Death, Dying, and Exp Options

[Hamilton]

Indeed there are many problems with Perma-Death, which I think the hard to solve problems is PvP related.

Soloing is still possible, just riskier. If the character system allows for players to have multi-talented characters then there is less risk, such as Fighter/Healer type. Additionally creatures no longer have to be of x levels highers to be considered tough, they can be just to near equal level to be challenging.

Perma-Death enforces players to play smarter, not harder.

In a magicial realm, there could be many things which can aid a player from suffering a death or a perma-death; such as Rez's, Talesman, amulets of something, etc. A character can suffer a number of deaths before a Perma-Death occurs, whether by chance or pre-determined.


A Perma-Death rule system would need for the game to be designed around it, rather than the death system to be designed around the game or as an after-thought. Implementing a Perma-Death rule set is challenging and not an easy task. However, once accomplished I believe you would have a very unique and fun system.

[exocrine]

Permadeath has been discussed previously. If you feel strongly about it, you might want to read up on the arguements for and against it that have already been made. Unfortunately the thread is a bit hard to follow as it was a multi-topic discussion, but I've done a bit of highlighting for you.





That all depends on how sadistic the GM is :twisted:

But sadly your comparison is not valid. What keeps tabletop RPG characters alive is not grouping, but a benevolent GM "fudging" dice rolls to keep players from heroicly (or stupidly?) off-ing themselves. Sure, sometimes dying a heroic death is cool, but most of the time a GM will "cheat" in the players favor in order to tell a more enjoyable story. In other words making the game more fun for the players by preventing permanent death. Sounds a lot like MMORPG ressurection to me.

[Hamilton]

Point taken and thanks for the link, I will review it.

Even if the chances of death were reduced by a GM, the possibility of death existed and most of the time people would not do "stupid things", and if they did...


On another note, can it not be said that a system can also "fudge" the results?
:wink:

[Hamilton]

So Am under the impression that the death rules have not been decided on as of yet and that Perma-Death is still a possibility, correct?

Dezwo has some good points and my impression from the thread is that Perma-Death has not been fully explored in detail (well maybe it has over voice conferences, but not on the forums). There are other items that can be tought of. Also the death system will be tied directly to the character generation system.

Overall, though not everyone will be happy with whatever system is used. Therefore the target audience needs to be defined. Once defined, then the rules should be designed towards them.

Question:
Has the target audienced been defined, and if so, where is the thread? I apologize for not being able to find it... and I apologize even more if it happens to be staring me in the face.
If this has not been defined, I suggest that this be considered a priority.

And made into some kind of sticky for those of us who weren't able to keep up, so we will know where the focus is at.

[exocrine]

Not really. The game server is just a machine, and as such can only operate under the rules we give it. And there is simply no way to design rules to mimc a human GM's ability to fudge dice for dramatic effect. Even if you could, the server would still just be following the rules.



There's no specific thread that I know of, but I've always been under the impression that the target audience is "us". Basically we're trying to create a game in the spirit of the original WISH, therefore our target audience should naturally be the type of people who enjoyed the beta. I'll leave the specifics, and the official statement up to someone else.



I don't think it has been completely ruled out. If you're serious about being a champion for the cause, you should start a new thread about it since it really is a different topic. It just works out better for everyone that way.

[Hamilton]

Ok then that needs to figured out. So in general terms, the ideal player is one who wanted to play WISH as it was. In that sense to further discuss Perma-Death will not be productive.

[emeraven]

I saw your question when you posted it Hamilton, Ive asked the Project Manager to give a offical answer. I hope you didnt feel this question was ignored.

[Hamilton]

Oh no, not at all.
I actually do not expect a quick answer either, but more of keeping discussion moving.

[Blacksmile]

Well as I have been the person, who brought up that perma death discussion emeraven mentioned on IRC i will quickly give my thoughts about how a perma death ruleset could look an in my eyes should work.

First assume, that every character has some pool, that tells something about how heroic he is and how highly the gods are favouring him. Lets call that pool Karma for now.

So now if you go out and do things in the world your character will collect Karma slowly. The more heroic your deeds are (higher level monsters relative to your level, more dangerous quests or whatever) the faster you will obtain Karma.

Now lets look at how your character can die: If you get hit by a monster or player your HP are reduced. If this reduction lowers your HP to 0 or below, you character will loose conciousness. If your life goes down to high into negative amounts (mesaured by your max HP i assume) your charcter dies. If you die your Karma pool will be checked. If you have points in it left, you can be resurrected. I have no plan how this would work, but i could imagine spells, the automatic resurrection at a shrine of your chosen god or something like that. (I would personally prefer, that there are no ressurection spells, to make dying more uncomfortable.

So thats the system as i imagine it, now i will work out a bid, why i think this could work. First thing most people say when talking about perma death is technical issues like lag. Well if you are lagging and your character dies of that you will most probable have Karma points left and be resurrected. You wont die of lag often enough to use your karma up faster than you can obtain it.
Seond point is Player Killers... Well that is a problem, but if you have karma left and get resurrected at the shrine of your god, a player killer can only kill you once he meets you unless he kills you at your shrine. Additionallyif you set up a system that lets your character remember his murderer one could set up a bounty on characters that are PKing and those players will get hunted and die to many deaths in short time to be able to recover from all of them with their karma.
Last but not least the system with unconsciousness will not let you die to often, if you are not extremely unlucky and dont keep fighting monsters that are beyond what you are able to fight. Most monsters will not keep attacking players as they go unconscious. Only the most aggressive ones will or those who hunted the player to eat him. I can imagine, that also during PvP most players would settle on knocking out their enemy rather than really killing him if they have no reason to do so.

[Sunjit]

I like World of Warcraft's death penalty. You don't lose exp, but your equipment lose 10% of durability.

[xardy]

and you have to walk sometimes verry long times to your corpse :p

but the wow death system doesn't realy scare people off. When you play a game you should have some fear of death and should try to stay alive, not just die and run to your corpse and just go smashing at your enemy again.

[Sunjit]

you don't have to walk to your corpse...you can revive in front of one of those ghosts at graveyards. But you gain death sickness and lose 25% of equipment durability.

[Hankellin]

The durability loss in WoW is temporary from what I recall.

(I stopped palying it a long time ago after the repetitive nature of the game got too boring.)

Perhaps a permanet loss to durability of equipment?

[Japheth]

Just a few thoughts on death.
What if the items on your body stay on your body unless you have some sort of magic binding (a la UO). Items in the bank are not lost, and you are free to retrieve your body items if you wish.
I think an exp. (or skill point) loss is unrealistic, as you would still remember the events leading up to your death, so logically, you still have the "experience" though I do think temporary ressurection sickness (statistic or skill penalties ) is more logical, especially if it stacks on multiple deaths.
Finally, what if instead of being penalized for death, you simply aren't rewarded for it. For example, if there is a fame system, you don't get any fame for dying (or very little) but you wouldn't get fame if you didn't venture out either. The only way to get fame is a SUCCESSFUL adventure. Fame rewards could vary from bonuses to social-based skills, to powers based on popularity (a la deities).
just my 2 cents.
Japheth

[Minthos]

In eve, when you have a clone, it updates automatically with every new skill point you gain. So you don't really have to spend a fortune to avoid losing skill points if you die.

In wow, durability loss is permanent when you die. If you die in pvp, there is no loss.

It is a space game where things are a bit different, but with a bit of thinking, the death system can be ported to a fantasy setting. As you will notice, this post talks alot about eve. It is my best point of reference for this discussion, so please bear with me.

I'll explain in detail:
When you are defeated in battle, your ship is destroyed. Your ship can be insured so you only lose about 30% of its value for standard ships. The modules (weapons, armor plates, afterburners, etc etc) have a chance to be destroyed or damaged, and those who are not destroyed will be left behind in a container, free for anyone to pick up. The modules can not be insured.

Your character will be in a pod when your ship is destroyed. Warping the pod away from the battlefield is usually easy, so you don't normally lose your clone or your implants even if you are defeated. NPCs never shoot pods, but players often do if they can.

Clones are the insurance for your skill points. More expensive clones cover more skill points. As long as you have a clone that covers more skill points than you have, you are safe. You do not have to update your clone every day, only when your skill points (are about to) exceed the max capacity of the clone you have. When your pod is destroyed, you lose the clone, and you must buy a new one unless you want to risk losing skill points.

I'm not sure how much you lose if you die without a good enough clone, because I've never heard of anyone who has done it, but I've heard it was 10% of the difference between your skill points and the max capacity of your clone.

Eve's system may sound harsh to some, but I've tried it and it works real nice.


A bit of fear is good. It is easier to become attached to something and take it seriously if it affects your emotions. I'm not saying all games should aim for as much fear as possible, because not everyone likes fear, and too much fear can get tiresome for anyone.

World of warcraft has very little fear and gets boring quickly. Eve has more opportunity for fear and has been fun for many players for a longer time than wow has even existed. Still, eve has many carebears and they seem to enjoy the game alot in their peaceful existence.

What PW should aim for, and EVE pulled off well, is to create an environment where people can make an implicit choice about how much fear they want, ranging from almost none to really much.

I think losing items is a good way to penalize death. The harsher death is, the more careful players will be. Of course, risk should not be mandatory, but those who choose it should be rewarded, although not enough to give the impression of it being mandatory. Also, the game (with regards to power of items and price/availability of items) should be designed so that people can afford to die frequently and still enjoy the game.

The good thing about losing items is that it invokes fear in players, without necessarily making them useless or giving them a boring chore they have to complete before they will be able to enjoy the game again.

I cannot stress enough though: .

Is that possible? Yes it is. Is it desirable? Yes, I think it is, but it's not up to me to decide.

Death vs. NPCs. Again, eve system is great. Some of your gear is destroyed, the rest is left behind and made lootable. NPCs don't loot, so very often you can return to where you died and salvage the remains.

Then you say "EVE is a space game and PW is a medieval game, we can't use anything from eve in pw". That is wrong. All it takes is the creativity to see how the concepts and knowledge can be used without directly copying the system. I'm not saying we should try to imitate eve either, I just think eve is a good example that we can learn much from observing.

My point in the following rant is that if death is something to be avoided and the rewards for killing someone with �¼ber equipment can be awesome, pvp will be much more exciting than if death is just a 5 minutes inconvenience and a kill is just an increment to your kill counter.

Lastly, let me tell more about how the system in eve works. Note that my point of view is that of someone who has been a thrill-seeker as a noob and a pvper of "good alignment" as he became more experienced.

When ships are destroyed, they leave behind all the surviving modules that were fitted, and all the surviving cargo that was carried. Players keep most of their items in hangars where they are safe, so usually the value of what drops from a ship is fairly small, but it can sometimes be rather high, depending on the type of ship, what it's currently being used for, and the economy of its pilot.

I live in lawless area, together with my allies. We have hostile players fairly close by and we sometimes fight each other, mostly for fun. We lose some stuff when we lose and we get some back as loot when we win, but we have to earn money from time to time to cover our expenses. When players don't have much money, they fly small and inexpensive ships. They won't have as much firepower or armor, but they can still be very useful.

Some players are pirates, and they mostly live in borderline areas where they aren't as vulnerable, and have to jump through hoops if they want to kill someone. Those can sometimes be referred to as "griefers", but any player with a bit of experience can avoid them with not too much effort. They often kill careless people, and sometimes those drop very valuable loot. I don't know how profitable it is to be a pirate, but something tells me it can be very profitable if done right.

My friends and I sometimes hunt pirates, and many of them are surprisingly easy to kill compared to our regular enemies. When we kill pirates, they sometimes drop very expensive items. Of course, not always when we hunt pirates do we actually catch and kill anyone, or even find anyone to kill. You see, pirates are perhaps the most elusive and cowardly pvpers in existence :p

Carebear types and newbies sometimes pay pvpers to be allowed to hunt and/or mine in the areas the pvpers control. The ores are more valuable in the lawless areas, and the npcs drop better loot there. To hunt the npcs or mine the ore there they need quite expensive ships and equipment, so even if they are at peace with the locas they still risk some by operating there. Access to facilities is also much worse in lawless areas, so cargo runs to safer space are required. Those cargo runs are dangerous, but with the proper precautions which include at least one scout, they can be made quite safe. The money to pay the inhabitants for access can often made in a few hours of well-executed operation per week, and the rest is mostly profit. Still though, there is more money to be made in safe space, but it requires a different kind of planning and effort. More boring stuff.

Rant ends.

[Sunjit]

I like minthos idea very much.

[xardy]

yeah i liked the eve system verry mutch.

[exocrine]

Well, I agree with Minthos' personal view of risk and loss. However I feel I should speak up on a few issues.


I suppose some people might look at corpse runs as just another aspect of harsh deaths, however I disagree. The way I see it, a corpse run is either what you'd be doing anyway, or an annoying waste of time. When a toon dies, the player will either continue what he was doing beforehand (fighting), or choose to do something else (crafting, log off, etc). If the player chooses to continue fighting, chances are they'll be going straight back to where they died. In this case a corpse run is totally redundant, and has no real effect on the harshness of death. On the other hand, if a player wishes to do something else, then a corpse run is

And in my opinion that's not harsh, it's just an annoying timesink.


On the other hand I can certainly understand the desire for looting in PvP. After all, the thing that draws most people to PvP is the increased risk. From that point of view looting is sort of like putting up money in a game of poker, or playing "for keeps" in a game of marbles when you were a kid. Not everyone's cup of tea to be sure, but anyone who wouldn't enjoy that much risk would probably be happier with PvE anyway.

So how do you reconcile PvP looting with not leaving your equipment behind in a PvE death? I think a good way to do it would be through priviledged looting and a minimum time between death and respawning. In the ~30-45 seconds before a player can choose to respawn, his toon is lootable by the player or group that killed him. Once a player has respawned or been rezzed he can no longer be looted (for obvious reasons). The carebear friendly aspect of this would be that NPCs never loot, so in a PvE death a player would be at no risk of being looted, and would have no corpse runs to worry about.


It's important to keep in mind the side effects of any design decision. Wanting to make combat more exciting by raising the stakes is all well and good. But how you do it will effect other areas of the game as well, and not necessarily in a good way. The main thing I would be concerned with, at least in terms of harsh death, is downtime. If items are lost and/or worn out through death, how far out of his way will a player have to go to replace a vital item that gets lost or destroyed? If toons are heavily handicapped after death, how long will a player have to sit around doing nothing while their toon recouperates? It goes without saying that doing nothing and otherwise wasting time is not as much fun as actually playing the game.

[Minthos]

Very important point, and I think it would be good also for other parts of the game that all the items required for anyone to play the game are available(one way or another) within short distance from just about anywhere.

[exocrine]

That probably would be handy for combat players, but how will it affect crafters? Will PCs be able to keep such a network of vendors stocked with goods? If not, how will crafters be able to make a living when there's always a fully stocked NPC merchant just a few minutes away from any player in need?

Either way, you'll end up with PCs selling to NPCs selling to PCs and that's never good for building a sense of community. You end up with the same sort of impersonal detatchment that communism causes; you're not crafting a sword for your neighbor, you're crafting a sword for "The System". Looking at it from the other side, instead of fighting with the sword that Bob the Blacksmith from down the street made for you, you're just fighting with some sword you bought from some generic NPC.

Like I was saying earlier, every design decision will have multiple effects, some of which we might not always recognize at first.