Death Penalty Adjustment Discussion

The fuck is this? It is very VERY unlikely the penalty is going to change STOP it.

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I_NO wrote:

The fuck is this? It is very VERY unlikely the penalty is going to change STOP it.

People don't understand the whole wait and see what happens or don't accept Chris's answer that they think the penalty is fine.

The underlying assumption of the opening post is thst players should eventually win the game, where in this case "winning the game" is reaching level 100.

I could not disagree more strongly with this sentiment.

Level 100 should not be viewed as something attainable. It should be a fool's errand, like chasing the wind. It should be only the slightest hair short of literally impossible.

I'd like to see the death penalty for level 99 characters increased.

That said, the further away from level 99, the more I tend to agree with the opening post. Level 100 should be an "impossible," excruciatingly difficult challenge... but should level 95 be? Level 90? Level 85?

I feel the XP penalty curve is actually too flat. Losing an entire hour of gameplay before level 90 is too much. I feel getting to 90 should be fairly easy even with the occasional death, only starting to really ramp up at 90, and only getting truly masochistic for 95+.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The underlying assumption of the opening post is thst players should eventually win the game, where in this case "winning the game" is reaching level 100.

I could not disagree more strongly with this sentiment.

Level 100 should not be viewed as something attainable. It should be a fool's errand, like chasing the wind. It should be only the slightest hair short of literally impossible.

I'd like to see the death penalty for level 99 characters increased.

That said, the further away from level 99, the more I tend to agree with the opening post. Level 100 should be an "impossible," excruciatingly difficult challenge... but should level 95 be? Level 90? Level 85?

I feel the XP penalty curve is actually too flat. Losing an entire hour of gameplay before level 90 is too much. I feel getting to 90 should be fairly easy even with the occasional death, only starting to really ramp up at 90, and only getting truly masochistic for 95+.

I agree. We can have a reasonable discussion about at what point the "masochostic" nature of the death penalty should kick in - if this is a debate about whether the "soft-cap" should be moved to 95 instead of 90, that's a fair argument to have.

I'm generally OK with the idea of 100 being basically unobtainable, and with the idea of some death penalty in order to teach players to adapt and build better defenses. This makes for better and more strategic builds overall. The real issues that exist are issues of balance - there aren't enough builds or enough diversity in build mechanics to allow players to progress past 90 effectively. It's just spam block/max res/immortal call while the game's main sources of damage mitigation are more-or-less ignored. I don't play this way, which is one of the reasons I can't seem to make it past 94 (on top of my admitted mistakes and stupidity).

That being said, I believe some tweaks to the penalty wouldn't actually break the learning curve that much. Players who don't die would reach level 100 in the same LONG amount of time (assuming that's the goal here, I guess), while players who did would still be forced to adapt so that they don't lose hours of play. It doesn't NEED to be 10% or any number higher than that - just losing an hour or two of play is enough of an incentive to adapt a build as is. Nobody's going to power through, saying "I refuse to change my build because losing hours of play is just dandy. This game is so easy!"

One last point: that other 69-page thread has like 10 pages of actual content, max. The rest was just a stupid fight, like most feedback threads devolve into (I admit to being part of it).

I play mostly in SC leagues, and the penalty is not something that bothers me, in fact it could be higher. The main reason I prefer SC leagues mostly is due to the fact that my playstyle is too reckless and too many characters die due to such carelessness. But a penalty isn't bad, it keeps SC leagues from just being everyone simply running around with level 100 toons there. There should be a sense of achievement for the players that get a toon into the top 10% of levels, even in a SC league, and the penalty allows that very well.

Sure, there are more people with a level 100 in SC leagues, but it is still quite the accomplishment in the game for anyone ever getting a character 95-100.

I've played 2,000+ hours of this game and my highest toon is level 90, and even then it took a month going from level 89 to 90, due to frequent mistakes, over-agression, and impatience and carelessness. But I'm completely happy. I know that if I ever want any higher levels I'll need to need to change my playstyle, and that's not something I want to do currently. I love being reckless and jumping into mobs I probably shouldn't seeing if my toon makes it or not. That is fun for me. If I ever do have a higher level toon than 90, I'll also know that I earned it, I got that level by my own hard work and being more careful.

I don't want the game made easier and penalties taken away because of players like me who just like jumping in big packs and seeing what happens and whose toons die a lot. Taking away the penalties would take away a lot of achievement in actually getting to higher levels.

The most annoying thing of the death penalty probably is those skill points you can't plan on spending, :P

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NeroNoah wrote:

The most annoying thing of the death penalty probably is those skill points you can't plan on spending, :P

Your build should not be suffering without 5-10 points, if it is then you are planning your character wrong.

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goetzjam wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

The most annoying thing of the death penalty probably is those skill points you can't plan on spending, :P

Your build should not be suffering without 5-10 points, if it is then you are planning your character wrong.

I know, I know. That's the reason I wrote annoying and not infuriating. I'm somewhat a completionist, I like to have it all.

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Turtledove wrote:

You are saying that your fun is ruined because other people are having fun playing in a way that you disagree with? That seems very strange but maybe I'm just misunderstanding?

You are. I play. Actively. Mostly softcore. If there is no penalty, then I can play very reckless. As a matter of fact, if I don't I am foolish. DPS to the moon. That means I have to play hardcore of gtfo.

The whole game changes if the ONLY thing stopping everyone from getting to level 100 is time. I can deal with RNG etc, but if I can't even pretend a modicum of skill is why I accomplish what i do I need to find a new game. Maybe you do instead and for that I wish I could help you in some way that it wasn't at my expense.