The skill drain on death is overly harsh and discourages exploration and risk

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the skill loss from player death is overly harsh. The 5% level loss on death is absolutely unfair, especially at higher levels given how long it takes to increase in skill level after 40 or so. I recognize the logic behind this system, because it makes death scary, but there are a number of factors that already discourage players from dying; the loss of literal player time namely is the harshest of these incentives. Spending fifteen real life minutes struggling to recover my gear is the most effective possible incentive for caution in combat.

The skill drain on death serves to dissuade exploration and risk taking in a game about exploration and adventure. Players should feel empowered to explore a high mountain peak or fling themselves into the heat of battle, not meekly sit around the sidelines of the game they’re trying to play.

If skill drain is there to dissuade players from dying, then the corpse run back to their gear across the map is already there. If skill drain is a way to limit players from leveling up too quickly then simply slowing character level progression would be a more sound and easy solution. As is, skill drain on death is overly harsh and only serves to limit how eagerly players explore the game world.