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

I agree with OP. Late game PoE is exciting pretty much only right after I leveled up. That's when I test my limits, try guardians, those ridiculous mods map waiting in stash.
But then I get to ~40-50% and I don't want to lose it. So I go back to boooooring safe maps.

So what's the point of death penalty? People who get level 100 in a week will get lvl 100 in a week and there's nothing, we can do to stop them. Also it's not like you can throw your body at enemies to do any content. We all have limited portals.
Maybe because people would stop playing after they reach 100? Most of us already accept ~90 as a reasonable max level, but we still continue playing. You always have gear to grind for.

The only real reason that comes to my mind is a challenge. You get level 100, you're one of the few, you can post it on reddit and grab few upvotes. Yey for you.
But is this reason big enough to ruin the fun for everyone else? To limit their builds by 5-10 passive points?
We all chose softcore. If we wanted massive death penalties to always be super careful, we would play HC.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

I'll add something that I've been mulling over in the interim, however: what is a glass cannon in PoE softcore terms?

This is actually a surprisingly complicated subject. What's surprising about it is that it has a lot to do with trading and the lack of character/account-bound items.

See, if you're content to just farm maps all day and buy all your gear, then you can get away with a lot less defense. But if you want to kill bosses yourself, you typically have to build a lot more for defense (ignoring for a second builds so broken that they can kill endgame bosses in a few seconds).

Here's a specific example. I have a Cyclone Raider with ~5.4k life, no ES, 14k-24k armour via IR, and something like 26%/10% dodge/spell dodge. Her main defense, however, is her ability to keep everything up to rares and rogue exiles within Cyclone range permanently frozen.

I was clearing T15 maps on this build at level 85. If I wanted to skip bosses, I would describe this as a very tanky character. But for taking on guardians, she's absolutely a glass cannon.

In short, it's fuzzy as fuck depending on what you use the character for.


This is not really a problem in games that force you to complete endgame bosses by not letting you acquire top tier loot from anywhere else. These bossfights serve as a consistent measuring stick for every build's tankiness. In PoE you can get away with killing nothing but trash mobs, so there's no single standard against which to compare builds. And it doesn't help that the power gap between trash mob and bosses is so fucking enormous, either.

I want to clarify that I only mentioned level 100 in my OP to point out that right now it really is just a matter of time *if* you want to play it super safe and super boring. That, to me, robs the idea of 'level 100' of a lot of prestige. Which is fine if it's not meant to have any, but given GGG recently took steps to make 100 harder to get, I figure they still want players to invest some sense of awe in anyone toting a level 100 character.

As for the correlation between challenges and this discussion, perhaps it is true that people can just 'buy' them or grind them out or whatever but it can't be denied that '36+' is seriously high end in the overall scheme of PoE. Assuming that 1% of all chars reach maps stat holds, or some approximation thereof, the 36 challenges completed would be a much lower percentage than that. Claims that I'm indulging in ad hominem are missing this point, because I deeply admire and respect 36+ers. That takes more than just time to grind. You can't get 36 challenges doing the same easy maps over and again. Singling a group out as an example is not ad hominem, I'm afraid, unless a person is doing so to ignore their actual argument, which I've not done. I've ignored certain individuals but most 36+ers here I've responded to with the time and effort they deserve. So let's put that one to bed now. Thanks. :)

I don't understand this argument that the death penalty is necessary for the lesson. Yes, as PoE is currently constructed, it's an intrinsic part of that lesson but in comparison to other games it feels antiquated and barbaric, like caning in a boarding school. I made clear in my OP that if the death penalty is to go (or be reformed, which is equally welcome), then other factors also need to be considered. I realise this is largely futile because GGG are so enslaved to just keeping PoE going that reform is all but a pipe dream at this point, but now and then I like to pretend. Did my example of Gloomhaven's balance not get through? Time wasted is time wasted. Adding an irretrievable penalty on top of that just seems unnecessarily negative to me. And I will repeat: yes, in the current system, without the death penalty, people could just zerg it. And yes, the death penalty is the current blanket system for preventing that. And I *will* repeat: I think that system is outdated and unhelpful. It discourages those who should be encouraged and doesn't affect those it's meant to hinder.

I did not conjure these mindsets out of thin air. As usual, I am reacting. The only part of 'me' in all this is the level threshold reached=time to do something different for once perspective. And I've seen that expressed oh so many times on here. As The_Risen put it so succinctly: level up or have fun. Unless you find grinding fun, in which case, you fall squarely in the 'I like the endgame the way it is' camp and that's sort of the end of that. If you like it how it is, that's awesome. Enough of you and this thread can be discarded with an 'okay, cool'. But I'm not seeing that. Which confirms my suspicions that despite my limited exposure to endgame, there is a measure of dissent regarding it from both players of it and players wary of it.

Finally, let me iterate: I definitely made a mistake when I said 'the death penalty has to go' without clarifying that I meant 'in the game's current state'. What I should have said was, 'a death penalty that has no option for retrieval of some portion of lost xp is an ineffectual punitive measure. THAT death penalty needs to go'. For reasons given.

It does strike me as strange that of all things PoE copied from D2, corpse runs wasn't one of them. Not necessarily the corpse run specific to D2 (it would be spectacularly hard to get back to your corpse naked in PoE, given nakedness means no skills whatsoever), but some form of post-death recompense so that you don't feel like that death event was the 'end' of things. An absolute xp death penalty as a deterrent in PoE might work for some but it didn't work for me. All it did was make me think about the last X hours spent getting that experience and what other things I could have been doing with that time. And then I'd think, do I want to make that mistake again?

And I'd quit for the night, or the day, or the week. And go do something less likely to make me feel like I'm wasting my time for little to no gain. And I know for a fact that I am not alone in this reaction.

Is that really the lesson GGG want to impart when characters die in endgame? Basically, don't die or you'll really regret it and probably hate the game temporarily and go do something else?

That's a poor man's idea of hardcore.

What they really should be aiming for is that equilibrium between frustration and compulsion. The frustration they've got down, in spades. The compulsion? Not so much. Because there is no carrot to the stick of PoE's death. And as much as you might want to argue that carrots are for casual games, I'd say, no, carrots and sticks are integral to *any* game design. While I disagree with Blizzard's approach of changing anything that makes a game tester quit, I think there is value to considering why players stop playing and when. And I know GGG do think about that because there are some surprising points even in the early core story where a large number of players stop. Maybe 'stop' and 'quit' aren't the same thing though. Maybe GGG are okay with me dying in endgame and quitting their game in temporary rage, safe in the knowledge I'll be playing again later. Maybe not THAT character (probably not that character), but playing nonetheless. If the death penalty has any lessons to endow, they're lost on me. I'm too busy suffering what feels like the game's idea of corporal punishment. My reaction is, of course, 'don't do that again'. And by 'that', I don't mean 'that thing I did with that character'. I mean 'play that character at all, or at least for a long while, because playing it brought me such unhappiness in that last moment'. And that, only after I do something else for a while because just thinking about PoE after an endgame death or two grinds my gears, hardcore. When I come back, it will be to play a character less likely to put me in a position to feel that again.

This, to me, is a real nail in the coffin of the 'death penalty is a great gameplay lesson' argument. Unless you obsessively stick to one character, it just doesn't work. And I might be in the serious minority there, but since GGG like to sell character slots and give you 24 for free per account, I'm not so sure about that.

Which I guess leads into the next set of questions, this time concerning that moment of death and irrevocable loss of experience. When you die in softcore endgame and lose a chunk of experience, what do you do? Is your build the sort of meta beast that can reclaim it in no time? Do you just not die, because you're awesomesauce? Do you stop playing for the time being, or do you see it as a challenge and a lesson?

I hope this conversation continues but for now I'm taking a PoE break. See my signature.

This is not a point of discussion for this thread. Just a courtesy notice. I genuinely have better things to do.

Rock on, Exiles.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

I hope this conversation continues but for now I'm taking a PoE break. See my signature.

This is not a point of discussion for this thread. Just a courtesy notice. I genuinely have better things to do.

Rock on, Exiles.

See you next week! :D

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

"

AnExile_onthePath wrote:

Why should someone have to give up on levelling just to sample higher content?

they dont.

people play chayula breachstones to power level for goodness sake, its one of the most brutal encounters in the game.


why does a build that sucks die and lose xp when it samples higher tier content? Because it sucks, make better builds. Learn, progress, figure out what you are doing wrong.

OK, I'll feign confusion. How does the fact that accomplished players geared to or near the max can safely farm difficult content translate to that I should be able to try out something new (and difficult) with no fear of dying? If I want to try something risky, it would be wasteful to do it other than just after going up a level - the wait time for which keeps increasing as I progress. The proposal of mine that addressed this concern was

The first thing that I would consider is Soft Core players being able to turn experience gain on and off once they reach mapping - when the experience meter is "on", you gain experience and you are subject to the Death Penalty. When the experience meter is "off", you gain no experience and you are not subject to the Death Penalty. This would allow players to operate in "I just levelled mode" regardless of how far along they were to the next level. Some rules regarding when a switch could be made would likely be required given the collective cleverness of the player base.

I did not say get rid of the Death Penalty, just allow it to be put on hold during which time experience gain is also put on hold. This would allow people to attempt difficult content regardless of where they stand regarding between level experience acquired.

Which brings us to your second observation. Huh? Are the commoners unworthy of treading the Royal Grounds of higher tier content - on threat of death? Does it go against all the traditions of POE - whatever the equivalents of rum, sodomy, and the lash happen to be? I never said that I should be able to conquer the higher content with just any build or gear - I am saying that I should be able to check it out without being restricted to a narrow window of opportunity. Let me fail, but let me try without throwing away experience that took many hours to acquire.

rum: watching map clearing videos to gain the confidence to try
sodomy: posting on the forums
the lash: the Death Penalty

It might be useful to examine this debate from the perspective of affordances. Exactly what are players most rewarded for doing in the game, and is it fun?

I've always taken it as a given that in any scenario where the player is being rewarded for not having fun, there is a problem. The optimal solution to the problem is often not obvious, but it is usually a variation of

a) adjusting the game so that the behavior in question is more fun, or
b) adjusting the game so that players are equally rewarded for doing activities which are more fun.

Eliminating the experience penalty would be a category b solution, since it would allow players to tackle harder (and more fun, for most people) content with impunity.

And then there is this solution, which I unfortunately see just a little bit too often:

c) Accept the status quo based on thinking that the unfun nature of the activity will do your balancing job for you.

This is a decidedly unoptimal solution. A concrete example as applied to PoE would be an active skillgem which is finicky and annoying to use but which is way overpowered. The optimal solution in this case would be to figure out what makes it annoying to use and fix that, and also to tone down its power. The unoptimal solution would be to leave it alone, "because hardly anyone uses that skillgem anyway, because it feels bad to use."

The behaviors that you pointed out in the OP are also excellent examples of what I am talking about. Players are rewarded for playing it safe: for playing maps below their actual ability, for skipping bosses, and for ignoring the game's diversity in favor of so-called meta builds. All three of these are more boring (i.e., less fun) than the alternative for most players.

But we need to look at the whole picture here: Players are rewarded in terms of experience but not in terms of loot (or gem experience, for that matter) for playing it safe. That is probably why GGG has left this alone. But they shouldn't leave it alone, because as it currently stands, many players are still being incentivized to

1) play maps below their actual ability.
Eliminating the experience penalty, which fits in category b above, is a brute-force solution to this problem, and is really the only one I can think of, though there may be others in this thread (I haven't read all six pages of it yet).

The optimal solutions to the other two unfun activities I mentioned are not exclusively category b solutions but also (or exclusively) category a:

2) Players ignore bosses.
Solution: Give bosses around 33% (I see some people pushing for an even higher number, but I wouldn't recommend going above 50%) of the experience points for the entire map, and perhaps buff the quality (not quantity) of their drops.

3) Players congregate to meta builds.
Solution: First, DON'T DELIBERATELY CREATE META BUILDS. Seriously, GGG. Why would you, as a team of devs, encourage players to break your game and give them the tools to do so on purpose? Second, nerf the ones you accidentally create. Third, buff neglected active skillgems in actually meaningful ways. "Meta" is an appropriate word for more than one reason: Overpowered builds are like metastatic cancer because of the influence they necessarily have upon the entire game.

In short, tackling the kinds of problems you talk about really does require a multi-pronged approach to do well, in my opinion. Eliminating the experience penalty would solve some of what you talk about, but not everything.

I've complained about how bufferbloat can massively effect the feel of a game like this since it's tcp based and worse has roll back features.

Bufferbloat for the record gamers causes all network traffic in first in first out buffer based mechanism to suffer from latency problems that cannot be resolved until you stop using a crap queueing mechanism to say the least.

Never seen such stupidity.

Dark Buffers in the internet.
Best Practicies for benchmarking codel and FQ Codel

Those technical peer reviewed studies on the subject not conjecture.

So lets go over how bad this is.

TCP is a faulty mechanism for real time gaming. Yet you and blizzard know better than networking engineers.
Using a single fifo buffer for any form of real time gaming or streaming is incredibly stupid cause old data loops while new data accumulates
Lets leave on network acceleration technology that is bursty and induces lag cause fixed amounts of bandwidth have to be received before any data is transmitted.
Undercapcity Servers

There shouldn't be any wonder why we have the lag problems we do.

Hey GGG get some network techs who will thread your game with this tech or knows why it's good cause the ones you have here aren't like the ones at riot who did their their own thing.

lets again go over some benefits that really can't be debated on their usefulness to everyone involved.

1. You get more cpu cycles back.
2. You conserve power cause you're not wasting money on useless cycles of retransmitting packets.
3. You have a real mechanism to fight high amounts of latency when there shouldn't be any.
4. Bandwidth for task can be split more fairly on servers.
5. QOS priority actually works under FQ-Codel or Cake it uesless in every other format cause the queing mechanism sucks.

I forgot sensible things isn't what this company does even when the evidence is stacked against them.

People keep talking about endgame like it's easy, when a new player would barely be able to keep up endgame. We have issues with this all the time on the Reddit Discord where a new player who just hit maps is struggling big time for whatever reason.


People do not realize how hard this game is and how much information there actually is; the real problem is that most people who have been playing this game for a long time has access to so many more tools, years of experience and knowledge, in addition to ingame power creep. The player's metagame is so different than it used to be in CB/OB/1.0, which is a major reason why PoE looks so different today vs from before.


When you have about a decade of experience and a larger amount of tools at your disposal (such as more data to make decisions off of, and a stronger trading system), of course the endgame looks easy to an experienced player. New players still get their asses handed to them all the time.

"

Nuttyhater wrote:

I've complained about how bufferbloat can massively effect the feel of a game like this since it's tcp based and worse has roll back features.

Bufferbloat for the record gamers causes all network traffic in first in first out buffer based mechanism to suffer from latency problems that cannot be resolved until you stop using a crap queueing mechanism to say the least.

Never seen such stupidity.

Dark Buffers in the internet.
Best Practicies for benchmarking codel and FQ Codel

Those technical peer reviewed studies on the subject not conjecture.

So lets go over how bad this is.

TCP is a faulty mechanism for real time gaming. Yet you and blizzard know better than networking engineers.
Using a single fifo buffer for any form of real time gaming or streaming is incredibly stupid cause old data loops while new data accumulates
Lets leave on network acceleration technology that is bursty and induces lag cause fixed amounts of bandwidth have to be received before any data is transmitted.
Undercapcity Servers

There shouldn't be any wonder why we have the lag problems we do.

Hey GGG get some network techs who will thread your game with this tech or knows why it's good cause the ones you have here aren't like the ones at riot who did their their own thing.

lets again go over some benefits that really can't be debated on their usefulness to everyone involved.

1. You get more cpu cycles back.
2. You conserve power cause you're not wasting money on useless cycles of retransmitting packets.
3. You have a real mechanism to fight high amounts of latency when there shouldn't be any.
4. Bandwidth for task can be split more fairly on servers.
5. QOS priority actually works under FQ-Codel or Cake it uesless in every other format cause the queing mechanism sucks.

I forgot sensible things isn't what this company does even when the evidence is stacked against them.

I still remember the god awful dev manifesto that Chris made that attempted to defend their awful netcode that had tons of desync.

I play SC and have 3900 hours under my belt. I don't have any characters over 90. Doing only safe maps to avoid dying so you can level is stupid and boring. I do run T14-15 maps and die a lot so all my level 90 guys are mostly 0%. I think that the death penalty is a poor design. It is frustrating and and puts me off playing. I have no interest in grinding to 100, but getting to 92 would give me a couple of useful passive points to make dying less frequent.

Sometimes I'll get lucky have a good run and get up to 50%, but the thought of having to run two dozen or more easy yellow maps to avoid dying is a non starter.

I don't play POE to learn life's lessons about working hard and being rewarded for a job well done and understanding that taking risks can lead to being penalized. Or getting free stuff from a game shapes character. Blah blah blah.... Those of you who think that a game like POE should do that can stick your lifestyle, political, bullshit agenda up your ass. If you need to learn those lessons, get a job. If you want to teach those lessons, hire someone.

On a happier note. I like lots of the suggestions offered in this thread and hope GGG will make moves to implement/try out or test some of them.