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Death, respawning, and penalty

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TitansCity
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(I'm sorry, there is too much

(I'm sorry, there is too much posts to read them all si if what i'm saying has already been say, please, consider to erase this message ^^)

On a game i played a long time ago, i liked and also dislike the fact that when dead, i was obliged to take back my corpse to revive. But, and that's the point, even if i dislike the idea to make the trip back to my corpse and fight again an over powered monster for my level (or even a group of monsters because i was not on the "right" area of hte map), i liked the fact of being in "another world", like in a shadow world or underworld or ghost world (check the right answer).
What i mean is that death can be a good thing in certain moments. So the penalty (of not reviving now) can be something to explore as "Would you like to revive now, are you strong enougth to revive ? or do you want to go to the light to see what it is and explore this unknown world". Ok, it could be a quest than a normal setting of the player's death, i conceed. But, i think the idea could be a good idea :)

Now, about the penalty, i think it depends on "where" or "when" you died. Did you died in a mission or just in running outside ? did you died during a fight against a boss (like the paladin <3) in a mission, during a fight against a boss outside, did you died "by accident" falling from the top of a skycraper ? Depending on the context, does death penalty must be the same ? Should the death be something commun "i-don(-mind-dying-because-its-too-easy-to-recover" or a more "shit-i-must-really-be-careful-to-not-die-because-it-s-something-hard-to-recover-from" ? Thats the whole point ^^ (what a discover !!! youhou \o/ ).

To my mind :

    - A debt of HP was a good idea in CoH. You can decide to keep on figthing where you fail assuming you will have to pay the efforts in a matter or another
    - A temporary debuff (maybe "erasable" by a support) is also a good idea for the short moment after the rez. You pay your due with it but it's pretty hard to make a fair death penalty like that. Sometimes it's to light, sometimes too strong, depending on lots of elements (the class can "ignore" this penalty as it's not a main penalty foir this class, by example)
    - Having to repair gears is also a good idea, but there is no equipment in CoT...
    - HP penalty is not a good thing for me. Because it prevent people to face the fail of. "I can't return, i'll be killed in a second... i must wait before going... damned ! i must find something else to do... i'll stop this mission for a while"
    - Endurance menalty could be a better thing. In a logical way it is because you must rest before keep on going ! You just died dude ^^ Stay calm !
    - The penalty could be graduated by the amount of momemtum ? You could draw on your momentum reserves to counterbalance the penalty. Not that your momentum is not recahrging, but you can decide to make the effort to draw on it to "erase" a little the penalty so as to go in the fight quickly ?

That was my suggestion :)


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

The only reason anyone used getting defeated, on purpose, as a play style was because there were powers that required you to die to use them, or required dead bodies of allies to work (like Vengeance). If you made Fire AoE powers and team buff powers like those, but without the need for someone to get defeated, then there's no longer any need to commit suicide as part of your win strategy. Since there's no really pressing reason to tie defeat to the ability to activate a power, there's no really pressing need for using defeat as a strategy, is there? If the devs simply don't make powers that require you or a friend to be defeated to be able to activate them, then you won't have any reason to get defeated on purpose as a part of your strategy, right?

I never said it was a need, just a perfectly viable option that shouldn't be penalised. Even if there weren't powers that acted after defeat, some players might have RP reasons for dying in combat. There's also the hero who ends up getting killed while s/he holds off the hordes till teammates can escape or complete a mission goal. I don't think that sort of heroic behaviour should be discouraged through harsh penalties.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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The thing that's heroic about

The thing that's heroic about throwing yourself on a grenade to save the day or standing on a crumbling bridge and saying "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!" to a giant demon is the fact that you're sacrificing something (in those cases, presumably your own life) for an altruistic purpose. The analog to that in an MMO is your character getting defeated. Therefore it stands to reason that if your character getting defeated doesn't really cost you anything or cause you any real loss of any kind, then there is no great heroism in sacrificing yourself anyway. I mean, you can still pretend, but everyone will have a good laugh about it basically. If my decision to "take one for the team" ends up with me just respawning in the sam eplace where I fell, without having lost anything, then it kind of takes the heroism out of the act.

I'm not arguing that toons should be deleted when you get defeated in a fight, but I think getting defeated ought to sting in some way in order to preserve the individual survival prerogative which I think is assumed by the devs when they create content. That is, the devs are writing content with the assumption that the players will actually try to do the content without getting defeated as a way to complete, bypass or otherwise circumvent the content.

I liked the debt system in CoX. I would just amend it to be IGC debt only for everyone, as the XP debt was pointless for level capped toons. Then scale the amount of debt as a function of character level. I also liked having to respawn at a remote location, partially because it gave you a reason to have an SG base.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I also liked having to respawn at a remote location, partially because it gave you a reason to have an SG base.

+1


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Games are moving away from

Games are moving away from onerous death penalties and for good reason. Players don't need to be punished for being defeated, something they already dislike. FFXIV has a debuff applied to players who died and were raised which lasts about a minute or 2, which makes them deal a good deal less damage. this would be plenty, and has a mechanical reason for existing, unlike the old COH death penalty or the WoW one (when in the open world). it lowers raid dps when a player dies causing the group to be more likely to wipe to an enrage mechanic.

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Quick answer from Jazzhands,

Quick answer from Jazzhands, might be said multiple times or I´m the first. My number one hated penalty in Games is the 'repair equipment' mechanic. Balanced or not I simple dont like it.
Also i read earlier the 'corpse run', yes I dont like that either. In some points in some Game you revive with, lets say, 50% health and the mobs that killed you get a second chance to do so. So the CoX Hospital-Thing was actually better.
When it comes to Videogames we spend time to play, so the time spent to run to the mission again is okay. An Exp-loss is also very bitter.

Both the Ingame-Currency and EXP losses bends the attitude to: 'I do less so I dont get the aggro and die' or going with weak charakters into Dungeons so they can get stuff is also much more pain than gain.
I really hope they wont be a part of CoT, but in the end its your choice.

Hope my Thoughts can help!

"Walking down the street and you hear that heavy beat. You can't help but walk your feet, down all the way 'til we meet"~

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Jazzhands wrote:
Jazzhands wrote:

Quick answer from Jazzhands, might be said multiple times or I´m the first. My number one hated penalty in Games is the 'repair equipment' mechanic. Balanced or not I simple dont like it.
Also i read earlier the 'corpse run', yes I dont like that either. In some points in some Game you revive with, lets say, 50% health and the mobs that killed you get a second chance to do so. So the CoX Hospital-Thing was actually better.
When it comes to Videogames we spend time to play, so the time spent to run to the mission again is okay. An Exp-loss is also very bitter.

Both the Ingame-Currency and EXP losses bends the attitude to: 'I do less so I dont get the aggro and die' or going with weak charakters into Dungeons so they can get stuff is also much more pain than gain.
I really hope they wont be a part of CoT, but in the end its your choice.

Hope my Thoughts can help!

Last word from the devs has been that the worst penalty they will implement is a hospital run in the same way CoH had it. There has also been thoughts expressed about being able to rezz in-place on a long timer or, I believe, cash-shop consumables. Every character will also have an interruptable long-ish cast rezz to rezz others.

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I like that. Hrm, when there

I like that. Hrm, when there is a final word, then it should be closed then?

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ZeeHero wrote:
ZeeHero wrote:

Games are moving away from onerous death penalties and for good reason. Players don't need to be punished for being defeated, something they already dislike. FFXIV has a debuff applied to players who died and were raised which lasts about a minute or 2, which makes them deal a good deal less damage. this would be plenty, and has a mechanical reason for existing, unlike the old COH death penalty or the WoW one (when in the open world). it lowers raid dps when a player dies causing the group to be more likely to wipe to an enrage mechanic.

+1 to this. No game I currently play has a death penalty. None. The thing that is most precious to me is my time. The hassle of dying and having to rez is sufficient of a penalty. If there is anything worse than CoH's xp debt system I'll just not bother to play the game. And even that, is almost to much.

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Perhaps the answer is to give

Perhaps the answer is to give earned "Revive" options.
This way, the player is more likely to be happy with the Revives they use because they worked to have them.
Given that there is no need to put "death" in the game, the best penalty can be time. Missions can have goals that are timed, or a race against events on the map. If you die a lot, it slows you down. You can still fail a mission.

At starter levels, probably all located in cities: the city services revive you (with help from a City Street Medic, Hospital Teleport,etc.). During those levels, you can earn ways to revive after a defeat.

Think of all the ways you can create Revive options using different origin styles;

Technical: You build a device that creates a force field around you while you auto-repair. You turn it off early to get back in the fight sooner or keep it running till fully restored. The more often you use it in a mission, the slower it works.
Mystical: You create an arrangement for divine/demonic forces to intervene. They restore you quickly in return for some of your soul (xp). Larger amounts of xp are the price for continuous usage in a single mission.
Mutation: You are not exactly "knocked out" or "killed". Instead, your defeat means your mutant energy (whatever power your body is a battery for) is too low to fuel your powers which is just as good as being knocked out. Sooner or later you restore enough power to use an ability, but until you are back to, say, 80%, using powers drains your energy and sets you back. You can choose to limp along or wait it out.
Natural: You have arrangements for backup. Friends or Hired Help come to pull your bacon out and give you resources to pick up where you left off.

Different Revives balance how good the Revive is against how hard the players work to access and keep using them.
The higher the level, the more options can be in a specific Revive. There can even be ones that are used up and need to be replenished.
Eventually, you can spend your Revive method on a team mate, though you still pay all the costs.

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Longshot wrote:
Longshot wrote:

Perhaps the answer is to give earned "Revive" options.
This way, the player is more likely to be happy with the Revives they use because they worked to have them.
Given that there is no need to put "death" in the game, the best penalty can be time. Missions can have goals that are timed, or a race against events on the map. If you die a lot, it slows you down. You can still fail a mission.

At starter levels, probably all located in cities: the city services revive you (with help from a City Street Medic, Hospital Teleport,etc.). During those levels, you can earn ways to revive after a defeat.

Think of all the ways you can create Revive options using different origin styles;

Technical: You build a device that creates a force field around you while you auto-repair. You turn it off early to get back in the fight sooner or keep it running till fully restored. The more often you use it in a mission, the slower it works.
Mystical: You create an arrangement for divine/demonic forces to intervene. They restore you quickly in return for some of your soul (xp). Larger amounts of xp are the price for continuous usage in a single mission.
Mutation: You are not exactly "knocked out" or "killed". Instead, your defeat means your mutant energy (whatever power your body is a battery for) is too low to fuel your powers which is just as good as being knocked out. Sooner or later you restore enough power to use an ability, but until you are back to, say, 80%, using powers drains your energy and sets you back. You can choose to limp along or wait it out.
Natural: You have arrangements for backup. Friends or Hired Help come to pull your bacon out and give you resources to pick up where you left off.

Different Revives balance how good the Revive is against how hard the players work to access and keep using them.
The higher the level, the more options can be in a specific Revive. There can even be ones that are used up and need to be replenished.
Eventually, you can spend your Revive method on a team mate, though you still pay all the costs.

Why tie "origin style" into this at all? Depending on how you define natural and mutant I can see all those options you listed be fully possible in all "origin styles".

Though out of curiosity, what if the trade-off in natural that would balance it out against the others? Right now I see nothing negative with it and a major positive (the resources) when comparing it to the others.

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I think it was less about

I think it was less about Origins as in the Old City and more about how it could be conceptualized for any toon.


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This sentence Think of all

This sentence Think of all the ways you can create Revive options using different origin styles;, at least to me, says they intended to tie origin style with the mechanics of the revive method. I read revive option there as the mechanics of the power and the only ones who create those are the devs.
If not then it would have been easy to focus on the mechanics of the revive method and give a few "origin styles" for each, or even a completely neutral description.

Maybe it's just the way my mind works and my knowledge and impression of how far MWM wants to take aesthetic decoupling but I'd rather see mechanics and aesthetics completely separated when discussing them. I see no point in when suggesting new powers (a.k.a mechanics) to present them more as how you can conceptualize them in a character rather than their actual mechanics. If the mechanics of a power can't stand on its own then I don't think it has much of a chance to be considered by the devs for inclusion, regardless of how good you can conceptualize it for a character.

I do believe that that poster doesn't know about the plans for aesthetic decoupling and thus is "stuck" in the old mindset of that powers have a specific look or theme to them.

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There're definitely no

There're definitely no Origins in CoT like from Paragon City.


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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

Why tie "origin style" into this at all? Depending on how you define natural and mutant I can see all those options you listed be fully possible in all "origin styles".

Though out of curiosity, what if the trade-off in natural that would balance it out against the others? Right now I see nothing negative with it and a major positive (the resources) when comparing it to the others.

DesViper wrote:

I think it was less about Origins as in the Old City and more about how it could be conceptualized for any toon.

From the way I presented it, I leaned too heavily on the idea of origin themed mechanics existing in the game. The origin usage should have been presented solely as a source of inspiration for various revive options that all players could attain. The basic plan is that a player can choose and earn one or more revive options with versatile results. This helps mitigate the cost of failure being as bad because you earned your choice of consequences.

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The closest that I'd want to

The closest that I'd want to get to any "Origin" type of hospital trip(s) would be to have 3 "hospitals" tied to each of the 3 alignment axes (so ... black, grey, white ... on each of the 3, so to speak) yielding a total of 9 hospital destinations possible, of which any 1 character can only access THREE of the 9 options (because a character only meets 1 criteria for each of the three alignment axes at any one time).

This would result in a dynamic where your teammate might have to rez at the Police Hospital, because they're really Lawful ... while your character has to rez at the Mobile Meat Wagon, because you're really Lawless (and have to use underground/unlicensed medical services to avoid records checks).

In terms of "services" each of the alignment based "hospitals" would be equal to each other, but in terms of location/layout/thematics they would all be different.
So in the event of a team wipe, you don't have everyone "streaming" out of the same hospital converging on the Mission Door all following the same route.

Of course, last I heard, this wasn't being done ... but it's how I'd want it to be done if I had any input on the matter.


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Rezing could be tied to

Rezing could be tied to factions, which then allow for different types of respawn without messing with the characters origin or what have you.

If you're neutral with all the zone's factions you'd revive in the hospital or what have you.

Huh, that's if they even make you return somewhere I suppose. They could have a mechanic where in stead of being sent anywhere on death you're "knocked down" for a set amount of time with a counter that ticks down and reveals options for you as it does. Like, after a few seconds you can revive at hospital, after a bit more revive at the entrance of the instance (if you're in one), then after a longer time you can revive where you fell.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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I think base Hosp and Zone

I think base Hosp and Zone hosp are better to do it. Villains today would go to the same old hospital ;)


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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

They could have a mechanic where in stead of being sent anywhere on death you're "knocked down" for a set amount of time with a counter that ticks down and reveals options for you as it does. Like, after a few seconds you can revive at hospital, after a bit more revive at the entrance of the instance (if you're in one), then after a longer time you can revive where you fell.

The great thing about this is that the focus is on a penalty where, ultimately, you can't contribute to the mission. Making a player jump through hoops to continue by forcing a corpse run or such doesn't really enhance the experience, and the only bottom-line penalty, still, is a delay in helping with the mission.

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Longshot wrote:
Longshot wrote:

The great thing about this is that the focus is on a penalty where, ultimately, you can't contribute to the mission. Making a player jump through hoops to continue by forcing a corpse run or such doesn't really enhance the experience, and the only bottom-line penalty, still, is a delay in helping with the mission.

Yet another vote for "Defeat shouldn't have ANY Negative Reinforcement Factor to encourage avoidance of being Defeated" I see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Negative_reinforcement


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
Longshot wrote:

The great thing about this is that the focus is on a penalty where, ultimately, you can't contribute to the mission. Making a player jump through hoops to continue by forcing a corpse run or such doesn't really enhance the experience, and the only bottom-line penalty, still, is a delay in helping with the mission.

Yet another vote for "Defeat shouldn't have ANY Negative Reinforcement Factor to encourage avoidance of being Defeated" I see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Negative_reinforcement

Ah yes, because being unable to play/meaningfully contribute isn't any form of negative reinforcement.

Do you not consider a time out a negative reinforcement? I guess all the fps games with respawn timers don't have a negative reinforcement.

If you want to play the game, a thing that happens to make you unable to play the game is a thing to be avoided. If you want to help your team, a thing that makes it so you can't is a thing to be avoided.

Even small respawn timers in shooters suck for players, even more so when the match is almost done. With 30 seconds left on the clock you don't want to spend even 5 seconds out of the game.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Yes, XP debt is annoying, but

Yes, XP debt is annoying, but can be made easier to make up to the point that you barely notice it by Playing The Game (teams work well) or a “Patrol XP” boost of sorts.

Hospital Runs: wait for revive from party, use an awaken inspiration, or run back from the hospital.

If you can’t be revived on the battlefield there’s likely a reason, like: it’s not safe because your entire team has just been killed. Leave the area, come back prepared to die again.

I have no issues with this simply because of the NEED for an incentive to stay alive: No XP Debt, rewards for staying in the action, satisfaction that you kicked asterisk AND chewed bubblegum.

Also, this forces a player to Get Better rather than button smashing.

Proposed changes using the CoH system as a base model:
A: no rewards or xp for the fallen until the have been revived or have returned to the field of battle (stops lazy reward suckers, incentive to revive/wakie/get running from the hospital)

B: Maybe an XP/Drop extra reward for completing a mission on the first run (ie without being defeated)

C: a shiny sticker, thumbs up and an AttaBoy (seriously, have the game give you recognition for living)

PS: can o worms for the road...
1st Can: Last Man Standing Special Group Missions (Task Force) - IF you fall during the mission, you’re out, take what you got n go. Finish and get cool things

2nd Can: spillover from the first... Team Survival Challenge: endless and progressively nastier waves of baddies, last teammate standing gets a cookie

3rd and Final Can: MVP - Yuuup!™, you did BETTER during the mission than your buds (dying being a big negatory there) YOU are the MVP, cookies and shiny stickers await you!

Enjoy the holes I’ve left in all of those...

Meh. Bah!

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Just saying, using CoH as a

Just saying, using CoH as a base model isn't always the best approach: it's a spiritual successor :p

I do like the idea of encouraging completion without defeats rather than punishing defeat though


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DesViper wrote:
DesViper wrote:

Just saying, using CoH as a base model isn't always the best approach: it's a spiritual successor :p

I do like the idea of encouraging completion without defeats rather than punishing defeat though

Take None of this seriously...
————-
True...
Using Mario Party as a base model:
Defeats: earn a revive by completing a Mini-Game of Operation effectively a field triage mini game. You get one chance, fail and you loose half your Yoshi Coins or can opt to save your Yoshi coins and go to the nearest cartoonish green sewer pipe (hospital)

Using Zelda as a base model: Reappear at Link’s hut 5 zones away and hope you have found tha Ocarina and warp to the closest location to return to the action

And finally using Doom (2016) Super-Ultra-Mega-Nightmare Mode: (or Minecraft’s highest difficulty) You when you are defeated in battle you die. Your toon gets erased and the name remains unavailable but can be viewed in the vast graveyard of superheroes...with a giant XP debt

Meh. Bah!

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What about intead xp debt

What about intead xp debt having an xp gain increase that goes up the more you complete missions without falling.

It works out to the same thing, but people feel better about gaining a bonus than being hindered with a negative, see WoW rest xp as an example.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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I'm not so sure that it will

I'm not so sure that it will bring the same level of incentive if everything is a bonus, I do believe you need a few actual penalties. Now I'm not saying that death needs to be one of those penalties, but what works better as a bonus or penalty has to be looked at on an individual basis. You also have to make a comparable implementation. So far no one has been able to provide a convincing argument (to me at least) that you can get rid of every stick in a game and replace them with carrots, and still be as effective in incentivicing people.

Death penalty in CoH is a fixed % your level's total XP need and most often you could easily pay it back in one encounter in a full group. Shifting this to be a bonus based upon the number of no-death missions in a row would very likely make you loose out on a magnitude or more XP. While it might be a bigger incentive I'm not so sure it will be better received, though I admit that it depends a lot on how it's presented. So instead of having a penalty that could be repaid in minutes or even seconds we now would have the potential to go hours without full bonus, and the time you are under non-full XP rate is less dependent on group size than before.

As for the WoW example, that was an attempt to control the amount of time you played per session/day. Essentially a penalty for liking the game too much and/or having too much free time to spend on it. Getting a "bonus" for doing something most people would've done anyway, being logged out while sleeping and going to work/school, may not be that big a deal but it sure as heck beats getting penalized for spending "too much" time inside the game.

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You only got the bonus if you

You only got the bonus if you were logged out in a city or inn in WoW, or at least you got more of a bonus for logging in an inn/city.

It was originally a penalty to xp gains when you didn't and was recieved poorly. They switched it to a bonus when you did (lowering overall xp gains to compensate) and it was well recieved.

Also, dying is itself a penalty. Having to return to a mission is a penalty. Losing a bonus is a penalty. Leaving your team without your input is a penalty. Do we really need -another- penalty on top of all the other penalties dying in a game has?

I don't know what it is with video games that people think there needs to be more penalties to losing. Like, if you play board games do you insist it be for money or that the winner gets to punch the loser? No, probably not. People don't like to lose, dying in a game is losing, people do not like to die in a game. Even in rogue-like games where dying is a necessary part of the game people don't like to die. There doesn't need to be much more incentive to not die.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Do we really need -another- penalty on top of all the other penalties dying in a game has?

I can agree, death was bad enough. Though, if i remember correctly, if you sat your corpse on the map you still got drops, xp and inf while the others worked hard for your rewards. That’s BatGuano. But missing those rewards while you’re down/out is a penalty as well as the time it takes to return.

Though, researching the history of xp debt found “strategies” that some would intentionally gain debt to work through an entire story arc (by avoiding lvl gains), get a badge, etc... these sound unnecessary as well: allow arcs to be played all the way through, adjust the player/or/mission to fit...remove the “Die-a-Lot” xp debt badge and just count deaths, not debt.

Bah!
Gone with XP debt!
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Meh. Bah!

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The alternative is that you

The alternative is that you die in a mission and you get nothing while dead.

Fall just before the boss of the raid died? Congratulations, you did all that work for nothing, no xp, no drops.

A middle ground of having a dead player eventually time out of being able to gain rewards. Which then you just have to figure out a good timer for that. Wont hinder those who rez by level up (if that's a thing, could nit be in the new game), I suppose.

But also I'd have to ask is people being able to gain rewards when dead really a problem that needs to be addressed? Those who don't want people like that on their team will quickly see what those players are doing and boot them, and those that don't care or are actively using such an exploit either wont care or are glad it's there. I don't really see how it detracts from the game enough for people for it to really need a fix.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

You only got the bonus if you were logged out in a city or inn in WoW, or at least you got more of a bonus for logging in an inn/city.

It was originally a penalty to xp gains when you didn't and was recieved poorly. They switched it to a bonus when you did (lowering overall xp gains to compensate) and it was well recieved.

Also, dying is itself a penalty. Having to return to a mission is a penalty. Losing a bonus is a penalty. Leaving your team without your input is a penalty. Do we really need -another- penalty on top of all the other penalties dying in a game has?

I don't know what it is with video games that people think there needs to be more penalties to losing. Like, if you play board games do you insist it be for money or that the winner gets to punch the loser? No, probably not. People don't like to lose, dying in a game is losing, people do not like to die in a game. Even in rogue-like games where dying is a necessary part of the game people don't like to die. There doesn't need to be much more incentive to not die.

I might have expressed myself badly, I'm not directly in favor of XP debt upon death I'm not directly against it either.

And just to get the WoW part out of the way mechanically speaking they did NOTHING, the only thing they did was to re-label everything (including the perceived base XP rate). You were the one that brought up a mechanical difference in how to do "XP debt" as a bonus instead which could have a sever detrimental effect on leveling speed compared to the system in CoH.

Dying itself is rarely a penalty big enough to matter, and it gets even less so the bigger the group is.
Traveling back is not always needed, there are abilities to rezz on site both by self and by others.
While loosing a bonus may suck not sure many will see it as a penalty. Personally though I can't really wrap my head around it being both since if it's supposed to be a penalty for loosing it then it's not a bonus for having it, it's the norm. Just to set it straight, to me a bonus is going above the norm while a penalty is going below it.
Considering that MWM has said that we will have an interruptable (out-of-combat only?) rezz ability then you shouldn't be "leaving" our team without your input for more than a single encounter. Depending on your role, "progress" of the encounter, the encounter itself, and group composition it could be a non-issue.

Again I'm not saying there needs to be XP debt. I'm just not so sure the currently planned ones will be effective enough to discourage deing, but if MWM will implement something like XP debt (which last I heard they said they won't) it's not so easy turning it onto a carrot instead of a stick.

mehebah wrote:

Though, researching the history of xp debt found “strategies” that some would intentionally gain debt to work through an entire story arc (by avoiding lvl gains), get a badge, etc... these sound unnecessary as well: allow arcs to be played all the way through, adjust the player/or/mission to fit...remove the “Die-a-Lot” xp debt badge and just count deaths, not debt.

Outside of the XP debt badge I believe that strategy vanished once we got the ability to turn off XP gain (and got inf instead). While I'm not sure that we will gain that ability, from what I have heard missions and such won't have a maximum level just a minimum one.

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The way I see it, there are

The way I see it, there are two reasons for death penalties.

The first reason is to provide the player a real consequence for the actions of the character. This adds investment and consequence which is a proven correlation to excitement and thrill. This is not to say that you can't have thrill without consequence, just that consequence and the risk thereof is proven to add thrill.

The second reason is to allow risk of death to be a deterrent to certain player behaviors. Players who are willing to get their character killed over and over again in order to get to a certain location, or uncover something that is otherwise reserved for people who earn it through intended gameplay are the target audience for this death penalty intent.

It seems to me that the latest undeath of this thread has been limited to the first reason. Adding a death penalty of some sort whether it is a respawn timer, XP debt, Hospital Run, or just using up some limited resource, all these and more can be considered death penalties. The acceptable magnitude of the penalty will be different for every player, and I would also posit that the same player's threshold for an acceptable death penalty will even change over time and in accordance with the situation. So whatever form of death penalty we will have in CoT will probably be tweaked over time so that half the population thinks it's too harsh and the other half thinks it is too lenient. Then it will be perfect.

But this conversation really hasn't tried to cover the second reason: the topic of death being a deterrent for undesirable player behavior. Before any sensitive snowflakes start preaching about how no play style should ever be considered undesirable, that's just not true. The game has to be designed around certain assumptions about what players will and won't try to do with their characters. Glass walls, unscalable slopes, and "exhaustion" while swimming are some examples of things game makers do to limit player behavior. If the game designers want to make some areas of some maps to be special reveals, or the nature of the mobs in those areas gives away some plot point that is supposed to be a cool secret reveal, then the devs need to implement some sort of mechanism to prevent players from having access to these areas, or at least deter them. Perhaps you've also seen some games where there are guard mobs to prevent players from pulling monster mob trains into towns or to prevent PvP players from designated safe areas. Guard mobs aren't foolproof but they are a deterrent. If a player is willing to die a hundred and fifty times just to see what's in the center of the copse of trees in city park, then more power too him or her. A deterrent is just that, a deterrent. It won't prevent the truly iron-willed players from seeing what they can do, but it will precipitate most players into experiencing the content the way the devs intended it to be experienced. Any time a player would be able to use a character's death as a means to accomplish something they are unable to accomplish without it, then that is a good reason for a penalty of the sort that will prevent or deter the player from trying for the accomplishment.

Think about exploration badges, for example. Should it be possible for a level 1 character to find every one? I don't have an answer to that, but it is just one question that is impacted by this discussion.


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This topic was discussed ad

This topic was discussed ad nauseum something like a little over a year ago in another thread. (I don't recall which thread but it wasn't this one)

If I recall correctly the entire issue revolves around how the death penalty "feels". Some people don't like feeling bad when playing a game. As if any of the losses inherent in the old game were significant enough to cause players to feel bad for more than a few minutes if they really stewed on it. Clearly the penalties weren't that bad or the game would have failed for them which it did not.

The points made here were addressed then as well. Undesirable player behaviors and penalties needing to have meaning. If you only ramp up on xp gains then get set back to zero sure it feels great for the segment of the player base that can't handle seeing a true loss of xp but the vast majority of players are okay with the loss as is evidenced by numerous games that use the mechanic.

The death penalty mechanic as with most mechanics has multiple aspects which are almost entirely modifiable through normal game play. Except how much "debt" one gets after dying and even this can be varied by the devs in some circumstances. Rezzing is achievable through inspirations readily available normally and as a power pool ability if one chooses it. So the coming back from hospital is really a non-issue most of the time.

In my limited experience and as I recall from discussions here on these forums, there hasn't been a meaningful in-game reason not to have a death penalty. The only one I've heard that is real or meaningful is how it makes a player feel. Which the majority of players I've played with have understood and accepted as relevant and valuable as it made them want to play better.

This is all a moot discussion anyway if the devs have already made determinations on the matter.

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And the previous comments

And the previous comments bring us back to the crucial point : What are the Devs looking for here? How do we feel about death penalties, and which do we like/dislike?

Devs want to have a great player experience. So in keeping my opinions simple;
- Death penalties would be better expressed as Poor Performance penalties. "Death" itself is not mandatory
- It shouldn't be designed such as to influence player behavior
- It should be designed such that the poorer the performance, the less likely players earn rewards or succeed
- Beware designs that reward performance, players may sacrifice teamwork in order to personally earn rewards or succeed

If the Devs come back around and ask how this is done, I'm sure that as a group we can offer a ton of ideas.

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Still think that having a

Still think that having a countdown timer for Hospital response that works on a sliding scale ... where an "instant" transport to Hospital is expensive, but a "slow" transport to Hospital is free ... works on multiple levels as both an IGC sink (for the "terminally impatient") and as another decision point concerning Defeat that is only relevant if using a Hospital to rez. If you use a Wakie Inspiration or a (Self) Rez Power then obviously the whole "cost" to transport to Hospital question becomes moot. It brings in the whole Time Is Money equivalence into stark relief, while at the same time being completely avoidable (don't get Defeated, use a Wakie Inspiration or a Rez Power instead), and because it's on a sliding scale where the longer you wait to click the Hospital button the less IGC it costs to exercise that option, meaning there's a whole CONTINUUM of options to be had there allowing individual Players to "pick their pain point" from a RANGE of options that are literally geared towards Min/Max thinking ... and even *that* was "too much" for the people who would rather Work The Refs on this issue so as to ensure that death penalties had no meaning whatsoever.

It's as if ANYTHING that acts as a buzzkill for even ONE SECOND must be excised from possibility!

Yes, it's a ridiculously maximalist position ... but that's what people keep repeatedly arguing and claiming.
It's kind of like how people want a perfectly balanced in-game economy ... with NO currency sinks in it whatsoever ... so everyone "gets rich" and then has nothing to spend their currency on. It's an inherently self-defeating foolishness, but because people have a problem linking Cause & Effect it's what they "believe" in since it benefits THEM personally at the expense of the overall game experience. Shocking to find that people can be so short sighted, but there you have it. Privatize the profits while socializing the losses. It's a story motivation as old as human selfishness. Go figure.


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I hope the resurrection of

I hope the resurrection of this thread does not influence MWM to change their last stated stance on defeat penalties, given that we've hashed this out to the nth degree already.

It continues to fascinate me that some argue for harsher penalties to discourage something that is a signature feature of the superhero fight in a wide variety of media. The idea of a superhero coming back from a defeat is so common to the genre that it's practically a foundation stone. The only behaviour I'd say it would be appropriate to discourage is not coming back to the fight after a defeat. Being defeated as a super is part and parcel of the super experience.

Similarly, from a game standpoint, I'd argue the only behaviour to be discouraged is that which causes people to stop playing, because that's bad for the business. If we want CoT to be successful, we should encourage more variety in playstyles, not try to narrow the field. I would definitely support many of the ideas above if they could be activated as a player option for those who want them but disabled for those who don't. This would allow the 'leet' players to increase that sense of peril while still accommodating the more casual players. Any attempt of one player group to impose their play style on another just serves to narrow the player base, which is something I don't want for a fledgling spiritual successor to a game that is no longer really gone.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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I fail to see how any sort of

I fail to see how any sort of death penalty is a deterrent for the behaviours stated earlier in the thread, seeing as most players aren't going to try any sort of weird shenanigans involving dying a whole bunch until they're max level anyway.

Which then any sort of death penalty is only affecting the victims of their shenanigans (if say, they flooded the city/safe area/guarded locstion, or what have you with a crap load of monsters). Or the penalty, if they're not messing with others, doesn't matter to them at all.

So which kinds of death penalty would deter a max level player? Xp debt? They can't get it. Having to pay for their gear to be repaired? They have tons of cash at that point. Time? They're literally killing time if they're messing about.

The good thing if CoT borrows the CoH method of splitting up the city and being very instanced based is that you can make it so low level players literally can't get to areas if they're too low level. Same as any badguys who have some plot twist, stick them in an instance where they can't get out. There, now people can't do two more of the things mentioned earlier with no additional death penalties.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Depends on your Honor rating

Depends on your Honor rating ;p doesn't it feel shitty to get knocked down, even with minimal penalty.

Been binging Sekiro where the death penalty is........you can't come back again if you get downed again. Obviously a totally different game, but I get annoyed at myself even when I'm downed but can turn around and stealth crit them.


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Honestly?

Honestly?

I prefer CoX system of XP penalty
The only change I would do - is given "street crime" a large amount of bonus debt XP. To better articulate it; Lets say random mugging thug is worth 20 xp; but maybe they are also worth 300 DEBT xp. The idea is to encourage players to wander around fighting street crime and "getting out there" as a fast way to clear the death penalty. Makes the world look more alive and reduces the annoyance of death penalties.

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Agent Capricorn wrote:
Agent Capricorn wrote:

Honestly?

I prefer CoX system of XP penalty
The only change I would do - is given "street crime" a large amount of bonus debt XP. To better articulate it; Lets say random mugging thug is worth 20 xp; but maybe they are also worth 300 DEBT xp. The idea is to encourage players to wander around fighting street crime and "getting out there" as a fast way to clear the death penalty. Makes the world look more alive and reduces the annoyance of death penalties.

Sounds like an interesting idea. It could even encourage players being social with other players, like "Hey guys, I know we just did a mission together and all. But do you mind helping me clear the streets a little? I mean we all died a few times, so we could all use the XP debt clear." But I feel like some people might complain about having to do chores to clear that debt or they might just ignore it all together if the penalty isn't bad enough.

Just my 2 cents.

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Renkage wrote:
Renkage wrote:

some people might complain

If there is one constant in the (gaming) universe ... it's that people will complain.
Full stop.

The trick of course is knowing how much "weight" and validity to give to their complaints.


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