No penalty weekends or days.

I would be curious if there would be an uptick in exploration and risk taking if there was a no death penalty weekend or day from time to time. Kinda like a community event thing.

Thoughts?

 

Remind me what purpose the death penalty was supposed to serve ?

 

XP drain to convince you that dying is a bad thing as opposed to slamming into the brick wall enough times to surmount any obstacle by climbing over a pile of dead player carcasses.

 

Actually, I was being a bit more serious...
What purpose is this death "penalty" actually supposed to serve ?

 

Punishment for people who have grinded dozens of skills to GM and beyond, by hitting them with a slice of the XP it takes to reach those high skill levels. If you have not ever leveled a skill to 100, you might not understand how steep the XP curve gets after 95. Then multiply by each non-crafting GM.

 

Couldn't give you the specifics as only the designer knows the specific rationale. I believe it harkens back to older games where there is a penalty for failure. Take Diablo 2, on death you lost XP and gold based on your level amount. Thus you became more cautious around that multishot lightning enhanced monster. So if there was no loss, then death has less significance other than time spent on that recent endeavor.

 

Well, it was said: death should be more meaningful ...
And I think, a lot of really good solutions were made to give it a greater meaning

May be this is connected with the XP pool:
It was said to prevent botting.
As we know from Chris' daily work blog, there are players who use botting.
So the XP pool can't prevent this.

So: why can't we receive a skill raising by using skills and having NO xp pool?
My hardest fights gave 0 (zero) for my skill progress!
Because I was at 0 after a few dyings.

The meaningful death moments gave me meaningless moments for my game experience:
the hardest fights gave no progress - curious! Fighting half an hour for nothing ...
(ok, the loot - *g*)
The system told me: go back where you came from: and train harder!
But I just wanted to play the storyline and not to be forced in a role playing grinding style
One thing, @Stundorn is talking about in another thread
It is the way, the system works. Don't worry - be happy

Beside this:

May be a few hours for exploring/sight seeing the really hardened places of Novia without fearing the xp point loss

 

@Jefe's answer was spot on.

 

This happened in UO all the time, and it turned out to be a good thing. Added hilarity.

 

Thought of another side benefit. Turning off death penalty might facilitate more player willingness in large scale combat tests or testing new boss monsters (say a Vicious Chicken of Bristol) at player events. They could suspend the death penalty to remove the sting of unexpected death. Death by crushing lag is a frustrating thing.

If they want an indicator that can tie in, then how about: "The Oracle's protection has increased due to an alignment within the constellations. For a limited period of time death has no toll." and "The constellations move out of alignment, death once again has its sting."

 

Not really... I mean, that's why you want some sort of death penalty rather than none.

But if we're talking about XP decay in particular, it wasn't even designed as a death penalty. It originally didn't even occur on death -- I think it occurred on skill use if I remember correctly -- they just moved it there so it would make a little more sense to player. The XP decay is intended to complement the soft cap system while limiting skill gain, because the penalty gets higher the higher level your skill is.

Its actually pretty bad as a death penalty. To some people it will be a big deal, but to others it won't and they'll just keep on dying without worry. I'm being honest in saying that I just shrug when I die because I know I'll regain the lost XP. So if they suspended it, I would play the game exactly the same.

A death penalty is important, but we need something different. Some different way to limit skill gain would probably please most people better, too.

 

Don't those usually happen in town scenes where the death penalty is supposed to not apply anyhow?

 

Possibly, never died in town before.

 

Not accomplishing your goal of killing whatever it is you were trying to kill and having to make a slow run to an ankh and back is the death penalty.

 

Nah, it's trivial, that doesn't bother me at all, especially in scenes that are small or where there's ankhs everywhere, which is most places in the game. I'll get killed, go to the ankh, then continue grinding.

 

By that logic, you could adapt to any death penalty they throw at you. Eventually they could set up a hardcore death penalty that deletes your character. Some people think that's great.

Personally, having to run to the ankh over and over is very annoying; enough to make me give up on my original goal.

 

Well, some people have low tolerance, some people have high tolerance. It doesn't mean the devs should adapt the game to either extreme. I think the ankh is trivial for most people. I think its somewhere along the lines of I'll try not to die, but its something I'll shrug off if I do.

I also think the ideal death penalty would have some meaning even after leaving a scene.

 

Do you even know how many xp's you lose when you die ?

 

I'm not talking about the XP penalty, I'm saying having to to walk to the ankh as a ghost is trivial by itself.

If you're asking about XP though, no I don't, because it doesn't matter....