There are many ways death could work in MMOs. What's your preference for EverQuest Next?

Darnit SoE, you did it again!

Let's weigh the options on our "Line of Penalties":

We can see that Option 1 through Option 5 give us a wide sampling across the board.  As always, we have the two extremes that are just there for reference, but, because no sane designer would pick an extreme, that axes out one of our options (option 1).  Option 5 isn't an extreme, it's just closer to it.

We have four options, that we can further break down into the following categories:

Option 2 - Group Penalty

Option 3 - Personal Penalty

Option 4 - Time Penalty

Option 5 - Slap on the wrist


Option 2 - Group Penalty

In my opinion, MMOs are about group play, group strategy, and group cooperation.  If you want to destroy that, you blame the group for someone's poor luck or skill.  If you got penalized for picking the fat kid in gym class you know what everyone would ALWAYS do, they'd pick the fat kid last.  When it comes to MMOs, if you can ONLY trust your most skilled group of friends you will quickly alienate people.

In GW2, group play really isn't encouraged.  It's all about playing by yourself and tagging onto someone else's quest, event, or luck.  If you want to do some group based activities, like a dungeon, you rely on an elite group of friends to successfully complete the dungeon without death and mental stress.  If you're looking for a terrible experience you'll invite a "PUG" to Arah.

I think people should have skill, but I don't think their lack of it should impact the group.  I think their lack of skill should slow down their ability to progress until they've proven they have sufficient skill to progress to the next tier of gameplay. Which brings us too...

Option 3 - Personal Penalty

You're terrible, and you pay the price.  I like it.

Keep in mind there are no levels in EverQuest Next, so de-levelings or "exp loss" aren't options.  What we are looking at is some sort of penalty that slows down a players ability to progress until they've sufficiently mastered their current tier of gameplay.

In EverQuest, this was the level.  If you ran into a "red con" you'd likely die, but if you played all day fighting easy "green cons" you'd never progress.  The game directed you towards challenging (and win-able) adventures, fights, quests and dungeons that where appropriate for your skill level.  If you died lots and lots, you de-leveled and the game would direct you towards easier content until you upped your gear or skill level.

The damaging of gear only serves as a light slap on the wrist in this aspect.  It stops you from "chain dying" to get something done, say, a raid mob or a dungeon boss.  It doesn't stop you from running higher level content, it just breaks your bank account in an effort to tell you to "use some strategy or get some skill".  I'm tired of gear damage and durability, we need something new.  Maybe you die and the priests in a nearby temple will resurrect you for a nominal fee or require you to find something in a spirit world before you can rez.

In EverQuest Next, I'm not sure what the penalty should be, but it should be personal.  Since reputation and lasting change is such a large driver, maybe it is the best penalty to propose.  Your death (or continual death) could lower your standing with factions of warriors, while raising your faction with "Newbie Friendly" factions.  Maybe if you died lots the "newbies" would take you in, and give you access to tutorials and simple beginner weapons (maybe that's how people start in the game).  As you progress in skill, the "newbie faction" recognizes you as a warrior, or a mage, or a priest, and decides you don't need help anymore.  Now you can do quests and access gear, challenges, or skills through these special advanced factions.  If you make a bunch of really bad choices and die a lot, now your reputation as a skillful warrior is tarnished and you are once again accepted as a "newbie".

One thing I want to stress is that:

DURABILITY IS NOT A HIGH PENALTY FOR DEATH, UNLESS MY ITEMS ARE PERMANENTLY DAMAGED OR REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT EFFORT TO REPAIR.

Option 4 - Time Penalty

We are over this.  We did this before, let's not do it again.  Wasting time just for the sake of wasting time is stupid, frustrating, and leads to rage quitting.  You might as well just give me a spawn timer that I can click after 5-10 minutes to instantly play again.

Time penalties should only be included if they are NOT used just for wasting time, but are used to balance content or restrict access.  As an example, in most PVP games (WoW, GW2) you cannot instantly pop up, you must wait for a graveyard or a timer to avoid using "death as a strategy".

Option 5 -  Slap on the wrist

Doesn't work.  Why die?  Why not just insta de-agro whatever killed me, heal me to full, and let me carry on.  I don't have much to say here other than a "slap on the wrist" or less is only sought after by folks that are typically unskilled and/or cannot tolerate failure (due to their personality).



Whatever the option, it should meet these criteria:

1. Discourage the use of death as a strategy.
• "Let's kill this mob, then die so we pop up at X."
• "Rush in, if you die, run back in.  Lather, rinse, repeat until boss is dead."
• "Just run to X point and die, you'll pop up where you need to go."
2. Guide players to appropriately challenging content for their skill level.
3. Give players a chance to review their death before diving back into the same content that killed them.
• Swivel camera from corpse, allows me to see the archer on the ledge behind me that killed me.
• Combat log says I was killed by "Lava", guess I'll avoid that next time.
• Chance to tell the group, "Guys, I found the solution, follow me next time."
4. Sense of danger, people shouldn't want to die. (EverQuest did this well)
5. Reward of the challenge should outweigh the risk of dying from said challenge (If I die 10 times to get a bat wing, I'm never going to try and get that bat wing again. *points at multiple quests in EQ that no one ever did*  We should reward risk!)

Thanks for listening, Jify out!