Illarion.org

Six was just a random figure, I'd prefer less to be honest. And would the GMs actually do that? In my experience, they aren't too big on jumping in between the combat system.

Actually, the loss on death is alright: not too much but it still hurts enough so one wants to avoid it.

It doesn't matter what penalties are introduced or what highly complex system is brought in - you will always have skilled players (as in "know how to get the best out of the current system") who are simply better than the not so skilled players. And there will always be players that behave non-compliant to how they should behave, regarding RP.

There is a good way that works: communication. Talk to the players you have problems with. Ask if you could arrange happenings IG, like "we will lose here, there and there, but then you will lose once although you are far more skilled and could take us out in a minute". Sadly, almost noone does this. But if you don't try it, you'll never know if the player of some opponent is willing to agree on such things.
It's still playing together and not against each other.

I just had to add my thoughts...

First of all, I tried a game that had an underworld maze that had to be negotiated after ig death in order to get back in game. I got killed within the first week of playing, couldn't navigate through the underworld and have never gone back. I think it's too large a deterrant to make a real positive change for Illarion.

Secondly, I think ghosts should NOT lose the ability to RP. Worse than the maluses of the death system is the loss of the ability to RP after an ig death. There are few things more hilarious than a seasoned player standing around saying (( go to the cross )) -- like we don't already know that -- because the RP comes to a grinding halt when someone is ghosted. It's a real RP killer and the reverse of what Illarion stands for in my view.

I think the death system is fairly balanced or at least doesn't need to be made more harsh. It's very easy to point at others and say, "They RP badly." It's much more difficult to look within and wonder if we could each be doing a better job. There are more pervasive RP problems than inconsistently played death and resurrection. Just recently, an old-time player told me they PK characters based on a personal assessment of the player's roleplay. Any change to the engine that would further support this thinking would be a mistake to my mind.

Kamilar wrote: I think ghosts should NOT lose the ability to RP.

Can ghosts emote?

Illal wrote:

Kamilar wrote: I think ghosts should NOT lose the ability to RP.

Can ghosts emote?

the only thing they can do is whisper.

Athian wrote:

Illal wrote:

Kamilar wrote: I think ghosts should NOT lose the ability to RP.

Can ghosts emote?

the only thing they can do is whisper.

That makes for poor hauntings.

Felbion Lijawyn wrote:I'm not considering my warrior an uber hero that should be invincible, but I don't see a point in having warriors if any random cook/carpenter/goldsmith can walk up to someone who has trained for years and bring them down with one random, lucky hit.
If we made such things based on randomness / luck, we could just remove any skillsystem we have.

In my opinion what you're suggesting fits into a pen&paper roleplay game but certainly not into a roleplay game that is based on any kind of engine.

*clears his throat quietly*
Perhaps you've never been in a combat situation. I am quite often- have been training for over two years now.
I am in the process of learning medieval combat- one on one, group vs. group, and battles with 8000+ men, all trying to bash each-others' heads in.
Now I admit that my teacher can 8 times out of 10 hand my arse to me in less than five minutes. The other 2 I beat him in all fairness. And occasionally, I'm throwing a blind swing and it HITS hard enough to count as a kill.

So-I really do believe we need a realistic critical hit/lucky shot. I'm not saying one is automatically ghosted about once every thirty strikes, but say a (for lack of better example) d100 is rolled for every attack. 1-5 are the criticals worth killing a character, 6-15 a critical dealing a good amount of damage or destroying a piece or armour. Lets face it-armour needs to be repaired OFTEN. My mail hauberk is fully functional at about 20 lbs (the STEEL rings being quite thick) , and I have to fix it every practice or so to keep it from falling apart.


As to the Death System:

My support goes to the Underworld/Cherga's Realm idea, with the increasing time limits.
And I love the suggestion of having an option of a Perma-Death Character, which gets benefits for taking the risk. These could probably be the heroes we always hear about and want to be. My only suggestion for this is to allow about 5 ghosts for the character to have a fair chance at attaining decent skills. Then again, that was one of the suggested benefits.

*edit-woops, meant to post as Anon

What the above said!

Something you fellows did not understand yet... I have to admit it took along time for the majority of the development team (including me) to understand this as well. Now here it comes, listen up:

Realism is in many cases no fun!

Just imagine: A sunny day in Illarion, and you walk around with your shiny new armor, when a unfriendly person turns up, says something very rude about your mother and kills you with one hit.

Yes I know the changes for this to happen is very slim. Hardly any characters says something rude about the mother of another character.
How ever the one hit part WILL happen. For sure. No matter how slim the chances are, its possible, so it will happen. And in any case it will happen in the moments when you get most pissed in a result of it.

Its a clear thing. In RL you need one good hit at your target and its done. Game Over.
But you can't do such a thing in a game. Its no fun to get killed with one hit.

For the perma death stuff. Perma death is a ugly thing because you LOSE your character. That should never happen by any force but you or the GMs (and the GMs just ban you usually, and then you get killed by Djironnyma ). Its no fun in loosing the own character by force. How ever, everyone is FREE to consider any death of his character as permanent death and just logout and start with a new character. There is nothing that stops you from doing so. But honestly... how many do so?

Cherga's realm thing... I know one game that has such a thing. Its fun once or twice. It gets annoying after. And the last thing we intend to do, is annoying you, dear players.

Nitram

Was it heresy if I said Nitram spelled "lose" wrong?

Felicia Saral wrote:Was it heresy if I said Nitram spelled "lose" wrong?

Yes.

Kyre wrote:

Felicia Saral wrote:Was it heresy if I said Nitram spelled "lose" wrong?

Yes.

What happens to me now?

I regret giving this thread the title I did. It generated the desired interest, at least. "Serious consequences" probably would have been more appropriate. The suggestions here have far more depth than the universally-enforced single-life perma-death that so many are focusing their arguments upon. That was never even proposed, actually.

Pharse and Nitram have exactly the right idea with this.

The key is to reward good behaviour, not punish poor.
That way people have incentive to roleplay better.
And people don't ragequit when they get killed or something.
I dont understand why there is a large swathe of the community
that seems to want to make the game more difficult for themselves.

Nalzaxx wrote:The key is to reward good behaviour, not punish poor.
That way people have incentive to roleplay better.
And people don't ragequit when they get killed or something.

This thread is not about punishing poor roleplay. But I strongly agree with the idea of rewarding roleplay as an incentive. I made such a suggestion in Arvernor's thread. But I'm sure that such an idea has been suggested numerous times before and nothing ever comes of it. Just as the case with every single one of these threads. Someone comes along with an idea, sparks some good discussion, others contribute their own ideas, and then a staff member pops in. They reject everything with a simple post, not bothering to give an actual argument, nor to address the specific proposals made and (most importantly) the problems raised.

Nalzaxx wrote:I dont understand why there is a large swathe of the community
that seems to want to make the game more difficult for themselves.

Some people enjoy a challenge. I don't think there is much more to it than that. There is not a lot difficult about Illarion in the first place, other than the mind-numbing grind and the search for online players to roleplay with. More difficult can mean more fun, no matter how many people attempt to spin it otherwise.

To clarify, I meant difficult in the sense it would be more arduous and unrewarding.
For instance when you accuse someone of being "difficult".
Rather than in the sense it would be a greater challenge to the player.

Nalzaxx wrote:To clarify, I meant difficult in the sense it would be more arduous and unrewarding.
For instance when you accuse someone of being "difficult".
Rather than in the sense it would be a greater challenge to the player.

The reason is many older players put a lot of time into characters, and an easier game would make that time seem pointless. In the poker world, you could call it protecting your hand.

Nalzaxx wrote:To clarify, I meant difficult in the sense it would be more arduous and unrewarding.
For instance when you accuse someone of being "difficult".
Rather than in the sense it would be a greater challenge to the player.

Noted. And agreed that that would suck.

It becomes an issue of pointless effort required vs. reward gained. I think a strong argument could be made for most of the proposals throughout this thread. All of them involve some sort of variable that could be used to balance out the weightings on either side.

Well, I can promise you: nothing will be changed or even considered to be changed before the VBU, because it will cause everything to change. It would be like: a character that acts against the will of his feudal landowner will be really screwed. Serious ingame consequences will be the result, like restricted access to traders, tools or ressources or even any communication with such an "outlaw" could be a punishable offense. Pointless PKing or rude talking will be noticeably reduced as IG rules can be applied more strictly than now. Hirarchies will be strongly enforced - and not only high skilled characters will have much influence.

At least that's the way I see it. And I hope the game will evolve in the right direction.

Say that with a prayer, for the last changes that were made with such a good intention, were either counter-productive in the long run or discussed down to malfunction.