Death Penalty Adjustment Discussion

Anyone saying we should just remove the xp penalty either has their head in the sand, or has trouble understanding the logic behind why it exists.

It is simple why it exists, and that wall of text doesn't even list it.

It is there to incentivise certain behaviour, primarily that of not dying, of being careful, and of dying being a bad thing that you should be unhappy it occurred.


This is important. Games need to have a reason you want to 'not die' or else you end up in suicide for objectives city. Imagine if in Mario every time you died you just restarted right next to where you died, so you didn't ever have to repeat everything. That would just mean death is pointless, just mash your face into walls and enemies until it works.

Imagine if in final fantasy/pokemon/turn based combat system, anytime you lost a fight, it undid the last attack you did and you could try something else, then the second to last attack, so you could never lose fights and never have to strive to improve before fights or change tactics.

Imagine if in an FPS it autosaved the second before it shot you, so anytime you die you don't have to go through all the combat again, just the last second where you hit crouch, and then you live. You can just Rambo down the street and it will always let you continue as is.



Yes the above are all hyperboles, but they are to show a clear point that is being ignored by everyone who wants it to just be removed. A death penalty is there to make people want to NOT die. This is important.

While I don't disagree that there may be OTHER methods to encourage this behaviour, the goal is to make people want to NOT die, not to make them want to live. That means any other method NEEDS to also make people unhappy with dying, be it loss of gear, loss of orbs, loss of xp.

Wolf is 100% correct. Games without death penalties are boring as all hell.

I honestly don't understand how people can somehow be against death penalty. When there's no death penalty at all the game just becomes a matter of maximizing your DPS at all costs and then proceeding to throw your body at the enemy until it dies, like in Diablo 3. What's even the point? How can anyone enjoy that?

The game has a lot of flaws but death penalty sure as hell isn't one.


Also, I agree that 100 should be harder to attain.

<Removed by support> Not everyone is able to experience all facets of a game. I had a Batman game (based on the Keaton/Nicholson movie) for the NES. I could beat everything but the Joker, who was the final boss. I never beat the game. I didn't write to Nintendo (or whoever) to whine about how they made the Joker too hard, I simply tried to get good enough to beat him. I never did, and I'm okay with that because there are games I can beat that others can't.

I would not be surprised if there's a generation gap between myself and the OP, with the OP being in his late twenties at the latest. I grew up on Colecovision, Atari, and NES games where almost none of them saved (pretty sure none pre-NES did) which meant that you had to beat the game in one sitting without failing (assuming you didn't get infinite continues, which was generally the case). Which meant you had to be okay with failure and starting over if you didn't want to lose your marbles. Roguelikes are still hardcore: you die, you start over. And there was no standard league to migrate to in a roguelike.

The trend away from Game Over takes way too much out of the gaming experience, as Deankar says above, if success is inevitable, what's the point?

Death penalty must exist, game without penalty is crap, 10% is find bla bla bla
You all so much wise but didnt get the point of the 69 pages thread
Penalty is fine. Loosing 10% xp when you die desyncing - thats the whole point.. That is the problem. You need to run too many maps to get that 10% at high levels, and at high levels you die only on desync. So it needs to remove ducking desync. But ve know desync is gonna stay so there was made a thread to lower the penalty. Because desync. Get it?

Death penalty ABSOLUTELY must remain in place, but reasonable people can disagree about how high the % must be at 90+ to effectively achieve its purpose. I think a lower % at the highest levels would still be enough of a time/currency penalty to effectively force players to adapt their builds and playstyle just as they currently must do in order to continue leveling.

When I die at level 94 (which happens often because I suck XD) I lose ~3 hours of gameplay in theory assuming I'm running all 78 maps. In reality I'm not running all 78 maps and I don't play that many hours per day anymore, so I lose several days worth of play - deaths generally make me want to stop playing entirely rather than motivate me to get better. At levels 95+ that time/currency loss is obviously much higher. (These are just random anecdotal estimates, and only meant to illustrate the point in the next paragraph.)

If players were to lose even 1 hour of playtime from a death, I argue that would be enough of an incentive for them to adapt builds and avoid glass cannon casual playstyle (no casual player would put up with an hour of progress lost after every mistake!). Leveling to 100 would still take a masochist and way more time than is healthy. And I'm not even necessarily arguing the time lost should be limited to 1 hour, just less than however many hours are currently lost for a level 95+ toon. It could still be 2 or 3.

Point is, adjustments can be made that would in no way break the current system or make the game easier. Yes, they would make it SLIGHTLY less time consuming, but folks who don't die would still level to 100 in the same amount of time that it currently takes and it's not like the floodgates would somehow be opened if we only lost 5% of exp at level 99...

I think folks who want the penalty removed entirely don't understand how videogames work and are being spoiled and foolish. I think folks who believe easing the penalty will cause the death of hardcore PoE (in non-HC leagues, I guess) or will threaten the game's integrity, as Goetz (understandably) worries, are being a bit paranoid and misunderstand what level of penalty is necessary to achieve the desired result without driving away a lot of people who aren't in the game's core support group.

All that being said, I have a feeling they won't change it. And we should wait to see what Act 4 has in store regarding endgame content anyway.

After having a long debate with friend of mine about death penalty, I have come to different conclusion that I used to have:
- Death penalty should remain as it is on temp leagues

Temp leagues are competitive, and they should remain that way - plain and simple.

- Death penalty SHOULD NOT remain at Standard

We have legacies there anyways, so it is not like we're talking about any level of competitive thing going on on Standard. People there might as well just slowly progress to their beloved 100. This does not matter, because Standard is not balanced anyways. A lot of people would enjoy playing without the annoying bit called death penalty, and no damage would be done to competitive element, because there is no such element on Standard. There is no point keeping it there.

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Perq wrote:

After having a long debate with friend of mine about death penalty, I have come to different conclusion that I used to have:
- Death penalty should remain as it is on temp leagues

Temp leagues are competitive, and they should remain that way - plain and simple.

- Death penalty SHOULD NOT remain at Standard

We have legacies there anyways, so it is not like we're talking about any level of competitive thing going on on Standard. People there might as well just slowly progress to their beloved 100. This does not matter, because Standard is not balanced anyways. A lot of people would enjoy playing without the annoying bit called death penalty, and no damage would be done to competitive element, because there is no such element on Standard. There is no point keeping it there.

+1

Debates like this scare me. The total lack of willingness from either side of the coin to understand the other shows a lack of respect and a lack of empathy. Advocates of the penalty will generally tell the side that wants it gone to sod off and usually in a rude tone, accompanied by many a nicely put equivalent of 'lel u scrub', while those that want to see the penalty gone don't seem to understand that for many of the players it is a vital part of the experience.

Now, while I understand that PoE is GGG's game and it is as they seem it fit to be and that's all up to them etc etc, it's never good for any community to have a topic split the audience in half and giving way to heated debates. It means that you end up with no one being satisfied: many of the advocates would like the penalty more harsh, many of the dislikers want it gone as a whole.

Scores of the more 'harcore' (I hate that word. It's a title too vague and should never be a reward for skill but for dedication) players just shrug and advice the dislikers to find another game. Now, imagine if all players that want the penalty gone stopped playing tomorrow. Would that help the game you love in any way? Would GGG sigh in relief while their income dwindles just because 'those that remain are getting along just peachy'? And the other side of the coin, do those that want the penalty gone really to limit the enjoyment of the advocates, with possibly the same result?

I feel that GGG should step in here and try to find a middle ground. Why not make a permanent league without penalty? Those that want to do so can play there, eventually get to 100, and it would never lower the achievement of the players that get to 100 in other leagues, because everyone would know wether or not they got it by not dying or by being persistent. Problem solved, I'd say.

The answer is simple. Don't die. If you're a hardcore player you should easily avoid it right? and accept your penalty and lost with dignity when it happens. At least this is how I undestand what "hardcore player" means. But apparently in POE a hardcore player only means grinding the same content 24/7 again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Until your mind turns off.

If you're feeling stressed as you said when you are level >85 or whatever stop playing. Seriously. Because this is a game, not a job. It's not a bad drug. You don't need to reach level 100. My highest character is 90 and I will never going to repeat the insane amount of required stupid grinding and farming again because I'm not "hardcore" enough. Thanks god.