Death Penalty Opinions

[Amorana]

To gauge the point I am trying to make about attracting new players to today's game, I asked for opinions on my Facebook page. So far I have only gotten word from four posters, but I'll summarize the discussion:

Question for my very geeky roleplaying / d&d type friends (trying to get opinions from non-Genesis friends here, so you guys please keep out):

If you were to try out an RP game as a newbie and were to die and then had to make up that death via a 4 hour mandatory recovery wait period during which you could only make up two hours per day (so bare minimum 2 day recovery time) would you stick around?

What about if at the max level it was 14 hours and 7 days?

Let me add to that, as I feel it factors in... This theorhetical game is text based, and during death recovery your stats are capped at 75% of your total before death.

Going to tag a few of you. Don't be offended by the very geeky notation - I say that as a badge of honor.

I understand that playing text based may be foreign to some of you, but given that the game is trying to go through a growth campaign that is what makes your opinion on the death issue great feedback.

<I tag people here>

two days at jump and a week for an experienced character? What makes it mandatory? Can you not RP during that timeframe? Also..its an RP game, who cares about mechanical stats anyways?

Well, RP to an extent. There is still the ability to grind for stats, gather gear, etc. It is an RP focused Multi User Dungeon (MUD). RP primarily shapes the world around you through enriching the guild (class) system with political treaties, conflicts, etc as well as enriching your character to character relationships. RP is not mandatory just strived for.

In terms of what makes the recovery mandatory, just that it is coded into the game. You cannot gain your full strength back until you have been logged in four hours over a minimum (could be more days depending on how much you play at a time) of two days.

And yes, you can rp. Just questing, killing mobs, etc becomes more difficult. And you get no xp for good RP (different from d&d where a GM could reward such.)

I've been on (and hosted) a couple MUDs that offer XP for good RP - it just requires decent coders and admins who support RP recording and posting. One system in particular used a magical series of formulae to detect "real" RPing based off of emotes/poses by length and frequency while factoring response emotes/poses from other PC and NPCS in the room (not basic say/yell/etc garbage) that was backed up by a shared email box that would accept cleaned up recordings from RP sessions where the admins would grant XP based off the encounter through character modification (adding exp, granting special weapons, etc). If it just affects grinding and whatnot, I don't see a problem with it, as it forces people to RP more. And since you know what your stats "should be" a code-based death shouldn't change any of the RP.

Fair enough. And I agree, it shouldn't affect RP, and might encourage a bit of it. One of the things I've been trying to weigh in on via the forums currently though, is whether such a death system can be attractive to new players who in this day and age largely plays MMOs and video games that have little to no death penalty (either a run back to your corpse, or a slight loss of play time in the current level.) My argument has been that a lot of people, on their first death might easily say "Eh, I don't want to have to be stuck like this through 2+ more play sessions" and peace out.

true. You can give people an opportunity to make up for it by sacrificing other things -- maybe they can get a "faster" cooldown by sacrificing XP or having merchants not interact with them - options help.

Nope

If anyone else has opinions, even a simple yes or no, let me know! Hoping to give some outside-party feedback about a game design proposal.

I would probably say no, but I don't play a lot of RP. To me I want to have a good time and waiting 2 days to play again doesn't really make me want to play as often. But I imagine for seriously role players it would be pretty awesome

Yes and no. It would depend how invested I was within the game. If it was the first day. Probably but after a couple weeks maybe not. 2 days is too long IMO.

What about the upper one, "Responder 4"? When at max level it would take 7 days? Still feel that way?

Do you respawn? Do you lie in wait or do you create a new character entirely. Respawn, essentially YES. Die forever and have to wait for respawn with a new character I don't think I could. I love getting into RPs so hard but I can't see it viable for me as a character to invest so much time unless we were playing more then 1x a week, 2-3x a week then yeah it would be worth it.

Then Responder 4 wrote me some PMs:

yeah dude I am always down to play I just like seeing respawns essentially in 2x a week games not 1x, it gets frustrating for a new player to sit an wait at all but to learn.

Here I did some explaining that we didn't have respawns, and reiterated the stats part. Then his last message:

as a new player entirely no one wants to sit on the sidelines for any amount of time,. I play 2 fb games that are essiantially point click wait 15min, then do it again and it's hard to even do that.

So that's what I have so far. Out of 4, 3 seem opposed (to varying levels) and one thinks that it could work if there were differing options on the death penalty.

I'll post again if I get more answers. I know 4 isn't a huge sample size, however I wanted to try and give some feedback from outside of the community. These people who responded:

Responder 1: D&D / MUD player
Responder 2: RPG / FPS player
Responder 3: WoW player
Responder 4: D&D, WoW, FPS player

Which to me, I feel like sort of echoes what I've been saying, so far (again, more samples needed) that people who are used to playing these latter 3 types of games wouldn't find this type of death system attractive.

[Amorana]

Now... I will say about the above, I find the concept presented by responder 1 interesting. What if we had varying death penalties, under which you could decide which you took at death. What if for example, death gave you three options:

1: 5% death, no brute help.
2: 10% death, brute help.
3: Stat capped for a period of time.

(Obviously workable, something that seems like a fair amount of balance between the three options.)

Wouldn't that sort of be the best of all worlds? Each player style can evaluate which they'd rather have. Hardcore grinders might go for the lower XP option, because they can make it up faster. More casual players might for 2, as it's easier with the brute to make it up a little at a time (if they don't often have friends to drag them through Terel trolls). A player who likes to RP might choose 3, knowing they'll spend two hours a day logged in at their guild hall chatting about guild affairs.

I could see a system like that working, and being very attractive (even if it's complex.)

[Zingil]

I dont see why the character's stats or experience need to capped at all while having the time limited death penalty applied to their stats.

In the system I described earlier the actual death penalty applied to each stat would be derived from a snapshot of the character's amount of experience in each stat at the time of death and applied when a character wakes up. However, while suffering under the death penalty the character would still be free to adventure as normal, killing monsters and solving quests, and earn experience which would increase the character's stats over time.

An active, smaller player would most likely gain experience at a sufficient rate to actually reach stats higher than those before the time of death, even with the death penalty reduction applied, long before the full time of the death penalty has been served as the actual amount of experience used to calculate the penalty applied to the stats would be quite low.

For a much larger player the situation would be different as the amount of experience needed to grow stats to compensate for the applied death penalty would be huge. Large players would most likely notice very little recovery of stats until the time limit was reached and the death penalty lifted from the stats.

So under this system:

- Neither stats nor experience would be capped while the death penalty is applied.

- The death penalty applied to stats would be scaled so that smaller players would be penalised less than large players (as it would be based on experience).

- Players would still be able to adventure as normal and gain experience when fighting and questing.

- Active small players would definitely be able to experience substantial growth in stats even while suffering from the death penalty (as relatively small amounts of experience would be required to compensate for the death penalty to stats).

- Stat affecting items, spells and oher abilities (both positive and negative) would still work as normal.

So you could actually choose if you want to wait out the death penalty, and regain your old size when the penalty expired, or try to gain experience to grow while serving the penalty and at the end of the sentence you would actually be bigger than at the time of your death.

-Zingil's player

[Mersereau]

Comparing Genesis to World of Warcraft or any other modern game isn't a good analogy. Those games have a paid staff to monitor and balance EVERYTHING. Genesis doesn't. Those games have hundreds of thousands of players. They are a business.

Barring a complete shutdown and recode of everything -combat, experience, quests, guilds, weapons, armours, rooms, commands, etc, etc- it isn't feasible to change things radically. It wouldn't be Genesis anymore either. Maybe some people want that.

It seems to me most people complaining are very shadily complaining they are "have nots," and not "haves." I have close to 700 days over more than 20 years invested, yet many people believe that shouldn't count for anything, nor should any other large character be rewarded for anything they have invested in Genesis.

Some people believe Genesis should be some form of chat line with roleplaying. It isn't that.

Genesis needs a death penalty. Genesis doesn't need to curbstomp every huge player to make it not fun for them so it's fun for the not so big.

PVP is never going to be balanced. If you weigh all the factors involved -again combat, experience, quests, guilds, weapons, armours, rooms, commands, etc, etc- you'll figure this out rather quickly. Genesis doesn't have the staff to maintain every factor in PVP. I don't have an answer as to how to make it tenable in Genesis. What I would believe is there shouldn't be an experience penalty for it any way shape or form because of that imbalance.

Now that brings up another question, what if people are using PVE to kill someone? Should the killed character be punished because someone was fortunate enough to use PVE against them? Example, attacking and blocking someone already engaged in combat. Another example, casting a spell in a room that hinders their ability to fight an already engaged NPC, then locking them in the room to let the monster do the dirty work. There are many ways to kill people in Genesis creatively, whether balanced or not is not the discussion I wish to rehash here.

If the goal is there should be more playerkilling, then you can't punish or reward people for engaging in it.

Edit: Bad idea to rant on 5 hours sleep, makes for incomplete sentences.

[Celephias]

The argument that no death penalty is bad for roleplaying is a connection I simply do not believe exist. I would really like to see some evidence, even anecdotal evidence, on this having any foundation in reality.

It exists. I've been involved in numerous of these situations since I've starting playing in Gen all those years ago. Your experience with humanity must be exceptional though, where individuals' behavior is not changed by whether or not there are any implications for actions

[Zhar]

What I find especially funny now, after reading Amorana's valiant efforts to get non-biased feedback, is that if people focused more on RP and less on stats/exp/eq then we most likely wouldn't have this discussion at all

As long as death doesn't hinder your RP capabilities, on the contrary - it can even enhance it ("I was fighting the goblins and got shot in the knee and I haven't fully recovered yet"), then who cares if it's 0% or 75% loss in exp/stats?

[OgreToyBoy]

What I find especially funny now, after reading Amorana's valiant efforts to get non-biased feedback, is that if people focused more on RP and less on stats/exp/eq then we most likely wouldn't have this discussion at all

As long as death doesn't hinder your RP capabilities, on the contrary - it can even enhance it ("I was fighting the goblins and got shot in the knee and I haven't fully recovered yet"), then who cares if it's 0% or 75% loss in exp/stats?

Since this is a game mainly for statgrowth you must either hinder the crazy stats on some and make RP rewarding, can be hard when you have no people to RP with.

[Amorana]

What I find especially funny now, after reading Amorana's valiant efforts to get non-biased feedback, is that if people focused more on RP and less on stats/exp/eq then we most likely wouldn't have this discussion at all

As long as death doesn't hinder your RP capabilities, on the contrary - it can even enhance it ("I was fighting the goblins and got shot in the knee and I haven't fully recovered yet"), then who cares if it's 0% or 75% loss in exp/stats?

Because of the argument that death has to have implications in RP (i.e. That death should dictate RP, as Gorboth suggests, in that it's a limiting factor that somehow encourages it? I've yet to figure that out - I stop RPing with people who can kill me when the death penalty is in effect.) Which, in turn, means that you need stats to back up your RP, lest you be the Napoleon of Genesis. You could have the best RP ever, but if you walk out of your guild hall and die, it doesn't do you much good.

[Amorana]

Comparing Genesis to World of Warcraft or any other modern game isn't a good analogy. Those games have a paid staff to monitor and balance EVERYTHING. Genesis doesn't. Those games have hundreds of thousands of players. They are a business.

Barring a complete shutdown and recode of everything -combat, experience, quests, guilds, weapons, armours, rooms, commands, etc, etc- it isn't feasible to change things radically. It wouldn't be Genesis anymore either. Maybe some people want that.

But the people we "want to attract" in this grand "anniversary celebration" are the people who are actively playing these games. We may not have the staff, but we can at least take some hints from the gamestyles that the players we are trying to attract enjoy. As I said before - we as a community are accustomed to the ins and outs of Genesis, we've lived under the current and previous death penalties. New players haven't. These types of ideas have an impact on how we attract AND retain players. I could invite the four people I posted about to play - if something like the death system discourages them to stick around, we aren't going to keep them. Attraction without retention is pointless, and that is something Genesis has suffered from for a long time due to various unfriendly experiences. We've made big strides in terms of newbie tutorials, newbie helpers, etc. But we still have a long way to go. Having a quest system that wasn't next to impossible to figure out without a step by step guide would be a good start, however that's for another discussion.

It seems to me most people complaining are very shadily complaining they are "have nots," and not "haves." I have close to 700 days over more than 20 years invested, yet many people believe that shouldn't count for anything, nor should any other large character be rewarded for anything they have invested in Genesis.

Some people believe Genesis should be some form of chat line with roleplaying. It isn't that.

Genesis needs a death penalty. Genesis doesn't need to curbstomp every huge player to make it not fun for them so it's fun for the not so big.

PVP is never going to be balanced. If you weigh all the factors involved -again combat, experience, quests, guilds, weapons, armours, rooms, commands, etc, etc- you'll figure this out rather quickly. Genesis doesn't have the staff to maintain every factor in PVP. I don't have an answer as to how to make it tenable in Genesis. What I would believe is there shouldn't be an experience penalty for it any way shape or form because of that imbalance.

Now that brings up another question, what if people are using PVE to kill someone? Should the killed character be punished because someone was fortunate enough to use PVE against them? Example, attacking and blocking someone already engaged in combat. Another example, casting a spell in a room that hinders their ability to fight an already engaged NPC, then locking them in the room to let the monster do the dirty work. There are many ways to kill people in Genesis creatively, whether balanced or not is not the discussion I wish to rehash here.

If the goal is there should be more playerkilling, then you can't punish or reward people for engaging in it.

Edit: Bad idea to rant on 5 hours sleep, makes for incomplete sentences.

I agree with most of the above. Across every character I've ever had, played, put time into, let be deleted, etc... I've put roughly 1.75 years of time logged into genesis out of... 16 years. I've also never had a character who reached a level above titan. Amorana is my first titan, in fact. I think it's easy to get invested in what you think is the most fun in the game. You and other large characters clearly love grinding. That's great. However it's also important to realize that many of us have put a lot of time into this game as well, even if we don't have the stats to show for it in the same way you do.

I agree Genesis is not an RP chatline. Which is part of the point I am making - we have to accomodate a lot of playstyles, and using death as an "incentive" for RP, or in a way that essentially sidelines a character is not the way to go.

Your points that PVP imbalance (something that a company like Blizzard has never even been able to get right, which is why (no offense) I find it almost laughable when it's suggested that certain things have been tested and balanced in our tiny game) are pretty spot on. I was pretty adamant that we don't nerf the current mage guild, and that their spells were actually cool and good to have in the game. But that doesn't mean there isn't tweaking that needs to be done, including to the resistance system. Death from PVP with such imabalance, I concur, is bad for the game.

Good thoughts all around here.

(Edit: probably closer to 1 3/4 years than two here.)

[Mersereau]

You and other large characters clearly love grinding.

You have no idea how I play Genesis apparently.