This should be properly tested but I’ve seen @AmandaPan on her hunter build take on hopper’s level three explosions without death. I don’t think is instant death. On the other hand a level 5 burned through all her health. With good amount of health and damage % reduction this might be possible to survive to it.
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The hoppers are a problem no matter what health you have. They are a pain and can explode without warning even on flat land. They are not easy sometimes to hit with the hopping if you can even figure out where they are. Then they roll away and it isn’t easy to always kill them before they might stand back up and start attacking. Plus you have other mobs to deal with too as well as the terrain. The balance around them needs to be looked at on “how and when” they explode especially with them hurting you through walls.
Not everyone can skill every point into health and protect and all the other junk we need to skill for. Not everyone wants to play 1413482309582 alts just to play a game. Not everyone has a player that is high level. Not everyone can run around with gem tools and has the ability to actually earn a lot of cash in this game to fund gem tools or the massive amount of hours it takes to actually find gems.
Many people have had situations in a million ways on how they died and complained about ALL items in inventory being hurt. The “damage only items in hands” on death is a much better solution with less ways of being taken advantage of than all the other ideas that have come up. The developers should actually put some time into just giving THAT to people instead of massively aggressive ideas like losing coin! Jesus let’s drive even more new players away…
People need to stay in the mindset of a beginner not someone that has played this game for 3+ years like most of the people in this forum. And people really need to stop nit-picking every complaint and solution (idea) that is brought up by people especially established players like @Kal-El that clearly knows when and what planets to be on.
I think we all agree we want a game that is not too easy and contains challenges… but we don’t need something that is too hard or too complex because of skill trees and tools and all these other things that will drive away new people. The balance will come but issues or concerns need to be raised by people without constant fear of someone shooting them down because they want to defend the game. The developers have already told us a million times that they have a thick skin and try to see through the “complaint” to the real message behind it.
The real issue is when will it be fixed? Who knows but clearly it is a balance issue that is far away from being addressed. I mean look at the age of this thread and talking about the same concerns.
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I assume its obvious I meant always losing your equipment upon dying, no matter its durability. Simply everything in your inventory being lost. It’s something different than losing it slowly bit by bit, so no contradiction here.
But that’s details, so lets not get lost in that.
you can offset hoppers by investing in impact reduction skills.
But hoppers are a bit overpowered atm, they have range, speed and power which should not be all-in-one. On the other hand just one shot and even if you don’t have enough power to kill it, it will roll off. The only issue is when they appear suddenly and you don’t have time to react.
As for tools damage, I guess the best way to fix this issue would be to only affect one tool of the same type, so if you have +1 daimond hammers only one take 25% damage.
I level up death penalty reduction to max and tool durability to max on all my chars, except crafters.
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I only played since this summer so I think my view still fresh. Hoppers are difficult until you learn their mechanics. I go alone and kill them at level 15 with an iron slingbows it just takes a long time. But that’s besides the point. What’s being discussed is the penalty reduction, pros and cons correct?
The numbers are high, yes. Until you place skill points into the appropriate skill tree. What are some realistic suggestions that would fit with the game.
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lower the reduction to 15% and the skill points only reduce the cost to 5% instead of 0?
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keep penalty at 25 for held items but for inventory items down to 10%? Skill tree percentage reduction stays the same with the ability to bring it down to 0.
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take off all reduction for lower levels until certain level cap? Follow by the current numbers once push pass that level cap?
What are some suggestions? What are some ideas which we could come up with? Why don’t we have one of you organizational wizards make a list of possibilities and make a community vote and provide some concise feedback on this topic?
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If we are ever able to equip actual clothing or armor with stats, it could reduce damage further. Not trying to think of something a simple as Minecraft armor (that’s a little boring and uncreative). But I think being able to wear pants would be nice cause that loin cloth doesn’t really cover much, not that there is anything to reveal on these character models. ROFL
It’s also a little difficult to say if any particular solution we come up with now is viable in the future. The Atmosphere tree isn’t online. Rage and Focus aren’t online (which suggest special abilities). We don’t know if skill tree costs won’t scale up at all in the future either if each skill tree category is more expansive.
Currently the best solution we can look at as a player base is a damage reduction of the Hopper. It’s the easier solution to make too. If’s dropping the majority of people’s HP down to 0% from 100%, then there needs to be some factors to consider.
How much total HP does the character have that got killed?
Was the character already hurt?
Does the character have any skill points spent in the Endurance tree? If so, what parts?
Does the player have enough self awareness of their surroundings to be able to see it?
Do they have potato aim with Slingbows?
What quality of Slingbows is being used to kill Hoppers?
Another thing to even consider is some of these skill trees need a little reworking. Endurance trees where you have a Defense passive skill and Resistance passive skill need to be combined. You’re most likely going to get both if you’re going to get them and it makes no sense to just get one of them.
I would say reduce it’s damage by 15%. See how people do against that and adjust it more if needed. What we don’t need is every single animal or monster we face to be so easy that we don’t feel threatened by them.
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1 shot and roll does not always happen. I have hit hoppers and watch them still come after you. I have also seen hoppers stand back up after rolling away while being hit. I have also seen them (as well other mobs) regenerate health after a hit.
Thank you rumple… that is all I think we need to more focus on. Simple suggestions and ideas and less of the back and forth.
Please add “only items in hands are damaged, items in inventory are not” to the list.
Yeah, I guess there are such thing going on 
This is a bit exploitable, you just need to not carry stuff in hands. I’m more for only one tool from same bunch gets damaged no matter if it’s in hand or backpack 
I think we’ve derived into two main topics here. Death Penalty, dealing with the dangers.
I personally consider the death penalty to be a welcome feature, in the sense that it is a better alternative than losing the items, exp deductions or debuffs applied to a player. Losing items is just two big off a drawback in my opinion, exp deduction is too hard of a blow for many, with more harder skill builds to level up for and debuffs could be bypassed by just logging out until it passes, or do something else entirely (could be applied as a counter for as long as you’re in game). Death penalty just has a everlasting effect, while keeping us able to use the damaged loot.
The value may be a thing to consider lowering down (I personally consider 25% as a good value, but having nothing against it being lowered to something like 15%), but I think the mechanics of it should stay as they are.
Other than that, the issue is battling danger and ways to avoid it. I believe Boundless is a game of choices and options, as such it should allow for ways to battle off creatures than direct confrontation. Right now we have the options to run and fight them directly. I believe all professions should have ways to fend them off, maybe with different levels effectiveness, but still possible. Hunters will be able to kill them, explorers will sense them and avoid it, crafters and miners/gatherers will be able to bait them off or repel them with craftable equipment and consumables, etc.
No one is denying the fact that hoppers are a pain in the butt and are hard to predict or notice, I just believe that as they may seem to be correlated, I don’t think is of such importance that death penalty should be completely reworked, and more of reworking Hoppers interaction and our options for us to deal with them and other creatures in the feature.
I believe damage to all tools should remain, it will be a much simpler concept to understand and remember. At the start I believe many will die while carrying wooden tools, the game is making it obvious of your loss, it’s harmful enough that it reminds the player, while soft enough to keep them interested.
Sure enough losing durability on weapons and tools made of gold and above is a big loss and certainly we’ll feel the burn. But as long as we have ways to avoid death and reduce durability with the investment necessary then I think we all can deal with it. Things such as skills that reduce the death penalty, or maybe just maybe, buffs with consumables or perks added to tools or wearables with the centraforge that reduce death penalty will be valid options, let’s say you have a buff that eliminates the death penalty for the next two deaths, after that you proceed to lose death penalty as it should.
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If all tools can be put into a smart batch fine… but I shouldn’t take a hit on my Iron and then Diamond Hammer and other mixed items that cannot be stacked.
Let’s be very clear that most of the problems around the death penalty that people have brought up is the sequence of events that happen “out of the blue” via a hopper blowing up or a slip to lava that wasn’t seen. I doubt anyone will be able to execute a “put items away” sequence in the 0.42 seconds they have before death.
I don’t see how it is an exploit to put away items when you about to enter a dangerous situation. All you are doing is being careful and shouldn’t be defined as an exploit. The other situation happens so fast people can’t protect equipped items.
to be honest the only reason I invest in durability skills and death penalty skills is that I spend enough time around lava for that being a smart investment, and I don’t want to stress myself too much. I don’t see where such long discussion came, you have already option to make it 0%. I’ve played about 700 hours in total and I haven’t ever felt that game is too punishing when you die, neither that mobs are too dangerous, you can run away in 99% of situations, I had 8 cuttletrunks chasing me around lava lakes in munteen and that was fun.
I’d rather have devs do some more important stuff than adjusting this specific feature.
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Just to be clear I have death reduction maxed because I didn’t want to deal with it. I would prefer to invest points other places but can’t now.
I would prefer the developers work on more important content as well but there are people working on poles and pies. So a small amount of time to adjust a big issue that does affect many people that do not have death reduction isn’t too big a deal. Especially since its just a change to say damage equipped items and not all items. That would have greatly reduced this thread even.
Whether they spend time on it or not, I cannot control. But we as a community can at least give them a simple list of things we would prefer over stuff like coin reduction and stuff that came from their own ideas without possible input.
For me poles & pies > death penalty
I guess everyone has their own agenda 
To keep on topic, one way to implement death penalty would be to apply debuff so that player would have like x amount of minutes where all abilities are lowered for a few degrees.
I think the very fact that you can avoid death penalties through skill points is broken, and totally negates the purpose of having a death penalty to begin with. I’ve probably already said something similar further up this thread, but I would really prefer it if a death penalty:
Was consistent across all players of a similar level, regardless of equipped items or wealth.
Did not cause “backward progress”.
Adequately discouraged risky and reckless behaviors.
I feel like there are a few things that could fit this description nicely. Debuffs for dying would work great, but I have a few other ideas to spice up life and death.
Death counter/indicator: effectively a double edged sword. This is half badge of shame, have badge of glory. It doesn’t need to be an outright counter that says “you have died (x) times!”, but maybe something similar to hollowing in Darksouls 1, where deaths slowly drained your characters humanity, making your character appear more and more undead with repeated failures. This could be reflected in B< by making the character look more and more distressed with each revival, and restored to their natural state by resting at home or a camp fire. Revival fatigue debuffs could reduce stats briefly after revival.
Self revival could cost %coin penalty, where as player revival could be free, but on a cool down period. This creates a bit more of a forgiving situation where if you’re willing to wait for revival, you suffer no penalty, but also discourages repeated risky play by only allowing one revival every (x) minutes per player. Put the revival cd timer on the deceased player, not the player reviving others.
Or, a combination of these two mechanics. They’re not really mutually exclusive.
Also, an all-stat buff for going x hours in game without a death that expired on death would be awesome. Instead of punishing death, reward survival. Possibly an “adrenaline rush” or glory buff for surviving combat encounters? Could scale on enemy difficulty and reset for each enemy defeated?
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@luke-turbulenz, @james a closer look should (in my own humble opinion, naturally) be taken at death mechanics before more dangerous encounters like bosses, titans, and dungeons are introduced to the game, as death is a major factor in the success or failure of these features.
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I’m going to pick on this comment because I’ve seen it many times before and it is extremely misleading.
Our dev team contains designers, engineers, and artists. The artists are working on concepts and assets for current and future features - but they’re not going to fix the balance and combat system. Different people, different skills. If we stopped creating these assets we wouldn’t accelerate design or code - we’d simply stop creating assets.
(I’ve not read every comment in this thread but…)
There appear to be 2 discussion:
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Hoppers can surprise kill you - this is bad balance (or a bug) and shouldn’t happen. All creatures are supposed to warn you that they’re feeling threatened so you can opt to back off if you’d like to avoid the encounter. If you don’t retreat they should start attacking you. If a Hopper goes from 0 to exploding instantly then it isn’t working as designed.
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Death penalty is too harsh / Death penalty shouldn’t be reducible to zero - the death penalty is suppose to maintain some level of risk and tension whilst playing. The default penalty could be changed, increased or reduced - and I’m open to suggestions. The game originally adopted Minecraft’s “drop all inventory on death” solution but this was deemed much to unfair given another player could collect everything you’ve lost.
I particularly like that the penalty can be skilled to a zero cost. Players have different real world skill levels and this allows players to mitigate it or their chosen play style. Allowing the penalty to be 0 actually allows for all sorts of different styles.
In conclusion - the game is still in development - feedback and discussion about this sort of stuff is helpful and encouraged. If we’re not exploring alternatives then we’re not making the game better.
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Thanks @james for saying this. I knew you all had different types of roles and people working on things since I’ve done app development. But we see many times people say something like I did so it is good for you all to clarify it so that we can actually have less of those comments and people understand the dev process better.
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Adding my inputs.
I am also against total 0 reduction on death. There should really be something that acts as punishment for dying. If this 0 reduction will be a thing, we’ll be seeing tanks with 0 reduction. Respawn process and joining the combat is fairly quick as well (~15 seconds) so this will be highly exploitable while group hunting.
I might just be lucky or haven’t been on the field for a long time but I don’t think I’ve been surprised exploded by a hopper. Anyway, the high damage is understandable since they are giving up their life for that attack. I agree it would be better if we have additional sound cue when they are about to explode (I don’t think we only have the teacup sound from aggro to explosion?)
I particularly like Havok’s previous suggestion of scaling up attributes as you level up. It would mitigate this issue if our HP scales up as we level. This is the expected behavior for most MMORPGs and games in general and making it locked behind a skill makes it a little confusing. You’ve hit level 20 but surprisingly got 1 shot by a hopper on a moon planet.
A little off topic suggestion regarding Vitality progression. Leveling up vitality feels really super rewarding in a little wrong way. It’s cheap and it adds a lot of health to your character. A level up could bring your health from 1 bar to 4 bars or more (depending on your level). If I may change things to my liking, I’ll increase the base HP of characters as they level up and the vitality skill point just add a percentage of the base HP. With this, people opting to have high HP still looks forward to leveling up rather than to completely stop his HP progression once Vitality tree has been filled up.
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