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    • The Death Penalty and Why It's No Longer Needed

    Posted by EnixLHQ on 2013-09-12 02:15

    I have never ever been a fan of the death penalty on this server. I've made the argument before that losing a level, or a function of XP based on level, is too harsh a punishment for adventuring.

    When this server was bustling, and we wanted to foster the value of role-play, it made sense to put a soft cap on experience gained while adventuring and impose a penalty for choosing that route over the core function the server was made to deliver. Factoring in the time required to produce, test, and balance high-level content by volunteer developers, keeping players from reaching higher levels was in the server's best interests. However, I felt this was best achieved through the capping of experience gained, be it by character or party level or a hard cap on XP earned per day. This would solve the issue of characters advancing too fast in a predictable, measurable way while also fostering the need to role-play if any more XP was to be earned.

    This idea might not be achievable anymore (if it ever was), nor should it be an aim for anyone maintaining the server. However, neither should the current penalty.

    Right now, dying is such a huge loss that not only does it set your character back in XP and often levels, it also takes out any further desire to continue. It's devastating. It's emotionally draining and almost always results in the player logging off out of frustration.

    In our current ghost town population, I feel this is too much. You're already removed from your party's current fight, chances are that you will have to navigate the maze and respawn back in the city, and what benefits you offered your team are now gone. If you were solo, you're simply out of the fight. I feel this is enough.

    Or, if a further penalty is needed, I suggest a stat debuff that cannot be rested away until so many game hours have passed. In this manner, you will operate at a lower capacity for a duration long enough to be detrimental to you and your party's goals, but you are not permanently set back weeks or months of work.

    Please, comments are welcome on my opinion.

    Reads: 78
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    Posted by hyperflux on 2013-09-20 18:19

    Death and Rewards.

    Short version

    The problem is the rewards adventuring is not worth the risk. It takes too long to get a Xp and losing it harms you in so many ways. Increase XP and decrease death plenty or remove it all together. This will make people want to adventure more and most importantly have people need to repeat adventure less.  Tech was my bored experiment he has run the maze over 100 times. Just to get 4 levels.

    MATH!

    Bix in order to level needs: Level 13 -14. He needs 13000 xp

    Solo (25 Per mob)  Bix needs to kill 510 Mobs

    Duo(12 Per Mob)   Bix needs to kill 1083 Mobs

    Trio(4 per Mob) Bix needs to kill 3250 Mobs

    Remember that Xp is cut in half per party member you have in your group.

     

    Long winded

    I like excel Medhia can attest to my terrifying efficiently with maze runs. 1 Maze Run gets me ~500 Xp. If I die I lose about ~5000xp which means I need to run the maze 10 more times just to get back to where I was.  Death in games has not become so serious.  The issue has always been rewards. Killing Moderate creatures gets me 14xp.  Challenging (Which is equal to my level) gets me 50.

    In addition because how hard I have to work (…I mean Vorlax has to work) Just to get that 500 xp. Death is terrifying, because it means I have lost almost 10 hours of work. 10 hours of my life in a game was blinked away because the AI critted me for 58 or because NWN crashed while my character was running way.  Leaf has died a total of 69 times and YES I counted. That’s 69 levels she has lost and regained to get to a measly level 16.

    I would recommend increasing the XP drastically and removing the death plenty or making it less harsh perhaps 100 per level if you really want it. As Enix has it is a bit of a ghost town so I have log in as cleric to rez someone if they die on Nam. if it is in the maze.

    This death concept was put in place when we were live to deter casual players who would login on gamespy who did not know how to RP and just wanted to grind all day. Seeing as we are no longer on gamespy. We do not need this filter anymore.

    Just for reference getting to level 17 on tech will take an additional 50 runs of the Maze in order to achieve just one level. He now only gets 250 xp per run.

    Super Short Version:

    Bix needs level 16 so he can cast premonition.

    Leaf needs epic because she is.

    Tech needs level 17 so he can cast Weird and then retire.

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    Posted by EnixLHQ on 2013-09-20 22:48

    My argument isn't so much about XP and gaining levels as it is about the sheer shock death is to a character and, by extension, the player.


    RP is the primary purpose of the server, and as such it is expected that other aspects of the game should take a back seat and not promote mindless grinding. To this point, the dungeons are hard, balanced for parties, and give limited experience. I don't see a personal reason for this aspect to change.


    However, death is abusive to the player. It erases far more work placed into a character than any single reward or event has ever given to a character. In a limited closed environment where rewards are static, death is an unbalanced variable with a huge deficit. The system does not favor a player, the RNG often rolls low consistently for the player and high for the enemy (what was once known as "getting NWshafted", "NWDiced" or "demon dice"), mobs respawn timers are unpredictable, mobs respawn as if rested, pathing gives them free Attack of Opportunities, and the AI always gains command preference over the player. There are a ton of other issues such as the 17 hour rest bug and undocumented spell changes that further unbalance the game away from the player. Your only defence against this is to adventure as a party, and a balanced one at that, with dedicated roles for damage, support, and most importantly healing.


    I know this is how it is supposed to be. As a character you're not expected to always know what's ahead of you and to come prepared. And, as a player, it's not expected that you will exploit the system for personal gain. We never wanted high level characters to populate the server, nor would we ever grant characters with high levels defacto RP power over anyone else. An 18th level wizard isn't automatically in the Council, nor do they assume authority over lesser wizards within any part of the story. In all the areas that matter to the design of the server, RP wins. However, this cannot be the point made for the server at this time.


    I am an RPer, a storyteller, at heart. So, I have RPed with everyone I have seen sign on. After a while, though, you will eventually get bored of talking in the Square and do what the game engine was designed to do and go adventure in a dungeon. These adventures yield little reward in and of themselves in terms fo XP or loot, but they are better than the alternative, which is getting nothing at all. Depending on characters, my adventures either alone or solo are mostly successful and I can come back to do it again later. It only takes one death before I regret the whole experience, though. There have been no RP rewards for my RP effort that I have put in to the server over the last three weeks. I have RPed with the same one to four people since I first signed back on. Different characters have been made, different RP paths taken, but ultimately no incentive to continue that path. And as such I have adventured. And if I die, I log out, fume, and take my time coming back. My logged in time has gone from every day, to once in the week, to swearing I will give this place up again. This is a problem.


    Death devastates you. It's not a setback for your character, easily made up or overlooked, it is a setback for the player. One I am sick of enduring. In a populated environment with up to four times the XP amount earned until made up, this can be a non-issue once you were able to get the XP train rolling again. But in this current environment of only yourself to rely on for XP gain and absolutely no increase to XP to recover what you lost, losing an entire level is absolutely ridiculous.

    A game is supposed to be fun. This is not fun and I see no reason to log in right now except for the nostalgia or mindless grinding get back what was lost. I know that certain changes are looking to be made, but until this one is addressed I don't see myself spending much more time here again. I can occupy that time with much less frustrating activities.

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    Posted by ninjaz on 2013-09-22 00:34
    I will be posting a little more on it shortly but we will be adjusting the death penalty and boosting the death/make-up xp. While we are making changes to this, we will also be addressing "death traps" in certain dungeons. More or less we have a pretty good idea of the causes of these and we will be working to mitigate this occuring.
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    Posted by feralamour on 2013-09-23 19:48
    Note: Topic shifted to Player Feedback, replying to fix recent post listings. Ignore this.
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    Posted by ninjaz on 2013-09-25 20:45

    Just for an update, the new death penalties will work as following:

     

    1-5: free with just the time penalty it takes to run Purgatory

     

    6-12: 30% of what the penalty is now w/ the ability to self raise and no Purgatory - if you had 1000xp as the penalty the new one will be 300

     

    12+: 45% of what the penalty is now w/ no self raise and no Purgatory - if you had 1000xp as the penalty the new one will be 450

     

    These values will be in conjunction with the death/make-up xp vaules being raised so that you can return to normal in a few days rather than weeks.

     

    Normal xp will remain the same.

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