LOTS of Rambling on Death

[jerc]

Some frustrations and observations from an incident today.

The events:

A player died to some furries near Mistral, popped up allll the way back in Shadgard, ran alllll the way back to Mistral and tried to retrieve, and died again.

I stumbled upon their second corpse (i.e. the one without their gear), and decided to be neighborly and haul it to the nearest crypt in Mistral and send them a friendly "Hey, come get your corpse!" ewhisper.

They show up and find the wrong corpse, and then head back to the canim to either try to retrieve again, or simply to suicide and get back to Shadgard without the long walk. Dunno, not a mind reader.

Turns out, someone else had dragged the original corpse the long way home.

So this poor soul ran from Shadgard to Mistral thrice, just trying to recover from a single death, and ended up with three in the end.

Some problems that stand out to me:

1. It's a long way from the sole respawn point (for most) up to a very easy place for visitors to die. So far that it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to take a death just to avoid the long walk home if I don't care about the stuff I'm carrying.
2. Multiple corpses can lead to confusion and frustration. It's partly on me, since I could've looked at what was on it and seen that it was just the respawn decency attire, but I had no reason to suspect that what I had wasn't the only outstanding corpse.

I don't have a great short-term solution to #2, since I think the real fix will come with a death overhaul where we always end up back in the same body, or something of that nature.

For #1 though, it might be nice if undying respawned at the nearest friendly/neutral infirmary with esp coverage, rather than always at the Shadgard infirmary. Right now, I think we have one per wilderness area except for the Kveldsongr woods area. Not sure where it would go exactly, but an extra one there for full coverage might be nice if this approach were taken. Also a neutral one for the bluestem plains, since Mistralites eventually wouldn't be able to respawn in Shadgard? Probably wouldn't need a neutral near Mistral if people are stopped at the pass and can't get to the area to begin with.

[Frisbee]

Agreed 100%, even as an outsider observer.

I think I read somewhere that the Library needed an infirmary, and I figure it's both neutral enough and close enough to Shadgard that it could become a respawn point. You do pass by a couple of combat zones, but you don't have to enter them, and it's about the next point over from Shadgard where the presence of medical facilities would be reasonable or expected.

[Rias]

There are definitely some unintended pain points with the current death system, like the multiple-corspses scenario. This does make me want to do the short-term solution of newly-respawned characters not having that strength to travel away from their respawn area for the next few minutes. They can still go around town and do tasks, gather resources and craft, ESP to others and ask for corpse retrieval help, engage in RP, etc. But being restricted to the local area at least for a few minutes will mean it won't be an immediate beeline right back to the place of death for a second death made quite more likely due to lack of gear and tanked morale. Hopefully some of that downtime involves coming up with some kind of strategy to get the corpse back in a safer manner. Asking for help getting one's corpse can be both humbling and embarrassing, but it really is the best option for those deaths that happen in dangerous areas.

Whatever we end up with after the death overhaul, the intent is to have some enforced downtime after a death occurs to prevent immediately returning back to the fray. This will be doubly important when CvC starts ramping up between the factions and at resource sites and the like.

[artus]

I'm catching up.

If, say, death primarily gets back to old Clok and relies on sorcery, what effect will it have to Shadgard then if the whole heap of naughty undyings are here and die every day or two and get sorcery revived?

[Gorth]

I think I read somewhere that the Library needed an infirmary, and I figure it's both neutral enough and close enough to Shadgard that it could become a respawn point. You do pass by a couple of combat zones, but you don't have to enter them, and it's about the next point over from Shadgard where the presence of medical facilities would be reasonable or expected.

No. Go to the Library Infirmary as a level one Physiker and litterally grind Medical from zero to seven hundred without leaving.

[Lexx416]

I think I read somewhere that the Library needed an infirmary, and I figure it's both neutral enough and close enough to Shadgard that it could become a respawn point. You do pass by a couple of combat zones, but you don't have to enter them, and it's about the next point over from Shadgard where the presence of medical facilities would be reasonable or expected.

No. Go to the Library Infirmary as a level one Physiker and litterally grind Medical from zero to seven hundred without leaving.

You can currently do that with any of the studyable skills that scholar have, regardless of class (just so long as you're in the Scholar guild). It's just (probably) slower.

[Jilliana]

I hope that it's okay to state my frustrations here rather than starting a whole new topic.

The current corpse locating system is frustrating for me...and others have expressed frustration also, but I won't speak for them.

When a corpse dies, we are given an approximate location by checking the aura command. We are then to follow the directions given.

I find these directions often times to be confusing at best and mis-directions at worst. Most of the time when I do locate a corpse, it is out of pure happenstance and not because the directions lead me there.

Am I missing something? Am I supposed to be doing something I'm not doing?

Also... I was wondering if tells can be deactivated while someone is in the void? You know, to prevent metagaming. If the system works as it should, all corpses should be locatable if not immediately retrievable.

[tulpa]

Could you elaborate a little bit on your current approach? Do you have any recommendations on how you would improve the current system?

The latest announcement in the changelog, as of posting, addressed a bug with Deathknell direction reports (11/08/23). I wonder if you might find the experience has improved subsequent to that change.

[Jilliana]

Could you elaborate a little bit on your current approach? Do you have any recommendations on how you would improve the current system?

The latest announcement in the changelog, as of posting, addressed a bug with Deathknell direction reports (11/08/23). I wonder if you might find the experience has improved subsequent to that change.

I stated what I did before I noticed that there was a change to the death system. It is my hope that it is easier to locate corpses with the bugs sorted.