Suggestion: Remove Challenge Ratings from Examine. For good.

[Edge]

Multiple deaths do cost XP, if you die within a certain time limit.

Moreover, lost cash isn't a minor inconvenience for everyone. Some of us do not have massive stores of easily-expendable gold on our characters, nor the ability to easily and/or quickly recuperate our losses. And the loss of gold results in a loss of ability to get resources such as scrolls, potions, or healing kits that are increasingly necessary to survive adventuring, meaning that less gold = even less of a chance to survive an adventure. It's a nasty little cycle for those of us who don't have the on-hand resources to survive in the first place.

[blackhound]

Dec 21, 2013 15:50:17 GMT -5 Edge said:

Multiple deaths do cost XP, if you die within a certain time limit.

Moreover, lost cash isn't a minor inconvenience for everyone. Some of us do not have massive stores of easily-expendable gold on our characters, nor the ability to easily and/or quickly recuperate our losses. And the loss of gold results in a loss of ability to get resources such as scrolls, potions, or healing kits that are increasingly necessary to survive adventuring, meaning that less gold = even less of a chance to survive an adventure. It's a nasty little cycle for those of us who don't have the on-hand resources to survive in the first place.

 I don't know, Death has always felt like something of a joke to me on CD, I'm not saying that to ruffle anyone's feathers but it's more or less a free trip to town for a cost.  I've died on purpose to save the long trek back laden with spoils on some characters.

[Edge]

You do know that's considered a system exploit, right?

Again, if it's that expendable for you, congratulations. It's not always so for everyone though.

What this sounds like to me is people wanting the game to be made harder, and for those of us where the game is plenty hard enough as is, it doesn't need the help.

[morwen]

I'm always broke relative to others who have millions. I come from a tradition of servers where you'd lose something like 10-12% of your XP on 'death'. I've tolerated other places where you left a body and other people could come and pilfer all your neat stuff, so in CD we get off easy.

[Vincent07]

As an aside, I am presently considering removing the 'free' death for characters over ...say... level 8 or 10.  Having to click "Respawn" should not be a painless matter imo.

[blackhound]

Dec 21, 2013 16:29:52 GMT -5 Edge said:

You do know that's considered a system exploit, right?

 Yes, I'm aware it's an exploit. But I'm also of the opinion if I'm alone on a sever at 4am or some other ungodly hour and there's literally no one harmed by my cheesing my death except my characters imaginary gold, it doesn't behoove me to care much nor will anyone be apt to bring down the hammer in my experience.

[blackhound]

Dec 21, 2013 17:04:16 GMT -5 Vincent07 said:

As an aside, I am presently considering removing the 'free' death for characters over ...say... level 8 or 10.  Having to click "Respawn" should not be a painless matter imo.

 I 100% agree. Death should be more than an inconvenience. Currently, it's not.

[Vincent07]

Dec 21, 2013 17:17:19 GMT -5 blackhound said:

Dec 21, 2013 16:29:52 GMT -5 Edge said:

You do know that's considered a system exploit, right?

 Yes, I'm aware it's an exploit. But I'm also of the opinion if I'm alone on a sever at 4am or some other ungodly hour and there's literally no one harmed by my cheesing my death except my characters imaginary gold, it doesn't behoove me to care much nor will anyone be apt to bring down the hammer in my experience.

You realize you are basically admitting to exploiting the system and taunting me to "bring down the hammer" for it?  >.<

[morwen]

Anyone stuck in a dungeon when they want to log off and go to bed could conceivably go to the AFK Area and just return to where they left off, right?

[Valimar Dragonbane]

Dec 21, 2013 15:35:35 GMT -5 morwen said:

There is no penalty for 'death' but losing some cash, so I don't see a downside to removing challenge ratings from the monsters. I don't have an opinion about removing it from players' characters.

Do we still lose cash for respawning?  I haven't really noticed in, like, the last year or so.

[The Red Mage]

I don't think so. As far as server difficulty, this is the easiest, most forgiving server I've ever played on. Action servers have harsher penalties for dying and harsher economical hills to climb.

[blackhound]

Dec 21, 2013 17:31:39 GMT -5 Vincent07 said:

Dec 21, 2013 17:17:19 GMT -5 blackhound said:

 Yes, I'm aware it's an exploit. But I'm also of the opinion if I'm alone on a sever at 4am or some other ungodly hour and there's literally no one harmed by my cheesing my death except my characters imaginary gold, it doesn't behoove me to care much nor will anyone be apt to bring down the hammer in my experience.

You realize you are basically admitting to exploiting the system and taunting me to "bring down the hammer" for it?  >.<

It wasn't really my intention for that statement to come across as a taunt Vince, I'm sorry if it did. In reality the few instances where I've done this have been at such obscure times that no one but myself would even notice due to low server population during the early morning hours of operation. My point was more to illustrate the fact that The death system is so lenient it never struck me as a penalty to let an enemy kill me and respawn, that in and of itself is sort of an issue in my opinion. While I could see me walking away from the computer to go get a drink while enemies pound away at my character until it dies being viewed as an exploit, I think we can agree it's not really the sort of thing that could so easily be policed, anyone could claim to have fallen asleep under such circumstances for instance. At any rate my statements were not meant to be in any way incendiary or as some manner of barb to the server staff and if I've done so, I apologize.

[Fire Wraith]

Perhaps this is a good time to explain that one aspect of our philosophy with CD is that we have don't have the time to try and make the server 100% watertight and foolproof from exploitation, whether that's in the written rules, or in the scripts/game mechanics etc.  Even if we had the time, we feel that we would rather spend that time building fun stuff for people, fixing bugs that prevent people from playing, etc.  Now, while we do try and deal with egregious stuff, partly because we don't want people to wind up unintentionally doing something we don't want them doing, it's not our primary role.

So what does that mean?

It means that we expect everyone here to be adults, to play fair, and observe the spirit of the rules as well as the letter.  This helps us because we can trust you not to have to constantly look over your shoulder.  We're a small enough community that such a scheme can work, because this is a cooperative endeavor, not a competition.  In fact, the thing that gets people banned from CD (rare enough of a thing that it is, of course) tends to be showing blatant and continued disrespect for that sort of thing - the rules, the players, the staff, the community as a whole.  I don't say that to threaten or anything, I just want to try and relate our mindset when it comes to such.

As for the death penalty or lack thereof, yes, it used to be higher.  We decided to try and be nice to newer players, to encourage exploring and risk taking, and such.  If anything, I've pondered the idea of a return-home ability with a long reuse timer, though I don't know if we've ever really done anything in terms of looking at that.

[Darvins]

Throwing my fifty cents out on Death Penaltys in two minds so while making it harsher for higher levels is fine in my view, keep it the way it is for up to the mid teens maybe. It encourages exploration I think not having to be scared of death as much. While once you get higher level stumbling on an area you won't survive long enough to run away at least is going to be far harder.

[kingofaquilonia]

Perfectly content with the death system as it is ,as well as keeping the examine in there. Anyhow what the server does need IMO is to make people who aren't gish builds feel like they are strong too. The epic dungeons seem to spam dispels from what I've seen and what I've heard... and for people relying on scrolls for their buffs well they get sodomized.

Let's be honest... you need buffs to do the high level content, you simply can't get enough AC without the buffs... So people like Paladins/clerics/spellswords and any other buff and fight builds that use their own caster level dominate the field while other people have to either abuse hips and pretty much exploit the game via hips spamming or just get raped by dispels.