What do you want the death penalty in TES:O to be?

[skooma steve]

Not all gamers are like you, dzio. TESO will have its share of powergamers that would throw tantrums if their characters couldn't have teh 5w0rd 0f ub3r pwn4g3. And that's always a headache.

[dzio]

Yeah, I know, but the topic is about what we'd want, not about what we can realisticly expect. And I want a game which no pre-pubescent teabagger would enjoy. So only one 5w0rd 0f ub3r pwn4g3 per server, please.

[skooma steve]

Pre-pubescent teabaggers will probably make for a sizeable portion of this game's demographic. Just sayin'.

[Yaije]

Pre-pubescent teabaggers and general "ne'er-do-wells" will probably make for a sizeable portion of this game's demographic. Just sayin'.

Most gamers are [&@%!] in my experience anyways. Deep down inside they all just want to kill, pillage and destroy... and a few other things the forum will probably censor out if I tried to add. Sad that that's what kills just about every online game for me, that and forced grouping with previously mentioned teabaggers.

Why can't online gaming go a route that allows for some amount of useful gameplay while solo (beyond leveling to a level cap and crafting useless items).

[Avron the S'wit]

What online games do you people play these days? I only had excellent experiences. It's also what you make of it. If you get enough people together who are into roleplaying and want to have fun, you usually enjoy yourself. Just remember to keep an open mind!

[tjoudega]

On another note, has anybody heard of some updates of the game? It's been 4 months since E3 and we still know nothing more, while we're looking at a 2013 release. Kinda weird imo

[skooma steve]

@Avron: Like so many others, I once had a brief stint with WoW. The rampant immaturity combined with mindless level grinding was enough to put me off from MMOs for quite a while. So it is possible that my attitude towards MMOs is unduly colored by this unfortunate experience.

I am aware that there are good MMOs out there. Everquest was revolutionary back in the day. And I've heard great things about EVE Online. But I just can't bring myself to commit the amount of time and effort required to really make the most out of an in-depth MMORPG unless it has something to offer beyond your standard MMO gameplay. This is why I have more of an invested interest in TESO, as I'm already an Elder Scrolls fan. Above all else, I just hope they do the setting justice.

[Malhavok]

I'm not saying their opinion is childish, just that it seems kinda childish to not have harsh penalty for death, cause it makes the game less challenging (and children games are often not that challenging). I think anyone would agree?

Also, a maze and days in jail are time penalties, so you don't lose anything (except for time obv.).

About permanent death: could be cool to start different character, but maybe they won't do this cuz they fear the reaction will be "f*ck it then I'm gonna quit alltogether"

Or as we old school gamers like to deride it, rubber band play. Oh, look, I died, pay small penalty to repair the 10% durability hit and keep playing. The one game where this sort of worked was Shadowbane which was inventory loot only. You couldn't just keep dying and respawning at your tree of life (bind point) when getting sieged ad nauseam. Eventually you're equipment would break... and by break I mean break, as in gone, destroyed, removed from the game world. As is present in most games it's pointless, a trivial gold sink.

I'd go with a modified DAoC route. Death = loss of experience, including levels, but have it only apply the last 5 or so levels. The only way to advance the last 5 levels is in public dungeons rather than just playing it safe and killing 50,000 giant rats. Make being high level actually mean something rather than everyone being level 50/60/80 or whatever and it all about how many hours you spend grinding raids to get teh purples. On real servers (assuming they have real servers) public dungeons then become a PvP hotspot.

For all levels, have a vitae penalty ala AC. Each time you die, you take a 5% stat penalty. If it reaches 0, you can't respawn for some amount of time, perhaps a day. Vitae penalty would wear off naturally or faster by gaining experience.

Combine vitae penalty, and experience/level loss at the highest levels only and you get a decent penalty for dying.

Full loot or perma death, too radical for a EQ clone. It could work, but game designers want you to have a vested interest in the game, which means hundreds if not thousands of hours invested in your character/gear. Full loot makes gear that takes months to acquire pretty pointless. Nobody is going to use them often or bother to acquire them. Perma death would require a much faster and weaker pace of advancement. You lose the RPG aspect of working up a character from nothing to god-like superman status. Neither work in the EQ clone model of MMORPG which is what they are making.

[Mr.Argonian]

But can you imagine the outcry if something like was implemented. For every "hardcore" gamer you have 8 "casual" gamers who would not enjoy that. I use the terms hardcore and casual gamer loosely, becuase being classsified as either hardcore or casual really grinds my gears.
What i mean is while some players are looking for an experience like that, most players would not enjoy it at all and Zenimax would loose money.

[Avron the S'wit]

That's a good point, Mr.Argonian. I think the best and most enjoyable games are the ones that appeal to both sides of the spectrum: the players who just want to have fun, and the players who really want to get involved and into the finer details of being a character. I think TES overall is a series that allows for that, in that you as a player can get as involved in the lore as you want. It's also pretty fun. Sometimes I just want to ride around and stroll through town, anyway, and leave all that quest nonsense for another day!

I don't know if MMOs necessarily account for this, or how well they do it. I only played a text-based MUD and it did focus more on roleplaying, but it also left things open for the "casual" gamer without disrupting people who were "hardcore." That seems to be more an art than a science, though.

[Skrofler]

Indeed, I think what we all want, first and foremost, is a populated server. While my personal taste would lead to one game design, that particular design would be undesirable to most players.
So for this particular design element I'd say don't make a big deal out of it, and I'd focus on what matters, like basic gameplay, combat and stuff. Make that interesting and challenging and players who suck can die as much as they want and then come back for more instead of quitting.

[Hissien]

So I guess I am the only one who will play the game just to have fun......

[DaedeM]

I could see a debuff where, after dying a few times you have your stats (w/e they may be) reduced, and continue to be further reduce per death afterwards and persist until you pay a healer at a temple, for example. Have the cost become exponentially more expensive and scale with level, so that ignoring this debuff after a dozen or so deaths is financially punishing. This way, dealing with it early is but a small gold sink and hindrance, but leaving it too long becomes a very costly expense.

[Musicman247]

So I guess I am the only one who will play the game just to have fun......

You and me, brah. And most of the Mod Squad, too.

[Lynx]

Old thread, I know, but I wanted to say something; I like the system from Guild Wars 1. When you die you recieve a death penalty which reduces your stats by 15%. When you kill enemies your death penalty slowly decreases. If you die again however you will recieve even more death penalty so your stats may be lowered by 30% if you die twice in a row. If you kill a boss creature your death penalty is removed. I thought this was an excellent system and worked very well.

[Skrofler]

I haven't checked the details but it's something similar in GW2. I know you lose max health temporarily but I doubt the other stats are affected.

[DemolisherBPB]

I think there should be a Permadeath option, But if that's not on ether, you lose all current level exp (like when you go to jail in skyrim) or something that involves the god's depending on which faction you choose.

[EQErrol]

I like coming back in some oblivion plane and having to get out. Possibly having reduced health and stats for a time. I also don't mind some exp. loss. I wouldn't even mind the loss of one item and money.

The only thing I'd really mind is a total loss of all equipment. That's because at a certain level it might be impossible to continue to adventure with your friends if you weren't properly equipped. I'm kind of a risky player (though not reckless and not in any way that will endanger my party) when I play games, and so sometimes I die. I don't mind paying a price for that, but I don't want that price to mean I can't really game with my friends anymore.

I haven't seen anyone suggest something so drastic for the penalty, but it's still my preference.

[EQErrol]

So I guess I am the only one who will play the game just to have fun......

What do you consider fun to be? Would that be no real penalty? Would it be permanent death?

I'm sure most people will be playing for fun, but I think fun for different people means different things. For some the bigger penalty for dying is more realistic and that is more fun for them.

For them a huge death penalty means monotony of doing stuff over again, or going backwards and that takes away the fun.

I'm curious what camp you're in?

[Hissien]

I dont really know, I'm not really here to debate on how losing items an exp makes it any less monotonous than having to redo the same thing to get the same items you just lost.

As for which camp I'm in, I honestly did not realize there were opposing factions in this thread. There is no death penalty in TES but yet that doesn't feel monotonous to me, why should this be different?

[EQErrol]

I dont really know, I'm not really here to debate on how losing items an exp makes it any less monotonous than having to redo the same thing to get the same items you just lost.

As for which camp I'm in, I honestly did not realize there were opposing factions in this thread. There is no death penalty in TES but yet that doesn't feel monotonous to me, why should this be different?

I don't know. Maybe it shouldn't be any different. I don't think folks have to tie themselves hardcore to one way or the other. I just thought that you mentioned about playing for fun, so I was curious what mode of death penalty would be most fun.

I'm not sold on what I want for death penalty. I just know what I don't want.

I could see that if there was no death penalty people who just ran around dying and getting in the way could become annoying, but there are probably ways to avoid that. More than likely I'll be okay with whatever they chose to do. But part of me being so undecided is that I'm eager to hear what everyone else thinks, and see if I can be persuaded one way or the other.

[Hissien]

I would like respawns to be more resrticted than in TES, like specific spawn points in the wilderness and not in towns so it doesn't become fast travel.

[Betina]

With each death Bethesda gets a little piece of your soul. Once you die enough times your soul becomes their intellectual property and you are assimilated into the gameworld as a mudcrab, where you will be doomed to an eternity of being farmed forever by the ravenous mobs for the purpose of level grinding. Pretty sure I read that somewhere.

Hell yeaah!

That would be so intense. Living as a mudcrab. Intense.

Well, the maze idea is pretty good, and the lore based idea is even better, that would make things more interesting. But maybe they will just do the item-money-skill loss thing. Or jail.

[Unionhack]

I'm am NOT a fan of losing items and stuff when I die on an MMO. Call it childish or something, but I DESPISE it. Especially when the death comes from something totally unexpected.
That being said, XP loss I could live with, as long as you never de-level.
I don't know why I'm complaining when I'm probably not going to play ESO; at least, not for a long time.

[Frogmander]

You could be put into a long and difficult maze that you have to escape to keep playing. I don't think that would really work though.

I hope the game has the same style of combat as Skyrim. I see no reason as to why they couldn't do this.

I was thinking something like this as well, perhaps you are taken to some plane of oblivion and you have to fight/sneak etc. your way out?

once executed, i think TES lore actually gives a solution

your character wanders the plains of oblivion until you can find a portal back to the mundus. In spirit form you choose 1 of each type of equipment you can still use, nothing else manifests itself in oblivion and you must endure wandering monsters and harsh terrain until you find the oblivion gate. The longer you linger in oblivion, the more of your real world loot is lost, though you should still be able to buy back your lost loot if you want to (at punitive rates, and you wont have your money cos that would go to the guards and victims for compensation straight away)

if you die in oblivion, you respawn somewhere else in the same plane

i think characters who have spent a lot of time in oblivion should gain access to certain powers and abilities which would set them apart from the rest (and maybe even lock some earthly abilities to them - eg some divines might start to reject them).. these powers should have negative sides to them as well as benefits to prevent everyone from wanting to spend all their days in limbo lol

Good idea, but no, not time related. Anything time related in MMOs just causes nerdragers to get all butthurt when someone doesn't rush. And if there was some IRL emergency to where you would have to go AFK you don't want to lose all your gear...So no, not time related.