Goblin Squad Member
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Upon dying, your PC's spirit appears at an oubliette in the Near Ethereal. You must navigate this fog-shrouded maze to find a portal to return you to the Core. However, this does not instantly return you to life. Instead, you appear next to your remains. After a brief period of time, you're able to reenter your body. For whatever reason, should you not reenter your body in a certain amount of time (this period decreases in length as you gain levels), your corpse will decay and you will have to be raised from the dead to come back. In these cases, another player can raise you or you can be raised by an NPC priest for a fee (to be raised by an NPC, a corpse must be placed within range of them and used; an option will come up to make the NPC raise them, for a cost of 100 gold per level). If the period of time is very long, you will require a resurrection.
We have no xp loss when you die. Upon death, you will drop all the gold you're carrying, along with the items in your hands. The other items you have equipped will be stored on your corpse. Note that it's possible for another player to loot your corpse while you're in spirit form. Unequipped items cannot be looted. Other players also have the option to stab or burn your corpse, forcing the player to be raised in the case of the former and resurrected in the case of the latter. If you come back to life by reentering your own body (picking up the placeable corpse), you will experience a stat loss that will be in effect until you rest. Since death uses up all allotted rests in your rest period, this means you have to wait for an in game period equal to your level (e.g. a level 2 waits for 2 in game hours to rest; a level 10 waits for 10 in game hours) or you have to go to a safe rest area like an inn room. If you are brought back to life through the actions of another player or an npc priest, you experience no stat loss and your rests are not used up."
NOTE: Players can carry corpses of the deceased; it is a common occurrence for players to carry corpses to the nearest church, a hot spot for clerics who will then raise the fallen (possibly gaining some experience or progressive reward for doing so). It can also be an area for people to recover from negative alignment through healing (and ressing if possible). Such systems remove the general downtime of death for good aligned players; increases risk and down time for evil players, all in a very interesting system which for me, has been the most well implemented system I have played. Dying an idiotic death at night, deep in the wilderness was far more costly to my time than a more safe death; you're taught to play wise and fear death - but not too much.
(Some of you may recognise it!)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ok, that's an interesting death mechanic. I think it might work better in a PvE environment.
Given a open-world PvP environment, character death in PFO is going to be common. Unobservant, untrained, and unlucky players will have characters die all of the time, and part of the challenge for the game is to make death simple and quick - so we can get back to playing the game. I think the death mechanics outlined by Goblinworks in their blog are well suited for the tempo and goals of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The mechanic in question functions in an open PvP world. Death mechanics work both ways; if a good aligned PC dies, a passer by will, in a world in which one would require similar aid in the same situation, aid a fallen PC. An evil character would receive no aid and thus rely on a villainous friend to come to their aid, or take the loss and downtime involved with self resurrection.
Harsher death penalties are highly functional in open PvP games given that the penalties are thicker for those committing evil deeds.
Death using the above system can be simple and quick; you travel with friends, you stock required physical components to resurrect, you don't wonder off into the wilderness or enter into activities where you deserve to die.
I sincerely hope that death is far from quick and simple and that it is instead variable to the circumstances of the PCs death. World of Warcraft offers a quick and easy recovery from death - I used to die as a form of quick travel and generally didn't consider death to be a hinderance what so ever. PvP felt like a deathmatch where I would simply respawn following death and I generally found the game to suck for it.
The above mechanic, death was relatively quick and easy for me as I played smart in a dangerous world. There were times where I died far from home and murderers hid my body in a barrel in the cellar of a deserted inn...I grew from that experience and the game was richer to me for it as death was as much a learning curve as any other aspect of the game.
Whats wrong with a game which punishes you for being stupid? They're my favorite kind :(
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nothing's wrong with punishment for stupidity, so long as it is discernable and different from punishment for ignorance.
When (and if) I decide to play in Pathfinder Online, it will be the first ever MMO I've tried, and if it turns into a frustrating orgy of getting picked on by "smarter" (i.e. more experienced) players I'll be getting disgusted with it pretty darn quick.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've been often curious as to the drive to make death a harsh punishment, and how that is supposedly a method of curbing "evil" style gameplay. To me it makes no sense, as a harsh death penalty as described would slow down solo gameplay, take away from any potential enjoyment, inevitably lead to success only through large groups. This seems to take away from the freedom of gameplay to me.
Additionally, the presumption that "evil" style of gameplay is some how bad, or needs to be punished is missing one of the fundamentals to the Sandbox style of PvP. Death will happen, and as described, you'll already have the penalties of potential loss of non-equipped items, as well as the whatever time lost to return to the area where you died. There's also the psychological issue of having someone else (either the game or other players) impose their will on the player of the dead character. Having actually lost a fight is impactful.
This "evil" gameplay idea is also somewhat arbitrary. Is clearing a hex of intruders for you Chartered Company evil, or just an attempt at cornering the market on some rare resource? Is the style of gameplay of being the bandit any less valid than the ones that hunt bandits? Often times the presumption of the player of the dead character is that the "other" guy has done wrong, evil, or whotnot, but really, in this sandbox its just them doing for them, and following the River Freedoms
I'll agree that WoW's penalties for death are milquetoast at their worst, but with a few considerations of how that system works, it can be easily avoided. For starters, PFO will not likely have any sort of instanced battlegrounds. Preventing a dense proliferation of "graveyards" or rez points will also increase the penalty. On top of that, and you lose items carried but not equipped. Seems to me to have a nice balance already.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me harsh DP is not intended to curb any behaviour, in fact it is intended to inspire a behaviour; specifically, acting as if you actually care about the life of your character. Even in a world in which gods can and do grace their fallen followers with resurrections, it is a serious breach of immersion and logic when you have to defend yourself from a horde of naked PvPers (the ones yo just got done killing) repeatedly zerging you and/or your settlement from the graveyard.
As far as DP goes, I am still a fan of the one we came up with previously, characters gain increasing attribute damage when they rez (and can only rez at a temple/shrine of their god). This means if you die once, you get a little bit of damage, if you die 5 times repeatedly then you get a lot of damage (by damage I mean a semi-permanent hit to your attributes). Characters are able to "work off" their attribute damage by doing work for their deity. So, the best way to do it is to do the work for your deity immediately after being rezzed...and it should then only be a few minutes of "labour". Repeatedly dying without working off the previous DP gives you increasingly more DP...the sixth time in a row that you die might leave you with hours of "labour" for your deity (also, the size of the DP increases each time).
The nature of the "labour" is PvE/PvP missions, and depend entirely upon your deity. It becomes a wise decision to choose a deity who has priorities that overlap your character's, and matches your preferred play style.
Also, part of conquest includes the ability/need to build and defend shrines...so players can rez closer to the battlefield and it keep players of like alignment teamed together. While it should be possible to build multiple shrines in a temporary graveyard, it just consumes more resources and requires more defenders and coordination.
Atheists/Agnostics should get grace from some neutral deity, probably Pharasma. DP should also "wear off" slowly while logged off.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Promoting one behavioral modality IS punishing another. And baring hyperbolic responses, I've pointed out many times that there are already inherent penalties for death, that don't involve punishing players with attribute deficits or any of that sort. To me, its not fun, it prevents the kind of freedom of gameplay i'd like to see, and its in my opinion a detriment to the success of the game.
"Working" off a penalty to a deity simply doesn't apply to someone who wants to play an atheist. Talk about an unwelcome burden. Its also a harsh indictment for someone who sucks at playing the game. It would slow the economic progression of the game, as players would have to spend time Paying off God-debt, rather than doing whatever interests them. And for ultimately failing to perform, not necessarily for doing anything wrong. Character development would be inherently stunted for every death, either for having to work off some arbitrary debt or from the opportunity costs of waiting for it to drop off naturally.
That just doesn't strike me as a winning recipe.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Working" off a penalty to a deity simply doesn't apply to someone who wants to play an atheist. Talk about an unwelcome burden. Its also a harsh indictment for someone who sucks at playing the game. It would slow the economic progression of the game, as players would have to spend time Paying off God-debt, rather than doing whatever interests them. And for ultimately failing to perform, not necessarily for doing anything wrong. Character development would be inherently stunted for every death, either for having to work off some arbitrary debt or from the opportunity costs of waiting for it to drop off naturally.
That just doesn't strike me as a winning recipe.
An atheist would be stupid in a world in which gods play a very active role. I would be happy to deliver what should apply to an atheist...perma--death. Why would a god rez you if you do not even acknowledge their existence. If you do not want to believe in gods, then you can wait for a player to find and expend a "wish" to rez you I guess.
I suppose we just have very different ideas of what a win is...which is okay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"if he dies ... he dies."
(the Drago method)
most fun I've ever had was on a "perma-death" NWN server ... my PC lived to 10th level and took five years RL ... and those servers were not catered to you CL to the extreme, If you were dumb enough to walk into a giant den at level 3 then you died fast and hard and rolled up another PC.
you had to scout, and research, and ask questions, and actually play like you would it it was your PCs life on the line because ... IT WAS!!!
now saying that, that is not conducive to longterm player happiness in an MMO. But I do think that dying should be severe enough that people just dont throw themselves at everything they come across, and should actually THINK about whether to enter that unknown cave, etc.
one of my fondest memories on that NWN server was three of us going into a cave that was SUPPOSED to be empty to see if we could turn it into a secret shrine. There was a momma red dragon with two dragon eggs. I made my saving throw so the breath of flame only did 78hp damage (to my rear as I was in full sprint out of the mouth of the cave). No chivalric saving of my two fellas, no charging and hoping for the 20/20, no "well-i'll-just-insta-rez and come back with a momma red with 66% of her hp". Point being I ran immediately. You tend to play it like you should when death matters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"if he dies ... he dies."
(the Drago method)
most fun I've ever had was on a "perma-death" NWN server ... my PC lived to 10th level and took five years RL ... and those servers were not catered to you CL to the extreme, If you were dumb enough to walk into a giant den at level 3 then you died fast and hard and rolled up another PC.
you had to scout, and research, and ask questions, and actually play like you would it it was your PCs life on the line because ... IT WAS!!!
now saying that, that is not conducive to longterm player happiness in an MMO. But I do think that dying should be severe enough that people just dont throw themselves at everything they come across, and should actually THINK about whether to enter that unknown cave, etc.
one of my fondest memories on that NWN server was three of us going into a cave that was SUPPOSED to be empty to see if we could turn it into a secret shrine. There was a momma red dragon with two dragon eggs. I made my saving throw so the breath of flame only did 78hp damage (to my rear as I was in full sprint out of the mouth of the cave). No chivalric saving of my two fellas, no charging and hoping for the 20/20, no "well-i'll-just-insta-rez and come back with a momma red with 66% of her hp". Point being I ran immediately. You tend to play it like you should when death matters.
You mean...like...reward the people who spend time and energy actually developing real intelligent strategies?
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Goblin Squad Member
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stuff
presenting the strawman of a horde of players spaming their faces into danger isn't a good reason to come up with a complicated mechanic that would turn off most new players like an Ogre in a mini-dress. Now that the hyperbole is out of the way...
I'm in no way advocating a FPS style insta-rez with 32 seconds to get back into the action, and I think the systems described by the Devs is a nice sweet spot of penalty and convenience. I'd be happy to see any sort of rebuttal to my assumptions of how this type of God-debt mechanic would do anything other than slow and hamper the growth of the economy, the enjoyment of the players, and impact the growth of the game in a negative way. Citing NWN perma-death just isn't really apples to apples.
Really everything about these harsh mechanics strikes me as a solution begging for a problem. And that problem exists... in other games, that PFO will be nothing like. SW:ToR you don't even have to run back to a body half the time, WoW at least eats some of your time, unless you're in a instanced PvP in which case, yes, your back into the fray on an FPS scale. Nothing I've read about any sandbox game has any correlation to these behaviors emergent in those themepark games.
Your reward for intelligent strategies should be success, not a lack of penalty.