Should DP be removed?

[aldrikoy]

I can't believe anyone else feels the way I do. Yay, zzeii. But we are in a tiny minority here (or any other MMO for that matter).

Doctor Z.

Awww, permadeath is where our former agreements diverge, my friend. Keep DP, most definitely. Adds to the excitement. Make it a bit tougher, or even moderately tougher, fine. Add an exponential increase as levels go up, well, I guess I could live with that (sometimes). But permadeath? For me, that would be gamebreaking. I get attached to my alter egos, and especially to the time I put into them. Losing one would encourage me to try another game before coming back. Or not, depending. Given how tough Atys is now, permadeath would make this game nigh near impossible for such as me. Now, permadeath in voluntary scenarios of great reward, that would be a horse of a different color indeed Something to tempt the hardcore, the maxed-out and bored, the adrenalin-junkies, and the suicidal. And perhaps me, in a year or so. But certainly not now. *shivers just thinking of all the time down the drain*

[hubba1]

The trend in the MMORPG industry has been to REDUCE the death penalty (DP). Any attempt to increase it will only help keep more possible Ryzom players away. Not to beat a dead horse, but given the success of World of Warcraft and even EQ2's reduction in the death penalty, increasing the death penalty in Ryzom would be a ridiculous error.

The theory is simple. People are tired of wasting their time when playing a game for fun and relaxation online. In addition there is always a built in penalty to death whether or not there is a game specific death penalty.

You don't believe me? Think about it. If you die and are not resurrected in place you have to respawn and waste TIME to get back to the group or position your were at. In addition, during that time you cannot easily recreate experience (XP), unless you want to keep the group or other that specific monster waiting. Given that often your objective is specific in that fight, trying to get a particular resource etc, and that your weapons and armor do wear as they are used, there is always a penalty built in no matter that the game's specific additive death penalty is. Plus the emotional trauma of having to deal with disappointment, frustration, and possible group dynamics, all of which can turn at any time into more trouble than you bargained for.

Let's put it this way. Increasing the game's death penalty is so low on the priority list for this game that those suggesting it should consider having themselves shot and quartered just for a week and have absorb by that great act of sacrifice all our death penalties for the next month. I'm sure lots of us wishing for more fun per minute would be glad if they suffered that for us. So yes give me a break.

We've had problems with the recent patch, we have problems with the client. The game needs to generate publicity.

So let me leave you with a question then. How do you think an advertisement saying "Saga of Ryzom, we rose the death penalty so that you'd come try our game, feel the love" is going to play to potential subscribers out there or to the current player base?

Yeah that's what I thought. Case closed, get a life, move on to another issue.

(Bluntness incorporated so that others won't have to, right on)

[aelvana]

Reasons I got fed up with everquest...

You had to find your corpse to get your gear, sometimes impossible without aid from others.

You had to be able to GET to yuour corpse safely to get your gear, sometimes impossible without others

You had to either get a rez from a cleric or spend a lot of time regaining EXP at high levels.

Buffs existed, and slowed down any forming raid, or recovering raid, or raid about to engage the target mob, by a LOT.

Recovering after a raid wipe, my top 4 points considered, took a LOT of time.

All of the above involved a lot of stress to the player as well as lots of time lost.

This has been another random comment by Aelvana.

[madnak]

It does get harder at higher levels. The amount of dp per death isn't proportionate with your level. The amount of dp cleared per death is.

At level 1 you can clear maxed dp by killing a suckling yubo. At level 250 it should take 6-7 actions at 3k xp (in your highest skill) to clear just one death worth.

[neofreak]

Hubba1, great post.
One think that suprises me is that this game is getting tougher with every patch( more damage from monsters, more aggro mobs, higher chances of explosion/gas). That is great for the players that already have chars at high lvl's, but for people that got cought with all the updates and were just lvl(20-50) this is getting more and more frustrating. Aggro stuff around all valuable resources like BigShell around Pyr??? Look at the Cheepside Market, no high damage weapons are being available to players with lvl 20-70. Idea was to put Baying Gingos, and Baying Goaris right on the top of the resource(q50 resource)??? Only way to get some quality mats/merchendise is to join a guild, and hope someone will make it for you.

For the game that has only 30-40 players every morning in a region, it is surprising that the measures are taken to make it more difficult. I think more time should be dedicated to features and bug fixes, than to making it tougher.

[sydius]

I think more time should be dedicated to features and bug fixes, than to making it tougher.

Yes, I agree with this – bugs are always the biggest priority in any software project. Bugs, more than anything, is why people leave this game, I’d say – and for good reason. Next should obviously be features, since that is the second biggest reason people leave this game. After all, SoR doesn’t even have the features you read about in advertisements or even on the web site. Content is very lacking in this game, everybody knows that.

What I don’t agree with, however, is that this game should be made any easier in any way. I would (and voted accordingly) be happy to make harder. One of the shining features of this game, which makes it better than the rest in my eyes, is the challenge that is so often squashed in many other games. People are more interested in easy ways to get to a high level and rich than they are in actual death-defying challenge in most games. SoR is different – they have made it so that most of what you do is death-defying, and I find that it creates a much more vibrant world where people have a new level with which they may interact with one another in ways and for reasons rarely seen in MMORPG history.

I love the challenge, but would like even more. There aren’t any other challenging ones out there, and this game shouldn’t appeal to the masses – it’s a very niche game, and should continue that way if it ever hopes to compete.