Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Huh? I think you are confusing item wear and permanent damage. It would take a heck of a lot more deaths than 2-4 to reach 60% permanent damage on an item. Unless I am missing what you are saying, which is entirely possible.

I was talking about when strategically you would bind something. Why bother to bind something at 100% durability, you might want to trade it. But you wouldn't want to wait for it to get to 1% durability and then bind it because although it will never be destroyed, it won't take much to make it useless in quest.

So if you bound with 60% perm damage you could die 3 times + take some in quest damage and still not have taken enough repairable damage to break the item in quest.

Make sense?

[Ron]

I was talking about when strategically you would bind something. Why bother to bind something at 100% durability, you might want to trade it. But you wouldn't want to wait for it to get to 1% durability and then bind it because although it will never be destroyed, it won't take much to make it useless in quest.

So if you bound with 60% perm damage you could die 3 times + take some in quest damage and still not have taken enough repairable damage to break the item in quest.

Make sense?

Ah, right, I gotcha. Yes, that makes sense. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying.

[Vhlad]

Another problem:

After so many deaths, members of the group will start to become useless, as all their items break apart. Think about this carefully. It is encouraging people to zone out part way through a quest to repair, which slows things down, wastes time, aggrivates everyone else, etc. In the event that you cannot zone out to repair and get back in (pre-raids, raids), then when before, we were limited by rez scrolls + mana, now we all have a fixed number of deaths before everything we're wearing becomes useless.

I don't understand the gameplay benefit to this at all. I don't see it increasing the fun factor. There's already a big penalty attached to death: losing all your buffs, losing time to stop and re-buff, losing the associated mana, and/or losing the associated money spent to rez with a scroll and wand/pot heal back to full.

[Hendrik]

That % seems less than what I got but still not quite the 50% reduction we had been told to expect. Even in your testing, it basically means on almost every run you can expect to see perm damage with the general repairs and every other run on expert repair.

I trust that none of the items you tested with were bound? (since obviously that would decrease the % of items taking perm damage)

I'm still hoping either we have either been unlucky or the foruma isn't working as intended and needs a little tweak.

So far, from what I have been seeing, that is about correct. I have experienced at least 1 point of perm dam to my gear with two, on avg, repairs from general repairs.

With more deaths and more data, I get the feeling it might need a slight tweak - at least warrants someone looking into it.

I would think we need a larger core data set to review before we can see if it is working.

IMO, it's close. More data may show it go either way.

[ccheath776]

All in all I think this idea is bad, it's going to start forcing people to rely on guild members rather then pugs, I know I won't be joining pugs when I test the new stuff when it goes live, SOOO since we merged servers to increase PuGs and LFMs this idea is going to reduce those single handedly. I will not EVER EVER EVER play my cleric in a non guild party because I don't wanna hear people whine that they died. Sometimes an idea is good on paper but horrible in actualitly and application, I think this is one of those time. Great idea and has some merit but the negitives are too much for people to take in stride, what's the point of attracting new players when alot of us who've been here since beta will be leaving? I'm not try'n to be dramatic but this is going to be the breaking point added with all the resent downtimes, all of my other friends play WoW but I play this. Least for a little longer...

People whine today when they die and still blame the cleric for it.
I disagree because death will not hurt the speed at which I level.
It may hurt my items but that will not effect my progress to the next level.
Item damage does not impeded my progress to the eventual level cap of 16. Xp loss does.
I can still smash through a quest with a masterwork sword if I had to. Its good to know no matter how much I die I will still get 10k xp at the end of the quest instead of 2k because I died a few times.
Or worse got hit with a negative xp due to death, and an additional xp loss because of my re-entry which may or may not erase the entire XP I was hoping to gain for that quest.

One of the aspects I noticed people saying. "But what if I can't use my primary stuff because in the middle of a quest I died so much that its beyond repair and I will have to recall to repair them..." Just bring some backups. That actually feels more like PNP in many ways when I had a warrior that had to carry around multiple weapons because in PNP there is always a chance of a critical failure that could shatter your weapon. If that happened you would need a backup.

I'm not trying to flame or troll or make people leave.
My point is that everything everyone is saying is not any more than what people said about the other changes including the server merge, the enhancement change, spell changes, and attack changes. Its just a different change to complain about.
I dont mind the fact that people offer alternatives but everyone must understand. XP loss penalties are gone for good. They had to be eliminated for many reasons one is the rising xp loss penalty which presented a compounding problem that would have gotten unbearable at a certain point. To the tune of 10k or more xp loss on death.
A new system had to be made up. This is the first itteration of that change. Maybe it will be tweaked in the future but the bottom line is that XP losses are no more after mod 6.
People can argue about the item damage, some legitimate, that is a good converasation to have because that can be changed.
XP loss cannot and should not. Its gone and its a good thing.

[Vhlad]

I can still smash through a quest with a masterwork sword if I had to. Its good to know no matter how much I die I will still get 10k xp at the end of the quest instead of 2k because I died a few times.

Assuming you die a lot:

A pug, especially a pug cleric, is not going to let you sit in the quest with masterwork weapons/armor because all your regular stuff is broken from death penalty. Why would they want to spend the money to keep you healed, buffed, and rez you, and risk dteah (item damage) to themselves, because you're unwilling to go and repair?

Say hello to XP penalty re-entry fee, or get blacklisted from groups. All your +6 items, heavy fort, etc etc makes an extreme difference in survivability.

[ccheath776]

Nice made up numbers there...

But on your point, if I leave it won't be for another MMO. I've never made it past trial membership on any MMO besides this one. It had something unique I liked, if I leave its to go back to stand alone games. Heck, I can buy a new game a month and never get bored instead of spending $15/month here so there are alternatives even if you don't see them.

And even more importantly... even if everyone were to agree that the old xp mechanic was a problem for new players, there are plenty of ways to fix it besides this overly punative one. Waiving XP debt at low levels, or just removing it entirely, solves the problem. The debuff then becomes the penalty for dying.

Actually then thats a good thing. The more single user games you buy the more money the industry makes and the better the industry is. Thats actually a good thing because if the industry is strong it means when I get out my game design degree I will still have an industry to go into. But I jest of course.


"if everyone were to agree that the old xp mechanic was a problem for new players, there are plenty of ways to fix it besides this overly punative one."
I could not have said it better myself to what point I was trying to make.
That is actually what I was trying to get across. The xp loss system had to go. Maybe this new system wasn't the best but that can be debated, proposed, and then changed. I just think too many are getting stuck on "I want the old system back because item damage..." well.... sorry the old system is not coming back but we can propose changes to the new system.

I actually like Arkos' system. That was a great idea as long as it didn't involve xp loss.

[MysticTheurge]

I skipped the last five pages cause you all talk too much (haha, I know, pot, kettle, and so on).

If they make it so hardness affects death damage, I'd very much like to see a ritual like binding that increases the hardness of items.

This would be a nice half-way point for people that don't want to bind their items, but still want to protect them. Maybe it even gives a reduced chance of permanent damage while repairing, in addition to reducing damage taken in the first place.

[ccheath776]

Assuming you die a lot:

A pug, especially a pug cleric, is not going to let you sit in the quest with masterwork weapons/armor because all your regular stuff is broken from death penalty. Why would they want to spend the money to keep you healed, buffed, and rez you, and risk dteah (item damage) to themselves, because you're unwilling to go and repair?.

My cleric would and will. She's available for hire anytime.
My clerics job is to keep the party alive by whatever means necessary if I have to burn through 8 - 10 CSW wands. so be it.
If I have to protect anbd bufff because all weapons are broken and armor useless and we are down to masterwork, so be it. My cleric would recall for more wands if necessary. Thats her job. Keep you alive even if your running nekid through a quest. Just do her a favor and protect her from getting killed, it would be appreciated

[ccheath776]

I skipped the last five pages cause you all talk too much (haha, I know, pot, kettle, and so on).

If they make it so hardness affects death damage, I'd very much like to see a ritual like binding that increases the hardness of items.

This would be a nice half-way point for people that don't want to bind their items, but still want to protect them. Maybe it even gives a reduced chance of permanent damage while repairing, in addition to reducing damage taken in the first place.

Or maybe just allow people to bind and unbind things that are NOT "raid" loot.
Would prolly solve the problem right away.

[Vhlad]

Why is the damage a % of original maximum durability anyway? That means there is no difference between a 200/200 sword and a 125/125 sword. Hardness is one thing, but increased durability should matter too.


Hmmm! If they made it a % of remaining durability instead, then people would be much less likely to need to zone out in the middle of quests to repair. And it wouldn't be so bad to die 50x to figure out a new raid. The first few deaths hurt, but then it is basically diminishing penalty. I prefer that. Although a hard-coded diminishing penalty might be better, if possible.

[ArkoHighStar]

Ah, thanks for elaborating Arko and Baron.

Man, that really bites. That makes the death penalty much harsher and much more annoying and off putting than XP debt ever thought about being.

Although, you don't have to die easier in the quest with the debuff, but I can see how getting raised in a quest and having to wait a minute to five minutes to get back into action is annoyingly painful. Raise dead and Resurrection should mitigate the length of time on the debuff since, with the removal of the XP debt system Resurrection no longer mitigates XP loss.

the first level is almost non existant as it will be gone by the time you are rebuffed, really it only starts to hurt from the third on

[Hendrik]

I skipped the last five pages cause you all talk too much (haha, I know, pot, kettle, and so on).

If they make it so hardness affects death damage, I'd very much like to see a ritual like binding that increases the hardness of items.

This would be a nice half-way point for people that don't want to bind their items, but still want to protect them. Maybe it even gives a reduced chance of permanent damage while repairing, in addition to reducing damage taken in the first place.

Good idea!

Even if Eladrin does not do the Hardiness thing-a-ma-bob.

[MysticTheurge]

Or maybe just allow people to bind and unbind things that are NOT "raid" loot.
Would prolly solve the problem right away.

No. That defeats the point of binding/item damage all together.

The point of item damage is to, over a length of time, remove an item from the economy.

Binding accomplishes the same task, and therefore bound items need not take item damage.

If you can unbind an item, it would have to take item damage to maintain the same status quo.

[ArkoHighStar]

My cleric would and will. She's available for hire anytime.
My clerics job is to keep the party alive by whatever means necessary if I have to burn through 8 - 10 CSW wands. so be it.
If I have to protect anbd bufff because all weapons are broken and armor useless and we are down to masterwork, so be it. My cleric would recall for more wands if necessary. Thats her job. Keep you alive even if your running nekid through a quest. Just do her a favor and protect her from getting killed, it would be appreciated

please don't tell me at lvl 14 you are using csw wands to keep people alive

[MysticTheurge]

please don't tell me at lvl 14 you are using csw wands to keep people alive

I use cure moderate wands when I'm out of SPs and save a few Cure Critical/Serious ones for if things really go all ****-hits-the-fan. It does the trick about 9 times out of 10.

[CSFurious]

devs, the game is supposed to be fun

Another problem:

After so many deaths, members of the group will start to become useless, as all their items break apart. Think about this carefully. It is encouraging people to zone out part way through a quest to repair, which slows things down, wastes time, aggrivates everyone else, etc. In the event that you cannot zone out to repair and get back in (pre-raids, raids), then when before, we were limited by rez scrolls + mana, now we all have a fixed number of deaths before everything we're wearing becomes useless.

I don't understand the gameplay benefit to this at all. I don't see it increasing the fun factor. There's already a big penalty attached to death: losing all your buffs, losing time to stop and re-buff, losing the associated mana, and/or losing the associated money spent to rez with a scroll and wand/pot heal back to full.

[CSFurious]

of the real reason for the dev's master plan, i.e., making their new content last longer

Any way to limit the item damage when the quest is giving you a first time completion bonus?

I just don't see this being good at all for encouraging people to enjoy new raids and new content. It is probably fine for old stuff, but I imagine most people are going to want to wait until a safe method of beating the quest/raid is available, rather than figure it out themselves and risk needless damage. It usually takes many deaths to figure raids out. The proposed system penalizes the fronteir players, the ones who work their butts off to figure out a raid, more than anything. There's already a problem with getting players to test out things themselves before a guide is available. This will just make it worse.

[ArkoHighStar]

I use cure moderate wands when I'm out of SPs and save a few Cure Critical/Serious ones for if things really go all ****-hits-the-fan. It does the trick about 9 times out of 10.

then I think that shows just how different a game we are playing as I use heal scrolls pretty much exclusively, as do most of the players I play with, but then again I use empower heal on all my spells as well and wait till people are lower than 50% before giving them a heal to get the best effect.Then again I usually don't haveto revert to scrolls unless we are having a real hard time, and that doesn't happen often

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Or maybe just allow people to bind and unbind things that are NOT "raid" loot.
Would prolly solve the problem right away.

Well ya...but then what's the point of binding?

Here's a thought...why not just get rid of the stupid permanent damage thing and I'll sign on for the rest of the plan on the spot