Goblin Squad Member
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I have read the blog To Live and Die in the River Kingdoms and I am not satisfied with the description of how the death mechanics work. Since discussion was encouraged and it's still early in development I would like to offer my suggestion.
Taking a page from an old MMORPG that most people have never heard of, DragonRealms, at dragonrealms.net which started about the same time Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL were the premier choices for getting online service. It is a text based game that still runs today. When you died in DragonRealms it was a bit of an adventure in itself. You even had to prepare yourself for death.
When you started the game after creating your character you were put in a type of "tutorial" adventure which would take you from level 1 to level 2. The game was also skill based so you had to raise certain skills to gain a level. At level 1 you were basically immune to death, you could still die but there was no penalty and no item loss. You would just be resurrected at the temple with all your gear and skills.
Towards the end of the "tutorial" or slightly afterwards you are supposed to go visit a temple where there was a puzzle and then you could earn a reward which you would offer to your god. You could offer several sacrifices which in-turn would grant you 1 favor for each sacrifice up to a max amount.
You then went out into the world to make your own way. Sometimes, enemies or players would get the better of you and you would lay dying on the ground. If you were dying you could be dragged to the nearest temple for healing, unless you were lucky enough to have a skilled healer with you. Sometimes you would bleed out before being healed and you would die.
Once you died your spirit would leave your body and you could "haunt" the area around you. Basically, you could whisper to people who were close or moan and make creepy sounds. Most people would ask for someone to please drag their body to the nearest temple where a very talented healer could bind your soul back to your body after healing it of it's wounds. Having your body dragged meant holding onto anything you were wearing. Items you were holding were dropped the instant you fell unconscious. Most kind souls who dragged you would also pick up your sword or bow or whatever else you had. Surprisingly, most people would help you.
There was still a penalty for dying other than losing what you were holding and that was memory. The longer your soul was detached from your body the more "skill" you forgot, up to a max. No worries though, most novice healers were able to keep your memories fresh with a spell. Really talented healers might even be able to help you regain memories that had already faded. A truly powerful healer could target an entire battlefield of allies.
Now you are back at the temple, someone has healed your wounds, refreshed your memories, and is about to bind your soul back to your body. I hope you remembered to make a sacrifice to your god, without that favor you were to walk the Starry Road forever. Everyone would see it in game too, "Mushroom C1oud has walked the Starry Road to never return."
I'm sure you are wondering what happens if no one is around to bring me to the temple for resurrection? Well, you would have to release from your body and if you had a favor would wake up in a very weakened condition in a temple. You would be stripped of everything. However, your items are not gone forever. A grave would appear where you had released and you had a finite amount of time to dig out your belongings, minus what you were holding. Once that time had passed, any passerby could dig up your remains and loot your corpse. Of course, if you had had no favors your belongings would become immediately available to all those around you.
So, what about that really powerful weapon you had worked so hard for and now it is just gone? Well, maybe. You could bind an item to you, it would have a marker on it preventing anyone else from holding it. Very similar to the Threading system in the latest blog. The item would follow you wherever you went.
I have always loved this system. It made death very detrimental yet very much apart of the story and could create an adventure of its own. It reminds me of when I would sit down with friends and play D&D and we had a "resurrection fund" in case someone died so we could bring them back at the temple. I think it adds a lot to how players perceive death, deities, and healer skills.
I think at it's core it is a great system and can be adjusted to fit any game, especially a fantasy setting. All these mechanics would fit within the Pathfinder Online world.
I was hoping that I could create a healer type character, build a temple. I would then sell potions and charge for healing and resurrections. Players would also be able pray to my deity and make sacrifices to obtain favors.
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Goblin Squad Member
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im going to throw some fuel to the fire. Bah to DR go GS4! I never could get into the combat system for DR, although i wish GS had the same style crafting system.
Anyway - im not sure a system like DR would work well in an MMO as DR is much more RP driven and the community (as a whole) looks out for each other. Unless this community is different id expect most folks in an MMO to loot the dropped weapons and run off, or rescue you and hold your weapons for ransom.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree about the looting and running off. That's where the Threading System that was mentioned in the last blog would come in. You essentially bind items to you preventing others from taking it, or if they did take it it would disappear from their inventory after a minute or certain distance and return to your inventory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think many of the things from Dragonrealms would translate well, but some things surely would.
Dragonrealms skills for example were terribly repetitive. Foraging for example would find a group of Rangers sitting in a circle using the slash command /forage over and over for hours while their skills crept higher at an agonizingly slow rate. While it did provide for considerable opportunity for RP the foraging part was the very definition of 'grind'.
Other hand when the Wendigo invaded it was mass panic as the high levels fought them, and low levels risked life and limb to drag their corpses to the temple for a rez.
But their equipped weapons (beautifully described when looked at... ivory hilted sabre with gold inlay in the image of a rampant dragon... and magnificent shields would fall on the ground where anyone could pick them up and make off with them.
The griefing was horrendous. But it was wide open and free. The thiefs with their wickedly fast crosbows could, and often did, strike from out of no where and without mercy.
But good times. Really really good times.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do remember levelling up my woodcraft favorably to make my ebony longbows. I had to have a fletchers bag in which I carried fletches and I think six different types of arrowhead. I had my scraper and a rasp. To carve a long bow I had to use the shaper (like a hand plane) an exact number of times flawlessly on one side, and an exact number of times on the other, then I had to shape both ends perfectly. If every I erred, which at the top of your skill on a high level wood was common, the bow would be ruined and worthless, and I would have to forage and forage many times before I found another good ebony limb to work and try again. Plus I had to make every one of my arrows, and the quality of wood made a real difference. When I brought down my quarry if I was lucky I would be able to pick the arrows I had used out of the carcass for re-use.
Yes, the crafting in Dragonrealms was the best I have ever seen. I tried several. Ironforging was the hardest, but most valuable.
Goblinworks Founder
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I've been playing around with Wizardry Online since they went open beta. I have to say, the game itself is rather bad (Animation, Art, Combat etc) but the hardcore mechanics are great fun. It even has permadeath if you aren't careful, FFA PvP & Criminal systems, full looting, husks and all that jazz. I only wish that a big budget company could put something like that together because it really is fun and works quite well. It makes me hope that GW will remain true to their vision but produce a much better quality than Wizardry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mushroom C1oud Well, don't leave us hanging. ;) Tell us how you would suggest implementing such a mechanic into the system that has been laid out for us. Text based adventures had a vastly more condensed travel time than any 3D game I've played to date, can you conjure a mechanic that handles death and resurrection a bit more elegantly?
MajorMUD had something similar to this as you had a set (varied per server but usually -10) negative threshold you could reach below 0 HP's before you actually died. If you weren't stabilized you would bleed out, if you were stabilized eventually you would reach 1 HP and begin to heal normally again. You could be drug from place to place if you needed to get brought above 0 a bit quicker, though no NPCs healed anyone but the able bodied that talked to them. But when you died, your death pile could fill up the entire room's capacity. In same cases with enough variety in your inventory it could spill over to another room.
I feel that rewarding a killer with only a couple of random items is somewhat unrealistic and really cheapens the kill when you're after someone for something you're pretty sure they have. Though it does limit the appeal of becoming a murderhobo for the loot. It might be nice if the killer simply had to make a choice of items and be limited to 2 at the most. It might also be nice were the killer to simply decide not to loot your husk after seeing what is on it, and what is threaded, that your husk did not in fact disappear at all.
I would certainly not be against allies being able to drag your husk back to you, or to an awaiting resurrection. This was very prevalent in EQ, and was a great aspect of community building. Early on you really, really had to be able to trust who you let touch your corpse; before there was corpse drag, there was friendly looting. Sometimes this ended in permanent enmity, sometimes it made all the difference in the world for recovering your goods. While people would still occasionally grief others just with corpse drag, it certainly inspired a degree of trust and cooperation between players.
I'm quite interested in what you might propose to this end!
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be great to have a death system encouraging meaningful player interaction in the vein of what was described by Mushroom C1oud.
Here is my quick hack at how it could work (obviously most if not all of this is stolen):
1. Dying state
When reduced to 0 health/HP you enter "dying" state, in which you continue to lose x health/HP per second/turn until you either reach -y health/HP or are stabilised or are healed to at least 1 health/HP.
2. Stabilizing
Anyone can stabilize a dying character. The time required to stabilize may be reduced by certain skills/traits.
[I would not like to make the ability to stabilize another to be dependant on the character having e.g. a healing skill at least unless that skill could be taken independently from investing into a particular skill tree].
Anyone could also have the possibility to stabilize on their own.
[Having feats to grant automatic stabilization probably would not be a good idea as they might become more or less mandatory.]
3. Recoving from stabilzed state
A stabilized character would recover x health/HP per second/turn until they reach 1 health/HP, at which point of time they are back in action.
Each character helping the stablized character should increase the recovery rate by x health/HP per second/turn. That rate could be increased by certain skills/traits.
[The rate at which health/HP would be recovered in the stabilized state should be slow enough that the battle would usually be over before stabilized characters would be back in action (with the exception of very long battles and character who managed to stabilize very close to 0 health/HP).]
4. Dead state
A dying character that reaches -y health/HP enters the dead state.
Anyone using x seconds and not interrupted during the process can move a dying character immediately to the dead state.
In the dead state a character's spirit leaves the body with the ability to haunt its surroundings, allowing the spirit e.g. to travel and whisper to the nearby characters.
[The spirit could also have the immediate ability to move to the shrine of that character's deity, if the player so chooses.]
5. Raising the dead
A player character with the proper skill should be able to raise the dead character by reaching the character's corpse, in which case the character would suffer no additional ill affects from the death (with the exception of the possible loss of its belongings dependig on how the corpse looting system eventually turns out).
A very high (skill) level character with the proper skill should be able resurrect the dead character even without being able to reach the character's corpse. (Most if not all belongings would in this case [probably] be lost).
[I am a bit torn regarding the ability to drag the corpse as although it would increase the possibility fo meaningful player interaction, it might also facilitate griefing.]
6. Invoking a divine favor
Characters unable (or unwilling) to seek out another player character to raise or resurrect them should be able invoke a divine favor from their deity. If/when that divine favor is granted, the character would be resurrected at the deity's shrine (most likely without most if not all of its belongings).
In case the character would have paid an appropriate tribute to the deity prior to invoking the divine favor, there would not be any additional ill affects on the character.
[The amount of the tribute could scale to the frequency of requests to discourage graveyard rushing.]
In case the character would not have paid an appropriate tribute prior to invoking the divine favor, the character would be subjected to a "divine wrath" (or similar) debuff, which could in turn be removed by a character with the appropriate skill or be automatically removed after x minutes. (A nice additional touch might be a at the same time issue notice along the lines of "Fruben has invoked the wrath of Iomedae." to all other followers of the same deity.)
[I have intentionally mostly ignored what happens to the gear, as this is a wall of text as is.]
permadeath in world were resurrection spells are common place no thank you. not a good use of the source material. breaks from lore, all that stuff.
now if permadeath was a special option you choose for your self at creation that's a different thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I didn't get the notion of perma-death being suggested.. I must have missed something. That's one of those all or nothing deals.. If the whole realm doesn't use it that makes it useless. Nor do I believe it should be mandatory.
I could envision a whole separate shard with a perma death rule of getting rezzed within a week.. man that would be super hardcore.
No reason to go there without a demand for it down the road, way down the road.
Now you are back at the temple, someone has healed your wounds, refreshed your memories, and is about to bind your soul back to your body. I hope you remembered to make a sacrifice to your god, without that favor you were to walk the Starry Road forever. Everyone would see it in game too, "Mushroom C1oud has walked the Starry Road to never return." implies perma death, also any system that causes me to lose skill training in the system pfo is using is going to be a huge no from me. its going to take real world time to improve your character, you can not just go out and regrind that lose, at that point its money lost.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mushroom C1oud Well, don't leave us hanging. ;) Tell us how you would suggest implementing such a mechanic into the system that has been laid out for us. ...
It might be an instrument to dissuade griefers from their unwelcome habit.
The only alignment that appear able to kill other players with impunity are evil alignments, and they would have evil gods.
Now, let us say that the labors and puzzles to gain death-favor from an evil god are going to be, well, evil. What is more, if the evil aligned character dies and they do not have favor, perhaps they have to serve time as undead until their master is satisfied and allows them to live again?
From a chaotic god you might not know what the requirements were, or even whether satisfying those requirements would actually be rewarded with favor.
Good characters might earn rebirth favors with acts and puzzles of penance, charity, or kindness. If a Good aligned character dies without favor perhaps they have to spend some time as a homeless beggar for penance, impoverished, helpless, and weak, hungry and cold until favor was gained.
For Law, favor might be gained through Obedience.
For True Neutrals favor might be gained might be performing acts of nurturing, planting, animal husbandry. Perhaps by dwelling in the forest while harming neither plant nor beast, even if attacked, until the favor was gained. A neutral who dies favorless might have to live as a tree for a time, until a favor was gained.
Just thoughts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Favor system is really the bread and butter. It brings more life to the deities and how you roleplay your character’s alignment. I will break down possible ways you can gain favor with your chosen diety. Selecting your diety would reflect your own alignment. That diety’s portfolio would determine what type of quests or actions would be required to gain favor. Without favor, death would be permanent (unless you are still in the introduction or tutorial phase). Don’t get all crazy over “permadeath”, it is easy to avoid and is more or less a deterrent for not roleplaying your alignment.
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Diety (Alignment) (Portfolio)
Abadar (LG, LN, LE, N) (Cities, Wealth, Merchants, Law)
-Casting a vote(s) for a city or settlement of which the temple resides.
-Building or purchasing a shop or residence in a settlement which has a temple of Abadar.
-Selling a certain value of merchandise within range of the temple.
-Donating a percentage of your value to the temple.
Asmodeus (LN, LE, NE) (Tyranny, Slavery, Pride, Contracts)
-Trading slaves.
-Casting a vote in a settlement where only your vote counts.
-Making deals where you are clearly receiving the better end of the bargain.
-Convincing a slave to sacrifice themselves to Asmodeus.
Cayden Cailean (NG, CG, CN) (Freedom, Ale, Wine, Bravery)
-Releasing someone from confinement or slavery.
-Brewing ale or fermenting wine and then sacrificing it to Cayden Cailean.
-Completing a heroic challenge such as removing bandits that have been attacking the locals.
Desna (NG, CG, CN) (Dreams, Stars, Travelers, Luck)
-Travel to a specific temple of Desna and observe the night sky.
-Win at a game of chance.
Iomedae (LG, LN, NG) (Valor, Rulership, Justice, Honor)
-Capturing a criminal alive and bringing them to justice.
-Casting a vote in a lawful good settlement.
-Completing a heroic challenge such as removing undead.
These are but a sample of the deities and possible ways to gain favor. To gain the quest you would go to a temple of the deity you wish to worship and pray. Complete the challenge given by the aspect and you will receive your favor. You can have up to a set limit of favors and you can only carry favor with one deity at a time. Gaining favor with a different deity forfeits your favors with the other deity. A change in alignment that puts you out of step with your deity also forfeits your favors with your deity and will either have to worship a new deity or find a way to change your alignment back.
The challenges should not be very difficult and should reflect your current level and location.
I will tackle healing, memory preservation, and resurrection in another post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to thank everyone for their posts. It gets me excited knowing that there's interest. I will take all suggestions into consideration when posting. I understand that certain penalties want to be avoided, I myself do not like to lose time or money. I will try and present my ideas in a way that time and money loss can be avoided if proper precautions and the use of skilled characters can be used.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Death, dying, and resurrection
Death will be nearly impossible to avoid. At some point during the game you will die. I will go over the moments before you die, what happens when you die, and how to survive death.
Dying is that state you go into when you hit 0 hit points. Once you are dying you will continue to lose hit points from bleeding. You can still be attacked, or a coup de grace may be performed. If you hit a set number of negative hit points or a coup de grace is performed you will die. While you are bleeding you can be stabilized by anyone who has the most basic healing skill. The better the player’s healing skill the better the chance of being stabilized.
When death occurs you will become a spirit if you carry favor with a deity. If you do not have favor your spirit will ascend to the heavens (or descend into the abyss). You may roam within a certain distance from your body. If your body is moved, your spirit must move with it. While in spirit form you may whisper to those within range. You can also haunt those around you if you so wish.
At death your body will begin to decay. As your body decays your memories will start to fade. Without the talents of someone who can cast a spell to preserve your body or memories you will lose random skills up to a max limit. A cleric who is exceptionally skilled at preserving memories may even be able to reverse the effects of decay. A highly trained cleric would be able to target all allies on a battlefield effectively preserving them. Multiple castings may be required depending on level of decay, number of bodies, and distance needed to travel.
The ability to resurrect, or bind a spirit back to its body, should be considered the pinnacle of any cleric’s profession. If there is not a cleric of sufficient skill then a trip to that player’s patron temple would be required. You would have to transport the body by dragging, loading onto a vehicle, or if you have a necromancer, animating the body.
Once you have someone to raise the body you will have to prepare it. You may still need to reverse the decay. The body is most likely still broken so it will need to be healed to bring it to at least 1 hit point or resurrection will fail. If you are successfully resurrected you may have some resurrection sickness plus you may still need to be healed further. You will also save the favors you have with your deity.
Sometimes you may be alone, or the enemy is still guarding your corpse preventing others from helping you, or you may be concerned about memory decay. If this should happen you may release your spirit. Your body and everything you were carrying will be left behind. Your deity will create a new body for you at the last temple you prayed at and your spirit will automatically bind to this new body. It will be fully healed but in an extreme case of weakness, it will also have memory loss incurred up to the point you released. Any items you had threaded to you will appear in your temple’s coffer available for you to pick up. Everything else will either have disappeared or been looted. You will have also lost 1 favor with your deity. You may go on another quest for your deity to gain another favor up to the max.
In essence you have a short amount of time after falling in combat to be saved from death. Once death occurs you must have favor with your deity to be resurrected. Having a cleric raise you will preserve your favor with your deity, releasing your spirit will use up your favor. Skill will decay when you die but a spell can be cast to prevent further decay or even reverse it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mushroom Cloud's vision looks good and it looks equitable between the alignments to me. It might need to be altered to some degree to prevent copyright infringement: that should be checked with Simutronics Corp to be safe. They are good folks over there but also a corporation with legal interests.
Speaking of which I believe they have the Hero engine that was licensed to EA/Bioware for Star Wars the Old Republic. Many have expressed dissatifaction with the Hero engine but I thought it did pretty well.
thankfully GW did not go with the hero engine, most of the problem SWTOR had with bugs and random server disconnects was the hero engine itself. the finnaly got it worked out but man it took them almost a year to fix the big issues with the engine ( i still remember the official turn shadows off work around and rest your graphics settings every time you logged to keep from getting random crashes.)
"When death occurs you will become a spirit if you carry favor with a deity. If you do not have favor your spirit will ascend to the heavens (or descend into the abyss). You may roam within a certain distance from your body. If your body is moved, your spirit must move with it. While in spirit form you may whisper to those within range. You can also haunt those around you if you so wish. "
that paragraph completely reminds me of Ultima Online.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quite the interesting batch of ideas there.
Before anything else I have to stress how critically essential it is that Permadeath, no matter how remote of a chance, is knowingly accepted and welcomed. We're talking Murphy's Law here: "If there is more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, someone will do it that way." (No, it's not the popularized short version.) Unfortunately it could just wind up being a series of terribly unfortunate events in which even one player has to pay the ultimate price. This is tantamount to a small thermal exhaust port, only about two meters wide. Personally I would love to see the discussion of Permadeath taken up at a later time, after the game launches and interest is determined. It is just not something you can dismiss lightly and yet leave in the game. People invest literally years of in-game time in these characters.
That having been said, let's talk about the other mechanics mentioned (the ones that caught my eye while so easily glossing past the mention of Permadeath).
Favor with the Gods. Yes, the Gods definitely find our world worth interfering with, much in the way Greek gods tended to not leave mere humans alone. It makes a great deal of sense to capitalize on this. The tributes that you mentioned looked like a pretty good start. The system itself I think to start with would need to be fairly limited in nature, keeping away from the possibility of a 'too strong' bond with a deity before the game is ready to handle such things. I did not particularly care for the concept behind the EQ expansion Planes of Power, in that regardless of them continuing to respawn you were encouraged to murder your deities, and simply grind the faction back if you had to. I don't feel like that should happen in this world. The consequences of losing a deity, and the possibility that a player should ever be capable of taking a hand in such, should be devastating to the entire ecosystem. It would need to be one of the most major events ever played out in PFO and forever change the nature of how Gods and mortals view and deal with each other. For now though, in the meanwhile, doing things to please your God and receiving small boons, it just fits.
Dying and respawning, you've got an interesting mix of concepts here. @Being had a couple as well regarding non-permanent types of death penalties. So, the spirit thing. Immediately I think of a person taking a death to scout around a corner or past a magical trap or something, and returning for their rez in a short amount of time. It's possible that if rez is such a high level Cleric spell that this is considered reasonable at that high of a level of play. Particularly if there will be spell components. (Does anyone know if there will be? I would hope/assume so for the most potent spells at the very least, though not for every spell certainly.) What is the point of this though? You are going to stay with your body for a limited time regardless, but why as a spirit? Why haunt people? Why whisper in their ears? I would definitely need to hear more about this to go one way or the other.
Without some context for the hoops to jump through for a rez, it strikes me as busy work. It's got possibilities, but definitely needs a stronger basis in the PF mythos, and once you have that you need to define the aspects that make it appropriate to MMO play. What would you suggest to tweak and tune this to flow a bit smoother into a loop between life > death > life? I'd like to see as little "because that's how you do it" as possible when newbs ask questions down the road. ;) This can be preemptively addressed by making as many steps as possible simply feel natural in the coming back to life process while at the same time not itself being too lengthy.
Some food for thought, let's see how it digests. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks Darcnes
I still would not completely remove "permadeath" but rather make it a choice to die permanently. Some people may find this a more interesting choice then deleting a character.
The adjustment I would make is that if you have no favors with any deity when you fell in battle you would still go into spirit form but you would have to wait for a friend to drag you to a temple or resurrect you where you lie. This means if you have no favors, releasing would mean permanent death whereas having favor you would receive a new body in the last temple where you had prayed. This change would still mean that gaining favor with your deity has meaning but not required. Using the Favors system also prevents grave rushing as favors could be limited to 3 and without favors you could be there awhile. This change would also mean those who wish to role-play someone who has turned away from the gods can do so.
You would have to manually select permanent death. No one else could make that choice for you. Permanent death could mean you leave behind some sort of legacy or tombstone at a graveyard for your character's name forever etched.
Or instead of permanent death you could take Being's idea and you would enter some sort of purgatory where you had to complete a randomly generated task for a deity based on your current alignment. This would take time away from the player that they could have used to gain the favor beforehand. This might take some fun away from the game since you are forcing a player into a task with no options.
As far as using spirit form to spy you would be limited by distance from your body and would make this inconsequential.
Whispering would be used to ask strangers nearby for help, since you're a spirit and could not communicate otherwise. The original idea for haunting was for role-playing or just for fun. If there was to be a mechanic behind it that has purpose I have something I wrote last night. It is saved on another computer so I will post it later.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One alternative to permadeath as a consequence of a character's failure to seek favor might be serious weakness after spiritual release, requiring a period of convalescence. Convalescence together is an opportunity for role play when players cannot just rush off to grind whatever they have elected to pervert into a grind.
The rationale, or a significant part of the rationale, for the 'favor' mechanic is its promotion of an activity reinforcing roleplay, deepening the relationship of the deity to the player character, increasing player understanding of deity in a manner that lends weight to alignment, and affording opportunity for puzzles and actions outside the dungeon environment.
Helping one another gain favor with their god provides opportunity for role play and community building, and could provide opportunity for conflict where deistic interests conflict.
I think it would overall be useful to the game and to the community.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is the mechanics on haunting. I think it is a fun idea and gives those who are waiting on help something to do.
Haunting
In spirit form you will have the ability to protect your body from looting. You can disrupt those who are touching your body. This attack does no damage but does interrupt someone from grave robbing or trying to drag you away. You are invisible to all except other spirits. Attacking someone who is touching your body will make you incorporeal. You can see other spirits in this form. (You may even be able to learn more effective ways to affect the living and maybe other spirits while in spirit form through the skill system. Learning from this skill tree would require that you are in spirit form.)*
*This part could be developed at a later time if at all
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remember spending a lot of time opening up trapped boxes at the Empath's Guild. Nothing worse then getting acid splashed on your face. Think you had about 30 seconds to get healed before you died.
The 'splody' or explosive traps that many-ringed (high level) players would sometimes trigger would kill every newb teef in the room.
Thank goodness for the Empaths!
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Goblin Squad Member
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The haunting as an RP mechanic could be fun to play with, as a bit of flavor to simply remaining attached to your body in the time period between dying and being rezzed it also could find place. As a means to interfere with the living, you would need to open yourself to retaliation by those properly equipped to hit incorporeal creatures. The consequences would be terrible. Also not terribly fair to those who have for the most part just earned the right to decide the fate of your husk. The concept of hovering a short distance from your corpse as a spirit could offer some neat opportunities in other ways though. Perhaps meetings that take place in spirit form, evidenced only by a pile of corpses. Some significance to this would need to be determined. Anyone remember that ghost on the way down to LBRS in WoW? Certainly something that could be expanded upon in very interesting fashion.
Regarding favor and limited resurrection to avoid grave-rushing. You'll be bound to a specific location. The places you can be bound to will likely be limited. Anyone who played EQ knows the hazards of binding too close to danger (if you could even bind outside of a town) and the complete lack of anything resembling a grave rush for those bound in the traditional locations. I don't know if this has been broached, but I sincerely hope there will not be a wide selection of graveyards as was found in WoW.
Still.. deity favor, haunting.. there's some promise in these concepts. I can't reiterate enough how important it is that Permadeath is an all or nothing affair that players willingly enter into. It is a very powerful mechanic and not one to add lightly. Some intermediary between death and resurrection may yet be found, but it would need to be meaningful and not perceived as nothing more than a waste of time. This is not to be confused with frustration a player might experience at the necessary delay of completing such a task while they're in a hurry though.
You also had a great idea regarding amnesia as a side-effect of death. As Being pointed out in another thread, this would play well with the concept of Entropy we're tossing around in that thread. Much as games have a temporary weakness after death, so too could we look at a temporary amnesia that fades slowly. It could even be random like you were saying. Such a system is likely to favor the jack-of-all-trades, but that in itself is a reward for balance in character development. The unsurety of what you might be without for a time is a pretty addition to whatever standard fare of death consequences we've played with in the past. The potential consequences of multiple subsequent deaths could be staggering, or inconsequential .. who knows ;) Either way, it has the potential to keep people from participating in grave rush behavior if such is even possible.
Just so we're all on the same page:
- If you die, upon resurrection you will have a 100% reduction in one randomly chosen skill that gradually decreases until it reaches 0% over the course of X (30-60?) minutes.
- Subsequent deaths will choose another skill not already affected by this effect.
There's some really good material here to work with. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I like the temporary amnesia a lot. Permanent amnesia will have people claiming that GW has made mobs harder to make more money since skills = $ for PfO.
The PvP consequences of temporary amnesia would go a long way to simulating attrition during a massive combat, as well. Each side would get weaker and weaker as players die and come back into combat less powerful than before. It would give real tactical meaning to fresh reinforcements, as that is usually a stupid tactic in most PvP (since concentration of power is everything.) Instead, smart commanders would hold back a powerful force to send in once the foot-soldiers had weakened the enemy through attrition.
I like the chance for a ghost to make it more difficult for a body to get looted. It would be an interesting trade-off...do I stay with my body to spirit-interrupt (taking increasing skill amnesia the longer I stay), or do I respawn and try to run back before I am looted?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In DragonRealms, where I got the Favor system idea from, permanent death could happen if you had no favors and released. Still, 17% of the population is 141+ levels based on a poll done by the DragonRealms staff. There is no level cap so those who have reached such a high level took years to do it. Despite the existence of permadeath, it is rare and usually only happens if you want it to happen.
For the Decay system it is really dependent on balancing. It could be a single skill or multiple skills. They could go down %10 or %100 depending on how long it takes to train a skill. It should be based upon the time it takes not so much a percentage. Example would be an hour worth of training, subsequent deaths within a certain time period might multiply the speed and training loss of skills. It could be permanent or temporary. It would all need to be balanced and play tested. Right now it is too early to know what would work best.
My goals for the Favor system:
-Add an immersive game mechanic.
-Add more depth to the deities.
-A system that encourages you to role-play your alignment without confining you to it.
-Add more depth to healer/cleric builds. (which I am biased towards)
-Most importantly it has to be fun!
This system also opens up new avenues that can be explored:
-Necromancy
-Ghosts
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Goblin Squad Member
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Determining severity of punishment by amount of time you remained dead both introduces an artificial sense of urgency and could in a sense encourage that 'grave rush' mentality, whether such a thing is possible or not. If there is any urgency to the situation surrounding the death I have faith that the players will react accordingly.
Now that's not to say severity of the death penalty could not be determined in other fashions. How many skills are affected for example. How badly the player was overkilled. How many critical Injuries they were suffering from at the time, or even by picking a skill associated with one of the Injuries they might had at death. Perhaps the skill used to kill them has some influence.
Let's separate this Amnesia concept from the Favor concept going forward, it has plenty of merit on its own. The favor concept on the other hand need not have anything to do with death at all, while still accomplishing the goals set forth by Mushroom.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would hope that releasing would be a last option so you could protect your belongings until some help arrived. Also, being resurrected instead of releasing would keep you from losing a favor.
With the decay mechanic, I would like to see novice healers able to prevent decay while intermediate healers able to reverse the effects and expert healers able to resurrect.
I don't want to see the decay mechanic so much as a punishment but more of requires a coordinated effort to restore life with everything intact. If you are willing to spend the time waiting for your memories to be restored and resurrected then you are rewarded with no ill effects. However, if you want to rush back to life there are sacrifices you have to make.
Bodies would also have to be healed before being resurrected. The soul must be willing to be resurrected to prevent griefing (i.e. enemy keeps resurrecting and killing you to use up your favors).
Releasing instead of being resurrected means your soul is placed into a new body. This would in effect make any sort of coordination difficult and may even take some time for memories to return. This weakened condition, along with limited favors, would minimize "grave rushing" and make the battlefield more tactical as Micco had stated.
Large battles are more exciting and dying means you can still watch, with the hope in the end your team wins so you can be resurrected. Losing, of course, would be very bad.
Overall, the more friends or stronger the community you are apart of the higher the chance that you can be rescued, memories protected, and successfully raised.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wonder at what point your corpse becomes a husk.. at death? When your spirit abandons it for the run back?
If you take the Amnesia penalty at death, it's just another consequence of dying..
If you take it at abandonment it's a penalty for separating from your body.
Where the transition to husk occurs could play an important role in determining which is more appropriate.
I worry that tying anything Favor related to death would lead to a sort of forced grind. Like prepping for a raid, have to make sure everything is in order before going in. Except it would be for all the time. Whereas Favor as a more casual system that adds depth to your relationship with your deity could be indulged at will rather than at risk of being severely disadvantaged in combat. The potential there is almost as vast as a Mistborn running out of Atium against another Mistborn burning Atium. The fight could instantly become horribly lopsided, and not just against the person who killed you, but anyone who still has Favors remaining. Since combat is going to be one of the main forms of meaningful interaction, we really want to avoid tying it down with a system that could be grindy.
Not to say having a divine blessing couldn't influence combat in some way.. +2 boost to whatever could be substantial without being gamebreaking. It's an edge, and to the most hardcore of players the right blessing would be an absolute must before going into conflict. Randomizing the bonus can by very helpful at that point, and helps avoid the "KEI PLZ" syndrome that plagued EQ. You could specify if you wanted a combat, or trades, or whatever related bonus and let the system pick some related aspect to boost. I'm a little short on other ideas to capitalize on benefiting from divine favor at the moment. ;)
Even this idea came from the fortune telling you could get in MajorMUD. Come to think of it, sometimes you got fortunes that were not so good.. maybe anyone could ask for their fortune, and having Favor ensured a positive fortune, or increased the chances of one at least.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gaining Favors would be something you would do at the very beginning of the game, perhaps during the introduction where you may still be immune from the negative impacts of death. From time to time you may have to regain a favor if one of the following events occur:
- You release from spirit form instead of being resurrected
- Your alignment changes so that it is no longer compatible with your deity
- You gain favor with another deity
It shouldn't feel like a grind since there will be many deities to choose from and each will have different options catered towards different playstyles with random quests. If you use your favors a lot you may start to see repetition in quests.
Earning a favor will be like buying replacement insurance for your body except instead of money you have to perform a quest or task that relates to your deity (exception would be Abadar, god of wealth, where you literally could purchase a favor). If these tasks were repetitive then I could see it becoming a grind. However, it would be possible to gain your favor(s) at the beginning of the game and never use them, even if you do die.
Amnesia could be a result of resurrection sickness if you release which would return over a certain period of time. Decay would occur upon death but is preventable or reversible with a skilled healer, without a healer you would have to retrain the skill(s). If you had a skilled healer but no one can resurrect you you could still have your memories restored before releasing. This would result in your body being restored at the temple with resurrection sickness but you would not have to retrain any skills.
I like your idea about a divine blessing. A priest type character at a step below that of resurrection could transfer a favor from one player to another including themselves. This way, healers could charge players for favors and could earn the favors themselves. Sort of like resource acquisition for crafters except you're dealing in souls. This would still be alignment dependent. The favor would have to be from a deity that covers your alignment.
A priest of Asmodeus could contract a favor out to you for a limited time or have other restrictions (a demon of the crossroads type of deal). This in turn would earn favor towards the priest from Asmodeus. These deals could be done while you are in spirit form and would change your alignment towards LE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Calidor, I appreciate the criticism and you bring up a valid point.
In my 20 years of playing RPGs, table top and computer, death of a character has been detrimental but never group breaking until I played World of Warcraft. I have seen players kicked out of groups because they died during dungeons or raids.
To understand why players respond this way let's look at how WoW is designed. It is a theme-park game meaning you get a group together, enter a dungeon, and go through scripted events until you reach the conclusion much like a ride. How the players are able to handle death of a character, such as running back to the entrance of the dungeon or resurrection being commonly available to different classes, determines how the difficulty of the dungeon is designed. Difficult dungeons require certain character dynamics and coordination that is usually developed after multiple tries and failures. Sometimes players become so accustomed to running the dungeon that they have high expectations of others that run the dungeon with them so they can reach their end goal, whether that is trying to collect that rare drop, collecting tokens, or earning reputation. Players tend to be indifferent towards other players and only accept them as long as they can do their part. When a player dies others may weigh the option of looking for someone else or waiting for them to resurrect. WoW is one example but many other MMOs follow this same pattern.
In a sandbox game like Pathfinder Online, players develop communities to build settlements and kingdoms. It is this sense of community where players will strive to help others in their community. People will find value in protecting and recovering community members. That value comes from the fact that everyone will have a purpose that may not be easily replaced. There is not going to be a set number classes where each player in a class is nearly identical. The amount of scripted events or dungeons is going to be a minority compared to player created content.
Protecting or resurrecting the foreman of a construction site will be as important as recovering one of the guards protecting that construction.
Time that it takes to recover from death can always be balanced. I would suggest about 5-8 minutes on average to drag a body, protect memories, and resurrect depending on travel time. Resurrection on site would be immediate, and releasing and resurrection would be immediate but with about 10 minutes of resurrection sickness.
While dying and resurrecting at the closest graveyard is a possible mechanic, there are plenty of MMOs out there that do this already. What I would like to see is something different and more true to the Pathfinder game. The Favor mechanic has been used before and works.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to assume you're not used to competitive play. Once you reach a certain level of commitment to winning, anything at all that you can do to give yourself an edge is on the table, and if you could have prepped a repeatable process for that edge in a reasonable amount of time, it simply becomes the de facto standard. If you don't have it, you are at a disadvantage and would be considered under prepared.
At first, this won't be the case. But eventually enough time will have passed and encounters would come down to a mechanic like this. Very easy to see happening, if you're of the mindset.
So, Favor + death, long term not a good mix.
I have to drive this home once again. You cannot consider messing with peoples' real world time/money without it being agreed upon by all ahead of time. See earlier comments about a separate Permadeath shard. It's a deal breaker, however remote the chance.
You've got some good concepts, but they simply cannot include permanent detrimental effects to your character. Yet. It is something I would like to see gamers reach the point of accepting, but it is far too threatening right now, especially with so many leery about the open nature of PvP. Really easy to connect those dots. Simply put, now is not the time.
I hate to say, "tell me what you have in mind" and then try to kibosh it like that. I would much rather provide constructive feedback to shake it into a feasible system that addresses everything I can foresee it needing to.
Unfortunately Permanent effects like that will accomplish two things, drive away far far more people than it attracts and cause people to think GW is putting a potential lifespan on your characters. Eventually you suffer so many deaths that your character, who you've spent years developing has too much time spent retraining. If another player you started with has better luck than you they could potentially have a much better developed character.
High level skills will take months to train, and one death could set that back. A death mind you that could be caused by that same player you feel the community will nurture. Some of the community would, they would be casual players. Even to them, being the reason someone lost a month of playtime is going to make them think twice about trusting their lives to that person. Happens again and they may as well just play solo, or hang out with the newbs. Nevermind ever seeing a war come to fruition.
I can go on all day. Let's just leave it as not a happy topic and focus on the other concepts that show some promise. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's another possibility if you wanted to remove permanent death. If you have no favors when you die you cannot release. You will have to call for help or set up a contract for your rescue.
As far as the decay goes, I would see about an hours worth of time lost if not protected or reversed. Cumulative time, if you are dying more then others you may want to consider safer areas, bringing more friends, or hiring more protection when taking more dangerous jobs.
I would like to hear more about your Entropy idea. It is possible there is a solution I have not looked at yet. Right now I see tying Favors to deities as a way to encourage role-playing of your alignment. Changing your alignment more than one step of your deity's will cost you your favors with that deity. You want those favors in case you die and do not have help.
Got to side with Darcnes on permadeath. If its put to a vote, which side will deaths
I can't see permadeath being accepted by people.t
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm.. I was thinking, what if you made the Amnesia something that lasted a very long time, but could be fixed by petitioning the deity for Favor, sans any kind of Favor stockpile or whatever. That's still too interruptive to the flow of gameplay though, which is how I generally view things that stop players from getting up and getting back to what they were doing. Also lends itself towards being a must-have commodity again at higher levels of play.
The Amnesia thing as a simple but blanketing death penalty manages to both let players get back to what they were doing, and impose possible challenges to doing so, in much the way a death penalty should. Though, mostly to players that specialize at the expense of a well-rounded character. I think you're probably right about a local rez meaning you don't have to deal with the Amnesia. It should be more of a shock to the mind/body at having separated prior to reconstitution.
I do like the idea of using Favor as fuel for blessings/positive fortune, along with other things. Something limited in supply, but useful for more than one thing would be ideal.
On the other hand... perhaps the nature of the gaining of Favor should be established, this could go a ways towards eliminating the 'must-have' status in some circles. If Favor is a rare thing rather than common, it should also thus be more valuable. What if Favor had more to do with working towards becoming your deity's champion? It would mean that the deities would need defined interests in the mortal world that the champion would be pursuing and upholding. It would also create a sort of competition between followers, it could be a monthly cycle, and most importantly just an ongoing goal that players either participated in, or didn't. It would in itself become the end pursuit. Stipulation may need to be placed in consecutive terms that can be served as champion... but this would definitely promote more of that meaningful player interaction.
I think your idea of decay could be useful in areas not related to player time/money. Alignment decay is what led to the idea of Entropy in the Alignment thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Favor would be something you could gain through normal game play. There are options based on things you would already do through combat, contracts, politics, crafting, and/or building. The task would have to be something that your deity would approve of and fits within their portfolio.
There would be no grind, just a quick stop at your temple and choosing a task that pertains to what you like to do.
While using favor as a way to protect you from amnesia would work I find that gaining favor with a deity as a way for them to care enough about you to give you a new body in the event you died. I think it is more immersive then living in a world where Pharasma resurrects you just because you died. I want some meaning why I'm still alive and not dead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think I see where your thought is headed Darcnes and I'd like to see you run with that ball... or favor globe as the case may be.
So far we have been looking at the negatives: you want to get the favor to avoid a negative.
Darcnes has turned that on its head and suggested we look at what it might be if a deity's favor were a positive?
There is a dialectical synthesis imminant, I just feel it, like the stylus of an ouigi board pulling me to a letter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the favor system were to be used as a type of buff rather then protection when you die how would you see it used?
- Perhaps it could be used to allow you to thread more items to keep them from being looted. Wouldn't be an issue in the beginning but as you collected more powerful items you would need more threads.
- Maybe using up a favor could remove a debuff from a critical hit or remove resurrection sickness.
- Favors could be used for a bonus depending on what your deity's portfolio contained. A deity could have several bonuses to choose from but you can only have one at a time. Someone who worshiped Abadar might have a slight boost to construction time. Desna could give a bonus to travel time or a luck bonus. You would still be only able to get favor from one deity at a time and you would have to be of the proper alignment. Once you had the favor it would last until you changed alignment, changed which deity you worshiped, or changed which bonus you wanted.
With the first one I could see it becoming a grind gaining favors so you wouldn't have to worry about being looted.
The second one seems too trivial.
The third I like best.
Also, earning a favor for a deity could help bring your alignment closer to that of the deity. This might make it easier for those who are trying to remain True Neutral a way to help keep their alignment.