Goblin Squad Member
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When you die (assuming you are not under a death curse), any items not threaded to you will remain on your husk. Threaded items will be with you when your new body respawns. If you get to the husk first, you get everything back. If your killer or another player - even your friend - loots it, they get some of the unthreaded items and everything else is destroyed.
If you are going to be in a high risk area, don't bring any item that you don't mind loosing forever.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Short answer, yes.
There is nothing GW can do that would minimize the fallout of something like a firefighter call, a kid about to lobotomize them self with a crayon, or someone looking to copulate with you, without creating an exploitable pvp escape.
But you have to remember that the death penalty in PFO is very tame. Just because you made 10,000 coin doesn't mean you get a 10,000 coin setup, it means you get 10 1,000 coin setups, and maybe get a few larger purchases that you will always thread. If you play smart, you should never see a huge loss on death. The huge losses will be large group harvesting/transporting operations that get raided.
All of your worthwhile items should be threaded, so the loss on death should be minimal. The big loss is when someone gives you a bounty and a death curse, a prime target for an assassination.
Your husk hangs around for a while after you die, even if its not looted by anyone t will remain in the game world for a period of time. How long will it remain? We don't really know. I might remain longer as you grow in skill, but that's just a guess. Imbicatus is correct though, don't run around with anything you can't bear to lose, it just saves you grief in case the worst happens.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Something to think about. RL can and will interrupt game play. What happens if a PC dies and RL makes that character unable to recover his corpse and/or his allies cant wait for him to get back to his corpse because RL is calling?
Is the PC SOL on item recovery?
I believe the major thing you are misinterpreting, is you seem to be thinking item loss is intended to be a really rare issue. when from goblinworks descriptions, it is something that will be common. You should never leave town with more than 10-20% of your worth on you, gear will not be something that is a .0001% chance of getting X every time you kill repeating boss. Gear as a whole will be mass produced, you die and lose everything, that isn't the end, it is time to go back to your storage, and pick up one of your 8 spare sets.
Even a perfect 100% attentive player, can expect item loss regularly. Heck just a trek through the woods, could result in a PVP encounter, and pretty common sense shows, PVP on the whole, will be a 50/50 shot (obviously individual battles will vary, but everything will average out close to 50%). Seeing losing items as a big deal in PFO, is like a bear being supprised it gets stung while getting honey. Death happens, death often leads to item loss, your gains should usually outweigh your losses unless you are overgearing (IE using the best thing you can possibly afford, instead of a set you can afford multiples of)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not just talking about gear, that I understand, I'm talking about speeding the last 5 hours of the only day you can play gathering resources and making your way back when something happens and you die. Now RL doesnt allow you the chance (for whatever reason) for you to recover your body/resources, and it will be another week+ before RL allows you to play again. I was just wondering if this was taken into account when the rules for corpses was made? Not everyone will be able to play on a regualr basis so a situation like I just discribed would be very annoying for those who can play regularly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I'm talking about speeding the last 5 hours of the only day you can play gathering resources and making your way back when something happens and you die.
This is exactly the reason you should schedule ahead of time to bring friends with you those few hours you can play: one of them can loot you and save some of what you had. Since you'll have already spread out the proceeds of the materials you've collected across the group for the trip home, you'll have minimised the loss.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One possible option is if the husk stays around for a time after you logout (say 10 or 20 minutes) then just disappears from play and then reappears in game in the spot where you died when you log back in.
This was something along the lines I was thinking, except how do you justify this when it was PC bandits and now they cant loot their conquest.
Not sure what would be best for this issue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One possible option is if the husk stays around for a time after you logout (say 10 or 20 minutes) then just disappears from play and then reappears in game in the spot where you died when you log back in.This was something along the lines I was thinking, except how do you justify this when it was PC bandits and now they cant loot their conquest.
Not sure what would be best for this issue.
PC Bandits is the reason the husk should stay around 10 or 20 minutes, to give them a reasonable chance to get their loot.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I try to offset any loss in an MMO with the reminder that "it's only pixels". Sometimes its harder and more frustrating than other times, but it can keep you from going over the edge and doing something rash like venting your frustration on another player, paging a GM to complain, deleting your character, or quitting a good game just because of unavoidable mishaps.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't fly what you can't afford to loose.
When I started playing EVE, this was the lesson that took me a while to really learn along with the unwritten second half of the lesson: 'And you WILL lose ships'. Once I accepted that, I really started to enjoy the game. Losing a ship became less a matter of 'failure' and more a chapter with economic consequences in an ongoing story.
Given the above, I dont think anything really needs to be done about husks. Yes its frustrating as hell to lose a load of ore that you spent the last couple of hours mining it, but if you were doing it solo then thats part of the risk inherent in the choice (and I say this as a player who enjoys solo play).
The suggestion by Carbon of allies moving your corpse could have some potential, although why wouldnt your allies just loot your husk and return your goods to you? Simpler solution.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oberyn,
How are you suggesting that the game determines who your ally is? That is, who should get looting rights without taking a criminal flag for stealing - especially if you died alone and they stumbled across your body? You could give the right to people in your party at the time or to CC-mates, but either opens up the chance for the looter to just as easily keep your stuff. Neither party members nor even CC-mates are always going to be 100% trustworthy. In past games, this opened up more cans of worms than the lost items were worth. People then wanted a means for knowing the names of who opened your corpse or who took items, which seems like an extra burden on the server to track, or it lead to accusations, GM pages, etc.
I've already stated that I'm not a very materialistic player. I tend to like the challenge of losing things and having to find ways to make good or begin again, but I know not everyone does. I think a decay timer where your corpse and goods persist for a given period is sufficient. Anyone who loots it is flagged (people in UO used to take the chance all the time for the sake of a friend). If the owner doesn't make it back by the set time, the husk decays and the goods are up for grabs. After another timer, the goods are wiped from the server. People might rather that the goods get wiped when the first timer is up to avoid corpse camping. I've seen it work either ways.
Whichever method, I think adventuring comes with risk, including death and loss. Too many layers of "safety", even for things like disconnection or Valkenr's list, reduces that realistic risk to the point of no real risk at all. I like my MMOs more realistic than that, especially sandbox MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How are you suggesting that the game determines who your ally is? That is, who should get looting rights without taking a criminal flag for stealing - especially if you died alone and they stumbled across your body? You could give the right to people in your party at the time or to CC-mates, but either opens up the chance for the looter to just as easily keep your stuff. Neither party members nor even CC-mates are always going to be 100% trustworthy. In past games, this opened up more cans of worms than the lost items were worth. People then wanted a means for knowing the names of who opened your corpse or who took items, which seems like an extra burden on the server to track, or it lead to accusations, GM pages, etc.
Guilds and Alliances could be used as w"whitelists" to find is someone would be flagged for stealing of not.
It wouldn't be 100% trustworthy, but if you don't trust your guildmates (or alliance mates), then who? ;)|
Goblin Squad Member
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Oberyn,
How are you suggesting that the game determines who your ally is?
Im thinking that it should be limited to members of your current party. Im not in favor of anything more complicated than that. The gearing mechanism in a sandbox is different from a WoW-type RNG game. Loss of gear/inventory/supplies is all part of what fuels the virtual economy. Threading equipment should be enough of a measure to avoid losing your best items. The rest is up for grabs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What about the idea of allies moving, or carrying, and protecting your corpse while you have a spirit world journey? Would make it interesting if they had to manually go through all their bags to check and see what all is accounted for etc.
One thing worth noting, death isn't the same as WoW, IE when you die, you don't become a ghost, you become alive at your bind point with just your threaded items. IE being able to get back to your corpse, is not intended to be a given, not just in the fact that it is a race against time, but is also expecting to be dependent on yourself being able to push through at a disadvantage (IE having half or less of your previous gear) or your dependency on your team to protect you.
Anyway the main point I'm still getting at. I think the main idea of mechanics is, not being able to get to your corpse before it is looted, is inended to be a common occurrence, and is pretty necessary for the economic model of the game. Lets look at it this way via comparing what we currently have, vs eve (considering GW is attempting to match eve's economic stability, and thus needs to have something vaguely comparable in terms of frequnecy of losses).
Eve on death
95% equipment is lost (5% that is not lost being implants, which could be lost if your opponent is particularly vengeful kills your escape pod)
A small amount of the resources from your ship can be salvaged if you get to the wreckage, or if your allies opt to salvge it.
PFO
A reasonable portion of your gear is threaded, and thus not lost at all on death. (we'll assume say 15-20% give or take)
A fraction of it could be salvaged by one who choses to loot your corpse
Absolute 100% prevention of loss is possible via resurection spells or via your allies protecting your corpse and you reaching it again.
Now of course in balancing there are 2 possible pitfalls
1. Item loss too common, leads to potential frustration of players, devaluation of gear to the point people do not want to work for anything, everyone uses cheap crap simply because they couldn't afford to keep up with it if they wanted to.
2. Item loss too rare: Leads to stagnation of game, everyone always using the best gear, lack of motivation to craft or harvest as the people attempting to do these roles outsupply the demand by large margains (Keeping in mind, adventuring/dungeon delving is a form of harvesting in PFO) Resulting in a higher quantity of players just getting a set or 2 of the best they can, then signing on once a week to spend their XP and possibly sign on during wars.
Based on the current system and comparison here, in my opinion with the current system there is currently a greater risk of item loss being too rare, as eve was pretty close, and the current loopholes that have been added are pretty huge. In my opinion a better topic of discussion needs to be how to ensure gear loss does still happen at the pace given the loopholes added, rather than worrying about making sure these loopholes are able to be taken advantage of more often than they already are.
By comparison in the current system here in eve chances of 95% loss of current equipment + gathered resources.
PFO the exceptions we are looking at,
40% chance of recovery in group PVP scenerios. (assuming a 50% chance of your side winning, and adding in a 10% chance of your side winning, but an extra force approaching and killing the survivors.)
80% chance of recovery in group PVE. (assuming a 10% chance of TPK and inability to re-reach corpse location + 10% chance of robbers taking advanage of weakened state of party.
In EQ the deceased had the option to enable specific people to loot their husk by using a command, like /loot *player name*. It let's that person save whatever gear they grab without getting any flags or penalties. iIRC you could also enable anyone to loot your husk by command as well. Sure there are risks to allowing someone to loot our husk, but really if you were going to lose it all anyway, I don't see a big problem personally.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My understanding is it is not just your threaded items that are retained, but also your coin, the armor you were wearing when you died, and whatever you had in your hands at the time of death.
The coin is indeed a fact, coin isn't considered something carried at all, it's an invisible currency.
Actually the weapons and armor I am curious of. Originally those 2 slots were protected, but while this is just my interpretation, I think the idea of threading Replaced that, not added to it. I could be completely wrong about that however. If it is in addition too, than the issue is far worse than I thought.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My plan is to thread as if that's ALL I will recover, and 'don't fly what you can't afford to lose' for the rest.
Oh, to let friends know to 'loot up'.
ps
FWIW I don't find the proposed (loosely defined, granted) system is too onerous. Name your new sword 'Greywand' and move on with your life ; )
I am curious for a source of this info. I was under the impression that it was any item on you person, including the stuff you were wearing. You had to chose from it all what items to thread to yourself.
I too would like to see the source for this. I was under the impression, like Tigari, that you threaded whatever you wished to "save" from among all your carried possessions and nothing automatically was saved aside from our coin. But that is just my impression of what I've seen here on the forums and isn't based on solid info from a Dev post or anything.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the blog: threaded items are the only items kept
What does "Threaded" mean?
Each character has a certain number of "threads of fate" they can use to tie their equipment to them, thanks to the rather unusual relationship the characters have with the goddess Pharasma—the same relationship that causes them to keep coming back from the dead. These threads cause the items to which they are tied to remain with the character when the character resurrects, meaning threaded items cannot be looted. Higher-level items consume more threads to tie them. Characters earn more threads as they advance in level, but they gain threads more slowly than they gain level-appropriate gear. This means a starting character will be able to thread all of his equipment to him, while a high-level character will probably have to pick and choose what he uses his threads on if he is using all high-end gear. If a low-level character gets his hands on a high-level weapon, he will probably have to expend most of his threads to keep it, meaning the rest of his gear will be lootable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think I've ever had an answer to what happens to a weapon that is disarmed before the character dies. If it is threaded does it still re-spawn when the character resurrects? If it is not threaded, does it become attached to the husk when the character dies? If I pick it up and it is threaded (or not), what happens when the original owner dies?
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Hitting the threading question and answering the last two while I'm in here...
The Threading system replaced the "you keep your armor and held weapons" system, it didn't add to it. If you thread a bunch of your miscellaneous items, you may not have enough left to keep your armor and weapons safe. There should be some more detail on this in this week's blog post.
We don't currently have a Disarm mechanic designed, but if we did, it would be more likely to temporarily lock out your active weapon set than to physically remove the item from your threaded inventory (or your inventory all together). In tabletop or LARPs, a Disarm is something you can compensate for with creativity, but it's not nearly as fun in a video game where your weapon is the thing that gives you most of your verbs to interact with the world.
We don't expect to deliberately give any role an effectiveness bonus while naked over other roles. Monks and casters will all have various gear dependencies that are comparable to armor and weapon-dependent roles.
Ah, you mean disarm doesn't make you drop your weapon? That's half the fun running around trying to find it on the ground! :p
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah, you mean disarm doesn't make you drop your weapon? That's half the fun running around trying to find it on the ground! :pWell if you disarm with an unarmed strike the weapon can end up in your hands.
In most cases, if youve used an unarmed strike to disarm, youre probably skilled enough that youre better off continuing with unarmed strikes than your newly gained weapon. YMMV obviously.
Its unlikely well see a 'unarmed-strike-disarm-weaponsteal' effect anytime soon. If it is implemented, one way of doing it would be along the lines of GW2's summoned environmental weapons.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know they currenty said even if a "friend" loots your corpse they only get a few items and the rest are destroyed. I believe they also said looting a player's corpse is some kind of a hit (criminal?)
I'd like to see them implement what they did in EQ where you could give permision to a friend to loot the corpse and they don't get any kind of flag from doing it. Preferably this would also let them recover most if not all of your inventory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know they currenty said even if a "friend" loots your corpse they only get a few items and the rest are destroyed. I believe they also said looting a player's corpse is some kind of a hit (criminal?)
I'd like to see them implement what they did in EQ where you could give permision to a friend to loot the corpse and they don't get any kind of flag from doing it. Preferably this would also let them recover most if not all of your inventory.
Increasing the amount that is recovered, is entirely against the point. The destruction of items is not for the purpose of lessening the value to the attacker (after all they could just have the rest of it go back, it is destroyed for a reason, it's purpose is because the destruction of items is crucial to keeping the economy going, keeping the harvesting and crafting machines turning. The more people are able to keep their gear, the less that needs crafted. Less needed to be crafted, means less incentive for anyone to adventure and harvest, wage war over resources, steal resources etc....
The point is, as I previously stated, if there is currently an error in the current destruction, if there is an error in it, the error is bordering on too uncommon. If anything GW needs to be taking steps to ensure item destruction happens more often, not add further loopholes to help prevent it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to see them implement what they did in EQ where you could give permision to a friend to loot the corpse...
I'd prefer to be able to be able to give a trusted friend permission to drag my husk somewhere safe, or out of the way. Of course, this will inevitably result in the friend who jokingly drags your husk somewhere significantly less safe, but hey, that's how MMO memories are made, right?
I think it would be really cool if dragging a husk caused fatigue, so that you couldn't drag it all over the world at a run.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like being able to have a divine caster cast raise dead on a husk to allow you to re-spawn at the site of your husk with all items intact.
It should be an expensive proposition based on the diamond dust, but it could make the difference between winning and losing a war if it was in pitched battle for control of a hex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Husk dragging worked really well in Dragonrealms. /drag <playername> was one of the ways a very low-level player could contribute to the community cause during high-level MOB invasions, and it provided some pulse-quickening moments of adventure trying to get one of our heros back out of the battleline where they could be resurrected, or if that was impracticl they could wait to /release where they would have a moment to requip their armor and weapon without being beaten down again.