Rebalance recovery XP to discourage "Powerquest Physiotherapy"

[Egon the Monkey]

(Discussion post for everyone else who doesn't want a design spec for coding something)

The purpose of an XP system in an RPG is to reward certain behaviour by the PCs.

I feel that EfU's XP system works to make PC death worrying and encourage caution, however it goes too hard and backfires.  Recovery By Questing works against the high-roleplay, PC-driven aim of the server. It rewards a lot of rote, undramatic MMO behaviour rather than scheming/exploring/brawling with PCs. The optimal way to get XP is from routine success, but the optimal way to get an awesome story is to shoot for the goddamn moon! I don't remember every time I crushed Trash Island, but I DO remember when TNVW persuaded me we should 4-person Flayers with a suboptimal pick-up team and we managed it by the skin of our teeth. Sadly, the higher level you get, the more unwilling you are to risk it as you have so much more to lose. Which is sad, because succeeding against the odds at the lower-stakes environment of L5 is so much fun!

EfU has some fantastic quests, and I like questing. Which is why I feel that one of the flaws of the XP and death system is how it incentivises a bland diet of the same fairly safe, profitable quests.  For example, very very few groups do Defend the Foothills, and I've never heard of a pick up group for it. Similar for the Amber quest in the Ponds. I want to quest because the quests are fun! Not because I'm in debt to the death system and I need the levels to help me accomplish my actual goals like "beat this ring".

Tl;dr, I want to be able to afford more ambitious ideas and more failures!
The price of failure on EfU is so high that it  discourages trying something ambitious unless you're willing to brace for the re-leveling grind. And it especially discourages any sort of PvE risk if you expect PvP or a Ring challenge in the near future.

As people have said above, it's not the hard XP drop on death that's the enemy of fun,  but the time investment to claw your way back up. You go from the high level game of only doing the odd interesting quest when you feel like it, to crushing quests until you're back where you started. And if you're doing quests just for the XP, you're not doing them for the entertainment value. I am now old and grumpy and want to play games to have fun, not bank the chance of future fun :P.

[Egon the Monkey]

@Jello!
No. The highest XP total is the highest XP score your PC has ever achieved. Not the cumulative total of all the XP you've earned on that PC.

For example:

• Your character is L8 and has 28 000  XP.
• They die and drop to 18 480XP (L6).
• They recover to 25 200XP (90%) off Recovery XP and quests .
• They get back to 28000 off quest and DM XP. Their highest total XP is still 28 000. If they die right now, the same thing happens again.
• They gain 1000 DM XP. The highest XP total for that character is now 29 000, and if they die now, they can recover back up to 26 100XP{/li]
  

[Paha]

Thanks for the ideas folks.

Right now there are few options that we are talking about, and those are more or less most that we'd be willing to do, as this has been quite set, intended design for a long time and there tends to be good way to have it "better" for achieving what it has been set to achieve since the beginning.

So, we'll talk and get back to you after we have weighted on the matters and thoughts presented.

[Gordan]

I'm no longer sure what the super-harsh XP loss is meant to achieve in a high-conflict server, as it pushes even harder for people to quest their levels back up so they don't end up behind their PvP rivals. Recovery XP and not losing your pack is a massive improvement compared to the old days, but it doesn't promote roleplaying recovery from injury. Quite the reverse.  The main effect of the death system seems to be to keep PCs on the quest treadmill. 1/3 of your XP is so harsh that it discourages taking any big risks on high level PCs as you have more and more to lose. And you can't buy a scroll of Raise Dead to hang onto in order to take the edge off respawning.

Plus, let's face it, the majority of deaths at higher levels are Bad Luck Crits or other things that you can't avoid. As opposed to stuff you brought on yourself. So it's not so much an incentive to avoid being reckless, as to avoid any sort of risk.

• Recovery XP is not a major contributor to recovery for most PCs, as questing eats into your total amount of recovery XP. 
• If you die twice, it's even more frustrating as you lose the recovery XP you are owed from the last death.
• Questing is simply a more efficient use of EfU time when it comes to getting XP back anyway.
• I might not find doing the same quests all the time fun, but want the levels back for higher level spells/more skills/whatever else helps with my PC's current ring running, rivalry, etc.

Suggestion:
Make Recovery XP give you the full amount of XP you lost, up to the highest level you reached on the PC. Quest XP would count against this as before. Boost recovery XP up to 100-150 per tick, so it's a better use of your time than Quest Train Physiotherapy. You have a reason to decline Doing All the Quests, as you regain your previous strength through more interesting RP.

Benefits

• Passive recovery of XP would mean that the incentive to spam quests would be lowered. Rather than recover from serious injury by smashing up monsters like a junksnuff-fueled maniac, you could RP through having taken a beating and deciding to take a rest.
• This would reduce the chance for death spirals when a player is frustrated and recklessly hitting quests to try and get back their levels.
• Ringrunning would likewise be less connected to the Quest Treadmill. It's a dangerous subgame, and losing levels there wouldn't require you to pull back and smash up goblins to recover. You could recover while pursuing your actual goals, and know the lost levels are a temporary penalty that will go away with time, rather than requiring some powerquesting. You've be rewarded for persevering, not powerquesting
• Gold bloat and quest spamming would go down a bit, as people wouldn't have that frustration fueled drive to play quest after quest to recoup their losses.
• EfU becomes a better game for characters that want to concentrate on political conflict, or exploration, or anything else that doesn't generate guaranteed XP
• EfU remains a game with plenty of innate risk, but because the risk doesn't cause permanent setbacks, it's a lot less frustrating. You can "walk it off", rather then get into that annoyed powergamer mindset every time you fugue.
• The game doesn't get any "easier", but there is now a recovery option that doesn't involve endless, endless Morghouls :P

[/list]

I agreed on any word written in this post.

expecialy on the side of char that just died and had to rush to make the quest low level, this kill the RP...Yashan had to avoid a political meeting he was super interested in because was late i had to go bed and before that i HAD to take XP back after died 2  times douring a quest, soo..yeha

[sankarul]

If you people in charge feel at least some of this hits home, maybe increase the (30-lvl)% a little bit and start with that, and see what people feel and how it affects the server. Maybe 40-50% of xp lost, or even higher up to certain level thresholds?

Think about it like this, for example. If we were to get 100% XP recovered at 50 xp/tick, and you died at just having reached level 9, 36000 xp, that would mean 12000 xp lost. 12000/50 = 240 ticks, so 40 or 60 hours of online time to get it back at that point. Feels punishing enough, though I understand if you don't want to make it that "easy" to get back to 9 again. But a similar raise for lower levels..?

[SamB123]

As a new player who previously played on servers where death meant the loss of a few hundred XP and a few hundred gold at best, I can say with confidence that, if you remove the death penalty, folks will treat death as a joke. Dying needs to be harsh, so that it is treated seriously IC and OOC.

[Bacon_Cheese_Burger]

How about having merchants sell raise dead scrolls at like 5k a pice?

[Sublime]

Strongly agree both with Egon's reasoning and his spec suggestion. Implementing his suggested changes would keep death penalties/consequences in place, but would reduce the strong incentive for MMO-powerkwesting after deaths, and instead promote RP.