I think it is reasonable to assume, that I am not the only one who is hardly a fan of the current way of handling the death of a character. Now, while I'm in agreement that certain bad stuff should take place after your character has died, I do not agree that skill loss should be part of that stuff. Quite simply, skillgaining is (especially at the higher levels) very time and labor intensive ordeal which even most elite-powergamers (you know who you are ) view as a "necessary evil" in order to have the kind of characters they wish to play, instead of something which would be nice and enjoyable experience. Once you've gone that far, it's rather irritating to see the fruits of your repetitive work to be pissed away, forcing you to indulge yourself in more boredom, simply for the sake of engaging in roleplay, acting in character, and having your character lose. Now, while I'm sure there are the odd few playing who resent losing, I think that a lot of the moaning and whining which typically results from PC-to-PC conflicts where a lot of chars are clouded is a direct consequence of the loss of time-investment in doing boring stuff, which you now have to do again if you want to get back to where you were beforehand.
Furthermore, the current system is harshest on those who have the least amount of time or desire to spend hours to an end, slaying thousands of critters for a lost skill level. I am not really satisfied with this, especially as the staff has been leaning towards the opinion that "if you want to roleplay something, you must have the skills to back yourself up with". The fact that failure results in decreasing of skills will on the long term only ensure that the top-ranking characters fighting or magic alike are either ancient or played by.. certain type of players (;)), as comparative reduction in skill for a "casual gamer/RP-dood" is a much larger proportional decrease (factoring in time and desire to pursue monotonous engine-based activities) than for a Matt.
Okay, I'll cut the rhetoric; I have a more advanced and (IMO) satisfactory approach to "punishment" than how it is handled at the moment. Instead of losing skill (but still losing items like now) player characters would have a chance to gain afflictions; engine based long-time effects (LTEs) which represent a particular (random) injury or wound, with a matching negative modifiers on a particular skill/skill set, stat(s), or a special effect. However, all these effects would only last until the injury has been healed, which happens through an NPC-priest in return for money. Thus, the effect on stats and skills would be 1.) temporary, with a 2.) permanent removal of money from the game.
The basic chance for gaining an injury upon death would be 50%, increasing up to 90% if you die several times within a very short period of time. Furthermore, the afflictions would be stackable: This means that any single character migth have any number of afflictions if the player (for whatever reason) chooses not to treat the injuries of the character. Most of these injuries would be visible to other players (with logic applied here: injured back might not be visible to the naked eye, but a missing eye or crippled leg probably would be).
Important points:
- The afflictions are stacking, so if you don't have your character healed, he/she will be combat inefficient really soon.
- The chance of gaining afflictions increases if you die several times within a short period of time.
- Removing afflictions costs money; the cost would possibly increase (to a point) depending on how often you have had an affliction removed in the past (eg. 1s,5s,10s..25s)
- New characters would be exempt from gaining afflictions until certain amount of online-hours has been accumulated.
- New use for money
- (Hopefully) Less frustration from conflicts between players, while some 'punishing' aspects of getting your char killed are retained. Players have however more choice in how they spend time to remove the punishment (eg. there are several ways in which a char can earn money for that) instead of being forced to do a set action for hours and hours (PG'ing the skill which has been decreased).
- Removal of the afflictions is optional (and should also be so, that the player can elect to retain some afflictions while removing others, for instance for RP-reasons..)
- As other players are able to see the afflictions, this allows a technical way to develop the char through the events which have occurred IG, and consequently should offer more interesting RP opportunities (be that wounded/disabled RP, or a grizzled old veteran telling the tales of his injuries to a green recruit..)
- Would be, in my opinion, more fun and interesting than the current system
Some ideas for afflictions + effects, please refrain from debating whether or not the effects are 100% realistic in each case, I've tried to be somewhat balanced there wrote: List of "Description only" afflictions*
Scars
Heavy Scars
Disfiguring scars
List of Afflictions with effect
Injured back
- Reduced carry weight
- Negative modifier to dodge
Internal bleeding
- The character loses 10% of health randomly (However, cannot be killed by this!)
- This is followed by #me coughs up blood, and a bloodstain on the tile of the char
- Decreased constitution
- Negative casting modifier
Crippled arm
- Inability to use twohanded weapons or bows
- Negative modifier to parry
- Decreased dexterity
Crippled leg
- Decreased agility
- Negative modifier to dodge
- Movement speed is reduced; perhaps just on "difficult tiles"
Punctured lung
-50% to stamina gain from food
-Decreased agility
-Decreased constitution
Blinded eye
- Decreased perception
- Negative modifier to tactics
Infected wound
- Decreased constitution
- Slow decay of mana
Heavy Concussion
- Decreased intelligence
- Decreased willpower
Blood poisoning
- Decreased intelligence
- Decreased constitution
- Decreased strength
- Negative casting modifier
High fever (A non-contagious illness that may result from having "Blood poisoning", "punctured lung" or "infected wound" afflictions and having the char logged out in wilderness -> removable with fire&resting (possibility to speed the removal up by a healing potion?), unlike other afflictions -> having this would be the ultimate "you've really smiled yourself up this time" badge of honour)
- Negative attack modifier
- Negative defence modifier
- Negative learning modifier
- Negative casting modifier
- Negative crafting modifier
*The scars would be a special case:
- These would result from two ways: From a death counter (if you die enough times/enough times withing a period of time)
- If you die with an affliction on, you would automatically receive a scar
- The scars have three ranks, from normal to really bad ones, and they would upgrade logically (eg. a new scar would bring you to the next rank)
- Scars can be removed, but once you achieve rank two (heavy scars) you would not be able to fully remove the scars but your char would, barring a GM-quest or whatever, be forever scarred. Disfiguring and heavy scars can always be downgraded.
- Healing of scars would cost a fixed amount of money (eg. 5s a time) and be possibly done separately from other affliction-removals.. Maybe even by Pharse's silly priests?
Merry Christmas, noobz.