Death Penalties

My choice would be to use the everloving KISS method for death penalties. Keep It Simple Stupid... :)

In saying that I will admit my gaming skills are mediocre, so I may have a bias. However I still managed to level 3 D2 characters to 99. One thing I did NOT do in all three cases was to have to play in a less hard area. Such was the gaming experience of my friend and she died even more.

Why?

Character guides! use them!!! (BTW your builds of the week are awesome.) I found all my own stuff, died numerous times along the way never having to go back an act or difficulty. Which is another thing that turned me off of D3, being told to stay in a less harder area.

That is why I would suggest to just go with a death penalty PERIOD. Naturally, balancing it is crucial. Edit: It has to be sizeable enough to make a distinct difference, but not cross the line where it will break a players STUBBORNESS. :)

In my own experience as someone who also needs to be creative for a living, customizing classic/antique cars and trucks. There is a complusion to put a lot of things into your creation, but numerous years of experience have taught me to remind myself of one very important principle in the decision making process. Less is More. Which ultimately I find more memorable by thinking about it as a KISS.

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Kirisute_Gomen wrote:

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BrecMadak wrote:

Considering the current mechanic which only ends with loosing xp, this should be raised into this way, since we won't have the fourth difficulty anymore;

Normal: 5%
Cruel: 15%
Ruthless: 30%

xp loss sounds quite fair.

Lose almost a third of your gained experience in ruthless? Nobody would ever get past level 45. It would be D3 Inferno all over again with people hitting a brick wall.

Rewarding gameplay to me:

-No XP loss
-Staying alive grants quantity and rarity bonus(small increase per Blue named monster kill)
-leveling from 1-80 relatively fast with remaining levels being a bit of a grind

The thing is, I really see no need to work on a single character for a super long period of time. That sounds like it would get kinda boring. You have all classes to play, and many different builds to experiment with for each one. The developers should be promoting the ability to get each of their characters to a relatively high level in a reasonable amount of time. This would also help promote the use of the cash shop.

3-4 Months to develop each character the player makes to 80 with the option to try to max them for the long term sounds fun to me.

30% could be a bit too harsh indeed, well make it 25% so, but not lower than this, cause you are on the hardest difficulty and you should pay the price once you die. XP loss will always be there i think if not the current numbers but tweaked. What i think is current xp loss ratios are at joke level, and don't seem to punish the player, but tickles :)

Also as far as i know GGG already against a system that rewards the player the longer he/she stays alive, cause staying alive is already a reward itself, it needs no additional intervention, which i concur.

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BrecMadak wrote:

Also as far as i know GGG already against a system that rewards the player the longer he/she stays alive, cause staying alive is already a reward itself, it needs no additional intervention, which i concur.

The following are equivalent, imho:

- penalty for death, no penalty for longevity
- no penalty for death, reward for longevity

For example, for each full level of increase that you avoid death, you could gain a small % exp increase (e.g. 5%).

This is a reward for longevity, and in this system the penalty of death is "not getting the reward".

Ultimately, it comes down to whether (a) you want to take away from a player something they have already obtained (penalty on death), or (b) take away the opportunity obtain something (reward for longevity).

Typically, people are more averse to loss, so a death penalty will feel more severe.

It's important, though, that any system completely avoid the mechanic of tedium (e.g. corpse runs). The player should be able to jump straight back into the action to redeem themselves, perhaps subject to some kind of 'fatigue' that temporarily decreases stats.

Not the same to me:

Dying right now is painful. If dying only lose some buffs for me, sure, it's annoying to get the buff back out, but not enough to tick me off, even if I keep dying to the same mobs.

Also, with the current system, you can stay at a level on purpose. Not that I am saying you should, just that you can use that if you don't want to level further.

Here is my thoughts on death and dying.

1st off, I hate stat nerfs, that cripple a character.
So those are completely out. However, I'm less objectionable to minor stat nerfs, that let you get back into the action...

Lets look at something that hasn't been done yet. And, sorry if somebody has brought this one up already,

What about a "Slow" buff. I.E. A stacking per death, 5% reduction to attack/Cast/movement speed. This penalty can be increased by Difficulty,.. I.E. It goes up to 8% reduction, at the second difficulty, and 10% at hard.

Now this is a permanent De-buff, until you work it off... Every X amount of XP, goes towards working off this De-buff. I.E. Roughly 10% of a level earns off 1% of the De-buff. So, to die once, it takes roughly half of a level to earn off the buff. Die twice, it will take you roughly an entire level to remove this De-buff. Now, here is were it gets rewarding, for every amount, equal to earning off your De-buff that you gain, you begin to gain a buff, roughly 1% to Cast/Attack/movement speed.

Always liked the model of 10 pct off/activatable corpse to retrieve 8-9 pct of that. The current model of cruel forward having a flat exp loss hinders players trying different strategies and only using the path of least resistance. If we got some of the xp back by clicking an activatable it'd hurt a bit less and still in my mind be an adequate death penalty.

here my suggestion from another thread

"Orb of reviving

When you die you can consume the Orb and you will lose no exp.

After the Death there is a screen where the player can choose between "Use Orb of reviving" or "loose EXP"
The orb should be really rare and players, which plays good and doesn´t die can trade their orbs for other good things."

Maybe someone like it... or everyone hates it... only a random idea

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sYkoDe4d wrote:

here my suggestion from another thread

"Orb of reviving

When you die you can consume the Orb and you will lose no exp.

After the Death there is a screen where the player can choose between "Use Orb of reviving" or "loose EXP"
The orb should be really rare and players, which plays good and doesn´t die can trade their orbs for other good things."

Maybe someone like it... or everyone hates it... only a random idea

This may be the best idea on this thread. Think about it:

1) It stays in line with the current system of loot.

2) You could put a price on it--a respectable price. Let's just go with a strange figure: 1 of each type of skill gem, 1 Chaos Orb, and 1 Orb of Regret. This would create a powerful currency sink.

3) It would mean that the current system of death could stay in place, with no changes. At the moment, the 15% penalty to XP in Merciless is pretty powerful. Suddenly, that 15% XP penalty and the price of one Orb of Revival begin to look similar. Do I want the loot, or the XP? What is more important to me right now? 15% can take quite a while to grind when you're level 60+.

4) It would make rich players still want something. Right now, players who get to the point that they have several 20% skill gems, top-level powerful gear, and a horde of saved up Regal Orbs are pretty much to the point of needing nothing. However, the incentive to creep higher and higher on the leaderboards can become a possibility with Orbs like this, because then their XP would never go down, giving more incentive to continue playing on the hardest difficulties.

All in all, I think that this person had the right idea.

Thx for the Feedback :)

But the orb should only drop in Softcore ^^

mhh after i read point 4) a new random idea:
Maybe a "Higher Orb of Reviving" would be good, for lvl 90++ Players. This Orb should be really really really rare. Only for the Endgame players

orb of reviving = only revives from lvl 1-89
higher orb of reviving = revieves from lvl 90-100. (and only drops in lvl 90-100 Areas)


and

5) GGG can easily balance the Death Penalty: too much people lose exp? Increase droprate of the Orb.
too much people does not lose exp? Decrease the droprate of the orb.

Small XP loss is fine and should stay (like 5%, not sure how much it is now).

In addition one should get something for not dying!

Create additional bar above the experience bar which fills with every monster you kill, the bar resets as soon as you die.

Now you have to decide what kind of bonus a fully filled bar will grant.

Suggestions:
- As soon as the bar is full, you can activate a magic find bonus for X minutes
- Full bar grants you a special aura (visible for everyone) that gives you a permanent magic find bonus
- You can fill the bar several times (if you stay alive) which grants you an additonal bonus to magic find per filled bar (bonus of each bar stacks and resets completely after death)
- the bar is an additional xp pool, every time it becomes full you get x amount of XP added to your actual XP pool.
- Every time the bar becomes full you can enter a bonus level with good drops (like Diablo Cow Level)
- A full bar grants you an orb of your choice. The better the orb the more monster you have to kill without dying


Or maybe:

Call the numbers you accumulate in this bar esteem/kudos/reputation and let the players use it as additional currency in NPC shops.