Let's talk about endgame. GGG, this concerns you too.

Do you like the death penalty?
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I strongly feel that some kind of penalty is neccessary, but on the other hand I think that loosing something you had already, in the case at hand XP, is not the right way to do it.

As others said already the problem is that players try to avoid dangerous situations, especially if they're close to a level-up. "Hey guys, wanna kill that breach lord?" - "No, not now, I'm at 89% to lvl 92. Too risky. I'll probably loose all progress I made last week."

In addition to that somebody will always be close to a level up at any given point in time, which makes party play of challenging content difficult.

Solution? As somebody suggested in this thread already:

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suszterpatt wrote:

A better system would be: when you die, you don't lose XP, instead you accrue an XP debt (10%, like now). From then on, gaining XP goes towards clearing the debt. And here's the kicker: if you die with debt left, it just resets to 10%, it doesn't accumulate.

I would do it a bit differently, though: It would accumulate, but the penalty would be that only a given percentage of XP goes to paying the debt, IDK, maybe 90% towards the debt, 10% to your XP bar.

I think that this would still achieve the goal to encourage players to invest into defenses, but without the downside of beeing frustrating, because you actually don't loose something you already had. Basically you're loosing "future XP" instead of "past XP".

Agree with the sentiment. Death should have some penalty to not lose the feeling that death should be avoided, but the current system is just... sour.

For the storymode, you get experience rather quickly and the penalty works to only some minutes of play.

For mapping though, the exp penalty can be really harsh. It demotivates players from trying out challenging content and rewards safe, often mindless, playstyles.

How to improve the situation?

- Remove the death penalty for maps. Replace it with a rarity penalty (less rarity) for that particular map.
- Boost boss drops and exp so that you really want to finish them without dying first.
- Boost the level of bosses (maybe five levels or so) so that they give relatively more exp the higher your character level is. This also gives them the chance to drop better loot, since they are higher level that regular map monsters.

So, you want to kill the regular monster to get the map/currency drops and the boss for the chance of good items and exp for high-level toons. You always get the exp if you success, but lose out on currency/item drops if you die.

Unfortunatelly, I think it is going to be very difficult to change GGG:s mind on this. I believe there is this weird emotional attachemnt with the bitter feeling exp-loss gives. That is makes the game more "hardcore."

Some awesome contributions, thanks Exiles.

I will cede, IF GGG could come up with a system where we can somehow reclaim a portion of the lost exp (corpse runs, grave markers, vengeance kill, etc), I would be more than okay with that. This taps my core issue of 'wasting time', which I made quite abundantly clear in the OP. I'm playing this game to waste time pleasurably, and thus not to feel like I'm wasting time at all. Not to waste time overtly, even within the context of the game. Games can be utterly savage and unforgiving and I'll still play and love them *if* if I don't think about the fact that I'm wasting time. So much of PoE's endgame throws the fact that you're wasting your time in your face.

That's just not good game design.

I don't get why that's so hard for GGG to understand sometimes. Maybe because people are so used to it by now they accept it's just the way it is.

GGG are relying on one thing right now: they're the only game in town.

That won't last. And at that time of reckoning, whether or not the endgame seems fair despite being 'merciless' is going to be a big factor regarding player retention and acquisition.

Having played mostly sc in the last leagues OP i can seriously see your point. In hc, when you die you just delete your char and start something new (or at least i did unless i liked him enough to let him keep rotting in std).

In sc though the death penalty doesn't serve much purpose other than to prolong the frustration of trying to get the next levelup. There needs to be a penalty for dying even in sc though because deaths would be meaningless otherwise. What that could be is for GGG to figure out, but the -10% has no place in sc, especially at high levels.

Charan, you have made some good points and I agree with you.

I enjoy wasting time playing PoE. I do not enjoy wasting time by wasting time.

Let's get few things out of the way:

1)death should be meaningful, if not what's the point of defenses? What's the point of anything? Do full glass build, wreck shit.

2)current death penalty really penalizes only those who care so much about it, ie xp pushers. It's quite elegant. It really hurts only past 95. It's manageable at low 90s. Up till like 87 it really isn't anything unless you die VS everything. In which case, see point #1

The whole bs about 'I have three jobs six kids and a harem' also need to walk. Game requires time investment, but it really doesn't require that much to a certain point. Nowadays you can get to level 95 in a temp league while having a full time job, going out, etc, in a very reasonable time. And getting to 90 you can do almost effortlessly provided you know the game.


Now, I will go ahead and state that frustration in games is a good thing as long as it is a fundamentally learning experience. In case of death penalty, it almost always is unless you get dc/desynced to death or the very few bs deaths left in the game(at this point, it's probably just beyond dd)

Perhaps, poe is suffering from having just one difficulty and not having that difficulty slider, you know, the one in modern games that says 'I'm just here for the story'. But the concept of endgame completely goes against that mentality. You aren't in the endgame for the story. It contradicts everything the endgame stands for. The endgame or ng+ IS that slider you crank to the right when the story player puts the game down and walks away. The end game IS SUPPOSED to be challenging and not just a zoo of attractions of bosses.

I borrowed bionicg2040 layout :)


How do you approach endgame?
I usually take a build up to red maps or stop around level 85 when the xp grind starts.

What do you like about it?
Not much

What do you not like?
The difficulty getting access to content is something I don't enjoy.
Ex getting maps to drop to unlock the atlas... It sure doen't feel that Im battling Elder/Shaper, it feels more like Im only focusing on getting those map drops. (No Im not refering to running shaped Vault all day)

Labyrinth! hate it!

Do you not even approach it at all?
No, Ive gotten to a point where I do not play it anymore.

Do you like the death penalty?
Yes and No.

Yes in that it is a consequence of playing recklessly (in some cases).
No. in that all it does is promote a "safer" play style.

Progress is the key word!

As long I feel that Im making progress Im fine with or without a death penalty. Removing the penalty or creating a xp depth pool are among the things that would resolve that.

Do you think it is a good thing?
Yes, as a anti-glass cannon zerging mechanic

A bad thing?
Yes, it stop exploration and experimentation.

Ex If you die once in a map it's usually a sign that it's to risky and you just run another one. And thats sad in my book... you really don't learn anything from that.

What sort of endgame would PoE need to have for you to enjoy it more often?
The access to maps would need to change, thats the main issue for me.

For me it would be very nice if white maps was always accessable (and each tier unlocked when you finish the previous one) and map items where used for running magic/rare/unique maps.

Or do you just love it exactly as it is?
Im kinda fine with it since I don't have any need to be on any ladders/challenges/level100 or anything like that.

GGG stopped killing people with content and now rely's on optimization issue's to kill of people.

This naturally results in frustration.

I can't even remember the last time "the game" killed me, it's always some fps spike or an engine crash/malfunction.

This assumes you have game knowledge and know what you are doing.(i die a few times when i "expect to die" due to character vs content tackled)

I'd say the end-game would be much more enjoyable if it wasn't bloated with bullshit all over the place that lowers your frame-rate to single digits.
To me as a player, it doesn't mater to me how interesting or "cool in concept" something is, if i need to experience it at 8 fps, resulting in in-game deaths.

I've got a lot more to say in relation to this topic, but it would become an essay on how meaningless GGG allowed lvl 100 to become, how stupid item collection is in relation to current lvl 100 duration requirement and the fact they attract people that have absolutely no respect for the effort and content GGG provides.

I pretty much predict a lot of the top-100 chasers will leave PoE in the coming two years, since content lost the respect of it's players thus no challenge is found.(fear/awareness)

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : maybe i should also state, that frustration in relation to the death penalty was entirely different in the old game-state when lvl 100 was quite literally a pipe-dream for 98% of the community.(8 month of optimal grind to reach it)
Now it's within reach for every single player, thus frustration is experienced because it is pushed later but still within reason time-wise.
In the past nobody actually thought they where going to reach or push for 100, because it was so "far out there".

"

Some awesome contributions, thanks Exiles.

I will cede, IF GGG could come up with a system where we can somehow reclaim a portion of the lost exp (corpse runs, grave markers, vengeance kill, etc), I would be more than okay with that. This taps my core issue of 'wasting time', which I made quite abundantly clear in the OP. I'm playing this game to waste time pleasurably, and thus not to feel like I'm wasting time at all. Not to waste time overtly, even within the context of the game. Games can be utterly savage and unforgiving and I'll still play and love them *if* if I don't think about the fact that I'm wasting time. So much of PoE's endgame throws the fact that you're wasting your time in your face.

That's just not good game design.

I don't get why that's so hard for GGG to understand sometimes. Maybe because people are so used to it by now they accept it's just the way it is.

GGG are relying on one thing right now: they're the only game in town.

That won't last. And at that time of reckoning, whether or not the endgame seems fair despite being 'merciless' is going to be a big factor regarding player retention and acquisition.

/noaggro

First of all, I play this game to torture crabs.
I didn't fully read everything because it's such an exhausting wall of text that could be shrunk by 10x for it to deliver it's message. Not to mention there are so many assumptions and logical fallacies that I simply couldn't keep up.
Making this game easier by removing XP loss would make this easy game even easier to a level where nothing regarding character levelling or map progress matters anymore, just right click suicide bomb yourself to Shaper.

Your mindset for this game is horrible and sounds more like a description of a job, not a game.
All games that punish players for their death make you waste time - lose gear / have a long walk / lose XP / lose character. Games that don't punish you are garbage and I can't even come up with one right now since they're meaningless.
I don't want to have a long walk as my punishment for dying and if it's short, it's not punishing enough. Having no punishment is not an option.

Your highest level 89 speaks for itself. 90+ can be easily achieved within 5 days of playing if you at least dedicate SOME time on it and don't play glass cannon builds. I personally get that within 2 days. One day to 70, second day to 90 or so and I play top tier insane DPS builds. After that I STILL play somewhat carefully because I know that once I reach mid point, I can run Poorjoys and wrap it up quick because I still care about levels.

Not to mention that you're contradicting yourself - You're bored of doing the same thing over and over, but don't want a noticeable death penalty. If you're not forced to pay attention, you won't - human beings are programmed to be as lazy as possible and the only way for GGG to bring excitement and attention is by forcing players. People don't make things harder for themselves intentionally and all that your idea does is reinforce laziness and completely lose meaning and value in levelling. Runescapers don't pay more attention than what's needed and nobody makes the game harder for themselves. You stating otherwise is an extremely poor assumption.

I'm not going to address all points but as a final point I'd like to say that personal preference has no place in any game and trying to force your own playstyle in the game without considering others is not a way for an active discussion. Neither is constantly trying to intimidate GGG by repeating over and over how their Doomsday is coming if they won't make changes that appeal to you.

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grepman wrote:

The whole bs about 'I have three jobs six kids and a harem' also need to walk. Game requires time investment, but it really doesn't require that much to a certain point. Nowadays you can get to level 95 in a temp league while having a full time job, going out, etc, in a very reasonable time. And getting to 90 you can do almost effortlessly provided you know the game.

I agree with this part and reading those messages slowly makes my digestive system act up. These people actually do have as much time as almost everyone else but since they have to blame something or someone for their poor performance, they prefer to play that card. I already achieve within 2 weeks what the majority achieves within 3 months while I am swamped with non-escapable obligations whole year round because of my position.
Hopefully Uber Elder will increase my play time for another 2 weeks because I'm slowly losing interest in this game from the lack of difficulty in EVERYTHING.

More interesting responses. Some helpful, some less-so. And one utter waste of time.

Speaking of, xxjanie's 'wasting time by wasting time' is particularly sticky. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to feel this way.

A fairly common sentiment is that if xp penalty were removed, we could then zerg/glass cannon our way through. Well, not really, no. Removing the death xp penalty is only half of the equation. Maybe not even half. The other relevant change would have to be hard walls where suiciding/glass cannons remain locked where they are. I've seen other games do it; I'm sure GGG are clever enough to come up with their own methods there. My main reaction to folks who draw the conclusion that death penalty is the only way to prevent zerging is 'you're too conditioned to eating the dish of shit GGG keeps serving you'. I don't blame you, but please make a little more effort if you're going to engage in this discussion.

So far the more useful responses have come from those with fewer challenges but high level experience. I imagine that's because they aren't so obsessed with getting challenges done that they can see past what is and consider what might be. I figure if you're the sort to consistently go for 36+ challenges, you've already convinced yourself the system that is is just fine. After all, to think otherwise, to agree that the system is crappy and could do with review but still go for 36+ challenges every league would be admitting you're just an addict. Addicts rarely have rational points of view, which is unfortunate because they often have the most experience. Paradox of veteran gamer feedback, I guess!

Keep 'em coming. This is a good conversation.