Impact of character death in game.
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I was wondering how the all important mechanic, death in game, will be handled. I know that there is loot in this game, but the devs have also constantly said that all gear are sidegrades, which gives me hope. In games with looting and very expensive, long grindy hamster wheels for gear, people tend to cower behind walls and not do anything because they are afraid of losing their 'hard work'. If on the other hand, anything you lose will be relatively easy to replace (perhaps via means of production that cannot be looted, i.e farms, auto quarries mines etc that can be built or conquered, that way we still have great goals for players to achieve in game), then people are far more likely to partake in fun activities like open world PvP.
Bottom line is, is death easy to recover from? I hope it will be, because this will probably be crucial to the health of the game in the long run. Many current hot topics like log-off timers, how 'fair' PvP will be, and other such important game mechanics all hinge on how death is handled! Players should be incentivised to fight for things on the map and partake in activities like eclipses, but if death is hard to recover from, these exciting concepts will likely end up being quite empty.
Of course death will still have some consequence. Imagine if you are travelling from A to B in order to learn something in B, but you die just before reaching it. Now you have to restart your journey, pack more food and etc. The experience should make you excited to try again though, and to add adrenaline to the trip! Of course, if you a merchant with goods, then dying will have greater consequences, but again the rewards will also be great if you do make it (again adding excitement to the game, along with player professions like security, plus player metagaming mechanics like "how much can you pay me so I betray my employer and etc". After all, all great sandboxes are based on player interaction!)
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Hello @basileus, someone correct me if i'm wrong but I believe when you die, you respawn somewhere else I guess your home? and your loot will be dropped. You can get your loot back by going to the spot you died and get your loot.
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@staticsprite Hey, I know that much has been explained to us, but nobody really knows how much loot will be dropped on average (i.e for each death, how many hours of gameplay do you lose, and how much do you retain etc). So for example, if it was full loot, and all your loot together took you 1 hour to get together, then you've effectively lost (in terms of enjoyment):
Player frustration = (1 hour worth of items + travel time) - (your gameplay experience for the session + any in game knowledge points you've acquired).
In an ideal world, that equation above would be negative, so you would enjoy your gameplay session even if you do die and get looted (much like how it works in EVE Online so long as you follow the mantra of "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose".)
Of course this would change a lot depending on how hard or easy gear is to acquire, particularly top tier gear (and if top tier gear is only 1% better than say mid tier gear that costs you 10 minutes to make, this would also have significant impact on the 'value' of death). Naturally I expect more influential players who own farms, mines/has more money and knows how to play the market will have faster recovery rates than a poor player with nothing, thus ensuring that there will always be players who don't mind losing the best gear in game (and thus also encouraging low geared players to go out and fight in hopes of looting a top tier geared player).
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@basileus said in Impact of character death in game.:
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Basileus is absolutely right that this will have an enormous impact for the casual player base who simply do not have several hours of time at their exposure and therefore sooner or later cannot go to places anymore which are camped by grieving player killers - at least not without bringing bodyguards which might be hard to motivate to help a casual player with less abilities and ressources - other than being nice and friendly.
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Hey ! So, when you die, all of your loot is dropped, and you just have to pray nobody else will take it. You talk about top tier gear, but there is no top tier gear, it only give you really minor bonuses (I don't remember if there is really bonuses or not ^^) But sure, it could be a gear you waited some days to collect all the ingredients to craft, and more for the crafting itself. If you're on Tartaros, try to find somebody you can trust, and play together, it will be more secure ^^
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@Severinus I personally do not care about being looted, I enjoy games for the PvP experience! However, I know that a lot of people hate losing (and at the same time don't really care for learning from it unless they feel like they didn't lose anything), and I want to make it so that they don't mind it much either, so it encourages more people to go out into the open world without staying in massive zerg groups. If looting hurts too much, open world PvP generally becomes zerg vs zerg, where both zergs avoid each other in order to try to find small groups to overrun with 0 skill and loot. Personally I usually prefer small group PvP and 1 vs X playstyles (except for when I'm running with a large guild with strategic objectives, but I consider the two entirely different playstyles, and I like to indulge in both).
Bottom line is, I want both Syndesia and Tartaros to be target rich environments, and if dying hurts too much, then I won't have many targets to kill, which means less fun for me. Therefore, I want what's best for the game by making death hurt less (EVE uses insurance, tutorials that teaches newbs to not fly what they can't afford to lose etc), so that I can have more fun myself! (I consider that a pretty demony way of looking at things right?)
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We don't have the crafting spotlight but I don't remember reading about any time to recover. From the sounds of it it shouldn't be long. If a person can't get basic gear back in under 30 minutes then there's a problem.
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@basileus since I’ll be playing on tartarus i would love to team up with a player like yourself man, i also enjoy pvp and while it’s good for your pocket to go solo it’s also really risky to do so if you’re on a resource farm run hahahah, let me know what’s up I’m sure as hell looking for a 2-4 player team to stick with since quality is always better than quantity.
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Sure, that sounds great once the game comes out! It'll probably be Q4 2020 at the earliest I imagine, since pre-alpha is the end of this year, assuming everything stays on schedule. Considering that they started in 2017 with 5 people (at least I believe it was 5), that in itself would be an incredible feat.
