Instant Death Jumping Puzzles + Death Penalty + No Save = Cruel Game Design

For anyone who wants to gain back the XP.

 

This is just going to degrade into a "No, you!" exchange. So I am bowing out here.

 

@MoriensSeeker,

Well, its an issue of numbers and how much XP you get from a kill and how much time it takes to kill an enemy. I can try to figure it out since its a long time since I actually paid attention...

 

Oh yeah, I died there a couple times.

 

It's been a few weeks, forgive me if I have the wrong place, but are you referring to the little cave underneath the keep? You don't need to use that cave to access the keep, although it does work. I only found out about it jumping down that rabbit hole when I was already inside the place. I totally forget how I got inside, but that being the case there must not have been any memorable trick to it.

 

How many xp's do you lose when you die, @redfish ?

 

I dont know the number anymore... I did when I was lower level... but right now, I'll get skills that go down because I have some set to not training right above the level mark, and then I set them to train for as long as I need to in order to get them back up... doesn't take that long.

 

If you set them to maintain (brown up arrow) then, when you die, the experience will be taken from your pool first. If you have enough experience in your pool then your skills won't be touched.

 

Don't forget a patch was eventually released for Ultima 8 - one of the bigger changes (fixes) made the platforming much easier (stopped them from moving around)

 

@redfish When you said that people exaggerate the effect of death decay and that you could make back what you lose when you die in 15 mins:

I then asked you what level you were, you said you were around level 90 now:

So, as one who does have to work for a couple of hrs for nothing (to get back to where I was via xp's), I asked you how many xp's you lose when you die:

To which you responded:

It sounds as though you are content to stop there. You have no plans to gain more skills and hence higher adventurer level - with it's subsequent higher death decay.
Is that so ?

 

Oracle Colossus has been the worst experience I have had in this game so far.

SotA is NOT a platformer. I am not sure why there are platform elements in this game when the game is not responsive enough to support them.

Sorry for the negativity - but put frankly... it's just no fun.

 

I thought the Path of the Oracle was quite fun, even though I died many times.

 

Ok, obviously something about the Oracle Colossus has you a bit on-edge.
Mind sharing exactly what you found there that didn't meet your expectations ?

 

I would not say on edge... it's just a video game.

Here was the reason from the post:

"SotA is NOT a platformer. I am not sure why there are platform elements in this game when the game is not responsive enough to support them."

The paths provided require exact jumping. Exact jumping isn't this game's forte. Without exact jumping death via lava is basically a foregone conclusion. Putting players into a zero-sum scenario is just not fun. This isn't the Kobayashi Maru.

 

Well, as you said Kobayashi Maru:
There is a way, just to die only ONE time in lava Take the Path of the Spoiler after "Just a clue for everybody falling down:"
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...and-some-veins-to-climb-up.97471/#post-859812

 

I agree with everyone on this thread about the crazy jumps/lava swimming required to get across the river of lava. It's very frustrating to say the least to die over and over just trying to cross it especially with SotA's death penalty. Also, as I've said in many posts. I don't mind this kind of gameplay in SotA, but it should be optional for a chest of items not along the main story path, because I'm sure I'm not the only player that mainly plays CRPGs, because they generally don't include platformer style gameplay.

 

It seems super late in the game's "story" to introduce the concept of platforming to the player.

If you're going to do it, do it early and do it often. That way, the engineers will have plenty of opportunities to make sure everything works perfectly (you know, physics in an online game isn't a safe endeavor), your level designers will have progressively more experience to fine-tune the platform placements and visual cues and your players will know (for better or worse) what to expect from the game and offer feedback on how to improve it.

The way it's set up seems like it's some sort of "gotcha!" trap rather than offering a genuine experience. Players aren't expecting it and the majority won't experience it. If you're going to implement something that'll just increase the odds of pissing off the player-base, you might as well not put it in the game.

 

First time I saw such things was in the Adventure Game about Baphomet Part III, if I remember right.
From a great Klick & Point Adventure we now were confronted with Action-Adventure elements. Well, it needs getting used to ...
And this was a reason I never finished that part. Not because of the elements at all, but because they came to often ...

The last Quest of the Oracle has a few of these elements. And I think they're well choosen. The Sequanna platform isn't hard. It's okay.
The Oracle colossus is harder because as I wrote above:
Having NO alternative makes it annoying, because it remembers on "good" old 80's Action Adventures like Fist II ...
Or as bad Coope says in Twin Peaks part 13 in the arm wrestle scene: "Starting position" ...
Not fun at all, because after falling in lava again and again we feel like that guy sitting vis-a-vis bad Coope ...

We have great skills in our skill tree. And at this point we need them, they seems to be useless
As I told in this thread - and a possibility just TO DIE ONLY ONE TIME IN LAVA:

Ok, may be it would be too easy. But then, please, give us a vine hanging down to climb up or other possibilites as to have no way out and brrzzlll to death ...

The important part as it is mentioned by @twofoldsilence, is: we loose so much XP because of the death decay.

I just want to tell how it hurted me: I finished the part, received the shroud and 100.000 xp and happy doing the magic dance

At this moment, a friend asked for help. So I followed her again to the oracle colossus.
What shall I say? I died at the ring of virtue statues because of the ghosts and scorpions, and than again in lava.
So my XP was all for nothing

The meaning of this experience? Don't help players anymore, if it is about a very dangerous place?
Not at all, I would help again, if I could. But this is what this death decay thing gives sometimes: a bad and frustate feeling.

And at this point I want to think about a statement of Corp Por:

This gave the inspiration to a

Spoiler: "dance story"

A SHORT STORY ABOUT DEATH DECAY WHILE DANCING ...

For all players who wants to act out frustration of (lava) death parts
It could come worse, as you know - look on the bright side of live!