Absolutely *not* to losing XP. Having people go backward is much, much worse than just slowing them down a little. I agree debt doesn't mean much these days - when I started, after all, we started getting it at 5, there were no debt reductions/reliefs/patrol XP/indoor = half debt, and the cap was double what it is now. (Went from 0-1.1mill in one hami raid.)
What would happen with a 50? With the epics? Part of the "fun" with a 50 is that debt *absolutely* doesn't matter at all. If it meant going down to 49 instead, my 50s would get shelved.
Greater risks associated with death encourage a more conservative playstyle. Do you want everyone to always play as if they were on a Masters badge run? I don't.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
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Bill, I always respect your input. Especially in this case when it was so exactly what I was hoping would be the response.
Again, not arguing in favor of this, but 50s would obviously have to be immune to this as a reward for getting to 50.
As to the rest of what you said, it sounds like either you think there shouldn't be a risk:reward ratio (which I'm almost certain is not what you think). Do you currently think the risk:reward ratio is correct? Do you think there would be any amount of XP loss (waived for 50s) that would make a good threat but not be too much? What kind of risk or threat do you think would make the game more exciting, if any?
Robin
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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Again I say: I'm not in favor of this and am not arguing in favor of it.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Greater risks associated with death encourage a more conservative playstyle. Do you want everyone to always play as if they were on a Masters badge run? I don't.
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So Trashcan, please answer these questions:
1) Do you think there should be no threat/risk to "death"?
2a) Do you think the current risk:reward ratio is correct?
2b) If not, What kind of risk or threat do you think would make the game more exciting, if any?
3) Do you think there would be any amount of XP loss (waived for 50s) that would make a good threat but not be too much?
Just tryin' to inspire some creative ideas.
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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I think the Masters badges are an excellent example of the kind of "death penalty" that would be positive. A wholly optional challenge, that grants nothing but bragging rights. The Ouroboros badges for running arcs without dying are also good in this regard.|
Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
What kind of risk or threat do you think would make the game more exciting, if any?
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The balancing point for risk and reward is simply that as difficulty increases, it becomes hard to fight efficiently. In that respect, the trip to the hospital is a sufficient penalty - that's time wasted in zoning and traveling that could have been spent killing things.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
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There should certainly be risk, yes. Penalizing by removing prior advancement, though - that's what I'm against. |
Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
As to the rest of what you said, it sounds like either you think there shouldn't be a risk:reward ratio (which I'm almost certain is not what you think). Do you currently think the risk:reward ratio is correct? Do you think there would be any amount of XP loss (waived for 50s) that would make a good threat but not be too much? What kind of risk or threat do you think would make the game more exciting, if any?
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Part of the issue when it comes to penalites or risk, though, centers on what this game doesn't have (and, I should be clear, I'm not complaining about it not having them.) We don't have weapons that break or wear down, or that can be lost/stolen. We don't have armor to wear out. In other games, there are other debuffs that occur when you die - and I find those quite irritating (yet at the same time pointless, ins ome cases - Guild Wars, for instance, all you have to do is pop in and out of town and it's gone... yet if whatever killed you the first time followed you to the rez shrine, you're now fighting the same thing that killed you, but you have less of a chance of killing IT.)
Diablo (the first one) had everythign on you scatter around the ground - fine in a single player game, potentially crippling (and leading to some exploits) in multiplayer.
With COH - we dont' lose anything but time. (Which itself can be an issue on a timed mission.) Losing enhancements wouldn't (to me) make sense, and would be infuriating for those who have spent time IOing out builds. (The PVP "chance to get a recipe" works nicely, though, but that's a different reward reasoning.) Debt slows us down a little, and that's fine. I'll echo another thought in here (and go on a tangent) about having some badges available that reward you for, say, not dying or (say, in croatoa) are "graded" by how many of X you let escape, or how much time you had left on the clock. It's a more positive system, IMHO. Even though I don't otherwise care about badges, getting (for instance) Efficiency Expert is a fun challenge to me. One I'd love to see more of.
While I don't like the idea of losing XP, I have no problem with death penalties in general(I think they are good). But good luck getting people to agree to any penalty, debt was reduced because people cry at any little negative thing to happen.
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In principle, death penalties in games are a good idea - they discourage gameplay such as "keep running at the boss until he dies".|
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
I have no problem with death penalties in general(I think they are good).
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In practice, many MMOs (and even some offline games) present death penalties which are very poorly thought out. Losing a level or making your gear degrade/break is essentially having the game say, "Hey, you weren't able to win this fight... so I'll let you try again, but this time, you're weaker!"
In CoH, the death penalty is that it will take you longer to reach your next level. that's perfectly acceptable to me.
In Guild Wars, there are actually two different death penalties, depending on what you're doing and whether only you die, or your whole party dies. In general, death means your max health/mana goes down by a certain percentage (capping out at -60%). This is a bad death penalty, as the game if forcing you to try again at what you failed, but weaker this time*. Its better than some, since there's a cap on how much your ability can be degraded. If your entire team dies (or rather, if all the players and the henchmen/heroes with rezzes die), in general, you get the death penalty from before, and you're teleported to the nearest resurrection shrine you've activated, adding a time sink (sometimes a significant one) as you run back to where you were before dying. If you're on one of the storyline missions and your entire team dies, you're ejected from the mission, and have to start over**. This is a fine penalty to me, as it doesn't degrade your ability to finish the mission, it just forces you to try again.
* If you enter a town or outpost, the penalty is removed. If you gain Morale (generally from defeating a boss), part of the penalty is removed
** The -maxhp/-maxmana penalty still technically applies, but since you're ejected from the mission after a team wipe, you're also sent back to a town/outpost rather than a resurrection shrine, so the penalty is immediately removed.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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You mean, what Guild Wars explicitly does? |
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
In practice, many MMOs (and even some offline games) present death penalties which are very poorly thought out. Losing a level or making your gear degrade/break is essentially having the game say, "Hey, you weren't able to win this fight... so I'll let you try again, but this time, you're weaker!"
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Problem with this is there are 3 key camps on death penalties..
1: Those who are like "OMG DON'T PENALIZE ME FOR DYING!!!!"
2: Those who feel that death penalties are good as they offer some insentive to actually play the game tactically and intelligent, but they don't want the penalty to be harsh enough that is severly hinders them.
3: Those who agree with #2, but feel that if the penalty doesn't offer a severe hinderance, then it's not enough insentive to play the game tactically.
In general, if they make the game to please type 1, then some of type two, and pretty much all of type 3 will be unhappy and ***** about it, and possibly not play the game.
If they make the game to please type 3, then all of type 1, and some of type 2 (numbers to depend on how severe it is.) will be unhappy and quite possibly not play the game.
But if they make the game to please type 2, then only a small portion of types 1 and 3 will be extremely unhappy about it.
That said.. I fall in to type 2, yet I still feel the current system is.. meaningless. I honestly see death as "progress on another badge." that's it. And XP penalty I could see working under these stipulations:
the XP penalty would not actually reduce your level, however, if it would reduce you to below 0 progress towards your next level you would get a minor debuff, which would progressivly get worse the more you died.
The debuff aspect would be removed for:
Deaths from giant monsters.
Deaths from players (of course).
Deaths from zone events (zombies, rikti)
Deaths from raids
Deaths from AVs
Alternatively, debt could be tweaked.
Increase max debt.
Increase debt acrued.
Either make it so patrol XP doesn't reduce debt, or does so at a much slower rate. (10 patrol XP to 1 point of debt)
Make debt take both half XP and half Inf.
Then increase the debt protection properties in IO sets to be a worth while amount.
I really think debt is about where it needs to be right now. As far as XP gain, one death is almost meaningless. If you play poorly/on a higher difficulty than you can take/recklessly, getting multiple deaths in a single mission will slow down your levelling rate noticeably--it doesn't take that many to get up to half a bubble, which is enough to actually be meaningful at most levels without turning into a slog. Die 3 times a bubble at level 49 and that last level is taking about 50% longer.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
I much prefer debt. I played Everquest, where death deducted xp, and indeed, you could drop a level (and often did) - usually just after beggaring yourself to buy new spells, which you now could not use.
I didn't mind debt at its original levels ("indoors" and out), I didn't mind debt before those lovely blue bars made me immune to its, often up to the next ding. I will stick with debt, thanks.
My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
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ST, I'd say this is brilliant. I always prefer the Positive Reinforcement side of Operant Conditioning but this would allow them to go one step further: make those badges give minor buffs for a certain amount of time, or make the major ones combine into an accolade. Then there would be a major incentive to not die which would have the same emotional impact as a penalty for dying, but would only do it from the plus side of the emotional equation. That's great leadership.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I think the Masters badges are an excellent example of the kind of "death penalty" that would be positive. A wholly optional challenge, that grants nothing but bragging rights. The Ouroboros badges for running arcs without dying are also good in this regard.
The balancing point for risk and reward is simply that as difficulty increases, it becomes hard to fight efficiently. In that respect, the trip to the hospital is a sufficient penalty - that's time wasted in zoning and traveling that could have been spent killing things. |
This is why I started this thread. I was hoping something I'd never heard of or thought of before would be presented that I could get behind 100%.
/signed!
EDIT: Why is it that all the people I'd most like to give positive reputation to are the ones that have disabled their reputation? Sheesh.
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
...I have the patience of a coffee-fueled flea...
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You can still give it to them, it just doesn't appear. It shows up in their comments in the control panel if they go to look, too. Alot of people seem to just want to ignore it though.
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Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
EDIT: Why is it that all the people I'd most like to give positive reputation to are the ones that have disabled their reputation? Sheesh. |
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
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I know you aimed this at Trashcan, but I'm going to answer it from my viewpoint.|
Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
So Trashcan, please answer these questions:
1) Do you think there should be no threat/risk to "death"? 2a) Do you think the current risk:reward ratio is correct? 2b) If not, What kind of risk or threat do you think would make the game more exciting, if any? 3) Do you think there would be any amount of XP loss (waived for 50s) that would make a good threat but not be too much? Just tryin' to inspire some creative ideas. |
1) There should be *something* of a penalty, but not a very serious, hindrance, un-fun one.
2a) I think that the debt system, both in the original system and the newer, weaker version is a very good way to go. The problem is that the Patrol XP system overshadows (and practically eliminates) it.
2b) I'd keep the debt system. Maybe throw in a bit of trash-talk by the non-AE foes, or maybe have the street NPC's say things like "I've seen BBQ Pork coming out of the hospital a lot lately. I wonder if he was visiting a sick friend?"
3) I'm against XP loss for reasons other posters have given.
Ever play old (Pre-3rd Edition) D&D? Level-draining monsters (usually undead) were widely feared and hated. They never gave enough XP to replace the levels they stole, and you had to refigure your HP if you didn't record what your HP had been at each previous level. Even if you gained your levels back you could be worse off. Often, we would be tempted just to toss the thief at the critter, since "They're only thief levels". (Mediocre at best in combat, and fewext XP per level to gain levels).
In an MMO, refiguring HP wouldn't be a problem (handled by the computer, not randomly rolled), but losing levels would still be a hassle.
I could see how XP/level loss could be handled mechanically, like exemplaring. But I expect that it would face hatred by the playerbase.
I could see Powerleveling being sought more if regular leveling were seen as more difficult.
Even the original debt system (starting at L4, higher debt cap, not halved for indoors) was something that I thought was beneficial.
It showed you that maybe you should look again at your tactics and might not be ready for the big leagues, but didn't make your fights harder, which would build more debt and thus be a big ugly circle.
In fact, it was financially beneficial (remember, this was pre-I9) in that a high-debt character would be slower to level, but gain $Inf and Enhancement drops at the same rate. Thus, easier to afford enhancements, which rotted and wilted as levels were gained and needed to be replaced/upgraded.
I could honestly imagine Debt being increased in some way to counter what Patrol XP has done to it, but Good Lord Almighty would there be an uproar. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And I would most likely roll my eyes at the wailers.
The best way I can see in replacing debt is just losing influence. Thematically, it fits the whole hero/villain theme anyway; whose gonna look up to a hero that gets his butt kicked all the time, and whose gonna fear a villain that does the same.
Losing influence would definately make players think twice, how much Im not gonna even bargain on. And if you dont like the idea of losing influence, than my job is done. =P
- Im Not Talking Fast, You're Just Listening Slow.
- To Each His Own
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I don't like the idea of crazed clowns ripping my colon out with meat hooks either, but that doesn't mean it would make a good debt replacement.
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Originally Posted by Rowdy
Losing influence would definately make players think twice, how much Im not gonna even bargain on. And if you dont like the idea of losing influence, than my job is done. =P
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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My main issue with this is that people are jerks. As *soon* as this was done, you know there'd be people "accidentally" training mobs around, just because it would make their victims lose INF if they died. |
Originally Posted by Rowdy
The best way I can see in replacing debt is just losing influence. Thematically, it fits the whole hero/villain theme anyway; whose gonna look up to a hero that gets his butt kicked all the time, and whose gonna fear a villain that does the same.
Losing influence would definately make players think twice, how much Im not gonna even bargain on. And if you dont like the idea of losing influence, than my job is done. =P |
Aside from that, just running into technical issues (the Arachnos maps with lag-loading points, server or network issues, late spawning) right now is a mild annoyance. Losing INF to something completely out of your control? No thanks.
Of course, I could get around this (given my dual accounts) by just handing all my INF over to a mule character and logging them out right away. No risk (or highly reduced risk) for me, in that case. What's my penalty for dying after that? Nada.
Debt just works out nicely.
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You could, however, probably sell tickets to watch. For INF, of course, not advocating RMT.
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
I don't like the idea of crazed clowns ripping my colon out with meat hooks either, but that doesn't mean it would make a good debt replacement.
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My scrapper doesn't need an AoE. She IS an AoE.
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*jumps in like Kanye*|
Originally Posted by CoyoteShaman
EDIT: Why is it that all the people I'd most like to give positive reputation to are the ones that have disabled their reputation? Sheesh.
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I give +Rep to people who deserve it whether or not they've turned off Rep. That way, if they change thier mind, it's there (since it was already earned). If they leave it off, it doesn't matter.
*leaves the stage*
I don't understand why we would want to replace debt which has been weakened to its current state with losing exp.
The players who railed against debt certainly would not prefer to lose exp.
I would hate to lose exp. I hated it in EQ and I would hate it here.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Flip side:|
Originally Posted by Rowdy
The best way I can see in replacing debt is just losing influence. Thematically, it fits the whole hero/villain theme anyway; whose gonna look up to a hero that gets his butt kicked all the time, and whose gonna fear a villain that does the same.
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This hero who gets defeated all the time might earn more respect than those who never do.
The heroes who never get defeated are always playing it safe, not going after the REAL threats to the world. the ones who fall, are risking life and limb for the people.
The villain that constantly gets defeated? I dunno about you, but I'd sure as hell be scared of someone who had been gun down, beaten to a pulp, run over, flung off buildings, etc, and never.. frelling.. died!
(Remember, in CoH/V you don't die, you get KO'd and the medical teleport kicks in.)
NO.
The old mmo design of losing levels is one of the reasons I quit FFXI faster than you can say "howdy mama".
Debt is fine as is. The death penalty is fine as is.
EDIT: Also they just BUFFED the amount of xp from 1 to 24. Would make absolutely no logical sense to implement this. And no, just moving the debt start to 24 would be even dumber, just to implement xp loss in the last 26 levels.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
NOTE: If someone has posted this sorry for reposting, didn't read through all the posts.
What I think would be somewhat reasonable is Respect(CoH)/Fear(CoV) Meter. For every three missions you complete without dying you get a bonus of the amount of Prestige and Influence you earn as you character is renowned for being undefeated. This, of course, would have a cap.
If you die (thinking of something reasonable on the spot) three times while playing through three missions in succession (in a row) this meter is reset and a different form of debt would have to be worked off to regain your hero (or villain's) lost pride and/or status.
This would be an incentive for players to play tactically for increased rewards but there wouldn't be too much of a penalty.
Maybe if your character dies A HELL OF A LOT, then you could get earn slightly less Prestige/Influence so it isn't completely "meh".
First let me say this is just an idea off the top of my head, not actually a suggestion I would necessarily argue in favor of, so please don't flame me too hard...
There have been several threads that I've seen about the reward/risk debate and suggestions about how to fix debt as well as people starting to say it's too easy to level quickly (which really confuses me since you can turn off xp, but what do I know). So I had a wacky idea. I'm kinda full of wacky ideas today. As well as something else, but I'm always full of that so whatever.
Anyway, lots of people are saying that debt no longer constitutes a meaningful risk in CoX. I'd have to agree with that point. Some have even implied that it's too low/small to make any real difference. So my thought is what if we reduce the amount by say 75 - 90% but make it an XP loss instead of just being debt you have to pay off. You could even drop a level which would lower your combat level and make the gained slots/powers unavailable until you earn it back. Now I'd say that's a threat. That's why they'd have to drop the amount significantly. Right now the reason for it is to slow your progress for a short time, but you don't actually lose anything from it.
This would certainly need to be very well fleshed out and it's really just a thought experiment for me, but it would certainly put a damper on those Leroy Jenkin's types and make people think twice about rushing into massive spawns of purples.
They could even make it only hit when you rez so if you have to use a hospital the amount is 1x, but if you go to your base it's .75x, if you get rezzed by a teammate it's .5x and if you self-rez it's .25x. Again, just a thought experiment, not a suggestion of real numbers. X could be like 1 - 3% of total xp needed during the current level or something. Whatever.
Okay, let the massive screams and protests begin! (I'm such provocateur)
--If we can have huge sig images, why can we have only five lines of text?
--...faceplanting like a Defender pulling an AV (Nalrok_AthZim)