[Role Playing Game] Death Penalty and Resurrection

[Trill]

So, WoW Classic reignited my urge to do warcraft stuff, and so returned to my ORPG and instantly ran into one of its main problems.

Death is implemented in such a way, that a dead hero leaves a tombstone behind that can be targeted by resurrection spells, however there are also altars on the map, that player can "unlock", allowing instant revive at the altar for a certain sum of gold. Only one altar can be unlocked at each given time, so players don't use it as travel method.

Here I run into two problems:
1) Beside revival cost, what penalties should a player face?
Experience loss is a popular option, but I'm afraid its too frustrating.
Making revival take time instead of being instantaneous is boring and doesn't punish the player if there's a person who can resurrect.
Resurrection sickness is also too frustrating and simply invites player to wait it out.
Any thoughts?

2) Say there's no one with a resurrection spell in the game, the player hasn't got to the first altar yet, and he happens to die. What should happen?
Game over for him? Not an option.
Random NPC priest (maybe make him kinda a meme) wanders over to revive him?
Have altar at starting point? No, some altars, especially first ones, are parts of story quests, and they normally cannot be located at map entrance, because reasons.
Make player invulnerable at 1% story and teleport them to map entrance describing how they chickened out and ran away?

Thoughts?

 

[cleavinghammer]

1) A temporary decrease in gold and XP obtained shortly after resurrection.

2) Give the player a ghost unit so he can still help the party get to the altar without directly aiding in combat (scouting, detection, setting off triggers and traps without harm, etc.).

 

[Oliver]

Do you need to punish people for dying? time walking from the alter (and dissapointment of dying that the boss will regen or someone will steal the kill/xp/loot is kinda punishing in itself)

You could get by the player hasn't reached first alter problem by making an alter in the starting town which starts enabled.

I propose pretty forgiving mechanics but people play for fun, and punishing a person who's already behind might lead to them falling behind significantly more.

Alternatively you could give the player a choice: resurrect for free with a debuff or pay extra for no debuff. Could "explain it" narratively in game by having the player buy health insurance or make an offering to the alter to ensure their next respawn doesn't come with sickness.

You might even tie it to a quest, a quest series which decreases the punishment for respawning, so a player who dies a lot can mitigate the punishment by doing a few quests (gather 3 different healing herbs, recover holy statue from brigands, do a pilgrimage visiting all the shrines etc). By giving a choice you give the player the illusion of agency which some peeps enjoy.

 

[Trill]

Good ideas, I'll try some of them.
More are still welcome.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Maybe a "grace" period, where deaths before the first altar don't count.

 

[Veritas 117]

Quite a while ago I had an interesting idea that didn't really end up suiting my needs, but I'll share it with you anyway.

Basically when your hero dies they are sent to an astral plane where they have to defeat death in order to return to the world of the living. This obviously depends on the kind of map you have whether or not you can make it work. If you fail to defeat death you will be imprisoned by him until you gather enough strength to fight him again. Obviously it needs to be tweaked, but it was just an idea I had a long time ago.

 

[Oliver]

Quite a while ago I had an interesting idea that didn't really end up suiting my needs, but I'll share it with you anyway.

Basically when your hero dies they are sent to an astral plane where they have to defeat death in order to return to the world of the living. This obviously depends on the kind of map you have whether or not you can make it work. If you fail to defeat death you will be imprisoned by him until you gather enough strength to fight him again. Obviously it needs to be tweaked, but it was just an idea I had a long time ago.

I had an idea for a map a few years back loosely inspired by the Abhorsen novel series, half the map would be the death plane and other half the normal world.
Different areas of the death plane would have different effects and require different skill level to survive (so dying in a high level area requires more necromancy skill to survive).

Additionally when anything dies a soul is added to the death plane, when someone uses a necromancy spell in the normal world triggers look in the corresponding death plane area for a spirit to summon, the strength of the spirit would determine the power of the summoned undead, the necormancy level would determine whether or not the undead creature is controllable. A necromancer could go into the death plane using the banish spell, a dangerous activity where they can scout for magic sources and souls to use.
In the abhorsen novel series there were 9 "levels" to the death plane, each having it's own threats. Death

Not quite on topic for the thread but a interesting spin on the astral plane thing.

 

[Cespie]

1) Beside revival cost, what penalties should a player face?
Experience loss is a popular option, but I'm afraid its too frustrating.
Making revival take time instead of being instantaneous is boring and doesn't punish the player if there's a person who can resurrect.
Resurrection sickness is also too frustrating and simply invites player to wait it out.
Any thoughts?

In WoW, they use the tediousness of walking to your corpse as a factor, as well as the monetary loss in form of a repair bill. Gold loss is in itself a fairly substantial punishment. My ORPG cuts 50% current gold from players, making it a really shitty thing to die, and then uses a 30 second revive timer. Dying is also just really disappointing, even when not punished. I recently tested a map by another creator, who implemented more or less zero punishment for death. I still avoided it rather rigorously, as I perceived it as a failure on my part. My overall take, is that you don't need to punish death all that much. Make it inconvenient and accompany it by a small gold loss or etc.
Also, in bossfights, I use sort of an instancing system, which means that players who die in a bossfight, cannot rejoin the fight until the fight is over, or the boss is dead. Basically like a raid/wipe mechanic. If the party wipes, the boss encounter is reset.

2) Say there's no one with a resurrection spell in the game, the player hasn't got to the first altar yet, and he happens to die. What should happen?
Game over for him? Not an option.
Random NPC priest (maybe make him kinda a meme) wanders over to revive him?
Have altar at starting point? No, some altars, especially first ones, are parts of story quests, and they normally cannot be located at map entrance, because reasons.
Make player invulnerable at 1% story and teleport them to map entrance describing how they chickened out and ran away?
Thoughts?

The player should just be revived at their starting location. Story-wise, you can add some sort of element that allows for this. Say that your story has some sort of divine guardian or power that leads the heroes on their journey, you could have that revive them. Hell, this could be a "mysterious stone" found at the intro of the map in the forest, which essentially acts like an altar without being one. Just write it into your story, and the problem is solved.