An Objective alternative to XP loss on death in POE 2

First off, my grammar sucks so I apologize....

Now that that is out of the way, let me make perfectly clear that I love this game, and I have died many times. I do not mind dying, nor do I mind some sort of penalty for dying. I am not a top tier player in any way, and I most definitely need to get good. I already know this…..

I do not believe that losing XP on death is the right consequence for death because all it does is cause players who are not decked out in gear to just repeat lower level content at a slower pace until they reach max level because the cost of losing the XP and the passive points and attribute gains makes it not worth the risk after some point.

If the result of death is a slower grind on lower levels, anyway, why not change the penalty to something that encourages these players to keep at it until they figure it out. My suggestion is a debuff or leveling sickness that lowers your XP gains by a percentage for each death on a level down to a maximum of 90% reduced XP. The cure for this sickness is earning the next level. This way the player keeps working on what is killing them and learning to beat it and still seeing some leveling progress rather than just giving up and doing easier content or just giving up on the game.

I would love some objective feedback on this idea from the community.

I appreciate the thought you’ve put into this, and I totally agree that losing XP on death is a frustrating system. But replacing it with an XP gain debuff doesn’t really *fix* the problem—it just swaps one punishment for another.

At the core of it, the issue isn’t *how* we’re punished—it’s that we’re punished in a way that makes progress feel discouraging. Whether it’s losing XP outright or having a long-lasting debuff that slows down progression, both systems make death feel like a major setback instead of a learning opportunity.

Your idea at least keeps players engaged with the same content, which is better than forcing them to farm easier maps just to minimize risk. But it still creates a situation where death feels like a long-term punishment rather than something that teaches or motivates improvement.

For me, the frustration is about the punishment and not feeling like I’m losing meaningful progress just because I made a mistake.

And whould You honestly still find the game fun if the debuff lasted multiple levels instead of just one? Because that’s essentially what repeated deaths would turn into.

If you assume ppl who have a problem with the "EXP loss on death" die a maximum of 9 times per level your solution would in terms of numbers and time change nothing.

With both systems, they had to get the 90% "back" somehow. The only difference there is a "visual" thing.

Instead of "we take 10% of your already gained EXP away until you level up" it would be "we reduce all the EXP gained by 10% until you level up" (basically "taking away EXP gained in the future), but the overall EXP needed to level up is the same.

Downside with your solution:
IF someone is already at 0% EXP of his current level - your solution would punish him with the EXP gain reduction anyway, while the current system does not. You can't lose something you haven't gained yet.

Upside with your solution:
IF someone is at 99% EXP of his current level and dies he would not lose the 10% and drop to 89%, so would still level up in a minute, BUT that would be a thing GGG probably is not aligning with - you failed so you don't get the reward.
With that, you could fail and still level up.

TIME is ALWAYS the base requirement for everything in PoE, so basically removing the road-block to keep you in place when you fail will probably be something GGG is not cool with.

Woofeliwowa#1985

In my suggestion the buff would end upon reaching the next level and you would start over if you died in the next level...

This is exactly the kinds of discussions I had hoped would happen...

I think any suggestion or solutions that encourages moving forward rather than grinding the content you already did is better for the overall comunity.

in any other game the solution to beating any challenge is keep attempting the challenge and not take the easy way out until you reach max level and can no longer be penalized.