Netheril : Age of Magic
Player Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mortui on October 23, 2018, 08:21:00 pm
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I, personally feel like the respawn, raise and resurrection penalties are too light.
However, I won't change them without good cause.
How does our community feel about the death penalties and what would be a suitable recompense for making death harsher?
No promises any changes will happen, I'm just curious.
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There's basically two camps on this issue. One side wants and enjoys the more hardcore style where death is a horrific occurrence with devastating consequences while the other side wants to RP without the major risks and enjoy their character they've invested hundreds of hours into.
I can see the appeal of both sides and it's an issue that's going to piss people off either way you lean. When my character was perma-killed after putting 400+ hours into her, it was a harsh blow. I suppose the argument could be made that it's my fault for getting TOO invested in a character, but it is what it is.
It's a difficult problem to solve. Would it be possible to flag characters as "hardcore" like in Diablo for example? Death would be much more punishing but they would enjoy additional benefits in some other way?
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I personally think that the current XP penalties are too harsh. Especially now that PVP rules have been lax'd, death shouldn't completely gimp players. There have been other posts about this topic, but I can't seem to find it.
If a 15+ PC dies they can lose almost a months worth of progress. They have no good means of getting XP other than work orders and reduced XP ticks.
There are too many uncontrollable variables in an encounter to even give players chances at not dying. Death spells, death auras, fear auras, and other things.
Also, the fact you can be instantly downed and then sent to purgatory within the same turn should be reason enough to not enforce a stricter death penalty.
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I think they are much too lax, and have resulted in a server where everyone stays at the level cap all of the time, with the exception of a handful of newbies who have not yet ridden the Sauros train to 15.
There is an advantage to this, and that is that frontline PCs aren't hurt as badly by the low loot level of the server.
There is a disadvantage to this, in that it has created an expectation that people will be at least 15th level. Any possibility of falling from that height is met with anger or dismay. Being 15th level (or any level in particular) shouldn't be a goal on an RP server, but it has become that for a great many people, and I don't think you'll be able to change it without an enormous amount of complaints.
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Being fair:
Before reviewing death penalties in terms of server system, the ideal would be to review and reevaluate the deaths that occur icly.
First, that regardless of the punishment that the system imposes on the character, losing levels and xp, in addition to the time invested in recovering the lost xp, it would be necessary to establish clear rules icly to avoid abuses of pvp, in Icly terms of laws. Any fool can go off to kill other players-characters for any random reason. The problem is that many of the server rules or how they are applied do not cover everything. In terms oocly and icly.
So this leaves a lot to be pondered, since any player can take advantage of something that he considers appropriate or that has combined with the dm for some reason for a special moment, or the dm has passed this player the orientation, but the whole server does not know yet, giving a lot of room for mistakes, confusion or problems because have a lot of unknown stuff happening. Just my opinion.
Now, about the topic about death penalties...
Regarding the punishment for dying, in terms of system: a period of 72 ingame hours, with a reduction of saving throws, and having a reduced CON (1d4+1) would be plausible to represent the period of physical and mental recovery of the character, after being revived through a cleric npc. Finding a cleric pc can work in a different way, instead 72 ingame hours, only 24 hours. Because this incentive the clerics players to roleplay as true clerics and follow they own behavior of clerics. The "resurrection sickness" can't be removed by removing curse, only a dm can remove it if necessary, for matter of event or to fix a bug.
Reduction of xp? Losing less xp after lvl 15 would be interesting, but that would be too comfortable. Keeping the current punishment would be acceptable, 5 to 15% loss is reasonable, as long as dms have good sense when launching spam against players in dm events, and are aware that not always invincible mobs or too many mobs is the same as challenge. I already consider it exaggerated when they send more than 3 to 5 mobs to each character in the event because the intense lag or too op to deal... And there are events that I watched in the past about having more than 12 mobs for each player.
Cost of gold? Keep. high enough for causal and even hardcore players.
The current problem about the penalties for higher-level characters is about punishment after being revived.
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For my part, I'd like to point something out. Increasing death penalties, though at a glance seems to deter excessive dungeon crawling, can actually have the opposite effect.
From the position of what game-play it encourages, increasing XP and GP penalties drives players towards having to spend more time in dungeons and killing monsters to generate the same average XP and GP gains over a given period of time. Even providing a lingering penalty for death merely encourages the time between having this penalty to be more saturated with dungeon crawling content. This is something that I've seen happen in a lot of servers that make death more severe - they intend to discourage 'risky' or 'grindy' play styles, and inadvertently actually encourage it.
Those that are drawn towards max level content or are currently happy with the rate of progression also become at risk of burning out or becoming frustrated, intentionally or not, over time as standard game-play becomes more punishing with little additional incentive other than self generated value - that is the satisfaction that comes from reaching a level or getting a piece of loot that they as a player have decided ahead of time they want to gain. In addition to this, this self generated value becomes delayed, further exacerbating potential issues.
As counter intuitive as it may seem, if you intend to have players spend less time grinding, then the answer is to increase XP gains. If your intention is to make role played deaths more impactful, then you reduce the risk of death outside of RP focused content.
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My current feelings on the death system are easy to list.
1. I hate the idea of "death" being so common on the server. I feel like Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection spells should be renamed to indicate that a character does not actually die, but is instead knocked wholly unconscious or into a comatose state, and these exceptionally powerful healing spells bring them back from that brink. As they are, it cheapens the entire experience of death when someone pays 2,000 gold and they just stand up and go, "Let's get back to it, boys!"
2. I believe an XP penalty for death is not a punishment as much as it is an inconvenience. You pay 2,000 gold and go right back out adventuring to make up what you've lost. Sure, any brand of setback is frustrating and irritating, but ultimately, it is easy to reacquire.
3. Death and resurrection should carry different penalties. When a character dies and respawns, they should perhaps suffer an extensive period of weakness, such as drained attributes, reduced saving throws, or even reduced maximum health, perhaps for a full day. Spells like Greater Restoration should be allowed to reduce or restore these penalties. Raise Dead should reduce the penalties inflict at all, and perhaps allow Restoration to mend them. Resurrection can reduce them further and allow Lesser Restoration to mend them. True Resurrection can provide a revival at no cost beyond some manner of expensive reagent.
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I think the penalties are too light. Death should have a heavy impact. Players need to fear it else they won't work to actively avoid it.
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I think the XP penalties are fine, it's just leveling is to quick and easy.
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I agree with Spiffy. My original thought on this subject was "Death penalties need to be higher due to how quickly one can go up in levels."
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Does being high or low level improve the quality of roleplay, in everyone's opinion?
It's not exactly difficult to reach mid-to-high levels, but why is that a bad thing? Having everyone on a level playing field, in my experience, vastly improves cooperation and eases the burden on DMs (for balancing events). It also reduces PVP issues dramatically, because a lot of people are far more willing to do mechanical combat against someone when they know they have an extreme advantage. Sure, it makes sense ICly, but I would argue that fun on all sides is more important than being able to flex someone's almighty power over a bunch of new characters or something.
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I'm going to offer more general feedback concerning my opinions as well as death penalties
1. The server needs to find an identity. Things keep changing around all the time again and again. At some point set rules must be decided.
Death penalty started at 25%, now it's like 10% and now here we are discussing again how it should maybe be increased again.
2. Characters need an about equal playing field. The servers who have succesfully over the years used pvp as a means to progress the story are low level servers with classes balanced to have a fair chance at each other.
3. People need to be incentivized and encouraged to retire / perma their uber powered up and loot showered characters and start new concepts. There's nothing more boring than logging in day after day to see the same characters with the same stories that grow stale at some point.
4. In contrast to Spiffy i believe leveling should be fairly easy until a point, but higher levels should be conserved for the characters that are leaders or offer RP to the server and community and are otherwise notable. Reaching a high level beyond any kind of soft cap or not even the soft cap should mean a lot of things and not just "I leeched 5000xp and that awesome loot from that DM event". High levels should not be taken for granted and they should be an accomplishment.
I am under the impression that a good number of the playerbase feels almost entitled they should be able to progress past 15 no matter what and that dying means they lost all the progress through DM events they made.
People at the moment just reach 15, start loitering around in the square doing social RP emoting they are bored occasionally or sending tells then either log off or go for some random monster killing.
You can chat in discord about random and social things and theres no certain need to be in character to do that. Same thing you can do in any MMO like WoW but with more interesting monster killing activities you can undertake.
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I agree with a few points made here -
I do think that death should carry a heavier impact - which will in turn suggest players lean heavily upon the Divine PC's for assistance. I think it should be far more expensive in both gold and xp loss when resorting to a NPC to raise a deceased character. You have to look at it in terms of RP as well - that dead PC is in the plane where their god resides; likely a place of euphoria and everything they ever wanted. Why would they WANT to come back? Forcing players to lean on other players would mean more RP opportunity as well.
I also think it's easy to level here - and not that necessarily it is a terrible thing, but progression is looked at casually. Being able to get from level 2 to 9 in a single day or two shouldn't necessarily be a thing. It shows a progression and gives a character and a player a sense of accomplishment when it's more difficult. Beyond level 12 should be RP xp only imo, because 15 is considered powerful in a D&D setting. Understandable, cap is 15 and will likely stay that way - but I also agree with Fiona in that people 15+ shouldn't be sitting around bitching about being bored - they should be the server's RP Generals. They should be leading the charge with story lines - not mired in the disinterest of needing a DM hand holding. I have to say some high level characters are doing an awesome job of that - and I enjoy when they're around. But there are those in the status quo of 'god squad' that do indeed sit around and simply jump on the coattails of DM events, rather than leading their own storylines to involve other players in.
All in all - mechanics aside, this server is as popular as it is, because of the players playing. Not necessarily the storylines and setting. A lot of what I've seen is great, but incredibly randomized and casual.
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The issue with the player level range being too varied would only get worse with a death penalty increase. With the way many players are currently stating an increase in difficulty at events involving high level players, the low-level characters are at the greatest risk of death and therefore the loss of progress. Some argue that it should be increased so that high level player deaths will reduce them to a low level so they fit into the level range better, this idea does not account for the feelings of said high level player. Death on a level 16+ character is the loss of weeks to a month or more's worth of progress, a loss of time that has caused players to leave in the past which would only get worse with an increase in death penalty. I feel that the current penalties are fair and discourage death enough that they do not need to be increased, rather I feel penalties for players 4-10 should be decreased a bit if at all as to help new players reach the higher levels at which the server is currently averaging.
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Beyond level 12 should be RP xp only imo, because 15 is considered powerful in a D&D setting. Understandable, cap is 15
The level cap on this server is 20. You stop getting XP from monsters at 15+. No one has reached 20 yet.
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This was just a discussion on your feelings about Death Penalties.
We are not currently looking to make any changes at this time but we are always interested in players and the communities feedback around these matters.
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Personally I feel like the death penalties have actually deterred me from wanting to interact more in events and most party gatherings because I quite literally fear that my character might lose a huge chunk of XP that I spent an entire week getting, especially when I hit level 15, and especially when I realized I could actually lose an entire LEVEL if I died. When I first started, I ignorantly stepped into the underdark, completely unaware of it's dangers, saw something, ran for the transition, couldn't get through, and before I knew it I died. I don't know, maybe I'm just too used to servers with lighter penalties, but I've found that when the penalty was light I never had to fear getting involved, and not having to coward in the back all the time.
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so you are deciding not to adventure because you fear death...
Is this not how you view real life?
I want to honestly know why people have the conception that their characters SHOULDN'T fear death?
Death should be a terrifying experience. The fact that you are getting hacked to pieces by blood thirsty Orcs or your innards chewed into mush by ravenous zombies
is supposed to be terrifying.
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You ignored an important part of what Meatloaf said here. The high level character has an apparent fear of death, the low level character does not. Why is that and how does that make any sense?
It has nothing to do with an in-character perspective or how real life works. High level characters don't have to fear death so much because resurrections are a thing they can afford. Low level characters might fear death because of their lack of experience or resources to pay for resurrections.
This fear of death has less to do with being an accurate portrayal (because some characters have reason to fear dying and others somehow don't) and more to do with just being purely economical. Level 15 characters have a limited ways of earning experience, level 16+ characters are even more severely limited. As far as I know, level 16+ characters have two quest options available and one of them is apparently very difficult.
My own character doesn't joined other people on adventures because the game arbitrarily decides for him that he sees no reason to go pick a fight with ogres/trolls/kuo-toa/fire orcs/giants and doesn't let him enter the quest area, even if it would make perfect sense for him to want to help these guys out.
I also question whether I should participate in events. One of the reasons beings because the rewards just don't justify the risks involved and adventurers generally go do risky business because the rewards are worth it, which I'm going to say is rarely the case around here.
So high level characters don't want to die because it wastes a lot of the player's time. It's entirely out of character and it has absolutely nothing to do with realistically portraying the fear of death.
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This game has consequences. Stakes. The lack of these cheapens the game. Dying sucks, losing xp sucks. But if the game is more about xp and the grind, I'm worried you're missing the point of the game.
Your character should not solely be the time you've invested in them. If your characters efforts are reduced to nothing just because you lost a week's worth of xp, something's wrong, chums.
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Sometimes it's month or two worth of exp. Of course loss of exp sucks regardless of your character coolness and involvement in current plots. It would suck less if 16+ character could restore previously achieved as effectively as 10+. Ultimately, the peak has already been reached by them. Yes, this is a role-playing game. But it is also a computer game. Both of these parts are important, both should bring fun, and neither diminishes the value of the other.
In addition, the DnD is a system in which you control the "super-humans" with an unhealthy amount of heroism. Is realism appropriate here?
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Ideally, a higher level character will die to higher stakes, as opposed to a level 10. Its not a perfect system but the alternative leads to something that I personally consider unhealthy; the level gap. How can a new character hope to keep up with or even interact with characters drastically higher level than them? The answer lies in solo grinding until 10 or higher and then hoping others take you along on things so you can leech xp. I don't find that particularly fun at all. I suppose some people might, and that's their prerogative.
That said so far the only arguments I've heard equate to little more than it would be nice if the game was easier or that it's not fun for bad things to happen. Both things I think have been addressed fairly well.
The power that comes with being high level will lose all meaning when it becomes easily achievable by everyone.
It's the struggle that is what keeps things interesting, and if losing two months of xp invalidates those two months for you, then I insist you have a serious misconception on what this game is about.
I digress. I hope this doesn't come off as condescending or even rude. I only mean to throw in my own thought on the matter. I only ask that anyone who doesn't like the death system to consider rolling up a new character who doesn't focus on xp grind at all, and rather on telling a good story. I think in doing so you will enjoy the aspects I speak of much more.
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One of the things I've noticed is that the death penalty is very, very hard to overcome - particularly as a higher level character.
The thought of loosing months of progress from a lag-spike, a dumb move, or just bad luck could really drive many people up the wall.
This might be mitigated if there was a way to return the XP loss in a reasonable way. You died and get raised? 10% XP gone, but...maybe 5% of that XP is stored as a sort of "pool" that doubles the amount of XP ticks you get. Yeah - it still sucks, but now its not as much of a loss.
Resurrection is made to 2.5% of the XP recoverable, or maybe even 3%, with a total of your 5% XP lost, that would also be a reasonable option?
Last, I could see making Death be more harsh, but not drop levels? Maybe death of a level 16 character causes them to loose up to 50% of the total XP to make the next level, but never drop back down to 15.
Losing XP sucks, loosing levels sucks way, way worse. I think having ways to mitigate the loss of levels, the real progress people see, would make it less painful.
In my examples, I used 15+ just because that's where death hurts the worst, I would propose the changes I suggested be applied to all levels.
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If you die from a mechanical bug like a lag spike. That's totally out of your control,
I do not think there is a single DM that won't give you a free rez. A polite request on the DM channel or on discord should see you sorted out.
we are talking about when you make choices to go into dangerous situations and it backfires and you end up dead.
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This is another one of those situations where the design doesn't really match the intention. I understand how it can feel that having a death penalty like this will encourage role playing the risks associated with adventure. However, since the primary focus of the game play and all the events is adventure, making partaking them essential, and the personality (IE, the lack of risk aversion) of your character is the wish-fulfilment target of the game, then the end effect of this mechanic will actually be to encourage safe and repetitive grinding in down time at the expense of general social role play or other core immersion experiences. Thus, leading to running more adventuring of stuff you know your character isn't threatened by, which gets repetitive, leading to content burn out and stopping people from role playing any risk aversion around the thirtieth time the dungeon has been run. Characters then bring this general attitude that they develop in quote unquote safe content into higher level content or into DM events, ultimately defeating the entire intention of the death penalty.
Sadness.
It's fixable though. If you want people to act more carefully, relax the death penalty penalties on GP and XP, and ask players to role play the risks associated with going on murder-death sprees for profit.
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What you describe is actually what we have currently. The xp hit isn't nearly as high as folks make it out to be, and while yes, it is much more steep at higher levels, that is simply because we don't want to see a whole server of max level folks. Reaching max level shouldn't be the end all be all anyway, but again, I think this argument is going over a lot of heads.
Despite this I will try again one last time.
What you are asking for is what is practiced on many popular MMOs. World of Warcraft is actually free to play now from what I hear, as are many others.
But you're not there, even though these games have better graphics, crafting systems, and player count.
You're here.
Because this game we play offers something different; consequences. Actual tangible ones. If everyone can hit level 20 easier than they do now the accomplishment means nothing. The struggle is what brings the reward. This is what makes the stories we tell feel tangible. Without risk we are just a bunch of nerds behind screens talking at eachother.
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so you are deciding not to adventure because you fear death...
Is this not how you view real life?
I want to honestly know why people have the conception that their characters SHOULDN'T fear death?
Death should be a terrifying experience. The fact that you are getting hacked to pieces by blood thirsty Orcs or your innards chewed into mush by ravenous zombies
is supposed to be terrifying.
I'm sorry. But how can we even equate a VIDEO GAME to real life here?
I spend time playing this game. I spend time leveling my character. Once my character hits level 15+ And the only way I can gain XP is through 2 quests and the piddly DM XP we've been getting lately. Getting to level 16 and above can take as long as several weeks to achieve, and then when suddenly you lose it in a single DM event, it becomes this nonsensical chore and hassle to get back to where you were at. If I want my game to be a chore, or a hassle. I'll go grind in an MMORPG or something similar.
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What you describe is actually what we have currently. The xp hit isn't nearly as high as folks make it out to be, and while yes, it is much more steep at higher levels, that is simply because we don't want to see a whole server of max level folks. Reaching max level shouldn't be the end all be all anyway, but again, I think this argument is going over a lot of heads.
Despite this I will try again one last time.
What you are asking for is what is practiced on many popular MMOs. World of Warcraft is actually free to play now from what I hear, as are many others.
But you're not there, even though these games have better graphics, crafting systems, and player count.
You're here.
Because this game we play offers something different; consequences. Actual tangible ones. If everyone can hit level 20 easier than they do now the accomplishment means nothing. The struggle is what brings the reward. This is what makes the stories we tell feel tangible. Without risk we are just a bunch of nerds behind screens talking at eachother.
I think the player is well aware of where they're at by the way, so I don't think there's any need for the patronizing, condescending, and passive aggressive attitude.
Also. Why do we encourage our players to leave and play other games just because of constructive criticism? Isn't the entire point of this thread? Isn't that the entire thing you guys have been wanting us to do here? The point is, we DON'T want to play on other servers or other games, because we have RP, and people that we enjoy playing with here, and some of us actually care about the server and wish to see it improved instead of going through this down-ward spiral it has been going down lately.
If there's no place for that here, and you guys can't accept constructive criticsm, and don't even want to take what we say into consideration without jumping on us like a pack of rabbid animals, then maybe you're right, and this server isn't for us.
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Unlike an MMO, levels have no bearing on what you are allowed to do on this server.
Players may feel like they need the levels, but I assure you, you can manage without them.
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I think the point The Man In The Mist wanted to make was that adventuring means risk. Sometimes, shit happens, and you suffer the consequences for it. However, when you overcome risk and adversity, you're left with a sensation of accomplishment. Accomplishment is only achieved if you overcome something that can potentially set you back.
So surviving hard DM events? Accomplishment! Forging the sword of ruin, where you had to escape the lair of a red dragon that permaed 2 other PCs? Accomplishment! Achievement! Wow, what an experience, I could've lost my character!
For their to be a meaningful reward, there needs to be risk.
If you don't want risk, then there really isn't a reward.
I mean, you could just sit in the square in front of the Coin and just gain Xp that way. No risk, and if you do it long enough, you can get level 20. That'll just take longer than the 'riskier' way of doing it.
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I feel like you're coming off quite hostile to the DM team there, meatloaf. You see passive aggressiveness when I see people trying to explain their point. You see people trying to drive you off the server when they make a comparison.
You really don't need levels to be badass. Sure, they help in regards to certain things, but I believe CaptZambie became Mayor of Hadrian when he was below level 13. He achieved something cool without hitting the server apex.
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Unlike an MMO, levels have no bearing on what you are allowed to do on this server.
Players may feel like they need the levels, but I assure you, you can manage without them.
... then why do me and several other players with low level characters continue to die in events without being able to do much to contribute to begin with?
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I feel like you're coming off quite hostile to the DM team there, meatloaf. You see passive aggressiveness when I see people trying to explain their point. You see people trying to drive you off the server when they make a comparison.
You really don't need levels to be badass. Sure, they help in regards to certain things, but I believe CaptZambie became Mayor of Hadrian when he was below level 13. He achieved something cool without hitting the server apex.
That's a lot more than explaining a point. That's just straight up treating the player like they're stupid. I'm not the only one who can see that.
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Sarcasm and nuance doesn't travel well over the internet. I really think you're seeing insults where their are none intended. The Man In The Mist tried to explain it as bluntly as possible without the possibility of misinterpretation- which you construed as a patronizing and condescending tone.
Can't really win for losing, can he?
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I'm here for the RP that I'm able to have here, and the fact that the Neverwinter Nights engine allows for Netheril to exist in the first place.
This is firstmost a Roleplay server, I would ask that we focus on enhancing the actual ability and possibility of roleplaying.
Right now, the death system is "aw shit, I died - anyone have gold for a Resurrect? I'll refund you." From Purgatory. Then people get up, and go on their way, with less XP - a mechanical aspect.
NwN is not an MMO in the traditional sense, and because of the freedom allowing for everything from Netheril to a Bleach server.
And I would argue Netheril's death system is not the reason I'm here - none of Netheril's mechanics are why I'm here.
The way that the Man-in-the-mist came off, intentional or not, was very insulting. By claiming that this conversation was "over people's head" that insulated that anyone currently disagreeing, or offering input, is not intelligent enough to contribute to the conversation.
"What you are asking for is what is practiced on many popular MMOs. World of Warcraft is actually free to play now from what I hear, as are many others.
But you're not there, even though these games have better graphics, crafting systems, and player count.
You're here. "
This - is gas lighting. Trying to shift the blame onto me, and make me feel 'bad' for offering advice, this sort of language is intended to shut down thought, and to make it so people conform with what the poster has said, otherwise they can just 'leave', because obviously its their fault.
I want to talk about the death system, and my suggestions on how to improve it. That shouldn't be met with "you're not smart enough, go play on WoW." As a result.
"Because this game we play offers something different; consequences. Actual tangible ones. If everyone can hit level 20 easier than they do now the accomplishment means nothing. The struggle is what brings the reward. This is what makes the stories we tell feel tangible. Without risk we are just a bunch of nerds behind screens talking at each other."
This is another misnomer, and putting words in my mouth, in everyone's mouth. I don't play here because my actions have consequence, I do because this server allows me to, collaboratively, tell a story with other players and DM's in order to explore the thoughts, feeling, and actions of a character. That has nothing to do with the death penalty, nothing to do with mechanics, and claiming that I play here because of both are false.
Please, I'm asking that this get back on track - and instead we talk about the actual forum topic of the Death Penalty. Without the unneeded obfuscation. I still haven't heard a reason as to "why" my suggestion is apparently invalid - besides me not being smart enough to suggest one in the first place.
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As an observer, and not really caring either way, it seems to me that (ironically) starving the players of levels because "the game isn't about levels" is actually making the game about levels for people.
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I appologize if it was laid out before, but I didn't care to look for it. So, what exactly is the argument here for people and the death penalty?
Do you feel it takes away too much exp or not enough?
Do you feel it's too expensive or cheap?
Do you feel coming back from the dead is too accesible or not accesible enough?
So far from what I did care to read about, was having to do with levels. And while the death penalty plays a role in that, player level is a whooooole other thing that incorprates a multitude of stuff. Quest exp, event exp, tick exp, monster exp, craft exp, etc.
This is one of those problems where you can't have it both ways. Either the death penalty smacks you for a large chunk of exp, but gaining exp is easy and quick. Or, dieing only takes a small bit of exp, but gaining exp is hard and sluggish.
Currently, we're actually fast exp and low to low-medium exp lost on death, which is what sparked Mortui's original post on the subject. Such a formula is why it feels like almost everyone is at least double digit levels their first week from creation.
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Hence my utter bewilderment.
Let me lay down just the numbers.
A majority of the active characters ig are 15+ level wise.
15 percent of xp is lost upon respawning, provided you are not raised or ressurected, which decreases it by 5 and 10 percent respectfully. With the current level range most cleric pcs can actually rez people pretty quickly, and often. I know this because I have seen it. Even if free rezzes were not readily available, the cost of a full resurrection is 6k.
Compare that to the typical adventurers cpinpurse, which is in the tens of thousands. And those are the typical ones. There is a rather large handful of people walking around with over 100k.
6000 is a drop in the bucket.
So ignore the spiel about story, ignore my self righteous rhetoric. Ignore all of that. But don't ignore the numbers.
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As far as I'm aware, the issue of the death penalty isn't that it costs 6k to loose only 5% of your total XP, its that, post 15, that XP is significantly harder to get - thus its a matter of time, in real life, being gobbled up for a mechanical reason.
This is why people find it frustrating, or why people lash out - or otherwise get discouraged to play. It also doesn't enhance the roleplay aspect of the sever.
People treat, IG, death as a minor annoyance, the current death penalty doesn't change that - making it worse won't change that, and making it easier won't change that. When it comes to Roleplay it needs to be instead on the onus of people playing to show the results of coming from near death. Or - change it so no one actually "dies" unless they're perma'd, and instead are considered to be at the brink of death, or downed, or whatever terminology you use.
Death isn't scary right now because you can get back up, its just annoying, from a purely OOC perspective, that a player's time was wasted.
right now, a level 15 character will, at the minimum, loose 5,250 XP upon death, and a resurrection.
that means a character needs to amass 110,250 XP to be safe at level 15? Except, not, because 5,513 XP is now lost on death, so you really need closer to 5,700 to be "safe" from loosing you level, in the best of circumstances. This is actually 38% of the character's current XP towards their level.
Now you get 5,700 XP to be safe, either from ticks, or DM events. if the average tick is roughly 15, per 30 minutes or so, that's 190 hours of time to amass that amount from XP ticks alone. I don't know the actual time for each tick, I'm currently estimating.
Level 16, your minimum XP to not loose a level is approximately 6,500 XP, or 40% of your total XP towards your next level. Once again now your ability to get this "buffer" is reliant on ticks, or DM events, or two quests, if I recall right, that give XP for these characters. I'd ask what is the average XP a DM event will give - to the people that survived. If its 3k, you need to survive two events to be 'safe',
I'm suggesting that someone can't loose a level - you do that, and progress can be lost, but nothing that causes you're character to actually regress in their abilities as a person. lets say like, 30% of the XP needed to make it to your next level, not reducing your XP to the threshold that delevels you, as an example. then 20% for Raise, and 10% for resurrect.
If we're going to talk numbers, lets look at the numbers that effect the character directly when it comes to death, which is XP, and by extension, time.
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System side opinion:
I really dont care much about how much lose after dying ingame, if have ways to compensate playing later, with dm events, npc quests and tick xp crafting.
Ok, we were stressed and frustrated with the loss of XP and the time it took to recover. But if the player play and get envolved enough, end getting back the xp after a while. Take time, get stressed, hurt but is not not impossible to recover.
Lvl 17 characters lost around 7.500 xp each death.
Roleplay side opinion:
Losing xp is very less painful if the character's death was, in terms of roleplay, something striking and important to the event he or she attended, and in a way or another, this make a whole difference in the event or adventure for the character and to others too, and if the dm make the fall of a character an important moment of the adventure in an event
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People treat, IG, death as a minor annoyance, the current death penalty doesn't change that - making it worse won't change that, and making it easier won't change that. When it comes to Roleplay it needs to be instead on the onus of people playing to show the results of coming from near death. Or - change it so no one actually "dies" unless they're perma'd, and instead are considered to be at the brink of death, or downed, or whatever terminology you use.
Death isn't scary right now because you can get back up, its just annoying, from a purely OOC perspective, that a player's time was wasted.
Now out of curiosity here. What would you feel would make death more terrifying? we want people to fear death to a certain point. so how far should we go? (in a hypothetical discussion here) because for now there is no plan to change the death penalty. this does not mean we wont. we are always open to suggestions and ideas.
So would you fear death more if we made the XP loss greater?
What about if we made it perma death unless you got a rez from a cleric (npc or pc)?
What if we took away the death penalty all together?
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Welllll, if death is just an annoyance we could make it perma with no self-respawn option.
Edit: Just thought of another option. No respawing AND raise can ONLY be done by a PC cleric, thus taking away the safety net for rich PCs.
Or we could make the hardcap level 15 or less. Since you have to devote more time to reach higher levels, the more painful it is to die the higher level you are because you had to spend more time to get there. So if we lowered the max level to something small, there wouldn't be as much annoyance when you die because you didn't have to spend a lot of time to get there.
OR
Keep the current system we have where you lose a small portion of exp on death. What sounds better? =D
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You really don't need levels to be badass. Sure, they help in regards to certain things, but I believe CaptZambie became Mayor of Hadrian when he was below level 13. He achieved something cool without hitting the server apex.
I disagree with this as becoming the Mayor doesn't require a power level. All you need to do is be able to hang out in Hadrian and speak with people.
Especially on a PvP server levels are important. If you are unable to maintain a high enough level then the PCs who do will be able to push you around. You are not going to be doing anything overly cool as someone less than level 15.
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People treat, IG, death as a minor annoyance, the current death penalty doesn't change that - making it worse won't change that, and making it easier won't change that. When it comes to Roleplay it needs to be instead on the onus of people playing to show the results of coming from near death. Or - change it so no one actually "dies" unless they're perma'd, and instead are considered to be at the brink of death, or downed, or whatever terminology you use.
Death isn't scary right now because you can get back up, its just annoying, from a purely OOC perspective, that a player's time was wasted.
Now out of curiosity here. What would you feel would make death more terrifying? we want people to fear death to a certain point. so how far should we go? (in a hypothetical discussion here) because for now there is no plan to change the death penalty. this does not mean we wont. we are always open to suggestions and ideas.
So would you fear death more if we made the XP loss greater?
What about if we made it perma death unless you got a rez from a cleric (npc or pc)?
What if we took away the death penalty all together?
this is what I think would make death more meaningful.
The option I would suggest is: Make standard 'death' in the system instead be treated as 'near-death'. Death is /death/, i.e. you are Perma'd. People don't come back from the dead, Resurrect, Raise, etc. are when the person still is still technically 'alive', but comatose etc.
Now, when you're dead, you're dead. Death is scary, and we still have the system where characters can 'respawn'. You're not jaunting over to Purgatory, hanging out there, and then coming back with "whelp, I saw the Fugue again".
Mechanically, nothing will change how death is perceived. It's going to be interesting to some, enraging to others, an annoyance etc.
If it's changed so the standard PC death is 'near-death' you remove a cleric's ability (or plot, or NPC etc.) from actually bringing the dead back. So when you /die/, you die.
For a Mechanical change? I'm still proposing that XP loss can't cause you to drop a level - loosing XP is something that can be overcome without a significant loss in character ability - loosing an entire level adds on the issues of now being weaker than you were before, and noticing a very significant loss in your character's capacity to actually function. That form of lost progress is something that causes a lot of the heartache on the server, particularly for the higher levels when you can loose a month plus of progress, /and/ a level, in one bad outing.
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Not suggesting this or anything, just another option that might be a thing...
What if instead of "losing XP mechanically and making people waste time" etc... there was a different form of penalty? Hard to do this without focusing on mechanics, but here's a couple. A (semi?)permanent "madness/RPpenalty" for getting raised/coming back from the dead, where your characters get assigned a random new quirk. Like let's say a PC dies, when he gets raised, because something didn't quite go right when his head got bopped, he's now a kleptomaniac.
Or, if it's a mechanics thing, make it say... drain CON or all stats for some duration that can't be removed by spells and stuff.
However, 15%/10%/5% REALLY isn't much numberswise. Perhaps the server should look towards treating the cause of the high-level XP struggle than the symptom? Leveling here is kinda weird, and I personally think it needs a complete tweaking overall. But that's a different topic.
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https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Madness#content
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I see a lot of back and forth here but this is an issue that is being looked at from one angle and addressed by another. The DMs (seem, from what I can read) want death to be something to be feared ICly. Yet all offerings are mechanical, OOC repercussions. The consequences do not match the goal.
If you want things to be feared by the characters, the characters need to face the drawbacks. And, if the claim that level doesn't matter for roleplay is true? XP loss is entirely OOC and doesn't address any fear of death by a character. What I've seen on the server is two issues: The dead character is either easily brought back where they died or in a safe haven at a rez priest and the characters around the dead character do not seem to give a second thought about the death. The XP penalty, sure, is a concern to the players, but it's not addressed in conversation or in the rules, or anything at all about how the character themselves should perceive this XP loss or their time in the fugue.
As it currently stands, there is nothing that would affect the character beyond, at most, idly hanging out in the Fugue while they're told OOCly to wait around and they'll be rez'd if they have a group or they just pop up like nothing happened at a safe spot or right where they died. So the question is, how do you penalize the character? How do you influence the roleplay? Could you have a random chance of being mute for a time after coming back? Perhaps they're deafened? Maybe you're set to perma-hostile to all for a bit and occasionally frenzied. There needs to be something that will show to the player that their character has been affected by the death beyond the 'oops, I lost a level in fighter, guess I don't swing a sword as good as I used to.'
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Being that I've been around and seen quite a few systems surrounding death and permadeath, I'd suggest a system that is an alternative to the current system; the penalties to XP loss to high level characters in conjunction with the inability to gain XP outside of DM events and limited availability quests makes it quite a heavy burden. The system that I would like to see also ties into the nature of seeing PCs dying and being revived with seemingly no long-standing consequence from an IC behaviour perspective; a lot of people that die and come back simply jump right back into the fight and ignore the fact that they came close to being dead, forever.
I would suggest replacing the loss of XP with a stat malus system that applies a hefty penalty to all stats which cannot be removed by any means for a pre-determined period, or perhaps a server reset. As an example, coming back from death as a Wizard with a malus of -6 or 8 to all stats means that the character in question is heavily influenced by their recent death and gives them a gentle nudge to step away from the harrowing ordeal of life and death combat whilst they recuperate.
During DM events DMs could always remove the malus in the event of an unintended death or an encounter they feel was overtuned for those present; for those that die and retain these stat maluses however it would represent an extreme difficulty for the character to overcome if they intended to keep fighting onwards. Replace a possibly long-term penalty to XP with a shorter term one that precludes continued combat; a mistake brought on by charging in wildly would result in a shorter term penalty to the ability to fight on. In addition there could be penalties to the witnesses of a dying character; an aoe check versus fear for a round in witnessing a valued comrade fall in the heat of battle or such.
I've seen other systems with far harsher penalties for death in the long and short term that, admittedly, bring great roleplay but also heavy hits to the players behind the characters. At the end of the day we are not only roleplaying but playing a game and mechanics becomes a part of that; players are less likely to enjoy their time if they lose days or even weeks of what they view as progress in their character to a spur of the moment mistake or happenstance.
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I see a lot of back and forth here but this is an issue that is being looked at from one angle and addressed by another. The DMs (seem, from what I can read) want death to be something to be feared ICly. Yet all offerings are mechanical, OOC repercussions. The consequences do not match the goal.
So that was spinning in my head all this time! Exp loss have no connection at all to RP consequences. Either this, or level is important for RP. Indeed, players face not something interesting from the character development perspective, but just more of the grind.
But finding a good solution for such a problem is even more difficult. Grendel have some interesting suggestions in this direction.
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Anything added on, in terms of stat malus, insanity checks, or other effects are still not going to really effect the character, ICly.
They'll come off as yet another annoyance to the player, so the intended effect won't have the result that's being looked for, and we're back at square one.
That's why I'm suggesting we change the terminology, and make it hard and fast that /death/ is permanent, but the usual effects of being down for an event, or messing up in a dungeon are /not/ death.
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Changing the terminology will do nothing to address the issues with the system as it stands. Whether you die or come within a sliver of death doesn't change the fact that most characters bar the most mentally unstable will be shaken.
As to the stat malus; I said to replace the XP penalty with it, not add it ontop of it.
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Part of the issue is that the server level range content is just so -broad- that it is impossible for lower level players to contribute on content meant for a higher level range, then DMs need to bar higher level range PCs on content meant for lowbies. So when you die at a high level, it makes you feel like you can contribute less to an event than you might otherwise could- especially when said events rely on Perma Death risk (which I absolutely adore, btw). Or there might be consequences to not being mechanically strong enough to survive an event. This leads to the formation cliques and groups of high level players who are reluctant to bring low levels on their shit. High level players ironically dislike death more and more sense the time put into leveling is not a gradient scale, it's an exponential curve of difficult and time investment.
They do not mind this so much with crafting since you don't look crafting skill, they do mind with XP, since XP can be lost.
The easiest (though not quickest) solution would be to narrow the server range to a small figure. I recommend either dropping the level range from 2-20 to 4-10, or 10-15. The difference between a level 15 PC and a level 10 PC is great enough that it feels like substantial progress towards empowering your PC, but not so wide that a level 10 PC cannot contribute on an event without dying in the mud instantly. Right now, the death penalty emphasizes luck and mechanical knowledge- not consequences to risk, as those who know what they are doing will survive as opposed to players who just prefer to RP and never really bothered to investigate the idiosyncratic stupidity of the game (I.E: Death Ward blocks water elemental drown.)
The answer really isn't removing death penalties- it's narrowing the level range, as it forms an exclusive range of 'low level pcs,' to 'high level pc quest groups.'
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On the note of DMs asking for how to make death more frightening IC, and commenting that players take all discussion of it to OOC mechanics:
All of the server's death content is OOC mechanics. You have it take you to an OOC place that isn't supported by the lore. You have a church (that should be a court) resurrect the players, when that dogma shouldn't deal with the dead at all. The penalty for dying is to go through more OOC grinding mechanics for many hours to recover what you have lost.
If you want players to begin to associate death with IC reactions and IC fear, you have to take the steps to make it have a tangible IC impact. You need to cut off resurrections from the court of Amaunator. You need to introduce the church of Jergal, an equally large and important entity in Netherese society, and the associated difficulty of getting resurrections from this church. This doesn't mean bumping up gold and XP costs - dungeons and their associated resources are primarily OOC entertainment and as designers you have to treat any game play content linked to them as such, if you want to guide player impressions towards a role play or fantasy/wish fulfilment experience. You have to sever the connection between player's dying and thinking, "Damn, now I need to spend another week walking in circles around those two dungeons." and start making them think, "Oh my (proverbial) God what the flaming flips just happened."
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/463700073663168513.png?v=1)
Edited to add: In case I wasn't clear, I mean make it more immersive, and cut out the OOC mistakes or choices that pull you out of immersion and make you think of the OOC.
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A double post to add, if you want me to take IC steps to set up a church of Jergal, send me a message my dudes and we can coordinate something.
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A newer player perspective.
I so far have found the penalty a bit harsh, I am fine with that, aside from some issues that is.
Most my deaths are from not knowing the server!
I do a lot of solo adventure to try and raise my level to be more of a participant in RP, or just to feel like I can contribute in a battle or to a story. The problem with that is many solo quests have monsters that can two or three hit kill you. For example, ‘Peter Wolf’ quest can be gotten at 4th level and some of what you encounter have a huge hit + and often do 15+ damage, that is a lot for a 4th level character to take. Or when I am in what I assume is a lower level area like the West Swamp and some much higher level than me monster kills me, I am there to kill frogs, I did not know creatures that strong would be there. As a new player I have had lots of frustrations trying to learn what quests or area's I can go in without getting killed. If I was a seasoned player of this server, I think that much of this issue would go away, as I would know what monsters I would be facing, be able to prepare and avoid places I am not ready for. Learning the area and quests caused a lot of death and frustration. For example, my newer character rarely even died because I knew what to expect, however now that he has passed the old characters level he is starting to die more often as I try and find new places more appropriate to his level. I have gotten so frustrated I have just been crafting the past few days, not willing to explore.
Feeling as if I am stuck, reduced to not being able to add to the story or even adventure alone is what I feel will drive new players away, it almost pushed me away and still threatens to every day.
The other issue I have is the death by bugs, rare as it is, getting penalized for a bug really sucks! This I know is something we all have to just live with.
Of course, I cause my own deaths by doing something stupid, or knowingly risk it. I do also play at work, I own a small business, and sometimes I must step away and if I die or the group moves on without me that is ok, I am fine with that and I apologize for when I leave you all wondering why I went silent.
For me making the solo quests not so deadly, a bit easier for noobs like me to get a feel for the server would realty help. You don’t get a lot of gold or experience from them anyways, you can make more gold looting bodies of the undead in town during an undead uprising event, I once made several thousand gold just cleaning up the corpses lying around. Probably should edit the loot drop on them.
P.S. I do want to thank those who have included me in the story, it is much appreciated.
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I tend to agree with you; the lower level quests can be rather difficult and I believe were balanced for a time when there was not such a wide level gap.
Furthermore, most of us do not hesitate to recompense xp if it is lost to a bug, just provide screenshots.
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Hi Draekus *bit off topic sorry) - exploring alone can be tough. There is lots of characters that would go with you (like mine!). Make a proclamation, and some RP reason why you are exploring if there are other people on, you should get someone who will help! And it will give you someone to RP with. And you don't need XP to be part of the story, XP don't mean a thing on an RP server like this.
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Thanks Leyoz.
I do go every once in a while with someone. However when I am usually playing 7-9AM MST there is usually no one on. The rest of the day I cant really be in group or RP much without having to go AFK too often. That leaves Sundays for me and that is when I join in whatever I can.
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Death penalty is fine. It's the lack of players at certain level brackets that are frustrating.
Spiffy had some ideas, I don't know any aside 'get more players online.' The 1-10 level up is very discouraging if it has to be done alone.