Experience Debt - Please do not put this in the game

Hello,

I'm old. I have been playing games since the 80s. I played Everquest for several years and switched to WoW in March of 2005.

There is some value in my experience playing games that long.

I am posting here to say that any type of experience debt, tax or penalty is a bad game system.

WoW learned this from Everquest and never put any type of exp penalty in the game.

I understand that Ashes isn't trying to be WoW, nor should it. However it is an MMO.

The last thing that a game should do to me is take away something I have earned. Also, it cannot penalize me too much for failing at a task. It should do something, like walking back to your corpse.

I saw someone say that Ashes is trying to be more of a hardcore game. Wildstar tried that same approach.

The casual player base pays for the world we MMO players live in. An MMO cannot survive long without them.

Please keep this in mind when planning out death taxes.

Thanks for listening

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Nerror

Aasiyah wrote: »

The last thing that a game should do to me is take away something I have earned. Also, it cannot penalize me too much for failing at a task. It should do something, like walking back to your corpse.

The whole philosophy of this game is that you can lose stuff you earned. It's not just XP debt. It's materials you have gathered and processed goods that can drop when you die. It's the stuff on your caravan. It's the node you helped build and where your house is that can go poof, and you can lose your stored materials and processed goods there as well, on top of losing the house.

It's such a core part of the game, that sure, you can ask for it, but they won't be changing it. They can balance the amounts you lose I am sure though.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

Aasiyah wrote: »

The last thing that a game should do to me is take away something I have earned. Also, it cannot penalize me too much for failing at a task. It should do something, like walking back to your corpse.

The whole philosophy of this game is that you can lose stuff you earned. It's not just XP debt. It's materials you have gathered and processed goods. It's the stuff on your caravan. It's the node you helped build and where your house is that can go poof, and you can lose your stored materials and goods there as well, on top of losing the house.

It's such a core part of the game, that sure, you can ask for it, but they won't be changing it.

Basically this.

Seems to be the basis for most modern MMO's, but it makes sense.

As a developer, why put in 250 hours of progression for players when instead you can put in 50 hours and make them do it 5 times?

tautau

I think experience debt is a good, necessary game system. Why do I think this?

I admit I may be somewhat unusual. Many people, perhaps particularly those younger than me, like things easy. I find that things that are easy aren't worth much, hardly worthwhile doing. I like challenges. So, a difficult game is more rewarding for me to play. Steven has repeatedly said that this game isn't designed for everyone.

Experience debt makes you careful when you play, it makes you think, because if you bite off more than you can chew it is going to cost you. If you don't plan ahead, think through your tactics, it is going to cost you. It makes your decisions meaningful. If you have to think and plan, you get better, and I like getting better at things.

I learned online games through Lineage2, which had an even more punishing system (in several ways) than AoC is proposing. Not only did you have experience debt, you could de-level. At least in the beginning, any death (including to mobs) could make you drop anything in your inventory including equipped gear (though not gold). And Lineage 2 thrived! People loved it...until later on it was made easy and PTW. Once that happened, lots of players quit and those who were left often were the ones who wanted things easy.

Players who want things easy have LOTS of online games to play, so lots of games are competing for those types of customers. Being a game which does not cater to those people who want easy games could be a smart marketing move for AoC since other games will not be competing for the same customers, those who like a real challenge will stay with AoC since they really don't have other game choices.

I think a MMO can succeed aiming at the player base that likes a harder challenge. AoC will appeal to those who like complex problem solving (as shown the weapon progression choices shown in today's livestream on fighters, and how that weapon progression will interact with possible builds of the 8x8 types). Sure, it may end of attracting less players, and different players, than WoW. As the OP said, that is a Good thing.

Noaani

tautau wrote: »

Experience debt makes you careful when you play, it makes you think, because if you bite off more than you can chew it is going to cost you.

Yeah, but this isn't a good thing.

What you are talking about here - whether you know it or not - is a playerbase being risk-averse. They aren't biting off more than they can chew, they are just nibbling at the content.

Back when EQ2 was still fairly young (before any of Ashes current developers worked on it) the game had a fairly punishing death penalty. Not as harsh as EVE or EQ1, but significantly harsher than most other PvE based games.

The developers realized that players were outgearing content before running it, so as to reduce the risk. Then they would find the content too easy, and the rewards too low.

Basically, players were acting risk averse as a population.

They got rid of 90% of the death penalty and found that people were now willing to attempt content both under leveled and under geared for it, and people enjoyed the challenge of beating things in this manner. People were no longer worried about that risk, and could instead enjoy the game and its content at their own difficulty (other than top end content, that is a set difficulty because you can't out level or out gear it).

Path of Exile has something similar to this as well. It's hardcore servers (die once and your character is moved to the regular server) simply don't see players experimenting with builds. They will experiment on regular servers (even though the death penalty at higher levels is somewhat substantial), but they will only ever play a build they know on hardcore servers.

Obviously Ashes needs it's death penalty. I'm not suggesting a change - I'm just saying it isn't necessarily good design.

Edit to add; EVE is actually another really good example of a game where players are risk averse, and that is a bad thing.

I played EVE for a year. A few people I knew had a Titan. I never once saw them.

People in EVE understood the notion of "don't fly what you can't afford to lose", which is basically the risk-averse population mantra. This meant that people would build these (I assume) amazing ships, but then never actually use them because they didn't want to risk losing them.

It isn't a good way to ask your playerbase to be.

Dygz

Aasiyah wrote: »

Hello,

I'm old. I have been playing games since the 80s. I played Everquest for several years and switched to WoW in March of 2005.

There is some value in my experience playing games that long.

I am posting here to say that any type of experience debt, tax or penalty is a bad game system.

LMAO
Limited XP debt is way better than permadeath.
You died. There should be a penalty for that.
Otherwise death is completely meaningless.

(Limited XP debt is not difficult.
Permadeath is difficult.
Level loss is somewhere in the middle.)

Aszkalon

It is simple, isn't it ?

Ashes EMBOLDENS People. Ashes EMBOLDENS People to be brave. Be a Daredevil ! GO IN fast and efficient and know that you risk what you have. At least parts of it.

Don't be fearful.
Don't be constantly afraid to lose. Don't be afraid to "dare" something.

If you are afraid of the possible Consequences to walk the World of Verra, then QUICKLY strap some more Vertebras into your Spine (lol) and inject Boldness into your Balls until they grew so large that You have trouble moving forward. (hahahahahah)

When was the last Time i was ACTUALLY worried in an MMO ??

When was the last Time i was afraid to mess up and lose ? When i didn't wanted to disappoint my Allies in Battlegrounds in World of WoW-Token Craft.

I wish to relive this Feeling for a bit. I wish to experience the Feeling of Risk. At least to some Extent. At least enough that the Game will make me feel more alive than it could make me feel bored.

And WoW ... ...
... ... ... makes me feel bored most of the time. Aside from when i raid with friendly Guild People. ^.^;"

Begone with that Gameplay that feels like a Job without Risk.

Come Hell and High Water. Give me a Reason i shall give my all, World of Verra !!

Noaani

Aszkalon wrote: »

When was the last Time i was afraid to mess up and lose ? When i didn't wanted to disappoint my Allies in Battlegrounds in World of WoW-Token Craft.

I'm going to paraphrase what the lead developer from EQ2 said when they lowered death penalties in that game;

If you consider not wanting to disappoint your friends as being motivation enough to want to not get things wrong, no game could ever offer you more of an incentive than that. If you don't consider that to be motivation enough, the developers can't motivate you via penalties.

Edit to add; again, I am not saying Ashes should change or anything, just pointing out the flaw in thinking harsh punishment is good game design.

Songcaller

I've played games since the 80s. I don't think its a parameter for being old. I played games from a young age though. Each to their own. I'm rather adverse to the death penalties in ashes. Really, they can't affect you unless you treasure what you lose. There is no delevelling in Ashes, therefore, I'm not really losing anything of actual value. I won't lose skill points, I won't lose armour (unless corrupted), I won't lose gold. All I will lose is stuff that is superfluous until its converted into gold, weapons, armour, levels etc.

Vargos

Song_Warden wrote: »

There is no delevelling in Ashes, therefore, I'm not really losing anything of actual value.

I hope that will be the case. The experience penalty seems like a weird idea to me too.
Yes, if you go back to lineage2 of old chronicles, many people remember it with nostalgia.
But no one want to remembers the annoyance of grind for days to regain lost level after a few unsuccessful gvg runs.
In weaker guilds, it came down to the fact that players simply did not want to participate in pvp, did not even want to try, because they were afraid for their experience points. That's not how I want to see Ashes.

I heard from Steven that pvp will be motivated in every way possible. But losing a level and grind for hours to regain it will discourage players.

Songcaller

You would have to stick to sanctioned pvp. You don't lose xp from sanctioned pvp events. Arena is currently not a sanctioned pvp event but I've requested arena to be one too.

Ludullu

Vargos wrote: »

[But no one want to remembers the annoyance of grind for days to regain lost level after a few unsuccessful gvg runs.

I want that

Vargos

NiKr wrote: »

Vargos wrote: »

[But no one want to remembers the annoyance of grind for days to regain lost level after a few unsuccessful gvg runs.

I want that

I sometimes feel like you want to minimize the number of potential players in Ashes as much as possible :DD

Obviously, it's in our best interest to keep the ideology of Ashes of Creation alive and also keep the target audience as broad as possible.

Ludullu

Vargos wrote: »

Obviously, it's in our best interest to keep the ideology of Ashes of Creation alive and also keep the target audience as broad as possible.

Nah, I'd prefer if Ashes hit its intended target audience as well as possible, instead of trying to spread its design thin in hopes of attracting few extra thousands of players that will leave either way because other parts of the game will be too hard for them.

Vargos

NiKr wrote: »

Vargos wrote: »

Obviously, it's in our best interest to keep the ideology of Ashes of Creation alive and also keep the target audience as broad as possible.

Nah, I'd prefer if Ashes hit its intended target audience as well as possible, instead of trying to spread its design thin in hopes of attracting few extra thousands of players that will leave either way because other parts of the game will be too hard for them.

In your mind the target audience is only hardcore group players?
Unfortunately, many of them change projects very quickly after failing in the battle for the throne, unlike more casual players who can be in the same project for years.

Based on the information that was provided by Interapid:
-The multiple progression paths in Ashes of Creation are designed to suit different playstyles and offer different "lanes" for players depending on the time they have available to play.
-Other progression paths will require a significant time investment, which casual players will take longer to achieve than hardcore players. (so for solo players it will be achievable too).
-The contribution of a large mass of casual players working together may have a greater impact on node progression than hardcore players.

So we can summarize that the target audience can be quite extensive.
How you see Ashes target audience may differ from Interapid's vision.

Ludullu

Vargos wrote: »

So we can summarize that the target audience can be quite extensive.
How you see Ashes target audience may differ from Interapid's vision.

It isn't different from Intrepid's vision. Just as they said, solo players will be slow, doing subpar content and will only matter in masses (which usually means guilds and parties).

All the hardcore design parts still apply to solos. There's possibility of forced pvp, there's death penalties (xp debt included), there's open world pve (which means limited content, taken by parties and guilds) and there's free market which usually means that guilds pool money to get the prices higher.

If all those casual solos are fine with this design - good for them, but imo they won't last long. So I simply want Intrepid to deliver on the current design direction as well as possible, so that the loss of those casuals is not as impactful as it would've been on more casual mmos.

Azherae

I believe we could manage without experience debt, but I'm not sure that the thing I'd replace it with to 'stay true to the design' would be any more palatable, and it would probably lead to a specific exploit type in a few situations.

I say 'replace' but we already have it. Gear durability loss.

We can't control Experience Debt. We can't lessen it or make meaningful decisions about how much exp we are risking by doing something other than avoiding dangerous content. But, similarly, once you have enough exp, or have a lot of time and lots of willingness to grind for exp, it's not really a deterrent, which means it deters one group more than another.

I believe I'd probably make it 'too complex' by hybridizing it.

"To reduce exp debt, get higher quality gear which in turn takes more durability damage instead and preserves your exp."
Games already have lots of 'reduce experience loss on death' stuff, I feel we can generally understand this. Just set it to something like '1% per Item Grade per Item' so when you're in full Epic/Purple in all 16-ish slots, your exp debt is reduced by 80% (5% per epic) but all that epic gear is now taking durability damage if you die.

This is to prevent people who try to avoid the whole thing by wearing minimal gear (you know the people I mean). Those people lose exp, or put a massive durability strain on any 'good' piece of gear they choose to equip for the purpose.

Players who simply don't have time to get good gear, probably 'should' be at least somewhat risk-averse until they have better gear, but the gear they do have, doesn't wear out. They can grind more and increase their skills and synergy. Their strained resource is time, and they can choose to just walk away from the thing that they don't feel they can win against, and practice more.

Players who have time to get good gear, can take risks without losing as much exp and combat ability, they probably are more concerned about gathering information or living on the edge, than practicing. If they want to preserve their gear, they can wear lesser gear, and presume that they have the skills to keep up their exp in that gear even if they randomly get killed.

Eh, just morning thoughts.

tautau

Don't forget that Clerics will have rez spells which reduce the exp debt when used on a dead player, too.

koltovince

According to the wiki currently death penalties are XP dept, Skill/stat dampening, reduced loot drop rate, durability loss, material loss, and glint loss. If durability takes a lot of materials to fix, materials which yo have less of for dying and less glint to get those mats, then death can be pretty penalizing if I have to then take another hour to fix my gear for that death.

I'm not against XP dept entirely but with everything else that comes with death it just feels like they are throwing so much on players will just avoid doing content without 8 mans so they don't have to suffer the penalties. Then content will become a steam roll because players are afraid of trying alone due to fear of death.

Ludullu

koltovince wrote: »

players will just avoid doing content without 8 mans

Which is the entire point and is good

bigepeen

I think exp debt is a good thing. In a lot of MMOs, there is a problem where even if a player loses, they will just respawn over and over again being a nuisance even if they won't win, just because they are butthurt about losing. Exp debt solves this problem, because you can't just keep throwing your character at someone infinite times with no consequence.

Also, people will be grinding anyway just like in every other MMO, so working off an exp debt doesn't negatively affect gameplay. It makes players maintain a balance, and stops people from treating their character like trash that is used to throw at whomever they want to annoy or exploit.

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