Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

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Change In Death Penalty

Leave it as it is now
10
34%
Remove the dropping of all items, loss of stats, and change deaths to experience and skill loss
6
21%
Remove the dropping of all items, leave the loss of stats, and change deaths to experience and skill loss
13
45%
 
Total votes: 29

Brad
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Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Brad »

As the MMO world matures, items loss is both difficult to track, and difficult for players to overcome.

I wonder, if gone are the days when its acceptible to lose items ( get stripped on death, or drop whats in your hands ).

Show we change drakkar to be more like modern MMOs, and have only experience/skill loss on death?

I'm asking this because I'm investigating personally funding a flash "isometric" frontend to the product, which would be facebook compatible, and web enabled.. which would bring drakkar into the mainstream. Its a lot of money for me to do it, and I realize that the "new breed" coming in would not sit well with item loss.

Please vote and give feedback. Positive, constructive feedback please..

1) Keep it as it is
2) Get rid of all item loss, *AND* stat(health, con) loss, and move to a small exp/skill penalty
3) Get rid of all items loss, leave stat loss ( health,con) and move to a small/exp skill penalty.

OmegaCrits
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by OmegaCrits »

I would choose #3, but I think there should be an increase in exp/skill lose instead of less seeing you would be removing the gear loss. And I say keep stat loss(hp/con) because that is just a risk that anyone should accept before going to a lair. Not like its not hard for us to coin for our HP max or farm for NL majors anyways.


Last minute thought, instead of gear loss, have gear damage penalty per death, and/or have it where you can run back to where your corpse is and drag it to face and all gear it re-equiped.....
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Logic2
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Logic2 »

Are we talking all deaths, or just Lair deaths ? In both stations I would rather it be a small exp/skill loss, but the penalty would be worse for lairs and very small for non lairs I would guess ? I don't want to be hunting in undead city and die and lose 2 hours of work or something.

qmtu
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by qmtu »

This is my thought on this, and I'll use World of Warcraft as I remember it as an example of a modern day MMORPG. In WoW, the main penalty for dying is damage to your gear, and you have to coin to fix the gear. There is no xp/skill loss. so you never go backward. There is no irreversible loss to the character. Some of the WoW, and most Drakkar players, would consider WoW to be carebear-ish. There is no sense of fear of the possibility of losing something, either permanently, or to the point where you need help retrieving it.

You are right in thinking that casual players on facebook may not like getting stripped/eaten. However, loss of xp/skill would not appeal to the casual or experienced players either. People will lose interest in the game, if they slide back every time they die. It would slow progress a lot. The experienced player would not like this either, since we like to try out new things, and losing xp/skill each time we die, would really restrict the hardcore player. The experienced player here would rather have stripping and having to retrieve dp, so that it adds a sense of fear, excitement, and realism to the game.

I would propose something in the middle, that might appeal to both the casual and the experienced players. For example, for level 1 to 13, before you max hp, there is no chance of stripping when you die, and only a chance of stripping if you die to a lair crit. For level 13 to 17, pre-Cob, no chance of stripping when you die outside a lair, and slightly higher chance of stripping when you die to a lair crit. For 18-50, no chance of stripping outside lair, 50% chance of stripping by a lair crit. And for 50+, have the same death penalty as we have now. I think if a person plays that far into the game, they will probably accept that death penalty. And of course the standard con loss when restoring, etc.

qmtu

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Migam
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Migam »

I've never been fond of item/gear loss, especially when I played IoK/LoK where after level x, death to any crit = autostrip and the killer and any passing mob helped itself to your gear and took off. Yeah, there is a thrill surviving a new challenge and the fear makes victory sweeter. But that's shortterm cause then it's routine killing after that 1st time. I know Drakkar was far harsher in the day so I played this gentler version for 9+ years as best as I could, mostly solo, and learned to only kill what I can handle ie: safe, rather than be a beggar or buy lairs. I don't run 15 million accounts or use cheater programs so I just settle for growing one of each class til I can't go farther.

With no item/gear loss, I'd tackle lairs and tough areas alot more. Maybe that means less thrill from risk but then I'm taking on something new and dying itself is a thrill when you go back and beat the piss out of your killer without trying to regear. I might throw myself at a lair and restore 10 times and beat it vs. not even trying cause I have no way to recover my dp. I stopped going to sdc2 on thief once I could no longer hide on the bridge especially in a land of bridges.

Bear this in mind also. Many gamers are used to WoW and LOTRO and though it seems a pussification to not lose gear, your gear does get wrecked so you are throwing yourself back at your killer after you die with a greater challenge cause your weap hits for less, your gear blocks for less and that sob you're attacking is still in prime shape.

Look at Facebook, Myspace, the whole social networking setup for gaming. It's designed so you can get on, do your thing and leave. If you have 20 mins during lunch to play, you have at it. Some players do this routinely, expecting to play hear and there, whether laptop, desktop, cellphone or tablet, whenever they find time and they are not going to appreciate gearloss upon normal death or strip if they suddenly have to leave, lose connection or the game crashes and they can't return til much later. Drakkar has on-ground item/gear decay and a vicious janitor to boot.

At the risk of seeming wimpy, I'd say no item/gear loss, all fumbles/disarms go to belt (or forced into pouch or sack if belt is full), small exp/skill loss and the only stat loss should be hp/con (remove rotting penalty to str). The exp/skill loss can be scaled so that a new player doesn't quit when he loses enough exp and skill in one kill to lose levels of each (or as suggested, block all loss for a crit under level x) and a loss a huge player can live with if it's trivial for non-lairs and minor for major lairs (dunno, maybe 1% skill to lairs and .02% to non-lairs?). Make up for all these carebearisms with massive damage to items and gear as a death penalty.

It's painful to suggest all this even though I stated I don't like item/gear loss but it does open up the game more to those who solo and to use in the social networking circles.
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Tirith
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Tirith »

Throwing in my two cents, as you said, for the future of drakkar and getting a more mainstream audience, dumbing the game down for a more casual audience might be the key to giving some more life to the game. I have never minded the loss of items, its the risk that gives the game the appeal for me, but gone are the days of item loss I guess. Ill throw my vote in for number 3.

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Merlin
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Merlin »

old school - leave it the way it is.

Although that's my vote that doesn't mean its best for new customers, as lets face it as far as mmorpg's go Drakkar is pretty hardcore..
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Roganemor
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Roganemor »

not really liking choices 2 and 3 as that caters to the already grown players. Growing players dont need deaths making you go backwards.

Leave lairs as they are as I think risk/reward is good. For regular crits, remove all gear drop/strip, but keep the con/hp loss. Though perhaps put in a no death penalty at all for characters up to level 10.

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Quaternion
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Quaternion »

None of the above!

I always found some level of getting gear back really fun. It has always been part of drakkar that when attempting a hard or new lair you risked a lot. This risk reward equation provided a lot of the games character. It is only correct that those willing to risk most, hp, skill, exp, should gain most.

The main thing I found difficult with this was once you had got all the missing gear you couldn't simply drag and drop your own items. Instead you spend a long time sifting through items.

If there was one change to the item loss system for me it would be auto equipping by dragging on a pile of gear rather than searching each item.

Another option could be to have a spell to achieve care for items. Maybe have a high skill ment put a spell when holding someones item such as <charname> recall <item>, then the item in question has a recall spell on it and the character can recall the item. Then if i were to get stripped console could write <charname> has recalled <item>.

I am worried that these proposed changes will destroy some of the unique character of this game. Just because wow and other such games do things a certain way doesnt mean Drak should copy. Drak is a niche game and I think it would be a mistake to make it the same as the other games out there because, lets face it, they do what they do better, cheaper and with more content. Drak should be competting on it's uniqueness not it's sameness.

Quaternion

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SharedFolder
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by SharedFolder »

Leave lairs as they are. Gear/Stat/HP Loss is part of the game.

Normal creature death should be Con loss as usual (With Random HP lost with CON<18) but you keep your weapons/whatnot.

niko
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by niko »

Personally I'd like to see another option ...

4) Keep things the same, but rework the mechanics of gear loss / stripping to work like EverQuest. Where instead of getting stripped you leave a corpse that you can carry/move and loot. It would need some other restrictions too to keep the risk - like making the looting of your corpse not be instant, etc.

It would probably be the most work programming-wise, but I think it would be worth it. Preserve the risk of losing gear (which is a key part of Drakkar IMO), but take out the insane annoyance of trying to separate your gear from others. It would also be easier to keep track of items and do replacements etc. as anytime you die your stuff would be with that corpse until it was looted by you.

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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Tirith »

I like niko's idea better.

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Merlin
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Merlin »

Tirith wrote:I like niko's idea better.

I'll second that too.

Its how Diablo works and I cant see a problem with implementing that here in drak, would make it easier for the newer generation but still keep something thats part of drakkar.
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Quaternion
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Quaternion »

I like Nikos' idea too. I still think that the loss of items should be a possibility. Yes loosing items can be annoying and frustrating but really what is the point in playing a game if there is no risk?

Quaternion

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Volcom
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Volcom »

if every time i died i had to fix like 12 separate skills i cant say i would be very thrilled

and are we talking like lair kills, npc kills, player kills, all of the above?

i vision a lot of drama if player kills result in exp and skill loss
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Acaciam
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Acaciam »

The hex you drop your gear on is essentially your "corpse" if you look at it from an EQ perspective.

I think that current players would trade for an exp/skill loss upon death because, frankly, they can spare it.

In my opinion, as a new player, I would prefer losing my gear because, especially with level restrictions, the quickest way to level is to grab junk gear and run around killing. Any exp/skill loss would be a turn off and only promote people getting power leveled to avoid it. Any gear lost is replaced fairly easily at low levels.

If you're looking to make deaths more friendly, make the process easier rather than just trading one inconvenience for another.
Personally, I like the idea of gear being damaged (say 20%) so that after a certain number of deaths, it becomes useless and rather than collect a DP, you can just repair. I know this mimics WoW - but it works. It's the #1 rpg because it's player friendly.
If nothing else, remove the stat/hp loss and "leave as is."

Stat loss is by far the most annoying because a lot of time invested in rolling, events, quests (dion, luck pot, etc) is undone with a quick mishap.

Brenem
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Brenem »

I propose another idea.

How about a possible gear loss or exp/skill loss on lairs.

1 of 2 outcomes depending on luck of the dice.

For non-lair deaths, just exp/skill loss.

Ravaillac
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Ravaillac »

I don't think item loss serves any purpose. In fact, I think it's made people hoard gear and lairs so they have spares.

I would rather see some other significant penalty (one that affects everyone equally instead of punishing players who have built multiple skills)

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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by WabbitMonster »

I think that the way it is now is sufficent.

If we die, we die. We lose con and drop whats in our hands. Yes its a pain sometime but hey thats the breaks. If you drop your cell phone out of the window of your car when your driving down the road because you hit a pothole. Does the phone company have a bungie cord on it so you dont lose it? NO.

I dont see what losing experience or skill really does to enhance the game play if your just growing and die in N6 while trying to grow to get to cob. If I had lost experience while at that level I might not have ever made it to cob much less NL.

Now as for Lairs. I and everyone else should fully expect a strip, experience loss and possible stat or skill loss. Now if you really wanted to make it a little more exciting. How bout for the larger lairs make the eat a little more risky. How bout instead of just a con loss and hit points. Lets really make it a little nasty. How bout tossing in a few curve balls. Make it random. If your a psyionic user, you might not lose hp you might lose 2 or 3 perm eps. And if a fighter type you lose more than 2 or 3 hp. it might be a roll of the dice for each person that dies. He or She might lose with a roll of 1-6 hp or ep. And take a % of skill. and make that random it might not even come from your main skill. roll the dice again for where it comes from and how much. And as for stat loss, everyone always knows you lose a con. but what if its not con you lose but oh the shame of it all you lose Intelligence and your a mentalist, or wisdom and your a healer. Make it random. Not just a con. Then that will also bring everyone back to the basics again. Either we need to hunt for the basic stat pots or its off to see our old friend dion and see how nice she will be to us after that nasty eat.

Comments? I know I wouldnt want to die. But rolling into a lair and knowing ahead of time boys we have to be on our toes on this one or we all might be in for one heck of a ride afterwards. Then in my opinion it would bring some people down from their ivory towers that we have created around ourselves thinking they/us are god like with our toons. It just might put some back in the trenches and remember what its like when we were all smaller characters.

WabbitMonster

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Stormwind
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Stormwind »

Wow, tough call Brad.

One the one hand, you need to dumb down Drakkar to keep the casual gamers you are looking to woo, once you get them to try the game. On the other, you may alienate your current core audience who like Drakkar just because it isn't like all those other wimpy MMO's.

Here is my suggestion:

Keep things the way they are for your loyal followers. Set up a new series of alts (You could start with just a copy of Alt-2 really - plenty of content there for a while) and reduce the penalties there to gear damage only. Make the gear damage from a lair more severe. Also - as gear gets more damaged, increase the costs to repair. Two or three hours of normal non-lair play shouldn't require more than 1 repair trip unless they die a lot.

Let them know there is a 'hard core' version of the game and give them the option to access it with a totally separate set of characters if they choose to - like back when you had that uber-cob area a couple of years ago. Maybe build some sort of advertising space into the interface where they could see deals on enhanced plans and packages, news/events, etc. Drop some leads in there for quests too. Go aggressive, something like 'are you gamer enough?' and 'no cry-babies allowed', lol. Emphasize the old school nature of Drakkar and you will not only be able to retain that new wimpy audience, but maybe even get a few converts who are tired of playing in candy-land.

Anyway, look forward to seeing it - whatever you decide.

Stormwind

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Migam
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Re: Proposed Idea, change in death penalty

Post by Migam »

My view was more towards attracting and keeping those that want to connect via FB, phone, etc. They might not have time to recover gear and it will decay or get janitorized in time. Also, it's for times you might lose connection or game crashes just before a dp recovery. Those who connect as we do are more hardcore... those newbs uh new players coming in for random play (and adding to the money pot) are less so. The idea is to build up paying accounts I'm thinking.

Even though I hate strips and loss of items in hand, I hate even more suggesting stuff that carebears the game. I don't want the game to suffer and be dumbed-down just because I solo-hunt; I can learn to do more with less. But will these new players feel the same?

Storm's idea of a special alt2 fits the bill for those casual gamers. Maybe make sure it gives less exp/skill than its "hardcore" alt so that their decision to risk item loss for more gains is their own.

Stormwind wrote:Anyway, look forward to seeing it - whatever you decide.

Stormwind
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