Look,
If you come here your primary focus should be RP and developing a character, not a munchkin.
I didn't say that the behaviors to level are not valid but what I am saying is that if you come here with an agenda to loot and level first and RP second that isn't how we intend on building or furthering the module. We aren't going to make things easier for that behavior, we are actually going imo in the opposite direction.
Many on the staff side as myself feel that level 30 is too easily acheived here and becoming epic means little to nothing as far as an achievement. We don't want to cut people off cold turkey from that but we are saying that if your sole intent is too level and loot then you are probably in the wrong place. RP and character development cannot be a second priority here, it should be the first priority and if it isn't, it quickly becomes apparent that this will not be the place for those that do not want to follow that mandate.
The importance of playing your role and developing your character should be the reason why you are choosing the classes, races, stats, and abilities for that character, not the other way around. If you want to play a BUILD go to an arena or an action oriented PW, if you want to play a CHARACTER you are welcome here. It is as simple as that.
If character development is your priority topics such as these are quite moot.
As for what I think about the death affects. I was the first one to propose ability and stat penalities long before this thread was made. It was shot down as being too harsh ... huh, go figure
Death penalties are time out for players who don't have the ability to control themselves or act carelessly (don't give me that Lag death BS or some Evil DM trying to kill you excuse, that rarely happens). It is a consequence for poorly made plans and low player IQ. Sorry to be blunt but that is seriously the problem here. I see some players are completely inept when dungeon crawling and they are normally the ones crying for things to be easier and of less cost to themselves. I mean do we really need to always cater to the lowest common denominator here? I think not.
The other related reason is that the death penalties are there to slow your progression. We DO NOT WANT YOUR CHARACTER TO LEVEL TO EPIC AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. I've been on servers where you could get to epic levels in a week even if you were a (do-me) retard. It's bad enough people earn epic status on sheer entitlement than actually earning it by doing things of merit....
No matter what we decide, quite a number of players refuse to consider any penalties as "GOOD" for them. It's the mentality that they are entitled to level, entitled to have what others have with no effort. That isn't what a game is about, sure most modern MMOs encourage that BS type of mentality but this is a lot more old fashioned. We want players to adapt and learn from their mistakes and be encouraged to take a break if they making mistakes way to often to be lucrative for themselves.
Removing negative reinforcers like XP death penalty and replacing them with another negative reinforcer is not going to make people any more happy about dying or being completely incapicitated for hours. The idea of off setting the penalities by increasing the XP multipliers of things that you SHOULD BE DOING when you are here is also sending the wrong message to the playerbase. You don't do everything for a reward, you are not an animal that needs to be trained, you should be conscious of what you do, the expectations that your peers and staff have of you, and the reasons why you are playing in this module. It is not ALL MECHANICALLY INCENTIVE DRIVEN, that is an idea that I think needs to be squashed here.
We allow people to have choices with building their characters and a ton of liberty on how they would like to play the character concept. But more and more these days, I see cross class combos for power, min/max stats, character concepts that are not at all representative to what is possible in lore or the setting.... so something tells me that there is a lack of self-restraint on behalf of many that play here.
We don't need to dilute things further to make it even harder to suspend disbelief.
The XP penalty to me is not harsh enough. My proposal was to impose both XP penalty and stat debuffs if you are indeed felled in combat and somehow miraculously risen or brought back to consciousness by whatever means. It teaches you a lesson to not make a stupid mistake the next time you try to solo a boss. Sadly, no one is up for a challenge anymore these days. Not many can stomach a loss and keep it as a personal issue they need to improve on instead they prefer to blame their inadequacies on the institution.
A game is played to win or lose. I have lost many characters in PnP campaigns that I have played in. I don't get rez'd because I cry about it or make the DM retcon my idiotic actions or ask the rules be changed to avoid any ill affects to my character. If I get my character killed, I got to reroll or get the hell out of the game if I want to whine about it. Not having a permadeath system is already a far fetched concept since there is no finality to actions that will get you killed permenantly.
Smelling salts? Ressurection Rods? Raise dead scrolls? Please.... that is another way of saying there is no such thing as death, that death is of no consequence and feel free to break immersion at any time. No matter what we call it, it's delaying the inevitable outcome that your character should face but NEVER WILL. Nothing can fix that glaring mistake.
So my point is that no matter what we decide is a best "substitute" for a death system, without finality death means nothing and it's pretty trivial just like this discussion.
