Updated Death Penalty and Permanent Item Damage Changes

[Eladrin]

There's been quite a bit of debate thus far on the systems changes planned for Module Six, and we'd like to thank everyone that participated in that rather epic thread. Here are some modifications to our plans based on the feedback:

• Bound items (regardless of how they are bound) will no longer have a chance of taking permanent damage when repaired.
• Repair costs for Dragonscale items have been dropped to 3 relics of the appropriate type.
• Items may be bound and attuned at a “Stone of Change”, which can be found in the Marketplace next to the Lordsmarch Bank or in The Twelve, at the base of their tower. Take your item and place it into the Stone of Change, and add (Minimum Level Requirement of the item ^ 2) Khyber Dragonshard Fragments into the device. (Khyber Dragonshard Fragments are commonly found in breakable objects.) An example of the process of binding an object can be found here. Items thus attuned will allow additional Eldritch Rituals to be performed upon them.
• Players no longer lose experience on death.
• At the moment of death, all non-stacking, equipped items that your character is wearing will take a percentage of item wear. Each item will take damage equal to (Character Level - 1, maximum 10)% of their original maximum durability, or:
  

  1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11+
  0%	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%

  Your first death since resting has this penalty reduced by 2%, your second death since resting has this penalty reduced by 1%, and this percentage is then reduced by an item's Hardness / 10. (Minimum 0%)
  
  A hardness 23 suit of armor worn by an 11th or higher level character will take only 5.7% wear on the character's first death since resting, up to 7.7% on the character's third death and beyond since resting.
  
  Any item wear acquired in this manner from dying has NO chance of inflicting permanent damage on your equipment when it is repaired.
  
  Items that accrue both standard item wear and death item wear will calculate their chance of permanent damage using only the normal item wear (ignoring the item wear from death itself).
• As death is a traumatic experience, characters now acquire a debuff after being returned from the dead, based on the number of times the character has died since the last time they rested. The character will gain one temporary negative level and an additional -2 to saves vs. Fear effects per death since their last rest, but these are capped at ((level - 1) / 2, round down, maximum 5 temporary negative levels) so you cannot lose half your levels to temporary negative levels from death - a third level character can only be affected by one, while an eleventh or higher level character can collect all five. These penalties degrade at a rate of one stage per minute. See this post for the complete details on the negative level debuffs.
• The Cleric/Paladin enhancement Unyielding Sovereignty has been modified to remove all negative levels and current death penalties (including the Black Abbot's renamed "Deathgrip of Dolurrh"), but only resting will reset your current death counter.

Note: All values, durations, and effects are still subject to change prior to the release of Module Six. All feedback is welcome!

[Yaga_Nub]

Very nice. Thanks for the update E.

[ArkoHighStar]

first in

dmmit and I knew it was coming too

[MrCow]

Any item wear acquired in this manner from dying has NO chance of inflicting permanent damage on your equipment when it is repaired.

May all the lootmongers breath a major sigh of relief.

[Kulhwch]

Hurrah! Much more reasonable. Thank you.

[kengsxr]

Allow me to be among the 1st to say, thank you for listening to our concerns.

[Strykersz]

So apparently the newbie feedback that prompted the original change revealed that DDO's death penalty is different from WoW's?

[rpasell]

On the surface this seems a much better implementation.

[ArkoHighStar]

so basically approx 15 deaths and you are naked, but it only costs cash to bring it back to 100% without fears of perm damage, cloaks and robes are most likely to take max damage, but again as it is not perm it just cost money

[Impaqt]

Wow, thats a lot of added complication to the forumla to benefit us players. Thank you very much.

Looks like you reset the cost of repair and Chance of permanent damage back to what we currently have.... COrect?

[Mercules]

Any item wear acquired in this manner from dying has NO chance of inflicting permanent damage on your equipment when it is repaired.

Yeah... the Developers don't listen to feedback my butt.

Thank you Eladrin for the updated information. The recent upswing in communication is heartening.

I like it. Die too many times and the gear you have equipped is demolished till you can repair it. Good plat sink, fears about hard to find items being lost are gone. The De-buff is nice and fitting from "shock".

Someday there will be a good mechanic to address the over abundance of good items in the game, but I can understand the change away from this system doing that.

Again... THANKS!

[dragnmoon]

Wow, thats a lot of added complication to the forumla to benefit us players. Thank you very much.

Looks like you reset the cost of repair and Chance of permanent damage back to what we currently have.... COrect?

You beat me to my question

[KoboldKiller]

No chance of permanent damage,. Very nice, thank you.

[Eladrin]

Yes, the other things got set back to what we have right now.

As a tidbit for the future, I'd like to get a Repair skill revamp done as well, for in-dungeon repair. That's too complex for M6, but we'll get it done as quickly as we can.

[ArkoHighStar]

You beat me to my question

I hope reduced repair is kept as our damage amount is not affected too much by this, casters will likely have few high durability items

[Mercules]

Yes, the other things got set back to what we have right now.

As a tidbit for the future, I'd like to get a Repair skill revamp done as well, for in-dungeon repair. That's too complex for M6, but we'll get it done as quickly as we can.

Thanks for the warning... looks like I'll be adding Repair to my list of "Toss free points into" skills.

[ArkoHighStar]

Yes, the other things got set back to what we have right now.

As a tidbit for the future, I'd like to get a Repair skill revamp done as well, for in-dungeon repair. That's too complex for M6, but we'll get it done as quickly as we can.

I would keep reduced repair costs as the costs will still be high, we just no longer take perm damage. the average repair on Risia was 500pp while that may drop 20%, to say 350pp, if you double the price it will be even higher at 700pp

nevermind thought repair costs dropped 50% not 25%

[Marabias]

from before

-The chance for permanent damage to be inflicted on unbound items when repaired has been halved.
-Item repair costs have been reduced for all items by 25%.

Not complaining, just making sure these were left out because the values will not change from what they are live right now? Right?

Edit- Never mind, I was to slow

[GrayOldDruid]

All feedback is welcome![/i]

Uber-Sweet!! For me, now there is no stomach-sinking fear of death (due to the xp lost)... but it is still a very annoying thing to have happen. Especially multiple times.

I think the cost of dying will be an all around deterrent now... I hope...

[tekn0mage]

Well I have to say Eladrin, you did a good job of hearing our concerns. I'm just hoping this is a trend that continues.

We had to get pretty loud in order to prevent the changes from going into MOD6 that would have had a mega-impact, and I only wish that it didn't take so much effort. It truly was an us vs. them argument with the fans who were pushing it so hard.

In the future, would it REALLY hurt you to communicate with us changes like this BEFORE you begin coding it? That way we can avoid re-works and re-codes? Just a thought.

Cheers for a job well done. The other objections that I have with the system will rest, for now.