Softcore is not softcore

While I strongly disagree about removing the exp penalty on death, this game is hard- much harder than it was before open beta (even for veteran players). I can understand the OP's frustration as it's been a rough ride for my own chars as well. The difference is I have the experience to know when my character is strong enough to progress and when it's not. It just takes more work to succeed now.

There needs to be consequences for player death. Otherwise players could zerg their way though the game dying over and over in the same fights until the right combination of luck and attrition results in squeaking them through.

I loathe to say it, but some farming is necessary to progress in cruel, and especially in merciless. A solid build AND solid gear is required now in higher difficulties.

I'll leave the debate about balance issues to another thread.

There are balance issues for sure. If someone argues with that then he is out of his mind. One example is evasion builds. I have yet to see a working evasion build in higher difficulties, since life is just plain better, it takes away from build diversity. But there were glasscannon builds in every game which focused on killing the enemy before it has a chance to attack. Of course it has its risks and thus penalties. There should be more defensive skills available for everyone which would make glass Cannondale available also the damage should be reduced of every character so tank builds would still be a good way.

And someone mentioned D3 build diversity? I mean.... You serious? There are 5 classes with the following builds available if you want to play high difficulties to have a 0,00000000001% chance of a worthy drop:
Wizard - cm ( arcon won't work on high diff)
Barb - hota, ww
WD: Zdogs, poisond
Monk -tempest rush,one more i dpnt remember the name
Dh- two builds

So all in all five classes have 9 viable builds for endgame. Whoa thats some massive build diversity and character customization and i didnt event mention that everyone uses the same gear. Vileward shoulders, mempo hat, depth digger/inna pants, firewalker/iceclimber/zuni shoes,echoingfury/skorn weapon, witchinghour bel,t class specific chest, rare or tal ammy, and rare rings. That's all what you look out for after you hit lvl60. ofc you can build in other ways and other gear, but you lose so much potential that its disgusting. Build diversity my ass...

Also you can take into consideration that if you remove or even decrease the xp penalty that can result in a non-challenging game without the reward of you accomplishing something difficult and actually it would end up being boring as hell. Just check d3 again for comparison: everyone is bored because the game is finished once you hit 60 and kill diablo once. That's about 80 hours of gameplay.

Oh and another thing: if you want complexity and character customization check some more in-depth games such as eve online. You actually lose everything on you when you are killed. You farmed for a whole year every day to have a machariel ship for a couple of billions of money? Yes, you lose it if you get killed. Yet noone is complaining. Ofc that's not a dungeon crawler but you see my point.

If they make it balanced so not just lifeonly builds will be viable at higher difficulties I would be.more than happy. But if they nerf it so every kiddo can faceroll the entire game while blindly spending passive points, I would be greatly disappointed by not utilizing the game's given complexity and sad about the future of the game in general.

Sry for mistakes and walloftext, I'm on mobile now...

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Tonfish wrote:

And someone mentioned D3 build diversity? I mean.... You serious? There are 5 classes with the following builds available if you want to play high difficulties to have a 0,00000000001% chance of a worthy drop:
Wizard - cm ( arcon won't work on high diff)
Barb - hota, ww
WD: Zdogs, poisond
Monk -tempest rush,one more i dpnt remember the name
Dh- two builds

Mostly agree with you but I would like to stop at this point a bit..

What do you mean by high difficulties?? If you mean inferno.. I think you are wrong..what you named are optimal builds..but actually there are many viable builds.. my Sacrifice WD was doing perfectly fine in inferno, turret DH is also viable..a bit slow but can progress through anything, and my throwing Barb was probably the most fun character I ever played in inferno.. Of course ..none of these characters can farm MP10..but also it's not a point....point is playing end-game with character you want to play..which D3 achieved..more or less..

Difference between D3 and PoE is that gap between viable and optimal builds is much smaller in PoE..in most cases..you have to make Optimal build if you want play PoE in merc..what you can do is add a little twist into it..few passives here and there but you are pretty much limited into optimal.. in D3..you can make just viable build.. not the fastest way to play of course, but if you have fun with it, everything is how it should be.

Well I'd suggest to lower the penalty to about half, say 8%. Or 10 maybe. And seriously people, stop being elitist. Gtfo this is not a game for you is just such a moronic statement...

If Glass Cannon build X isn't viable at level Y that isn't the same thing as "discouraging build diversity" if it IS discouraging build diversity - that means that every build should be equally as viable at every level as any other build (because if any build weren't viable at a particular level that would mean it is being discouraged) what all that equates to is that you'd like EVERY build to be viable which dilutes the term "build" itself so much that it becomes meaningless.

If you hit upper levels as a glass cannon, you'll die a lot. Most any game I have played is exactly the same way; and those that aren't? The boards are filled with people complaining about the game being to easy.

Imo dying through the game should not be the way to progress.

If you just want to relax you can do it in normal difficulty, but I don't get why you would just play to relax. Don't you want some entertainment?

I'd suggest if you want to relax watch a good movie or something that doesn't require much concentration.

Remove all XP for the current level on death, In all difficulties. And make us have to recover our bodies. You might even consider making skill gems loose all xp for current level [or even lose levels]. Again, on all difficulties.

I don't play HC, because I don't want to loose my character, simple as that. Lol. However, I think we need a much steeper penalty on default. Default lets you try new builds and things without having to be a player who plays the game 8 hours a day 7 days a week. This isn't an mmorpg.

So, you die in default, your XP is reset to 0%, and all your skills loose a level. That would give incentive to not die, but not as steep as character deletion.

What is it with you guys claiming to see problems and their fixes over a Team of developers who actually tought about all this for days/months/years. Tested it and build their product the way they actually felt good with?

And I personally hope GGG continues building the game they are comfortable with and wont get swayed by these whining forum posts. While this is a personal opinion I do believe that video games these day´s are way to easy, offer you nothing but fancy/cartoony graphics with some semi good story line that actually is not original but tries to please a big mass of people.

I miss those days where no one cared about game forums, first looks, streams or fancy wiki/gamesupport sites you had to figure stuff out yourself, you played games you tought could be fun, you actually had to play it to see it´s content.

Also bullshit references like (OP, viable, nerf, buff, worth) were non existent!

I also wonder how everyone nowadays think´s they are so important that they deserve a forum post about the reason why they actually quit playing a game?
On top of that they offer their so needed help to improve the game the way it should have been to make it enjoyable since in their mind their opinion seems to be the right one and everyone should agree! There are just two particular words I would want to tell you people "suck it".

Maybe thats a personal thing but when I get rid of game I just quit it without any drama because at the point of quitting a game I simply dont give a damn.

If anyone actually read that wall of rage thank you!
If you are one of those persons planning on grammer nazi this post go ahead I won´t get offended nor do I care about my grammer in a game forum.

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kapitankapusta wrote:

What is it with you guys claiming to see problems and their fixes over a Team of developers who actually tought about all this for days/months/years. Tested it and build their product the way they actually felt good with?

If GGG thought their ideas were divinely correct and their work perfection that couldn't be improved upon, they wouldn't have a suggestions forum.

I don't mind the death penalty myself since I'm okay at not dying. Must say it's annoying my girlfriend though. If it wasn't there at all I also can't see how that would be bad for the game. It would allow people (in default) to grind through tough areas given enough time and TPs, but:
a) they can anyway, with no other penalty once they're back to the start of XP progression for that level, and more importantly
b) who the hell cares if other people do that? If that's how they want to play, let them, it doesn't affect anyone else.

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simpler wrote:

I know that Path of Exile is suppose to be a hard and "unforgiving" game but losing experience when you die doesn't fit in softcore.

1.) I play softcore because I can't handle the stress of never dying. I just want to log on and whether I play for 20 minutes or several hours have fun and feel like I'm progressing with my character. But with the experience loss on death I can never relax. I know we all play games for different reasons, some play to challenge themself and some play just to relax and have a great time not feeling any stress.

I thought that's why there is a Softcore and a Hardcore league. To have something for both of those groups, but now whith this severe death penalty the casuals have no where to enjoy themself.

2.) It removes build deversity. Glasscannon builds are not as viable and you allways need to play defensive and not take any risks.


I understand that there must be some penalty on death but losing 15% of the progression to the next level is way to much.

Don't tell me to go play LoL or something, I really enjoy this game but getting the feeling of wasting my time every time I die is really harsh. Right now it's more like Less-Hardcore and Hardcore league.

You are correct. Glasscannon builds are not high risk, high reward, they are simply shit on at the moment, the current trend is to stack life out the ass and roll a melee character that uses "psuedo-ranged" spam like lightning strike or ground slam.

Elemental casters and "true" melee are a no go.