Death Penalty System - EXP Loss in particular

"

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.

Nonsense. I grinded out hours of juiced T16s on my lvl 99 toon and had no problem at all with endgame content, then I randomly died to a bug that still hasn't been fixed, as far as I'm aware (Bonechill applying damage taken to you with Eater of World altar's ailment reflect) with 110% reduced Reflected Elemental Damage taken and overstacked Shock resist. Hours of progress lost, but yeah, dude, my "character isn't ready for that content." 🙄

the exp penalty does annoy me a lot from the stand point that it is too harsh 95+, so, I usually start a new char around then. Before that it isn't that big of a deal. Maybe instead of removing it, they should smooth it out, so that dying at 76 is not any different than dying at 95. That would probably make more sense from a logical stand point and still keep the penalty in.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

bro, ask your question in a clear manner. "What would change in your little perfect world if there was no EXP penalty?" wtf are you asking here?

Ok - I'll ask it. How would your gameplay change if the XP penalty didn't exist?
What would you do differently?

"

Mouser#2899 wrote:

Let me put it this way. Let's say the game didn't have an XP penalty already.

How many people do you think would be asking for it, and what would their argument be?

Check and mate.

Exactly what I asked... My English simply s*cked :-D sorry for that. Typing too fast and it's not my native language.

The question is simple: What would change for you personally if the EXP Loss is removed for good? Not talking about bots, head bashing against walls and all that stuff. What would you do different if they patch the EXP loss out right now?

Would you start bashing your head against T16 maps with insane mods just because you won't lose any EXP? Would you go nuts on T15 Maps? Or would you continue the safe approach with T13 maps as you said. I am quite sure it's the T13/14 approach.

I can tell you what would change for me: I would continue running Lv 5 maps until the quest is full or until I don't have any left and need to buy some lv 1 maps and craft them to lv 3 to run them in the hopes you find lv 4 again, then lv 5 then lv 6 and so on. I wouldn't even bother playing maps I struggle too hard. But I can have a relaxed evening after work playing the map and mode I like to - even if its the worst crap mod. All I waste at this point are 15-20 minutes for the Map and the map itself. This wouldn't ruin my evening. But dying - even if it was my own fault - would annoy me if I loose EXP. I would repeat this cycle to a point where I can't stand the enemy damage or where I don't kill them fast enough. But since it takes longer and long to level up, I have time to farm items. And IF I farm something I would like to have a decent challenge.

Right now a magic Tier 5 Map with lv 76 is cleared in under 10 minutes but there is always the possibility of dying due to lag or bugs. Happened at least 6 times during the campaign and 1 time in a Map (did not notice the EXP loss because I did not pay attention) So I did not care other than the lost map.

And you telling me I have to run T2-3 maps in order to be "save" while I can handle Tier 6/7. None of the easy stuff is a problem but maybe bosses.

So yet again: What would change for you personally if they patch it out right now? Would you play any less? Would you stop playing?

And again: Yes, lv 100 is the target. But it's a personal feeling that I don't want to feel the loss of progress on the EXP bar. The punishment is already enough.

+1

Coming from one of the most casual Andy's when it comes to ARPGs, yet have been gaming for decades... I have yet to find anything so terrible about their overall system right now. Yes the XP loss was an annoying shocker when I noticed it. But at the end, I was like "well shit, I gotta take this slower and more methodically"

I also have a buddy who notoriously hates anything of the "souls-like" difficulty/caliber (I personally love the pain lol), and he is loving the game so far as well.

It is kind of funny hearing all of the "hate" regarding the difficulty. Yet here I am, playing with a self-described "souls-like hater" almost nightly and into maps, and even he has said "yeah... this all feels fair. Even though we died 10x or so on The Executioner"

I'm not as far as you all, but I do like the XP penalty. Immediately after leveling, I can afford to be more risky, but when I'm further along I focus on just leveling up. I like the cycle that encourages, so I focus on different things over time.

But I don't love the loss of ground items on death. Sometimes I want to grab an item during combat instead of fighting, to avoid the risk of losing it. It would be nice to have a way to retrieve one lost item, maybe for some fee.

There is so much wrong information in this thread that I will just try to list it here instead of quoting every passage.

1) Dying once to a bug is no reason to remove a core mechanic of the game. It is an exception that should be fixed. Just because you have a leaky faucet in your house does not mean you buy a new house. You simply fix the faucet.

2) Removing the XP penalty is a very slippery slop. Because people will always continue whining. First the XP penalty. If that gets removed they cry about waystones being lost on fail. If this gets changed they cry about additional content being lost ... 5 years later everybody has a cheat menu where they can simply spawn in every item in the game. The whining never stops until the game is dead due to the bad changes players requested.

3) You can still do every single bit of content, except pinnacle bosses, in the game on a lower difficulty. Nothing is blocked for you. You can do Expedition on tier 15 or you can do them on tier 1. The content is there. You may get a bit less loot from it, but that is by design. If your character is not yet strong enough to play a higher tier without dying, you are not meant to play that higher tier.

4) Do you not understand, that there needs to be obstacles for the player to overcome in order for them to get a feeling of accomplishment? You are trying to remove this bit by bit. If you continue dying your character is simply not meant to play that difficulty yet. You re meant to farm more currency/better items and levels on a lower difficulty before you proceed to the higher difficulty.

How do you even hit the wall? Do you follow the quests for "finish tier 1", "finish tier 2", ...? If so, if a specific tier is a wall for you. You need to pause and play the previous tier, that was no wall, until you can improve your character to overcome that wall.

In a game like PoE there a hundreds or maybe even thousands of builds that perform on a different level. Gear also makes a huge difference. So there is absolutely no way to balance the maps for each builds. That's why it is so great that every player simply chooses their own difficulty.

If you hit a wall, YOU need to do something differently. It really is that simple. I am sure if you go to the forum and ask "How can I improve my character?" you will receive a more positive and helpful feedback.

I also hit a wall from time to time. In this case I take a step back, look at my character, maybe even at some guides, to try to figure out how to improve it. Then I either make those improvements or I go back to easier content to farm. This is a core part of an ARPG.

In PoE 1 we got used to just skipping it, because the game was fully solved. Most build creators presented builds that could walk naked through the campaign, finish the entire atlas in magic items, kill pinnacle bosses and farm every content. I assume in PoE 2 this may be the case as well at some point. But not even three weeks into early access the game is not yet that solved. We do not have every bit of information like we had in PoE 1.

You guys really need to understand that if you keep dying over and over again, so that you cannot progress, you are simply doing something wrong. It is not the game! It is you! Change your approach.

I got several chars to 100 in POE1, I think the xp penalty is just antiquated and has more to do with extending playtime for leagues and subsequent sales during leagues than any faffery about player conditioning. I'd be happy to see both it and the one portal map thing go away. Don't think it really is a core mechanic that needs to exist. Devs just said that they consider builds overpowered when people feel they have no choice but to play that build and simultaneously have created conditions in which people are more likely to gravitate to specific builds to avoid punishment.