Anyways, what were some of the downfalls of eqs death systems as you see them? Since all you seemed to cover was its strengths. I mean the obvious ones are that sometimes it was too harsh of a penalty, too much time was spent on retrieval, etc.. Also it led to some content not being used at all because the risks heavily outweighed the rewards, but thats more of a balance issue IMO.
Well, one of the problems with citing a problem is that in a good MMO, designs tend to overlap. It's why I had to make such long posts about the benefits, too--because sometimes a benefit or problem in one system, is actually a short sighted design decision in another system. As you mention in the post, the Risk vs Reward of some dungeons was imbalanced but that goes beyond the death system, even though it is a symptom of the death system.
Off the top of my head, a quick example of two weaknesses for me...One is that the ultimate price for death (As in losing gear), was too high. Now some people will rightfully say there were SO many ways to get a corpse that the negative never really came up...But I think any death system that has the potential to force a player to effectively lose such a substantial amount that he can rationally (As in
afterhe calms down) just quit? Is probably too much. I think the "ultimate" risk could have been lower and still produced the same results; losing a bubble of experience and significant progress time, was enough to feel VERY substantial, enough so that I don't think the threat of total item loss was needed.
Another weakness was arbitrariness of the penalty in regards to melee. You could say this was a design flaw in melee, but meh. For melee, no matter how well they prepared, the run back in a catastrophic loss was often pretty much defined by how close the developers decided to put the bind spot. For casters? This wasn't the case. Casters actually had a CHOICE in how much risk they faced. They could bind close to the dungeon, and therefor be able to be back in the dungeon quickly and face less risk (Time) cost, or they could bind near a city or set of spires: This would give them easier travel options, but it increased their risk if they died. So players got a
BENEFITfor assuming more risk (IE easier travel)--that's a big one. Having systems where players make tangible decisions between benefit and risk (Rather than just trying to mitigate risk) gives players a huge feeling of agency in regards to risk. But melee just felt more arbitrary, like "you lost, sit in the time out chair."
Now, on that note: some people will say experience loss is arbitrary too. And it kind of is. I think Dark Souls handles this pretty well. How much experience is vulnerable is a choice you make depending on how much currency you want to carry and having or not having "experience" (Currency) in it's fungible form, it has risks and benefits to it. So the threat of loss of experience? Is actually a product of player control. I'm not sure how this would work in an MMO, but it's an example of how you can take an arbitrary punishment, and instead make it more about a players choices in the game. (And, it might just be me? But "risk" feels a lot more "fair" when I have ways to mitigate it, or advantages for taking more of it.) Of course the above leaves out things like resurrection or evacs--ways to mitigate the loss by planning ahead with group comp. However, I'm more talking about having an advantage for taking more risk in general.
There are more...But like I said, it's really complex to point them out, because sometimes problems you encounter in a system, are actually problems outside the system. (Again, like you brought up, poor risk vs reward balancing making certain dungeons way too risky.)
Also how would you handle death in your mmo?
It depends on a lot of other systems. Instancing, rarity of loot, how dynamic the content could be. I think, for a game? Dark Souls comes VERY close to what I think is good. I'm not sure if it would translate into an MMO, but it hits a lot of the basic concepts I like. Risk is an intrinsic aspect of the aesthetic (IE it gets bigger as you move "deeper" into a dungeon). Risk increases depending on a few choices you can make (Like keeping free exp on you, or humanity so your item find goes up). What you lose for dying hurts, especially within the discreet "sessions" you're playing in now (Because part of recovery is losing progress) BUT it doesn't hurt so bad that leaving it on the table makes you never want to come back. The penalty is also pretty organic depending on how tough the area is, if you are lower level and died under some huge demon's balls; it might be a lot harder to get back and recover your exp/make up the progress you lost in that zone than if you died under a normal skeleton. (This goes back to, like I said earlier, creating that aeshtetic of actual danger. The dungeon with demon's does not just LOOK more dangerous than the Skeleton Dungeon, it also
feelsmore dangerous because you know recovery is harder.)
Another good thing is Dark Souls also lets you get back to the action WITHOUT making returning to action mindless or bland (Rather it's a part of the penalty). That's because if you die, everything repsawns. So you're right back to fighting (And not sitting there pulling your junk) but it's still a significant progress cost (And risk, because you have to get back to recover your experience). And, most of all, it chops up your ability to learn by just throwing yourself at something. Even if you spoiled the fight with videos, executing is more difficult because every failed attempt forces you refocus on your progress again. Discipline and "focus" actually become aspects of learning to defeat bosses--in ADDITION to learning patterns. (So bosses can actually be easier, but still feel harder, because the difficulty is not all focused on pattern recreation it's also about how you handle frustration, progress and other stuff as well). And this is all because of how the death penalty works. (
Like I said though, there are problems with the above. Like for example, I don't like risk you can't mitigate, but the "auto-respawn" is just that, so you could say it's arbitrary BUT I give it a pass here because it's organic in the choice of the dungeon, which creatures you face, in other words? Depend on the dungeon you chose, which makes it less uniform across the whole game..But heck, I could punch a dozen holes in what I said above (The things I like from DS)--the fact is, games are really complex, and death systems, for me to like them? Have to fit into their game well--I just really enjoy holistic design, so the death system has to be an extension of the game itself. (This is why when Blizzard tries to add any kind of risk to PvE? It falls flat. The entire game is set up in a way that just doesn't accommodate it well.)
