Death Decay Poll

If I were in the meeting, id ask straight up... do you want the game to be successful? If the answer is yes, its never to late to make changes.

 

10 years I might have agreed with you, but Port survives on a very different market segment than UO, and annoying even a handful of those players could start a spiral that it would be hard to pull out of. It is literally worth annoying 100 normal players into leaving the game to keep one of those select few.

 

It is a no win proposition. Removing decay may upset as many people as it pleases. You can't please everyone at the same time, but you can please everyone at different times.

 

Pretty much this. Any system that makes death meaningful will have its naysayers fighting it tooth and nail, no matter how well that system is designed. Could pretty much end the thread here since no logical argument will convince that subset

 

Death decay is not episodic; it, much like diamonds, aims to be forever. It doesn't matter that creatures give more xp in the future, once you hit the wall w/ death decay (where it is no longer cost effective to grow), that's it; all in game xp content would be null and void for you once xp is no longer something you can benefit by.

One can still adventure to ones hearts content, just not benefit xp thereby. Can you say, Rock Me Avatarus?

 

Doing nothing will be worse than anything, because the majority of players are upset about it now. People will only hold onto a hope for so long before they come to the conclusion that nothing is going to change, that's when you'll see the exodus. Lets hope it never gets there.

 

50/50 is not what I could call a majority one way or the other

As Tahru said above :

The best way to go about it is to tweak it progressively like they did in R42 (only half applied on death) and R43 (bonus daily XP to counter most if not all of it for all but the high level players). Keeping on in that direction will keep the core system intact in design while adressing the hedge cases. Perfect by the dev team i'd say.

 

The thing is.. thats 50% people against it.. of the remaining people who still play.

This is like the combat poll.. there was survey out about the way combat was done, and they still found issues with a large majority of the player base.. not accounting for the fact that combat was one of the main reasons most people quit/stopped playing.

Id be super curious on how many people wont touch the game, or have left with decay being part of the reason?
I know someone posted about 2 UO players having backed SOTA, but now having 0 interest in it because of the OP not being able to justify the death decay.
I know i have players / guildies / RL friends who wont touch this game, with decay being a good part of the reasoning.

So 50/50 for the players here.. 50% of those are TOLERATING it. Itd be interesting if there was a way to know how many decided that it was the icing on the cake for not giving SOTA a try, or stopping playing. ( and this is ignoring that a lot of higher end players have stopped playing as well ) .

Coarse finding out the real numbers is unrealistic.

That being said.. 50/50 on a mechanic before the game is even released is pretty piss poor approval for any mechanic in game.

 

I was assuming and I hope everyone is assuming that there are dials that will be turned and turned again....

 

That logic works both ways. Hence it does not really work at all.

 

?
Im meerly pointing out that 50/50.. on a vote of something where the people completly agaisnt it and have left/not voted istn accounted for.. means that its deceiving. The players that like it are here?
The players that actually hate it to the extreme.. arnt represented in the numbers.. meaning that 50/50.. is pretty bad considering people can name players whove left over it, or wont touch the game over it.

Id say it doesnt go both ways.. since * Players that love the decay system left! * is probably pretty unlikely, or quite a bit less likely, considering we can find examples of 1 , but not the other pretty easily.
Least thats my take on it.

That all being said... and ignoring all that.
50/50 is pretty piss poor approval goals for any mechanic in game.

 

Right, guess I misread that. Having two threads going on the same topic is dizzying.

 

I don't tolerate decay, I absolutely love the design ideas behind it, and as they learn & tweak it every release, it just reinforces my faith in it, as well the in the dev team.

 

Which would put you on the 50% who like it..
And the 50% who voted they dont would be the part that im refering to as *tolerating it* like myself. Its a dumb mechanic, yet im still here.

My point before was, that theres people who said. Its a dumb mechanic, and im done. Who arnt represented in this survey, yet i doubt there are people who say * Its an awesome mechanic! i Love it! but im not playing *.
So 50/50 is more then enough for me to say..
It obviously needs to be adjusted if they intend to make it appealing to more then a select few.

But we are just circling points here hehe

 

Well if R42 and R43 are any indication, they're definitely tweaking it in the right direction to make it better for everyone, hedge cases included.

 

I will concur that the 1/2 and 1/2 per death was a massive step in the right direction. No dispute in that from me.

 

I am wondering how people are going to feel about the daily XP bonus in R43. It is going to be more difficult to argue against decay and for keeping an XP bonus at the same time. It could to create another division in opinions on either side.

 

Eehh.
Guild leader just died and lost 600k Exp.
Doubt that 10k is going to encourage him to take risks anymore then now =P

But we will see i suppose.

 

Ok so lets break it down shall we?

1. It's way too punishing, and all loss should be removed from death.
   87 vote(s) (Obviously Against)
   37.3%
2. I'm generally fine with the system, but perhaps lighten up on the punishment.
   8 vote(s) (Prefer less decay but in honesty would most likely prefer zero... but... (Lets be nice and say FOR)
   3.4%
3. I'm fine with the level of loss, but would rather it be done differently.
   14 vote(s) (These are players who prefer a different option other than decay, but feel decay is appropriate with all the 150 GM toons running a muck right now - Against)
   6.0%
4. I'm fine with the system.
   67 vote(s) (Obviously FOR)
   28.8%
5. *
   It isn't punishing enough. The loss should be greater.
   13 vote(s) (You might be suprised, but some people HATE the 150gm toons ruinning around and these are them. Id bet most of these folks are neutral but would likely prefer no decay if a different system was in place to keep the uber leets on a leash. - Neutral) (Lets be nice again and say (FOR)
   
6. 5.6%
7. Crank it up! I am death incarnate. (People who dont really care or want to waive their epeen. - LEts be generous and say FOR)
   17 vote(s)
   7.3%
8. NEW: Some loss is fine, but the current type and level is excessive
   27 vote(s) (Primarily Against)
   11.6%
   
   
   
   Against: 136
   For: 105
   
   You interpret it any way you feel appropriate, but this is my take on the situation, so from my perspective your 50/50 split is inaccurate. This is why definitive Yes/No polls with one I dont care option are more appropriate.

 

I was thinking that maybe the daly xp bonus should be scaled. For example, your daily xp is 1/3rd of the death penalty. Naturally, noobs would have just a fixed rate as they don't have a death penalty.