Experience point loss has removed the incentive to adventure and explore.

A.k.a exactly what is happening here, the high level complain of being able to solo everything in 2 months, the low/mid levels complain too about it being very hard after the lastest nerfs to reach the same "level" as those "godly" players.

A.k.a very bad situation.

 

When Chris proposed the death decay system, we were dozens to fight against it and we couldn't find one single advantage, we proposed penalties like that and others (I'm personally in favor of even more crippling after a few deaths (like cancelling the ability to use certain skills) but in a way that would encourage team play.

Say I could do one zone alone, then after a few deaths, I'd be forced to team up with someone in order to compensate for my debuffs.

In fact many people proposed different systems that had me go WOW, GENIUS.

But then all we got as a reply is "we must have this" and none of our concerns nor ideas were addressed, nor did we get an explanation for the logic.

 

I know sometimes it isn't rooted in proficiency, some players might be wrong but echo chambers online.

SOTA wants to be different, well there was 10 options to be different, IMO we chose the worse unjustifiable one. And even worse I guess, we ignored perfectly good alternatives and let people discuss them for months until they formed a consensus and then ignored them some more.

 

I'd been thinking about the original title of the OP but it seems to have devolved into a kvetchfest about losing XP on death. Sooo, my comments about what is going to have me playing in the future will be held for a later date.
Personally, I'm for a death penalty. What @Chris has put together may not be the best.... but I don't think we've had it in place long enough to *truly* tell. What we have at the moment IMO is a lot of people who feel like it's something that they once had and now it's taken away. One thing I find .. unusual is this: while there are many takes on what this game was touted as I think it would be relatively universally agreed that it was always billed as a game where actions have consequences. That being the case I have a hard time processing all the complaints about the decay which is a consequence of death. When I die, and I DO die, the words most likely to come out of my mouth are "well, that's out of the way". I don't throw one of my hissy fits (those are reserved for other stuff and ya.. I'll admit it.. I DO have em) I just hit it again knowing that death #2 won't hurt as much. Sometimes death makes me laugh.. like when I'm in a room and instead of running the direction I know I should.. I spaz out and turn right into the big boss... which is NOT the way to take that one on.

Maybe my attitude is tempered because I'm an older gamer. When I started gaming back in '95 ((http://www.realmserver.com/ which kind of amazingly is still somewhat functional) if you died, you not only lost XP, it was originally designed in such a way that you lost ALL your ****. Thankfully we had a global chat and even if we were dead you could reach out and hopefully find a friend (it was also easy with a /who command to see who was on line) who could come to your battle cloud and pick up your stuff when you released... something which also meant you had to walk back from a starting point. They later changed that somewhat but had another interesting mechanic; mobs would rob your corpse and you'd have to try figure out where they went and chase them down to get your stuff back. Ofc there were those times when you were just SOL.. you lost your stuff and you just had to get more.

It wasn't just that first game either. Diablo1 came out in '96 and had a similar thing going on. I don't recall the exact mechanics but I made quite a few good friends over time when they would die in Diablo and come onto the Realms chat asking if there was anybody who was able to do hell mode and come get their ****. I think the WoW type of gaming has spoiled us collectively. People have become used to having no meaningful consequence upon death which at least im has done us a disservice.

As to death in Shroud one thing I've noticed from observation of comments is that most people do not maintain a sufficient XP pool which is not only a better way to play due to it's making skill leveling more efficient it's necessary to mitigate the effect of death. I don't have any hard numbers but I'd bet that the majority of players have a pool of less than 500k. WHile that might sound like a lot of XP for some people it is in fact a woefully inadequate amount. I made a decision a long time ago to build a pool. My starting target was 1M. I just turned everything off and ran my rounds .. over and over just banking my XP. I can say from experience.. the 1st Mil is the hardest. After I reached a mil.. something kinda kicked in and I decided to keep going....I was able to kill the stuff where I was hunting (mostly twins foothills at the time) relatively efficiently so I just kept on doing it. My pool was my indicator of progress. I eventually expanded out to other zones but I just kept banking XP. Now in truth, part of the reason was I felt like it was hard to get a good grip on the direction things were going and I didn't want to waste my efforts building something up only to have a big change come along. . I should also mention that the vast majority of the time I play solo. This is not because I prefer it, it's because it's hard to group with others when I have to run off afk so much. I *have* grouped quite a bit for the last 9 levels (I'm adv lvl 93 now) with one of my oldest in game friends @Sara Dreygon. and a new friend @Andartianna both of whom are exceptional players. I will say something about that as well...I have often avoided grouping with my buddy because I didnt wanna feel like I wasn't holding my own. While I'm not on a "par" with them not I have at least progressed to a point where my damage matters. Not that they "need: me lol... but I'm not dead weight mooching XP either.

That's another thing too..Sara and Andar are at the upper end where death DOES have a sting yet I've never heard either of them whine about it. So in other words..the people most affected complain the least. Maybe... just maybe the problem for so many people and the reason for so much complaint about decay is that we have become conditioned by the instant gratification mindset. Speaking just for myself I'm in this thing for the long term. Over the course of 3 or 4 years will the loss of a couple hours of game time due to death really matter?

Now with all that said... and I apologize if I've rambled....there ARE things about death currently that DO piss me off. Like when I got killed by an undead that kept attacking me after I'd "killed" it. Orrr.. when I die due to H H H H Hitching. which can be really h h h horrid.

Now if you wanna talk about something that DOES make it hard to be incentivized I'd discuss the crap loot one generally earns from lvl 20-90. The alt I have been slowly building up is lvl 60 something. and when I am out with that char I find it a bummer that I have to kinda support that char with my main. The new "loot bags" are a nice addition but I liken them to the gravy that you put on that turkey dinner. It's a nice add on but it's not what you are going to sustain yourself with.

Anyway.. that's my 2 cents.

 

hm... did you read any of the other 100 threads that all say we want consequences to death but not this ?! with solutions and examples and looong discussions until consensus was reached ?

It baffles me that some people think that because we are against such a non sensical penalty that we are against ANY consequence...

Man I get told that in threads where we are actually discussing somewhat WORSE consequences... go figure ?

PS = I prefer full loot and having to ask for help from other players to get going again than losing a single XP point upon death. But don't take me as an example I am for a bounty system *15% SKILL loss upon death of a high level murderer*, siege perilous type environement (which is much more unforgiving)... and much more harsh RP enforced rules.

I want to play not calculate and mitigate and min max everything...

You also even seem to wonder why very high level players don't complain about decay ? thats cause they make 1 million xp an hour... did you read any of those threads at all ?

 

heh, I can earn back my XP a helluva lot faster than I can recraft my stuff m8

and yes... I've read thread after thread. I stand by my post

fwiw, we'll NEVER reach a total consensus. Anybody who spends an amount of time reading these threads should know that

 

Alright... but you still stand by your post that says contradictory things... if you had read those threads you would know we aren't against a death penalty, yet you said it.

Besides... why do you have/need to speak in extremes ?

We certainly reached consensus that had more consensus than this system.

Bleh, why do I even lose my time here... time to go take a walk.

This feels like FOX NEWS business christmas party around 3 o'clock in the morning.

 

Agreed, Agred, Agreed

 

Well written!

 

@Solazur Before I respond to some of your statements here, I'd like to have some perspective on where you're coming from concerning the subject of decay upon death - if you wouldn't mind.
Three questions:
1- What AdvLvl are you ?
2- What is your xp pool currently ?
3- How many xp's do you lose on your 1st death in 24hrs ?

 

1. If you read what I wrote you'd know I am lvl 93.
2. Idk what's in my pool atm.. probably around 5M.
3. LOL idk how much I lose...I don't watch it that closely

4. What's in YOUR wallet?
5> how much do you lose?

Sorry, but I guess I missed the consensus...
the only "consensus" I've seen is Decay sucks.

I have my opinion to which I'm entitled, obviously you disagree. That's ok
Decay isn't stopping me from playing..

how about you?

 

Neither... I don't game the game I'm having fun simply running around and finding people that RP randomly... I'm getting old for wanting to compete anyways.

BUT... after losing 15 friends to this aberration, I guess I care.

BUT, you know what I care more about ?

Understanding why some people sound like they just spout the same narrative thats been said by Chris, does he really need that bad to be supported/defended ?

Understanding why some people ignore that we acknowledge the need for a death penalty ?

Understanding why some people even think it hasn't lowered the playerbase ?

I know why my friends left, and this stands at number one. Of course there are other things but this is the main.

It's a game, and I can't save... so don't give me punishments like this.

Sure full loot is a kind of punishment, but that also means there is tons of other people that might die in hard zones and I have a chance to find other equipment, also full loot empowers the player market and stuff people pick up sell for cheaper on vendors, so it comes back as not a punishment but a gaming mechanism that you recup while playing (read not grinding).

Death decay is punishment and for the wrong people. Period.



Everything is fine... it gives death meaning.

 

We brag and brag this is to be a game with consequences, well in our blindness we let slip through essential systems that create interaction that are interesting and self-fulfilling.

First understand that I satisfy myself with roleplay, sure, but I like my imagination to be sprinkled with wisps and diversity of input from a variety of different people. So we need to attract them and keep them around, not punish them !

If I meet someone OOC or plain strange then my mind goes to work like any self-respectable nerd and fills in the blanks. You see ? Simple...

Someone can come up tell me "Ug! Gruk shardie narku durub."

And well... I know he might be russian yet his gesticulations might indicate that he requires help because he's in death robes and might have been looted ! Action, response ! Consequences !

Then arriving at the scene I see some player character attempting to loot (now before you all get on your 4 horses, we never proposed an easy and fast loot system like UO had) my new russian buddy, he is now flagged criminal and fair game without having to flag pvp and without shroud becoming a free for all western texas hold up situation.

Superpose any dubious omnipotent oracle rhetoric and allow only a few items to be looted and only in certain scenes that are friends online optional... etc etc DLMB.

That was one thing that made death have a meaning in the true sense of the term.

"Now where did I leave my stuff..."

Oh yes, that too... it gave a reason to sometimes stash supplies in a scene, so that if you died and happened to (ok I'm not going to say dry looted, yet I did somehow)

You see, the magnitude this takes.

I am cutting it short, way too short, but I'm pretty sure you get the picture anyways.

It's like UO's chest... you remember when it opened ?

The feeling you had ?

Thats the lenght we go to not to create real inventives to adventure and explore... cause we are too afraid to take the risk to open that pandora's box.

Truth be told.

 

Or maybe decay is the wrong idea.

A game I played a long time ago called Gemstone had an "XP absorption" mechanic. You can think of it as another layer of XP pool for newly-acquired XP. The basic idea was that you could only gain so much XP at one time. Gaining XP too fast would be too much for your mind to handle at once. The more you filled this input pool, the lower of a multiplier you got on new XP going into it; meanwhile XP would steadily be absorbed from this input pool into your regular earned XP.. The absorption rate and multiplier factor would be based on your adventurer level. Basically, it's a soft cap on how fast you can gain XP.

This would discourage excessive grinding, yet have little effect on "casual" players. I can't remember if death had any effect on the input pool, but death could be made to cause the input pool to be cleared unless certain conditions happened, like a resurrect spell.

I remember that if you were in certain "peaceful" areas like a town square, the transfer rate would be increased. This caused a lot of people to sit around and chat for a while during XP absorption. But there's no technical reason that it couldn't apply when logged off as well. Items could also be made to increase the transfer rate or even cause an instant transfer. (Note that +adv level effects would inherently increase the transfer rate.)

Of course this would do nothing for the extreme grinders who already have dozens of GMs. Perhaps if this limit on new XP was added, decay as it is now could be changed to apply to skill levels greater than 100.

 

That's a precious gem !

But who spoke about the extreme grinders ? This thread is about shutting down death decay, forever, which the extreme grinders do not experience anyways because of min maxing and keeping their exp pool full (easily).

Why are you shy to say that your mechanic would slow down extreme grinding directly, it would suit our game perfectly, and keep people in game and chatting (wonderful for publicity!).

I admit that the system I proposed is a layer simpler, this is just spot on

 

I am liking this just because the image is awesome!

 

Gonna chime in here again: building tools. You heard me. Tools to build whatever I can within a PoT. I have friends who are doing cool things with their POT's. But it's with basic blocks.

If Portalarium would consider devoting some resources to creating various placeable assets, those of the playerbase who are doing really cool things in private POT's that were inclined would be in builder's paradise. I have a guild mate that recreated the Pantheon. And it looks sweet (it's in Serenite). People all around are building cool things. With better "blocks" (a/k/a assets), this could lead to a truly diverse community, with people building (more) interesting things.

But this would hit performance in a scene. It's an argument for increasing POT number of placeable objects.

Performance aside, this coupled with my earlier statement of tools for player-made content could have serious potential. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's impossible. But I can dream.

 

Actually you are not dreaming, that is the intended goal... that is one of the strong sides of portalarium

Just wait and see minecrafOTA

I'm just grumpy because that gets prioritized massively over true gaming innovation, which death decay is a perfect example of (no offense, the math work).

edit - I almost self moderated here because it sounds rude... I LOVE player created content and I love to world build too... there is no problem with some monetization of course I'm not on the edge about anything here.

But death decay is too arbitrary to be soulful and truely give death a meaning.

Death is complex, death is a voyage through the Bardo.

 

We just have to ask 2 questions:

1) Did decay worked to bring down the top players as it was planed?

2) What will change when you switch decay on death to a risk of losing gear or gear dura?

 

Never thought of it as though Chris needed help ( he does... cuz he isn't listening when I say lvl 20-90 get the shaft on loot) I just happen to not be bothered by the current system.

As to full loot.. I might ask what you think the total value of your fighting/hunting gear is worth. As I said earlier.. it's a LOT faster to earn XP than it is to pay for the gear and I don't have "uber" stuff btw...nonetheless...instead of *maybe* an hour max to regain XP it'd take at least 150 hours to pay for what I wear...and that's if I am VERY generous with my estimate of earning... VERY generous.

I would also ask... as you say the "wrong" people are being punished... who is it you think *should* be punished and why.

Edit. I also neglected to ask what lvl you are currently?