Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Simple answer, only party with people you know and trust.

I hope this game never comes to that....

We're currently looking at ways of alleviating the permanent damage concerns with the modified system. That seems to be the biggest issue.

I'm probably one of the louder opponants of this new system in this thread and if you end or significantly reduce permanent damage and you will have me back on side

Thanks for continuing to listen and keep an open mind.

[Mercules]

Simple answer, only party with people you know and trust.

I PuG... Who is forcing a manner of play on who?

[Ciaran]

I blame Eckleberry for making the instances static. Loot runs wouldn't be as easy as they are if you couldn't just figure out the best way to get to the chests. The mistake was made LOOOOOOONG ago and we all live with the consequences.

I do, however, blame the person using Meth as much as the person cooking it. The developers are not innocent in this, but neither are we. They made it possible, but we did it and we didn't have to.

You're actually using hardcore drug addiction to make your point? Do you not think it has enough merit to stand on it's own? *boggle*

You'd be right, because that's a ridiculous thing to say.

You don't seem to understand that MMO's attract all kinds of people. People who think like you, people who think like me, people who think like neither of us, so on and so forth. These people enjoy playing the game from one, two or several different playstyles and perspectives, be that loot running, speed quests, slow going with immersion into the setting and the story, so on and so forth. In fact many people do all of the above.

Chasing after bigger and better items is, for many people (judging by the trade boards, the AH, the LFM's and 1.6 years of experience in the game) fun to do. You might think differently. Fine, don't do it.

The game came with the mechanic, in some cases the need (such as when at level 10 you needed to have a +5 weapon to hit Blackguards in Tempest regularly) to chase after items...this is something widespread in many MMO's, and even non MMO multiplayer games, such as NWN and NWN2.

Didn't have to? Give me a break! Some people enjoy loot runs and you make it sound like they should be spouting mea culpa's for it. Are you that elitist about playstyles?

Comparing people who enjoy loot running to get better items for themselves or for their friends to drug users...to even use that as an analogy shows to me how out of touch you are.

[Kisaragi]

I don't think that causing a player to pay half of an average level appropriate chest with junk in it per death will be too taxing.

How many times do some of you die? It seriously sounds like a lot more than the in-game data is telling me.

I don't think people are upset with the dying as much as they are the looting. I'll give you a few examples;

• I had to buy my +5 mithril full plate, after I got money from a guildy for a +6 con belt (I got during +1 loot weekend) that was rr:dwarf.
• I recieved a +2 unbound charisma tome, and a +6 charisma ring from one of the +1 weekends. I ended up trading both for +6 strength gloves, a +1 vorpal bastard sword, and a bloodstone.
• Smiters, Paralyzers, Banishers and Disrupters for my characters I had to buy.
• 90% of my bastard swords I had to buy.
• 90% of my wizard items I had to buy.

Where do I get my money for these? I sell a lot of junk on the AH for 1 gold more then it's worth, the occassional tome, or collectables (relics/etc).

The point is, with all of these items, I'm buying off the AH. I don't have 7 to 8 million gold on my characters (even combined). I'm lucky if I have 2 million gold.

The loot tables are horrible. Downright rotten. We're having to farm dungeons 20, 30, 50 times just to get an item. I don't have that sort of time so I won't ever be rich or really get a chance to get the highpowered fun items.

I do a level 12 raid (normal, hard, or elite) and I end up getting items with ml6, 7, 8, and occasionally a 9.

It's not that the items are being damaged, it's that replacing them (once they're bound or destroyed) is probably never going to happen.

I have 2 capped characters. They both run quests pretty often. I have been playing for over a year (since the beginning of beta). I tend not to get loot I instantly use (usually on lowbies who either have nothing or something pathetic).

I rely on items not being bound to try and maintain fighting at high levels. I'm always trying to improve my builds to be most effective against over-inflated enemies. IE. My wizard has 34 Int, Stormreaver's Napkin, 3 levels of spell penetration feats and enhancements, and the Belt of the 7 ideals. I still miss a lot with my spells on normal enemies.

I have to wait till this comes to live to really test whether it's going things harder for me or not. I assume it will since the % of higher level items on the AH will either plumet or the price will shoot through the roof.

Getting rid of debt is good. I believe the solution though is requiring role-playing. In tabletop games I play, when characters die, it's part of the story. Even if someone can ressurrect, dying can be traumatic for the role-playing aspects. I would love to travel to the lands of the dead, or interact as a ghost.

All in all, people are clammoring about repair prices, not because the prices, but the chance of hurting that precious vorpal, or +5 mithril full plate, or the 1 of a kind, drops once in a blue moon item that people love. They use it on a character and have fun with it. When they cap, that character is less fun to play with, so they move onto another, and (I hope everyone forgives me for saying this) everyone becomes spoiled to being as effective as they had hoped they would be.

So if the equipment is saved but your alt is never going to be that strong because 1 alt got lucky and another didn't, it makes people frustrated. I know I get that way. Combined with horrible loot tables, means that players are even more desperately holding onto 'my precious'. The solution would be if we could make items to suit builds, or even modify items to be what we're looking for.

I don't think there should be penality to all items when you die. I think equipment should be damaged as it's damaged. If you take a critical hit that takes off your head (300+ extra damage) then your necklace, helmet, trinket, goggles, and possibly your armor should be damaged. If I shoot you through the heart with an an arrow, your chest (chest armor) is going to be damaged. Not your helmet. In this case, let's use common sense.

The problem is introducing ressurrecting items and spells. In a lot of games, dying is the beginning of a new journey, or the end. We have magic to bring people to life. Whether it be by scroll, spell, or item. Death more then likely hates us in stormreach. That's probably why we have the infestation of the undead we do. To kill the living.

Of course that might be a solution to this whole death thing. You're brought back to life and suffer from the shock of being not dead anymore, ripped from the peace and serenity of peace back to life. In effect we make undead, the dead back to life. What if there was a chance that when someone ressurrected they didn't make it back entirely? That they have to undergo purification rituals to restore their body. Perhaps something else has taken over their body. Does the party kill them and risk doing more damage to the player's equipment.

I don't really know. I do know I'm not really happy with not having access to items to keep up. I can't afford things at extreme prices. I can't afford to do missions 60 times, and risk dying even more. It may just get to the point where I have to play for another six months just to get equipment to keep up. If that happens I'll probably be leaving. Risk vs reward is unbalanced. We're doing and expected to do harder and harder quests for more and more average loot. I end up not getting +5 armor, but +2 with improved cold resistance and light fortification. It sucks and I have to sell it. Monsters never have horrible equipment. You don't catch a whole herd of hobgoblins with non masterwork items.

[Ciaran]

Four pretty large problems with the new system:

1) Permanent damage will be extremely distasteful to many long time players. It will also be distasteful to new players who can't afford their repair bills or have to spend more money on that instead of saving for that nice item on the vendors or the AH.

2) "Recalling to repair" will ruin gameplay by preventing continuous questing and forcing some players to wait around while others do chores, resulting in people getting booted from groups for taking too long or others just quitting when they get tired of waiting. Not to mention given how large the new area is there will be a lot of time lost in backtracking to the quest and risking death doing so if one does recall to repair and re-enter.

3) It will now be more practical than ever before for players to grief each other (e.g., creating dangerous situations and/or letting people die to intentionally cause damage to their equipment; raising people in dangerous situations, etc.).

4) Even more pressure will be put on Healers ("You let me die and now my Vorpal Greatsword has permanent damage! You are the worst cleric ever!"). Not to mention other character types who make a mistake (oops, didn't mean to shoot into that mob, sorry we died) are less likely to get sympathy when somebody's item breaks or even gets damaged, thus potentially leading to hard feelings and heated exchanges.

5) Casual gamers and PuGS are likely to be less prevalent in the game, because people aren't going to be willing to risk repair costs or permanent damage in a group with people they're unfamiliar with. If I log on and want to run a quest and there's nobody in guild on, or those who are on are in a full group I might solo something (risky considering the new death penalty) or I might wait...or I might just log off. I sure as heck will be unlikely to join a PUG!

I added extra points to the ones you raised in red.

[Raithe]

You don't seem to understand that MMO's attract all kinds of people. People who think like you, people who think like me, people who think like neither of us, so on and so forth. These people enjoy playing the game from one, two or several different playstyles and perspectives, be that loot running, speed quests, slow going with immersion into the setting and the story, so on and so forth.

You are absolutely right. Some markets, however, are superior to others when it comes to MMO economics, and DDO is the perfect example of this. DDO has catered to the wrong crowd for far too long, and it is more than slightly humorous to see all the posts biting the hand that fed them for the last 2 years. I predicted that the longevity of the sponsored clientbase would be extremely low, and I was right.

It'll be interesting to see how much more catering to the wrong crowd goes on with these mechanics, because the more they cater, the more the game dies. (And, IMO, its been in a necrotic state for several months if not a year.)

[mgoldb2]

The math wasn't iffy. It's pretty accurate. To counter your anecdotal evidence, let me say I seldom remember to repair my items until one of them gets "broken" and I also only have a few points of permanent damage on any of my items.

True the math is correct.

Using quick math with new system I would find the following

Repairing 6 times at 98% life will average the same amount of damage of repairing once at 88% life base on the formula. Now let cut perm damage chance in half so 3 times in old system repairing at 98% chance equal 1 repair at 88% in new system.

1 death in quest therefore increasing the chance of perm damage 3X if in old system you average 2% perm damage across all items equip.

Now this is very rough estimates and you can debate how much damage you usually take in a quest but it does show why people that testing the death pen over resia are seeing more perm damage then they use too.

[MysticTheurge]

I'm probably one of the louder opponants of this new system in this thread and if you end or significantly reduce permanent damage and you will have me back on side

You know, I understand what you're saying, but they already reduced the chance for permanent damage by half.

That's a pretty significant reduction if you ask me.

[tekn0mage]

You are absolutely right. Some markets, however, are superior to others when it comes to MMO economics, and DDO is the perfect example of this. DDO has catered to the wrong crowd for far too long, and it is more than slightly humorous to see all the posts biting the hand that fed them for the last 2 years. I predicted that the longevity of the sponsored clientbase would be extremely low, and I was right.

It'll be interesting to see how much more catering to the wrong crowd goes on with these mechanics, because the more they cater, the more the game dies. (And, IMO, its been in a necrotic state for several months if not a year.)

That's quite the coincidence, because I've thought for 2 years that DDO has been catering to the fans, purists and pug/permadeath crowd for far too long.

[Ciaran]

You are absolutely right. Some markets, however, are superior to others when it comes to MMO economics, and DDO is the perfect example of this. DDO has catered to the wrong crowd for far too long, and it is more than slightly humorous to see all the posts biting the hand that fed them for the last 2 years. I predicted that the longevity of the sponsored clientbase would be extremely low, and I was right.

It'll be interesting to see how much more catering to the wrong crowd goes on with these mechanics, because the more they cater, the more the game dies. (And, IMO, its been in a necrotic state for several months if not a year.)

I see what you're saying, but I don't know about DDO being in a necrotic state for that long. Maybe, maybe not, I can't say. I'm just getting my opinion out there about these proposed changes in the hopes that the devs will listen and re-think their decision.

[ArkoHighStar]

That's quite the coincidence, because I've thought for 2 years that DDO has been catering to the fans, purists and pug/permadeath crowd for far too long.

what would you call all the +1 loot weekends then

[Mercules]

You're actually using hardcore drug addiction to make your point? Do you not think it has enough merit to stand on it's own? *boggle*

You'd be right, because that's a ridiculous thing to say.

You don't seem to understand that MMO's attract all kinds of people. People who think like you, people who think like me, people who think like neither of us, so on and so forth. These people enjoy playing the game from one, two or several different playstyles and perspectives, be that loot running, speed quests, slow going with immersion into the setting and the story, so on and so forth.

Chasing after bigger and better items is, for many people (judging by the trade boards, the AH, the LFM's and 1.6 years of experience in the game) fun to do. You might think differently. Fine, don't do it.

The game came with the mechanic, in some cases the need (such as when at level 10 you needed to have a +5 weapon to hit Blackguards in Tempest regularly) to chase after items...this is something widespread in many MMO's, and even non MMO multiplayer games, such as NWN and NWN2.

Didn't have to? Give me a break! Some people enjoy loot runs and you make it sound like they should be spouting mea culpa's for it. Are you that elitist about playstyles?

Comparing people who enjoy loot running to get better items for themselves or for their friends to drug users...to even use that as an analogy shows to me how out of touch you are.

I'm using an addictive behavior in comparison to another addictive behavior. The developers provided you with an opportunity to use the system in a certain manner, you chose to use it in that manner, that manner has since caused problems in the game and so I do expect the Developers to correct that not just go, "Oops... Oh well, its this way now."

Really? This comparison doesn't fit? Both are hamster wheels and the addict(no matter the type) ends up looking for a better stronger experience, sort of like the person with the Greater X Bane looking for the Shock Greater X Bane. Yes, I know personally -many- addicts who no longer do drugs and the comparison struck me as rather appropriate.

[Hendrik]

Q: If recalling for mana is acceptable, why cannot recalling for repairs be as well?

[Ciaran]

You know, I understand what you're saying, but they already reduced the chance for permanent damage by half.

That's a pretty significant reduction if you ask me.

I'll have to do some more testing, but this is not working like that at all on Risia. I repaired some items after dying two or three times and several of them took permanent damage. This was after they already took permanent damage from a previous test. I've never had the same item take permanent damage upon repair twice in a row like that.

The Dolurrh death system isn't working correctly either, so as it stands, the new death penalty system on Risia is not working as intended.

[miceelf88]

I rolled my first character from scratch. I didn't twink it at all (obviously, couldn't). The only twinkage I got was some kind soul giving me platemail +1 when I was third level. I soloed a lot, as many new players do.

When I got my treasure from the quests, equipped what I could use, and sold the rest at vendors, I had barely gotten enough money to pay for my repair bills. There were times, in fact, that my equipment went unrepaired, because of lack of funds- my choice was often buy potions, or a slightly better shield or a want OR repair my damaged equipment. Getting anything useful at all from the vendors (let alone the AH) was a lot of work. I only started to get ahead in terms of money at about level 8, about the same level when groups were expecting me to carry a full complement of wands and potions, and mocked my shoddy, non-twinked equipment.

That's why I would have probably quit arond level 3 and not looked back, if the new system were in place. XP debt? Pfft!!! I expected that. The grind for me was keeping equipment intact.

Was I not particularly skilled/knowledgable? I was not. Might I have been better off? Depends on the group. But that's the new player position, in this one former new player's experience.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The Dolurrh death system isn't working correctly either, so as it stands, the new death penalty system on Risia is not working as intended.

How is it misbehaving? Are you talking about being able to stack 10 negative levels or is this something new?

[Prinstoni]

Things wrong with the current death penalty:

1) It is extremely distasteful to new players.
2) It is excessive for characters ranging in levels from around 8 to (level cap - 1). The level cap is increasing in Mod 6, so that band is getting larger. When you're level 19, you'd be losing 8740 XP when you die.
3) It has no effect on characters that are at the highest level of the game.

Those are three pretty large problems.

We're currently looking at ways of alleviating the permanent damage concerns with the modified system. That seems to be the biggest issue.

Thanks for responding Eld. I have some comments about your points (which are the sustaining arguments for changing the death penalty). Thank you for clearing that up.

1) I was a new player once too, and I learned to live with it. All games have a death penalty. It is part of the rewards system, and makes the game more challenging (taking more time) to get to higher levels. XP is the best death penalty and it is part of the core rules of D&D.
2) I remeber when the xp death penalty was double what it is now, and we didn't get it back for standing in a tavern or logging out. The XP death penalty is too low if anything, and it should never have been dummied down to fast track everyone to maximum level. 8,750 xp on death is not enough at L19, it should be more like 18,750. If my memory serves correctly we used to lose 15,000 XP at level 12 cap (and it meant something). The titan preraid is worth 10K on normal (a level 10 quest), so it will take no time to get it back.
3) True in part, except that everyone will be at the highest level of the game in one week instead of 1 month (which pre mod 2 took us 1-2 months to get to L10). If the penalty for death at cap was enough xp loss to cause AP loss, then it would be. Why not once you hit cap 1 death equals regular xp loss for that level, but if you die more than on time before replenishing those xps, the number doubles, triples, etc for xp. This is similar to the propostion with death penalty and item damage/dolurth effects.

The dolurth effect should only be on capped characters, not those leveling up. It will be too hindering on people trying to reach cap.

However, I don't want the xp penalty to go away because it makes it too easy for characters to hit maximum level even faster. Therefore, it decreases the time needed to play at lower levels, and once your capped. That is pretty much it. What now looting? raids? What do you do when you ran everything elite and did every raid 50+ times on 5 different characters? The xp penalty slows down the time it takes us to reach level cap, and therefore keeps us playing longer. Playing longer means paying, and that is what you and I both want (more players for me to group with and more money for DDO). And hopefully a raise for Eld.

If it is an econimic issue. i.e. too many items in the game, then slightly increase the amount of damage we get on items from regular usage. Slow change that is not so noticable, and you don't even need to tell us. Therefore increasing the possibility of permanent item damage (I always thought it was a bit low) and decreasing the amount of items in the game.

[Raithe]

That's quite the coincidence, because I've thought for 2 years that DDO has been catering to the fans, purists and pug/permadeath crowd for far too long.

And yet, strangely, you knew exactly which crowds I wasn't talking about.

[bellack]

Abot pre raid with mentau last night. About... 12 or so deaths. We really weren't dying till the boss and then tank, rogue, and cleric were all biting it. With the new death effects, it is going to be REALLY hard to beat some quests.

Good. It should be hard to beat some if not most quest. Dungeons should not be cake walks as they are now. However I don't think the new death penalty is harsher than the old one. I think a combo of the two would be a good death penalty.
Loose EXP as well as the new penalties.

[Hafeal]

Dungeons should not be cake walks as they are now.

I disagree. Play permadeath if you are lacking for challenge.