their current gear. Do not make gear that can always be repaired endlessly.