Can we re-assess food and the Death Point duration?

[AmonGwareth]

... 4 full meals (16 items) not 2 full meals (8 items). There is a 5 minute cooldown between items of each type.

Uh... okay... this extra info in no way adds to or further explains what I was saying.

[GalemThawn]

*grins* not everyone is a rating 174 super soloer either.

But yes, your example Does give some insight as to what is wrong with a system when people feel the best way to deal with it, is to perform an automated task to get rid of it.

Putting my rating, soloing, and low DP gain aside:

I do agree that something is wrong when I, or anyone else, resorts to an automated system to deal with death point removal.

I hardly ever use my own system of removal, but the fact that it is even necessary sometimes, or necessary often for others, speaks of something wrong.

[Creme]

hey creme, how about you go and read what i actually wrote, then write a response to -that-
quoting me out of context and ignoring the points of my post (like, say, that my main objection is that no matter what route is chosen, i am left with an unacceptable amount of downtime) does nobody any good and only spurs within me urges to point out a correlation between the level of intellectual honesty present in the argument and the level of intellectual capacity that must therefore exist in the poster.

so go back and read my original post, then we'll talk, mmkay?

mmkay.

Well, i have tried it, and it is "so bad." I am presently sitting on 12 death points that net me a 20% debuff that lasts for 55 minutes. This means that each and every time i die, i am effectively unable to play the game for 55 minutes, and it adds 5 minutes each time.

I've seen you die and it happens frequently in situations where I've seen other players live. I think it's either tactics or gear/buffs that might need some work.

now, that second option doesn't sound so bad. in fact it sounds rather easy, right? On paper, it looks really bloody simple. all i have to do, is sit in a tavern, and eat some food. Just a few problems with that though. Putting aside lore violations, if i choose to eat food, i must eat rather a lot. In fact, i have to eat about three full meals to wipe away one Death Point. This is rather expensive, both in terms of coin and time required.

2 full meals, 10 minutes to remove a single death point.

lets look at the coin first. last time i sat down to wipe out a DP, it cost me about half as much as it would have to buy one unit of ambrosia under the old system. since, eaten in a tavern, one unit of ambrosia got rid of two DPs, this makes the new food as expensive as the old ambrosia (which i never bought, because it was too expensive)

~ 15 silvers to purchase T6 food (2 full meals). Current rate of ambrosia 7 goes as high as 100s/ea, as such, 2 full meals is very cheap in comparison. Ambrosia 7 purchased off the ambrosia vendor was a lot more expensive than 15 silvers.

And lets look at time required. sitting and eating those three full meals took about 15 minutes. to remove a death point. to remove all twelve of my death points would require several hours of doing nothing but eating (at the cost of about one gold.) and at lower numbers of DPs, the penalty will fade even faster, often in less time it takes to fly back out to where i was hunting.

You're exaggerating the death point removal. It's 2 full meals and that removes a bit MORE than a single death point, as the time you're actually enroute to the tavern and eating does eliminate some time off the 28 hour death point.

So, why would i choose to sit out of the game for several times longer than the death penalty puts me out of effective play? Well, the answer is "I wouldn't." I'd sooner log off and do something else while the penalty fades (which is, incidentally, what i am doing as i write this)

Your perogative and the answer would be to allow you to play more efficiently and without death points to cause a longer death penalty/hit to stats.

Now, one may mitigate the coin costs of buying food if one has a high-level confectioner in the guild, which not everyone does. However, this still leaves the time required to actually go pick up the food, detour to a tavern, and eat it.

I think we've established that the cost of food is very reasonable, considering how fast coin can be made. It takes a couple minutes to buy the food and 10 minutes of eating to remove a death point. If you're bound in Bristugo, the time to recall, hit the tavern in Bristugo to buy your food and then eat it is minimal.

however, even if both of those issues were solved, there is still an issue that leaves a air number of players out in the cold: Lore.

yes, we've come to the part of my post which will be certain to make everyone who wasn't kicking and screaming at me over the first bit start doing so now.

I play a Lunus dragon. I chose the Lunus faction for my dragon partially because i prefer the melee class, but mostly because the Lunus philosophy appeals to me. A large part of that philosophy deals with relations towards bipeds. That part pretty much boils down to "keep away from me and i won't eat you"

Now, i play a fairly laid-back lunus in that respect, i have no problem interecting with bipeds. But there are a few places i have to draw the line. One of them is pouring out my coin and time on them for such a basic necessity as food.

Food is not a necessity, it's a choice you make. Yes, it does involve your playstyle, as well as whether or not you have friends that will come out and either throw a primal rebirth on you (as you don't want to rely on bipeds) or ask for a healer to come out and super rez you. Or you can play in a manner which does not invite death point accumulation at a high rate.

Even if there were one in my guild giving food away at my level, i would not take it. Why? well, one, for the time waste it would be to eat it. but also because i don't like begging.

I'm sorry if you feel that 10 minutes is an unreasonable period to eliminate a death point. That is something that no one but you can change.

I would find it mildly humiliating to have to beg for food off of other dragons (this is, in fact, part of why my hoard is so low, i can't bring myself to take/ask for handouts). As such, I would find it thoroughly humiliating and degrading to have to take handouts from a -biped- for something as basic as -food-

I know for a fact that an offer was made to you for food in exchange for assistance in gathering some of the necessary resources. I don't see that as humiliating or degrading, but apparently you did.

So, when it's faster, cheaper, and less painful from a lore perspective to simply log out and come back after the Death Penalty is faded, why should i do otherwise?

Your perogative, again.

And now we come to the problem of the Death Penalty system itself. Any system that forces a player to sit out of the game or play below their character level is a broken system. When I play a game, i expect to be able to play that game for exactly as long as i feel like playing it. when i exit the game, it should be at my discretion, not because a "game-play" element has rendered the game unplayable for a chunk of time.

The system is not forcing a player to do this, or to play below their character level. And if you feel that you want to play a game per your expectation, which seems to be log out and when next you log in, your death point/penalty is gone, then that onus is on you to find a game that meets your expectations.

One could easily argue that it's not the game-play element that has rendered the game unplayable, but the play-style.

The old death point system was perfect. By the time the death penalty built up from a minor inconvenience to a serious inhibition, i'd usually had my fill for the day, and could come back the next day with a clean slate. The DP fade timers either need to be reduced to allow for this to be possible again, or the whole system needs to be scrapped and something new thought up.

This was very convenient for your play-style.

I, for one, rather like the way Vanguard handles death. When you die, you loose 10% of the experience required to reach the next level. You can return to the place of death and loot your tombstone to recover most of it (ends up with about a 3% loss) as well as any gear that you dropped. If you wound up with less experience than you had for the level, it simply marked you into the negative on experience, and allowed you to keep your level.
In this manner, it allowed a player to continue playing when confronted with a death, but at the same time strongly discouraged throwing yourself at a mob over and over ad nauseum.

Again, that model in this game would not work simply because the majority of the playerbase is level capped. Diminishing experience would have no impact on these players.

Something similar would be nice to see here, but given how huge a change it would be to get it to work, i doubt it'll ever happen. so let's just stick with fixing the DP fade timer hokay?

For you, I wish they would give you a nonkillable character

[Creme]

Putting my rating, soloing, and low DP gain aside:

I do agree that something is wrong when I, or anyone else, resorts to an automated system to deal with death point removal.

I hardly ever use my own system of removal, but the fact that it is even necessary sometimes, or necessary often for others, speaks of something wrong.

Odd, in the old days, I'd frequently see food eating macros running in New Rachivel.

I believe there's even a post by Vandellia made years ago on the delays to stick in between foods so that food didn't skip.

Death point removal NOW is more efficient than death point removal in the past, if players didn't eat ambrosia but relied on food.

Ambrosia was a crutch that players got used to...an instant easy button to get rid of 2 DPs in a tavern, a single DP in the field, but an expensive one, and it became easier to go the ambrosia route.

[Tcei]

I have to agree with alot that Shur has said, even tho I'm not at max level getting more than 2 or 3 dps will keep my out of the game for a couple of days. Food really doesnt seem effective enough to be worth the coin much less the time from what I understand. I wish I could make close to what you high levels can pull down in terms of coin and horde in an hour...
Im by no means a careless hunter, at 50 I dont go out to EDL and attempt to hunt mass swarms of blights out there. Thou from the way some people talk, that is clearly what Im dooing if I have even one death point.
I hunt things that are generaly withing 5-7 lvls of me. I'll occasionaly take on a single something 10 lvls above me if all my abilities are refreshed and I've got all my buffs up. I watch my health very closely, If I drop down below a certain point and my enemy still has signifigantly more than me I get away. 99% of the time when I do this I dont get a dp. But still there's the occasion where there's lag, or the mob hits me with a series of stuns just as Im trying to escape, adds, ect that kill me.
There was a period of about 2 weeks where I kept a minimum of 8dps, simply because on the first day I had some rotten luck and more time than usual, and the following days I died only 2 or 3 times each which was just enough to keep it up at around 8.

Now of course I could just sit in a tavern for a long while and assuming I had enough coin buy enough food to kill all my dps. But unfortunately I dont have alot of coin to start with, and on average I only have 2 hours or so to play. I really dont see any point on sitting in a tavern doing nothing with a good chunk of my limited time to get the dps off when its about as effective for me to not even long in at all for a couple of days.
I could craft but I find it endlessly boring, and I have to be in the right mind for it to begin with if Im going to stick with it for several days which is very rare for me now.
Furthermore shouldnt a game be encouraging its players to stay in and play? Rather than set up a hotkey to do something for them while they're away for extended periods?

[gopher65]

Uh... okay... this extra info in no way adds to or further explains what I was saying.

Yes it does. You can't eat meal A, eat meal B, and then eat meal A again. There is a 20 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you were saying is that there is a 10 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you MEANT to say was "You eat meal A (app, side, main, des), then meal B(app, side, main, des), then meal C, then meal D, then you are ready to eat meal A again".

This means that you need to have 16 different foodstuffs in your inventory at any given time. Just over half my inventory is currently taken up by food.

[Creme]

I hunt things that are generaly withing 5-7 lvls of me. I'll occasionaly take on a single something 10 lvls above me if all my abilities are refreshed and I've got all my buffs up.

I think herein lies part of the problem.

In most other MMOs, trying to take on a mob that high above you will result in death, or cannot be done.

MMOs these days are very well balanced as to the range of mobs one can fight successfully.

Here players have the expectation that they should be able to kill mobs well above their levels, and if they die, then it's the death point timer that's the issue.

I don't see this as being correct or right.

[Creme]

Yes it does. You can't eat meal A, eat meal B, and then eat meal A again. There is a 20 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you were saying is that there is a 10 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you MEANT to say was "You eat meal A (app, side, main, des), then meal B(app, side, main, des), then meal C, then meal D, then you are ready to eat meal A again".

This means that you need to have 16 different foodstuffs in your inventory at any given time. Just over half my inventory is currently taken up by food.

Food should have less bulk, resource requirements should be lowered and/or yields should be increased if food is too expensive.

I do feel that rare meals should increase death point removal, IF the bonus rates are not drastically increased, otherwise there's no point to making/selling rare foods.

[Deth]

Tcei you should not be mass pulling blights for coin and hoard. Try beetles or wolves for your level, Beetles might be best as they are easy to solo pull and not very social. I have heard, I have not tested it out on lower levels my self, that all beetles and wolves are very good hoard and formula droppers. Between the hoard and trophies I am doing very well. You might also be able to trade in the trophies for xp and coin to the trophy guys at the cities or sale them to bipeds who are leveling alts. maybe.

[Tcei]

I dont mass pull anything, period. I cant. I die in a matter of seconds if I do, unless its like 20 lvls below me. I solo pull everything thats my levle or higher to point. I might take on two things that are a few levles below me if I get an unlucky pull but generaly I'll run if I do. Also I dont mass pull blight ever, rarely even hunt them at all infact.. That was just an example of what people seem to think whenever I die.

[Amarie Ancalimon]

Same topic, different week... merged threads...

[Silverblaze]

I shall pick my words very carefully so as not to be percieved as flaming etc.

Lore is very interesting I love it., but if you allow it to effect your playstyle on a non RP server, that is ultimately you choice no?

I have opted not to report your posts that alude to fornicating under the consent of the king, with my mum. saying it with ****'s or otehr such offensive comments. (calling someone illiterate for example). I'm not easily offended but you crossed a line in my mind. I doubt I'll warn folks in the future, people should know better.

Saying things like this while it shouldnt devalue your issue/complaint...it does. People who swear or yell or snipe at each otehr are often not taken seriously if for no otehr reason than spite. I sincerely hope people who read your first post could see past the tone (not to mention violations of forum rules) [no I'm not a mod but I have seen posts get removed etc for that], I could, but as some friendly advice, best to avoid such behavior no?

as for the penalty of death, time and again I'll say this. I only die if I bite off more than I can chew, rare indeed unless I dont care about the penalty. "They say too much pride can kill a man." (anyone know what movie I saw that on?) If you wont buy from naka or trade, I'm horribly sorry, but again, thats your choice.

As for the lunus outlook, I think you have a narrow view of it. The lunus know they cant beat/eat all the bipeds, they'd lose. There are plenty of Lunus who have/had respect for the two legged critters they share the world with. If you have such an extremist view on it...again...your choice. I hate to make examples, but if you need to justify...think slavery, barter for service, etc.

Any dragons who think they shouldnt have to do these thigns are expecting a lot from the dev staff. There is already a large debate on dragons, their school (craft and adv), abilities, etc. One more thing on the plate ( dragon chow) seems... rather...um, needy? maybe thats a bad word for it. Deserving? I dunno, maybe its just me. I personbally dont want another school, or to be forced to make my own food as a dragon. I have a saris to feed me. (yes, I know not everyone does) Barter is a wonderful thing however, gather a bunch of the resources and they make at reduced cost.

If you can't lower yourself to do that...your choice.

Death should serve a a penalty in games. I wont lie and say as it stands it seems a tad stirct. However...I wouldnt say it encourges people to not play.

I agree it takes some skill not to die at t6, rating really has nothing to do with it, with rampant PLing now. ( I am accusing no one at all in particular of such behavior btw). Tactics can be hard to get straight.

I beleive the percieved slights, nose upturrning, and whatnot may be, something you are looking to hard into.

Then again, this is just one man's opinion. I'll pass on being illiterate or any of your crude suggestions however.



EDIT: I called it.

[velveeta]

Yes it does. You can't eat meal A, eat meal B, and then eat meal A again. There is a 20 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you were saying is that there is a 10 minute timer between meals of the same type. What you MEANT to say was "You eat meal A (app, side, main, des), then meal B(app, side, main, des), then meal C, then meal D, then you are ready to eat meal A again".

This means that you need to have 16 different foodstuffs in your inventory at any given time. Just over half my inventory is currently taken up by food.

hmmm last week i sat in my own tav and ate 3 meals with the same components except desserts (by that i mean, i ate: meal 1 app) salty pretzels; meal 2 app) some form of granny's soup, i believe; meal 3 app) salty pretzels again - the same with sides and mains)......only had 2 each of the apps, mains, and sides and was able to eat 3 meals for dp removal test.....

[velveeta]

One more thing on the plate ( dragon chow) seems... rather...um, needy? maybe thats a bad word for it. Deserving?

to qoute destroyo - not needy, wanty. wanty is much worse than needy.....

[Shur]

I've seen you die and it happens frequently in situations where I've seen other players live. I think it's either tactics or gear/buffs that might need some work.

good for Other Players. I am not Other Players. the people who have posted in agreement with me are not Other Players. I am me and the rate at which i get deaths is in no small manner related to that. I am not as skilled as Other Players, i do not have access to some of the gear that Other Players get, i have noticed that i tend to gain more aggro than Other Players (don't know why, but it's true, ask anyone who's hunted with me). All of these things combined add up to me getting more deaths than Other Players.

2 full meals, 10 minutes to remove a single death point.

which is twice as long as a single penalty lasts, or would be if that's how long it took. in my experience it seems to take closer to fifteen. I don't play games so that i can be made to sit in a tavern and eat. if i wanted to do that i would go to a bar.

~ 15 silvers to purchase T6 food (2 full meals). Current rate of ambrosia 7 goes as high as 100s/ea, as such, 2 full meals is very cheap in comparison. Ambrosia 7 purchased off the ambrosia vendor was a lot more expensive than 15 silvers.

ok, fine, i'll concede that point. Coin cost of removing a death point by eating food. but that is not the main focus of my OP

You're exaggerating the death point removal.

no, not really, my statement that it takes 15 minutes to remove a death point is based on that it actually takes me fifteen minutes (going to a tavern, buying the food, eating the food, fighting with item-use glitches, eating more food) to remove a single point.

It's 2 full meals and that removes a bit MORE than a single death point, as the time you're actually enroute to the tavern and eating does eliminate some time off the 28 hour death point.

ooh, wow, because, you know, the three minutes that it takes to get from my lair where i am bound to the bristugo tavern really does take quite a chunk out of 28 hours.....

Your perogative and the answer would be to allow you to play more efficiently and without death points to cause a longer death penalty/hit to stats.

see, the thing is, i don't care how long it is, any amount of time that i am required to sit out of the game because of how i play it is too long. combine that with coin cost (which is negligible so long as prices are kept low) and my distaste for how i have to get the food and you're right i'll choose to wait out the penalty.

I think we've established that the cost of food is very reasonable, considering how fast coin can be made. It takes a couple minutes to buy the food and 10 minutes of eating to remove a death point. If you're bound in Bristugo, the time to recall, hit the tavern in Bristugo to buy your food and then eat it is minimal.

no, not minimal, just shortest possible given the current setup. minimal would be less than five minutes per DP removed.

Food is not a necessity, it's a choice you make.

unfortunately it is a choice that, either way, reduces the playability of the game.

I know for a fact that an offer was made to you for food in exchange for assistance in gathering some of the necessary resources.

ah, so i should spend -more- time in time-out then?

The system is not forcing a player to do this, or to play below their character level. And if you feel that you want to play a game per your expectation, which seems to be log out and when next you log in, your death point/penalty is gone, then that onus is on you to find a game that meets your expectations.

SURE! that's a GREAT idea! because, you know, there are MILLIONS of games like this one that have much better ways of handling deaths! Why didn't i think of that before! let me go pop on over to one right now!

One could easily argue that it's not the game-play element that has rendered the game unplayable, but the play-style.

one could also easily argue that if a game forces it's players to all follow one particular play style there is a problem.

This was very convenient for your play-style.

and the play style of a fair number of other players. some of whom have even taken the trouble to post here, but most of whom have simply given up and left.

Again, that model in this game would not work simply because the majority of the playerbase is level capped. Diminishing experience would have no impact on these players.

welcome to the idea of Endgame Content, something else this game needs, but that's a separate issue.

For you, I wish they would give you a nonkillable character

well that would be boring wouldn't it? i don't have a problem with being killed, it tells me i need to pay more attention. i do, however, have a problem with being sent to time out for it.

[Shur]

to qoute destroyo - not needy, wanty. wanty is much worse than needy.....

yes, it is definitely needy/wanty to desire the ability to play the game effectively.

mmhmm, definitely.

[velveeta]

see, the thing is, i don't care how long it is, any amount of time that i am required to sit out of the game because of how i play it is too long. combine that with coin cost (which is negligible so long as prices are kept low) and my distaste for how i have to get the food and you're **** right i'll choose to wait out the penalty.

okay here is where i have the prob, then - why should the game be changed because of the way YOU (the group you, not you in particular, shur) choose to play? the game is what it is. if you choose to play in a way that is not efficient or effective, why does the game need changing? shouldn't you change the way you play?
we seem to be at an impasse on this topic, shur. if the game changes for you, then it will have to change for me when something i don't like happens. i am fine with the food/dp situation. if they change it to something you like, can i put up a fuss like you are doing?

[Silverblaze]

talking ill of this game and not giving any praise ever ( not that I've read, I could be wrong) is poor also. I dont mind it occasionally, I think criticsim ( though I prefer constructive) is a necessary part of improvement. however, you keep talking about how you cant figure out why you cant put hte game down...and "why dont I go play a game who handles death better?" ( not a direct quote I know...I paraphrased. I can only say I think we need all the players we can get, but if you are truly unhappy no one can make you stay, nor should they.

I do think there may be bter way to handle deathpoints... an exp penalty isnt one of them...exp is a cake walk. They'd have to make folks lose a level for it to be meaningful.

Fact is...and I'm gonna get flak for this...the game isnt hard. Folks don't like it when it gets harder. currently talking with folks in market as to where one can find a challenge atm.

[Creme]

good for Other Players. I am not Other Players. the people who have posted in agreement with me are not Other Players. I am me and the rate at which i get deaths is in no small manner related to that. I am not as skilled as Other Players, i do not have access to some of the gear that Other Players get, i have noticed that i tend to gain more aggro than Other Players (don't know why, but it's true, ask anyone who's hunted with me). All of these things combined add up to me getting more deaths than Other Players.

Again, I have offered you help with tactics, gear configuration.

The help you are offered you are not interested in, you are determined to keep pushing for death point timer reduction instead of working on the reason for so many death points, which would enable you to spend your time in game more efficiently.

I will agree with Ig above, this game is not that hard, and there are many games out there that are a lot harder, where you cannot kill mobs above your level, or kill multiple mobs at the same time.

As far as death penalties, AoC has multiple gravestones, each time you die you get another gravestone and a reduction in stats for each gravestone.

As you die and gain multiple gravestones, it becomes increasingly difficult to recover your corpse(s).

Your death penalty DOES NOT fade until you recover each gravestone and as such, your stats are diminished until you do manage to recover each one.

[Shur]

I will agree with Ig above, this game is not that hard, and there are many games out there that are a lot harder, where you cannot kill mobs above your level, or kill multiple mobs at the same time.

and i will state, again, that death is part of any game, including this one, and that the response to a broken system is not to alter your playstyle to avoid the system.

As far as death penalties, AoC has multiple gravestones, each time you die you get another gravestone and a reduction in stats for each gravestone.

As you die and gain multiple gravestones, it becomes increasingly difficult to recover your corpse(s).

Your death penalty DOES NOT fade until you recover each gravestone and as such, your stats are diminished until you do manage to recover each one.

Do you see me playing AoC (whatever that is)? nope. i don't care about how other games handle their deaths, because i am not playing other games. i am playing this game, how this game handles deaths is what i care about.