A game's "death penalty" plays into how careful you are about traversing the world. If you can lose gear/money/etc you are going to be a lot more careful in what you do and where you go.I'm curious about that, I've had myself some frustrations about it, so I would like to know what is the point of doing this?
Even the players that used to play Everquest, they pretty much told me that they hated it back then and still does today.
What is the point really?
Care to elaborate on what you mean?Alright fair enough, but with limited playtime, this is not a viable mechanic IMO.
And if we remove the bag mechanic what penalties does death now impose? A time sink of wounds and a slight durability hit? If there is no risk of losing your items, your money, etc, then what's the point of a death mechanic at all? We want the player to have a healthy respect for the dangers out in the world.Let's say I have 1 hour to play per session:
Decided to unlock the monoliths and then grind mobs the rest of the play session.
We then died at one spot where there was red mobs all over the place, even on the road and was impossible to pass. (bad choice??...maybe)
Tried for the time I had left to retreive the bags, but could not.
Next play session, I needed to find a good group to help get my bag, but I couldn't.....I grinded mobs just for the XP or leveled another char.
It took 3 play sessions of my hard earned free time, to do something I didn't liked at all......
Note that this is not a true story, but it will happen. Actually something similar happened, but I had more spare time this session and I could forfeit my bag because there was not much in it, but it made me think about it.
All I'm saying is, this type of mechanic, is frustrating for players with limited playtime and i'm not sure, but most of your customers will have limited playtime.
Fair enough! Let the discussion begin!I don't know what would be best, but my first goal of this post was to hear other players about it.
I am curious - are people generally aware of the "forfeit bag" option? Or did you have something in your bag worth that much time and effort to retrieve? You can very easily get back to "normal" by forfeiting your bag without having to retrieve it (at the cost of what was inside).I have no problem with the bag retrieval concept. Likely you will lose players over this. Even getting fairly creative and coordinating in discord, we died 8-9 times trying to get just one of our group's bag back, one got it later, and 2 eventually released. I could see players quitting the game over this.
Which is precisely why we do not impose an xp penalty for death.In some old MMO's you could actually lose a full level on death. Lets say each death would cost you 3+ hours of playtime. How many people would realistically take on encounters with a 50% death chance. With each death costing them 3+ hours of play.
Many modern MMOs have trivialized death to the point that players do not respect the world. There's nothing to fear if there is nothing at stake. If there is no risk then what is the point? With no risk the sense of accomplishment when you actually succeed is greatly diminished.There is a reason MMO's have moved away from harsh death penalties, mainly because players don't like it. Usually there is repair cost or something else similar.
The primary way our bag system differs from other MMOs (with any sort of corpse mechanic) is that you can't interact with anything until you get your bag. This is because you can't add/remove things from your inventory if you don't have it - providing the primary incentive for the player to retrieve their bag in the first place. Given that we don't impose any experience penalty this is what we arrived at after numerous iterations. And again - a player can forfeit their bag at any time and return to "normal" at the cost of what was in their bag.This game already has when you die you have to run back to your corpse. How does that not prevent people dieing all the time doing difficult encounters. The bag retrieval system is just another kick to the teeth.
I think our company has proven time and time again that we are willing to listen and have a conversation about these contentious subjects while making changes to better the game for everyone. But making statements like these because we don't make the game how you would have done it is very disingenuous.Not sure why the Devs don't value peoples time.
But aren't there enough penalties already in the game? We're penalized for inv/storage, penalized for lack of gear and weapons, penalized for having to constantly run for everything we do, penalized for lack of named mobs and rare spawns that drop loot really no better than common drops, penalized by a broken RNG system... Pretty much across the board we're penalized in multiple ways constantly. With the extreme limitations we already have to endure it's just another wrench In the gears people have to try to stomach when testing your game.And if we remove the bag mechanic what penalties does death now impose? A time sink of wounds and a slight durability hit? If there is no risk of losing your items, your money, etc, then what's the point of a death mechanic at all? We want the player to have a healthy respect for the dangers out in the world.
Players can forfeit the contents of their bag at any time. The only thing you lose is the contents of your bag - but that's the price of losing your bag in a tough spot.
But aren't there enough penalties already in the game? We're penalized for inv/storage, penalized for lack of gear and weapons, penalized for having to constantly run for everything we do, penalized for lack of named mobs and rare spawns that drop loot really no better than common drops, penalized by a broken RNG system... Pretty much across the board we're penalized in multiple ways constantly. With the extreme limitations we already have to endure it's just another wrench In the gears people have to try to stomach when testing your game.
I would suggest, albeit a suggestion... Start listening to more than just a select few who are leading this game down the wrong path imo. There is so much you could do with the game and add to it that won't take away from your low fantasy etc etc and still make the game intriguing and fun. But sadly the lack there of to be open to the many suggestions I've seen over the last 6 months leads me to believe it's a lost cause and not worth the effort anylonger.... Hence why I have walked away and honestly don't plan on coming back for more time wasted testing, let alone paying a subscription upon release for a game with so many limitations.
I wish this team nothing but the best and hopefully everything works out for you. But I cant help but think with over 20+ years of playing mmo's and seeing this game work nothing like any of them which were very successful mmo's, I cant help but think if this game doesn't learn to change and adapt and continues to go after the small minuscule fringe minority it seems to be going after. Upon release it will dead upon arrival.
Good luck
I'm really sorry you feel this way. We do our best to listen to ALL feedback from ALL players. As designers we have to balance the requests of players with the design intent and see where things could be improved. And when changes are made they are typically small iterations pushing things to some sort of middle ground where most are happy. And I do not agree that we are only listening to feedback from a select few. But if we are, it's only because those select few are the only ones providing feedback. We can't act on feedback we don't receive.Start listening to more than just a select few who are leading this game down the wrong path imo. There is so much you could do with the game and add to it that won't take away from your low fantasy etc etc and still make the game intriguing and fun. But sadly the lack there of to be open to the many suggestions I've seen over the last 6 months leads me to believe it's a lost cause and not worth the effort anylonger.
I am curious - are people generally aware of the "forfeit bag" option? Or did you have something in your bag worth that much time and effort to retrieve? You can very easily get back to "normal" by forfeiting your bag without having to retrieve it (at the cost of what was inside).
But aren't there enough penalties already in the game?