The thing is, the vast majority of the time, you can avoid it. If you truly can't, thats simply bad mechanics. I don't consider dying to a train an unavoidable death. I very rarely died to trains, because I would not allow my group to stay in the path of them. Sometimes you would, because your group was unknowledgeable or lazy, and you suffered for it. For instance, fighting near a zone out was always a risk. Parking a group in the main hallway of a dungeon, always a risk. It was up to the player to learn to avoid those areas. Otherwise, you suffer the consequences.
Lastly, things are not always fair in life. That was part of the appeal of older MMOs. You didn't get your personal instance of a dungeon just because people were occupying a popular camp. You didn't necessarily win that prized item, just because you spent an entire day camping it. Those are the things that actually made your achievements rewarding. I believe there are millions of people who once loved mmos who no longer play them due to a lack of such things.
You either didnt play EQ1 or you are forgetting. Walking into a dungeon there could be a train just waiting at the zone. More popular the dungeon, playing at peak time. The bigger the risk this would happen. I have seen players train teams to get them to leave a camp. This happened often. I have even seen FD classes trying to get somewhere FDing as they go messing up an entire zone. Killing many teams of people.
This does not even take into account teams wiping because someone crashed, people just camping in the middle of a pull because they were done for the night or had died to many times. Game lag killing a team. EXP loss from death is just not something needed any more. Death penalties can be added so many other smarter ways.
They were few and far between for the careful player and clerics could always restore your lost experience. Maybe you just lacked the personal fortitude, because in my thousands of hours I never got torqued over the rare death.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it. The problem is, you know it will detract from what made a game like EQ worth playing.
The thing is, the vast majority of the time, you can avoid it. If you truly can't, thats simply bad mechanics. I don't consider dying to a train an unavoidable death. I very rarely died to trains, because I would not allow my group to stay in the path of them. Sometimes you would, because your group was unknowledgeable or lazy, and you suffered for it. For instance, fighting near a zone out was always a risk. Parking a group in the main hallway of a dungeon, always a risk. It was up to the player to learn to avoid those areas. Otherwise, you suffer the consequences.
Lastly, things are not always fair in life. That was part of the appeal of older MMOs. You didn't get your personal instance of a dungeon just because people were occupying a popular camp. You didn't necessarily win that prized item, just because you spent an entire day camping it. Those are the things that actually made your achievements rewarding. I believe there are millions of people who once loved mmos who no longer play them due to a lack of such things.
You either didnt play EQ1 or you are forgetting. Walking into a dungeon there could be a train just waiting at the zone. More popular the dungeon, playing at peak time. The bigger the risk this would happen. I have seen players train teams to get them to leave a camp. This happened often. I have even seen FD classes trying to get somewhere FDing as they go messing up an entire zone. Killing many teams of people.
This does not even take into account teams wiping because someone crashed, people just camping in the middle of a pull because they were done for the night or had died to many times. Game lag killing a team. EXP loss from death is just not something needed any more. Death penalties can be added so many other smarter ways.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it.
The thing is, the vast majority of the time, you can avoid it. If you truly can't, thats simply bad mechanics. I don't consider dying to a train an unavoidable death. I very rarely died to trains, because I would not allow my group to stay in the path of them. Sometimes you would, because your group was unknowledgeable or lazy, and you suffered for it. For instance, fighting near a zone out was always a risk. Parking a group in the main hallway of a dungeon, always a risk. It was up to the player to learn to avoid those areas. Otherwise, you suffer the consequences.
Lastly, things are not always fair in life. That was part of the appeal of older MMOs. You didn't get your personal instance of a dungeon just because people were occupying a popular camp. You didn't necessarily win that prized item, just because you spent an entire day camping it. Those are the things that actually made your achievements rewarding. I believe there are millions of people who once loved mmos who no longer play them due to a lack of such things.
You either didnt play EQ1 or you are forgetting. Walking into a dungeon there could be a train just waiting at the zone. More popular the dungeon, playing at peak time. The bigger the risk this would happen. I have seen players train teams to get them to leave a camp. This happened often. I have even seen FD classes trying to get somewhere FDing as they go messing up an entire zone. Killing many teams of people.
This does not even take into account teams wiping because someone crashed, people just camping in the middle of a pull because they were done for the night or had died to many times. Game lag killing a team. EXP loss from death is just not something needed any more. Death penalties can be added so many other smarter ways.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it.
I did, go back and read my posts in this thread.
Glad you are not making this game going by your so called better ways or we would end up with your beloved EQN, oh wait there is no EQN.
Don't like the death penalty then play something else.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it.
I did, go back and read my posts in this thread.
All you said is that it was enough to have to rebuff and return to your corpse. In essence, you said it should be easier, "just because." That was already addressed and refuted by myself and others. Death should be meaningful, and you want to take away the meaning. If that is the kind of game you want, you have plenty to choose from.
Being a former player of the original EQ, Vanguard and a long time player on Project 1999, Wiping is part of the game and unless the healer was afk people never really cared. You just get back up and keep going.
Again this game is going to be targeting an old school audience. When Pantheon launches, I expect allot of younger gamer who like fast pace action with fast leveling and free hand me down gear from killing 10 rat quests will be gone by the first free month. This game is going to take awhile to level, Its going to break you down and make you respect the land you walk on in Terminus. Every mob will be a legit threat in this world making you appreciate your surroundings. There will be no map so you will be forced to learn the zone and appreciate your environment.
I promise if you do stick around, you will have memories that will last for 20 plus years and make friends in a way you never expected from a video game. And if anyone buys this game thinking its going to be a Black desert online or a SWTOR/WOW model then shame on you. the team has said sooooo many times this game is targeting a specific audience. And for all the new people who do stick around that have never played Vanguard, Everquest and Final Fantasy 11 get ready for an amazing 5 year commitment!
The thing is, the vast majority of the time, you can avoid it. If you truly can't, thats simply bad mechanics. I don't consider dying to a train an unavoidable death. I very rarely died to trains, because I would not allow my group to stay in the path of them. Sometimes you would, because your group was unknowledgeable or lazy, and you suffered for it. For instance, fighting near a zone out was always a risk. Parking a group in the main hallway of a dungeon, always a risk. It was up to the player to learn to avoid those areas. Otherwise, you suffer the consequences.
Lastly, things are not always fair in life. That was part of the appeal of older MMOs. You didn't get your personal instance of a dungeon just because people were occupying a popular camp. You didn't necessarily win that prized item, just because you spent an entire day camping it. Those are the things that actually made your achievements rewarding. I believe there are millions of people who once loved mmos who no longer play them due to a lack of such things.
You either didnt play EQ1 or you are forgetting. Walking into a dungeon there could be a train just waiting at the zone. More popular the dungeon, playing at peak time. The bigger the risk this would happen. I have seen players train teams to get them to leave a camp. This happened often. I have even seen FD classes trying to get somewhere FDing as they go messing up an entire zone. Killing many teams of people.
This does not even take into account teams wiping because someone crashed, people just camping in the middle of a pull because they were done for the night or had died to many times. Game lag killing a team. EXP loss from death is just not something needed any more. Death penalties can be added so many other smarter ways.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it.
I did, go back and read my posts in this thread.
Glad you are not making this game going by your so called better ways or we would end up with your beloved EQN, oh wait there is no EQN.
Don't like the death penalty then play something else.
Even EQ1 lowered the death penalty so low you cant see your exp bar move from a death. 100% exp return on res. Harsh exp loss in a MMO is not longer needed. It adds nothing to the game and on a few bad nights because of other people actions, net connections and rude people PKing with trains. Will just make people quit and lower the population. This is not a good thing for this game.
One of the things I want to point out about death penalties
is that there will be progressively more ways to mitigate them. For example, at max level the death penalty
may be brutal: 50% exp loss, and a
corpse retrieval, plus the potential for losing all your gear if you don’t make
it in under the time limit. But high
level players will never suffer the actual death penalty because they have
tools to deal with it. If you’re that
high of a level, you hopefully have friends and a guild who can teleport you to
the zone, summon/drag your corpse, and resurrect you. The worst penalty you will suffer is a modest
time-sink and some loss of plat.
I would think that the harshest death penalties would be
experienced by players at early mid-levels.
The very early levels should have small death penalties: Some exp loss, and maybe losing your corpse
(which probably didn’t have anything good on it anyway). But once players hit level 10 (or whatever),
they should face some real consequences.
This would be a more difficult period where penalties are harsh, and players
don’t really have an easy means to mitigate them.
The saving grace of this period is that the game should be a
modest difficulty level. Dungeons
shouldn’t be incredibly complex, traps should be very clearly telegraphed, mob
AI should be relatively easy, etc.
So to summarize:
Early Levels: Forgiving death penalties, easy
combat, minimal skills
Early Mid Levels: Harsher death penalties, easy
combat, minimal skills
Late Mid Levels: Harsher death penalties,
complex combat, useful skills to mitigate penalties
High Levels:
Harshest death penalties, complex and unforgiving combat, but many
useful skills to mitigate death penalties
I do agree with what
someone said earlier, that ‘unfair’ death is VERY frustrating. Bugs, Lag, Trains, etc. I do think Traps are fair though, as long as
they are designed well. Early areas should have more obvious traps.
Players can avoid them, or bring a rogue to disarm, or a beefy warrior
to take the damage. But once players
know that there are potentially traps in a dungeon, they should be
cautious. If they die at that point it’s
their fault. You don’t run around a
dungeon haphazardly with low health when you know a trap could kill you.
As @Scumm said, the death penalty is less frustrating down the line. The same thing could be said of the need for fast travel and things like teleports. Early on you're expected to learn the game, and learn the world. Travel and those early dangers were supposed to mean something. Eventually though, you do find yourself in the presence of players who can rez and teleport you around far more often, but that is a convenience you have to earn.
They did say the Death Penalty will not be as harsh as EQ 1. I found the death penalty in Vanguard too low so probably expect something in between. And seriously if people are going to go hipster about a "death penalty" ruining a game, then you have had your hand held for way to long in video games.
They did say the Death Penalty will not be as harsh as EQ 1. I found the death penalty in Vanguard too low so probably expect something in between. And seriously if you are going to go hipster about a "death penalty" ruining a game, then you have had your hand held for way to long in video games.
I believe they've said they do not intend for the player to be at risk of permanently losing his or her corpse.
@Scumm Then there is the game class balance. You see more classes like Necro because they can solo quickly and level with little risk to death. Classes like Tanks and Healers are slow to level, higher risk of dying. When you cant find a team as a tank soloing is slow and costly because of the cost of bandaging, the risk was high because you could never self heal past 50% health. So endgame you get an inbalance of classes. Its why I played a Necro mostly in EQ1.
@Scumm Then there is the game class balance. You see more classes like Necro because they can solo quickly and level with little risk to death. Classes like Tanks and Healers are slow to level, higher risk of dying. When you cant find a team as a tank soloing is slow and costly because of the cost of bandaging, the risk was high because you could never self heal past 50% health. So endgame you get an inbalance of classes. Its why I played a Necro mostly in EQ1.
Well you wont have this problem the first few months because Bards and Necros will be post launch classes
@Scumm Then there is the game class balance. You see more classes like Necro because they can solo quickly and level with little risk to death. Classes like Tanks and Healers are slow to level, higher risk of dying. When you cant find a team as a tank soloing is slow and costly because of the cost of bandaging, the risk was high because you could never self heal past 50% health. So endgame you get an inbalance of classes. Its why I played a Necro mostly in EQ1.
Well you wont have this problem the first few months because Bards and Necros will be post launch classes
Yes you will, it will just be other classes that give less risk. People will almost always take the path of least resistance when it comes to risk/rewards. So you will get more druids and wizards. Fact is this will lower the amount of some classes like Tanks and Healers.
People who are anti-death penalty and exp loss are acting like the exp loss was meaningful in EQ throughout their whole EQ experience. It's just not true unless you were completely anti-social. A cleric was able to provide a 50% exp res at 39 and a 90% exp res at 49, and, unless you were one of the first players in EQ, many players were already level 39 (or 49) prior to people even being level 1 and would often give out free resses or resses for donations in the major dungeons. And, if you were one of the first players, leveling with the clerics, you pretty much had exclusive access to all the high level dungeons where you could easily make the exp back.
However, what the exp loss did cause was interdependence, and you to make friends with clerics, play in groups with clerics, or, if not, you run the greater risk of losing exp. And, especially if players tried to solo, they ran a much greater risk of permanently losing exp without /telling or /shouting for a cleric.
Removing the sting of exp loss from death trivializes the death penalty. Having to /repair gear means nothing unless there is permanent gear loss, which I'm sure the anti-exp loss camp is completely against. Having a debuff means nothing outside of tedium. I'll /afk for 15 minutes while the buff is on.
The reason why the exp loss penalty was truly a penalty is because it punished the only one true finite resource every gamer has - time. And yes, it made better players because people wanted to avoid death and the loss of time. I didn't play in groups that avoided content due to the fear of death, but rather we used better strategy to avoid it. And, if you played in guilds/groups that didn't want to tackle content due to fear of death, then the penalty served it's purpose. You didn't want to risk death at the chance of greater reward.
People who are anti-death penalty and exp loss are acting like the exp loss was meaningful in EQ throughout their whole EQ experience. It's just not true unless you were completely anti-social. A cleric was able to provide a 50% exp res at 39 and a 90% exp res at 49, and, unless you were one of the first players in EQ, many players were already level 39 (or 49) prior to people even being level 1 and would often give out free resses or resses for donations in the major dungeons. And, if you were one of the first players, leveling with the clerics, you pretty much had exclusive access to all the high level dungeons where you could easily make the exp back.
However, what the exp loss did cause was interdependence, and you to make friends with clerics, play in groups with clerics, or, if not, you run the greater risk of losing exp. And, especially if players tried to solo, they ran a much greater risk of permanently losing exp without /telling or /shouting for a cleric.
Removing the sting of exp loss from death trivializes the death penalty. Having to /repair gear means nothing unless there is permanent gear loss, which I'm sure the anti-exp loss camp is completely against. Having a debuff means nothing outside of tedium. I'll /afk for 15 minutes while the buff is on.
The reason why the exp loss penalty was truly a penalty is because it punished the only one true finite resource every gamer has - time. And yes, it made better players because people wanted to avoid death and the loss of time. I didn't play in groups that avoided content due to the fear of death, but rather we used better strategy to avoid it. And, if you played in guilds/groups that didn't want to tackle content due to fear of death, then the penalty served it's purpose. You didn't want to risk death at the chance of greater reward.
I would rather gear breaking over exp loss. You did mention the only good thing that came from EXP loss. Needing classes like clerics but IMO the negative out ways the benefits in this area. Even EQ1 lowered them so much it was like they were not there.
For me the graphics are not going to be the end all factor, I hated WOW's art style but loved the gameplay. I haave been watching this one since it was announced and so far they have heald true to there orignal concept of making a social focused game and for that alone I am going to try it.
You may have a point. I might expect there to be a higher number of teleportation and resurrection classes because people are attracted to those skills that will make their lives easier and be profitable.
But in theory, every class should bring something to the table. Players may be more attracted to an Enchanter's Clarity, or a Bard's run speed, or a Ranger's Track.
Personally I don't foresee class imbalance as an actual problem, but I don't have any data to back that up. Just a gut feeling.
You may have a point. I might expect there to be a higher number of teleportation and resurrection classes because people are attracted to those skills that will make their lives easier and be profitable.
But in theory, every class should bring something to the table. Players may be more attracted to an Enchanter's Clarity, or a Bard's run speed, or a Ranger's Track.
Personally I don't foresee class imbalance as an actual problem, but I don't have any data to back that up. Just a gut feeling.
Happened in EQ1. Only way to fix it was PLing people to get them to end game. I was in EQ1 from day one. By the time I got cap there was very few Tanks and Healers. We spent months getting people where they needed to be. In the end to level a cleric or tank, you needed to multibox or have good friends. Or mercs (so lots of money)
I would rather gear breaking over exp loss. You did mention the only good thing that came from EXP loss. Needing classes like clerics but IMO the negative out ways the benefits in this area. Even EQ1 lowered them so much it was like they were not there.
Sorry if I missed it, but what are the negatives of exp loss that would be different/worse than permanent gear loss?
*edit* Forgot to address your second point - EQ didn't remove the exp loss, you still lose EXP and can lose levels. They just added numerous ways to re-obtain your experience, especially with the addition of mercenaries / Guild Lobby, which, I disagree with and agreed that it trivialized it. I think Cleric/Paladin resses with Necro summoning was fine.
EQ also decreased the leveling curve, especially with the use of mercs/fast regen
I would rather gear breaking over exp loss. You did mention the only good thing that came from EXP loss. Needing classes like clerics but IMO the negative out ways the benefits in this area. Even EQ1 lowered them so much it was like they were not there.
Sorry if I missed it, but what are the negatives of exp loss that would be different/worse than permanent gear loss?
1. Inbalance of classes end game, people picking low risk death classes leaving behind only a few to play tank and healers. 2. People quitting low level because of harsh penalties not knowing high level they are not nearly so bad. Being a niche game, this will hurt them more then back in the day when EQ1 was the only quality option. 3. Teams taking risks to learn how to overcome challenges. Sometimes you need to die many times to learn how to overcome a challenge. Just like they did in this video. Most gamers dont have the fortitude to stick out chain deaths and will just leave a team. In a game where class balance in a team is needed people are just not willing to start LF-Party members again. Spending hours of time finding just the right people. This will just make people quit. So people will be less willing to take risks to learn. 4. There is already too many penalties low level for dying. IMO enough to make it a fun challenge. You cant solo your way back to your team. They would need to fetch you. Time, runback, corpse recovery and even things like mobs not forgetting aggro like we saw in the video compounded with exp loss. Again, this niche game will suffer.
Again we watched deves play this game, they made it and look how many times they died. If they didnt use dev tools that 1.75hr play time would have been 4hr+ for very little reward. IMO this will hurt the game. Keep all the challenges as thats what we need but exp loss should not be in this game or it should be like EQ1, where its so small 1 kill gets you more then you lost.
So your argument that something that is recoverable - exp loss is more punishing than permanent decay of items? Or did you mean breaking items that can be repaired, which is nothing more than a money sink and tedium. I didn't see you address that question.
Now...
1. We disagree - many people played necros/mages/druids/wizards due to the ability to solo and the gameplay options. Imbalance of classes is necessary in a game that promotes interdependence. If all classes can do everything, then there would be no need to group. Insert any current age MMO. I will even agree that tanks were much more limited (especially warriors), but, once higher level characters obtained items, there were plenty of twink tanks as well, so hardly a shortage. Granted, I'm talking about Launch-Luclin here.
When you discuss mercs, you talking about EQ years later after the game had already been trivialized, and the population shortage was as much due to it being an old, bastardized version of EQ with too many zones and not enough people on the servers spreading out the population moreso than any game mechanic or class failure.
2. Again, we disagree, unless you were there at launch, most new players knew of resses and were able to beg/donate for one. And, if you were one of the first players, you were able to easily obtain groups and you didn't have the competition for the dungeons. This is subjective, but I didn't see people quit due to exp loss, I saw people /rage quit due to death loops and permanent loss of their corpse.
3. This we just disagree with 100%. An encounter is not challenging if you can simply die over and over again to "learn" it. There's no risk or fear of death. I can just zerg it to my heart's content until I can learn what special sauce I need to tackle the content. What made EQ's encounters challenging is because I feared and respected death, so yes, you often dipped your toe in the water first before you dove into the deep end. It also made you want to try to have Crowd Control, good pullers, etc. to avoid devastating scenarios. So, again, it made you want to use better strategy versus just running head first into an encounter knowing that I really won't lose anything anyway.
4. You say there are too many penalties but argue you prefer permanent gear loss over exp loss. It seems to me that you just don't want exp loss, moreso, than there are too many penalties.
And, no offense to the Dev crew, it seemed that they weren't 100% engaged either with casting spells versus auto attacks, or /assists, etc. And, more importantly than that, the combat was in pre-alpha with various discussed issues (OP'd backstabs, etc.) so I would hardly gauge their number of deaths as an accurate depiction of how many deaths the average gamer will experience in Pantheon, but, rather, a general rule that players are going to have to use strategy in combat.
The thing is, the vast majority of the time, you can avoid it. If you truly can't, thats simply bad mechanics. I don't consider dying to a train an unavoidable death. I very rarely died to trains, because I would not allow my group to stay in the path of them. Sometimes you would, because your group was unknowledgeable or lazy, and you suffered for it. For instance, fighting near a zone out was always a risk. Parking a group in the main hallway of a dungeon, always a risk. It was up to the player to learn to avoid those areas. Otherwise, you suffer the consequences.
Lastly, things are not always fair in life. That was part of the appeal of older MMOs. You didn't get your personal instance of a dungeon just because people were occupying a popular camp. You didn't necessarily win that prized item, just because you spent an entire day camping it. Those are the things that actually made your achievements rewarding. I believe there are millions of people who once loved mmos who no longer play them due to a lack of such things.
You either didnt play EQ1 or you are forgetting. Walking into a dungeon there could be a train just waiting at the zone. More popular the dungeon, playing at peak time. The bigger the risk this would happen. I have seen players train teams to get them to leave a camp. This happened often. I have even seen FD classes trying to get somewhere FDing as they go messing up an entire zone. Killing many teams of people.
This does not even take into account teams wiping because someone crashed, people just camping in the middle of a pull because they were done for the night or had died to many times. Game lag killing a team. EXP loss from death is just not something needed any more. Death penalties can be added so many other smarter ways.
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it.
I did, go back and read my posts in this thread.
Glad you are not making this game going by your so called better ways or we would end up with your beloved EQN, oh wait there is no EQN.
Don't like the death penalty then play something else.
Even EQ1 lowered the death penalty so low you cant see your exp bar move from a death. 100% exp return on res. Harsh exp loss in a MMO is not longer needed. It adds nothing to the game and on a few bad nights because of other people actions, net connections and rude people PKing with trains. Will just make people quit and lower the population. This is not a good thing for this game.
Every other MMO has no death penalty...Give us one game with some consequences.
Comments
If there were smarter ways of adding a death penalty, you'd be telling us of it. The problem is, you know it will detract from what made a game like EQ worth playing.
Don't like the death penalty then play something else.
Again this game is going to be targeting an old school audience. When Pantheon launches, I expect allot of younger gamer who like fast pace action with fast leveling and free hand me down gear from killing 10 rat quests will be gone by the first free month. This game is going to take awhile to level, Its going to break you down and make you respect the land you walk on in Terminus. Every mob will be a legit threat in this world making you appreciate your surroundings. There will be no map so you will be forced to learn the zone and appreciate your environment.
I promise if you do stick around, you will have memories that will last for 20 plus years and make friends in a way you never expected from a video game. And if anyone buys this game thinking its going to be a Black desert online or a SWTOR/WOW model then shame on you. the team has said sooooo many times this game is targeting a specific audience. And for all the new people who do stick around that have never played Vanguard, Everquest and Final Fantasy 11 get ready for an amazing 5 year commitment!
Will make this game just like all the other pieces of shit out there now.
I would like a challenging game where mistakes have actual consequences.
One of the things I want to point out about death penalties is that there will be progressively more ways to mitigate them. For example, at max level the death penalty may be brutal: 50% exp loss, and a corpse retrieval, plus the potential for losing all your gear if you don’t make it in under the time limit. But high level players will never suffer the actual death penalty because they have tools to deal with it. If you’re that high of a level, you hopefully have friends and a guild who can teleport you to the zone, summon/drag your corpse, and resurrect you. The worst penalty you will suffer is a modest time-sink and some loss of plat.
I would think that the harshest death penalties would be experienced by players at early mid-levels. The very early levels should have small death penalties: Some exp loss, and maybe losing your corpse (which probably didn’t have anything good on it anyway). But once players hit level 10 (or whatever), they should face some real consequences. This would be a more difficult period where penalties are harsh, and players don’t really have an easy means to mitigate them.
The saving grace of this period is that the game should be a modest difficulty level. Dungeons shouldn’t be incredibly complex, traps should be very clearly telegraphed, mob AI should be relatively easy, etc.
So to summarize:
I do agree with what someone said earlier, that ‘unfair’ death is VERY frustrating. Bugs, Lag, Trains, etc. I do think Traps are fair though, as long as they are designed well. Early areas should have more obvious traps. Players can avoid them, or bring a rogue to disarm, or a beefy warrior to take the damage. But once players know that there are potentially traps in a dungeon, they should be cautious. If they die at that point it’s their fault. You don’t run around a dungeon haphazardly with low health when you know a trap could kill you.
People who are anti-death penalty and exp loss are acting like the exp loss was meaningful in EQ throughout their whole EQ experience. It's just not true unless you were completely anti-social. A cleric was able to provide a 50% exp res at 39 and a 90% exp res at 49, and, unless you were one of the first players in EQ, many players were already level 39 (or 49) prior to people even being level 1 and would often give out free resses or resses for donations in the major dungeons. And, if you were one of the first players, leveling with the clerics, you pretty much had exclusive access to all the high level dungeons where you could easily make the exp back.
However, what the exp loss did cause was interdependence, and you to make friends with clerics, play in groups with clerics, or, if not, you run the greater risk of losing exp. And, especially if players tried to solo, they ran a much greater risk of permanently losing exp without /telling or /shouting for a cleric.
Removing the sting of exp loss from death trivializes the death penalty. Having to /repair gear means nothing unless there is permanent gear loss, which I'm sure the anti-exp loss camp is completely against. Having a debuff means nothing outside of tedium. I'll /afk for 15 minutes while the buff is on.
The reason why the exp loss penalty was truly a penalty is because it punished the only one true finite resource every gamer has - time. And yes, it made better players because people wanted to avoid death and the loss of time. I didn't play in groups that avoided content due to the fear of death, but rather we used better strategy to avoid it. And, if you played in guilds/groups that didn't want to tackle content due to fear of death, then the penalty served it's purpose. You didn't want to risk death at the chance of greater reward.
But in theory, every class should bring something to the table. Players may be more attracted to an Enchanter's Clarity, or a Bard's run speed, or a Ranger's Track.
Personally I don't foresee class imbalance as an actual problem, but I don't have any data to back that up. Just a gut feeling.
*edit* Forgot to address your second point - EQ didn't remove the exp loss, you still lose EXP and can lose levels. They just added numerous ways to re-obtain your experience, especially with the addition of mercenaries / Guild Lobby, which, I disagree with and agreed that it trivialized it. I think Cleric/Paladin resses with Necro summoning was fine.
EQ also decreased the leveling curve, especially with the use of mercs/fast regen
2. People quitting low level because of harsh penalties not knowing high level they are not nearly so bad. Being a niche game, this will hurt them more then back in the day when EQ1 was the only quality option.
3. Teams taking risks to learn how to overcome challenges. Sometimes you need to die many times to learn how to overcome a challenge. Just like they did in this video. Most gamers dont have the fortitude to stick out chain deaths and will just leave a team. In a game where class balance in a team is needed people are just not willing to start LF-Party members again. Spending hours of time finding just the right people. This will just make people quit. So people will be less willing to take risks to learn.
4. There is already too many penalties low level for dying. IMO enough to make it a fun challenge. You cant solo your way back to your team. They would need to fetch you. Time, runback, corpse recovery and even things like mobs not forgetting aggro like we saw in the video compounded with exp loss. Again, this niche game will suffer.
Again we watched deves play this game, they made it and look how many times they died. If they didnt use dev tools that 1.75hr play time would have been 4hr+ for very little reward. IMO this will hurt the game. Keep all the challenges as thats what we need but exp loss should not be in this game or it should be like EQ1, where its so small 1 kill gets you more then you lost.
So your argument that something that is recoverable - exp loss is more punishing than permanent decay of items? Or did you mean breaking items that can be repaired, which is nothing more than a money sink and tedium. I didn't see you address that question.
Now...
1. We disagree - many people played necros/mages/druids/wizards due to the ability to solo and the gameplay options. Imbalance of classes is necessary in a game that promotes interdependence. If all classes can do everything, then there would be no need to group. Insert any current age MMO. I will even agree that tanks were much more limited (especially warriors), but, once higher level characters obtained items, there were plenty of twink tanks as well, so hardly a shortage. Granted, I'm talking about Launch-Luclin here.
When you discuss mercs, you talking about EQ years later after the game had already been trivialized, and the population shortage was as much due to it being an old, bastardized version of EQ with too many zones and not enough people on the servers spreading out the population moreso than any game mechanic or class failure.
2. Again, we disagree, unless you were there at launch, most new players knew of resses and were able to beg/donate for one. And, if you were one of the first players, you were able to easily obtain groups and you didn't have the competition for the dungeons. This is subjective, but I didn't see people quit due to exp loss, I saw people /rage quit due to death loops and permanent loss of their corpse.
3. This we just disagree with 100%. An encounter is not challenging if you can simply die over and over again to "learn" it. There's no risk or fear of death. I can just zerg it to my heart's content until I can learn what special sauce I need to tackle the content. What made EQ's encounters challenging is because I feared and respected death, so yes, you often dipped your toe in the water first before you dove into the deep end. It also made you want to try to have Crowd Control, good pullers, etc. to avoid devastating scenarios. So, again, it made you want to use better strategy versus just running head first into an encounter knowing that I really won't lose anything anyway.
4. You say there are too many penalties but argue you prefer permanent gear loss over exp loss. It seems to me that you just don't want exp loss, moreso, than there are too many penalties.
And, no offense to the Dev crew, it seemed that they weren't 100% engaged either with casting spells versus auto attacks, or /assists, etc. And, more importantly than that, the combat was in pre-alpha with various discussed issues (OP'd backstabs, etc.) so I would hardly gauge their number of deaths as an accurate depiction of how many deaths the average gamer will experience in Pantheon, but, rather, a general rule that players are going to have to use strategy in combat.
He does not get it.
I just hope the Dev's don't follow his lead or we will have generic mmo number ####
K