Death in D4, please don't make it annoying

[Shadout-2849]

@Firyadan-2852

Joke apart, it’s not that important that the penalty applies now or after. It’s the grinding that’s discouraging.

Fair enough. The amount of grind can be exactly the same no matter if the cost is paid nor or after.

@Firyadan-2852

Of course that means levels have to be long to get in endgame, at least as long as getting from 39 to 40. Nothing like D3 paragons.

Yeah. Which Blizzard wont do

@Firyadan-2852

Another thing on which I agree with you : there can be more than one penalty for dying.

Yeah. I’d be fine with having somewhat smaller penalties of 5 different types, than just one big one (and in my own survival bonus, it would be both MF, GF and XP, so 3 different costs).
And having some unique death penalties in some areas could be cool.
I still think there should be some general penalties applying everywhere. But I think it was in this thread, might have been another, where I wrote about special key dungeon death penalties. Like one dungeon might have 3 prisoners you need to rescue for some additional rewards. Each time you die, you ‘wasted time’, and one of the prisoners were executed, reducing your rewards.

@Firyadan-2852

It wouldn’t because the game would need to be balanced to the max survival bonus, since players would benefit from it most of the time.

Well, depending on your build, hopefully you would not be benefitting most of the time. Survival-focused builds would benefit most of the time (the kind of build you might use on HC), but then the cost you paid is the cost of using a survival build; losing offensive power (and thus indirectly less MF).
Glass cannons should benefit some of the time, but if you went for a full-blown glass cannon build, you kinda should die from time to time, even if you are really skilled. Otherwise the game would seem too easy, unable to punish people for neglecting defensive stats and skills. Not to mention, most people would not be extremely skilled either, so they wouldnt have the buff most of the time in any case.

That said, as mentioned in previously in the thread, the buff should probably scale in a way where you build the buff fast early on, and then it slows down. That is how Sacred 2 did it (and my preferred death penalty is more or less to copy that - except it was based on time in combat, rather than XP, which lead to people AFK farming it… hence the primary thing that should be changed)
Like; it takes 1 hour to get 25% of the buff, 4 hours to get the next 25%, 8 hours to get the next 25%, and 12 hours to get the last 25%. Or whatever. (still XP based, so those times would be approximates of course)
That way, sure, you would of course design the game around assuming people had 25-50% of the buff at all times, while the last 50% would be the real bonus for staying alive for long periods of time.
However, then it supposedly also wouldn’t really feel bad to be at 0% MF, even if the game was balanced around being at 25-50%, since you would not be 0% MF for very long after all. Unless you keep dying all the time. But honestly, if you keep dying all the time, then my proposed death penalty is a lot more forgiving (on purpose) than taking away earned XP and gold, since that would prevent you from ever lvling. Whereas my penalty just makes you lvl a bit slower (and find less gear and gold of course, but if you are not max lvl, being incapable of lvling seems harsher than any MF penalty could ever be).

[OShogun-1317]

@BarbarianFTW-1672

The walk back without any gear on, or with back up gear on, is the problem. That was my major issue with D2.

You could just leave the game and enter again, that would spawn your corpse in town. If you remembered to put your gold in the stash, you would never need to run back to your corpse, ever.

@BarbarianFTW-1672

Remember Vanilla WoW before level 40? The graveyards were really far away, some of them were so far away it was more beneficial to take the 10 min debuff (aka afk time) and hearthstone. Maybe do stuff in town, maybe hop on a flight path (more afk time), etc.

In FF14 you just get sent back to your hearthstone. You don’t need to run to your corpse. That was a dumb mechanic in WoW, especially in PvP servers where you could get camped by some griefer and it would be better to respawn somewhere else anyway. I’m not asking for anything that extreme. Not even how it was in D2. Just… respawn in town instead of respawning where you died. No need to get your corpse or anything. Just… respawn in town. Remember, waypoints exist. You wouldn’t need to run back all the way from town, just WP back to whatever zone you were at.

[anon88344807]

Anyone else feeling fine with death being “nothing specific” (just repair cost which hope gets costly enough) in the open world but more costly in dungeons (i.e. portion of killed minions come back or something like that)… And maybe after X deaths (could be 3 could be 5, depends on the dungeon) the whole dungeon resets…

[Shadout-2849]

I really hope repair costs do not exist in any form. Talk about a bad mechanism

[Firyadan-2852]

@Shadout-2849

Well, depending on your build, hopefully you would not be benefitting most of the time. Survival-focused builds would benefit most of the time (the kind of build you might use on HC), but then the cost you paid is the cost of using a survival build; losing offensive power (and thus indirectly less MF).
Glass cannons should benefit some of the time, but if you went for a full-blown glass cannon build, you kinda should die from time to time, even if you are really skilled.

Mmh… That’s an interesting way of considering the problem. But I’m concerned it would either make death a normal part of the experience, since glass canon would be doomed to die regularly (and thus banned from HC) or entice players to play tank only. Though it depends on what you mean by “survival-focused” builds : from what I get, almost all D3 builds are.
Also, you could still play glass canon in easier level dungeons, so you would benefit the bonus and avoid death altogether… may be hard to balance loot with that.
And still, skilled players won’t die with glass canon, so the problem of balancing the survival bonus at max will still be a thing.

@Shadout-2849

Like; it takes 1 hour to get 25% of the buff, 4 hours to get the next 25%, 8 hours to get the next 25%, and 12 hours to get the last 25%.

Wowowow… are you saying 25 hours to get to max ? So 25 hours to wipe off the consequence of just one death ? That’s way over the top imo ! You can cut that by ten, and even that would feel too much.
I mean, that’s really not the kind of dynamic I had in mind. I’m more inclined to entice the player to try difficult content and risk death instead of playing safe all the time.

@Shadout-2849

But honestly, if you keep dying all the time, then my proposed death penalty is a lot more forgiving (on purpose) than taking away earned XP and gold, since that would prevent you from ever lvling.

Yet you would still find as much loot, so you will progress faster in another area to the point you will stop dying. XP or MF, it’s just a matter of shifting the source of power.

[anon88344807]

I kinda really like it cause it adds the ability to create different difficulties without overstacking stuff

For example:

Easy: Repair cost: 50%, Magic find: 75%
Normal: Repair cost: 100%, MF: 100%
Nightmare: RC: 150%, MF: 125%
Hell: RC: 250%, MF: 150%

Like, sure, there can be some extra adjustments for mobs (for ex. NM: 125% damage, H: 200% damage), but don’t have to go “berserk” all over the place with weird scaling and whatnot…

Think it’s a nice way to make things harder “along the way” but with some potential extra bonus that may or may not pay off tbh

[Shadout-2849]

@Firyadan-2852

since glass canon would be doomed to die regularly (and thus banned from HC)

Arent they already banned from HC?
You kinda need to go somewhat defensive for HC. I mean, D3 is a bit special, since it has the silly cheat death, which goes a long way to be defensive, with a single passive point. Bit that is also not exactly normal.
Plus all the sets have build-in defense for free, while also being optimal for dmg. But again, speaks only to the disaster that is D3, than any normal sense of having to balance offense and defense. Other A-RPGs HC come with more clear tradeoffs between the two.

@Firyadan-2852

Also, you could still play glass canon in easier level dungeons, so you would benefit the bonus and avoid death altogether… may be hard to balance loot with that.

Well, that is part of the point behind the bonus coming from XP gained. If you play at lower difficulty, you also get less XP, and thus the survival bonus builds slower. While safer, you are paying a double cost here; slower survival bonus gain, and in all that time, you also get less loot, less xp etc. It is a balance issue of course, but it should be possible to address. Beside, that is also something they need to address for HC anyway.

@Firyadan-2852

And still, skilled players won’t die with glass canon, so the problem of balancing the survival bonus at max will still be a thing.

I dont really buy that. As much as I want Diablo 4 to get away from the one-shot combat of D3, it doesn’t necessarily mean things should be much less deadly, just less spiky. And people in SC surely die sometimes. Actually, really often. Even if they are skilled.
If you dont ever die as a glass cannon, due to being skilled, maybe the game is too easy. Or it is too easy to get defensive stats without sacrificing offense.

@Firyadan-2852

Wowowow… are you saying 25 hours to get to max ? So 25 hours to wipe off the consequence of just one death ?

Not really. That is assuming you died after having maxed it in the first place. But also, since you build the buff up over time, I think it is quite wrong to see it as maxed vs. not maxed. Having 75% of the buff is still 75%. Not nothing.

In Sacred 2, it took a crazy amount of time to max the bonus, unless you exploited. Maxing it was hardly the goal on its own. I certainly never got it above 99%, nor 97% for that matter
Supposedly this is the time you needed to stay in combat (so subtract all running etc.) to get the bonus:

• 25% - 2h
• 50% - 6h
• 75% - 18h
• 90% - 54h
• 95% - 114h
• 98% - 294h
• 99% - 594h

I dont think D4 should be as extreme, although it is tempting. Not to make it grindy, but just to hammer into the heads of people that it is okay not be at max survival bonus (one would have thought endless paragon might have done that, but apparently not).
But 25 hours to max seems fine. Again, not something most SC players would probably manage to do, because the cost in going defensive+playing flawless, might very well cost too much offense to be even worth it. But that is not a flaw, that is the entire goal. By making it build slowly, it does not feel like something you should go out and max. It just comes along the way.

@Firyadan-2852

I’m more inclined to entice the player to try difficult content and risk death instead of playing safe all the time.

Well. I very much want both. I mean, you should always be enticed to play difficult content, but again, that is easily fixed by low difficulty content giving low XP and thus nearly no survival bonus.
But I want both in the sense that it should both be rewarding to play builds that are risky, as in glass cannons, and tanky builds => more build diversity.

@Firyadan-2852

Yet you would still find as much loot, so you will progress faster in another area to the point you will stop dying.

If you are unable to lvl, I assume you would keep finding lower lvl gear, so finding more low lvl gear might not get you far

@anon88344807

Easy: Repair cost: 50%, Magic find: 75%
Normal: Repair cost: 100%, MF: 100%
Nightmare: RC: 150%, MF: 125%
Hell: RC: 250%, MF: 150%

Ae you considering repair cost to be something mostly inflicted through death? or merely from getting hit?
If it is from deaths, then taking more gold on death on higher difficculty seems to serve the same job as a repair cost, without the annoyance of having to repair your gear.

Also, yeah, still not a fan of the scenario where people might have to go down to a lower difficulty, maybe digging through their stash for replacement gear, because they dont have the gold to repair their current gear. As much as I am in favor of penalizing players in general, that does not seem fun.

Now, if you did some middle-of-road approach, where gear is not unusable at 0 durability, but rather all its affixes are reduced by 10-20% or so, that could be another matter. Then people could presumably keep playing, even if they were broke. That way, you could also make the repair cost a lot higher (helping to make gold more valuable).
It would be more akin to the cost of haivng to use potions in WoW etc. Still not a big fan, but better imo.

[Firyadan-2852]

@Shadout-2849

people in SC surely die sometimes. Actually, really often. Even if they are skilled.

Certainly, but seeing how fast players can get to GR150, or lvl99, in HC every season, I don’t have any doubt they would survive in D4.

@Shadout-2849

But also, since you build the buff up over time, I think it is quite wrong to see it as maxed vs. not maxed.

I really don’t see how it’s possible to see it otherwise. ^^ Even so, 75% is 13 hours of game lost because of a miscalculation, error or just a lag…
I’ve never played Sacred 2, so I can’t say if that worked in this game. If you say so, I believe you, but it’s just not the kind of dynamic I want in D4. To me, that just looks like a paragon system where you loose all progress when you die…

@Shadout-2849

If you are unable to lvl, I assume you would keep finding lower lvl gear, so finding more low lvl gear might not get you far

That’s assuming all gear of the same level has equal quality and utility for one’s build, which of course is impossible.
But anyway, if someone gets stuck during the campain, there would be a very, very big difficulty problem ! ^^

[Shadout-2849]

@Firyadan-2852

I really don’t see how it’s possible to see it otherwise. ^^ Even so, 75% is 13 hours of game lost because of a miscalculation, error or just a lag…

To be fair, in my original posts on this in the tread, the concept was that you would lose 25% of the buff each time you died (so at max buff it would take 4 deaths to zero it). But otherwise, yeah. In sacred 2 you lost everything.
But no I really dont get the binary view on max vs. not-maxed. In D2 we did not consider lvl 99 the only thing that mattered either. You were quite fine being at lvl 90 too, etc.

I sadly cant fix lag, since we probably wont get an offline version of D4… But I am quite fine with having substantial costs of a single series of errors. Since D4 should move away from oneshotting, a single error kinda should not kill you, unless you go extreme glass cannon. But a few bad decisions in a tough fight might doom you for sure.
Though again, losing some of that MF, even if it takes 10 hours to get it all back, does not seem like a devastating thing to me. You would just keep going, with a little less drops, gold and XP, for some hours. And if you keep dying every hour on average… well, then you are not taking deaths serious enough. Either by getting more defensive stats/skills, or by playing better.

@Firyadan-2852

But anyway, if someone gets stuck during the campain, there would be a very, very big difficulty problem ! ^^

Yes. But lvling and campaign is not the same either. If you kept dying at lvl 75 (and 99 is max) for example, after having finished the campaign, you might forever be stuck at lvl 75, and only finding gear from ~75 enemies.

Btw, a description of the survival bonus in Sacred 2. A quite flawed, but good A-RPG imo, a top 5 A-RPG I would say. With the survival bonus being one of its nicer features imo.
http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Survival_Bonus

Survival Bonus is applied to the character in many ways but most notably it increases attributes and the Chance to Find Valuables.
This means that higher Survival Bonus = better base stats = better results from many modifiers. Even without modifiers, a character will still see some great changes such as improved damage from weapons and spells, more health, faster health regeneration, more attack, defense, spell intensity and resistance, lower Buff penalties and faster Combat Art regeneration.
Survival Bonus increases the levels of encountered enemies. When Survival Bonus is 0%, enemy levels are equal to the character level (and further capped by the area limits). As the SB percentage increases, the enemy levels increase as well.

The main thing really was the enemy lvl, more so than the MF and stat increases. Since higher lvl enemies meant higher lvl gear drops (gear drops scaled completely with lvls, speaking of flaws). But higher lvl enemies of course also meant way more dangerous enemies. So a pretty nice risk/reward balance imo. Although the reward was generally better than the risk. It was meant to be a reward after all.

[Firyadan-2852]

@Shadout-2849

Since D4 should move away from oneshotting, a single error kinda should not kill you, unless you go extreme glass cannon. But a few bad decisions in a tough fight might doom you for sure.

I certainly agree with you, though I still want combats that end up quickly once the outcome is clear. I really hated the D3V feeling of knowing I’m doomed and waiting to die.
The main issue with current RoS is the overpower of CC and those huge, yet necessary, defensive bonuses from Legendaries. They make dangerous enemies not very dangerous, but forget to activate your 8 second cycle and it’s instant-shot.
If D4 rids us from this nonsense then I can definitely agree on a pace between 13-14mn GR in RoS and D3’s Inferno at release.

So SB in Sacred 2 also increased your stats and the game’s difficulty… I like it even less ^^ but I understand how it can feel exciting, like HC in a way (one mistake and loose it all).

@Shadout-2849

If you kept dying at lvl 75 (and 99 is max) for example, after having finished the campaign, you might forever be stuck at lvl 75, and only finding gear from ~75 enemies.

Well, in D2 you just did that, farmed lower levels and eventually get items with better and better stats. Never been stuck in this game, but I’ve been at lvl 92-93 in PoE. Which is perfectly normal imo, I’m not a very skilled player. ^^

[Shadout-2849]

@Firyadan-2852

knowing I’m doomed and waiting to die

Death should never be certain.
But sometimes having 10-20 sec of near-death where you are frantically fighting with low health, not knowing if you will survive or not. That is what I am hoping for.

@Firyadan-2852

The main issue with current RoS is the overpower of CC and those huge, yet necessary, defensive bonuses from Legendaries.

Yeah.

@Firyadan-2852

So SB in Sacred 2 also increased your stats and the game’s difficulty… I like it even less ^^ but I understand how it can feel exciting, like HC in a way (one mistake and loose it all).

It went too far in Sacred 2. SC somewhat felt like HC, unless you exploited your survival bonus back after a death (although it also took a fairly long time to reach max lvl, more than Diablo 2s lvl 99 at least). But regardless of the balance issues, I really liked the direction of it.
The stat bonuses were quite irrelevant in Sacred 2 imo, but I wouldn’t want to see that from a survival bonus in any case. It should only offer stuff like MF, GF, XP, no power.
One other change I would make in a Diablo 4 version; it should be possible to reset the SB at an NPC, so if you didn’t want the extra challenge, you could get rid of the buff, without having to die. Mostly relevant on HC of course

[BarbarianFTW-1672]

I got that in Grim Dawn playing different class combos. Some would do well in melee and suffer vs range and magic. Others will do fine with either of those, but would get pwned by melee.

Some battles were intense and I thought I was going to die. Grim Dawn throws mobs at you by the truck load and some are just down right nasty too. It’s definitely a more challenging game vs. D3, that’s for sure.

I have more fun leveling a character in Grim Dawn (and other such games, including D2) than I do in D3 or even WoW. After the leveling is done? I would rather grind out Boss Runs in D2 and Greater Rifts in D3 than The Crucible or Shattered Realm in Grim Dawn or even Mythic+/Raid in WoW.

I don’t mind going splat in any game. I just hate when it’s annoying. Cheap one shot deaths from lower tiered mobs, looking at you D3 and WoW, = annoying. Running to your corpse naked (if you don’t want to use the log off short cut or even know about it), looking at you D2, = annoying.

[Shadout-2849]

To steal a phrase from Cyonan, if <1% of the players end up being awesomely skilled, and able to survive despite playing as an extreme glass cannon, giving a “small”, well, lets say 50% MF edge, assuming people would average around 40-50% MF bonus, maybe it is not much of an issue, since it affects so few players.
As long as it is well-balanced for the rest of the players.

[BarbarianFTW-1672]

As it should be. The needs of the MANY out weigh the needs of the FEW. However, to use another cliché, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We all know it’s the few that are the squeaky wheel. So, Blizzard caters to… and we end up getting…

[anon88344807]

@Shadout-2849

Ae you considering repair cost to be something mostly inflicted through death? or merely from getting hit?

I’d say the second, but then you might say what if someone plays overly careful and doesn’t get hit :P, well that’s a bad game design, there should be stuff to challenge all sorts of gameplay styles

That’s why I also still think there should be a system which rewards good play as a result, simply by making every hit count (stagger bar, things like that), or even just give regular mobs a considerable amount of damage, not only elites have to hit hard you know, as long as you have good ways to engage/disengage this should be no issue IMO tbh

[Shadout-2849]

@anon88344807

I’d say the second, but then you might say what if someone plays overly careful and doesn’t get hit :P, well that’s a bad game design, there should be stuff to challenge all sorts of gameplay styles

Hehe. actually I’d say the opposite. That it seems like a constant gold reduction then. Just have monstes drop less gold instead of asking me to go see a vendor from time to time

[anon88344807]

In that case I’d say both :), not everywhere and not always should use your finest piece of gear (if gear swap is applicable that is) if the cost/drop ratio isn’t rewarding enough (Speaking of which probably should be tbh ). I mean this is a bit “too high to achieve” goal but think ppl will appreciate this as a change overall

Something I’d like to see as a change of design tbh… D2 had this right up to an extent but then screwed up with “gold purchasers” type of items like Wands, Scepters, Staves, Amulets and whatnot… Those really gave an immense/unrealistic gold climb bursts (compared to almost everything else) and all things “went down south” as a result… I’d say the reason they did it is too lame also, a Wand at vendor doesn’t have to cost 500k you know, make it 50k, but also make a Wand selling price 5k instead of 50k and you got it right IMO… I mean there was also the gamble as a main form of “gold sink” mechanic, but they could’ve simply increased rune rate drops a bit and make so that you gamble with runes instead (or gems, or any other type of resource)

Regardless, point being, make both sell and drop prices relatively low but also not make the buy prices too high, make gold as a maintenance resource (as opposed to a power gathering one), mainly for “keeping loose ends tight” on potions and gear repair, power could be obtained by swapping/trading gems/runes for gear and vice versa and whatnot, cause there’s a nice/different “tradeoff” by doing so, namely every time you want to gain a “something new” you have to potentially get rid of a good addon that you could use otherwise right now

[Firyadan-2852]

@Shadout-2849

But sometimes having 10-20 sec of near-death where you are frantically fighting with low health, not knowing if you will survive or not. That is what I am hoping for.

I like that sense of danger in a fight too, though I don’t think you need to be trapped into an unavoidable low-life scenario for that. Dangerous enemies must be dangerous even to full-life characters.

@BarbarianFTW-1672

Some battles were intense and I thought I was going to die. Grim Dawn throws mobs at you by the truck load and some are just down right nasty too. It’s definitely a more challenging game vs. D3, that’s for sure.

Combat in GD has its own issues (fragile monsters, high damage/healing spikes, some unavoidable CC) but it’s very good nonetheless, much better than TQ or PoE. And levelling is especially good, with a well-balanced monster-level scaling.

@anon88344807

I mean there was also the gamble as a main form of “gold sink” mechanic, but they could’ve simply increased rune rate drops a bit and make so that you gamble with runes instead (or gems, or any other type of resource)

Or both. Since durability is back in the game, we can assume they are going for this indirect gold death penalty (not the only penalty let’s hope), so there needs to be some useful, yet not mandatory, ways to spend gold. Gamble is a very good one, and it would be even more interesting if the outcome could be improved by adding optional runes/gems.

[Shadout-2849]

@Firyadan-2852

Dangerous enemies must be dangerous even to full-life characters.

Unless you want them to one-shot they can only be dangerous at full-health by first bringing you to lower health though?
But sure, you dont have to run around for 10-20 sec at low health before you finally die.
if you take one big hit, then another, then yet another, and… another, within a few seconds, it might certainly kill you in that short timeframe. Unless we are just standing there taking all the big hits for no reason, I would hope we would survive for a bit longer though, leading to the scenario of trying to survive.

@Firyadan-2852

some unavoidable CC

As long as the amount is somewhat reasonable, unavoidable cc (as well as unavoidable dmg) seems perfectly fine. We have stuff like ‘CC reduction’ on affixes to counter it. As well as general dmg reduction of course. As well defensive skills.
As long as enemy dmg is not too high, being CCed should not equal a guaranteed death.

@Firyadan-2852

Gamble is a very good one, and it would be even more interesting if the outcome could be improved by adding optional runes/gems.

I’ll be boring and say that I kinda hope gambling doesn’t return. Mostly since I want items to come primarily from drops when you kill a monster/open a chests. And not from a vendor.
Now, if they can add some kind of gambling, for stuff that isn’t gear… then by all means, have it. Gambling for runes? “Gambling” for activities; like, buy a random key for a key dungeon or boss arena, a quest for a overworld camp, a random “bounty” quest/event or whatever - so the purpose of paying for these overworld quests would be to receive a waypoint to the activity, instead if having to find the event randomly by exploring.
As for spending gold other than the above non-gear-“gambling”, gold could be used in crafting (which should likewise not be crafting gear, but enhancing gear), making/buying potions, ‘upgrading’ runes, gems etc. Could have a high gold cost for removing gems and runes from sockets as well.

[Firyadan-2852]

@Shadout-2849

Unless you want them to one-shot they can only be dangerous at full-health by first bringing you to lower health though?

No, of course most attacks shouldn’t OS. But there should also be some that can, in certain circumstances. As I consider it, combat is a mix of different things : small but difficult to avoid damage, big but avoidable damage and steady but limited healing. It has to be fast enough to be challenging but not to the point the player doesn’t have time to process what’s going on.

That’s why I’m strictly against any sort of unavoidable CC. It can be the result of a predictable attack, like the Armaddon stun, or something you can escape from, like Wall or Frozen affixes, but not something that automatically takes away your ability to play, leaving you absolutely defenseless. CC reduction would help but not enough in a dynamic combat system. Fortunately, it seems D4 will rely on many abilities to break CC, so that may be OK.

@Shadout-2849

Now, if they can add some kind of gambling, for stuff that isn’t gear… then by all means, have it. Gambling for runes? “Gambling” for activities; like, buy a random key for a key dungeon or boss arena, a quest for a overworld camp, a random “bounty” quest/event or whatever

Interesting idea!
It could also be a gambling on a reward, like “pay 15 000 gold = 50% chance to drop an additional ring on boss”, and the more gold you add better the odds : “100 000 gold = 2 additional rings and 75% chance for a third”.
That plus hefty craft costs, that goes without saying! Just not as random as in D3 please… ^^