Why death penalty on PvE servers?

Hi, I've been wondering about this. Why is there death penalty on PvE servers? I mean, I can understand why you'd want to have it on PvP servers, but having it on PvE servers doesn't make sense to me. The only effect it has on PvE servers is preventing people from playing effectively for a couple of minutes, which doesn't really serve any purpose at all, in my opinion.

What are you thoughts? Thanks.

It's hardly a penalty...compared to what came before.

You used to leave a 'spirit shard' behind when you died. And your 'sickness' would stay with you until you collected your shard. If you died before collecting your shard, you would have 2 missing shards, and the sickness would be compounded.

There was also fairly hefty xp debt, and group xp debt before that.


Considering they changed the game to easy mode on almost all fronts, rez sickness may as well also be removed as it serves little purpose.

The penalty for dying used to be a lot stiffer as Rat said.
It's still a pain at the higher levels if you die a lot...and being rezzed in battle makes that toon a lot more ineffective for a while due to aforementioned sickness.

Death penalty is what left from the whole death thing, with shards running. You have to have something when you die, do you? Something that make you think "I do not want to do this again". So removing anything at all will make death just a quick teleport - jump from a cliff -viola - you are on another side of the zone. This trick is used in some situations of course, but at least you think twice (or once ) before suiciding.

Yeah, I call that 'getto evac' hehe...used to do it myself before my repair bill started getting ridiculous.

I have played since beta and all I can say is that the game is much friendlier now than ever. I did not mind the shard recoveries or the massive amount of heroics that used to populate the lands making for some awesome groups - soloing was not an easy thing back then. The time it now takes to recover any xp due to debt now only is a matter of a few kills, usually less than five minutes of game time.

The death penalty is intended to ensure that there are consequences to dying, in order to prevent people from using death as a combat technique or as a method of quick travel.

People should want to not die. If there were no penalties at all, this might not be the case. While some people would likely try not to die as a matter of principle, we all know what it is like to group with someone with a death wish.

My thoughts? I liked it better with group debt, shards, and big debts. When EQ2 launched you really had to know what you were doing and it was best to build your group in town and first time someone did somthing really dumb you booted them.
group debt- If a member of your party died you got debt. If group wiped you got allot of debt.
Shards- If you died you lost a crystle thing that if you could get it back it cut the debt you got in like half. But it was a pain if you lost it and couldnt get it back.
big debt- When you died you were setting up to work on that debt for a wial.
I was in a group the other day and this came across my mind. " fastest way to get there is die." at launch this was NEVER an option. I really liked it better then.
I dont mind that they changed it really but i really feel it was better back then.

I enjoyed shard runs...well, looking back with rose tinted contact lenses I enjoyed them. There was nothing funnier then joining a pickup group, everyone on saying their hellos, and you breaking the ice with /gsay Hey I have 3 shards in Blackburrow, mind if we grab them quickly?

/kick




I would actually prefer to go back there than play what we have now. It was a challenge then.

As a soloer, I hated shard runs simply because my shard would almost be somewhere where there is a mob that could kill me when I was at full strength (which is why there was a shard there). That mob could probably kill me in my now weakened state when I try to get the shard back.

One shard would turn into two would turn into three...

Rattface@Nagafen wrote:

Eh, this actually was exactly why I hated the shard runs.
It was nice to group, and I love grouping, but the group "break" ratio was a lot higher back then due to shard frustrations and group exp debt.
And in the non-solo friendly game it was at launch...such a thing was very annoying.

Spirit shards and xp debt (actual debt, not the imitation we have now) actually promoted working together and not slacking.


There are too many idiots at the end game who simply didnt ever learn how to play because the game is far too easy.

I have played long enough without these things, and it would be a PITA to go back..but the removal of them was a mistake, as with many of the other changes made solely to appease the introverted soloers who whined that it was too hard. Not that it particularly effects me directly anymore...but new players now have to do very little to "earn" quite a lot.


EDIT: btw I never played at launch, but started about 6-8 months in. As I understand it there was next to no solo content in the game at launch. When I started playing there was quite a bit of solo stuff, but also plenty of challenging content around too, and IMO the balance between the two then was about right. Aside from the many great improvements they have made to this game, the drastic shallowing of the difficulty curve was a huge mistake imo.

The small amount of debt you accrue from a death can be worked off pretty quickly and revive sickness doesn't last very long and doesn't prevent you from functioning though you are in a weakened state.
Contrary to what some people have stated, it's not completely trivial =). It is still quite possible to rack up enough debt that you'll be working on it for a day or so lol. I know I have with my guild when working on new content with less than optimal groups. But we are stubborn and will keep at it until we figure out a way to do it or people are falling out of their chairs asleep.
My thoughts on how it used to be? Shards were annoying, if only because they'd get stuck in places where you'd have to petition a GM to come an help you retrieve it (like way up in the sky where it'd be impossible for you to reach on your own). Group debt caused a lot of people to be overly cautious and only do things they KNEW the group could handle, which is imo pretty boring, so I was happy when that was removed so some folks became more adventurous in grouping. Where it is now isn't bad. There is penalty. You have your personal debt, the short sickness upon revival, & if your gear is good repairs can get pricey, so you don't WANT to die if you can help it. But the penalties are small enough that it's not a huge pain (IE death early in EQ1 =) with massive lost xp, possiblity of lost corpses & gear & often times long painful naked corpse runs.)

milias wrote:

Actually, if the death penalty is to be lighter anywhere it would be the PVP server (many more deaths).

I don't see why it prevents you from playing effectively for a couple of minutes.

Death is part of the game, and the (rather small) exp debt accumulated with each death is also part of it.

If you are dieing a lot , especially at lower levels, you are clearly doing something wrong. Which class are you playing? What level? What kind of challenge are you taking on?

Quick question. What's this XP debt that everyone's been talking about? Thanks.

milias wrote:

when you die you get a tiny speck of debt that halves your xp gain.
xp debt doesnt exist on pvp servers due to it being sploited there.

Anyone remember the days of EQ1?
Anytime you died after level 10 or so...you would respawn completely naked with no gear in the city you were bound in (which could be quite far away for non-casters). Then you would need to make the trek (naked, mind you) all the way back to your corpse and loot your gear off of yourself. If you were soloing in a tough area, you could end up with several corpses. Oh, and the bonus? If you did not loot your corpse in a week's time, you lose everything on it...poof!!
Oh, almost forgot the best part...you also lost XP....thats right you could be level 46 one minute, which is the minimum level to enter Plane of Fear, and if you died and lost enough xp, you would be level 45 again and therefore unable to enter that zone until you hit 46 again, and thus, unable to loot your corpse...(what a mess that was).
I was never a fan of this, nor would I have been a fan of the shards.....losing xp for a while is enough to make me not want to die without having to chase death tokens around or loot my own corpse.

It now starts at lvl 6, including in the previously 'safe' Gloomingdeep Mines

Ah, corpse runs in EQ1... I kept an extra drum and flute in my bank just so I could use Selo's and the Invis song when recovering my corpse.

Spirit shards were a less annoying aspect of death to me, coming straight from EQ1 and being happy to still have my gear at least. Except for the first time in Nektulos, when I aggroed a piranha (they're not there anymore) which chased me onto shore, down the path, then camped my corpse. XP debt was likewise better than losing xp, and I wouldn't particularly mind if they upped that penalty again.

But group debt was the biggest PITA ever. You could only get experience if you were within a certain range of the group, but group debt was accrued no matter how far away you were. You could be in Nettleville grabbing stuff from the bank, your group could wipe in Everfrost, and you got debt. It was evil. Pure evil.

Corpse runs in EQ1 have been changed long time ago though. If I remember correctly - first thing was changed is the famous and most feared Plane of Fear - you could summon your corpse at special graveyard (can't remember were it was though). At the end Sony added that you can summon your corpse from wherever you died. I personally didn't have tough times with corpse run - was playing SK and at higher levels you get a corpse summoning spell (Necros get it much earlier) - all you have to do is to get to the zone you died, and then summon your (or your friend's) corpse, similar like Magician's Call of Hero works. But even with this spell Plane of Fear was quite a shock