Guild Wars 2

So there are many threads that have to do with the “zerker” meta being broken (I am personally of the camp that something with the meta needs to change, but thats not the topic of this thread). I am starting to think that perhaps the way to encourage a little diversity is not to change encounters, but to actually tie penalty with death. I think we can all agree that There is no penalty when you die, as you can just wp 10 feet away and run back to whatever encounter you were doing.
So what if there was a death penalty? There is so little risk in pve that its a completely no-stress low effort environment. But what if you were penalized for dying? Having your survivability stats nerfed by a certain percentage for the next 45 minutes (or until the end of the VW cycle in SW for example) could be a fun way to introduce some risk/reward into the game.
I am essentially proposing the moral system from GW1. Maybe you could earn your stats back by killing champs/ completing events/ doing certain challenges? What do you guys think?

it would be extremely anti-learning that way. The only way I’m able to even see GW1s content is by my guildies going with me and feeding me anti-death penalty consumables. Sure, eventually I will learn. But it’s extremely discouraging to even try content when you know that you’ll be punished for dying.

I wish the wps were 10 feet away!!! In fact I wish the closest ones were unlocked. I really wouldn’t want any more penalties.

There is a death penalty: each time you die, you have less health in subsequent downed states; die often enough in a short time and you will skip the downed state entirely. It used to cost coin to repair broken armor, but that really didn’t affect the meta; it just annoyed everyone equally.

On the whole, the biggest problem with the PvE meta is that the AI just isn’t smart enough for the current set of mechanics. Change that and everyone would find it more challenging.

Im just saying that I think this game is wayyyy tooo forgiving. And I personally beat EOTN in GW1 with only henchies on my first runthrough, so im going to have to disagree with you that it made the content inaccessible. Challenging? Sure. But infinitely more rewarding.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is a death penalty: each time you die, you have less health in subsequent downed states; die often enough in a short time and you will skip the downed state entirely. It used to cost coin to repair broken armor, but that really didn’t affect the meta; it just annoyed everyone equally.

On the whole, the biggest problem with the PvE meta is that the AI just isn’t smart enough for the current set of mechanics. Change that and everyone would find it more challenging.

Also- thats not a death penalty. Downed state penalty sure. But having less and less health in downed state (an effect that wears off in roughly 60 seconds, might I add) in no way challenges you once you go back to regular state. You could also pay for your armor repairs literally with the junk you got from playing in pve, Im not even sure why they removed that cost it was so negligible.

ANet is slowly chipping away at the problem. They’re just being really slow and careful about it so that they don’t break the game any more than they have to.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is a death penalty: each time you die, you have less health in subsequent downed states; die often enough in a short time and you will skip the downed state entirely. It used to cost coin to repair broken armor, but that really didn’t affect the meta; it just annoyed everyone equally.

On the whole, the biggest problem with the PvE meta is that the AI just isn’t smart enough for the current set of mechanics. Change that and everyone would find it more challenging.

I agree, there already is a decent penalty.
However, as far as more “challenging”. Thats very subject. Also, each time they changed certain encounters, or introduced new ones, to make them “more challenging” the public out cry was enormous. They changed The Spider Queen, and everyone lost their minds. It was “too hard” and how AC would now be out of the “Meta” and near impossible to do with a pug group. They revamped Teq, and it became “too hard” and “impossible”. People were clamoring about how hard and unfair it was. They introduced some new mechanics in Dry Top, the LS and Silverwastes. What did the players do? “It’s too hard!! It’s cheesy mechanics! It promotes zerging and it’s not fair!!”

I guess some people want “more challenging content” but when it’s introduced, the rage, QQ, and outcry against it is very loud indeed. So whats a company to do? Make stuff harder to appease those that want it harder, and ignore those who don’t? Or Don’t make it harder to appease those who want to afk spam 1 to win?

tboneking.2531:

Im just saying that I think this game is wayyyy tooo forgiving. And I personally beat EOTN in GW1 with only henchies on my first runthrough, so im going to have to disagree with you that it made the content inaccessible. Challenging? Sure. But infinitely more rewarding.

I didn’t say that it’s inaccessible. I just said that it makes it daunting. Which is why even though I had the game I simply didn’t play it that much.

And it’s not exactly forgiving. As rerunning requires time. And time is money. If in a full zerker team someone dies, they’re usually kicked. If the whole team dies, people tend to ragequit. The idea is to DPS the mob to death before they even have a chance to bring you down, so the only ones getting punished would be new players.

I don’t generally dismiss ideas out of hand but this one is just awful.

There is a stat penalty from wearing damaged armor, plus you have to WP to repair that costs time and money. People are already dealing with low FPS and bad camera penalties.

You clearly want harder content, go run a high fractal or a dungeon or something. Don’t suggest creating further problems where there are none.

When the Zerker meta changes it will change to something new that everybody will run and then everybody will whine about that. Breaking core game mechanics to force that change isn’t a good idea.

The idea of giving characters a temporary debuff as a punishment for death has always seemed bizarre to me. Someone has a hard time doing content, so make it harder?

Seems like all that does is lead to waiting out the debuff.

For me, being defeated is penalty enough. Even with waypoints and free armor repair, getting defeated makes me rethink my strategy and try a different way.

I know that’s not true for everyone, but I don’t want to deal with stiff, and usually frustrating penalties just to chase some unapproachable ideal of making people try harder.

This game was originally billed as a non-death-penalty game. ArenaNet had a whole blog post about how DPs aren’t fun, and that dying is enough of a penalty. Of course, they then took a slight detour from that and instituted repair costs, but after a few years, they are back on track with their original mission, and I’m glad for it.

Before instituting a harsher DP to try and break the zerker meta, there are some cleaner solutions to try. Both the dodge mechanic (invulnerability!) and downed state (instant revive from trash mob kill) could be reworked first with a probable greater return.

So a death penalty is added.

The super experienced already don’t die that much so the meta doesn’t change.

What will change is the divide between the super experienced and the casual play how I want crowd.

Because before while New Player’s mistake during Fight 1 cost the group DPS, New Player’s mistake now lowers New Player’s survivability during Fight 2. Making it even more likely that New Player will die if he makes another mistake. Lowering his survivability even more during Fight 3.

Your change will actually make things worse overall.

Adding a penalty does not punish that specific player in the open world, it punishes everyone else. You can show up to Vinewrath as a low level naked character and let people carry you. That low level is not being punished, you are. Even if you choose to ignore them when they’re downed, they’re not pulling their own weight and due to scaling, you have to put in more effort.

Mirta.5029:

it would be extremely anti-learning that way. The only way I’m able to even see GW1s content is by my guildies going with me and feeding me anti-death penalty consumables. Sure, eventually I will learn. But it’s extremely discouraging to even try content when you know that you’ll be punished for dying.

This is a joke, correct? What about all the thousands of other people, including myself, who started from the beginning and learned all of the content and mastered it even with the death penalty? How many hours do you think i’ve spent before all of the candy canes out grinding down mobs in said instance from -60dp until my party and I were able to continue the dungeon and learn from our mistakes?

Much better than this cakewalk we have nowadays…oh im not punished for dying so lets rush and run through everything, waypoint all around, skip mobs, because if I die, well no big deal.

THIS IS HOW BEAUTIFUL CONTENT AND WORLDS THAT THEY’VE CREATED FEEL MUCH LESS THREATENING!!!!

Healix.5819:

Adding a penalty does not punish that specific player in the open world, it punishes everyone else. You can show up to Vinewrath as a low level naked character and let people carry you. That low level is not being punished, you are. Even if you choose to ignore them when they’re downed, they’re not pulling their own weight and due to scaling, you have to put in more effort.

You’ve given me a great idea. I think I’ll start a service for all those players who complain the game is too easy. For a modest fee, my family will all log in and stand around naked at whatever event they would like to be more difficult.

IEximius.9204:

Much better than this cakewalk we have nowadays…oh im not punished for dying so lets rush and run through everything, waypoint all around, skip mobs, because if I die, well no big deal.

I’d definitely be on board with removing about 2/3rds of the waypoints from the game.

Could mob skipping be fixed with some tweaks to how they path and leash?

IEximius.9204:

This is a joke, correct? What about all the thousands of other people, including myself, who started from the beginning and learned all of the content and mastered it even with the death penalty? How many hours do you think i’ve spent before all of the candy canes out grinding down mobs in said instance from -60dp until my party and I were able to continue the dungeon and learn from our mistakes?

Much better than this cakewalk we have nowadays…oh im not punished for dying so lets rush and run through everything, waypoint all around, skip mobs, because if I die, well no big deal.

THIS IS HOW BEAUTIFUL CONTENT AND WORLDS THAT THEY’VE CREATED FEEL MUCH LESS THREATENING!!!!

I never felt like rushing trough places, because if you die, you still need to waypoint, your armour still slowly wears down until you will have to waypoint to repair and you will still need to beat the content to progress passed the waypoint that you’re coming back to.
Add a death penalty to that and all you’re doing is upsetting the player, as they’re not only already struggling, but now they’ll be struggling even more because you just reduced their stats. If they couldn’t do it to begin with then HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO IT NOW?

Sorry, but I really don’t play games to get stressed.

Mirta.5029:

IEximius.9204:

This is a joke, correct? What about all the thousands of other people, including myself, who started from the beginning and learned all of the content and mastered it even with the death penalty? How many hours do you think i’ve spent before all of the candy canes out grinding down mobs in said instance from -60dp until my party and I were able to continue the dungeon and learn from our mistakes?

Much better than this cakewalk we have nowadays…oh im not punished for dying so lets rush and run through everything, waypoint all around, skip mobs, because if I die, well no big deal.

THIS IS HOW BEAUTIFUL CONTENT AND WORLDS THAT THEY’VE CREATED FEEL MUCH LESS THREATENING!!!!

I never felt like rushing trough places, because if you die, you still need to waypoint, your armour still slowly wears down until you will have to waypoint to repair and you will still need to beat the content to progress passed the waypoint that you’re coming back to.
Add a death penalty to that and all you’re doing is upsetting the player, as they’re not only already struggling, but now they’ll be struggling even more because you just reduced their stats. If they couldn’t do it to begin with then HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO IT NOW?

Sorry, but I really don’t play games to get stressed.

You make no sense whatsoever. Rushing past content doesn’t kill you. You will rarely die. Broken armor means nothing, it takes several breaks before you even lose an armor piece completely – repairing is free and youre likely to do that before your ENTIRE SET BREAKS.

Along with your previous comment about not being able to do any gw1 content because you’d repeatedly be DP’ed out and now this one, I really don’t know what to say about you in regards to your skill level. GW2 is one of the easiest, most casual, hand holding games out there to date and you still apparently cannot play it without feeling threatened, so this dp discussion really isn’t for you anyways.

I have ran through the entire map every single area with a level 30 engineer using speedy kits, rocket boots and correct dodging. How hard is it- really?

IEximius.9204:

You make no sense whatsoever. Rushing past content doesn’t kill you. You will rarely die. Broken armor means nothing, it takes several breaks before you even lose an armor piece completely – repairing is free and youre likely to do that before your ENTIRE SET BREAKS.

Along with your previous comment about not being able to do any gw1 content because you’d repeatedly be DP’ed out and now this one, I really don’t know what to say about you in regards to your skill level. GW2 is one of the easiest, most casual, hand holding games out there to date and you still apparently cannot play it without feeling threatened, so this dp discussion really isn’t for you anyways.

death penalty discussion isn’t for me, even though I don’t want the game that we’re currently in changed as it helps people like me? How would that make sense? I believe that I deserve a say in a game that suits my needs. If a game doesn’t suit your needs, how about getting a different game to play, or some content that is specifically made for the hardcore, instead of changing current game mechanics that would affect people that are currently happy with the game?

And I’m capable of learning. Heck I raided in Wildstar and have completed many far harder single player games than Guild Wars 2. But I found it stressful. And a hobby really shouldn’t make you stressed when real life is good at that as it is.

You can make a game hard and yet not make it stressful on the player. Look at majority of the single player games. What happens when you die? You reload and all your armour and items are back as they are. You feel punished as it is as you lost time, but at the same time game gave you time to learn. To see the boss. To contemplate its mechanics. The second time going in you’ll be better at it. There’s no penalty though so you have just as much chance as you did the first time, except with more knowledge.

Mirta.5029:

it would be extremely anti-learning that way. The only way I’m able to even see GW1s content is by my guildies going with me and feeding me anti-death penalty consumables. Sure, eventually I will learn. But it’s extremely discouraging to even try content when you know that you’ll be punished for dying.

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

If you want a punishment for death at events, fix the contribution system. You should not be able to receive the full rewards for killing a single enemy then AFKing. Likewise, if you constantly die, your contribution would be too low to warrant any rewards. The problem however is that actual contribution can’t be easily calculated and the most contributing factor is usually damage dealt, further reinforcing zerker as the king.

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

Making a death penalty does not affect those who do not die.
Meanwhile, the new players will suffer the brunt of the harsh death penalties.

Trying to punish people for running without toughness (for literally no reason) will just force them to get better at running without toughness.

Then we’ll be back where we started. You cannot break the effectiveness of active defense without forcing people to take hits, and once that happens we’re back in ye olde RPG days.

The million dollar question I want to know the answer to is, why do people feel compelled to forcibly reduce the effectiveness of a build that almost exclusively relies on making use of non-passive mitigation to survive? Doing so won’t suddenly make people diversify; theyll just go to whatever is closest to being the fastest and be mad at whoever slowed them down for no reason.

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

Afraid? Stressed? Who the kitten EVER FEELS THIS WAY PLAYING AN MMO?

How about learn to adapt to game mechanics and better themselves? “Oh man this is tough let me practice more” “oh man I need to get better gear”

Progression.

This is the age old mentality that will never change gw2 for the better, it will remain casual and stale forever.

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

why would you be afraid? its a game, its not like you are really losing any levels/items/skills

Though, i will say the problem with the morale system, is it does make it harder the worse you are. but some form of anti death mechanic may not be bad in and of itself

IEximius.9204:

Afraid? Stressed? Who the kitten EVER FEELS THIS WAY PLAYING AN MMO?
How about learn to adapt to game mechanics and better themselves? “Oh man this is tough let me practice more” “oh man I need to get better gear”
Progression.

This is the age old mentality that will never change gw2 for the better, it will remain casual and stale forever.

Well THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. If you encounter something you go “oh, I died, I’m capable of just going in and trying again”. PRACTICING.

New players are always very VERY afraid of slowing down the veterans especially in group content. I’ve seen many who got insults hurled at them, I’ve seen many that nearly got kicked. I tend to side with the new players, do new player friendly runs. It’s okay to die. You learn from deaths.

NOW HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LEARN WHEN DYING MAKES YOU WORSE?

And I DO. I tend to get stressed over underperforming when I’m trying my best. I get stressed in games when I think that I’m a burden to others. That’s why I really don’t like mobas and why I tend to strive to create a forgiving atmosphere in MMOs.

phys.7689:

why would you be afraid? its a game, its not like you are really losing any levels/items/skills
Though, i will say the problem with the morale system, is it does make it harder the worse you are. but some form of anti death mechanic may not be bad in and of itself

because in any group content you would be slowing others down. In other words they would be better without me. I remember when trying to beat the attunement in Wildstar I actively dropped out of the group that I was learning to do the last dungeon with for silver, because it was my deaths that stopped them from meeting the time limit and progressing. I was holding them down. And it felt upsetting.

Later on they took out the time limits from the attunement process which allowed me to run it with my friends and progress on our own pace.

IEximius.9204:

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

Afraid? Stressed? Who the kitten EVER FEELS THIS WAY PLAYING AN MMO?

How about learn to adapt to game mechanics and better themselves? “Oh man this is tough let me practice more” “oh man I need to get better gear”

Progression.

This is the age old mentality that will never change gw2 for the better, it will remain casual and stale forever.

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

Death penalties are nothing but a frustration, and i hardly ever die. Then again, ive been playing for 3 years, know the game, know the mechanics, know how to do everything. But you know what? back when i first started i avoided dungeons, i avoided anything that required a group, why? because so many people dont want to let you learn. They would rather kick a new player than allow them to learn the encounters. I See this in dungeons all the time, even the ones that dont have any special requests for people joining groups. its annoying as hell when you get a group, one of them doesnt know the encounter, and then the rest of the group kicks them.

Just because you dont feel that way, doesnt mean people dont. This game is marketed toward the casual player. Hell even back when the game was first announced one of the bigger points they brought up was not punishing players for dying. Why do you think they removed armor repair costs. So yea, i dont think this idea will happen at all, as it goes against what they want.

Dante.1763:

IEximius.9204:

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

Afraid? Stressed? Who the kitten EVER FEELS THIS WAY PLAYING AN MMO?

How about learn to adapt to game mechanics and better themselves? “Oh man this is tough let me practice more” “oh man I need to get better gear”

Progression.

This is the age old mentality that will never change gw2 for the better, it will remain casual and stale forever.

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

Death penalties are nothing but a frustration, and i hardly ever die. Then again, ive been playing for 3 years, know the game, know the mechanics, know how to do everything. But you know what? back when i first started i avoided dungeons, i avoided anything that required a group, why? because so many people dont want to let you learn. They would rather kick a new player than allow them to learn the encounters. I See this in dungeons all the time, even the ones that dont have any special requests for people joining groups. its annoying as hell when you get a group, one of them doesnt know the encounter, and then the rest of the group kicks them.

Just because you dont feel that way, doesnt mean people dont. This game is marketed toward the casual player. Hell even back when the game was first announced one of the bigger points they brought up was not punishing players for dying. Why do you think they removed armor repair costs. So yea, i dont think this idea will happen at all, as it goes against what they want.

they removed armor repair costs, because it was an imbalanced sink, that wasnt working that well to remove money.

as far as elitism, that already exists, and likely will always exist. People dont need DP to kick people, they kick them for any reason already.

heres the thing about not having any penalty, or system that makes you want to avoid death.
Its a huge impediment to teaching people how to play. Most people base their success on passing something, but that means your difficulty only has two levels, success and fail.

many people will say dungeons are easy, even though they wipe multiple times, and take an hour in a path. MAny people used to say grenth is an easy event even though they die 3-4 times in the event. They arent really learning how to play, they are just brute forcing a lot of content. Many people have to fail in order to realize they need to learn more.

phys.7689:

Dante.1763:

IEximius.9204:

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

ehhh, having a reason not to die, is not a bad mechanic.

old players won’t die as it is. New players will be too afraid to try content as they’re not welcome as it is.

Afraid? Stressed? Who the kitten EVER FEELS THIS WAY PLAYING AN MMO?

How about learn to adapt to game mechanics and better themselves? “Oh man this is tough let me practice more” “oh man I need to get better gear”

Progression.

This is the age old mentality that will never change gw2 for the better, it will remain casual and stale forever.

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

Death penalties are nothing but a frustration, and i hardly ever die. Then again, ive been playing for 3 years, know the game, know the mechanics, know how to do everything. But you know what? back when i first started i avoided dungeons, i avoided anything that required a group, why? because so many people dont want to let you learn. They would rather kick a new player than allow them to learn the encounters. I See this in dungeons all the time, even the ones that dont have any special requests for people joining groups. its annoying as hell when you get a group, one of them doesnt know the encounter, and then the rest of the group kicks them.

Just because you dont feel that way, doesnt mean people dont. This game is marketed toward the casual player. Hell even back when the game was first announced one of the bigger points they brought up was not punishing players for dying. Why do you think they removed armor repair costs. So yea, i dont think this idea will happen at all, as it goes against what they want.

they removed armor repair costs, because it was an imbalanced sink, that wasnt working that well to remove money.

Makes little sense to remove a mechanic altogether because it “isnt working well”, if its goal is to remove money.

They said on the notes for the patch that it punished newer players too much.

Difficulty is subjective. The person who plays 8 hours a day fully geared is going to have a different experience than a new player who plays maybe an hour a day.

You also have leveling players playing on the same maps as maxed 80’s. So if you’re a level 20 in blue armor with no traits to speak of you have to be able to hold up in a level 20 area.

My point? not everyone is going to be on equal footing. The people who ask for DP probably seldomly die anyway. This can all be boiled down to the same argument by elites the game isn’t hard enough

SHM.7628:

Difficulty is subjective. The person who plays 8 hours a day fully geared is going to have a different experience than a new player who plays maybe an hour a day.

You also have leveling players playing on the same maps as maxed 80’s. So if you’re a level 20 in blue armor with no traits to speak of you have to be able to hold up in a level 20 area.

My point? not everyone is going to be on equal footing. The people who ask for DP probably seldomly die anyway. This can all be boiled down to the same argument by elites the game isn’t hard enough

A level 20 area should be designed to be challenging enough to level 20 players that they learn how to progress through content without zombiing. If a level 20 area is so hard that people cant beat it without dying repeatedly, then the area design is flawed, and the lack of a death penalty is just hiding that flaw.

How easy would any of the 10000s of old single player games be, if you could always just revive on death.

phys.7689:

How easy would any of the 10000s of old single player games be, if you could always just revive on death.

but you can just reload on death. And unlike in MMO chances are you saved in front of hard parts not having to rerun anywhere. And they also have no death penalty.

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

How easy would any of the 10000s of old single player games be, if you could always just revive on death.

but you can just reload on death. And unlike in MMO chances are you saved in front of hard parts not having to rerun anywhere. And they also have no death penalty.

most old rpgs that allowed saves didnt allow you to save anywhere, they let you save at specific areas/times in serious content.

Most old platformers returned you the start of the level, or a midpoint.

Sports games had no mid match saves.

tactics games, you can save, or start over, but saving would suspend the game at that moment.

Most games really dont let you continue with no costs/loss.

some people did use cheats to do so.

No need for DP. You failed at what you were trying to do and have to try again, that’s enough.

Koronin.6785:

No need for DP. You failed at what you were trying to do and have to try again, that’s enough.

problem is you generally dont have to try again. It becomes one continous try. More difficult content isnt seen as difficult, just tedious, because eventually you will win, unless its so hard that you get full wiped until everyone quits out of frustration.

Then people view said content as broken, because the same brute force methods no longer work.

Even if a test is on advanced calculus, if it was multiple choice, and you have infinite guess, you can get 100 eventually.

thats what basically happens with a system that doesnt in someway check you on your deaths.

phys.7689:

Koronin.6785:

No need for DP. You failed at what you were trying to do and have to try again, that’s enough.

problem is you generally dont have to try again. It becomes one continous try. More difficult content isnt seen as difficult, just tedious, because eventually you will win, unless its so hard that you get full wiped until everyone quits out of frustration.

Then people view said content as broken, because the same brute force methods no longer work.

Even if a test is on advanced calculus, if it was multiple choice, and you have infinite guess, you can get 100 eventually.

thats what basically happens with a system that doesnt in someway check you on your deaths.

the only way it’s a continous try is if you’re doing group content and people ress you. In which case they’re probably not dying because they’re wearing something that’s not zerker. Kind of defeats the purpose of this thread.

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

Koronin.6785:

No need for DP. You failed at what you were trying to do and have to try again, that’s enough.

problem is you generally dont have to try again. It becomes one continous try. More difficult content isnt seen as difficult, just tedious, because eventually you will win, unless its so hard that you get full wiped until everyone quits out of frustration.

Then people view said content as broken, because the same brute force methods no longer work.

Even if a test is on advanced calculus, if it was multiple choice, and you have infinite guess, you can get 100 eventually.

thats what basically happens with a system that doesnt in someway check you on your deaths.

the only way it’s a continous try is if you’re doing group content and people ress you. In which case they’re probably not dying because they’re wearing something that’s not zerker. Kind of defeats the purpose of this thread.

I dont look at this as a zerker issue. Also the reason they are not dying probably has less to do with zerker, and more to do with more experience, or they just dont have agro.
Even when people dont res you, if you can run back and still win, thats basically zombie mechanics (open world)
Also when your group uses kills 1 monster, dies, kills another monster dies, etc.

anyhow its not the end of the world if they dont add any reason not to die repeatedly, but, It limits your ability to encourage skillfull play, if there is no reason not to die repeatedly.

I think it’s a bad idea if the goal is to make people go for build diversity, as zerker users will only party with other zerkers, making things die fast reduces the human error thereby the chances to die. Being a meta build user in PvE for quite some time I can tell you that very often I’ve found that I can survive longer than people geared with full Soldier, Sentinnel, Nomad and similar gear. Zerker makes you pay attention and learn the mechanics of the mobs and bosses, people who like to play as punching bags end up in the floor very often because, even if you heal, block or regenerate, fights last for longer periods of time (more chances to screw up) and there are monsters that will 1-hit you, no matter how much Vit, Tough, HP you have.

May I brighten your post with the Holy Trinity of DPS prayer (credits to FenrirSlakt.3692):

May Power, the Father grant you His Might to rain death in the form of large numbers on top of your enemies.
May Precision, the Son, with His Fury guide your blades into the flimsiest of their armor.
Though fallen, may Ferocity, the Holy Spirit, imbue you and magnify the virtues of both, the Father and the Son, so that your blows may fall heavy on your foes taking on the shape of more hard-hitting crits.
Spared and blessed be the followers of the Assassin that, though slightly bent on their ways, share our vision of smooth and efficient speedruns.
May you never degenerate and fall and be led astray to the misguided ways of the Rampager, or the nefarious path of the Soldier, or the wretched lanes of the Rabid.
May your faith in the Berserker never falter, your Fury never quenched, and your Might always stacked to 25.
For Great Justice!
Amen.

Dante.1763:

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

I am not sure that it is inappropriate for someone who is new to a game to have difficulty finding a group for hardmode play without a guild.

phys.7689:

Mirta.5029:

phys.7689:

How easy would any of the 10000s of old single player games be, if you could always just revive on death.

but you can just reload on death. And unlike in MMO chances are you saved in front of hard parts not having to rerun anywhere. And they also have no death penalty.

most old rpgs that allowed saves didnt allow you to save anywhere, they let you save at specific areas/times in serious content.

Most old platformers returned you the start of the level, or a midpoint.

Sports games had no mid match saves.

tactics games, you can save, or start over, but saving would suspend the game at that moment.

Most games really dont let you continue with no costs/loss.

some people did use cheats to do so.

To continue on his list:
A lot of old games if you died too many times would restart the entire game completely. Yes you have last save-point (if they have them) but if you didn’t save its all over. So imagine if you died in gw2 at lvl 80 and had to start at level one again.. Yea no death penalty in other games? I don’t think so. If anything it was a lot more steep and forced you to get better or take steps to not die.

Not to mention it was stated that new players wouldn’t join elitist groups cause they were scared. Fact is death penalty or not if you die in an elitist group (and you are bad/slowing them down) they kick you. So this wouldn’t change a thing.

Ashen.2907:

Dante.1763:

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

I am not sure that it is inappropriate for someone who is new to a game to have difficulty finding a group for hardmode play without a guild.

Okay, maybe i should have expanded on that part of it some more. No its not inappropriate for a new player to find groups for hardmode play with out a guild(that is rather normal and how it should be, you are new to the game, shouldnt be doing the hardest content right away anyways).

I meant, “New to hardmode, players” Nobody wanted to let players into their groups no matter how experienced they where unless they had experience in hard mode. Sheesh i heard the same thing when i was applying at entry level jobs… “What experience do you have?” Mentality.

Thats what i was trying to get at, and i failed at miserably! Sorry!

Another thing i thought of, i had so many partys fall apart in GW1 because of the DP thing. once it would get to 60%…just no, everyone would leave or suddenly have stuff to do….

Kronos.2560:

To continue on his list:
A lot of old games if you died too many times would restart the entire game completely. Yes you have last save-point (if they have them) but if you didn’t save its all over. So imagine if you died in gw2 at lvl 80 and had to start at level one again.. Yea no death penalty in other games? I don’t think so. If anything it was a lot more steep and forced you to get better or take steps to not die.

Not to mention it was stated that new players wouldn’t join elitist groups cause they were scared. Fact is death penalty or not if you die in an elitist group (and you are bad/slowing them down) they kick you. So this wouldn’t change a thing.

and times have changed. With a reason for it too.

I’m not sure the idea of a death penalty to encourage players to change their build is a good idea. I LIKE the idea of some sort of more strict death penalty just to encourage the player base to TRY and survive but not as a direct attempt to force “build diversity”.

I seriously don’t think the 3 guys next to me at GMII this morning that STOOD in the lightning rather than try to dodge out of it were all Zerkers…..they were just either bad players (that possibly had not learned the BOSS mechanics yet), or were AFK-1er bots (that I think should be DEAD and then KICKED from zone). Zerkers are not the only players that go down.

phys.7689:

SHM.7628:

Difficulty is subjective. The person who plays 8 hours a day fully geared is going to have a different experience than a new player who plays maybe an hour a day.

You also have leveling players playing on the same maps as maxed 80’s. So if you’re a level 20 in blue armor with no traits to speak of you have to be able to hold up in a level 20 area.

My point? not everyone is going to be on equal footing. The people who ask for DP probably seldomly die anyway. This can all be boiled down to the same argument by elites the game isn’t hard enough

A level 20 area should be designed to be challenging enough to level 20 players that they learn how to progress through content without zombiing. If a level 20 area is so hard that people cant beat it without dying repeatedly, then the area design is flawed, and the lack of a death penalty is just hiding that flaw.

How easy would any of the 10000s of old single player games be, if you could always just revive on death.

I think you may have missed the point. The area has to be playable for those low level players in taking into account they may not be geared and their place in the learning curve. By design max level vertean players in the best gear are not going to find the content chalenging on lower levels areas.

Do I think the game is too easy? I say “No”. I think you have a game design that lends itself to veteran players feeling less challenged.

Would DP change? I say “no” because it wouldn’t really effect those players anyway. It would hurt those on the lower end of the learning curve.

Certain players wan the game harder, DP is just a backdoor way to achieve that. If they don’t like the difficulty they can run dungeons, fractals, silver wastes, etc. Perhaps they can even implement a Hard Mode.

DP is a bad idea in open world.

Dante.1763:

Ashen.2907:

Dante.1763:

Almost every single new player to mmos ive ever talked to is afraid to try new content when the game has systems set up to punish them. In GW1, doing dungeon runs on hardmode, it was hard as hell to find a group if you where new to the game. i was glad my guild was willing to help the new players we picked up, as more than one was getting frustrated(and ready to leave) from trying the dungeons.

I am not sure that it is inappropriate for someone who is new to a game to have difficulty finding a group for hardmode play without a guild.

Okay, maybe i should have expanded on that part of it some more. No its not inappropriate for a new player to find groups for hardmode play with out a guild(that is rather normal and how it should be, you are new to the game, shouldnt be doing the hardest content right away anyways).

I meant, “New to hardmode, players” Nobody wanted to let players into their groups no matter how experienced they where unless they had experience in hard mode.

Oh, OK. Reasonable point. I still do believe that this sort of situation is what friends lists and a guild are for. My experience of the DP in GW1 was generally positive, but I can see how it might be bothersome to others.

Ashen.2907:

Oh, OK. Reasonable point. I still do believe that this sort of situation is what friends lists and a guild are for. My experience of the DP in GW1 was generally positive, but I can see how it might be bothersome to others.

Yup! Really all comes down to a players experience, mine wasnt to bad, i hated the DP but i always have hated DPs. But i tried harder than most and bugged the crap out of my guild leader to let me into a group xD