I would attempt recovery. But not without help! I'd be looking for a rogue to drag my corpse to a place I could retrieve it, or possibly a class that could summon my corpse. I learned back in EQ that trying to get your corpse back in a dangerous place alone was a really bad idea...its no fun dying again and again trying to get that corpse, better off leaving it at that point. Unless of course there is no XP debt or level loss and only straight XP loss...because if I just hit level 10 I'm not gonna care about dying one bit since I don't have any XP built up anyway.
EDIT: I just want to add I don't like the idea of no level loss exactly because of the example I gave, if there is an XP penalty then dying too many times should put you into XP debt or cause level loss.
Tanix said:A CR though, having to go back to where I died to gain my items? Yeah.. that is a penalty, that is a consequence. I have to get my corpse if I want my items. I have to get my corpse from where I died. I must go back to the place to gain it. Sure, I can get help to get it, but I will have to go back and get it.
People arguing against CRs, are doing so because they don't want the consequence and that is EXACTLY the reason to have them. A penalty someone is ok with, well... it isn't much of a penalty. You aren't supposed to like a penalty, it should be dreaded, hated, feared. You guys aren't arguing for fear based penalties, you are arguing for convenience, penalties you are willing accept. This defies the entire point of why EQ was so dangerous, why it was nerve wracking to explore, especially alone, or be caught deep in a dungeon.
So basically you have nothing to add that reinforces your prior claims about me being inconsistent. That's what I thought. You have no idea "why" I think the way I do and your analysis is so far off-base that I really don't even feel like indulging you anymore. You have contradicted yourself multiple times and now you feel qualified to tell other people what their underlying motives are. You're wrong ... and I'm done with your deflecting nonsense.
Ziegfried said:I would attempt recovery. But not without help! I'd be looking for a rogue to drag my corpse to a place I could retrieve it, or possibly a class that could summon my corpse. I learned back in EQ that trying to get your corpse back in a dangerous place alone was a really bad idea...its no fun dying again and again trying to get that corpse, better off leaving it at that point. Unless of course there is no XP debt or level loss and only straight XP loss...because if I just hit level 10 I'm not gonna care about dying one bit since I don't have any XP built up anyway.
EDIT: I just want to add I don't like the idea of no level loss exactly because of the example I gave, if there is an XP penalty then dying too many times should put you into XP debt or cause level loss.
I never really liked exp debt. It never felt like a penalty. It was just some bar that filled up and slowed my exp rate. In games that had it, I never was super concerned I died. In fact, even later on when EQ made CR easy with GY (or auto summoners) it really didn't feel like a penalty at all. So I lost some exp, who cares? Though knowing that when I died, I would have to travel back to where my corpse was and loot it to get my items back, now that was always a concern and in the back of my mind as I explored or moved through any area.
Tanix I agree, XP debt is a lot weaker than losing a level. I can only say its a stronger penalty than XP loss without level loss. Ultimately I want XP loss, possible level loss and item loss if you don't retrieve the corpse. I am not on board with these softer penalties myself. A corpse run only to regain some XP is something many players can and will choose to bypass...especially if they can make up the lost XP faster grinding mobs than trying to get their corpse at the bottom of a dungeon.
Ziegfried said:A corpse run only to regain some XP is something many players can and will choose to bypass...especially if they can make up the lost XP faster grinding mobs than trying to get their corpse at the bottom of a dungeon.
Yep, I mean if exp loss was the only thing that happend when I was playing EQ, I would have never even thought twice about my play. There were many times I spent a late night trying to get my corpse back from a major pain in the rear zone area because of gear being on my corpse. If it were just exp loss, there would have been numerous times I would just logged off and not even given it a second thought.
I liked the way EQ did it. Strong exp loss with the chance to lose a level (which could be mitigated by a rez) and the requirement of having to go to the zone and recover the corpse. I don't like GY summoning, cross zone summoning, auto summoning, etc... A special class being able to summon while in the zone is fine, though I would change the cost in such a summon spell (instead of just an expensive item cost, also have it eat a portion of your exp return as well).
That would cover most of the angles. People could lessen some things, but you would always have to at the least go to the zone you died in, which in itself could be a daunting journey (remember running back to Western Wastes if you died?
Kael -->Warsilk woods -->Skyshrine (which sucked if you were not on that faction)-->Cobalt scar (if you knew a druid/wizard who found the dropped spell, you could catch a ride this far)--> Sirens Grotto (underwater sea horses and fish, etc... better be able to swim fast, have invis, etc...)-->Western Wastes.
All that travel for a CR AND you did it naked, which made even more of a pain.
That is a penalty, that is a consequence, that is risk vs reward. Exp? Just a mild speed bump most won't even care about.
Tanix said:Point is, exp loss is not penalty enough on its own. There were numerous times where I was playing EQ and said "Ah screw it, I will take the exp hit rather than deal with finding someone to rez me". Exp while taking a while was available anywhere, everywhere without condition. A CR though, having to go back to where I died to gain my items? Yeah.. that is a penalty, that is a consequence. I have to get my corpse if I want my items. I have to get my corpse from where I died. I must go back to the place to gain it. Sure, I can get help to get it, but I will have to go back and get it.
People arguing against CRs, are doing so because they don't want the consequence and that is EXACTLY the reason to have them. A penalty someone is ok with, well... it isn't much of a penalty. You aren't supposed to like a penalty, it should be dreaded, hated, feared. You guys aren't arguing for fear based penalties, you are arguing for convenience, penalties you are willing accept. This defies the entire point of why EQ was so dangerous, why it was nerve wracking to explore, especially alone, or be caught deep in a dungeon.
An exp penalty alone avoids this fear, this anticipation, the very thing that is missing in games today. Remove CR, and the game will suffer for it.
Sure it is, experience loss is plenty enough of a punishment by itself. The punishment should fit the crime and loss of exp (time) with the option to go back to one's corpse to regain a percentage of what was lost, seems fair enough to me. If someone wants to say "ah screw it, I'll count that hour of exp as a loss" then let them, maybe I am insane but an hour of wasted life/time for a death that could be due to a very minor mistake seems punishing enough.
Making death carry an extremely harsh punishment is a mistake and the assumption seems to be that it is the result of some sort of grevious personal failure when in reality there will be plenty of times people die due to the mistakes of others, are trained, make the terrible mistake of zoning into somewhere new that they shouldn't be while exploring, have an emergency or otherwise have to run AFK, etc.
So here's my take... after reading some of the replies. In many ways EXP loss was the biggest threat to me. I was never worried I wouldn't get a corpse back. Necro's could summon them in a tight enough spot. I don't know if I was ever in a position where it was "oh crap I may not get this back". It was always "damn there goes X amount of hours worth of exp".
Now I recently started playing EQ again with some friends. The fact that death carries a penatly has caused us to play the game differently. Even in the worst situation we are trying to fight to survive, guessing if we can win or if we need to run. How long can we hold out before we call for a run for zone line? In every other MMO that doesn't occur. You die, you start over at the zone line or a way point with all your gear and maybe some cost to repair gear. There is no penalty so you fight to the death no worries or thought.
Its not just the exp loss... I'm not worried about losing items... it's the lost time its going to take to recover from the wipe that makes it matter. Death matters, it carries a true penalty to the point that it alters how you fight in a group. I'm probably rambling, but that's my feeling. Death should matter, I want it to matter enough to make me have to choose between running and living or staying and maybe dying. That decission needs to matter.
naked corpse runs and strong exp loss ftw.
iksar & oneadseven: we don‘t want soft penalties here - that‘s a big part of why many ppl are returning.
Iksar said:Tanix said:Point is, exp loss is not penalty enough on its own. There were numerous times where I was playing EQ and said "Ah screw it, I will take the exp hit rather than deal with finding someone to rez me". Exp while taking a while was available anywhere, everywhere without condition. A CR though, having to go back to where I died to gain my items? Yeah.. that is a penalty, that is a consequence. I have to get my corpse if I want my items. I have to get my corpse from where I died. I must go back to the place to gain it. Sure, I can get help to get it, but I will have to go back and get it.
People arguing against CRs, are doing so because they don't want the consequence and that is EXACTLY the reason to have them. A penalty someone is ok with, well... it isn't much of a penalty. You aren't supposed to like a penalty, it should be dreaded, hated, feared. You guys aren't arguing for fear based penalties, you are arguing for convenience, penalties you are willing accept. This defies the entire point of why EQ was so dangerous, why it was nerve wracking to explore, especially alone, or be caught deep in a dungeon.
An exp penalty alone avoids this fear, this anticipation, the very thing that is missing in games today. Remove CR, and the game will suffer for it.
Sure it is, experience loss is plenty enough of a punishment by itself. The punishment should fit the crime and loss of exp (time) with the option to go back to one's corpse to regain a percentage of what was lost, seems fair enough to me. If someone wants to say "ah screw it, I'll count that hour of exp as a loss" then let them, maybe I am insane but an hour of wasted life/time for a death that could be due to a very minor mistake seems punishing enough.
Making death carry an extremely harsh punishment is a mistake and the assumption seems to be that it is the result of some sort of grevious personal failure when in reality there will be plenty of times people die due to the mistakes of others, are trained, make the terrible mistake of zoning into somewhere new that they shouldn't be while exploring, have an emergency or otherwise have to run AFK, etc.
You are proving my point though. You argue the penalty from a perspective of what you wish to tolerate and a penalty should not be something you are comfortable with. Your points about how you shouldn't be punished so severely because of exploring, afk, etc... is making the exact point that you desire a penalty system that is lenient and comfortable.
This is why modern games are boring, pointless and the players run around with complete disregard for play. They are not careful, they zerg without concern, they do not plan or organize, they have no fear, as there is no consequence. They are "comfortable" with the penalties of their failures.
That is mainstream gaming at its core and it violates the very tenant of this game "With great risk, comes great reward". In the penalty system you explain, there is no great risk, and so naturally the reward is meaningless, just as modern games are. That is not what Pantheon was sold to me on, that is not the spirit of games like EQ, it is not what people like me want. If I wanted a mainstream MMO game, I would be playing them right now as there are 100's of them I can chose from.
EppE said:Its not just the exp loss... I'm not worried about losing items... it's the lost time its going to take to recover from the wipe that makes it matter. Death matters, it carries a true penalty to the point that it alters how you fight in a group. I'm probably rambling, but that's my feeling. Death should matter, I want it to matter enough to make me have to choose between running and living or staying and maybe dying. That decission needs to matter.
Yes. Having to retrieve your corpse means you have to go back to where you died and take action to get it back. Sure, you may be able to go back to the zone, have a higher level drag it to you, maybe pay for someone to summon the corpse, or even have a group near where you died rez you and then port you out of the dungeon. This however as you pointed out all takes time.
Now if you simply took an exp penalty, you could decide to eat the loss and go off somewhere else. That is, you can say "I don't feel like wasting the time to go get my corpse, I will take the exp hit and make it up later". This happend a lot in EQ if you died naked while trying to get to your main corpse that had your gear. There were many a times where I died a few times trying to get back to it, then finally getting my corpse I said "Heck with the exp, I am out of here" and left the dungeon. That is, the exp loss was never enough alone to make me go back. Having your gear sitting on your corpse? That forces EVERYONE to go back and get it. That is a penalty that nobody will dismiss as gear in EQ was EXTREMELY difficult to obtain, so the idea of just saying "nah, I will get some more" was ridiculous.
Syrif said:naked corpse runs and strong exp loss ftw.
iksar & oneadseven: we don‘t want soft penalties here - that‘s a big part of why many ppl are returning.
As mentioned previously, it has been stated several times that the death penalty would fall somewhere in between EQ and VG. We know that there will be a corpse. We do not know that loot will be attached to corpses. As far as your "many people returning" comment -- Pantheon is a new game, but I'll bite. I played Vanguard. So I am also "returning" and have a vested interest in a death penalty that specifically cited Vanguard as a source of inspiration. VR has already suggested a "potential" compromise that would attach additional XP to corpses rather than loot. Several players tried making the exact same argument how players should be "forced" to return to their corpse in order for the death penalty to be meaningful. Brad responded by saying that he felt that XP on corpses would also provide a compelling reason to return, and I agree! As far as I'm concerned, VR was thinking of a happy middle ground 3-4 years ago. To spice things up a little bit more, I would like to see de-leveling become possible. I would also like to see a decay timer on our corpses -- somewhere between 2-4 hours. Both of these things lean more toward the hardcore side than the "soft" side, especially if XP is considered a value resource in this game.
Beyond that, it's also been implied that the penalty would be geared more toward "loss aversion" than "risk aversion." This is quite obvious seeing that they have repeatedly suggested that they don't want to deter players from taking risks. They want players to explore. They want players to tackle challenging content. They want players to "take risks." Therefore, the penalty clearly needs to focus on "loss aversion" (this ensures that players "respect the environment" which is another goal) -- and in order for that to happen, there needs to be something "lost." As of this time, XP is the only confirmed component of the penalty that will be "lost." As such, we have an established baseline to operate from. Furthermore, it's also been stated that permanent gear loss would not be a thing. It was previously suggested that de-leveling probably wouldn't be possible but that position was later changed by Joppa who said that we would definitely experiment with de-leveling at some point in testing. My stance has been very consistent. I want a meaningful death penalty ... and in all my years of gaming, a penalty that focused on XP loss and bind-point was by far the most impactful.
This was especially true when XP acquisition was balanced rather tightly with risk vs reward. That means no power-leveling, no swarm kiting, no solo/duo > group efficiency, no blue>yellow efficiency, no repeatable quests for XP, etc. All of those things interfere with one of my favorite kinds of player interdependence which is based on group-centric progression that revolves around risk vs reward. XP progress is the first layer of risk vs reward and depending on how players perform, they can then utilize that lifeline for the second layer which is adventuring/exploring and taking risks in dangerous areas or against unknown enemies. When XP is truly considered precious, losing it would absolutely sting and serve as an ideal catalyst for "loss aversion." As such, it's imperative that gaining XP is always challenging and subjected to it's own layer of risk vs reward. If you want to focus on easy content or solo/duo that's fine but you aren't going to make much progress.
If you want efficient XP then you should play in a full group and battle challenging content. The game is group-centric and player interdependent so it makes plenty of sense to feature a penalty that leverages a resource that is dependent on both of those things. In the end ... corpse runs sound like something that would definitely enhance the sense of loss aversion if they attach XP rather than loot. I would prefer to see corpse dragging and summoning removed from the game and a decay timer added. That sounds like a new/interesting penalty that truly forces players to return to their corpse, and with a sense of urgency, if they want to mitigate their loss. At the same time, the death penalty should still sting even if they do get to their corpse which is why every player should suffer a minimal amount of XP loss at the time of death that ensures that the burn is working. This number can be easily adjusted and would ensure that the sense of loss would be consistent for all classes.
oneADseven said:Syrif said:naked corpse runs and strong exp loss ftw.
iksar & oneadseven: we don‘t want soft penalties here - that‘s a big part of why many ppl are returning.
To spice things up a little bit more, I would like to see de-leveling become possible. I would also like to see a decay timer on our corpses -- somewhere between 2-4 hours.
Thats too much spice.
Valorous1 said:Thats too much spice.
Maybe so. I don't really think that it would be. If players aren't able to recover their corpse before it decays then they suffer additional non-recoverable XP loss. I think that's fair. Either way, players wouldn't be held hostage if it happens. Rather than being "stuck" and unable to progress, they could work that penalty off by grouping with other players. The penalty wouldn't be so severe that they feel 100% forced or required to return to their corpse. That's important because you can then remove things like corpse dragging and summoning. It also opens up the possibility for corpse decay. If gear is attached to our corpse then it wouldn't really make sense that corpse decay could be a thing. If it was, what would happen to our gear? Would it be deposited into some sort of spiritual bank, or mailed directly to our characters? Corpse decay is absolutely something I would like to see. A sense of urgency is fair. That delivers risk vs reward and player interdependence without pigeonholing the playerbase or needing to create loopholes that allow them to easily circumvent the penalty with tools/mechanics that are created with that purpose in mind.
XP loss was negligible in EQ. seemed to me a death cost you 1-2 hrs of xping to regain.
Now the corpse run, even if you didn't have to worry about equipment loss, was a time sink. So it might take me 1-2 hours to regain the lost xp, but it also took 1+ hrs in many cases to do a corpse run (in any location where we would have ever considered letting it go if not for the equipment)
This is the punishment, is not the xp itself, or even the item loss, which FAQ state they will not have permanent equipment loss, but it's the time you have to spend.
In a MMORPG, the RL currency is time, play comes and goes and inflation drives that, but time is of equal measure for all players. Some have more, some have less, but it is the one currency in game that remains true and constant. So time is like the currency you use to pay your fines/penalties in game, like you would for a speeding ticket by paying in cash.
Remove that time penalty and the consequences lose thier value.
Fulton said:XP loss was negligible in EQ. seemed to me a death cost you 1-2 hrs of xping to regain.
Now the corpse run, even if you didn't have to worry about equipment loss, was a time sink. So it might take me 1-2 hours to regain the lost xp, but it also took 1+ hrs in many cases to do a corpse run (in any location where we would have ever considered letting it go if not for the equipment)
This is the punishment, is not the xp itself, or even the item loss, which FAQ state they will not have permanent equipment loss, but it's the time you have to spend.
In a MMORPG, the RL currency is time, play comes and goes and inflation drives that, but time is of equal measure for all players. Some have more, some have less, but it is the one currency in game that remains true and constant. So time is like the currency you use to pay your fines/penalties in game, like you would for a speeding ticket by paying in cash.
Remove that time penalty and the consequences lose thier value.
But you just acknowleged that the XP component cost you 1-2 hours of time to regain, so therefore XP does indeed attach itself to the element of time. (Just like Iksar suggested that he was more worried about getting a cleric rez than anything else since it wiped out 96% of the XP loss.) On the reverse side ... there were probably plenty of places you could die that were not all that difficult to return to, especially if you were out in the open world rather than a dungeon. This means that the time element (of corpse retrieval) is completely dependent on where you die. So what happens if you have a necromancer in your group that can summon your corpse? You just pay for the reagent and completely bypass the "time" element of needing to retrieve your corpse. In the absolute worst scenarios -- this is when circumvention will become most prevalent. The harder it is to recover your corpse, the more likely you'll have it summoned or dragged to you. I agree that time is the universal currency that is of equal measure to all players. As long as XP acquisition is truly difficult then it's really simple to balance the rate of what is "lost" vs how it can be "gained."
If players trivialize XP gain with gimmick play, or XP restoral with OP rezzes, or corpse retrieval with drag/summon ... that's a separate issue, but definitely one that needs to be factored in because all of those things are components of "loss aversion." To be clear, I'm not really disagreeing with what you are saying. I think the real underlying penalty is that time element just as you suggested. As long as that element can't be circumvented then it should be doing it's job. If XP ends up being attached to corpses then you still have that same time element of needing to retrieve your corpse (especially if the tools/mechanics that allow circumvention of the retrieval are removed) -- if you aren't able to do that, then you lose additional unrecoverable XP. If you are able to recover your corpse, you should still lose a healthy amount of XP. Finding the sweet spot for that time element seems to be the major focus of the penalty, IMO.
oneADseven said:Fulton said:XP loss was negligible in EQ. seemed to me a death cost you 1-2 hrs of xping to regain.
Now the corpse run, even if you didn't have to worry about equipment loss, was a time sink. So it might take me 1-2 hours to regain the lost xp, but it also took 1+ hrs in many cases to do a corpse run (in any location where we would have ever considered letting it go if not for the equipment)
This is the punishment, is not the xp itself, or even the item loss, which FAQ state they will not have permanent equipment loss, but it's the time you have to spend.
In a MMORPG, the RL currency is time, play comes and goes and inflation drives that, but time is of equal measure for all players. Some have more, some have less, but it is the one currency in game that remains true and constant. So time is like the currency you use to pay your fines/penalties in game, like you would for a speeding ticket by paying in cash.
Remove that time penalty and the consequences lose thier value.
But you just acknowleged that the XP component cost you 1-2 hours of time to regain, so therefore XP does indeed attach itself to the element of time. (Just like Iksar suggested that he was more worried about getting a cleric rez than anything else since it wiped out 96% of the XP loss.) On the reverse side ... there were probably plenty of places you could die that were not all that difficult to return to, especially if you were out in the open world rather than a dungeon. This means that the time element (of corpse retrieval) is completely dependent on where you die. So what happens if you have a necromancer in your group that can summon your corpse? You just pay for the reagent and completely bypass the "time" element of needing to retrieve your corpse. In the absolute worst scenarios -- this is when circumvention will become most prevalent. The harder it is to recover your corpse, the more likely you'll have it summoned or dragged to you. I agree that time is the universal currency that is of equal measure to all players. As long as XP acquisition is truly difficult then it's really simple to balance the rate of what is "lost" vs how it can be "gained." If players trivialize XP gain with gimmick play, or XP restoral with OP rezzes, or corpse retrieval with drag/summon ... that's a separate issue, but definitely one that needs to be factored in because all of those things are components of "loss aversion."
The coffin component to summon a corpse was ridiculously expensive. Having a necro summon your corpse at a whim was not cost effective (the coffin was around 50plat when collecting a plat in money took a lot of effort and time), in fact it was not done other than in extreme cases (if you experienced it a lot, it iwas likely after the economy dupe happend and plat was as common as copper).
Also, having it summoned required the summoner to be in the zone you died in. So, you still had to travel naked all the way to the zone where you died. If you were a caster, then you had the luxury of being bound near the zone, if you were a melee you were bound to the nearest city (frankly, I think all classes should only be able to bind in a city). Even so, you had to find a necro who could summon you AND happend to be carrying around 50 plat coffins just for the heck of it (not likely). Then you had to pay him, but... remember you don't have your money on you, its on your corpse and no necro is going to take the chance you will possibly pay them 50 plat for summoning a corpse. So either you had the money or you had to get it another way. Which by the way, nobody carried that much plat around in play exactly DUE to the CR issue.
See this is what I mean about you not playing EQ and then thinking you understand what was going on in the game. You see a spell like summon corpse and then assume people were being summoned without issue all the time. They were not. Necros using this spell commonly did not occur until much later in the game where EQ became very mainstream.
As for someone dragging your corpse, yes... you had to find a class with the ability to recover your corpse. Sometimes it would be a monk, sometimes a rogue or even a caster who could invis. It really depended on the zone, the type of mobs and various dangers there. For instance, trying to CR in Seb back in the Juggernauts was insanely difficult due to random mobs seeing invis and the casters hitting for very large damage.
CRs were not "easy", they were risky and that risk was directly proporational to where you died at. Make CR about exping and I can promise you most people will take the hit, I know many would have in EQ when they were trying to get their corpses back late at night. If it were simply an exp hit, most of us would have ate the loss and moved on.
Understanding EQ from actually playing it goes a long way here. This is why even people who played late EQ have a misunderstanding of the nature of the game at release.
oneADseven said:Tanix said:My argument stands, the logic is undeniable. /shrug You aren't countering it, merely arguing in defiance of it.
By simple logic, an general exp penalty is not equivilent to that of forcing a player to go back to the location they died and gather their corpse.
You are wrong, not by a subjective declartion, but by the simple aspect of logical evaluation.
You argument does not stand. You already denied your own logic. Let's reflect on your previous post:
Tanix said:So, naturally, forcing a player to have to go back to their body and recover it to obtain all their items each time is a better solution. Can people circumvent it? Sure.... but it still requires a player to go to that location and recover it.
As you clearly stated ... players are not required to go back to the location they died and gather their corpse. That process was easily and consistently circumvented. If someone died in an easy/accessible area (Like ECT, as you suggested), their death meant next to nothing. That's what happens when XP isn't valuable. If they died in a more dangerous area then they could have their corpse dragged to them or summoned. Sounds really weak.
You are correct that, in EQ1, you did not need to go back to the exact spot to retrieve your corpse, but to avoid doing that would just trade one penalty for another. You traded the time penalty for a monetary penalty. You had to pay a necro to summon the corpse as those coffins weren't free. Does a time penalty equate equally to a monetary penalty? Personally I do not think they are equal and I think that is the point.
When you die you need to incurr some penalties that cannot be recouped. Lost XP can be re-earned. Money can be re-earned. Time cannot. Requiring players to return to their corpse involves time. Time that cannot be used for anything else. So the more remote/dangerous the location the more time you lose on a corpse run. Die outside the city gates? Trivial loss of time. Die in the furthest point of a dungeon 6 zones away from the nearest teleporter/bind point? Significant loss of time.
You spend time earning XP, yes, just as you spend time earning money..usually both simultaneously. But time spent on a corpse run earns neither, really.
Tanix said:Kael -->Warsilk woods -->Skyshrine (which sucked if you were not on that faction)-->Cobalt scar (if you knew a druid/wizard who found the dropped spell, you could catch a ride this far)--> Sirens Grotto (underwater sea horses and fish, etc... better be able to swim fast, have invis, etc...)-->Western Wastes.
If you were making your corpse run to Western Wastes by detouring from Kael, in Velious, to Warslik Woods..in Kunark..then yes your corpse runs were difficult. :) The zone off Kael Drakkel was Wakening Lands. :)
oneADseven said:Valorous1 said:Thats too much spice.
Maybe so. I don't really think that it would be. If players aren't able to recover their corpse before it decays then they suffer additional non-recoverable XP loss. I think that's fair. Either way, players wouldn't be held hostage if it happens. Rather than being "stuck" and unable to progress, they could work that penalty off by grouping with other players. The penalty wouldn't be so severe that they feel 100% forced or required to return to their corpse. That's important because you can then remove things like corpse dragging and summoning. It also opens up the possibility for corpse decay. If gear is attached to our corpse then it wouldn't really make sense that corpse decay could be a thing. If it was, what would happen to our gear? Would it be deposited into some sort of spiritual bank, or mailed directly to our characters? Corpse decay is absolutely something I would like to see. A sense of urgency is fair. That delivers risk vs reward and player interdependence without pigeonholing the playerbase or needing to create loopholes that allow them to easily circumvent the penalty with tools/mechanics that are created with that purpose in mind.
I mostly agree with everything you're saying. I do think depending on things like, server population, time zones, and time of day that the "2-4 hour" urgency is a little too thin of a window, i mean im all about the urgency, but maybe 24 hours i could get on board with.
@Tanix I think we more or less agree. Hell levels being the exception I never REALLY cared about exp loss, especially once I was max level. The ordeal of having to regain your corpse, and knowing that you would have to go through it, is what changed how you fought. When PoP came out with GY the risk nearly vanished, not to mention the EXP gained in PoP was extremely high. Like I said I was never worried I wouldn't get my corpse back, but knowing I would have to get it back if I dieded altered how you played the game.
oneadseven: NO THANK YOU to removing corpse dragging and corpse summoning. And NO to 'spiritual banks' or whatever. Too EZ.
Vandraad said:When you die you need to incurr some penalties that cannot be recouped. Lost XP can be re-earned. Money can be re-earned. Time cannot.
This doesn't really make sense. You are suggesting that lost XP and money can be re-earned, but that time cannot. I'm willing to bet that it takes "time" to re-earn lost XP and money, right? As long as both of these things require "time" to earn, then players would still incur a time penalty that cannot be recouped. It's been stated that VR is looking at a 2 hour window for players to feel like they can log in and make some progress. For that reason, I think it's important to be more flexible than rigid when it comes to mandating how that cost of time is incurred. I am a big fan of meaningful travel. If it takes me 90 minutes to get to a specific zone, that's still a significant amount of time/effort spent just to get there. I don't want log in and feel like I have to measure my sessions in halves. As in ... if I have 2 hours, I know that I can only spend X (approximately 1 hour in this example) amount of time adventuring/navigating before I realize that if I die at this point, I will barely have enough time to get back to this location. That sounds horrible. So an hour in ... should a player say "Sorry guys, it took roughly an hour to get here. If we go 5 more minutes into the zone, it would likely take 65 minutes for me to recover a corpse if we wipe, and there is no way I can do that."
That mentality is the exact opposite of encouraging players to explore and take risks. At any point in time a player would need to evalutate how much time it takes to get to a certain area and then ensure that they have that exact same amount of time (or more) to return there before they have to log off. That is extremely prohibitive in nature. By attaching XP loss to corpses ... there is still that time variable, but it's more universal and flexible than linear and rigid. Players can spend every minute of their session exploring and adventuring ... knowing that beyond the halfway point, they can continue pressing forward. They would accept that if they die, they will not be able to recover their corpse and suffer additional XP loss. That is fair, IMO. It would sting for sure but it wouldn't necessarily prevent someone from taking adventure/exploration related risks. They could spend their full 2 hour session trying to get to an exotic location that is approximately 2 hours away, and then still be able to take a risk of fighting a challenging boss prior to logging out. If they wipe, that really sucks. They spent 2 hours trying to get to that location and they will likely lose all of the XP they acquired along the way. That's manageable risk vs reward in the context of "encouraging exploration and taking risks." If players feel like they shouldn't continue pressing forward because they are at the "halfway point of their session" -- that's really bad for anybody that is looking to make the most use of their limited time.
Tanix said:Manouk said:Tanix said:Manouk said:I think 7 days is enough time to get a corpse, even with penalty of item loss. I am talking 7 RL days counting from when you log in and stopping when you log out.
(blah blah blah....)
The 7 days real time and a "are you sure?" check I think would be reasonable. However I realize my response has drifted away from the point, that if accepted by a player does away with these concerns which is: its dangerous out there, one must live and learn and the death must be enough reinforcement to drive player behavior to avoid it while at the same time allowing the player to accept the consequences of the death as per the rules of the game.
So your argument is that if a player can not get to their body in 7 days, they should have all of their equipment erased?
I am a big objector to those going on about RL getting in the way of things, but this as a penalty, it is.. not reasonable and it was one of the most hated results for anyone who experienced it in EQ. To have hundreds, if not thousands of hours spent on a character just deleted because a person did not recover their corpse in time (7 days, and how is 7 days considered reasonable?), well... not only do I disagree, but such a game that would PURPOSELY implement that feature (remember EQ doing this was merely a hardware/software limitation of the time and 7 days was a component of that), that is a severe imbalance of risk/reward.
Even with 7 RL days counting from when you log in? I think that is generous and doable. You die. You log out. You log back in tomorrow and you have 6 days 23hrs and 58min to get your corpse. You log after an hour. A month later, you log back in, you now have 6 days 22hrs 20min to get your corpse and your stuff.
The tangent on corpse bank control was my oen.
Lets take a different approach.
Tell me why a system as you describe will be better for game play, to promote risk/reward than that of a system where the player corpse does not rot in 7 days, but they still have to recover it?
My idea assumes gear loss happens when the corpse rots. With that assumption I think my idea is better for game play because with all the time available to get your corpse as the 7day RL timer does not count down until you log in and stops counting down when you log out. The amount of time you have takes some of the sting out of the mini-game of corpse retrieval. You still have the risk of running to get your corpse and your stuff, doubly painfull because you are naked- since you are walking into the same dungeon but without your weapons/armor and in a weaker position than when you entered. (Like an emergent game-life escort mission, but with PC's instead of NPC's as a means to get your corpse). This is doubled negative reinforcement on the risk side, with no gain on the reward side except a return to whole or zero (got my gear) with the additional exp loss. The exp is regainable and also through time. This also assumes the regaining of exp through time is negligible, but I think makes the need for time to get your corpse risky enough. You are forced to play the corpse retrieval game which is a negative reinforcement- if you want to.
- granted the mechanic for gear will be different in pantheon on Aradune's coments (thanks for quoting/linking them)
If the player corpse does not rot and there is no gear loss but the player still has to recover the corpse opens the ability to use corpses as banks, which I have seen done by RMT'ers. Here, time passing is a positive , or non-negative reinforcement to the player (not RMT'er), as you can leave your corpse for days, even years if I understand you correctly, and you can revover it maybe when you are higher skilled and get your now "old" stuff but still spend the same amount of time to get exp back.
With corpses emergently used as banks by RMT'ers, stacks of corpses appear around the world whenever the player logs on, all loaded with gear, to which the player goes to retrieve items stored on the corpse to sell or whatever. Or, if a special zone is created to hold such corpses (as was done soon after or near LoY- more "bank" space! Shadowrest I think it was called?) then the player has them all in one neat place under the guise of devs saying they are making the corpse retrieval, easier. So I went on the tangent of how to control that by relying on assumed community behavior(bonhommie).
Vandraad said:Tanix said:Kael -->Warsilk woods -->Skyshrine (which sucked if you were not on that faction)-->Cobalt scar (if you knew a druid/wizard who found the dropped spell, you could catch a ride this far)--> Sirens Grotto (underwater sea horses and fish, etc... better be able to swim fast, have invis, etc...)-->Western Wastes.
If you were making your corpse run to Western Wastes by detouring from Kael, in Velious, to Warslik Woods..in Kunark..then yes your corpse runs were difficult. :) The zone off Kael Drakkel was Wakening Lands. :)
Ah yes, thank you for the correction. Wakening lands, that is right (where the dragon roamed and often near the skysrhine entertance making dying on the way to recovery common), as for Warsilk woods.. hmm oh right, that was Kunark? (another zone that if you died in an area you were not familiar with, CR could be quite challenging as you ran through looking for your corpse.)
Manouk said:Tanix said:Manouk said:Tanix said:Manouk said:I think 7 days is enough time to get a corpse, even with penalty of item loss. I am talking 7 RL days counting from when you log in and stopping when you log out.
(blah blah blah....)
The 7 days real time and a "are you sure?" check I think would be reasonable. However I realize my response has drifted away from the point, that if accepted by a player does away with these concerns which is: its dangerous out there, one must live and learn and the death must be enough reinforcement to drive player behavior to avoid it while at the same time allowing the player to accept the consequences of the death as per the rules of the game.
So your argument is that if a player can not get to their body in 7 days, they should have all of their equipment erased?
I am a big objector to those going on about RL getting in the way of things, but this as a penalty, it is.. not reasonable and it was one of the most hated results for anyone who experienced it in EQ. To have hundreds, if not thousands of hours spent on a character just deleted because a person did not recover their corpse in time (7 days, and how is 7 days considered reasonable?), well... not only do I disagree, but such a game that would PURPOSELY implement that feature (remember EQ doing this was merely a hardware/software limitation of the time and 7 days was a component of that), that is a severe imbalance of risk/reward.
Even with 7 RL days counting from when you log in? I think that is generous and doable. You die. You log out. You log back in tomorrow and you have 6 days 23hrs and 58min to get your corpse. You log after an hour. A month later, you log back in, you now have 6 days 22hrs 20min to get your corpse and your stuff.
The tangent on corpse bank control was my oen.
Lets take a different approach.
Tell me why a system as you describe will be better for game play, to promote risk/reward than that of a system where the player corpse does not rot in 7 days, but they still have to recover it?
My idea assumes gear loss happens when the corpse rots. With that assumption I think my idea is better for game play because with all the time available to get your corpse as the 7day RL timer does not count down until you log in and stops counting down when you log out. The amount of time you have takes some of the sting out of the mini-game of corpse retrieval. You still have the risk of running to get your corpse and your stuff, doubly painfull because you are naked- since you are walking into the same dungeon but without your weapons/armor and in a weaker position than when you entered. (Like an emergent game-life escort mission, but with PC's instead of NPC's as a means to get your corpse). This is doubled negative reinforcement on the risk side, with no gain on the reward side except a return to whole or zero (got my gear) with the additional exp loss. The exp is regainable and also through time. This also assumes the regaining of exp through time is negligible, but I think makes the need for time to get your corpse risky enough. You are forced to play the corpse retrieval game which is a negative reinforcement- if you want to.
- granted the mechanic for gear will be different in pantheon on Aradune's coments (thanks for quoting/linking them)
If the player corpse does not rot and there is no gear loss but the player still has to recover the corpse opens the ability to use corpses as banks, which I have seen done by RMT'ers. Here, time passing is a positive , or non-negative reinforcement to the player (not RMT'er), as you can leave your corpse for days, even years if I understand you correctly, and you can revover it maybe when you are higher skilled and get your now "old" stuff but still spend the same amount of time to get exp back.
With corpses emergently used as banks by RMT'ers, stacks of corpses appear around the world whenever the player logs on, all loaded with gear, to which the player goes to retrieve items stored on the corpse to sell or whatever. Or, if a special zone is created to hold such corpses (as was done soon after or near LoY- more "bank" space! Shadowrest I think it was called?) then the player has them all in one neat place under the guise of devs saying they are making the corpse retrieval, easier. So I went on the tangent of how to control that by relying on assumed community behavior(bonhommie).
That works fine if your game is perm-death, or designed like a rogue like. In such games, the aquistion of gear is normalized to a smaller time frame. In EQ though, it could take weeks of camping to finally gain a gear item. In some cases, it could take months (epic quest lines). So, telling a player they have to prioritize the game so much that if they do not act according to the time clock of the game, they will lose EVERYTHING they had earned over weeks and months of play is... an imbalance of risk vs reward.
The risk of losing everything in a game because you may not have the time to play is a bit much. It goes beyond risk vs reward with internal game play and then leverages external game play as a key aspect. I don't think it is healthy to throw away the effort of a player with such a mechanic unless the game is specifically designed around it. That is, as I said in rogue likes design their game play specifically to the concept that you will die more often, lose everything and be required to start over. The games progresion, encounters, and systems are all designed around that concept.
A game like EQ is not. Even when it occurred in original EQ, it was not a design, rather a limitation in technology. It was something that few thought of as "reasonable" as a play mechanic, it was merely something we had to deal with.
The other problem with this is that there are extenuating circumstances out of peoples control where they may not be able to recover their corpse immediately. A knew of someone who was playing, died and didn't have time to go get their corpse that night. They then had family pass away and was not able to get back on to play for a few weeks. They lost everything. While I don't think a persons RL should dictate game design, nor do I think a games play should dictate real life. If a player dies and then doesn't get the chance to recover their corpse immediately, then they should still be able to do it at another time. After all, they still have to go back to the zone and still have to go through the requirements of recovering it. A condition like you explain punishes someone for not acting fast enough in RL to meet a games expectations.
oneADseven said:If it takes me 90 minutes to get to a specific zone, that's still a significant amount of time/effort spent just to get there. I don't want log in and feel like I have to measure my sessions in halves. As in ... if I have 2 hours, I know that I can only spend X (approximately 1 hour in this example) amount of time adventuring/navigating before I realize that if I die at this point, I will barely have enough time to get back to this location. That sounds horrible. So an hour in ... should a player say "Sorry guys, it took roughly an hour to get here. If we go 5 more minutes into the zone, it would likely take 65 minutes for me to recover a corpse if we wipe, and there is no way I can do that."
That mentality is the exact opposite of encouraging players to explore and take risks. At any point in time a player would need to evalutate how much time it takes to get to a certain area and then ensure that they have that exact same amount of time (or more) to return there before they have to log off. That is extremely prohibitive in nature.
Yet that is exactly what risk vs reward is. It means that you have to consider the risk of play. What you are arguing for is for a player to be able to neatly have a clean play sessions in those exact 2 hours. VR didn't say that 2 hours is what would provide a full and enriched play session with all objectives available, they said 2 hours would be the amount of time that would provide some options to have meaningful play.
This does not mean you will be able to head deep into a dungeon, kill some mobs, die a few times, eventually get that rare item and be back to town ready to log out. It means in 2 hours you can at least be able to expect to be able to do some exping, maybe in a specific place camp for a given item, etc..The 2 hour window isn't the constraint, it is the minimum time required to do something in game.
That is at least how I read it to mean.
So, CRs are a part of play, an integral concept of risk vs reward. If you log on near a zone line, or in an easy to get area near a town to do some exp, or maybe camp a named there (lets say camping some East Common mobs, or a named in the Oasis), it is reasonable that in 2 hours you may be able not only kill a few iterations of PH spawns, but also if you happend to die, easily get back to your corpse.
That is not the same as expecting with 2 hours of play to be able to head Seb, work your way to the second level, camp the Fungus King, wipe a couple of times and recover without any time issues.
You will be able to get some things done, just not big adventures. In those, you will have to plan ahead, setup times with friends to explore deep in the dungeons as well as account for the time it will take if you have to recover your corpse. That is the balance of risk vs reward.