Feedback on the newer Death System

[WhiskeyGuy]

I find it hard to describe myself here without sounding like a jerk but I'll give it a try. it's on you and on your character to try and recognize which character are actually friends and which aren't. That's, I think, is intentional in how the system works. It gives death a meaning and costs your party RL time to get you back up, or an absurd amount of gold which is also, indirectly, time.

That would be great if that were the problem, but its not. The problem is standing at get optimized or get lost. Its OOC not IC. We don't want your dead weight with us unless your fully optimized. This is where the problem lies.

Ugh.. I just left a server with this mentality (Get good or get lost mentality that is). Please don't start it here (not directed at anyone in particular, just a wary heads up).

Roleplay and "optimizing" rarely work well together. Sure, you can rp the socks off an optimized build, and likely keep up in fighting with a so called "rp build", but... there is always that one person that will judge you for it. Guess what? They're wrong, not you. Roleplay is meant to be done in groups. When you're in a group and adventuring at level appropriate areas, I doubt 1 or two points this way or that (which is usually all the difference there is between "rp build" and "optimized") will really make -that- dramatic of a difference. Sure, 5 very sub optimal characters may have a problem in areas, but, that's not likely to be the case. I doubt very many people intentionally gimp characters just for roleplay, though, if they did, more power to them.

Exclusion is never fun for anyone. When the grind for xp becomes more important than involving a player who wants to hang with you, there's a problem.

Now I'm just rambling... not enough coffee yet.

Oh, feedback on the Death system, right....

Okay, I have no idea what the "old" system was like but, here's my bullet points and experiences:

1) The low XP loss is nice, but trivializes death. I lost 180 xp at level 6 for dying in a party wipe situation. I expected higher consequences. Triple that would have been acceptably punishing without damning a character or penalizing too much.

2) The shrine idea, while in theory sounds great, doesn't give any meaningful rp. I had two other players run around with my body for nearly a half hour trying to find a shrine that worked. Apparently the system is buggy? Also, being the "deadee" is no fun at all. There's no roleplay to be had in the Wall. My friends were getting frustrated about finding a shrine, and it took a lot of time. What if they had to leave? Am I just screwed? Yeah, that's not an improvement over anything I think.

3) What if only a certain number of Raise Dead scrolls spawned on merchants per day, or... every so many hours? Sure, people would farm them, to be expected, but overall, there would be more of them around, keeping prices a bit lower.

4) Why is there a piety requirement to use a scroll? It's magic, and if anything should be based on the piety of the person being raised, not the person using the scroll. I think this is just being overzealous.

5) What about.... instead of having to go to a shrine, you could do a "field resurrection" request to your own God? IE, everyone prays, right there in whatever situation they're in, and there's some chance of it raising the dead person? That way, there's some rp to be had, but, there's less immersion breaking and loss of time? Just a thought.

[Wytchee]

I have a rather unpopular opinion regarding death that will probably draw the ire of a lot of players, so I'll be brief. Death should be a significant event, not one where your buddies just grab your corpse and portal to Mayfield's to use the shrine, only to rest then use the Tower's portal to get right back to it as though nothing happened. While shrines are an excellent addition especially for more casual players, they are, in my opinion, a bit too convenient. Ultimately, death should have more of an impact than 5 minutes of rest and rebuffing.

However, keeping in mind that people play Arelith in a variety of ways and have IRL obligations like jobs and friends and family that limit playtime, the penalty should not be a mechanical one (specifically, I mean to the stat sheet, effectively forcing players to resign for an hour).

1. The character respawns by walking into the light:
To reflect the trauma of literally being born again, your character is unable to gain experience from typical sources for 1 hour/2 character levels. This penalty would not affect XP gained from RPR or Adventure XP, however. Otherwise, mechanically your stat sheet remains untouched, so you can at least continue to adventure with your friends.

2. The character is "raised" either with a Raise Dead scroll or at a shrine:
For 1 turn/character level, to reflect the trauma your character recently experienced, your PC is unable to gain experience from typical sources. This penalty would not affect RPR or Adventure XP gain, however. Otherwise, there are no mechanical penalties to your stat sheet, so you can continue being useful to your party. This also allows for a brief little "RP break" eg sitting around a campfire while Mike (who just died) collects and processes his thoughts.

3. The character is "truly resurrected" via a scroll of Resurrection or the spell:
No penalty.

4. Do not return raise/resurrection scrolls to NPC merchants; instead, remove the prohibitive cost of making these scrolls for Clerics.
The economy should be player-driven, and while gold sinks are a necessary part of any multiplayer game world, there are already plenty of those in the form of heal kits/resto scrolls/etc.

What these do is make death meaningful from a gameplay perspective while not crippling casual players or those who might not have all the time in the world to play. It also lets shrines continue to be a thing without them being overly-convenient "true resurrection" nodes. Finally, it gives Clerics more of a niche as a class you'll want to ALWAYS have around for their ability to truly resurrect someone.

[susitsu]

Or, some people just can't afford scrolls, don't have the piety, never ever found any in any shops, never found a book of souls, and never like to leave people out.

So respawn.

If you're a lower level character the respawn penalty is equal to a single spawn of rats, and you have no ability penalties. If you're worried about xp and ability penalties, then you're high enough level to dish out some gold.

Certainly an option if I lack a value for roleplay.

[Astral]

If I were excluded out of RP and hunting because my build/gear aren't optimized I wouldn't even be sad about it, because I would recognize that these people play for different reasons than me and enjoy different things in this game. So yeah... It's not nice, but that's a problem within the player-base, not a problem in how the system works in my honest opinion.

[Aero Silver]

I spent approximately 20 minutes trying to revive a player who died in a party. That doesn't count the time it took me to drag the carcass be behind to town.

Finding a working shrine was quite boring for the dead player, sitting and twiddling their thumbs, and for me, running around to the next shrine, dropping the body, praying and sacrificing and waiting for miracles. I think i have prayed in at least 11 shrines, none of them worked.

It was at a late hour and the town was vacant of players, so i couldn't find anyone to help. Just when the dead player was about to respawn, thhankfully, a player was able to help. He showed me a shrine that i never noticed before. And it worked.

So, no, i am not enjoying the new death system.

[Kirito]

I spent approximately 20 minutes trying to revive a player who died in a party. That doesn't count the time it took me to drag the carcass be behind to town.

Finding a working shrine was quite boring for the dead player, sitting and twiddling their thumbs, and for me, running around to the next shrine, dropping the body, praying and sacrificing and waiting for miracles. I think i have prayed in at least 11 shrines, none of them worked.

It was at a late hour and the town was vacant of players, so i couldn't find anyone to help. Just when the dead player was about to respawn, thhankfully, a player was able to help. He showed me a shrine that i never noticed before. And it worked.

So, no, i am not enjoying the new death system.

That's a lot of shrine checking and not working... just for clarity, we're you checking player made shrines? - it's only the server/permanent ones that will work. (Because otherwise you will just drag a shrine around you on your dungeon crawls)

[Dunshine]

Also, did you wait a couple of praying ticks? Since it's not a 100% succes on each tick. So give it a while before deciding the shrine doesn't work.

Also, as a heads up, there are plans already to update the death system, which will address most of the issues raised here. Just haven't got around to code it yet.

[vaclavc]

To the OP:

Hi!
As a long term wizard player, I can tell you that I knew A LOT of wizard PCs with subpar HP who did pretty well and had huge and lasting impact on the server.
As Lorkas pointed out, a wizard can be relevant even without gear, it is just a matter of getting intimate with the class.
Huge hp pool surely helps, but I think it is only really necessary for PvP.
Regarding the current death system, I have no issues with it. Although I vastly preferred the old death system from the times when Mithreas/Artos ruled the server with iron fists.
-V-

[Sockss]

As an aside: If you're looking for places that work for raising in the UD, the only usefulone I know of is in the Sharps temple.

Edit. Since that's not entirely true. I added 'useful'

[Aero Silver]

That's a lot of shrine checking and not working... just for clarity, we're you checking player made shrines? - it's only the server/permanent ones that will work. (Because otherwise you will just drag a shrine around you on your dungeon crawls)

I checked three shrines in Lolth Temple, about fsix or seven in Sharps Temple, the shrine in the Spider Inn, and Ghaunadaur's Temple, and live by the west side of the Main Gate, i thought that visiting the actual place of worship counts, and remained praying for over a minute in each, including Ghaunadaur's pool swim.
The only one that worked was by the east side of the Main Gate area. The player who helped me is a cleric.

Heck! There is a wandering chicken in the Sharp Temple. I was ready to pay to the god of sacrificial chicken if i could!

[Ork]

Most of those listed are primarily player fixtures. The sharps temple has a sacrificial altar in the middle that will work.

[Blood on my Lips]

I agree with everything Susitsu had to say, so I'm not going to bother typing my own reply.

Yes, there seems to be a lack of shrines in the UD compared to the surface. There is however a built in wayside shrine in the Deep Gate that works.

[susitsu]

If I were excluded out of RP and hunting because my build/gear aren't optimized I wouldn't even be sad about it, because I would recognize that these people play for different reasons than me and enjoy different things in this game. So yeah... It's not nice, but that's a problem within the player-base, not a problem in how the system works in my honest opinion.

Actually, it sucks a lot to have to constantly drop everything you're doing to go back the instant someone dies, and also exclude them out of any roleplay even had on the way back. I find myself uncomfortable running with people who are likely to die, because it means they're going to interrupt the trip and deprive others of the full experience.

It's definitely not fun to be the person who always takes people for the sake of RP.

[Lorkas]

So okay, if you've travelled with someone before and they've died multiple times, or ask them a lot of questions about their prowess and learn that they still train primarily at rats, you probably have IC reason to exclude them from high level content.

If you haven't travelled with them but you see from their HP total after partying up that their equipment isn't optimized, even though they're around the same level as you, that's bad play, from both an IC (it's metagaming to exclude someone) and OOC (you're excluding someone) perspective.

The fact that they might be excluded from some RP on the way back from a trip because of death isn't a good reason to exclude them from all[\i] of the RP (but let's be honest here: how much overlap is there between the set of people who RP well during an adventure and the set of people who exclude someone from a trip because their gear isn't optimized yet?)