Death Penalty System - EXP Loss in particular

Ok, I am weak, I will try one last time. There are some simple facts in this game.

In PoE the player has 100% control over the difficulty they choose to play. This can be done by selecting the waystone/map tier they use, the mods they roll on them the precursor tablets they use and the additional content they attempt during a map.

Because of this flexibility in difficulty, there is never a real wall a player can hit. If they "hit a wall" it is simply a fictional wall because the player is not willing to forfeit potential better loot from higher difficulties and therefor not reducing the difficulty.

The game always offers you a path to improve your character. If you keep dying over and over again during the core endgame loop, mapping, the solution would be to decrease the difficulty, farm currency/items in easier content and improve the character. This is the natural progression of a game like PoE. Like stated before, many players are just not willing to do this. But that is not on the game. This is their decision. The XP penalty on death is one of the tools the game uses to show players the best and easiest way how not to "hit a wall". Decrease difficulty. Because most players would like to earn XP the logical train of thought would be "Here I cannot earn XP so I decrease the difficulty to earn XP". Some players are just not willing to earn a bit less XP, therefor stick to higher difficulties, keep dying and lose XP instead.

The other scenario is dying from time to time due to bugs or unfair, not yet patched, one shots. This is early access and bugs are to be expected. But if your build is solid in general, then this should not be happening too often. Therefor the death penalty should not have that big of an influence in this case. Regarding unfair one shots. GGG has already begun to address these and is surely trying to improve in that area. So this should not be a regular thing in the future.

The death penalty is mostly effecting players who keep dying over and over again during mapping/farming. This is the game trying to tell the player that the character is not yet ready for that difficulty. Like stated before, exceptional one shots or unlucky deaths may occur from time to time but their effect will be very limited. But if dying is the rule then the player simply chose a difficulty that is too high for the character in the current state. In this situation the player has two choices. Either stick with the higher difficulty and run into a wall on purpose for the small chance of slightly better loot at the cost of XP. Or reduce the difficulty and farm currency/items to improve the character with slightly lower drop chances but overall quicker, due to not dying, and the additional benefit of earning XP.

Builds also have a big influence on the difficulty of content the character can run easily. Some builds are stronger/tankier/easier than others. So called Meta builds are usually very strong and players using them will be able to do higher difficulty maps sooner. If a player wants to play their own build or find their own way, that is totally fine. Most of those players want to try to improve their character themself and overcome obstacles they face. This is an additional difficulty a player chooses to add. Like playing SSF. In this case chances are higher that the player may have to take a step back in difficulty from time to time. If a player has the priority to just rush to the highest difficulty maps as soon as possible, sticking to meta builds is highly recommended. These builds are usually very well tested and already refined.

Losing XP is a choice. Hitting a wall is a choice. Whatever you do and however you want to play the game is up to you. Everything is your choice. Why complain about your own choices?

We had the same discussion pop up monthly for PoE 1 for a decade, lets do it again boys!

The people who despise the 10% exp loss on death are most likely new to the game, you gotta cut them a little slack. They dont understand like some of us with 3k + hours that dying at level 75 doesnt mean jack shit, 75-76 is like 3 tier 10 maps. If you are dying at this level range, you need to worry much more about gearing more so than your next level up. I have not played enough to know the xp curve in PoE 2, but if its anything like PoE 1, deaths below level 90 arent the end of the world, and morseo, thinking your build is going to wildly change with those last handful of points, you are painfully misinformed.

Death meant something in PoE 1 for the games first 4-5 years, then GGG slowly but surely created ways to level 1-100 in a days time. Dying at level 99 once meant days of grinding down the drain, now its just an extra breach to run.

"

mahfightmoney#5093 wrote:

We had the same discussion pop up monthly for PoE 1 for a decade, lets do it again boys!

The people who despise the 10% exp loss on death are most likely new to the game, you gotta cut them a little slack. They dont understand like some of us with 3k + hours that dying at level 75 doesnt mean jack shit, 75-76 is like 3 tier 10 maps. If you are dying at this level range, you need to worry much more about gearing more so than your next level up. I have not played enough to know the xp curve in PoE 2, but if its anything like PoE 1, deaths below level 90 arent the end of the world, and morseo, thinking your build is going to wildly change with those last handful of points, you are painfully misinformed.

Death meant something in PoE 1 for the games first 4-5 years, then GGG slowly but surely created ways to level 1-100 in a days time. Dying at level 99 once meant days of grinding down the drain, now its just an extra breach to run.

So people don't still buy carries for lv95-100 in PoE1? (hint: They do).

Leveling takes a lot longer in PoE2 and the penalty is worse because of it, plain and simple. What might've been a map or a few in PoE1 is now minimum 2-3 hours in PoE2. The numbers are very different for XP earned over time and how much each level is.

@Avaricta#4758 Do we get to pick the archnemesis mods on the rares as well, that range from no-effect to one shot by on death effect hidden under corpses or a bush?

Why do people have a hard on for trying to make PoE2 as hardcore and old school as PoE1 when it isn't meant to be? Why can't people just let others play builds that they find fun but are maybe slower than others, let them keep trying the content, stop hitting them over the head with penalties until they quit.

Making 0 progress in a week is not fun. Playing some meta flavor of the week build is also not fun for many.

This is all typical. In any game that has been out a long time and got a large overhaul or a new full game version, there are also a bunch of veterans who can't let go, who don't want anything to change at all, who argue the game will die if they change anything or it doesn't align to the previous game. I saw loads of posts after EA launch on the PoE1 reddit saying exactly those things.

I hope they only put in all the PoE1 stuff into the end game because they hadn't actually finished it properly yet, and they rip it all out and put in some actual fun and innovative stuff that lets players actually have fun, regardless of how they want to play.

"

Avaricta#4758 wrote:

The XP penalty serves a very important purpose and must not be removed.

It disincentivizes players to just mindlessly bash their heads against the wall and die over and over in content their character is not yet fit to play.

When you reach a point in an ARPG where you keep dying, the game is trying to tell you that your character is too weak for that kind of content. It is an obstacle that is presented to you to overcome. It is part of the progression of an ARPG.

In PoE especially the player can choose the difficulty of the content 100%. You choose the waystone/map tier, you choose the affixes of the waystone/map, you choose the additional content you do. Each of these things make the map harder or easier depending on your decision.

In my case for example. My build was able to clear the map tiers relatively safe up to tier 15. But when I opened a breach in tier 15 I was at risk of becoming overrun. Since my first priority was the Atlas passive points I simply avoided additional map content until I finished my 6 tier 15 maps. This way I was able to keep the difficulty in an area where I felt comfortable. My decision. Now that I have all Atlas passive points but my character is still not as strong I simply run tier 13 maps but can do all additional content in them without too much risk.

For some strange reason people nowadays are under the misconception that it is always the games fault. When in fact they simply do not want to look how to overcome an obstacle that is part of the natural progression. Most players have that typical LoL or WoW mentality of "I am the god gamer. It is my teammates fault that I do not reach diamond/Gladiator. I could reach that rank easily if I would not be kept down by others."

In PoE 1 this was mostly avoided because the requirements for build guides became so high, that basically every starter build had to be able to clear the campaign naked, finish the Atlas in blue items, be an excellent bosser and be able to do every league mechanic. In PoE 2 the knowledge simply is not yet there to do this. So we are back at the "work on your character" state.

If you die the simple fact is that it was your bad decision making. Except of some unfair one shots, which GGG already started to address and will continue to improve.

I can always stay 92 and do this over and over again :))

"

noother10#5677 wrote:

Why do people have a hard on for trying to make PoE2 as hardcore and old school as PoE1 when it isn't meant to be? Why can't people just let others play builds that they find fun but are maybe slower than others, let them keep trying the content, stop hitting them over the head with penalties until they quit.

That is always the false narrative people who oppose the XP penalty bring up.

Nobody is preventing anybody from playing what they want and in whatever way they want. Neither does the game. Everybody can play whatever they want.

As stated in my post above. You simply need to select the difficulty that fits the current state of your build. If you do not do this, then it is your decision to hit a fictional wall on purpose. You are always able to farm and improve your character. But maybe in the current state of your build you may need to do this on a lower difficulty. This is the natural progression of a game like this.

Why do you insist on playing on a difficulty higher than the current state of your build is able to comfortably do?

"

Avaricta#4758 wrote:

Ok, I am weak, I will try one last time. There are some simple facts in this game.

In PoE the player has 100% control over the difficulty they choose to play. This can be done by selecting the waystone/map tier they use, the mods they roll on them the precursor tablets they use and the additional content they attempt during a map.

Because of this flexibility in difficulty, there is never a real wall a player can hit. If they "hit a wall" it is simply a fictional wall because the player is not willing to forfeit potential better loot from higher difficulties and therefor not reducing the difficulty.

The game always offers you a path to improve your character. If you keep dying over and over again during the core endgame loop, mapping, the solution would be to decrease the difficulty, farm currency/items in easier content and improve the character. This is the natural progression of a game like PoE. Like stated before, many players are just not willing to do this. But that is not on the game. This is their decision. The XP penalty on death is one of the tools the game uses to show players the best and easiest way how not to "hit a wall". Decrease difficulty. Because most players would like to earn XP the logical train of thought would be "Here I cannot earn XP so I decrease the difficulty to earn XP". Some players are just not willing to earn a bit less XP, therefor stick to higher difficulties, keep dying and lose XP instead.

The other scenario is dying from time to time due to bugs or unfair, not yet patched, one shots. This is early access and bugs are to be expected. But if your build is solid in general, then this should not be happening too often. Therefor the death penalty should not have that big of an influence in this case. Regarding unfair one shots. GGG has already begun to address these and is surely trying to improve in that area. So this should not be a regular thing in the future.

The death penalty is mostly effecting players who keep dying over and over again during mapping/farming. This is the game trying to tell the player that the character is not yet ready for that difficulty. Like stated before, exceptional one shots or unlucky deaths may occur from time to time but their effect will be very limited. But if dying is the rule then the player simply chose a difficulty that is too high for the character in the current state. In this situation the player has two choices. Either stick with the higher difficulty and run into a wall on purpose for the small chance of slightly better loot at the cost of XP. Or reduce the difficulty and farm currency/items to improve the character with slightly lower drop chances but overall quicker, due to not dying, and the additional benefit of earning XP.

Builds also have a big influence on the difficulty of content the character can run easily. Some builds are stronger/tankier/easier than others. So called Meta builds are usually very strong and players using them will be able to do higher difficulty maps sooner. If a player wants to play their own build or find their own way, that is totally fine. Most of those players want to try to improve their character themself and overcome obstacles they face. This is an additional difficulty a player chooses to add. Like playing SSF. In this case chances are higher that the player may have to take a step back in difficulty from time to time. If a player has the priority to just rush to the highest difficulty maps as soon as possible, sticking to meta builds is highly recommended. These builds are usually very well tested and already refined.

Losing XP is a choice. Hitting a wall is a choice. Whatever you do and however you want to play the game is up to you. Everything is your choice. Why complain about your own choices?

You don't get it, due you? How often do you want me to tell you the very same thing? Let me be more direct: I give a shit on the so called difficulty. My Quests says run Tier 7 maps. I can run Tier 7 maps just fine. My build vaporizes and entire screen of enemies - Normal to rare - using 3 skills and some movement / Dodge roll and in case some Raise Shield to block projectiles. There is no challenge in fighting hoards of monsters this way. And I am sure I could do the same on Tier 10. At this point I want to try out myself and want to go higher, and higher and try out how far I can get using the current set while automatically searching for new items and stuff I can sell.

The annoying part starts where I can't even attempt to try any harder content because of the EXP loss that goes with it. And a single death doesn't mean my character is not fit for this content.

I died 3 times yesterday. First one was a single bullshit white monster that hit me with his fist for about 30% of damage. I healed up and it hit me again 2.100 HP done. This was clearly a physical attack. 63% armor shouldn't allow a white mob to 1 hit anyone. A blue Tier 7 map by the way with no Crit or Damage mods on it.

2nd Was a Boss... breaker anything in the desert with the archer in the background. But I expected to die. I wasn't fast enough to dodge away. But yeah, also a one hit. So trying to attempt a boss is not possible unless you outgear this area. I can't even attempt it again as the Map and the atlas mod is gone. How can I learn it's mechanics under new circumstances (map mods) if I can't try it?

3rd death was some odd situation... Coming into a room with like 30 arrow spitting snake heads... And I know they deal hell of damage. So I went in shield up like I did on every other facetank against normal / magic enemies. All at once - synchron - attacked me frontal on my shield. INSTA DEATH. The HP bar went from 2100 to 0... There wasn't even a progress you could see counting down. And this shouldn't be possible with almost any map mod because the shield Tooltip states "Block ALL blockable damage" To a point where the character lowers the shield and stumbles. (really AWESOME mechanic I might add... haven't seen it in any game I think...) Fun fact here is that the majority of the projectiles didn't even hit... My HP was 0 after like 1/3 passed me. And I can gerannte you that this skill blocks everything that is not a ground attack or area damage without a weapon attack. Even on bosses.

So 2 out of 3 deaths were clearly not skill, knowledge or gear based. The boss death was to be expected as I said. I cleared the map and was ready to die.

Regardless the so called difficulty there are plenty of deaths the player can't circumvent other than playing META builds.

And those bugs exist since PoE 1 and were not fixed in PoE 1 so far. Otherwise the 2nd wouldn't have such a bug, right? So when can we expect a fix? Not within the next 10 years I assume. So remove the EXP loss.

And again, just for you, for the 10th time I think: There is no reason for a EXP loss to tell people they are not ready for this content because the damn map and the mods on the atlas is gone. Dying a few times forces this player back to lower tiers anyway as they run out of maps. So why not use a natural progression at this point? What you saying might have been true in PoE 1 where you had 6 attempts in a map and could kill the boss in these 6 attempts and therefore had a well over 90% chance to clear a map if your damage output was high enough.

We are not in PoE 1 here. We talk about PoE 2. PoE 2 has a different - totally different punishment system and map system that renders every single one of your arguments obsolete.

Like I said my quest says run Tier 7. I can run Tier 7 quite well besides a boss. Delirium, Rituals, Breach or what even event is on there. Screens worth of enemies are dying. I accept that I don't have a boss killer character. I usually never have. But I ran out of tier 7 maps. So I upgraded some towers with Map amount. I have 64% amount of maps on about 12 map locations I can do one by one. I have the important map amount notes in the Atlas tree. And if I run a yellow tier 7 map with about 200+ Waystone found I still finish it with only 3-6 waystones and with any luck 1 tier 7 or 8. That said I have to put everything into waystone found just to keep up playing the tier I am supposed to in terms of the quest.

Not a single sane person who would actually pay attention to such a system would blindly run Tier 9 maps now just because "i got them laying around" no, they save them for when the quests demands tier 9 later on. So people going down to play tier 4/5/6 to farm new maps. So the game forces me down a notch or two by default. Why adding a mechanic that will brute force the player down because he's not only losing the Maps but also the EXP?

Won't you get it? Can't you understand it? Can't you understand my words? Doesn't they make sense to use? Is English maybe not your native language because it clearly isn't mine as you might tell.

There is basically NO point in EXP loss. If I farmed 100 Maps of a certain tier than for f*ck sake let me try it 100 times but do not punish me for trying to accomplish something.

"

noother10#5677 wrote:

"

mahfightmoney#5093 wrote:

We had the same discussion pop up monthly for PoE 1 for a decade, lets do it again boys!

The people who despise the 10% exp loss on death are most likely new to the game, you gotta cut them a little slack. They dont understand like some of us with 3k + hours that dying at level 75 doesnt mean jack shit, 75-76 is like 3 tier 10 maps. If you are dying at this level range, you need to worry much more about gearing more so than your next level up. I have not played enough to know the xp curve in PoE 2, but if its anything like PoE 1, deaths below level 90 arent the end of the world, and morseo, thinking your build is going to wildly change with those last handful of points, you are painfully misinformed.

Death meant something in PoE 1 for the games first 4-5 years, then GGG slowly but surely created ways to level 1-100 in a days time. Dying at level 99 once meant days of grinding down the drain, now its just an extra breach to run.

So people don't still buy carries for lv95-100 in PoE1? (hint: They do).

Leveling takes a lot longer in PoE2 and the penalty is worse because of it, plain and simple. What might've been a map or a few in PoE1 is now minimum 2-3 hours in PoE2. The numbers are very different for XP earned over time and how much each level is.

@Avaricta#4758 Do we get to pick the archnemesis mods on the rares as well, that range from no-effect to one shot by on death effect hidden under corpses or a bush?

Why do people have a hard on for trying to make PoE2 as hardcore and old school as PoE1 when it isn't meant to be? Why can't people just let others play builds that they find fun but are maybe slower than others, let them keep trying the content, stop hitting them over the head with penalties until they quit.

Making 0 progress in a week is not fun. Playing some meta flavor of the week build is also not fun for many.

This is all typical. In any game that has been out a long time and got a large overhaul or a new full game version, there are also a bunch of veterans who can't let go, who don't want anything to change at all, who argue the game will die if they change anything or it doesn't align to the previous game. I saw loads of posts after EA launch on the PoE1 reddit saying exactly those things.

I hope they only put in all the PoE1 stuff into the end game because they hadn't actually finished it properly yet, and they rip it all out and put in some actual fun and innovative stuff that lets players actually have fun, regardless of how they want to play.

Yea I didnt specifically call out rota's, but that was my point. Today all you need is a handful of divs and you can hit 100 in a day. The game was so much more engaging years ago when dedication mattered, not just getting lucky with a 20 div item dropping.

I have not hit endgame in PoE 2, so I have no clue how leveling feels. Im sure it is slow, especially without twink gear, but in will undoubtedly get faster as leagues go by, there is no way around it.

"

B1tchFight#1281 wrote:

I died 3 times yesterday. First one was a single bullshit white monster that hit me with his fist for about 30% of damage. I healed up and it hit me again 2.100 HP done. This was clearly a physical attack. 63% armor shouldn't allow a white mob to 1 hit anyone. A blue Tier 7 map by the way with no Crit or Damage mods on it.

You refuse to read. But that might be my fault by posting such a wall of text. Your case falls into the second scenario. The XP penalty is needed for the first scenario. Regarding the second scenario:

"

Avaricta#4758 wrote:

The other scenario is dying from time to time due to bugs or unfair, not yet patched, one shots. This is early access and bugs are to be expected. But if your build is solid in general, then this should not be happening too often. Therefor the death penalty should not have that big of an influence in this case. Regarding unfair one shots. GGG has already begun to address these and is surely trying to improve in that area. So this should not be a regular thing in the future.

These exceptional deaths, even though annoying, are not preventing you from reaching level 100. Others reach level 100. And so can you.

Also the issue in this case is one shots. Not the XP penalty. So the solution is to reduce/remove one shots. Not removing the XP penalty.

"

mahfightmoney#5093 wrote:

We had the same discussion pop up monthly for PoE 1 for a decade, lets do it again boys!

The people who despise the 10% exp loss on death are most likely new to the game, you gotta cut them a little slack. They dont understand like some of us with 3k + hours that dying at level 75 doesnt mean jack shit, 75-76 is like 3 tier 10 maps. If you are dying at this level range, you need to worry much more about gearing more so than your next level up. I have not played enough to know the xp curve in PoE 2, but if its anything like PoE 1, deaths below level 90 arent the end of the world, and morseo, thinking your build is going to wildly change with those last handful of points, you are painfully misinformed.

Death meant something in PoE 1 for the games first 4-5 years, then GGG slowly but surely created ways to level 1-100 in a days time. Dying at level 99 once meant days of grinding down the drain, now its just an extra breach to run.

We are not talking about PoE 1 ... back in PoE 1 you could always argue that a punishment had to exist.

Now I say we have like 10 punishments. I am tired of counting them for every single one here who's not reading or refused to accept said word.

Why keep the EXP loss in and add new punishment and call this "normal" while asking to remove one of the factors is called "you want to change the entire baseline of the game" ... it makes no sense.

And again: It's not about reaching level 100. It never was... And you can't die your way up to Lv 100 because you don't have the maps available for that. So it's not an argument to say "EXP Loss prevents people from dying in content they are not fit for"

Why are all these veteran gamers always and only comment from their perspektive like you give a sh*t about other people.

Less than 10% of the entire amount of player starting a character will pass lv 90. Less then 2% will hit lv 100.

Does anyone here really believe that removing the EXP loss will change either value by more than 10%? Most people stop way before this threshold anyway for other reasons. EXP takes to long in general, playing other games, no time to continue and so on.

All you do by removing the EXP loss is the not make people angry who are emotionally affected by losing part of their progress.

I am ready to invest a map, an atlas mod and orbs for crafting a map... I don't feel the neat to invest 10% EXP for trying how far I can get.

"

B1tchFight#1281 wrote:

"

mahfightmoney#5093 wrote:

We had the same discussion pop up monthly for PoE 1 for a decade, lets do it again boys!

The people who despise the 10% exp loss on death are most likely new to the game, you gotta cut them a little slack. They dont understand like some of us with 3k + hours that dying at level 75 doesnt mean jack shit, 75-76 is like 3 tier 10 maps. If you are dying at this level range, you need to worry much more about gearing more so than your next level up. I have not played enough to know the xp curve in PoE 2, but if its anything like PoE 1, deaths below level 90 arent the end of the world, and morseo, thinking your build is going to wildly change with those last handful of points, you are painfully misinformed.

Death meant something in PoE 1 for the games first 4-5 years, then GGG slowly but surely created ways to level 1-100 in a days time. Dying at level 99 once meant days of grinding down the drain, now its just an extra breach to run.

We are not talking about PoE 1 ... back in PoE 1 you could always argue that a punishment had to exist.

Now I say we have like 10 punishments. I am tired of counting them for every single one here who's not reading or refused to accept said word.

Why keep the EXP loss in and add new punishment and call this "normal" while asking to remove one of the factors is called "you want to change the entire baseline of the game" ... it makes no sense.

And again: It's not about reaching level 100. It never was... And you can't die your way up to Lv 100 because you don't have the maps available for that. So it's not an argument to say "EXP Loss prevents people from dying in content they are not fit for"

Why are all these veteran gamers always and only comment from their perspektive like you give a sh*t about other people.

Less than 10% of the entire amount of player starting a character will pass lv 90. Less then 2% will hit lv 100.

Does anyone here really believe that removing the EXP loss will change either value by more than 10%? Most people stop way before this threshold anyway for other reasons. EXP takes to long in general, playing other games, no time to continue and so on.

All you do by removing the EXP loss is the not make people angry who are emotionally affected by losing part of their progress.

I am ready to invest a map, an atlas mod and orbs for crafting a map... I don't feel the neat to invest 10% EXP for trying how far I can get.

That was wild, you expect empathy from video game players over having a death penalty? You think anybody here ever once thought how good ole B1tchfight has our emotional backs if we dont like something in PoE? Actual insanity.

The death penalty is what it is, we have dealt with it for a decade and at the end of the day you just accept it. It is not a big deal until the 90s. it might feel like overkill, but you will understand the systems better over time and the deaths will become infrequent.

I get people not wanting it, but the complaints seem to be coming from new players coming in with their D4 mindset. The death penalty is a objective design decision, you can complain another 10 years and we will see where GGG is on the subject. I promise you that point for going from 90-91 isnt an important than replacing that blue amulet.