Remove xp penalty's from death

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Vhlad wrote:

I want to encourage more builds, skills, and playstyles that are viable for progression to 100, irrespective of geographic region. I want more players to set higher level goals. I want to feel more satisfied with time/reward at high levels. Reducing the sustained performance requirement by reducing the death penalty at high levels is one way to achieve this. Two alternative methods for reducing the sustained performance requirement are (a) reduce the XP penalty due to level difference between player and monster, or (b) add higher level content. While (a) and/or (b) would satisfy my goals, they would also reduce the time it takes to reach level 100 for characters who don't die. I feel that targeting the death penalty instead is the more hardcore option, as the minimum time requirement to reach level 100 isn't reduced.

Many of those defending the status quo have asked for a compelling reason as to why level 100 ought to be "easier" due to any of the tweaks that have been discussed. It's a fair demand to make, and Vhlad has just provided a good answer: incentivizing build variety and disincentivizing cookie cutter builds or boring hyperdefensive builds as the only cost-effective and time-effective means of progression.

I don't believe anyone but the most dedicated players should be able to level to 100. But even if the exp requirement for leveling 90+ was reduced by a flat 30% (I'm not suggesting this change), the process would STILL take so long that very few would bother with it. I believe the current end-game leveling system is flawed, and its flaw lies not with the game's overall vision but the specific magnitude of the numbers in place. As it stands, the masochistic time requirement for leveling 90+ is accomplishing nothing but discouraging players who would otherwise like to continue to improve their characters. As other feedback forums attest, this is one reason (admittedly one of many) certain players find themselves bored of the game and leave. If I knew the high 90s were more accessible than they currently are - even by a little bit - I would devote myself more readily to achieving them.

I don't feel entitled to high levels and I don't feel entitled to playing on autopilot. I don't want to open the floodgates to thousands of players reaching level 100. I just want to feel that the ratio between the effort I invest and what I can accomplish is fair.

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goetzjam wrote:

Your facts are simply incorrect when it comes down to going from 99>100.

Precisely which facts are incorrect? To say that it's more cost effective to level in low level content from 99-100 does not render my contributions as being factually incorrect.

It's more cost effective to level to 100 in A3M storyline zones, for all levels, since the penalty caps at 98% (2% XP gain). That's not a fun/exciting/interesting way to level though. Nor is it something that we as players should be OK with. The greatest incentive and reward/time outcome should be for leveling in the most difficult content you can manage, especially at 99.

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goetzjam wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1yUzXoPvdE
He explains you only get ~1 million more XP an hour running 78s vs low level maps. Put it in perspective if you play for 9 hours a day chaining low level maps you could instead play for 1 less hour a day if you roll packsize, beyond, ect 78s. So from a cost perspective and a risk perspective there is no reason to do high level\dangerous maps from 99>100.

His math doesn't necessarily work out. He says he gets 4-6 million XP per hour in 66 maps and 4-6 million XP per hour in 76 maps. These claims, which he doesn't provide any hard data for, don't seem accurate because the XP penalty for a level 99 in a 66 map is 98%, compared to 96% in a 76 map (i.e. the XP gain in a 76 map should be 2x). In addition to the penalty difference, there should also be increased XP from a monster that's base level 76 vs 66. Unless he's clearing monsters in 66 maps over twice as quickly (or unless he's decked out in +XP gear while running 66 maps), the rate of XP gain should not be equivalent.

While I don't find his analysis to be very credible, if you want to use his numbers (he explicitly claims 1-2 additional million XP per hour solo in 77+ maps, or 5-8 million XP per hour):

It takes 317.5 million XP to level from 99 to 100. That's 63.5 hours in 66 maps (317.5/((4+6)/2) vs. 48.8 hours in 77+ maps (317.5/((4+6+1+2)/2)). This is a time difference of 30%, i.e. if you chained 66 maps for 9 hours a day, doing 77+ instead would save a little over 2 hours [which means, the putting it in perspective example you gave understates the time advantage of running 77+ maps].

Ultimately, however, the figures provided by Havoc in the video seem inaccurate. The XP penalty for a 99 in a 77 map is 94% (3x more XP than a 66 map due to a 6% gain after penalty vs. a 2% gain after penalty, as well as additional XP per enemy due to base enemy level).

If the figures provided by Havoc are accurate, it suggests that either the experience penalty calculator I've been using is wrong (source: http://pathofexilebuilds.com/exppenaltycalc.php) or that players are clearing monsters in 66 maps 3x as quickly as they are in 77+ maps. If the latter is the case, it suggests the players aiming for 100 are building so defensively and/or playing so carefully in difficult content, that they can't clear high level maps very efficiently in a solo environment.

I don't mind the XP penalty, there needs to be a sting when you die. Its the sudden insta-gib damage spikes that suck

Vhald I'm find with the old penalty of 15%. Pretty sure they only lowered it because they had to account for people going to 100 and how it was more punishing. Just like I'm not arguing in my favor, I'm also not going to argue to punish myself. GGG has been hearing about the death penalty since CB and they decided to make the adjustments they did. I assume most people are happy because very few complain about it anymore. This thread has gone WAY beyond what most threads similar to this do because guys like me and goetz won't walk away. I keep wondering why I don't in fact.

WRT "not dying to get to 100":

Sure it is about builds and play style. But like Atziri the "100-viable" build list is very narrow (narrower even), and the playstyle is boring as fuck. Stray away from this narrow band of builds by just a little, and you have "90-viable" builds, builds that seem really solid and strong and don't die, except from random completely unavoidable crap (and believe me, there are plenty of unavoidable, random deaths where the only way to avoid them is to play a different build). The problem is these 90-viable builds really are tough and tanky and give the impression of being able to handle just about any kind of content, so when players die to random crap, it's a really big feel-bad moment and completely disingenuous for others to say "play a better build" when there really isn't a whole lot of room to make the build better.

Example of how the game can kill you out of nowhere with no player interaction: I play a Herald of Thunder freeze proliferation build with Herald of Ice. I was doing one of those outdoor seaside maps with shocked ground. With Herald of Thunder active, I walked in range of a burrowed reflect pack while walking through shocked ground. The lightning bolt froze and one-shot a mob, which caused the entire pack to shatter while simultaneously dealing damage to each other mob, probably overkilling me by about 4x. So I guess if I want to get to 100, I have to stop freezing enemies with Herald of Ice active? Is that the kind of metagame we want players who are 90+ to have to conform to? "Oh there's a 0.01% chance that this setup can unavoidably insta-kill me, so I better do what <popular HC streamer> does instead."

Can I just say, real quick, this "game can kill you randomly out of nowhere" sentiment has no place in this discussion. It's irrelevant.

Also, this idea that you can only get to 100 with a tiny handful of builds is utterly fucking stupid. Stop spewing that garbage. While we're at it, stop watching streamers. It's rotting your imagination.

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Vhlad wrote:

Reduction of the death penalty at 95-99 does not eliminate the skill wall.

Experience points represent your character's experience, not your own personal skill level. That's why the character gets exp for everything he does, even if its trivial like grinding docks. Gaining exp is not a demonstration of skill. It's just a demonstration of doing something, ie. grinding. That's what it's always been in RPGs and what it always will be. Experience points are an accumulator for all the time you've spent playing the game, so you at least got something to show for it even if you didn't get any items. Experience points are not how skilled players prove their worthiness, they are how bad players compensate for lack of skill. Can't beat Dominus? Grind some levels so you out-level him, then he's much easier. That's what levels do-- they reduce the need for skill.

If you want to demonstrate your skill, you do it by overcoming the content challenges, such as Uber Atziri. You can go beyond that by doing hem with extra constraints to make them even harder. That's what takes skill. Not grinding exp.

Death penalty is to ensure players have a good reason to play balanced builds, that glass cannons don't dominate everyone else. You have to care about more than 1 thing (DPS), which makes for a richer character. If you still only care about 1 thing (survivability) then the death penalty didn't work as well as it could have, the most build variety exists when each part of the character that can be boosted is worth boosting (offense, defense, and sustainability).

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Vhlad wrote:

The question is, how many consecutive level 78 maps should a solo player be able to clear without any deaths in order to progress 11% at level 99 (i.e. in order to make level 100 achievable). For a 10% penalty, my calculation puts that number at 70+ level 78 maps. Moosifer claims based on his own experience it's half that. How long of a sustained performance do you consider to be adequate?

My position is that it's currently too high. It's so high that it strongly encourages players to build characters that entirely bypass the skill wall, so that level 100 can be achieved via mindless autopilot grind. You can simply outgear/outbuild it. One of the desync mitigation strategies is just to use a passive/gear/skill setup that enables you to safely stand in a room while everything beats on you. We have builds that can afk during atziri fights or double dominus palace. It may not be required to use such builds to reach level 100, but it's a clear and efficient option for players who can't reach the level of sustained performance you desire.

Well in that case we need to make the monsters more... killy. Apparently we need more players losing more XP in those situations.

But how much XP penalty is enough? Like I said earlier, enough to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that skill, not luck nor gear nor grind, is the cause of leveling. (They really need to go back to over 99% XP penalty for 99s running 66 maps.) Whatever penalty is large enough to establish that.

I mean, I feel like a 96% map survival rate is pretty clearly skill and not luck, so losing 25 maps worth of XP per death (at clvl99) seems about right. By *both* yours and Moosifers' estimation, I feel penalties could be reduced, but if Moos is closer than a halving would be too much reduction.

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Antnee wrote:

Can I just say, real quick, this "game can kill you randomly out of nowhere" sentiment has no place in this discussion. It's irrelevant.

Also, this idea that you can only get to 100 with a tiny handful of builds is utterly fucking stupid. Stop spewing that garbage. While we're at it, stop watching streamers. It's rotting your imagination.

Irrelevant? The whole premise of this thread is that random, unavoidable deaths doesnt mix with the current harsh death penalty.

Nice try in deflecting arguments though, 5/10

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gilrad wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Can I just say, real quick, this "game can kill you randomly out of nowhere" sentiment has no place in this discussion. It's irrelevant.

Also, this idea that you can only get to 100 with a tiny handful of builds is utterly fucking stupid. Stop spewing that garbage. While we're at it, stop watching streamers. It's rotting your imagination.

Irrelevant? The whole premise of this thread is that random, unavoidable deaths doesnt mix with the current harsh death penalty.

Nice try in deflecting arguments though, 5/10

It is completely irrelevant, because you can pull that BS argument and use it to support basically whatever position you choose. Why not argue that because desync, no more hardcore league? Or, no more accuracy? Hell, no more death at all!

It's a wash. Stop using that crutch.