An idea for decay replacement

So the dreaded decay looks to be going away. What do the devs have in mind as a replacement? As I mused on this I came up with a couple of thoughts – what do you think of this? The devs probably have a plan, but feedback is always good and it might indicate what people like (or hate).

So you have just died. You find an ankh as usual, and get rezzed. You are alive, but suffer the lingering after-effects of your injuries. Your stats, HP etc are significantly reduced. At this point you have choices:

1. Wait it out. Injuries do heal over time, over the next hour (maybe) your strength will return. Of course your fighting ability is much weakened; you may need to head to a less dangerous area. Repeated deaths will cause more severe injuries and slower healing – after x number of deaths you will not “wake up” for maybe an hour.

2. Find a healer – a NPC character to be created and placed in strategic towns. This healing could be offered as a free service, but the inconvenience of travelling to the town would also be a deterrent to “reckless behaviour”. The healer may also require you to perform a simple task, like meditating at a nearby shrine.

3. Prepare for battle beforehand by purchasing a magical elixir from said healer. These elixirs are difficult to prepare, each healer has limited stock and can only supply one at a time. Due to the work entailed in preparation they are also expensive – suggested 5 gold crown minimum. This also acts as a deterrent to reckless behaviour, dying is somewhat painful, and the remedy is hard to come by. Players who cannot afford or do not wish to buy crowns from the addon store can buy them in game – going rate is about 3800 GP for a crown. So if you insist on dying you will be supporting the game financially or acting as a gold sink.

 

Decay never really added anything to the actual gameplay of SotA. People go on about death penalties but losing progress is just annoying. Imagine a game where you forgot to save your game and got pushed back an hour or more and that is basically decay. XP/level/skill decay has always been a terrible idea.

Timed penalties aren't great either. They just make people wait out the timer, either by logging off or doing something else. Or finding some kind of loophole. And players will always find any loopholes.

Losing all your equipment can be a great idea. It's a good penalty that can stimulate the economy if people are losing things often. Unless it's a gear based game where it takes dozens of hours to make something worth using and all gear is very expensive. Then people hate losing anything and nothing feels disposable. Not so great then - this is the issue post AoS UO had and why they implemented item insurance.

 

Let me ask you something, @Asclepius
Are you typically a solo player or more of a group player ?

 

Mostly solo. I do get together with groups when possible (not that often with my time zone and erratic logins) but I have enjoyed several runs to UT