A more painful death

[Chewett]

A few people contacted me saying that they feel death is too easy, with various quick revival methods and benefits, it akin to being a holiday.

A few have been submitted to me already, but if anyone has any ideas how they think it could be made somewhat more painful feel free to send me a message or post here.

Current ideas being discussed are:
Permanent principle Loss
Permanent stat loss (including AP)
Creature stat loss (wins, shards, Age)
Item loss
 

[Ungod]

I agree with Ailith and say that if you want to make death more painful, make the killing harder as well.

I agree both death and resurrection are too easy, but there's yet to be had a serious discussion on why death doesn't mean permanent loss of character

[Fyrd Argentus]

A few comments:

1)How about the death tools not being 100% effective, and that the user has some chance of losing the contest and dying themselves?  Absolute power in the hands of players is not balance.

2)We have few enough players without discouraging them with UNWARRANTED or UNWANTED death experiences.  The game can be frustrating enough to a newbie.  At the very least death tools ought not work on MP3/4.

3)Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up.  But now, personally, I am at an age where I have lost 6 grandparents (2 by marriage), a mother, 3 parents-in-law, a wife, a brother, a brother-in-law, a cousin, several colleagues, and a son.  I don't need a game to dredge up what will inevitably be an emotional reaction to death.  I do not find this a fun or relaxing topic.  My apologies if I over-react here, but I will either continue to do so, or will act the jester and change the subject.

[Muratus del Mur]

Killing items are not easy to come by, and where they can be used without limit, such as nc deathguard, the rules must apply for all, otherwise mp5 will make mp3 accounts to avoid death. 

If someone wants to waste a kill on a mp3, it is probably for a reason.

 

The problem right now is that being dead is just an other cool thing to try out, without any sort of real damage...and this leads to abuse.

 

A would say a considerable (but not absurd) skill damage would be good. Maybe 5% ?

 

[MaGoHi]

14 minutes ago, Fyrd Argentus said:

2)We have few enough players without discouraging them with UNWARRANTED or UNWANTED death experiences.  The game can be frustrating enough to a newbie.  At the very least death tools ought not work on MP3/4.

3)Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up.  But now, personally, I am at an age where I have lost 6 grandparents (2 by marriage), a mother, 3 parents-in-law, a wife, a brother, a brother-in-law, a cousin, several colleagues, and a son.  I don't need a game to dredge up what will inevitably be an emotional reaction to death.  I do not find this a fun or relaxing topic.  My apologies if I over-react here, but I will either continue to do so, or will act the jester and change the subject.

i do not agree, i dont see anyone just wasting a kill for no reason the tools have cooldown and unwarranted is very much subjective, i do see it more as making a point or the occational alliance/land disbanding mechanic that does give the players the power to change the game

i do understand your personal feeling concern but thats also not something i can agree with, death as it is is not even permanent mechanic wise, it is an inconvenience for the killed party and that is the only way to "remove them from your sight" for a longer period than a spell like lock in chaos can, if you can not seperate your feeling for real death to fictional then you have to work on that yourself, i also lost people important to me but i never saw the ingame kill as a real death or felt any of the emotions that real death triggers, its not like it is a daily occurence in the game either

as for the mp3/mp4 idea you had, that is also a bad idea in my opinion, there are more alts than new players and some of them do try to provoke on purpose, now people will most likely not waste a kill on an alt because they are hard to get, but belive me when i say i'd have loved to get rid of one or the other alt that was trying to piss me off that way

1 hour ago, Chewett said:

A few people contacted me saying that they feel death is too easy, with various quick revival methods and benefits, it akin to being a holiday.

A few have been submitted to me already, but if anyone has any ideas how they think it could be made somewhat more painful feel free to send me a message or post here.

Current ideas being discussed are:
Permanent principle Loss
Permanent stat loss (including AP)
Creature stat loss (wins, shards, Age)
Item loss
 

principle loss could have positive side effects, considering how the calculations happen for shards

i would hate statloss, so thats probably a reasonable punishment for me, but other people that want to lose stats might think different

Creature stat loss is probably weird to think through, shards or abilities that you used shards to give on the other hand seem easy to think of

i am very much against item loss(rp items, tools etc), resources that you can refarm make more sense to me here, nice resource sink side effect

 

as Ailith stated

1 hour ago, Ailith said:

My reaction would be that the death itself is already bad enough.

i dont think it it is bad, as i stated above, it is an inconvenience that you can force on another player if you feel like they deserve it and that is enough punishment for the killed person

 

1 hour ago, Ailith said:

I personally think there should be greater penalties for the killers, not the victims. There are very few who can affect players' accounts like this, I don't see how it's justifiable to give them more power to affect other people's accounts negatively. The above sounds like a very overpowered effect on others for the price of a simple coin.

this is also something i can not fully agree with, its not like we have laws about that within the realm, just because we project our morals and laws into the game becasue thats what we are used to from RL doesnt mean that the realm of MD has to have that

i do think the price of a coin is alright, realistically its like buying a knife to stab someone, if i had a sword like ingame then i wouldnt even need that to kill an annoying cat for example

there are not that many ways to negatively affect other peoples accounts, death, spells the only one that you cant really protect against and i do think they are needed

 

[lashtal]

Thank you MaGo, you put in better words what I was about to write and saved all of us time.

As for the topic:

Perhaps I wouldn't touch death itself. The only change I'd make is: once you used a revival method, said method is no longer available to you for a period of time.

[MaGoHi]

2 minutes ago, Ailith said:

This isn't about my morals from RL. If I were applying those I would be requesting a ban on all weapons. Killing and RP.

Though I respect your view, I do believe that if death needs to have more severe meaningful negative effects, then so should killing. Otherwise I fear it may become abusable.

that is a very valid point you have, balance wise, i would also recommend not change too much there in terms of "punishment" of the dead person

[Demonic God]

Killing and revival tools are reserved to a small portion of the player base as of now. I see plenty of potential for abuse and bullying as is, let alone when there's even more punishment to the weaker player.

If killing is to carry a stronger power, make it so vengeance can be carried out more directly. Either that or buy back/remove all killing tools that isn't being owned for RP purposes, and hand out killing tools only under defined circumstances only. Like how Necrovion tool behaves: to handle trespassers only.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Demonic God

[Kaya]

There's a lot I can say about MD death, but here are some first thoughts.

In many ways I think death is currently more balanced than it's ever been. For the longest time there was a large divide between the MD bourgeoisie who had access to (someone with) a revival item to whom death mend nothing and the common folks to whom death might as well be a perma ban. Luckily some have offered to share their revival methods with the public and we now have the bees, so people quitting because they're killed isn't as much of a risk any more.

The biggest issue I currently see with killing is that people have no way to defend themselves. If someone uses a kill item, you're dead. Before making death any more severe I believe people need to have some way of defending themselves.

• The simplest way I can think of is requiring the killer to defeat their victim in combat before allowing the kill to go through. If the victim wins the tool goes on cooldown without anything happening. (I believe this is how Eon's kill contracts used to work.) If you have no defense you always lose.
• Furthermore you could give the victim an item that can be used to take revenge on the killer, at some significant cost.

There are a few things I can think off that would make killing more severe without being as abusable. The main one being a severe, long lasting but temporary side effect after being resurrected. For example:

• For one week your stats are reduced by 100%, then for 1 week 95%, then 90% until after 20 weeks you're back to full strength.
• Your regen timer is significantly reduced.
• Maybe even make it so after being resurrected players lose stats when losing fights similar to someone being 1000 fights off balance.

Revive items are also too powerful. Having instant revives makes those who have access to them pretty much immune to death. Making it so those who get revived by normal revive items only get resurrected after a day or 2 would mean anyone who gets killed gets at least a little taste of death. This might make the bees option too powerful in comparison, in which case that method might have to be slowed down a little bit.

Finally a gold coin is to low a price. If you account for inflation one GC back when the price was introduced might be comparable to 5 GC now.

[Ledah]

I do personally agree their should be more downsides to being a murderer, if only because making death a harsher experience can then be justified.

I don't see anything to stop a King preventing any known murderer entering their land, could even rally their citizens to expel them, I think those heatvein things still work? The fact murder is not a social stigma in MD says enough for me as-is

How would people feel about being able to kill or jail a murderer, through fightcause within a short timeframe after the event, things like that?

[Fang Archbane]

A permanent loss of any kind in any situation seems extreme to me. A lot of hard work goes into all the things currently being suggested as options for PermaLoss. Especially for a situation you can't avoid most of the time.

[Chewett]

Thanks for all of the feedback here, and the numerous PM's and messages I have received on the topic. Its interesting to see the private vs public comments tonal differences too but thats not really important here!

 

It sounds like people are generally for making death more problematic, assuming that its something you have "signed up for" so anyone in Necrovion might be expected to face harsher penalties than someone who has a kill item.

 

Many people were however happy with the new revival mechanism and some were concerned that it is "too simple" now. We don't however want to create a culture where being killed is intentionally depriving of someone of the ability to play. So really any "negatives" need to be balanced with a positive in some way (aka farming Necro for resources/etc).

 

I will have a think about this and things might change (Or they might not!). Thanks all.

[Fang Archbane]

"It sounds like people are generally for making death more problematic, assuming that its something you have "signed up for" so anyone in Necrovion might be expected to face harsher penalties than someone who has a kill item."

I can back this idea as well, assuming those who kill in necros name or for necros sake can only do so while you're inside Necro.

I find it rather tasteless to, hypothetically speaking, impose that "Harsher Necro Based Punishment" when a Death Guard hires an Assassin to murder someone outside that Land.

Just to be perfectly clear, If by this you mean "if he kills you inside Necro you get a harsher penalty, but if you die anywhere else you receive the normal death we've come to know" then sure, I can back that 100%.

[Mallos]

17 hours ago, Chewett said:

Current ideas being discussed are:
Permanent principle Loss
Permanent stat loss (including AP)
Creature stat loss (wins, shards, Age)
Item loss

I disagree that these ideas are reasonable as they are just increasing the effects of the death and agitating the player, losing things like age hurts the opportunity cost of actions like training creatures, although the ideas give more soft functionality to kill tools such as harming a players creatures before a contest.

If death needs to be a bit more "painful" then it should be in a way that disconnects you from a sense of your living account. The dead player should need to do more to resume their position of being alive, through rites of passage or similar rituals/quests or through obvious markers of activity that should be unusual to a typical "dead" player.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Mallos

[Aia del Mana]

14 hours ago, Fang Archbane said:

Just to be perfectly clear, If by this you mean "if he kills you inside Necro you get a harsher penalty, but if you die anywhere else you receive the normal death we've come to know" then sure, I can back that 100%.

In regards to death from trespassing Necrovion, compared to death from another player using a murder-weapon, I would agree that the former arises with much less controversy than the latter. Given that this were the case, mayhap, the former should come with some penalty (an example would be that lashtal will gain 10% of the stats of the trespasser, who will lose the same), whereas the latter should not.

Death, as I see it as a mechanic in the game, is essentially removing one's ability to interact with the realm, including clickies, creatures, and other players. Azull's new method of resurrection, I believe, were a positive change in terms of balancing death other than death from trespassing within Necrovion - as largely, the player who trespasses has ample warning of the consequences, and also a very reasonable method to purchase safety from the consequences.

21 hours ago, lashtal said:

Perhaps I wouldn't touch death itself. The only change I'd make is: once you used a revival method, said method is no longer available to you for a period of time.

I think the issue is that all death is treated the same in terms of how one is able to resolve it. As it is intended as a deterrent for specific actions, it should be sufficiently difficult to resolve such that the deterrent remains.

There is an obvious difference between the relative difficulty of revival presently, with the easiest being payment to someone who has ability to revive, and the most difficult being a community effort to collect flowers. I would think that if the community wished to revive a player, then the method for them to do so should be much easier than the time required to collect this number of flowers, whereas, if the community did think it were deserved, then the method for self-revival should still exist, but be more difficult.

[Else]

You shouldnt mess with stats/skills as it is way more punishing for grinders. There is already a opportunity cost since you cant creature fight while dead.
I dont believe that someone with less that 1000 attack will care much about a % skill damage, while for someone with 100k or 1m attack will matter more. If you make it a plain number, then its less punishable for grinders and more for everyone else.

I always liked there is a work around for more things in MD. What is the work around to avoid getting killed? You can get killed while being afk in GoE just because someone has a kill tool, what is the counter play? Now you want to make it more punishable for the weak player that lack the tools to fight back?
If killing is so easy, why shouldnt resurrecting be as well? 

If you want to stop trespassers in NC, change things so it stops being the joke it already is.

[lashtal]

: Crex came back into the realm of the living!

: Else came back into the realm of the living!

: Fang Archbane came back into the realm of the living!

 

And now we have some fresh data to ponder on: Else and Fang revived by themselves (no external aid that I'm aware of) in 5 days.

 

I think it's fine for a player who experienced death for the first time. You should be able to recover quickly (and 5 days is quickly, in MD terms, not even a holiday).

I think it's trivial if that can be achieved multiple times.

[Fang Archbane]

For clarifications sake, we did have some slight external aid from an old rotting friend. Without it, it would have taken a full week.

[Azull]

@ Fang & Else. 

Did you guys use bounties and/or other "help" to move around?

How many locations with Dark Marigold flowers did you find? (just the number will suffice)

For science. Thank you

 

[Fang Archbane]

I did not, as I almost never see Bounties. Else however was quite Bounty Savy with his business.

Collectively, we found 9~10 Flower spots (memorys hazy, sorry), but on the daily its too problematic to go anywhere past the first 3, so my personal average daily flower count was capped to 3.

And of course, always happy to help in the name of Science (\( oCo)/)

[Else]

7 hours ago, lashtal said:

: Crex came back into the realm of the living!

: Else came back into the realm of the living!

: Fang Archbane came back into the realm of the living!

 

And now we have some fresh data to ponder on: Else and Fang revived by themselves (no external aid that I'm aware of) in 5 days.

 

I think it's fine for a player who experienced death for the first time. You should be able to recover quickly (and 5 days is quickly, in MD terms, not even a holiday).

I think it's trivial if that can be achieved multiple times.

4 days

22 minutes ago, Azull said:

@ Fang & Else. 

Did you guys use bounties and/or other "help" to move around?

How many locations with Dark Marigold flowers did you find? (just the number will suffice)

For science. Thank you

 

Yes bounties and I found 7 locations with 9 flowers in total, maybe I missed one to reach the 10 flowers

[Azull]

@ fang & Else

That is helpful. Thank you.