Death oOooOOoOo!!

It is a bit much to complain bitterly in one post that if recovering from death takes more than 15 minutes, you won't play the game, and then in the same thread to say that you can't be bothered with playing carefully, and because of that, you die a lot. The two propositions are contradictory. If one doesn't like dieing, one shouldn't be careless about it.

 

It just occurred to me, he may be going by the name Silent Strider in the forums here, but...

Is that you, Leeroy Jenkins?

 

He specifically stated that he CHOOSES to play dangerously. He has also stated that he measures the amount of risk he takes to meet a certain number of deaths per hour. That doesn't sound like he can't be BOTHERED to avoid death. It sounds like he's way too good at avoiding death. Whereas what you are doing is clearly trolling. You have deliberately misinterpreted, distorted, and inflated the point just to be a jerk.

 

Right, he specifically stated that he's the living incarnation of Leeroy Jenkins, and because of that, he asks further that pretty please do not make death inconvenient, so that he can continue to be the living incarnation of Leeroy Jenkins, and not have to lose too much time as a result of his admittedly careless and risky playing style.

I'm sure we all look forward to having SotA nerfed just so Leeroy can have a rapid turnaround following each of his many self inflicted deaths.

 

The big concern (only concern?) with being looted while dead is, what did I lose? I've seen a lot of responses along the lines of "don't carry your entire treasure with you" and "don't use stuff you don't want to lose". But if what I don't want to lose is my sword, because it is in some way special or hard to replace...then not carrying it with me is just as good as losing it. The only way I can benefit from that equipment is to use it, which means carrying it with me.

Now, I could write a whole list of suggestions on ways that that sword might not be lost on death, how much of a death penalty was involved with that sword, and how that would affect the economy, religion, philosophy, PvP, PvE, etc. But so can everyone else. Including the game devs. They don't really need my help with implementing that, and if they do they can ask me, I'll volunteer my thinkin skills.

My sole point here is that if gear is much like in UO, and doesn't really do more than fill the slot, allowing me to say I have one of those, then replacing it is cheap, re-equipping after death is relatively easy, and few people will mind. But if the game EVER gives me an item that is 1) really hard/impossible to replace, 2) gives a significant benefit to being carried around and or used, and 3) CAN be stolen, then death will suddenly have a very negative connotation for me. So much so that I'll avoid the hell out of it.

So I think that the devs should avoid that trifecta. An item can be two of those things, but never all three.

 

Which is why I've been saying since the start, love of gear is the root of all evil. If the dev's do include items that are 'special' and hard to replace, then they have messed up, because as you note, that leads to pathological game play, and nobody wants that.

 

Would we be able to lose quest items, or will they be blessed? If we did, could there be a quest for the player to recover them?

I think those are the questions that looting opens up, since we're talking about a game with a story.

 

Wait.
When did I become a navigator? I thought I was an adventurer. Isn't that a show of what package you went for in the kickstarter? Or did they use the same terms for number of posts? Did someone put stripes on my arm when I wasn't looking?

*edited post - Please read the forum rules*

 

Your title on the forums is based upon the number of posts, I think, but it may be affected by 'likes' and 'Trophy Points'. That's a question for Lum.

Note: edited so that the quoted passage matches the original quote that was moderated for content.

 

You get 'trophy points' for passing milestones in both posts and likes. This is what your forum title is based on. If this made me a knight lever backer I'd be pretty happy right now.

 

Ah, thanks Bowen. I was a little weirded out.

 

Oh and you can also get a few other points here or there. You get 2 points on your birthday and women get 10 points just for being women. There's a special one where you get a load of points if you get 7 likes per post.. (I don't think anyone outside of a dev is likely to ever get that one though).

Click on your own Trophy Points to see which awards you have and there will be a link to the list of all the awards you can get.

 

Guys, please keep the conversation civil. No personal attacks, no trolling.

 

Lol, no. When other players are depending on my performance I do the best I can to not leave them hanging, even if it means playing the game in a way I dislike. In fact, I've suffered a serious case of burn out in WoW from doing exactly that, pushing with gameplay I didn't find fun just because other players were depending on my success, to the point I spent more than a year away from that game afterwards.

A couple things:

- In this I'm more stating my preferences than asking for the game to be done in a specific way. If the death penalty is more than I'm willing to face then I will simply play offline and either mod out the death penalty or use save scumming to never have to deal with it. I don't think it will come to that, though; while little information has become available, I doubt the devs would make the death penalty frustrating enough to push me away.

- Death penalty has NOTHING to do with the game's actual difficulty. Forcing the player to grind for an hour after failure doesn't make the event in which he is risking his virtual life any more difficulty, it is mere punishment. In fact, the more punishing the death penalty, the easier the game typically becomes, because the devs have to balance how much frustration they inflict on the players with the death penalty; increasing the death penalty more or less force the devs to make it affect players less times, which is done by lowering the game's difficulty, in order to not increase the total amount of frustration inflicted on the players.

 

Fair enough. Right now, no one knows what penalty if any is involved with death, or if gear is easy or hard to replace, or any number of other questions that have to be answered before anyone can come to any conclusions.

 

Playing a game to get items is pathological, but you've defended wanting to steal look from other's kills, wanting to rob players, and murder players. None of those things are pathological? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

You also continue to ignore the issue that these type of system can drive new player away. You insist that I am a liar and/or a terrible player if as a brand new player without gear or skills, that I couldn't beat an entire group of geared/skilled PKers. In talking to other people who enjoyed UO, many of them got over the initial hurdle by having a guild help them in the beginning. A guild protected them from PKers, got them initial gear, helped them adventure together in a dungeon, etc.

I bought UO at launch and played it at launch. I didn't have a guild to help me. Trying to start out without gear or skills and then looting everything to PKers was not fun. Having my skills and attributes atrophy (especially when I have hardly any) because I was lynched by a bunch of PKers was not fun.

If people don't enjoy playing a game early on, they don't continue to play it. With SWTOR, the producers released a stat that they showed people were most likely to quit the game in the first 15 levels (a few hours of play). Those that made it past 15 levels continue to play and subscribe.

SotA isn't an MMO, and PvP is supposed to be mostly opt-in (except you need to go to certain areas for items that are open PvP). But either way, a game should be designed that attracts and keeps new players. Ultimately it should be fun for everyone playing. Griefing is only fun for those doing the griefing.

 

@enderandrew there is something to be said about Owain's argument. It's valid. Constantly trying to improve your gear to higher and higher tiers is pathological and has no real meaning. I think that's his point. There was a much richer experience in the old days of UO that didn't focus on upgrading gear and attaining exponentially powerful levels. SotA isn't being designed for that kind of game experience.

 

You could argue that gaining skill points, or experience, or raising any number in an RPG is an arbitrary goal in a Skinner box. That doesn't make it pathological.

Nor does it mean that full loot on death, or heavy penalties on death are inherently good even if the game isn't centered on progression of gear.

 

What killed felucca population was Age of Shadows that changed UO from a game where crafters created most armor and weapons to a game where PvE was the only way to get the best gear. With gear so hard to loose you will have no full loot, you will put crafters crafting gear out of business and PvP will most likely be item based, not based on playerskills. Unskilled UO players became almost unkillable after game become gear based. UO became WOW. Thats what happened to UO after AoS and it's as Owain say "love of gear is the root of all evil".

 

I advocate full loot not because I really want someone's monogrammed underwear, but rather for tactical/strategic reasons. If I take all your gear, particularly weapons, armor, reagents, potions, etc, I deprive you of the ability to fight until your reequip. That is a short term tactical consideration.

If I am embroiled in a guild war, and my guild mates and I dry loot all your members, and cut your guild off from natural resources to make new gear, that serves to interdict your supply lines, which is a longer term strategic consideration.

As far as robbing and killing, I will do neither of those things, but rather I will hunt the people who do so. In a PvP game for the period of history/civilization SotA emulates, that is not pathological, that is historically accurate.

Nonsense. I am a strong supporter of PvP by consent only. If a new player flags himself for PvP, that is his business. If his unwise decision drives him away, that is a self inflicted wound.

If as a brand new player, you depend on your guild mates to protect you from PKs so that you can flag yourself for PvP before you are ready, you are a danger to everyone around you, and you will probably get them all killed, but if that is the way your guild rolls, that is your business, not mine.

Why would your skills or attributes atrophy, unless you are talking about mouse and keyboard skills? UO skills and attributes only went up, unless you had them marked down, and then a skill or attribute would only go down if you were at the cap, and another skill or attribute went up.

It's enough to make one suspect you never played UO at all.

How fortunate for us all that SotA has many game modes where new players can enjoy themselves playing the game early on with minimal risk.

Rejoice!

If SotA is not an MMO, then why are you rehashing all the failings from previous PvP MMOs? And if PvP is by consent only, describe for me how someone can grief you in SotA.