The Lands of Arda

Salith Grinn · Vala Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 336 Location: Baltimore

At some point we will be looking into the implementation of what happens when the player clicks "ye olde respawn button". I'm curious as to your thoughts on what the outcome should be. Assume you will return to a "bind stone" of some sort that saves your respawn location. But what do you feel the penalty should be? XP loss? (based on level?) Gold Loss? (based on level?) Should the player have a limited number of respawn allowances before the character is truly dead? Any other opinions?

We do need a death system that has meaning. Life should not be pointless, yet at the same time you should be willing to respawn. Previously in old arda when higher level characters died rather than respawn they would log out in discouragement....this is no good, this should not always be the case.

I'm curious what you all think, please post your thoughts.

Tagnar · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 28

First of all, will gold be more usefull in the arda 2? If not, then the gold penalty aint usefull at all Confused

Salith Grinn · Vala Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 336 Location: Baltimore

Gold supply will be far more limited, additionally, it will be required for more things....like forging/crafting (maybe leveling up? hey new idea)

Tagnar · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 28

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

how would paying to lvl up work? would you have to find a trainer to do it?

Completely understand needing money to forge...gotta pay the blacksmith! Also hope to see some decent armor and weapons that you can buy as well. I would like to see a high lvl place that sells basic +3 stuff with no bonus possibly.

illuminus · Vala Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 382

We could create an option at the bindstone to allow the player to tweak the XP and GP penalty up or down. The default would set everyone at 25/25. The player could take 5% from one which would add 5% to the other. You could choose up to 50% loss in one with no loss in the other.

Salith Grinn · Vala Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 336 Location: Baltimore

just tossing ideas out and seeing what everyone thinks. Illuminus' idea sounds interesting. I had a thought though, what happens if you dont have enough gold to pay? Also with a %, if you say all gold and you have 10 gold you only lose 5 to respawn....or did you mean the 25/25 split to be in relation to the penalty at that level?

illuminus · Vala Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 382

That won't work out too well then.

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

I like the idea of everyone setting their own penalty for death, but would think that letting players choose the extremes would be a bad thing. perhaps going from 10/40 to 40/10 on the xp/gold penalty possibly?

Not sure about the amounts though...they seem a little sever...maybe setting it at 20/20 as the start point? then it would be a maximum of 10/30 either way.

would have to be % so that if someone's got no money they can still spawn!

Salith Grinn · Vala Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 336 Location: Baltimore

Yeah thats the problem with %s, you tilt it all the way toward gold and you can still respawn. I'd rather have some sort of graduated xp penalty as before rather than that.

My main point was to see if there was any interest among you in a more hardcore approach, something like 9 lives and your out for that character....I guess its safe to assume most of you would not like that. Additionally it would mean a lot more work in terms of difficulty balancing for us.

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

I think lives would be a bad thing...but then I've not played multi-player in nwn2 yet, so couldn't comment fully I suppose. I know that actual death is harder in nwn2 campaign because they do the whole unconscious thing until there are no enemies around left to kill you.

Fin · Joined: 20 Feb 2007 Posts: 3

What about the possibility of having a certain % increase in experiance and gold loss each death. Up to a certain extent if possible for each level gained. Like a level 5 player dies once and losses however much xp. Then each death after that, he loses a certain % more than the original loss up till the 5th time. After that character gains lvl 6 it starts over again. That way deaths will mean more of a loss each time. Perhaps each level higher you gain one extra step up in the xp loss. So level 1 gets 1 set of loss xp. Then lvl 2 gets 2 and so on and so forth. Just an idea to keep things proggresively tougher.

illuminus · Vala Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 382

A 5% base loss would work with the graduated respawn penaly. By the 20th repawn after 20th level the loss would be 100%. A 1st level only deals with 5% loss which is very reasonable. By the 5th respawn as a 5th level, we lose 25% which seems heavy, but it would be unusual for people to not learn the ways of the different areas and avoid dying after a few tries.

Lanalon · Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject:

I think these penalties are too harsh.
_________________
One of the Fëanturi, the masters of spirits. He is keeper of the Houses of the Dead, and the summoner of the spirits of the slain. He forgets nothing; and knows all things that shall be. He is the Doomsman of the Valar, and Mandos is his name.

illuminus · Vala Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 382

Okay what about non-cumulative 5% base +1% per level? 1st level takes a 6% hit, 15% by 10th and maxing out at 25% by 20th.