An effect in Guild Wars. Blessfrey is inspired by Guild Wars's ruleset, but it doesn't have its own version of Death Penalty.
Upon death, a character gets this effect applied, decreasing his maximum health and energy, Each death adds a 15% reduction for a max of 60% less max health and energy. You can lose DP by gaining XP, gaining Morale Boosts (either by killing Bosses or using MB consumables) (...also 10% MB is max), and using DP-reducing consumables. 75xp removes 1% DP, and that includes VQ and quest rewards. In Hard Mode, rez shrines won't rez anymore if everyone in your party has max DP, forcing you to return to outpost.
Pets don't suffer DP. Pre- deaths don't give DP. Vengeance, Death Pact Signet, etc doesn't give DP. Deaths during in-town holidays don't give DP.
DP is reset when zoning to an outpost, resigning, and between PvP matches.
IDEK, just spitballing these. I haven't even played in years, so the details may be way off.
ANet obv added DP to penalize dying.
In PvP, this makes a whole lot more sense to me than PvE. Penalizing losers and creating imbalanced gameplay is just part of PvP. DP evaporates off anyway. IDK if I even ever really noticed DP in it. I played bomber in JQ, so I even used that mechanic to my advantage in that competitive format.
IDK, it usually just brutalized me for no clear reason in singleplayer PvE. I did actually use it to my advantage as a BiP. So it's just another mechanic to play with in the metagame. But anyway.
DP adds a tonal difference between areas and missions with rez shrines, without rez shrines, and with rez shrines that will refuse to rez you. Normal areas (like Snake Dance) may be challenging, but you can party wipe hundreds of times without zoning and keep your nose on the grindstone until you finally reach Droknar's. If you party wipe even once in a mission or in Foundry, you have to go back to outpost. Then Hard Mode makes anywhere, even Plains of Jarin, more serious - you hit 60% DP on everybody and you go back to outpost. There are areas you can goof off in indefinitely, and then there are areas you can "lose" in. Some areas, you can brute force. Some, you have to plan a strategy and keep an eye on your party members' DP.
Since dying teleports you to rez shrines, death can become a form of travel. I thiink you can cheese some of the ciper quests by intentionally wiping to a mob by town then getting rezzed at a shrine right at the destination. We also had people die, then I'd Necrotic Traversal past a wall and teleport-rez people past the wall in Urgoz or something. I don't think death-as-fast-travel was ever a game-breaking issue, but DP would sure keep people from fast-traveling around UW that way or whatever, if they ever started putting rez shrines down there.
It makes it harder to brute force through everything. If your build doesn't work on the first few mobs, you have to go restrategize. At least, ideally. IDK. I definitely kept brute forcing at 60% a number of times. If it was implemented as a deterrant like Witcher "YOU ARE CARRYING TOO MUCH WEIGHT" or Torchlight "I AM OVERENCUMBERED" or any of the games that turn the screen bright flashing red, you can't punish people haha. They are going to keep picking up every useless trash, move at 40% speed, and squink into the flashing bright red screen while the character yells at them.
GW is an online game, so it's more meaningful IMO for an MMO guy to have Survivor than my lost singleplayer save on some harddrive. Now that we have Steam achievements and stuff, maybe that's less true of singleplayer games. (Are Survivor achievements common on Steam and PSN and stuff anyway?) The titles were lots of fun, but Guild Wars's HoM was the coolest achievement-thing probably anyway.
It's annoying. Getting to 60% is brutally unfair. Every other MMO breaks all your expensive armor and unlevels you, so I'm being a baby. It was even kinda mindnumbingly fun to crawl, mob by mob, though EotN dungeons as a lvl 20 with 100HP tbh. But I just can't picture punishing a man like that. I don't know if death is penalized in any other singleplayer game where death isn't a game over. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Hades, Two Worlds...The Cat Lady? etc.
Since cap DP makes the game impossible in an unfun way, you obv have to pop your candy canes or go back to town. Going back to town breaks up the gameplay. Anything that takes you out, erases all your progress, and makes you start again is usually bad. Death loop games have this flow, I think. You jump up, ready to try again. The restart area is even kinda comfy or fun in some way. Guild Wars beats you down and makes you feel defeated lol.
I just don't like it. I don't think there's anything like it in the death loop singleplayer game genre anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not going in for now.