EFU Death Penalty

[Box]

Since we were discussing it in IRC earlier:


I am of the mind these penalties should be reduced, or a cap be placed on the amount of XP and/or levels you can actually lose.

Lets look at the math here. When dead on the experience required for each level, this is what you lose when you respawn.

Level 5 : 3333.33^e  - Leaves you barely above level 4
Level 6 : 5000  - Leaves you exactly at level 5
Level 7 : 7000  -  Leaves you at level 4, 1000 XP to level 5
Level 8 : 9333.33^e - Leaves you at level 6, 2333 xp to level 7
Level 9 : 12000  - Leaves you at Level 7, 4000 XP to level 8.


Now, for some people it takes them days, maybe weeks to manage to attain a level.  Some people will quest for an entire day (when lucky enough to get a train), only to die at the end of the train, and lose all their experience progression. Yet, they will continue to have the supplies and consumables the lower level quests afford, which will build up.

From my personal experience, I can say that my PCs who have had bad luck and continually died, have been far more wealthy for the most part than my PCs who nearly never died and made it to 8 and nearly 9 with little to no difficulty.

The current system feeds consumable bloat, and presents an undue amount of frustration for those who are not necessarily skilled at surviving, and I have seen many PCs perma'd over the fact that they just lost a day's worth of work.

My suggestion is to change the death penalty system, obviously.

Possible changes could be along the lines of:
(First death per reset cannot make you lose a level, subsequent respawns will shave 1/8th of total XP)
(Death penalties changed to 1/8, 1/10, 1/16)
(If a respawn would make you lose a level, the loss is capped at 1000 XP below the required XP for your current level)

Just tossing some ideas out there. Feel free to suggest your own changes to the penalty system, if you have a good idea.

[ScottyB]

This thread is going to be fun.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

I agree with Scotty.

[Paha]

I understand harsh penalty, especially at high level when a character may be known and in middle of conflict filled life and experiences. Losing 2 levels at that point is a killer, no uncertainity there.

However, I have always been a guy who also likes and wants the penalty for something like death, to be as grave as it sounds, even if we're allowed to come back alive by respawning.

I heartily believe, that the penalties excist and bring a purpose. I know it, since unfortunately most of my characters have ended because they have been at situations, where they cannot afford falling back to lower level. That would force them to do quests that don't fit their current situation, or act much more carefully if they don't wanna throw their life away on purpose and so on.

Death is however just as grave as we know it to be. It's an important factor for fear, excitement and it makes people careful as they should be, mostly. Now lets forget the fun-game-factor, because what's the point on fearing death if you lose only a tad bit small piece of it when you -die-. Then there would not be real death in the game without DM events or PvP. Quest deaths and random encounters with beasts or beings would not matter, which also is not right in my opinion.

[Caddies]

I think the death penalties are pretty much perfect. Nothing essential has changed since they were first implemented by Howland and the original DMs roughly three years ago.

[RagingPurpleGiant]

To insure realism death should be something that you crap your pants at the thought of.
 
I believe it has been achieved pretty well.

[EfU.Again]

I have to agree with Caddies here. Death affects so many aspects of an rp server, without a very stiff death penalty the server can quickly loose a lot of its flair. PvP becomes not a huge issue, exploring is not nearly as exciting, questing doesn't have the danger flair or demand you to really learn how to play your character in combat, and DM quest's can loose a lot of their zest. I guess at the end of the day, dying really really sucks. However, if you don't have a huge consequence then the reward for winning isn't that large either.

[FleetingHeart]

More Random Perma Death.

[Dr Dragon]

More Random Perma Death.

I agree

[Elytherin Dragonius]

i think the low levels the death penalty is perfect (i die alot and it really sucks hard but keeps me coming back)

i however think that lv 6 and above should have the xp loss capped to 1lv and 1000xp

1000xp is not insanely hard to get at any lv really.

i think its just a bit of a joke that you will some times loose 2 lvs and other times only 1 lv at the higher levels, and it doesnt make sence that at one level if you die, there goes two lvs of work where as at the next level your only down to the previous lv, kinda sucks really and makes no sence

i think that death is very important influence for a character. Id like to one day play a cowardly bastard that will be Perma deathed the very first time he is killed, it is ment to be hard to stay alive but heck its ment to be hard to live on Ymph but the point is, the death system is an imperfect calculation because the xp gain is not consistant.

FFXI uses 10% of your total xp needed to level as what you loose from death, that system works because in that game you only need another 1k xp per level up to level compared to the previous

1k xp for lv 2, 3k xp for lv 3, 6k for lv 4 (i think lol) its a bit all over the shop so a single core value you lose is not going to work the further you get away from the begining...

RL adaptation, the Patriot missile when it was first developed in 1984 was potentially a brilliant anti-air weopon system, it had a good long range flight time and a rather advanced radar system for its time and should have provided a good coverage against airborn targets. Its failing was that there was a software error, the error ment that the longer the missile was in flight the worse its calculations got. A great example of its failings was in '91 when during the gulf war Patriot missile batteries tried to intercept 40 odd SCUD missiles but the result was far from the success people wanted, most of the missiles were not taken down by the Patriot missiles. Granted the proximity warheads on the patriot missiles are not well addapted for anti missile capabilities but reguardless many of the missiles simply didnt find their mark because their calculations were off...

now being rather drunk as i am i have forgotten exactly how that was supposed to prove my point but im sure some sober people will see it and either get the gist or completely ignore it either way, there is a usefull if rather redundant factoid for you

[scrappayeti]

I have not changed from my original opinion that the server is too hard for me.

The massive death penalties are part of the problem obviously, but perhaps not the bit that can/should be fixed.

Losing two levels wouldn't suck so much if it didn't result in so much time grinding statics.

But the observation that people are losing good characters to routine quests it true, which is a pity.

I also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.

[Drakill Tannan]

Well it does suck to die. At low levels it doesn't matter as much, but at high levels it hurts a lot.

Sometimes, players will spend weeks gaining a level, just to loose it to an unfortunate situation die to the throw of a dice. This means they are back to doing trogs and harpies.

And i hate trogs.

One of the things that can be frustrating about EFU is to have to spam the same quests because you keep getting killed.

Only because of this i'll agree. Pretty sure some DM will just say "no" and lokc the thread though.

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

Right, going to take a rudimentary crack at this, and just share that I disagree.... because I originally came from a server where the death penalties were arguably harsher... The penalties there were 2 1/2 levels for using a fugue respawn, 1 1/2 levels for using a Ressurection, and 1/2 level for using True Ressurection (which never happened).
 
This server also had lower magic, less gold for the most part, no scripted quests, and... yeah.
 
This experience has left me beleiving that EFU:A is easy sauce. Granted, I'll still gripe when I die. It's harsh no matter what. But that's life (Or death... PUN POINTS).
 
Something you brought up is interesting though...
 
The thing that really hurts people isn't a -single- death... but multiple deaths. I've noticed that people become quite depressed at times and consider quitting when they suffer two or more deaths in a row.
 
As such, if we could reverse your original suggestion, and instead... before a reset... every death that you acquire after the first could have the penalty reduced. How much the penalty would be reduced should be considered carefully, as this sort of thing does have the possiblity of being abused. But I think this would do more good than harm.
 
Thoughts?

[Capricious]

I'm actually fairly neutral on the subject, I want EfU to be difficult however:

I also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.

This is the best point made in this thread, in my opinion, and I don't think it can just be ignored. That doesn't mean that the death penalties should change, but I see a lot of PCs who, upon reaching higher level, plain stop taking risks for fear of dying.

[Caddies]

I also think it makes the server less dynamic, because people who get high level characters are less likely to put them to risk, because of the amount of work they have to put in if they slip.

I've never really found this to be true, generally speaking. Whether or not people are going to take risks or not is usually a function of their playstyle rather than a matter of levels. Most past PCs that got to exceptionally high levels (L9+) routinely did the highest most riskiest quests. I could read out a massive list, but yeah, its not really needed.

BTW, while the thread is appreciated, I can safely say now that EFU's death penalties will not be changing. Feel free to discuss the subject though, I won't lock it.