Maybe another way to do death experience penalty

Instead of going by the percent of the total level, would taking away the experience gained in the past X amount of time spent in combat on that character maybe feel better? Still never being able to lose a level, of course.

Let's say it increases with level as well to go along with the increasing amount of experience is needed past 90. So at 70-something you'd lose maybe 2 hours of experience but at 90+ you might lose up to 10 hours or however long is deemed as useful but not brutal.

Scaling with how much experience the character has gained in the last X hours of instance running means death is more tailored towards the individual. If you've been dicking around and not doing much then your death isn't so meaningful, but if you've been pushing and clearing hard then it has the potential to kick you even harder than if it was just 5 or 10% off that level.

Whether that's fun or interesting for the game is what replies are for. How would you react or play differently if your XP loss on death was tied to the past 2 hours you've played rather than the XP needed to get to the next level?

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Jackalope_Gaming wrote:

How would you react or play differently if your XP loss on death was tied to the past 2 hours you've played rather than the XP needed to get to the next level?

For starters, I'd probably consider playing this game again.

Yeah, I'm with you on this suggestion. It would probably have to work based on the exp/h statistic since I don't think the game could track experience in time interval down to the point.

But it would be much better than the current system where in the first 80 levels death is meaningless but after level 95 it's the equivalent of hardcore.

I've been suggesting in several threads to make the exp loss on death more equivalent to the average exp gain at your level, which is essentially (or close) what you are saying.

The sheer fact that your exp gain is nerfed as you level, both as a factor and as a penalty with respect to the level of the map you are running, and the exp loss on death stays a flat 10%, means the exp loss exponentially (not quite, but you get the point) increases with respect to gain.

The penalty on death needs to be more proportionate to the gains on playing. Which is what you are saying. And therefore I wholeheartedly agree.

"

Jackalope_Gaming wrote:

If you've been dicking around and not doing much then your death isn't so meaningful, but if you've been pushing and clearing hard then it has the potential to kick you even harder than if it was just 5 or 10% off that level.

So ... basically .... alienate even more people that are pushing for level and already QQ about the xp penalty ?
=> pretty much alienate even more people that are QQing in the first place ?
+ make the penalty for SC racers ( = some streamers, who are advertising the game, let's not forget it ) harsher and make them QQ on stream if they die ??

That does not seem like something GGG should do lol.



c'mon ....

another approach would be, changing it completely.

tl;dr: change exp penalty to tiered and timed exp multipliers but keep exp you gained and/or lose exp only after the tiered version.


as it stands, the exp penalty is a huge let down for especially new players that reach endgame. and to be honest, for every person that hates doing stuff for naught...

e.g.:
if you grind a lot in low maps and reach a significant amount of exp, let´s say 70% of your level. but you did like 500 low maps and want a change of pace. try out elder, temple on high maps, whatever.

the actual system implies your brain to not do it, cause dying accidentely costs you hours of gameplay... and here i think the system is flawed.

personally i hate doing stuff, like grinding, and losing progress that is not even 100% my fault sometimes.


my suggestion now would be, why not change the system to be still punishing, and preventing people from playing kamikaze on bosses by denying exp on such tactics, but not beeing totally brutal on not even your fault?

like this:

exp you gather stays where it is, every point of exp you get is yours, forever and ever... BUT

every time you die, a debuff is applied that should be tiered.

1st death, 5 min debuff with 75% exp multiplicator
2nd death while the first debuff still runs, 10 min debuff with 50% exp multiplicator
3rd death while the second debuff still runs, 15 min debuff with 25% exp multiplicator
4th death while the third debuff still runs, 20 min debuff with 0% exp multiplicator

and here a variation could be apllied if the above seems to forgiving:

5th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff vanished, and you lose 10-20% exp.
or also tiered:
5th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff stays like above and lose 5% exp.
6th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff stays like above and lose 5-10% exp.
and so forth...

or something close to that.

it could even be done by just adding it to standard, or creating a "kitty league" with above modifikations.

i just think the actual system forces you to play to much content you don´t wanna play, to finally play the stuff you wanna play by beeing limiting in things like exp penalty or loot.



of course it has to be toned down, or balanced for people still doing the story acts. so i would go with the "after finishing act 10" it kicks in fully version.

that way people won´t lose progress, which is the main problem for many people here i think, but you still get penalized for dying to often. and let´s be honest, not gaining exp for 20 min is still not as hard as losing 20% exp at 95+... so the values would have to be balanced out.

personally i think the timer could run out offline as well, but that´s a balancing act.

"

Slaanesh69 wrote:

I've been suggesting in several threads to make the exp loss on death more equivalent to the average exp gain at your level, which is essentially (or close) what you are saying.

The sheer fact that your exp gain is nerfed as you level, both as a factor and as a penalty with respect to the level of the map you are running, and the exp loss on death stays a flat 10%, means the exp loss exponentially (not quite, but you get the point) increases with respect to gain.

The penalty on death needs to be more proportionate to the gains on playing. Which is what you are saying. And therefore I wholeheartedly agree.

+1

Regardless, I would even enjoy the current death EXP penalty a lot more if it was interlinked with the number of portals of a map. They simply need to make the penalty apply per map instead of a global one that nerfs several to hundreds runs of content. That would instantly allow you to actually feel like you're progressing at a nice pace even versus those "end game" encounters.

Just imagine an additional "content based" EXP bar above the current one, which will simply convey the amount of EXP available to be obtained from the played map. A death will instantly lock a set amount depending on the remaining number of portals IF you die, but the players will still SEE that they progressed towards the next level. 6 deaths would still equal 0% advancements, meanwhile a single death would entice you to complete the maps for the rest of the EXP, albeit at a smaller rate.

It's SOFTCORE leagues where this implementation would encourage players to keep playing, instead of discouraging them totally and force them to mindlessly "zerg" their way. Not to mention that PoE is hardly the best optimized, conveying confidence, or "balanced" ARPG... It should encourage players to constantly improve and adapt, and you don't do so with 99.99% one shots on both sides...

no clue here either... especially from a "free to play" approach.

GGG has absolutely nothing coming in for them if a person needs more time played to "finish" the game, or better said, their characters.

it should be the other way around actually. the more chars i can finish faster, the more chars i gear up with cosmetics. at least if i take my usual behaviour into account.

paying money for a char in development, e.g. leveling, build tinkering, i´m not inclined to buy anything if i don´t know if i will actually use it for longer. and yes i know cosmetics are account wide, but let us be honest here, your fire mage setup won´t look as good on your mjöllner char.

so what´s the point in devs forcing people to play "longer" in free to play games anyway? the only thing happening if it takes me to long to achieve anything is, that i get bored.

the assumption that content that takes forever to clear or get makes people happily play longer and spent money is a bit double edged i think. as you have to take into account that not everybody has 12 hrs playtime a day. and to get to the point, the most people paying here, fall into that category i guess.

there is one theory that would work in favor of the current system... if GGG thinks that above mentioned people can´t play much but have money, that must mean their chars suck, cause to less playtime, but they have money, so they buy cosmetics to at least look cool... and that would be just "meh"...

"

lalelunatic wrote:

Spoiler

another approach would be, changing it completely.

tl;dr: change exp penalty to tiered and timed exp multipliers but keep exp you gained and/or lose exp only after the tiered version.


as it stands, the exp penalty is a huge let down for especially new players that reach endgame. and to be honest, for every person that hates doing stuff for naught...

e.g.:
if you grind a lot in low maps and reach a significant amount of exp, let´s say 70% of your level. but you did like 500 low maps and want a change of pace. try out elder, temple on high maps, whatever.

the actual system implies your brain to not do it, cause dying accidentely costs you hours of gameplay... and here i think the system is flawed.

personally i hate doing stuff, like grinding, and losing progress that is not even 100% my fault sometimes.


my suggestion now would be, why not change the system to be still punishing, and preventing people from playing kamikaze on bosses by denying exp on such tactics, but not beeing totally brutal on not even your fault?

like this:

exp you gather stays where it is, every point of exp you get is yours, forever and ever... BUT

every time you die, a debuff is applied that should be tiered.

1st death, 5 min debuff with 75% exp multiplicator
2nd death while the first debuff still runs, 10 min debuff with 50% exp multiplicator
3rd death while the second debuff still runs, 15 min debuff with 25% exp multiplicator
4th death while the third debuff still runs, 20 min debuff with 0% exp multiplicator

and here a variation could be apllied if the above seems to forgiving:

5th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff vanished, and you lose 10-20% exp.
or also tiered:
5th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff stays like above and lose 5% exp.
6th death while the forth debuff still runs, debuff stays like above and lose 5-10% exp.
and so forth...

or something close to that.

it could even be done by just adding it to standard, or creating a "kitty league" with above modifikations.

i just think the actual system forces you to play to much content you don´t wanna play, to finally play the stuff you wanna play by beeing limiting in things like exp penalty or loot.



of course it has to be toned down, or balanced for people still doing the story acts. so i would go with the "after finishing act 10" it kicks in fully version.

that way people won´t lose progress, which is the main problem for many people here i think, but you still get penalized for dying to often. and let´s be honest, not gaining exp for 20 min is still not as hard as losing 20% exp at 95+... so the values would have to be balanced out.

personally i think the timer could run out offline as well, but that´s a balancing act.

I think your heart is in the right place, and I fully agree with the sentiment (I quit the game once, years ago, because of the xp loss) but the details of your suggestion are somewhat problematic; the biggest problem being:

Linking xp gain bonus/penalty to a timer would encourage people to take longer and longer breaks after deaths, sometimes to the point of "growing apart" from the game and dropping it entirely -- not an ideal situation.

I might have a better solution in mind... I'll post again if/when I can formulate it properly.

Okay, I got time. Here goes:

First of all, I'm going to make a leap of faith and assume the reason for the death penalty is to make every death a meaningful learning experience, and to encourage players to be more careful next time; rather than simply a middle finger to anyone who wants to reach level 100 someday. I may be assuming too much, but bear with me.

For the 'learning experience' I think, before anything else, we need a 'combat log' so we can know exactly what killed us. Even a simple 'death message' like "You died to Bleed damage from <Monster Name>" or "<Character Name> took X damage from <Monster Skill> and died" would be better than nothing.

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Now, for the actual 'death penalty':

The promise of a reward for doing well can be a better motivator than a penalty for doing badly. So I propose a system that rewards 'not dying' rather than penalizing death:

For every X% of the xp bar you fill, you get a '+Y% experience gained' bonus (acts like a buff), up to a maximum of Z%.

Instead of losing xp, you could lose your 'bonus xp multiplier' upon death. And because it links the 'bonus' directly to xp gained (relative to your level) instead of time elapsed, it's less open to abuse and doesn't encourage players to 'tactically' stay away from the game.

Of course, the numbers X, Y, Z would need to be carefully tuned, and the current xp requirements would need to be increased to keep the same speed of progression. If they're happy with the endless grind, that is; I know I'm not. But hey, at least we wouldn't be losing our hard-earned xp and going backwards upon death.

As an aside, it would also make the choice between doing harder content vs. grinding easier maps more meaningful; if you felt you could take on harder content comfortably, you could do so without risking life and limb.

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What do you guys/gals think?