Death, Dying, and Exp Options

[Honis]

I had a brainstorm for a "new" idea for death, dying, and exp.

Do it the old-fashioned way, with save points.

Everyone remembers playing console RPG's and saving at particular points in the game. We could implement this also.

When your character dies, you respawn at the last place you saved. You lose the exp you gained, items you acquired (losing items may be a bit much), and completed quests.

This could help encourage people to save and then explore a high-risk area at little or no risk (now scouts/rangers that can sneak won't be alone). It will also discourage running through a high-risk area to finish a quest just before dying (something I have done several times in FF XI and EQ2).

Of course there should still be a revive system so that the tank in a party isn?t screwed out of hours of exp. At some point we could even add an item that is a portable save point (untradable/sellable and can only be got through an extremely difficult high-level quest). I should have a reset time on it so that someone doesn't macro saving every 5 sec's.


note: By EXP I mean, any points gained for any skills.

note2: Items that where bought or traded would not be lost due to death. Only items dropped by fallen creatures or for quests.

note3: The actual quest would not be lost due to death. (save>>get quest>>die>>still have quest in list)


This thread is to present ideas for a death, dying, and exp system. Add your own ideas as well as sage me :D.

[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.

[Minthos]

It could be as simple as allowing players to bring an extra set of equipment to remote areas and store it at a safe location.

[exocrine]

It could be, sure. But what would these safe places be? How much work would something like that take to code? If you're going to go to all that trouble to make death more convenient, why not just make it less harsh in the first place and save yourself the trouble?.

How about looking at harsh deaths in a different way? What if items become less effective as they lose durability? That way you can just damage items rather than destroy them. If a player's gets damaged to the point that it's no better than normal plate armor, that's pretty harsh. At the same time that player isn't totally screwed.

Or perhaps the large durability hit is part of the respawning process, meaning that if a toon is rezzed his gear is only damaged by the blows it took to kill him. That way groups can keep on playing for longer.

[Minthos]

It wouldn't just be to make death more convenient, it could also make the game world more pleasant and interesting. Depends entirely on implementation and interweaves with many aspects of the game. Those safe places would of course have to serve other purposes than just providing storage for players, they could be outposts or towns or anything with a selection of other services and functions.

Wow has durability loss upon death, and frankly, that sucks. But that's just my opinion of course.

[exocrine]

Sucks as in "not a good system", or sucks as in "****!"? ;)

If you have towns and outposts everywhere that kind of limits the "untamed wilderness" aspect, and frankly takes all the fun out of exploring. It also precludes the creation of player towns. The only non-intrusive way to do something like that would be to have a hidden cache system, but that would be fairly memory intensive.

IMO harming multiple aspects of gameplay just to make up for the deficincies of another, is the wrong way to go about things.

[Minthos]

Yeah.


It doesen't necessarily have to be anything major. For example a high-level npc living alone in a hut somewhere in the utter remotest wilderness wouldn't be very intrusive or atmosphere-breaking, but sufficient to provide a safe place to store some backup gear.


Allowing players to create towns would be allowing players to create relatively safe places to store things, which would be allowing players to store things.

Not really.

What you say is true of course, but you sound like you accuse me of that. Please try to understand what I meant. Be creative; suggest solutions insted of looking for problems. Assume the best.

While we're on the subject of untamed wilderness; Yes, of course there should be places where you can wander for hours without meeting anyone else except hostile npcs. Yes, of course places like that can be devoid of safe places to store equipment. Places like that should be an exception from the rule of easy access, because their nature makes access difficult.

Places like that shouldn't be where everyone has to go to grind from level 45 to 50 though. Most players want to move only a short distance to find the right mobs, and then a short distance back to town to drop of loot or have dinner or whatever, and they shouldn't be robbed of that option.

[exocrine]

So what make's WoW's system not good? I've never played it myself.

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Something like that wouldn't be too bad, but the problem would be thinking of enough similar ideas to keep things fresh. Having hundreds perhaps thousands of NPC hermits would get kind of silly.



Sure, but for that to happen you have to start off without outposts/hermitages etc. all over the place.



I guess I kind of was, sorry. What I was trying to get at is that I don't think item loss will work. Basically it creates a situation in which a player needs to carry around spares of everything (have spares nearby) or face overly long downtime. That's neither fun nor realistic. I think that instead of trying to think of additional systems to accomodate item loss, it would be better to just start over from scratch.

On a related note, the more disposable you make items, the less people will care about losing them. If you go out hunting expecting to lose your weapons or armor (like bringing spares to leave with a hermit), is it really all that harsh when you lose them? I'd rather items be more permanent, something players can get attached to. If for nothing else, it would make PVP looting a much bigger deal.

[Minthos]

I don't really know, but I can guess at something. Even though death is boring, humiliating and later in the game fairly expensive, it doesen't really , so you end up being not as cautious as you otherwise would. It gives a feeling that death is something that doesen't really matter. That alone is a reason why I don't like it, and it also results in more deaths, which leads to more boredom, which is another reason why I don't like it.


If you go out hunting expecting to lose your weapons or armor, then you do so knowingly, and in that case you would either bring disposable equipment or have a pretty good reason to risk something that isn't disposable. People would typically have one or a few sets of their best equipment which they use when they don't expect to die, and sets of disposable equipment that they use when they expect trouble. This is a side-effect of item loss, and whether it's a desirable one is of course arguable.

[exocrine]

I think I may have found the answer, so tell me if I'm on to something here.

Ideally, the balance of effort to reward should be fairly constant from one activity to another. By extension, in the grand scheme of things, a combat profession should not be any more or less profitable due to item loss (or the lack there of).

In order for combat to remain financially worthwhile, we can assume that if an item is twice as easily lost, it needs to be twice as easy to obtain. So hypothetically, if a certain piece of armor will withstand 10 durability loss deaths, then in an item-loss system that piece of armor should take 10 times less effort to obtain.

So assuming that an item's value won't really change (in terms of usefulness vs. time invested) between the two systems, item loss is no more "harsh" than item degradation. So why does it feel that way?

I hypothesize that it is because item loss presents an immediate, tangible punishment upon death. Item degradation on the other hand presents a delayed, more abstract punishment.

Examples:

($100) has been been destroyed.
($1000) has lost 10% of it's durability.

In either case your character's total wealth (cash plus assets) has decreased by $100. You're really no worse off in either system, with item degradation your armor is still useable, just worth less if sold, and that much closer to destruction. With item loss, your armor is gone but can be replaced with pocket change (comparatively), and you likely have several spares already on hand.

The difference therefor has to come from the way this penalty is delivered. It's really just classical conditioning (Pavlov would be proud). The short version is that smaller but more frequent corrections are more effective at teaching your subconcious that death=suxxors. And in attempt to avoid suxxors, your subconcious (autonomic nervous system, actually) triggers a larger adrenaline/endorphin release. Ergo, you get more excited.

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Arguable? Yes please ;)

So, in essence, the side effect of item loss is avoiding risk when ever possible, and when it isn't, making sure that you're not really risking anything?

It occurs to me, that such a system penalizes taking risks much more than it ever really penalizes death. If losing your good armor is such a horrific thing, you won't take any risks while wearing it, because taking risks = eventually losing your stuff. When risk is unavoidable, you then choose to only risk things that you care nothing about. This means that for the most part, the only items lost through death will be the one's you don't really need. So how exactly is this harsh?

More importantly, how is this fun? If you just go around attacking mobs that don't really stand any chance of taking you out, where's the thrill? where's the excitement? where's the challenge? All you end up with is boring repetition... that's right... GRIND. Taking risks is the fun part. It's what get's your adrenalin and your endorphins pumping.

[Minthos]

I think I may have found the answer, so tell me if I'm on to something here.

Ideally, the balance of effort to reward should be fairly constant from one activity to another. By extension, in the grand scheme of things, a combat profession should not be any more or less profitable due to item loss (or the lack there of).

In order for combat to remain financially worthwhile, we can assume that if an item is twice as easily lost, it needs to be twice as easy to obtain. So hypothetically, if a certain piece of armor will withstand 10 durability loss deaths, then in an item-loss system that piece of armor should take 10 times less effort to obtain.

So assuming that an item's value won't really change (in terms of usefulness vs. time invested) between the two systems, item loss is no more "harsh" than item degradation. So why does it feel that way?

I hypothesize that it is because item loss presents an immediate, tangible punishment upon death. Item degradation on the other hand presents a delayed, more abstract punishment.

Examples:

($100) has been been destroyed.
($1000) has lost 10% of it's durability.

In either case your character's total wealth (cash plus assets) has decreased by $100. You're really no worse off in either system, with item degradation your armor is still useable, just worth less if sold, and that much closer to destruction. With item loss, your armor is gone but can be replaced with pocket change (comparatively), and you likely have several spares already on hand.

The difference therefor has to come from the way this penalty is delivered. It's really just classical conditioning (Pavlov would be proud). The short version is that smaller but more frequent corrections are more effective at teaching your subconcious that death=suxxors. And in attempt to avoid suxxors, your subconcious (autonomic nervous system, actually) triggers a larger adrenaline/endorphin release. Ergo, you get more excited.

Uhh, yes, you're almost right. If the corrections are smaller and more frequent, they are, as you said, more frequent. If you are saying that more frequent death equals more excitement; that milder punishment equals more adrenaline, I daresay you are wrong.



The first part is true, but even in the grand scheme of things you have to reward risk somehow. There can be combat without risk and it should be less profitable than combat with risk, because of the risk. I'm talking about risk though. You can't rule out risk from the balance equation. You must always have a chosen amount of reward for the corresponding amounts of risk, effort and cleverness. If the other professions don't present immediate risk like combat does, they must compensate with something else. Added effort is, as you say, not good enough. Other modifiers can be indirect risk in the form of investments, delayed reward, higher demands for something (could be in-game resources or qualities the player has), use your imagination.

With any system (item loss or whatever else), balance can be tweaked according to the realities the system presents. Item loss allows for stricter punishment without resorting to tremendous amounts of boredom.


Arguable? Yes please ;)No, I won't argue that point. It is my subjective opinion that this side effect probably is a good one.


No, that's not it. If an outfit is worth an insignificant amount, a character's usefulness while using it should be greatly reduced compared to what it would be in a normal outfit. Nobody wants to feel insignificant so players will use the best gear they feel they can risk, according to each situation.

It occurs to me, that such a system penalizes taking risks much more than it ever really penalizes death. If losing your good armor is such a horrific thing, you won't take any risks while wearing it, because taking risks = eventually losing your stuff. When risk is unavoidable, you then choose to only risk things that you care nothing about. This means that for the most part, the only items lost through death will be the one's you don't really need. So how exactly is this harsh?

How can a penalty for death become less severe than a penalty for risk, when the risk is based solely on risk of death? If chance of death is 100% then punishment for death equals punishment for risk, but for any chance of survival the punishment for death will be greater than the punishment for only taking the risk.

The risk we're talking about here has an implicit reward attached to it, and that is increased chance of success.

Imagine this: Player sees someone with a nice item(or a very rare npc which drops something nice), and thinks "I want that item, I'm going to try and kill him". Then consider what equipment that player would use, knowing that with subpar equipment worth $10, chance of success is 5%, with standard okish equipment worth $100, chance of success is 25%, and with his best equipment worth $1000, chance of success is 75%. He only gets one attempt. If he fails, he lose his gear AND his chance to get that item.

How is it harsh? I dunno, you tell me. I never claimed item loss was harsh, I just said that item loss was good and that harsh penalties were good..



You're not making a very convincing argument if you're trying to use excitement and risk as arguments item loss.

Players will usually want to perform their best in any situation. They won't willingly enter a situation where they have no chance to win. Better equipment improves their chance to win, therefore they will risk expensive equipment in dangerous situations. I don't know if you have ever tried a system where players lose items when they die, but I have and I can tell you it works. People actually go to battle with good equipment..


This post has a rather harsh tone to it, and if you really believe the world is so black-and-white that players would never risk anything even when presented by a suitable reward, or possibly that such a reward would not be presented, then I apologise for my tone and hope you will understand one day.

It is obvious that you don't like my idea, which is ok, but all your arguments seem to be based on ignorance or narrowmindedness and to be honest your tireless arguing is getting to me. I know it shouldn't, but I can't help it. For that I also apologise.

Your posts have brought up important issues, but I think you are grasping at straws now, and this is not the time for that. Not everyone can agree, and this forum is for making suggestions, not decisions. If you showed curiosity and interest I would gladly explain much, but now you seem more intent on "proving" that my opinion is wrong. I ask that you think through your motivations for posting further replies to my posts.

[exocrine]

I'm not saying that at all. My hypothesis was that reliable, consistent penalties are more effective at conditioning death-aversion in players. Having a stronger aversion to death will result in a stronger "fight or flight" reaction (more excitement) when a player is placed in a situation where death is possible.

A good real world comparison is paying for things with cash or credit cards. With cash you pay when you buy, with credit cards you don't have to pay until the end of the month. Either way you do it, it still costs the same amount of money, but with a credit card there's a disconnect between buying and paying.

In this example cash is like item loss; death, penalty... death, penalty... death, penalty. Credit cards, then, are like item degradation; death... death... death, penalty (x3). In either case you pay the same price, but item loss is more effective at teaching the brain that death=penalty.

The bulk of that paragraph was basically to help establish that in two otherwise identical games, item loss is no more harsh a penalty than item degradation. Given that, I was curious why you found item loss exciting but item degradation boring. This hypothesis is just my psuedo-scientific attempt to help explain that. Of course, given that I've never played WoW, and I don't even know what you're comparing it to, the death penalty might not even be what makes the difference. But regardless, it all makes sense in terms of classical conditioning

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I totally agree. Effort/Reward is . So basically taking bigger risks should be more profitable, even after you account for lost equipment.

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Fair enough.


Umm... oops. I meant to put a smiley after that :D
The risk we're talking about here has an implicit reward attached to it, and that is increased chance of success.

Imagine this: Player sees someone with a nice item(or a very rare npc which drops something nice), and thinks "I want that item, I'm going to try and kill him". Then consider what equipment that player would use,...

Players will usually want to perform their best in any situation. They won't willingly enter a situation where they have no chance to win. Better equipment improves their chance to win, therefore they will risk expensive equipment in dangerous situations.

Funny how much the tone of a message can change when you forget to add a smiley face. I do, in fact, realize that people go out adventuring in more than their short clothes and newbie gear. ;)

Yes, sometimes there are things worth taking big risks over, and when you do it's a huge rush, but most of the time the rewards aren't nearly that high. What ends up happening most of the time is that people only put themselves in situations where death is very unlikely, barring some horrible turn of bad luck, or running out of potions, etc. Honestly, I don't blame them for doing so. It's the best way to get ahead. It just doesn't make sense to take big risks over small rewards, nor to get yourself gimped in the first 5 minutes of hunting. But in my opinion, that's boring. Where's the fun in hours of knowing exaclty how things are going to turn out?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that taking a huge risk of a small penalty can be more fun than taking a small risk of a huge penalty. I don't deny that games with item loss can be challenging and fun, I just think that there are better ways to handle death.

[Minthos]

Ok, yeah I agree with most of that. Just thought you contradicted both yourself and me :) Sorry.

Yes, sometimes there are things worth taking big risks over, and when you do it's a huge rush, but most of the time the rewards aren't nearly that high. What ends up happening most of the time is that people only put themselves in situations where death is very unlikely, barring some horrible turn of bad luck, or running out of potions, etc. Honestly, I don't blame them for doing so. It's the best way to get ahead. It just doesn't make sense to take big risks over small rewards, nor to get yourself gimped in the first 5 minutes of hunting. But in my opinion, that's boring. Where's the fun in hours of knowing exaclty how things are going to turn out?

I'm a thrill-seeker, so I will go for high risk in most scenarios, without much regard to profitability. I simply do what is most fun. I understand there are people who do the opposite and follow the lowest risk without much regard to profitability. These types should be able to find what they seek in a system with item loss. There is a third type, those who follow the profit and calculate risk only in regards to profitability, and I assume it is those you are concerned about. Those will have to be baited into taking risks by promise of higher rewards, or they will keep doing the low-risk stuff. Either way I believe they can be pleased somehow, although I cannot tell you how.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that taking a huge risk of a small penalty can be more fun than taking a small risk of a huge penalty. I don't deny that games with item loss can be challenging and fun, I just think that there are better ways to handle death.

I agree that high chance of a small loss can be fun, and a high chance of high loss can also be fun, just as a small chance of high loss also can be fun. Item loss should enable the player to choose any of these alternatives, or even low chance of little loss for those who like that.

Thanks for showing me patience when I had "misplaced" my own :)