Why are the resistances capped?

D2 had a cap, but elemental damage wasn't such a huge issue so people rarely worried about it. We also had +11 resist all small charms that made gearing up resistances kind of pointless. You could easily play the game below cap. Monsters were uncapped and reduced resistance had 1/7 the effect on resistances over 100%. That's what people sought after... ways to reduce enemy resistances.

To answer the OP... they could have left no cap, but then they would have had to make it much harder to get resistances. They would also have had to have attacks different. And hit points. And basically redo everything just because you want a different number. It's not worth it.

Resists act as a gear affix burden or cost on to your character's gear. The fact its capped at 50 or 75 or 99 is mostly arbitrary as incoming damage is simply balanced around what ever the cap is.

There was a time when a certain marauder node gave +5 to all elemental resistances, this was shortly later obliterated from the game because it had moved the effective cap range higher than balanced for and ggg would either have to increase incoming mob damage which would punish anyone without this notable, or remove the notable, they chose the latter.

you can also raise the cap with several items and some passives for +1% max.
passives alone, I think you could get 76/76/76.
use a flask? get +6: 82%
use an aura? thats easily another 1-5% (Purity of Fire, level 20 = +4%): 86%
use a shield like Rise of the Phoenix or Saffell's Frame) for another 4-5%: 91% cap

and pretty sure there's more items/ways. don't need to list them all.

75% is just a nice soft-cap. if you are rich and wanna push boundaries, go ahead, go beyond 75.

but they (limits) exist because letting people be immortal 100% of the time is a pretty lame game mechanic. Ever play d2? there were people immune, thanks to "absorb <element> damage".

If PoE had fixed classes, it could possibly be done (some ice class = immune to cold damage).


edit: I don't know my gamer terms apparently. cap* not soft-cap

It is NOT a soft cap. A soft cap would be if every point you had over 75% counted for an additional .1% to the effect. You could get more than 75% but it would be harder to get from 75% to 80% than it was to get from 70% to 75%. That's a soft cap.

You can raise the cap. That doesn't make it a soft cap.

Thank you all for your answers... I now have a much clearer vision on this matter.
The D2 "reference" it's very nice, i like that and it's balanced... But i kinda wished for more lore about it. Like "You are a fucking exile, you will never reach your full capabilities!" or something like that.
I know, i'm a lore whore.

Lore reasons could work, but on the other hand what kind of reasons would these be? :P
It is just part of the balance, no sensible way to explain it. The same way there is little reason to explain why shock/freeze/burn mechanic work the way they work.

Let's compromise Op, increase the caps to 100% and give every skill in the game 25% penetration of all elements and chaos.

to keep the "1 shooted " mechanics of game content safe.... obvious as blue sky.

"

SignalSR wrote:

But i kinda wished for more lore about it. Like "You are a fucking exile, you will never reach your full capabilities!" or something like that.
I know, i'm a lore whore.

Perhaps it could be tied to the negative energies of Wreaclast:

"The very soil is permeated with dark, ancient power, the earth shivering with malice. The dead are refused peace, rising up and hopelessly wandering in eternal pain, sorrow and hunger. The wildlife is twisted and misshapen, unnaturally aggressive and savage."

It is done so you would go for as big life/ES pool as possible. But you know, life, ES and almost everything else on the tree has diminishing returns so you (don't) have to get all of the nodes, why not make resistances the same way? Worked out well for the AoE didn't it?