Death Penalties Harder

[torugor]

I was thinking on how to make Death bring both penalties that are incovenient to the player and to make it more immersive and cause more rp and i came up with this idea:

What if the death penalties we have from dieing dont go away with time? What if they stay with the player after death as a curse.

And what if the curse can only be lifted by a priest casting restauration spell (the big one) on you? It makes sense lore-wise that if you died, you need to have contact with the divine. Clerics are the representatives of the divine, those who channel the deity.

Result would be that someone who died would not go walking around and looking for a new fight because he would have that nasty effects on him. He would feel like death is an persistent inconvinience and therefore will think twice before going after attacking someone.

Moreover...it would cause rp. The person will have to talk to another player to remove the curse. I suggest that restauration also have some cost for the priest in a way there is insentive for it to be a transaction. Most of rpgs i had on forgotten realms (baldurs gate 1, 2, neverwinter nights) , it takes money to recover from curses. The divine work is not free.

For priests like me it would be great oportunities to make sermons to those who died about how tempus sees death and how they should not disrespect foes.

I think it would cause more rp. More fear of death. More importance for the role of priest and the deity system. And it is consistent with lore and immersion in the game.

[DangerDolphin]

I'm not usually one to just shoot down ideas, but I think this would just upset people, along with giving more power to the types of players who lack the imagination to roleplay conflict as anything other than PvP + killbash.

If we lived in an ideal world were PK was rare and conflict was always roleplayed well, I would agree with you.

[Archnon]

This seems like a fun idea. Couple of problems I could forsee though:

1.) Does it need to be a cleric of a god who brought you back. Right now, finding specific clerics can be extremely difficult. I've always found the restriction of clerics to one god to be slightly strange. Perhaps it would help to group clerics into pantheons in addition to their 1 god. You could be a cleric of Moradin but you could heal deaths resurrected from all dwarven deities. This might be something that makes getting consecrated altars easier as to find as well.

2.) Could this be done by an NPC at a specific altar for the God at a much higher cost? Then you can give people an out when there race/deity just doesn't have enough clerics about.

[torugor]

I think the opposite will happen.

I have had a really good impression to all priests i have found in the game this far. Most who follow the divine to higher levels tend to rp their interaction to the god with real seriety.

For instance...if someone came to my priest saying he was killed...i would want to understand why he was killed. And would try to understand if tempus accepts the behaviour as correct to my deity's view in order to decide how much i would charge to give my blessings...if it was willing to give my blessing at all.

Role-play would go wild if a interaction is required for taking of the curse of death. The curse is not a penalty so big that will keep people from playing, but it is big enough to be an inconvinence. And i am sure priests ingame will do their role to penalize those who kill characters just for killing.

[Drowboy]

I'm not usually one to just shoot down ideas, but I think this would just upset people, along with giving more power to the types of players who lack the imagination to roleplay conflict as anything other than PvP + killbash.

If we lived in an ideal world were PK was rare and conflict was always roleplayed well, I would agree with you.

This. Irongron said something similar in the other thread, and as I always say when this comes up every two weeks: you can't force people to be good roleplayers with mechanics. You can't.

Trying to do so just leads to ever-worsening flowchart rp where character behavior is defined by going down a list of mechanical checkboxes.

[torugor]

1 - I think it could be done by any cleric to anyone no matter the faith. All priests can cast the restauration spells. But of course the priests of some churches will give you a hard time to get their blessings while others are more likelly to give you the restauration even if you pay nothing. What i expect to see is the cleric pehaps giving a small quest for the person to earn the blessing. Or the cleric making a sermon on his god before giving the blessing. Remember all gods exists. I may preach for tempus but i know chauntea and bane exists. Fact i am a priest of a god means i must try make people respect my faith's values but it dont mean i will aid only those who follow my faith.

2- i think the 1 solves it if all priests can give the restauration no matter the faith. Rp is heavily present. I think the npc solution may be possible but it should be the costlier option.


Most priests in this game rp very well. A priest rp is deeply linked with forgottem realms lore. I think players who dont rp much are the ones who would take much hard time to recover their wounds because they will actually have to rp to recover themselves. While evil priests are harder to find, neutral priests should not have problems aiding evil characters. And there is a lot of neutral priests and druids around.

This seems like a fun idea. Couple of problems I could forsee though:

1.) Does it need to be a cleric of a god who brought you back. Right now, finding specific clerics can be extremely difficult. I've always found the restriction of clerics to one god to be slightly strange. Perhaps it would help to group clerics into pantheons in addition to their 1 god. You could be a cleric of Moradin but you could heal deaths resurrected from all dwarven deities. This might be something that makes getting consecrated altars easier as to find as well.

2.) Could this be done by an NPC at a specific altar for the God at a much higher cost? Then you can give people an out when there race/deity just doesn't have enough clerics about.

[Itikar]

If you want to roleplay death as being tougher and harder, especially in the context of PvP, there is nothing that prevents you from doing so.

In the old Devil's Table faction there was the player of a priestess who roleplayed her death in PvP with very rough damages to her persona, and generated quite a few good events even for the resurrection alone.

Right now I think that the main issue is not so much harshness of death penalties. I personally found the death penalties of xp loss and death debuff to be quite crippling during my recent grinding. I -really- do not think that making the game simply more annoying will improve my enjoyment of the server or my roleplay. It will simply make the mechanical part of the game more annoying, no more no less. It won't change how I roleplay death even a little bit.

The real issue is that death is bad while you are below level 30, but above it, it becomes just a very minor annoyance. I would rather prefer a system that punishes less players who are simply unlucky while leveling or do not have builds and gear that are top notch, or a faction behind them to baby-sit them. And conversely death should be a little more meaningful for characters that are already maxed. The only problem is that I do not really see how this can be achieved, quite frankly.

Ultimately I agree with drowboy, you cannot make people roleplay well with mechanics alone. Mechanics can only go so far as encouraging good roleplay, and even that only to an extent. The truth is that convalescence roleplay is not really as deep and entertaining as some may think. It may be fun to roleplay it in extent once, maybe twice, but the third time it will become boring. I have played on games and servers where there were harsher death penalties and truth be told, the quality of roleplay around death was not even marginally better than that of Arelith. The mechanics were simply more annoying, the rest was the same. Actually, perhaps it was even -worse-, because people being scared of death meant less conflict and overall fewer adventures.

[Ninjimmy]

So presumably the Priest cant restore themselves, right? They also need to find another player to cast it on themselves post death?

This also feels kinda like a suggestion rather than feedback but thought I'd ask.

[torugor]

I leave whether priest can restore themselves or need to find another priest open for debate.

It is a suggestion but i as suggestion forum is for devs and here is for the community to talk and discuss it first...i posted here.

[Ninjimmy]

I dont know if Clerics need a buff to make them immune to the effects of Death while every other class needs to find a player of one (personally) so I'd lean find another.

But then I also think we need more conflict on the server and penalising it harder just means sub optimal builds or ostracized characters play with an almost permanant debuff so... dont know if this is the best solution.

[Gouge Away]

I guess if it lasted until reset and wasn't permanent this could be a thing, and maybe had a way to get it removed by an NPC cleric for a hefty fee if you can't find a PC. But this seems like yet another thing that would punish those who play something off the beaten path or play at odd times. We don't all have clerics of our faith at our disposal and if you're playing a low pop time zone you may not find any clerics of any kind who'd help.

I don't like the idea of forcing immersion through punishing mechanics in general though. This is a high population server because it's not that punishing and you can be an adult with adult responsibilities and adult time commitments and still play here. Extreme immersion and getting too much repetitive, arbitrary and pointless runaround busywork just to be able to play a character is something that appeals less and less when you get away from being a teenager and I think adding too much of it would drive the more mature players away in droves.

This means some people won't treat death in PVP with the gravity it should, sure, but they can be reported and tuned out if necessary. PVE death needs no additional mechanic at all especially considering most of the time it's from lag or other misfortune outside the player's control.

[Xerah]

It used to be a 20 minute wait in the fugue when you died in PVP. And people absolutely lost their shit. 20 minutes.

[Gouge Away]

I wouldn't lose my uh what you said over that, but I would definitely fire up an alt instead of RPing waiting to respawn...

[Ebonstar]

I leave whether priest can restore themselves or need to find another priest open for debate.

It is a suggestion but i as suggestion forum is for devs and here is for the community to talk and discuss it first...i posted here.

Like mentioned above, this would end up very bad, some of those playing clerics would make others mortgage their eternal souls to get a restore spell?

sorry but not worth it.

very bad idea

[-XXX-]

12

...that's the number of forum threads demanding harder death penalties SINCE AUGUST this year. Plz stop.

[AstralUniverse]

I just want to add that to me, personally, it doesnt really matter if it's 60 min or 20 min - If I have somewhere to go and RP immediately, I will, if I dont, I will log out. The idea that we lose functionality of our character instead of losing a bigger chunk of exp was never something I liked and I've said that in the past across some of the many threads. I understand why we are where we are and I've learned to accept the different arguments to why it works the way it does. It's not that cool for my playstyle but that's just one out of many many.

[Hevihenkka]

I think the death penalty in Arelith no longer needs any more changes. I think it's perfect now. There's penatly for dying, but it doesn't take away your enjoyment. I think it's better than it was when Fugue Plane was still around. Your character feels week for a while and requires time to recover. XP loss is small and that's it. Neverwinter Nights is nearly 20 years old and there are glitches and issues that are hard to fix. A reminder that death does not happen only in PVP, but also when you're also adventuring or even doing a simple writ. For example going to a new area and all the sudden all hostile npcs spawn around you, the door closes and you're stuck. -makesafe does not help, your toon has issues to fight back, but all those npcs hit you without any issues.

Fugue plane and death penalty then were not fun back in the day. Losing thousands of XP (and gaining all that XP back was slow) and waiting for 20 minutes to respawn was awful.

[Ninjimmy]

Not to mention, if you die in PVP but have made enemies across the isle, you better believe you're gonna die in PVP again and again until you find a Cleric. Necromancers will be in worse shape than the undead they summon by the 3rd or 4th go around.

[Arienette]

I strongly believe in creating consequences for yourself, based on the circumstances. Another poster mentioned some interesting things related to a Drow priestess.

Just some personal example, Im not trying to tell anyone what they should do:

1. I always, always, if I die in PvP, log out of that character for the day. Avoids running afoul of the 24 hour rule and various types of cringey RP.
2. If I pick a fight and lose, my character eats humble pie, will act as though their confidence has been rocked until something significant happens RP wise to restore it; this can take a long time.
3. If I lose to the same person/people/faction more than once in any reasonably short period of time, I RP real fear of them and actively avoid them for the foreseeable future.
4. If I die to a bug or similar goof in PvE, I more or less go back to normal as soon as the debuffs are gone.
5. If I die in PvE due to being legitimately steamrolled by the content, I will actively avoid going there and RP real fear of the place. One of my characters got wrecked by Paush ages ago, and he still actively avoids the place and warns people about how terrible it is.

These are just some examples, and I am sure others have their own they can share if they would like.

[Barkoneus]

I think the death penalty in Arelith no longer needs any more changes. I think it's perfect now. There's penatly for dying, but it doesn't take away your enjoyment. I think it's better than it was when Fugue Plane was still around. Your character feels week for a while and requires time to recover. XP loss is small and that's it. Neverwinter Nights is nearly 20 years old and there are glitches and issues that are hard to fix. A reminder that death does not happen only in PVP, but also when you're also adventuring or even doing a simple writ. For example going to a new area and all the sudden all hostile npcs spawn around you, the door closes and you're stuck. -makesafe does not help, your toon has issues to fight back, but all those npcs hit you without any issues.

Fugue plane and death penalty then were not fun back in the day. Losing thousands of XP (and gaining all that XP back was slow) and waiting for 20 minutes to respawn was awful.

Oh yes, the weird door closing thing where you can't click to attack or run away or really do anything is one of my "favorite" ways to die!

My most recent death on Arelith was internet related. At first I thought the server had gone down, but I logged back in and found myself on the Fugue plane.

These are the reasons I argue against harsher mechanical death penalties, it would just too often punish random glitches and bad luck.

I strongly believe in creating consequences for yourself, based on the circumstances. Another poster mentioned some interesting things related to a Drow priestess.

Just some personal example, Im not trying to tell anyone what they should do:

1. I always, always, if I die in PvP, log out of that character for the day. Avoids running afoul of the 24 hour rule and various types of cringey RP.
2. If I pick a fight and lose, my character eats humble pie, will act as though their confidence has been rocked until something significant happens RP wise to restore it; this can take a long time.
3. If I lose to the same person/people/faction more than once in any reasonably short period of time, I RP real fear of them and actively avoid them for the foreseeable future.
4. If I die to a bug or similar goof in PvE, I more or less go back to normal as soon as the debuffs are gone.
5. If I die in PvE due to being legitimately steamrolled by the content, I will actively avoid going there and RP real fear of the place. One of my characters got wrecked by Paush ages ago, and he still actively avoids the place and warns people about how terrible it is.

These are just some examples, and I am sure others have their own they can share if they would like.

I think these are some great ideas. Basically, allow the circumstances of your death to dictate character development in interesting ways.

[Flower Power]

I'm not usually one to just shoot down ideas, but I think this would just upset people, along with giving more power to the types of players who lack the imagination to roleplay conflict as anything other than PvP + killbash.

While also, simultaneously, making the types of players who are loss-averse and uncomfortable with conflict even less willing to engage in it. Which, considering the massive community discussion we've got going about stagnancy and aversion to conflict, isn't really a good thing.

[torugor]

Its counter-intuitive...but the way to solve the problem with a community that is averse to conflict is to add to the game mechanics that cause players that like conflict to enforce conflict on those who dont like.

The people who are averse to risk wont go for anything risky no matter how simple you make the system. They just dont like it. But by making the system so risk free to please this guys you make it bad for other kinds of players who really enjoy the thrill and danger. So you cant make everybody happy.

As long as it is made with care and attention for fine-tunning....a balance will be archieved and everybody is going to be happy.

[Ninjimmy]

Its counter-intuitive...but the way to solve the problem with a community that is averse to conflict is to add to the game mechanics that cause players that like conflict to enforce conflict on those who dont like.

That is a straight up toxic way of looking at this, dude.

It'd be like saying the conflict focused players need to have game mechanics tweaked to enforce social RP they aren't interested in on them.

I mean, you've voiced before an issue with communities KillBashing you over your characters associations, imagine if that also mechanically disadvantaged you every time? The conflict averse crowd may well be mechanically incentivised, because now they can murder your character that much easier but I can't imagine you'd find that fun?

They just dont like it. But by making the system so risk free to please this guys you make it bad for other kinds of players who really enjoy the thrill and danger. So you cant make everybody happy.

I actually can help with this, there's a solution for this too, Mark of Despair which you can now opt in for without a DM - added XP but you only get 10 deaths then you have to roll. Can't really get more thrill and danger than that, plus you level faster.

[Drowboy]

Trying to police how other people play will only, only, ever end in you ending up pissed off and powerless to do anything about it.

Worry about yourself, report when necessary, let go of the rest.

"but people aren't rping death the way I want them to!"
that aint your problem or your business bud

[torugor]

Man i am a pragmatic guy. I am telling you what i have learned on the internet to solve things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drDuaQXm_U
minute: 4:11
its what i learned from this research. Dont want to go with the knowledge adquired by years of study...no problem.

And i dont care if my character dies and looses equipment and have more penalties if it is to make the game better.

Its counter-intuitive...but the way to solve the problem with a community that is averse to conflict is to add to the game mechanics that cause players that like conflict to enforce conflict on those who dont like.

That is a straight up toxic way of looking at this, dude.

It'd be like saying the conflict focused players need to have game mechanics tweaked to enforce social RP they aren't interested in on them.

I mean, you've voiced before an issue with communities KillBashing you over your characters associations, imagine if that also mechanically disadvantaged you every time? The conflict averse crowd may well be mechanically incentivised, because now they can murder your character that much easier but I can't imagine you'd find that fun?

They just dont like it. But by making the system so risk free to please this guys you make it bad for other kinds of players who really enjoy the thrill and danger. So you cant make everybody happy.

I actually can help with this, there's a solution for this too, Mark of Despair which you can now opt in for without a DM - added XP but you only get 10 deaths then you have to roll. Can't really get more thrill and danger than that, plus you level faster.