Damion Schubert philosophizes about SWTOR's death penalty

As long as there is no experience lost upon dying, I'm fine. I'm also not a fan of long debuffs that make my character useless against anything if I choose to auto-res to a city/graveyard (assuming there's some type of spirit walking system). I hate feeling like I'm wasting time in a game where I'm literally paying for that time.

I agree with everything Damion said and it only confirms my confidence in what they're doing.

I've played games where the death penalty wasn't balanced and it does encourage players to engage in dysfunctional behaviours which kill the fun factor.

I agree with Mr Schubert's assessment that players should be challenged by game content, instead of handed stupid punishments.

One of the more frustrating death penalty system I've experienced is the stackable debuff in Guild Wars. Each time you die, you get an additional 15% penalty to your hp and energy (up to a maximum of 60%). It was a system to discourage suicidal rushes to wear down the mobs, but it only made it more likely players will fall into a downward spiral of death penalty hell. In the end, a group of players would disband because everyone has died so much it's impossible to keep going.

Fortunately, ArenaNet realized the system just wasn't very fun and created items later to remove the debuff.

@Tempes Magus

To be fair, Guild Wars death penalty is also easily removable, and the difference in max health only gets bad when it starts to get high up there, plus it all can be wiped clean with a simple warp to an outpost through the map.

Its a way to say "Hey, warp back to town, rethink a little, then hop right back in!", and I've rarely had a moment in the game where I couldn't bounce right back.

@DevilSei

It is removable via gaining experience. It only is removed by a large chunk when killing bosses due to the moral boost.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death_penalty
specifically.
Experience (PvE): Gaining 75 experience points will remove 1% DP.

I like the XP Debt system myself. Nice balance.

why is that screenie so terribad?

I can appreciate a mild to moderate death penalty (something like durability loss or a short corpse run) if it's consistent with the difficulty of the content.

One of the things that bugged me about STO at launch was the content wasn't challenging whatsoever AND there was no death penalty, so I never felt pushed to actually use consumables or hunt for better equipment to keep myself alive.

I know it's not an MMO, but one of the things that made Demons Souls so engrossing is you really, really didn't want to die because of the "penalties" involved. I'm not even the kind of person who plays games on the toughest difficulties but the tension and challenge level in DS was just fantastic.

I guess Eve is a good example. Even if you're just a newb running missions there's a real consequence to taking on a particularly large or tough group of AI opponents. Every new module or skill you get actually has value in keeping your ship in one piece.

Personally I am a great believer in reasonable death penalties to stop those who like to just run headlong into things without thinking about them. If you are careless you should suffer.

I would agree with the previous poster that EVE has a good mix - you can still get your stuff back (or at least the part that has not blown up).
C.