Why do we have debt????

[savair]

I just dont get it, I mean if debt does not stop me from leveling up or slow me down at least I dont see it slow me down why does the game even have it? What bad thing happens when you have debt

[Rishidian]

Debt does slow you down.  When you are face planed (enough times to where debt starts accruing, part of you gained influence is applied to your debt, and therefore, you are not gaining as fast as if you had no debt.

 

It is from the live days, before the double XP bonus you gain from your character being offline.  

[Greycat]

Badges.

 

And it used to have more of an impact. It used to be the same inside a mission or out in the open world. It used to have a cap twice as high as it went now. (I had a blaster back in I3-I4 who went on a hami raid after hitting 50 and went from 0-1.1 million.) The slowing penalty used to be fairly bad when we didn't have more content - same blaster spent entire levels in debt in the 30s, it seemed, and ran out of content at 38.

 

That said, as far as a cost for dying, even early on it was a "cheap" penalty - we have no equipment to lose, we don't have any debuff other than slowing leveling for a little bit (or losing some patrol XP.) Other games have equipment get worn out or lost, or have annoying "OK, you died, now y ou have to run back to your equipment at -20% damage/health/speed, even though what killed you is still there."

 

Would you *like* it to do more?

[Luminara]

Because you touch yourself.

[Rishidian]

12 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Because you touch yourself.

That's besides the point.

 

At least for guys...

[High_Beam]

I was a career blaster on live and somewhat on HC and I used to say that Debt was like a warm blanket to a blaster, you always knew it would be there and that in itself was comforting.  The Babes of War used to say my Epic Power was debt.  I should find my old sig graphic that had an odometer style counter spinning to measure debt.

Edited August 23, 2023 by High_Beam
Spelling Because I Spell Poorly At Times.

[KC4800]

Speaking of old blaster, I really miss the old defiance sometimes.

[Veloice]

If City of Heroes were set in my home of the UK, you wouldn't accrue debt when using Mediporter technology. It'd just have a really long cooldown.

[Sanguinesun]

56 minutes ago, savair said:

I just dont get it, I mean if debt does not stop me from leveling up or slow me down at least I dont see it slow me down why does the game even have it? What bad thing happens when you have debt

 

As others have said, it used to be much much more punitive than it is now.   Back when the game's goal was to keep a player paying their subscription, the debt was just one of the layers of doing so..... in addition to being a learning tool.   Death in most games is a learning too in itself but if someone is dying so much that they're accruing lots of debt, it was meant to try to have them step back and think "hey, Im doing something wrong that I need to change".   

 

In our current, no paid subscription model, debt's role has been just mainly relegated to being a vestigial feature with just a minor "hey ya might want to change what you're doing if debts an issue for you" (ie almost never).  

 

Basically debt is now more or less a much ado about nothing. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Rishidian said:

That's besides the point.

 

At least for guys...

 

If you're touching yourself beside the point you're doing it wrong!

[biostem]

Man, people really don't want to face any consequences for their actions, huh?

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, savair said:

I just dont get it, I mean if debt does not stop me from leveling up or slow me down at least I dont see it slow me down why does the game even have it? What bad thing happens when you have debt

 

[MHertz]

Debt is the game's way of telling you to be more careful. That's about it.

 

It does slow down your XP gain, although you still make money (unless you have 2xp turned on). So it's also the game's way of telling you to spend more money on your build, I guess.

[Herotu]

Debt is a counter to Credit, No debt = no credit. What you should be asking, is why do we have Interest, to which the answer is greed ... or "incentive" as some would term it.

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, savair said:

I just dont get it, I mean if debt does not stop me from leveling up or slow me down at least I dont see it slow me down why does the game even have it? What bad thing happens when you have debt

1) you have debt because you died.  If you do not want debt then git gud

 

2) badges

[Etched]

New players would freak the hell out if they had to deal with real debt not this shadow of debt we get now. The good ole days when you get 100% debt at level 5 not half debt startin at level 10. The kind of debt that allows you to have all the debt badges by level 8.

 

Fun times when your first toon was a blaster and you knew shit about the game.

Be happy with what you got when it's gone in a kill or two.

 

@Etched

[JasperStone]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

If you're touching yourself beside the point you're doing it wrong!

 

[honoroit]

in ff11, you could level down, and dying cost about 8-12h grouped xp farming. 1x death.

 

its been lowered from what it was on HC. i like it, in that its barely noticeable, especially with double xp buffs and patrol xp across a set of alts.

 

youd have to be dying a lot for it to seriously impact you?

Figs - xp debt accruals specialist

[Defeat All Snakes]

Statesmanomics.

[UltraAlt]

6 hours ago, savair said:

slow me down at least I dont see it slow me down

 

So you are for an increase the the amount of debt you get for falling in battle?

 

How about cutting off the x2 XP and zeroing out all patrol XP when you get debt?

Is that good enough?

 

Would you rather have it turn off all XP gain for an hour if you fall in battle?

 

Back when the game first came out, there was no x2 xp booster or patrol XP.

If you weren't a damage dealer, it was really hard to get influence because it was based on damage done.

There was no market.

I had characters that had so little influence (non-damage dealers, especially heal-focused Empathy Defenders) that when they reached their lower teens, they didn't have enough influence to fully slot training enhances. I think I had a character that was like half slotted until the Wentworths went live.

Debt was crippling. It seemed to take forever to get out of debt back then.

And, as you might imagine, with only half slotted with trainings only, it was pretty easy to end up defeated in battle.

 

So you are correct that debt doesn't mean all that much at this point.

So I'm back to, are you asking for a stronger punishment for defeats?

[biostem]

It should also be noted that there are various effects in game that reduce or outright prevent debt, so player experience may vary...

[Grouchybeast]

Debt is a counter that shows how much value you're getting out of that power pick you spent on Rise of the Phoenix.

[Herotu]

4 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

Debt is a counter that shows how much value you're getting out of that power pick you spent on Rise of the Phoenix.

The value of RotP has decreased because [players being defeated] isn't as much of a thing as it was on live. But that's another topic.

[Grouchybeast]

1 minute ago, Herotu said:

The value of RotP has decreased because [players being defeated] isn't as much of a thing as it was on live.

 

 Not with that attitude it isn't!

[MoonSheep]

oh, you think debt is significant. but you merely adopted debt, i was born in it, molded by it. i didn't see a debt free XP wheel until i was already level 50, by then it was nothing to me but the standard colour of the XP window

Edited August 24, 2023 by MoonSheep