Permanent Item Damage and Death Penalty changes

[Dariun]

Why would this matter unless you were fast-tracking your character to the next level (at which point you are going to be capped and then XP doesn't matter). Don't many people decry this as powergaming?
...
The fact is you can make up that XP easily. Go solo WW, go do the explorer areas...stop dying so much in quests to the best of your ability.

The XP loss punished marginal players. By "marginal" players I mean players who, for whatever reason, do not find getting XP to be "easy". They might be new, they might be inexperienced, they might like soloing, they might suck.

In my case, I've had problems with XP for a variety of reasons: (1) not enough time so I avoid long chain quests (STK, TR, Deleras, CO6, Threnal), (2) don't PUG often because I'm often not sure if I have 20 minutes to play or 3 hours to play, (3) like to explore and solo a lot of stuff, which is risky and leads to deaths, and (4) most serious questing done with a static group of 4 who avoid having pre-knowledge of the quests.

#3 and #4 lead to more deaths, and this is where XP debt hurts. My first and primary character is a rogue, so, over time he has died much more than the rest of the group (fighter and cleric have much better survivability, wizard is smarter with aggro and a better twitch player).

BTW, soloing explorer areas (Atraxia, Desert, GH) to make up for lost XP has turned out to be a great way to rack up additional XP debt for me.

My rogue is over 50,000 XP behind the other 3 members of my static group, and he has definitely done more quests than one of the members.

[Ciaran]

The XP loss punished marginal players. By "marginal" players I mean players who, for whatever reason, do not find getting XP to be "easy". They might be new, they might be inexperienced, they might like soloing, they might suck.

In my case, I've had problems with XP for a variety of reasons: (1) not enough time so I avoid long chain quests (STK, TR, Deleras, CO6, Threnal), (2) don't PUG often because I'm often not sure if I have 20 minutes to play or 3 hours to play, (3) like to explore and solo a lot of stuff, which is risky and leads to deaths, and (4) most serious questing done with a static group of 4 who avoid having pre-knowledge of the quests.

#3 and #4 lead to more deaths, and this is where XP debt hurts. My first and primary character is a rogue, so, over time he has died much more than the rest of the group (fighter and cleric have much better survivability, wizard is smarter with aggro and a better twitch player).

BTW, soloing explorer areas (Atraxia, Desert, GH) to make up for lost XP has turned out to be a great way to rack up additional XP debt for me.

This all sounds like it's a result of your particular situation and playstyle. Why would you expect an MMO to cater to a more single-player mentality and playstyle? The rules have to be broad enough to be meaningful across all levels.

First of all, while I commend people who like to solo, this game was never built with the intention of being overly friendly to solo playstyles. This game was built from the perspective of grouping together. If you are playing outside of the intended purpose of a game, you are going to find it's rules frustrating.

If you like to solo you are making the decision to put yourself at risk for death. In fact, it is very likely in many quests that you will die.

Really, most of your complaint stems from the way you are choosing to play a game, that is you are choosing to solo material that is intended for a group of 4 to 6, with the odds favoring a full group of 6. You are also choosing to do this with a class that is harder to achieve this with.

I'm curious why you think everybody else should be held accountable for your choice to play the game in a way it wasn't intended.

Every game has limits on what you can and cannot feasibly do. No game is so open ended as to accomodate every conceivable playstyle.

[Dariun]

Why would you expect an MMO to cater to a more single-player mentality and playstyle?

Money, money, money, money, and money.

[Ciaran]

Money, money, money, money, and money.

Riiiight...so they should try to please every conceivable playstyle and individual situation so they can chase after every single dollar they think they can get? Tell me you aren't a CFO for a company...

So they should implement a death penalty that is much harsher than the existing one for people who CHOOSE to play the game as it is intended (by grouping and devoting more than 30 minutes to an hour to it) to benefit what I'm fairly comfortable in saying is a minority so they can bring in more money?

If you upset a larger percentage of people by trying to please a lower percentage of people, you stand to lose more revenue.

Sorry, but unless you can frame your argument in more than one word, it holds no water.