Death Penalties

Not sure whether this has been suggested, and apologies if it has already been discussed. How about a death penalty based around not being able to pick up any loot for a fixed period of time? Having just been killed I return to battle. I kill a boss monster. Imagine the frustration I will feel when the boss drops a sweet item, and my death penalty prevents me picking it up :-( Now that certainly will be a penalty that hurts me!

I dont know if its been mentioned.. but i think something like this would work pretty well...

1st Death = Your weapon is placed where you died either laying on the ground or sticking out of the ground (You lose nothing so long as you can recover it without dying again) ADDITIONALLY your weapon slot is locked from placing a different weapon into it until you recover this weapon. (And you will gain no experience while in this state) This way you are not defenseless, only weaponless, and it is still likely that you can recover it..

2nd Death = You lose a bit (Say 10%) of experience and your weapon remains where it was.

If you retrieve it after the second death you will recover 50% of the experience lost. (In other words you would have only lost 5% experience at this point if you recover your weapon)

3rd Death = You lose a lot of experience (Say 30%) and your weapon remains where it was. HOWEVER, you are also given a HUGE STAT BUFF for a chance at redeeming yourself. This BUFF will allow you to do a VERY HIGH amount of damage (dependent on what lvl you are) but grants NO experience from kills, NO items from enemies you kill, and will only last until you recover your actual weapon. Any more deaths beyond this point will result in even more experience lost (Another 30%) but you will eventually be able to clear the enemies due to the HUGE STAT BUFF.

After the third death, when you are finally able to recover your own weapon you will still receive 50% of the experience lost overall. The experience lost would look something like this:


Exp Lost Exp Refunded Exp Lost
(Total)


1st Death = 0%

Recover = -- --

2nd Death = 10% of Total

Recover = 50% Refunded = 5%

3rd Death = 40% of Total
(Initial 10% lost + 30%)
Recover = 50% Refunded = 20%

4th Death = 70% of Total
(Initial 10% + 30% + 30%)
Recover = 50% Refunded = 35%

5th Death = 100% Lost
(Initial 10% + 30% + 30% + 30%)
Recover = 50% Refunded = 50%

Using this system, I believe, would discourage people from running around blindly into huge packs of mobs that they cant handle (Or running through massive packs to only kill the bosses), and from leeching experience (After the first death you gain no experience until you can recover your weapon) People would have to be more careful and strategic when encountering large groups and be much more likely to kill everything they encounter instead of just hunting specific Mobs.

To sum it up: IF YOU RUN IN THERE BLINDLY WITH GUNS A BLAZIN ITS GONNA COST YOU ALOT OF TIME AND AGGRAVATION TO RECOVER.

"

xRockstaRx wrote:

I dont know if its been mentioned.. but i think something like this would work pretty well...

1st Death = Your weapon is placed where you died either laying on the ground or sticking out of the ground (You lose nothing so long as you can recover it without dying again) ADDITIONALLY your weapon slot is locked from placing a different weapon into it until you recover this weapon. (And you will gain no experience while in this state) This way you are not defenseless, only weaponless, and it is still likely that you can recover it..

2nd Death = You lose a bit (Say 10%) of experience and your weapon remains where it was.

If you retrieve it after the second death you will recover 50% of the experience lost. (In other words you would have only lost 5% experience at this point if you recover your weapon)

3rd Death = You lose a lot of experience (Say 30%) and your weapon remains where it was. HOWEVER, you are also given a HUGE STAT BUFF for a chance at redeeming yourself. This BUFF will allow you to do a VERY HIGH amount of damage (dependent on what lvl you are) but grants NO experience from kills, NO items from enemies you kill, and will only last until you recover your actual weapon. Any more deaths beyond this point will result in even more experience lost (Another 30%) but you will eventually be able to clear the enemies due to the HUGE STAT BUFF.

After the third death, when you are finally able to recover your own weapon you will still receive 50% of the experience lost overall.

Using this system, I believe, would discourage people from running around blindly into huge packs of mobs that they cant handle (Or running through massive packs to only kill the bosses), and from leeching experience (After the first death you gain no experience until you can recover your weapon) People would have to be more careful and strategic when encountering large groups and be much more likely to kill everything they encounter instead of just hunting specific Mobs.

To sum it up: IF YOU RUN IN THERE BLINDLY WITH GUNS A BLAZIN ITS GONNA COST YOU ALOT OF TIME AND AGGRAVATION TO RECOVER.

Well so much for my chart.. but you get the picture

I don't think losing exp when you die is all that popular of a penalty. Though it really depends on how long it takes to gain levels in this game. If it's short enough for quick level building in competitive ladders, it might not even be noticeable unless someone is close to leveling and loses it all, which is never really that fun.

I think someone mentioned something like spending a certain amount of money to respawn at a desired waypoint, or something similar. I like that idea, especially if the cost is based on the proximity between your current location and the nearest town(with closer points costing more). Though there's the lack of a standard currency system to deal with in that regard, which means you'll have to decide carefully whether it's worth parting with items you may find useful later. That probably makes the decision all the more strategic, though, especially if someone's trying to recover from a mistake in one of those competitive ladders.

One thing I think SHOULDN'T be done though is losing exp from skill gems(equipped or otherwise), especially if that can take a while between level ups. There's also the fact that people might use those to barter for other stuff they need to consider, and weakening those can only make it harder to trade for useful things in a system where even trades are already hard to make.

"

Ketzal wrote:

3) I saw another suggestion about a random underworld encounter. I like the idea, but get rid of the randomness. Stay undead for a period of time or fight your way through for a free return. The only issue with this aproach is that for some people it will take too long to deal with and ruin the game experience for them.

That could be a lot of fun if they can keep it a seemless experience and not tedious.

"You have fallen in battle... The darkness swirls around you..."

"Fight for your life!" <insert cool and not lame mini game here. Climbing out of Hades? Keeping the darkness away with a torch?>

"You have succumbed to the darkness..." <in casual you can still come back at the town>

"You find yourself in bed. How can this be?"

<and just to be tricky, sometimes with a side effect>

"And your amulet is missing..."

"And you are well rested." <With some time based temporary stat bonus. Because seriously, if you couldn't do it the first time, you might need the help.>

I say no experience loss when you die ! It's not like you forget the mobs that you already fought or those who killed you !

Instead, make the character that died to loose something else, like : gold, inventory items lost(not dropped to the ground), some inventory slots marked red and unable to use for a period of time(consecutive death leads to a whole inventory marked red and unable to carry even health/mana potions).

Or even better : each death makes that character unable for playing for a several hours. A death automatically logs out the user and prevent him to rejoin the game with that character for a few/several hours.

Knowing that you have to wait 4 hours when you get your 10 level character killed makes you rage to hard... well.. after 4 hours you will be calm and ready to start killing again :)

Your armor should get damaged as it would in real life,experience loss is silly...wouldnt you learn something from death. I like the idea of penalizing future exp for a time though.

Heyy you know since you guys are making another difficulty (hopefully called Exile) you should make it to where if u die on that diff. it's permanent, but make it to where its worth it, like if you play on this mode you get like a higher lvl cap and a better chance for rare items or something.

Just a thought hope I helped

When you die you enter a spectral form with certain specific abilities (that are class based) and decreased xp gain and hp and mana regen. Each kill replenishes a certain %age of your soul and at 100% you regain all your old abilities and revert to your normal form.

Instead of punishing characters for dying, why not reward them for living?

Give players a bar that fills up as you kill enemies, with rare mobs and bosses filling this bar up more than regular ones.

Once the bar fills up, the character is rewarded with a buff that increases exp and magic find.

When the character dies, it loses the buff and returns to the nearest checkpoint with gear and exp intact and must kill more enemies to regain said buff.


-----------------------------------------------------------


This would be a good way to help avoid frustrating and deterring people from wanting to continue to play after dieing.

It would also make the death penalty more interesting than a basic reduction in xp, not that death penalties are all that interesting more so than they are annoying.