98 réponses à ce sujet

[TSMDude]

A age old question but since we are coming into a new area of NWN I thought I should bring it up.


Do you as a player like or hate death penaltys?

On a SP Module;

I think NOT losing a level or xp but being set back in the game is fine. To like your most recent save. That I cna understand quite easily.

On a PW Module;

Dying should suck more. You should lose xp and gold. My view as a Admin vs my view as a player are different to be honest.
     As a player; You lose everything as in a Con Point, a level, and your self respect. If alone and die  you                          are permadead.
     As a Admin, What the playerbase wants within reason. Enough to give you pause such as some xp, 
        gold or some items. Give the player a choice of which.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Modifié par TSMDude, 08 septembre 2010 - 06:08 .

[avado]

Very admirable dude! Most admins ive seen have a "this is my server, take it or leave it" attitude, and end up playing with themselves and 4 other "friends"! LOL



To me, its a Game. I dont mind loosing gold nor xp, but stats? Yes, in real life, if you could come back from being dead, you probably would be "weaker", but this is a GAME so im not into that.

[qaerinju]

TSMDude wrote...

If alone you permadead.

The only servers that should even think about enforcing permadeath for soloing are those that can gaurantee the following:

1. A high and friendly playerbase 24/7 such that anybody at any time can find a party whatever their level.
2. Absolutely no lag, disconnections, crashes or any other condition/event that the player has no control over and can cause death.

[HipMaestro]

I always thought it pretty odd that the "Very Difficult" setting didn't impart perma-death on a character.

Most games I play that provide a "true" hardcore setting means just that... start building anew character, you've been defeated.  I don't know if this has been implemented in D&D very much.  I am just beginning to sample that genre of games.

I can only relate in terms of how I play.  Unless I am testing out a new build, PC death is always permanent.  I just try to learn from my mistakes and start a new character.  So in the case of any penalty, I can't really comment since it doesn't matter.  My ID will be only be appearing under the guise of another character, regardless.  My former spirit will wave a respectful and fond farewell to those who were able to survive the challenge, in the hopes that my death enabled them to somehow get closer to attaining the team's goal.

But for those who DO enjoy picking up where they left off, I suspect any penalty that affects their basic abilities would be undesirable to them, regardless of the DM's logic behind that decision.  In theory, it's a viable option, but it could extremely involved, couldn't it?  I mean, would a PC still retain the feats that needed an ability prerequisite?  Seems like an accident waiting to happen IMO. Unless you could provide some means to regain that ability level immediately upon resurrection, like perhaps a training program or some sort of purgatory scenario.   Any other non-ability penalty seems reasonable to me depending on how the DM views it.  (Then again, losing levels could potentially involve the same problems as those described for ability changes stated above.)

[TSMDude]

qaerinju wrote...

TSMDude wrote...

If alone you permadead.

The only servers that should even think about enforcing permadeath for soloing are those that can gaurantee the following:

1. A high and friendly playerbase 24/7 such that anybody at any time can find a party whatever their level.
2. Absolutely no lag, disconnections, crashes or any other condition/event that the player has no control over and can cause death.

If I as a Player make that choice to go to a dungeon then that is my fault. While I disagree with you as a Player I am in full agreement with you as a Admin of a PW if that makes sense. What I like and what others like is different which is why I stated it both ways.

Most games I play that provide a "true" hardcore setting means just that... start building anew character, you've been defeated.  I don't know if this has been implemented in D&D very much.  I am just beginning to sample that genre of games.

Excatly and something I completly agree with. You die alone you have been beat. End of story if a cleric is not there to raise you.

Modifié par TSMDude, 08 septembre 2010 - 06:14 .

[Shadooow]

What is perma death? As long as someone can ressurect you, there is no perma death...

[TSMDude]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

What is perma death? As long as someone can ressurect you, there is no perma death...

If you go out on a PW and are alone and no one is there to raise you then your worm food. That is Perma Death.

[B_Harrison]

As a player, I quite like the idea of permadeath when the death ocurrs while roleplaying, and even when permadeath isn't enforced, I'll generally play characters on roleplay servers with one life. If I'm beating up monsters in a casual/action environment, I see no reason for a defeated solo character to be permanently lost, for reasons already stated (game bugs, lag, distraction, etc).

As an admin/designer, I'll raise you one better and feature permadeath with no possibility of resurrection. Then work around the issue completely: "dead" characters aren't dead, but down, unconscious, defeated, overlooked, captured, injured, barely escaped, shown mercy... Implement scenarios for players to work through when they go down in solo combat -- anything from a brief cutscene of the enemy leaving them for dead, to a mini-quest of the captured PC's escape -- and apply persistent (but seldom permanent) injuries or penalties based on a pre-defined table of "down but not dead" results.

Then again, I probably take things a lot more seriously than most builders. I can definitely understand both views (for and against permadeath), but for me it's mostly environment-dependent.

Modifié par B_Harrison, 08 septembre 2010 - 06:31 .

[Eradrain]

As a player as well as a builder, I adhere to the following two tenets:

1. This is a game. Everything should be  as fun and enjoyable as possible.

2. Because this is a game, the player should feel constantly rewarded, and never punished. Otherwise, they should go and play something else.

...That is why I don't believe in static penalties on dying. Nothing is going to make me quit a server faster than spending 2 hours in a dungeon only to die, and lose all/most of the XP I just farmed up due to a stupid death. That's just asinine and insulting.  The idea of actually experiencing permadeath due to some similarly ridiculous scenario is grounds for me giving a server a 1.0 out of 10 on the vault.  My character is a significant investment of my time - if a DM or admin decides that they can flush that time investment down the toilet because of some love of realism or whatever, they don't deserve my patronage.

That doesn't mean that death can't have an impact on the game, however. I'll use my own server's death system as an example:

When a player dies on the server I'm building, he can elect to respawn. If he does so, he is teleported to the afterlife, a dreary, bland expanse called Sheol, and has his appearance changed to that of an amorphous soul-blob. In Sheol, the player can talk to other dead people, he can actually perform quests and gain XP by performing tasks for them.

Once the player has had enough of exploring and questing in Sheol, he can go to a tower standing in the middle of the otherwise vast, empty plain. Within is a strange fellow with whom the player may bargain. If the player has something he wants, he will agree to send the player back into the world of the living.

If the player does not have something he wants, then he will be stuck there until his friends can perform a DM-quest to get him out.  Regardless of how he gets back, he needs to beat a pretty severe will save to remember anything about his time in Sheol.

...There. No penalties, no punishments. The player feels like they're having fun and experiencing new game content even while dead. They're not robbed of XP or money, and yet there's still the possibility of extended quasi-permadeath scenarios if their friends aren't quick to fetch them from the underworld.

I don't believe that dying constitutes some kind of failure that needs to be punished.  The people in this thread that do strike me as, to be quite honest, a little masochistic.  It's a game.  There's nothing fun about losing the character you've been building and the relationships you've been forging with other characters because the spawn trigger created one too many goblins for you to kill in time.  There's nothing fun about being faced with monumental XP/GP taxes on respawning.  It's just not what I want to deal with at the end of a long, hard day, when I log on to enjoy a little game time.

Modifié par Eradrain, 08 septembre 2010 - 07:25 .

[TSMDude]

Eradrain wrote...
 Nothing is going to make me quit a server faster than spending 2 hours in a dungeon only to die, and lose all/most of the XP I just farmed up due to a stupid death. 

No offense but if you just sat around farming experince then I think the type of server you are talking about is different than the ones many of the Role Playing Servers are talking about here.

Eradrain wrote...
  The idea of actually experiencing permadeath due to some similarly ridiculous scenario is grounds for me giving a server a 1.0 out of 10 on the vault.  My character is a significant investment of my time - if a DM or admin decides that they can flush that time investment down the toilet because of some love of realism or whatever, they don't deserve my patronage.

Giving it a 1 because the server has bugs, no trans, is poorly made I understand.

Giving it a 1 because you disagree with the policies that a server puts into place is kinda as you said, asinine and insulting.

Eradrain wrote...
No penalties, no punishments. The player feels like they're having fun and experiencing new game content even while dead. They're not robbed of XP or money, and yet there's still the possibility of extended quasi-permadeath scenarios if their friends aren't quick to fetch them from the underworld.

Yet they are forced to do another quest system everytime they die? After the first time around it is no longer "new" content and therefore might even been seen as a more worse penalty to go and fed ex quest things as a blob.

Eradrain wrote...
I don't believe that dying constitutes some kind of failure, that needs to be punished.  The people in this thread that do strike me as, to be quite honest, a little masochistic.  It's a game.  There's nothing fun about losing the character you've been building (by farming?) and the relationships you've been forging with other characters because the spawn trigger created one too many goblins for you to kill in time.  There's nothing fun about being faced with monumental XP/GP taxes on respawning.  It's just not what I want to deal with at the end of a long, hard day, when I log on to enjoy a little game time.

Which is fine but insulting others for thier views who enjoy just as you do, gaming thier way is not wrong. It is why if you are deciding to HOST a world and Admin it you need to elarn that your view is not the right one.

Your Player Base idea is.

Modifié par TSMDude, 08 septembre 2010 - 07:33 .

[Genisys]

avado wrote...

Very admirable dude! Most admins ive seen have a "this is my server, take it or leave it" attitude, and end up playing with themselves and 4 other "friends"! LOL

To me, its a Game. I dont mind loosing gold nor xp, but stats? Yes, in real life, if you could come back from being dead, you probably would be "weaker", but this is a GAME so im not into that.

This is your answer, I couldn't have put it better, period!

If the game is hard, why add insult to injury?  <<The philosophical answer..

[B_Harrison]

TSMDude wrote...

It is why if you are deciding to HOST a world and Admin it you need to elarn that your view is not the right one.

Your Player Base idea is.

I can't speak for Valyn, but I suspect his opinion on that would be the same as mine; that a better situation would be for an admin's PW vision to attract (and keep) players who share the same vision. Perhaps some admins see themselves as simply catering to the whims of whichever players happen to remain on their servers, and I can respect that to a point, but it's certainly not how all of us design gameworlds.

And I'd much rather play with 4 friends (who happened to be excellent roleplayers) than 24 strangers who neither grasped nor cared about any degree of art or individuality.

Modifié par B_Harrison, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:05 .

[Genisys]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

What is perma death? As long as someone can ressurect you, there is no perma death...

Permadeath is TRUE DEATH, no comming back..

It's also the worst idea I ever heard of, especially if the server is even remotely hard, it will only ensure nobody ever makes it beyond a certain level, for any arse could spawn this impossible monsters on you and kill you off..  But hey, different strokes for different folks I guess...  Hard Core is also something that will make me leave a server and FAST!

Then of course there are those servers where one ventures around for about 30 minutes to 4 hours, because starting out tends to be easy, to learn there is this horrific death rape, where all of your gear drops on the floor, that is just stOOpid.

I think people make up these dumb rules & realisms because they are tired of making cool new adventures, so they decide to turn their frustrations and bordom toward the players..   >.>

Modifié par Genisys, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:11 .

[Genisys]

B_Harrison wrote...

TSMDude wrote...

It is why if you are deciding to HOST a world and Admin it you need to elarn that your view is not the right one.

Your Player Base idea is.

I can't speak for Valyn, but I suspect his opinion on that would be the same as mine; that a better situation would be for an admin's PW vision to attract (and keep) players who share the same vision. Perhaps some admins see themselves as simply catering to the whims of whichever players happen to remain on their servers, and I can respect that to a point, but it's certainly not how all of us design gameworlds.

And I'd much rather play with 4 friends (who happened to be excellent roleplayers) than 24 strangers who neither grasped nor cared about any degree of art or individuality.

Touche!

[SHOVA]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think you should get some XP for dying, rather than have some taken away. The reason is simple most players do learn something from their PCs death, even if it is a simple leason like don't do that! But they do learn some kind of tactics. In my builds, I like to give 14 XP for death. I also tend to make PCs drop all gear, and all gold, but allow them to try to get it back, or for someone else to pick it up. The main reason being, If a player wants to RP, then chances are they will RP a death as being a terrible experience. If they do not want to rp, then no ammount of scripting can force them to do so, and can, cause players to not want to play.

[Genisys]

TSMDude your ability to look at things both ways doesn't change your view, you either make the decision to do it one way or the other, THERE IS NO MIDDLE!

You cannot say... for example..

My evil side wants me to hurt people..

But my good side wants me to make friends..

If you hurt people you will have no friends...

If you want friends you have to DO something in order to have them. (e.g. you must be friendly)

I gave you that example to help you SEE that there is no 2 ways about it, you're either choosing to have friends or your pushing your friends away.. Even a stranger can be friendly to those who show them friendliness. You can implement whatever you like on your server, after all it's your server...

Your player base directly tells you just how good your server is, or just how bad of a server admin / builder you are... though being a builder and an admin are two entirely different things, you shouldn't confuse the part that you as the admin control the builder, so don't let the builder destroy your server!

TREAT THE PLAYERS RIGHT... That's the bottom line...

Build for the players, or go play offline I say!

Modifié par Genisys, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:32 .

[Genisys]

SHOVA wrote...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think you should get some XP for dying, rather than have some taken away. The reason is simple most players do learn something from their PCs death, even if it is a simple leason like don't do that! But they do learn some kind of tactics. In my builds, I like to give 14 XP for death. I also tend to make PCs drop all gear, and all gold, but allow them to try to get it back, or for someone else to pick it up. The main reason being, If a player wants to RP, then chances are they will RP a death as being a terrible experience. If they do not want to rp, then no ammount of scripting can force them to do so, and can, cause players to not want to play.

Drop all gear?   *slaps forhead*   this is what's killing nNWN...   (14 XP omg.. don't strain yourself)

Example: Players walk into a server only to get raped, they leave with a bad taste in their mouth...

Will they come back?

The falling player count continues to say:  NO THEY WON'T!

Modifié par Genisys, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:33 .

[B_Harrison]

SHOVA wrote...

If a player wants to RP, then chances are they will RP a death as being a terrible experience. If they do not want to rp, then no ammount of scripting can force them to do so, and can, cause players to not want to play.

Now that's a good point. But it doesn't decrease the value of cool module features, I think, so much as make their inclusion mere bonuses for entertainment purposes.  If you're fortunate enough to play with a group of good roleplayers, you really don't even need a game, but I still prefer NWN in place of a chat client or notepad.

Genisys: I do my best not to be personal, offensive, or confrontational, but even taking into account that I already read your posts with not so much a grain, but a boulder of salt, some of the things you spout repeatedly in these discussion threads is absurd. Are you seriously suggesting that the declining size of the NWN community -- in the past, what, 5 years? -- is directly attributable to the presence of player-loot death systems on some PWs? Do you feel that kind of insight really adds to a discussion?

Modifié par B_Harrison, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:48 .

[Genisys]

B_Harrison wrote...

SHOVA wrote...

If a player wants to RP, then chances are they will RP a death as being a terrible experience. If they do not want to rp, then no ammount of scripting can force them to do so, and can, cause players to not want to play.

Now that's a good point. But it doesn't decrease the value of cool module features, I think, so much as make their inclusion mere bonuses for entertainment purposes.  If you're fortunate enough to play with a group of good roleplayers, you really don't even need a game, but I still prefer NWN in place of a chat client or notepad.

Genisys: I do my best not to be personal, offensive, or confrontational, but even taking into account that I already read your posts with not so much a grain, but a boulder of salt, some of the things you spout repeatedly in these discussion threads is absurd. Are you seriously suggesting that the declining size of the NWN community -- in the past, what, 5 years? -- is directly attributable to the presence of player-loot death systems on some PWs? Do you feel that kind of insight really adds to a discussion?

I'd dare say ben, it's not JUST the death penalties, it's the whole attitude taken toward the PC that tends to fail to meet some builder's eyes..  You can't be unfriendly man, not even to those who can't RP, nor can you inflict hell upon a player and expect them to like it...

If you inflict players with absurd things, they will get frustrated and leave, and that's the bottom line...  Furthermore, if all the servers agree that it's good to have this or that, and all the players hate it, who wins?

Modifié par Genisys, 08 septembre 2010 - 08:52 .

[B_Harrison]

I understand that stance completely, but you seem to be assuming a great deal about all players of NWN, and then judging a builder's design decisions based on that - declaring any builder who doesn't meet your perception of the entire game's player base's sole, objective playing preference as some sort of destructive deviant.

Understand that losing a character to IC death within a roleplaying environment can be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable playing experiences for some people. Likewise, some players choose a torturously risky and hostile game world in which they have to struggle for their character to win and survive - similarly, I assume, those players find such environments highly rewarding and enjoyable. I don't think TSMDude's intention was for us all to spew contempt and accusations at anyone whose opinion differs, but rather to outline and discuss our preferences.

I can provide examples of many players who share my opinion on this, and in game occurences that demonstrate the validity of my personal view. TSMDude, an admin himself, can no doubt do the same for his personal take on it. I don't want to challenge you unfairly, but, well... where are your legions of players, captured utterly by the objectively correct design decisions you've made on your server, and fanatically dedicated to NWN as a result of your understanding of their wishes? How many are there?

Modifié par B_Harrison, 08 septembre 2010 - 09:13 .

[Shia Luck]

I think it's reasonable and normal to find another person's server rules annoying or without enough justification, taking into account your own beliefs. I find it incredibly prejudicial to start saying decisions are "asinine" or "stOOpid" if you disagree with losing your XP or gear. To then vote 1 on NWVault is the height of egotestical arrogance. I know Genisys used to vote that way. I rather hope it was just a figure of speech from Eradrain because the alternative system of a quest to rescue your friend he(?) suggests is a great one. The gaining XP through dying suggestion by Shova has the same thought behind it I think. A quest to get back to the realm of the living means game experience and XP, no?

At The Reviewer's Guild we cannot mark a module down because we disagree with a design decision. We can comment on it, but not reduce the score, and that is because some people will like that system. If it has bugs or the design decision is not well realised in game, then we can start reducing the score.

I also really like Ben's suggestions of unconciousness, captured etc, tho it can be a lot of work for a builder and it sounds like it would work better SP more so than MP. In MP you have your friends to raise you, unless it's TPK.

...but I think any internet server has to recognise that TPK can happen from lag and perma death or permanent stat penalties feel unfair to me in that case.

Yet my opinion is death has to carry some penalty else there is no challenge in the fight.

Even if you are a player who hates RPing, having areas in a PW that are too difficult to solo and which carry a penalty for dying gives you a reason to party together. (And if you don't want to party with anyhone else ever, there is no reason to be playing MP.) Having a reason to party together, whether it is OOC, or IC RP, is a good thing.

................

Genisys wrote...

Drop all gear?   *slaps forhead*   this is what's killing nNWN... ...

Example: Players walk into a server only to get raped, they leave with a bad taste in their mouth...

Will they come back?

...NO THEY WON'T!

Two points.
1: NWN is not all about gear. I know you love your gear, not everyone cares quite so much.
2: That is not a definiton of rape.

Genisys wrote...

 Furthermore, if all the servers agree that it's good to have this or that, and all the players hate it, who wins?

Half your arguments concern the way you have to please all players, which is not actually going to be possible, and yet often you're assuming all players are like you, no?. The quoted argument is only relevent if ALL servers act the same way. The fact that people are different means this will never happen. It's ok to be different. It's ok for people to disagree, it's ok for people to be undecided and it's ok for people to change their minds. That's the purpose of debate, no?

Have fun

[Genisys]

Everyone has a right to their opinion, even if they are wrong, of that I've never been wrong.

How you view each person's opinion will ultimately determine who you are, not just for yourself, but for others as well, for how you view yourself is important in relations to how others see you. I observed some very interesting remarks, though I can't agree with some of them, I don't think anyone is wrong or stOOpid, I may think a concept is stOOpid, but humans by nature are not stupid, so I have learned.

As far as shooting back any rebuttals in this thing some may want to make a debate out of, I'd like to say this, I'm not interested in fighting over words or clashing my views with others, simply pointless.

I will say this though, for the sake of the NWN community we would all be well served by coming to the realization & agreement of what is important & good to the players, for what they think matters more than what one person in control thinks..

Case / Point In Hand...

WOTC / Research & Development In Charge of Magic: The Gathering..

So where is MTG now?

And, then there was NWN...

So where is NWN now? (1/2 of what it use to be? 1/4? 1/8th? 1/10th?)

The game has how many modules? It's not like you can't play one 40 times and not get bored..
Because some are just that damn good..

Then there are all those other modules which, with all their realism, fail to deliver the main thing..

Fun..   (hollar if you hear me)

Modifié par Genisys, 08 septembre 2010 - 10:14 .

[Shadooow]

I like the perma death idea, from my (action) point of view rather as challenge for good builders/players. However to make it real, you must really balance your monsters.

In past I wanted to apply perma death to all players (note Action server), but then other builders persuaded me, its bad idea. So I came with voluntionary perma-death. I made special death script that didnt allowed to respawn to player with "HC" in name. (However I allowed resing for them)

Also HG uses the same system, but not sure about resing.

This way those who wants will take that challenge and then they have to count with lags, etc. and normal players will still be unaffected. Also you actually don't need any support. If you want to play this way, you can in every module out there. The reason I made that support was to allow other players see who is the highest level HC character.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 08 septembre 2010 - 10:35 .

[Genisys]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

I like the perma death idea, from my (action) point of view rather as challenge for good builders/players. However to make it real, you must really balance your monsters.

In past I wanted to apply perma death to all players (note Action server), but then other builders persuaded me, its bad idea. So I came with voluntionary perma-death. I made special death script that didnt allowed to respawn to player with "HC" in name. (However I allowed resing for them)

Also HG uses the same system, but not sure about resing.

This way those who wants will take that challenge and then they have to count with lags, etc. and normal players will still be unaffected. Also you actually don't need any support. If you want to play this way, you can in every module out there. The reason I made that support was to allow other players see who is the highest level HC character.

The best solution to a problem in my opinion, and yes I believe it's a problem, forcing bad things on a PC that is.
(From a builder's point of view, and from a player's perspective too)

[Shia Luck]

Genisys wrote...

Everyone has a right to their opinion, even if they are wrong, of that I've never been wrong.

Try:  Everyone has a right to an opinion, even if I'm wrong

Have fun