Arelith

I'm going to echo what the posters above said. Please don't force players to sit through the duration of the respawn penalty.

Irongron wrote: I would very much like it if the attacker bore a far greater risk than the defender.

Currently it's the exact opposite, by a very far margin.

Initiating PVP means you win. Back in the days we had sneak harms, we also have time stop openings. Or without even speaking of mechanical benefit: the attackers had time to track-and choose the way the pvp will take place. The defender is most of the time outnumbered.

I'm not sure how you would go about making the defender stronger tho, unless you generally make defensive gear more readily available. Or just nerf the abused mechanics. I don't know but making defenders stronger would be a right thing to do, I believe.

This change really hits the casual players who only have 1-2 hours a day. And also promotes powerbuilding, cheesy tactics and guilt fueled raises.

Irongron wrote:Last time I changed death I did so to encourage players to take more risk when adventuring as I really didn't like the xp hit, and also to put an end the OOC motivation to Bash. This was commonly used, and indeed boasted about, as a way to force someone out of the game. Still feel proud that we ended that culture. As I read these comments that is once again my greatest worry, but as I said before it is probably premature to judge that.

Its really not premature to judge that. Before, when you got killbashed, sure you lost a demoralizing amount of exp, but you could at least keep playing. You'd dust yourself off, grab a friend, and get to grinding or other RP. This new change nixes that entirely. Your character is useless while under death debuffs. You can't adventure unless a party carries you or you go somewhere a dozen levels below yours.

This change completely undoes everything you did with the last death update, because why in the hell would I take more risk while adventuring if getting wiped means I've got two hours of RL gametime where am forced to be gimped and stay logged in to suffer through it?

The reason everyone hated the old death system is because it wasted an enormous amount of player time re-grinding exp to make up for the exp lost from dying and respawning. Gimping the PC for a long time, in a nut shell, wastes the player's time. In a very real sense, this new change is even WORSE than the old way, because logging off doesn't help.

Consider: Why would I play any kind of character that drives conflict if I'm going to take penalties for losing? Why would I take any kind of risky move at all that might lead to PvP? Why would I play an evil character around paladins? Why would I join a guardforce? Why would I EVER allow myself to be stupid enough to subscribe to the farcicle idea that 'levels don't matter, only RP does', if I am punished for losing a fight? Why would I ever play a non-powerbuild again? Why would I ever stick my neck out at all before grinding non-stop to lvl 30?

Irongron wrote: As I said when the topic of death first came up again, I would very much like it if the attacker bore a far greater risk than the defender, but even so a trade off here may be unavoidable- if we want pvp to be taken more seriously then we likely have to accept the issues arising from stronger penalties.

Even as someone playing an assassin on a conflict prone PC that gets into a lot of PvP, I approve of going after the attacker moreso than the victim, but overall, I disagree with everything, as this is a solution without a real problem to fix. If people are being toxic about PvP, temp-ban them. Let your DMs do their thing, and stop tying their hands together. We all know of toxic PvP happy players the server would probably be better off without. If someone is racking up the reports from PvP and everyone involved is super salty about how its being done, look into it.

Wrongdoing in PvP is almost never the fault of the person who lost unless their PC did something suicidal. One typically does not engage in PvP unless reasonably confident victory is assured or it'll be fun to lose. It is never the slow and steady RPer that is the problem, but the troll that powerground their PC to high epics or the player with the gank squad. Quite literally, this change is the very definition of victim blaming. I'll provide a definition for those with weak google-fu;

"Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them."

Irongron wrote:Last time I changed death I did so to encourage players to take more risk when adventuring as I really didn't like the xp hit, and also to put an end the OOC motivation to Bash. This was commonly used, and indeed boasted about, as a way to force someone out of the game. Still feel proud that we ended that culture. As I read these comments that is once again my greatest worry, but as I said before it is probably premature to judge that. As I said when the topic of death first came up again, I would very much like it if the attacker bore a far greater risk than the defender, but even so a trade off here may be unavoidable- if we want pvp to be taken more seriously then we likely have to accept the issues arising from stronger penalties.

Simple solution, flip it around. For every character you kill your PvP counter goes up by one, increasing your weakness time when you actually do die. The PvP counter doesn't go up from dying. That puts more value on subdual over straight murder, and doesn't punish someone for getting killed.

And also let it tick away while offline, because forcing people to idle is ridiculous.

I agree with Durvayas here as well. If PvP conflict is the issue, let the DM'S address them. Death penalties as they were were fine, I could log wait come back or switch to an alt. As a casual gamer again, I now can't do that and the 1 day a week I might get to play I now get to spend it sitting somewhere doing nothing because of a mechanical gimp where rather than addressing the problem "children" so to speak you are affecting the server as a whole in a negative way.

Dunshire wrote:The death penalties will remain for an X ingame hours, which you really have to be online for. Offline hours won't count. Offline hours do count for the pvp counter.

Let's say a player lags out, their internet sputters, or the server crashes while they're in a dangerous area. They already had to deal with the XP penalty and gold loss. Now, they have to stick around for RL hours on a crippled character.

I don't think this design choice was made with fun in mind. Expect a lot more AFK characters, and not a whole lot more roleplay. At least with the old system, you can swap to an alt and try for some lowbie adventures.

I do hope its changed so that offline hours do count.

Last night, I was pretty indifferent to this change. I didn't (And don't) really see much issue with the change as long as you can be offline and still have the various timers tic down. If that's the case, I wouldn't call this change sufficiently different from the previous death system for me to particularly care.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but requiring someone to deal with respawn penalties while online is, frankly, an awful change along the lines of the EXP-cap that happened a couple of years back and was rightfully changed because it drove players away and was slowly killing the server. Requiring someone to stay online for up to eight hours (Which, for certain players, may be the entirety of their play time for a week or more) is frustrating, not terribly fun, and less than making death be taken more seriously, is likely instead to more lead to a further lack of conviction, a lack of making a stand that's so often criticized as being Aristotlus RP.

Applying penalties for engaging in PvP as an attacker just underlines that "No conviction, no conflict, everyone gets long" Aristotlus-tier RP.

Nitro wrote: Simple solution, flip it around. For every character you kill your PvP counter goes up by one, increasing your weakness time when you actually do die. The PvP counter doesn't go up from dying. That puts more value on subdual over straight murder, and doesn't punish someone for getting killed.

And also let it tick away while offline, because forcing people to idle is ridiculous.

I agree strongly with both of these suggestions.

I suggest the inverse.

Every time you kill someone, your next death penalty is decreased. Kill 20 people in a row without dying and you get one free charge of Hellball.

^ Very good.

I would prefer per pvp encounter rather than kill. What if you have to defend yourself against a large group and you win?

JediMindTrix wrote:I would prefer per pvp encounter rather than kill. What if you have to defend yourself against a large group and you win?

If I can pvp the entire Cordor guard and win, I should get a free hellball :cjanime:

I feel as if this is a solution to a problem that didn't exist. A problem that could honestly be dealt with on an individual basis by the DM team. I really don't think it was common enough to warrant such a heavy handed response. I also really dislike, as others have said, anything that makes people less conflict averse. People shouldn't have to be scared of conflict. They should embrace it but it's also on them to take the consequences as serious. I really see nothing beneficial coming from this update. It won't change how I RP post-death. It won't change how other people RP post-death. It's just going to waste a lot of people's time.

There are /notable/ cases of people abusing PVP that I know have been reported before that have had no real intervention. Cases that are not at all solved by this system. If there is something we gain I have yet to see it. I don't see a new appreciation for death, I just see another update that hurts casual players. Meanwhile, the people who have significantly longer play times will always be ahead of the curve. If they even choose to log back on again and wait out the timer. (And this is coming from one of those people who have significantly more time.)

Hunter548 wrote::cjanime:

I think one of the best things you can do as a developer before implementing something that is controversial is ask one question:

"Can what I want to do be fixed by punishing those who exploit the current system rather than force something new on the entire playerbase?"

If a big reason was that people would return to the scene of PVP, then I'd suggest that punishing those people who did that instead of pushing this new system out would be a better solution. Maybe it's something that has been tried before with limited success (I don't know). It just seems to come across as a heavy stick response.

gilescorey wrote:

Hunter548 wrote::cjanime:

Hunter548 wrote: If I can pvp the entire Cordor guard and win, I should get a free hellball :cjanime:

I really am happy to wait and see with this, and to put some faith both in our players and DMs. In regard to my own misgivings it's worth noting that I was also highly sceptical of introducing a subdual system as I fully expected the server to descend into a 24 hour riot (mithreas felt the same I recall). I was conclusively proved wrong and will likely be again.

Your misgivings are correct.

Edit: update fixed my own misgivings.

The PvP Death Problem.

Not really a thought on the system as such as it is (or was?) now, but rather death systems in general.

The problem basically boils down to this;

You can encourage a person to good roleplay, but forcing them into it is difficult.

Death is a thing that should be feared.

It is good roleplay, for a character to treat death as the Ultimate Threat. To treat it with solemnity, and as a Final act.

But.

The only way to enforce that sort of behavior, is though severe penalties, of one sort or another. Which can lead to a decrease of player enjoyment.

Now we can dance around the situation however we like. We can throw in this and that argument. Give This or That idea about what is acceptable and what isn't. Come up with One suggestion Or The Other about how death should be treated- but it's the above issue that is at the core of it.

Do we have mechanics that encourage people treating death seriously – at the risk of loss of player enjoyment Because it is serious.
Or do we increase player enjoyment, at the cost of good roleplay.

My favorite Death system is actually the Fixed Level one. For me Death should be something that is difficult to do to another pc accidentaly, but when it does occur, if one pc -chooses- to kill another then it should matter. It should be important.

And whilst people will yell about gank squads and such, I would remind that these things tend to be somewhat self policing. If GrimGrim KillALot does go around murdering people, then people are going to band together to kill GrimGrim KillALot in return, rather than showing him any mercy, as they might with other villains. And Dms can also act as arbitrators in more tricky situations.

But then again, I'm unsure if Arelith is really ready for a permadeath system of any sort, so maybe it's a good thing that I'm not in charge.

Reguardless, when entering this discussion, keep in mind the balance involved. And if you can, ease the balance by roleplaying death, especially in PvP, with the gravitas it deserves.

Quoth wrote:Huh must of been a different Iron I retract that statement!

There has been DM Ironfist, DM Iron, and Coder/Now Admin Irongron.
Easily confused, yes though they are all seperate people.

And whilst people will yell about gank squads and such, I would remind that these things tend to be somewhat self policing. If GrimGrim KillALot does go around murdering people, then people are going to band together to kill GrimGrim KillALot in return, rather than showing him any mercy, as they might with other villains. And Dms can also act as arbitrators in more tricky situations.

I think my greatest area of issue is that if a player (not a character) is viewed disfavorably by a group of other players OOC (cliques), we find ourselves with an issue.

DMs shouldn't be arbitrators, they should be adjudicators. I have been in situations where punitive action was deserved, but often times it took a considerable amount of proof to do anything about it. By then, the damage is done.

This relates entirely towards PVP. Some players aren't interested in roleplay, or interaction, or reciprocity - WINNING is god. It damages us as a whole when these people are allowed to continue.

Good god almighty

We talk about haks being confusing, try navigating this mechanical change. I'm going to need to write it down on a post-it how this death change actually works

What the hell happened to intuitive changes? Now I have PVP counters, death timers, RL equivalencies, -onlinemodes, -offlinemodes, -somanymodes, death penalties (but STR is unaffected)

I don't even know where to begin.