COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Perma-Death in the ocean is plaguing this game...

I understand the motives behind why this design decision was made;

  • Having players spawn near their body after dying from drowning and swimming to the surface would feel wonky, if you are way out at sea it could be a nightmare of spawning, swimming, dying, spawning, swimming, dying...and so on.

  • It's a great deterrent for players who want to swim to the other continents or out into the middle of nowhere.

But it's also starving players of great content for the future.

  • There wouldn't be sea warfare, the cost would just be too great.

  • sea trade would be limited at best in fear of perma-death.

  • Sea monsters would be a horrible game decision, an unlucky pass with one means $30 just went down the tubes, let alone storms that could destroy your ship, or letting people equip cannons and the like to their ships. It's just too much money down the tubes for anyone involved making Sea content for the rich players, basically Pay to play content within the game.

So how about an alternative?

When you enter the water, either swimming or on a boat, the game logs your exact position (specifically checking to see if that position was on a beach biome or near the ocean and what continent). If your body is in the ocean while dead (either dying on a boat and getting thrown over or just drowning) you will be sent to the astral plane. When you find your body in the plane you will find that your body has been "washed ashore", if you actually died...well you actually died.

Behind the scenes the game simply randomly chose a point that matches the following criteria: in a beach biome, on sand, somewhere on the continent you embarked from (or not if you want them to just wash up anywhere).

  • Your body is then spawned there in the unconscious position.

  • It reduces your clothing damage to 0 and you are in rags with nothing to your name.

  • Maybe some seagulls are spawned to fly over your body.

The player would then need to survive and make their way back to civilization.

The risk is still huge. A death in the ocean could mean days of trying to get back to civilization and you lose all your stuff to the sea.

As for lakes and rivers:

  • It logs your exact position, if it was inland, you'd simply just wash up back where you entered the water with spirit loss and in the unconscious position. Although if there is a lake/river biome region it could wash you up on the edge of the region you are in.

It would require coding and an infrastructure that can use regional data the player is in to denote where they will randomly spawn but it would be highly worth it and allow players to embrace sea content in the same way they embrace land content.

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2/24/2016 4:06:56 PM #1

I can understand where you are coming from for sure. I haven't watched all of the videos and read all the diary updates, but my assumption is there is HUGE reward for this as well. By this, I mean sailing and such. If the ocean pretty much results in PermaDeath then there MUST be some huge reward for it? I think you make some good alternatives though as well. I particularly like the "washed ashore" idea. If you die in the ocean, it chooses a direction from the spot you died, then draws a straight line to the next closes land object and "spawns" your body there. Something along those lines. PermaDeath within the ocean is rough, that's for sure.


Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

2/24/2016 4:07:50 PM #2

I like permadeath at sea. It adds a huge risk to the game, but there is also a huge reward. Being about to travel at sea allows for so many benefits, that removing the risk of permadeath sways the reward side of it to be much greater than the risk. I think there will be plenty of sea travelers and traders as well as sea battles. Risks are there, but benefits are huge.


2/24/2016 4:09:20 PM #3

Did you know if you die at sea in real life it is perm death too? Yet we have sea trade, we have sea warfare, we have even got travelling at sea for the shear fun of it.

I think you under estimating the draw of the sea and the rewards you might get for traversing it. Having things in the game that are real risks adds so much to the world.


Author of the Elyria Echo the first, and least up-to-date, CoE fan site.

2/24/2016 4:10:07 PM #4

I heard BW say that we are misled with some of the answers we get..He said something about waking on shore before but I don't know if that is true or not.

I wouldn't be quick to assume that people wouldn't do it..I just wouldn't be for everyone. I've heard tons of people in IRC and discord saying that they will be sailing/pirates. If the risk is that high I'm assuming the reward must be high as well.

2/24/2016 4:13:34 PM #5

Did you know if you die in real life anywhere it's perma-death too? haha.

If you can come back from the dead on land, why should the sea be any different?

As far as the rewards aspect. Yes, the game will reward you greatly

BUT

There are major unintended consequences to this...

It's going to reward those who can risk that (Aka people with money who can waste it on repeated lives being lost).

This will create an unfair advantage to players with money and groups who can funnel money into the game in order to reap the rewards from the sea.

It's basic function is a money gate, it lets the rich players in and it stops the less off players from being able to enjoy the sea content of the game.

It's an exclusionary feature and that was my most important point.

2/24/2016 4:14:29 PM #6

That's what I imagine. It's just not a fully thought out feature. I'm really hoping he is trying to mislead us.

Also these are people just saying things. When the game comes around and they get attached to all the fun things they can do...the sea won't seem like nearly worth the effort. Especially if they lose 30$ just because they fell off the ship and they couldn't get to them in time before they drowned....that or their ship is destroyed and they have to start the whole game over while the guys with the trade caravans get slaughtered and wake up 10 minutes later.

2/24/2016 4:14:54 PM #7

I for one love your idea, Maybe increase the chances of ship wrecks through storms/creatures if it were to happen.

I live 5 minutes from the ocean and go miles it in the ocean on boats, I worked on a ship. My dad used to be a commercial clammer with wild stories. I love the whole boat/ocean thing abd would like to play with it on this game.


2/24/2016 4:15:33 PM #8

I'm interested to see what people say about this.

I suppose I don't have an opinion on this either way just yet but knowing that mariners have historically had one of the most dangerous jobs of all time, including major risk in CoE seems appropriate.

There has been a long tradition of insurance for maritime trade as well -- maybe this could be one of the exceptions to the rule where some sort of NPC insurance could repay a PART of your losses, though nothing near 100% reimbursement.

From a purely tinfoil hat perspective, I like the idea of mariners being especially risk taking folk. And that when their ships get wrecked, the sailors themselves get wrecked and disappear mysteriously from the story.

Perhaps there could be a difference between blue-water sailing (continent to continent) and shallow water sailing. If you get wrecked in shallow water, maybe your body has a relatively high chance of washing up on shore but you just took 4x spirit loss vs what a normal player would have taken in an everyday death. After all, you're a ship captain. People know ship captains so their renown would naturally be a bit higher than Farmer Joe's.

In blue water, forget about it. You're gone.

Some thoughts from me. I'd like to hear more from everyone.


2/24/2016 4:17:25 PM #9

That's very true. By letting the sea be forgiving we can crank up the difficulty and allow it to truly shine as a difficult and deadly place to be.

2/24/2016 4:19:08 PM #10

Yes, Abd the consequences are still much greater than dying on land, so the rewards will still be great.


2/24/2016 4:19:09 PM #11

I agree. You could stagger it to shallow and blue water. Increasing the cost the farther you go out.

But I do think that there are better ways to make the ocean riskier than simply having perma-death.

2/24/2016 4:21:42 PM #12

Peramdeath is at sea and not other bodies of water. Peoples main thoughts go to rivers, but what about land locked bodies of water such as lakes and reservoirs? These are much deeper than rivers (usually) and wider, but permadeath hasn't been stated because of that.

Caspian always chooses his words carefully when he says it'll be death at sea, as in he doesn't say "sea" he said deep water. He has described that 2 people could fight in the water and if 1 incaps they will drown and perma-die. This isn't permadeath by touching the sea, it's permadeath by touching the seabed.

Think about that for a second if you will

If you read between the lines, doesn't that mean that the seabed is so deep that you can't get back to air before you die again. You'll keep dying and dying because you need to spirit walk and by the time you come back from spirit walking your body is back at the bottom of the ocean again. Maybe someone can drag you back out, but no, they will perma-die trying to reach you.

hense permadeath.

The sea is the sea no matter how close to land you are. The sea isn't a river because it is 4ft from land, it is still the sea but you wouldn't perma-die in it because your 4ft away from the shore. So again, reading between the lines, it is the depth that is giving you permadeath, not the sea itself.


2/24/2016 4:23:21 PM #13

I think perma-death at sea would definitely be painful to your wallet and I'm sure that the the concept has not be completely explained and or fleshed out yet.

That being said, I think perma-death on the open sea is acceptable if done correctly. Perhaps that character does die and you get a one time heir without needing to pay for another life?

-or-

Maybe you just take the max penalty for dying much like going to war?


SylverSignature

2/24/2016 4:24:29 PM #14

also if you want a more logical answer that isn't a theroy, then how's this;

You perma-die at sea because the other continents won't exist at launch so it discourages you from trying to find the new world, aka another continent.

There are no invisible walls to stop you going that far out so permadeath acts as an invisible wall.


2/24/2016 4:26:58 PM #15

A few things that have been mentioned in Q&As and have been in previous posts on this topic.

Lakes, rivers, and shore lines are considered "shallow" water. The deeper parts of the ocean are coincidently called "deep" water.

Devs have stated you cannot permadie in shallow water. Repeatedly. With intense inflection.

That being stated and as someone from a land with 10,000 lakes, I'm excited for more information on how this system will work and look forward to experiencing it regardless of the concequences and I do like your ideas on mitigating permadeath in deeper water.


Hope it helps...

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