Death Penalty System - EXP Loss in particular

I like to start off with the fact that all the usual "Get good" comments making so sense on so many layers of logic. So leave them... I also don't want to address the player in general here. I would like to address GGG with my post hoping to get into a serious discussion.

I attempted to enjoy PoE 1 multiple times and every single time I stopped because I hit a wall with my character where I couldn't continue having fun toying around and trying out things because I usually die doing so. -.-*

No, I do not sink tons of hours into consuming countless gameplays, streams, news websites before trying a game. A buddy who thinks kinda similar told me that there is no EXP penalty while he died during his first few maps. This was an instand signal to try out PoE 2 and now I am hooked on it and learned yesterday upon reaching lv 76 with 8% that there is EXP loss. Luckily I got the key for free and doesn't need to feel bad for spending money. So once again: I try to get a objective discussion.

It's a game killer since I haven't continued so far while standing in my hideout thinking about what to do next. I planned playing at least 6 different builds I think are fun with this "new" skill gem System. Now I am not even bothering with another one because I know I will never reach a point close to lv 100. And I basically played, traded, tested a lot over the last week during my vacation. Yes, lv 76 is low for 1 week of play time. Steam says 110 hours.

Again: No, I don't watch videos and guides how other people play this or that skill or build. I want to figure those things for myself. I hate every social media jerk for putting builds and guide out there. I can at least claim to be the one who found out a mechanic on my own without copy & paste. Not even core gamer are doing this anymore these days. Let alone average gamer. Not even the biggest PoE 1 lover I came to meet... He spend 10+k hours but the last several hours where only copy builds.

Last night I researched this topic and stumbled over quite a few enraged post back from PoE 1 release (haven't checked this out before) Same discussion happened 11+ years ago and basically nothing has changed. So my hopes are not that high to reach GGG this way. But it might help to decide how to continue.

I have a quite simple question for GGG.

What do you plan on archiving with EXP penalty?

I've seen a bunch of people claiming different things. Preventing Bots, making it harder for the very very intense gamer even the point that GGG wants to teach player to play careful... lol

What is the official statement on this? I would like to debunk one by one to see where this leaves us.

Lets start of with the Bot reason
- bots don't care if they die or not. Giving the option to buy lv 1 maps from a vendor will simply allow them to continue. The death must appear quite fast without loot for a lot of times before a bot runs out on currency as it usually sells enough items for gold in a good run. Simply by picking and selling Magic and Rare items.

Continue with making it harder for people to reach lv 100
People who reach lv 100 now days are usually the same people who are reaching lv 100 in PoE for many years with all the systems that are implemented. I make a bold claim... They would reach lv 100 even if you set the penalty to 20% loss.

As for playing careful...
Can you tell me what the intended goal of Path of Exile was when you first started to develop this game? Why not a fixated skill list like Grim Dawn or Last Epoch? Both games I REALLY enjoyed playing. In Grim Dawn I have 6 Chars lv 100 and in Last Epoch 5 chars around 90... believe it or not... I prefer the skill gem / socket system from PoE as it gives more freedom. I can't speak for Diablo because I only tried D3 for a short while. But it has a fixated skill system if I remember correct.

So what was your goal with PoE?

Could a be the freedom of skilling the sh*t you want? Starting of with a melee and skill it full INT and magic damage carrying a bow to cast spells?

Why are you soooo eager to punish people playing with "not perfect" builds while allowing to skill the worst cr*p out there?

Another question more or less for the general gamer who manages to read up to this point: How many people quit the game because of dying or had at least crap moments, stress and even anger issues VS people who would quit after removing the death penalty?

Have you ever attempted to leave the EXP penalty out? Instead you make it worse by limiting the Portals and the Map modifier on the Atlas. Both are points that doesn't bother me directly.

Now to my suggestions for a rework regarding EXP loss.

1st as obvious as it gets: remove it...
2nd allow to pick it up - this requires to allow multiple portals per player. Maybe even with the option to decide. After the 3rd portal was used you have to decide to risk another attempt and lose the 10% for good because you can't go back a 3rd time to pick it up.
3rd option could be a way to buy back the EXp by exchanging certain items maybe even after spelling an Orb of resurrection on it with a roll between 25-95% of restore.
4th option could be for the "get good you noob" faction of the player. Select EXP Loss ON or OFF at character creation blocking certain achievements and maybe even show a white lame skull in front of the name and people who play with EXP loss getting a evil and mean looking red skull instead. I am quite certain we would see 90+% with a white skull.

Why don't you care about the majority of the people who finance your game to allow them to play the way they like?


EDIT:
I feel the need to edit my initial post now because people trying to gaslight me into something and accusing me of wanting to change the entire game in it's very core. It sounds like I want to change an Action Role Play Game into a Spaceage RTS game.

No, I don't want to change the game. I simply want to change a single mechanic that has no positive effect what so ever. Losing EXP doesn't cause you to further think about your class then dying in general. And if someone wants to waste 20 valuable map to try to defeat they are not supposed to then they can do it right now - after a level up without EXP loss. So the argument "protect them from running into a wall banging year heads" is bullshit. Nobody of you cares the slightest about player bashing their head against any wall. I could tell you right now I do Tier 15 maps and die for a living and have fun doing so and you would likely reply "it's not meant to be this way but if you have fun with it, go for it" because you don't care about me dying in a game.

My goal isn't to playtest a new difficulty tier. My goal is to play in a difficulty that is risky but rewarding. The risk is to lose the Map and the Atlas Mod. Back in PoE I had no stand in this discussion because I feel the same. There should be any kind of punishment. Right now we have several kinds and the most hated one can go. Crank up the EXP needed to reach lv 100 like 10 times - I don't care. I just don't want to lose a single EXP on the way of trying it.

Thats it, end of discussion. I don't want to change the game. I want to change a mechanic that is not even common anymore these days. And while it is okay to add new punishment it's not okay to remove or rework old punishment systems. What kind of gaslighting double standard human beings are you guys?

great idead

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.

In PoE especially the player can choose the difficulty of the content 100%. You choose the waystone/map tier, you choose the affixes of the waystone/map, you choose the additional content you do. Each of these things make the map harder or easier depending on your decision.

In my case for example. My build was able to clear the map tiers relatively safe up to tier 15. But when I opened a breach in tier 15 I was at risk of becoming overrun. Since my first priority was the Atlas passive points I simply avoided additional map content until I finished my 6 tier 15 maps. This way I was able to keep the difficulty in an area where I felt comfortable. My decision. Now that I have all Atlas passive points but my character is still not as strong I simply run tier 13 maps but can do all additional content in them without too much risk.

For some strange reason people nowadays are under the misconception that it is always the games fault. When in fact they simply do not want to look how to overcome an obstacle that is part of the natural progression. Most players have that typical LoL or WoW mentality of "I am the god gamer. It is my teammates fault that I do not reach diamond/Gladiator. I could reach that rank easily if I would not be kept down by others."

In PoE 1 this was mostly avoided because the requirements for build guides became so high, that basically every starter build had to be able to clear the campaign naked, finish the Atlas in blue items, be an excellent bosser and be able to do every league mechanic. In PoE 2 the knowledge simply is not yet there to do this. So we are back at the "work on your character" state.

If you die the simple fact is that it was your bad decision making. Except of some unfair one shots, which GGG already started to address and will continue to improve.

"

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.

And that message is already sent by the "dying multiple times" part. There is no need for an experience penalty.

The true message being sent is to not attempt any content you are not 100% sure of completing. Always be overleveled and overgeared. Never attempt anything challenging where you might die and waste even more time.

"

Mouser#2899 wrote:

And that message is already sent by the "dying multiple times" part. There is no need for an experience penalty.

The true message being sent is to not attempt any content you are not 100% sure of completing. Always be overleveled and overgeared. Never attempt anything challenging where you might die and waste even more time.

No, that message is not sent by simply dying and respawning without penalty. The penalty is the message. No penalty, no message.

You do not need to be 100% sure or overleveled/overgeared. You just need to feel comfortable with the difficulty you choose. If you die once within 50 maps you will not even notice. You just need to avoid dying too regularly. There is also no need to avoid content. Just do the content on a lower tier waystone. That is literally what I did and wrote in my example.

Simply adept the difficulty of the content you want to do, to the capabilities of the current state of your build. Once your build progresses you can increase the difficulty. It is that simple.

"

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.

In PoE especially the player can choose the difficulty of the content 100%. You choose the waystone/map tier, you choose the affixes of the waystone/map, you choose the additional content you do. Each of these things make the map harder or easier depending on your decision.

In my case for example. My build was able to clear the map tiers relatively safe up to tier 15. But when I opened a breach in tier 15 I was at risk of becoming overrun. Since my first priority was the Atlas passive points I simply avoided additional map content until I finished my 6 tier 15 maps. This way I was able to keep the difficulty in an area where I felt comfortable. My decision. Now that I have all Atlas passive points but my character is still not as strong I simply run tier 13 maps but can do all additional content in them without too much risk.

For some strange reason people nowadays are under the misconception that it is always the games fault. When in fact they simply do not want to look how to overcome an obstacle that is part of the natural progression. Most players have that typical LoL or WoW mentality of "I am the god gamer. It is my teammates fault that I do not reach diamond/Gladiator. I could reach that rank easily if I would not be kept down by others."

In PoE 1 this was mostly avoided because the requirements for build guides became so high, that basically every starter build guide had to be able to clear the campaign naked, finish the Atlas in blue items, be an excellent bosser and be able to do every league mechanic. In PoE 2 the knowledge simple is not yet there to do this. So we are back at the "work on your character" state.

If you die the simple fact is that it was your bad decision making. Except of some unfair one shots, which GGG already started to address and will continue to improve.

You wrote so much without saying a single thing - sorry.

It's not the gamers fault if the game is designed to offer you any stupid possible choice to pick from. If the game lets you create a Melee Caster Build with a bow then let this person play and die... The natural boarder of "not beatable to continue" comes along having EXP Loss penalty or not. If you can't see this, then you are part of the problem.

If you are under the misconception that it requires EXP loss to accept the fact that a medium geared character can't beat tier 10 maps, than it is the gamers fault. I could die 100 times in a Tier 6 map if I want to... If I farm the material for it, then I should be allowed to play this and try out myself without the feeling of wasting loads of time because you can't level up. The feeling of wasting the time to farm the material should be impact enough to "nicely" force a smarter gameplay approach. Don't you think? I could open a Tier 7 map in Magic quality right now and I would likely beat it. But I wouldn't do it because I don't want this stress.

Coming to the point that people like you, who running Tier 13-15 Maps (likely lv 92+ I suppose...) You are not playing PoE for the first time. You know a lot of the mechanics. What about causal gamer? Have you ever seen statistics of how many player get past lv 90 in Path of Exile? it's less than 10% ... I can't recall where I found this number. Maybe it's not even accurate anymore. It was at least 7 years ago.

So GGG is designing a game with content most people doesn't even touch because they stop playing. And I am sure a big factor is the EXP penalty. Everyone who quits because of it would keep going and trying to find ways to beat it.

Give me just one reasonable argument why the "obstacle" as you call it would vanish by removing or changing the EXP loss mechanic? People keep dying in the same spot loosing the EXP or not. The EXP Loss just frustrates them to a point where they stop to play at all because they doesn't only waste the EXP, they wasted the time to farm the maps / Orbs and so on. Why must everything go to waste at once?

Hence my question: What is the original goal for the EXP penalty? It's clearly not to force an obstacle on you to stop you from this content.

How can you be encouraged to keep playing and improving your build if every failed attempt ends in another waste of 1 hour playtime? Yes, by running lower level Maps and simply skip everything that would allow you to get stuff in your level range to craft with... great... Just to repeat the process 3 level and 50 deaths later.

I died 207 times playing the campaign because I played careless and had to do some bosses over and over and on every death I learned something. Every try showed me a new boss mechanic. And reaching lv 60 was a great feeling... I changed sooo much so often in my build. I could try and change stuff without fear of loosing my progress. And now? My quest stage says I have to run Tier 5 maps... I beat them very easy unless there are mods that counter my build. I have a fully upgraded lv 48 Mace for my melee... Everything basically dies without a problem. High HP enemies need to be bashed down with some Dodge rolls and shield raise movements. And I freaking love this playstyle. It's so much fun to raise the shield, block incoming damage, keep hitting while the boss is preparing his attack just to dodge in the right moment and hit a Stun to cause burst damage.

Following your logic means I can't use these mechanics to play because it's too risky. Why play at all then?

For at least 10 levels I keep an eye out for a good base to craft... every attempt failed so far. Am I supposed to run Tier 3 maps now until I find a weapon I can craft? While the chance for a higher weapon is better on Tier 5 or 6 maps? But every 4th try I die by either broken game mechanics or even my own fault and lose the progress I have done. What happens if I beat the Tier 5 quest and continue with Tier 6 maps? Maybe I die the same amount of time. Maybe I can level up without EXp loss and re-think my skills (passive and active) Do you really - REALLY - believe there is a number of player worth researching that would run maps they can't usually beat if there is no EXP loss?

If I would start a Tier 9 Map now and hit a wall of elite I couldn't beat, yes... still no reason for EXP penalty. If a player want to waste 50 Tier 9 maps to get some EXP, you can't help that. But the current way of the Map device + 1 Attempt + Map drop Chance would automatically negate your entire argument. I have no chance in dying my way up to a higher level because of the amount of maps. The current rate is just a very little + So I have no room to waste maps on purpose. And this is actually a good mechanic.


We should also consider the fact that Path of Exile is basically a solo game. Yes, it's always online, yes you can trade with others and form a party. But lets be honest. I dare a bold claim: 90% of player play solo or in a 2 player group. I don't know any ARPG game that makes sense with 4 or even 6 player in total. The amount of effects renders the game 100% unplayable for me unless I have a similar effect overstacking build that doesn't care about aiming... Like Auto-Caster or heavy minion builds.

So taking in consideration that I play solo: why punishing me with EXP loss? Am I not allowed to get to a higher level without the PERFECT gear? Nobody - literally nobody - would have any disadvantage removing the EXP penalty.

Intense core gamer will still mosh through map like nobody else. And considering the Map drop and availability and the 1 portal policy, I would go 100% that you keep playing the same playstyle as you do right now. For starters due to your ego of not wanting to die but more over due to the material cost and time farming maps and orbs.

Another argument I came across in the steam forum: EXP penalty keep the market from overflowing with orbs... What the hell... The market mechanic in an Online ARPG (and MMO for this point) is broken the second it opens up. I Love trading in PoE. Back in PoE 1 I made multiple Exalts a day by buying and selling stuff. But I always crafted my own items for use. Because I want the feeling that I achieved it. If the market would have been the reason, then Standard SC would work without EXP loss where Seasons could stay with EXP loss. I am not planning on playing seasons anyway regardless the EXP loss. I want to play for myself in my own speed and not feeling forced to reach everything in 4 -12 weeks.

Hell yeah... What about a simple try to take out the EXP penalty for 3 months. The time it usually takes for a season. Make big announcements that PoE in general will go without EXP penalty for 3 month starting February or March 2025. Lets see the impact. Maybe I am wrong... maybe casual gamer still stop at lv 70-80 and stop playing. Maybe Core gamer reach the Lv 100 even faster.

The fact that EXP loss as penalty remains and so far I couldn't find a solid point against removing it.

Long story short:
"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."

Do you really think it's better to bash their head against a EXP Loss wall that frustrates and causes them to stop the game at all or would it be better - financially speaking - to remove the very reason why lots of people are stopping? They still bash their heads against walls but without the extreme hard feeling of this "loss".

You can select what Atlas you are playing but the Map is always random and limited in amount.


Anyone else with an argument? I would like to have a discussion with one of the devs about it.

"

Avaricta#4758 wrote:

"

Mouser#2899 wrote:

And that message is already sent by the "dying multiple times" part. There is no need for an experience penalty.

The true message being sent is to not attempt any content you are not 100% sure of completing. Always be overleveled and overgeared. Never attempt anything challenging where you might die and waste even more time.

No, that message is not sent by simply dying and respawning without penalty. The penalty is the message. No penalty, no message.

You do not need to be 100% sure or overleveled/overgeared. You just need to feel comfortable with the difficulty you choose. If you die once within 50 maps you will not even notice. You just need to avoid dying too regularly. There is also no need to avoid content. Just do the content on a lower tier waystone. That is literally what I did and wrote in my example.

Simply adept the difficulty of the content you want to do, to the capabilities of the current state of your build. Once your build progresses you can increase the difficulty. It is that simple.

Map gone, Note Bonus in Atlas gone, time invested gone, orbs invested in upgrading it gone ... BUT THE EXP PENALTY WILL DO THE TRICK? Sorry for caps but I had to point this out....

Something I might have to add here, Avaricta#4758.

From the way you write it sounds for me that you got soooo used to the way you play that your ego wouldn't accept other people achieving a little more than they could right now by removing the EXP penalty while you are soooo used to play around this penalty that you can't accept it to be removed else you gameplay that focuses on "not dying BECAUSE of Exp loss" would be rendered pointless. But you have to remember the fact that nothing would change really... At least not for you. You can keep playing the way you play if this is the way it's fun for you.

By an artificially created wall that blocks my way to have fun, you feel superior because the way you have fun is the way it currently is. That's at least what I understand here. Else provide me a solid reason why EXP loss is any good... Or even better; a reason why the removal of EXP loss is any bad for you! What would you do differently if you are not losing EXP?

"

B1tchFight#1281 wrote:

I attempted to enjoy PoE 1 multiple times and every single time I stopped because I hit a wall with my character where I couldn't continue having fun toying around and trying out things because I usually die doing so. -.-*

so you think you will progress forever once 'death penalty' is removed? you do know the limit is lvl100 right?

people forget they are not actually losing anything due to XP penalty, you simply will not get a reward of a level up if you keep dying. btw if you think the last 10 levels will make your build work, think again

"

Avaricta#4758 wrote:

There is also no need to avoid content. Just do the content on a lower tier waystone.

That is avoiding content *SMDH*.

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?