Death Decay Poll

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by oplek, Jun 21, 2017.

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What's your opinion on skill/death decay?

  1. It's way too punishing, and all loss should be removed from death.

    38.6%
  2. I'm generally fine with the system, but perhaps lighten up on the punishment.

    4.6%
  3. I'm fine with the level of loss, but would rather it be done differently.

    5.0%
  4. I'm fine with the system.

    28.9%
  5. It isn't punishing enough. The loss should be greater.

    5.4%
  6. Crank it up! I am death incarnate.

    6.8%
  7. NEW: Some loss is fine, but the current type and level is excessive

    10.7%
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  1. Merlota

    Merlota Avatar

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    Yes that is what level caps do. The difference here being that you still have to continue to grind exp once you reach that point or you start sliding backwards very quickly. Please remember that to act as a limit on growth decay must consume all exp earned since the last death. That is not 10 minutes of lost game play. That is not an hour of lost gameplay. That is days of lost gameplay, more if you play it safe.

    If death decay is not meant as a cap and will remain at a fixed 10 minutes of playtime it is more palatable. If it is truly meant as a cap the amount of lost exp will be absurd.
     
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  2. Stahlknecht

    Stahlknecht Avatar

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    This game has MUCH bigger problems then this decay-thingy.
    We all want this game to succeed but hope is at least only a resource which is not infinite.
     
  3. Lars vonDrachental

    Lars vonDrachental Avatar

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    Of course we are all just guessing as we are not part of the dev team and cannot take a look at their notes but I would guess that they want to try a different way with level capping just like they tried a different way e.g. with combat.

    After thinking a lot about decay and the responses I came up with a thought…the decay in its current form could be designed that you know your limit. You have reached adventure level 120 and can participate in all content? Why do you continue to level up if the benefit for each level is getting lesser and lesser while decay grows more and more? Just switch your skills to maintain, save the experience in your pool and you can stop your excessive grinding as you do not have to throw millions of experience into skills that just grant you 0.1% more power…you just have to compensate the decay of maybe 100000 or 200000 exp once in a while that you will get back in maybe 15 minutes.
    If this would be the intention of the devs I do not think that many will stop at a not visible point (as they see a self-chosen stop of progress as no option) and this would mean they would have to implement a more guiding limiter.
     
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  4. Merlota

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    If the incremental gain is small enough to not be worth obtaining, if players are trying to move forward by scaling an infinite vertical wall, why bother making them slide back?

    Advancement won't be turned off until the gains are truly insignificant. By that time every skill is at a high level. If that point is still 15 min of exp gain then there is no decay cap. That is not how I understand the intent of the system.
     
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  5. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

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    I grant you they will level to whatever without any effort, just to say i did it.

    I am ok with that.

    I want a significant death experience and a decay us fine to me.
    Plus i want limiters to grant me specialization decisions need to be made early, maybe level 60 or no later than skills at 80 and partaking in pvp doesnt mean what it means today.
    Skill everything, choose FOTM Skills, unstack Inventory and things like that.

    That is what a soft cap should grant to me and sone players i know.
     
  6. Jaanelle DeJure

    Jaanelle DeJure Avatar

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    Folks. The devs are not satyrs. :p

    I've heard more than one reference to in depth conversations they have had about how far to set somebody back in terms of time lost due to serial death, and despite Chris' somewhat poor choice of words, they are not actually trying to "punish" players for being good at the game.

    That being said, a very large, pink and purple, sparkly glowing, elephant in the room is the apparently WIDE VARIANCE in max decay as well as XP farming ability, of players around the same AL.

    Am I being stonewalled here? :confused: Does nobody want to acknowledge or talk about that?
     
  7. Tsumo2

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    I know nothing
     
  8. Merlota

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    Players at the same AL should have the same cost for a full decay death. How long it takes to pay for a death will have variation of course.

    IMO as long as the death tax is around a 10 minute recovery which can happen at most once a day it isn't an issue. If it is really intended as a cap mechanism where it consumes hours then days... no.
     
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  9. Jaanelle DeJure

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    But they don't. Decay is calculated based on applied experience to skills on an individual basis, not the total amount earned to determine AL.

    This is one reason why what takes one player ten minutes to recover takes another an hour to recover, even though they have comparable AL.

    I'm not sure of the spread, but from what I gather we are also talking about a huge difference in how much XP some players are earning, despite comparable AL.
     
  10. Merlota

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    That seems to me like an AL issue not decay. Base them both off the same thing. Allocated exp would make more sense for both.

    Earning speed has a big spread due to player, deck, gear, location. Decay loss should be egalitarian.
     
  11. Jaanelle DeJure

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    Yes, but if the intention behind the egalitarian aspect of decay has more to do with setting one back a certain amount of time, then we cannot separate that from how much XP a player earns per unit of time.
     
  12. Merlota

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    Absolutely correct. If they are looking to make death sting a little there are fairer ways to do it. If they are looking to set a cap this is the wrong way.
     
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  13. Burzmali

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    The devs don't want people with super high skills, and they don't want to hurt newbies. This resulted in the current system where veterans are encouraged, or more encouraged depending on how you look at it, to have lots of lower skills than fewer higher skills.
     
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  14. Merlota

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    Yeah, the stick they are using to encourage is the discussion topic.
     
  15. Jaanelle DeJure

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    I'm not sure what would be more straightforward than losing XP on death, but I'd be open to ideas.

    Trying to parse through all the viewpoints here... It seems to me that a fairer approach might be to base the XP loss off of what has been earned in the recent history of the player- say a 7 day moving average- rather than total amount of XP earned or applied to date.

    This would help correct for variance in the amount of XP a player earns per unit of time.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2017
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  16. Merlota

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    The quick one that comes to mind is a death debuff. Half exp earned for next 10 minutes? That has a bit of sting to it. The trouble with debuff vs taking is they encourage logging out.
     
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  17. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    +1 on this idea. I think something like this is better and more equitable. Moreover, I'm sure there is a way to make it so it's "in-game" time. Meaning, a player couldn't simply logout, come back in an hour and have the debuff gone.
     
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  18. Jaanelle DeJure

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    Yeah- a tax on future earnings can be more easily manipulated, avoided, minmaxed, and other chicaneries. Unless maybe the amount of the tax was still calculated from past earnings, but applied against future earnings instead of taken directly from the existing pool?
     
  19. Tsumo2

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    To encourage adventure, the first death of any 24 hrs could give an XP bonus, inversely related to AL.
     
  20. Merlota

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    And anything based on past earnings is going to cost some people more or less time. That likely one of the reasons many games don't bother with it anymore. Die, res, move on with playing is the normal loop but it doesn't 'make death meaningful'. Lets hope they find a happy medium that upsets the fewest number of players.
     
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