I think this is the best idea so far.
I would only tweak it slightly to suggest that if you die it is reset and if you stop mining or collecting xp then it slowly then quickly decreases.
this could work in combination with a percentage of xp loss. I think a percentage of xp loss is not so bad. (not sure what it is now if its a percentage, i think ive heard different values)
I actually wanted to suggest something similar as a perk for miners (since hunting is the best way to level as everyone knows)
and that would be as you mine or collect xp continuously you are rewarded with some extra xp (like mini feats) or maybe a luck bonus that quickly resets if you stop mining for a few seconds.
sometimes we do, and that is a big enough hit a lot of times, especially when items or carcasses are despawning or especially during hunts where in 30 seconds you could easily be getting over 20,000 xp.
these are the times the death penalty is already frustrating. Plus, like @schasm said, sitting out on a game is a HUGE penalty in itself because we log on to play this awesome game! my time is precious (okay I have lots to spare atm but sometimes I don’t) and for that I absolutely hate unavoidable time based penalties. (having to wait for items to craft was infuriating at first but its one of those things I accepted and moved on with, you can always just craft a queue and do something else, I like that)
I think what many of us are arguing is that even for players who take a break they are still being penalized in terms of play time. Maybe sometimes they would have taken a break anyways, but most of the time they would have preferred to keep playing.
I don’t see Boundless as a game that needs to be overly punishing about death anyways. It’s not that sort of a game. The mechanic only needs to be just strict enough to make players care to try and avoid it, and also designed to prevent people from abusing death to accomplish things they shouldn’t be able to.
About the defeat penalty. I mainly have one thing to say, is that between no consequences and a little consequence there is already a big difference. My miner had only defeat penalty 4 till recently, and when missed a jump and died in lava I was mad. Now I’m the kind of cheap guy that mine with iron hammers etc, I guess not everybody cares about their tools that much. But still, the difference between losing nothing and losing something is huge.
I feel like tool durability loss was good, I feel like xp loss is not bad either, Neither is the xp and luck debuff. I’m fine with any of those.
I think it’s more a question of fine tuning. The player will get the message, they got punished. The punishment doesn’t need to be big. A small penalty will already change things a lot compared to now where people are immune.
Overall I’m happy with the loss of total invulnerability. And I like the idea of hitting veterans and new players equally. And it is the researched goal, then Omni’s defeat penalty is the best one. I wouldn’t go overboard with it though, because if a mechanic makes a player log off, he might not log back in.
I agree that “putting down the game for a while” should not be the punishment for a player. First, most of us have limited time to play and this is the last thing that we want to do. Second, putting it down might translate to “maybe tomorrow again” then to “I don’t feel like opening the game again”. Third, it makes the world less lively.
With that said, I still believe that the reduce in luck is still the better option for death penalty (so far). However, we should probably move from “punishing death” to “rewarding being alive”. For example, doing activities and evading death could earn you a status of “Healthy” thus, increase in luck. Upon death, you lose this status and you need to do some activities again to earn the said status.
Now, instead of putting down the game for a while, you would want to play more to earn that status and be “lucky” again (even if that lucky just means being normal again. Psych!!)
When you’re defeated we apply a “Death Sickness” status effect.
We remove the current death sickness effects (reduced stats and limited jump height) It wasn’t clear what the effect ever did, and it always felt strange to jump a different amount.
The new death sickness then reduces your XP generation by N% (say 50%) until you’ve earned M% (say 10%) of the total XP to progress your current level.
For example (with made up numbers):
If you require 10,000 XP to progress from Level 10 to Level 11.
Death sickness cost on Level 10 would be: 10% of 10,000 XP = 1,000 XP.
Whenever you have Death Sickness you earn XP at 50% until you’ve earned 1,000 XP.
Once earned you recover from Death Sickness.
If you are defeated again whilst you have death sickness, the status effect is reset and starts over. They don’t stack or accumulate.
OPTIONALLY - we add an Epic Skill that reduces, but doesn’t eliminate, the death sickness. This could be taken by players who have a habit of dying.
The advantages are:
No progress is ever lost. It’s not possible to go backwards or get stuck on a level.
It’s simple. Your XP gain is reduced whilst you have the status effect.
My only concern is, if something sticks with you that hinders your character but without a clear time frame when you will get rid of it, it might ruin your fun playing that character, or playing at all.
But I think it’s still a better solution then xp loss or tool damage.
Another variation on using time as a punishment could be to send the player to a special area that they will have to navigate and/or fight through in order to return to the rest of the game world.
I think this is probably about the best way. It definitely makes death something to avoid. I would like the epic skill added to reduce but not eliminate the penalty.
I do appreciate that you do listen to our concerns.
You could also add in an item that will reduce the amount of xp reduction. Like say a brew or food that you can eat that removes a % of the penalty, but adds a buff or debuff that doesn’t allow you to use it again for 20 minutes or something. So you’re not forced to keep that penalty until worked off.
I like this solution, as it appears to satisfy a lot of complaints from players while still making death something to be avoided (or alternately, rewarding players who successfully avoid dying). I didn’t have any issues with the XP loss (tho I admit I didn’t like the tool damage… although I kind of like the idea that if you fall into lava, the tools in your hands take damage, heh). I did like the earlier option to avoid death sickness if you were revived by a Healer (possibly because I have often enjoyed playing healers in other MMORPGs), not sure if it plays into this solution, though.
Regarding one player’s earlier comment about a non-obvious time frame for death sickness, I am not sure if something like this was already part of the plan, but maybe having a ‘death sickness’ debuff icon (like the one that already exists), with a countdown timer that decreases according to one’s progress at reducing the XP deficit?
Thanks for all your hard work and giving consideration to player’s concerns.
To provide some feedback for discussion, this could essentially be “death penalty free” moment where you go on a spree of just dying because there’s nothing left to lose. Could be exploited by just going tank then die, mine under the lava, dig underwater till you die, etc. repeatedly.
Probably not something you’ll do intentionally but could definitely pop into someone’s mind when they have already died honestly then just take risks and make the most out of this unfortunate moment.
Edit: To add to this, so we are actually saying that a character on the highest level would not have any death penalty as they don’t need to progress further exp-wise?
I guess it’s a thing. But I don’t see a real exploit there. You’d still get the penalty the whole time doing it. And that’s a lot of sanctum visits, other methods are probably more efficient.
Not sure what you meant by tank and die, but you lose aggro on dying. So if you die you’re not a tank anymore.
For the highest levels being unaffected, well you can get 3 skillsets per characters so you can spend skillpoints for a while, and after that you still want to level up to get plots and others cubits rewards. You probably care less than a low level, but low levels get hit less hard on the xp loss. I guess lvl 50s are hit the hardest, provided lvl 50 is still the “max” level, where you get maximum penalty and still care for skillpoints.
Overall I think the proposed penalty is really fair and hard to exploit.
