Durability loss on death

i do want to throw in tho, that when building or mining, within fifteen minutes you have enough enemies outside to destroy you. i died so many times walking outside of where my secret shop two is placed after being inside for half an hr only to be mobbed and blown up.

i could see 20ish % as fair if the enemies werent excellent stalkers but again, we have a long way to go, plenty of adjustments to see. i have faith in the devs.

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I think that’s because they have limited AI at the moment. They’re just coded to spawn on a per player basis (not sure if it’s a different number of creatures per world), and they gradually gravitate their way towards your location.

I reckon it’ll be a game changer when they get their full behavioural AI in game!

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I prefer to loose durability than to loose ALL your stuff like in Minecraft and many other survival games. I think it is fine just the way it is :slight_smile: Just be on the lookout for monsters and you should be fine

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What you don’t seem to be taking into consideration is the fact that, In order for a fight to be meaningful you need to have something valuable to you at stake in some way shape or form,
at first I myself didn’t like it either & it can still suck if you go out with stacks on stacks of weapons which is the one reason I don’t care for this mechanic in its current form. I feel it just needs some re working as to how many weapons it can actually effect, it should be some kind of limit on how many weapons will receive the durability loss from each stack upon death, not the entire stack of weapons because that can be REALLY HARSH.

On the other note though, they have implemented skill mechanics that drastically reduce the amount of durability lost to all your gear upon death.
In skills under the survival tab you have the option to increase item durability
as well as death penalty reduction, I believe maxing the two out together should basically null & void the death penalty.

I’m sorry to hear your experience of Boundless is not what you would like at the moment.
But… :grin:

Where is the joy in being able to do everything (or at least a lot) without any effort, from the start?

If death brought no penalty (and quite severe too), no one would care to die, meaning no one would even try to fight a difficult battle or try not to fall into lava etc. It would be easier to simply die. Who would even think about food or healing measures?

Achieving things is supposed to take some time and work. If any player at any level could just go to any world and explore any corner, without any trouble, progressing would make no sense.
Get more health points, higher jump, get faster and better with slingbows, finally get the death penalty reduction skills and you will be fine. Before that do things that are less dangerous.

Mine basic resources on home worlds where its easy, sell some of it, buy tools if your crafting is still a bit slow. I have played for months and have pretty much everything I need but I still buy tools and stuff often enough. Market is there for a reason too. Just imagine you can really do things easy from the start (not just exploring, mining, but also crafting). There would be no need for shops and cooperation.

If you feel that inability to be powerful and efficient from the start (or way faster than it is now) is not what you expect, then you might have picked a wrong game for yourself. Devs can tweak how fast we progress etc. but I wouldn’t expect this game to be Minecraft - it’s all about progression progression progression.

Great advice, however having or not having great survival instinct isn’t the issue being addressed.
The issue is having large amounts of valuable possessions lose ridiculous amounts of durability.

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And I tried to show that the loss of durability is there to create survival instinct. It’s about creating challenges.
It’s not there to punish players.
It has a function.

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i appreciate your very general and basic response
which i have seen many times in this forum and others

however
i have like 300+ hrs in the game, and have played since back when it was java script and not c++ based (iirc that was the changes made)

dont over think my statement too much.

you say do this do this do that THEN go explore, but to get to any of those areas in the skill tree in order to have your suggested state of being, it takes too damn long. i have farmed plenty of resources, i have many machines and power cores, i have experienced a lot in the game but the skill trees are still to expensive and the balance in terms of both ‘weapon viability to enemy durability’ and ‘crafting returns on investment to general risk from death and decay from use’ when playing are simply NOT worth the hassle.

i think the devs have realized to a degree the scope of their abilities and the reasonable limits based on their size and funding is well beneath what they originally had planned for the game, and as such have been trying to figure out ways to ‘extend’ the content they have now into being major parts of the game (hence why weapons are so weak, enemies are so tough, and durability is so crap including death penalty now being a mid to end game skill stat) ((oh and dont forget limited skill points possible)) which is most unfortunate for a game many players saw a lot of potential in.

i mean, we still dont have any form of boss enemies, actual quests aside from objectives, no lore / story, no npcs other than the few creatures…

its simply grind and build and even that is limited to how you spec.

imo, the game is not coming along very well… BUT DONT FORGET SIGNS! lord knows that signs are uber important and totally improve the game! doesnt invalidate the giant signs we made out of blocks we’ve sculpted or anything.
cynicism aside, i hope to see some actual advancement in the development and not just sidegrading stuff soon. until some proper balancing and until the devs ‘come off it’ a bit and lower the skill costs to be more obtainable then i cant see myself investing another 300hrs in the game, or even another 50 :crying_cat_face:

I feel like I am seeing a clone of someone from another game’s official forums. Not in a good way.

I am only going to speak on the death penalty stuff you’re mentioning.

I’ve lost 50% durability no a full smart stack of Diamond Hammers. Pretty harsh way of literally burning through expensive tools. I died to lava while mining for more diamonds on Andooweem at Altitude 10. I was careless. Does this mean the mechanic is unfair? No, it means I was careless and got myself killed. I’ve even been killed by Spitters in Aquatopia in the time frame it took for me to go use the bathroom. Was that instance my fault? Yes, I should have warped to sanctum while I was AFK instead of standing on my trading post.

Regardless of how you’ve died, there’s always a way to improve upon your survival rate. Do numbers need to be changed around a little? Maybe. But every threat in the game you face can be avoided or defended aren’t really that threatening to begin with.

I really do get the pain of losing items because you died. If we had a way to repair items it wouldn’t be so bad but then that would create a surplus of items in the game’s economy.

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I disagree, if hopper can kill me with a single explosion, then it is not that I am being careless around a cliff or lava, or did not try to escape. My experience was I was mining and a hopper followed me. Before I could react and get away, which was difficult being in a cavern and trying not to fall an die that way, he exploded and I took a hit on all my mining tools and weapons. I was not “careless” and since you hear mobs even if they are not close (a different issue), I checked and thought he was not close. That is too much of a hit. I still think only the weapons or tools you have in hand should be affected.

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Was gonna say that you’re still able to avoid them but not every situation is ideal for that.

There are going to be times in this game you just die 100% of the time. Your situation with the Hopper was one of them but this also emphasizes on an underlining issue of game sound registering where it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t hear rain pouring on the surface of altitude 85 when I am down on 10 mining diamonds. It makes no sense. However, everyone that’s been playing for more than a couple days should have picked up on this and learn from any deaths that are caused by it.

Your Hopper death definitely isn’t your fault.

Now that I really think about all of this. I feel like having no durability loss at all on death is better. Frees up skill points for more important things.

There has to be a penalty with death though, otherwise why bother fighting or trying to find a way around a massive cliff drop?

We have toyed around with percentage of coin, dropping all the items out of your bag, losing XP, sending you back home and so many other combos and this was the one we currently have. We might need to explore these areas again if we reduce the penalty but we are also adding a new status effect which reduces your skills by a certain amount so you are weaker for period of time after death.

It might be a bit aggressive, but will it still be aggressive when the bugs like the hopper are resolved and death is actually down to the player making a mistake?

Gem weapons kill high level creatures with ease. But out of interest, do you hate games like Dark Souls?

We’re working on new content, combat and events in the game for people to do. We even did an in-house playtest of this with the team today and we’ve got a good list of stuff we want to sort out before it goes live. We’ll be balancing the game further before and after this update and with each change we need to rebalance the game. Balancing at this stage will be fairly lose until all the 1.0 features are in place, after they’re in the main focus will be refining the balance of the game and tidying up those areas like “skill point costs” and the difficulty.

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Death by lag will always remain a possibility for anybody playing from far away, over wifi or with bad internet. Reality is that for many this is not a choice but a fact of life.

I get along by having 0% durability loss from skills (mandatory for me).

I should add that this is the reason why I don’t play PoE much anymore (they have XP penalty on death) - playing for hours to get a level and then losing it one night when my ISP sucks is no fun. The current 25% penalty means I micromanage tools on my alts - never carrying more than they need - to avoid the consequences.

The penalty from deaths should be as transient as the deaths themselves - a long cooldown, reduced stats, etc are much more suited. That way if my internet sucks tonight or I’m out of town playing over unreliable hotel WiFi I can still try to play without fearing losing things I really care about.

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I don’t have a personal problem with tool durability loss despite what it might sound in my previous posts. The game is easy right now. Incredibly easy. Nothing wrong with this too. Some of the moments players die are because of flaws in the game, such as sound being heard no matter what altitude you’re at as if you’re right there next to it. Nobody should hear a spitter running around on rocks when you’re standing at Altitude 10. Never should happen but it does.

A lot of these death issues can be avoided and resolved either by fixing sound issues, being more aware of your surroundings, and adjusting how you play after each circumstance of a death. I don’t die very much because of that. It might be a very easy game overall, but that doesn’t mean someone needs to be sloppy when working around very well known hazards or aren’t looking out for hostile animals during moments of exploration.

If you switched it to coin or loot dropping, then people would find that a lot more aggressive form of loss. 25% coin loss on death is massive. That’s a huge blow for a lot of people. 25% of loot lost is also an aggressive loss. So I guess what we have right now is the least aggressive option?

Even with sound bugs, the deaths still are the fault of the player because pretty much all of us know about the sound bug. Even a new player can figure it out when they go mining for the first time in a cave. It’s not difficult to figure out and adjust accordingly to prevent as many future deaths as possible.

The only thing I would be upset about is dying to an animal you while you’re lagging out and have a timer box on your screen.

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were you on a wrong planet too soon?

I play with an alt that is still low level:

  1. I started mining/hunting on Septerfon when I had 3000+ HP and had higher jump and more speed.
  2. I started going to Munteen alone when I had more HP than a single hopper can take. Before that I always went someone stronger than me, possibly a bigger group.

Why do you blame the game mechanics, when you clearly make bad decisions?

As @crypticworlds & @luke-turbulenz said, death penalty can be balanced this way or another, but there need to be some kind of threat to your well-being, or there will be no need for dangerous worlds, difficult terrain, toxic atmosphere or stronger mobs.

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Vitality stats is there for a reason. Probably this stats should just scale automatically as you level up so that you don’t feel the “I’m level 30 but that hopper one shot me!” when you didn’t even invest in increasing your HP.

I’ve just made my hunter alt and I’ve started hunting at the most difficult planet at around lvl 13 (pretty bold I guess) and now at level 18. Now, I did not go blindly and bought better weapon and invested a measly 20 sp. I also stock up 20 healing brews. Hoppers don’t one shot me cause I’ve prepared for it (a lvl 4 managed to blast me) and I’m very generous in drinking brews (they’re cheap).

I only died once and that is because I agro a bunch of lvl 4 wildstocks (not a very smart move and I paid with my life). Now, I just shoot the nearest once and lure him far way to prevent agro-ing the others (learned from my mistake and now more careful). Also, with how cheap warping and how abundant portals are, you could get away by just bringing 1 piece of tool instead of complete stacks of them. That tool alone might probably last longer than an hour.

I don’t agree on this penalty. If I got this massive debuff for a long time after death, this would make exploring, hunting, mining very unsatisfying (you damage less and move slower). This type of penalty just makes you quit the game (which is what you mentioned) but I don’t think that should be the response. On the other hand, durability loss on death promotes the other way around and that is, you’ll want play more to make up for that lost durability.

The one thing I really HATE is when I lagged, mobs still attack me! They say it’s exploitable if it will make you invincible when it happen but I doubt it. Who here will literally throttle up/down their speed at will and very accurately for just a game? At least remove the agro of the monster when it happen so that you can’t “tank” the mob for others to hit while lagging.

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I’ll just say this. My main is almost level 40 and have the same amount of HP as I did at level 1. I just simply want other skills at this point. It causes me to play extremely safe and I am okay with that. My main is mostly a builder and crafter with some skill points in hammer related stuff.

I expect everything that can hurt me to kill me instantly. If I want to tank damage I’ll level my hunter.

Learning from mistakes in any video game that you play is part of playing the game.

Let’s just be glad we don’t lose everything upon death by lava because the items burn up. Sound familiar to a similar and older game?

EDIT: Your character isn’t meant to be able to do everything in the game. It’s why skill points are so limited. It’s why we can have a total of 3 characters on our account. I really like the idea of having a crafter/miner/builder for one character and a hunter for another with an optional third character to fill in any voids that I need to fill.

Leveling isn’t an issue either. You gain EXP from everything you do. Even placing blocks and then smashing it with a hammer, shovel, or axe gives you EXP. We don’t need an easier game. We need harder content to run through, more challenging planets to explore (level 4+), and more stuff to craft that is harder to craft and build with.

This way the game can be as difficult as you want it to be with opt-in challenge levels. I don’t think that’s too unreasonable of something to ask or expect.

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I was playing with a level 50 character so I was not on a planet too soon.

I guess I made a bad decision to voice my opinion

Not at all.
I don’t think anyone is attacking you or making it personal.
However, whenever you voice an opinion, you will most likely see different opinions voiced as well, as part of discussion you start.
Nothing wrong about that, right?

You feel/think/believe that current death penalty is harsh and spoils your playing experience. I would only feel/think/believe the same if the death penalty meant losing all equipment.
Following that, you think game is too punishing, while I think you make mistakes that get you the punishment (that otherwise would be avoidable).
You think it’s not a necessary part of this game experience. I think it’s very much needed and essential to create good (=challenging) experience.

Good to have this kind of discussions and see how other people see the game and its rules.

I’m sorry if any part of any of my posts here made you feel you are being attacked or judged or scrutinized.

From this situation you described, I think it’s fairly obvious that the current state of hoppers needs to change. In general, sudden, instant death paired with a heavy penalty on death is just not a good combination. However, I disagree with you on which needs to change (and for what it’s worth, your proposal of ‘only equipped items take durability loss’ very viable).

Your situation says to me that hopper mechanics need to be re-evaluated. Either 1, they should not cause instant 100-0 death, or 2, they should be much more avoidable, giving an escape opportunity like how grenade mechanics in many shooter games tell you the location of the danger, and a predictable detonation delay after landing so that a quick player can seek shelter.

While your equipped items only suggestion has its merits, it’s also pretty easily subverted by simply unequiping everything when you’re in a pinch. It’s not hard to imagine that many players will painstakingly equip and unequip their tools as needed to avoid death penalties. This creates a behavior that is tedious, avoids the danger of death penalties entirely, and is (probably) not fun.

That being said, I feel strongly against skills that reduce death penalties to 0 for much the same reason. I think this entire interaction of death penalties needs further refinement.

I think you’re over simplifying kal-el’s opinions here, and even somewhat contradict your self in a few places. In many situations, death does effectively mean loosing all of your equipment. I may only die once between my house and my market, but now I can’t sell any of my tools because they are all irreparably damaged. 4 deaths over any period of time (seconds, weeks, doesn’t matter) will reduce an entire inventory of tools to 1%. Regardless of how avoidable death is, it can still happen unexpectedly, especially in scenarios like kal-el described of sudden, unavoidable death. He’s not saying a death penalty is not essential to the game, he’s saying that in its current state it is detrimental to his enjoyment of the game.

Let’s remember that while this game isn’t Dark Souls, even that game gives you a chance to redeem yourself for a mistake made once, and above all, Dark Souls is fair.

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