Late game issue with 10% xp penalty

Hi,

cutting 10% of XP for a death makes sense from level 70 to around 95, but it probably is not ideal after level 95.

Here's an example to illustrate. Suppose a player needs to run 10 maps to progress from your current player level to the next level. If you die, you lose 1 map worth of time, which isn't a huge deal. Now suppose it takes 100 maps to go from current level to next level, i.e., a death will cause you to lose 10 maps worth of time. The magnitude of this penalty forces the player to choose between engaging in difficult gameplay and making XP progress. If, e.g., the player chooses to run maps where there is a 10% or higher chance of dying, it's very unlikely that they will be able to progress their character to the next level. I have a level 96 character and I want to do more challenging maps (i.e., maps where there is a non-trivial chance of my character dying), but I also want to hit level 97 at some point. Currently, it seems like I can't do both of those things at the same time, which feel bad.

A possible solution would be to cap the XP penalty so that dying would never remove more than a few maps worth of XP. E.g., if it takes 100 maps to level and dying causes you to lose 3 maps worth of XP, you can progress to the next level even if you consistently run maps where your chance of dying is 30%.

The basic issue I have is that I can't run harder or more rewarding content until I level.

So effectively instead of playing the game how I want to play, I need to grind 8 hours, then I can try some difficult stuff...

But the second my XP bar starts rising...gotta treat the game like it's hardcore and just grind out the next level.

It's kinda why I might just quit around 90. Partly tbh because there isn't really any endgame content really worth doing right now. And the little that there is will prevent all leveling due to deaths...

My idea would be a lower XP penalty or cap it at some relative amount (like 20 minutes of XP) or just replace it with a gold cost.

Had this conversation with my friend today. We have to sink everything we can into using T15 maps, but will completely avoid ritual, breach, delirium, some bosses like the colossus, and even juiced maps. We have to make a choice about what content to play, and playing only the nice t15 maps only for exp isn't that engaging.