PC Death penalty is too much!

[Vaeliorin]

I’m perfectly fine with the death penalty AND I find it fun because it creates the risk of a death spiral.

Gotta be honest, that's the first time I've ever seen anyone say anything positive about a death spiral mechanic.
Personally, I don't mind the death penalty (the only thing that really bothers me is losing my pack mule points, but that's because I'm not a huge fan of the limited inventory) and I've played with it without any real problems (other than the aforementioned.)

 

[SickPuppy]

there has been a consequence to death from the first time i played the game. you lost wellness. it made you play more cautiously because you knew you had less room for error because of the lower health.
the new consequence is boredom. being unable to do the things that i want to do. for an hour. which most sane people with jobs and families recognize as being a exceedingly long period of time.

and this "challenge" bs is bs. if i hadn't been killed twice so far by enemies that did not make a single sound until they hit me in the back, maybe you'd have a leg to stand on. if i hadn't seen a pack of dogs on day 3 maybe. but having all of my abilities taken away because lumberjacks can walk silently on snow? no.

the death penalty doesn't add challenge. it doesn't ADD anything. it only takes away.

i cannot for the life of me understand why you think being put on "time out" improves this game in any way. this is a game. games are meant to be played. but this penalty is taking all my toys away.

failure is its own penalty. there is no need for this.

This thread is starting become one big troll bait. How often are you all dying? Every play session? Every real life hour so the penalties are consecutive?

The amount of complaining and whining is a joke.

+ Yes and when ppl reached 70 wellness they would abuse that system to fast travel back to base.

- "Whatever, I have another 20 purple snipers back home"

+ Play on easier settings?

- No! Don't u dare insult me u 'unemployed hardcore elitist bastard!'

+ There's a console command u can delete the penalties however long u deem fit.

- No! I want it at 15mins....No! I want it 30mins, because I am part of the sane majority. Don't u dare tell me to cheat u 'unemployed hardcore elitist bastard!'

- Meh! I'm bored for an hour coz I can't think of anything to do in an open voxel game. I have a whole arsenal of weapons n toys I can't use! I have a job dammit! Rabble!

+ TFP now have to cater for unemployed & employed or else they have failed.

- I was jumped by silent/ninja zombies because I refuse to check my surroundings and I will open the menu whenever and wherever I choose WTF TFP how is that realism?! Rabble!

+ U heard it, TFP please install speakers and neon signs on zombies.

I have a job I can't play all day, I'm fine with the penalties, there's methods to disable penalties. People have also suggested ideas to make it less harsh on lower settings, but making things easier only promotes more bad play.

To bring your job into it and using that as an excuse? I'm done with this thread.

 

[Roland]

Gotta be honest, that's the first time I've ever seen anyone say anything positive about a death spiral mechanic.
Personally, I don't mind the death penalty (the only thing that really bothers me is losing my pack mule points, but that's because I'm not a huge fan of the limited inventory) and I've played with it without any real problems (other than the aforementioned.)

Please don’t misunderstand. Being in a death spiral is not good . The RISK of a death spiral is what is good. When the consequences of death are inconsequential so is the thrill and fear. I don’t want to be in a death spiral but I damn well want the risk of one in the game so that I worry about it.

 

[wordwaster]

This thread is starting become one big troll bait. How often are you all dying? Every play session? Every real life hour so the penalties are consecutive?
The amount of complaining and whining is a joke.

+ Yes and when ppl reached 70 wellness they would abuse that system to fast travel back to base.

- "Whatever, I have another 20 purple snipers back home"

+ Play on easier settings?

- No! Don't u dare insult me u 'unemployed hardcore elitist bastard!'

+ There's a console command u can delete the penalties however long u deem fit.

- No! I want it at 15mins....No! I want it 30mins, because I am part of the sane majority. Don't u dare tell me to cheat u 'unemployed hardcore elitist bastard!'

- Meh! I'm bored for an hour coz I can't think of anything to do in an open voxel game. I have a whole arsenal of weapons n toys I can't use! I have a job dammit! Rabble!

+ TFP now have to cater for unemployed & employed or else they have failed.

- I was jumped by silent/ninja zombies because I refuse to check my surroundings and I will open the menu whenever and wherever I choose WTF TFP how is that realism?! Rabble!

+ U heard it, TFP please install speakers and neon signs on zombies.

I have a job I can't play all day, I'm fine with the penalties, there's methods to disable penalties. People have also suggested ideas to make it less harsh on lower settings, but making things easier only promotes more bad play.

To bring your job into it and using that as an excuse? I'm done with this thread.

someone is cranky. i'd argue over how many marks you missed. but you're done with this thread. so...bye.

- - - Updated - - -

Please don’t misunderstand. Being in a death spiral is not good . The RISK of a death spiral is what is good. When the consequences of death are inconsequential so is the thrill and fear. I don’t want to be in a death spiral but I damn well want the risk of one in the game so that I worry about it.

see now...that's the thing. i messed up on day two and didn't have the resources stored; main issue was food, to recover from it. (i mistook a poi for a trader base...oops) it really, really, really isn't fun to actually be in that early game death spiral.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

30mins please for death penalty. love the penalty but an hour is a bit much. Thank you for a17.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Please don’t misunderstand. Being in a death spiral is not good . The RISK of a death spiral is what is good. When the consequences of death are inconsequential so is the thrill and fear. I don’t want to be in a death spiral but I damn well want the risk of one in the game so that I worry about it.

I suppose it's probably because most of the time when discussing game design I'm discussing RPGs that it surprised me. Generally, in my experience, death spirals existing in a game is considered a bad thing, so I was startled that someone was happy that it existed.
Honestly, I don't think the death penalty is super death-spiral-y. Most of the bonuses you get from perks are small enough (well, depending on how big the penalties actually are, I've yet to see someone high level get hit with it, so it's always reduced everything from, at most, 3 to 1 in my experience) to not make the game unplayable when penalized, or even necessarily that much harder.

 

[Blue0mt]

Please don’t misunderstand. Being in a death spiral is not good . The RISK of a death spiral is what is good. When the consequences of death are inconsequential so is the thrill and fear. I don’t want to be in a death spiral but I damn well want the risk of one in the game so that I worry about it.

I'm mostly fine with the penalty. I've died only thrice now. Once on day 20 and twice on the day 21 horde night. Take all the quality of life perks away, hell take all the exp from the current level too + make it so that leveling is impossible for the duration of the debuff, I don't care. But not being able to remember how to craft something is just bad. You die, lose the ability to craft defenses for the base and yourself, die because of it and you are now in the death spiral.

 

[Guppycur]

someone is cranky. i'd argue over how many marks you missed. but you're done with this thread. so...bye.
- - - Updated - - -

see now...that's the thing. i messed up on day two and didn't have the resources stored; main issue was food, to recover from it. (i mistook a poi for a trader base...oops) it really, really, really isn't fun to actually be in that early game death spiral.

...and you likely won't make those same mistakes again, so we agree this is a non issue, right? =)

 

[wordwaster]

gup, don't i always agree that nothing really matters? particularly if xmls are involved?

i just like to have friendly discussions with friendly people about the things that give us hard gameplay at night.

 

[Gazz]

I must admit, I could be an idea if the death penalty couldn't lower paid perks below a certain level (1 or 2 perhaps) or forgo the perk loss if the character is below a certain level (10 or 20 say).

Have you even tried it? That is how it already works.

You do not "lose all attributes" or "lose all progress". That's all hyperbole.

You cannot lose more than 1/2 of a maxed-for-your-level attribute.

I’m perfectly fine with the death penalty AND I find it fun because it creates the risk of a death spiral.

Again, it gets somewhat harder but a higher level penalty of more than 1 point declines as the buff keeps running.

After 30 min it's only 1/2.

Players have to get used to any penalty at all because A16 had none. =)

 

[OzHawkeye]

Have you even tried it? That is how it already works.
You do not "lose all attributes" or "lose all progress". That's all hyperbole.

You cannot lose more than 1/2 of a maxed-for-your-level attribute.

Again, it gets somewhat harder but a higher level penalty of more than 1 point declines as the buff keeps running.

After 30 min it's only 1/2.

Players have to get used to any penalty at all because A16 had none. =)

Sorry Gazz, I haven't died in either of my two test games so far.... hehe. ;-)

I's bein' careful.

Well, actually, I did in the first one, but right away, so had no perks anyway.

 

[Sawth77]

Players have to get used to any penalty at all because A16 had none. =)

Honestly, i'm good with that. Especially on consoles, where you could build a base using poles and wedge tips to make enemies essentially just targets, it's good to have ramped up difficulty. As a player coming from other games like State of Decay, where the penalty for death is completely losing a character and never being able to get them back, a stat penalty seems like a small thing.

You could, in theory, try to work it so that the penalty is focused on more specific stats. For example, you get mauled by a camp that has 3 dogs, 3 snakes, and 2 vultures (which is, honestly, what happened lol) when you jump over the wall without looking. You die, but instead of all stats, you would lose only a couple of specific ones, like -2 perception and -2 agility (or more, depending on stats, etc). Of course, this could stack, and you'd lose all of your strength and nothing else for a little while. Even allowing for the use of some sort of "wellness item" to mitigate the injury or remove a small amount of time remaining?

Personally, I'm really enjoying everything overall, and i'm thankful you guys put the update out. It's good to see the additional challenge (though we may need to talk about scaling back sleeper zombies in every house, etc).

 

[wordwaster]

Have you even tried it? That is how it already works.
You do not "lose all attributes" or "lose all progress". That's all hyperbole.

You cannot lose more than 1/2 of a maxed-for-your-level attribute.

um...yeah, it will take you down to level 1 if you are at level 2. that is "all" progress.

 

[Gazz]

um...yeah, it will take you down to level 1 if you are at level 2. that is "all" progress.

No, it does not affect any of the early T1 perks.

Hyperbole is ineffective if it can be fact-checked that easily.

 

[Juliet_Capulet]

Players have to get used to any penalty at all because A16 had none. =)

If A16 had a death penalty, I still wouldn't have liked it.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

yeah, well. All the 1k hours plus people are ofc not in trouble. But the game should not be balanced to meet the likes of veterans. Not at all. That is the risk you have when playing EA, everything seems easy after a few years.

It´s annoying and tedious. And "just don´t die and be carfull" is not an argument for new players. Protection at start doesn´t work. I got attacked right at start. So yeah, unless they buff our fists like crazy, this is way to harsh.

And let´s not even start with dogs on day 2 or 3.

Now i know why there is no free weekends. No new player would come back with a harsh penalty like that.

 

[Hammerofheaven]

No, it does not affect any of the early T1 perks.Hyperbole is ineffective if it can be fact-checked that easily.

Learn your own game. Or play it. Or I don't know, don't brush off feedback from your users. Ironically you are using "hyperbole" as Hyperbole to label user feedback as not meaningful.

This new system for death is terrible. I have already had multiple people leave the server I run over it.

It does remove huge amounts of progress, especially prior to level 20. Sure it cannot be reduced below 1, but it sure feels like crap to have everything pinned down to one. You get worse quest rewards, craft lower quality gear, do less damage, have access to lower quality food, literally everything you have invested into gets hit. That is not hyperbole, that is the actual mechanic of the game.

Do not dismiss people over if they are technically correct or not. That is not how user feedback works with a new product. Your users are not always expected to have full insight into a system and nit picking to dismiss misses the issue that there are so many people unhappy with the game.

Further, if you are more than level 5 and less than level 20, you can easily, and for some players often, end up with all of your stats pinned down at 1 and only have access the the stats you had from just after starting the game.

I had one player curse me out over it and said to disable it before leaving the server. I had another who died a bunch of times and said that they would never not have a death penalty and this was not fun and then leave. I can keep on listing these, I had it happen 4 times today... And that is just people who said something!

This is not even a good mechanic, it encourages players to play safe and avoid risks as much as possible. I know I just cancel a quest if it is in a building I am not familiar with. No way I am spending 1 RL hour of my time outside of work with my stats penned down to 1... By the time I am going to be willing to go into there and explore, the risk will be trivial. This to me ruins some of the coolest parts of the game the have been developed over the past couple of years. The maze POIs are amazing and I am staying the hell away from them because the risk/reward is not at all balanced.

There are so many great things about this patch and right now it feels like most of it is hiding behind a few minor issues(like the death debuff). Please, don't pick this hill to die on.

At the very least this needs to be easily user configurable. It NEEDS to be an option when setting up a game and it needs to be in the server config file as an option. If you are not going to budge on if this is a worthy feature, then at least give us the option to play the way we want.

 

[crazywildfire]

Fine fine I agree I say budge some. When you die you get reset back to lvl 1. The game isn't gone and doesn't reset but all perks and level go back 1 and you start over. Kinda like the old days when you ran out of lives game over and start back over. Seems right to me then you kinda play dead is dead minus the fact that anything you already made or built is still around. Is that a fair trade? As a hardcore player that doesn't play as much as others would say that would be a better system. So I believe this new death buff system is a good in between.

Just remember when one says this is to hard or whatever it can always get harder or worse depending on ones thoughts on the matter.

 

[Guppycur]

@word of course, homie!

@papa and there's easier difficulty levels for those folks.

@hammer if those people quit over what amounts to be an hour of inconvenience, fuggem. They're the type to get upset over anything.

 

[Garfy]

It doesn't help that the new systems are all terribly explained, if they're explained at all.

Me and a bunch of friends tried playing, on the first night we were attacked by well over 30 zombies. We all died a ton. By morning most of us had 25 max health and our max stamina was like 40-50. Eating, drinking and using bandages didn't seem to restore any of our lost health.

None of us knew what the hell was going on, how to fix it and we were all too gimped to keep playing. So we all just quit then and there.

You might want to actually explain how the new systems work instead of assuming everyone religiously follows developer posts on how new systems work.