I could easily play the game in such a way that I never die again, but it wouldn't be fun. That's what's so suspicious to me here. If I run into a bad situation, I want fight it even if I'm unprepared and it's a terrible idea. Why would a developer discourage this?

Originally posted by Angpaur:

I think it comes from Ultima Online. I see a lot of inspiration in Valheim from UO. When I started playing I was feeling like experiencing UO again.

Oh, that would make sense to me. It was the first MMO and had no competition, and devs just didn't know how to do death without making it super-punishing back then. I heard stories that WoW was revolutionary for only having some debuff on death instead of actual exp loss. It must have seemed normal for so long.