Really Enjoying PoE 2, But These Two Things Are Making Me Quit

I don't mind exp loss, but one death map penalty is a fun killer for me.

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Rakie1337#5746 wrote:

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Thaynime#8492 wrote:

If you get lesson from abuse, you need help man. It's not the Xp loss that teach you, it`s seeing the mechanic of what kill you... Wich ironicly the game miss a lot because of the fast paced and cluttered screen.

if you can't tell how the two go hand in hand you can't be helped.

You don't know about cause and effect?

The effect of you dying is losing Xp. And much more effect but let's not disgress. Now the question is why do you die? How did you die? Does the effect of losing xp teach you anything? Would you stare at a black screen and tell yourself, Oh I died and lost xp. I'm learning something? Definitly not, it's learning the reason why you died that teach you to get better, not the effect of dying.

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Thaynime#8492 wrote:

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Rakie1337#5746 wrote:

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Thaynime#8492 wrote:

If you get lesson from abuse, you need help man. It's not the Xp loss that teach you, it`s seeing the mechanic of what kill you... Wich ironicly the game miss a lot because of the fast paced and cluttered screen.

if you can't tell how the two go hand in hand you can't be helped.

You don't know about cause and effect?

The effect of you dying is losing Xp. And much more effect but let's not disgress. Now the question is why do you die? How did you die? Does the effect of losing xp teach you anything? Would you stare at a black screen and tell yourself, Oh I died and lost xp. I'm learning something? Definitly not, it's learning the reason why you died that teach you to get better, not the effect of dying.

Well yeah because everything you just said is stupid.

If you can't tell why you died you're dumb. It doesn't matter WHAT killed you, it matters how you died. You died almost 100% guaranteed due to several lacking defenses and ailments.

Not everybody is new dude. I've played POE for 6 years now. It's rarely a mystery why we die.

We die because of lacking defenses and resistances. It's that simple. If you died it's because you took too big of a hit and don't have enough damage mitigation. You can't be so slow that you fail to understand that...

You don't need details. We don't have them in POE 1 and we solve the problems just fine.

I'm finding the inability to use multiple copies of a support gem really anti-fun.
I personally enjoy PoE because of the freedom to personalize my own skills, my own style. And all i keep running into is limitations forcing me to ultimately just devolve back into just using 1 single skill because thats the one i put all the good support gems into, and the others are basically unscalable, other than a curse.

For example, i wanted to make an infernal legion minion build. And then i realized, i am going to have a hellhound, and a bunch of skeletons. And i have to choose to put my infernal legion, meat shield, and instability supports into only one or the other, and then the other minion becomes basically just eye-candy because there are no support gems left to make them useful.

This isn't "increasing build diversity" its literally the opposite, its just a limitation making build-creation bland and forcing me to stay small and simple.

I shouldn't have to choose 1 specific class with 1 specific playstyle because it has an ascendancy that slightly helps with this unfun limitation.

They said when they designed this game that they wanted us to get away from 1-skill gameplay. How does limiting support gems help this? I can't actually GET multiple skills to be useful because all my support gems have to go into 1 skill first and then there aren't any good ones left for other skills.

On top of that, once again, they found a way to make playing as a spellcaster/witch easymode, while making any real melee/attack build a continued struggle. You can find a wand/staff with a decent amount of %spelldamage and +1/2 levels to spells before level 15 and take it all the way to mapping. Meanwhile with martial weapons you need to find an upgrade every 5-10 levels or you become totally obsolete.
I was hoping they would reduce this gap in progression difficulty between spells and attacks but instead they actually make it worse.

Enemies pushing you around erratically also just feels really bad. Losing control of your character in an unfun way was one of the biggest downsides to D4 and now its in PoE.
Its one thing for a boss, or a huge slow enemy to push you. But when half of your medium enemies are 2x your speed and just ram their face into you and cause your screen to wig out because you are being shoved again and again and again feels horrible. Playing melee will NEVER feel good until this goes away.
The issue is that its not "pushing attacks" which would be okay. Its literally just monsters walking in your direction that shove you around. That's not okay. If monsters are going to push me, it should be through avoidable telegraphed moves, not just walking.
So far, enemies pushing me around has just made this game feel really unpolished because of how erratically it happens.

The character collision in co-op also feels really bad. The way you get "stuck" on each other even though you are trying to pass by each other is super irritating. It happens like every 1-2 minutes when i am co-oping with my friend. Instead of sliding around each other, both our characters just "fight" for the space and get stuck when all we are trying to do is pass each other. I can't even imagine how horrendous it might feel playing two melee characters together when you have to stand in close proximity to each other and monsters, too.

I appreciate your thoughts, and I actually agree with a lot of what you’re saying—understanding *why* you died and improving your defenses is important. But that’s not what this thread is about.

This isn’t about being dumb or clever, new or experienced, or even about figuring out the mechanics of survival. It’s about the *psychological impact* of punishment versus reward in game design. Simple human psychology tells us that people respond better to positive reinforcement than negative punishment—just like when raising a child or training a dog.

The issue isn’t *learning from mistakes*—it’s that the way PoE 2 currently handles death makes the game feel more *discouraging* than *motivating*. Losing progress (maps, XP, etc.) doesn’t make me want to get better—it makes me want to stop playing. And that’s the core problem: a system that should be teaching and rewarding adaptation instead pushes players toward frustration and burnout.

So the real question isn’t *why we die*—it’s *why death needs to be a punishment at all* instead of a mechanic that encourages improvement without making players feel like they wasted their time.

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Rakie1337#5746 wrote:

Well yeah because everything you just said is stupid.

If you can't tell why you died you're dumb. It doesn't matter WHAT killed you, it matters how you died. You died almost 100% guaranteed due to several lacking defenses and ailments.

Not everybody is new dude. I've played POE for 6 years now. It's rarely a mystery why we die.

We die because of lacking defenses and resistances. It's that simple. If you died it's because you took too big of a hit and don't have enough damage mitigation. You can't be so slow that you fail to understand that...

You don't need details. We don't have them in POE 1 and we solve the problems just fine.

Oh wow, that was uncalled for, what I said is stupid and you're the one disgressing from the subject of the conversation wich was about learning from xp loss? Yup, ok... I'm done.

Also if the solution to the problem is balance issue by one shotting everything then no, that's not what I call a solution.

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Rakie1337#5746 wrote:

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Woofeliwowa#1985 wrote:

2️⃣ The XP Penalty on Death
The XP penalty is brutal, especially when trying to level up. Losing a chunk of progress every time I die makes the game feel more punishing than rewarding.

... why would you be rewarded for dying? it's supposed to be punishing, this is the developer slapping your hand with a ruler and saying "BE SMARTER DUMMY".\

My hot take -- I would be pissed if they removed the xp loss on death. It's an insanely important learning tool that new players are too green to understand.

You will hit your natural level cap and stop progressing due to deaths. That lets you know you need to build defenses and play better, and die less.

If you lose nothing on death then there is no achievement at all, its' just a grind. Anybody can do it. Not everybody can currently hit 100, if they could, then it's just like world of warcraft -- not an achievement, just a grind.

If you can just get to max level for free then there is no achievement... it's just time sitting at a desk.

Well if you die you lose to much now:

1. You lose the map (you should else you can farm endlessly on one map).
2. You lose the affixes on the node (We can discuss this endlessly but i think it fair).
3. You Lose XP (This is annoying as hell). Just make it so that you gain all xp after completing the map and exiting the map it will ask do you want to get xp and close map. Yes map ends and gives xp and no map continues until all mobs are dead then it give automatically when exiting.If you die well you do not gain xp but also not lose.

I think this system is more fair because you gain only xp when you survive the map.

Muh level 100 achievement and muh difficulty trolls in 3 2...

+1

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Woofeliwowa#1985 wrote:

This isn’t about being dumb or clever, new or experienced, or even about figuring out the mechanics of survival. It’s about the *psychological impact* of punishment versus reward in game design. Simple human psychology tells us that people respond better to positive reinforcement than negative punishment—just like when raising a child or training a dog.

I feel you -- but that's literally the point. GGG wants you to be disapointed, they want bad and negative outcomes. They design bad stats and poor rolls so things aren't TOO good.

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Woofeliwowa#1985 wrote:

The issue isn’t *learning from mistakes*—it’s that the way PoE 2 currently handles death makes the game feel more *discouraging* than *motivating*. Losing progress (maps, XP, etc.) doesn’t make me want to get better—it makes me want to stop playing. And that’s the core problem: a system that should be teaching and rewarding adaptation instead pushes players toward frustration and burnout.

You feel this is a misstep -- it's a core design philosophy, and has been for 13 years, and won't be changing anytime soon.

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Woofeliwowa#1985 wrote:

So the real question isn’t *why we die*—it’s *why death needs to be a punishment at all* instead of a mechanic that encourages improvement without making players feel like they wasted their time.

Failure does encourage improvement, but at the cost of currency, time, effort, and mental health.

That is literally part of the game. It's intentional. They worked very hard to make you have these negative feelings -- not a drop of what you feel is an accident.