Struggling to level and getting frustrated at time wasting mechanics

So I've been having a blast in the league though I've been getting increasingly frustrated with xp loss on death. This encourages more boring restrictive gameplay.

Since the maps are terribly fucking balanced and you can steamroll everything just to meet one NPC that one-shots you at 5,3k HP 90% physical reduction 6 endurance charges and max resists.

I don't know why this is "fun" exactly, you'd think the other mobs would have been a bit more of an issue then. Just isn't fun and there is no way I can tell that one mob will suddenly one shot me either.

So I've spent last few days at level 90. Just now some mob seemed to have an invisible damage spell because as soon as they were on screen my hp was draining really quickly and I died.

Again.

Wouldnt mind as much but the xp loss is wasting so much of my fucking time and I'm starting to dislike the game.

I'm not trying to pick on u or ur build, but the game right now tells u that ur build isn't good enough for the content u're running. (regardless of the xp penalty)

Sure PoE isn't known for a straight difficulty curve, it's rather bursty, but that's what defenses are for in this game.
Spike damage usually points to a lack of a certain type of defense and u have to figure out what that could be.

When I look at ur build I see alot of room for improvement and I can see why u're dying.
If u want some help, I can elaborate further. For starters, 90% physical reduction doesn't mean 90% physical reduction in PoE.

That seems like terrible balancing if they intended for people to blast through the map then face a singular Rare enemy who will one shot them whilst nothing else is a threat?

Like more often than not the boss is 10x weaker than the one random rare spawn and again wouldnt be as much of an issue if I didnt lost 10% of my level.

Also what? What DOES mean 90% physical reduction in POE? Why the fuck are they presenting false information in that case?!

Yeah, I think everybody agrees that the burst damage of some rare monsters in PoE isn't good design, but it's an outcome of how damage multipliers work.

It's like a lottery, u have a 0,0000000001% chance that one mob has 3 or more damage multipliers that boost it's base damage by 10000% ontop of an Affix that counters ur weakest defense. Boom u're dead. The more monsters u fight, the higher the chances are u face a monster like that.

To explain the physical damage reduction is not that easy. Best way to educate urself is to learn how Armour works in PoE. Either use the wiki or look for a youtube explanation. (I think Zizeran made a PoE University video about defenses some time ago, that explained it very well)

The short form is, everything that states "physical damage reduction" like the mod on the Chest piece or from Endurance charges is "real" reduction and works additive. For example u have 6 endu charges, so thats 24% physical damage reduction.

Armour however works very different and scales with the amount u get hit for, basically the higher a single hit is, the less armour will help u, but that's not reflected in the character sheet nor PoB.


Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfotzFCNPUY&t=3s
Armour starts at 19:33

Yeah, I mean I have had tried some juiced maps clearly too powerful for my characer and it feels 'better' to die there. My character just killed a god and some little upstart cultist punk just immediately drops me :(

At the same time maybe it's hard to get the math so that doesn't happen every now and then but keep the same dynamic differences in encounters.

I've been saving to upgrade recombiner to try and make some gear with spell supp + flat physical damage reduction but was reconsidering due to having high armor. Guess I'll continue that project than.

Thanks for the heads up on armor!

Welp, even I died today because of an interaction I didn't know of. PoE is a game of knowledge more than anything :D

Turns out even having 110% reduced physical reflect damage taken doesn't save u from killing urself on reflect damage, if u're having a "%physical damage taken as [elemental] damage" modifier on an item. A mistake I won't make in the future.

Anyway keep ur head up and just try to learn and improve. PoE can be frustrating at times, but it's also rewarding to overcome hurdles :)

I agree with the OP, I like the game but quit now, its just too frustrating.

99% of the time you steamroll and then all of the sudden you get 1 shot by something and you dont even know what happened. Thats already bad design on its own :/.

As the OP said if there wasnt XP loss it might not be as bad.

In Diablo 2 XP loss made more sense, why ? Because first you got half of your experience back going back to your dead body (risky without items, but friends could help) and 2nd the game was WAY MORE predictable.

POE with all the kind of modifiers and everything is often very unpredictable. This makes dying in POE often feel very unfair, in D2 on the contrary you knew you messed up.

If you die mapping you usually have to run anyways a long way back to where you were and you also lose portals, there is no need for XP loss on top of it. Especially that characterss after 95 become a pain to level up.

Not a good decision in my opinion, I hate it in POE but I didnt mind it in D2. It just doesnt fit into POE for reasons I have already mentioned.

TO clarify, I would rather have a harder game but being more predictable to what POE is right now. Maybe POE2 will be, at least it seems from videos that they are going more that route.

Why is there suddenly a large group of people who are upset with the XP mechanic that has been in the game for 10 years? It's much easier to level now than it was some years ago.

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Belegur85 wrote:

Why is there suddenly a large group of people who are upset with the XP mechanic that has been in the game for 10 years? It's much easier to level now than it was some years ago.

Maybe becasue GGG took a sledghammer to a bunch of stuff again with this league and called it a buff. QoL is great, love the currency exchange. League is still the worst for casuals and even some no lifers complaining. Class balance wasn't great before but now it went right out the window.

GGG makes games for Extreme Hardcore people only my friend. If you're not willing to put 120hrs a week and have Kathy Bates rub your knees with hammer then the toothpick under the nails and alcohol injections into your eye sockets aren't going to make you laugh and giggle either... My biggest fear is how much of the elitism is going to be present in POE2. Awful afraid casuals will just have to go back to the 2000's retro rpg's...