Death Penalty System - EXP Loss in particular
|
Out of curiosity, why do you think it works so well for the 98+% of very challenging games that have no death penalty?
Most of those games don't even have any ways for you to improve your character. You die until you "git gud" and succeed. Somehow people manage to overcome the obstacles and feel that sense of accomplishment without being punished. Your point is "the game is telling you to get stronger" by giving you an XP penalty. The player already got that message by dying. The punishment is just rubbing salt into the wound. Again - losing XP doesn't make killing the boss or clearing the map any harder. It just makes it more of a PITA. If you aren't dying at least 1 out of 4 attempts, the content isn't challenging. My opinion I know, but that's what forums are for. How fast are you going to be progressing with those XP penalties stacking up? Even Dark Souls, for all its lauded difficulty, doesn't have that much of a penalty. There, what the game is teaching you is "Don't hoard your souls". Spend them as you can, and you'll never have many to lose. And you can get your corpse back. Finally, and this is the really tough one, ask yourself how good do you think you are at this game? How much did you play Path of Exile? I see you have one level 100 character. Now try to look at the game through a new player's eyes. Someone who never played Path of Exile (which will true for the majority of PoE 2 players). Do you really think the brutal death penalties are going to help their enjoyment of the game? The game needs to be challenging. It doesn't need to be punishing. There is a difference. |
|
" What are those ARPG games for which it works so well? To me it sounds like you are comparing an ARPG to another genre of game and using this false comparison as an argument to remove a mechanic. Edit: Maybe I should not say ARPG. Maybe it would be better for me to say PoE like game. The term ARPG could be interpreted extremely broadly. So games where you have a character with the main focus on improving this characters equipment/passives/skills and obliterate tons of enemies over and over again. And optionally kill some pinnacle bosses. " Ok, for me there are two possibilities. 1) The player really gets the message by dying once or a few times. The player lowers the difficulty or improves their character. Good. Only a small XP loss. No big deal. XP loss can stay in the game. 2) The player does not get the message and keeps dying repeatedly without improving his character or adapting the difficulty. Here the XP penalty is needed in order to amplify the message the player is clearly not understanding. The message being: Improve your character or lower the difficulty. " Once again. I think you are just not understanding what type of game this is. Improving your build/character is the main activity. Everything evolves around this. Maps are here for farming. Not for challenges. A map is something you open to mindlessly farm currency/equipment for your build. If you want a challenge you attempt a pinnacle boss. Absolutely nobody says: I want a challenge. Lets open a map. If you die in 1 out of 4 maps, you most definitely are doing something wrong. I would expect to maybe die once in a 100 maps. Or maybe even less. " Me? I am a bad player. I am exceptionally bad at mechanics. That is why I play a game like PoE, or in my younger years Diablo 2. Because in these type of games you can overcome your own shortcomings as a player by simply farming better gear and out gearing the content you play. Some of the best players in PoE 1 can defeat pinnacle bosses with almost no gear and at level 50 or something, because they are just that good. For me these are a real challenge and I have to build a very strong character to have a chance. But it is doable. Do you think that just because there is a certain type of content in the game, that every single player is expected to clear it? Or just because there is a max level of 100 that every player is expected to reach it? If so, that is simply a misconception and we would have found the issue for this discussion. This is not a game like Dark Souls, Horizon Zero Dawn or something similar where you play through every bit of content on your first play through. Some good, dedicated new players might. But most players won't. It took me maybe 3 years before I killed my first real boss in PoE 1. I usually play the current league and at some point I simply lose interest for this league, stop playing and wait for the next league to start over. If I lose interest in mid tier maps, well then I won't see much of the endgame in that league. The only reason I have even this one level 100 character is because it was a goal of mine to get one. So I built a tankier character and was a bit more selective with the content I ran to get to 100 faster. Everything is player decision. Last edited by Avaricta#4758 on Dec 24, 2024, 2:45:23 AM
|
|
|
You just wrote that GGG can't remove the EXP penalty because people would demand to remove other stuff until they have a cheat system to spawn their items...
Nice idea... Did you ever hear that an argument can be turned around? Why is it okay to add more penalties and make it even harder but it's not okay to lower it? Right now we lose the Map, the Mod, the Orbs required for crafting the Map and last but not least the EXP. If I could pick one I would remove the EXP loss. See, it can go both ways. " PoE like most ARPG games are simple grind games. It's all about the grind. Orbs, EXP, Items... But being forced to grind in a location where I have not the slightest of challenge - just to not die and lose EXP - gets boring. Hence my question for the Devs in my initial post. What was their goal with the way they designed PoE and what is their goal for the EXP penalty. Yes, you do not open a Map because you want a challenge. Again: both ways. I want to farm shit WHILE having challenging gameplay. You said it yourself: "and out gearing the content you play" I simply refuse to believe that this was the intention of the developer once they came up with PoE. "Play content that's far below you level until you find items to play the content that's less far below your level to farm items to play content that's still below you level because there is no way to reach a point where it's safe to play content that's on an equal level because after farming so much content below your level you reach lv 90 and dying on lv 90 will waste days or weeks of the time invested." We are talking about standard, not season... At this point GGG could describe their game like: "You either have an OP build copied from someone else because as inexperienced ARPG player you can make a valid endgame build yourself due to our complexity and if you want to keep playing one character and finish leveling it, you have to run on levels that have no challenge at all" Would you even bother trying a game like this? Because that's what it currently is. 3 people from my steam friendlist stopped playing between lv 75 and 85. The reason for all of them is the EXP loss. Another one created his 3 character but is annoyed that he can't manage to get 1 character even remotely close to 90. And YES!!!!! He wouldn't get to 100 even without the EXP loss unless working on the character build. But he would still be encouraged to continue trying and farming. And if we run out of maps because we were dying to much we can always start to farm new maps or buy them from the vendor to craft them up or buy them from the market. So the cycle you love so much will come at one point or the other. Regardless if there is a EXP loss or not. And this is not an opinion. It's a solid fact you can't deny. And believe it or not but farming in a low level area without any chance to test your limit without losing tons of time invested doesn't do the trick. And while being able to test my limits after a level up, that's nothing that comes around every 2 days after a certain point. Imagine you have a life, job, family and can only spend 1-2 hours a day on the PC. Playing 12 low level no brainer maps for 2 hours doesn't do the trick either. For me, personally, the EXP loss is a heavy emotional trigger as I see my character grow with every attempt, every nice item, every orb I find, every skill I upgrade or change. Seeing my invested time go to waste because I want a some more challenging experience simply sucks. I want to farm... I want to farm hundreds of Maps. I could do this all day long if I have the time. The EXP per level can be increased 10 times - I don't mind. I would play a character to the end if I like it. And if I die a few times on a Tier 7 map I would automatically go back to tier 6. But once I beat like 10 tier 6 maps in a row I will try another tier 7. And once I upgraded enough to clear 20 Tier 7 maps I want to try tier 8. But I am simply not allowed to unless my build is bullet prove for this difficulty. But how can I know that it is? Keep farming low maps to level up and try one tier higher with 0% EXP? I just don't want the EXP go to waste for nothing. Last night I died in a Tier 5 map on a boss :-D It was my own fault... I became tired and fall into a split second sleep... I could laugh about it if there wasn't the EXP loss. This was my last Tier 5 Map. Now I have to run tier 3 maps or craft them up to Tier 4. That's fine for me. I hit "the obstacle" by not being able to continue tier 5 maps and I won't waste Tier 6 or 7 now. So I play 3 maps Tier 3 in the hopes I find some Tier 4 or even Tier 5 maps. This is the natural gameplay cycle I know from many other games that doesn't have such a harsh system of punishment. All I want is for the EXP penalty to go away as it causes to much stress. " I go as far and say one of the issue that require such a discussion are players like you who eat every shit they have been served. Sorry for the wording... I really don't want to offend you but this is the way you try to defend it. At what point would you say it's enough punishment? Losing an entire level on death? Losing Items from the inventory on death? Loosing items on your character on death? Losing random stuff from your storage on death? What does it require for you to complain about any punishment game mechanics? I mean you even defend the EXP Loss regarding game caused deaths due to bugs that basically exist for year and are not fixed. 1 hit kills with unreasonable damage were a thing in PoE 1 already. Since they copied large chunks of the source code, they also copied this bug. There are videos out on Youtube showing white basic monster 1 hit a lv 90+ character. No, not everyone expects to reach level 100.... I doubt that much more people will after the EXP loss is removed. But I am 100% sure many more people will spend much more time playing. This automatically mean more potential income from micromanagement. Like I said... I was about to toss 100 € in just 30 minutes before I learned that EXP loss is still a thing. So I do not spend more money because I know at some point I will get angry and stop playing again. And this makes me quite sad because I love the way PoE 1 and 2 are working. None of the ARPG I played getting close to PoE in terms of freedom and complexity but followed by this freedom and complexity comes the penalty to lose progress if you are not the perfect careful player who stick with out geared content rather than having some ACTION Role Play gaming experienced. |
|
|
XP Penalty needs to go, simple as that.
All the counter points posted so far are completely invalid. |
|
" Maps are not a challenge. Maps are not meant to be a challenge. If you try to misuse them as a challenge and then bear the consequences it is on you, not the game. You are trying to misuse a saw to loosen a screw. That is not what the tool was made for. You are trying to play the game as something it was not made to do. Someone else wrote that if they do not die in 1 out of 4 maps they do not consider it challenging. For PoE this is completely insane. You are not meant to die that often in maps. Maybe once in 100 maps would be ok, If you die more often then that you are doing something wrong. It is very simple. You improve your character, become stronger and farm more difficult content and farm faster. But not everybody can and should start right at the end. There is a progression and it starts at the beginning. But the game gives you freedom. You are free to do content that is above your characters capabilities. But then going to the forum crying to remove the penalties that are meant to prevent this is just a bad joke. " I assume you meant "can not"? This is simply not true. Even new players can make good endgame builds. Given, due to the complexity it is very difficult to do so. But the correct way to go about this is, when someone hits a wall, to take a pause, look at their character and try to improve it. Think what am I dying to, check resistances, check defenses like block, evade, try different things, ... There are many options for new players. They also could just look up a guide, but they are also capable of solving the issues themself if they want to. I mostly played Solo Self Found and avoided guides in the beginning. Because I wanted to try myself. In PoE 1 that is. It took me quite some time before I had a working build that could do higher tier maps. But playing SFF and also not looking at guides is a limitation everybody is free to put on themself to try to overcome the obstacles alone. Do you really think that the endgame should be balanced around the newest, most inexperienced players? " Then this type of game is simply not for them and they should try something else. For me the main issue, that also really annoys me, is that so many people just want a participation trophy. And that's what it is. Just give me free stuff without me trying to improve. |
|
" We all agree on this. Punishment is not necessary for progression. " Here's the crux of the issue: Why do you think it is a Bad Thing(tm) for players to try content above their level? How does it hurt the game for players to try to overcome a boss or a challenge time after time hoping they'll overcome it? This is the basis of most (almost all) challenging video games. One of the cool things about these games is setting up challenge runs, trying content you know you "shouldn't" beat but you overcome the odds and take them down. Punishments do not improve the player experience in any way. I'll also add on to another point - Since you have said you'd be asking for XP penalties if there were none, how about loss of items? That's another feature from those old school games. When you died, you lost all the items in your inventory. Surely that would give a heavy weightiness to the game and make your deaths matter. Why aren't you asking for that to be added? The truth is you don't like the idea that the "unwashed masses" will be able to do the same content you do and want them forcibly gatekept out. It can't be enough that the challenge of the game itself will keep players from progressing, no, it needs to force them backward and away from you. |
|
" The XP penalty is mostly effecting mapping. Mapping has absolutely nothing to do with challenge. Yet you keep mixing those two. Let's say someone wants a challenge. Ok good, do a pinnacle boss. You can either except the penalty if you fail or you can circumvent it. Simply level first in easier content. After the level up you can die as many times as you want, because the XP penalty does not remove a level. So just as an example if a character is level 60 and level 60 would be at (totally made up number) 4.000.000 XP then you would never be able to go below these 4.000.000 XP. Ergo dying without the XP penalty. The only time XP loss can really effect a player is during mapping. Because this is the core endgame loop and if they keep dying they won't level. Maps are not a challenge! If you keep dying in maps, you are doing something wrong! Lower the difficulty. I do not know how much clearer I can say this. " This can be said for bosses, but does absolutely not apply to maps. Maps are not a challenge to overcome. They are the core endgame loop you are supposed to farm for loot. " It serves as an additional way to signal the player that they are doing something wrong. When I read what you are typing, I would argue that the penalty needs to be increased tenfold. Maybe drop half the gold or something. Because you are clearly not getting the message. " Drop items like in Diablo 2, where you can run to your corpse and pick them back up, or your corpse spawns in town and you can pick it up? Yes sure. Permanently lost? I personally would argue against it. This seems too much like Hardcore. But you are trying to take a simple small XP loss, that is even limited to the lowest XP of the current level and compare it to something radical like loosing all your items. With this comparison you only want to drag this into ridiculousness. It is not a valid comparison. " Incorrect. Everybody can do the same content as I do. Like I said, I am bad at the game and can still do it. The difference may be that I listen to what the game tries to tell me and I try to improve my character. If someone keeps bashing their head against a wall and keep failing it is not on me or the game. It is simply on them. And apparently the penalty not being hard enough for them to understand that this should not be happening. That they should do something else. If they would listen to the games message, they would indeed progress. They simply choose to ignore the message and choose not to progress. Once again, maps or map tiers are not a challenge. They are a difficulty slider. Everybody can choose their difficulty. The game simply tries to tell you what difficulty fits the current state of your character. You are trying to change a game focused around grinding and improving your character to something else. |
|
|
"the game is telling you that you're too weak for that content bro, you just need to become stronger bro"
Oh really, well let me tell you that this is precisely what people was trying to do - become stronger BY LEVELING UP. Instead game making them weaker by stealing their experience. Btw waystones as a concept also shouldn't exist, garbage mechanic and waste of inventory space. |
|
" Are you even playing PoE 2 or just rambling about nothing of substance? The only lvl 100 character you have is an RF build. Your second highest character is a lvl 99 Necro with Minions. In fact, your most played build is Minions. Most of your other characters are below lvl 96. Apparently, you are such a god gamer that you mainly play Minions, the easiest playstyle there is. Even in PoE 2, I was much, much faster leveling a Warrior with (nerfed) Popcorn SRS + Arsonists than any other method, without any Minion passives. Get off your high horse and pick a better base to stand on. A Minion player talking shit to other people about death penalty is quite something, really. Gaming PC: Win 11, 7600X3D, RTX 4080, 32GB DDR5-6000 CL30, 7000 MB/s SSD, 850W, 3840x2160p 120Hz
Streaming PC: Win 11, i5-12400, RTX 4060, 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36, 7000 MB/s SSD, 450W, 1920x1080p 60Hz |
|
" I am usually against Facebook but at this point I wish to have a like button. Well said... I do not check others profiles in a discussion about fact as I try to debunk what they say. But with every new comment it appears that there is even less to debunk. :-D " Don't know what to reply to so I take the sum of your last comment. No, I don't! I love the grind... Show me a single sentence where I try to change the game into something. I like a feature to be changed or removed. If "EXP Loss" is the very essence of the game that would change it totally then you have lied to me yesterday... I asked you what would change for you and you simply complained that you reach lv 100 earlier. May you be so kind to tell me how this works? If you can't beat the content, but you keep playing it, you will not get loads of experience or items. So do you think it's worth wasting Maps ON PURPOSE to play content I know I can't beat what so ever? You act like I plan on run Tier 15 maps while my character so equipped for Tier 5 - No I don't want this... I claim nobody here wants this. Not a single soul who want's the EXP Loss removed, wants to play a Map he knows he can't win. That's what I would call common sense. If someone really thinks different, then his Brain damage also causes him to NOT CARE about EXP Loss. That's my thought about this. That said: nobody wants to run content he's not meant to run. We simply want to run content that's hard without getting punched in the face 4 times. Map, Atlas Mod, Orbs, EXP ... On PoE the baseline counter was "there need to be a punishment" ... On PoE 2 I say we have 4 punishments and I want the EXP loss gone. Everyone who hates the EXP loss would bare with me and accept this trade off in a blink of an eye. As for the maps that shouldn't be a challenge - sorry, it starts to get stupid from here on. The Map system is the very core system why I play PoE and not Grim Dawn. It's the very reason why I played Last Epoch. It's like generating my own dungeon in the Map of my liking (with limits due to RNG) It is the core of the game for me. Farming in dungeons to finish my character. And it is finished if I hit a wall I can't beat regardless of what I change. And if I die 100 Times in a Map tier after changing 100 of things in my skills then I have to accept that my character is simply not good enough. But if the last few bits of EXP to lv 91 or 92 would give me an important skillpoint, then I want to be able to reach this point by all means and maybe something changes. But at some point I can't do something else but accept that I am stuck with tier 12 maps and can't play tier 13 because I can't even finish one so I can't even afford to find or craft new once... This limit is reached quite fast depending on the build. So the difference between EXP Loss and Map loss is the one that something you earned is taken from while trying to take on a new challenge you and something you invest to try a new challenge. That's a totally different mindset. I don't want to invest my EXP... I want to invest my Orbs and Maps. Now you will stop reading and say out loud "MAPS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A CHALLENGE" ... Then what is? If 90% of the game time is playing Maps, then I like to play them the way I like to. And this means taking on a challenge every now and then WITHOUT loosing EXP. Here we have another reason why I would like to have one of the Devs or the Boss here on the forum. You claim the game is about improving but playing maps shouldn't be a challenge. I claim that playing maps is the very key I have to use to improve my playstyle or skills while facing a challenge. You can only get better if you play against better people. That#s the very essence of chess and basically all other kind of battles. What is it now? What is the very core of PoE? What is the real Idea behind EXP Loss or death penalty in general. I don't want to know what every one here thinks might be the reason. I want the intention of the one who implemented it. And if his reason is: "To F*ck you all over if you come to the forum and whine about it" then I accept it. It's their game and their rules. But Then I would ask why his enjoyment about us dying and complaining is more impotent for him than something the majority of the gamer wants to further enjoy the game. I really would like to talk to one of them about this topic... :-/ While it's fun to discuss with you guys. I don't care about your opinion directly. Positiv or negative. Because this discussion in general won't change anything. Sure a topic with a lot of traffic catches their attention but the forum times are over. ^^ Last edited by B1tchFight#1281 on Dec 24, 2024, 1:05:09 PM
|
|
