Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[ArkoHighStar]

Hm.

Where was the first Abbot made easier for the 'slow crowd'?

On Risia. No permanent damage done.

I don't think the abbot was made easier for any crowd just yet, that raid is simply broken, and will need titan style remake to make it doable by anyone. O would agree that most of the players who tried it on Risia were not doing it for humanitaarian reasons. But every raid that we have has been beaten by a very few who pass down the strategy to the next level and so on

[GeneralDiomedes]

I don't think the abbot was made easier for any crowd just yet, that raid is simply broken, and will need titan style remake to make it doable by anyone. O would agree that most of the players who tried it on Risia were not doing it for humanitaarian reasons. But every raid that we have has been beaten by a very few who pass down the strategy to the next level and so on

That's why I said the first abbot .. not his evil twin. Although his evil twin is probably live on risia right now for anyone to try.

[ArkoHighStar]

That's why I said the first abbot .. not his evil twin. Although his evil twin is probably live on risia right now for anyone to try.

The abbott in all incarnations has been fundamentally broken, because the puzzles had so many flaws, the few who beat simply didn't even try the puzzles and made it their stratgy to survive his inferno attacks, basically wearing him down. incarnation 2 was a knee jerk reaction to how people were beating version one basically making him unbeatable. You know its funny they eventuall will get the raid working, and it could replace the titan as one of the most popular raids. A year and a half ago who would have thought the titan would be secind most favourite raid around, times they do change

[NiasTrams]

...I have a +1 greataxe of greater undead bane that has over 50% damage. Almost every melee character I've had has used it. If people are holding on to and redistributing items, the need to buy other items is diminished. In this economy where even mediocre high level items sell for 1 mill plat, I see holding on to items being a good thing.

On some of the NWN player made servers I played on you would of been banned. Tweaking of characters is not an approved way of playing, biut on another of the servers I played on tweaking was all but expected. Different player bases have different styles.

On one extreme, players that have lots of time to play are experiencing a "Monty Haul" campaign world, players with small amounts of time are finding that what amounts to getting "table scraps" is a hard grind, thay is both XP and items.

No matter what Turbine does, not everyone is going to be happy. I am sure the DEVs at Turbine know this as well as knowing the XP debt system isn't accomplishing what they want so they have to try something different.

One post way back was very correct about it being hard to undo a change, I would be bold in stating that it would be best to inform the player base that, "A new Death Penalty System is going to be implemented as well as the ability to permanently bind items to a specific character to avoid permanent damage since the new DP now involves damage to equipped items. Turbine has decided to start small, evaluate results every two weeks and adjust upwards if the goal isn't reached yet; death and the economy will both be affected by the new system and how it effects the economy is what we will be evaluating. Various polls and forum threads will be linked to on our home page during this time, all feedback from our customer base will be welcome."

My cleric hardly dies (but is hardly played, 2 hours a week while capped), my rogue/wizard dies frequently (still not quite capped and being first toon wasn't min/maxed with any stats for better survivability) and my sorcerer varies depending upon solo play and which quest doing with a PUG. I plan on doing several reports a week and giving a summary to Turbine to help them decide if any adjustments need be made.

If they start with small penalties and work upwards with disclosure to and feedback from the player base, Turbine finding a median without upsetting game balance should be less of a turn off to the majority of the player base. If they need to adjust it upwards once or twice after initial implementation it should keep resistant players from experiencing sudden shock about how the new DP is supposed to effect them and their equipment.

Whether they use a simple equation for everything or spend the money to have multiple programmers work out complex equations to take type of death, material involved, item defense ability and other variables into account is only one of the tough decisions that awaits them and effects the customer.

[xman26]

Good. Maybe then the devs can design reasonable content based around true CR levels rather than this ridiculous stuff we have now (e.g. Abbot, PiitP, ALL of the necro quests, etc). Maybe they can start taking out the arbitrary red-named immunities that were put in to combat all the uber gear floating around.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say the economy is out of control. The game has to be designed around the equipment people bring into the quests, and at the moment it's being designed around absurd levels of twinkage. There are people running around with a virtual golf-bag of uber-elite weapons, and that's what's so messed up.

Yeah, that means not everyone will have a vorpal or a banisher or one of the "big 5" weapons. Good. These are *supposed* to be rare. NOT everyone should have them. It should be a big deal if you do.

Now, that's a pipe dream, I know. It's too late to put that genie back in the bottle now. But ya know, if this system helps to put curbs on the economy by discouraging twinkage, well, I'm not going to complain. If that means I never see one of those uber weapons in my career here in DDO, then I'm okay with that. Just as long as the dungeons stop being designed around that equipment.

I've heard many times the argument "It doesn't affect you, let others play how they want! Stop imposing your rules on us!". And ya know, if it were true that it didn't affect me, I'd be totally happy to let you play however you like and with whatever you like. But that's utterly nieve. It DOES affect me. Is there any chance I will ever get to do the Abbot raid? Nope. No one will have me, because my characters are not uber-twinked out. And I AGREE with them, you need to have 12 uber characters to run that quest, from all I hear. I'd probably not come along (if somehow I were invited) for fear I wouldn't be able to contribute in any meaningful way. I'm completely locked out of that content. For that matter ANY content designed around characters carrying a bagful of vorpals, banishers, slayers, and so on. So spare me that argument, it holds no water.

And that is why I think taking items out of the economy is a good thing for the game. This game IS all about having fun (no argument there), but because it is persitant and a multi-player game, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. You have to consider how your game systems affect the game as a whole (unlike a single player game, where you can design the content knowing pretty much *exactly* how well the player will be equipped at any given time and balance appropriately). And sometimes that means you have to do things that might take away from the fun of a single player for the health of the entire population.

Nobody want to die. Nobody wants to take the hit that dying causes (or at least they shouldn't). But it's that very risk that makes the rest of the game fun for many people (a riskless MMOG is a boring MMOG is a dead MMOG, just ask the good people over at Auto Assault). To be sure, not for everyone, because everyone is different, as evidenced by this thread, heh.

So there are two goals, to put in the risk that I think the majority of people want in a game (and I know you disagree Arko, but I really think they do want it) and to put a check on the economy so that content can be designed in a level appropriate (and sustainable) way. The system as proposed by El and as modified by MT/Arko acheives the first, I think, and helps (though certainly doesn't solve) the second. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for the second. Just look at how people are screaming over the baby step they are trying to put in now, heh.

For those that don't like the item damage/binding thing, you are quite lucky I didn't design this game. If I had, every item in the game would have been BoA right from the start (tradable in chests to party members, but once you pick it up it's yours forever, unless you sell it to a broker, where prices are GAME set and characters buy it with the money THEY earn). No twinkage, no plat farmers, definitely no AH, all quests designed as appropriate for a 4 player party at that CR level. That, my friends, is what I consider the perfect game, heh.

Yeeps, I rambled on far longer than I intended to

Risk is acceptable, but if the are gong to give the option to bind items, they should also give us the option to unbind only those items we ourselves have bound. Otherwise, this new system is a totally stupid idea. XP Debt is perfectly fine the way it is. If noobies can't figure out how to play without dieing 10 times doing good blades, maybe they shouldn't be playing. Hell, I started new to this game 1 year ago and I manage to not die more than 3 times in a quest for my first 8 months of playing.

[MysticTheurge]

Risk is acceptable, but if the are gong to give the option to bind items, they should also give us the option to unbind only those items we ourselves have bound.

Ok, what's confusing about this.

Permanent item damage is to remove items from the economy over time.

Bound items are already removed from the economy and therefore need not take permanent damage.

If you allow people to unbind items, they'd have to take permanent damage since they would not, actually, have been removed from the economy after all. The new binding system is not there to let you "Pause" your items degradation until you want to pass it to someone else.

[ArkoHighStar]

Risk is acceptable, but if the are gong to give the option to bind items, they should also give us the option to unbind only those items we ourselves have bound. Otherwise, this new system is a totally stupid idea. XP Debt is perfectly fine the way it is. If noobies can't figure out how to play without dieing 10 times doing good blades, maybe they shouldn't be playing. Hell, I started new to this game 1 year ago and I manage to not die more than 3 times in a quest for my first 8 months of playing.

xp debt may be fine now for most of us myself included, but as with anything that scales with level it will eventually become more of a burden than you would like. At level 20 when it is 10-15k a death you might change your mind. Trust me we have seen what high xp debt can do to the population and how they react as the death penalty was set to 5000 for level 12 with mod 3, everybody freaked and I mean everybody. Turbine's response was "its a death penalty it should hurt", well suffice to say it was changed a week later.
Which is why this new system will either sink or swin evry quickly after going live as we find out who the real ddo masses are and they either keep playing without batting an eye or they revolt with pitchforks in hand

[Ron]

ok now I know how you really feel.

Hehe, probably more than you wanted to know, eh?

Ron there will never be parity between those who play a lot and those who don't its a simple matter of time/reward, the more time you spend playing the more likely you are to receive a nice reward. Some would argue right back at the casual players, why should you have the same as I do I played hard for all this.

I'm not saying everyone should have the exact same equipment. I agree, the hardcore players play more, they should be rewarded as such. I just don't think the uber items should be as common as they are. I would be fine if the hardcore players managed to earn 1 of the 5, or maybe even 2 of the 5.

So now we should be punished for all our efforts because you didn't put in the same effort. I am sorry Ron I just don't buy it. And that is why we are at polar opposites in this debate.

I never said that. You should take a penalty for death, same as the casual players, yes. But that's not the same.

And if you had designed the game Ron there would probably be a different set of people playing it. I am not saying less, I am saying different, as the people who are against these changes, would have been the ones complaining in the exit interview how much they dislike how everything was bound and there was no chance at having a player driven economy of any type.

No doubt, hehe.

[xman26]

Ok, what's confusing about this.

Permanent item damage is to remove items from the economy over time.

Bound items are already removed from the economy and therefore need not take permanent damage.

If you allow people to unbind items, they'd have to take permanent damage since they would not, actually, have been removed from the economy after all. The new binding system is not there to let you "Pause" your items degradation until you want to pass it to someone else.

I only sell the cr@p I dont want or isn't of use, everything I keep, I do plan to trickle down to my other toons, not try and resell them at the AH or else where. Also, bound items take up inventory spots. I'll say it again, if I'm allowed to bind, I should also be allowed to unbind. And as other have suggested already, give unbinding a penalty, say 25% perm damage.

[tekn0mage]

What would be helpful is if the Dev's would actually give us some parameters for addressing this whole idea of death penalty.

Simply tossing a change and asking us to give them "feedback" is kind of a bad idea from the start.

They should have enough feedback to know this is a bad idea.

[Dariun]

Permanent item damage is to remove items from the economy over time.

Bound items are already removed from the economy and therefore need not take permanent damage.

If you allow people to unbind items, they'd have to take permanent damage since they would not, actually, have been removed from the economy after all.

The thing is, I don't think a large percentage of the player base thinks it will be more fun to remove their items from the "economy".

In fact, I think a large percentage of the player base would say the "economy" is the $15/month they pay Turbine and that Turbine should use that $15/month to pay developers to make the game more fun.

[ccheath776]

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

Not really, more or less just making a point to say if that is what I need to do that is what I need to do to. A point made to counter someone saying X amount of clerics will never want to PUG. I personally dont believe that will happen least not with my cleric.

[ccheath776]

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

Now we are negotiating and getting to the heart of the argument.
Its not that xp loss is being removed its the item damage.
Hmm thats debatable.

But what are some alternative. I mean I guess you could just have the negative level but there does have to be a second mechanic in some way. I certainly dont want a temporary loss of stats

I dunno, what other ideas could there be?

[Eladrin]

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

If all magic items were Bind on Equip, then we'd be able to remove permanent damage entirely as it would no longer be needed to remove things over time. We thought it'd be much better to give you the option of choosing that system, however, rather than forcing it on you.

[DaveyCrockett]

If all magic items were Bind on Equip, then we'd be able to remove permanent damage entirely as it would no longer be needed to remove things over time. We thought it'd be much better to give you the option of choosing that system, however, rather than forcing it on you.

That doesn't make sense.
You say that the chance for PERMANENT damage will be halved.
The damage from death is supposed to make the quest more challenging.
What?

[Qzipoun]

The thing is, I don't think a large percentage of the player base thinks it will be more fun to remove their items from the "economy".

In fact, I think a large percentage of the player base would say the "economy" is the $15/month they pay Turbine and that Turbine should use that $15/month to pay developers to make the game more fun.

Well said.

The devs are using the excuse that it's annoying to do a quest, then die and lose all the xp you just made. However, what they are NOT seeing is that it is even worse to FINALLY get an item you want (either via random luck, massive quest grinding, or buying one) then it gets damaged every time you die. While XP debt was something you could undo, you cannot undo damage to your equipment. Why would I play a game where one of the most fun parts of it is to strive to achieve the best equipment possible... simply to have it destroyed over time.

The fact that capped characters don't care about xp debt is not an indication that there is a problem with xp debt, it's an indication that there is a problem with the level cap and the speed at which levels are increased. I find myself having to do "crazy" things on capped characters all the time to keep the game fun (mostly solo quests I know there is no way I can solo and see how far I can get). Giving my characters equipment damage for every death simply means I will stop playing my capped characters for anything but raids as that is the only thing left for them to do...

I just REALLY fail to see how there can be ANY connection between death and item damage. They are two completely different aspects of the game. Like I have said before, you can run HOURS of quests and never have to repair as much as you would now need after a single death. Even from a "logical" point of view I fail to see how death will suddenly make you have to cough up a bunch of plat to repair items. Items that have been slashed, hammered, hit with spells etc and were fine, but when you died ... *poof* here comes a massive repair bill.

[MysticTheurge]

That doesn't make sense.
You say that the chance for PERMANENT damage will be halved.
The damage from death is supposed to make the quest more challenging.
What?

There are two possible systems that the Devs are comfortable with:

1) All items bind on equip, there is no permanent damage ever. The binding is what removes items from general, perpetual circulation.
2) Items don't bind on equip, there is permanent damage. The damage is what removes items from general, perpetual circulation.

Eladrin is pointing this out. If they were to switch to system 1, they could do away with permanent item damage all together (there might still be regular damage, and it might even still occur on death, but there'd be no permanent damage).

He's also pointing out that with the new system, you essentially get the best of both worlds. You get to decide whether you want to work under system 1 or system 2, and you can, in fact, even choose to do it on an item-by-item basis.

[ccheath776]

I get the feelling cheatha is a plant to try and make this go over more smoothly.

Admirable but hardly the truth. Wouldnt mind working for turbine but I have a bit more to learn before im on the level of game programming to even be worthy of a position with them or any gaming company. But thats for another thread.

I just stir the pudding, prolly a bit too much and most of the time I am apologizing or clarifying.

My presence on this forum was to attempt to find out what the exact main argument against the new system.
So far it seems like item damage is the topic of the day.

I know some want the xp loss back. The thing about that is that it is not worth arguing over whether xp loss was better, or worse, ro should come back because the xp loss mechanic is gone for good. Whether it is good or bad is mostly irrelevant. The question then becomes is the new system any good, if not what are some alternatives, and ones that dont involve xp loss?

Ive actually heard some good suggestions. Very good ones. Arkos's is the best ive seen so far.

[MysticTheurge]

While XP debt was something you could undo, you cannot undo damage to your equipment.

They are, however, giving you ways to completely prevent it. (And they've suggested that there will be methods to undo it that will be implemented in the future.)

[xman26]

If all magic items were Bind on Equip, then we'd be able to remove permanent damage entirely as it would no longer be needed to remove things over time. We thought it'd be much better to give you the option of choosing that system, however, rather than forcing it on you.

Right. We take your cash, thank you, but we wont listen to you, the majority, only the minority, because its the right thing to do. Please, if your going to give us the option to bind items, give us teh option to unbind them at a % cost of perm damage, 25-40% would seem about right as it would reduce it enough to severly lessen its value at the AH or vendor, but still allow us to pass it along to a fellow guildie who could use it or to one of our other toons while ther is still use left to it. This seems to be most fair, but given you Dev aren't even concidering it tells me you would rather take our money and bend us over and stick it where the sun dont shine without any vasoline saying take it and like it you dumb suckers, we rule, you obey.