Experience Loss

Saesh

I have heard chatter regarding EXP loss, specifically the past changes to enemy territory loss, and am opening this thread to approach possible changes to these mechanics. We need to retain some sort of "punishment" for dying in enemy territory to curb excessive raiding which the last changes did successful accomplish. That being said, I've heard a common theme that the exp loss might be excessive so I'm opening the floor for proposals, comments, or ideas. 

Rules:

1) If it requires lots of "IF" statements and/or is overly complicated, it probably won't happen. Keep it simple.

2) Don't get sassy. 

3) If I don't like your idea, I accept bribes. 

Synkarin

Reduce xp loss in enemy territory to normal levels and extend the death timers when dying in enemy territory.

IE: it takes longer before you can phoenix/reincarnate than normal. Mana drain essence loss shouldn't apply during the timer.

Also bribe: will buy you drinks at next meet we both attend

Kurut

If you really want to curb excessive raiding, you can increase the death timer each time the person dies in enemy territory within a certain time frame.

Example, Synkarin raids Etherwilde, dies once. His death timer takes longer than a normal death timer

Now let's say Synkarin raids Etherwilde again immediately after he just died (or within the same weave, however you want to do it), his death timer then takes -even longer-.

Just an idea.

Ssaliss

Oddly enough, both Synkarin and Kurut suggested exactly what I was about to suggest: Forcibly keep them out of the territory (either through simply making resurrection impossible or by preventing entry) for a while after they die.

Of course, there's a flipside to this: When raiders die, they can't come back, so every organised raid against (for instance) fleshpots would be a one-shot deal. You die, you're out, and odds are the rest will either die as well or simply leave. At least until the death timer has passed and everyone's ready to make another attempt.

As for increasing the resurrection timer with consecutive deaths... it entirely depends on how long we're talking. Too long, and we basically make smob-raids (where people tend to die in droves) simply impossible. I'll leave the exact numbers to the people who actually fight and die, of course.

Ssaliss

The more I think about it, the more I feel that simply making resurrection impossible would be a bad thing when it comes to smob-raids. Better just limit it to self-resurrection. That way, if the raid goes well and your group holds their positions, then it'd be possible to send corpses back and resurrect them. If it goes bad and everyone dies, well, odds are it's the end of the raid anyway. The big change would come to solo raids; if you sneak into enemy territory and die, you're kept out for longer than ususal.

Portius

As alternatives to a longer death timer (which is also a fine option!):

1. Stacking debuff on death for X minutes. Each time you die, you take a 10% (or whatever other number) penalty to H/M/E, increasing by 10% for each later death. So die twice and it's 20%, etc. Lose a stack when you go X minutes without dying.

2. Add a cheap (1 or two credits, tops) one-use artifact in that negates the XP loss for one death. This lets you chose whether you take the death penalty to your XP or your wealth.

Enyalida

By and large, other changes have made smob raids all but impossible already. It'd be better to address those types of raids in some other way, to scale back the difficulty/penalties more incrementally, rather than just making them cost less in death xp.

Shuyin

Yes to the ideas above. This should apply to self rezz only. Corpse rezz can bypass.

Enyalida

For more on the subject: Report 1018.

Arcanis

Im just wondering, who put in the whole "cant move after death" concept, and then added "Have to wait for phoenix to be ready (used to be instant)"? It's rather annoying sitting there waiting the next 15 seconds or so for you to phoenix. In the past at least moving around gave some advantage for lich.

Enyalida

Report 1168, Cacophony. 

Shaddus

If xp loss is increased, I'd like to urge the admin to lower the power on the smobs so they're easier to raid. Just saying.

Enyalida

I don't think that anyone is arguing for xp loss to go up, quite the opposite. Most people are arguing for effects that solve the need to discourage raiders besides xp penalties, basically cutting straight to the chase. 

This will be good because for lower xp players, it will be less punishing to participate... and very high essence players (In-again Inagin?) will be equally effected, instead of brushing things off.

Saesh

Rule 4) This is not about changing how smobs work.

Enyalida

Smobs are going to keep coming up, they're effectivly the only incentive to ever raid an enemy territory. Basically, unless you're grandstanding you have no other reason to ever fight (or die) in enemy territory... besides "I felt like it".

Shaddus

Saesh said:

Rule 4) This is not about changing how smobs work.

Then why change how dying in enemy territory works if we don't give people more incentive to die raid in the first place?

Synkarin

To clarify my earlier idea, I wasn't suggesting any changes to rezz abilities. Vitae/Breathoflife/lich/whatever should all remain as they are. Just the death timer increased for phoenix/reincarnate.

Which also, isn't strictly my idea, but one that's been thrown around quite a bit I happen to support

Enyalida

Aside from attacking or baiting specific people, there are generally three objectives in enemy territory raids, with one extra for forests:

1) Smobs

2) Aspects/Elementals

3) Named NPCs.

4) Totems

Starting from the bottom of the list:

-Totems:

You should never die chopping totems. Each forest has literal scores of entrances, none of which are likely to have guards and only a handful of which probably have defenses (by way of runed totems) at all. Combine that with the low likelyhood you'll have to deal with distort etc, you should just walk in, take your 6-8 seconds to chop down the tree, and get out. 

-Named NPCs:

Same as above for forests. It's far harder to do so to a city, and in either case the npc will revive in 1 hour, almost never worth the risk to wade through statues. Little pay-off for doing so in forests.

-Aspects/Elementals:

Very quick and easy to kill for forests with relatively little risk (especially for EthSeren, due to topography). Very risky for elemental planes, as you need to contend with distort locking you on the plane, and potential smart defenders ready to jinsunjolt if you try and escape via ship. Tiny pay off either way, essence  power gathering is nerfed for an hour, costing the org a potential 4p off each essence, assuming they don't just hold onto it until the elementals/aspects respawn.

-Smobs: Yeah, you won't kill these anymore. If you did though, good payoff if you're the opposing org, and it'll take concerted effort over the next while to recover from the attack, no automatic respawning.

Enyalida

So anyways: Let's fix xp loss, and go after making raids decent later. Dropping enemy territory death loss probably won't incentivise 'real' raids, but it might make lower level scuffles less frustrating all around.

Elanorwen

Synkarin said:

To clarify my earlier idea, I wasn't suggesting any changes to rezz abilities. Vitae/Breathoflife/lich/whatever should all remain as they are. Just the death timer increased for phoenix/reincarnate.

Which also, isn't strictly my idea, but one that's been thrown around quite a bit I happen to support

I definitely agree with increasing timer, although it might be better to have a different solution.

Instead of people sitting on their thumbs in a room, waiting for their spark to start glowing after their fifteenth death (And getting extra drain from the out-of-mana tics) can we pacify them for an increasing amount of time after reviving? Again, this will only apply to phoenix/reincarnate/pray for salvation/conglutination deaths rather than deaths that were revived by any other skills like breath of life, resurrection, etc.

It allows them to move around and interact with others rather than just sitting there doing absolutely nothing.

Additionally, can we get rid of the extra drain for not reviving instantly after death? That's an extra ticking timer that drains mana and then experience when one dies and is rather pointless in the end, even more so when you consider the current delay post-death and the fact that there are classes that drain mana for the purpose of killing, thus ending up with people losing extra xp to the drain because they started off their cooldown period without mana in the first place.

Riluna

From the discussion about burnout the other day, when it happens in combat burnout itself is punishment enough. I'd even expect you're a lot more likely to die in the next few moments, with an entire tertiary (and whatever other ego abilities) suddenly locked down.

The last time I truly checked, the xp loss from burnout was roughly equivalent to a vitae death. If it's an Influencing burnout, this is necessary, and I even feel like it could be way too low. That's only comparable to bashing deaths because you now can't influence for a while, and in bashing you just get right back into it.

In combat, however, is that xp loss really necessary? (Especially if you do also suffer combat death essence loss shortly after)

Enyalida

At the least, could we move souls away from combat, so you're not sitting for long periods of tie in spam, or in the middle of a group of combatants standing around?

Synkarin

I don't think having someone who just died be kept out of the battle for 30 secs to a few minutes really necessitates 'peacing.' Peacing will allow them to put up non-aggressive defs, and pretty much as soon as they are unpeaced. 

Dying during a raid should still be punished, and peacing someone just doesn't accomplish that. 

Elanorwen

Synkarin said:

I don't think having someone who just died be kept out of the battle for 30 secs to a few minutes really necessitates 'peacing.' Peacing will allow them to put up non-aggressive defs, and pretty much as soon as they are unpeaced. 

Dying during a raid should still be punished, and peacing someone just doesn't accomplish that. 

I was thinking along the lines of a longer period of time. It wouldn't be worth the bother to peace someone for a minute, no. Five? Yeah, definitely. A lot of things can change in five minutes...

Synkarin

And then you make dying in enemy territory too costly

Elanorwen

Okay, let's go with an arithmetic progression of time spent before phoenix/reincarnate/etc, but while we're at it, let's get rid of the mana drain/extra xp loss at 0 mana.

Arcanis

Synkarin said:

To clarify my earlier idea, I wasn't suggesting any changes to rezz abilities. Vitae/Breathoflife/lich/whatever should all remain as they are. Just the death timer increased for phoenix/reincarnate.

Which also, isn't strictly my idea, but one that's been thrown around quite a bit I happen to support

It's already mind-numbling annoying to be standing there waiting for your damn spark to flare so your can phoenix, while the enemy team is standing there wooping it up. I'd rather not be forced to sit there longer.

Synkarin

Then don't die?

Elanorwen

Arcanis said:

Synkarin said:

To clarify my earlier idea, I wasn't suggesting any changes to rezz abilities. Vitae/Breathoflife/lich/whatever should all remain as they are. Just the death timer increased for phoenix/reincarnate.

Which also, isn't strictly my idea, but one that's been thrown around quite a bit I happen to support

It's already mind-numbling annoying to be standing there waiting for your damn spark to flare so your can phoenix, while the enemy team is standing there wooping it up. I'd rather not be forced to sit there longer.

The point of the wait was and has always been about people dying, phoenixing and being up and in the fight again before the other team can even change targets. Increasing the cooldown time between fights will help mitigate that, because it technically is still there.

Saesh

Enyalida said:

Smobs are going to keep coming up, they're effectivly the only incentive to ever raid an enemy territory. Basically, unless you're grandstanding you have no other reason to ever fight (or die) in enemy territory... besides "I felt like it".

Shaddus said:

Saesh said:

Rule 4) This is not about changing how smobs work.

Then why change how dying in enemy territory works if we don't give people more incentive to die raid in the first place?

Shaddus said:

Saesh said:

Rule 4) This is not about changing how smobs work.

Then why change how dying in enemy territory works if we don't give people more incentive to die raid in the first place?

Because changing the penalty is completely possible without changing the mechanics of supermobs. They may overlap during discussion because they share an overarching topic, but they are not the same thing. I'm not particularly entertained by anyone trying to force a discussion in this thread in a direction I have clearly defined as off topic, so carry on at your own risk! 

Lavinya

Does this mean we can scrap the timer for dying in non-enemy territory? Because there seems little point so someone hunting who dies on astral say, who now has to sit around before they can phoenix. Different story if it's your enemy territory and even arguably domoths.