Debt wasn't a "problem" in later years, but early on, in you were a Blaster, you "lived" in a constant state of Debt and rarely (if ever) got out of it.

I'm on record with the idea that loss of Slotted Enhancements upon Player Defeat is acceptable IF AND ONLY IF you aren't dealing with some sort of Crafted Inventions system of Enhancements. That's because it's "acceptable" to lose [b]Common[/b] Enhancements that are "dropping" all the time and which can be bought from vendor NPCs and thus are "no big deal" to replace ... mainly because they're effectively Vendor Bait most of the time. It is NOT acceptable to have unique/rare/difficult to obtain/costly Crafted Enhancements getting destroyed by Player Defeats, simply because of the degrees and lengths of effort needed to gather the resources it takes to craft those Enhancements.

Imagine being defeated and losing a Crafted Purple Enhancement from one of your Slots as a penalty. [b]RAGEQUIT !!![/b]

Losing a Single Origin is "no big deal" if they're falling like rain as Drops all the time, but losing a Hamidon Origin (or Synthetic Hamidon Origin) obtained as a reward for completing a Task Force/Strike Force/Hamidon Raid is unacceptable. The key being that just like a Debt Penalty on XP, if the Enhancements are "easy come, easy go" then their loss is an acceptable Death Penalty. However, if you're dealing with a "hard to come by, easy to lose" scenario, that is NOT acceptable(!) ... because it will only create a conventional wisdom of "never use what you can't AFFORD to lose" in builds.

I'm all for having some kind of debt penalty in CoT that's significant enough to encourage players to generally want to "avoid" dying. But by the same token I think a penalty like losing an enhancement (randomly or otherwise) is far too extreme under normal circumstances. It's all about risk versus reward - if you make the risks of doing anything too great then no one will want to team up on PUGs and/or no one will want to attempt anything even remotely dangerous. Influence sinks are fine but somehow this method to impose them simply seems too drastic to me.

I think during the design process the CoT Devs should begin with CoH's most recent death penalty implementation as a starting point. Then as the design of the game evolves they might find it possible to tweak it to better fit the details of CoT. Maybe as an alternative (or addition) to CoH's XP debt they'll figure out some other mechanic based on the way CoT specifically works like maybe certain NPC factions will react to you differently (like dynamic difficulty adjustment) if you gain a "reputation" for being routinely defeated and/or remaining undefeated. Regardless it should be balanced to be "just painful enough" without being overtly annoying.

Or another way would be to get debt and maybe say a slight penalty in how much influence or Rae's you get per enemy defeated

My vote would be for CoT to handle this the same way CoX did, for all the reasons the OP already mentioned.

Any system that diminished a character's ability to fight (including loss of any items that affect powers) would make it progressively more difficult to defeat the enemy, which would actively (and cumulatively, in the event of multiple defeats) discourage the player from jumping back into the fray -- especially if the effect had a timed duration.

I don't want the game to encourage us to walk away. For me, that bouncing back into battle after a defeat was something that captured the essence of comic book combat. I'd hate to lose it.

Izzy wrote:

Cinnder wrote:
I don't want the game to encourage us to walk away. For me, that bouncing back into battle after a defeat was something that captured the essence of comic book combat. I'd hate to lose it.

+1

++1

Cinnder wrote:

I don't want the game to encourage us to walk away. For me, that bouncing back into battle after a defeat was something that captured the essence of comic book combat. I'd hate to lose it.

Use a Wakie ... no loss from Defeat(?)
Use a Power to Rez (either self or other) ... no loss from Defeat

Use a Hospital or a Base to Rez ... loss from Defeat

In other words, it's possible to rig a "Lose an Enhancement" system such that the penalty is imposed not at the time of being Defeated, but rather at the time of choosing where to recuperate. Only if you choose(!) to "Hospital" would there be an associated cost of "we got most of you, but not all of you, I'm afraid" that results in the loss of ONE random Enhancement.

Don't want to break your Enhancements by using Hospital services? Carry Wakies or have a "friend" who can use a Power to give you a Rez so you can stand back up (and stagger drunkenly for a few seconds).

[b]S[/b] imple
[b]E[/b] asy
[b]E[/b] ffective

So rather than breaking an Enhancement [i]upon defeat[/i], instead you'd be breaking an Enhancement [i]upon use of Hospital [b]option[/b][/i] ... which is easily "avoidable" with even minimal planning ahead.

That is my main concern with something like the risk of losing an enhancement.[color=red]*[/color] The first few times it may not be a big deal (unless you don't have the money to replace the lost enhancement). For me, after those few times, it would quickly become an annoyance to not only have to trek back to the mission if, for whatever reason, I ended up at the hospital but to have to make a detour to replace a lost enhancement.

It would be a shame if any death penalty gave players second thoughts about having a go at something "just because" or "what's the worst that can happen?"

[br]
[color=red]*[/color] If only non-crafted enhancements can suffer from this, then by the mid- to high levels there is every likelihood that this risk no longer exists for most players. The punishment would only affect the players / characters when they are most likely to be defeated and least able to absorb the cost.

Redlynne wrote:

* sigh *
It's kind of amazing how people want to have zero negative reinforcement ... of any kind, anywhere, for any reason. Even a slap on the wrist (that can be avoided!) is too much for some people. It's just astounding, really.

Since no one on this thread said anything of the kind, I'll assume we're now on a tangent of completely unrelated things that amaze us, and I'll contribute my own: I'm amazed when a person who is capable of expressing a detailed, logical argument can -- when his/her opinion is questioned -- resort to over-dramatic petulance instead of responding to people's reasonable questions and counter-points.

But that has nothing to do with this thread (either). I'd rather actually discuss the points people have brought up: e.g. I think Darth Fez is right - losing only non-crafted Enhs seems likely to punish characters when they can least afford it.

Lutan wrote:

I think broken Enhancements could be done if broken does not mean lost. They could require repair wich would serve as money drain, without the level of frustration a complete loss would bring.

Or just use a Drained method?!?
Its not broken.. its just -1 in Potency/Effectiveness each time you DIE. ;)
And after 30 Deaths and a Mission COMPLETE, you go back to the Electric Car recharge station to FILL 'ER UP! ;)

Darth Fez wrote:

One more point to keep in mind is that the lost, broken, or drained enhancements all fall into the category of repairing gear. Since the lack of needing to obtain/repair gear was a draw for many people, this sort of tacit reinforcement of enhancements as a standard MMO gear stand-in could be a less than ideal message.

Butt Butt Butt...
[img]http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120725035224/uncyclopedia/images/a/a0/Go_stand_in_the_corner.jpg[/img]
I hate the Corner! :<

Cinnder, I'm looking at the Whole Package of the game. I'm looking at the "economy" of what characters can "earn" (loot drops, currency, crafting materials, enhancements, inspirations, experience ... all of it) and thinking that for everything that gets made/earned, you need to have something else in the game that "drains" those things away. If you don't have what we broadly call "sinks" in the game (time sink, cash sink, item sink, etc.) then you wind up with a runaway inflationary game economy. People are continually getting stuff, but they aren't consuming or using it at anywhere NEAR the rate at that stuff is generated. Quantity skyrockets and Demand is either stagnant or marginal (often both) and all you have left is Vendor Bait.

What I'm complaining about is that even the notion that there can be *small* sinks for enhancements, currency, time, etc. after a player is Defeated are intolerable to some people ... and the reason why isn't that hard to figure out. It's the [b]What's Mine Is MINE![/b] entitlement of possession, with a healthy flavoring of "don't break my toys!" thrown in for good measure. But we've already seen where that leads, if you've played City of Heroes. Single Origin Enhancements were functionally "worthless" and the only thing that mattered was Inventions, since Inventions would "never break" like Single Origins (et al.) would. But Single Origins kept dropping all the time ... and so you wound up with a glut of supply that was actually only useful as Vendor Bait.

But here's the crux of the difference between us.

As is quite obvious from the way people approach this particular topic ... of a Limited Death Penalty ... there's essentially two schools of thought. Both of these schools begin and end with an assumption of Equilibrium, in which a particular character build can exist and persist in a relatively unchanging way. The difference though is that there's two basic "flavors" of Equilibrium that can be fashioned by how the game mechanics work ... a Static Equilibrium or a Dynamic Equilibrium.

A Static Equilibrium is set up such that once a character has acquired their "final" gear spec (in this case, Enhancements) ... that's it. Nothing ever happens to it ever again (barring a respec). The character build is "static" and unchanging. Nothing is ever "lost" and nothing ever need be added to it ever again. It's FIXED. Eternal. Unchanging. It requires no "effort" on the part of the player to maintain. You "earned" it, and now it's "your build" ... for all eternity, no matter what.

A Dynamic Equilibrium, by contrast, is something you can "have" and something you can "maintain" ... but is also something of a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_point]saddle point[/url]. It's something that you can "get to" and stay on top of, but if you do "nothing" then you'll begin to fall off. In other words, there's a little bit of "work" involved on the player's part to stay within the bounds of the Dynamic Equilibrium. That amount of "effort" could be something as simple as just replacing something that breaks with something that drops quite often. The key point being, how much "effort" is too much for a Dynamic Equilibrium to remain a "fun" experience. What I'm hearing from a lot of people is that ANY effort needed to maintain a Dynamic Equilibrium is too much effort, as far as they're concerned.

Durability repairs and the like exist in games for a reason. They act as sinks for the resources that players generate simply by playing the game.

What happens to a game that doesn't have any sinks of any kind for the resources that are generated by players?
Short answer: a broken game economy.

I had no problem with XP debt. I found it to be a very mild incentive to play intelligently without being too tough if your preferred tactic was the Scream and Leap Technique™.

But, I came from SWG where, for many years, death not only meant "wounds" which were a drop in your total hit points each time you were defeated and they didn't heal back unless you were treated by a doctor or combat medic or logged out in a hospital for a sufficient time. I remember seeing folks come into the hospital after a particularly tough fight with only 5 hit points! Also, there was item decay. Not just equipped items, but everything in your inventory at the time! These things meant there was good incentive for healers and crafters in the game but it was a pain for combat players.

Tannim222 wrote:

We have talked about what defeat looks like for the game. While I can't release details, I can say that we will not be imposing detrimental effects on a defeated character or reducing effectiveness of powers (like breaking, reducing, of slotted improvements).

Isn't everything bad that could possibly happen to a character a "detrimental effect", including simply being knocked off your feet onto the ground, unconsciousness, requiring a rez, being TPed safely to a remote (Hospital) and having to shlep your way back to the mission, etc? I don't see why you'd want there to be literally no detrimental effects for getting defeated, for if that's really true, then why avoid getting defeated at all?

As it was in CoH toward the end of the game, getting defeated was such a non-issue, even with XP debt, that most people would gladly volunteer to die just so they could use Rise of the Phoenix, or so that someone could cast Vengeance off of them, etc.

If by "no detrimental effects" you just mean no loss of combat effectiveness or gear, I believe this still leaves open the possibility of going into "Influence Debt", which hasn't been discussed much, but could be a thing. For one thing, level-capped characters would have no reason to avoid defeat whatsoever if there wasn't something like that, at least for them (also, this is what CoH had, IIRC, right?).

As for the rest, I agree with Red that sinks are a good thing for the game economy. I think they add replayability to the game by giving people a need to replay stuff just to get replacement gear. Frankly, as I said, before, I'm fine with the classic CoH defeat rules, but I don't think a slightly harsher system is entirely without it's upside. As I said, adding more replayability, and more design space in the powers/enhancements/missions is a good thing, I feel.

Thank you for the clarification.

That sounds good for games like wow wildstar and few others but I always hated repairing gear personally just seemed like an extra little annoying thing that bothered me and for superheroes most would be wearing tights so the repair bill would be cheap to fix I liked city of heroes debt system You died accrued a little debt and just jump back into battle but we will just have to wait to see what titans has in store for us

Sand_Trout wrote:

I'm with the OP on this one. The lack of severe death-penalty enhanced the fun of the game, and encouraged, in the words of the Extra Credits folks, "Short iteration time".
There should be some discomfort for dying, and the XP debt system did that without stopping "forward progress" of your character. The ability to get right back in and try again kept you from throwing up your hands and giving up (ragequitting).
Mendicant wrote:
Izzy wrote:
Cinnder wrote:
I don't want the game to encourage us to walk away. For me, that bouncing back into battle after a defeat was something that captured the essence of comic book combat. I'd hate to lose it.

+1

++1

+++1

+1 to infinity!

We had the No XP button in Cox.
Why not "The player self gratification penalty buttons" select the ones you like.
Turn them on and off as you like them.
Everyone get what they want. :)

If the economy is subject to problems, one would expect that its level 50 toons with a lot of disposable wealth to throw around that are a big part of the cause of that. Them and the people who try to manipulate the auction house system, which is also a lot easier to do if you have a level capped toon on your account and a lot of legitimately accumulated wealth for that reason. I don't think anyone is blaming the newby level 10 toons that just got made by brand new incoming players for the state of the economy. XP debt affects the lowby lvl 10 but does nothing to an already level capped toon, so you're really NOT treating all defeats equally in that system and you're right back to "economy problems" again anyway. You're choosing not to punish the level-capped for getting defeated, while punishing the non-level-capped. Simply throwing up your hands and saying "Oh well, there's always going to be economy problems, there's nothing we can do." is not a compelling argument for choosing to punish some people but not others upon defeat and getting a buggy economy out of it for your trouble.

XP Debt is not an equally distributed penalty. Ask any Blaster.

As far as I'm concerned, on this topic I think that Star Trek Online does a really good job, as I've mentioned before. The "death penalty" is a TIME OUT from playing the game. It starts at being a 15 second countdown before you can respawn back into the zone. Die too quickly and that countdown timer to respawn starts stacking up ... 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds. I think I've seen it go as high as 90 seconds once after getting repeatedly curbstomped.

Then there's the additional option of playing on harder difficulty modes. ONLY when you play on harder difficulty than normal do you suffer a persistent Debuff that remains with you until you "repair" it ... either with an item (taken from inventory) or by visiting an NPC in a civilized location (who fixes you up for free). That's it. Expend an item specifically meant to expire the Debuff you've been given, or head back to "town" and get yourself patched up. It's really that simple.

In Star Trek Online there is no XP Debt. But getting defeated is still a major buzzkill. After you've been defeated, you can't rez yourself until the timer finishes its countdown (there are no [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inspiration#Resurrection_Inspirations]Wakies[/url] you can use). Note that another player can still come over and rez you before the countdown expires, and get you back into the game faster than the countdown timer. The lockout of the timer is merely on YOU rezzing yourself, not on other players rezzing you where you fell.

Redlynne wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, on this topic I think that Star Trek Online does a really good job, as I've mentioned before. The "death penalty" is a TIME OUT from playing the game. It starts at being a 15 second countdown before you can respawn back into the zone. Die too quickly and that countdown timer to respawn starts stacking up ... 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds. I think I've seen it go as high as 90 seconds once after getting repeatedly curbstomped.
...
In Star Trek Online there is no XP Debt. But getting defeated is still a major buzzkill. After you've been defeated, you can't rez yourself until the timer finishes its countdown (there are no Wakies you can use). Note that another player can still come over and rez you before the countdown expires, and get you back into the game faster than the countdown timer. The lockout of the timer is merely on YOU rezzing yourself, not on other players rezzing you where you fell.

Some of this comes down to personal preference, of course -- SWTOR had similar defeat mechanic and I *hated* that (would definitely not like to play a CoT that used this method) -- but doesn't this sort of mechanic go directly against one of the main goals several of us have been advocating for: that we want a superhero game to encourage you to jump back into the fray when defeated? Seems to me "time outs" and lack of Wakies act in direct opposition to that goal. Not that it would necessarily be appropriate for CoT, but as an example FFXIV actually goes to the opposite extreme and gives a small bonus if one is defeated in some instanced battles to encourage one to try again.

Maybe I could understand some of these alternate death penalty suggestions if we stepped back one level and answered the question: what is the purpose in having a penalty for being defeated? Why does there have to be any penalty at all for defeat other than the personal embarrassment? Given that Tannim has said there won't be gear degradation, it's not an economy issue, so what is the goal? Note that I'm not necessarily advocating an absence of penalty; I'm just asking why there needs to be one. If we can define the purpose of such a penalty, we can better assess how the options help us reach that goal.

+1, Trevor.

The only thing I would change is that cap. If capped toons are amassing such wealth then it stands to reason that such wealth should be taken out of the economy at the same rate as for lower toons. Giving capped toons a limited version would return us to the problem of unfairly penalizing those who need more money over those who really don't. In fact, I think the percentage possibly should increase commensurate to level, although I haven't had a chance to really think through the ramifications of such a policy.

CoyoteShaman

And as the levelcapped character continues to amass wealth, eventually he will approach the point where the time it takes to recover the lost wealth will be less than the time he can expect to adventure without being defeated at least once, making what is effectively a soft cap on wealth. Unless he becomes very risk-averse to avoid defeat, which goes into islandtrevor72's first point: the ease of finding people willing to group with you.

Redlynne wrote:

Cinnder wrote:
what is the purpose in having a penalty for being defeated?
Because if there's no penalty ... NONE ... then there's no motivation to avoid defeat. Being defeated, deliberately (and repeatedly), can turn into a strategy ... an exploit. Or to put it another way ...
If there is no PAIN there is no incentive to LEARN ... or get better.
I mean, think about it. If there's never, ever, anywhere, ever, any kind of negative reinforcement to tell you "you shouldn't be doing that" then you'll just keep on doing it.
Seriously. If defeat is something you don't have to avoid, and there's no penalty for it ... what is the game REALLY telling you? What are you supposed to LEARN from being defeated?
I lot of people in real life say they want to live their lives without pain. But pain is *necessary*. It is a survival mechanism. It's there to tell you when you're doing it wrong. Pain is something to be avoided, not eliminated. If it didn't "hurt" to stick your fingers in your eyes, and go blind because you did that, almost every kid in the world would blind themselves before they got to be teenagers.
A penalty for defeat is necessary to prevent behavioral norms from taking root that should not be supported, aided or abetted by the inherent structure of a game.
Now, we can argue about how "strong" or punitive such a penalty ought to be ... but the PURPOSE of such a penalty should never be in doubt. Because we ALL know that both in online games and in real life ... if there's no "penalty" for being stupid then people will be STUPID to the maximum of their ability. Do we really want to foster and encourage such stupidity?
My answer to the question is NO.
So I think a defeat penalty is appropriate in every game ... even if it's just a 15 second "buzzkill" time out while everyone else gets to keep having fun while you're not, and that's it.

Hmmm...interesting line of thought. But now I have to step up one more meta-level and ask, why is being defeated in a virtual world a bad thing that we want to discourage? How is it stupid? The suggestion that we should learn not to be defeated implies there is a correct and incorrect way to play, and I'm not sure I'd support that notion if it doesn't unduly affect others. I personally don't like to be defeated in a game, but if someone else wants to run into a group and die -- just by themselves without causing an unwanted teamwipe or other griefing -- who are we to tell them that's wrong? I'd be much more concerned with players who walk away from a game due to frustration with harsh defeat penalties than players who are defeated, pop a Wakie, and jump back in to continue fighting. I'm thinking the primary goal should be to keep players playing, not to prevent them from doing so.

Defeat as a strategy: what's wrong with that? I'm now thinking of my blaster's beloved Rise of the Phoenix, which (like other death-based powers) seemed to actually encourage defeat. That implies to me that the devs didn't think there was anything too terrible about defeat, even as a strategy. RotP almost felt like a consolation prize to me, as opposed to a penalty.

Defeat as an exploit: can you give examples?

The real world example of pain when ones sticks fingers in one's eyes is there because blindness would cause a host of difficulties for survival of an organism. In a virtual world, being defeated doesn't keep a player from continuing to play the game or handicap them in some way other than via the types of penalties we're discussing -- but then that's making the warning pain into the very thing the warning is supposed to dissuade. I'm not currently seeing any other bad effect of being defeated -- but remain open to examples.

Cinnder wrote:

Hmmm...interesting line of thought. But now I have to step up one more meta-level and ask, why is being defeated in a virtual world a bad thing that we want to discourage? How is it stupid?

Cinnder, I've already given my answer to this question. Simply asking "why" to every answer, the way a child might, doesn't get you any closer to a solution. All it does is prevent acceptance of the answer you've already been given so as to demand another answer, until you get one you'll like. Recursive "but why?" demands are not inherently reasonable.

As for "how is it stupid?" ... do I really need to answer that? Suicidal Man is hardly my idea (or I'd think anyone else's) of a Heroic, or Villainous, figure or concept. Again, if there is no "cost" associated with being Defeated then there are people who will see [i]nothing wrong[/i] with getting Defeated as often as possible. L2P n00b!

Do you REALLY want "I'm gonna go in there and get killed!" to be an accepted (let alone expected!) behavioral norm in a game? Even if you do have "infinite lives" to expend, do you really want people to get comfortable with trying ... deliberately ... to use them all up as fast as they can, just because they can at no cost?

Or even more to the point ... do you want people to LEARN NOTHING from being Defeated?

Being Defeated in a game is pretty much the definition of "you're doing it wrong!" and if there's no penalty for it then there's no reason not to keep doing it wrong. And keep doing it wrong. And keep on doing it wrong. There is literally no penalty for failure, so there is nothing to learn from having failed.

Cinnder wrote:

The suggestion that we should learn not to be defeated implies there is a correct and incorrect way to play, and I'm not sure I'd support that notion if it doesn't unduly affect others.

/facepalm

It affects the social NORMS and standards of the game. That gets reflected in the Conventional Wisdom the game's community and population holds to and believes in. It gets reflected in the ATTITUDES that everyone has. It shapes the way that people THINK about the game and how it ought to be played.

The "libertarian" belief that what I do with my character has no effect on what other people do with their characters is an inherently false one, because it assumes that there is no ... cultural ... transmission of ideas and values to others which can in turn result in a toxic brew that affects all of us. That's because the only way this CAN BE true is if you're playing a Single Player game with no one else in it. Since that's NOT what's on order here, the "libertarian" ideal of being able to do whatever you want because it doesn't affect anyone else is a little white lie.

Cinnder wrote:

I personally don't like to be defeated in a game, but if someone else wants to run into a group and die -- just by themselves without causing an unwanted teamwipe or other griefing -- who are we to tell them that's wrong?

Go Darwin Go.

Except they aren't weeding themselves out of the "gene pool" are they? Why? Infinite lives to persist in being stupid with. If there's no "evolutionary pressure" to evolve and improve then a very great many people WON'T evolve and improve. Simple as that.

Stupid [b]but works[/b] isn't stupid ... and all that.

So what happens if there's no "weed out" factor for stupid? Stupid flourishes and thrives ... AND TAKES OVER.

Cinnder wrote:

I'd be much more concerned with players who walk away from a game due to frustration with harsh defeat penalties than players who are defeated, pop a Wakie, and jump back in to continue fighting. I'm thinking the primary goal should be to keep players playing, not to prevent them from doing so.

Define "harsh penalties" please. Don't just throw an abstract undefined term like "harsh penalties" around without quantifying it with examples to clarify precisely what you mean.

I'd put "harsh penalties" into context with the following:
[list][*]When you are Defeated, the game automatically logs you off. To continue, log back in. This is a "harsh" defeat penalty because it forces the player to "work" to stay logged into the game.
[*]When you are Defeated, the game "breaks" all your stuff and steals all your currency. Self explanatory as to why this is a "harsh" defeat penalty.
[*]You only get a limited number of Defeats per hour/day and after you reach that limit you can't play anymore and can't log back in until you've served out your "Death Sentence" by not getting to play for a while. Self explanatory as to why this is a "harsh" defeat penalty.
[*]When you are Defeated, the game "robs" you of resources you have collected ... including currency, items, and the really big one, experience. Get Defeated and lose all progress towards your next Level is one of the "harsher" defeat penalties around. Imagine what it would be like if once you reached the Level Cap you could only *stay there* at the Level Cap for as long as you remained UNdefeated. Why? Because as soon as you got defeated you'd lose an entire LEVEL of experience and no longer be at the Level Cap.
[*]And then there's the granddaddy of them all ... the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Art_Online]Sword Art Online[/url] death penalty ... where if you die in the game [b]YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE[/b]. Welcome to [b]HARDCORE[/b] gaming.[/list]

Those are what I think of as "harsh" death penalties because they're (so) punitive. The game is going out of its way to punish you for having been defeated.

Things like Star Trek Online's 15 second timeout I consider to be a (very limp) slap on the wrist sort of death penalty because it hurts [i]the player[/i] rather than the character. Needless to say, I'm amazed and astounded to see the kind of [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4PqtlkT2L0]soccer foul fake melodrama[/url] people have put up over even such a WEAK death penalty, which only exacts a game mechanical price when playing in HARD MODE (which, by the way is entirely optional and needs to be actively and affirmatively selected by the player, in advance!). It's just unbelievable!

Anyone who would ragequit a game because they got defeated and couldn't play for [b][i]15 seconds[/i][/b] is someone who clearly "has issues" and shouldn't be playing social online games.

Here, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex#Total_Perspective_Vortex]have some Fairy Cake and learn to have a sense of proportion[/url] ...

Cinnder wrote:

Defeat as a strategy: what's wrong with that? I'm now thinking of my blaster's beloved Rise of the Phoenix, which (like other death-based powers) seemed to actually encourage defeat. That implies to me that the devs didn't think there was anything too terrible about defeat, even as a strategy. RotP almost felt like a consolation prize to me, as opposed to a penalty.

Recover from Defeat [b]powers[/b] fall into a different category ... a "paid for" mitigation category.

And yes, I am looking at [url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Epic.Flame_Mastery.Rise_of_the_Phoenix]Rise of the Phoenix[/url] and note that it has a 300 second recharge timer on it. Not 15 seconds ... 300 seconds. 5 minutes. Realistically speaking, in City of Heroes you'd be hard pressed to get that under 90-120 seconds even with outrageously intensive slotting of enhancements. So ... something you couldn't necessarily use EVERY TIME you got defeated, particularly if you're just running in (like an idiot) and getting repeatedly defeated over and over and over again.

In other words, Rise of the Phoenix was a [i]limited resource[/i] as opposed to an every time for free resource. And the same holds true for other rez powers in City of Heroes too. They were limited resources that you couldn't use every time. They were situational and "expensive" in the sense that you needed to take/purchase them ahead of time so as to be prepared for defeat later. Needless to say, there were a lot of players who felt that powers that were only good AFTER a defeat were worthless (because they were so awesome they'd NEVER get defeated in the first place!).

Redlynne wrote:

Do you REALLY want "I'm gonna go in there and get killed!" to be an accepted (let alone expected!) behavioral norm in a game? Even if you do have "infinite lives" to expend, do you really want people to get comfortable with trying ... deliberately ... to use them all up as fast as they can, just because they can at no cost?
Or even more to the point ... do you want people to LEARN NOTHING from being Defeated?

Yep. Pretty much.

If people have fun doing it, then that's what I want them to do.

If people don't want to learn, they aren't going to learn.

And if you think having to log back in to the game is more annoying than being told, "You suck. Here, we're going to make it so you can't play the game for 15+ seconds so you can think about that." then we're clearly not going to see eye to eye on this topic.

This entire line of reasoning appears to stem from some idea that most players will approach the game with the premise, "I'm okay with being defeated." In my opinion, people want to win. That's human nature. Most people are going to approach every fight with the idea of being the last person standing. Some may take on insane odds on a lark. A very few may go for the 'suicidal man' approach. Whichever it may be, I doubt these cases will impact anyone, much less the game, sufficiently to warrant some kind of "Darwin is laughing at you because the devs think you're doing it wrong" punishment mechanic.

Cinnder wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
Cinnder, I've already given my answer to this question. Simply asking "why" to every answer, the way a child might, doesn't get you any closer to a solution. All it does is prevent acceptance of the answer you've already been given so as to demand another answer, until you get one you'll like. Recursive "but why?" demands are not inherently reasonable.

/facepalm indeed. I had a feeling you might evade the new meta-question by claiming it was just recursive why-ing, but I had hoped you would be able to admit that this was not the case and accept the entirely new question as my honest attempt to get to the source of the issue. I hadn't quite anticipated that you would add in personal insult, but I suppose I should come to expect this from your general behaviour when people disprove or question your points. It's clear to me that you have decided that anyone who wants to play the game in a way different from your preferred method is "wrong" and you don't really want to analyse the situation. So I'll move on, because I trust the devs to have perspective here, which is what really counts.

Wow, Cinnder. Just ... wow.

"Personal insult" ... really? Telling you that I've already answered your question and that asking it again, fishing for a different answer, will result in the same answer, which in this case it does, is a personal insult to you? THAT is your definition of a personal insult? Telling you that doing this is inherently unreasonable is a personal insult to you?

Well, I guess that all just goes back to how a lot of people interpret the First Amendment (effectively like so):

[b]You are free to speak what I wish to hear.[/b]

Look, it's FINE that you don't like or agree with or approve of the answer I gave you. But just because I gave a reasoned response to your question that you don't care for doesn't mean that I've personally insulted you.

For one thing, if I *was* trying to personally insult you, I'd know it ... and so would everyone else.

Now ... if you'd like to take back your playing of the [b]Victim Card[/b], I'm perfectly fine with that. I'll even pretend that you didn't try to play it. In fact, I'd vastly prefer that outcome. No hard feelings.

/offer handshake

Scott Jackson wrote:

I think Cinnder's second level of "why" is still a good one to ask. Perhaps there are some character concepts that rely on self-defeat or on being defeated as a battle tactic, or at least the appearance of defeat, to fully express that character's powers or behavior - and we need to consider that villainy is a valid state for characters in CoT. Does CoT wish to serve these players? If so, what is the best way to serve them? Perhaps a self-destruct that has no death penalty or respawn delay? A tertiary power that allows one to play dead? A power that allows someone to "take one for the team", and come back automatically after the fight? I could see many ways to provide options for the players to express some unusual but still worthwhile concepts.

Then in that case ... let's game this out. Heck, we'll even use City of Heroes as a touchstone reference point that many of us have experience with.

So ... Powers vs Inspirations vs Hospital vs Base. Those were really the four choices (well, three and half really) you had to recover from a Defeat.

When it comes to rezzing, what could you get out of a Power that you couldn't get out of an Inspiration that you couldn't get out of a Hospital trip or a SG Base Medical Room? Everyone, feel free to add on things I'll probably miss here.

Power (pros)
[list][*]Additional effects beyond just rez (too numerous to list)
[*]"Immediate" Rez (not counting Animation Time for Power)
[*]Sometimes granted Debt Protection against additional Defeat(s) for X seconds [i]after use[/i]
[*]Some were AoE allowing multiple rez of large groups of Allies (famous Oil Slick use for Howling Twilight on Hamidon Raid stunning Back Alley Brawler)
[*]Could be slotted as a Set Mule for Invention Set Bonuses
[*]Convenient to use[/list]
Power (cons)
[list][*]Uses a Power slot
[*]Potential cost in enhancement slots to make "effective" or otherwise useful
[*]Recharge time limited repeat use[/list]

[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inspiration#Resurrection_Inspirations]Inspiration[/url] (pros)
[list][*]Cheap
[*]Easy to use
[*]Requires no "investment" on the part of the build to acquire
[*]Could be "manufactured" AFTER Defeat by combining 3 other Inspirations into a Wakie
[*]Could be traded to other Players for their use
[*]No repeat use timer
[*]Common loot drop
[*]Debt Protection against immediate repeat Defeat
[*]Convenient to use[/list]
Inspiration (cons)
[list][*]Self only (mitigated by trading)
[*]One use per
[*]Uses an Inventory slot for Inspirations
[*]Impairment upon use (temporary debuffs)[/list]

Hospital (pros)
[list][*]Full Green Bar/Full Blue Bar
[*]"Free" (aside from Debt)
[*]NPC vendor inside building selling Inspirations if you needed to stock up or dump inventory[/list]
Hospital (cons)
[list][*]Travel back to location of Defeat (time sink)[/list]

[url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Medical]Base Medical[/url] (pros)
[list][*]Partial Green Bar/Partial Blue Bar
[*]"Free" (aside from Debt)
[*]Spawns you inside your SG Base, which is useful for Base Raids and can give easy access to Base Teleporters
[*]SG Base resources are available (Temp Powers, Storage, etc.)[/list]
Base Medical (cons)
[list][*]Travel back to location of Defeat (time sink)
[*]Prestige cost of building facilities[/list]

The thing that stands out for me from this recitation is ... that Powers really weren't all that much better than use of a Wakie or simply going to the Hospital. Part of the reason for that, in my opinion was because XP Debt was assessed [b]upon Defeat[/b] ... rather than my personal choice of being assessed [b]upon Rez[/b].

Uhn ... huhn ... you start to see the subtlety of the difference there? See what I did?

Because here's the interesting thing. If you assess a Death Penalty [i]upon Rez[/i] instead of upon Defeat ... that then gives you room to assess [b]different Death Penalty schemes[/b] based upon which method is used to get back up!

So say for instance you use a Power to achieve a Rez ... and in the City of Heroes context [i]there is NO Death Penalty if you Rez using a Power[/i]. Everyone "cool" with that idea? Note that in order for this to happen, somebody somewhere ... whether it be yourself or someone else ... needs to INVEST in a Power that can be used to Rez. AND ... use of a Power would not be subject to a Lockout Timer, so you can Rez using a Power, either your own or someone else's at any time.

Then you've got "Wakie" Inspirations and use of the Hospital.

So what if you could use a Wakie Inspiration [i]at any time[/i] ... but if you're going to Hospital then you have to wait for a Lockout Timer to count down (that 15 seconds I keep talking about). You can justify it as being it takes a little while for the Hospital to signal lock onto you if you need some lore to back things up for the necessary Teleport to respawn you in the Hospital. "Beam me up, I'm dead" and the whole "Getting a lock on you now, sir" response.

I'm thinking that use of Wakies and the Hospital ought to both impose Debt Penalties, which ... again ... in the City of Heroes terms was XP Debt. The difference is that Wakies were effectively an "in place" Rez, while use of the Hospital was not. In that context it was "fair" for Wakies to offer temporary Debt Protection against repeated Defeats in "too short a time span" after trying to get up, so you didn't get "burned" by trying to stand up too fast after falling.

SG Base Medical Rooms were essentially an idea to limit zoning after a Defeat during Base Raids. As such, the SG Base Medical facilities were always inferior to a Zone Hospital because of the "convenience" factor (which, sadly, was never properly realized).

Depends on how "steep" or punishing the Death Penalty is. According to some people in this thread, even being forced to wait 15 seconds to resurrect is "intolerable" (despite the fact that people keep right on playing Star Trek Online just fine with it in). So for some people, ANY Death Penalty at all is apparently more than they can bear. They've been pretty vocal about it in this thread for starters.

It really comes down to a value judgement of whether the "value" of a Death Penalty is too great or not. I know that in the early days, before Inventions, there were characters (usually Blasters) who lived (and died, a lot) at the Debt Cap and basically had to earn double XP all the way to Level 50. That past history and experience informs my preference to not impose an XP Earning Penalty for having been Defeated, simply because doing that [b]punishes the character more than the player[/b]. By contrast, however, the 15 second "timeout" before being able to Hospital rez is something that [b]punishes the player more than the character[/b], because it has no game mechanical effect on the character at all ... except in Star Trek Online's higher difficulty settings where a mild yet "permanent" Debuff is assessed (in the 2-5% range of penalizing performance, so hardly noticeable until SERIOUSLY stacked up after a dozen or so Defeats).

I'm of the opinion that a Death Penalty ought to be, on its own, a Minor Inconvenience ... and if stacked up (through repeated stupidity) can grow to become a Major Inconvenience. Without specifics applied, that "feels right" to me to structure things that way. Use of a Power to rez would then be a way to mitigate that Minor Inconvenience and potentially include a Tide Turning effect that buffs Players (either plural or singular, it depends on the Power used).

But you're right there is a "balance" to be achieved such that no one particular choice becomes "too good" relative to the other options such that it becomes the runaway "do this ONLY" choice. You want all paths to resurrection to be equally viable, while at the same time have different advantages (or costs, if you prefer). That way, the decision for which is "best" in any given situation is a value judgement based on the fluidity of the conditions and history of what "happened" rather than a singular choice because the other options are "gimp" by definition.

In CoH when I died I had a few options to being Rezzed:
1) Hospital
2) Wakie
3) Rez Power (from self or ally)

Now option 3 was either very limited (self) or required a teammate which was also limited in they had to have the correct powerset AND take that power. I can honestly ay that most teams I was with did NOT include a person with a teammate rez power.

Option 2 was doable when solo, but less likely at low level when you only had a small number of Insps to either get a Wakie or combine 3 into a wakie (I LOVED this feature by the way). Again on a team others could give you a Wakie or other Insps for you to combine into a Wakie and the more people the better the chance of this to be available but Solo at low/mid levels its less likely

Option 1 is available to all no matter solo/team, and doesn't matter if you die again within 5 seconds of re-entering the mission.

One of the penalties of dying and using the Hospital was having to go all the way back to the mission door, or to where the mobs you are trash collecting. That is in effect the same as saying "wait x seconds" but even more so as it usually longer than 15 seconds to get back to the mission I was doing, even with Travel Powers.

Like others have said most people dont like their characters to die and will learn what works and what doesn't (ie: Blaster attacking a group of 10 white enemies is going to be in trouble). Having any kind of Death penalty that affects my ability to get back into the fight (Dam/Acc debuff, inability to Rez for 15/30/45+ seconds, etc) also hurts those who RP being heroic in their sacrifice. Now I never did much RPing so its not what I would do but that doesn't mean its an invalid point of view. MANY people liked RPing on CoH and if that what they want then let them without giving them a significant enough penalty.

Also with the money sink idea with dying, we should also look at putting a cap on how OFTEN you are billed. Lets say you are having a real bad day and just cant stay alive. Or are trying to run through a level WAY above your level and keep on getting ganked/sniped by the +7 level enemies. You could end up losing almost all your cash simply by having a bad day, or if your Internet speeds are crap lagged to death.

I'm terrible at quoting people using markup tags, so I'm going to do this one the old fashioned way, and for that I apologize:

islandtrevor72 wrote: "The only reason the game should have a defeat penalty is to provide a reason to not be careless/lazy. It should not 'strongly discourage' players from exploring other avenues of playstyle, taking risks, looking for alternative methods for success. "

I have several things to say in response to this:

1. Providing a reason not to be careless/lazy is, in my mind, the same thing as strongly discouraging people from volunteering to die on purpose if there's some in-game mission objective or goal that can be easily shortcutted by doing so. What you're calling a play style option I call a complete circumvention of the game itself.

2. Taking risks is only ever possible when the person taking the risk stands to lose something if things don't break their way. If there is no great penalty for defeat, then there are no risks being taken, because one does not stand to lose much of anything when one rolls the dice and craps out.

3. Intentionally letting yourself be defeated is not, by the definition of the words "success" and "defeat", an alternative method for success. Success would equate to AVOIDING defeat through game play, intentionally ALLOWING oneself to be defeated is the 180 degree opposite of success. In cases where a mission could be won or archvillain defeated by someone making the grand gesture of taking one for the team and throwing themself on the proverbial grenade, that gesture is meaningless if the would-be martyr isn't actually losing anything valuable to himself or herself in the process.

On the subject of making the game more gear grindy, I'm personally okay with that, in the instance I mentioned, i.e. having SOME gear that can be destroyed. Not all of it, just SOME pieces here and there, but good ones.

Gangrel wrote:

So just have it as a standard cost to resurrect at the hospital then that is dependant on the type of enhancements you have slotted.

My issue isn't that I'm afraid of a defeat penalty, it's that shoehorning enhancements into the "physical gear" model is repulsive. Pretending it's only "kinda sorta" gear degradation and look at the birdie! just adds insult to injury.

I'd be in favor of a direct currency penalty. I'd prefer currency debt in addition to and analogous to CoH's experience debt, with the rate of currency debt being doubled at the level cap because experience is redundant there. I wouldn't want to see it tied to enhancements in any way, though.

Quote:

You can even do it so that if a player takes the hospital route, they have the highest cost compared to a consumable rez (wakies for example)
...
Would that help?

It would seriously make it worse. "I got injured, so I immediately got professional help. I was impaired for some time afterward. Next time, I just walked it off and I was fine." Doesn't make sense, unless the defeat penalty this applies to is limited to things like influence or faction reputation. Then it could be explained that seeing him in the emergency room all beaten to hell caused people to start taking Captain Invincible lightly, because he sure didn't look very invincible that day.

Two great tastes that go great together ...

Let's take the Pay Currency idea and the Hospital Timer idea and put them together.

The instant that you're defeated, you have to pay the full cost in Currency.
If you wait out the timer on the Hospital Countdown, the service is "free" because you've already paid in "time wasted" rather than in "currency wasted" for improved service.

Players at the Level Cap have the currency/timer costs of a Hospital trip increased (I like simply "doubled").

Net effects:
If you can pay, there's no wait time.
If you can't pay, you have to wait.

And as the countdown timer ticks away, the currency cost of a Hospital trip decreases linearly, so you get a rolling number representing the currency cost for the service from moment to moment. Players get to pick for themselves which is less painful for them to lose ... currency resources or time resources. That way you don't have a One Size Fits All solution, but rather a sliding scale to accommodate differing circumstances and wealth levels.

Note that any currency paid for this service would be removed from the in-game economy, which would help fight ... but not on its own solve ... the threat of hyperinflation of in-game currency.