Decay Removed

@kaeshiva a couple of things I have a issue with in your statement, and I know this is a somewhat moot point now since decay is gone, but I would like to understand your viewpoint.

1. You say in your post, "If I'm going to get set back more from a single death than I can achieve in a play session though, actually not playing ends up being a better option - that's just the basic math." This IS basic math, and it is a true statement ONLY if the entire reason you play SOTA is to gain experience. Like you are missing SOTA adventure levels from your life and so you play SOTA. Not for fun, not for a time sink, not for a challenge, not to hang with people or socialize, just experience, you need experience. The only way your basic equation works is if you get absolutely nothing else from the game besides a feeling of accomplishment when you level up.


2. Many times people have mentioned this gaining attenuation when you die idea and I think this is literally the worst. Nothing is going to be less fun then getting all suited up in your buffs and foods and going to solo in the rise, 40 minutes later your ready to go and you jump the wrong way down to the dragon and get instagibbed. Guess I won't do that now and I wasted my food and time. Or you form a UT group and you are heading there and through some misteps someone jumps off the cliff or dies on the first wave 7 through some bad luck, welp, guess were one short becuase what incentive does that person have to play if they cant gain exp? (Point 1) At least with decay you were incentivized to have to play to get it back. In this model you are incentivised to not play until it goes away.

Anyway, I respect your opinion, but these are my 2c.

 

Death Penalty as in EXP loss only excisted to few people with BILLIONS of exp. As everyone is speeding towards those high levels thanks to 2x EXP. It might not be an issue now but at this exp rate + 1 year from now. People wouldn't dare to adventure(OH NO IM GONNA LOSE 1-2mil EXP I NEVER LEAVE MY POT ANYMORE!!! REMOVE DECAY!!!)

If losing 10k exp was penalty in your eyes or a harsh set back. All I can say is L O L

 

I think I envy you at least a little bit.

 

I was really looking forward to some scary 1 million exp deaths and I only made it to about 500k, so that's kind of a bummer for me.

 

"Grinding" is a big part of this game. Not just in terms of XP, but gold, resources, whatever, take your pick. If a death costs more than the aggregate value of what I can gain with my time (regardless of if that's pure XP, or some combination of progress) then you run into a "why play" scenario. Its hard to put a value on "xp" - but it all comes down to a function of player time. If I can go out and make X gold but it costs me Y xp to do so, then I must spend time regaining Y xp - time I could have spent doing something more lucrative. The 'value' of XP will differ player by player, but the main problem with the system is 1 death would cost 1 player 5 minutes, and another player 5 hours. The penalty wasn't based on how hard the fight was they were trying to do, but rather on how long they've been playing the game - leading to a death being crippling for 1 person and a laugh for another. I personally got really tired of seeing the "we need more death penalty" from people who lose <100k - in fact, a lot of these folks changed their tune from a year ago now that double/UT has pushed the average player level to a point where its more painful for more people - and I suspect this has something to do why this system is finally being changed.

Well, I don't disagree in principle. But there's a lot of people howling for "we need punishment!" The attenuation punishment would put a stop to grind gains (which seems to be what people want?) and yeah, you've wasted your food and your time. That sucks. But that's what punishment is, its meant to suck. If it didn't suck, then we'd hear the same howling for WE NEED MORE PUNISHMENT. Some believe that without this punishment we'll all just be stupid and jump off cliffs because we can or we'll all act like idiots in groups because "no consequences." I don't think that's the case, but I've given up on that front and said, yeah, ok, lets have some punishment. The main issue with the decay was that it was discouraging players from doing challenging/risky content -( wanna go fight this aether thing? Nah, dont wanna go re-grind my xp - the loot ain't worth the subsequent time investment, whatever). The attenuation stopgap would achieve what people seem to be wanting - putting a stop to your xp gain, while simultaneously not screwing up group content where XP is not necessarily the objective.

 

Time to revisit my beloved Dark Souls.

All future hope is now in the hands of FROM SOFTWARE.

At least I can cheese my way through the new Tier 10+ sewer zone without any fear at all and see it all in a single evening before I take a break.

 

But @kaeshiva I kind of disagree with you still on the first point. The balance was that you could make a specific thing easier by gaining levels but you would do so at the cost of making it cost more if you failed. That was a balance, a "soft cap". Yes, Mac loses 4 million exp if he dies, but the trade off is that he can solo basically everything in the game, now that is gone. Mac2 didn't stop playing becuase he could die and lose 4 million exp, and he's basically the only one. Now there is no downside to just grinding forever, go ahead and outlevel the content and make it trivial becuase it doesn't matter, we can all be mac2 except we'll never be mac2 becuase he did it with risk.

Anyway, like I said all this is moot. Pantheon looks pretty cool, meaningful death, no cash shop, subscription, it's hitting me in all the right spots.

 

Yes, but this balance you speak of, was not working / serving its purpose to keep people from levelling up. It was just adding a level of frustration. Mac may lose 4 million when he dies, but how many times do you think he actually dies? I sometimes go 2-3 releases without a death, and even then, my deaths are usually acknowledged up front "I am going to have to grind for an hour if I want to try poking this unicorn." Everything got drilled down into "how much of my time is this going to waste as a cost for entry." That's not really a fun/enticing feature.

Decay was not slowing down the top players - at all. It was just discouraging those of us who don't want to grind 24/7 from doing things that could get us killed because it would mean more grinding which we didn't really enjoy doing in the first place. The soft cap is working intended; it costs more and more and more for less and less benefit. Decay isn't needed for the softcap to continue to do its job.

A death penalty? Sure. I'm on board with a death penalty. But it should be more a slap on the wrist and less a kick in the teeth. If someone dies and the next logical step is log off in rage? Or you try to put a group together to go do something that you can't steamroll and nobody wants to come? These are indicators that the system needs rethinking. I agree with you its moot at this point -I do hope they add something to make death not trivial, but even if they don't - you're still wasting your time, getting your gear beat on etc for no reward. You've still got to ankh run and wait out the debuff if you're alone. Is that enough? Clearly people think "not." The trick is to find out what's enough of a penalty but not too much.

 

Not my intention to bash mac btw..

Having high lvl doesn't make soloing things MUCH easier. Learning by death and mistakes does.
That's why as far as I know mac prefers safe activities with little risk to death.(that's the mac I got to know)
That is why this release might be best thing that happened to mac

Mac is next level human being who dopes on buffalo meat.

I would say losing 4mil exp per death is a downside

I can say with 100% confidence that mac wasn't so high lvl that he made everything trivial

No we all can't be mac cuz we can't grind 12hours a day of monkey/UT. There ain't a risk doing monkey event / UT. Risk.. sure if u fall asleep.

 

Looks like you didn't bash Mac but serenaded him

 

its a sad day for trolls and griefers

 

I wonder how much equipment damage we get for dying. Will have to keep an eye on that.

 

ok great cuz it's hard to know how people interpret what I say. I was playing it safe