Is it just me or does this seem like an exploit?

Was duoing with a friend last night, we decided to do the Althea's Ashes quest... We figured that since we were no longer getting exp from charr it wouldnt be too hard to duo... We were wrong.

We made it to the last few groups of charr and were determined, so despite the fact that we kept dying, we kept at it. Eventually our death penalty reached 60%. My friend was of the understanding that once you reach 60% death penalty and try to resurrect, you are booted back to town.. But once we hit 60% we could keep resurrecting and the penalty would never go above that. Now 60% is a pretty nasty penalty, but we were able to kill a few charr here and there, dying a few times in the process and not worrying about it anymore, until we were able to complete the quest.

This seems kind of silly to me, and almost like an exploit, or at least a nasty design flaw in an otherwise perfect game. If you're not afraid of dying it takes away a lot of the fun. If you don't have what it takes to survive through a mission with less than 60% death penalty, in my opinion, you should be kicked back to town and have to do the whole mission over again. Hopefully you'll wise up and bring more friends or get some levels before trying again... Whats your opinion?

Um, if you all die at once then you get resurrected in the same zone... You dont lose any of your progress.


Edit: I suppose Im assuming that all zones have a resurrection point...

I know what you mean. There's a resurrection shine right next to Aletha's ashes, so that if you all die close enough to it, you will rez there. I did the same thing the first time through. In fact we had to make adjustments to our characters because we couldn't do enough AOE damage to get rid of the hearlers at the top. After about 15 deaths or so, we manage to kill enough of the charr at the top of the shrine that one of us was able to run through and capture the ashes.

Is it an exploit? well, If the closest shrine had been farther away would you have still done it?

I know I wouldn't have taken the time to keep walking over. It's a matter of convienence that the shrine was set right there.

Perhaps it is to prepare us for later...

Maybe.. After clearing out most of the zone, though, even if the shrine was further away I probably would have just respawned there rather than resetting the whole zone to get rid of death penalty... I think there should be some limit to the number of times you can die before you get thrown back to the last town you were in.

yeah you *can* keep going with 60... but with 30 or even 15 dp the game gets nigh on impossible later.

60% is the cap just in case someone did not post it, it's not an exploit.

The game is supposed be for everyone. That means that as long as you are willing you can keep trying that means technically everyone should be able to "solo" the entire game.

It's true though, 60% is a ridiculous setback at later levels. It's more time effecient to restart.

I think this is just another example of the dev's trying to make the game fun. Instead of making you do the whole thing again, you have a respawn nearby to keep trying. I am sick of the tedium and repitition most MMO's force on you. My group had the same experience where we were at 60% dp and only had 1 or 2 enemies left. Thanks to the respawn point we were able to take them and move on to next mission.

this discussion has been had before but i hate the fact 60% pretty much cripples you... but 10% morale barely does anything. 2 or 3 extra energy and 20ish extra health? you can barely feel the difference but 60% dp... yeouch.

Speaking of exploits; Monk 'enchantments' that state: "Target ally..." work in solo play. Running around, if I encounter enemies, then activate 'Healing Breeze' (Target ally gains health regeneration of 4), with no allies around/highlit, it defaults to me.

Is it supposed to do this? Trust me, finding this out has made my Warrior/Monk's life a LOT easier!!

Some of the most fun I've had in this game has been with huge death penalties. We just get right back in there and don't give up (most of the time). And I agree that the only part of that mission thats really exploitable is the distance from the res point to the final area. Though I remember doing the Piken Square mission where you need to go kill that Charr boss (the name escapes me now) with my friend. We both kept dieing and just running back, determined not to let the boss get the best of us. If you don't take it too seriously, you'll have a lot more fun.

Yes, "target ally" can target your character - you're apparently allied with yourself, after all. It's only "target other ally" spells that you can't cast on yourself. So, while you can use Breeze on yourself you couldn't use, say, Healing Seed.

I agree entirely, the scales are very borked especially once you are at high end instances.

I had to go through Ice Dome omw to the mines, with 60%DP. Took me 3 hours, going 1 kill, 1 death, then group dies. Res, go kill another, die, rinse repeat, move on to next group. But hey I did finally make it to the mines that night.

More on the DP/Morale issue. Why does killing a lvl 1 boss, give the same morale as a lvl 30 boss? Something about that doesn't seem right.

They should make it all scale. As your character level gets higher, the farther + or - your morale or debt can go.

You are free to do this if you like. Nothing it stopping you. Indeed, if you go back to town to start over, it'll eliminate that 60% DP. If you feel that that is the best way to play, then do so!