Game Mechanics After Death, we should respawn by choice (with explanation)

[Noelle Gaming]

Letting players skip like 10 seconds of doing literally nothing is not a “massive free buff”

Edit: Also, just because many don’t personally see the issue as a big deal does not automatically mean the issue just shouldn’t be solved.
Besides, even if this change doesn’t make the game much better for many people, that doesn’t mean it makes it worse for the ones the wait doesn’t bother.
Simply saying a change like this fixes something that you don’t personally think is a big deal is not an actual point against the proposed change.

 

[Aceplante]

But isn't that literally what was done when autofire was added? Giving those few people who can't constantly click an option, while also giving the general community a nice feature that makes life easier?

And personally I think that was not a good change. The way it was before felt like an intended mechanic/limitation of certain weapons that made them feel more "melee". Now, there is no functional difference between normal bows and repeating crossbows, and magic staves are just glorified guns, just two examples of many, though I will admit that no longer needing to click all the time is nice.

However, the difference is that needing click every attack was something that affected all players all the time during normal gameplay and could quickly add up over time. Therefore, I understand why this change was made, even if it doesn't feel as intuitive to me. That is not on the same level as needing to wait a few extra seconds when you die. If you don't like it, just don't die? Dying is supposed to be bad and inconvenient, and I do not think that something that ideally shouldn't be happening at all needs tons of free buffs to remove most of the downside.

Also, just because many don’t personally see the issue as a big deal does not automatically mean the issue just shouldn’t be solved.

I dont think its an issue, and being unable to wait a few extra seconds is a personal problem, not something that needs to be changed.

Besides, even if this change doesn’t make the game much better for many people, that doesn’t mean it makes it worse for the ones the wait doesn’t bother.

Again, this timer only shows when you die. It is supposed to be bad and motivate you to not want to die again. If you hate waiting, then be more careful. This is an intended mechanic, and removing it would negate one of the main downsides of dying. Coins can be farmed, items can be retrieved. Time cannot.

Simply saying a change like this fixes something that you don’t personally think is a big deal is not an actual point against the proposed change.

read back at earlier posts. There are many actual reasons more than just not thinking this is a problem.

But, that argument goes both ways. Why SHOULD this be changed other than you all being unable to wait a few extra seconds?

 

[Dapling]

Why SHOULD this be changed other than you all being unable to wait a few extra seconds?

Because being forced to wait a few extra seconds requires a very good reason for existing, as it is either a net neutral or a net negative for the player's experience, and it currently does not have one outside of some very specific contexts the system could easily be reworked to accomodate. The specific contexts in question are a) giving bosses time to despawn b) making bosses more difficult in multiplayer and c) wasting time for specific invasions. In most other contexts, meanwhile, you can just look away and read up on some random guy's college thesis on cat hair consistency or literally anything else for the entire duration of a mechanic with absolutely no downside for doing so (reminder the respawn timer when fighting bosses in multiplayer DOES have a downside so that's different from almost every other context), meaning it isn't actually doing much. If the timer contributed something thematically or aesthetically, like lore or a cool looking cutscene, obviously, it would be different. It would still be ideal to add the option to skip it, but you'd at least have some implied justification for it being there.
Unfortunately the aesthetic is extremely barebones and clearly not meant to convey anything flashy or notable, and there certainly isn't any atmospheric lore reason for why the player has to wait ("You were Slain..." with a number underneath it is where all communication the game says towards the player on the matter begins and ends, no room for lore there), so we can disregard that point.
Additionally respawning quickly stops enemies from despawning if you died near spawn, so it naturally balances itself if you get too hasty with it and don't pay attention, no enforcement is really needed to give the player a reason to wait after respawning. All of this is to say, there are very, very few reasons to have a timer for this, and the reasons we do have could be accomplished far better if there was a rework.

Frankly, I feel like the timer shouldn't be done away with, but reworked and added to. Here's what I would do:

1. The Timer always starts at 30 seconds, regardless of difficulty or other conditions, but you can press a button to respawn whenever you like under most conditions, but not all. This gives people time to take a breather if they need it (which is a common argument I see for keeping the timer, some people need a moment to process how they died) or wait to respawn enemies, but allows ones which don't want to wait to risk enemies still being present because they respawned too fast.
2. Bosses and some invasions (Blood Moons, Solar Eclipses, Frost Moon, and Pumpkin Moon, but none of the others) disable the respawn button if they're alive. This is to keep many of the contexts where the respawn timer does actually serve as a balancing measure intact, such as giving bosses time to despawn, wasting time in invasions that have a hard time-limit, and multiplayer.
3. (Optional change but one I'd like to see alongside the other two) In Master difficulty and above, all non-event bosses additionally pause the timer while they're alive. This makes it impossible to respawn during boss fights in multiplayer, which makes it much MUCH more punishing and makes the boss require more team coordination in a situation where the group already wanted to play on a high difficulty. We'll have the Spectate feature in 1.4.5, so we'll actually have something to do and look at while we wait for this. (Side note: Deerclops is the only boss that has issues with this, as it doesn't despawn until 10 minutes have passed regardless of how many players are currently alive, but honestly I think that should be changed, being able to die 5 times and still easily kill it with a Boreal Wood Bow with over a minute to spare is catastrophic boss design, especially when it's the only naturally spawning boss that doesn't warn the player before it's about to jump you with a chat message, meaning they can randomly decide to shut down your pylons for no reason. Really should just despawn like the others, the boss cheeses itself in its current state and the lack of a way to dismiss it causes more trouble than it's worth imo.) This also solves the issue of bosses that currently don't despawn properly in multiplayer like Queen Bee, as instead of spawncamping the entire map simultaneously like she currently does she'll instead hunt down and kill every player and then dismiss herself.

 

[Noelle Gaming]

I dont think it’s an issue, and being unable to wait a few extra seconds is a personal problem, not something that needs to be changed.

A "personal problem" would be "I don't like the new Twins music, can you add the option to hear boss 2 instead?", not "Can we change how a feature that most people do not actively enjoy works?"
And the select few that claim to enjoy having to wait a long time to reflect on how they died or whatever
could just pause the game to do that, or do it while they play the game.

Again, this timer only shows when you die. It is supposed to be bad and motivate you to not want to die again.

Deterring the player from dying by annoying them every time they die is not good game design. Imagine if in Breath of the Wild (or really any other action-adventure game), the player was forced to sit there doing nothing for like 15 seconds every death (plus that game’s horrendous load times lmao). It would suck, and nobody would like it for the same reason people complain about the game’s load time. A major thing encouraging the player to play well should not be “I don’t wanna be forced to do literally nothing for a little bit”.
The game already has several better ways of doing this, so I don’t see why artificially wasting time needs to be one of them. You’re teleported home when you die, you have to restart any bosses you were fighting, you drop your money*, you lose your items in mediumcore, and you die permanently in hardcore.

read back at earlier posts. There are many actual reasons more than just not thinking this is a problem.

Sure, I’ll list all the ones I see.
1. “It stops you from immediately going back to fighting bosses.” Then don’t let us do it during boss fights. It’s already been mentioned that the game knows when a threat is present in the world.
2. "It would mess with NPCs." Perhaps there could be a timer just long enough to remedy this? Admittedly, I know very little about NPC AI. If someone who does sees this and I am severely misunderstanding how this works, lmk. I don't think that letting the player voluntarily respawn immediately, is a great solution on its own all of the time. If immediately respawning near an enemy after it kills you would break it, then maybe implement a bare minimum timer if the enemy that killed you was near where you're going to spawn. But if it were far from the spawn, I'm not sure how a time would make a difference, since you'll respawn so far that the enemy would stop targeting you anyway, right? I hope that made sense
3. "To piss off OP" dang
If there are some I missed, then tell me.

Coins can be farmed

*If coin farming nullifies the punishment of losing money upon death, that seems like a separate issue

items can be retrieved.

Is that a bad thing? Is losing your items for dying, a punishment that requires you to use your skill to go retrieve it, a worse punishment than setting and doing nothing?

Time cannot [be retrieved]

Which is why the game shouldn’t be wasting it as punishment

But, that argument goes both ways. Why SHOULD this be changed other than you all being unable to wait a few extra seconds?

This has been discussed thoroughly on this thread, even in the OP. I’ve seen no reasons as to why those reasons were invalid besides stuff like “Some things just need to be let go.” I was also ninja'd with a good response to this anyway

 

[Aceplante]

This has been discussed thoroughly on this thread, even in the OP.

And reasons why it should not have also been discussed, yet some are still insistent that this is a "problem" that needs to be changed. I disagree and I don't see a few extra seconds of waiting as a problem. But I also don't think any progress is being made at this point. It is clear that some people want this change (and I admit I can understand why), but balance/other points aside, I dont think it needs actual changing.

Luckily, I trust the devs to not make implement any bad changes, or if absolutely necessary, at least to find a way to do so in a way that is fair and balanced, such as perhaps being able to respawn any time, but at the cost of health. That would be a perfect solution in my opinion, which is why I suggested it in another thread.

But if and how this is implemented is up to the devs, not us.

 

[Dapling]

I disagree and I don't see a few extra seconds of waiting as a problem.

I'd like to point out that if a few seconds of waiting are indeed "not a problem", then they can't balance anything. If you truly believe that it would need a compensatory nerf if the seconds of waiting are gone, then logically they are by definition an issue for the player to the point that eliminating it requires balance in the opposite direction to compensate. If it was actually not an issue at all then you would not be constantly treating it as an issue that balance hinges on.

If it's not an issue for you in the slightest, then you do not need to create an issue in its removal. You already don't see it as a hindrance, so no hindrance needs to be conjured into existence in its absence, because it (again I state according to you) wasn't one to begin with.

Now, if you prefer having to wait and do nothing for a few seconds after you die as opposed to having the option to respawn whenever you want, as in you inherently enjoy sitting there for several seconds, to the point that the absence of quick respawning is a draw for your playstyle specifically, that's another story entirely, and one that actually lines up with what you've been saying.

 

[Noelle Gaming]

And reasons why it should not have also been discussed, yet some are still insistent that this is a "problem" that needs to be changed. I disagree and I don't see a few extra seconds of waiting as a problem.

But I also don't think any progress is being made at this point. It is clear that some people want this change (and I admit I can understand why), but balance/other points aside, I dont think it needs actual changing.

This has gone back to where our conversation started. Just saying “I don’t think this is a problem” and “I don’t think it needs changing” just ignores all the actual points that have been made.

 

[Aceplante]

This has gone back to where our conversation started. Just saying “I don’t think this is a problem” and “I don’t think it needs changing” just ignores all the actual points that have been made.

It is my opinion, just as saying "i think it needs changing" is an opinion. As for the actual addition, there have both reasons for and against this (which really boils down to you guys wanting it and saying it wouldn't affect game balance, and us saying it would). I am well aware you all want this, that has been made abundantly clear, but my opinion remains unchanged which is why I don't think arguing the separate points and reasons any further will accomplish anything. Honestly, I think the individual points are kind of irrelevant, as this argument is ultimately about whether the timer should be changed/removed or not. I and many others think it is a good thing that it exists and do not want it changed, and some of you do.

I'd like to point out that if a few seconds of waiting are indeed "not a problem", then they can't balance anything. If you truly believe that it would need a compensatory nerf if the seconds of waiting are gone, then logically they are by definition an issue for the player to the point that eliminating it requires balance in the opposite direction to compensate. If it was actually not an issue at all then you would not be constantly treating it as an issue that balance hinges on.

If it's not an issue for you in the slightest, then you do not need to create an issue in its removal. You already don't see it as a hindrance, so no hindrance needs to be conjured into existence in its absence, because it (again I state according to you) wasn't one to begin with.

Now, if you prefer having to wait and do nothing for a few seconds after you die as opposed to having the option to respawn whenever you want, as in you inherently enjoy sitting there for several seconds, to the point that the absence of quick respawning is a draw for your playstyle specifically, that's another story entirely, and one that actually lines up with what you've been saying.

Fair argument. I guess what im saying is the current system is fine as is and is a good thing. I have literally never noticed or thought much of the death timer, because it makes sense and is a logical mechanic in the game. I wouldnt say I "enjoy" it, but I dont feel like it is unfair or excessively tedious at least for no reason. All of this exists and makes sense because it is literally death. Also maybe I just don't die as often as all of you apparently.

It would be odd to completely remove this without some other limitation in its place. Again, it is death, and how things feel is probably the most important thing to me, such as I mentioned when talking about the weapon rework a few posts back. I did not like that change because it affected the feel of attacks, just as this would change the impact of death. Would it be a horrible change that would ruin the game for me? Admittedly not, but I see no reason to change this either. Faster and easier is not always better.

 

[Heliodoros]

Just learn to play better and not to die. Try Mediumcore / Hardcore. 15 seconds is definitely not that much

 

[Dapling]

15 seconds is definitely not that much

See many of the posts above in that case. If it's not an issue, then shortening it further doesn't hurt any part of the experience. If it's too short to matter for you, shortening it further will not suddenly change that.

I even suggested it be extended under certain conditions where it actually makes the game more difficult in interesting ways, but can be overridden outside of those conditions, and it seemed like a lot of people agreed with that idea.