Can we find alternative for "sprint naked to loot your corpse"? Throw in your ideas (:

[ftsm]

I know it's stable mechanic that we are used to play with since century start. But isn't it weird? 

You are to run to your body (to the place you was slain in your best equipment) naked in a naive hope to snatch your belongings back and run away.

Also you are on a item despawn timer. Also you can't leave the game, bcs all your dropped items will be despawned (yeah, keep that in mind if you didn't know this. Never ragequit VS, boys)

Do you have any ideas of alternative way to punish a player for their death that aren't so annoying, hasteful and.. chaotic?

 

Maybe Anego will pick someone's cool idea from the discussion

[LadyWYT]

I know that even if you have the "keep inventory on death" rule set to true, you'll still be penalized for dying with the reset of your nutrition meters and your stamina meter being set to half-full on respawn. It's not the stiffest penalty though, as it's fairly easy to recover your nutrition(although not immediately). It also opens up a rather ironic use for the really bad mushrooms like funeral bells--just go exploring however far you'd like, and eat one of those when you're ready to return home.

5 minutes ago, ftsm said:

Do you have any ideas of alternative way to punish a player for their death that aren't so annoying, hasteful and.. chaotic?

I think the annoying, hasteful, and chaotic part is supposed to be the primary incentive to avoid death in the first place. I'm also not sure that there's really a good alternative either, as a penalty that's easy to ignore will encourage players to play more carelessly. On the flipside, a penalty that's too harsh can make it more difficult to fully enjoy the game.

There's a couple of other games I can think of that do handle death a bit differently, that could potentially work in Vintage Story. However, it would require implementing some sort of skill progression system for the player character first, before such systems could even be considered as an alternative.

Example #1: Valheim tracks the player's skills in things like running, swimming, chopping trees, mining, and using various weapons like spears, bows, axes, and swords. The more skill you have in a particular area, the better you are at doing that task. So a high skill in one-handed swords means you'll do a lot of damage with swords, high running skills let you sprint for longer periods of time, etc. If you die though, you'll lose a few levels in your skills and need to work to level them back up. Dying every once in a while isn't that bad, but dying multiple times within a short time could set you back significantly.

Example #2: The Elder Scrolls titles don't exactly penalize death, as much as they penalize jail time. The longer sentence your character has to serve, the more progress they lose on their skills. However, I do believe this is limited strictly to losing progress towards the next level of the skills; it doesn't actually cause your character to lose levels in skills as Valheim does.

Example #3: World of Warcraft is a different beast due to being an MMO, however, it has some methods that could be considered. First and foremost, if your character dies, any gear they had equipped suffers a significant loss in durability. Multiple deaths in a short time can make for some expensive repair bills(although in WoW's case, gold was easy to acquire and repairs cost money instead of materials). Second, if you don't run back to your corpse and choose to resurrect in the graveyard instead, you'll be penalized with the "resurrection sickness" debuff, which significantly lowers your health and damage until it wears off(one hour).

Now all that being said...I'm not sure adopting one of those options would actually make player death any less frustrating. A skill system would be great to have for character progression anyway, however, a simple penalty to skill level is usually easy to overcome by grinding out a specific task for a few minutes. Knocking a chunk out of the player's armor/clothing and any tools/weapons on their person might work, but may likely end up ignored in the late game given that the player has plenty of resources to work with by this time. The "resurrection sickness" penalty probably fits in the lore the best, however, the only real drawback to a penalty like that is just needing to sit in your base doing some mundane chores for a little while before venturing back out.

In short...I think at best, you're swapping one set of frustrations for a different set that will likely be much easier to ignore. The potential to lose one's items still provides some of the best incentive to carefully consider one's surroundings, equipment, and possibly risks before committing to things like long trips or other hazardous activities.

[BunnyKate]

I think this will be too cruel, considering that the game has seasons. Running naked in winter to your point of death will not be easy 

[WiredSlumber]

Another way to punish people for dying, would be to have some sort of death sickness instead of dropping items. Maybe lower work speed, higher hunger rate, slower running speed, etc...

[Toroic]

Similar to Valheim and Minecraft, a good strategy is to keep a secondary set of gear you can easily toss on in order to get back to your body and maybe even fight off whatever killed you.  This strategy gets stronger the later the game gets and the better your secondary gear becomes.

Unlike Minecraft, you can't easily reset your spawn closer to where the danger is, so you'll need to stock up on temporal gears or take it more carefully in the first place.

Also don't forget about pillaring up or blocking off enemies.  Being able to place a barrier between you and enemies when you're the only one who can dig is powerful.

[Maelstrom]

Probably gonna get a lot of blow back for this suggestion.

Don't die! 

As in figure out what you need to do to keep from dying in the first place.  Assess the situation, are you equipped to handle the opponents?  If not, better to run away to fight another day.  I've done that countless times when spelunking in battle jammies or nekkid and hear that wonderful bell.   Whoops, don't have ladders with me.  Welp, gonna have to come back before caving down that death hole.

If you don't die there's no respawn and no running around nekkid.

[ifoz]

6 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Probably gonna get a lot of blow back for this suggestion.

Don't die! 

I mean, yeah, this is the ultimate strategy. 

Still, sometimes it can't really be helped, such as when you're on a laggy server and drifters are more than happy to teleport you around so that you can be hit by a rock barrage.
Another example might be getting knockback from starvation damage and being flung over a nearby cliff.
Until combat gets an update, I'd say that there are indeed certain scenarios on laggy servers when you really cannot do anything but die.

Back when I was new, I would have probably complained about the current death system, but since I don't really die much anymore, I think it's personally not an issue.
I agree that the "sprint back to your corpse with no gear because otherwise it can despawn" isn't the best solution though, and I think we could seriously use a player corpse or something of the like so that you can log out and your stuff won't vanish.

Edited August 17 by ifoz

[Thorfinn]

Both those situations are choices. A laggy server needs to be investigated and fixed, and you can avoid hunger knockback with this one weird trick.  

I think a decent "feature" of the game is if it turned your view distance down to minimum on a death. The despawn timer doesn't start ticking until you reload that chunk, so you get a lot closer to your stuff before it can be an issue.

Another possibility is to realize that it's just stuff, stuff that is probably easily replaced. By the time you have battle jammies, you should have materials for several sets of battle jammies. Linen sacks are even more easily replaced. It's just inconvenient enough that you decide to exercise a little more caution next time.

[LadyWYT]

21 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Don't die! 

 

14 hours ago, ifoz said:

I mean, yeah, this is the ultimate strategy. 

Agreed! I'd also wager that those who aren't okay with the risk of losing their stuff are most likely playing with the "keep inventory on death" rule set to true, so death really shouldn't be much of an adversity in that case.

13 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Another possibility is to realize that it's just stuff, stuff that is probably easily replaced. By the time you have battle jammies, you should have materials for several sets of battle jammies. Linen sacks are even more easily replaced. It's just inconvenient enough that you decide to exercise a little more caution next time.

This, plus what @Toroic mentioned about Valheim and Minecraft--it's a good idea to keep some extra armor, tools, and weapons around in the event that you die. Even if you don't die, items will eventually wear out and break, so it doesn't hurt to have the extra anyway. By the late game, you've got a lot of resources to work with as well. And while linen sacks are easily replaced, so are leather backpacks. Or at least, I've never had any issues of running out of leather.

[MassiveHobo]

I think players stuff should drop into a block on the ground that looks like a pile of stuff and a bag on top of some clothes. I'd have it survive a year and age through several states.

[WiggleStick]

I've thought you could spawn in a traders bed and could get your belongings back when you pay the trader for his recovering and healing you.

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, WiggleStick said:

I've thought you could spawn in a traders bed and could get your belongings back when you pay the trader for his recovering and healing you.

Ooo, I like this one! Especially if there's some sort of reputation system implemented for the player, otherwise I see some players resorting to killing the trader in order to avoid paying to get their stuff back(since traders do respawn after some time).

[Thorfinn]

Another possible solution to having to run back to get your stuff naked every time you die is permadeath.  

[Maelstrom]

14 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

 I see some players resorting to killing the trader

Good luck with that.