One option for replacing decay

I like the OP's idea better than decay.

Another option: a strength/dexterity/intelligence/crafting penalty for x amount of minutes upon death. The severity of the penalty could scale depending on your level (eg: -1 for Adventure Level 1-10; -2 for AL 2-20; etc). If you experience another death before your x minutes is up, the timer is extended for another x minutes.

 

This would be a much better death penalty for this game. Just need to figure in Resurrection and Ankhs; perhaps not getting rezzed at all automatically triggers superattenuation? Make it worth getting rezzed instead of just leaving the scene.

 

You all should check out QA. There, you'll note that there's no death penalty for R59 (other than the current stat penalty for not making it to an ankh in time). Decay has already been removed, so there's no sense in suggesting replacements. The replacement for soft skill cap will likely come as something else (that is not tied to death).

 

Decay did not need to go. Maybe the values could have been debated, however whomever whined about the system itself should be ashamed.
Death is nothing in this game.

• There are respawn points literally at the area where big events or fights or a high expected amount of death should occur
• You lose no adventure level/exp
• Your armor durability doesn't take a massive hit
  
• You don't have to wait five minutes while your stats slowly come back to full values
• Your food even persists after death

With how easy it is overall, Decay seems like a joke.

 

It was mostly people who were not even at a level where decay was even a factor. The highest level people never complained about decay.

 

I have been in QA and saw it's been removed. Just because it's gone it does not mean that we can't theorize middle ground ideas that could be implemented. Remember. Chris said decay is going made sense, but it's gone as on r59.

I'm not going to lie it will be nice to not lose that exp per death, but I never minded losing 200k per death it made me think again before I rush in again. As well as that I do know a few people too like you've mentioned that are high and lose no exp.

 

Thank you all for providing your thoughts on this. More minds on an idea is usually a good.
In my opinion, the solution, whatever it may be should be simple to follow.
I have mentored many new players and while the concept is often accepted, describing the method or formula is daunting.

I will not claim to have a complete solution. But the idea of choosing your level of risk is already accepted in this game and in others. Hardcore being the obvious example in single player and multiplayer games.

Thank you again for adding to the discussion.

 

No. I am a casual player and 1 hour of no EXP because I died is not a correct penalty. I do not have hours to play when I am online. I work a lot of hours 9-10, have a family with kids. So 1 hour of not gaining EXP is worse then LOSING some % of exp...

 

I think I know why exactly, the decay death penalty was so hated.

It was never clearly stated what you were losing.

 

Ok, so 1 hour of losing XP is not good for you, how can you possibly be in favor of the decay system? I'm losing 4-5 hours of progress from "normal activities" for a death now. Sure, its still recoverable in a single UT run, but I really don't like UT and if I only have a couple hours to play after work I do not want to spend it doing ...that ....especially if its just going straight into a drain.

If you want a penalty, its going to have to be a timeout. Whether its stopping xp coming in, or making you go regain lost xp, the net result is lost time. The difference is, at least you're not going backwards.
Its essentailly the same exact thing. Unless you're just far too low level for decay to do anything to you. In which case it seems you're arguing for no penalty at all, or rather, that you want a penalty to affect "other people" that can play more than you can?

 

I prefer recovering exp by farming as I will get at least some chance of getting loot. I am not so high level so the exp loss I get by being killed is not so heavy as the higher players. I lose about 200-300K exp, this is easily recovered by doing 30 minutes of farming.

Having the higher players lose more exp, seems a good way to at least make progress for them harder/slower. When players lose 2 to 4mil exp they are already massive overpowered anyhow.

If exp decay is removed and there is no skill lvl cap they will get so much more overpowered breaking a lot of the game mechanics. Like for example PvP.

One time I had my PvP flag up, I walked passed another player and he 1 shot killed me. What is the fun of that?

 

The thing is, the power curve isn't as big as you think. Yes, you do get stronger, but the diminishing returns are not to be overlooked. The problem is that the decay goes up linearly but your overall strength and how much XP you can get does not. If I lost no more than 200k, I would just accept that as the cost of playing the game. Decay follows the skill COST curve, not the skill BENEFIT curve - that's one of the many problems with how its implemented. You get to a point where there is literally no point in doing anything that can get you killed, as its a complete waste of your time and has a significant entry cost. In terms of power? It cost me >50m xp to get 5 more points of attunement which, while helpful isn't increasing my output all that much.

The diminishing returns on skills exists to curb player power and it is doing its job. Decay didn't change this much if at all, the power-grinders do not die and were rarely if ever susceptible to it. I reject the PvP argument similarly - people who are going to grind untold amounts of XP, spend a fortune on gear, and who practice with each other and learn the deck system's in and outs are always going to be better at PvP than the casual player who wears whatever gear he's happened to find along the way and invests in the skill she finds interesting. These pvp folks are well oiled machines - I say this respectfully - while I've probably got the same or more XP and probably similar caliber of gear, I don't have the builds, deck or the practice to be competitive in that environment. Decay is not slowing down PvPers, and the -good- pvpers can take down targets with 10x the total xp investment, if its not allocated in a way that is amenable to pvp. This to me is working as it should be, where skill, build, and preparation is a larger factor than pure xp investment. More XP is helpful sure, but beyond a certain point, you just don't get -that- much better.

Decay was trying to do two things and failing at both.

1) be a death penalty
2) be a capping mechanic

Honestly the current diminishing returns system is serving as an effective capping mechanic, short of hardcapping I don't really see anything that could potentially change this.

This leaves 'death penalty'. There's no reason why death penatly has to result in de-levelling, decay, or permanent loss of investment, all it does is disincentivize gameplay which is a poor choice for player retention.

 

Decasy as it was , was just a waste of time. I can play several hour per day so the problem don't hurt me. But a player that have 2 hour to play sota, go to do a group content loose 5 hours of grinding for 1 Death that can be due to about 1k reasons outside of normal game mechanichs, that guy basically each time he play and log go back of 3 hours grinding, and then he must also be luck to don't waste 20 mins in front of a npc to sell the loot it has, just cause the npc must go to bed, i'll never have a clue about npc go sleep, cause really they don't make the game immersive, but just make normal people loose 20 min of real life and game. If it is a problem of RP immersion, who does RP can Always wait in front of the npc and don't sell things during night.

Loading sota 2 mins, get buffed 2 mins, 5 if he must load another pot, loading novia 1 min, move to the zone 2 mins, load the grind zone 2 mins, grind for 1 hour, load novia 1 min, load an npc town where sell things 2 mins, move to the npc 1 min (now the npc must be awaken, let say 5 min waiting) sell things 1 min.

Logged 2 hours, loosed 30 mins on silly things, grinded 1 hour… i die due to desync i loose 5 hour of exp…. ye you are right, maybe remove the decay will hurt a lot of people <.<""""

And those kinf od hardcore gamer must be punished!

 

Could I interest you in a m2 Samsung Evo 960 or something similar? =)

 

Exp = time invested, decay = -exp
Therefore
Game = waste of my time when Decay is on.

 

Exp = time wasted
Decay = more time wasted
Game = all time wasted

 

Make decay improve your loot instead of xp gain. 10% more gold, 10% more durability on items dropped

 

Simply put, dying should in my opinion result in durability loss of items. If you want to keep people leveling and keep the market moving it's a win-win scenario. If loot is reasonable, then trading and purchasing items from crafters will flourish. If you're not the adventuring type, then crafting is still a viable option to make progress in the game selling to the adventurers.

This would also promote the use of coto for major repairs. There's a lot of benefits to going with a durability hit for death punishment. The key is to make it punishing, but also make it beneficial to the economy.