GGG, this is not difficulty — it's disrespect
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I've been playing Path of Exile for years. I love challenging games. I love depth. I love theorycrafting and failing because I made a mistake. What I don’t love is being punished for things I cannot reasonably anticipate, react to, or counter — and that's where PoE has gone completely off the rails lately.
Let me be blunt: PoE's current death mechanics are not difficult. They're disrespectful. The core issue: massive penalties, unjustified deaths One-shots are everywhere, often without clear telegraphing or counterplay. "On death" effects are spammed like confetti — exploding monsters, chain reactions, persistent degen zones, all overlapping. 10% XP loss on death still exists, even though the causes of death have become increasingly chaotic and untrackable. At high levels, that XP loss represents hours of careful, often boring, grinding. Losing it to a random explosion from a monster you already killed? That's not "hardcore", it's garbage design. Death should be a learning experience — not a slap in the face In a good ARPG: Death teaches you something. You die because of your build, your gear, your strategy, or your bad reflexes. You understand what happened and why. In PoE today: -> You die in a millisecond to a combo of mods you couldn't even read. -> Or from an off-screen projectile barrage while clearing. -> Or because a monster explodes after death and you had no visual cue or warning. This is not "skill expression". It's a slot machine with consequences. The current design philosophy feels completely disconnected It honestly feels like the people designing these mechanics: * Don't play the game in realistic conditions. * Don't level characters to 100 without GM powers. * Don't care about the actual time investment of players. You cannot design a game with permanent XP penalties while throwing in unavoidable deaths and random modifiers. That’s not challenge — that's disrespecting your player base. Solutions exist — and they're not even that radical If GGG wants to regain trust from long-time players, here are a few directions: - Scale or cap XP death penalty — for example, only apply it past level 95, or reduce it if death was caused by "on-death" effects. - Improve visual/audio telegraphs — don’t make monsters silently explode or apply stacking DoTs without clear feedback. - Nerf synergy stacking of monster mods — certain combinations are simply broken. - Add a proper death log — so players can understand what killed them and how to avoid it. PoE players are not afraid of difficulty. We embrace it. But we want fair, transparent, learnable difficulty — not the roulette wheel we’ve had in recent leagues. Punishing people for playing your game — especially when that punishment is due to poor design, not poor play — is a guaranteed way to burn out your most loyal players. Last bumped on Jul 8, 2025, 12:26:51 PM
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" Interesting. I have all of that on SSF HC. Last edited by Zagzuatl#6861 on Jun 26, 2025, 10:34:50 AM
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the thing that causes the most deaths this league is mercenarys
so far ive died 277 times in which about 250 ive died to mercenarys you cannot protect yourself against them besides just simply not interacting with them but they have currency you want and than they just one shot you. |
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I am really curious what OP thinks Fourth Vow does on his build other than disable the life mastery.
Last edited by Scarletsword#4354 on Jun 26, 2025, 10:48:40 AM
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I just equipped it today, was to test the gem setup.
I didn't remove it before quitting the game. I know the 3% life regen cuts the mastery but on blood aqueduc i didn't need the hp... Last edited by Ashandaar#3743 on Jun 26, 2025, 12:40:09 PM
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" You can still learn before dying (duh!). It's a recurring problem with many people posting here that the game is too difficulty. You have outdated (or lack of) knowledge about what is essential in the current PoE 1. You haven't capped chaos res, your 3.8k life as a melee character is simply not enough, you don't use spell suppression or block, no rage or charges, or other efficient ways to boost your survivability/dps. Where is your ailment avoidance? Your phys dmg reduction is only 42%. You've wasted a lot of passive points for nothing (over 250 Int on a melee char is usually nonsense). That's why your dps sucks, and your experience with the game is bad. |
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Spoiler
" Even though I agree on a lot of things you said here - some arguments don't hold up when looking at your league character's defenses in POB (Path of Building) - given it roughly has 14.7K EHP (effective hit pool). A normal monster could probably one shot you with that if they crit on a T1 map. Same for physical 6.3K - and only 8.7K armor... at lvl 92... while you take chaos damage based on armor with The Fourth Vow... probably not the best defenses you have there. Don't get me wrong though - things like the exp penalty, on death effects, and a serious over tuned league mechanic now (mercs) that one-shot you is bad indeed. That said - there are plenty of ways to build up your defenses and protect yourself from a lot of those effects and one-shots. Are building those extra layers of defense easy, not really this league... a lot of gear is quite expensive this league; most likely due to servers issue... that affects the supply and demand of certain items. Does path of exile require a PHD in Path of Building to fix any build's defenses - it probably does. Lucky for us there are plenty of content creators that do it for us; plenty of fun defenses builds out there with relative low investment required. Want to make your own builds; that's perfectly fine - it will come with a steep learning curve and A LOT trail and error to make a build work though. A couple rage quits would probably also still be deemed "normal" when making your own builds. TLDR; yes POE needs some QOL love in defenses and a healthy dose of creativity in enemy combat design. Still 80% is simply the build's we play/make s*** (without investment). |
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" Last edited by Ashandaar#3743 on Jun 26, 2025, 4:14:36 PM
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Classic post....
Complains that there are 1hkos everywhere and the game is unfair One peek at character: zero defenses beyond armour (with no determination?!) Well done OP. The disrespect is on the other side: you are given defenses to use to STOP the 1hkos, and you choose not to use them. And then you have the gall to complain about dying? Starting anew....with PoE 2 Last edited by cowmoo275#3095 on Jun 26, 2025, 6:22:54 PM
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I read the thread title, and genuinely thought this was going to be something completely different.
I've got friends quitting because this is the easiest the game has ever been... that's the part that feels disrespectful. GGG is condescending to us with this league mechanic. |
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