Forums » Suggestions

Death penalty

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Jan 26, 2005 CrippledPidgeon link
Furious: "Heck, I've been flying around greyspace for two weeks now and have only been attacked once. I don't even bother with weapons now if I'm trading or mining."

Is that a request?
Jan 26, 2005 johnhawl218 link
just opened a can of WhoopAss ya'know >:)
Jan 26, 2005 Sputnik66 link
i couldn't have put it better myself, tboyz007. all points i agree with and fully support.

this one being the primary:

"Second, penalties would discourage all forms of PvP. If player's lose points for losing, who would bother trying? PvP is a main fun point in the game, and shouldn't be tampered with."
Jan 27, 2005 Furious link
@Pidgeon

Yeah, sure. Rip me if you want. First you would have to find me, and second you would have to kill me before I self destructed (just to annoy you). Hey, it won't set me back so why worry?
Jan 27, 2005 Beolach link
Ok, I think typing /explode to avoid getting killed by another player is just lame. Totally dog-in-the-manger. So far I don't think I've seen it abused much, but I think if people are using it for that, then I'd like to see say a 3 second delay before it actually self-destructs.
Jan 27, 2005 Furious link
Of course it's lame. Any time it's better for you to kill yourself then try to fight/escape is pretty absurd. Unfortunately, the system as it is now encourages it.
Jan 27, 2005 Beolach link
It's NOT better for you to kill yourself. You gain absolutely NOTHING for using /explode rather than fighting to the end. It is not the system as it is now that encourages it, but only some players bad attitude.

http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aesop1.cgi?1&TheDogintheManger2

[edit]
Sorry that this sounds rather inflammatory, I'm just voicing a strong opinion I have on things like this, and I'm rather sleep deprived at the moment, so I'm not going to take time to reword it.
[/edit]
Jan 27, 2005 Spider link
/explode rather than get XP loss? hmm... hmmm......
Jan 27, 2005 Renegade ++RIP++ link
Euhm didn't furious state then he found any option that killed yourselve in stead of trying to run/escape to be absurd. Or at least that is what I read between the lines.

Still, we used it a lot during the beta, if people pressed other people in a fight that they didn't wanted. Example you see a known griefer attack, immediately /explode. It damaged him and you wer out of his path unbothered. Or when you were flying a tradeship like a centaur and a triflare valk doomed upon you intent on killing you. Never used it in ctf or any of the other consentual pvp.

Or we used to move from point x to our safearea immediately, was prety nifty. Mostly by firsdt hopping ina free bus though :D
Jan 27, 2005 Beolach link
@Spider: That's part of the reason I really don't like any XP penalty at all.
Jan 27, 2005 wylfing link
Furious, your argument is not advancing your case.

For starters, you seem to assume that preventing other players from increasing their kill score somehow benefits you. (Hence Beolach's "dog in the manger" reference.) I cannot perceive the logic in that. Certainly there is nothing of this attitude built into the /explode command.

Secondly -- if, for the sake of discussion, we assume that everyone else shares the dog-in-the-manger attitude -- a death penalty provides no resolution to this issue. The balance is precisely the same. Faced with imminent destruction, you could either type /explode and take a death penalty, or...um...be destroyed and take a death penalty.

As a matter of fact, I think there would be an -increase- in the number of people who used /explode to rob their attacker of a kill. Losses would be more painful, and the urge to get back at attackers in any way would be more prevalent.

No, it's much better the way it is now, with very slight costs.
Jan 27, 2005 hakamadare link
heh yeah. /explode should have a 10-second delay. or maybe 30. or perhaps you shouldn't be able to /explode if any other player (not a bot) is within 2000m.

but yes, /exploding to "deny your opponent the kill" is beyond lame.
Jan 27, 2005 mgl_mouser link
On the death subject;

Any sort of xp loss upon death is a penalty wich I wouldn't accept. You dont loose experience when you "die". On the contrary, you probably learn that you dont ram a hive queen with a bus (or whatever you did to get you killed).

I could see some faction standing loss though, wich would make way more sense. If I die, then it's normal that my nation would "admire" me lomewhat less. Maybe a 10% loss in faction standing isn't bad. Say, someone who's +700 gets -70, so +630 isn't too demoralizing and can be brought back up quickly through botting or missions.

On the /explode subject;

The one thing about dieing that somewhat botters me is the automagic implied teleportation to your "home" station. Some people already abuse it as a quicker mean of returning to a given sector.

For example, along a CtC route, a defender (or attacker) that gets killed, automatically gets returned to a base in the same sector he attacks/defends, ship gets automatically bought, flyes out to 3000m and warps back into action with a fresh hull while the opponend is still hard at work with a 50% hull.

Some might say it's brilliant planning, but I feel it's a cheap way to do things.

When you die, your canopee should just stay in space as an object too-small to be targeted and limited thrusters would allow you to go to a nearby station. No more teleportation. Just a tiny escape pod. Untargetable. Zero cargo unit. No weapon.

THAT would make you suffer your death and would prevent some of the abuse of /explode.
Jan 27, 2005 johnhawl218 link
On /explode:

There should be no timer, it's fine the way it is. If you want to deny someone the satisfaction of getting anyother kill point that's your choice. There may be no direct benefit to you, but then again, they get nothing either. It helps too if your being greifed, if they keep coming after you and you keep blowing up perhaps they will get the hint and move onto a different target. Again, there is nothing wrong with the way it is now. No need to tweak it to make it even less useful.
Jan 27, 2005 Furious link
I freely admit that /exploding is lame. However, if I am being pirated in a trading vessel, I can use the /explode to avoid combat. If I do this enough, the pirates will get annoyed and learn that they won't get a PK against me and then they will leave me alone, thus affording me protection against piracy.

Perhaps some people will then begin to ignore me when I'm in system and may not notice when I come in with a well-armed combat ship and rip them while they are bothering someone else.

Now if there were some sort of penalty, I would 1) be more careful about where I fly and how well armed I am, 2) hire an escort if needed, 3) watch the radar more closely, 4) run before the other guy gets into combat range.

Ah well it's a moot point. As I said before, there is no practical way of implementing a death penalty without annoying all the established players who have become comfortable with the current system.

The only tweak I could see that might also be easily implemented would be to log you out when you died and ban you for like 5 minutes. At the very least that would make death inconvenient, it would also take care of that CtC issue without harming anyone's rep/xp.

As it stands, without a penalty, the /explode command can be used abusively.
Jan 27, 2005 Starfisher link
I like mouser's suggestion better. Money and XP are just abstractions of how much time you put into the game - why not cut straight to the chase? Force players who die to take some time returning home. Give the pod crazy linear acceleration but poor spin torgue, but remove its ability to do damage by crashing into things so that it doesn't become a cruise missle. The only thing it should be good for is getting to a station.
Jan 27, 2005 roguelazer link
That would be boring. Did you even read any of the reviews? They all stated that there was too much down-time, too much time where you were just sitting in space not doing anything. We don't want to make everybody who dies suffer a multi-minute trip back to a station!