Experience Loss Penalty for Dying = Punished and Stuck for Trying New Builds and Abilities

The death penalty in Dark souls is monetary, just like D3. That game is head and shoulders above these mouse click arpg style games. The skill element there was very apparent and you were actually meant to die. Often. So they did not make death catastrophic. In fact the game rewarded you for doing crazy and dangerous things that got you killed.

Ever fight the introductory boss with no abilities or weapons and just use your fists? I did, took me 3 hrs of trying and I got an achievement and a bonus weapon I could get later. Was it worth it? Maybe not, but it was fun and I wouldn't have tried if it not only took 3 hrs but set me back 12 more.

Death penalties in exp have phased out of every major game I can think of. And yes, I have played a lot of them. D1, D2, Everquest 1; all of them evolved past death penalties because they realized that those penalties are just not fun. EQ1 you could actually de-level, that was hilarious. And yes, at the time, I was laughing at people that kept dying and getting upset. I used to think the should just be better. Now I realize that's just silly, difficulty isn't based on mindless grinding. I'm glad someone brought up Demon/Dark souls, that is a game that had some huge skill components. Not grinding based, but practice based.

It was stated once before, but exp penalties do not add difficulty to a game. They just add tedium and are institutionalized lack of fun. If GGG wants to make a death penalty and vaunt themselves as hardcore, stop pussyfooting, just make everything 1 and done. 1 death and your account gets deleted + stash. LOL. I played Star Wars Galaxies and gained one of the first Jedi on my server, if he died my character got deleted.

It was cool to have him, but then I started hateing playing that character...

Well seeing how death penalty was arranged in D3 i think this works better. No xp loss means just go in again and again till the mobs are dead. We should be lucky the mobs don't reset their hp yet.

Simply having to run back from town is punishment enough for dying.

Sure, you can say that any moderately sophisticated player will drop a portal before a tough fight, but that might not be something so obvious to your average internet Joe.

The 15m reset makes it worse - not only do you have to run back from town/last waypoint, you need to fight through mobs once again and find the newly randomized entrance.

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Iscariot013 wrote:

It was stated once before, but exp penalties do not add difficulty to a game. They just add tedium and are institutionalized lack of fun. If GGG wants to make a death penalty and vaunt themselves as hardcore, stop pussyfooting, just make everything 1 and done.

EXP penalties have nothing to do with difficulty. They also have nothing to do with being Hardcore.
They are a far more central element of the game.
I died 3 times yesterday in 2 hours, on lvl 51 Ruthless. Do you think I didn't hate it? Was the game any harder because of the penalty? Did I feel like a hardcore bastard?
No.

Because of the death penalty I felt thrilled and angry yesterday.
Without the death penalty I probably wouldn't have felt anything at all for 2 hours.

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golem09 wrote:

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Iscariot013 wrote:

It was stated once before, but exp penalties do not add difficulty to a game. They just add tedium and are institutionalized lack of fun. If GGG wants to make a death penalty and vaunt themselves as hardcore, stop pussyfooting, just make everything 1 and done.

EXP penalties have nothing to do with difficulty. They also have nothing to do with being Hardcore.
They are a far more central element of the game.
I died 3 times yesterday in 2 hours, on lvl 51 Ruthless. Do you think I didn't hate it? Was the game any harder because of the penalty? Did I feel like a hardcore bastard?
No.

Because of the death penalty I felt thrilled and angry yesterday.
Without the death penalty I probably wouldn't have felt anything at all for 2 hours.

I can think of better ways of doing that. If you want frustration. Instead of being frustrated with the game, why not create frustration with elements within the game. Like have boss monsters that disable portal scrolls or other seeming random effects(disable skills or weapons) against the player which can only be eliminated by exiting the dungeon or defeating the boss.

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calabi wrote:

I can think of better ways of doing that. If you want frustration. Instead of being frustrated with the game, why not create frustration with elements within the game. Like have boss monsters that disable portal scrolls or other seeming random effects(disable skills or weapons) against the player which can only be eliminated by exiting the dungeon or defeating the boss.

I don't really get it. What's better about having to repeat the whole exact dungeon you just went through as a penalty, instead of being able to catch up on XP ANYWHERE in the game?
And it would still not give the combat any weight at all.

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golem09 wrote:

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calabi wrote:

I can think of better ways of doing that. If you want frustration. Instead of being frustrated with the game, why not create frustration with elements within the game. Like have boss monsters that disable portal scrolls or other seeming random effects(disable skills or weapons) against the player which can only be eliminated by exiting the dungeon or defeating the boss.

I don't really get it. What's better about having to repeat the whole exact dungeon you just went through as a penalty, instead of being able to catch up on XP ANYWHERE in the game?
And it would still not give the combat any weight at all.

I'm not talking about repeating dungeons. I'm talking about temporary disabilities applied to players abilities in random dungeons. As apposed to a permanent reduction in experience.

This has probably been mentioned, but maybe have the ability to go back to where you died to retrieve your body and recover a portion of the lost xp?

You could only have one corpse on the ground at a time, so if you died trying to retrieve the first one, that xp is permanently lost when it's replaced by the newer corpse.

Why not remove the penalty for the default & other 'softcore' leagues, while leave it in for the ladder leagues where competition exists. The casual player who just wants to chill out for a few hours mindlessly blowing up mobs, or someone who just wants to play around with funky but subpar builds - they can enjoy themselves doing that in the forgiving nature of the default league without setting themselves up for frustration of losing XP. Sure eventually everyone'll get to 100, but really it's the default league - does it really matter? Those seeking additional thrill & reward can play in the ladder/cutthroat leagues where it absolutely matters that you don't get everyone a clear pass to 100 so you keep the death XP penalty.

You can't please everyone, but the league system lets you get pretty close. You can take full advantage of that system for issues that pit competition v. frustration like death XP penalty (and also FFA loot, and I mentioned a similar idea in that thread) and provide a great gaming experience for everyone depending on their particular preferences.

That would have to be a seperate league from default. Only having the option between super-difficult and wii-mode would suck. I already suggested a super softcore league in addition to the the two standard leagues a few times.