Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[Yaga_Nub]

Without going into any specifics, won't different classes be affected differently? Classes that are more gear dependant and place themselves more in harm's way are more likely to get item damage, lose money and lose hard to replace gear over time.

That's been pointed out. Hopefully E's listening to that very valid issue.

[CSFurious]

there are only 2 endgames in an MMO

first, raiding

second, PvP

devs, your PvP in this game is a joke

therefore, all your game really has going for it at as currently designed is the loot, i.e., both raid & non-raid

accordingly, i do not think that is good for the future of your game to start drastically messing with the loot

[gpk]

Well it doesn't fix that because you can just bind the items. The problem is the loot tables. As we approach level 18 and above quests we're going to have incredible loot dropping as it stands. There probably should be a complete revamping of the loot tables.

I know we are in a Monty Haul campaign but it might be time for Monty to go on vacation for a while.

Well the loot tables have been significantly altered in the past, and the last batch of prefixes/suffixes really reduced the odds of you getting something good at the current levels. I dont think a level cap increase to 16 is going to turn things upside down just yet, look at the level 14 items you've beein already getting in some quests (and leve 16 RR to 14). Another revamp of the loot tables may only serve to further distance the classes in terms of balance, if such a notion still exists.

[ccheath776]

Well I dont agree as I average around 30k gold each repair session as I dont use just 1 or 2 weapons, I'll use up to 6 weapons depending on the quest and what it takes to get to that quest. Under this new system, that is garunteed to go up, not down, this is just totally a bad idea. I've ben playing for 1 year now and have to date, recieved only 1 of teh uber 5 weapons as a chest/end reward. I had to buy my other one, no small cost mind you. The XP debt system worked fine, only newbies thinky they are god and do dirks solo on leet while only lvl 2 are the problem here and the root cause of the change.

PS, sorry about the miss spelling of you name.

Again I laugh, not at you, when ylu say I will need to carry around 6 - 7 weapons of varying types.
Well... in all honesty to me at least that starts to feel more like real pnp DND, because my characters always had a main weapon and several backups. Mostly because you never knew when the time would come when you rolled a crit failure and your nice sword goes flying out of your hand and over the cliffs edge never to be seen again. You had to have something to back that up.

On the other side Turbine had two problems to address.
The xp system good or bad presented a gradually progressing issue. As the level caps increased the death penalties were going to as well. How high does it go? 20K? 30K? per death. No way turbine was going to have that happen and see the same kind of civilian uprising they experienced after mod 4. So that had to be removed. Thats the reason X. It kind of really doesn't matter if anyone liked it or not, there was just a point where it had to be removed and this next mod was it.

Items -
Turbine saw the influx of overpowered items that maybe didn't make quests like the Abbott easy because nobody has beat it yet. But unless you want to see more ultra difficult raids like the abbott, you will need to accept a system that removes items on a gradual basis.

As for eladrins message.
I actually wouldn't mind either system. Binds on equip or whatever. But note, that is just me. Its mostly because items arent the end all to be all to me in this game. Accomplishing quests and defeating the bad guys is my goal. There is in fact only one item I cherish which is my dreamspitter. There's a lot of reasons why but that doesn't matter.
The point is that you have to have a general flow of items in and out of the economy otherwise you have an overage of supply, a drop in demand as prices fall and suddenly the platinum isn't worth the metal its encased on.
Simple economics.

This was the best way, we are given a choice about how we wish to play this game. In the end it all makes sense, from a certain point of view.

[Mercules]

there are only 2 endgames in an MMO

first, raiding

second, PvP

devs, your PvP in this game is a joke

therefore, all your game really has going for it at as currently designed is the loot, i.e., both raid & non-raid

accordingly, i do not think that is good for the future of your game to start drastically messing with the loot

Yup... only two endgames... Good thing there is that 95% other part of the game to play.

[binnsr]

Because I have all the money I need, and I don't feel like running all over town to sell things at 5 different vendors.

I would be willing to bet that a preponderant majority of the items in "the economy" are removed in a manner similar to my experience than through excessive wear.

This is pretty much how I unload stuff I don't need/want.. I throw it out to the guild, then it gets 2 shots on the AH (always with buyouts, and usually one of those over a weekend), then it goes to the nearest barkeep if it doesn't sell in those 2 tries.

I don't have money running out of my characters ears, but its enough to get by as long as I don't go buying stupid stuff on the AH. (for example, my rogue got down to 5k pp because my cleric robbed everyone one night to buy a +5 MTS for my newest intimitank - he's only pulled out for raids these days and is already back up to 50k or so two weeks later)

[honkuimushi]

Eladrin, could you please explain what the problem is with leaving the current damage system in place, and instead adding a ressurection fee? That accomplishes the stated goal of inflicting a monetary cost, but without threatening peoples' items and arousing any of the ire that generates. You could base the fee on level or even the value of a person's gear, but it seems like it would meet with less resistance. Binding could still be introduced and I know that I would bind a few items I plan to keep just to protect them from normal wear. In that system, voluntary binding would remove more items from the economy than is currently occuring, a monetary expense is added to death, and you don't have a thread over 1000 posts long where the prevailing mood is stiff opposition(with a valiant defense being mounted by some very determined posters.) What am I missing?

[CSFurious]

that 95% of the playerbase has had at least one-capped char for 3 to 6 months

Yup... only two endgames... Good thing there is that 95% other part of the game to play.

[Dworkin_of_Amber]

With no means of removing items from the economy, everything sticks around forever.

That may seem good, but it devalues every object and over time it creates a glut of high powered magic items that slowly filters down to lower levels. All gear is essentially "rented" for the period of time you use it, after which you'll pass it off to someone else, probably for approximately how much you acquired it for. (Likely a little bit less, due to the ever-increasing number of the items in circulation.)

In the end, everyone "borrows" things from the Auction House and returns them there once they're done with the item, and we end up in a very bad state where too many items are in the economy.


I can give honest insight into the way things work, or people can try to trap me in my words. Your choice.

Item Wear on death is primarily a monetary cost to dying, that very well reflects how well-off a character is. The super-twinked level six character gets charged more than a normal level six character, but the costs shouldn't be a significant burden to either.

It's not actually intended to permanently destroy your things, nor is it meant to get you to bind your things. If it was, then we wouldn't have cut the permanent damage rates, or we'd force-bind everything magical and remove permanent damage entirely. There are several lines of conversation going on in this thread, and the one I responded to was a request to remove permanent damage entirely. I was explaining that we could, if everything bound. Permanent damage exists to remove items to prevent the catastrophic meltdown of the economy that I describe at the top of this post. If items essentially couldn't be traded, it wouldn't be needed.

We're not doing that, though. We're trying to offer you the choice of the two systems. Tradable items that take permanent damage over time, or untradable items that don't... Except we're giving you control of which one you want on an item for item basis, and allow you to switch to the second pretty much at will.

Eladrin,

I am sorry, but that really sounds like a cop-out. The overall Development Team made specific choices over the past nearly 2 years that turned DDO into a Monty-Haul game, starting with Mod 3, but specifically with Mod 4. Up until that point, the items were a little over-powered for our levels, but not ridiculiously so. Vorpals and Paralyzers and Smiters were still fairly rare, as were a lot of the "Uber" Loot that we all now have. But the Gianthold turned things into "ridiculous" mode. +6 Stat Items, Vorpals, Banshiers, +5 Elemental Weapons of Righteousness, and the like, all combined to turn the game into a "Uber-Loot" system. Those were deliberate choices by the development and/or management team for DDO.

Now, we are being punished for the developer's decisions to give us this monty-haul loot. Now, you are forcing players to Bind their equipment, or run SERIOUS risk of completely ruining their items, and enforcing a major plat penalty on all players for death. While there are plenty of players out there with multiple capped characters, all with maximum plat, there is still the VAST majority of players who don't have that much plat on any of their characters, and you are going to penalize those players where it hurts the most. While I am a more active player myself, I probably don't have more than 75k plat between all of my 10 characters... but when I play with more Casual Players, the #1 gripe I hear from them is that they never have the plat to buy things on the AH, or even stock potions & wands & Scrolls!

You are seriously going to death-penalty most Casual Players into quitting the game, because the repair bills will outweigh the loot sold prices. On the flip side, your more Hardcore Players are going to stop playing their high-level characters (if not the game entirely) due to the forced decision of Bind or Destroy. I am personally considering cancelling my account because of this FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE to the game. (PS: and no, you can't have my stuff). I know that many of my friends who play are in the same boat as I am, and we are all having serious discussions about continuing playing this game (most all have played since Beta).

Seriously, if this new system is implemented, who is going to be able to afford to "figure out" the new Raid & quests? And yes, I have been testing on Risia, and the Permanent Damage rate is still quite high. I tested with a character with NO bound items on, and I was getting Permanent Damage on about 1-2 items for EVERY DEATH!!! I remember running Ghosts of Perdition the 2nd or 3rd night after Mod 5 came out with a Casual Group, and we party-wiped 5 times (and each player died 8-10 times each due to raise-and-die). Then add to that the Save-Or-Die effects in many quests, or the miss-your-jump-and-die in the Abbot Raid, and the game quickly prices players out of the game.

I understand the need to remove items from the economy, but this is not the way to do it. The balance is still not there... binding is a step, but not a sufficient step. Make it Bind to your ACCOUNT, and then Bound Items take no damage, and we have a usable system. Why should I not be able to move items back and forth between my own characters??? Why am I forced to chose between a *LOT* of permament Damage or Binding an item, which renders it utterly useless if I ever get a better one? That is penalizing players for your design and development mistakes. We should not have multiple Vorpals and Smiters, and such... nor should we have half the gear and weapons that we do... but you put them in the game. You have tried various methods to "fix" the economy with Plat-Sinks (AH, Respec Feats, etc), but none of them have worked. The only true "Plat & Item Sink" that really comes to mind is crafting, but that is still "sometime in the future".

I am sorry, but this system is going to drive players away. I have always hated the DOOOM! posts, and have refrained in the past, and even supported most of the other changes, but this one really scares me. Seriously, you have almost 1,200 posts in this thread alone, with 90%+ of the posts in opposition... I know the Forum Community is a small sub-section of the DDO Playerbase, and a very opinionated and vocal one, but you need to listen to the overwhelming majority. This Death Penalty will force people to AFK during quests, recall to repair and get rid of negative levels, and stop playing their capped characters. It will also FORCE players to farm for items to be able to pay their repair bills, or to the Plat Farmers... most casual players won't be able to afford the repairs at the higher levels. And given that the temporary negative level will lead to MORE deaths, if the player doesn't just AFK or Recall, as they will be less able to fight/cast/anything. You are SERIOUSLY penalizing the Arcane Classes here as well... Whatever... I think this entire change is a SERIOUS mistake, and I wish someone would listen. And I'm sorry, Eladrin, but all of your posts have that "We don't care what you think or say, we're going to do this and you have to live with it" tone to them. There is no "We understand your concerns..." or anything along those lines.

[moorewr]

that 95% of the playerbase has had at least one-capped char for 3 to 6 months

I'd wager that 75% of the forum regulars do, but that the population as a whole is quite different. Only Turbine knows for sure.

[Mercules]

Eladrin, could you please explain what the problem is with leaving the current damage system in place, and instead adding a ressurection fee? That accomplishes the stated goal of inflicting a monetary cost, but without threatening peoples' items and arousing any of the ire that generates. You could base the fee on level or even the value of a person's gear, but it seems like it would meet with less resistance. Binding could still be introduced and I know that I would bind a few items I plan to keep just to protect them from normal wear. In that system, voluntary binding would remove more items from the economy than is currently occuring, a monetary expense is added to death, and you don't have a thread over 1000 posts long where the prevailing mood is stiff opposition(with a valiant defense being mounted by some very determined posters.) What am I missing?

It removes money, but money is only one small factor in the economy. Items just never go away. The +1 Shock Longsword of Pure Good a guild member had could end up going through 20-30 guild members' starting out warrior characters. They could add more slime/ooze/rust monster mobs mixed in with regular mobs, but that just annoys the heck out of most people. This is a viable way to create a death penalty that means something(look at how up in arms people are about possible damage to their precious items) even to a capped character and is less punitive to a non-capped character. Yes, item damage is less punitive to a character that is only using this weapon for the next level or two. It has the nice side effect of removing items from circulation by them being bound, or eventually being worn down to the point where they are too easy to damage. Yes I used the word nice.

I don't want my items damaged either but I can see where removing powerful items and making a more newbie friendly death penalty are good for the game, if not me. This game isn't about me.

[MysticTheurge]

Without going into any specifics, won't different classes be affected differently? Classes that are more gear dependant and place themselves more in harm's way are more likely to get item damage, lose money and lose hard to replace gear over time.

Yes, but isn't that not changing in any significant way with the new death penalty?

Classes that took more item damage in the past always had higher repair costs/issues.

(One other thing to consider is that "item dependent" classes tend to have sturdier items too.)

DDO has an economy? That's driving the decision?

Egads.

People keep saying that, but I see absolutely nothing in Eladrin's posts to suggest that economy considerations are driving the death penalty changes.

In this thread Eladrin has talked to us about the death penalty, and, separate from that, he has talked to us about how the DDO "economy" works. They're kind of related because some of the changes to the economy (reduced permanent damage, bound items take no permanent damage, can bind your own items) have been made as a result of changes to the Death Penalty. But it doesn't seem to me as though the economy was, in any way, the driving force behind changing the death penalty.

[xman26]

Can you post a complete list of the gear you're wearing? You're taking ten times the amount of repair costs as expected. Most level 16 characters have repair costs from one death at around 2.5k - 4k gold. (250-400 platinum.)

1. This is on Thel server not risia
2. Off the top of my head, White Dragon Helm, White Dragon Scaleplate, +1 Vorp Kophesh(bought), +1 GT BS of Disruption(my only high end uber chest/end reward item), Several +5 stat items, FF boots, +3, +5 and +1 flame touched, frost, lightning based BS, Kophesh and maces are also used the lowest ML is 8. As I do mostly long to very long quests, I do not bail out of quest to repair, matter of fact, only time I would bail is if someone else was holding the quest due to party wipe.
3. I will update my post later when I can get on the game and take inventory of exact items worn and most commonly used during a typical quest.

[CSFurious]

95% of the players who have been playing this game for over 12 months have a capped character, and that character has been capped for at least 3 to 6 months

slight hyperbole, but just about right

I'd wager that 75% of the forum regulars do, but that the population as a whole is quite different. Only Turbine knows for sure.

[stockwizard5]

Two quick points ...

1. A study on these very forums showed that permanent damage is based on damage repaired - that is fixing 100 pts once or 10 pts 10 times results in the same amount of permanent damage.

2. I still claim this sucks for Dragon Armor ... a typical night of 4 hours in the Abbot would now be 2.5 hours in the Abbot and then 1.5 hours grinding for 3 Relics (ok so i have like 1000 relics but its still dumb and certainly not better). I guess for death fests (like figuring out new or broken raids) we wear our "B" gear ...

[miceelf88]

I guess my main issue with this is that it feels as if the devs just decided they were going to up and change the death penalty and are getting feedback about the details.

I don't recall the devs trying to get the opinions of the community at large about the current death penalty. I HOPE Eladrin was getting a lot of feedback from the newbies who left, but I don't know much one way or the other about this. It doesn't feel as if this was part of a broad based attempt to ascertain the needs/desires of the community at large, though.

It also looks like their minds are made up about the big picture. That's too bad. It's going to lessen my enjoyment of the game, unless I am very wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I stick around, but that will depend on how right I am over time.

Even mostly soloing, leveling up is trivially easy in this game, particularly in low levels and particularly if you group. (when I first started running in groups, I was amazed at how quickly I was leveling up, even in many bad PUGs.) It was actually TOO fast, for my taste, as my goal on my initial character was to experience as much content as I could, as roughly level-appropriate as I could. I still haven't done that, but that's primarily because there are a whole passel of quests out there that no one wants to do, and are prohibitive to do solo (e.g., necropolis 2-3, especially given the pointlessness of the raid that they lead to).

I honestly didn't feel that the death penalty was broken, at least in a way that harmed my experience of the game in any way. And I'm a very casual player, and not particularly skilled, as anyone who has grouped with me will tell you.

There are a lot of other things that are much more problematic for me, in terms of enjoyment- quests that depend completely on superior connection speed and videogame skills, rather than MMORPG skills- ability to play asteroids or frogger or whathaveyou, quests that no one wants to run, the dearth of content at certain levels, the various bugs that have been around a long time, the lack of solo-friendly play (which I suspect either puts people off before the trial is over or leads far more of them to quit than anything else). none of these are really getting addressed. Instead, it's something that I didn't even know was a problem or consider a problem.

And I appreciate Eladrin responding and reading, but it seems as if his mind was made up when he started this thread. That kind of leaves a bad taste.

But if we're truly going to go the "no XP penalty anymore" route, I'd like some kind of switch on quests that allows me to run the quest for no exp, if that's what I want to do.

[CSFurious]

or at least pay him some consulting fees

hell, i am sure that he will help you for free

listen to him, Turbine

Eladrin,

I am sorry, but that really sounds like a cop-out. The overall Development Team made specific choices over the past nearly 2 years that turned DDO into a Monty-Haul game, starting with Mod 3, but specifically with Mod 4. Up until that point, the items were a little over-powered for our levels, but not ridiculiously so. Vorpals and Paralyzers and Smiters were still fairly rare, as were a lot of the "Uber" Loot that we all now have. But the Gianthold turned things into "ridiculous" mode. +6 Stat Items, Vorpals, Banshiers, +5 Elemental Weapons of Righteousness, and the like, all combined to turn the game into a "Uber-Loot" system. Those were deliberate choices by the development and/or management team for DDO.

Now, we are being punished for the developer's decisions to give us this monty-haul loot. Now, you are forcing players to Bind their equipment, or run SERIOUS risk of completely ruining their items, and enforcing a major plat penalty on all players for death. While there are plenty of players out there with multiple capped characters, all with maximum plat, there is still the VAST majority of players who don't have that much plat on any of their characters, and you are going to penalize those players where it hurts the most. While I am a more active player myself, I probably don't have more than 75k plat between all of my 10 characters... but when I play with more Casual Players, the #1 gripe I hear from them is that they never have the plat to buy things on the AH, or even stock potions & wands & Scrolls!

You are seriously going to death-penalty most Casual Players into quitting the game, because the repair bills will outweigh the loot sold prices. On the flip side, your more Hardcore Players are going to stop playing their high-level characters (if not the game entirely) due to the forced decision of Bind or Destroy. I am personally considering cancelling my account because of this FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE to the game. (PS: and no, you can't have my stuff). I know that many of my friends who play are in the same boat as I am, and we are all having serious discussions about continuing playing this game (most all have played since Beta).

Seriously, if this new system is implemented, who is going to be able to afford to "figure out" the new Raid & quests? And yes, I have been testing on Risia, and the Permanent Damage rate is still quite high. I tested with a character with NO bound items on, and I was getting Permanent Damage on about 1-2 items for EVERY DEATH!!! I remember running Ghosts of Perdition the 2nd or 3rd night after Mod 5 came out with a Casual Group, and we party-wiped 5 times (and each player died 8-10 times each due to raise-and-die). Then add to that the Save-Or-Die effects in many quests, or the miss-your-jump-and-die in the Abbot Raid, and the game quickly prices players out of the game.

I understand the need to remove items from the economy, but this is not the way to do it. The balance is still not there... binding is a step, but not a sufficient step. Make it Bind to your ACCOUNT, and then Bound Items take no damage, and we have a usable system. Why should I not be able to move items back and forth between my own characters??? Why am I forced to chose between a *LOT* of permament Damage or Binding an item, which renders it utterly useless if I ever get a better one? That is penalizing players for your design and development mistakes. We should not have multiple Vorpals and Smiters, and such... nor should we have half the gear and weapons that we do... but you put them in the game. You have tried various methods to "fix" the economy with Plat-Sinks (AH, Respec Feats, etc), but none of them have worked. The only true "Plat & Item Sink" that really comes to mind is crafting, but that is still "sometime in the future".

I am sorry, but this system is going to drive players away. I have always hated the DOOOM! posts, and have refrained in the past, and even supported most of the other changes, but this one really scares me. Seriously, you have almost 1,200 posts in this thread alone, with 90%+ of the posts in opposition... I know the Forum Community is a small sub-section of the DDO Playerbase, and a very opinionated and vocal one, but you need to listen to the overwhelming majority. This Death Penalty will force people to AFK during quests, recall to repair and get rid of negative levels, and stop playing their capped characters. It will also FORCE players to farm for items to be able to pay their repair bills, or to the Plat Farmers... most casual players won't be able to afford the repairs at the higher levels. And given that the temporary negative level will lead to MORE deaths, if the player doesn't just AFK or Recall, as they will be less able to fight/cast/anything. You are SERIOUSLY penalizing the Arcane Classes here as well... Whatever... I think this entire change is a SERIOUS mistake, and I wish someone would listen. And I'm sorry, Eladrin, but all of your posts have that "We don't care what you think or say, we're going to do this and you have to live with it" tone to them. There is no "We understand your concerns..." or anything along those lines.

[gpk]

Yes, but isn't that not changing in any significant way with the new death penalty?

Classes that took more item damage in the past always had higher repair costs/issues.

(One other thing to consider is that "item dependent" classes tend to have sturdier items too.)

Well if said classes are more in harms way are also a lot more likely to die and get more item damage because of it. This is in addition to the item damage they'd normally take.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Two quick points ...

1. A study on these very forums showed that permanent damage is based on damage repaired - that is fixing 100 pts once or 10 pts 10 times results in the same amount of permanent damage.

From my understanding the chance of perm damage depends on how badly damaged it is but if it takes damage the amount of damage depends on how much perm damage you already have.

2. I still claim this sucks for Dragon Armor ... a typical night of 4 hours in the Abbot would now be 2.5 hours in the Abbot and then 1.5 hours grinding for 3 Relics (ok so i have like 1000 relics but its still dumb and certainly not better). I guess for death fests (like figuring out new or broken raids) we wear our "B" gear ...

Well for stuff that can't take perm damage like the dragon armor you can let it get pretty worn down before you repair it now.

[Mercules]

that 95% of the playerbase has had at least one-capped char for 3 to 6 months

Ok... I can back up my 95% can you? 5% of the game is endgame, in this case Orchard and maybe Gianthold. 95% of it would be the quests up to that point. I wouldn't say that 95% of the player base has at least one-capped char. I for one have never capped a character. Instead I stop just short and go play different characters, re-roll a character, or turn off the game. Doesn't matter if I play or not as long as my subscription is paid for the month. Then again some people look at $15 and think, I have to do this till my eyes bleed to get my moneys worth.

$15 =

• a little more than a third of a box of figures for my Warhammer army
• 3 different paints for my Warhammer army
• a new paintbrush
• a cheap lunch for my fiance and I
• Movie... at the cheap theater maybe with popcorn
• 2 days driving to work and lunch
• 2 new paperback books
• 1 new hardcover book, on sale
• new army book for Warhammer
• enough socks to last half a year
• less than my subscription to CoX, which I play less often

If you are capped and bored you have a third option, turn off the stupid game.