[MECHANICS] Death Timer

[Julthain]

Repost from events and storyplots:

Most PC's, when faced with death just stand there, cracking one-liners and little jokes like it is nothing, because they know if they do die, they'll be able to be resurrected and continue on in a couple of minutes like it never happened. There is the debuff for a while after being ressurected... but I suggest something to make death a bit more relevant:

Uberdoom says to Goodie-two-shoes "Your coin or your life.
Goodie-two-shoes smiles and laughs.
Uberdoom kills Goodie-two-shoes.

Now, instead of being able to be instantly resurrected and continue on like nothing ever happened, perhaps he should have sit on the Fugue for an hour or two realtime (a day or two ingame). That way, players won't be so quick to stare down death and laugh like its funny... unless that is what your particular PC would do. Instead they would realize OOC "Hey, if I die here, I won't be able to do anything but sit in an exitless room and twiddle my thumbs for two hours, better extract myself from the situation and move along."

Though, in my personal opinon, the timer should not start ticking until the person in question has had their remains located and recovered. You could think of the timer as the time it took the priest to locate your spirit in the Realms of Death and coax it back into your body.

Though, this would only apply to resurrection via another PC, not Divine intervention. If the PC in question is favored enough to supplicate for a return to life, then they would, by all means still be able to supplicate.

On another note... there may or may not be the need to tweak Speak with Dead if this was implemented. The spell would still allow you to see who is on the Fugue Plane, though you would also see the time until they can be resurrected by their short description:

A goodie-two-shoes floats here glumly, regretting the way he smarted off to Uberdoom. (2:00)

Although, sitting in Fugue for a few real life hours is not going to be possible for a lot of people. When they log off, their junk will fall on the ground if no one is willing to help them, and it will get stolen or lost in a reset

Your body does not rot for a full realtime day after the time that you died. Minus the two hours you would have to sit on the Fugue Plane, you would still have twenty two hours to find someone to help you. If you can not manage to find help in that amount of time, well your body would have rotted and your items left to fate, regardless if there was a two hour timer or not.

[Raona]

This has been suggested before,
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5013&hilit=death+timer
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2343&hilit=death+timer
and some others that used different terminology, which suggests to me that there's some merit in the idea, though it also has detractors. I personally find the current system pretty balanced; if anything, I'd up consequences for repeat death in a short time window.

I can say that I try to die very rarely indeed because generally I don't have the OOC chance to respond to it in 24 hours. Except during the summer, the only time I get to play is an hour or so each morning, and that's when things are good. What's more, very few others are online during that hour. So it's a very big deal for me indeed, not just ICly.

If you think this is a great idea, I suggest nominating it for the top ten lists:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9977

[Lathlain]

I especially like this idea, though I would suggest not having it apply to people under, say, level 20. It may seem arbitrary, but I know the earlier levels can be riddled with unexpected perils - especially for dress-wearing classes classes

Ultimately, the intention would be to serve as a deterrent for people putting themselves in harm's way, and to provide a little consequence to dying. Is this going too far, do we think? Would it only be worth providing a death timer in the event of a player kill, perhaps? I'd be tempted to opt for that choice, because accidental 'environmental deaths' can occur, and being punished for it wouldn't be fun.

[Gwain]

With anything that slows down the chance of raising, two things have to be addressed.

First corpses would need to be made to last longer with pc derived spells or placement in the conservatory
and second, any attempt at raising before the death clock ran out would not result in the spell being cast and the loss of components.

[Alaudrien]

I could see the usefulness of this but, You also have to think of other things. Mostof the players I know when they die take it solemnly and when they come back dont act like its all behind them but rp there weakened states. Point and case Gwain and Rynn are two of the good ones at it. Gwain's really good when he rezzes them. But some people namely evil races and such rocs and crap have enough trouble getting rezzed. In the first place and I think the death timer would be good but nothing overly to long like 10 mins or so. Cause not everyone has a vast amount of time on there hands. I myself havent seen anyone that truly just blew death off as if it wasn't of any consequence. I find death rather distateful. I could say increase the length of the weakened death state at lower levels. I think the timer atm for lvl 40+ is like 3 irl hours?

[Aveline]

Repost from events and storyplots:

Most PC's, when faced with death just stand there, cracking one-liners and little jokes like it is nothing, because they know if they do die, they'll be able to be resurrected and continue on in a couple of minutes like it never happened. There is the debuff for a while after being ressurected... but I suggest something to make death a bit more relevant:

Uberdoom says to Goodie-two-shoes "Your coin or your life.
Goodie-two-shoes smiles and laughs.
Uberdoom kills Goodie-two-shoes.

Now, instead of being able to be instantly resurrected and continue on like nothing ever happened, perhaps he should have sit on the Fugue for an hour or two realtime (a day or two ingame). That way, players won't be so quick to stare down death and laugh like its funny... unless that is what your particular PC would do. Instead they would realize OOC "Hey, if I die here, I won't be able to do anything but sit in an exitless room and twiddle my thumbs for two hours, better extract myself from the situation and move along."

A point about this...I understand your reasoning and I would be all for something that makes people take death more seriously. I think this would definitely do that, but I think there would be another consequence. People are forever complaining about characters that avoid fights as well, or just walk buy and ignore someone that they probably wouldn't icly just ignore. Evil people complain about the lack of interaction, and this would definitely not promote interaction between characters. *If I sit here and argue with this moron of Cyric like I should, he'll kill me then I'll just have to sit in the fugue for two hours* People already avoid others that they would icly have conflicts with.

I like the reasons behind this idea, something to make people take death more seriously. But I personally am very very very against anything that makes you stay for a longer period of time in the realms of the dead if you don't have to be there. I doubt anyone likes it, but I really hate it having to sit there. This would do nothing but punish you oocly for your character dying. Your character dies so you have to sit there looking at a pretty much blank screen for two hours. It has no IC sense to it. Normally whenever you go to the realms of the dead there is no one else there. So your character is just sitting there all alone. There is no one at all to rp with. And even if there are other characters, rarely is there any interaction as most people are too peeved about having been killed to talk. I can think of nothing worse, or more frustrating in the game than sitting in the realms of the dead. If the realms of the dead were revamped in someway..perhaps this wouldn't be that bad. But all this accomplishes is punishing you oocly, and inhibits rp, because you are not there for anyone to rp with, and you cannot rp with anyone really. Unless you want to amulet spam for two hours. And then, this is even worse if the timer doesn't start until after your remains are found. Sometimes it takes two hours to do just that. If we want to make people think more about dying then perhaps put harsher punishments on them when they are brought back and can actually interact with people.

Maybe have it so that after you die, one of the effects of the raising or however you are returned is that some of your skills are disabled until you recover. I could see it being really hard to concentrate after coming back. And perhaps other skills might be appropriate too.

Maybe make the effects of raising more severe. The stats that are lowered...make that more extreme.

This one is really extreme, but to me would be better than having to sit in the realms of the dead for two hours every time you died. I'm not for permadeath, but perhaps something like every time your character dies, they have a greater chance that they have to start over. No chance if it is your first death, (Or maybe this wouldn't kick in until about level 15 or so) but then each time it raises by teeny amounts. Think of it as you busted your noggin one to many times and now you have amnesia. I would say keep your things, but all levels lost, back to square one. Or perhaps you lose half of your levels. It wouldn't happen to characters often, but that chance that it would is there. And perhaps that would make some of those people that die three times a day and four times on fridays think a little about what they are doing. As time went on, if you went a very long time without dying, perhaps the chance could slowly go back down a little.

Again, I think it is really good that you are trying to make people think differently about death. I agree that something should be done. But I do not want to sit in the realms of the dead any longer, and if that happens...in all honestly I'd probably just quit that character and consider them dead. I'm not going to just sit there and watch the screen, if I did..I'd leave the screen up and go off to clean the house or something.

Sorry if I'm overly dramatic here, but I really really don't like the realms of the dead. Knowing I could go there for even two minutes is deterrent enough for me to have my characters open their smart mouths to someone they shouldn't.

[Tavik]

Not certain I really agree with this. To me it seems more like it is punishing the player, not the character. I can tell you that personally, if this happened to me and I have to sit in the fugue for two hours, I'm going to go afk for those two hours and watch T.V. or do something else and what does this really end up accomplishing other than irritating the player? I'm usually pretty careful so I don't die that often, but the times I have, I've had to wait up to a couple hours to get raised anyway.

I realize that death isn't taken very seriously at times, but I don't think implementing a system of player punishment like this is going to help. What I would predict happening is people becoming less inclined to help others with difficult quests or people razing low level areas for training because there is less risk involved. Both of these, to me, seem like a step in the wrong direction. Furthermore, there are other considerations to take into account in these sorts of situations: perhaps the character doesn't want to show fear even in the face of death because he has to remain macho, perhaps he's insane and isn't thinking about the consequences of his actions, perhaps he is overconfident or has underestimated his foe. I think instead of coded punishment, we should just remind people of what is expected in the RP, something like: You say to Joebob "You are much more spry than I would have ever expected for just having had your head crushed in." or "Perhaps taunting the red blob monster singing about wanting to eat your face isn't the best idea." If problems persist, then you can send in complaints, but I think just a little reminder nudge is all most people need to straighten up.

EDIT: Aveline pretty much beat me to this and worded it more eloquently than I, so sorry for the repetition. As for her suggestion of bigger drops in stats after being raised, I like that.

[Vantaniael]

I don't know, I'd have to throw in with the disagreeing crowd. Generally I find most people take death seriously enough, and have not run into anyone taking it quite so lightly. Some are horrified, others stoic, and so on. If I found some one's behaviour rather making too much light of it, to that point that it really bothered you that much, I'd think a discrete otell about it would solve this, rather than any major coding changes or penalties. Sometimes we just forget ourselves, what with who knows what distractions going on beyond the game. I think it's mostly unintentional or loss of perspective (Hey I just -died- and came back here), and most would take a reminder seriously.

Though, perhaps raised affects could be a flat reduction, regardless of what your stats are at, to below average. Additionally, perhaps you recover from it incrementally, and your RP could reflect it. It's okay to gasp and do the 'oh my gods I just died' dramatic reaction for a while, as I would imagine it would be just that traumatic. But on the otherhand, considering how long raised dead affects can last, there should be a middleground. I mean yes, still dazed and not about to throw yourself into peril again, but initial shock also wears off too.

[Elke]

I did have a nostalgia moment (skull and rolling eyes, anyone? Probably you have to be a Brit to get that.) when I saw the words 'death timer' but I have to say that I honestly think the idea of more time spend in the Fugue Plane sounds quite, quite horrible.

So, the thoughts that came to mind for me were as follows:

First, levels 1-10 give you the insta-return, which honestly I don't like very much. It did lead to bad rp and an up-again-down-again-gone-again attitude and there isn't a very good reason for it's happening. I'd much, much rather that you had to contact someone for help, even if you just had to make a special sort of 'prayer' that used up some sort of prayer point without bugging imms?

Second, maybe we could make the Fugue Plane, I don't know, a lot more interesting? I mean, as it stands, at the moment, it's a room. One room. Which to me seems highly, highly underdeveloped. Looking at the FR wiki:

Souls can reside in the city (of Judgement, my edit) for up to a tenday before a divine servant comes to collect them, often completely clueless to the fact that they are dead. During that time, baatezu are allowed to inform souls of their state and bargain with them. Souls are offered the chance to become devils themselves, usually starting as a lemure but having the chance to advance through the devilish ranks, possibly even becoming a pit fiend. This is the main way baatezu propagate. The prospect of becoming a devil may seem abhorrent to good-aligned mortals but those who follow evil and chaotic deities and those who fear what awaits them in the afterlife are much more likely to take up the offer.

What I'm getting at is that, rather than just a blank room, there could perhaps be some of the City itself to explore. Perhaps a need to collect something there to be allowed back out? (Or alternatively a possible method of escape, as in, yes, you could pray to your deity, or you could make a bargain with a baatezu of some kind in return for resurrection, or perhaps find a powerful being in the city that could send you back?) At the very least, a fully functioning city of the dead replete with mob ghosts also hanging around going woogy woogy woogy, dramatic and fear-inspiring descriptions and maybe a mystic quest for escape could make the whole death thing a lot more fun. Of course, this is just a suggestion.

Third, there are only so many times you can die without getting blase about it. Which is automatically very, very bad. The trouble is that PC's come to know that they can die, pay their coin and get back out without too much pain - other than the level loss, which can just be earned back. My suggestion, my very strong suggestion, would be to make it much, much less likely for that death to happen in the first place.

Specifically, I did play a MUD for a while with designated areas for different levels. At low levels, your character was restricted to areas which were patrolled by the local guard. If you got into a fight that you couldn't handle, you would be rescued, and brought from zero health (unconscious) back to being alive, albeit very, very battered. The mobs would then dump you back in the city. If at low levels, instead of the die_msg some city soldier mobs appeared briefly and you got an echo like, 'You are aware of being carried back into the city on a stretcher', that would actually be a lot more realistic in my opinion.

Also, it would be very, very nice if low-level mobs did not shoot to kill. I will use the example of bandits here. Think about it. Bandits -wouldn't- kill people, not if they could help it, because then their crime goes from robbery to murder, and also because of the bandit-farming ethos ("Kill the merchant and you have his gold today. Let him go and he will be back in a year, and I can rob him again.") I would strongly suggest putting bandits on killmode stun, if that's something that's possible, and then having the character lose coin or any object marked as a purse if they are knocked unconscious.

[Elke]

Quick addition to this: Components! If your friends had to find not only the coin but also the rare components needed and then give them to the priest it might make getting raised more interesting, not least because death would lead to a quest. Just another suggestion being thrown out of nowhere here.

[Elke]

Alternatively, you might be able to gain small amounts of something like favour with a priest or a temple and would have to use it up for a raise? So, if you had helped the Mystran faith with X quest the reward would be raise points which meant that the autohealer would be willing to raise you, rather than just refuse in an, 'I don't know this person!' sort of way?

[Lathlain]

Those are some very good points actually.

An expansion to the Fugue plane is one I'd very much like to see - yes, even offering services like Baatezu and Tanar'ri offering you a resurrection at a cost of your soul (your alignment moves towards LE or CE depending) and payment of some sort. Increasing the cost of NPC priests, even asking for a gemstone in addition would be a nice touch too, and would make them as useful as they were always meant to be!

I'm not entirely in favour of areas that restrict players of a certain level, because I'm aware that levelling is tedious! I know people will prefer to stick to low levels indefinitely, but will still want access to 'the world map' for example. Making mobs 'shoot to stun' in most low level areas would be a good alternative, as you say.

I can see the arguments against the death timer unfortunately, though I will point out that it's no worse than the current punishment for mugging that said, perhaps there are better ways after all.

[Elke]

This was less of a restriction and more an alternative to the insta-resurrection. I hadn't entirely worked it out in my head but something along the lines of, whilst you are in a 'city' area you get a 'rescue' msg rather than the die_msg, indicating that city guards had rescued you in the nick of time? (Of course, whilst this works fine for Waterdeep, I'm not so sure it would work for say Zhentil Keep. Unless they chuck you in a cell after and demand money for rescuing you maybe?) Most lvl1-10 chars stay pretty much in a city anyway because travel is so hard, or at least that's what I've found...

[Saranya]

Most PC's, when faced with death...

Most PC's I know (including mine) find death extremely difficult and traumatic to recover from. I think FK is one of the hardest muds to come back from death, and I know several players who quit this game after repeatedly having all their belongings wiped out or permanently maiming their character's stats because they couldn't find anyone to help them.

Death is one thing for a "mainstream RP" PC from Waterdeep playing primetime...and quite another for legions of newbies, drow, evils, wilderness-types or any poor sot whose RL is in the wrong time zone. The only "death timer" I would ever support would be if after a RL week or so the Gods finally take pity on the poor fool and restore him to life. (Thanks to immy's who do that manually!)

If the problem is you think people are treating death OOC-ly, that sounds like something Complaints should deal with, not hard code.

(Not to say I don't <3 some of the ideas on this thread. A slower decay on corpses could give people time to coordinate an RP "search and rescue". Lots of fun! Extending the Fugue Plane has been discussed before and def is on my Top Ten!)

[Kallias]

I picture this only increasing PVP kills. I think plenty of players experience schadenfreude during a pkill...knowing the player you just "beat" has to sit around for 2 hours increases that joy from their misery.

I will always be against anything that promotes battlebot like player vs. player. I think there are much more dynamic and interesting ways for pc's to compete.

[Elke]

I picture this only increasing PVP kills. I think plenty of players experience schadenfreude during a pkill...knowing the player you just "beat" has to sit around for 2 hours increases that joy from their misery.

I really don't think that sounds like anyone I've ever rp'd with, actually.

[Zorinar]

Hmm, I am having a hard time finding the words to describe what I feel about the subject. I am against it in some very primal way but perhaps I will find out why as I type on...

So, this is a game, it is not real life. The more you try to make it like real life the more tedious it will get and the more people will just avoid the things that annoy them. I don't know about anyone else, but when I die, I am out of commission for however long the time lasts. Maybe its a Wizard thing, I don't know. I basically can do nothing but roleplay the weakness which seems to last forever to me or wander around waterdeep and philosophize with someone. Having to spend real life hours in the death realm... I would avoid anything that will ever kill my character. There is absolutely no enjoyment to that at all. I don't understand why we need to brainstorm to make the effects even more traumatic. My character fights all the time, and I have died, both by other players forgetting to put on killmode stun in a duel, and by mobs. I have never found the experience a laugh-it-off one. To that effect, I always roleplay a stun fight with people, even when the fight is not a friendly one. (usually in the theme of keeping them alive to live in shame...) Sure, there are some players that just laugh at Zorinar during a confrontation, even though he could utter destroy them, because they will be raised. But I usually just ignore them in the future. The good role players that can judge their power level against mine and role play it out either as my superior or inferior-but trying-not-to-show-it always bring me back for more fun. Some of the players, some of the evil ones stick out in my mind, are really amazing at it.

Whenever Zorinar lost a fight in a duel, I always roleplay him to respect that other players power and never just laugh it off if they meet in the future. For example, you can sometimes hear Zorinar talking about how strong Wrok is, because Wrok has actually killed Zorinar (accidentally but role played it out cleverly) in at least two(?) duels. Zorinar never laughs in his face when they meet just because he knows he can be resurrected later.

So, I don't think this is in any way a code issue. People can try to have some more fun and play the part. Seeing masters do it always inspires me and I know I am not the best at it but I do try to make of it what I can.

On a realistic level, sometimes just finding people to help you can take forever. Some people really don't have forever and need to leave. This is one reason why when I am asked for help to get a corpse, I'm usually all over it and right away. I communicate a lot with the person and let them know whats going on so they can judge how long it will take. Something might be coming up and they cant really stay long or need to make plans. In the end it's all about fun.

Fugue could certainly use some enhancements, and for suggestion I propose perhaps some more terrifying imagines, or even perhaps three different rooms. Ones for those loved by their deity, ones for those hated by their deity and those with no faith. Some background noise while they wait could spice it up a bit, until an actually area is coded for it.

Z

[Kirkus]

I think the option of expanding the Fugue Plane has been brought up before. I don't think anyone is against it, from what I remember. Someone just needs to build it. Then we just have to figure out what to do with the bodies while people are playing as spirits elsewhere... If we give the dead a place to roam around and not get board, then we can more seriously talk about extending a death timer. If/When we get this sort of expansion I think it would be cool if, the living were to be able to do their resurrecting and what not, then just let the body remain until the spirit of the player is ready to return, till they are done running around the City of the Dead.

[Isolrem]

punishing players by taking away fun is the worst way to implement a deterrent, especially one against a not very serious problem: I do not see a trend of players taking death too lightly, especially in the PK situation you described. I was PKed once at a low level by a level 50. It was purely out of RP, so I completely did not expect the person who PKed me too loot the only good item I had. He told me "if you want this back, come back when you can defeat me". Well, I can't report him because it is not against the rules, but the fact is he was lvl 50 and I've yet to reach that level on any character, and I don't think hes active anymore.

[Ocius]

wow i guess experience is everything? I hope I learn how to handle death on this game, but I basically quit the first time cause I kept dying and having to start over from scratch with no stuff. Even now on my second character on this game I keep dying in the Font to training dummies when the knock my head off. I try to RP it, but it happens so much it's sort of hard to do that, specially when you are alone and have to walk over like a jerk and pull your belongings out of your own body! Also you lose all your experience and have to start fresh! I got almost 50 hours on that character (lots of RP, not just smacking dummies) but I've only gotten him to level 7. Well it just seems to me that death is plenty hard on this game without making it tougher.