Another Post Against Death Punishment

[ROFLwafles]

I know there are about fifteen thousand posts about the frustration of dying in this game, but I just wanted to put the stupidity of these punishments in perspective:

In Dark Souls, widely considered one of the most challenging game franchises ever created, when you die, you lose your currently held souls (i.e. unspent XP), all of which can be retrieved with a bit of luck and/or skill. That's it. You keep all your items, and the skills already purchased with XP remain.

In Valheim, you not only *permanently* lose skills that have to be re-earned, but you also lose all of your items. Granted, the items can be retrieved, but it counts on you being able to retrieve them from what was a dangerous enough situation to get you killed when you *had* full armor/weapons/food/statuses, and now you have to go back there with none of that. It also counts on the enemies that killed you not destroying any potential nearby portals.

It's just stupid. Make us lose our items or make us lose our skills, but don't make us lose both. Or give us an invulnerability period after dying that doesn't rely on us first retrieving our stuff (for the reasons outlined above) - and it's not like Corpse Run is that great anyway. Or, at the *very* least, let us "lock in" maybe 1-3 of our favorite skills so they can't be lost on death.

Also, let co-op players revive each other.

I get that this game is supposed to be punishing, but when your game is more punishing than Dark Souls, maybe tone it down a notch.

[M.Red]

Originally posted by Benevolent:

It's all about perspective and to each their own.

thats true - the perspective is one thing
in my first hours of gameplay i died a lot but the expirience lets me get better
i think the punishment for dying helps a lot on learning how stuff works
maybe all bosses have only 3 attacks but its not really about that

in the end one is able to get use to the things in game

and yes - i died by falling of the roof its part of the game

[Gladi8er65]

The FIRST time 'we' died... warriors slain in battle... (the whole premise of the game)... We lost ALL our memories and "skills".

5% skill loss is motivation to NOT get killed... Motivation to always stay filled up on foods, and rested bonus... motivation to stay aware of your surroundings... motivation to run away from a fight if odds are against you... motivation to watch your step while building your house.

[Vinegaroon]

As is this is one mechanic I really don’t have a problem with.

That being said. I’ve died stupidly in base before while building. If somehow being in base prevented skill loss then I don’t think I would mind, care, or notice.

[INC3NSUS]

I did not know we signed up for Dark Souls.. think its a lame analogy... and may have lead to some of the overt excitement at launch of Mistlands when it went from mostly fun builder survival to oh ♥♥♥♥.. Two the poster is HARDLY in the minority about this change.. so not sure why some of you W.K.'s are weighing in with very little in the way of counterpoints just comparisons to other games.. If I wanted to be playing Elden Ring right now I would be... Instead we are here.. their opinions are just as valid as yours, in fact since there is SO many posts on this subject I would say the W.K.'s are in the minority here and instead of saying Get Gud or some other BS just need to walk the frack on...

[Tomiro]

I'm fine with losing all items on death as you can get them back, but the skill penalty is just a bit too high when your skills are in the 50+ range. Having to shoot 1000 of arrows at enemies, just to get your bow skill back to your previous levels after one death is a bit much. And that's just one skill.

Skills are not insignificant either with +130% damage at max level, -80% bow draw time etc.

Yes, you can complete the game at 0-level, speedrun it naked with a club, "I never look at the skills" etc. I have a self-imposed permadeath character that I defeated Yag with, and played my share of roguelikes with permadeath back in the days.

That being said, people are in general loss averse, and the skills represent progression. So once you start paying attention to them it can feel quite frustrating, seeing how days of skill gains are lost with one death with a single mistake, and again can encourage "unfun" gameplay. Like now I have to decide if I go and fight the mistland boss blind (which is the "fun" option, but likely resulting in death, undoing days or weeks of skillgain), or look up some guides / wiki beforehand (safer but boring option) but more likely to keep my skills intact.

[Ebyl]

The easy fix for this is to put in a slider in the options for how much skill you lose when dying. Default it to what it is now but allow people to go lower or higher if they want. Problem solved.

Edit - And of course for multiplayer it could be set by the server owner and anyone playing on that world would inherit the server setting.

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by Tomiro:

Like now I have to decide if I go and fight the mistland boss blind (which is the "fun" option, but likely resulting in death, undoing days or weeks of skillgain), or look up some guides / wiki beforehand (safer but boring option) but more likely to keep my skills intact.

That doesn't seem like a hard choice to me. I made the same choice when entering ML, choosing to go in essentially blind. I died a couple of times, but, we waited a long time to experience a new biome, so there is no way I would throw away the surprise, excitement, and learning experience to protect a couple of percentage points of damage output.

Same with the Queen, you only get to fight her once for the first time. Why ruin it just to save a few points on your stats?

[Willist]

It wouldn't be so bad if the majority of deaths were fair. The first encounter with many creatures is lethal and with no clear gear progression because of enemies that will one shot you anyways "deathskitto" its hard to predict where your pecking order is in valheim.

[Zep Tepi]

I enjoy challenges, but I do not enjoy punishment. I don't think that punishment is fun. If you think punishment is fun, then that's your thing, not mine.

Corpse runs lead to adventure, problem solving and extra stories, but skill loss adds nothing to the game's entertainment value. So I modded out the skill loss.

It's not that I want everything on easy mode. I did have a permadeath phase while waiting for the new content. That taught me plenty about not being so careless. But that's more for experienced players. New players need to take extra risks while learning the game, so I stopped doing permadeath when exploring new content. Not dying takes a lot of player knowledge and skill, both of which need to be learned, often through mistakes.

[Enker-Zan]

I don't think players should lose skill when they die. It takes a really long time to build that back up in late game when you can potentially die to something stupid rather easily. Gear can be replaced much quicker than skill can.

[RequiemsRose]

Honestly, if people want challenge then the AI probably needs to be improved more than the death system. I don't mind retrieving my gear, even naked isn't too bad until you hit mountains, especially if you hang onto deer jesus power plus corpse run and just nope everything. Worst ive had to bring is the serpent scale shield i usually hang on the wall on one map because i had to cross a sliver of plains to reach the swamp i died in and needed a way to nope the deathsquito pierce since even boosted run can't outsprint them until they get distracted (which luckily happens quickly when a swamp biome is right there). Plus when I do die initially it's because it is new content i went blindly into so i have to make new mistakes for new lessons, or I let my guard down and got ambushed. That tells me that nothing is actually a genuine "challenge" if facing it as expected, it can just get lucky sometimes. To me that also means that the death system kind of doesn't matter in the first place since it actually is pretty easy to avoid once you learn the basics, but that it also doesn't really need to be incredibly punishing either. We really don't need any help or encouragement to not die, that isn't actually much of a challenge. Mostly it just tacks on a new annoyance/adventure depending on how you view it.

[Heron]

The good thing: all of this can be tweaked with mods.

This one works fine on the current build and lets you tweak both skill loss and what you respawn with:

https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/1068

[Rumors]

If skill loss must be retained, there are some good middle grounds that make it feel better. One solution would be to allow player to recover lost skills with their corpse but only either A) they retrieve it during the "No Skill Loss" buff duration, thus giving them a test of their ability/preparation, B) don't die again after the buff wears off or C) same as B but without the added protection from the buff. Another solution would be to have some sort of XP debt type of system where skills are lost but XP gained for them is boosted until they return to the highest values you've attained on that character.

I don't mind being punished for getting killed, but the skill loss system as is just feels really bad, especially with it potentially setting you back literal hours of progress on them. It needs to be tweaked, replaced, or removed.

[highlighter]

It seems to me that if mods and devcommands are the solution to this issue than it makes more sense for the hardcores to customise the game as they see fit and that the vanilla should strike a better first time playthrough balance.

The game has you spending way too much time planting turnips, arranging your living room and pick mushrooms in the woods out back to rely on a pure hardcore player base. It's crazy casual so much of the time.

ftr I LIKE the challenge of the GAME as is. I like item loss, it creates adventure. Skill loss does not create adventure. However, I do see the point of a skill loss system, though it's not necessary for me, I am death averse even in games I can save in lol, but it's imbalanced to the point of being punitive instead of just encouraging of a more careful and thorough play-style.

If a rebalance offends the hardcores, may I humbly suggest there are plenty of devcommands and mods at their disposal to make as hard as they like.

[Hiryukaen]

Originally posted by Benevolent:

Originally posted by M.Red:

just dont die or take the consequences
not every game needs to go the convience route

Nah. Games need certain quality of life mechanics built it in for it to cater to the masses.

I'm sorry, but your snub remark about "convenience" is total bs. Its more like quality of life mechanics that are needed and should be expected.

Valheim is not a game made to cater to the masses, they've even stated the opposite. It's a niche game not meant for everyone, and the devs don't expect to please everyone, nor care to.
I don't know why you're expecting this to be minecraft with smooth edges.

Originally posted by highlighter:

It seems to me that if mods and devcommands are the solution to this issue than it makes more sense for the hardcores to customise the game as they see fit and that the vanilla should strike a better first time playthrough balance.

...snip...

If a rebalance offends the hardcores, may I humbly suggest there are plenty of devcommands and mods at their disposal to make as hard as they like.

It's way easier for casuals and "story mode" players to devcommand/mod their way into godhood than spend dev time to rebalance the game to make it easier.
The game doesn't need it. Just like -Souls games don't need to be rebalanced so anyone can play them.