Something we've talked a bit about is death, and particularly the costs associated with death in Lusternia. Lusternia is a pretty conflict-heavy game, and I've heard a lot about how dying (and particularly xp loss) disenfranchises newer or inexperienced players from participating in their city or commune's big conflicts.

I want to stress that this idea is just an idea, and that we have no plans to implement this (or anything similar). If it's something you guys are really excited about, and only if, then we will consider adding it.

The idea I would like to put forth for discussion and feedback is this:

• Removing XP loss on death in non-enemy territory
• Reducing XP loss in enemy territory
• Adding an affliction on death that lowers your stats and skills (similar to a truedisfavor)
• This affliction would last for 10-30 minutes, and be incurable
• Death mitigation skills (conglutination, vitae etc.) would reduce this time drastically (probably as much as 50-67%)

I think a benefit of this idea is that you don't lose your bashing time when you die, instead you will just temporarily lose some of your skills and have lower base stats (making you less effective if you choose to go out and join the fight again right away). It seems to me that this would also mitigate some of the frustration about death avoidance skills, because nobody is losing their hard-earned experience. I believe it would also make conflict more enjoyable, particularly on the defending side of raids.

A downside is that this will make death less meaningful all around, and might reduce some of the intensity that comes from a hard-fought battle where you have a lot of experience on the line.

What are your thoughts?

I like it. It gives everyone the same "loss" on death (some time), without it being hours and hours for some people who might not bash a lot compared to twenty-minutes for a heavier basher.

It should also reduce a lot of complaints about Lich, etc.

Eh. I don't really feel strongly about this one way or the other, but if you implement it you should probably loosen up the Avenger restrictions as death will no longer be anything but an extremely minor inconvenience.

So Demi-gods and such would have reduced stats also then?

Actually, I have a question about the implementation (thanks for the idea, Veo!).

Let's say that Gregori is defending Ethereal Serenwilde, dies, and conglutinates. He gets the death penalty, and loses some skills. If he goes back up to defend... he has lost conglutinate, and every time from then on he gets the full penalty & prays? Does it stack with itself?

My one question is..Would this stack on death, or does it just reset the timer or something?

(Damn you, xenthos, ninja'ing me with my own question)

And it seems like...this is almost worse. Because then when people are defending from a huge group and being slaughtered, the raiding group just gets even more of an advantage.

..Removing xp loss? It's already easy enough to maintain experience here. Amazingly trivial, in fact.
It's too low, imo.

This would be kind of silly. It just demoralizes you with death even more than something like Psionic Burnout (aka no bashing for the next hour). This would mean people who die on, say, Nil when I raid would be unable to conglut (lowering of skills) and have a disadvantage against the raiders unless they zerg a huge number of fighters together.

I lose bashing time when I die?

This just means less conflict. This would make raiding less enjoyable for the defenders, too, as they'd all have this affliction.


Death is already meaningless as is compared to any other IRE.


Remove XP immunity skills altogether, replace with conglut loss. Increase Demigod death penalty to what it was pre-havens change (100k/250k/500k).

Yes, you do. In fact, this was one of the major cornerstones of your "Liches should have essence loss!" things-- that it's unfair that you have to work to keep it (by spending more time bashing) while liches don't.

It's also a cornerstone of all the anti-lich arguments. "We lost experience, and you did as well, but not as much-- so we're going to attack you until you pray and feel all happy about it."

Yeah, I like how Forren is saying exp is meaningless while arguing for a Lich nerf in the same post.

Oh, I was confused. I assume he meant the time it takes me to redef (the time where I could be bashing), which is trivial. Read it wrong.

Yes, of course you'd lose time spent bashing if you die. That's why you learn to defend yourself so you don't die as often. It shouldn't be a clear path to the upper tier of levels.

Compared to, say, Aetolia, it's ridiculously easy to keep experience up here. We lose less - whether it be by conglut or praying.

That said, it's also silly that some people are near-immune from the essence/xp loss that we do have.

Removing xp loss would be extremely silly. Xp loss in Lusternia is already extremely, extremely low compared to other IRE games AND Lusternia has got to be the easiest game to achieve level 100.

This really should only be if you choose to resurrect at the spiri-- Oh wait..

:hum:

Edit: And for construction... I think you should remove exp loss from death entirely. Instead, exp loss should be associated with avenger status and suspect.

Really, if it's so minor, it shouldn't matter if some people are near-immune...

I have to vote No on all counts. Death is already meaningless and it is too easy to reach the higher levels as it is. You lost 4 hours of bashing time? What the Nil are you doing mindlessly bashing for four hours as it is? People want a quick and easy way to the top, and this just makes that problem worse. Some players don't believe this, but you -can- actually play the game, have fun, and do everything you want -without- being a demigod. Heck, I've been stuck at Circle 67 for the past 8 months or so and am having a great time doing what I do.

XP loss I agree is too low as it is, why negate it even more? Death, XP, they need to mean something. This destroys their meaning.

Technically speaking Cholera is not a good example to use here, as all one needs to do is to drink lots of water with 20 grams of glucosis (sugar) and 5 grams of salt added per litre and you will be properly rehydrated.

Perhaps Ebola? Typhus? HIV? Smallpocks?

Chicken pocks?

It's minor compared to other games. Being immune means you can keep raiding/griefing/drinkingtodeath/etc with no consequence. The difference for demigod loss is a bit more pronounced (and should be more pronounced than it currently is) than regular player loss.

Remove/change XP loss mitigation. Don't remove XP loss.

Gregori wins.

My gripes with it would be that conglutinate would become a much-much-much less essential ability to have. So the people like me who've yet to trans all their guild skills so they can get conglutinate (or are saving up for conglutinate and are only up to broadcast which they wouldn't have gotten had conglutinate not been so important since they'd've prefered transing the guild skills) will have transed planar for nearly nothing. Maybe make it so your level in Planar affects how much time is taken off your Resurrection Sickness? Or Discipline? I'd so forget all my planar for Discipline if it weren't for that damn conglutinate.

Anyway, I can't fully decide whether I like this idea or not, but however annoying xp loss may be, I think I'm leaning towards dislike. Can you say, 'demigods everywhere'?

My suggestion: make it so you don't lose experience when you because of disconnecting!