Curious case of death and penalties

[Dragoth]

I tried to hold myself off from writing this as its a sore point for the game, but whatever.

Looking at sloth's online blog today - 80 deaths and 18 raises for 2 days.
I am personally responsible for 5 of those deaths and 1 raise and i've lost a level and three times i died i lost 25% of my exp when i was very close to leveling.

Some people will not consider this an issue at all, as most of the people i see stats of, get their exp in groups or play during prime time when they have a good chance to get raised and rescued. Of course when you are getting 100mil per hour in BH exp with practically 0 chance of dying and even a smaller chance of getting shocked, you really dont have to worry about death penalties or anything like that do you. This topic is not for you as its not about you.

So what's the point of this ? Do creators really enjoy pissing people off so much that they insist on penalizing players so hard for something that is such a frequent occurence in this game ?
It is not like you have to try hard to die when you solo and it doesnt even have to be your own fault, as the game has such a high chance of random occurances like lost concs and flee fails that dying is inherent. Now if you try and explore for new exp or kill risky mobs, you can multiply that chance by at least 2.

I understand that there must be a penalty upon your death to prevent people from just dying mindlessly and to keep them alert, but why does it have to be an exp loss? Surely an exp loss is simply an equation of time invested and if you lose something you've been investing all your time into, it WILL piss you off, it doesnt matter that i can get that exp back in 2 hours, its a gesture of taking away what i've been working at getting all day that is really bothersome as i now have to do the same repetitive task for 2 more hours to get back where i was!

I dont see how this gesture of stealing my time and effort and pissing me off benefits any of the immortals or anyone else on the mud or the mud itself. If you want to slow down my progress of getting levels ( not like this is required though, is it ) just ban me from the game for 2 hours upon my death, anything but doing the same task to get me where i was before - what do i learn from this and how does it benefit my game experience?

I agree that the game should be challenging, but what's challenging about me losing conc 2 times in a row ( happens way too often ) , lying for 5 minutes and losing 25% of my hard earned exp just because the game decided it was time for me to re-do my last 2 hours all over again. The only challenge i see here is to decide that it's still a fun game and continue..

All of us oldtimers know this is has been cried and whined about over and over again - So why is this even an issue anymore, why did so many people had to throw in the gauntlet and look to spend their time elsewhere ?
Is the stubborness of certain individuals really worth more than many positive things that cancellation of this dreaded page of sloth's history will bring ?

Now I'd understand if there was some intrinsical value in this for someone, say if there was someone feeding on all the sad and angry feelings of those pissed off people who just died and lost their exp, this then would all make sense to me, but there ISNT such a person as far as i know, thats the tragic part. If there is such a person, please let me know and i will at least feel humbled for providing someone with a satisfaction.

Or if you feel like this post has no relevance to what's going on in the game, then you really havent a clue.

Peace

[Tuck]

it's sloth, dude. welcome to the struggle. no offense.

[Dragoth]

If that is the way you think Jezer then its absolutely you right to do so.
However, I did not really mean to start the "i dont like Splork's way of running sloth" thread because i genuinely think he's done a good job so far by pulling this huge project practically all by himself and judging by the prime time numbers it seems like it's been a success, even though there might be some disgruntled users somewhere, he can pretty much afford to ignore certain whines.

However, the issue of death penalizing is the one that will come back up over and over again as sooner or later absolutely everyone is bound to experience its stinky breath and once it happens the decision time is on, is this game really as fun of a pastime as it seems ? Some walk away, others will struggle on keeping their anger inside untill their next screw up. What i need to know is why this ugly side of sloth's life still there despite hundreds of complains over the years.

As i have already mentioned, i would feel much better if after every death the char would get banned from the game for 2 hours if you feel that dying should actually carry a penalty of slowing my progress in this game, but taking away my hard earned and making me do the same repetitive task for x more hours is sadistic.

[jezer]

I risk little and die little - druid is a safe class when it comes to death... It could be the deaths are careless newbies, or players that we know to be careless, or a thief having a bad week.

I can't solo any more quests, I've done all that I can do that are doable solo, I'm billions away from getting a nightmare, my eq sets are pretty much as good as they can be until I get a nightmare. Basically for me, apart from being a twit on gossip and having fun interacting with players there is nothing for me at the moment except hard xp slog, which is best done in groups at 4x the rate of solo. If I were to die and loose xp at the moment I wouldn't log in for weeks/months... it's pointless to solo, outside of grouping the game doesn't offer much for me at the moment... so I live on this knife edge of not even feeling like playing. It would take little to make me log for extended periods like I have been at the moment.

I know my next druid form isn't much of an improvement on my current, having roughly the same ac and damage as my current form. As much as I love sloth, and will probably always play from time to time, it's pretty undesirable at the moment, outside of a nice xp group. I'm disappointed I feel this way, and the changes to forms and supplication have made getting the higher amounts of xp twice as hard. I also don't like the fact some druid forms are unfinished as far as I know, we still don't get shapeshift mastery till after seadragon... pets are as crap as ever... it was obvious, with the fact they didn't change the shifting/supplication system till after Stryx had raced to 3x40 using the old forms no thought whatsoever had been given to the effect of the changes on classes. This gives me little confidence in the immortal staff making the decisions. Stuff has been made up as it went along... area xp wasn't fixed, it was cut in most cases which really hurts solo, it's kind of hard to change it now. In my opinion it's a complete bungle. We are still paying for bad decisions.

S4 was all about nerfs and going to 8 classes, how about the hitroll in the first few days? I don't hit much in groups at +13 atm. The game lacks vision in regards to life after 9x40 - like at the moment, why should I even bother? There is no word of buying stats and what will happen. If I get there in 5 years time, will it just be in time to wipe the game again? To much uncertainty.

You'll always have a core group of players you can whip no matter how hard and they will still play. I'm not one of those people. Older players have left because of these changes, and of course you don't hear about how they feel, because they leave.

There are only 17 active characters above 4x40, yet the most players on at any one point is generally 40, this shows the majority of players will quit before reaching 4x40. It seems the future for 4x40+ isn't very bright, it's hard to commit to doing the hard work.

[Dragoth]

There is some truth to what you speak, but i'll tell you what - your class order is based on very bad decisions. It's very easy to be dissapointed with the game when there is no progress to be seen in sight, and class order plays a very important part in this process.

Choosing your class order is the most important part of the game, sadly you need to have alot of experience in the game to choose it right. It sucks that there is still no way for those people who made bad choice when they started the game to change their class order later in the game but c'est la vie.

What develops your char ? Firstly its the damage you do, secondly its the armor class, then its available mana hp and regen, let call a combination of those - power. It takes a certain wisdom to choose a class order that will allow you to continually and gradually experience boosts to all of those. You really need to know every class and how it will work with your classes to achieve a perfect combo.

Think of a Wa/ne/cl/ma/ba/mo/th/dr, due to being nc/3xca gets a huge bonus to mana so its practically a mage in heavy armor with parry and riposte

You get armor from your prime class levels so mobs hit you less as you get more levels and eq and you get parry and riposte and tripple attack at higher levels so leveling to 40 is a pleasure, you get undeads at your next 40, almost every 10 levels you'll get boosts to your undeads and they will provide you with a boost to your damage output and split damage with you, so 2x40 is again pleasurable to level as you get power boost. Cleric and 3x40 is pretty self explanatory as you gain better heals to keep yourself alive while undeads pound away. Mage and leveling to 4x40 is again a pleasure as you gain blasting spells to kill ghosts etc. Bard and 5x40 will give you boosts like lion chorus and gods of war, not super fun to level, but you still get the power boost. Then after 5x40 you'll start leveling monk, with deathgrip increasing in power and that can find its use too. Well, you get the drift ? Except for a weak mana regen this classo is fun to play with alot of power and gradual increase as you level.


Now think of druid/monk/cleric/war/mage, as a Ca/nc you get less mana and less mana regen than say a Dr/cleric/monk/mage and yet your deathgrips are just as weak/strong, so you gave up loads of mana and regen for some hp and to get deathgrips, then.

Up to level 40 you are relying on your weak forms to solo, when you start leveling 2x40 your deathgrip increases a bit and you can deathgrip and then shapeshift, however you need to wear damage eq, that means you cant wear your shapeshift eq AND you need to wait at least 2 rounds untill deathgrip has done its full damage, so because you are wearing damage eq you will get pounded in those 2 rounds pretty badly and if you wear AC eq your grip will be weak and useless. So you have really shot yourself in the foot with the first 2 classes. If you really did have to make a druid stabber It would be a bit better if you chose DR/th or better yet TH/dr as you could stab and immediately shapeshift bypassing the need to wait and get pounded for 2 rounds. Cleric third would give you the heals but if you are still using shapeshift with this combo as a dr/NC you will be running of mana way before you can flee shapeshift back, heal yourself and shapeshift into a form
to continue fighting so cleric third is only good for healing in groups. War quad is not bad as you will be getting your non form AC and things like tripple attack, at 40 war you can have -10ac with quad attack from your monk's flurry with a weak grip, good hp, average mana and semi-good mana regen. As your mana and mage levels grows you can start doing semi decent exp with grip/blast mobs that dont hit AC, then when you get your necro up you can start relying on undeads to split damage while you chop in minotaur form or blast away, when you get gods of war at 7x40 you'll be able to increase your undead pets damage and rely on that.

So obviously your prime and secondary class choice has slowed down your progresss immensly you really did not get any prime class bonuses like almost any other class gets, and you paired it up with a monk that doesnt really work well with shapeshift. However im pretty sure that later in the game your char will certainly become interesting to play as a sort of good mana regen warrior mage that can shapeshift to kill big mobs. However, soloing being a bitch at your levels with your class and huge amounts of exp needed to get to some reasonable amount of class power you'll need to be very dedicated to get there!

So, can you really blame someone for not being able to get good exp solo and lacking progressive power raise when you have chosen a classo that does not really work well with itself ? I really dont think so. In a perfect world there would be some way for people like you to rearrange their class order, but who knows why this isnt possible.
Actually when you have just started your char i think i remember telling you that the classo wouldnt work, but you said you didnt care, so If you wanted to be different and choose a classo that people thought wouldnt work and it didnt, then really you got what you bargained for ?

[*Splork*]

Sorry but Ive been away from sloth other than fixing the other nights events or a couple bugs at suggestions from Chobbs for the last 3-4 months. If you havent noticed that Jezer, it certainly does not surprise me. Working 12 hour days 7 days a week has caused it.

There have been no code changes to death since the inception of sloth4( except having penalties lowered several times, check crier announcements). 3/4 the changes you mentioned were done by other Immortals, we just feel no need to announce who has changed what.

If you would like to turn this into a Splork slam fest, you can go play elsewhere because Im not going to sit here and read it when Ive done absolutely nothing wrong.

The post has been deleted, feel free to express yourself as an adult and make helpful comments or suggestions. Personal attacks are obviously not going to be tolerated.

If people have suggestions on how to make things better, express them we have been more receptive to adding player changes this version of sloth more so than ever, at least we think. Nobody wants to see people quitting and not enjoying the game.

Splork

[Nobody]

Howdy,

Regarding the original topic, death and its consequences:
What role should death play in sloth? Impediment? Inconvenience? Inconsequential? Achievement? Currently the feel is that death is infracting upon one's enjoyment since there is a heavy perceived loss associated with it. Usually this is brought about by the mindset that exp is everything, or something like that, so a loss towards acheiving this primary objective is taken a lot harder than it should be. Try staying at 3x40 for a few months and not caring a whit about exp.

It is genuinely good to see someone actually try to propose a solution rather than just post a generic whine.

A 2 hour login ban would be incredibly harsh, especially for those who really want to unwind for several hours. Then there are the inevitable gossips querying who just died within the last two hours and left all their stuff on the kobold sage. Furthermore, looting mobs will wreak havoc upon your corpse and its contents, unless you have a secondary character to save your corpse for you for the next two hours. And heaven forbid if that character perishes as well.

The main concern I see here with death and its penalties is memory. We remember each exp loss, and each successive one, particularly when met in rapid succession. The game however, doesn't. Each time we die, there is the same chance for exp/level loss. Given the 'streakiness' of our beloved random number generator, this can lead to some fairly frustrating consequences (i.e. lost concentration).

A solution, not necessarily the solution, would to be add some form of death/cast history. For instance, if you die once, there is a fair chance of exp loss. However, with each successive death, the chance diminishes. Or perhaps you're immune to level/exp loss for the next hour or so following the first death.

There would have to be measures to counteract folks just blasting out, dying, recovering their corpse via ferret, outregen the mob, and just repeating this over and over again, basically the nightmare method but more time consuming. A temporary regen penalty could be applied after the second death, increasing once or twice and then capping based on the number of times you die in quick succession, to discourage those enthusiasts who enjoy floating upwards or seeing nothing but stars. A temporary move regen bonus could help pcs get to their corpse quicker too.

This could also be applied to lost conc as well, albeit on a smaller scale, to make losing concentration more than 4 times a feat to be achieved rather than an every day occurrence. The mechanism can be akin to the current arcane/divine focus (although I believe that just rerolls the spell at the same rate). Roll the spell normally. If you lose concentration once, add a focus benefit (i.e.+1% concentration). Twice, double the focus benefit. And so forth (so 5 casts guarantees one cast, less if you did some teaching). A successful cast would return the benefit to 0.

An alternative method would be to recoup some of the lost exp upon corpse retrieval, say 80% of what was lost. This would only work if you get the corpse yourself, although the mechanism to determine 'getting it yourself' could be impossible to code. And this could discourage asking for help or self crs with other characters, resulting in possibly more deaths and more frustration. Yes, this idea would have to be given more thought, if it is to have any merit.

Of course, implementing any of these things is another matter, since it seems the coders who can actually code something of this nature, Splork in particular, are busy nowadays with that pesky 'real-life' thing that people keep alluding to.

Nobody has ideas!

[Dragoth]

I really feel like the mud could benefit from a change of the death penalty ways to some other form. Yes, its been with us from day one, but so were the complaints and quittings because of it. No other game practices such a form of death penalty and i'm pretty sure it's not because we are the only ones who thought of it. A game should be a joyful experience that has its challenging moments, but anything that pisses a player off should be avoided at all costs.

It is obvious to me that if the exp loss death penalty was to be removed completely people would feel free enjoy the mud by exploring new areas, trying new mobs and areas for exp and gold without being ever so scared of losing their hard earned exp. It would also eliminate the negative feelings we all have when we lose what was already ours and make the whole process of playing more enjoyable.

However, it would also cause certain people to die mindlessly without being scared of any repercussions and perhaps even abuse the system. So no penalty at all is out of the question.

There are a few ways of how the penalties could be organized depending on the intention of the immortals.

If there is a definite need to slow down the process of getting exp and level for the player who just died, then it would make sense to limit his abilities to kill things, i.e temporary reducing his stats, reducing the ammount of exp he gets from killings things, or turning him into a ghost that is unable to do anything but explore the game for a period of time or a combination of all of them.

If there is no need to slow the progress of the player, but there is a need to make death challenging, then it might be worth it making every mob ingame loot the players corpse. It's certainly not going to be easy getting back your eq without having any.

It would also be quite a challenge to relocate a player to a certain area upon his death, where he would have to fight his way out to get back his eq and gold.

Or maybe a combination of everything randomly generated?

Im absolutely positive that death can be made a challenge in itself, instead of just being downright annoying and thoughtless.

[*Splork*]

I really like the lower chance of death after one dies but when would the lower chance reset to normal? When the death counter reaches 10 or something or based on time?

This is something I could make time for...
Splork

[Dragoth]

But how often do you die twice in a row ? As far as i am aware, its not a matter of consequential deaths that piss people off, its the matter of losing exp.
And doesnt it just open up the possibility of people taking advantage of this by constantly dying to kill a mob when they are on a timer ?

Im pretty sure this is not a solution at all, as alot of people tend to just rent for a couple of hours after they died anyway.

I also understand that it is much easier to just adjust what's already ingame and try not to make any waves. But if something is broken, there is no point adjusting it any further. Just make a drastic change on this one, people will be happier as a result.

[*Splork*]

I can assure everyone, we will never remove xp as a penalty from corpsing.

Jake has addressed this issue time and time again, we feel there needs to be xp penalties for death. Ive greatly lowered the amount of xp and chances of level loss for this version of sloth. Maybe it needs to be lowered again but it will never be completely removed.

Sorry,
Splork

[Dragoth]

This is a terrible nightmare, Jake is the one who feeds on the sorrows of slothers then. I hope all those people who quit because of this will not come back to haunt him..

[*Splork*]

We are clearly willing to work with the players on this one but we have always felt, and always will, that we need xp loss for corpsing.

We would probably be willing to greatly reduce the chances or xp loss on corpses for up to so many deaths, and then reset the counter. Or maybe even completely removing xp loss for a second corpse, then resetting the counter.

Another problem is clearly the xp needed to level and the amount of time its taking people. Yes, this game is planned for the long term but its probably time to add some time of a totol level bonus to xp gains...

Splork

[Dragoth]

Well, if you really feel that exp loss is the best suited punishment for death and nothing can make you think otherwise then i am a bit dissapointed. Whatever the reductions in rate, the single purpose of this will always boil down to pissing people off and making them leave the game when that unfortunate moment comes and you die at not the right moment ( bad mood, close to level a few too many lost concs), but im pretty sure you understand all the risks after so many complaints and quits so it's your call once again, you guys know best.

The exp needed for level are fine, you log in you get exp and then you rent, its all fine and part of the game. However when you log in and lose exp and then log in and lose exp again, that's when it gets to you.

I've said all i had to say.

[jezer]

Dragoth, my class order is unconventional, but it's enjoyable and caters for what I lacked playing Apprentice. Just because I'm druid first and not a 4x prime caster people don't get it... I've been there and done that with Apprentice - it was fun but not very versatile, If we started the new sloth again today based on the information I had then, I would certainly choose the same order I have now. I still think time will show how versatile and powerful I can be with this dual prime classing after 6x40.

If I knew I was going to miss like heck the first few months, have my forms (after the game had started) along with my cleric supplicants taken insanely out of my reach, have prongs/irap/terracotta soliders xp cut by more than half, I may have mixed the order slightly.

And I'm not attacking your PERSON splork, I'm criticising your work. Taking it personally is your choice.