Dying in PvE, how often is too often?

I'm curious how frequently people think they should die in PvE environments. During solo questing for example, taking on content meant for your level range, I would still like to die once every 1-3 hours without being overly risky. I also like the slightly slower and more dangerous feel of the world that vanilla WoW provided vs something like BDO. In BDO I kind of feel overpowered (I have not reached end-game) and it's not really a matter of can I kill the mobs, but rather, how efficiently can I do it. How many can I farm at once sort of deal which has its charm and appeal but isn't as fun or challenging in my eyes. In contrast, in classic WoW I had to think about what HP/mana justified sitting down to eat/drink or bandage and how to recover/sort out my resources before any pull. And each pull was a bit scary, you had to be mindful of re-spawns, agro radius etc. This was a lot more enjoyable for me and was more humbling than BDO. The only issue I can see with this is the open world PvP can make an already challenging PvE environment nightmarish (specifically with stealth classes haha) but honestly, personally I love that.

I still very much would prefer a slower farming sort of gameplay where each pull was more dangerous but rewarding and I had to do some level of prep (drinking to get mana back) after a couple of pulls. I think how AoC deals with death in solo PvE environments will also be very telling of how group PvE content is meant to be approached. I think for truly difficult PvE group content (raids dungeons etc), the game needs to be friendly to death and if players have no real experience with it while solo question/farming then I think it would be a mistake.

Would love to hear people's opinions on how PvE death should be handled, and how frequently it should occur, particularly in the absence of PvP. And I'd also like to hear if the open world aspect of the game changes the desired PvE danger dynamic for you, as in if you think PvE should be easier since the game is open world PvP or something.

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Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Leiloni wrote: »

I think you also need to consider the current death penalties, which are rather harsh. You're not supposed to be dying too often in PvE and the death penalties serve as an incentive to be careful and avoid it. They also serve as an incentive to fight back in a PvP fight to reduce penalties since you're more likely to die in PvP vs PvE.

Ashes death penalties are not harsher than vanilla EQ and EQ2.

EQ is debatable, EQ2 is not.

Ashes is much more harsh.

Dygz

Ashes is about the equivalent of vanilla EQ2.

neuroguy

I recognize that how often you die depends on many factors including how you like to play which is why I made the post, I'm curious how people will fine tune their risk-taking tendencies in solo PvE environment and what they find acceptable and fun. For example you could decide to try to take on really tough content, make big pulls or pull elites as mentioned above and be ok with dying often. I was trying to say that I personally would like to play with some risk and would be ok with dying once every few hours, I am not saying I expect to randomly or arbitrarily die that often haha

. This means I would like to be taking on mobs in quick succession, or a few levels above my own etc.

Perhaps to refine my question, I would ask, what play style would you like to be valid or would you personally choose to engage with in a solo PvE environment? Completely safe where you never really die or are in danger of dying? Or some risk where you need to be careful and thoughtful about your pulls, enemy mob patrol patterns etc where you may die once in a while? Or straight up dark souls haha.

And although I agree with and recognize the perspective of @Ravudha and @Wandering Mist , I do also think it is fine for some deaths to be just bad RNG or luck where it's not really anything you can learn other than just shrugging and thinking "wow, what are the chances?". In general though yes absolutely, deaths should occur because you do not have the knowledge or failed to mechanically dodge or avoid attacks like @wrath suggested but I think having a pack respawn on you when you were about to sit down to heal up after a few chain pulls should be potentially lethal.

Personally I would like the PvE leveling environment to be dangerous enough where I have to pay attention and if I get a bit too careless or reckless (which will happen once every few hours I'm guesstimating) I should find myself dead because the PvE content is hard enough to be able to punish me.

Although this may not be popular, I am a bit sad there is no eating/drinking down time every couple of pulls (according to @McShave ). I don't think it's just a time sink, I think it adds a decision point, especially in an open world PvP game of how much risk am I willing to take with my health and mana resources. I could be more efficient and pull mobs with half HP knowing I can take them on comfortably or take a few seconds to eat and drink in case I get ganked. Hope that clarifies a bit what I was thinking.

George_Black

Im all for sit downs every 40 minutes or so.
It should be practical, rebuff and bring MP back to safe levels.
A chance for friends to relax from button mashing and have deeper talks for a few minutes.

I am not sure what eat drink means. I dont want it to be actual gameplay, food minigame, as it goes against relaxing.
I rly dont know what is meant by it.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes is about the equivalent of vanilla EQ2.

Vanilla EQ2 saw you go in to experience debt, 50% of which was recovered if you picked up your "shard". This experience debt did have a skill point reduction associated with it, but skills on EQ2 were never utilized properly (which is why they removed them), and so this never had any real impact.

The only other aspect to it was a small coin penalty in the form of gear degradation.

Fairly light death penalty, really.

Ashes has that same experience debt penalty, with associated stat skill and HP/mana loss.

Ashes also has similar gear degradation.

Even just at this point the two games are equal. But then you have to figure in the lack of means by which to gain back half of your experience debt, and Ashes is already harsher.

Then you have to factor in that you will drop a percentage of harvests and certificates on death - something EQ2 has no analogy of.

I'm not sure how you can say they are equal, to be honest.

neuroguy

George Black wrote: »

Im all for sit downs every 40 minutes or so.
It should be practical, rebuff and bring MP back to safe levels.
A chance for friends to relax from button mashing and have deeper talks for a few minutes.

I am not sure what eat drink means. I dont want it to be actual gameplay, food minigame, as it goes against relaxing.
I rly dont know what is meant by it.

I was thinking about WoW (vanilla) when I said that. Eating food would recover HP and drinking would recover mana. So you would eat and drink for a few seconds to recover HP and mana and like you said, have some down time to chat with the guildies, look through menus etc.

Dygz

neuroguy wrote: »

I was trying to say that I personally would like to play with some risk and would be ok with dying once every few hours, I am not saying I expect to randomly or arbitrarily die that often

I think pretty much every MMORPG would be fine with dying once every few hours.
Pressure mounts when you die multiple times in an hour or multiple times in a 30 minute time span.
How one feels about that will depend on cost to repair and/or recover items and time lost to xp debt.
How much time do I want to waste trying to successfully complete this quest now, when I could be more productive elsewhere?

neuroguy wrote: »

Perhaps to refine my question, I would ask, what play style would you like to be valid or would you personally choose to engage with in a solo PvE environment? Completely safe where you never really die or are in danger of dying? Or some risk where you need to be careful and thoughtful about your pulls, enemy mob patrol patterns etc where you may die once in a while? Or straight up dark souls haha.

Why not both?
I think the goal is for the player to learn how to make each adventuring spot safe.
For me, the goal is to learn how to use the skills and abilities I have chosen to represent my individual character's personality/theme/background to make each adventuring spot a safe place to level.
But...sometimes I level by swimming around continents - those coasts frequently have no hostile mobs.

neuroguy wrote: »

And although I agree with and recognize the perspective of @Ravudha and @Wandering Mist , I do also think it is fine for some deaths to be just bad RNG or luck where it's not really anything you can learn other than just shrugging and thinking "wow, what are the chances?". In general though yes absolutely, deaths should occur because you do not have the knowledge or failed to mechanically dodge or avoid attacks like @wrath suggested but I think having a pack respawn on you when you were about to sit down to heal up after a few chain pulls should be potentially lethal.

I'm not sure what you mean by bad RNG where it's not really anything you can learn.
That typically comes into play with relatively high risk challenges. An example of high risk challenge with regard to RNG is fighting higher level mobs before learning their tactics. If I'm fighting a same level mob after I've learned its tactics, I should probably not be dying from bad RNG. Especially not multiple times in an hour.
A pack should not randomly respawn from bad RNG. And...one should be able to learn to move from the respawn point to a safer area immediately after battle - or, better yet, learn to pull the battle to a safe spot where it's possible to place your back to a wall to avoid adds and respawns.

neuroguy wrote: »

Personally I would like the PvE leveling environment to be dangerous enough where I have to pay attention and if I get a bit too careless or reckless (which will happen once every few hours I'm guesstimating) I should find myself dead because the PvE content is hard enough to be able to punish me.

If you want danger, it's easy enough to create danger.
Every time I level, the first thing I do is explore as far as possible to uncover as much of the map as possible until the mobs are so high that they can see through my Stealth and insta-kill me.
Easy enough to try to sneak through high(er) level lairs, or sneak past dungeon/raid bosses.
You don't have to be safe if you don't want to be safe.

neuroguy wrote: »

Although this may not be popular, I am a bit sad there is no eating/drinking down time every couple of pulls (according to @McShave ). I don't think it's just a time sink, I think it adds a decision point, especially in an open world PvP game of how much risk am I willing to take with my health and mana resources. I could be more efficient and pull mobs with half HP knowing I can take them on comfortably or take a few seconds to eat and drink in case I get ganked. Hope that clarifies a bit what I was thinking.

I think eating and drinking needs to have enough animation that people enjoy using it for RP.
Most of the time, when I am with a group in MMORPGs, the other players just want to speed through as many battles as they possibly can in their play sessions. They would much rather down an insta-heal potion than "waste" time RPing having a meal. And, if I'm solo, there just is not enough difference in the animation or effects of eating Halfling Sticky Buns vs eating Elven Vegetable Stew for me to care about RPing it (even if I'm Twitch streaming or recording for YouTube).

These days, I'm in some form of voice communication with other players, there's no need for "down time" just to chat. And, we could camp at any safe spot to browse menus without needing to eat or drink - just because we want to take a break or because we want to RP camping...without mechanically needing to eat or drink.
The way that was forced 20 years ago was just needlessly tedious. Really only acceptable because it was just cool to be able to play an RPG with a bunch of other people whenever you had time, rather than being stuck not being able to play with others for weeks because schedules are too difficult to coordinate.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not sure how you can say they are equal, to be honest.

Because in vanilla Eq2, the looting rules were much harsher than they are in Ashes.
Also, death shard recovery could be compounded.
So it balances out.

"Your bags themselves will not drop; only some of the coins you've got on you (used to be 40% per death I think) and possibly one of the unbound (still tradeable/still attuneable) drops in your bags.
Nagafen will be free trade, so quest rewards like armor or weapons are likely to be tradeable and hence droppable if you're killed in PvP.
If you get a good loot drop or some money you don't want to lose, portal home to Qeynos or Freeport and bank it. Those are the 2 safe cities where PvP is to be disabled, supposedly.
And be grateful this time around, younguns, because in previous versions of EQ2 PvP servers, towns were not safe zones, and many's the player who fell victim to a "gank at the bank" and lost stuff just as he/she was desperately trying to bank it. Also, we used to get ganked trying to craft, too.
Heck, in the earliest days, enemies could follow you into your house and gank you!"
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/pvp-server-will-be-loot-on-death.588375/

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not sure how you can say they are equal, to be honest.

Because in vanilla Eq2, the looting rules were much harsher than they are in Ashes.
Also, death shard recovery could be compounded.
So it balances out.

"Your bags themselves will not drop; only some of the coins you've got on you (used to be 40% per death I think) and possibly one of the unbound (still tradeable/still attuneable) drops in your bags.
Nagafen will be free trade, so quest rewards like armor or weapons are likely to be tradeable and hence droppable if you're killed in PvP.
If you get a good loot drop or some money you don't want to lose, portal home to Qeynos or Freeport and bank it. Those are the 2 safe cities where PvP is to be disabled, supposedly.
And be grateful this time around, younguns, because in previous versions of EQ2 PvP servers, towns were not safe zones, and many's the player who fell victim to a "gank at the bank" and lost stuff just as he/she was desperately trying to bank it. Also, we used to get ganked trying to craft, too.
Heck, in the earliest days, enemies could follow you into your house and gank you!"
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/pvp-server-will-be-loot-on-death.588375/

Not sure where to begin with this.

First of all, you are talking about PvP death poenalty in a thread on PvE deaths
Second, you said vanilla EQ2 - there was no PvP in vanilla EQ2.
Third, the thread you linked was from 2019, a far cry from 2004 when EQ2 was released.
Fourth, experience debt in Ashes will stack.

As usual, you are missing the point, and trying to make it up as you go.

Dygz

In Ashes, the death penalty for purple, combatant PvP is half the normal death penalty...for me, considerably less harsh since I don't plan to gain Corruption.
There were PvP servers in vanilla EQ2, just as there were PvP servers in vanilla EQ.
The posted thread is from 2019, but talks about old school EQ2 looting vs current EQ2 looting.
Again, you have poor reading comprehension.
Experience debt always stacks as far as I'm concerned.

As usual, you are missing the point...arguing just to argue...and not just trying, but actually are making shit up as you go.
In EQ and EQ2, I had to worry about getting ganked and having items and gear and coin looted.
In Ashes, I only ever have to worry about some resources dropping.
Notice now, since you failed to before, that the post I replied to mentions the death penalty in Ashes as incentive to fight back in PvP combat.
"They also serve as an incentive to fight back in a PvP fight to reduce penalties since you're more likely to die in PvP vs PvE."

Again, I'm done.
You can win if you need to win.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

There were PvP servers in vanilla EQ2

Only if you have your own definition of "vanilla".

To most people, vanilla in relation to an MMO is the game as it is released, before any expansions.

EQ2 released on the 9th of November, 2004. The games first expansion - the end of it's vanilla period - was released on the 13th of September, 2005. The games second expansion was released on the 21st of February 2006, which is also when the games first PvP servers were launched.

As such, and as I have been saying, EQ2 did not have PvP servers during it's vanilla state, unless you have your own special definition of an MMO's vanilla state.

In EQ and EQ2, I had to worry about getting ganked and having items and gear and coin looted.
In Ashes, I only ever have to worry about some resources dropping.

I find it hard to believe you would have played a game on a PvP server if that game was not designed for PvP.

Also, you didn't need to worry about gear dropping - if you played it back then you would know this.

Spookk

I really enjoyed farming as a druid in Everquest. I almost never died. A lot of that was skill, but mostly EQ simply has the best charater/class ability system in any MMO, bar none. Any game trying to replicate its success should focus on giving each "class" a huge number of tools for different playstyles. For my druid, I really only used a few of my abilities/spells based on the way I played, but there was lots of other possible combinations that allowed for adaptability and flexibility in wildly different situations. And I was able to flee almost always if I chose to. If they had just upgraded EQ to new technology instead of making that horrid "EQ2", I'd probably still play it. That said, being able to regain (some) XP by looting your own corpse or (lots more) by being rezzed had some appeal as well, although I despise the overly-aggressive and much too widely-applied death penalties proposed here.

Crosim

This is a quite broad question. Generally speaking, I prefer to die in an MMO when it was my fault and because of something 'fair' Stayed in an area too long and respawns overtook me, didn't look where I was kiting and got an add, or didn't root or snare a low heath fleeing enemy, etc.

I feel like in Ashes, this is going to be a bit of a more case by case and class by class basis. From what I gather, being able to efficiently solo for exp is going to be something of a luxury? For the most part you are going to want to be in a group taking on better and greater challenges.

Steven has also said that taking on higher level enemies will not pose as much of a challenge as other MMOs who somewhat artificially bloat miss and resist chances based on a level vs level formula. This in and of itself can drastically change the amount of risk vs reward for a leveling player.

Ideally, there would be enough variation of enemies to have a 'kind' of mob you want to fight vs your classes toolkit. Having a CC heavy class might make it more efficient at taking down enemies in close chain aggroing camps with social mobs. Tanks might prefer taking on fast attacking enemies with lower health pools where damage reduction will be of greater value. Clerics might like fighting slow hitting creatures so they can weave heals between offensive spells. Perhaps rogues are really great at exploding lower level enemies quicker since they are virtually never detected and can do some burst damage to set the mob into a low HP flee, that only shows it back to the player for even greater damage potential.

I want fights to be dangerous and unforgiving of mistakes, but I would also love there to be a deep element for picking the right fights for you or your duo/group.

Dygz

🤐

maouw

Hey guys, the friction between you two is starting to cross the line.
Calling people names has never made them reconsider their perspective.
Some people never reconsider their perspective.
If you know the discussion won't progress, just tip your had good day and move on.

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