Death

Wow, I was assuming ghosts up until now but I just saw the 4.8.13 dev chat and I gotta say... I would cast my first vote for permanent death. The inheritance sounds like a really cool way to dampen the blow (taxed or not).

You could do something like; certain foes will not actually kill you dead but just put you out of the fight so that you actually have a chance to try to escape after resting or crawling slowly out of harms way. I guess that wouldn't apply for NPCs that would want to eat you... they would actually just eat you and you would be dead for good - start over.

Another approach could be something like certain particularly dangerous areas with particularly dangerous foes (like dragons) that offer particularly high rewards would always kill you dead. This would encourage people to prepare themselves appropriately and get the right number of cohorts together before embarking on the truly legendary adventures.

And of course for the constant PvP players whether through guild wars or other PvP options, the same case of putting the player out of the fight rather than killing them dead would apply. Something like five or ten minutes just to get back on your feet at 5% health could work? Possibly with the option to kill each other for good under certain circumstances e.g. gladiator ring, to settle a feud between guilds or cities or families...

To RG and TH, you have my vote. Let's make it work!

 

I second that! I want to see this sussed out more in the dev forums.

 

I vote ghosts

 

I would like to see a form of perm-death as well, something I always wanted in games like this. However, this could have unintended consequences if dying becomes common -- it shouldn't be. It should be the rare occasion that you die. Otherwise the value of the roleplaying is diminished and people don't put any care into developing their characters any more.

I mentioned this in the past as well, I think The Guild series has done a great job with perm-death and inheritance.

 

I think only thing that can cause PD is death of the soul and I think it definitely should be in the game. Such as necromantic spells like "Curse Soul", "Steal Soul" or something that can cause spiritual damage to the character, for ex. liches, demons and foul creatures like that. I believe if the soul lives, there should always be a way to revive. In which cases that are mentioned by our friend here, such as being eaten alive, I believe situation can go like this:

When you get eaten whole and alive, say by dragon.. your soul is trapped in your body because, spiritually speaking, your soul is inside of a dragons soul. Only salvation is to wait till dragons digestive system lets you go.

This process can only start when dragon is not in combat mode and it lasts at least 5 minutes or so. But there's a catch! If the dragon is slain when your body inside it, your soul is trapped within the dragon forever. And maybe even then something LEGENDARY can be done by summoning the ghost or something spicy like that which takes 100 bucks or something so that your years of hard work wouldn't just go away.

 

I think it would be interesting if you could get resurrected, but it had a price to it.

So for instance, resurrection by a healer could cost 4000gp, and if you don't have it, you become bonded to him until you can pay the amount - having to do work and errands for him to pay off the cost. Ie, like debt slavery.

Also, if you could in advance of an adventure go to a shrine or a healer and tithe 4000gp as insurance for the next time you die, so you don't have to go through the whole rigamarole of looking for a healer after death.

 

@Isaiah Why?

@Grant Agreed. PD can't be so common as to prohibit enjoying the game.

@PABS Interesting

@redfish I particularly like the idea that you could do something in advance like link your 'soul' to a shrine or a powerful healer/mage (or maybe some powerful artifact you keep in your house?) so that when you die you can be revived by them - maybe in this case your physical self along with your belongs stay where you were felled?

 

*puts up his hand*

OoooOo OOo OooOooOo.

enough said.

 

@Dargalin Not enough said, explain yourself man!

 

Darglalin, quite clearly, casts his vote in favor of UO style ghosts upon death.

 

Have they thrown out the "You get one character and it is you" idea? Because, if not, permanent death doesn't make sense.

 

Def death should have consequences. My vote is for full loot, whether pvp or not. Having to get back to your corpse works, and if you can't get your stuff and get away from the thing that killed you, you'll learn not to run into that monster again. Lost XP on death? Could also have lives or 'fates', when you run out you get PD. I would imagine most people are against PD, but it does have appeal to the serious gamer.

IMHO XP loss at death along with loot-able corpses will change player behavior enough that PD is not necessary.

In related topics, there should not be level restrictions on gear - anyone running around in valuable gear should be able to defend it. Crime is a natural and essential part of economy.

Handling death is incredibly important in a game: it changes the way groups interact, whether they have to loot or guard a friend's corpse, and forces players to assess a situation properly before running in, lest they lose their XP, gold or eq. Also this keeps people from trying to carry everything for every occasion on them. - let's not replace roleplay and real-life dynamics with arbitrary rules, they degrade gameplay and create a feeling of falsity and promote reckless play.

 

There is a big thread about this under Combat:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=death-ooooooooo

Excuse me while I double post:
<blockquote>
I don?t think permadeath works in any multiplayer games: there are too many cheap ways to die from griefers to lag. Not to mention this is a harsh penalty that can push people away. A death system should have consequences that cause death to be avoided, but not punishing as to just kick a player while they are down. I enjoy being punished and having games be hard, but I understand we have a wide audience to which this game is targeted.

We know a lot more about the game than when this was originally posted, and with the new stretch goal at 2 mil the devs mentioned in the Hangout that full loot will be an optional setting. As such it might be better to not approach this thread as option 1, 2 or 3, and instead focus on how death specifically should be handled. Most of the options presented here seem specifically around the UO death mechanic. I only played UO during the alpha and beta, but I did like the way it handled death or at least how I remembered it be. I played a lot of NWN multiplayer and the best thing about NWN was every module could be completely different and there were a lot of creative handling for death.

I like it when death is story based and completely IC and RP friendly. Whatever the world and back story of SOTA is, I hope death is an extension of that world and its history.

NWN was D&amp;D Forgotten Realms so the Fugue Plane was commonly used. The souls of the dead would flow into the world of the dead to await its fate. I would hate dying and going to fugue just to sit there until resurrected. There might be someway to get back to a starting point with an xp penalty, but you always would try to avoid that until your whole party showed up for a visit or told you they could not get you. Boring for me, but fun for the rest of the party who is trying to save you.

Dark Souls is another good example of death being part of the story but death was also just another part of the game. You lost all your souls and humanity which you had 1 shot to get back; otherwise you had to earn it back the hard way. It was harsh and unforgiving but it seemed fair because dying was always YOUR fault due to the precise controls. It was also thrilling trying to retrieve what you lost knowing it was gone when you died again, but you also knew all you had to do was earn more souls and humanity. Harsh but not penalizing and yet almost fun in itself.

So I think consensus is that you become a ghost, and I would agree with that. Dying and becoming a ghost that could follow your friends around and at least watch the action would be fun. I think in UO you could be seen, but I think seeing and talking to ghosts should be restricted to those skilled or talented with those sort of things. Ghosts which are enemies would be older spirits driven insane and well practiced in re-entering our world, which would not be true of your fresh soul.

On death your body drops and you can watch the scene until you are brought back. If you walk too far away from your corpse, or your body decays, you would be transported to some world of the dead where you would have to find some way to return. It would be nice if this was a game among itself: a city with mysteries to explore and tasks to complete with multiple ways to become corporeal again. I think RG would do great at this after watching his D&amp;D session. You could not have traditional combat because you are already dead, so this would be a city or world of puzzles unlocking the the gift of life or something worse than death (maybe find yourself haunting Chuckles house). However, the hard part is adding enough content where people won?t just know the gambit to return as quickly as possible.

This makes dying part of the game and has sting of possibly taking you out of the living world for an extended run. It also works with single player since it really just more game. For multiplayer, you have opportunity of using skills or spirituality to pull lost players back into the world by finding their body or at a temple, and for those unskilled they can carry your limp corpse to someone who can. I think this solution would work well in all play modes and have uses and strategies in PVP. Players could cast spells to banish spirits sending all dead players to the dead city thus restricting their resurrection on the battlefield, give spirit forms the ability to possess the living, etc.

Part of the story, part of the game, fun but harsh and best to be avoided.
</blockquote>

 

On ghosts: There's also the model where you come back, in-body at your recall / rent point. If you are adventuring alone, you have to be able to get back to your death point without dying again, run in, loot and run out. Or if you are with a group, they can carry your stuff / corpse provided they are not over-encumbered.

Or the model where you remain a ghost until you walk back to your corpse. This is mostly a time-based penalty, which I think can be frustrating but is not the best way to manage death.

It's supposed to be inconvenient. I think one of the biggest drawbacks of WoW and other MMORPGs is the lack of consequence in death. Of course, their main goal was not to create the best gaming environment, but to create the most subscriptions. This means you can level while failing completely, and discourage attentive gameplay.

You can't really win an open-ended RPG, but you should definitely be able to lose.

 

Permadeath is just going to annoy people and drive them away - especially when you can die simply due to things like your internet going out or the like. Not to mention griefers or exploiters killing you through unforeseen use of game mechanics, or simply outright cheating.

So if you die, you should become a ghost and be able to respawn somewhere.

I don't even agree with the spiritworld random puzzle thing either, although I think it is a very interesting idea.

But I feel it'll just fall into two categories really... too easy (and therefore just a time sink because it is merely extra clicking someone has to do before they can come back) or frustrating (which can eventually result in someone going "to hell with this" and they stop playing because they died to some stupid mechanic, uncontrolled situation like a power outage, or a griefer, and have to do another puzzle as a "reward" for that just to continue playing).

Also on a side note people keep bringing up Dark Souls and death and stuff on this forum and it is maddening. Dying was trivial. Losing souls was no big deal, and if you were stacking 99 soft humanity that you were worried about losing, you'd probably have a ring of sacrifice just incase. Dying in DS is almost as trivial as dying in Super Mario Brothers (the enemies respawn in that game when you die too!). Dying isn't what makes Dark Souls the game it is.

 

You wake up naked in bed. Oh it was just a dream. Only I don't have my stuff.

If they wanted to play that most intelligent creatures had some way to capture you and ransom you so that most of the time you didn't actually fight to the death...you fall unconscious and get captured.

 

I really don't see it happening. I think permadeath would scare off waaaaaaaaaaay more players than it would attract. If Portalarium tried to implement it they would pretty much have a revolt on their hands with thousands demanding their money back. I couldn't really blame them either because permadeath really has no place in a spiritual successor to Ultima, a series I died in more times than I can count.

If they implemented permadeath I wouldn't play PvP and I am in the camp that enjoys PvP. Good luck getting the PvE players to even consider it.

 

ND3G exactly, there is no challenge in permideath because you cant explore alternative solutions, there would be no reason to take a risk. I actually have a few hardcore characters in Diablo but my main characters are softcore and the hardcore ones I am very specific in when i will play them because a server lag and I lose hours and hours of work and this is no different

 

I'm pretty sure it's a safe bet there will be no permadeath. I think shiftable recall locations would be an excellent addition to gameplay. Inns you can actually rent rooms at, or perhaps magical items that 'anchor' you to a location. I think it's an important part of roleplay to have to find a safe place to spend the night. I know people need to log off quickly sometimes, so if you just drop link I imagine you should go back to your recall spot after a period of time.

I think what this discussion is really about is the need for players to feel challenged by the game environment. This is one of the reasons people like pvp &amp; pve, because it's not the monotonous button pushing of grinding and following mapped out quest paths.

 

I think there are plenty of ways to make death more meaningful than perma-death.

And I don't think anyone really advocates a perma-death. I think what people are advocating is seriously meaningful life-preservation and seriously meaningful penalties to death.

Now, I do not advocate the GWAUN tactic of resurrection, that is being ghosted and running back to the body. At least, certainly not in it's over-simplified form that so many MMOs use now.

But I believe that use of Spirit is invaluable. I think in most fantasy role-playing settings, there is vibrant use of spirit. Everything from Ghosts, to Souls, to Astral Projection, then Spirit Trapping, Soul Stealing, Soul Trapping, Soul Binding, etc.

And I think in most scenarios, virtue, fame or infamy, a person's strength, and the emotional investment in a soul by others (loved ones and enemies alike), and even imprint on objects or places have very pertinent effect on souls and spirits.

So in short, I am vehemently against perma-death, but not just for mechanical reasons, but for story and canonical reason. But I think an expert of alchemy like RG can mix a bit of this and a bit of that and pepper in the virtue system and certainly find a common ground.

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My suggestion:

Some early Egyptian beliefs indicated that on death, a spirit departed to celestial objects. Some spirits departed to the moon, some to the sun, some to stars.

Some Taoist principles indicate that a person's virtue in life no only affected their path of re-incarnation, but also the speed at which their spirit would return to the land of the living.

Some Greek mythology indicates that the violence of death propels the spirit faster and deeper into the afterlife/underworld.

Virtually ALL religions and mythologies indicate that the spirit is tied to the body, at least for some period or until some event/ritual/time releases the spirit from the body. Virtually ALL Religions and Mythologies indicate instances of resurrection.

Combining:

Resurrection should be possible. There should be a time in which the spirit is tied to the body and until that time, healing, especially healing/resurrection type magic can pull the spirit back into the body.

The spirit (you), though, can choose to release from the body, at which there either be places of resurrection or resurrection events. The nature of the death, though, and even more so the virtue of the soul, effect how some the person could be resurrected, maybe even by Whom.

I can imagine virtuous individuals in good standing with the spirits/gods/stars could resurrect quite easily or by novice healers, but the more evil the soul, the more power or evil aligned the healer must be, hence making it harder or taking longer.

And there be certain instances where even for the most virtuous, resurrection takes longer, or is more difficult. Repeated resurrection for example. The nature of the cause of death (i.e. PvP, or story-line killed, or the power of the monster that killed the player, type of illness or poison effect, etc) can also effect the speed or location.

But then I imagine certain places (such as near or in a player's own home, where their spirit is tied) or with certain objects (for instance a relic or totem or sentimental object) that could be brought to a healer (in advance, or perhaps by another player) to hasten or facilitate the resurrection.

And then I can imagine how the number of deaths can take it's toll on the spirit. Degenerating death sickness, for instance. Or death costing experience (I know there won't be experience points, per se, but a similar in nature effect)[FFXI had raise penalty. I hated it, but it was incentive enough to fight for your life, run from adversaries you couldn't defeat, and wait until the proper resurrection type was used. I have waited out the hour duration for a raise before, hoping someone would come along and resurrect me, just at the chance to reduce the penalty]

The one most major thing I would say is the One Character Rule, if implemented how they wish, absolutely conflicts with One Death Rule. Otherwise what is being said is you buy the game and play it once, and the first time you get in over your head, quit the game.