Hello, I think that STO should not have a death penalty at the moment. Why? Well....
1) There are still a lot of bug-related deaths. For example yesterday I tried to shoot down an extremely slow high yield plasma torpedo, while I was held in a tractor beam with an open shield arc. I targeted it and hit the space bar for ca. 10 seconds, but I kept shooting at the enemy ship instead of the torpedo. Normally phasers have a cooldown of 4 seconds.... R.I.P.
Today I fought a Marauder and three raider fighters. The raiders used tractor beams to immobilise me while the Marauder was pummeling me. I tried to use Attack Pattern Omega to break free but nothing happened (except that the ability went on cooldown of course). High yield photon torpedo salvo R.I.P.
In a ground base I charged cloaked into an enemy group to take out shielded targets with my bat'leth like I do it usually while the enemies start shooting at my squad. This time my squad was stuck in the corridor. Thank Q the enemies had disruptors instead of phasers. One hold effect and I wouldn't have made it back to my away team in one piece. I won't start talking about Cage of Fire which should be better since it's not a random map but is even worse.
2) There are still a lot of balancing issues. I'm most certainly not the best player around, and I'm not a powergamer who only cares for the best DPS or keeping enemies in a permanent hold. I'm caring for a half-way canonical, stylish weaponry on my ship with matching energy types and having bridge officer abilities that give good damage and help me counter any nasty things the enemies could use against me.
There are big differences between enemy ship types. Fighting a Borg Cube or fighting a Marauder and three Raiders are two very different things. Yet they are both endfights of random exploration missions on the same level. How many newbies will die, when they are sent against a D'deridex in a Constitution and have never before seen Viral Matrix?
3) Most of the skill system is pretty complicated, it takes some time to figure out what does what. But there's no mechanic for respecs if you did something wrong on your way. So if you want to try new strategies after you hit Rear Admiral 5 you have to live with the basic bridge officer skills and can maybe improve them with items.
If all that is addressed I have no problem with reasonable death penalty. Maybe each death could cost you Starfleet merits?
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Perhaps I'm fortunate, but I've never hit my science team (for example) and then not had Viral Matrix release. So your examples seem... uncommon (at best)
And you know, in other MMOs...
...when you come across something big bad and unknown, you approach it cautiously at first. In STO, you blaze forward because who cares. In the former, the D'deridex and VM is no problem... you'll muddle through it. In the other case, yeah, you go "OMG WTF!?" and 'splode.
You see, a DP fosters the former playstyle and not the latter.
That's a good thing friend.
(additionally, might I extend the obligatory congratulations for starting yet another thread on this when there is still an active thread with dozens of pages still on page 1)