Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Change my mind: No Corpse Runs

    • 74 posts
    May 20, 2022 9:46 AM PDT

    Raidan said:

    "Is it fun" should never be considered with a Death Penalty.  Not all game mechanics have to be fun just like not everything in life is constantly fun.  The Death Penalty should not be fun at all, it should be a mechanic that players want to avoid because it isn't fun.  If the Death Penalty is causing people to not explore, or fear going deeper in a dungeon etc. due to the fear of the penalty and/or corpse retrieval and/or lost time - then the mechanic is working as intended as long as the reward for the harder/riskier content is also in place.

    I agree with Disposalist that the death penalty is one of the most fundamental concepts in an MMORPG, and I'd also agree with others that EQ trivialized it at higher levels, and if anything, I'd have made the penalty harsher at higher levels versus lower -  let the lower level players ease into the penalty and by the time it takes full effect, you already have the players "hooked" at that point and much more unlikely to quit over it.

    And, it's probably the 100th time I've linked this article on this site, but the Wolfshead article on Loss Aversion lays out the importance of the death penalty far better and more eloquently than I ever could:

    https://www.wolfsheadonline.com/the-death-penalty-mechanic-and-loss-aversion-in-mmo-design/

    That's an excellent article you posted, and extremely good points. I especially like "If the Death Penalty is causing people to not explore, or fear going deeper in a dungeon etc. due to the fear of the penalty and/or corpse retrieval and/or lost time - then the mechanic is working as intended as long as the reward for the harder/riskier content is also in place."

    • 888 posts
    May 20, 2022 9:53 AM PDT

    Additional ideas for having a meaningful death penalty:

    1. Characters who can't recover their corpse can make a pilgrimage to their religion's holy site and perform some kind of atonement. 
    2. The most recently unlock is lost and needs to be unlocked again. Additional deaths remove other unlocks. Obviously this only makes sense if we will be able to unlock portals.
    3. You become marked by death and an undead revenant version of yourself will spawn some distance away and come after you unless you recover your corpse. 
    4. Max level characters continue to gain xp up to 100% of the total xp for max level. This xp doesn't gain a new level, but provides a percentage boost to some stats based on what percent of the bonus xp pool the character has. This creates an xp loss mechanic for max level characters and thus continues the xp death penalty for them.
    • 2138 posts
    May 20, 2022 11:56 AM PDT

    TheWingless said:

    Raidan said:

    [...]

    That's an excellent article you posted, and extremely good points. I especially like "If the Death Penalty is causing people to not explore, or fear going deeper in a dungeon etc. due to the fear of the penalty and/or corpse retrieval and/or lost time - then the mechanic is working as intended as long as the reward for the harder/riskier content is also in place."

    Good point, I forgot about the "revenge kill" aspect. The emotional reaction to corpse runs can- in some- cause them to be motivated to 1. go back to prove they can conquer the content. 2. thoroughly slay the monster that killed them again and again until satisfied, 3. achieve a sense of accomplishment in going back later and not dieing, the not deing being validation of improved abilities, training, skill, or group.

    • 143 posts
    May 20, 2022 4:14 PM PDT

    I think corpse can have a place in current MMOs. We don't know enough of the details (or at least I don't) to say whether they are a net positive or not in this game.

     

    Will we spawn at a bind location, potentially a 30+ minute run away? Will there be a graveyard, or even several, where we spawn in the nearest one for every zone? There will definitely be some time involved in finagling my way to my corpse around whatever killed me in the first place. The death penalty should strike a balance between feeling like you messed up, but not that your time exploring is now forfeited if you go retrieve your corpse.

     

    I like the idea of having to decide if it's worth the trouble of getting my corpse back. Can I make it back fast enough where I don't have to reclear half the area? Should I make that tough looking pull up ahead after getting a really nice drop I can't use but can sell for lots (meaning I can't equip it to save it), or turn back and head to safety? Did I go in too over my head and need to ask for help or forever lose my loot?

     

    Of course the dynamic changes even more in a group. Am I the only person with a resurrection? I may play way more conservatively. Something I would never even consider without corpse runs. Will my teammmates play more recklessly relying on my resurrection? Going back for the corpse with a group after a wipe is way easier of a decision than solo.

     

    These are all things I haven't had to think about in an MMO in about 15 years, and it added an extra element to the gameplay. I didn't feel like a time sink that detracted from my enjoyment. If anything, it made my exploring more fun.

     

    Was dying frustrating sometimes? Sure. But I was dying because I was trying to do things that I knew very likely would lead to my death. Repeatedly. Nothing forced me to try pulling 4 mobs in one go by myself, run through a higher level zone, or see if I could defeat a mob 5 levels above me simply to see the xp they gave. I did those things for the challenge and the pride of being able to say I did it when many others couldn't or wouldn't.

     

     

    • 1273 posts
    May 20, 2022 4:32 PM PDT

    Was dying frustrating sometimes? Sure. But I was dying because I was trying to do things that I knew very likely would lead to my death. Repeatedly. Nothing forced me to try pulling 4 mobs in one go by myself, run through a higher level zone, or see if I could defeat a mob 5 levels above me simply to see the xp they gave. I did those things for the challenge and the pride of being able to say I did it when many others couldn't or wouldn't.

     

    Haha, finally a kindred spirit.  All things I did, and plan to do again!!  But it's all meaningless if the death doesn't matter.

    • 295 posts
    May 20, 2022 7:04 PM PDT

    vjek said:

    I mean, objectively, in that scenario, who is going to spend an hour+ fighting their way down to their empty body just to get a few XP when they can get infinite worry-free XP some other way?
    The discussions surrounding an effective death penalty have already been had on these forums, and evidently, they were ignored by VR, as they're not considering them and/or have never mentioned they will be testing them.  Ok. :)  Glad the community went to the effort of crowdsourcing a solution for it to be ignored. heheh.  Just like every other donation-funded development team that I've seen.  The hubris is real.

     

    VR is on record for implementing plenty of ideas the community has suggested. This is an objective fact. Your comment sounds very disingenuous when compared to that. 

    Moreover, I don't want to play a game that is primarily dictated by the community. No matter how 'right' they think they are. Oftentimes, the community presents contradictory suggestions and each sides will debate their reasoning til the cows come home. That has contributed to ruining games trying to please the everchanging whims of a community. 

    As one of the Pantheon content creators mentioned some time ago, good games are like works of art. It is the vision of the creators and what kind of world and playstyle they want to showcase for others enjoyment. I see Pantheon as such a game. They have a visionary framework(tenets) to operate from, but it up to them to 'paint' that world for us, not to solely or primarily react to our demands. 

    For example, I have played every MMO as a solo player almost exclusively. I should be supporting all those folks wanting some consideration to solo play. I have seen what that constant ever-demanding solo mindset of the greater communites have done to destroy my enjoyment of every single MMO I have played and don't want that for Pantheon. So, I actually fight against any talk of solo play(even though I will still be doing it a lot.) Why? because, at the end of the day, it's not only about what I want, its about what is best for the longevity of the game and supporting the vision that VR has for their game. The strong focus on community and group play seems to be a powerful counter to the plague of solo playing, path of least resistance, instant gratification MMOS out here today. I don't agree with eveything they do, but I agree with the overall design philosophy and that they will provide us with a game that will bring back some of the wonder and excitement of playing in an MMO. They have done so without me even playing yet. I'm more fascinated by a game I haven't played than logging into anyone of the games currently available.

    So, I'm not here trying to get the exact game I envision in my mind. I'm here to play Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen made by Visionary Realms, not the chaotic mess of a game that would result from players thinking they should be the primary source of how the game is developed. They have been very open and accomodating to the community and you painting them like this is particularly insincere. It seems this is your MO and I'm not sure why you would subject yourself to this game when you so clearly don't appear to believe in the game or the company. It really is weird to me.

    • 8 posts
    May 21, 2022 1:57 AM PDT

    It's the role of the healer to provide you ressurection convenience. Getting rid of corpseruns makes healers less meaningful. 

    I think corpse runs can be an enjoyable punishment. Getting to walk around in a spirit realm is awesome. In secret world there was a quest where you had to find an npc in the afterlife in order to complete it. Of course it's possible for there to be no difference whatsoever and being forced to walk for an hour. That would be lame. My advice is to keep in mind that all of this is calibratable. What percentage exp do you lose on death? How much damage does your gear take? How far away is the graveyard? What is the duration of ressurection sickness? Personally I don't want pantheon being 'mainstream' or 'modern'. I don't know if this is really the best hill to die on for what defines 'oldschool mmos', either. My point is magnitude of punishment is the cause of death frustration and "slow-down", not the mechanic.

    What if dire lords could pick which graveyard they respawned at by travelling to a different one, except they could ride a faster mount in the spirit realm? There could totally be content in the spirit realm. You could straight up populate a sunken ruin with a merchant guild.

    How about this? Instead of respawning at a graveyard, you simply leave your body without teleporting. You can re-enter your body immediately for a 90% stat reduction, for 30 mins, or you can wait for a cleric to ress you for 10%, or walk to a graveyard for 0%. -and there is cool swag in the spirit realm. That sound good? That way you aren't being put in time out and you can still grab that item off the ground. To prevent abuse of this mechanic I think the 're-entered' body durations should stack (extra stacks cleanseable by a cleric). You could also run to a cleric and wave at them to get their attention. My point here is corpseruns means an entire alternate universe of content. Commonly huge mechanics full of potential get scrapped because they are imagined in bad faith. 

     

    Before I press enter, I just want to put it out there: I have also been big mad at die in video game.

    • 3852 posts
    May 21, 2022 9:33 AM PDT

    vjek - you may be right but let's wait until Alpha and see how the death penalty mechanism actually works. Maybe it will prove to be effective. If not the alpha testers will have plenty of time to comment. This is certainly high on my list if things to weigh. 

    Whatever the mechanism is in pre-alpha or whatever they show in releases, or discuss, may be only part of the package. If it is inadaquate it may be because they haven't gotten around to developing the other parts of the package which, as a whole, will not be inadaquate.

    As I said you may be right. They probably will not go nearly as far as many of us want. Which would be further than many others of us want. It is a truism that a good resolution to a debate often bothers most people involved a little but almost no one a lot. We will see how they do on this one. One day.

    • 200 posts
    May 21, 2022 11:44 AM PDT

    My opinion: corpse runs are OK but without item- and EXP loss.

    The point is: if the players get the feeling, that their time is wasted with stupid and tedious stuff then they will stop playing the game very quickly.

     

    Cheers

    • 1273 posts
    May 21, 2022 12:17 PM PDT

    Stupid and tedious is the subjective part there.  I totally agree that if players feel like their time is wasted they will move on to some other form of entertainment.  What people fine stupid and tedious is all over the board.  

    • 10 posts
    May 22, 2022 4:36 PM PDT

    Znagol said:

    It's the role of the healer to provide you ressurection convenience. Getting rid of corpseruns makes healers less meaningful. 

     

    What Trinity MMO have you played where healers aren't meaningful?

    • 1992 posts
    May 22, 2022 5:39 PM PDT

    Orrion said:

    Znagol said: It's the role of the healer to provide you ressurection convenience. Getting rid of corpseruns makes healers less meaningful.

    What Trinity MMO have you played where healers aren't meaningful?

    I can't help but notice that Znagol said "less meaningful" as opposed to "not meaningful".

    That said, I am also curious as to how corpse runs make a Healer more meaningful?

    Feastycentral said:

    Will we spawn at a bind location, potentially a 30+ minute run away? Will there be a graveyard, or even several, where we spawn in the nearest one for every zone?

    While anything can certainly change, Joppa has stated not long ago that "when you die you will return to your bind point". Roenick repeated that statement less than 2 weeks ago in the livestream. To my knowledge, VR has never talked about graveyards in connection to dying. There's also no mention of them whatsoever in the Library of Pantheon database.

    • 74 posts
    May 22, 2022 5:52 PM PDT

    Larirawiel said:

    My opinion: corpse runs are OK but without item- and EXP loss.

     

    I'm having trouble understanding this. What would the point of a corpse run even be if there was no item or exp loss? What value would your body have?

    • 690 posts
    May 22, 2022 6:24 PM PDT

    Jothany said:

    I am also curious as to how corpse runs make a Healer more meaningful?

    Lazy people don't want to run to their corpses, and make the healer do it. Raids especially make a lot of use of the rez spell.

    In addition, it's one of the easier nice things healers can do for low levels.

     

     

    • 150 posts
    May 22, 2022 8:21 PM PDT

    Respawning after death already clashes with the idea of "worlds not games", but hardcore mode isn't a perfect fit in MMOs, esp ones where dying is the rule, not the exception.

    Gate/evac, feign death, resurrection, stealth, etc. All of these abilities influence each player's relationship with death and the prospect of corpse retrieval. If a class has feign death, they will be more likely to flirt with death, whereas another class might try and crowd control to the bitter end or retreat. If a class has resurrection, their group members are going to do everything to protect them so they can gate or camp out, making the recovery time shorter as a result. Perhaps even the rogue would try to camp out as well, having abilities to make dragging corpses easier. And of course the classes with feign death would attempt to flop last minute. If the entire group/raid wipes though, suddenly the classes with ports would take center stage, needing to coordinate with those bound all over to avoid a complicated recovery process. Classes with movement speed buffs also become more valuable thanks to corpse runs. All of these different class-based relationships with corpse runs would add a layer onto the replayability to the game.

    To an extent, all games are PvP because they are created by players. It is a match between developer and player, dungeon master and player, etc. Personally, it's just more fun to play against devs who refuse to go easy on the players because that causes the players to bond and work together more closely. For every corpse run, there is an opportunity to guide, buff, port, and rez a complete stranger, and that's where conversations/friendships begin.

    • 2756 posts
    May 23, 2022 3:31 AM PDT

    Counterfleche said:

    Additional ideas for having a meaningful death penalty:

    1. Characters who can't recover their corpse can make a pilgrimage to their religion's holy site and perform some kind of atonement. 
    2. The most recently unlock is lost and needs to be unlocked again. Additional deaths remove other unlocks. Obviously this only makes sense if we will be able to unlock portals.
    3. You become marked by death and an undead revenant version of yourself will spawn some distance away and come after you unless you recover your corpse. 
    4. Max level characters continue to gain xp up to 100% of the total xp for max level. This xp doesn't gain a new level, but provides a percentage boost to some stats based on what percent of the bonus xp pool the character has. This creates an xp loss mechanic for max level characters and thus continues the xp death penalty for them.

    Some great ideas and I think most people could come up with some that would make "the corpse run" more... interesting.

    Actually, I never really found the corpse run 'bad'.  I always saw it as a simple consequence of death that made in-game challenges more exciting.  If you don't like dangerous travelling, challenging encounters and reasons to associate with other players, I'm confused why you'd like these games anyway, and that's all a corpse run is, only with a single, relatively important and urgent aim. Again, hardly something unusual in these games. *shrug*

    But, as with most 'old school' mechanics, there's no reason VR can't bring them back for the good of the game and genre, but make them even more meaningful and interesting in-and-of themselves with ideas like those Counterfleche suggests.

    Personally, I don't think the 'frustration' of corpse runs needs mitigating at all, and certainly doesn't warrant removing, especially given the hugely detrimental effect on the games' excitement and meaning, but, corpse runs could be made better (without being made easier).


    This post was edited by disposalist at May 23, 2022 3:33 AM PDT
    • 223 posts
    May 23, 2022 4:48 AM PDT

    As much as I love corpse runs, and I do, I dont know if I would like to have seen it in Pantheon. Busy life and all that stuff, but also it kind of becomes less of a risk after resurrection spells.

    I'm still all in for risk v reward.

    • 31 posts
    May 23, 2022 5:32 AM PDT

    Cryptfox said:

     

    We have Project Development Cycles in business for the creation of things and can add content much faster than before.

    So why do we need corpse runs now?

    It's a slowdown mechanic meant to buy developers time and keep players from burning through content.

     

     

    This is an interesting article, but the corpse runs weren't because of the development cycle or releases. It's actually a mechanic from D&D, and Blizzard took it into Diablo several years before Everquest. It was somewhat known at that time period. It's the penalty you incur, and the penalty that softens with more people. It is meant to be there strictly as a penalty. If they wanted to just slow you down, they could have just added a ressurection timer. There is no new content for running back to your body, it's arguably not even guaranteed to be slow.

    • 10 posts
    May 23, 2022 10:23 AM PDT

    BeaverBiscuit said:

    Jothany said:

    I am also curious as to how corpse runs make a Healer more meaningful?

    Lazy people don't want to run to their corpses, and make the healer do it. Raids especially make a lot of use of the rez spell.

    In addition, it's one of the easier nice things healers can do for low levels.

     

     

     

    Whether I go to my own corpse or ask the healer depends on the experience.. in EQ everyone wanted the 96% rez and went out of their way to get it. I wouldn't say that necessarily made healers by themselves any more meaningful though. It's not like Druids or Rangers we're more meaningful because they could cast SoW on random passers by.

    Healers will have plenty of meaning in groups. The role I worry about in groups is Support. 

    • 233 posts
    June 10, 2022 2:10 AM PDT

    I only know corpse runs from playing wow and theyre fine.

    You shouldnt lose any gear or items at all.

    Losing xp and gear damage is punishment enough.

    • 810 posts
    June 10, 2022 5:33 AM PDT

    Grimseethe said:

    I only know corpse runs from playing wow and theyre fine.

    You shouldnt lose any gear or items at all.

    Losing xp and gear damage is punishment enough.

     

    The current plan is more punishing than WoW was.  You will need to go back for your bags, but not your armor.  I frequently used death in end game vanilla wow to fast travel around.  That will not be an option in Pantheon, at least until people complain loud enough. 


    This post was edited by Jobeson at June 10, 2022 5:34 AM PDT
    • 41 posts
    June 11, 2022 7:35 AM PDT

    What I like about corpse runs, is it can have varying difficulties based on location. As mentioned there will be bind points throughout the world. So at low levels or "easier" areas could have closer bind points, while at more challenging, high levels and areas intended for full groups/raids the bind points become further and further away. I'd much rather have corpse runs than some sort of long debuff so I can actively regain back to normal status than doing so passively with time. And in reality, it's not even a true corpse run, it's a bag run since you keep all equipped items with your character.

    • 161 posts
    June 11, 2022 5:24 PM PDT

    I'd say that I could live with corpse runs, but that seems...wrong.

    • 2419 posts
    June 11, 2022 5:54 PM PDT

    Corpse runs also serve a very important function:  Clearing out failed groups from an area so another group can move in, taking their place.  You can't claim an area if you aren't present!  The presence of corpses doesn't count.

    • 200 posts
    June 12, 2022 2:20 AM PDT

    TheWingless said:

    Larirawiel said:

    My opinion: corpse runs are OK but without item- and EXP loss.

     

    I'm having trouble understanding this. What would the point of a corpse run even be if there was no item or exp loss? What value would your body have?

    Hey,

    i mean, if make a corpse run then you should not lose something, either EXP nor items. Or the loss should be very small. But if you decide to revive in a town after a death then some more impactful losses should be OK.

     

    Cheers