"Free" Deaths have ruined boss fight design.

There is no pressure anymore for GGG to make balanced boss fights. They can reasonably kill you 5 times per boss because there's no xp loss anymore.

I just fought Esh/Tul for the first time. And the second. And the 3rd. And so on. The tiny center arena dodging bullet hell phase is as bad if not worse than Searing Exarch's ball phase.

I guarantee things will ONLY get worse. All the people who whined and bitched about xp loss now get to deal with mostly boring, occasionally one-shot boss fights that are basically "have enough DPS to win before we one-shot you 6 times".

I don't understand how that's fun, or interesting, or enjoyable. Enlighten me.

Its super fun for me to intentionally die during exarch ball phase, then zone in again with a 1 minute immunity buff and wait it out then finish him.

This only happens in the quest version when I don't have gear, later when I actually have 150+ mil dps I can even kill uber exarch with no ball phase lmao

The no exp loss in bosses was the best change ever, no longer do people need to level up just before doing a boss. Because that's what I was doing before that change, can't lose exp if you're already at 0%.

Its fun to play a game that doesn't punish you for literally no reason and be overpowered, imagine that. That is literally why I play a build that's all-in on DPS and has 0 defenses. Seeing bosses melt in seconds with no mechanics happening is the most fun thing ever.

I even played a cast-on-death build one time that literally was oneshotting uber bosses, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Power fantasy in a fantasy ARPG?? That's craaazy.

Yeah it's super lame and makes no sense whatsoever.
Dying to a boss does not cost xp but dying to a mob does,why?
As if the game isn't ultra causal enough already.

They should bring back the exp penalty for boss fights, at least outside of tutorial versions so players can actually learn encounters first. On top of that, change boss attempts to a 3 portal cap for regular bosses, and only 1 portal for ubers. No corpse rushing to brute force fights. The cleanest solution would still be a Ruthless-style reset where the boss returns to 100% HP on death, fully preventing cheese attempts.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

This only happens in the quest version when I don't have gear, later when I actually have 150+ mil dps I can even kill uber exarch with no ball phase lmao

You don't do ubers on your 20kk build tho??

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The no exp loss in bosses was the best change ever, no longer do people need to level up just before doing a boss. Because that's what I was doing before that change, can't lose exp if you're already at 0%.

So basically for someone in your case the change made no real difference.

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Power fantasy in a fantasy ARPG?? That's craaazy.

If power fantasy was really everyone’s thing, you’d expect every player to min max the hell out of their builds and push all content just to chase that feeling. Yet some people barely optimize and avoid half the game. Guess power fantasy kinda falls apart when the power part gets skipped.

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Pashid#4643 wrote:

They should bring back the exp penalty for boss fights

one of the biggest arguments that caused us to remove xp penalty from boss fights is to encourage players to actually run boss fights.

i dont know what the big deal is with people who make it seem like they need to complain about xp penalty when hardcore exists.

if you really want to play properly go play hardcore lmao.

as for the rest of us, we really enjoy the removal of this xp penalty. my shippers/map runners got kidnap? fuckit, i ll rescue them, do or die. i dont care. at least i get to resume shipping/mapping. waiting till i reach next level when you're in the upper 90s can be literal days or weeks depending on how good you are.

this is one of the biggest cases of non issues i'm seeing in this forum.

but to extend an olive branch, i do think that new achievements should be introduced for players who kill bosses without dying AND maybe have a slightly higher chance to drop a boss unique as a reward for not dying. i believe its fair to reward players for being good.

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Redthorne82#3177 wrote:

I just fought Esh/Tul for the first time. And the second. And the 3rd. And so on. The tiny center arena dodging bullet hell phase is as bad if not worse than Searing Exarch's ball phase.

Do you happen to have a video of yourself or someone else struggling with this part of the fight? I've done this boss fight many times but I can't say I've ever encountered a phase in a state that can be described as a "bullet hell", and I don't have a ton of DPS or anything on my builds to skip phases. Unless I'm thinking of the wrong phase, you can simply destroy any orbs that fire projectiles at you by quickly running through them before the storm appears. Then you only have to avoid Tul's shield for a time.

No exp penalty for pinnacle bosses was one of the best changes they made. Defeating Maven early league on 6 portals is a huge W. Just look at how many players don't even try and buy a carry. There is no reason you should lose all your exp as a reward for a W. Same goes for some other pinnacle bosses and not to mention ubers.

In maps on the other hand you need to get punished for being to greedy and rolling to dangerous mods and you need to get punished in generell somehow for dying, so yeah exp loss in maps makes sense.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

if you really want to play properly go play hardcore lmao.

I don't think HC is the "proper" way to play the game, it's a preference. But just because HC exists doesn’t mean SC has to become candy mode either. Consequences for failure can still exist in SC for good reason.

"

as for the rest of us, we really enjoy the removal of this xp penalty.

Who exactly is included in "we" and the "rest of us" here? Because at the end of the day everyone can only really speak for themselves and what they personally want from a game they supposedly stopped playing a long time ago, and not speak on behalf of what the entire community or vocal minority wants.

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Strickl3r#3809 wrote:

No exp penalty for pinnacle bosses was one of the best changes they made. Defeating Maven early league on 6 portals is a huge W. Just look at how many players don't even try and buy a carry. There is no reason you should lose all your exp as a reward for a W. Same goes for some other pinnacle bosses and not to mention ubers.

I did maven voidstone myself for the first time in a while this league, mostly because the invitation is like 10c now so I'm not risking deleting too much currency by running it. No exp loss means I can just enter all the quest bosses whenever I feel like it and rush through progression as fast as possible, its so nice.

I also don't get why the maven quest doesn't just give you a free quest invitation like exarch and eater, why do I need to gather 10 splinters?(I never do btw I just buy one off Faustus LMAO) Doing shaper and elder once isn't as much of a grind anymore so that one's fine, but imo Maven quest should just give you a free invitation and if you lose all 6 portals Kirac should have another one for you to take until you can beat the boss, now THAT would motivate players to try it instead of buying a carry like I have for so many leagues.

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Pashid#4643 wrote:

I don't think HC is the "proper" way to play the game, it's a preference. But just because HC exists doesn’t mean SC has to become candy mode either. Consequences for failure can still exist in SC for good reason.

i ll just say i m glad it is the way it is right now rather than argue and that ggg made this change to benefit players like me.

whether i speak for more people or not, ggg tends to make decisions that benefits more people or for whoever their main audience is.