Death Mechanic Changes – Feedback Thread

[Vortigon]

Originally Posted by Hasium

While leaving items on the corpse in one way to make death mean something, it's also a customer service nightmare.

Stunning is the only word for this statement. Sigil are changing a fundamental element of gameplay because their customer service department can't handle the workload?

Absolutely incredible statement and a shocking disregard for the reasons many of us subscribed to VG in the first place.

Almost daily this game becomes less and less like the MMO I signed up for.

Originally Posted by Hasium

- Players cant get their corpse / items back and they don't want to summon their corpse because they will lose exp.

So what? this isn't a bug this is how Vanguard works. If those players don't like the game mechanics they should find another game, surely they knew how this worked when they purchased the game?

The position is indefensible, there is no excuse for making sweeping changes due to a minority of players complaining the game is too hard, when there is the option to summon your corpse.

The current trend of making Vanguard easier and easier and bending to the will of the vocal minority will mean a painful death for this game and is a slap in the face to those that subscribed to a game with some challenge and reward. And that vocal minority comprises the type of player that will drop VG in a instant something else takes their fancy. Whereas the players you are alienating with these changes are the ones that want to stick around for the long haul. Can't you see that?

[Bailey]

So is Blizzard taking over or somehting?

Just wondering becuase last I looked I thought Vanguard was to have some challenges in it. The death penalty did not need to be lessend and in fact should have been increased.

Their is currently no risk/reward in the game other than code on patch days now that is a huge risk. The upcoming changes need to be clarified. PVP deaths should result in a far run back. Bad enough the stupid alter/bind change was put in. Now this one BAH.

And their are more important things you should have been working on instead of dinking around with the death changes.

1) Make sure all racials are working
2) Implement the items that you marketed to sell the game. Fellowships, flying mounts etc instead of taking the easy bs way you have been.
3) pvp is not working currently
4) you really dont have any content for higher level players, and none that is really fun atm so why make it easier to get to those levels
5) World population, one of the most deserted games I have seen to date. Consolodate some servers already.

[Zogy]

Originally Posted by Lilith

I approve of the change.

Before there were too many cases in which players could not get their corpse back solo because they simply didn't have the gear to fight their way down.

Forcing people to carry multiple sets of gear or beg for help is not a valid solution.

If you can't get your group to help you, /ponder....

Bags are for? carry loot and carry eqiupment, vendor sells soulbind stuff, saddle bag (any none binded item) will retain in the bag after death.

Can't get help? /ponder.

All the things you said is personal problem. It has nothing to do with the game system that is currently "not" working. It works good for many (or atleast the people that posts here) SO.....why should I pay for your mistake/unwillingness to summon and take exp hit?

[Zogy]

Originally Posted by Farseeker

HUH? Seriously.

A guild group has clerics, people to bust into a dungeon to get corpses, and a rate of XP that is 10 TIMES what a solo'er or someone duoing makes.

It takes about 2000 mobs, when solo'ing and duoing, at lvl 30 to even ding, and one death sets you back about 40 mobs when you can't get your corpse back.

It ha everything to do with hardcore vs casual.

Since hardcore whine and whine and whine if anything gets changed that would benefit or make it easier on casual players, which represest the majority of this game mind you. Just not of these boards

Why in hell are you duo/solo in an area that you cannot get your corpse back? the reason you enter the area is because of "reward" and the "risk" is high. It's not rock science. Can't CR? Take the exp hit, or do something much safer like grinding 2000mobs instead of chosing to grinde 1000 in dungeon duo/solo high risk area and start bitching about it when you can't CR.

You chose to go to high risk area, then it's also your choice at the current death system. To summon or not. very simple. it's CR or Summon.

[Eliandor]

I just registered so that I could reply to this. I must say that I am also disagree with this change. Some may see this as a Troll, but I asure you it is not meant to be.

I am by no means a hard core player. I play 10 to 15 hours a week, most of that on the weekends. 90% of that time is solo play. I have one character, a Ranger, and he is only lvl 27 and I have been playing since day 1. Most of the players I know already have thier main and 2 alts higher lvl than me so the "your just harecore" statement doesn't apply in my case or to most of the other posts I have seen on this topic for that matter.

Overall I am very disappointed in Sigil. This change in itself is big but add it to all the other changes that have happened since launch and you suddenly realize that Sigil found a new vision whether they want to admit it or not.

I have been following this game since early 2005 and was able to participate in beta 4 and 5. If I took the time I could dig up old posts from Brad himself stating the oposite of what I have seen since launch, including this proposed change. There were many (and I mean tons) or threads on CRs, etc. Most of them just like this one. And in all of those threads many promises where made about The Vision (tm) that no longer seem to apply. Those are also the many things that made me wait years for the release, invest time in the betas, and spend a $100.00 bucks on the collectors edition. I thought that finally there was going to be a game I could play for 4, 6, 8+ years and really enjoy. I fear that maybe I was mistaken, I hope I was not, but it is not looking good.

In my opinion a person and a company are only as good as thier word. I remember post after post stating that this game would be made according to the devs vision (as it was stated back then). Not hard core, but harder and more challenging than other games. They set stakes in the ground about CRs, xp debt vs. loss, leveling time, etc. Some of which I liked, some I didn't but the simple fact is I was excited because finally a dev team was not going to be wishywashy about there product and change it everytime someone became vocal. From what I can see Sigil as backed down and went the way they promised they wouldn't.

It seems that every patch as of late has in some way dumbed down the game, too the point that it is loosing its challenge. Damage increases, mob strength decreases, experience increases, etc. Case in point, at launch with my Ranger (and in beta at higher levels) I could kill a 2 dot mob of the same level and it would take 3/4 of my life. I could kill something 1 lvl higher than me and be ok if I used some tactics, but any higher was extremely risky. The kills where fast but challenging. I liked that. However, yesterday I was in River Valley soloing 2 dot purples (frogs, lizards. etc.) 5 and even 6 levels higher than me. In my opinion there is something really wrong with that. I'm not even a Necro lol.

I have left every other game I have played because it was dumbed down over the years. Played UO for 7, Everquest for 5, EQ2 for 2, SWG for 2, (others not worth mentioning) all of them were dumbed down to the point that they were no longer fun, so I left once something more promising came along. Btw, notice how it took each game less time to become dumbed down, if the current patch direction holds true Sigil is going to set the record and do it in under 6 months.

This is what it all boils down to, I know 2 people that have canceled since this was put on test becasue they were appalled that Sigil would even consider something that is so against what the original vision stated (remember a company is only as good as its word) and I know several others that say they will quite if the game keeps going in the direction that it is. I forsee my friends list clearing out. I myself will keep playing until I can stand it no longer. It will be a while, but not the 4, 6, 8 years I was hoping, I will be lucky if it is a year.

That is my two cents about changing the death machanic, for what it is worth. I really hope a change in direction comes soon....

[thlau]

Originally Posted by Elrar

- You will no longer leave a corpse when you die; instead you will drop an essence.
- You no longer leave items (Soulbound or not) on your essence.
- Essences will return a large amount of experience upon retrieval.
- Your essence will decay after 70 hours.
- Altars will still allow you to summon corpses from before the patch on 3/30/07 (Build 1799), however, you are unable to summon essences.
- The amount of experience lost when you die has been decreased.

Summa sumarum this will remove all problems I had with death mechanics in Vanguard at all. So I appreciate this change. I always thought it is stupid to run from a spawn point in a physical form to a tombstone that contains my stuff.

Are there already information available how the xp percentages lost will be?
I'm not sure but I think at the moment you loose 20% of the xp you need for the current level and regain 19% of them if you pick up your corpse. Actually the loss of 1% of xp is no fun for a casual gamer, that due to odd and short playingtimes normally plays solo during the week. So if I play 90 minutes a day , and I die, I could have watched tv instead and my progress would be the same. But I think that death penalty is okay, and I can live with it.

The most essential changes this involves are:

• I can hand in the stuff I collected during a quest after I died
• Less tombstone camping on PvP servers since I have to expect a fully equipped adversary returning to reclaim his essenc

So if you make the death penalty noteworthy like say 20% required xp for the next level on the death, and 17% required xp stored on the essence a death will still have a hard sting to everybody

[FEDS-91]

Originally Posted by thlau

Summa sumarum this will remove all problems I had with death mechanics in Vanguard at all. So I appreciate this change.

Wouldn't get your hopes up. Looking like unless they want to really piss a mass group of us off, this won't make it to live. If they do, you probably won't have all that many folks to play with. If people wanted to play the type of game that would lean towards, there are 5-8 million subscribers playing another one and I don't see them making the move here.

[Mardy]

I don't get why Sigil won't just code it in so when someone dies, they get 2 prompts.

1. asks them if they would like to release to the altar, just like the one they see now.

2. asks them if they would like to release to the altar with their corpse, but warn them of the coins cost to summon. Since apparently a lot of people don't read & don't know that they could summon their corpses.

I see where this is going, so if you really need to please more audiences & get more subs, then lessen the exp penalty when someone summons. But for the love of Vanguard, don't kill the current cr system. There's simply no need to unless there are reasons we haven't heard from the devs yet. Code the 2 choices for everytime someone dies, make it so obvious that they can't miss it.

[Isobel]

Originally Posted by FEDS-91

Wouldn't get your hopes up. Looking like unless they want to really piss a mass group of us off, this won't make it to live. If they do, you probably won't have all that many folks to play with. If people wanted to play the type of game that would lean towards, there are 5-8 million subscribers playing another one and I don't see them making the move here.

Sadly, i think you're wrong. I very much hope you're right but i don't think you are. If you read the Dev comments on this subject the basic tone of them seem to be "We realize the majority of the respondants on this issue feel the death penalty is fine the way it is and would rather we improve the CS and communication systems in order to remedy our CS and communication issues but we're going to do this anyway."

[Ginfress]

Originally Posted by Isobel

Sadly, i think you're wrong. I very much hope you're right but i don't think you are. If you read the Dev comments on this subject the basic tone of them seem to be "We realize the majority of the respondants on this issue feel the death penalty is fine the way it is and would rather we improve the CS and communication systems in order to remedy our CS and communication issues but we're going to do this anyway."

Expecially Elrar´s response of not really taking any pros or cons yet serious since it´s not on the live server yet makes me feel the same way. Instead of fixing the bugs that cause death problems they remove one of the strong points of vanguard out of the game. Vanguard was supposed to be different then the other games but slowly the differences are ironed out and it becomes even more a copy of eq2 then wow.....Sigil there is a reason people play vanguard and not wow or eq2....