Death Penalty

[Aredhel]

by George, he's GOT it!

That's exactly the point! There didn't used to be as much powerleveling before as there is now, too. You have GOT to know your abilities in order to function in a world, and that goes for rl, too!

What happens if you die here? Ok, so you don't get a rez, but you sure do lose, don't ya? In game, you have the chance to see what mistakes you made and try again, but it still hurts, and it should! So many of the games now are targeted at those who want the instant gratification without the work that goes into it. I'm not to thrilled about grouping with those folks. They usually have a "MINE!" attitude and expect you to cover their mistakes, or blame them on you. And when you try to teach them....forget it! Not all are like that, some actually do like learning, but that takes wanting to!

So, yup...definately exp/level loss!

[Morgore]

the great and wise Nunda
We played EQ2 together and with our group, we hated death and were very careful of the fights we picked. We played smart and thought twice before we went to battle, we were also concerend with our KTD and that made dying even less of an option. Now since things have changed so much there.. death is too common and the XP debt is a joke.

Not sure if any of you remember how death was handled or if this has been discussed in Ultima Online (in the begining) you died and you were given the choice of how to revive. 1) let someone revive you (friend or stranger) 2) revive yourself at a certain location WITH penalties. Loss of XP, loss of skill, chance of a weapon/armor going bye-bye(decay).
It sucked to die in that game. I hated that system, but not that I have played a few other games...the old UO system is a awesome idea. Especially with the way the games nowadays reconize groups. (Before a group was just a bunch of people running around together.... nothing told the game player A and player B were in a group.) This old way could penalize the whole group (like EQ2 started to have) and it would make you choose your groups more carefully)

Also in UO, not only did ya have worry about how you were going to rez, you also had to worry about your body being looted before you made it back to collect your things. This made it really important to stay alive. ( And to not play while you were completely intoxicated .. I lost many items that way..haha)


(ok, that didn't flow too well, had a million things to say I think I jumbled them all together)

(I also voted XP loss, no level gain before reading thread) After reading, Everything can/could suffer a % loss would be my vote

[Aredhel]

Said well enough. Isn't it hard to have a brain full of things and not know what to say first?

My hubby played UO, so I'm kinda familiar. I liked the original EQ way, too. You really had to take time to recover, and that's when you learn about other abilities of the players around you, and back then, others were WILLING...*GASP*...to do just that and went out of their way to do it, and even maybe help you figure out what you did wrong!

Boy...wouldn't it be nice to return to the "age of innocence?"

[Arctic_Slicer]

While the age of innocence would be nice to return to it isn't possible. This is a philosophy that doesn't apply to MMPOGs specifically either. Not to long ago there was actually a pretty good article about the "golden age theory" at http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mc6. Matt Cavota explained very well why all players tend to think that how the game looked when they started was the "golden age" this is also true to MMPOGs. For most people the golden game was the game they started with. For many of us that is "EverQuest" for others it might be another game but for all of us we compare all of our future mmos to the game that took away our innocence.

[Nunda]

The trend that I see is that many MMORPG's start out too soon without working out many of the bugs. They release the game with some pretty good ideas on exp debt or loss of some kind. Some players, like myself and many of my guild, work through some tough encounters and enjoy working together as a team and doing the hard work to be on top.

But then somewhere around 3-6 months after release, the Devs start giving into the complianers. (Its too hard!, It takes to long, ect...) So for the sake of loosing revenue, they alter the game to apease the weak in skill. Mobs become easier to kill, special bonus, less debt, rare spawns pop every 5 minutes. I dont get it. The Devs should be able to understand that the more difficult the game is, the more hardcore/longterm players they will have. The instant gratification/ADD people who are complaining that its to tough will be the first to drop the game for the next hot thing.

I guess I just dont understand the mentallity of someone who buys a game then runs home and installs all the cheat codes so they are invencible, then run through the whole game in one night. I guess im missing a great opportunity here, I should delevop a game that is extreamely eazy, where you are a God and nothing can kill you. Then set the max level at 1,000,000th lvl. People could chug through the game for months killing everything in their path and I could just rake in the $$$$.

Death should make you cuss! A good game should make you have to go buy a new mouse every 3-4 months due to anger management issues.

[Aredhel]

Well, call me the enfernal optomist, but I always look for the possibilities rather than throwing them out with preconception!

I will remain hopeful for a lot of the wonder to return. I saw the responses of the folks at Sigil as we saw stuff, and I was with some hard-core gamers! Anything that makes them want to "stop and smell the roses" is a winner, and that's definatley what was happening. And, like Nunda said, as long as the company doesn't give into those who like to complain, we'll be ok.

Here's hoping!!

[Vade]

I dont know if any of you played FF XI but the death penalty was a joke, after you died you recieved and exp penalty which could cause you to level down, combine this with your armor popping off and skills not working because your not the correct level and anymore and it gets pretty annoying.

I think a nice exp debt and armor durability loss is fine, just don't take my level

[Essential Timing]

Experience loss with level loss possibly for sure. Simple fact of the matter, people think twice before they execute anything. If they don't, the they pay from it and learn from it (experience). Now I would hope there would be resurrecting abilities to gain back some of the experience. But losing a level puts more of a threat then not losing one. Lets just take the word level. Now if you can't maintain that level, then it is obvious that you shouldn't have that level or not experienced enough to maintain it. Now of course there is technicalities to that but the basics of "level" is clear.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Originally Posted by Vade

I dont know if any of you played FF XI but the death penalty was a joke, after you died you recieved and exp penalty which could cause you to level down, combine this with your armor popping off and skills not working because your not the correct level and anymore and it gets pretty annoying.

I think a nice exp debt and armor durability loss is fine, just don't take my level

That is more or less how the death penalty of "EverQuest" was handled. While you may not like such penalties you will find that majority of us would prefer exp loss with level loss as we feel that it keeps death frightening as it should be. Death is not something that you should be able to shrug off then contine adventuring. It should be something you avoid like the plague. Having a harsher death penalty is the way to do this. When we playing "EverQuest" we liked the exp with level loss and corpse runs as it was a system that made death mean something. Many of us want "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" to return that sting to death to make the game exciting.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by Arctic_Slicer

When we playing "EverQuest" we liked the exp with level loss and corpse runs as it was a system that made death mean something. Many of us want "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" to return that sting to death to make the game exciting.

It's amazing to me, and gratifying, that the majority of people are asking for level loss with stiff penalties. I'm fed up with everything being so easy. Now, it's going to take me a while to get used to a new game with different controls, UI, and all that. Fortunately, in EQ, I found people who knew what was going on to help me when I got stuck. In this one, we're all (pretty much) going to be in the same boat, so it will take me longer than many to figure things out. Call it "information overload" or whatever. BUT...once I got it, I don't want the game to baby me thru. I want to have to really understand and work thru it. And if I lose a level in the process, it's like _Slicer said...I wasn't ready to be there.

VSoH won't be for the faint of heart or those looking for a free ride to the top. Then again, it's not like the Japanese games that punish you and make things very realistic in their methods. Their philosphy is that death is death, and it's not pretty!

So, as many others have stated in various forums...VSoH won't be for everyone. Try it out and see, is all we can do!