Getting killed by NPCs should cause ransoms

I will after you provide proof for your bots and botters ruining mining or anything else.
How exactly does one "bot-mine" ??

 

Please stop derailling threads. Stick to the topic please. I hope this appeases your curiosity;
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/cheat-bot-detection.73444/

 

Damn, i just can't comprehend how come former UO players and fans are so scared of losing some exp/gold when they die. Something you can work out in the next 20-30 minutes. If the dying is so traumatic, lets make it 0 dura loss too, thats actually losing money, somebody might not like it and quit. Or better, lets make everybody invincible, so we dont risk anybody quitting because they can't handle lossing few k gold or some exp (Ozzy's ransom idea or few % of session exp) And im not really sure why you say PVPers wants that. Im no PVPer, just MMO/RPG fan and PVE maniac, and death penalty makes perfect sense to me It is death after all. And it's not random. You decide to try something that may be over your head and you take the risk. If you dont want to die, stick to the lower tier. How can you even blame the game for dying?

Are you sure people were leaving because there was death penalty? I heard the game wasnt in its best state back then, maybe that had something to do with it?

 

I will never PvP until there’s a dedicated server.

 

Thats why i suggested in my previous post to lose % of exp you earned during the session you play, if you play for 5 minutes and die, you will lose % of exp you gained during that 5 minutes, when % depends on how high the scene tier is.

 

If you're too scared of losing in a game then yes, sit in your town or switch to solitaire.. It's not Sims, but a RPG game with mobs you fight with (and even in Sims you can die or lose stuff in a fire). If there is no risk, fun is way lower. Guess what. All the online games with death penalties are pretty much crowded, so im pretty sure that's not the thing that would drive away people. Again. Game wont punish you for playing, it will punish you for your poor decision. So you can learn what you can handle and what not. Otherwise just make everybody have unlimited hit points, so nobody die and feel bad I never heard something so abstract about mmo game, like 'losing exp after death will make people quit'. This is standard in this genre. But i'm finally starting to understand where I am. I see no point continuing this discussion when all i can see is pretty much "i dont want to die because no". Driving new players away? I'm new player compared to all that took part in this thread. It would make game better for me. It's people unable to find compromises, focused on their utopian vision of the game is what scares the rest.

 

You come here and try to talk about loss, like you have any. Trying to push more punishment is not going to make it more fun/challenge. Fixing the core mechanics, adding in meaningful pvp, and balancing out the playing field will have more effect on the game then this thread here, 100% guarantee.

Go ahead and keep comparing this small game to those huge AAA assets as well, see how far that gets you.

 

But this thread is not about balancing pvp, fixing core mechanics or balancing out the playing field. Are you lost?

 

Nope, I put my 2 cents in on why the penalty is a horrible idea, and why everyone left back in the day when character progression halted because when you spend 10 hours playing to lose 50% of it from one death is 100% not a way we are going to fix the game. Once again, Sticking with the OP....

 

If his comments are not related to the topic of the thread, then neither were yours - which he directly responded to.

 

Given that certain "tactics" have been used/abused/exploited to forcibly lag out people in the past at control points, etc. - yea... that would be abused quickly whenever possible. Sorry - but no to skill decay.

 

Here's the reason:

I was going to go into a long, drawn out post full of examples why this is a bad idea, but I'm going to boil it down to this:

Any game mechanic that detracts from player agency is almost universally disliked (at a minimum), and for a MMO that relies on retaining players for its bread and butter, should be avoided. Whether that loss of agency is a push back in character development via xp loss on death, interference with or complete loss of character control, or loss of progress via looting or forced item/gold loss (as you are describing), players dislike feeling like they are being punished for things that sometimes are out of their control.

So... since you are proposing a mechanic that forces players to take a loss, whether it is items lost to the ransom, or gold paid for them, IMHO it should be a hard no.

 

The easier the game gets, the more I find myself playing other games. The more money other games get. I just dont see how making things harder is a bad thing. I dont play this game to make money, so obviously, I play to have fun and for things to be fun for me, they need to be challenging, and for things to be challenging, there needs to be risk. There is no reason why pvp should suffer from ransoms if pve doesnt. Its just based on the lore of the game. Doesnt even need to be as punishing as the pvp version (x4 value). It would only affect players with wealth in the first place since it is based off what you are carrying. I dont think players are leaving because the game is difficult or punishing. I am sure they leave because there are no maps and the quest system is an utter joke in the industry.

 

No one is asking for skill decay for the umpteenth time... clearly you are just here to bash fzol, go ahead, just leave my idea out of it.

 

I don't either. Challenge in PvE has always about figuring out how to beat the environment. Make things harder for PvE by adding content that makes the player figure out how to beat it, not by throwing arbitrary punishments into the mix that steal what the player has earned. But, as you say later on in this post, there are several sucking chest wounds that need to be dealt with. Let's fix those, and balance things out before we make things harder.

Yes there is... the only reason ransom and loot is in there at ALL is to pull on the heartstrings of the old UO crowd. and No, it isn't... but that could be changed, it is lore after all, something that SotA is pretty lacking in.

This is where we both agree. As I said earlier, fix the things that are killing the game... then we can work on new systems and concepts.

 

Make things harder by adding risk. But yea make things harder and the trolls will come cry that everyone is leaving cause its too hard... ive heard it before...
This is the wishlist forum.

 

No One? I suggest you go back and read post #5 in this thread... by Fzol. Because that clearly sets up the scenario of lost skill potential at death. Your idea is no better - and can be equally abused by tactics that I mentioned above. Thanks - but no.

 

Abused? So its fine for pvp, but too "abusive" in pve ?? Even a trimmed down version?? from x4 to x1?
Does the oracle mean nothing to you? Does this game need to become a macro/bot fest for anyone to eventually care?

 

Life means learning from your mistakes, so I don't understand why a concept of experience decay would ever have taken hold anywhere. It's the exact opposite of learning from your mistakes.

I'm not a fan of the ransom concept either, because I don't like the idea of the Oracle interfering. But I DO agree that death should be more meaningful somehow. Perhaps, instead of ransom, humanoid mobs could take your stuff? I mean, if I can loot a bandit's body, why shouldn't he be able to loot mine? BUT the stuff taken would then have to be added somehow back into the scene's loot pool, so that the player has a chance (not guaranteed) to win it back later. Or if it's an open instance, other players might be able to win it for themselves. I could definitely go for that.

I REALLY don't like the resurrect-at-the-scene-entrance thing; it's too blatant a reminder that we're playing a game, not living in a world. I can live with ankh resurrections, but only because mobs respawn so quickly, it's only fair to let us respawn too. In my daydream version of SOTA, in which there are separate player races for Outlanders and natives, the death penalty is one of the biggest distinctions. Ankh-res and player-res work the same for both, but there's no more resurrecting at the beginning of a scene if you don't reach an ankh in time. Instead, Outlanders would resurrect back on the Isle of Storms and have to make their way back to the scene through other means. Natives would resurrect at a different location and also have to make their way back to the scene where they died -- but they could only time-out-resurrect 12 times. Thirteenth death, for natives, would be permadeath. Not willing to lose the character entirely? Then it's time for the character to retire and stay safely in town ever after.

I already play as if death did have meaning, and thus don't throw myself into fights where I don't have both a reasonable chance of winning and a good in-character reason to want to fight those mobs. For me, there is no fun if I'm not roleplaying. But it's disheartening to be reminded on the streams and on the forums that I'm "playing the wrong way" because I don't just hack-and-slash with no thought of consequences. Death SHOULD be more than a minor inconvenience. But... it can't be until after they fix other systems, especially loot, exactly because of the "risk vs. reward" concept. Currently, there's no real risk, but there's also no reward worth more than a minor inconvenience. Improve the rewards first, then make the player face some real risk to get those rewards.

 

You obviously did not read the above. The "Abuse" was a tactic that caused lag on other players and was used regularly at control points a couple of years back. Such lag would result in player deaths and non-real punishment to PVE'ers when we had such systems. What you are promoting opens the door to this system abuse again.