Personally i would suggest something like making a reduction to your xp gained for the next % of your total xp to reach the next level. Showing up like rested Xp on the bar, that gives you reduced xp gain rate until you've passed it. I should not stack. That means players can die all they want on the same boss for no added penalty, it removes one of the most frustrating elements of poe also - the setback on death and loss of currency and maps. Those who die a lot wont be competing for number 1 spot anyway, so who cares about their softcore xp, why if they put in the time shouldn't they be able to reach 100? Why punish them to add nothing to the game?
Anyways.. it's too late now... even if GGG started fixing these annoying frustrating bad systems that they are famous for, it would be too little too late and they would just not feel the positive result from doing that for the players - in turn leading to confusion and misunderstanding. The ship has already sailed no amount of small fixing will alter anything core to the game, nor alter the judgement of the community this late.
2.0 was the resurgence, poes chance to rebrand itself but it continued its path as it will also now.
I am the light of the morning and the shadow on the wall, I am nothing and I am all.
Hi, I don't like the exp loss thing also but it kind of makes sense. If there would be none you probably wouldn't invest in any defensive nodes or gear. Although I agree some sort of a penalty on death is needed I don't particularly like the current one especially at higher levels.
My suggestion would be to just implement a mechanic which would reduce the death xp loss after level let's say 75-80 because this is where leveling starts to get more difficult. 2% or at least 1% every 5 consecutive levels would soften the frustration. Since I really feel for the people who somehow die because of lag, or dc or maybe of a huge dmg spike who spend hours to get 10%, I personally think this change would be a welcome experience. Gear and defensive ability check is still there and a penalty is still there but it's not as severe at higher levels.
One more suggestion that I have would be to rework the system so that it would subtract 10% of your current xp and not total. Would it be so game breaking to add something like this to the game?
The current penalty fails its purpose badly : it doesn't do its job properly when it matters the most, then suddenly becomes a brick wall for anyone who is willing to take any risk.
1) In cruel and merciless, where it should stop you and force you to reconsider bad choices you made, it has no effect whatsoever, because players can simply zerg through whatever content they don't manage, and get the missing experience a few areas later. There's nothing stopping them from getting to the maps with a really bad build, they just have to zerg enough.
2) In maps, if you care about leveling, it pushes you out of any difficult content. You don't even attempt anything hard anymore. I used to try all map bosses at the beginning, now I'll just skip anything I'm not 100% sure I can kill without dying once. Malformation Piety? I tried her once, just to see how hard she was, and now I won't come close to her ever again. I almost failed to see my Arc build had become strong enough to deal with Dominus without any risk, because I was too scared to even go check him. And I would skip the Vaal Rain of Arrows chicken too if I hadn't devised a 100% safe strategy against him.
Why?
I mean, pushing for a much more punishing system without bringing in any argument as to why it should be this way just feels like a huge troll. Would you happen to not be a dinosaur?
the thing is that GGG said several times that its not intended for players to reach level100 at all, at least that was their plan in the beginning.
so yes it will take alot of time and currency to get to level 100, thats how it has to be. if you cant play without dieing or dont wanna spend that much time then dont level to 100. set your own max level, may it be 85 90 or 95.
and yeah i_no i get what you mean, its like ultima online but thats an mmo with a persistent world and there you could at least get looted by other players, which makes it alot interesting and also more sense. in poe it wouldnt be such a good solution, coz as already mentioned by others, you could lose alot by gamefaults. if u died in UO coz of a disconnect you still could reconnect and recover your stuff.
We see threads like this created or bumped multiple times a week, and the same handful of people post extensively in each one, burying the OP with declarations that the death penalty is fine. But you can't sit there with a straight face and say it's fine when we continue to receive so many complaints about it.
To the upper echelon of players representing the greatest forum voice (top 10%, i.e. anyone consistently running mid-upper tier maps), the death penalty is probably almost universally viewed amongst this group as being fine at lower levels, where XP loss from a death might equate to 5 minutes or less of lost progression. However, only a much smaller portion of this group (top 1% or less) have actually experienced the death penalty in the extremely punishing range (level 95-100), where a death removes multiple ex worth of maps and a day or more of progression.
The scaling of the penalty is problematic. To me it's only absurd at the 95-100 range, but I suspect the progression loss can begin to feel overly punishing to the non-upper echelon of players at a lower level. In fact, I suspect it's one of the reasons why we see such a large % of the player base cease leveling goals so early.
In addition to negatively impacting the motivation to level, the severity of the death penalty when scaled at 95-100 has a strong, and arguably negative, influence on behavior and build design. If/when the penalty begins to feel too punishing, players will begin to opt out of challenging content in order to level (fundamentally hampering their own enjoyment of the game). Furthermore, players who are dead set on reaching the highest level will exclusively seek out build designs that eliminate any risk of death - this may even impact non-upper echelon players, who theory craft a 100 viable build and get bored playing it.
The oft lauded solution to the death penalty of "don't die" is exactly the problem, because of what "don't die" does to gameplay and build design. When a single death eliminates 40 consecutive maps and 8 hours of playtime, the only choice for someone aiming to reach 100 is, indeed, not to die. Ultimately this pigeon holes players into playing one out of a tiny number of very safe but incredibly boring builds. GGG is basically encouraging players aiming to reach 100 to suck the fun out of the game by selecting a build that has no risk of death (and hence, no excitement, no tense moments, no room for skill/twitch based gameplay). The only real challenge is overcoming the boredom and monotony to grind to 100 in a sleepfest build. I can't see this as being good for the game, and the fact that after a couple years we still have under 500 level 100's on standard (along with Chris's recent statement that map changes only target 10% of the player base) suggests there's a problem with retaining/engaging the player base in prolonged leveling.
I'm not sure what the best solution is, or if changes to the death penalty would even improve engagement of the non-upper echelon. But improvements to build diversity and willingness to attempt challenging content could definitely be made for the 10% by adjusting how the death penalty scales. GGG could cap the XP penalty to what a player would lose at a particular level (i.e. instead of keeping it at 10% of 99, it would cap at 10% of 90, or 85, or whatever level GGG feels is sufficiently punishing without negatively impacting behavior and design). Even so, deaths at 95-100 could still be too punishing because experience is harder to come by, due to the level difference penalty. One way around that is to cap/lower the level difference penalty and raise the XP requirements for each level (then if the XP penalty was capped to what a player would lose at a particular level, the progression lost would be more consistent).
Alternatively, GGG could look at penalties in addition to or in lieu of XP loss (such as a stacking IIR/IIQ penalty affecting the zone itself, so you can't simply wait it out). One of the issues I have with the current death penalty is that there's effectively no added penalty for players who aren't trying to level. It gives a free pass to IIR/IIQ farmers, speed runners, characters who are already level 100 who go yolo farm mode, and bots (which die a lot).
your premise is wrong.
Don't die can equally apply to a fun build, it only requires more focus and dedication.
But most of the times, in return, you will get faster experience (since most of the time = fun build = dps canon style)
Nothing dictates a player cannot level to 100 with a glass canon build if his observation and reactionary skills are matching his expectations of the content he is in.
In the old map system i ran 77 shrines with 140% on a 2800 hp ranger, deathless without issue's. She would get insta shrekt though if i played her when i am sleepy or not up to it.
A 100% tank build is only utilized to enable progression without much difficulty, that doesn't imply you can't make progression with difficulty.
Peace,
-Boem-
And your 2800 hp ranger made it to what level? (It's not on the ladder, so it's below 92).
Not a single 100 got there using a glass cannon build. Not one. Of course it's technically feasible, but in a practical sense the deathless consecutive performance requirement is simply too high to use anything but a very safe build, especially given that the baseline grind itself generally requires no-life dedication, which means leveling in a sleepy state.
If you died once every ~40 77 shrines, it would take around 4000 of them to go from level 99 to 100 (~11% per ~40). That's a cost of about 1000ex. But no one is going to continue playing a build that only progresses 1% after 8 hours of dedicated mapping. So again, in a practical sense, the current minimum performance standard is well over twice that. This really restricts build options, no matter how you spin it.
[and actually, it was a little over 40 78 maps to gain 11% at 99 before GGG dropped the effective level from 78 to 77.7, so using the ~40 77 deathless shrines as a minimum performance standard (which are now 76.9) is being conservative].
It's my lvl 89 ranger actually, just checked my character list.
"Joanaskinfullospromise"
And that character is from the 1-week SFL league. (i don't play permanent league's)
So that character was running 77/78 maps with 120% in the old mapping system, with self-found gear and got to lvl 89.8 in the time period of 1 week.
Anything else?
Skill and observation is the only limitation a character has if he's not playing what you call a "100% tank" to avoid danger.
Peace,
-Boem-
edit : something being considered impractical by you doesn't mean it is not possible or not an option.
edit2 :
"
HeroOfExile wrote:
i guess any "its fine" guys never had a char above 90.
Feel free to check my character list, my profile has never been hidden. Then imagine roughly 40+ chars deleted between lvl 80-90.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
Last edited by Boem#2861 on Oct 15, 2015, 7:05:23 AM
