Idea: Decay Avoid Option...

Here is an idea that I was thinking about...

Remember in the old days, when you died you would have to find your body when you were resurrected? I was thinking about that in regards to decay avoidance. Perhaps there is a way to eliminate the decay suffered when you die by having to find and click on your body to get your lost xp back.

Now, this would not be an easy task since your character should resurrect naked with no weapons or armor and at whatever Ankh you had found. You would have to journey to where you died, and get to your body (in a certain amount of time) or lose your chance to get your decay xp refunded. Of course in some cases it would be impossible to reach your body (fell to the bottom of a dungeon, or during a horrid boss fight etc...) So the option to just surrender and take the xp loss and getting your armor and weapons back immediately.

I know I would work really hard to try and save my xp loss and I think it would add some fun and challenge to the whole death thing...

 

No, just no.

You were doing ok with the "click body get xp" part, daoc did that. But leaving all (or any gear) is like the whole idea of xp loss on death something that should have been left in Everquest. And in fact it's worse here, at least in eq a priest could give you 95% of your xp back. It also hurts melee players more than mages (as if mages didn't have enough advantage)

 

I didn't mean you don't get your equipment back...I just meant you have to find your body naked and if you fail that you get it back...sorry if that was unclear haha...(I'll admit I liked corpse runs in UO when you did lose your stuff, but I consider that a bit hard core for this game)

Mages being OP is off topic and false in my view BTW.

 

Nah, I got the gist of it. But it going to be hard to fight that elder wolf off to get to my body When I died running on fire from the dragon without my sword. A fight that normally would be at best a minor annoyance. A mage would just hit his spells and keep going not as strong sure but they still work.


And I made a hell of a good living doing corpse retrieval as a necro in eq.

 

I was just trying to suggest a hope to eliminate decay since it hurts me really bad since I am a casual player who does die alot. The only thing it would give us is the option to get our xp decay back if we succeeded in clicking our body after death. Of course the option to just lose your xp and get all your stuff would be an option at the ankh...so really the only thing it would do is add an option to try to save your xp from decaying...

I guess I'm trying to find ways to make things less painful since hard caps don't seem to be coming in...and I hate decay so bad I want the chance to be able to fight it from happening to me every time I play.

 

The right answer is to do away with it entirely.

Or at least understand what the devs are trying to accomplish. The current system doesn't reward people for not taking risks/doing stupid and annoying things after the first death.

There is some opinion from players and perhaps devs that it's to slow down high level players. The reality is that players that are high level can grind out the penalty no problem and it has no effect on their ability to continue to widen the skill gap. And what else are they supposed to do with their time, never earn xp or apply it to their skills again, it's mind boggling logic.
It hits lower level players much much, especially since it's based on earth time passed. Not game.

Again I would be on board with the xp recovery at your body idea, but not making the corpse run harder than it has to.

The game already has a perfectly good death penalty if you ghost through a zone boundary why not just apply that until either a required amount of xp is earned or time passes.

 

Well the only reason I was making it kinda challenging by removing your armor and weapons was so that they would consider it...I know they want decay in to replace the alternative hard cap system. I would have no problem with making it easier by allowing you to have your armor and fight your way to your body...I just don't think Chris would like that because it would make getting your xp decay removed easy...I want decay removed from the game too...but I don't see it happening...It really hurts my mage bad (he is weak even at level 80 but I play ice haha)....my warrior survives much better at a lower level so go figure haha.

 

I think we should leave it as is instead of implementing an Ultima Online mechanic.

 

Or we could have options pop up when we die that fit our scenario atm like:

-search for body
-accept Rez (resurrection)
-find ankh and Rez ( resurrect) at ankh.

Death is a bit listless as it is ATM. Searching for body is a reasonable request to add to our repertoire. It gives us conscious choices to make and rewards us for making difficult choices.

 

I'm not suggesting UO mechanics here...just an option to try and get my decay refunded.

 

Maybe we could have like craftable toothbrushes.

 

Very good idea!
I'm not sure on all the particulars of how it would be implemented, but the core idea of getting back your body to recapture your lost EXP is solid. Awesome I like it alot, would add fun.

 

I thought over...

What is decay for?
Timesink!
No matter if you are casual or hardcore.
If you are casual timesinks hit you harder than if you are hardcore. Allways.
All timesink mechanics allways hit the casuals more, they just have less time.
But that's not the point.
I dont care too much.
The point is to "cap" skills or make it hard to hold your total spent xp.
To "cap" skills artificially and make it harder to hold many highleveled skills (total spent xp) and punishing if you die, the loss would need to be outstanding high, so that both hardcore and casuals would rather loose levels.
That does not happen!
And that is not what i or others want.
Nor hardcore neither casual players.
Just too hard punishment what just let people take no risks and circumvent things. Hardcore can do that better of course. It's what we have today. More or less.
The XP decay as i understand it is not a cap alternative.
You can just not die by taking no risks and will allways grow and level further.

There is no way to "cap" highlevel hardcore players (and casuals) this way instead of having real Stats caps and a total of skills you can learn and raise to 100 ( or less skills to raise to 120 or even 150).

I am fine with a timesink mechanic like decay to make it more challenging and rewarding to not die.
And yes i would love to have a chance to get my xp back by looting my own dead corpse. But please not loose gear.
That's too much.
If you can make your way to your corpse and loot, you should get 90% of the lost xp back.
It's just to reduce timesink and not to cap anyone. Sometimes this wont work or you decide it's not worth or to dangerous because you may die a second time.
And for this decay should stack.
And xp you can get back is just the XP you loose the last time. If you die 2nd time the XP loss of your 1St death is gone, you just can try to recover 90% of the XP loss of the 2nd death.
So people will think over if it's possible and worth the risk.
Depends on where they died.

To limit hardcore grinders and do it in a way thats less punitive to casual players, the XP loss on death should depend on the XP earned the last 24 hours.
If you just die in your 1st battle within 24hrs you loose the XP of just that battle, if you grind for many hrs and then die you loose a big amount of what you grinded. That would punish grinding more but please dont forget, you maybe can get 90% of that lost xp back.

This would punish casuals less and make it maybe challenging for both hardcore and casuals to not to die and get xp back but if you die.

Thinking over....
Hmmm. Hope there is no logic desaster, just slept a few hours

 

Reading about it, I'm not at all fond of the decay mechanic, although i don't have personal experience with it yet in this game so waiting until I level up my skills.

I do have a sense that my playstyle will change, and not in a better way for me - as a PVE-er it's fun to try really difficult things, both solo and grouped. Keep at it, try different strategies, so much fun when the goal is accomplished. If decay feels really punitive - and that's a big "if" since I haven't dealt with it yet - pretty sure I won't be a fan and my fun factor will go down.

 

I think that mechanisms to offset or eliminate xp decay upon death could certainly be an option. Besides the idea you suggest, there could simply be objects which grant a % recovery of xp loss. Or other things.

However, if you are finding the xp loss too much to bear, it is possible that you have overleveled skills. For example, if you walked a skill like Blade Mastery back from GM to level 80, you would reduce the max xp decay from just over 12K to just under 2K, while only sacrificing 10% relative effectiveness.

 

Believe me my skills are not that high compared to most. I have 1 combat GM (4 crafting GMs)...and I don't work anything but magic related skills on my mage (I'd rather just work 2 trees but in this game you can't).

I get about 40kish decay when I die the first time. I die most times I play with my mage because he doesn't do well against certain mobs...Magic is so gimped now that I really don't like to play my mage anymore. Ghosts and liches are pretty much immune to magic. I have 144 attune in the water tree and my water arrows do 0 damage to most undead. It pretty much has made me quit playing my mage in combat. He is a crafter mostly now. My warrior and archer I do enjoy playing. They do much better.

 

40,000 each time? Oh my word
I started ranger following the suggestions of the game, but want to explore mage - sheesh. Not sure now.

Edit: And again, exploration is what I like to do, try different things, different challenges.

 

I probably play my mage poorly because I am a nearly pure water mage. I won't do death on my character since it doesn't fit his lore. I have improved sun magic to try to help with undead along with a fairly healthy life tree.

I think the best option for survival in this game is to do everything on your character. Unfortunately that does lead to higher decay but I have read about alot of people who don't really die that often...I guess I'm hard headed...I am preferable to class play and pay the price for specializing hehe..

 

Like me, bit until i have no problems, but i am some levels weaker than @Lord Baldrith and therefore still fighting Bandits all the time.
But actually i have no problems with t4 Undead.
If i read this i hope i wont hit the next Wall soon as is just found a thing that works.

I buyed a Staff with icearrow boni and attunement. This really helped me as the crits are way more effective.

I started with Air, but let of because of Reagencies Costs.
I tryed Earth, but let of and choosed to use Air as an Alternative.
Viking Style: Storm, Flashs and Ice from the North
I also use life and Ban Undead.
Should work against Lichs later.
Actually i am to weak for DR, but maybe i should give it a try again.

About Decay again.

I dont see it works to "cap" hardcore players.
Sure it hurts them, but they stay on 50, 100 and more GM.

Is that the measure? Well then 

Some timesink and challenge is ok.
I dont want there's no loss.
I like to have a stimulus to not to die.
Until i die not that often.
Mostly if there is lag or blink doesnt work as intended because of LoS or something like that. Normally i know how and where to flee in the right Moment

I dont know of caps would help the game.
For pvp sure or it's just an elite hardcore Show.

But otherwise, maybe no cap is something you really have still after 5 Years an
Aha experience when you hit 200 as a casual and not hardcore gamer, who wants it under all circumstances and works serious on it.

Dont know.
Actually i feel fine, but there was a long time of struggling and feeling really weak and unusable.

I just made it into Elysium Mines and survived.
That was an oha- finally i made it experience.
I thought i just began to scratch on highlevel content and t5...
Hope it will go on and not end in the next Phase of inability

 

Mages are still amazing in this game right now. Explore all you want, I doubt you will be disappointed.