Autonomous players: safer resurrection, more natural groups, and a mortality investigation

Players resurrect further from dangerous monsters, flee towards a guard when one is near, and form groups less mechanically. Deaths having tripled since mid-afternoon, an A/B test measures four recent changes side by side.

Behaviour

Resurrection: one player in five died within a minute of resurrecting, often to the same monster. The resurrection spot now accounts for all nearby threats and their level: 28 m of margin, plus 3 m per level above the player.
Fleeing: when a friendly guard is close, the player runs to it instead of going back the way they came.
Groups: invites are no longer accepted instantly or always. They usually are, after a few seconds' thought; otherwise the answer is 'sorry, soloing'. A player whose quest is done stays until their partner finishes theirs (at most 10 minutes).
Healers: a priest, paladin or shaman rushes to resurrect a player fallen within 40 m, even if slightly hurt. The dead only wait for a healer who actually knows the spell.
Chat: at most one '?' every 10 minutes per person.
Memory: time spent chasing an unreachable NPC and the last hearthstone change survive restarts; no rebinding to an inn closer than 1,500 m.

Mortality: a factorial A/B test

Deaths rose from about 2 to about 6 per minute per 100 players between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC. To find the cause without guesswork, four recent changes are each disabled for half of the players (by one bit of their ID): melee by out-of-mana casters, refusing to flee alone from one monster, abandoning hopeless fights, ranged players backing off. Each change is thus compared at the same time and under the same conditions on two halves of 150 players.