Im just thinking that if there are open world world bosses and raids, the death count could add up.
Will these be instanced then?
I loved runescape when u still lost ur stuff when u died. The system was supporting the idea of risk vs reward.
The system also gave u the possibility to choose the gear ure willing to lose. I hope ashes would have something similar to this through resource management.
@insomnia remember that ure supposed to have fun when ure levelling up. Try to enjoy the journey.
"You're seeking for perfection, but your disillusions are leading to destruction.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Just because failing a test doesn't affect your overall performance doesn't make the test pointless, because you still want/need to pass that test.
That sounds like a participation award.
You don't pass a driving test when you get back to the testing office if you run over three old ladies and two school children on the way. Just because you got to the 'finish line' doesn't make you a winner.
My point is that there are already natural consequences for failing in an mmorpg (your character dies). Adding additional punishments and penalties onto that just for the sake of it is pointless. Think of it this way. If you are in a raid fighting the boss and your team fails, you die and don't kill the boss. If it is a linear raid (as most raids are), you won't be able to move on until you beat that boss. Do you need more penalties than that?
The character death is the cause of the penalty.
You tell Johnny not to hit the cat.
Johnny hits the cat anyway.
Cat bites Johnny.
The Cat bit Johnny because Johnny HIT the cat, the fact that Johnny disobeyed is a separate issue which requires resolving.
Why? Isn't getting bitten punishment enough? Would added punishment make Johnny less likely to hit the cat in future?
Also the driving test example is perfect for my needs. In the UK a driving test is split into 2 parts - theory and practical. You take the theory test first and have to pass it in order to book your practical test. If you pass the theory test and then fail the practical test, you don't then have to do the theory test again. You just keep taking the practical test until you pass it.
Punishment for the sake of it is meaningless, in both real life and in video games. Any death penalties you put into the game need to be integrated into the other gameplay systems, to have some kind of purpose.
So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2019
@blackhearted "What is the penalty for max level?" That is where stat reduction comes in. You will be trying the hardest content at that point presumably, so any reduction to your character's abilities would sting. In pvp situations, being level 50, but hitting like a lower level character would also be a factor. They have said they are looking at having reduced penalties for certain content. <speculation>My guess is that it would be the instanced dungeons and raids as these would be easier to keep people from using as low penalty zones in the open world to grief. They are also the content that people would die or "wipe" on most frequently while in a learning mode.
I think people are overreacting big time.
Some of the comments paint a picture of a player that dies in every 20 steps they take.
I never said that I want item drop, like Line][Age, for non corrupted state deaths (corrupted state is when a character goes around killing people that dont fight back).
As for the de-level, how many times are you planning to die, beside the fact that people suggested exp debt.
With this victimized attitude I dont see some people going far in the game AoC seems to be, least worry about xp debt upon death in high levels.
Is this what years of sterilized instanced dungeon runs have done to mmorpg players?
So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?
I think you really have to read what others have said multiple times already
I don't think he does. I don't have to read everyone's response to know that maybe 10% of the people understand that death penalties are generally spankings that are administered for injuries sustained by ignoring advice.
Know the best and fastest way to teach an AI? It works for humans and dogs too, you ignore it for disobedience, reward it for mistakes (or exploring for dogs and kids), and reward it MORE for successes. This convinces the Intelligence to take risks, but always leads it back to seeking the most favorable results.
Know what the least effective methods are? Simple punishment for disobedience and mistakes, and reward for success. This stunts the growth of the Intelligence in question, forcing it to strictly stick to a singular path and discouraging it from trying new things, because any unknown can result in punishment while certain knowns will always result in reward.
Same concept applies to game theory and human behavior in games. If a player faces too much risk and loss for death, they won't pursue high risk adventures. Stacking too much penalty on PvP death in particular leads to players seeking zero or low risk scenarios and avoiding high risk ones. In games that rely on PvP (planetside for example), death penalty is all but non-existent. Interruption of play is actually a punishment in itself, and is punishment enough to drive up adrenaline.
Interruption of play is actually quite literally how puppies learn muscle control and restraint when biting each other in play. If one puppy bites the other too hard, the other puppy yelps and backs off, play comes to a stop, and the first puppy focuses more and more on avoiding that interruption. Humans can teach puppies and dogs to restrain themselves when biting by yelping and stopping whatever they are seeing as "play", because that's how they learned to adjust themselves when playing with litter mates. All intelligences learn by experimenting with options, and figuring out the most rewarding action with the least cost.
What Wanderingmist is asking is, how does experience loss/debt/whatever contribute to the play of the game? And don't respond with "it drives adrenaline!", no it doesn't. The only thing experience loss does is piss players off. Meanwhile, you have rewards for taking risks in PvP in the form of looting materials which, I'd hope, have significant value attached to them. Loss of this material is punishment for loss in PvP as well, and will be a loss on top of experience. Why should I go out and gather materials when the act of collecting materials is a high risk endeavor compared to killing and taking materials from other players/caravans? Every time I put my head down and gather mats from any node, I open myself to attack. If I, instead, choose to attack, I never open myself to attack and instead can freely attack those who do.
Where is the drive to gather mats? If I have to defend myself against a player, I flag myself for PvP and attacking me is a low risk endeavor. If I am flagged, and go gathering, I may as well paint a giant red target on my ass.
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AzathothMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to shape an mmorpg, a genre that requires commitment and a lot of time invested, when you can spare 6-9h a month? That is so selfish. In addition there are countless mmorpgs right now that are not that challenging, not to mention other types of games.
You tell Johnny not to hit the cat.
Johnny hits the cat anyway.
Cat bites Johnny.
The Cat bit Johnny because Johnny HIT the cat, the fact that Johnny disobeyed is a separate issue which requires resolving.
Your character (Johnny) dies because you aren't doing something right. Your actions caused the death (a bite), now you have to receive the penalty.
This makes no sense outside of an Early Childhood setting.
Regardless of that, a better analogy would be if Johnny pet that cat wrong, not if he hit it. Most people know not to hit a cat - just as most MMO players know not to run in to the raid encounter solo. However, not all people know that the cat has an infected ear and doesn't like being touched on that side - just as not all MMO players know for sure whether their group is able to tackle the challenge they are setting out on.
In an MMO, developers want to encourage (or at least not discourage) players from attempting new things. A game could have all the content in the world, but if players are punished too hard for trying it, they simply won't try it.
No matter how much content a game has, no matter how good that content is, if players are too afraid to try it, they will simply play a different game.
And it isn't just content - it also works for builds. If there is a harsh death penalty, people won't be willing to try a new build - they will look up a build that someone else has said works, and they will follow it to minute detail.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to discourage "reckless" behaviour?
If you put exp loss upon death into the game, the players will learn to play very conservatively, never pushing the boundaries or challenging themselves for fear of losing their hard earned exp. Is this a good thing? Personally I think it's a bad thing because it halts a person's progression. You know those highlight reels where a player does an amazing move and escapes with just a slither of health? They can only do that if they know the limits of their character, and you only learn those limits by trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to discourage "reckless" behaviour?
If you put exp loss upon death into the game, the players will learn to play very conservatively, never pushing the boundaries or challenging themselves for fear of losing their hard earned exp. Is this a good thing? Personally I think it's a bad thing because it halts a person's progression. You know those highlight reels where a player does an amazing move and escapes with just a slither of health? They can only do that if they know the limits of their character, and you only learn those limits by trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If there is no consequence at all for dying, then you absolutely will see “shortcuts” as I like to call them
“Shortcuts” are fast travel via dying, which is a very popular system in ESO because it has negligible penalty for dying.
Another fun one is “vertical shortcuts” and the like, where you intentionally jump off cliffs to get down faster, or use the stage of invulnerability during a respawn to get place you aren’t supposed to be.
Or the “big pull shortcuts” in dungeons where you skip ahead by pulling every mobs on the way to a boss, intentionally dying to lose aggro, then fighting the boss.
So after seeing all the results of a death system with ignorable penalties, I’d ask why you would want such a handholding sustem that won’t even punish someone for doing stupid, obviously unintended things.
Exp debt, the system ashes is going to be using, is not going to take exp away. It doesn’t delevel you and it doesn’t remove your available skills. It starts eating your combat power (after very likely more than a small amount of deaths) so people stop throwing themselves at a challenge they have no business approaching right now.
Punishing reckless behavior and unpreparedness, rewarding preparation and thoughtful engagements, giving even more reward to those who explore far and wide and take on the hardest content.
It sounds like a very fair system
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to discourage "reckless" behaviour?
If you put exp loss upon death into the game, the players will learn to play very conservatively, never pushing the boundaries or challenging themselves for fear of losing their hard earned exp. Is this a good thing? Personally I think it's a bad thing because it halts a person's progression. You know those highlight reels where a player does an amazing move and escapes with just a slither of health? They can only do that if they know the limits of their character, and you only learn those limits by trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If there is no consequence at all for dying, then you absolutely will see “shortcuts” as I like to call them
“Shortcuts” are fast travel via dying, which is a very popular system in ESO because it has negligible penalty for dying.
Another fun one is “vertical shortcuts” and the like, where you intentionally jump off cliffs to get down faster, or use the stage of invulnerability during a respawn to get place you aren’t supposed to be.
Or the “big pull shortcuts” in dungeons where you skip ahead by pulling every mobs on the way to a boss, intentionally dying to lose aggro, then fighting the boss.
So after seeing all the results of a death system with ignorable penalties, I’d ask why you would want such a handholding sustem that won’t even punish someone for doing stupid, obviously unintended things.
Exp debt, the system ashes is going to be using, is not going to take exp away. It doesn’t delevel you and it doesn’t remove your available skills. It starts eating your combat power (after very likely more than a small amount of deaths) so people stop throwing themselves at a challenge they have no business approaching right now.
Punishing reckless behavior and unpreparedness, rewarding preparation and thoughtful engagements, giving even more reward to those who explore far and wide and take on the hardest content.
It sounds like a very fair system
Death warp abuse is always a tricky thing to handle but there are ways to combat it that don't involve a lot of death penalties.
Honestly I really do not have any desire what-so-ever to experience XP loss in a MMORPG ever again. I believe a game can be fun and exciting without the penalties for dying being that severe and irritating, that penalty really only serves as a very unwelcome time sink for most people that left many players feeling like they just lost and threw away a lot of valuable time because they made a mistake. It was done away with because people hated it and ultimately punished people of different skill levels and time availability for taking risks and playing the game, and honestly while I understand the thought behind penalties to make people try to be more thoughtful in how they play the game, this is not one that would go over well with most people since it can be very alienating for more casual players.
I do somewhat agree with the over-automation in MMO's, though, and MMO game worlds feeling smaller and smaller, even if they aren't, simply because of too many instant-travel options.
Then why should they even let you die? You can do mindless grinds without penalties.
IMO, the problem with MMORPG these days is that people want it all without much effort. That's also the reason MMORPG's are dying. Take WOW for example. You grind multiple mobs, almost never die and as a newcomer, a month later you're max level. Great. The leveling experience and being scared to face certain mobs just fades away. Then all of a sudden you're max level but feel no accomplishment because, damn, my unborn baby could get to max level in a week without dying.
It shouldn't matter if I can only play 1 hour a day (probably 2-3h a day though) too. Playing 1 hour every 3 days shouldn't get you to max level in a short period.
Because death is the penalty for failure. If you fail at something, your character dies and that is inconvenient enough. If you fail at something in life, you don't lose experience in your life, if anything you gain experience. If you fail a test, you don't come out of it knowing less than you did before you took the test. It's an artificial punishment that discourages players from taking risks and trying new things, or even playing the game as it's truly intended to be experienced because the vast majority of people will look for the path of least resistance to level, this is the nature of the genre because people place value on their time and effort, so being punished for taking on challenges does a pretty fantastic job of discouraging people from doing those things and this is part of why developers stopped implementing this kind of penalty.
There can be penalties such as repair costs, having to travel back to where you were, and even temporary short-term debuffs, nobody is saying you should just pop right back up where you died, but something arbitrarily hindering progression will be met with severe negativity that will ultimately only work to hurt the game's success in the long term.
I like to think we are not dogs or children and can handle exp debt as a risk for adventuring.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to discourage "reckless" behaviour?
If you put exp loss upon death into the game, the players will learn to play very conservatively, never pushing the boundaries or challenging themselves for fear of losing their hard earned exp. Is this a good thing? Personally I think it's a bad thing because it halts a person's progression. You know those highlight reels where a player does an amazing move and escapes with just a slither of health? They can only do that if they know the limits of their character, and you only learn those limits by trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If there is no consequence at all for dying, then you absolutely will see “shortcuts” as I like to call them
“Shortcuts” are fast travel via dying, which is a very popular system in ESO because it has negligible penalty for dying.
Another fun one is “vertical shortcuts” and the like, where you intentionally jump off cliffs to get down faster, or use the stage of invulnerability during a respawn to get place you aren’t supposed to be.
Or the “big pull shortcuts” in dungeons where you skip ahead by pulling every mobs on the way to a boss, intentionally dying to lose aggro, then fighting the boss.
So after seeing all the results of a death system with ignorable penalties, I’d ask why you would want such a handholding sustem that won’t even punish someone for doing stupid, obviously unintended things.
Exp debt, the system ashes is going to be using, is not going to take exp away. It doesn’t delevel you and it doesn’t remove your available skills. It starts eating your combat power (after very likely more than a small amount of deaths) so people stop throwing themselves at a challenge they have no business approaching right now.
Punishing reckless behavior and unpreparedness, rewarding preparation and thoughtful engagements, giving even more reward to those who explore far and wide and take on the hardest content.
It sounds like a very fair system
Death warp abuse is always a tricky thing to handle but there are ways to combat it that don't involve a lot of death penalties.
It’s hardly “a lot of death penalties”, just more than an ignorable amount.
The exp debt is primarily a deterrent to reckless (or griefing) behavior. If character death does not impact players in a significantly negative way, why would players make a significant effort to avoid it?
To carry on from ESO, there are in technical terms, penalties for deaths. Gear degrades by 10%, on the spot resurrecting requires a special item, you do not resurrect with full health or resources.
These penalties however, are ignorable.
Gear repair kits are widely available for cheap, and any NPC merchant can repair it just as cheaply.
Soul gems (the item for resurrection) are downright thrown at the player to the point where most vendor them off as trash.
Resurrection without full resources doesn’t matter as all aggro is lost on death.
So for similar penalties to work, gear repair has to be costly enough to feel it when you die a lot.
Any items for on the spot resurrection should be rare and expensive, if there are any at all.
Monsters should linger around any corpse they’ve slain, requiring they be killed if you’re even allowed to res in place at all either by item or spell.
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
There is no reason to run back as far as the system has been explained. Currency is never lootable, you only drop a percentage of gathered materials on death, items never unless you were at a high enough level of corruption. Found the content too difficult or you feel people are griefing you, don't run back and repeat the same behavior that got you killed in the first place. Or conversely, if you just have to kill that person that killed you to get "your flowers and some of his" then tilt against that windmill Don Quixote.
Personally, I dislike XP loss upon death because it's never added anything to the game experience other than having to do repetitive boring work to recoup the XP. It just makes the game less fun.
To me, possible gear damage, using up consumables in failed attempts, and having to run back is enough of a penalty - these are consequences for dying. For harder challenges like raids these penalties really add up.
Personally, I dislike XP loss upon death because it's never added anything to the game experience other than having to do repetitive boring work to recoup the XP. It just makes the game less fun.
To me, possible gear damage, using up consumables in failed attempts, and having to run back is enough of a penalty - these are consequences for dying. For harder challenges like raids these penalties really add up.
They should have a different system for raids and stuff, obviously. So what happens with the people who die because of convenience? As explained above by someone else.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Great rhetorical question.
I am expecting other forms of xp progression (and death penalty debt) besides just Adventurer progression.
Its not rhetorical.. the devs have already stated anytime your under an exp debt your stats are impacted. I'm hoping that includes skill proficiencies as well (fireball rank 3 can downgrade to rank 2 type deal though that is only my speculation at this point). It'll be nice to once again have a game that makes character death impactful.
Personally, I dislike XP loss upon death because it's never added anything to the game experience other than having to do repetitive boring work to recoup the XP. It just makes the game less fun.
To me, possible gear damage, using up consumables in failed attempts, and having to run back is enough of a penalty - these are consequences for dying. For harder challenges like raids these penalties really add up.
They should have a different system for raids and stuff, obviously. So what happens with the people who die because of convenience? As explained above by someone else.
I'm not sure I understand (what 'die because of convenience means') - I mean people will incur the penalties I mentioned both in regular play and in raids; the penalties are just compounded in raids due to the difficulty scaling (you will lose more gear durability, use more consumables, and run back a lot more).
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2019
I think that people are starting to treat forum topics like Discord. Instead of reading what came before, they read the title, jump to the last couple posts and then decide to start in. As explained before, they are looking at reduced penalties for dungeon and raid content. They have not said it is for sure, just that was an option they were looking at to adjust for the probable chance of increased death.
Die because of convenience is when people suicide to either terrain or mobs to use that as a form of fast travel by respawning at a node closer to the point they are trying to get to. We do not know if this will be a valid tactic in Ashes, since during the A0 experience they were a whole bunch of respawn points and it seemed to be random which was "closest" when you died. In survival games with no death penalty, die by convenience is used to reset different stats. Atlas is a good example of this and how not planning to integrate your systems or no death penalty truly make certain mechanics useless. They have hunger, thirst, and a vitamin system that if you don't eat, drink, and keep your vitamins balanced will kill you fairly quickly based off of how active you are being and your build. But there is no death penalty. So screw eating, drinking, and worrying about vitamin balance. I just die every 10 minutes or so and reset everything.
It kind of sounds like random respawn points is a simple and elegant solution to dying for convenience (in theory); players roll the dice by dying on purpose and could end up closer to or further away from where they want to fast travel to.
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unknownsystemerrorMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The mechanic explained is that upon death as a non-combatant or combatant you would respawn at the closest respawn point to your death. There are mechanics in place to stop spawn camping from their statements also.. In the case of dying while corrupted, your respawn point is chosen at random somewhere in the node. This prevents people from repeatedly dying to their buddies to clear corruption easily and also gives other players in the zone, including bounty hunters a bigger window of opportunity to intercept those individuals. The spawn points in A0 were numerous and fairly close to point of death, they have said however to not look at that as an indication of A1 or beyond density.
I really can not understand people who say there shouldn't be ANY loss upon death.
I don't understand why you SHOULD have any lose. Some of us don't have time to play 24/7. We got job and/or school. Do a sport, got friends, family, a parter etc.
I used to play nwn1 and 2. I was on a server for one of them, where when you died, you lost all the xp in your current level, and ½ into the previous level. They did this because they wanted people to team up. There wasn't that many people to begin with. People left and everything i looked, there wasn't anyone online.
But for me, it depends on how harsh the death penalty is, how much xp you gain as you play and how though the game is = how often do you die. They already said not all classes will be able to solo or will have a hard time with it. So that makes it sound like the leveling can be tough.
If the leveling takes as long as it did in vanilla (i'm not talking about classis, where i hear it goes faster and the game is easyer. I'm refering to the original vanilla wow). Adding in a death penalty can do so people will just quit, because they will never reach max level, especialy if you make the game just as hard. Remember how often you at times died in dungeons? Add in the dungeons are openworld = more lag? and others can also come and kill you. You shouldn't have finised a dungeon and come out with less xp, than when you went it.
It can just do so people will play it very safe, barely explore or challenge themself.
If the game is as tough as vanilla wow and the leveling is as slow and the add in a death penalty, then i think the game deservers to die and burn.
I really can not understand people who say there shouldn't be ANY loss upon death.
I don't understand why you SHOULD have any lose. Some of us don't have time to play 24/7. We got job and/or school. Do a sport, got friends, family, a parter etc.
I used to play nwn1 and 2. I was on a server for one of them, where when you died, you lost all the xp in your current level, and ½ into the previous level. They did this because they wanted people to team up. There wasn't that many people to begin with. People left and everything i looked, there wasn't anyone online.
But for me, it depends on how harsh the death penalty is, how much xp you gain as you play and how though the game is = how often do you die. They already said not all classes will be able to solo or will have a hard time with it. So that makes it sound like the leveling can be tough.
If the leveling takes as long as it did in vanilla (i'm not talking about classis, where i hear it goes faster and the game is easyer. I'm refering to the original vanilla wow). Adding in a death penalty can do so people will just quit, because they will never reach max level, especialy if you make the game just as hard. Remember how often you at times died in dungeons? Add in the dungeons are openworld = more lag? and others can also come and kill you. You shouldn't have finised a dungeon and come out with less xp, than when you went it.
It can just do so people will play it very safe, barely explore or challenge themself.
If the game is as tough as vanilla wow and the leveling is as slow and the add in a death penalty, then i think the game deservers to die and burn.
Without a penalty, there is no reason to avoid dying. If there’s no penalty, dying can be turned into convenience. Death porting, fatal but effective “shortcuts”, Leroy Jenkins trolling that wipes groups.
There has to be a penalty besides waiting five seconds for a respawn. Item loss and exp debt discourages reckless play and encourages defending yourself against players to lessen penalties of dying. If you keep failing a PvE encounter beside you or your group is not ready for it, whether that be because you’re not focused enough, your gear isn’t good enough, or you just need to complete another side objective to make it easier; you shouldn’t keep throwing yourself at it
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Without a penalty death is meaningless. There is no reason to be cautious and manage resources during a single combat or completing content. This is important, as it adds suspense and a risk vs reward aspect.
Will this prevent some players throwing caution to the wind with all their characters? Why not. Will this encourage some players to have an alt or two they play when they want to be less cautious? Maybe. Will this encourage a vast majority of players to avoid all things that could potentially kill them? My guess would be no.
I have a job. I have friends. I engage in outside of work activities that don't involve gaming multiple times a week. I also game irl outside of video games once or twice a week too.
Please don't generalize the casual audience to further this goal.
I am for death penalties. Item degradation and progress slowing are the most reasonable to apply.
This game will not be for everyone.
After reading their current goal with an eventual release, you might realize this game is not for you. That doesn't mean IS should change their goals because "so many" people want to avoid being penalized for failure. That doesn't mean, that at one point in Ashes' lifespan, it won't move to a zero-penalty rule for failure. At which point, they might see a large increase in subs.
Now, all that said when I donated to the KS it was clearly stated what their death penalty goal was. Enough people pitched in to fund the game's bells and whistles. So I find it odd that by leaving it as is, somehow the game would "crash and burn." Could be wrong, just my opinion.
Please play Ashes, I think there are aspects for everyone to enjoy if release goes as planned. You may also want to play other games at the same time to fill other gaming needs. There is no reason to just play one game until completion, even if your time is limited. Variety is one of the spices of life!
So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?
I think you really have to read what others have said multiple times already
I don't think he does. I don't have to read everyone's response to know that maybe 10% of the people understand that death penalties are generally spankings that are administered for injuries sustained by ignoring advice.
Know the best and fastest way to teach an AI? It works for humans and dogs too, you ignore it for disobedience, reward it for mistakes (or exploring for dogs and kids), and reward it MORE for successes. This convinces the Intelligence to take risks, but always leads it back to seeking the most favorable results.
Know what the least effective methods are? Simple punishment for disobedience and mistakes, and reward for success. This stunts the growth of the Intelligence in question, forcing it to strictly stick to a singular path and discouraging it from trying new things, because any unknown can result in punishment while certain knowns will always result in reward.
Same concept applies to game theory and human behavior in games. If a player faces too much risk and loss for death, they won't pursue high risk adventures. Stacking too much penalty on PvP death in particular leads to players seeking zero or low risk scenarios and avoiding high risk ones. In games that rely on PvP (planetside for example), death penalty is all but non-existent. Interruption of play is actually a punishment in itself, and is punishment enough to drive up adrenaline.
Interruption of play is actually quite literally how puppies learn muscle control and restraint when biting each other in play. If one puppy bites the other too hard, the other puppy yelps and backs off, play comes to a stop, and the first puppy focuses more and more on avoiding that interruption. Humans can teach puppies and dogs to restrain themselves when biting by yelping and stopping whatever they are seeing as "play", because that's how they learned to adjust themselves when playing with litter mates. All intelligences learn by experimenting with options, and figuring out the most rewarding action with the least cost.
What Wanderingmist is asking is, how does experience loss/debt/whatever contribute to the play of the game? And don't respond with "it drives adrenaline!", no it doesn't. The only thing experience loss does is piss players off. Meanwhile, you have rewards for taking risks in PvP in the form of looting materials which, I'd hope, have significant value attached to them. Loss of this material is punishment for loss in PvP as well, and will be a loss on top of experience. Why should I go out and gather materials when the act of collecting materials is a high risk endeavor compared to killing and taking materials from other players/caravans? Every time I put my head down and gather mats from any node, I open myself to attack. If I, instead, choose to attack, I never open myself to attack and instead can freely attack those who do.
Where is the drive to gather mats? If I have to defend myself against a player, I flag myself for PvP and attacking me is a low risk endeavor. If I am flagged, and go gathering, I may as well paint a giant red target on my ass.
Your error is assuming the penalty is punitive. It is not, you have died, here is your punishment, it is attempting to craft a believable world. Unknown brought up a great example in atlas, a game meant to simulate ship going life, and piracy. But players quickly realized that they could completely ignore the hunger thirst and nutrition system by killing themselves over and over. Zerging, death teleporting, some forms of griefing, all find their roots in little to no death penalty. If there is a risk involved with an action, especially if there is a known reward at the end of that action, a boss, a rare material from a dangerous zone, that action becomes more valuable. That then makes crafting, knowledge, teamwork, and preparation that much more important. Look to mmos like wow, who have various mechanics that are now almost completely useless because they are no longer necessary (healing potions, food and drink). It's effects branch out and touch almost every aspect of the game.
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Im just thinking that if there are open world world bosses and raids, the death count could add up.
Will these be instanced then?
I loved runescape when u still lost ur stuff when u died. The system was supporting the idea of risk vs reward.
The system also gave u the possibility to choose the gear ure willing to lose. I hope ashes would have something similar to this through resource management.
@insomnia remember that ure supposed to have fun when ure levelling up. Try to enjoy the journey.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Why? Isn't getting bitten punishment enough? Would added punishment make Johnny less likely to hit the cat in future?
Also the driving test example is perfect for my needs. In the UK a driving test is split into 2 parts - theory and practical. You take the theory test first and have to pass it in order to book your practical test. If you pass the theory test and then fail the practical test, you don't then have to do the theory test again. You just keep taking the practical test until you pass it.
Punishment for the sake of it is meaningless, in both real life and in video games. Any death penalties you put into the game need to be integrated into the other gameplay systems, to have some kind of purpose.
So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?
I think you really have to read what others have said multiple times already
Some of the comments paint a picture of a player that dies in every 20 steps they take.
I never said that I want item drop, like Line][Age, for non corrupted state deaths (corrupted state is when a character goes around killing people that dont fight back).
As for the de-level, how many times are you planning to die, beside the fact that people suggested exp debt.
With this victimized attitude I dont see some people going far in the game AoC seems to be, least worry about xp debt upon death in high levels.
Is this what years of sterilized instanced dungeon runs have done to mmorpg players?
I don't think he does. I don't have to read everyone's response to know that maybe 10% of the people understand that death penalties are generally spankings that are administered for injuries sustained by ignoring advice.
Know the best and fastest way to teach an AI? It works for humans and dogs too, you ignore it for disobedience, reward it for mistakes (or exploring for dogs and kids), and reward it MORE for successes. This convinces the Intelligence to take risks, but always leads it back to seeking the most favorable results.
Know what the least effective methods are? Simple punishment for disobedience and mistakes, and reward for success. This stunts the growth of the Intelligence in question, forcing it to strictly stick to a singular path and discouraging it from trying new things, because any unknown can result in punishment while certain knowns will always result in reward.
Same concept applies to game theory and human behavior in games. If a player faces too much risk and loss for death, they won't pursue high risk adventures. Stacking too much penalty on PvP death in particular leads to players seeking zero or low risk scenarios and avoiding high risk ones. In games that rely on PvP (planetside for example), death penalty is all but non-existent. Interruption of play is actually a punishment in itself, and is punishment enough to drive up adrenaline.
Interruption of play is actually quite literally how puppies learn muscle control and restraint when biting each other in play. If one puppy bites the other too hard, the other puppy yelps and backs off, play comes to a stop, and the first puppy focuses more and more on avoiding that interruption. Humans can teach puppies and dogs to restrain themselves when biting by yelping and stopping whatever they are seeing as "play", because that's how they learned to adjust themselves when playing with litter mates. All intelligences learn by experimenting with options, and figuring out the most rewarding action with the least cost.
What Wanderingmist is asking is, how does experience loss/debt/whatever contribute to the play of the game? And don't respond with "it drives adrenaline!", no it doesn't. The only thing experience loss does is piss players off. Meanwhile, you have rewards for taking risks in PvP in the form of looting materials which, I'd hope, have significant value attached to them. Loss of this material is punishment for loss in PvP as well, and will be a loss on top of experience. Why should I go out and gather materials when the act of collecting materials is a high risk endeavor compared to killing and taking materials from other players/caravans? Every time I put my head down and gather mats from any node, I open myself to attack. If I, instead, choose to attack, I never open myself to attack and instead can freely attack those who do.
Where is the drive to gather mats? If I have to defend myself against a player, I flag myself for PvP and attacking me is a low risk endeavor. If I am flagged, and go gathering, I may as well paint a giant red target on my ass.
Again, I am a casual with no more than 3-6 hours a week. Usually averaging 6-9 hours a month.
"So I'll ask again: what is the purpose of having exp loss upon death in Ashes of Creation?"
To discourage reckless behavior, or behavior stemming from not being penalized when in over the characters level or player's current skill. To encourage players to explore other areas or back track*. To give a higher sense of accomplishment knowing that extra effort had to be put in to recoup loss after a failure. To give meaning to failing and death. To follow the general theme of risk vs reward.
*Back tracking can be good, those considering it punishment due to time constraints really do need to reconsider the types of games they invest in.
Honestly, asking for a respawn after dying without consequences might be a more traditional way of thinking about. Because not having consequences for failure in an RPG is for sure something I have never heard of before. Personally I am usually against tradition, but in this case the other option seems to make the game more boring.
-Is this area too much for my character to handle? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is that other character too strong for me to challenge to PvP? Who cares, I'll just respawn.
-Is this legendary treasure worth risking death for? Yes! I'll just respawn.
Anyone that considers any outcome from a game as punishment has the option to avoid that punishment.
Also, as for not punishing disobedience.
Teaching children there are no consequences to their actions, I'll stop here. No need to go on a pointless rant about...
Why would you want to shape an mmorpg, a genre that requires commitment and a lot of time invested, when you can spare 6-9h a month? That is so selfish. In addition there are countless mmorpgs right now that are not that challenging, not to mention other types of games.
Regardless of that, a better analogy would be if Johnny pet that cat wrong, not if he hit it. Most people know not to hit a cat - just as most MMO players know not to run in to the raid encounter solo. However, not all people know that the cat has an infected ear and doesn't like being touched on that side - just as not all MMO players know for sure whether their group is able to tackle the challenge they are setting out on.
In an MMO, developers want to encourage (or at least not discourage) players from attempting new things. A game could have all the content in the world, but if players are punished too hard for trying it, they simply won't try it.
No matter how much content a game has, no matter how good that content is, if players are too afraid to try it, they will simply play a different game.
And it isn't just content - it also works for builds. If there is a harsh death penalty, people won't be willing to try a new build - they will look up a build that someone else has said works, and they will follow it to minute detail.
Why would you want to discourage "reckless" behaviour?
If you put exp loss upon death into the game, the players will learn to play very conservatively, never pushing the boundaries or challenging themselves for fear of losing their hard earned exp. Is this a good thing? Personally I think it's a bad thing because it halts a person's progression. You know those highlight reels where a player does an amazing move and escapes with just a slither of health? They can only do that if they know the limits of their character, and you only learn those limits by trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
If there is no consequence at all for dying, then you absolutely will see “shortcuts” as I like to call them
“Shortcuts” are fast travel via dying, which is a very popular system in ESO because it has negligible penalty for dying.
Another fun one is “vertical shortcuts” and the like, where you intentionally jump off cliffs to get down faster, or use the stage of invulnerability during a respawn to get place you aren’t supposed to be.
Or the “big pull shortcuts” in dungeons where you skip ahead by pulling every mobs on the way to a boss, intentionally dying to lose aggro, then fighting the boss.
So after seeing all the results of a death system with ignorable penalties, I’d ask why you would want such a handholding sustem that won’t even punish someone for doing stupid, obviously unintended things.
Exp debt, the system ashes is going to be using, is not going to take exp away. It doesn’t delevel you and it doesn’t remove your available skills. It starts eating your combat power (after very likely more than a small amount of deaths) so people stop throwing themselves at a challenge they have no business approaching right now.
Punishing reckless behavior and unpreparedness, rewarding preparation and thoughtful engagements, giving even more reward to those who explore far and wide and take on the hardest content.
It sounds like a very fair system
Death warp abuse is always a tricky thing to handle but there are ways to combat it that don't involve a lot of death penalties.
Because death is the penalty for failure. If you fail at something, your character dies and that is inconvenient enough. If you fail at something in life, you don't lose experience in your life, if anything you gain experience. If you fail a test, you don't come out of it knowing less than you did before you took the test. It's an artificial punishment that discourages players from taking risks and trying new things, or even playing the game as it's truly intended to be experienced because the vast majority of people will look for the path of least resistance to level, this is the nature of the genre because people place value on their time and effort, so being punished for taking on challenges does a pretty fantastic job of discouraging people from doing those things and this is part of why developers stopped implementing this kind of penalty.
There can be penalties such as repair costs, having to travel back to where you were, and even temporary short-term debuffs, nobody is saying you should just pop right back up where you died, but something arbitrarily hindering progression will be met with severe negativity that will ultimately only work to hurt the game's success in the long term.
It’s hardly “a lot of death penalties”, just more than an ignorable amount.
The exp debt is primarily a deterrent to reckless (or griefing) behavior. If character death does not impact players in a significantly negative way, why would players make a significant effort to avoid it?
To carry on from ESO, there are in technical terms, penalties for deaths. Gear degrades by 10%, on the spot resurrecting requires a special item, you do not resurrect with full health or resources.
These penalties however, are ignorable.
Gear repair kits are widely available for cheap, and any NPC merchant can repair it just as cheaply.
Soul gems (the item for resurrection) are downright thrown at the player to the point where most vendor them off as trash.
Resurrection without full resources doesn’t matter as all aggro is lost on death.
So for similar penalties to work, gear repair has to be costly enough to feel it when you die a lot.
Any items for on the spot resurrection should be rare and expensive, if there are any at all.
Monsters should linger around any corpse they’ve slain, requiring they be killed if you’re even allowed to res in place at all either by item or spell.
To me, possible gear damage, using up consumables in failed attempts, and having to run back is enough of a penalty - these are consequences for dying. For harder challenges like raids these penalties really add up.
They should have a different system for raids and stuff, obviously. So what happens with the people who die because of convenience? As explained above by someone else.
I am expecting other forms of xp progression (and death penalty debt) besides just Adventurer progression.
Its not rhetorical.. the devs have already stated anytime your under an exp debt your stats are impacted. I'm hoping that includes skill proficiencies as well (fireball rank 3 can downgrade to rank 2 type deal though that is only my speculation at this point). It'll be nice to once again have a game that makes character death impactful.
I'm not sure I understand (what 'die because of convenience means') - I mean people will incur the penalties I mentioned both in regular play and in raids; the penalties are just compounded in raids due to the difficulty scaling (you will lose more gear durability, use more consumables, and run back a lot more).
Die because of convenience is when people suicide to either terrain or mobs to use that as a form of fast travel by respawning at a node closer to the point they are trying to get to. We do not know if this will be a valid tactic in Ashes, since during the A0 experience they were a whole bunch of respawn points and it seemed to be random which was "closest" when you died. In survival games with no death penalty, die by convenience is used to reset different stats. Atlas is a good example of this and how not planning to integrate your systems or no death penalty truly make certain mechanics useless. They have hunger, thirst, and a vitamin system that if you don't eat, drink, and keep your vitamins balanced will kill you fairly quickly based off of how active you are being and your build. But there is no death penalty. So screw eating, drinking, and worrying about vitamin balance. I just die every 10 minutes or so and reset everything.
I don't understand why you SHOULD have any lose. Some of us don't have time to play 24/7. We got job and/or school. Do a sport, got friends, family, a parter etc.
I used to play nwn1 and 2. I was on a server for one of them, where when you died, you lost all the xp in your current level, and ½ into the previous level. They did this because they wanted people to team up. There wasn't that many people to begin with. People left and everything i looked, there wasn't anyone online.
But for me, it depends on how harsh the death penalty is, how much xp you gain as you play and how though the game is = how often do you die. They already said not all classes will be able to solo or will have a hard time with it. So that makes it sound like the leveling can be tough.
If the leveling takes as long as it did in vanilla (i'm not talking about classis, where i hear it goes faster and the game is easyer. I'm refering to the original vanilla wow). Adding in a death penalty can do so people will just quit, because they will never reach max level, especialy if you make the game just as hard. Remember how often you at times died in dungeons? Add in the dungeons are openworld = more lag? and others can also come and kill you. You shouldn't have finised a dungeon and come out with less xp, than when you went it.
It can just do so people will play it very safe, barely explore or challenge themself.
If the game is as tough as vanilla wow and the leveling is as slow and the add in a death penalty, then i think the game deservers to die and burn.
Without a penalty, there is no reason to avoid dying. If there’s no penalty, dying can be turned into convenience. Death porting, fatal but effective “shortcuts”, Leroy Jenkins trolling that wipes groups.
There has to be a penalty besides waiting five seconds for a respawn. Item loss and exp debt discourages reckless play and encourages defending yourself against players to lessen penalties of dying. If you keep failing a PvE encounter beside you or your group is not ready for it, whether that be because you’re not focused enough, your gear isn’t good enough, or you just need to complete another side objective to make it easier; you shouldn’t keep throwing yourself at it
Without a penalty death is meaningless. There is no reason to be cautious and manage resources during a single combat or completing content. This is important, as it adds suspense and a risk vs reward aspect.
Will this prevent some players throwing caution to the wind with all their characters? Why not. Will this encourage some players to have an alt or two they play when they want to be less cautious? Maybe. Will this encourage a vast majority of players to avoid all things that could potentially kill them? My guess would be no.
I have a job. I have friends. I engage in outside of work activities that don't involve gaming multiple times a week. I also game irl outside of video games once or twice a week too.
Please don't generalize the casual audience to further this goal.
I am for death penalties. Item degradation and progress slowing are the most reasonable to apply.
This game will not be for everyone.
After reading their current goal with an eventual release, you might realize this game is not for you. That doesn't mean IS should change their goals because "so many" people want to avoid being penalized for failure. That doesn't mean, that at one point in Ashes' lifespan, it won't move to a zero-penalty rule for failure. At which point, they might see a large increase in subs.
Now, all that said when I donated to the KS it was clearly stated what their death penalty goal was. Enough people pitched in to fund the game's bells and whistles. So I find it odd that by leaving it as is, somehow the game would "crash and burn." Could be wrong, just my opinion.
Please play Ashes, I think there are aspects for everyone to enjoy if release goes as planned. You may also want to play other games at the same time to fill other gaming needs. There is no reason to just play one game until completion, even if your time is limited. Variety is one of the spices of life!
Your error is assuming the penalty is punitive. It is not, you have died, here is your punishment, it is attempting to craft a believable world. Unknown brought up a great example in atlas, a game meant to simulate ship going life, and piracy. But players quickly realized that they could completely ignore the hunger thirst and nutrition system by killing themselves over and over. Zerging, death teleporting, some forms of griefing, all find their roots in little to no death penalty. If there is a risk involved with an action, especially if there is a known reward at the end of that action, a boss, a rare material from a dangerous zone, that action becomes more valuable. That then makes crafting, knowledge, teamwork, and preparation that much more important. Look to mmos like wow, who have various mechanics that are now almost completely useless because they are no longer necessary (healing potions, food and drink). It's effects branch out and touch almost every aspect of the game.