Player Death

I’m curious what people’s thoughts are on the player death penalties. They seem to be quite taxing. Experience debt, stat loss, durability loss (that’s fine and typical), lower drop rates, health/mana loss, and lower gear proficiency (I don’t know if this means like instead of being able to wear plate u can wear mail only, making all ur current gear useless. Or that it just means ur gear is weaker).
Regardless my biggest issue that I’m curious about is how this will affect pve content. It seems penalties don’t really apply in most pvp situations like seiges/caravans/guild wars. But what about raids and dungeons! Any mmorpg player knows that the first time your guild goes through a raid, there are a TON of wipes. Even dungeons can have 1 or 2 wipes. Now the variable difficulty that happens after the first boss implies it should be moderately difficult but not too difficult that you are wiping 10 times right? However what about that first boss! Also with the penalties being combat related, just one wipe makes the next attempt will be harder. Then harder and harder after each wipe! I understand how in the open world you want to create a little fear. But shouldn’t normal raids and dungeons be considered events, atleast for death penalties? I really worry that how player death works, it makes stuff either easy enough that you rarely die progressing content so the penalties aren’t an issue or impossible because after 1 or 2 wipes it’s impossible to progress with the debuffs. Also would I even want to do a raid if I knew it would end up costing me like 10+ Deaths worth of experience debt?

What are people’s thoughts?

Also side note: what if I’m barely living killing a mob solo out in the world, and some random guy sees that and just kills me. Did he really earn the right to loot my gatherables, and did I earn those death penalties? I don’t think so. Shouldn’t it be like how they said loot system will work for mobs where you need to deal like 60% of the damage or something.

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Comments

Vhaeyne

Risk Vs Reward brother.

It is the first feature on the front page for a reason. The game is harsh to make accomplishments meaningful.
The reason why many MMOs don't feel rewarding anymore is because the concept of Risk Vs Reward has been nurfed into the ground. Steven has said many times that everyone is not going to like Ashes and that is okay. Ashes is not trying to appeal to everyone. They can't, a game that appeals to everyone appeals to no one. Right now, the focus on a dynamic open world with Risk Vs Reward makes Ashes my cup of tea. If they change the focus in the future to be more forgiving I will re-evaluate my feelings about the game.

So yes, I think a harsh death penalty is needed.

If you are barely killing a mob and I kill you and take your stuff, I earn corruption and go red. Yes, I get your stuff, but I also get to be red and all the "rewards" that come with being red.

That is just the way Ashes was designed. It is also the reason why many of us want Ashes in our lives.

George_Black

My understanding is that if you die you receive death penalty, which lowers your stats slightly, lasts maybe 20-30min and there will be a way to get rid of it easily. If you die again, alrdy having Death Penalty, you will get Death Penalty Lv2, which makes your stats even worse. Still easy to get rid off. In L2 you could buy Death Penalty Removal Scroll dirty cheap, and a bit more expensive for end game lvs.

If you die you also get xp dept. In L2 you'd get xp loss, 4% or your current lv progression. For end game lvs this meant that you just lost 2-3 days of hardcore progress.
You lost 1% or less for Guild War death or Siege. You didnt lose anything inside arenas, casual or ranked.

You will also drop a portion of your raw materials in your inventory. In L2 you had a chance to drop an armor piece or jewelry you wear, sometimes even the weapons you hold. If they were just in your inventory the chances were higher.
In AoC only if you are corrupted you will drop whole items.

All in all AoC doesnt seem too punishing compared to L2. I dont like item durability in any mmorpg. Hope AoC makes it fun and interesting.

PS. Those that will inevitably say "AoC isnt L2 ", I want to say "insightful comment..."
There is nothing wrong with taking good elements from previous games and improving them.

ThexBlackxKnight

Was no secret that death would have some bite to it. The whole point of the game is to get away from what WoW and other modern mmos have turn into which is a casualize snore fest. I think there is misconception that they are trying to appeal to all mmo players , they are not.

Dygz

I'm a non-competitive carebear who tends to avoid combat as much as possible in RPGs - even in tabletop RPGs.

In MMORPGs, I'm not particularly interest in PvP combat, but I like the idea of protecting towns and cities from attacks so, in an 8 hour game session, I can enjoy about 1 hour of PvP combat if I stumble across a town/city under attack by opposing faction player characters.
Or, in the case of NWO, I can enjoy about 1 our of the instanced, objective-based PvP combat...where a mostly ignore the combat and focus on completing the non-combat objectives.

I'm not a "risk v reward" fan. It doesn't interest me at all. I don't like the concept.
What I love about Ashes (coming from a love of the EQNext design) is the investment derived from constructing our own towns and cities that can be destroyed if we don't defend them, either from mobs or rival player characters...or possibly even natural disasters.
Not only do we need to defend the town/city from total destruction, we also need to defend key individual buildings from being destroyed to prevent the services they provide from being shut down until we reconstruct them. This remains true whether it's a Monster Coin attack by mobs or a siege by rival player characters.
Which means I can focus mostly on defending crucial buildings or securing key objectives.
Or, if I'm attacking, I can focus on destroying crucial buildings or securing key objectives.
If I'm inhabiting a Monster during a Monster Coin event, I can acquire cosmetics as rewards for disabling certain buildings, services or NPCs... I'm hoping the same is true during sieges and dungeons and raids.

Adventuring through dungeons and raids shouldn't just be about the combat. Ideally, in an RPG, there should be ways to accomplish objectives or defeat challenges without engaging in combat. In an MMORPG, which relies way too much on combat as pretty much the only method of defeating challenges, there should be other objectives for which we are rewarded besides just killing everything in sight or clearing the entire dungeon.
Where we have the primary objective of killing the Winter Dragon in order to eradicate the perpetual winter which is negatively impacting our Desert Node, there should also be rewards and positive consequences for smaller objectives we complete along the journey to killing the Winter Dragon. Perhaps there will be a cult of Frost Wizards who are using relics in key locations in the raid area that heighten the effects of Ice abilities and Ice damage in the region, so just destroying those relics improve the quality of life in the region somewhat during the days it takes to destroy the world boss.

We should be able to be content with having completed the smaller objectives even if we haven't cleared the entire dungeon or raid - just as we can get cosmetics for disabling key buildings, services or NPCs even if we don't destroy the town/city during a Monster Coin attack.

All of that to say...hopefully, we get more accustomed to saying, "Hmmn. You know what? We've sustained too many wipes for us at the moment to worry about killing the Winter Dragon. It's not a total failure; we destroyed a few Ice Wizard Relics. The region is still better off with what we've accomplished so far. Let's be content with the lesser objectives we successfully completed, retreat, fix ourselves up and return later."

We shouldn't have to feel so beholden to immediately go through a ton of wipes as if we must absolutely suck if we don't kill the boss in the first game session that we make the attempt. We should be able to be content even with what we accomplished before we sustained the 2nd or 3rd wipe. Retreating is sometimes the best course to take, but it seems common in MMORPGs that gamer feel retreating is worse than eating kittens.

Don't sustain 10 deaths. If you sustain 2 or 3 deaths, retreat, get rid of your xp debt, get some new gear, have a romp at a tavern and return to the dungeon or raid later.

If the reason we're trying to kill the Winter Dragon is to end the negative impact to the region caused by the perpetual winter, why is that random guy going to kill you just so he can loot your gatherables? It's probably going to be better if you work together to destroy some Ice Wizard defenses to help reduce damage from Ice abilities.
If you die, you earned the death penalties, yes.
I dunno why it would be worth gaining Corruption for a few gatherables when the primary objective is to reduce the negative impact the perpetual winter is having on the region.
When you die, it's just a portion of your resources that drop and it's the same amount that drops if a mob kills you, so I dunno why you're worried about the random PK any more than you're worried about the dying from the random mob that seemingly popped up out of nowhere.

Gubiak

A sense of danger in the open world gives excitement to the world even if there is no programmed danger. What after all is the greatest danger than another player ? If you are barely living when killing monsters in an area, consider changing to a lower leveled area or partying up with other players. There are consequences to consider when adventuring alone, you reap all the rewards but also all risks as well.

I like an idea for this system because it makes death matter, it is not something players brush off like in other MMO's and move on with their day. It's like in Sea of Thieves where after a day of hauling if you meet other players you have to deal with them cause they are not going to leash, they want your stuff and you can either run, fight or die and loose everything. It encourages people to get better at the game, invest more time in a safer manner to overpower their enemies or make friends/hire people, potentially creating a new ecosystem where there is a demand for bodyguards and crafters that can prepare you for the worst.

As a non-alpha player I can only guess what the actual numbers, however what I know is that if they are too lenient then people won't be afraid to die and do potentially recless things and go murderhobo more often. While having too harsh penalty might prevent people from ever leaving safety of towns and villages for most of the time so this is something that needs to be considered to be rebalanced couple of times (However I would prefer it on the harsher side than too soft).

Blackford

I think it shouldn't be too bad at first, and then ramp up in penalties as you accrue more deaths in a short period of time.... but it shouldn't be really BAD unless your almost purposely doing something stupid or blatantly far beyond your personal power to handle.

Like... Dying sucks, but it IS going to happen, just as a matter of course through gameplay, and dying because you AFK to use the bathroom or the server DCs you, or an NPC bugs out in some way... the penalty for this shouldn't be harsh at all.

I don't think it should be to the point where a bad night can undo a week of progress, but if your doing the same thing over and over and dying 10 or 20 times there should be some sort of a significant penalty for recurring stupidity.

In WoW it's just a gold penalty to repair, a corpse run and you need to recast most of your consumables. In Everquest you got XP debt, could lose gear, and had to do a sometimes VERY LONG corpse run... I think the best would be the WoW model for the first few deaths, then the game makes it VERY CLEAR that whatever your doing is going to start accruing more massive penalties if you continue

Mangert

You guys keep saying risk vs reward. But this player death mechanic makes raids trivial. If you wipe to the boss without any death penalties on, how u gonna beat it with 1 death penalty, or level 2? Or 3? It’s basically saying kill it on ur first try or don’t kill it at all. So all bosses are easy enough to kill on the first try? That isn’t fun, that’s too easy. Now u could theoretically try the boss, wipe, wait penalty out and go again... but there is flow in doing multiple attempts in a row. If u gotta wait 30 minutes, u are gonna forget how exactly u like to move against that mechanic.

Sov54

Mangert wrote: »

You guys keep saying risk vs reward. But this player death mechanic makes raids trivial. If you wipe to the boss without any death penalties on, how u gonna beat it with 1 death penalty, or level 2? Or 3? It’s basically saying kill it on ur first try or don’t kill it at all. So all bosses are easy enough to kill on the first try? That isn’t fun, that’s too easy. Now u could theoretically try the boss, wipe, wait penalty out and go again... but there is flow in doing multiple attempts in a row. If u gotta wait 30 minutes, u are gonna forget how exactly u like to move against that mechanic.

You are approaching it as this were an instanced raiding MMO (Like WoW) but this is not the same type of game.

If things are as expected, I see killing a world boss more about negotiations between guilds and players than a Full PVE Mechanics Simulator.

I've played to both type of games, and the lattest example is way more engaging and interesting.

Biccus

You’ve got to either remember or learn that raids in this game are not likely to be instanced. Meaning if you fail and have to respawn, you are probably going to have to fight your way back to the boss anyway. There’s a chance you grind your xp dept off on the way back.

I do have the concern that boss difficulty isn’t going to be that high, which would be very disappointing.

RocketFarmer

Well, at least it’s not a full permanent level loss, or multiple levels for that matter.

Songcaller

I've played game modes where the game mode gets easier the more you wipe. I hated that game mode with a passion. I'm not a fan of the death spirals though. There are corruption spirals and death spirals in the game which isn't risk vs reward, its just plan bs. I still think you can play smart though. I believe once the parameters are tested and set we will understand the concepts better and we'll be able to mitigate the death penalties easier.

It's easy to read a little bullet point and say you don't like it or you fear it but in the past, similar systems were used and those systems were good. I wouldn't fear the death penalties. At least death penalties won't occur in guild wars, caravan and sieges.

truelyyy

I think it's all about balancing it decently. I also think the material drop penalties should be much higher than the XP debts. As the main reason why you would die is from PvP and other players would loot those materials. It also makes dying multiple times to a raid boss more reasonable. Hopefully having materials and money in the game is a large component in having power in the world.

Conrad

The devs should balance it a bit more. If its too punishing it will just be a player repellant.

Songcaller

I've heard players that tested the XP Debt reached 225% and the Devs said that it was a bug/was too high a number. I've also heard one player reached 400% Xp Debt but I have no Dev feedback for such a number. If the Devs said 225% was too high/a bug, I imagine 400% xp debt would be too high/a bug.

ThexBlackxKnight

I guess I am more old school , playing Ultima Online and Everquest back in the day, monsters were hell of lot more scarier because death in both games drop your stuff. Ashes is not going to be that extreme but having some bite to dying does bring that back that feeling of a dangerous world that I have been missing in mmorpgs. Request to make changes for the game to be easier or more convenient is how we ended up with the current modern WoW and other casualized mmorpgs. Personally I find those kind of watered down mmorpgs boring.

Songcaller

The harsher the penalties become, the more niche the game will be. It is true UO and EQ were good games but they were no where near as popular as WoW at WoW's peak. WoW did kill itself with all the QoL (Quality of Life) additions like LFR, LFG, Cross-Server groups and the two faction limitations. Rather than death penalties making the game less boring, the combat and crafting elements must not be boring. Nothing is worse than bad gameplay with harsh penalties bolted on for shits and giggles. I do not know the direction the combat revamp will take but IS state no Animation Cancelling except you can weave Q Spam with Skills in the A1 Build and only the Q Spam animations will activate but both damages are added together. The Hardcore community of any game can be outnumbered by the casual gamers. What keeps casual gamers and hardcore gamers happy is quality game aspects with undisputed rules.

Edit: Spell mistakes.

ThexBlackxKnight

Neurath wrote: »

The harsher the penalties become, the more niche the game will be. It is true UO and EQ were good games but they were no where near as popular as WoW at WoW's peak. WoW did kill itself with all the QoL (Quality of Life) additions like LFR, LFG, Cross-Server groups and the two faction limitations. Rather than death penalties making the game less boring, the combat and crafting elements must not be boring. Nothing is worse than bad gameplay with harsh penalties bolted on for shits and giggles. I do not know the direction the combat revamp will take but IS state no Animation Cancelling except you can weave Q Spam with Skills in the A1 Build and only the Q Spam animations will activate but both damages are added together. The Hardcore community of any game can be outnumbered by the casual gamers. What keeps casual gamers and hardcore gamers happy is quality game aspects with undisputed rules.

Edit: Spell mistakes.

Steven said that he is not making the game to appeal to everyone , Ashes has more old school features that other game companies wouldn't do these days , the corruption system and letting people freely PK other players is a big one that will turn off a lot mmorpg players from trying Ashes. The kickstarter for Ashes was successful and proved that there is some demand for a harder mmorpg.

Songcaller

Steven's said a lot of things. I merely point out the flaws in the current iteration (Which I've gleaned from a lot of tester feedback). If I had tested the game myself I could probably flesh out more bugbears with which to reinforce the fact that NDA shouldn't be lifted so soon. Google Trends shows Ashes of Creation at 2, it was about 100 when Lazy Peon and other streamers covered it. I will be interested to see what we can get on Google Trends when the NDA is lifted. If you lack subscribers for a subscription game though the game tends to go to free to play rather soon in the product life and microtransactions tend to creep in. I'm hopefully that Ashes of Creation will have sustainable populations to prevent the free to play model and the microtransactions.

The situation remains for every one person being hyped, 5 more people are saying the combat looks bad, the character models looks out of place, the mob varieties don't fit the biomes and the bosses are too generic. I hope the NDA Lift can remedy these complaints but the complaints are valid to those people that make them. There's making a game for the few, and then there's making the game for too few. I haven't backed any other recent MMO and Ashes is my last foray into the new MMOs but so far, its not revolutionising the genre like Steven promised. Interestingly, google trends hit 25 between may 2 and may 8 when Alpha 1 Sale reopened. Spike fell during Verbal NDA drop. Perhaps when we have a visual NDA drop the number could reach 100 again.

Edit: Clarified the numbers and spelling check.

Percimes

The only part of death penalties that doesn't make much sens to me is the reduce chance of drop. I mean, I can find some sort of logical reasons why having died can make me weaker and need to shake it off, but I can't do so when it comes to what a mob is carrying and why it changes if I happened to die earlier. For meta game reasons, sure, but as a world immersion thing, nope.

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