Don't hate me all for this now -- I suggest an XP loss on death that is unavoida

[stefan pall]

Maybe let's say a quarter of what you'd lose if you use the respawning option -- but still significant even with the resurrection.

The current death system is more punishing in theory at higher level ---- in practice NO one over level 16 ever respawns --- since getting carried to a priest is doable 99% of the time and coin loss becomes almost meaningless.

I'd say an unavoidable XP loss would bring back the fear and the respect for actually dying that becomes almost lost at higher levels of OOC skill and XP IC.

Thanks.

[Ryujin]

It already takes at minimum a year of constant playing, and way longer if you play occasionally to get to lv 20. It takes literal months of constant play to get to higher levels. Yeah hard pass

[Larissa Constance]

Hard pass, thanks.

[Swan]

No.

[stefan pall]

Why I started with 'dont hate me all'
😆😆😆

Why should you ever reach 20?

Too hardcore I get it.

Thanks for the feedback 😋

[Anarcoplayba]

The server is already punishing enough, thanks.

[Skelni]

I do not like high levels. I like the leveling pace of the server. And if your situation is dire you can already self resurrect yourself for a loss in EXP so, we don't really need it anymore mandatory than it is.

[HouseOfLament]

Normally I am in favor of this and I've spent a lot of time playing on servers with this mechanic.  However, since we do not know our XP totals, I don't find that XP reduction on death will inspire carefulness

[zDark Shadowz]

There's too many accidental deaths from either bodyblocking, friendly fire or sparring gone wrong for outright XP loss.

Wouldn't mind combat XP capping quicker as the risk of dying - if you die you need a few days or a week to "recover" in which time you could just roleplay more instead of dungeoning.

That way combat XP is what gets "undone" and not roleplay progress, and there's a significant risk for being in a place far above ones paygrade...

..but outright XP loss unconditionally would have folks losing XP they roleplayed for, and that's just a big oof to me.

[bloodless]

Nah.

[SardineTheAncestor]

Even if there were ways to get the XP back immediately, I feel like this would just lead to frustration and confusion, rather than a thrill or sense of wonder.

[Lion El'Jonson]

Maybe let's say a quarter of what you'd lose if you use the respawning option -- but still significant even with the resurrection.

The current death system is more punishing in theory at higher level ---- in practice NO one over level 16 ever respawns --- since getting carried to a priest is doable 99% of the time and coin loss becomes almost meaningless.

I'd say an unavoidable XP loss would bring back the fear and the respect for actually dying that becomes almost lost at higher levels of OOC skill and XP IC.

Thanks.

Unpopular opinion but hell yeah. Death right now is a non-issue, so unthreatening that even though it should be a scary, uncertain event, it's casual. Delved into an underground ruin full of demonic entities for treasure, but you died? All G, just call your buddy on discord and you can finish ninjalooting it within the hour. Your adventuring party is going to kill a demon the size of a crane in Perfidus and one of you gets dropped? Heh, mist orb'd. There's no stakes, no tension.

I totally support this suggestion, HOWEVER, even a quarter of what you'd lose from mist rezzing is too much. Way too much. That's levels for people. I'd say a more reasonable amount would be 10% of your current levels experience. So, say you just hit Thriving in your xp message but then you die, you get bumped down 10% and your message goes back to comfortable. You don't lose too much, but enough to make you pay attention. People die more often than you think, take more than that and it'd be way too much in my opinion.

There is the issue Dark Shadows brought up, that there are a lot of accidental deaths that can happen, but I think that losing some XP would inspire more care and is a good idea nonetheless. Maybe it wouldn't work well, I don't know how many people die to bugs and stuff.

[ladylena]

I like it!

Here's why: a level is just a level, it happens as a result of dungeoning, and experience gained from events and roleplay.
                 This is a roleplay server, and a horror server. Sure it is a game, but think about how it would be if you were killed and brought back? Death is supposed to be a big deal.

It wouldn't even have to be very much at all. Even 50exp or something. It would make it a little more serious and make people be more aware and less "death happy". Lately there seems to be this mindset that the goal is to reach level 20 and win. Why do you need to hit level 20? It's a roleplay server, you should put the character story first before the level.

I have played a whole slew of characters and only two have ever gone beyond level 14, Tess (level 16) and Erzsebet (level 19), Tess took two years, Erzse uh... 6? Yes they lasted a long time but their stories are what kept them going. Dorisa was another who reached level 14 and her story ended with her screwing up and making her daughter comatose, as such she retired from play, closured. Milicent hit level 12 before an assassin took her out in my favourite ending. Character stories blend together to create an over all bigger picture. Some characters make sense to remain for years as lore keepers or hidden faction members, but that is not every character, other characters linger by making an impact and that can last longer than anything.

This would only ever be a good idea if and when a feature to carry an unconcious body is added. Until that feature gets added it would not be fair.

[Abear]

No.

If this game were more consistent and the majority of my deaths weren't from systems not making sense, rubber banding back into mobs, or bugs, I might be able to be convinced.

As it stands, this game is so damn wonky and deaths are often not the fault of the player, but the fault of the game, I don't think people should be punished even further in a system that is already pretty punishing.

[apeppertoo]

Absolutely not.

[Spazzer]

Sorry for the long winded reply coming in, also on phone so:

Nah.

[Siobhan]

If potm and nwn weren't buggy as all heck, I would be down for a very punishing death mechanic. But realistically, that's not the world we will ever live in.

In all honesty, I think a tiny bump down to XP is warranted on every death - but I don't think it should be anything more than what a tick of RP XP would give.

I think would give some gravitas to react to when dying that would be nice to fuel for RP, without actually being OOC punishing in the grand scheme of things.

[BlankStare]

I kind of like it, really. I've played on servers in the past where a death could cost you three levels on a respawn (less with resurrection, scaling with the level of the resurrection). It succeeded in putting the fear of god into you, to be sure, and fear of the night (or lack thereof) is something we discuss fairly frequently here.

[SardineTheAncestor]

My experience with games featuring XP loss, not just other NWN servers, is that people treat the recovery of those losses as a game in and of itself. It has a purpose in other games, existing as a game mechanic to encourage player/class interactivity, or even just to keep you playing for longer.

In this server, sometimes a corpse recovery, especially a party wipe, can take an hour or more to complete. It can be a major problem if you don't have hours and hours to play, all because of a minor positioning error or lapse in judgement. Besides that, it can be frustrating to die knowing it was avoidable, even if it takes 10 minutes. That's without even mentioning PvP and corpse hiding.

I'd sooner choose permadeath as a system than a half measure like XP loss. And yet, even permadeath is insufficient, because some will continually make new characters and throw themselves into the meat grinder. Add more grinding, add more inconvenience, add more insult to injury, and you'll just attract more masochistic crowd who likes the misery and has more time to burn.

People will RP avoiding death exactly however much they want to, any system we can invent will not make people RP how we want them to. It will only determine how they are punished when they inevitably die, either because of a door teleporting them into danger, or because they went on autopilot. Positive reinforcement and leading by example are the only ways to encourage the kind of RP we want to see.

[Swan]

I'd like to add that, on top of how extremely buggy NWN this, that this would prove to be yet another barrier of entry for new players.

This server is already notorious for being very difficult in the beginning, and it is not at all uncommon to see new players rack up numerous deaths when they're first starting out.
Between loss of playtime between having to wait to be found, an eternal struggle to maintain funds because resurrections are expensive early, we would also be taking away what is likely to be the only reward they would really get; experience.

There is a difference between compelling and engaging difficulty and frustration mechanics that punish you for the sake of it. People are already cautious when running dungeons, people already plan ahead, and things still go wrong anyways. Adding an unavoidable exp hit on death adds absolutely nothing constructive or meaningful to this server.

[TacticalFerret]

If you have to start a thread with "don't hate me", then you probably already know the answer. This does not address the lack of fear for death at all but instead causes players to OOC avoid those that aren't mechanically skilled or experienced in dungeons. Let's not cause more problems.

[myrddraal]

Death should have more significantly penalties than just a handful of coin, I agree.  I have said before I think there should be a limit on deaths and it was met with mutual disdain.  Loss of xp scaling with the level of the character would be an appropriate representation of loss for higher level PCs since coin has basically become a non issue at that point.  In a PVP sense, mortally wounding and weakening your enemy so they dont just come back with a gank squad in a handful of hours because the "X character went missing, go check all the corpse hide spots" goes out on the faction discord is appropriate.  It inspires a fear and awe of your foe and a need to actually not treat PVP as flippantly as it is often times in places like the mist camp where it happens for very little reason sometimes.  In a PVE scenario, it makes people respect the setting more.  People will take less risks, sure, but isn't that a good thing, really?  Having people die is more impactful in RP than "I'll just go bugger off to the nearest priest and we'll finish this dungeon real quick."

[RedMoney]

Death should have more significantly penalties than just a handful of coin, I agree.  I have said before I think there should be a limit on deaths and it was met with mutual disdain.  Loss of xp scaling with the level of the character would be an appropriate representation of loss for higher level PCs since coin has basically become a non issue at that point.  In a PVP sense, mortally wounding and weakening your enemy so they dont just come back with a gank squad in a handful of hours because the "X character went missing, go check all the corpse hide spots" goes out on the faction discord is appropriate.  It inspires a fear and awe of your foe and a need to actually not treat PVP as flippantly as it is often times in places like the mist camp where it happens for very little reason sometimes.  In a PVE scenario, it makes people respect the setting more.  People will take less risks, sure, but isn't that a good thing, really?  Having people die is more impactful in RP than "I'll just go bugger off to the nearest priest and we'll finish this dungeon real quick."

I fully agree with this, even though I brush off death sometimes myself just because it gets a bit tiresome to RP it out when it happens frequently in PVE.  That said, I do not think that a mechanical penalty/tool is going to get people to RP it more or better.

[HM01]

Are you advocating for consequences and difficulty?!?

Wheres my pitchfork, we can't have this!

[Nemesis 24]

Mechanical consequence of death is inconsequential, a barrier and promotes further mechanical based play - such as killing players to reduce their XP in PvP combat.  This is a bad idea. 

Actual consequence of death is something people should be playing in their characters.  Actual consequences of action is something that is enforced by DM's.  If you want more of it for yourself, request it.  If you see someone failing to properly roleplay dying, report it. 

To be clearer - purely mechanical consequences to mechanical actions is both pointless and antithetical to the server.  This is a roleplay server.  You are expected to roleplay.  You are expected, no, demanded to roleplay death as being something that affects your character.  If you need to have that 'mechanically' enforced on you by having an OOC number reduced, you need to sort out your playing priorities and ask yourself what you are doing on a ROLEPLAY server.