Psuedo Perma-Death Idea

[tazelbain]

So everyone has a Stability Meter which gathers slowly with time.  If you die, you lose Stability.  If you have less than 0 Stability you fall through to next world.  The worlds are set up in a loop, so that players on A fall to B, and B to C, etc. until the last world falls back to A.  Additional there would be a minimum time you'd have to spend in a world before you could fall to the next.  It be timed so that when you fell from a server, it be at least a year until you could get back to it.

So that Nation could actually defeat an enemy Nation, and the defeated Nation could start over on next server.

By tying various mechanics to lose of Stability, you could regulate the flow of the high level game.  Like a territory control system where dying deep in enemy territory loses more Stability than dying in your capital.  Or penalize degenerate tactics like POS Spamming, by tying the destruction of objects to the lose Stability for the owner.

[Samwise]

I kinda like it.  But mightn't the fluctuations in server populations do funny things to the game?

Like, how does it affect the longtime residents of world B when there's a massive war in world A and suddenly there's a rush of forced emigration?

[Wershlak]

I generally like harsher death penalties and this is an interesting mechanic (forced server change) but, I don't think players would appreciate it.

I envision a million posts of "I can't play with my friends cause I died too many times" and "I can't play my character for another week cause I am saving up stability". Probably would lead to loss of "teh fun".

[Ratman_tf]

I've always thought it would be dirt simple to just make a "dead" character non-pvp for a set amount of time. Say, dying in PvP gives you a 24 hour timeout. You can still play PvE and craft and whatnot, but you cannot target enemies or help allies that are PvP active during your downtime.

[DarkSign]

The freaky and weird game Sociolotron has a system where a) the player killing you can decide whether its a perma-death or not (and there are consequences on the chooser if they pick permadeath) and b) you can raise heirs who inherit your possessions and magically come to the age of playability - if you convince a female player to get pregnant.

I thought they used to have a system where you raised the child's over time - like partially levelling him in the background in case you died...but I cant find that mechanic on the website anymore.

Just offering that as food for thought.

[tazelbain]

Samwise:  An established guild would have to adjust but really they would in a good position since their cities and armies would be well developed.  The establish guild would do well to absorb some the talented refugees and make alliances with incoming guilds.  Dynamic nature of the population would slow the game from getting stale.

Wershlak:  This is definitely a niche idea.  People would have to be educated.  But no amount of education is going stop it all.  Like any developer of a non-diku, you have to draw a line in the sand and say "we are not making another WoW, tough"  If you have talent and commitment, players will figure out just like EvE.

Ratman:  That seams to violate the "If I can see it, I can kill it"  rule that got everyone all worked up in the WAR thread.  Plus, it would seem that dead people could farmer with impunity which I am sure some would not like.

[geldonyetich2]

The shameless online rape sim Sociolotron has a system[...]

FIFY

Anywho, I like Tazelbain's idea of cyclical sub-planes being used for a quasi-permadeath.  You could potentially extend this over to any kind of lasting consequence such as (like he says) allowing an empire to conquer a sub-plane.

The main trouble I see with it is that people want to play with their friends and guildmates.  Shoving them off into an alternate dimension if they've been ganked sufficiently, with a minimum amount of time until they manage to get back together again, is going to rub a lot of players the wrong way.

Also, there's no real way to invade another sub-plane without a mass suicide conspiracy.  Seems a tad whacked - I think I'd want to add some kind of mechanic for getting back to where they started that doesn't involve death.

I'm thinking an ideal configuration would be a two-plane system of Mortal Plane and Astral Plane, with the quasi-permadath on the Mortal Plane sending you to the Astral Plane where you earn back your Stability points until being reincarnated (or somesuch) back on the Mortal Plane.

[DarkSign]

So it's not really permadeath...just really extended death with different playability. Not bad actually.

[tazelbain]

>The main trouble I see with it is that people want to play with their friends and guildmates.  Shoving them off into an alternate dimension if they've been ganked sufficiently, with a minimum amount of time until they manage to get back together again, is going to rub a lot of players the wrong way.

Part of the reason of having a system is to punish losing and punish being a dumbass, so what is this guy doing to get himself ganked? Likely being a dumbass.  So where are his "friends" while he's getting ganked repeatedly?  Not very good friends.  A side effect of this system is to get players to be actually be concerned about dying and take extraordinary steps to ensure that happens infrequently as possible.  This includes trying to avoid being ganked.

That said, "playing with friends" is important.  I suppose there could be a "help a friend" mechanic that doesn't violate the spirit of the Perma-Death.  Here is a few potential ones:

- Res spells that reduce Stability Cost of death.
- Guild Stability Meter instead of Individual.
- Stability debt forgiveness with a hefty cost to guild.
- Summon back to Plane Ability with hefty cost to guild.
- Stability Pact to share Stability Meter with other players.

[DarkSign]

It would be fun to have your friend come back as a ghost who had different powers than he had before. Hellafun.

[stu]

It be timed so that when you fell from a server, it be at least a year until you could get back to it.

So that Nation could actually defeat an enemy Nation, and the defeated Nation could start over on next server.

Has sort of a Rip Van Winkle feel to it, which I like.

If player driven innovation is a part of crafting, someone completing the world loop could potentially run into completely new loot not found on the other servers.

[tazelbain]

Woot, "every 3rd post" rule fulfilled.  I can post.

>If player driven innovation is a part of crafting, someone completing the world loop could potentially run into completely new loot not found on the other servers.
I was definately thinking different geography on each server.  Add modest differances in resource availibilty,crafting mechanics, combat mechincs, and npc behaviors, dropping through could really feel like landing on an alien planet.  Doesn't make sense to build a city out of emeralds in this world, but if I fell through to Oz, it does.  I am sure an experienced game designer must cringe at that of having balance this.

[Teleku]

The idea is interesting, but you would pretty much be forced to make this apply only at a guild level.  There is no way it would fly if individuals got permanently zapped to other servers.  A big part of MMO's (and especially PvP MMO's) is to play with your friends.  If I get dropped, it's not like I'm going to go on playing without my friends/guild.  There would be no point.  So for the majority of people it would happen to, it would mean re rolling a character back on the old server all over again to keep playing, or cancling your subscription if you didn't want to do that.  So in other words, its permadeath, and you may a well not even apply the server change rule and just wipe the chars on zero stability.

Now, if you had guild wide stability, and your whole nation/guild/whatever was defeated very badly and all of you where thrown to the next server, that's more manageable, and much more interesting.  Would keep the political landscape of each server changing while keeping guilds/friends intact.

However, the next biggest flaw in this system I see is:  Once somebody dies, what stops them from just going out and killing themselves over and over again until they keep changing servers and are right back to the one they started on, as if nothing changed?  I guess you could put a "cool down" period before you can can be stability killed to a new server, but then people would just use that as an opportunity to pvp/zerg others endlessly without fear of consequence, while the others will suffer from still being under the rule and can't fight back as effectively.

[dbltnk]

This is one of the best approaches to perma-death I've ever read. It would add severe consequences on dieing without completely
throwing players out of the game. Definitely an approach for a more hardcore kind of game or server-type. Let me adjust it to the feedback:

Every player (beyond a certain level) has a stability meter. When it's depleted, that character gets moved to a alternate dimension/server.

It gets depleted by: (list not complete)
1) getting killed by other players (not mobs)
2) loosing guild assets.

You don't lose stability by getting killed from the same player repeatedly. This should prevent:
a) too much griefing.
b) killing allies to move to another dimension/server.

Number 2 prevents throw-away-buildings. Don't build what you can't defend.

You can refill it by (list not complete):
a) Questing.
b) Killing (enemy) players.
c) Doing other stuff that can't be easily macroed.

People in a guild share one stability meter. If a guild of 4 people has a average rating of 8 stability and a new member with 3 stability joins, all 5 players
will now have 7 stability (8x4 + 1x4 / 5)

This should prevent players getting seperated from their friends/guildmates as they all will equally suffer from losses.

If a new player's stability rating is higher than his new guild's, he'll have to actively build up more stability to add to his guilds rating. This should prevent
from adding new alt toons to increase the guild's stability rating.

[tazelbain]

I guess you could put a "cool down" period before you can can be stability killed to a new server, but then people would just use that as an opportunity to pvp/zerg others endlessly without fear of consequence, while the others will suffer from still being under the rule and can't fight back as effectively.

Cool down is very important to the idea, otherwise its a suicide loop.  I always figured that people in Cool down could go into negative stability.  You could put a debuff on people who go deeply negative.

You can refill it by (list not complete):
a) Questing.
b) Killing (enemy) players.
c) Doing other stuff that can't be easily macroed.

Any method that allows players to labor to fill up the meter introduces griefing and grinding.  Players should be putting all their labor into winning wars not grinding stability in case they lose.  Plus it could add an imbalance where dominant players are immortal and everyone else is not.  Also do griefers need yet another reason to gank inexperienced players?

I am still trying to wrap my head around Guild Stability.  Infiltration and Sabotage seems to make it completely unworkable.  More on this later.

EDIT:

Obelisks are buildings that any player can pledge to with the permission of the owner.  Once they do all their stability increases go to the stability pool for that building instead of their personal pool.  Any stability losses still come from the personal pool until it reaches 0 and than it comes from the Obelisk's.  The Obelisk can be damaged but can't be destroyed by damage.  Instead the Obelisk will always attempt to repair itself, draining stability from its pool.  If stability reaches 0 than it is destroyed and all players pledged to the Obelisk fall to the next server. At random intervals players will be allowed to revoke their pledge and get a small refund of stability.

This better than guild stability because it people more control over who they share their their risk with.  Also it tempers the benefits of risk sharing with the additional risk of the Obelisk vunerability to damage.  You become staked so to speak.  Solo players won't have a large pool to drawn upon but they won't be tied to location either.

Also creates a sub-game of choosing and managing things Obelisk capacity, defenses and bonuses.  Of course, the analogy of Obelisk can be replaced to fit your game.