PC Death Penalty Poll

[Roland]

Hi Guys,

We just a got a new build with an adjustment to the death penalty so that it only lasts 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes. In addition the despawn timer on the player backpack was increased from 20 minutes to 60 minutes which also relates to death. Now that people have had a full week with A17 lets weigh in on this change and see how people are feeling about it.

If nothing above really fits then please explain in the thread. Please keep things civil and calm.

 

[Roland]

I voted the penalty is fine for 30 minutes. I actually like the idea of the penalty and I like the vulnerability it reintroduces to a character. You have to be careful while "sick" to keep from dying again while weaker. I don't buy into the idea of going AFK or sitting in the base doing nothing waiting for the timer to empty just because your actions will be suboptimal during that time. Go out and do stuff while your weak. Knowing you are vulnerable and a dog pack could show up is what makes it scary. I would be perfectly happy with 60 minutes like it was but 30 is still a sting and makes others happy so cool.

 

[icehot]

I voted for fine as it is in the new build 60 minutes was too much, 30 seems about right, plus with having to go and get your backpack etc (especially if your respawn point is miles away), seems the penalty is enough.

 

[Sergoros]

I would have liked if death penalty were applying only to physical perks. Imho, intellect should have been left out of this debuff. This way, I would, at least, be able to craft whatever I want in this period. Or visit trader without feeling cheated out of better loot/money.

Voted for 15 mins. 30 min is a tad to long for my preferences.

 

[Gazz]

You have the means to use attribute buffs. Maybe you should use them.

 

[Sergoros]

Hm. Didnt find any intellect food/drug yet . And does their buff counteract death debuff?

Hmm, now that I think about it, there are consumable "books?" that give stats. So, for example, If I have max int for my level, say...7 int at level 50. Would int from drugs restore me to 7 int with death debuff working?

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Just tested. Books do counteract 1 stat of the debuff. But even better, you can use special glasses, that give you 2 int. Which would fully negate the debuff. Good to know. (didnt find any intellect drugs tho . This game could use some mentats ^^)

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Still, 15 mins sound way less crippling, than 60 or 30. My vote still stands.

 

[R0bb0b]

I understand why it's there and I probably would normally be fine with it, but with what little precious time that I have to game I cannot be spending it gimping around for 60 or 30 minutes. It's fine though, I'll just remove it myself.

 

[Krougal]

You have the means to use attribute buffs. Maybe you should use them.

It would be better if the magazines worked as well, but yes, after noticing that the stat buff items do mitigate it somewhat (thought they were outright busted since they don't let you go past level cap until I happened to die and be wearing glasses).

Even though I vote for 15 min, I am really glad you guys made these changes, and I can live with it

 

[grieferbastard]

I voted the penalty is fine for 30 minutes. I actually like the idea of the penalty and I like the vulnerability it reintroduces to a character. You have to be careful while "sick" to keep from dying again while weaker. I don't buy into the idea of going AFK or sitting in the base doing nothing waiting for the timer to empty just because your actions will be suboptimal during that time. Go out and do stuff while your weak. Knowing you are vulnerable and a dog pack could show up is what makes it scary. I would be perfectly happy with 60 minutes like it was but 30 is still a sting and makes others happy so cool.

Really kind of the gist of my opinion on it.

To make sure I got a good feel for what was intended I started out on A17 in Navezgane with standard settings. In fact I reinstalled after an 8 month absence as A16 just didn't hold my attention.

It was a struggle. A lot harder - while I enjoy that I understand that for players who were already struggling a bit in A16 it's got to feel beastly. I still didn't die until day 7 but I had some really, really close calls as I relearned the game both from my absence and the changes. The death penalty felt really punitive at first but I decided I just didn't have the time to waste - my first base was badly chewed and I was critically low on resources and was almost ready to unlock some new stuff I needed to be ready for so I went out anyway.

It was a lot of fun. Now I do some scavenging at night and have just learned to be really careful. I've died a few times and am just careful for a bit afterward. It gives it all some teeth - without which the risk of getting killed starts to lose its sense of risk.

 

[Voicer]

I like the 30 min penalty and overall death penalty idea. If death doesn't cost anything in the game, I will no longer be afraid - and playing 7DTD I definitely want to be afraid!

 

[LordoftheMoo]

Bah, I just posted in the other penalty thread my idea on how it should work and tie in to both a "concurrent death count" and the difficulty setting. I'll repost here to fit with the request in the poll, but I think decaying backpack needs to be made much longer if we're going to keep that as part of the "death balance" (which is something I had considered separate). In short, I think the penalty should be progressive and tied to in-game time rather than RL time. As mentioned, times I give are fungible.

There should be some kind of death penalty, but thinking on this one I'm starting to come to the conclusion that a progressive penalty is the best long term solution. I know it's more code, but I think it would add a unique depth to the anti-progression penalty of dying. Something like this would be cool IMO(times are examples and pulled out of you-know-where):1st Death on "stack" : -10 available stamina. Lasts 4 in-game hours.

2nd Death on stack : -1 to AGI or STR. Lasts 2 in-game hours, stops the countdown on the 1st Death timer.

3rd Death on stack : -1 to the stat not from 2nd death. Lasts 2 in-game hours. Stops 2nd death timer.

4th Death on stack : Another -10 available stamina, and a -1 to the 2nd Death stat. Lasts 2 in-game hours, Stops 3rd death timer.

Etc.

These can be compounded by adjustments from the difficulty setting, something like "Nomad = these, Scavenger = -50% time and penalties, Insane +250% time and penalties" meaning that if someone wants a harsher penalty, it's there (or, for those that want a slider for everything, this is one of the few things I could see being part of a "custom" difficulty level settings page).

 

[Sydious]

You have the means to use attribute buffs. Maybe you should use them.

You can guarantee I will have the needed attribute buffs on death at the time needed?

 

[Jamey]

The stat debuff is not a fun game design. It takes what is often a frustrating moment in the game and rubs your face in it for half an hour.

 

[Zorlox]

30 is fine, its the max i would take. I would have preferred 20, 15 is a bit short.

that said, i'm not a fan of the debuff at all. i've never needed a slap in the face after a bad day to make me not want to die in a game but i understand the reasons behind it.

 

[HerrKingsley]

Great Roland. I think that its good that you put the effort down and do a poll to see what playerbase like.

Question is will the amount of answers be sufficient for TFP to make an depression on.

May I suggest that you reach out to the Streamers, and utilize the "partner ship" TFP and streamers have to communicate to a larger population of our player base.

I have only died once in a17, and I didn't get death penalty for that.

Either way, I have never used death as teleport or easy way out, i just dont play like that. Also i couldn't care less how other people choose to play.

I can see that cheating death might be a problem in multiplayer, an therefore is a viable sulution for multiplayer.

therefore I voted for 15 min. But I rather see it as server/sp setting and also not affecting intellect.

 

[Gazz]

You can guarantee I will have the needed attribute buffs on death at the time needed?

If you are prepared, yes. It's part of that whole "consequences" thing.

 

[Sydious]

If you are prepared, yes. It's part of that whole "consequences" thing.

RNG should not be a factor in my real life game time. An hour? Really?

 

[joeevaristo]

I chose, I don't like it, but I'll still play. It was frustrating in B197--the first death fed into a really nasty cycle of death, and I wasn't really having fun. In B199, I managed not to die at all in the 13 days I played so I didn't really notice.

I found it frustrating mainly because there's already a penalty for death: the risk of losing your backpack. I also think there's something fundamentally off about making the game much harder for the individuals already more likely to find the difficulty unmanageable--if you're dying that much, you're probably not very good. Increasing the difficulty for failure seems like a way to turn off less experienced players and make the game less accessible.

Though I would suggest instead of removing it, offer it as a game setting. Off, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour.

For many of the things I don't feel are perfect, I think would be best served by a game setting to let players tailor it to their style.

In short, I think the penalty should be progressive and tied to in-game time rather than RL time. As mentioned, times I give are fungible.

I think that's one of the most confusing aspects of the game, including the past couple alphas. I have a hard time figuring out if time units are in game-time, or real-world-time. I'd much prefer to see it shown in game-time since we're already tracking days and hours in game-time for other reasons.

 

[danielspoa]

To me it's much more about how harsh the penalty is than how long it lasts. I'm using a 3 min penalty right now just so you can't die and get up fightning the zombies over and over again.

 

[Gazz]

RNG should not be a factor in my real life game time. An hour? Really?

So you want something like paid loot boxes because RNG will not guarantee you a mining helmet within a specified amount of game time? There are no plans for this, sorry.

Maybe there is a bit of a misunderstanding about how this is designed. The game is not intended to automatically fix all possible problems for you.

The game creates the problems. It's up to you to avoid or overcome them.