Thoughts on the death system...

[rustediron]

Right, I don't understand what lordmaple means about the cost of picking someone up... if there is a body, you hoist it up on your shoulders. I don't see how that could cost anything apart from the added weight?

Also, if your corpse is non-existant in-game at the current moment, the shadowy thing will spawn it for you where you died if you ask him to. Just remember to ask nicely

I'm surprised at how many people don't know that. Surely the first thing you do before posting faults on a system is to get an idea on the mechanics?

[Dune]

Well, the new death system is great, that is all there is to it really.
People die and it feels more like death, and it also makes PvPing alot more of a bad thing, not just a little fight.

[Vekin]

Well, the new death system is great, that is all there is to it really.

Not an opinion shared by all though.

For me the death system has left me with the choice of taking Takhla into the Mossclaw etc and grinding for enough gold to cover the cost of buying enough diamonds to raise someone. Thats not something that I really want to do. On the other hand I could try and find a group to do something a little higher and hope someone does not die as we would not be able to bring them back to life.

As I pointed out earlier Takhla had to bring back to life a character that had been dead for over 4 days real time, that not a lot of fun for a player if their main PC gets killed and nobody can afford to raise them.

To me the whole point of playing a game is to have fun and the new death system has took a lot of the fun out of Sundren for me.

[Saulus]

Not an opinion shared by all though.

That's true, the majority of feedback we've gotten has been positive.

[wangxiuming]

I think trying to reflect "more realistic" death penalties is fine, but when it comes to PVP, I feel like a stronger word of warning is needed. The main problem is that in the game, PVP almost certainly leads to soembody dying, while in real life most people would probably stop just short of killing somebody. Realistically, people have a lot more control over what they want to do in combat scenarios - for instance, just knocking somebody out rather than ending their life.

That said, in the game you literally have no control over what your next attack is going to do. You can't tell whether your next attack is going to just nick the guy or if it's going to decapitate him. When somebody is pretty gravely wounded, and you only want to force him to surrender, you can only pray that you don't roll a critical and end up stabbing him through the heart.

Obviously, the subdual command alleviates this, but that in itself is not completely flawless - if I remember correctly, Jaus was using subdual, but his summoned monster ended up killing the other party anyway. Not to mention that a lot of people don't seem to know what subdual is at all. Probably because not everybody frequents these forums.

Anyway, I guess my fragmented thought leads to this suggestion: Strongly recommend using subdual during PVP - if it's already included in the "welcome to sundren" dialogue box, then I would suggest making that box popup upon every login.

[Infernal_Havok]

I agree with Wang on this one. Everyone that I told about subdual IG never knew what the heck it was. That is scary.

[Jaeram]

Yeah I saw when Jaus accidently killed that guy, it was pretty funny on my end. I have noticed a problem like that before with pets, I remember some mischievous tiefling would would cast that darkness spell and every time my pet attacked him, and if I didn't tell him to stop he wouldn't have.

[Xanderleo]

I type .subdual as one of the first things when I enter the game, every time.

If a fight happens, and I win, and I decide to kill them, there's nothing stopping me from disabling subdual and finishing the job while they're laying on thier back.

Seems easier this way, almost to the point of making all pvp damage subdual by default and having to type .lethal to make it not.
I'm sure there'd be a whole other set of people then with problems about it slowing thier ganking down when they have to type something.

*shrug*

[Jaeram]

Making .subdual something that is turned on automatically might be a good idea, so that people, especially the players who don't read the forums that I've heard about, won't be able to kill someone on accident (unless they have a pet that does it on accident). In relation to the ganking, wouldn't ganking essentially be against the rules, along the lines of initiating pvp unprovoked or without proper IC warning / reason? (I believe the rules state that playing the "omg I'm super evil and I kill everything in sight" character isn't a good enough IC reason to initiate pvp). If that is the case I would think an auto .subdual system would be very good, and anyone who would complain about it screwing up their ganking / engaging in ganking probably doesn't belong on this server, what do you think?

[Xanderleo]

I was being semi-facetious. It is technically against the rules. I really mean to say "you can't please everyone".

[Jaeram]

I figured that but at the same time it seemed like an extra foothold to the argument in favor of an auto .subdual system so I used it anyway.

[Unholy Carp]

If .subdual effects could be turned off when under the effects of enchantments, I'd be all for it. Right now it seems like an exploit for people to brush off their low will saves.

[Jaeram]

hmm... I didn't think about that because I don't normally use will saves / will save effects, that is a good point though.

[Xanderleo]

Turning it off should work when under status effects like charm and stunned, dazed, etc since it doesn't access the NWN2 engine .. it's a script.

I'm guessing .. has this been tried?

[FunkGuru]

Added to the present system:

What about death/rez effects, like a temporary lowering of level? Would add to the experience of being 'brought back' and being weakened.

If an undroppable item was placed in inventory for a week or something (the way an inn-room key can be) with a negative level effect on it that will eventually go away after the character has spent a week recovering.

Perhaps for a few diamonds the temples can reduce this to just a day or something.

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I know there is the negative hp unconscious thing, but what about making characters who have died within a few rounds able to be resuscitated?

Perhaps up to ten rounds after death you can be 'resuscitated', basically you are very much easier to restore to life and therefore cost a lower number of diamonds, but still get the death/rez effects as above.