Death

[Miltiades]

Death in RPG's and MMORPG's have, for the most part, been handled conservatively. How do you think it should be handled in The Old Republic?

 

An example would be a World of Warcraft style of death, where you resurrect as a Force Ghost (Jedi/Sith characters) and need to find your corpse, or some kind of quest.

 

An other example would be respawning to the closest city or town.

 

Discuss!

[Alkonium]

Well, since people seldom get resurrected in Star Wars, I'd suggest something similar to what they do in Lotro, and instead say that the character is incapacitated, and then retreats to a nearby town/outpost.

[Drev2]

I think they should make a penalty for dieing such as losing 5-10% exp. This is hopefully prevent people from doing stupid stuff to get themselves and others killed as they will lose something. Without a penalty people will continue to do things they normally wouldn't because death won't affect them.

[jrrtoken]

I think that the whole ghost scenario would get quite tedious, especially after multiple deaths. I've played enough of The Sims to know that to be a fact. To be honest, respawning would be the least annoying of all.

[Miltiades]

Well, we'll have to see how gameplay and story go together, but if you're going from plot element to plot element, I imagine having to respawn and going through those plot elements again could be quite tedious as well. But I agree the ghost scenario will definitely annoy after a few times.

 

From the possible scenarios I've read, I find the Guild Wars scenario the best so far, where you get a death penalty (say -10% health and mana/force points) which you need to get rid of by gaining experience. A scenario in which you lose part of your items/loot, as I've read somewhere else, is not so cool, for sure.

[Rathoris]

perma death!

Ok seriously: the guild wars system was pretty ok but it worked well because Guild Wars was heavily instanced. I'm hoping TOR will feature a much more open world. If you get down to it WoW's system is pretty good tbh.

[Miltiades]

perma death!

Ok seriously: the guild wars system was pretty ok but it worked well because Guild Wars was heavily instanced. I'm hoping TOR will feature a much more open world. If you get down to it WoW's system is pretty good tbh.

Yeah, I guess I ignored GW's instancing.

[WraithPrince]

Well you could combine the idea of the shrines in GW with the Death Penalty in WoW where you die go to nearest shrine or last one you got close enough to to trigger it, then when you die you warp there and have -15% stats for like 5-10 mins.

[Hallucination]

I'm hoping for a system can gives you a reason not to die without it being a heavy penalty, so maybe a financial/experience/temporary stats penalty.

Well, since people seldom get resurrected in Star Wars, I'd suggest something similar to what they do in Lotro, and instead say that the character is incapacitated, and then retreats to a nearby town/outpost.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Seriously, you're in a war with evil guys who can never kill you?

[Jeff]

I think in Star Wars it makes more sense to get transported back to a city or something instead of having to be a ghost and retrieve your corpse. Of course, I never die in video games (as Niner can attest to) so I won't have to worry about this no matter what they do.

[Lord of Hunger]

I say you should loose experience, all your health, and all your items except for equipment (as your clothes, lightsaber, armor, other weapons, implants, mask, belt, etc..). Essentially if you have money and a quest item it gets looted.

[WraithPrince]

Losing money from death? that would just make people have a trip to the bank before they go out and PvE or PvP....

[Hallucination]

Unless the money was taken from your bank. Or, like in most larger MMO's, money isn't put into the bank.

[Jae Onasi]

I say you should loose experience, all your health, and all your items except for equipment (as your clothes, lightsaber, armor, other weapons, implants, mask, belt, etc..). Essentially if you have money and a quest item it gets looted.

I'd never play the game if it was like that. How would anyone ever get through the game if that happened, especially when the game was new and no one had a wikia-gaming site to tell them exactly what to do at every moment, and they died a lot more often?

[SW01]

I'd never play the game if it was like that. How would anyone ever get through the game if that happened, especially when the game was new and no one had a wikia-gaming site to tell them exactly what to do at every moment, and they died a lot more often?

 

I agree with this - that seems far, far too harsh, considering it's necessarily part of any game (especially any sort of open, non-linear RPG) to at times bite off far more than you can chew.

 

In my only experiences with any kinds of online games, I saw two different forms of penalty - losing 10% exp (after having passed a particular level - below that, no exp loss), or in the other (SFCIII - not an MMO, but some similar elements) loss of ship and a huge debt of 'prestige' (money, essentially). The latter was essentially a 'game over'. Really, I wouldn't care to see that kind of system return.

 

I would personally prefer to see the exp penalty, as it does dissuade you from doing silly things, but doesn't put you in the position of feeling the need to restart the game in order to have a hope of proceeding.

[Tommycat]

Well there is something to be said for having a death penalty. I mean For instance Star Wars Galaxies the death penalty was so low as to not exist. It became a joke of taking the cloner express to your home town rather than wasting cash on a ticket.

 

You should wake up in the nearest hospital. Your gear and inventory should be in a locker right next to where you wake up. You pick everything up and re-equip everything. That way you have more or less a time penalty as you have to grab and equip. Yet it isn't so cruel that you unsub and uninstall. It also has a benefit of being semi-realistic.

 

People who are for truly harsh death penalties forget a few very important things. Internet connections are not always up 100%. Heck I had a situation where I was in the middle of an instance I could beat with my eyes closed. Some drunk driver hit the ped out by my house. Internet connection(as well as phone and cable) was down for days. When I logged back in, my toon was all corpsified and gross. Couldn't have been smellin too good either since ya know it had been a couple of days without refrigeration. BUT fortunately I didn't lose anything. How about when you get a power hit to your house. How about a million other things that could cause you to die in game other than not being UB3R 1337 enough.

[leXX]

I think the best death penalty I've come across so far is in Fable 2, where you get a physical scar on your character if you die. It works extremely well as a deterrent. It would work even better in an mmo, as other people can get a good idea of how many times you've died just by looking at you. You could have to go to a bacta tank or something to get them removed, for a very high price of course.

[Rathoris]

meh, you tend to die alot in MMO's so people would look horrible.

Losing xp/gear/money etc are just going to annoy the **** out of people.

Can't you just wake up in a bacta tank, float in it for a minute or 2, get ur gear back from a locker and get back at it.

It's abit casual perhaps but alot more fun

[WraithPrince]

I think the best death penalty I've come across so far is in Fable 2, where you get a physical scar on your character if you die. It works extremely well as a deterrent. It would work even better in an mmo, as other people can get a good idea of how many times you've died just by looking at you. You could have to go to a bacta tank or something to get them removed, for a very high price of course.

 

Lol I can see people at max level trying to see how beat up they can look when they are bored xD

[Tommycat]

Lol I can see people at max level trying to see how beat up they can look when they are bored xD

 

Hmmmm I'd end up looking like a reaver.

[Steve-O Kreesh]

Losing items when you die is a good idea. Losing items like medipacks or spare lightsaber parts is fine, but I don't think you should lose key/quest items if you die. Once you get those, you have them for the rest of the game.

[Rake]

One of the main issues that really annoys me is a death penalty. Something like the world of warcraft penalty (weapon/armor durability reduction) is what I think should be the max. An experience or item penalty, would just be tedious, annoying, and not fun.

[TSR]

If there is a god it won't be like the SWG death/respawn scenario.

[Jae Onasi]

I like GW's and LOTRO's death penalty--GW you have a temporary reduction in hit points and energy pool until you 'work it off' by killing more stuff. In LOTRO you have a temporary decrease in morale (hit points) for about 10 minutes. No stuff gets broken or disappears, although in LOTRO it gets damaged (and you have to pay to repair it). Both of these dp's work for me--it doesn't get in the way of gameplay in any excessive way (at least, not often), both games have special items you can earn/buy to erase the dp, and neither scenarios affect your gold, inventory, or xp. It's enough of a deterrent to keep death counts lower, (though we have our share of Kilroys) but not affect gameplay in an obnoxious way. It also allows farming runs--let's face it--if you want to make any in-game gold, at some point you have to farm items of some kind or another.

[Hallucination]

I like GW's and LOTRO's death penalty--GW you have a temporary reduction in hit points and energy pool until you 'work it off' by killing more stuff. In LOTRO you have a temporary decrease in morale (hit points) for about 10 minutes

So like WoW, only after WoW.