Problem with death mechanic, or, For Whom the Bell Tolls?

[Kent]

A big problem with the death mechanic plus a lot of new players (and when lots of new players are on, lots of bells are tolling) is, while you're dead, you don't know if the esp rescue message is for you or for one of a number of other dead persons.

A character could be dead for a half-hour or more, recieves the repeated hopeful promise of rescue, and is in fact never rescued because those esp rescue messages were for other dead characters.

[merin]

the problem is we don't know who croaks. Yes. someone may have died in brittlebranch and someone else in a mining accident, but, we still don't know who it is. Even if we could target an esp rescue pulse, we don't know who to target it at.

[Kent]

No, but you do know the location of the toller, a description of the room the rescuer intends to go to. Perhaps a number would be provided by the game code and shown in brackets after the location shown by the tolling, and the rescue syntax could be,

esp rescue #

Then the dead would only have his sense of awareness twinged if he died at the location specified by that number.

I suppose hypothetically two persons could be dead in one room and living players intend to drag only only one and not the other, but this is statistically much less seldom. Currently, a character usually does not get dragged at all only because he is at a rare location no one online knows about, or else in a too dangerous location for anyone to dare enter. These players I would like to see spared waiting a long time watching in vain esp rescue messages intended for the fallen at other locations.

[Kent]

And another angle to solve the problem would be for the GM's to decide upon a maxiumim reasonable time any player should be excluded from the game because of death. Approaching it from this angle, when the dead player tolls the knell a target number of times, then an NPC takes over, sends a double esp rescue message in an esp color reserved for that, and five minutes later he is brought back to life at whichever was the last church or, chapel, or mortuary place he was last raised at.

For example, the figure of 25 minutes is in my own mind as a maximum reasonable time for a person to be kept out of CLOK due to a death. This would mean, if the dead person tolled the bell the tenth time (10 tolls at 2 minutes apart equals 20 minutes) then he would be NPC dragged to a raising room and worked on over the next five minutes and able to play again at minute 25.

[Shou]

Honestly, one of the easiest ways for this might be to give the dead person the ability to listen, without being able to talk, on ESP. Then they can hear if people are gathering for rescue, or something.
On top of this, give the dead the ability to hear the Toll from other dead players, as then they can work out who's being talked about. Some way for people to respond to a unique toll would be nice too, but again without enough information for the dead to communicate back to the living.

[Rias]

And another angle to solve the problem would be for the GM's to decide upon a maxiumim reasonable time any player should be excluded from the game because of death.

The depart command is there for people who decide they don't want to wait any longer. Yes, there is a penalty for departing. That's intentional.

[Rias]

As to the original issue, we're looking into solutions. We're not leaning any particular way at the moment, but we're aware of the problem and thinking about how to best handle it.

[Fayne]

Well, I have a suggestion. Why not, after a set amount of time, let the bell toll also give the area the person is located in along with the room description? It still wouldn't help in those small, hard to find but easy to miss locations, but it would at least help some, especially when someone dies in a random wilderness room.

[Kiyaani]

You see the general area already if your character has been to that room before.

[Dianne]

actually, I think what Kent said makes perfect sense. I don't mind being dead for 20 minutes or so, but, an hour or three is extremely discouraging. just voicing an opinion.

[merin]

Maybe I'm on the other side of things.

First, the only time I've been dead for a great amount of tie is during an event. I hate not being able to know what's going on, true, but I can't help but to wonder -- the anticipation makes it all worth it for me.

[Kent]

And another angle to solve the problem would be for the GM's to decide upon a maxiumim reasonable time any player should be excluded from the game because of death.

The depart command is there for people who decide they don't want to wait any longer. Yes, there is a penalty for departing. That's intentional.

If the person has been kept out of the game for nearly half an hour, they have already paid a penalty, and it's unfair to make them guess that no one really is coming and then depart and pay a second penalty.

Also there is the insidious possibility some foul character will drag their body away from where they fell to a random wilderness place where no one can find them. Good characters are sending rescue messages but they're never going to find the fallen.

Also occasionally the Depart command gets disabled by a GM and that's not even an option.

[Kiyaani]

Rias already said he was looking into the original issue of not knowing which death is being esp rescue pulsed. So maybe just give him and the other GMs some time to figure out a solution. Alternatively you can offer more constructive ideas and it may help them find a solution they like. For now, this happens so infrequently that I doubt you'll run into it again before they come up with at least an idea if not an implementation. If you have issues with other death mechanics, they may require their own thread.

As to other ideas in this thread:

I've only ever heard of bodies being dragged off super rarely and usually when that happens there's some kind of ESP activity to match so people know where to start looking. The GMs and players are pretty fantastic at not letting people just lay dead without informing at least one person of what might be happening. There's also the option to find a PC or NPC (less likely) tracker since they can see if a body has been dragged. Either way, it's all RP and departing in a case like that would be really off-putting to the others involved who took time and effort to make something different happen. There's a fine line between griefing and RP and as someone who has been dead for an hour before so others could RP around it, I really don't see the problem here.

If you really don't want to be out of the action for that long you can logout, do something else for a bit, and most likely by the time you got back the body would be at a place it could be resurrected. Or, like Rias said, depart. In some cases that might make it easier for people, in others it might be frustrating if they were actually trying to save you. I think if someone is pulsing, stay dead. If there's no pulse after 5-10 minutes, feel free to depart and rejoin the game. It may be that everyone else is dead, unable to find you, or too busy (which is very rarely the case).

I will agree that if you've been dead for a super extended length of time and rescue is just not possible, the added penalty can be a bit jarring, but it takes very little time and effort to get rid of the debuff so either way it's not a huge deal to me. Also, if you remove the penalty for being dead a set time, people may just find it easier to go afk and not even ring the bell which isn't how things are supposed to work.

The same goes for NPC body-collectors. While I like the notion of it, our characters are supposed to be the real heroes in these lands and I very much doubt that random NPCs are going to be brave or willing enough to go out in search of the bodies of people they already find to be somewhat unnatural. Also, most NPCs can't even use the pendants so wouldn't know anyone died.

[Kent]

Also, if you remove the penalty for being dead a set time, people may just find it easier to go afk and not even ring the bell which isn't how things are supposed to work.

You failed to notice a key component of my suggestion, where I said a person has to toll the bell a set number of times in order for the NPC templar or whoever to show up. I suggested the number of tolls be ten times, but perhaps a different number could be decided upon.

It is true that the players are the bulk the true heroes of these lands (even if, regrettably, the NPC's interact with them as though they are nobody special), yet that should not mean that the lands are utterly devoid of any other heroes.

[jilliana]

My two cents: As much as I hate departing, it's not a big deal in the end. There are consequences for it, sure, but if you play enough the penalty wears off fairly quickly.

There have been times when depart has been turned off during events and even though it stings, I've always found something else to do.

I am very much for the GMs finding the solution to the problem of sending a signal to a specific person when more than one person dies in separate locations entirely and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Kent, I hate to tell you but the only time I've ever heard anyone dragging anyone else to a different place entirely is with your character. Take that as you want, but it doesn't happen as much as you make it sound.

[Rias]

Not saying we're not looking at other options, but in the meantime, considering the timing of rescue pulses. If you hear someone ring the bell and you intend to rescue them, pulse right after they ring it.

If you're the dead person and you get a pulse right after you ring the bell, that would mean someone is looking for you specifically.

[jilliana]

Not saying we're not looking at other options, but in the meantime, considering the timing of rescue pulses. If you hear someone ring the bell and you intend to rescue them, pulse right after they ring it.

If you're the dead person and you get a pulse right after you ring the bell, that would mean someone is looking for you specifically.

Thanks for the idea! :)

[Shou]

Actually, on a sort-of-related point... No-where in game does it MENTION the signals and responses and such that people seem to have stuck to. Three pulses means something like "Safe and Raising" but when it first happened to me, I thought I'd pissed that person off by ringing the bell repeatedly. It could do with mention, maybe as a poster, in the Soul Beacon locations?

[Acarin]

I wasn't aware of these signals... so that's why someone kept pulsing at me repeatedly.

Just saying that they're not exactly official. Who is using them?

[Shou]

Sorry. I can't remember... :C

[Jaster]

Lol. I wasn't aware of them either... that sheds some light on a few similar instances I've had.

[Rias]

The single, double, triple pulse signal system was devised by players, I'm thrilled to say. I think it works quite well.

[Shou]

But it could be put into the Churches, still. As evidenced, it's confused quite a few people. Just saying it'd be helpful. :3

[jilliana]

1 pulse: we're looking!
2 pulses: You're found!
3 pulses: A monk is about to raise you.