[Mortui]

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.

[Rastopher]

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?

[frohawk]

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.

[Sabaron]

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.

[Shantis]

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.

[Surfing_Turnip]

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.

[Narrator]

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.

[Ectheledhel]

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.

[SpiffyHas]

I think the XP penalties are fine, it's just leveling is to quick and easy.

[Swifty Willownall]

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."

[Narrator]

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.

[Fiona Voust]

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.

[dom101]

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.

[Xaerien]

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.

[frohawk]

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.