Death Mechanic Changes – Feedback Thread

[Corlin]

First time I died tonight, I was unable to loot my essence. I have logged to desktop and back, can target it but not drag or loot my essence. My poor exps are trapped in the tomb, rotting in 65 hours... tick... tick... tick.

[Wizhood]

I find this to be totaly absurd change, this is gonna end up costing yas alot of money. I am not sure what the major problem was besides haveing to deal with people who this game is not geared towards whineing about not being able to get thier corpses back.

First you have an alter they can summon the corpse and lose xp, or they can be like the rest of the people who have a brain and have a backup set of gear and get thier stuff back or give some classes corpse summoning.

By making this game even easier then it is now its gonna get rid of the people who really want a challengeing game, its not very challengeing now as it is. This is a beautiful world that was created with so many possiabilities to make it challengeing, but this point I dont see much of it in game. Changeing the corpse/death mechanics is probley the worst idea yas ever had, fire whoever thought it up.

If these changes do go into effect on live, Count me in as one of many that will cancel. I dont want to play a game that is not even a challenge to get my corpse back. Death is not somthing that should be taken lightly, backup gear is the answer to the people whineing about not being able to get thier corpses, or summon them take the loss dont be stupid and try to do it again. Its to hard for you move on to somthing more your speed.

I would rather take a loss and laugh about it. If the loss is to big, setup summoning to give xp back at a higher cash cost and gear breakage. Tombstones are a fun part of this game. Think this through its a REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA!

[Aredhel]

This is probably something that needs to stay on Test a LONG time, if that's possible.

I'm really not quite sure how to understand the new way. I definately will opt for corpse or "essence" retrieval and I don't mind losing levels/exp, actually. If I do, then I know I need to get better at something, which presents the necessary challange!

I do have to be careful where I go now, because I don't like to summon my corpse. I like the run/challange, but I don't have groups very often, and when I do, they seem to have to "go" if the going gets rough. So, in that respect, I'm glad for the alters, but not often!!

Another question: 70 hours according to what timer? In game on any toon? In game on THAT toon? RL time? Game time?

This is going to have to be looked at closely, because I'm not sure this is the kind of change that needs to be dealt with just now! I'd vote for making it solid, get the other bugs fixed and then look at the newer content you have waiting in the sidelines. Don't do what EQ2 did and change the rules after the game was just really starting to go well!

And yes, I know that this is Test, so things will change, but that's why I asked to keep it on Test a LONG time!! There are other things that need more review. Let's work on them first, maybe and not worry about changing what people are just really figuring out.

SO...that said, time to get ingame and work it!

[TheUndeadFish]

I also have regestered just for the sake of doing this. I really do not understand why you would want to change something as perfect as your death system, and in the wrong direction none-the-less. I would hardly concider myself a "hardcore" player anymore, but when I first fell in love with this game it was because so many things reminded me of FFXI.

One of the things was death should sting. It was never nearly as hard of sting as it was in FFXI, nor do I think you intended it to be so, but atleast it prevented the stupid people from leveling as quickly as the people who knew how to play their class. Yes the stupid people did eventually get to cap, but atleast when they got there they weren't nearly as clueless about their class as they were when they started playing the game. Partly due to the fact that it took them longer to reach the end.

Whats the point of soulbinding gear, well hardly anyone did it anyways, but atleast it gave some advantage for deflating the system.

Sorry but I feel this is beyond a terrible change if went live, and I hope it was only put on there to give the test realm characters a reason to level up. Like the 300% crafting xp on them.

[Tja]

Please don't let this come life. Didn't test it yet but I know I don't like it. The altars are enough help anyone needs. Why would you soulbind your items with this system? Think about what this means for crafters. Every weapon I make would be sold after a week or so for half the original price. My prices would be beaten by my own creations.
Corpse run is part of the fun. Let it stay the way it is. WoW fanboys are not your audience. Don't try to change this game in a way they would like.

[Rithrin]

So, the sting of dying was XP loss. It still is... where's the problem? Before, you died and dropped a corpse. If you couldn't get back to it, you summoned it at the altar and lost XP. With this, you die and drop an essence. If you can't back to it you lose your XP anyways. XP loss all the way around.. isn't that what makes everyone happy?

[afterroots]

I've registered just to reply to this. Please sigil tell me why you would tinker with the death system when it's fine? You gradually making it so this game is more and more like every other MMO. Dissapointed you would consider this...

[Rhazes]

Elrar I have 3 essences so far waiting to be collected they are invalid. Of course im also ghostbustered right now and cant do anything.

[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.

[Hasium]

Originally Posted by Denidil Taureran

if you tell us why you're making these changes we may be able to help make suggestions that would get less negative reaction from people. Many of my guildies think you're "wowifying" the game (IE making it very easy), while much of the time i want to beat them over the head because their assertion is assinine (bitching about XP tweeking normally, and teleporters) this here IS a range to the risk vs reward structure.

Fair enough.

No we are NOT "WoWifying" the game. Sadly it's gotten the point that if any change is made thats the first thing we hear. Vanguard, like many MMO's, will have some things that are similar to WOW in addition to many other games just like every other MMO on the market. If an idea works, then it works. But ultimately Vanguard needs to able to stand on it's own with it's own identity.

We want Vanguard to be more challenging than WoW. I hate the fact that in WoW i don't really care if I die. I'm one of the few it would seem that actually enjoy a corpse run. I like fearing death. It makes the game much more exciting for me. And that's the key, we need to fear death in Vanguard without frustrating the player to the point of giving up. We have put in several mechanics to work around those various issues. But at some some point it just gets too cluttered and confusing for the player.

TwilightSea asked the question "Why do you feel a change is needed?" What are the likely suspects?

While leaving items on the corpse in one way to make death mean something, it's also a customer service nightmare.
- Items get lost.
- Players think items got lost.
- Players cant get their corpse / items back and they don't want to summon their corpse because they will lose exp.
- the corpse / items are just plain lost due to a unforeseen bug.
- the player accidentally lost some items while looting.
- the player thinks is crazy that they can get their first set of gear back while wearing their second set of gear when clearly the first set wasn't good enough.

All that equates to CS getting clogged with petitions therefore making legitimate petitions take much longer.

So we are experimenting with ways to make death feared / mean something without over complicating it on the test server. This is by no means final, it's one small tweak. And I'm open to suggestions as long as it's productive and not lost in a sea of "WoWifying" the game. If we were going to do that, we should have started 4 years ago, not 2 months after we shipped. That's madness.