[crossfire] Death Penalty, was Re: IRC traffic for Sunday Oct 22

[Mark Wedel]

Alex Schultz wrote:

> Death penalties:
>     -One of the things that bugs players the most

  I wonder if this is somewhat tied to some of the other points raised 
elsewhere, where players can die very easily.  I have a feeling that if you had 
to be really stupid to die (have a low level character wander into a high level 
dungeon), deaths would be less common, and thus the death penalty wouldn't be so 
much an issue.

>     -Remove them?
>     -A "limbo" map?
>     -a choice between certain penalties?
>         -Could make them more "tangible"

  There are already a fair number of values in the settings file that could 
control this.  I image if you set the death_penalty_percentage to 0, you 
wouldn't lose exp.  I don't see any option to remove the depletion on death, but 
that would be an easy change to make.

  I'm not sure what the limbo map gets us.

  A choice between death penalties is interesting.  But then you have to ask 
what the penalties are.  Obvious choices:
- exp loss
- stat loss
- monetary loss
- time loss (character/player has to sit a while?)
- other?

  The problem I think is that this is almost the same thing as removing the 
death penalty - a player at any decent level is going to choose the penalty that 
doesn't hurt.  Eg, at relatively modest level, you can get potions of life, so 
the stat depletion isn't a big deal (if we change it to actual stat loss, that 
could be more a deal).

  If it means the character can't be played for half an hour or something, it 
means you grab dinner or a snack, or play a different character.

  The monetary one could be a way to remove money from the game.  I do think the 
losses have to be tied somehow together, something like:

10000 exp = 10000 platinum = 1 stat point

  type of thing.  Time loss should probably be fixed no matter what the loss.