Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[roggane]

I posted this over in the Risia thread as well but I thought it might be of interesting in this discussion...



Ok, logged in as three seperate chars and played repeated /death and then repair with L13 & L14 chars. Repair bills were 3300-5000 (obviously depending what was equipped).

What surprised me was how much perm damage I was taking. I could have sworn in the dev thread we were told that the chance of perm damage was being reduced. I used only undamaged equipment (no perm or temp damage) and having just that 1 death on each item damaged 1 item in 19 of 20 death repairs. Maybe its just that I'm not used to repairing a dozen 10% damaged items at once but this seems horrible to me.

Devs, if you are reading this, please take a quick check on your logic, maybe something accidentally went astray and you are doing more perm damage more than you intend. (All repairs down in the GH, some at general vendor, some at potion vendor)

If this is working as intended... I dunno...all I know is that it was always depressing to see "item xxx permanently damaged" and to see it pretty much every time I die would be depressing beyond belief. This is a game, its supposed to be FUN and that just doesn't feel fun.

strange, I /death 3 times and no damage....

[adamkatt]

Anytime you die in mod 6... but only for a min or two

Edited my post to be more clear.

[tekn0mage]

strange, I /death 3 times and no damage....

/death does not damage your gear.

And the perm damage was the issue that bothered me the most, too.

[Hendrik]

/death does not damage your gear.

And the perm damage was the issue that bothered me the most, too.

I sure took damage when I did /death.

Each and everytime. Over several logins.

Repaired and took only 1 point perm damage.

[Hendrik]

Ah, I see what you're getting at.

Let me think about that for a while and see if I can come up with a suggestion that works along those lines

Edit -- Wait, I don't even really have to think, it's kind of staring us in the face.

What if, you take damage equal to twice the level of penalty you have?

First death between shrines: 2%
Second death between shrines: 4%
Third death between shrines: 6%
Fourth death between shrines: 8%
Fifth or more death between shrines: 10%

With all the same caps as the Touch of Dolurrh, so that you can't get 10% until higher levels. If you keep dying past hitting the ToD cap though, you keep taking the damage each time you die. So repeated deaths could still end up taking out your equipment, it just takes a bit longer, and there's less penalty for the first "Oops" death.

Thoughts?

****, MT. Simple, elegant, addresses many concerns.

I hope Eladrin is looking!!!!

[HumanRogue]

Well I spent some time on Risia today testing this out. I also had a lot more than usuall perma damage on my items from dying. The main thing that I didn't like from this new system is how it is going to effect the big fights. In a dungeon you can take a small break and take time to recover your guys from death, however in the big fights (usually at the end) you dont always have that.

Let me put it this way. You are going through the Rever pre-raid and you are up to the point when you fight the dragons. Most of the times I have been in there you see people go down and have to get them back up and into the action. Well now your lvl 14 fighter that was tanking is now lvl 13. Guess what, that white dragon armor that he was using and the uber sword he had on are now in his pack so now your tank is fighting the dragon with his fists in his underwear. I found this to be anoying. Well how long till he dies with no A.C. or weapon. So now you raise him a second time in the fight (not uncommon in the pre-raids and raids). Now your character has not only lost his armor and weapon but most of his better items will now be in his backpack to. so you may as well bring out the Monk class cause they are the only ones I know of that can do much in this condition. Are you really going to take time to put new armor on and lower level items since you cant use your good stuff for a couple of min?

The items dropping to the backpack was my largest gripe with this system because I use all 10 of my hot key bars and now I am going to need 11 or 12 of them so that I can put one bar with my (lvl 14 gear) and one with my (lvl 12 gear) and so forth. I will also need some more inventory slots to carry around all the extra stuff I will need in case I die and can't use my gear in during a big fight.

I think something different needs to happen than what we currently have but this made my experience a lot worse on risia just due to the fact that I was always losing my stuff off my guy. If your pouches are full when it drops everything into them then it will overload your pack and you will not be able to repair untill you sell off enough stuff to find your stuff in the pack. All in all perma damage seemed a bit more crazy for one day of play (makes binding more appealing). I have seen posts mention that they have not lost things to perma damage, they have not been playing with the new rules for damage during all that time so the past is no indication of what this change will bring to the future. I also don't like fighting dragons, mentau, or the abbot in my underwear (its not a preaty site!). Some changes need to be made to make death painfull but I don't think it should be to the point where people decide they have had enough frustraition and you start losing people to some other form of entertainment. This change to death could do that since I know that in just the day that I played on risia I have been questioning how much longer I want to spend in this game due to the frustration of equipment dropping off my guy when I die and res at a shrine or have a cleric res me. Wasn't thinking that way before playing today on Risia.

Please devs take into acount how this will effect the major battles in the game where multiple deaths are very common place and how this will greatly tip the scale out of favor of the players ever being able to complete some of the quests. Course mabee D&D online is being put up on the shelf for bigger and better things at Turbin headquarters and this is just the first step to cut down on subscriptions so that this game can be dropped from the line (similar to many other Turbin games in the recent past), in that case go for it.

[honkuimushi]

Measure thrice, check twice, cut once.

While there are a number of people here who like this idea, it seems that at least 40-50% of the people on this thread are opposed to this change, or at least the permanent item damage. What's more, the people who like it seem to be saying "It's OK." while the people who dislike it are saying "I hate it." This is a very dangerous split because it has the power to drive people away, but very little power to attract. These discussions remind me of the debates over the increased death penalties in Mod 3 and the changes to Human Versatility and Halfling Luck. In both cases you had a lot of people saying "The penalty is too weak, you're not supposed to like death. Maybe now people won't zerg or use /death to recall." Or "Human Versatility was overpowered. The new enhancement is fine." While on the other hand a number of people said that the XP penalty was too harsh and punished death too severly. Or complained that Humans are versitile all the time, and that halflings are lucky, not just quick.

The death penalty was reduced fairly quickly and debt regen was introduced. Human Versatility and Halfling Luck took longer, but both were redone. In both cases, Turbine backed off in response to consumer complaints. In those cases the changes were fairly easy to make and people could reset their enhancements and XP is plentiful enough that people quested to make up the XP. There are enough people opposed to this change that I think Turbine may have to rethink this if it goes live. The problem is that the penalties are permanent and going back will be very difficult. If people permanently damage their favorite items, then item damage on death is removed, don't you think that people will demand a way to remove permanent damage from unbound items? And what about the people who bound their items to avoid permanent damage? Don't you think they would demand a way to unbind those items? People are already asking now. All in all, this would be a mess to undo.

If you want to add a monetary cost to death, I and others have proposed a straight up fee for rezes. There is no need to go through our items. If you want to remove items from the economy, keep the idea that bound items are immune to permanent damage. Add the ability to upgrade items. I would bind several items, starting with my Muckbanes and moving on to a few of my favorite weapons. In sort, more carrots, less stick.

The increases to XP debt in Module 3 didn't stop zerging, nor did it stop people /deathing for convenience. I don't think this will either. Instead, people that dislike the system will get fed up and leave. I don't see enough people being attracted by this new system to replace them. In addition, if Turbine reconsiders, it will be a mess to fix. Turbine, be very, very sure you want to do this before implementing this sytem. If (like those other changes) you reconsider later, it will be very difficlt to rollback.

[MysticTheurge]

While there are a number of people here who like this idea, it seems that at least 40-50% of the people on this thread are opposed to this change, or at least the permanent item damage. What's more, the people who like it seem to be saying "It's OK." while the people who dislike it are saying "I hate it."

Not to detract from your argument (get it right the first time) overly much since I agree with the general gist of it, but if you took any group of people used to working with something a given way and told them you were changing it, about half would probably say "It's ok" and the other half would say "I hate it." Just cause it was changing.

There are definitely some good arguments being made by the "I hate it" side in this thread, but some degree of resistance to this change is, inevitably, just a resistance to change.

[Invalid_86]

There is resistance to change....and resistance to change because something is just a bad idea.

[tekn0mage]

Not to detract from your argument (get it right the first time) overly much since I agree with the general gist of it, but if you took any group of people used to working with something a given way and told them you were changing it, about half would probably say "It's ok" and the other half would say "I hate it." Just cause it was changing.

There are definitely some good arguments being made by the "I hate it" side in this thread, but some degree of resistance to this change is, inevitably, just a resistance to change.

First you missed the intent of his post.

The post was to state that "if you implement this system, you aren't going to gain any new customers, but if you implement it you will definitely lose customers". If this change is SO vital, that you are willing to risk losing customers over it, by all means, go forward with your plans.

If, however your plans are only to appease roughly half of the crowd (the "purists" and definitely not the "gamers") then be VERY certain its what you want to do.

Secondly, there are no good arguments made in defense of these changes. Except that a segment of the crowd seems to enjoy infringing their SLOW and BORING style of play onto the rest of us.

[ccheath776]

What absolutely shocks me about this thread is peoples attachment to Loot.

"My loot will get damage. OGZ!!! Im cancelling...."

Comon, its virtual loot that is not even real.
So what if an item gets some damage. Go repair it or bind it. Your choice.
But honestly why do people get so upset over virtual items. That I cannot understand.

[gpk]

What absolutely shocks me about this thread is peoples attachment to Loot.

"My loot will get damage. OGZ!!! Im cancelling...."

Comon, its virtual loot that is not even real.
So what if an item gets some damage. Go repair it or bind it. Your choice.
But honestly why do people get so upset over virtual items. That I cannot understand.

You're right, you dont understand. There have been numerous reductions to random loot drop over DDO's history and some items are near impossible to replace. Binding means you can't share the loot across your different toons, trade em or auction em. If the item is gone the odds of you finding something that good are greatly reduced, even with the higher level caps. Theres also the fact that before they admitted items were takin too much damage and reduced the degradation rate and added an expert repairer, older items would have taken a lot of permanent damage.

[MysticTheurge]

You're right, you dont understand. There have been numerous reductions to random loot drop over DDO's history and some items are near impossible to replace. Binding means you can't share the loot across your different toons, trade em or auction em. If the item is gone the odds of you finding something that good are greatly reduced, even with the higher level caps. Theres also the fact that before they admitted items were takin too much damage and reduced the degradation rate and added an expert repairer, older items would have taken a lot of permanent damage.

Yeah, but they've also said they want to add ways to repair permanent damage (which kind of means it's not really "permanent damage" any more, but you get the idea). That would let you repair your older items and anything that gets hit with permadamage from the new death penalty.

[Serpent]

Yeah, but they've also said they want to add ways to repair permanent damage (which kind of means it's not really "permanent damage" any more, but you get the idea). That would let you repair your older items and anything that gets hit with permadamage from the new death penalty.

I believe Eladrin was referring to permanent damage on Bound equipment. Not on unbound equipment.

[MysticTheurge]

I believe Eladrin was referring to permanent damage on Bound equipment. Not on unbound equipment.

It still provides you with some additional options.

Use it for the entire full life span of the item as normal. Once it becomes permanently broken, choose who's going to keep it from then on. Bind it to that person and repair.

[Serpent]

It still provides you with some additional options.

Use it for the entire full life span of the item as normal. Once it becomes permanently broken, choose who's going to keep it from then on. Bind it to that person and repair.

You're right. It's like jumping through hoops, but yes that is an option. We could call it perma grind

[Lorien_the_First_One]

strange, I /death 3 times and no damage....

/death does not damage your gear.

And the perm damage was the issue that bothered me the most, too.

yes it does if you are in a quest or explorer zone. It doesn't hurt your equip in a tavern though.

What absolutely shocks me about this thread is peoples attachment to Loot.

"My loot will get damage. OGZ!!! Im cancelling...."

Comon, its virtual loot that is not even real. .

What is real is that damaging stuff we spent time getting isn't fun. I play the game for fun...taking this damage doesn't seem fun... therefore why play something that will not be a positve experience?

It still provides you with some additional options.

Use it for the entire full life span of the item as normal. Once it becomes permanently broken, choose who's going to keep it from then on. Bind it to that person and repair.

I was thinking that...and then I remembered that I can only do that until its oh say 30% left because if I bind with less than that, 1 death plus normal in adventure wear and I could end up with a broken item when I need it.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Ok, I just finished running Tor and it highlighted to me what the problem with the new system is.

I died an embarressing number of times. We had 4 party wipes and I died and was raised a heck of a lot of times. Yes I know, the Tor is easy...cleared it myself enough for 2 sets of scale armor and rarely die anymore in it but what can I say, a less than perfect pug. We stuck with it though...because why not. It was a good bunch of people and we were enjoying ourselves anyway.

Here's the thing... I walked out with pretty much a whole AP worth of red (and no I'm not capped on that char). Did I mind? Nope. I can either play another char for a few days, or run two or three quests, and my prob will be solved.

But I died A LOT. If I took 10% damage each time...well lets just say I'd have been naked. And then there would be the perm damage. Prob several points on several items since I would have had to repair several times to avoid nakedness. So what would have happened? Odds are, one wipe, MAYBE a second try... and then when I get that 2nd point of perm damage you go "its not worth it" and dump the group. Is that really how we want things to go in this game?

[MysticTheurge]

I was thinking that...and then I remembered that I can only do that until its oh say 30% left because if I bind with less than that, 1 death plus normal in adventure wear and I could end up with a broken item when I need it.

Yeah but we were talking about the proposed (possible?) system that would allow you to repair permanent damage on bound items. Eladrin mentioned it... somewhere, but I don't have a link handy.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Yeah but we were talking about the proposed (possible?) system that would allow you to repair permanent damage on bound items. Eladrin mentioned it... somewhere, but I don't have a link handy.

Good point... He did say that he wanted it a future release but not 6.0 because the tech wasn't in place yet. If he goes ahead with that idea and if it was reasonably priced (ie - we use the easy to find new shards and I don't need to go on 100 quests just to farm the ingredients) then it would let you redeem those beat up items. It wouldn't eliminate my concern by a long short, but would at least mean an item with less than 50% wear left was still useable in some way.