Level Cap and Permadeath

[Delexos]

My 2p worth of thoughts on this.

Problem with the rep = epic is that there are still a few player characters who basically bought their ranks back in the days of the donation boxes, and i'm sorry but i'm not cool with seeing my warlock who has earned level 21 over a very very long time suddenly dropped to 15 whilst other players who may or may not have bought their way to the top ranks of their faction catapulted up to epic levels.

Also it means that if I wanted to work my way back up to epic levels again I would need to join up with a faction? well lets look at that.. I wanted to join the Ebon coin shortly after the city took flight in the second sundering, then I was banned from Sundren city, I am also not permitted to operate in port avanthyr by order of the Meriadoc establishment, Auril is way out (obviously), was refused permission to join the Enclave.. The player faction Merchant House Idea that I pushed really hard for the last time I was here got some of the staff really excited, until the port leaders blocked me from setting up in the place the staff wanted to see the house so the idea was suddenly no longer a hot topic and like so many other plots and plans for my characters just got abandoned by the way side.

So what choices are there? I basically either have a choice of joining the Black Hand despite the fact that Ignus does not follow any of the religions held by the black hand, or I simply resign myself to never making epic level again?

Now i'll be honest, I certainly didn't do myself any favours, when I got the big "fuck you, you can't play in our new city" from the legion I got my panties in a bunch because it occurred to me that all this awesome new content that had just come out , and that the whole community had been waiting a very long time for would suddenly and permanently be denied to me because another player had decided it should be so.

So instead of trying to broaden my rp circles and attempt to interact with the new players that the new content was bringing in, I decided to head off to my old clique and went off to play with my buddies, my buddies just so happened to be in the black hand so my time was spent in and around Sestra, obviously this would not look good for my character so yeah I accept that after getting shafted I compounded the issue further by playing with the only players I really had access to, clearly then I am not blameless in this. The fact remains that I should technically not be allowed into the black hand because I do not worship any of the evil gods that make up the unholy communion of evilness.

I don't want to just sound like i'm giving nothing but negative feedback here, but i'm honestly not sure how to approach the situation regarding xp/levels/death. Considering the lower population numbers I think perma-death is a difficult proposition for me to get behind, many of the players who are based on the Euro time zones have already mentioned numerous times that they struggle to find others to have fun with and lack serious dm attention, throwing perma death into the mix does not seem to me like a way to inspire people to be daring and go out having fun, it's risk vs. reward and lowering level caps, adding perma-death and basing epics on faction standings are all well and good if you can justify it with balanced rewards, yet I struggle to see where this is the case.

[wangxiuming]

What kind of permadeath are we talking exactly here? I thought we had a form of it already - if your vitality reaches 0, you are permadead? I believe at the time it was implemented, the thinking was to be permakilled, you would have to be really reckless/unlucky/combination of the two. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong - which I totally could be!

I would not mind seeing the vitality regeneration rate slowed or the vitality penalties harsher. That said, I personally am not in favor of being permakilled by NPC mob, or even permakilled by other players without at least consultation and discussion first, especially characters where I've invested a lot of time into (Alyrian will be 6 real life years old in a month!)

Again, my two cents - I would be in favor of taking away the Fugue and treating all deaths by monster or by PC (where permadeath is not opted for by the "dead" party) as severe injuries or incapacitations. That could address the silliness of being murdered and then popping right back up 10 minutes later. Maybe there could be injury debuffs involved, or rather than waiting in the fugue, people would have to wait in a hospital/temple until they are considered recovered enough to leave?

That way, true deaths could be treated with the gravity they deserve.

Just my random ramblings!

[Doubtful]

What kind of permadeath are we talking exactly here? I thought we had a form of it already - if your vitality reaches 0, you are permadead? I believe at the time it was implemented, the thinking was to be permakilled, you would have to be really reckless/unlucky/combination of the two. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong - which I totally could be!

I would not mind seeing the vitality regeneration rate slowed or the vitality penalties harsher. That said, I personally am not in favor of being permakilled by NPC mob, or even permakilled by other players without at least consultation and discussion first, especially characters where I've invested a lot of time into (Alyrian will be 6 real life years old in a month!)

Again, my two cents - I would be in favor of taking away the Fugue and treating all deaths by monster or by PC (where permadeath is not opted for by the "dead" party) as severe injuries or incapacitations. That could address the silliness of being murdered and then popping right back up 10 minutes later. Maybe there could be injury debuffs involved, or rather than waiting in the fugue, people would have to wait in a hospital/temple until they are considered recovered enough to leave?

That way, true deaths could be treated with the gravity they deserve.

Just my random ramblings!

This is why I think we need them thar firm guidlines.

NPC/Grinding permadeath is a bad thing, that should be regulated by the vitality system we have now - It can result in permadeath, but only if you're a bit silly.

Deaths from mobs/most PC events should be treated as severe injury/incap rather than death. The fugue is where your soul pops up while you're in a coma and some bugger is dragging your sorry mess of a barely hanging on body back to a cleric for some CPR. This does require a bit of thought and consideration from everyone involved in PvP, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Perma death should apply in relevant situations though - For example Colin Brightheart is a spy for the Triumvirate, he's been working undercover in Sestra for a while, reporting back troop movements, doing sabotage etc. Trouble is he's been caught in the act while planting demo charges. He's tried to talk his way out of it but failed, a fight ensues between him and two other players, he kills one but is ultimately knocked down himself. The PC killed during the fight is only knocked out (recovered by a player in own faction controlled zone) while Colin is executed for his crimes and is now permadead.

Your own faction zones don't mean safety though, assassins and what not should actually be able to perma kill people (given an application in advance and some setup) making them useful political tools, though not without risk - If an assassin is killed while heading out on an assassination then they are permadead rather than the target.

The idea wouldn't be to open normal situations up to casual or accidental permadeath any more than it is now, but instead to provide avenues for conflicts to benifit from increased tension and actually have some form of resolution. At the moment most of the great Good vs Evil (or whatever v whatever) conflicts simply grind on repetitively until one side gets bored and gives up. That isn't good storytelling.

Of course, this is just a game and we wouldn't want those who loose characters to feel completely shafted. The dramatic permadeath system would need to offset with a reward system for the permed, so people could develop fresh ideas and bring fresh stories onto the server with ease (say 50-60% XP refund on dead character, option of custom items or history etc..).

[Dave Fritz]

My vote is for higher level cap, no permadeath.

They are really two separate questions, IMHO. My position on the cap is expressed in the level cap thread

Regarding permadeath, it should only be done with the player's permission.

[GodBeastX]

I snuck in to comment.

If it was up to me, I would hand out experience differently all together without a level cap at all. It'd encourage people to be able to -always- play, but it'd also more effectively guide the level cap by time = levels but naturally, not artificially.

I think grinding on NPCs to level is pretty much the culprit of a lot of the angst of balancing level caps.

As for permadeaths, I follow the subscription to people shouldn't really be permakilled too easily by the content of the server. I think someone should be more likely to be permed during the story of their character.

What I mean is, "Random NPC while I was dungeon crawling permed me" shouldn't happen much. However, "I got permed in this plot" or "In a conflict with player XYZ" is much more meaningful.

The vitality system was primarily to give setbacks for death without three things:

1) Being trapped in the death area
2) Encouraging people to just ram their heads against the same killer NPC constantly
3) Losing experience or levels from death (Grinds suck in my world)

[thaelis]

I snuck in to comment.
The vitality system was primarily to give setbacks for death without three things:

1) Being trapped in the death area
2) Encouraging people to just ram their heads against the same killer NPC constantly
3) Losing experience or levels from death (Grinds suck in my world)

I think it works pretty well on all those counts, aside from (2) which powergamers still seem able to do with impunity, but meh. I'm a big fan of the vitality system. On most servers if you're a non-combat character and you die repeatedly you can literally end up going backwards rather than progressing

The plot-focused non-random permadeath that Doubt advocates above is something I would be happy to see introduced, though I suspect many players would rage-quit if their favourite PC of many years bit the dust and that is something the we just can't afford...

[GodBeastX]

I'd rather see more PCs retire than be killed. And I think people just look at all they accrue and go "Wow, I reeeeaaallly don't want to go through that again."

I'd rather have something to incentive people to experience the start over with extremely meaningful rewards like "Thanks for being a veteran player, here's some lovely gifts!"

Maybe double exp/rep/gold rewards, hook them up with their own area, I don't know, just throwing ideas off the top of my head.

Fresh faces mean fresh RP.

[ManUtd4Ever]

I think perma-death is an appropriate risk while in an Epic Leveling Area like the Abyss. The rewards should be equally significant: the ability to gain XP and achieve epic levels.

Naturally, since the Abyss can only be entered with the supervision/oversight of a DM... then perma-death would be by default a DM sanctioned action.

[Farmboy2003]

I really really like the notion of maxing out at level 15, bigger permadeath risks, and greater reroll gifts. I'm just a bit afraid that I'll roll the 'same' character again and again. but having a short while to max out at levels, may just be thing.

I'm all for a HCR server, and frankly those steps would get it further towards that. I think Sundren is maybe in a twilight area between high-fantasy and Hardcore-roleplay server. Perhaps choosing one side would give a more 'persistent' concept of the server.

But a 15 level cap would be more interesting if some of the classes were reworked (like shadowdancer) or added in (from kaedrin). But I'm really digging that not everyone can cast 9th levels spells/have 4 attacks fx