Recovering from Death

Related topics: Death Penalty, Death Item, Lifestone

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145

Recovering from Death

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Asheron's Call wouldn't stay exciting very long if death had no consequences. Ideally, the death penalty occasionally recharges your caution and capacity for suspense. However, if you don't adequately understand how death affects your character, you may find yourself punished even worse than the developers intended. Understanding how the death penalty system works and taking steps to minimize your losses can save you a lot of time and wasted effort, and keep your character's development on a steady upward curve despite the occasional mishap.

The Penalty
When you are slain, you'll resurrect at the last lifestone to which you attuned your character, having lost one or more valuable items, half your pyreals, if any, and a percentage of your "vitae," or life force. All your skills are decreased by the percentage of your vitae loss and so are the maximum values of your secondary attributes -- Health, Stamina, and Mana.

Recovering
Fortunately, you won't be in immediate danger of being killed again, because you're invulnerable to attack for a full minute if you don't attack another creature or cast any spells. Also, your secondary attributes, even if all had been reduced to 0 when you died, will be at 75 percent of their new maximum score, and any poisons or harmful enchantments afflicting you just before you died will be gone, giving you a fighting chance of making it back to town or meeting up with your allies.

Your first order of business after gaining safety usually will be to seek your corpse, which is left at the location of your demise. If you died outdoors, the coordinates for this corpse will be broadcast to you upon your arrival at the Lifestone. You can also find the location of your last corpse outdoors by typing @corpse. Since your vitae and equipment loss will make it harder to deal with whatever hazard caused your demise, seek some extra help before returning, but don't take too long. Your corpse only persists for five minutes for each level you've attained (with a one hour minimum), and then fades, leaving your items on the ground for anyone to pick up. If you think you'll have trouble returning to your corpse, consider cutting your losses and concentrating on reducing your vitae penalty instead. Keep in mind that neither Online Staff nor Turbine Support are able to produce items that have been lost.

You work off your vitae loss by gaining experience points. At any given level, you will probably identify an ideal set of monsters to hunt as "vitae fodder."

Death, Where Is Thy Sting? Taking Precautions
There are several steps you can take to ensure that you'll bounce back quickly from a fatal mishap.

You will save yourself a great deal of distress if you remember to stop yourself before taking a risk to make sure you can find your way back to your present location from the lifestone. When you're low level, you may want to adventure close to the lifestone so that you can get to your corpse easily.

We also provided you the means to give another player permission to access your corpse and take any items on it. We did this to help players who find themselves in situations where they cannot get to their corpse but their friends can. Caution should be used when giving another player this permission. We advise that you know the person and trust that they intend to return your items to you. If you are unsure of this, we advise you not to give them permission.

Following are the commands to use:

@permit add <player name> -- allows you to give another player permission to loot one of your corpses.

@permit remove <player name> -- allows you to revoke permission from another player to loot one of your corpses.

@consent on -- turns on the ability for you to accept permissions from players.

@consent off -- turns off the ability for you to accept permissions from players.

@consent remove <player name> -- removes a specific player from your consent list. You can no longer loot that player's corpse.

@consent who -- lists in the text box all players whom you have permission to loot.

@consent clear -- removes all players from your consent list. You cannot loot any person's corpse until they @permit you again.

If you have multiple corpses, you can only give permission for one of them. Therefore, the player to whom you give permission can access any one of your corpses, but after the first, that player will need to be granted permission an additional time in order to access your next corpse.

You can have up to twenty people in your consent list at one time. Additionally, when you log off, all permissions to loot corpses will be removed.

Besides getting to your corpse, your other great challenge often will be overcoming whatever killed you in the first place. Whether in a dungeon or not, try to lure powerful monsters well away from their home base before engaging them in combat so that they'll leave the area -- and therefore your corpse.

More important than being able to return to your corpse, however, is taking measures to ensure that none of your most vital equipment gets left on it in the first place. When you die, you leave behind a number of items, based on your level. If you are under level 5, you will drop nothing. From level 6 to level 10, you will lose half of your pyreals and nothing else. From level 11 to level 20, you will lose half of your coins and, possibly, one item that you were not wielding when you died. From level 21 to 35, you will drop half of your coins and some number of non-wielded items. After level 35, you have the possibility of losing items that you were wielding when you died.

The number of items you lose from level 21 and up is your level, divided by 10 (rounded down), plus a random number from 0 to 2.

One note -- if you were killed in a PK battle, you always lose items as if you were over level 35, although the exact number of items that you lose is still based on your actual level.

You have no control over the number of items you lose, but you do have a good deal of control over which items you lose. Items are lost in order of value and according to major categories. Here's the system, taken straight from the developer spec, that Asheron's Call uses to determine the way items are lost:

First, we sort the inventory by order of value. Second, we go back through the inventory starting at the most expensive item down and look at each item's category. If we've seen the item before, we divide the value of the item in half. At this point, we add a random 0 to 10% variance to each item's value.

Example: Let's say we have a level-50 player who is slated to lose five items. He has a sword worth 5000 pyreals, five gems worth 1000p, a potion worth 1200, and two pieces of armor worth 1500p. Our list of the five items he loses would look like:

1. sword (5000p)

2. armor (1500p)

3. potion (1200p)

4. gem (1000p)

5. armor (750p -- it got halved by the above system)

We keep the other four gems (500p each -- these got halved by the above system).

On the other hand, if the player instead has a 5000p sword, 2500p sword, 1000p sword and a lot of miscellaneous other stuff for 10p each, he'll lose all three swords and two of the 10p items. This way, the player will still be losing his more valuable items and not just a bunch of 10p low-value items.

As many players soon discover, your most valuable items are seldom your most useful ones. To protect yourself from losing the weapons, armor, and magic you rely upon, make sure your most valuable items are expendable and spread over several categories. Also, keep in mind the number of items you stand to lose at your present level of experience.

Exempt Possessions
The death penalty does not apply to trade notes at all, regardless of their value, so convert your extra pyreals into trade notes as often as possible. Also, it does not affect any item that displays the Bonded attribute when you examine it. Bonded weapons and armor are particularly valuable.

Conclusion

Getting killed is never desirable, but without some penalty, you'd never experience that thrill of danger at pushing your character to the limit of his or her abilities. The penalty isn't intended to be devastating, though. Protect the items you use frequently, and don't extend yourself too much if you won't be able to return to your present location. Taking the proper precautions requires a bit of discipline, but you'll be rewarded with a consistently satisfying game experience and steady progress toward your goals for power and prestige.

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