Gameplay: Magnet Respawns

[Repinuj]

This is a suggestion for respawns to not be as random. Something like respawning between 4 and 9 tiles of an epicenter, which would still correspond roughly with the Breath 5 Elysium or Stygia map sizes (where most Angel/Demon respawns happened, barring other factors). But not within visual range of the epicenter, so as not to be too close.

The character would by default have a choice to drift toward one of several landmarks:

Death: centered on where the character died
option 1: specifically centered on the location of death; always available
option 2: specifically centered on the corpse; if the corpse is gone, the option is not available
option 3: specifically centered on the body; if raised as a zombie/skeleton/vassal, respawn epicenter is the zombie's current location

Stronghold: Centered on character's SH. Only available if SH is up.
option 1: innate, as long as the SH is up
option 2: requires a faction upgrade
suboption: a possible faction upgrade to restrict non-faction or enemy respawns from SH vicinity

Origin: maybe only for those T2 and up
option 1: home plane (Elysium/Stygia/Purgatorio) (if the plane is similar in size to B5 Elysium/Stygia)
option 2: centered on a specific landmark (in case the planes are larger than in Breath 5) (e.g. Mount Vesuvius, Pit of Azazel)
suboption: if the SH is on the Origin plane, can respawn within visual range of SH
option 3: for very large planes, could potentially have more than one landmark
suboption: could extend that to Valhalla, too

Fate: current style randomness
option 1: only if no other option is available (only mortals with no death anchor or SH, if Origin isn't expanded to them; or if died in the middle of the sea, etc.)
option 2 always available as an option

Original idea was to allow for journeys on the larger map, and allow better immersion. As well as minimize frustration of respawning on the other side of a larger map. So that was the Death option.

As was pointed out, this could have negative consequences with letting hunters camp your death spot. So having an alternate choice would mitigate that. With a radius of 9 tiles, that's a spawn area of 19x19, minus the center tiles. Basically Elysium or Stygia in B5, where Angels and Demons tended to spawn by default. That's basically the Origin option, extended to Transcendents.

There is also a low level player mechanic that respawns players near their SH. I don't know the specifics, but that's basically the SH option, expanded to everyone.

Maybe change the max radius of the respawn as the level rises. So Mortals would be 4-5 tiles from the epicenter, T2s would be 4-7 tiles, and T3s 4-9 tiles.

[Klapaucius]

Something to take the edge off random respawns, especially in T1/T2 makes sense to me.

This feels complicated but it's nice to have some choice involved. The effect is mostly intuitive when you click the button.

I suggested a temporary buff on respawn that reduces movement/portal cost for X status ticks ticks and disappears on attack as one approach.

[erikune]

I feel like the main penalty of dying isn't the respawn AP spent, it's the AP needed to get back to wherever you want to go. This seems to be somewhat baked into the combat tree balance, as hand-to-hand and innate weapons - and, to a lesser extent, bows - are worse than their melee or gun alternatives, but don't need maintenance or can be maintained anywhere. Bows are weaker than guns, but when forests are all over the place and bow repair can be done anywhere, you can easily get back to whatever you're doing with a bow while you'd need to find a gun store or someplace similar to get your firearm repaired. The same with unarmed, you can just get up and get to punching again, without looking for a factory or smithy to repair your broken sword.

It's also one of the big benefits of T3 teleport skills. Void Walker is a lot more effective with rifles because they can just teleport to a gun store and repair their weapons/grab some ammo, regardless of where they are. Much like the bow example, it means that VWs have an easier time getting back to shooting people while a Doom Howler might not want a gun if they have to leave Stygia every time they want more ammo.

[Repinuj]

This would hardly compete with the teleport skills. The respawn area would be roughly equivalent to the B5 Elysium/Stygia planes. And only a factor after dying.

Given the spread of resource building, and the fact you can't respawn on water, you'd hardly be likely to respawn closer to one than currently. Well, the exception being avoiding getting stuck in the boonies, unless you died and chose to remain there. But that's one of the goals.

[erikune]

I also feel like, one point of the respawn, is to move people around so they can't just clump up at a single location. If you're searching a library for books, spellgems, and lore fragments, then there's zero reason to ever go anywhere else when every respawn puts you within 10AP of returning to the same library. If you get respawned on the other side of the plane or on a completely different map, then players may decide to go do something different and be at a different location. Having everybody camped and returning to the same building every respawn makes the game a lot more dull, at least in my opinion.

[kylinn]

After two more months in this game, I would like to say HELL YES to this idea. It is very frustrating to constantly be respawning way over in the east - often the south-east - when one's SH is in the NW, spend the rest of one's AP inching toward home, hiding, and then dying again before reaching it and starting over again.

And yes, if you're in the right spot and have enough AP, you can go through Purg, but it isn't a perfect solution and can still take significant time/AP to then get to one's SH.

With the current size of the map, this is becoming a real impediment to lower-tier characters, and still problematic for some higher-level ones.