Death Penalty Changes in 0.11.3

"We (and many of our more hardcore players) are worried that a lower death penalty may reduce the importance of building characters correctly and playing carefully."

I'm with Path of Exile since closed beta, even before you first introduced death penalty. And I still remember quite well you Chris saying that "playing a game is about having fun and you see no reason to punish people for playing". That was the only thing that brought me to your game back then. Since you introduced death penalty your game has become an excercise in frustration. I don't want to play "correctly" nor I want to play carefully. I play the way I want, the way I'm having fun. Death penalty is and should be present only in hardcore leagues, that means if you die, you die for good. For people that want to have an extra reason to struggle. People that want to have it easy, have no option to do so. Your game has either hardcore or insane levels of difficulty.

Somewhere along the way Chris, you guys lost the reason why you made the game. You made the game for people to have fun. Not to worry about economy, balance, cheats, dupes, and so on. Just to have fun. Since you started to earn money on your game, fun has stopped being a factor for you. But hey, who cares, you earn money right? Wrong. Reduction of death penalty on regular league is a step in the right direction, but a step too small. Keep doing them until death penalty is 0 and the only limit is the number of skills on the skill tree, not the ridiculous 100 and something playthroughs on Docks to level up.

"

kdri wrote:

In my opinion the death penalty for softcore should be increased, being able to keep your character and resurrect when you die is nice enough. Dieing should have meaning and consequence, extreme consequence. My opinion may be slightly biased because I play hardcore, but I think the masses will agree that the death penalty is either okay where it is or needs to be increased.

and I think that you should loose your char completely when you die in hardcore, and not just die, sell your gear in SC then trade back orbs at some ratio back to HC.

I also think that HC players should have absolutely no say in SC matters.

yep it's clear to me now,forums should be divided by leagues to,i really don't care what a hardcore player has to say,since they all high and mighty and basically breathing different air then the rest of us,u want punishment? go outside and play the game called life,try to make a living and after a couple of months of that come back and play Path of Exile,i guaranty you that at the first death you would be like "Christ i even lost the xp i made 2 months ago wth?" boom log out...from the creator's point of view that's bad business because frankly it is bad business to loose players in the first 30 mins of game time, i don't care how many "bla bla supporters" still play,and i'm sure the numbers say that death penalty in soft core is 100% bad business.

"

blackvampire wrote:

i really don't care what a hardcore player has to say ...

When it comes to death penalty in Standard, I agree.

"

blackvampire wrote:

go outside and play the game called life,try to make a living and after a couple of months of that come back and play Path of Exile,i guaranty you that at the first death you would be like "Christ i even lost the xp i made 2 months ago wth?" boom log out...from the creator's point of view that's bad business because frankly it is bad business to loose players in the first 30 mins of game time, i don't care how many "bla bla supporters" still play,and i'm sure the numbers say that death penalty in soft core is 100% bad business.

This is actually what caused me to stop playing. I jumped on my L7x LA Ranger in docks one morning and within 2 minutes died twice to desynch. I looked at my XP bar and said "screw this" and quit.

PoE is the only "current" ARPG (e.g. less than 5 years old) where you can end up worse off than you were when you started when not playing hardcore.

"

Bizze79 wrote:

This is interesting.

Lots of people are complaining about not being able to grab 6-sockets before less attentive players can. I.e. they like to ninja.

So, why not just put "Free for all" or "Short allocation" when you start a group?

Is that because casual players will not join those game modes and you'll have to fight equals in gaining your loot? You complain this game is made too easy, but all you want to do is nab loot from casual players.

If this is not the case, then just stick to Free for all game modes and quit complaining. Jeez.

Exactly! Couldn't for the life of me figure out why these people were complaining when it isn't a rule they must follow. They just want to snake stuff from others. Sounds like a thief complaining stealing is illegal. (an exaggerated example as stealing implies previous ownership)

And a 6s socket being allocated makes sense. It's worth just under 2 fusings which means it's a jewelers orb shy of a chaos. If they're going to allocate items with value may as well allocate the items with value.

I still like my xp loss on xp gained proposal I mentioned months ago in suggestions and pages ago in this thread.

It'll allow the xp bar to never touch zero, still provide steep penalties in the latter half of xp gain but will give the player the feeling of approaching a new level.

Something around 17% flat on the xp gained.

Can't wait for exp changes in Merc, nothing more annoying than dieing to Piety due to de-sync and losing a days exp from 1 death.

NO! The whiny babies have won again! Death penalties work well the way they are now. I believe we can find something better than experience lost to put on the penalty but, right now, I am satisfied with 15% and 7.5%. If you want to just test it, 5% and 10% is a better way to begin. 3% in cruel is nothing, you wont even notice it. 8% is as high as 15% and as low as zero penalty at all. You must pay attention in the valuation you're giving to Hardcore players with this kind of change. Their penalty will relatively increase with this.

Maybe the problem with the death penalty is that it multiplies with your level of experience and multiplies even more with the lower experience you will be receiving from high level mobs comparing with your exp bar. I believe people are complaining because the scaling is too high, not because of the percentage itself.

I like how you have to pay attention to get a 6L gear but I comprehend this is more valuable than many currencies we have...

"

Zaqwert wrote:

Go play WoW, there are 50 million casual games for people who can't stomach the least bit of thought or time commitment.

Can't PoE be different? Why does EVERY game have to be built for the lowest common denominator?

Can't we have one game that doesn't try to appeal to every single retard under the sun?

This. Exactly this.

PoE has built its foundation on being a very intricate game that is not noob-friendly. It's a game that challenges even the most experienced gamers. This is its niche and it should embrace it, not run away from it and be just another dumbed-down, kiddie game. That market has already been fully saturated anyway.

3 and 8 is definitively too low. The current 15% in Merci is a pretty good penalty I feel. If you have to lower it don't go below 12% imo..

I agree that players who want to make it through the game without dying can play hardcore, but if you don't have a reliable connection and/or computer, HC isn't really a reasonable choice. I'd rather not loose my character because my PC freezes for example, but I do like that there is a robust penalty for mistakes or carelessness.

Anyway, that's some personal thoughts.

Cheers!