General Discussion

Touchy topic? Yes.  But, hardly a dead horse.  Ive gone back and forth on this one and, personally, Id prefer to see some thing more punishing than whats out there now.  Early MMOs, at their worst, could be long, grindy and risky.  In this type of game, severe death penalties were a huge set back.  Now, however, most MMOs are short, not as grindy, and almost never risky.  So, why should death penalties be a problem?  If you dont fear death, wheres the sense of danger, adventure, and exitement? 

My question is: where do you think the "sweet spot" is for death penalties and why?  When voting on the poll, assume we are talking about current MMOs.

"Hardly a dead horse" ..heh, I wager some would say that this topic has been beaten enough to warrent your thread's title.

None the less, I believe that the death penalty 'sweet spot' is a moving target and wil change (like the games themselves) over time. At this point most prefer the biggest loss by death to be you valued time and not a loss in items or XP.

Yes it has been discussed to death, but it's nice to have a poll. Maybe there have been others before but I forgot, and anyway this one has well thought options I think.

I still favor the death penalty in EQ.

Death is something that should be feared, not a quick means of transportation back to town.

Yea well, I dont really believe is the "dead horse" idea...  Theyre usually the most interesting topics as long as the discussion doesnt degenerate into an all-out flame fest

Anyway, just curious to see where the poll goes and keep the opinions rollin.

I can see both sides. But I voted extreme severe. Not because i am hardcore per se but because I like the benefits

In EVE Online its all the way severe for vets. This way, it balances items. So if some guy gets an uber ship it doesnt matter cause very few will have the stones to fly an expensive ship left & right. if they do then chances are they are really good

Back at launch for WoW, i still remember when raiders beat us all down (pvpers). They wore the best items and just owned and owned. There wa sno balance. There was no um, the word. There was no detertriment to wearing Epix and pwning.

But in EVE online we have balance. Plus, all items can be player made and rich economy. And it is balanced i would say cause the carebears can just stay in empire (im partly cartebear as well so not being a hypocrite).

So in a game like EVE Online that is made by smart devs i want severe

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Originally posted by Nightbringe1
I still favor the death penalty in EQ.
Death is something that should be feared, not a quick means of transportation back to town.

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EQ2 had team debt so if a teammate died you shared his debt. man seemed so harsh think it gone now

My idea of a death penalty is small temporary stat penalty (like, 5% per death) combined with a time-elapsed shared debt. That is, a portion of your experience goes towards your debt (not all of it), and it expires if you don't get into any combat for a time.

My stance on death is a heavy penalty encourages ultra-cautious play. If you play like a wild carefree person (or even approach the game casually) you will be ostracized for the risk you pose to your party. People dare not tear off anything close to what they can handle and run like hell from even fights. There's no adventure if there's no death penalty? Given how a DP is nothing more than a time sink and added grind, that just makes people avoid adventure because while it only took 10 minutes to brave the dragon's den and die, all of that adrenaline wasn't worth 2 hours of grinding that it might have costed.

It depends on the game and how the devs want it to play:

Lighter death penalties = faster PvP (occurs more often), more teamplay (why should I get penalized for doing something brave for my group?)

Harsher death penalties = slower PvP (occurs less often), more personally intense but encouraging selfishness and cowardice

I'm talking about PvP only here because its the hot topic right now. As for PvE... dunno, some kind of middle ground seems OK. Maybe even a bit harsher since fighting mobs is usually so dull you have to put some kind of fear to players to spice it up a bit.

IMO there is no "best" solution, just  like there is no "best" graphic style. The only big no-no are penalties that prevent players from playing for an excessive amount of time. People aren't paying monthly subs so they can spend the majority of time waiting to play. XP debt, repairs, rep and gear loss etc are ok. Long respawn timers,  run times or debuffs that make you useless are really bad.

I think death penalties should be like the original EQ. deterioration of items over time and to get them back you have to do a corpse run to it! Would give encounters a bit more respect than many players these days tend to have a lack of.