Insane Difficulty: death penalty idea - Insane Difficulty

so..as i read around..its come to my attention that many do not like the death penalty idea..that has been implemented because if u die too often in early game..it becomes completely impossible to clear the game

while i agree..the death penalty should be punishing..it shouldn't stop u from beating the game in my personal opinion
and agreed that NOT DYING should be part of the game..


but starting over..after getting so far in the game..thats pretty annoying..


so ive come up with an idea..that might actually make the game harder..but still render it beatable by those who learn how to not die..such as forcing players to learn how to survive the infamous deathspell through the use of spellcasting (as a character won't die until it finishes spell casting..like in the original then pop a heal item or spell to block the death)

angel grail no longer blocks death penalty..instead reducing the ammount of stat reduction u get
death penalty reduces all stats by a percentage based on difficulty
wuss mode
1%with holy grail 2%without
ez mode
4%with grail 8%without
normal
9%with grail 18% without
tough
10%with grail 20% without
the true crazy hard kick ur ass on a silver platter mode
25% with grail 50%without

resting at an inn removes all penalty with demon statue

with this idea..a player who dies too often will be forced to return to an inn..and then try again...forcing a player to learn how to not die on the way to a boss and survive all boss fights..(ive always thought revival in games mid way through a fight or boss fight was cheap especially auto life)

I'm not sure which stats you want to apply the penalty to...
if you mean the base stats like STR,VIT - that's not gonna work, they are set and not restorable. (lack of RAM and whatnot)
if you mean the derived stats attack, defense, etc. - let's just say that with -20% attack you'll probably not be able to deal damage above 1... so anything of normal w/out grail or worse is an instant loss unless you want players to hit a mid-game boss 20k times...


just so we're all on the same page, current status:

• penalty is only increased on normal or higher difficulty; on easy you can die as often as they want
  
• penalty for failing a trap wheel is only on tough or higher difficulty AND requires Lv36+ enemies, so by that time you should have enough AGL/skill to handle the wheel
  
• Mimic chests don't count either
  
• HP/def loss is incremental, you lose about 2-4 HP per death depending on maxHP/rounding
  
• you need to die (and not use Angel Grail) over 60 times to reach the max penalty - stop being bad at this
  
• penalty can only be cured with demon statues awarded from certain bosses, I think you get 22 total (but can only hold 5 at a time), so 7 full party cures - stop dieing, seriously
  
• a high penalty value empowers a few items, I've had Lise at 700 attack with that; it isn't strictly detrimental.
  
• if Duran has NO stat investment in PIE (Lv90, 13 PIE) but maxed death penalty and you play on hard difficulty, he can still survive most endboss spells if he has mind up and the boss mind down, unless Duran is weak to the spell. I think it was medium armor and he survived with 8 HP vs a Lv2.5 spell (and got poisoned).

I've you have a really serious streak of death penalties before the class change... choose a lower difficulty first.

gamerX459, on 31 August 2016 - 02:27 AM, said:

which is a bug I intent to fix at some point


Also, which "infamous deathspell" do you refer to?
The one of the same name? well, there's an accessoire for that (Wishbone).
Or Red Moon Horn might also work for Gorva if you're in similar level to him.
If you mean it in a more "too much damage" fashion - where? There should always be an option to do something about it. (armor, stats, buffs, not being 20 levels too low)

"on easy you can die as often as they want"
no truth behind this

just started playing through lower difficulty on ez..death penalty is still applying

"Also, which "infamous deathspell" do you refer to?"

any and all of em that u may have implemented

"I'm not sure which stats you want to apply the penalty to..."
all stats..otherwize i would have named the stats..when i say stats..i mean all of them

you need to die (and not use Angel Grail) over 60 times to reach the max penalty
ya but at first boss since money in this game is extremely difficult to get. not having any holy grails at the beginning is likely
further more i have not died 60+ times..only like 5-9 times..(using save states to prevent most death penaltys) first boss still one shots most characters
further more can't deal enough damage to destroy the boss..heals so much ...only 10 damage hits (characters also have the increased stats from the armor/weapon shops that u could buy at that point)


allow me to run further through the game..i will see what is what on the easier difficulties and see if that changes my opinion of the D penalty after i clear the game on ez..maybe then i can do it on normal a bit easier..then try the highest difficulties

i have a bad habit of trying games at their hardest capability..just to see..and then go through it again on the easier difficulties if i get my ass handed to me on a silver platter

in my personal opinion..money rewards should be slightly higher on the higher difficulties..that way getting angels grails won't take as much time..since it seems like u'll need quite a few to smash first boss

also one last thing..
one thing ive noticed is that players who can mash buttons well will find that u can use the basic tech (the one that causes your character to flash) twice if done correctly (infinitely? just did so three times..wacky)

u intend to fix this at all?

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

I guess you didn't try with the new version.

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

"THE infamous death spell" - "which exactly" - "all of them"
dunno, doesn't help me at all.
So, until proven otherwise, I'll just continue as if all can be avoided and put this as "players fault".

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

wow, FMH does his job, I'm surprised actually.
For the record, FMH has 812 HP + 112 per heal. In vanilla he had 1.5k.
Hawk with 4 dmg per hit and Lise with 10 per hit could together get him down to 550 HP before his first heal just now; I don't see a problem here.

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

It already is. You get about x3 times as many chests on the highest difficulty compared to the lowest and by that either the items for free or some cash from selling. The regular cash value from enemies is only peanuts, like 10 gold or something, compared to vanillas 2-3, in the beginning and doesn't really get much higher, it stops at about 40-50 gold or so.

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 04:44 AM, said:

No idea if I even can. This is a much deeper problem than is appearent.
Tech bar not emptying, tech bar suddenly dropping to 0, bosses attacking themselves - those are all related; something is wrong with pointer handling and I've no idea what or even where.

"dunno, doesn't help me at all."

u don't know what death spells u put into the game?
im not refering to any specific boss
im just gonna drop this one..now u've got even me confused

"like 10 gold or something, compared to vanillas 2-3, in the beginning and doesn't really get much higher, it stops at about 40-50 gold or so."
"You get about x3 times as many chests on the highest difficulty compared to the lowest and by that either the items for free or some cash from selling"

and the enemies take less dmg and have more hp..meaning greater time spent to kill each enemy
also note that most of the items from chests are actually useful to the player and are not worth selling off until the player gains 20+ (more depending on how many the player wants to keep in reserve)

"I guess you didn't try with the new version."

well i didn't know a new one was put out there..only version i have is the one i saw at the top of this post http://www.insanedif...ana-discussion/
did u update it recently?

"No idea if I even can. This is a much deeper problem than is appearent.
Tech bar not emptying, tech bar suddenly dropping to 0, bosses attacking themselves - those are all related; something is wrong with pointer handling and I've no idea what or even where."

the tech bar does empty..at least as far as i can see
yet the skill can still be used..at a very specific frame..if done correctly

i guess u did update it..ill go try out the newer updated version..see if it is better
i have version 7.42

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 06:31 PM, said:

xD
"forcing players to learn how to survive the infamous deathspell through the use of spellcasting"
I consider this spellcasting death protection a cheat, so if you HAVE to abuse a cheat to survive "something" it is either because noone understands how to do it legit or there is no legit way - both situations that should be remedied.
That's why I wanted to know - where do you feel damned to "cheat" because there's no way out?

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 06:31 PM, said:

emmm... duh?
it is called "hard difficulty" (opposite of easy) and not "skill based difficulty" (as opposite of ressource management)

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 06:31 PM, said:

this is exactly how you get more money - you have to spend less to get useful stuff

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 06:31 PM, said:

Can you really use the tech or does it only use the animation but deal regular damage?
This is one of many, many bugs from vanilla and I don't intend to hunt all down, that would be absurd.

gamerX459, on 06 September 2016 - 06:49 PM, said:

yes, I even wrote about it.

I put the D/L link always in the first post so there's no stupid searching necessary.
Announcements should usually be on the last page, or page and half, there's not much posting going on currently.



Anyway, finally back to topic?
I don't intend to change the penalty too much further, if at all. If some good ideas come around, maybe, but not "under any circumstances does it have to be altered".
-It currently has a clear punishment for "face tanking the game"; kamikazing into random enemies and just having at least one guy survive was enough; leave and reenter room as necessary to refill, not a good playstyle, imo. If it was changed to a one-death for max penalty version where the penalty is bearable (like -2% everything) we would be back on square one.
-It isn't too crippling. You can still (barely) survive with a maxed penalty. The room for error is much smaller but it isn't a guaranteed 1 hit kill from everything. In fact with HP armor you can still reach 999 HP making it mostly moot.
-You are not suddenly unable to kill stuff after one death; Dark Lich has 239 def, heroes can have about 400 attack, any reduction by only 35% would mean you're unable to hurt him - that's why I consider a 25% penalty even with grail unplayable shit, to be clear on that front.

Why not for the "death penalty" why not have it remain in effect until you go to an inn? Wouldn't that make more sense? It'd encourage people to still not slam face throughout the dungeons by face tanking through them, but it also wouldn't totally screw people over that are bad at the game. The danger is still present in the dungeons themselves, but still able to be fixed by going back to town and resting.

I'll be honest, "stop being bad" really isn't a reason to keep a system in place or add a penalty like that. It's especially weird, because in a harder mode is a mode where a person is more likely to die. I'll grant you that you said there are easier modes, but that seems like a pretty band-aid style solution. Especially when you consider that there's an easier option. The dropped items could still be there, but now they're just there as a super rare item.

I'll be honest, from the descriptions I read of the "Death Penalty," I like the idea of losing stats temporarily for falling in combat and not reviving properly, but I don't like the fact that I can't reverse it with a common item if I make a mistake or two-- or even 60 for that matter. Heck, Dragon Age: Origins had this for an idea. Falling in combat injured your character permanently until you used healing kits on them. That was fine there on the account that the effect could be reversed with fairly common items.

Augestein, on 11 November 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

I'd have to increase the penalty a lot to justify this change; 2-4 HP and maybe 1 def per death wouldn't cut it, if it was "easily" reversed.
Also, death penalty is in a quite weird spot right now; it is not strictly negative, certain items become stronger with a higher penalty. So if someone really wants to profit from that, he'd be blocked from using inns at all.
Which is a problem, because inns are the only reliable way to change which day it is.
Days give +25% attack power to certain elemental attacks, you certainly don't want to face a fire boss on Salamando day.


By itself, ok, maybe, but only if the penalty was like 10 times stronger, but it wouldn't be strictly better.

Praetarius5018, on 12 November 2016 - 01:27 AM, said:

To be honest, that still sounds better than what's currently employed at the moment. Because even with certain items being stronger based on death, it still leaves a bit of a choice for the player. More than the hypothetical situation where person can never be able to tweak their stats anymore. In the one you proposed you can't use inns, but in a worst case scenario, all that requires to fix that is to frameskip time faster so the day passes. You can still use Angel Grails to heal, and they restore everything that could happen to you for MP and HP and if you're intentionally abusing the death penalty, this would literally be right up your alley.

Look at it this way:

Scenario a) People can have a penalty that permanently harms them for the remainder of the game.

Scenario b) People can have a minor annoyance of not being able to use inns to exploit a system that was created in the mod.

I still like scenario b a bit more in this case, because a person in scenario a that dies and knows about the DP is probably going to push reset anyways, which is more time lost resetting than it is not using inns, or going on a murder spree. It's the same sort of exploit you might do with Kevin to get his were form. You travel only at night, and sometimes even rest at the inn even when you don't need to just so you can get the form because it is night.

In the end, it's your choice, but I'm sure most would probably find being able to reverse it as more favorable without needing a limited item. It's comparable to say... Archael's decision in 1.3 to remove Brave alteration abilities and then have the computer use Mocking Strike. People complained because while the penalty wasn't much in general, and there were events that could restore your brave back to the original, they were limited in quantity, so most people simply ended up hitting reset to prevent the brave loss from happening in the first place. The end result? Mocking Strike was removed as an ability the computer would use.

tl:dr - People prefer having character alterations that happen through events that are their choice. "Playing badly" isn't a choice.

Augestein to the rescue. Any sort of permanent (or semi-permanent) effect has to be handled veeery carefully.

My original suggestion was a larger penalty that would reset on inn/hitting the world map. Prae suggested that in this case, all one would have to do is grind and then run past the area.

Thinking about it again, is that such a bad thing? The penalty doesn't have to define the entire design. Simply going through zones normally is more rewarding, but if someone wants to simply grind and then run, well, why not let them? Barring trapped rooms and the player not necessarily knowing the way, the boss is waiting anyway.

And what if I told you there's no way to differentiate between the event triggered by inn, golden statue and angel grail?

Oh, right. You did tell me that before.

Well, shit.

Are you sure?`Cause I only researched that yesterday

Yeah, I'm positive. It was a different subject, but you did say the Grail and the inn were the same event

Ok, I'll take it.

Anyway, the hypothetical question aside, I thought of one way to "differentiate" between inn and "the other two" events: current map number.
Not perfect, since you could use an Angel Grail on an "inn map" but that is just wasted money on the players side a.k.a. not my problem.

So... just go on as if I said nothing.

Praetarius5018, on 15 November 2016 - 09:02 AM, said:

I'd say that's a fair resolution. And kind of funny on that note. But yeah, that sucks that they are all the same event. But that would explain why Angel Grails heal to full MP. I always found that sort of odd. The only thing I could think of is disabling Grails at inns, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're right on that one, it isn't your problem if they waste money in an inn.

That said, I DO like what you suggested with the DP being more penalizing if you can erase it by resting at an inn. I get a little scared just thinking about how brutal the final dungeon could potentially be like that. But hey, I might actually buy magical ropes at that point.

Again, the Dark Souls II example. 10% less max health per death, up to 50%. The effigies used to heal it is sold by some merchants in limited quantities or found as treasure.

Bosses generally need to get you 3 times to kill you, so up to -50% health means you need to use an estus to heal after every mistake instead of every other. It's a very tangible effect, but all it does is limit your mistakes further, without diminishing your capacity.

Of course, translating this to SD3 is not so simple, but I feel it's key to keep the same factor on limiting mistakes.

Sometimes I feel like I take too many cues from that series - sometimes knowingly, quite often not.

Well, 50% in 5 deaths. 5 is both a lot "errors" and not many at the same time.
hmm... I think I'll go with even harsher 10%/30%/50%.
Should Demon Statues be buyable in black market? I think I have a few spots still open; that or dart/handaxe goes.
And I'd have to reduce its cost/value from 5k to ... 2k? Meaning less profit for those that want to sell those earned from bosses.

5 deaths to reach max penalty sounds good to me. And you should remove the dart/handaxe from the shops: Why would you use a crappy item when you can hit a weakness via elemental items?