Death

Tell us what you think would make the game awesome.

Death

Postby Argitoth » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:48 am

Losing your character altogether is a little bit harsh for a multiplayer game. Here are some ideas that can be combined or adjusted:

-lose some experience (possibly enough to lose a level)
-lose what you are carrying (stuff remains on body for anyone to take)
-lose money
-semi-permanently lose stats (strength, dexterity, constitution, etc.), make it hard to get stats back like in Utumno.
-lose max hp and/or mana, long recovery time to get back
-Death locks you out of playing your character for 24 hours
-Death locks you out until someone finds your body and ressurects you
-When you die, you enter a ghost-like state (similar to ultima online)

The main thing to consider is how easy or hard it is to die in the game. If stupidity or lack of planning is the only way to die in the game, death should be harsh. If death is a common occurance, death penalties should be light. However, I think we can all agree that death should be as rare as possible and as harsh as possible without ruining the fun of the game.


Lets not make another Everquest; constant deaths, constant grind for experience, constantly having to run to your body, everyone uses the same magical items as they progress through the game and if you lose that item, you're permanently screwed for a little while... bah! The Utumno project has so much potential to be better.
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Re: Death

Postby MedicineStorm » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:02 pm

You took the words right out of my mouth. I don't think death should be as monumental as "Q: My level 109 fighter that I have been advancing for 2 months just died. how do I get him back?"
"A: You don't. He's dead. Start a new character."

But I do think we should not let player's abuse no-consequence deaths to learn things they shouldn't be able to (like jumping into every bottomless pit on purpose just to see which one is the secret shortcut to the treasure trove.), or getting a specialty item that is beyond their ability. (like continually attacking a monster that is way above their level, dying over and over, until they hit just the right combination of chance, perfect timing, and exploitation of monster AI to defeat it and get the relic of super-speed that the monster was guarding)

Like Argototh's comment about everquest; when death has no penalty, it becomes meaningless and is not really something that is that bad if it happens to you.

Death should be serious. When you die, it should be BAD. the suggestions above are some good ideas for making the player think twice before attempting a high-risk battle, or just stupidly stomping on every trapped floor tile they find. I think this will actually enhance the fun experience of the game because players will value a difficult-to-achive victory more because it was truly difficult and risky to achive it.
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Re: Death

Postby Ventor24 » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:43 am

What can I say? You two pretty much mopped it up.....

I guess the only thing I can say is.....I aggree! Totally....

What you guess were saying about HIGH death penalty's, which makes sense.Cause we don't want the players running around and die for fun...

When I first saw this Forum Post DEATH I was thinking about The way you died in Utumno and I hated that way, so I was releived when I read what you said, cause I was afraid that you liked Matt Craighead's way.....
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Re: Death

Postby fictionfan42 » Sat Sep 05, 2015 8:01 pm

There is another idea. We could add a raise dead spell into the game. That why if a player died another can bring him back at cost to himself making it important to make friends. Also we could have NPC's that sell death insurance. So if you are paid up you can come right back, but every time you die the premiums go up.
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Re: Death

Postby Argitoth » Sun Sep 06, 2015 2:08 pm

Raise dead sounds more like zombie/skeleton minion spell. I would suggest it be called something like "Sacrifice" where you trade life force with another so you die and the other lives. As for the life insurance idea, it could be implemented in many different ways. One way is to allow the player to purchase a "Life Seal enchantment" from an NPC where when you die, you are resurrected. It could be an expensive and rare enchantment. But we don't want things like this to be widely available and easy to attain if it has a lot of power such as "death immunity".
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Re: Death

Postby MedicineStorm » Tue Sep 08, 2015 11:35 am

color=#0000FF]...[/color]"Life Seal enchantment" from an NPC where when you die, you are resurrected
Good idea. Allow players to purchase phylacteries. Sometimes called Soul Jars- or in the Harry Potter series, "Horcruxes"- These allow your soul to be held aside so when you die, you automatically come back to life after a short time. Of course, the phylactery breaks once it's triggered.

Death will be meaningful and come with drawbacks, but I like the idea of spells from other players reducing those drawbacks. A perfect task for the party's high level healer.
color=#0000FF]...[/color]if a player died another can bring him back at cost to himself
What sort of cost? Mana at a minimum, but what else? You mean the same cost as temple resurrection, just assumed by the caster instead of the dead player? There wouldn't be a point in having a resurrect spell if the net cost to players was just as much as being resurrected at the temple when no other players are around to help out.

Resurrecting a player should be no small feat, but not so large a feat that players are unwilling to resurrect their allies. Long casting time, long cooldown time, large mana cost, and the difficulty involved in obtaining a resurrection spell are probably enough to make the ability significant, but also highly sought-after for the ability to avoid the typical death penalties like loss of money or experience point debt. However, I wonder if those costs would be insufficient to discourage abuse. It makes sense for allies to resurrect their party members, but we probably want PC's (that don't know each other already) to set up competition against the Temples.

Healer PC: "Come get resurrected by me! I only charge half as much as the Temples! Bring out your dead! Half price special!"

But we have to make the act of resurrecting PCs come with a non-trivial cost to either the resurrecter or the resurrectee. Otherwise players would just resurrect any stranger that asks because hey, it's free! Which would completely negate the reason for making death cost something. Death would be meaningless again.

Joe Armor: "OOoooh! (ghost sounds) Hey, can you res' me? I don't want to waste money at a Temple."
Paul Friar: "What? no, man! stop asking. You should have thought of that before you decided to die if you didn't want to pay the Temple fee."
Joe Armor: "Why not? it doesn't cost you anything!"
Paul Friar: "Yes it does! I lose 3 XP every time I res' someone."
Joe Armor: "Pff! 3 XP? That's nothing. You can get that back by killing 1 rat!"
Paul Friar: "If I res'ed everyone that comes into town with a sad death story, It'd take me 5 dragons to make up for all the xp I'd lose."
Joe Armor: "Ok, what if I gave you 5 gold?"
Paul Friar: "5? that's not even worth my time. Make it 20, or help me with the Hillcutter quest."
Joe Armor: "Ok! res' me and I'll tank for you on the Hillcutter quest!"

It doesn't have to be XP, but some material cost is probably in order. Other job classes will probably have material costs in the normal course of their play; scrolls, potions, crafting components for repairing items, food, etc. So this wouldn't be a definitive disadvantage for healers.
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Re: Death

Postby fictionfan42 » Tue Sep 08, 2015 1:42 pm

I think that the resurrection spell should have a material component that is a "sort of" rare drop. That way it really costs something, but high level players are not likely to stay dead. But they won't go killing themselves all the time.

Another Idea is that the resurrection spell has a small chance (say 10%) of killing the caster.

Reading your dialog makes me think. Are you thinking that dead PC's should come back as ghosts and clerics have ghost sight?
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Re: Death

Postby MedicineStorm » Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:09 pm

think that the resurrection spell should have a material component that is a "sort of" rare drop.
Love it!
re you thinking that dead PC's should come back as ghosts and clerics have ghost sight?
Yes. Nothing set in stone, but I imagine dead players will need some agency, even if it's very limited, if they expect to be resurrected by other players. Maybe even have all allies (in the same party together) be able to see/interact with the ghost, and everyone (including random non-party strangers) be able to see/interact with ghosts as long as they're in towns and other non-combat-ish areas.
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