Dying is inconsequential in this game. That is good for new players, and generally fine. It would be awful if you lost equipment.
BUT, now that we have the rivals and t he experimental weapons, there is a great way of punishing dying: reducing your region score by a certain amount (100 points e.g.). We all (well most of all) want those sweet, sweet Exp weapons. So there would be the perfect incentive to not dying too many times.
And it only makes sense: killing robots increase your threat level, dying reduces it.
In such a case, I’ll already know I have failed dishonorably, there is no need for the game to drive the point home.
If you play solo, you’re now dead, and yet, you play on, so you’re pulled out of the narrative. If you don’t care for narrative, you’re still pulled out of the flow. If you’re playing co-op, you’ve just died like a fool in front of your team mates. And if no one’s dropped a radio, you’ll have to walk the walk of shame back to the location.
Going beyond that in your need for punishment seems to belabor the point.
I don’t personally understand the desire for punishment, but I think that as long as that change goes hand in hand with rivals dying not decreasing threat level (which makes no sense at all) anymore, it might still be a net win.
Please don’t. If punishment is introduced, my region score will be a very BIG negative number. Ordinarily, my high death/kill (as opposed to kill/death) would be attributable to incompetence, however in this game it is a strategy!
Knowing Hunters usually come in threes, I have been luring them to a safe house then whittling away whilst respawning when their smorgasbord of bullets, artillery, gas and tick attacks turn me into a red smear on the floor!
You can find a list of the region “XP” for killing robots here:
It is not that hard to kill a couple of runners without dying, once you get the hang of it. Maybe 50 points “punishment” per death would be enough.
The reasoning behind it is: If you have a region at lvl 14, and kill a FNIX tank rival, you dump down to lvl1 (not joking, just happened again). That does not make any sense, as your threat potential should rather increase. However, this is meant to limit rival farming. An alternative to this could be region score reduction on death.
So your region score will decrease in the process, no matter what (unless you are super experience, but at that point you already have most of the experimental weapons). But with this alternative suggestion, you get rewarded for the correct thing: doing well in battle (making no difference between rivals and non-rivals).
Makes sense. One concern though, if implemented as a flat penalty, it will further punish solo players – co-op players already have to really apply themselves to die so they’re less likely to see this handicap. That would be on top of the other advantages like having a higher chance at the loot they want if they share drops they already have one or two of within the team, plus of course, a team having a faster time to kill a bot.
What level are you, atm? I know you don’t see it now but you’ll soon be experience enough so that some of the machines will loose their dread. You’ll develop strategies against all of those (such as deal with their weapons first). And skills are an important factor as well (naming running speed and stamina in particular; those two help greatly with evading their deadly attacks).
I’m level 23 I think. I am still on the learning curve, and I still get panicky and miss too often! Also I have just started to encounter exploding ticks (when I thought they couldn’t get more annoying ), reducing my survival chances further!
I do know I have died over 400 times . I don’t actually know how the region score impacts the rest of the game to be honest! I’m on a mission now to finish the challenges for the gear (the tinfoil hat is SO stylish), but seriously, the other gear looks like it might be useful…
The region score only affects the spawn rate of rivals, which basically affects the rate at which you can acquire the experimental weapons. That is all it does, as far as I know. So a lower region score also can make your life easier, until you have enough practice in to deal with the tougher rivals.
As for fighting strategies…
Off Topic / Spoiler
So you are basically my level, that is good. You already have a couple of skills. Go practice taking off the weapons from hunters. Once you have only to deal with their stab attacks, the fight gets much easier. Lower recoil weapons can help a lot here. And higher fire rate increases the damage you get in during the short opportunities for focused salves. Staying in motion is key as well, unless you have really good cover working for you. If you are constantly in motion, you can mostly ignore runners and ticks while you are fighting hunters. But always take out one of the runners whenever you have a short breather. And exploding ticks can work in your advantage. It takes a moment until they get active. If you have a good position then, you can take them out basically immediately with one shot, dealing damage to their host as you go. And once all the entourage of harvesters or tanks is dealt with, those can be taken out quite easily from mid range. Oh btw, always take out seekers first. Should be obvious as to why.
And if no one’s dropped a radio, you’ll have to walk the walk of shame back to the location. 
), reducing my survival chances further!
, sage advice indeed!