The Official Compilation of BWE Grievances.

[Zayren]

Zayren, I don't really disagree with you, but I think you're drastically over-estimating the general population. For some of us, death might be punishment enough, but plenty of people don't feel that way without a penalty. After all, that's the whole concept of zerging mobs in the first place. It's how they beat The Sleeper in EQ, who was supposed to be unkillable.

and armor repair isn't going to stop people from doing this in the first place

so

it's

just

pointless

[Alaris]

and armor repair isn't going to stop people from doing this in the first place

It will if people run out of money repairing their armor.

[Cyberman]

It will if people run out of money repairing their armor.

Punishing bad players even more - a sure-fire way to ensure everyone enjoys the game, right? Why not let them wait for an increasing time after each death? SWTOR does that, and it sure is a fun way to pass the time...
</sarcasm>

[Alaris]

Punishing bad players even more (...)

My views on death in games and GW2 specifically:
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/...-beta-coverage

Anyway, shameless self-promotion aside, I think it's really a complex issue to build a game where people value staying alive without punishing them too harshly or unjustly. I think ANet's solution is actually a fairly good and fair one, one that balances the need for some punishment with the need for staying casual.

Keep in mind that hardcore mode is popular with some gamers, i.e. you die your character is deleted.

[RabidCoqui]

They just felt like adding another gold sink....

[Alaris]

Here's a new one (I think) that really bugs me but I forgot to mention...

When you attack you often find the character's weapon misaligned with the projectile. I've seen this with mesmer greatsword, thief pistol, but others as well. Most noticeable with projectiles that make a line graphically. I can forgive elevation misalignment, but direction misalignment is harder to accept.

Also, in WvW, you should be able to shoot further (especially with bows) if you are on top of walls shooting down than if you are at the bottom of it shooting up. That really bothered me.

[Cyberman]

I think ANet's solution is actually a fairly good and fair one, one that balances the need for some punishment with the need for staying casual.

I can't really see why it is "some" punishment only. You lose your armor (needs repair, costs money), you probably need to travel (costs money) and you're weakened (death penalty - not sure how it works? You have less health? Shorter downed time? Either way -> more death).

The system is designed in a way that allows you to be ground down to your bones - you end up naked on the street with no money.
Not exactly sure of the game mechanics regarding travel without money, but worst case: it might even mean you're almost unable to complete current actions because every time you die you have to go back a long way.
(At least one waypoint is free if you're broke - but is the nearest, or the last one discovered?)

The scenery might be nice, but I'm not playing a game to watch the backgrounds while I run from A to B several times.


There needs to be some sort of punishment, yes. But the current system seems like overkill - especially if it's supposed to be casual.

[Alaris]

Then I challenge you to come up with a better alternative.

Vast majority of death penalties actually involve making you weaker for a time and/or taking away some gold, XP, time playing. Why? Because short of changing the music to "My little pony" I don't really see how they'd punish you otherwise. Heck, if you do change the music to "My little pony", some people here (Shawn) will die on purpose to trigger the music.

Fyi, GW2 death penalty changes how fast you recover from downed state (or something related to downed state), it has no effect on normal combat outside downed state.

[The King of Dust]

Just a random idea that popped in my head: how about a system where you don't get rewarded (xp, loot) for beating a monster that managed to kill you. You don't actually lose anything that you had before starting the fight, but you still get punished. Could make it wear off when you leave the area. Not too sure it would really work well, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[BladeDVD]

http://www.wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_penalty

Each time a character gets downed, that character accumulates one point of death penalty. For each point, 25% will be removed from the starting consciousness bar the next time that character gets downed. Each death penalty point expires one minute after being added. If a character goes down with 4 points of death penalty (ie. five times within one minute), they will go straight to the defeated state.[1]

The "consciousness bar" is the bar that tells you how much time you have left until you are defeated. I thought it was more like a health bar as it seemed to go down in relation to how hard I was hit by an enemy.

I'm kind of taking a wait and see on armor damage for now. Depending on how easy it is to make money (and if we get more combat feedback to make it easier to learn how to avoid death) this may not be much more of an issue than gong back to town to merch your stuff. But it remains something you can avoid if you keep from dying, but not so much of a penalty that people will be afraid of trying new things.

I mean you really have to die quite a bit before you start losing armor. If it's that bad you could always just carry as second set on you or equip a drop.

I personally thought the original DP in GWs was fine, but then I also carried clovers on all my characters in case I wanted to avoid a replay.

But if a developer feels they have to have an armor damage system in the game, this is certainly a pretty fair way to implement it. I was worried that the stuff would break and you would lose it forever when I first heard about it.