The -15% exp penalty is obnoxiously bad outdated design.

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Undon3 wrote:

This would be a better system. I don't see any reasons a lvl 80+ char should lose an entire day of gameplay or more on death, while a lvl 60 can recuperate a death on the same difficulty level in 30 minutes.

Such an unbalanced against higher levels system leads to basically the same type of gaming at high levels in both leagues, as the death in softcore is so costly you need to avoid it by all means.

Because risk also grows just like difficulty, the way it is supposed to be.
I don't get why some of you insist so hard not to understand basics, yet fail miserably.

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Undon3 wrote:

Because risk also grows just like difficulty, the way it is supposed to be.
I don't get why some of you insist so hard not to understand basics, yet fail miserably.

Are you sure it is "us" that fail miserably to understand the basics rather than you?

If risk increases, the rewards should as well.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Rewards are the same or in current game state you get far less rewards than the effort to level up. There is no new content to beat. You can get the same items as lvl68 or lvl80.
It just that every death while you are lvl80 will cost you day's work as someone stated while lvl68 can easily get those 15% back in matter of hour or two.

The whole problem is a combination of flat % penalty, progressively larger experience required to level up and the diminishing exp returns from existing content/static areas. Lvl60 can easily go back to Fellshrine in Act2 Merciless to get those 15% in matter of minutes. Lvl75+ have nowhere to go to get those 15% under 2 hours or so.

There are other implications that were posted by Jakabov, great post, I suggest you read it if it is not too long for you.

It's only 'outdated' because too many whiny young gamers don't understand the concept of games actually being hard and punishing you for screwing up. This sort of design used to be common. Go play NES Battletoads for a day before you come back on my lawn. - shakes cane -

The design is fine, if you want a game where you can die twenty times with no ill effects, go back to D3.

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Baron01 wrote:

If risk increases, the rewards should as well.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Rewards are the same
There is no new content to beat. You can get the same items as lvl68 or lvl80.

no.

prefixes and suffixes on items rely on itemlevels. means you need items from higher levels for these to appear.

and some uniques only drop in very high monster/area levels.

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BrecMadak wrote:

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Undon3 wrote:

This would be a better system. I don't see any reasons a lvl 80+ char should lose an entire day of gameplay or more on death, while a lvl 60 can recuperate a death on the same difficulty level in 30 minutes.

Such an unbalanced against higher levels system leads to basically the same type of gaming at high levels in both leagues, as the death in softcore is so costly you need to avoid it by all means.

Because risk also grows just like difficulty, the way it is supposed to be.
I don't get why some of you insist so hard not to understand basics, yet fail miserably.

Difficulty is called Merciless, it stays the SAME. If difficulty increases, great, just like from Cruel to Merciless.
I don't get why some of you insist so hard on not understanding the basics of a proper difficulty/reward system and also FAIRNESS, failing miserably at this job. Very puzzling to me.

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Baron01 wrote:

If risk increases, the rewards should as well.

No, they don't. You should be getting stronger and should die less often. You should get punished harder for dying at a higher level. Period.

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Baron01 wrote:

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Rewards are the same or in current game state you get far less rewards than the effort to level up. There is no new content to beat. You can get the same items as lvl68 or lvl80.
It just that every death while you are lvl80 will cost you day's work as someone stated while lvl68 can easily get those 15% back in matter of hour or two.

Shouldn't be dying at level 80.... suck it up and keep on going or move to a different game.

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Baron01 wrote:

The whole problem is a combination of flat % penalty, progressively larger experience required to level up and the diminishing exp returns from existing content/static areas. Lvl60 can easily go back to Fellshrine in Act2 Merciless to get those 15% in matter of minutes. Lvl75+ have nowhere to go to get those 15% under 2 hours or so.

and this is exactly how it should be. When you die at level 60 in Merciless its not a big deal, but you shouldn't be dying at high levels... seems to be perfectly balanced to me.

If you want meaningless death penalties go play a different game. If you want to reach high levels in PoE, I suggest not dying.

While I do agree that flat % exp penalty on death is a bad design, it does have its purpose: to discourage people from death-running. The other option I can think of is the option from Guild Wars: reduce the amount of exp gained and have it stack up to a certain level depending on the difficulty. That way your progress isn't just for nothing, and it also makes it so that you don't completely need to reroll if you screw your build, but rather it gives you the opportunity to keep moving on at a slower pace (and it allows you to contemplate where you screwed up LOL, back on topic now). This is a much nicer way of achieving the same effect as the amount of experience you would have lost, is lost in potential experience. Either way you are losing the same amount of exp, except one way doesn't completely lock you down out of leveling.

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thepmrc wrote:

You should get punished harder for dying at a higher level. Period.
Shouldn't be dying at level 80.... suck it up and keep on going or move to a different game.

Who told you that you should get punished harder at a higher level? Where did you come from this concept? Masochistic tendencies?

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thepmrc wrote:

you shouldn't be dying at high levels... seems to be perfectly balanced to me.

Yes, the game is so perfectly balanced indeed. The game is clearly a Beta, it lacks exactly balance, acknowledged by devs&mods here.

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thepmrc wrote:

If you want meaningless death penalties go play a different game

This is the single response I see thrown in this forum over and over again. Well, what do you know. People other than you are here to play PoE, and here to stay for as long as they feel like it, even as you hate this fact
.
I am reminding ALL of you that throw this "go away" stuff that if you love PoE, you should wish for as many users, so the devs are properly rewarded for their hard work, with money and recognition. So desiring to put PoE in the bubble again for your own interests is SELFISH and self-benefiting. If GGG would have wanted, the game would have remained in closed state forever - yet it didn't. Closed Beta kept PoE in a bubble. This is not the case any longer. The team acknowledged the changing realities by welcoming feedback. Simple as that. From now on, the road will be one of compromise (not in quality, but in how the balance is handled), regardless if you desire it or not.

I think part of the problem here is that the community is split into two types:
1) Default (scrubcore) players like myself and others who do not like the idea of losing hours and hours of invested time from a death at high level.

2) Hardcore players who think that this is the dumbest thing in the world to complain about.

While this mechanic is far more aligned with player type #2 than #1. This creates an odd situation where the people who don't care about it don't have to (since they can play HC), but the people who do care about it have no option but to play in giant parties or grind out levels to substantially outlevel all the content.

I think that the penalty is a bit too harsh - I will not play solo because of it. However, I do think there should be some sort of meaningful death penalty, just not one quite so potentially costly. Merciless is already more difficult than cruel, without needing to rely on extra punishment to make it so.

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Undon3 wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

You should get punished harder for dying at a higher level. Period.
Shouldn't be dying at level 80.... suck it up and keep on going or move to a different game.

Who told you that you should get punished harder at a higher level? Where did you come from this concept? Masochistic tendencies?

Nobody had to tell me, I played D2 and understand why it is balanced this way. Being on the top of the ladder takes time AND skill. If you die a lot you are not going to get there. The amount of deaths you have should go down as you level up in Merciless. Less deaths = less XP loss. If you are still dying as much in the 70's as you were at 50 than it is going to take you much longer to level up.

This game was intelligently designed. It was not designed for instant gratification. If you actually thought about why the penalty was in place without predetermined bias than you may be able to comprehend it. However, I understand that this attitude is prominent in gaming today. You feel that you deserve to level up to max level and get great gear just for playing, but that is not how this game works and I LOVE IT FOR THIS FACT.