COMMUNITY - FORUMS - AGING & DYING
Ocean Permadeath too harsh

Dev's have stated that drowning in the deep ocean will result in Perma-death. I personally find that a bit harsh, and I am someone who has played Haven & Hearth which was a perma-death game FAR harsher then CoE plans too be. Mainly the problem is that it's so much more dangerous then staying on land and this could stunt the navel aspects of the game. It also wastes good story possibilities.

The Dev's logic looks to center around the following logic, first that just making you appear back on the continental shore would be lame (I can agree with that) and thus the body needs to stay in the ocean and is thus beyond recovery, while I can buy that a body is unrecoverable after falling into Mt Doom like Golum it's not even all that accurate when it comes to an ocean. Their are a lot of reasonable things that can happen to a body other then sinking to the bottom.

First dead bodies can float, dolphins or other sea life could carry you on their backs, you can cling to driftwood or flotsam if the ship sank, and then tides and currents could move you around in the ocean until you wash up upon...

A deserted island, one of if not the most classic survival and fantasy tropes. In a game which goes out of its way to incorporate survival elements and limited map capabilities that make it possible to be lost (so you friends can't just pick you up easily) it would be a wasted opportunity to not maroon folks on islands. A person so marooned will likely be spending several day on the island building a raft and preparing some supplies for a risky voyage home while also dealing with countless possible adventures such as pirates, giant bee's, meeting other castaways named after days of the week, making friends with sporting equipment, building a radio out of coconuts etc etc.

Death at sea is thus a very inconvenient death that sends one on a set of misadventures that become part of your characters story rather then a simple perma-death.


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5/2/2019 2:40:06 PM #91

Posted By CommonlyQuixotic at 11:10 AM - Wed May 10 2017

The other environmental effect that can cause permadeath is a volcano.

Hmmm.... that could be a good way to punish the worst criminals... a quick dip in lava! Would solve the whole prison or exile thing!

5/2/2019 8:28:11 PM #92

The reason ocean travel is perms-death is because you can’t reach your corpse in the middle of the ocean. Sure, you can sit around in ghost form on the beaches hoping that someday a dolphin (or equivalent) will have decided to play with your rotting corpse and randomly deposited it on the beach. Your timer will likely run out before that happens. Your body could even end up on a deserted island somewhere.. good luck getting to it before you timer runs out.


5/16/2019 1:02:12 PM #93

Where can we find informations about exploration, seas and boats ?


As for myself the wonderful sea charmed me from the first. (Joshua Slocum)

5/19/2019 4:57:00 AM #94

Posted By Captain Wallobro at 06:02 AM - Thu May 16 2019

Where can we find informations about exploration, seas and boats ?

You will have to look around for it among all the developer posts. Some of it comes via fiction. Some hints can also be found in the list of promotional items, a few of which have coastal craft. There is no succinct single source of this information.


5/23/2019 1:43:59 PM #95

Posted By Idrhenion at 3:06 PM - Wed May 10 2017

When it comes to game design, high risk coupled with big payoff when other players are affected by it is usually a bad idea because it can backfire very easily. Realism isn't as important as a functional and practical game mechanic.

An action that has potentially adverse outcomes without adequate compensation in practice means unplayable content. To overcome this penalty, the rewards for successfully completing this action would need to be exceedingly high. These rewards then have much potential to create a dangerous imbalance.

An example of this manner of poor design I can think of is "Astral Communion" in Hearthstone. That card is practically unplayable unless you can overcome the fact that you just lost your hand. However, if you can work around the penalty then the card can seriously skew the balance and make the game not fun.

I could see the first couple of people risking permadeath for immense personal gain, but once the new areas are already more or less utilized I fear that the regions overseas will be just unplayable content for most players. Spending resources for content players can't or won't explore is bad, regardless of what the current forum community says or how realistic it would be.

Just another one of my unpopular opinions. :p

While this is indeed a potential issue, it's also a potential market. Naval forces may be further nurtured by the existence of a continent so far beyond the main... colonization will likely lead to some people establishing families on the new continent, therefore becoming another 'spawnpoint' for some. The value of the discoveries should be equal or greater than the starter continent, so it is likely the value of facilitating trade between the main and the newly discovered continent will encourage people to continue to make the voyages. Also worth considering is that once the first few adventurers make it to the new lands, there will be some ground works set for others that follow. As technology advances, the risks also decrease, I'd assume. All that aside, while discovering a new continent will indeed give way to fame, the discoverer won't necessarily find it so easy to monopolize the resources once reporting their discovery... and if they wait too long, the credit may fall into the hands of another. Considering the ability to swim, falling isn't necessarily insta-death, and food shortages could potentially be combated with fishing rods, harpoons, and bait. There is indeed a plethora of other risks to sailing so far out, but the point I'm trying to make is, a secondary continent doesn't seem like it would become 'unplayable content'. It would just be less popular among the common folks, for some time.


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5/23/2019 2:10:11 PM #96

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 10:32 AM - Wed Dec 27 2017

@promise, for me it's not really about the danger of the activity itself but the fact that from outside the studio it looks like another feature that is cool in theory but is ultimately too exploitable. Having perma-death at sea means that any group that is on a ship that decides they want to shit on your day has the means to perma-kill the entire crew and passengers. Making it "hard" to do isn't enough at that point. It needs to be not able to happen.

I posted this in the other permadeath ocean thread but it can be as simple as the captain saying "Whoever pays me X, gets to their destination and everyone else is going overboard". Then he throws you all overboard anyway..... What are you gonna do? fight the whole crew? yeah good luck. The other issue is that logically, crime at sea will be stupid unlikely to prove. Why? You perma-died. That means you mechanically cannot be a witness to your crime and cannot generate bounty tokens from it, meaning that if everyone perma-dies at sea NOBODY can report him except for Out-of-game talk which wont be that effective when it isn't backed by game mechanics.

Permadeath at sea is a cool concept but it should only be active through environmental and animal kills. For example, a kraken attacking the ship invokes permadeath but a crazy captain that wants to ruin your day doesn't. There is virtually no counter-play to a captain that wants to throw you overboard for no reason and with the lack of the criminal justice mechanics since you perma-died that means your only way to report it is to cry on a discord or town center and hope people believe you and even then you have 0 idea what his real name was. It will look like: "Some ship captain threw us overboard". Not helpful.

A large part of this game is building connections and knowing who to TRUST. if you get onto a ship with a captain that would do this kind of thing, that's your better lack of judgment that put you into the situation to begin with. The dangers of reputation damage would not help someone who did that either, and while I could see assassinations being performed via this method, such would be incredibly hard to pull off. Trust is extremely important for this kind of thing, so assuming someone with enough skill to reach the deep ocean would decide to permakill you, you can still fight back to some degree. Hire bodyguards if you're that fearful, only board a ship with close friends and on a vessel that's sent by the kingdom, so as not to end up with a band of pirates, extorted or perm-murdered. The ocean is a dangerous place, there will be pirates, there will be storms and probably monsters too... there will always be risk going that deep into the waters, and that's part of the adventure! many other professions if you'd rather not take the risk yourself, and people can be hired to help with anything that may require you to sail far out too.


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5/23/2019 2:51:51 PM #97

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 4:50 PM - Sat Jan 27 2018

Aside from the grief of “now that were off the coast, lemme throw all of you overboard”, like someone else said, the reward lessens overtime.

Someone discovering new land vs someone simply travelling between 2 player establishes continents with some goods doesn’t have the same reward but has the same risk.

fix: After a point of player development, fixed trade routes will appear or be markable so that any ship that stays within the trade route is NOT permadeath. Also, ships that are in deep sea cannot move into trade routes to gain this benefit and ships that go outside of the trade route have a bit of time to get back in the trade route before they are “at deep sea”.

This means that you can have 2 different multiplies for different reward levels. The simple traders and marketers will travel along trade routes with maybe x4 spirit loss and the explorers use the deep sea for perma-death.

That’s what risk vs reward is. Not just assigned permadeath to every reward.

If permadeath is negated, I honestly think this would be one of the best methods of doing so... as being strewn onto an island could actually be worse than permadeath if you really think about it... (lack of resources to get back, so your character just dies repeatedly until delayed permadeath ensues is a possibility that kind of makes me shiver.) Despite this, I still support the deep-ocean permadeath mechanic not only cause of the realism, but because it really gives exploration a feel for adventurism. Even without the proposed idea of high-spirit-loss trade routes, once players establish trade routes, the risk will still decrease as it's a more traveled and therefore discoverable location in which your character may be caught adrift. This isn't lava, it's salt water. You can survive for awhile before your body gives way and you drown. During this time, being on a trade route, you can instruct your family via family chat (or your tribal chat?) to send help via that specific route. If they make it in time, problem solved, and if they don't, well, it's not risk without consequence. And considering that players will inevitably use out-of-game chatrooms, it is also possible to contact someone that way in search of rescue... So, despite the "constant risk of permadeath", the safety of the less adventurous does, in a way, scale along with player advancement and establishment. IF the permadeath mechanic proves to be a negative feature overall, I assume the devs would then address it (whether by removing permadeath entirely, or implementing some sort of comprisable replacement)... but unless/until this is indeed the case, I see no reason to remove such an innovative and, for some, excitable feature that heightens the value players' lives in-game.


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5/23/2019 3:05:19 PM #98

@Lucet I would strongly disagree that's this is a case of "knowing who to trust" or many more mechanics would be this punishing. Oh, merchant poisoned his apples? Permadeath. Shoulda known they would do that. Now the ocean scenario: Thrown overboard? Permadeath. Shoulda known he would do that. It's the exact same structure.

If this single mechanic is the only mechanic where the unknown intent of someone can instantly permakill you, it isn't a theme but its an exception to the rule that: while other players can screw you, they generally cannot perma-kill you from one incident

The ocean can be permadeath and dangerous without allowing players (especially those you paid to take you) to permakill you, the 2 don't need to be linked is my overally point in this thread. You can had dangerous ocean travel w/o having a built in grief mechanic.


I don't know anymore.

5/23/2019 3:12:19 PM #99

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 11:05 AM - Thu May 23 2019

@Lucet I would strongly disagree that's this is a case of "knowing who to trust" or many more mechanics would be this punishing. Oh, merchant poisoned his apples? Permadeath! Shoulda knew he would do that. Oh, caravan turned on you and took your goods they were "guarding"? Permadeath! Shoulda known they would do that. After all that is the argument, Thrown overboard? Permadeath! Shoulda known he would do that. It's the exact same structure. With that argument every mechanic should be permadeath because it's your fault for not knowing they would do that.

If this single mechanic is the only mechanic where the unknown intent of someone can instantly permakill you, it isn't a theme but its an exception to the rule that: while other players can screw you, they generally cannot perma-kill you from one incident

hm, fair point, but the level of caution required for buying from a merchant, and the caution expected when making a long journey that risks the entirety of your character's playable lifespan should be different. You don't have to be close friends with the local merchant to buy from them. Yes, you should be cautious when hiring guards, but even then, the risk is less than the situation of permadeath looming. If you're really fearful of someone betraying you and trying to permakill you, take the necessary precautions or leave it up to someone that will...

(Edit) For example: make sure people know who you're sailing with before leaving. Have your assets set up for your child. Do a through background check on that person before boarding, and get credentials, verify them. You could even hire a captain that signs a liability contract with someone that's staying on land, possibly leveraging their home or their ship if you don't make it back safely. This also could work as incentive to make sure the captain does everything in their power to makes sure you and everyone aboard is safe. Is it a lot of work and somewhat time-consuming? Yes, but with the deep ocean RISK, it makes such precautions worth the time to anyone that sees the value in it. Trust isn't blind, it is something that is built and honed...


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5/23/2019 5:43:01 PM #100

Posted By Lucet Clara at 11:12 AM - Thu May 23 2019

If you're really fearful of someone betraying you and trying to permakill you, take the necessary precautions or leave it up to someone that will...

That's the same argument structure as before. Again, at that point, make everything in the game permadeath and if your worried you should have took precautions.

the caution expected when making a long journey that risks the entirety of your character's playable lifespan should be different

Sure when your dealing with actual gameplay elements and not players just trying to grief each other to piss someone off.

I'm not quite sure why you fight to protect a mechanic that is only served to royally screw someone over. I've already said it's ok to have permadeath in all situations except for where your own people throw you over. That means the only risk that is taken away is betrayal. Somehow that seems to be game breaking like the other dangers you mentioned no longer matter because this one section of plausible exploitation was removed. If removing betrayal somehow destroys all the risk and need for caution in ocean travel then ocean travel was terribly designed to begin with.

And honestly my suggestions didn't even remove betrayal as a possibility. It just didn't make it permadeath so even then betrayal was still a risk so I'm not sure what the issue is.


I don't know anymore.

5/24/2019 3:37:38 AM #101

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 1:43 PM - Thu May 23 2019

Posted By Lucet Clara at 11:12 AM - Thu May 23 2019

If you're really fearful of someone betraying you and trying to permakill you, take the necessary precautions or leave it up to someone that will...

That's the same argument structure as before. Again, at that point, make everything in the game permadeath and if your worried you should have took precautions.

the caution expected when making a long journey that risks the entirety of your character's playable lifespan should be different

Sure when your dealing with actual gameplay elements and not players just trying to grief each other to piss someone off.

I'm not quite sure why you fight to protect a mechanic that is only served to royally screw someone over. I've already said it's ok to have permadeath in all situations except for where your own people throw you over. That means the only risk that is taken away is betrayal. Somehow that seems to be game breaking like the other dangers you mentioned no longer matter because this one section of plausible exploitation was removed. If removing betrayal somehow destroys all the risk and need for caution in ocean travel then ocean travel was terribly designed to begin with.

And honestly my suggestions didn't even remove betrayal as a possibility. It just didn't make it permadeath so even then betrayal was still a risk so I'm not sure what the issue is.

Putting aside the nerfing of penalties on established trade routes scenario... Rather than changing the game mechanics for this, if someone decides to troll you by exploiting the permadeath mechanic, isn't that something you can report to the devs for them to handle on a case by case basis? (Since it's "plausible exploitation".)

My issue is the nerfing of the game mechanic, not the specific scenario you are uncomfortable with... from my personal view, betrayal, even with permadeath as a result, is an expected part of the game, even more so for those with high political standing.

That's the same argument structure as before. Again, at that point, make everything in the game permadeath and if your worried you should have took precautions.

That's kind of flawed tbh, it's not just about precautions. While I am a strong believer that preparedness can make a huge difference and that some things require different levels of caution, that doesn't mean caution guarantees success (as we are both aware.) Back to the base of the argument... this is why you choose which risks you are willing to take.

it isn't a theme but its an exception to the rule that: while other players can screw you, they generally cannot perma-kill you from one incident

So using your generalization theme, it's ok for players to screw you over so long as it isn't permadeath as a consequence?? If you disagree, then perhaps the real issue you have is PERMADEATH, not even the means of which you claim are flawed. Like I stated earlier, if you are killed in an exploitable manner, take it up with the Developers on a case by case basis. The fact that the permadeath consequence deters you, even if only via other players being jerks, is exactly why it's MEANT TO BE THERE.... to deter the risk adverse, whatever the reason may be.

And honestly my suggestions didn't even remove betrayal as a possibility. It just didn't make it permadeath so even then betrayal was still a risk so I'm not sure what the issue is.

To summarize, the issue is the removal of permadeath, because that is the SOLE factor that is deterring you right now. Your complaint is simply focused on one method in which it can be caused, and therefore leads one to believe that the act of betrayal in a "plausibly exploitable" manner is tolerable so long as you don't face the harsh penalty of the deep sea... Brave the dangers or stay ashore, laddy :)


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5/24/2019 6:45:42 AM #102

I really believe that the risk of permadeath at sea comes mainly from the environment and not from other players. Presumably, every character on a voyage has a role, and every loss of a character increases the risk of permadeath, or at least failure of the purpose of the voyage, for all the other characters on the voyage.

Considering the likely cost of putting together a voyage, gratuitous betrayal is highly unlikely as an intention. In the course of the Dance of Dynasties, however, such betrayals may occur. That, however, is a legitimate part of playing the game, and something that anyone who is involved with the Dance of Dynasties needs to consider as a risk factor. I doubt that such well-motivated betrayal will be a concern for non-aristocratic players.

The issue with murder-hobo type griefers is the same as always with CoE. In order to have a reasonable chance to CDG someone, a character will need to have some well-developed skills and equipment. A character without any skills of use to a voyage will almost certainly not be part of that voyage. A character who is merely a passenger on the voyage must have the means to pay for a place on the voyage and because of that is unlikely to be a murder hobo.


5/24/2019 3:46:48 PM #103

@ Lucet

  • no, that wouldn't be under reporting. Being an asshole is generally not a developers problem unless it leaks into real life issues like threats and personal attacks or modifying game code.

  • That's a pretty arbitrary line to draw of "what needs what level of precaution". Especially since currently that is the only mechanic in the game that does this.

  • Yes, I am using a general rule like most games do. Rules are how players know what is fair and what is not and set's expectations for gameplay. The current rule excluding the ocean exception is that your level of spirit loss on death is based on your fame and no player can perma-kill you w/o the corresponding fame level. This ocean loophole is like I said before, the only mechanic in the game that breaks this rule and allows players to instantly permakill.

  • Overall your arbitrary line of what should be and shouldn't be cautious about is my problem. Like I said, why isn't it permadeath when having caravan delivering 10k gold in valuables across a kingdom but doing the same distance and gold over the ocean is. The reward is the same with vastly increased risk thus the decision to have one be perma and one not be is largely arbitrary with the logic of "because of boats".

  • Personally, that one way of dying isn't my issue with ocean permadeath. It's a compromise to remove one of my biggest issues while leaving the others. Below is my issue with ocean permadeath again.

  • I can understand the initial purpose of the ocean being dangerous. You have the opportunity to explore new lands and be the first players in the game to find things which has huge returns. HOWEVER, like I said, this reward quickly diminishing once these things have been found and ocean travel reasons becomes for more simple things like "delivering a shipment" instead of "searching for a lost continent". The rewards for those 2 are vastly different yet with the same risk. The trade routes mechanic solve that.

Overall, delivering a shipment and finding a lost island of treasures shouldn't have the same risk. It makes no logical sense other than the arbitrary "because boats".


I don't know anymore.

5/24/2019 5:48:21 PM #104

@ Takeda_Shinukage The following is a response to each bullet in similar format:

1 Exactly. Unless it's actually something that's deemed exploitable, it's not something you can report... perhaps that's because... maybe, encountering people who may wish to do you harm... is part of the game? (and if they do so in such a dangerous zone, then you should also realize they are taking the same risk if it back fires onto them :/)

2 Agree to disagree

3

only mechanic in the game that breaks this rule and allows players to instantly permakill.

These are the rules; Land = spirit loss, Ocean = spirit loss, DEEP Ocean = permadeath. Expect permadeath in deep ocean, expect spirit loss everywhere else (in most cases).

no player can perma-kill you w/o the corresponding fame level

Not necessarily true... as some other people pointed out, repetitive starvation, perhaps from banishment, or some other repetitive position in which, "your character will still die, and even upon respawn, as the conditions cannot sustain it's life any longer" could also result in Permadeath. It's just less likely cause on land, you have a greater ability to recover, unlike in the ocean. The biomes hold different assets and risks that correlate

4

The reward is the same with vastly increased risk thus the decision to have one be perma and one not be is largely arbitrary with the logic of "because of boats".

"Because of boats"... well how about what "because of boats" actually entails? "I decided to escort a caravan across the land, then died and needed to walk back to my body, but when I tried to trade across the ocean and drowned, the game wouldn't let me walk back to my corpse as it drifted on the deep ocean floor at a depth I couldn't even reach if I were alive when making the dive! This is so unfair :/" I mean really... even if we throwback to this thread's proposition of islands, so long as you aren't in costal waters, your body would not be likely to drift to safety in the time it would take to spirit walk back into it safely. If you drown after days of travel but are unknowingly near an island that far out, that's one thing, but being in what CoE classifies as Deep Ocean, it makes sense why "Because of boats", the penalty is permadeath, but isn't on land. Maybe it will prove to be too much of a gaming inhibitor, and it will be changed for the sake of player enjoyment, but I highly doubt that due to the adventurous spirit of many and the Dance of Dynasties furthering the cause despite such adversity.

5 It still seems like your real issue is your fear of permadeath and you're just 'salty' about it being so risky to travel beyond the main land...

6 Putting aside my own interpretation of all of your comments thus far... lets say the issue really IS trade being too dangerous... you're saying that if I were to travel the deep ocean to another continent as an explorer, I face permadeath, but if I take that SAME route with the intent being 'to trade', I shouldn't face the same dangers as the explorers before me? That honestly pisses me off... once the hard work of explorers is done, you want to nerf the dangers so everyone and their thrice-removed cousin can make the trip with maybe a third of the original dangers via mechanics being changed rather than actual technological development and player preparedness :/

this reward quickly diminishing once these things have been found and ocean travel reasons becomes for more simple things

Not certain to be true... If someone develops a kingdom over there and a new 'America' that splits from mainland's 'Britain' is formed instead, you are making it so much easier to invade using trade as an excuse to not fear permadeath when the founders of that kingdom braved the ocean depths despite. That aside, the resources would likely be abundant on the seemingly untouched continent beyond the mainland, so as things become scare on the starting continent (as someone in another comment said), the whole idea of 'diminishing reward' is fallacy. If anything, the value of such trade could be the difference between sustaining the mainland kingdom or having it crumble as other kingdoms fight for the finite resources still available. To make this trip, even traders should be expected to brave the deep ocean's risk of permadeath.

The trade routes mechanic suggested here is indeed a fair "fix" IF permadeath fails to give the game any positive flare and only makes content seemingly unplayable... however, UNLESS that is the case, removal of permadeath from the deep ocean in ANY MEANS aside from provably exploitable cases, only takes away from the enjoyment and suspense of the game itself... The reason I even consider the trade route mechanic as a possibility is because we are arguing mostly over speculation, so as much as I strongly believe in my stance, I know I may be wrong, and if such were to occur, my support would most definitely drift to the trade route mechanic suggested here instead. Unless such becomes the case though, it just seems like your trying to fix something that isn't broken, just hard to swallow due to the reasonable sense of fear it rightly and meaningfully induces.

7 not going to even summarize this time.... the value of the shipment should also be considered, not just the act of shipping something itself.


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5/24/2019 6:32:51 PM #105
  • Anyone who has played an EA survival game knows you don't need to break a bannable offense to exploit the game in a way to make the gameplay for others a miserable experience. Bad argument.

  • The don't fix until broken argument is illogical in a game with no available testing. Don't fix until broken implies it is working first. Either way by that logic, any suggestion thread should be closed if that's the case because since the game isn't in testing nothing is "broken" yet and the same "wait until it's broken" argument can apply to any and all suggestion or discussion threads about game mechanics.

  • There's not really a way your going to convince me that all actions at sea inherently deserve the same risk despite massively varying rewards. Even in your argument for a shipment you take a simple shipment and magnify it's value to support your own agenda. No, not every deep sea mission will have these insane returns and that's okay, however that means your risk isn't the same. Sure your shipment could be this holy grail of kingdom saving hooplah, or....or it could just be something a business ordered overseas to keep their stock and give you a moderate pay in return and you have go on about your way...Which AGAIN is fine to have diffeent levels of reward, IF you have different levels of risk.


I don't know anymore.

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