Experience loss and a couple other things

Jeremy Saunders

Something I have considered for the last several years on Imperian is removing experience loss from the game completely.

Dying would never result in losing XP. The penalty from dying is the time lost from dying (which sucks). 

This change would require removing experience gain from killing a player from adding XP to the overall XP/levels. (We can keep the pk level xp moving up and down) I would actually like to keep XP gain from PVP on, but people would farm it no matter what rules we have in place.

One of the main reason people hate dying to other players is the loss of XP. I am sure many of you hate dying because you are losing to another player, but at least the XP sting would come out of it.

The reason I have never made this change, is because it is such a foreign concept on our games. I keep telling myself that it has always been this way. That is the worst reason in the world to not change something though. Losing hours of bashing work sucks when the only way you can get it back is from hours of more bashing work.

Another thing that popped into my head would be allowing players who die in their cities (from raiding usually), the option to instantly res at a central city landmark. They would res with temporary grace so they can def up or opt out of whatever is killing players in the city. Something like - You have died during a raid, type RESURRECT to be placed at Kinsarmar Crossroads. This includes things like mob raids from events that can be annoying as well at times.

This would take some of the sting out of dying when getting raided, and may help slow down raids that never end.

Anyways, a couple of ideas there for you to give me some feedback on.

Sarrius

I don't really think the loss of experience is noticable anymore, so I have no comment for you there.

I'm fine with a landmark to rez, but it sounds abusable as all get out. It also gives an advantage to the defenders (fine in and of itself), but do they really need another with guards, siege, higher mobility, etc? Raids only happen to farm cheap kills these days, because elite guards make any other goal stupid. I don't think this thread is about raiding, though, so I won't voice my concerns there.

Ahkan

This sounds awesome to me. I think it would really eliminate a lot of the hesitance from getting involved in things like PVE raids (wraith bosses) and PVP. Also, the instant rezz is a badass concept. One thing I think that would be cool is that you don't lose xp when you die, but you lose xp when you make your decision of how to return to life.

Example:
If you elect to focus aryana (long or short) or take charon's boat you lose 0 xp.

If you choose to insta-rezz at your city landmark you take the standard xp loss hit.

Edit 1:
To address some concerns raised by @Sarrius:

-PK 'whores' already have champion and aspect monoliths. They don't lose xp anyways.
-At level 100+ the xp loss amount may as well be 0 anyways.

-The first two points are already in play and already abuseable. The system proposed by Buddy Jesus opens this up to everyone and not just the pk happy part of the game.

-The biggest roadblock to people getting aspect is not 'lol pk loss', it is the fact that they're too lazy to go out and bash. This isn't going to change.
-The xp loss at aspect is a pittance. The xp loss at level 60 is noticeable as hell.

Edit 2:
If you really wanted to be a jerk (which you have to be with the pk crowd) you could make guard deaths (and only guard deaths) cost people xp upon death. The argument here is 99% of the time, you shouldn't have been there anyways. 

Actually, as far as instant rezz goes, would it still leave a corpse? I only mention this as necromancy requires corpses for draw heart and essence. In theory, I could die, lose no xp, anchor bounce to Dis and buy back without leaving a body for the necromancers to replenish their essence. (I stole Aleutia's question)

Lartus

I wouldn't mind if we don't lose xp to pvp deaths. It would encourage people to participate in pvp more. I still think we should lose xp dying to PVE or guards in raids. Or else people would just keep throwing themselves till the guards died.

..wait I just realized something, Jeremy's ideas are sounding a bit like Midkemia. *flees*

Ziat

Whenever we have had events that eliminate xp loss on death (Great hunts), I see a lot more conflict just because people don't have to worry about XP loss. Even in CTF's where there is no xp loss and no death record, I ink like 3-4 starbursts just because I don't have to worry about dying. I love the idea. 

Do keep a penalty though. Dying from a player should kill your PK experience and killing them should up that only. Dying from guards should also kill experience, as Lartus mentioned

I love the instant rezz idea. It should make defending more easy to work out. 

Kalon

I am definitely for this change, and happy to see that it now has support from a few people who were vehemently against it when I suggested something similar a few years ago.

I would definitely push for the removal of xp from mob deaths as well -- as someone whose internet is entirely reliant on my landlords decision to not randomly unplug the router, I cannot quantify how frustrating it is to pay a time tax on bashing when I log back in and see that disconnect logout didn't kick in fast enough to keep me from dying.

Jeremy Saunders

I think keeping xploss to guards will have to be done though.

Iniar

See below for how @Eldreth feels.

Kalon

What if it were dying in enemy territory that causes the experience loss? This retains the deterrent to perpetual raiding, while not being bound to the unpredictability of whether a mob or PC gets the last hit, and would provide a mechanism for keeping xp from bashing safe.

Incidentally, it'd also give the option to build "high risk" bashing areas in the future where xp loss is enabled by flagging it orc-controlled territory where everyone is enemied.

Iniar

Ahkan said:

-The xp loss at aspect is a pittance. The xp loss at level 60 is noticeable as hell.

Jeremy said:

One of the main reason people hate dying to other players is the loss of XP. 

Losing hours of bashing work sucks when the only way you can get it back is from hours of more bashing work.

XP loss in and of itself is not painful per se. XP loss only really hurts because bashing is painful. And for people who don't PK, bashing is the primary xp method (read only). Add to the fact that from 60 to 90, you don't get the added bonus of crits and you have a recipe for tedium, frustration and a sense of injustice when you get killed. If bashing xp scaled up between 60 to 80, or xp loss on PvP death was reduced, or the crit rate for lower levels was increased, the XP 'sting' wouldn't hurt as bad. I do a mental conversion that says Oh hey, I lost 1.5% that's gonna take me 15 minutes of my spare time doing nothing but pressing one button - that's not fun.

tldr: xp loss hurts if you don't pvp and you're between level 60 to 80/90, whatever

Khizan

At my level death is so meaningless that I'd have to die literally hundreds of times without gaining any exp at all to feel it, so I am fine with removing the loss. 

I do not like the instant resurrection idea, though. One thing that makes the Aryana Obelisk so stupid is that it allows the circle that has it to corpse rush the opposition. Charge, kill a few, die. Get back out of Dis way before the few who died, charge again while you have the huge numerical advantage. Repeat as needed. The instant res would just exacerbate that problem. 

Labil

It would happen only when raiding though, so it wouldn't be completely similar to Aryana. I kinda dislike that you wouldn't able to decap/heart if they resurrect that fast though.

Cities are QUITE safe havens already unless your people with security privileges are fully incompetent. Do we need to increase that factor?

To make people go out of cities more, you need to actually remove xp loss but only if you die OUTSIDE of your city. Sewers would count as being in the city/council for the purposes of this. Townes probably should count as safe, no xp loss. That might actually help towne houses to be a bit more attractive.

Hence, people wouldn't be afraid of going out to hunt/combat, because in that situation is when they truly don't have anything to lose.

Lionas

The idea that you can instantly resurrect, hide behind grace for 0-3 minutes while you get into position to run guards (knowing that they have to either spam GRACED or spam hit your grace, which you can technically issue for), then renounce and run guards at least a few rooms while before they realize you HAVE ungraced, with no cost for dying (because you lose no xp and you instantly resurrect) doesn't appeal to me for extremely selfish reasons.

Defending is already easy, and virtually all of the risk is already on the attackers.

EDIT: Removing xp loss in general is something I support, though. Not for me, because I've already hit 109 three times and xp loss is meaningless, but I remember when it sucked.

Jeremy Saunders

Lionas said:

The idea that you can instantly resurrect, hide behind grace for 0-3 minutes while you get into position to run guards (knowing that they have to either spam GRACED or spam hit your grace, which you can technically issue for), then renounce and run guards at least a few rooms while before they realize you HAVE ungraced, with no cost for dying (because you lose no xp and you instantly resurrect) doesn't appeal to me for extremely selfish reasons.

Well when you put it like that...

Iluv

I'm also going to vote no for city/council instant resurrection.

Aulani

What about rather then being resurrected in your city with grace, you're resurrected in a room with a one way exit into your city without grace.(Or if you leave the room your grace is stripped.) Out of area, even a muted room maybe? What I mean by that is you wouldn't be able to hide in that room after dying and throw insults at people. Though perhaps just a five minute timer that automatically throws you out of the room would work, rather then not being able to communicate. (We don't want to deprive the PKers of their chance to kill people who mouth off.)

I do like the no experience loss on dying. For Aspects it's minimal, but for the people just trying to grind away it is disheartening, especially with some shard battles that are really fun, but if you're the wrong class(Priest, Summoner) you can die an awful lot.

It is unfortunate that you would lose the ability to gain Overall levels through PK, as Questing is minor at best(Though I love the changes your doing with each area you revamp, keep it up!) and it leaves everyone with.. more bashing to do.

Edit: Forgot to add, I don't like the instant Resurrect, but perhaps an Aryana obelisk like timing and option when you die within your city. Those that have the obelisk could make it even faster? Or in that case instant?

Josiph

I am a new player here, and I feel like it is necessary to point this out before you hear what I have to say on the issue. (I did play Aetolia for years however).

Since hitting 100(2 weeks ago?), I have only bashing every once in a while. Done a few runs, hit up Demon's pass the whole way through once, did a couple runs with some lower levels to power them up a bit, etc...

I have however, been PKing a decent bit. I will say that it seems like you are more likely to die in shardfalls than to live. At least these are the odds when going against Magick. I have died above 30 times now to players, and have only secured 15 or 16 kills (Few in duels, mostly random kills in shardfalls).

With all this included, I am now currently sitting at 100 and 7.49%. 

The XP loss, when added up over the course of these two weeks, has got to be at least over 10%, because if you take away all my deaths, there is no way I haven't earned over 20% of the next level. 

When I was leveling from 99-100 I was averaging 5.2-6.0% an hour. I'm assuming 100-101 is a bit higher, so my average per hour would probably dip to 4.7-5.5% (with double xp). 

With this crappy math that is thrown together, just participating in Shardfalls has lost me about 2-3 hours worth of bashing, which doesn't seem all that bad for the number of times I've been PK'd, but I also don't think it would be all that game changing to remove it. 

In general, games should try to ENCOURAGE you to participate in every aspect of the game, and XP loss on death just seems counter intuitive to that.

Just my opinions, thought I'd throw them in.

Alesud

I actually like Kalon's idea, if it's possible.

But I do agree with Labil in that I think there are a handful of folks that would see how much they could get away with in instant resurrecting and completely dismantling the raid. I mean, theoretically, couldn't you have a buddy kill you in your city that's being raided, instant resurrect with grace, figure out where they are, and haul guards to their point pretty quickly? I know sometimes it's harder than that depending where they are, but I remember the raids I participated in years ago were behind doors that weren't locked.

Jeremy Saunders

Pretty sure we could make hauling guards and that kinda thing not work while graced.

Ahkan

I really don't mind instant buy back. You can easily add a system of increasing returns based on time to discourage what is known as the Kyrock.

A guard kills you. -3%

Instant buy back. -3%

A guard kills you. -3%

Instant buy back inside cooldown. -6%

A guard kills you. -3%

Two instant buy backs inside cooldown -9%

This has the benefit of allowing me to buy back to go kill the druid who shouldn't have killed me. Given, it cost me 3% of my level, so I have to go bash it back, which gives the terrible druid an opportunity to kill team me again.

Now replace guard with anything. Make the cool down something reasonable +2 (grace time). Honestly, I'd make instant buy back percentile and the increase percentile so it gets meaningful fast. Holy crap, I wasted 20% defending that monolith.

The best way to cover 'perpetual raiding' (I can't believe we call it this, it's so pathetic)  is to combine my solution and Kalon's solution from 2hrs ago. It covers most raiding scenarios and guarantees a raider is going to be punished. No pity for raiders. Life is hard. The caveat to this is the poor saps who target 'guard' while bashing are going to get yoinked and it's gonna be awesome.

While we're at it, if you want to be pro and out game the pk 'champs' you can code guard deaths to clear champion status.

Lionas

Jeremy said:

Pretty sure we could make hauling guards and that kinda thing not work while graced.

You can't order guards while graced. That doesn't mean you can't use grace to find where the raiders are, or move to the room with the guards before you ungrace.

Khizan

Buyback inside your own city would be tolerable. A general purpose buyback would be awful and turn PvP objectives into a straight up "Who is willing to burn the most EXP?" thing.

Ahkan

Could also argue the problem would solve itself.

General Brishi Dra'Nyk (Male akrabi).
He is ranked 104th in Imperian.

next week

General Brishi Dra'Nyk (Male akrabi).
He is ranked 404th in Imperian.

Lose xp. Die faster. Buy back more. Circling the drain.

Khizan

Feeling compelled to burn large amounts of exp to win so that you can feel compelled to bash forever to get it back is not a compelling mechanic.

At least, not in a good way. 

Labil

Ahkan said:

While we're at it, if you want to be pro and out game the pk 'champs' you can code guard deaths to clear champion status.

Ahaha, I want this please.

Ahkan

Khizan said:

Feeling compelled to burn large amounts of exp to win so that you can feel compelled to bash forever to get it back is not a compelling mechanic.

At least, not in a good way. 

That's why it comes down to "How much is it worth to you to buy back?" Is 3% worth the 10s you'd save? We already use the same mechanic in the aspect perks system and people continue to frequent that system.

Sam

Maybe have a cooldown on xp gained on a kill like there is for some of the kill achievements? I just like when a noob gets that first killing blow and you get the spam of gaining levels. It's fun for said person as well as the group.

Khizan

That's a one time purchase of a permanent benefit. It's nothing at all the same.

This would be an attrition battle that would basically go "Azefel is willing to spend 30% of a level to stop you from doing this. Do you want to pay 35%? (Y/N)."

Juran

XP loss is entirely irrelevant once you hit aspect, and 'time lost' is as valuable a motivator as anything.

I don't see a reason to change experience loss at all.

Ahkan

It's exactly the same. Many mechanics in the game are built on "am I willing to sacrifice x to gain y."

Dicene

Sometimes, I take for granted being Aspect with an Anchor and constantly having a starburst, with the ability to ink my own. Then I play as a mid level alt, die and lose 10% overall, take 5 minutes getting to and from Dis, and feel like crap the whole time. That said, getting rid of or super nerfing xp loss at death for lower levels would be great.

I don't know if completely removing experience loss from PK is necessary, but untying it from Overall would be great, or simply removing PK experience loss due to deaths in your own city would probably be great changes. Example where I think this shines: Cassius is awesome. Doesn't spout off(that I've heard), very respectful, constantly learning stuff, able to guard-rush better than most other Kinsarmarians, and in a IRL day when Demonic raided at least 6 different times, he defended in each one that I saw. At the end of the day, he was down like, 20-40% overall from his participation, even though he died fewer times than he repelled the raiders. Since adding pk gain for guard rushing isn't likely, removing his pk loss defending would be awesome and would help mitigate some of the general cost of defending(being that defending is pretty much lose-lose, apart from the satisfaction of seeing a bunch of people get eaten simultaneously by guards).

Regarding that raid resurrection thing, no real opinion. I'm worried that it'll be difficult to prevent abuse of any similar system that you put in that has any kind of positive bonus given to those that are killed in the city. I think something similar to Aulani's idea would be great, except maybe limit that extended grace to just a single room like the center room of a city(Crossroads, Shuk, etc). 

Also, @Juran. XP loss is irrelevant once you hit aspect, you're correct about that. This change isn't for us though, it's for low-midbies whose likely death in a shardfall will set them back several minutes of bashing. I don't mind a certain amount of time lost when you die as a mid-level character, but you're already losing 5 minutes getting back from Dis, and being set back 15 minutes worth of experience is just frustrating at that point, especially when you're giving new things like shardfalls a try, or you're a constant shardfall participant and either don't have enough health to last, don't have escape skills to get out, or just get targeted first because you're low level.