No way, that’d force the player to quit the game for 30min-1h if they’re low on money. I don’t think a fatigue&recovery system would be bad though. Whatever that’d look like.
Sleeping currently gives a ‘rested’ buff (HP). For doing literally nothing I think that’s okay.
It’s true that I’m a bit disappointed, death doesn’t really have any noticeable impact. I don’t necessarily have the right solution, but some smart work needs to be done on it.
Having to commit suicide to respawn quickly is not a solution, it should be if I have nothing to lose. In a Souls game, I commit suicide when I don’t have any souls on me to go faster, but it’s not an option I do all the time.
There are some good ideas in this topic, but there will always be some who are unhappy and some who are happy, but we still need to make a change at this level.
You could add a cleanse mechanic on top of it.
Where you have to get yourself cleansed and at the same time can get Blessed by the Church and one of it’s respective Deities.
30mins off is maybe a bit too much but i like the idea of using your home to rest or to cure wounds. And yeah, equipment durability should be a thing. Caring about your equipment also makes it more meaningful to u. Would love it to have more equipment “caring” tools for sharpening swords etc.
I dont like the durability attempt in the actual form. Hope they reimplement the durability in a more positive way than bringing something from 1/50 to 50/50. I think it must be bound to the item potential in combat
I don’t think dying should weaken the character because that discourages retrying and improving. If I’m able to go toe to toe with the enemies in a region or a boss but die a couple times then I’d want to keep trying to become better. Punishing me for that would be pretty frustrating imo.
Instead the player, maybe dying could affect the environment: each time you die the fog of war creeps back a bit in that area, and maybe more/harder enemies spawn.
That way, you always have enough enemies to fight so that:
While still …
It doesn’t discourage reattempting bosses because there’ll likely be a whisper nearby, so that there won’t be too many enemies in your way to the boss arena.
And it doesn’t let you keep trying indefinitely because you still burn food and consumables.
I think the point here is that death in combat on its own is an exhaustment for the player. Double punishing that cannot be good.
Maybe split between fall damage deaths/out of combat and in-combat deaths?
Just loosing equipment durability if you die by fall damage, so dying during a normal fight does nothing. That would prevent players from death porting to town.
Sounds like wasted time coding the different death penalties and would be abused by players.
Wait… This is Pokémon!
This is an interesting suggestion. And kinda reminds me of Anti Form from Kingdom Heart. In KH, if you went into Anti Form, you move faster, you have different moveset, higher attack damage (?), but a bit uncontrollable, also can’t use magic, skills, or items, leaving you more vulnerable.
In NRFTW, the character could become a torn version of themself with no usable items or runes, a bit more chaotic, no parry/backstab, but with increased buffs like speed, damage, and stamina.
In a way, it’s not really a punishment since player can leverage their buffs to kill pesky bosses. But could also be used as a punishment since it kinda random after X amounts of death.
To make it less abused, for every “normal” death, you would be respawned at the last whisper, while dying in torn mode would spawn yiu back at Sacrament’s church.
Just don’t change the appearance of my Cerim to something from Pokemon Go 
I really like some of the ideas being put out there. I have some quick thoughts I wanted to share on durability:
The durability systems are already in place and a lot of time has been spent on them. I wouldn’t expect Moon to easily just scrap it.
Death shouldn’t be so punishing that it becomes almost impossible to advance or preventing the player from playing the game.
I think durability on day one was mostly fine. It was really just a problem with tools (my gf, who died A LOT, only had an issue with tools), players not realizing that Fillmore gave free repairs pre-Sacrament and learning that it’s okay to go farm easy bounties (like crabs/wolves) or head into a new Realm to get stronger if the cost of advancing is becoming unbearable.
Repair consumables getting a bump in drop rates and tools getting the necessary balance changes already help a ton. Players advancing past Sacrament where crafting, better gear/gem/rune options open up, more players getting used to the combat mechanics and players learning how to take advantage of the durability systems at their disposal should all be enough for durability to be the death tax it was designed to be.
As is durability is in a meaningless place where it has lost it’s edge in being the punishing mechanic it originally was designed to be. To make matters worse it has rendered those durability systems the team spent a lot of time on a watered down feeling of “Why would I ever care about this petty cost, rune, gem or affix?!” for many players.
So I think, now that tools and repair kit drop rates are in a much better place, Moon should balance durability closer to what they originally had it. If they want to go the extra mile then maybe educating players via an in-game glossary/help page (Last Epoch has a really good one) on what they can do to mitigate the downsides of durability might be time well spent and frankly, a glossary of sorts should be in this type of game.
I agree. Maybe bump up the durability loss in the next patch and see how we get along with that before doing anything drastic.
Well reasoned mate.
This write up resembles my experience and thoughts almost exactly the same.
My main issues were with tools as well, also the potential of them breaking.
They addressed durability with, increased durability, lowered durability loss, increased drop rate of durability fixing items. It is just too much at this point for it to be meaningfull.
I think this is the main reason why so many people were complaining, they simply didn’t understand the tools they had to combat durability.
Glossary and bestiary! I want to admire their craft without having to kill it.
Thanks for bringing up the last epoch ingame Guide.
It also has a lot of tooltip information.
Wicked definitly needs more of that.
Hovering over gems in wicked for example does not show me what kind of improvement they provide. You have to run to the enchanter to see whats going on … and thats just the tip of the iceberg.
I honestly can’t disagree more.
In the most popular souls games, you lose absolutely nothing after your second death (which permanently loses the runes you had).
This formula has been working really well, and enables people to slam their heads against difficult bosses for hours on end, which the community by en large has applauded as a feature.
Any form of stacking penalty and/or that leads up to broken gear just punishes people that are doing their best against content they find challenging, which is the purest experience of souls games: getting your ass whooped until you are good at it.
It certainly doesn’t seem like the right approach to throw this out of the window
I think here it works. This game is far more easier due to the isometric limitations. So death has to be made meaningful with penalties.
This also encourages players to progress slower. Creating a dopamine hit bottlenecks that once you overcome them it feels amazing.
Agreed. Playing Elden Ring and this game is like night and day in terms overall general difficulty. This has a lot to due with the camera and how it is handled for us which not only gives us one less thing to control but gives us more vision as well.
I wouldn’t expect Moon to drop durability so the real question is how do we make it a better mechanic. I have stacks of repair consumables and crafting materials for them collecting dust in my storage. I have never put value on the Indestructible Affix or the Repair Rune. I no longer even look at the petty repair costs.
For me the game is at it’s best when there is something meaningful riding on every death. In the current EA build there is no real impact for death other than a little time lost. With the systems already in the game there is enough ways to mitigate durability that a properly informed player can smash their heads on anything all day long.
I have never been a fan of durability but it does become less of an issue to the point of being irrelevant at the moment (you are constantly changing/getting new items).
Maybe a system of reward for not dying would be better. A small but perceptible benefit for staying alive (maybe an small increase in XP gain, Item drop chance, etc.) Don’t make it so it is exploitable (although gaining a benefit before a boss fight may again be benefit of not dying), I don’t think I have ever used any repair items (and item spaces are so ridiculously in short supply) so the system as it is now is not working.
You also don’t want to panelise people who are new or who get pushed away by overly difficult fights. It has always been a balancing act. I tend to get fatigued by souls type games after a while. Its not the difficulty as such but rather the repetitive difficulty.
Durability needs to be removed all together, Dying should make you drop all your items everything in your bag that you have to go back to the place of death to get them, So that means if you die in the crucible you lost them forever, It’s today’s self deserving mentality that people owe them for being born, they expect everything they want handed to them on a silver platter, you could give them a million dollars and the very next thing out of their mouth would be, Why didn’t you give me a million and one, Biggest problem of today’s children they had cell phones and tablets for parents because their parents didn’t want to be bothered with raising them.