Pros and Cons - Death Penalty

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ghoulavenger wrote:

Disproportionately bad once you're level 90+.

honestly, i don't really think this is a con. there seems to be a lot of good reason for it to taper off the way it does, especially in terms of the skill tree.

the extra 12 base life/level and passives infer the character/build should be stronger. ergo, it should be less likely to die/xp penalty should be more significant.

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robmafia wrote:

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ghoulavenger wrote:

Disproportionately bad once you're level 90+.

honestly, i don't really think this is a con. there seems to be a lot of good reason for it to taper off the way it does, especially in terms of the skill tree.

the extra 12 base life/level and passives infer the character/build should be stronger. ergo, it should be less likely to die/xp penalty should be more significant.

The last 10-15 or so levels generally do not make a build able to do any additional content. With a few exceptions of course depending on your build. The last burst of power is mostly in gearing options, so I'm going to disagree with you.

i wasn't talking about enabling content, but generally speaking... every 2-3 levels past 86ish tends to equal another jewel slot or notable passive.

so more jewels/notables and base life... one better be more likely to survive, either via dps, tankiness, or both. otherwise, they're just not learning/using a bad build, etc.

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robmafia wrote:

i wasn't talking about enabling content, but generally speaking... every 2-3 levels past 86ish tends to equal another jewel slot or notable passive.

so more jewels/notables and base life... one better be more likely to survive, either via dps, tankiness, or both. otherwise, they're just not learning/using a bad build, etc.

Based on my experience, not really. The extra life you get isn't enough to survive a one shot if your build wasn't already capable of surviving the one shot. More damage doesn't necessarily help either, since the game is already in path of one shot meta. Even bad builds can one shot things. But in both of those cases, really better gear makes more of a difference at that point.

no one should really be getting one shot, though.

generally speaking, all that should one-shot is highly telegraphed. ie: vaal/dominus/malachai slams. glass cannons aside, but they have a different strategy...

as for better gear - that's the point. more damage nodes/jewels (generally life or es and 3 increased damage) make gear upgrades all the more stronger.

one truly should be dying less, the stronger one's char is. this should be rather indisputable.

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robmafia wrote:

no one should really be getting one shot, though.

generally speaking, all that should one-shot is highly telegraphed. ie: vaal/dominus/malachai slams. glass cannons aside, but they have a different strategy...

as for better gear - that's the point. more damage nodes/jewels (generally life or es and 3 increased damage) make gear upgrades all the more stronger.

one truly should be dying less, the stronger one's char is. this should be rather indisputable.

Better gear doesn't require more levels. A jewel or two isn't enough to make or break a build. As far as getting one shot, yes, it's mostly telegraphed stuff, volatile blood, boss hits. Sometimes it's a map with crit multi and a mob with powerful crits. Sometimes it's actually getting chunked by stuff you should have avoided anyway (such as flamebearers). My point still stands, stuff that is meant to kill you will kill you regardless of a couple extra levels.

When a build is complete (usually between level 85-90) only better gear will really improve the character in any significant way. Either that or an entirely different build (not all builds are equal). Would it were that levels were the determinant factor then maybe more people would make the push for level 100. But that is another topic aside from the death penalty.

you're strawmanning words into my mouth.

i never said "A jewel or two isn't enough to make or break a build" - and i never implied such.

i said it should make chars stronger and that the stronger a char is, the less it should die/be less likely to die.

and getting "chunked" is not getting one-shot, so i have no idea why you lumped it in with it. btw, there are plenty of ways to avoid getting "chunked" - block, dodge, leech, lgoh, life/es on block...

it is funny that you're arguing that additional jewels isn't a significant help while arguing that "only better gear will really improve the character in any significant way" - what do you think jewels are?

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robmafia wrote:

you're strawmanning words into my mouth.

i never said "A jewel or two isn't enough to make or break a build" - and i never implied such.

i said it should make chars stronger and that the stronger a char is, the less it should die/be less likely to die.

Depends on the situation and on the build. Everything I referenced, better gear AND levels wouldn't be enough to save you.

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robmafia wrote:

and getting "chunked" is not getting one-shot, so i have no idea why you lumped it in with it. btw, there are plenty of ways to avoid getting "chunked" - block, dodge, leech, lgoh, life/es on block...

When you get chunked by flamebearers, you don't have time to hit a flask or regen through lgoh etc. I'm not entirely certain that you can block/dodge flamebearers, but that would be the only real defense against them if you could. I referenced flamebearers and chunking specifically because they are mechanics that can only be easily survived by avoiding them entirely. Gear, jewels and levels would not save you from that. Are there situations you could survive getting hit by flamebearers? Yeah, if you only got hit by one, or the pack was ridiculously small you might stand a chance (I tend to find them on large packs of swarmers myself which would insta-gib my 8k life character pretty easily).

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robmafia wrote:

it is funny that you're arguing that additional jewels isn't a significant help while arguing that "only better gear will really improve the character in any significant way" - what do you think jewels are?

In terms of jewels:

Well, regular jewels much like passives scale what you have. Often times jewels of this kind are worse than passives unless you got them in 2 nodes or less, or you got perfect 4 stat jewels. Which means you probably wouldn't be reaching for a jewel slot in the late game for this type of jewel.

Abyss jewels you have a stronger argument for since they add flat stats. But adding an abyss jewel or two will not compensate for a complete lack of gear, and this also could be OTHER abyss jewels. And if you're stacking such jewels, chances are you don't really NEED more of them anyway. Back in the day this practice was called tooltip warrioring. Since the stats don't really affect your gameplay at all anymore and only serve to improve the size of your tooltip. It is a bit of a perjorative, because such people were usually accused of flexing their e-peen.

So yes, you could theoretically improve your character by adding a jewel, even in the late levels. But not enough to save you from death, and most likely they were unnecessary for damage too. Think of it this way, 5% inc life when you already have 200% inc life is not a substantial boost. Neither is 10% inc damage when you have already have 300%+.

So let me go back and restate the point for clarity: Allocating more skill points in the passive tree in the later levels is not going to allow you to do additional content. Your build should already be fully functioning by the time you hit level 85-90 (so any content you were going to be able to do, you should be able to do by this point, shaper, uber elder etc). So the extra levels don't really add a whole lot to your survivability or to your damage -- although you got a point, if you're a life build, you do get a few life every level, a level 100 character might have 300 more life because of it (12 life * 200% life * 10 levels = 240 extra life). Better gear might, but more likely a better build in general.

well, i didn't think the death penalty was a bad thing.

then i went and played diablo 3 for a bit....where there is no death penalty....and i have to admit....i really liked there not being a death penalty.

maybe some moderation. i liked what they did in EQ2. instead of losing xp, the death penalty was slower xp gain until you worked off your death penalty.

so, for example, if you were 70% of the way through a level, and you died 7 times, you would still be 70% of the way through the level, but your xp gain would be significantly reduced for a while until you worked off the red line.

i think the death penalty does suck some of the fun out of the game for me, but i understand some people like the risk factor too.

another thing a friend of mine suggested is having safe points through the level that you don't drop below, every quarter level or so. So if you're at 65 and die, you don't fall below 50% regardless of how many times you die.

Another thing I hate about the xp death penalty is how it prevents me from doing risky content until I have just leveled.


For example I'm 91 3/4 , at my pace I have for at least 2-3 hours(which mean 1-2 days of play at 1-2h a day) to level to 92 and I'm bit fed up of running map. I have that beautiful Uber Atziri set and the Pale council set.


Presently I would like to try those and I think I'll be able to kill them both but I know I might die 1-2 times because it my first attempt on a melee in both case because I'm aware of the challenge and the risk.


So in the end I'm just waiting to level up and try it with ZERO drawback. But you know what ??? I barely played in 2 weeks because of that :P


I think the number a portal might also be a solution as a punishement because for me when doing a one portal zana stuff , I find it thrilling cause I have to choose what to bring back and one dead and its game over no access anymore to the map or the boss. I think there are some thinking that can be done here with using portals as a way to punish player. ( And I thought that was actually somewhat the plan by limiting them)

Because to me the xp death as a penalty is the lazy way of doing it :)