Benjamin Franklin once said that in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. While the Vesteria team does pays taxes, a review of our game led us to believe that inconsequential death was a major hurdle to having any kind of depth or significance to a lot of our gameplay.

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Pictured: Benjamin Franklin after dying to Rubees in Scallop Shores for the fifth time in a row.

We’re making this post because we’re unhappy with the current progression and gameplay loops in Vesteria and want to make drastic changes. This post is dedicated to breaking down what we are thinking of changing about death, and why are are considering these changes. A lot of misinformation is going around so we want this post to be the definitive source of all information in this matter.

Let’s jump right into it: the discussion is about whether or not to implement a permanent death mechanic in Vesteria. Take a deep breath and let’s dive into what this means.

Before we talk about anything else, I want to make it incredibly clear that this is a creative decision and not a business decision. We totally understand that we might be shooting ourselves in the feet here and alienating a lot of existing players, but we’re really unhappy with the state of the game and that has serious effects on how we work. It’s really hard to develop for a game that you don’t enjoy playing yourself, but that’s the state we’ve been in since we launched the Beta.

A permadeath mechanic will allow us to create moments of genuine emotion and player reactions that we just can’t get elsewhere. It would also encourage a new layer of player-to-player interactions that just cannot exist in the current game.

Here are some compiled explanations of what this update would entail:

    Mob damage would be drastically adjusted so that it would be very, very uncommon for you to die to mobs at your level or lower. Mobs below a certain level compared to you (say, 5 levels lower) may also be adjusted to just not aggro onto you unless you attack first. A level 17+ player could comfortably AFK in farmlands and not worry about dying.

    Where might you die? If you fight a Giant enemy above your level, you risk death due to their high damage. If you decide to go after higher level mobs for their better rewards, perhaps because you have monster book entries on them from a previous life, you risk dying. If you go into the Hardcore PVP zone (an optional secret map primarily for roleplay purposes), you could potentially die there. But as you level up, getting better and rarer equipment, the chance of you dying “on accident” decreases.

    If we added perma death we would make it so falling off the map would just teleport you instead of killing you. Ditto with reseting, we would implement it so that you could reset your character as long as youre not in combat.

    The Colosseum would be a safe place where you respawn instantly and there are no death penalties. Likewise we will add other safe pvp zones for dueling or roleplaying.

    Bored? Fight monsters a couple levels higher. They will give you more EXP and better drops… but you might die. Permadeath allows players to chose the level of engagement they want to receive from the game, and the amount of attention required to give. Also we’d make leveling a bit faster to compensate for this new system. Finally, the Monster Book system would be global so not only would you be grinding for EXP, you’d be grinding for permanent loot unlocks from that mob on all future slots as well as better EXP bonuses from that mob that last forever.

    The Badlands will not be primary content in the game, it’ll be entirely optional and there will be content that covers that level range which is normal PVE. However, these new systems make it so a Vesteria pro could potentially speedrun up to level 30, and this is the type of player we’re building areas like the badlands for.

We would also consider giving all players who put enough time into the game and reached a certain point before this update a free one-time soulbound extra life equipment item, similar to the Amulet of Resurrection from Realm of the Mad God. We will never sell this item for Ethyr, and a tradeable version will likely be obtainable as a super rare drop from bosses.

Here’s an example of what a hypothetical changelog for this update might look like:
Changes to Death & Core Gameplay Loop

    Death is now permanent outside of protected maps.
        Protected maps: Mushtown, Nilgarf, Port Fidelio, Tree of Life, Warrior Stronghold, Colosseum, Shroompocalypse, Spider Queen Lair

    Upon death, a gravestone is placed in the location you died in. The gravestone will be styled and the length it will persist will depend on what level you died at.
        Lvl 1-9: Small gravestone, 10 minutes
        Lvl 10-19: Medium gravestone, 1 hour
        Lvl 20-29: Large gravestone, 5 hours
        Lvl 30: Legendary gravestone, 24 hours, global message

    Monster difficulty and progression re-balance
        Monsters now deal 60% less damage.
        Monster and quest EXP reward increased by 100%.
        EXP bonus for fighting mobs higher level than you increased by 50%.
        Mobs more than 5 levels below you are scared of you and will not aggro onto you unless you attack them first.
        Mobs more than 5 levels above you deal additional bonus damage.

    Monster Book progress is now global across all saves and persists after death, meaning new loot drops and EXP bonuses unlocked by collecting idols persist across future runs.

    Storage remains unaffected by death, and can be permanently upgraded for in-game money

Having read all of the above, we’d like to ask for your opinion on these changes in the poll below. Note that we are pretty passionate about this update, and may go ahead even if the majority doesn’t Strongly Agree. That being said, your opinion is important and we want to hear it in the poll and in the comments below.

In Conclusion, if we could have gone back and started everything over again, this is how we would have made Vesteria in the first place. Unfortunately, the laws of time don’t work that way so this is the best bet we have now to create a game we can truely be passionate about. Regardless of your views of this update, we hope that you can respect the game and the progress we’ve made so far enough to help maintain civilized discussion and constructive criticism on this subject. We can’t wait to share more with you.

Love
-The Vesteria Team