Worst Death Penalty mechanics I've ever seen!

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

You say archaic design, but you aren't offering any alternatives to increase difficulty either.

I have no interest in doing so in this thread and others have done so just a few posts up. I'm not a game designer, I'm just here to play the game.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The genre is limited by its very nature - acquiring quality gear tends to trivialize content whereas the same character with weaker equipment may find the very same challenge impossible.

Without the constant hunt for better gear and wealth there's little incentive to spam the same handful of skills over and over.

Don't know what this has to do with the topic.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

To take away the xp penalty would make the value of hitting 100 almost meaningless.

I disagree. Reaching 100 is a goal, just like everything else in this game, but instead you reach an artificial hurdle at 90 and quits because you can't progress anymore. Is there any more "meaning" to stop at 100 than there is to stop at 90?

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

As it stands, it mostly just means that someone was relatively careful. So while it may not be all that meaningful to some, for others they still take pride in that accomplishment.

Yes, it has bragging rights, I agree with that. But that's all it is; "LooK @ MEE, 100!! get GuuD, ScRuB!!!11q".

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Slizzered wrote:

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poepoe091 wrote:

When you pick softcore, you're already picking easy mode.

Because softcore players are the ones who sit there hovering over a logout macro that they mash the fuck out of the second they take more than 10% of their ehp in damage...

And the reason for that is *drumroll* the death penalty, not that they're playing in scrubsoftcore.

I agree completely with poepoe091, it makes little sense to have this severe of a death penalty when you also have a Hardcore mode for this, exact purpose. It makes even less sense to have one in softcore SSF standard, that's just one penalty on top of another penalty in an utterly barren and dead league. It's completely needless and brings precisely nothing to this game, not one bit.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

You say archaic design, but you aren't offering any alternatives to increase difficulty either.

The genre is limited by its very nature - acquiring quality gear tends to trivialize content whereas the same character with weaker equipment may find the very same challenge impossible.

Without the constant hunt for better gear and wealth there's little incentive to spam the same handful of skills over and over.

To take away the xp penalty would make the value of hitting 100 almost meaningless. As it stands, it mostly just means that someone was relatively careful. So while it may not be all that meaningful to some, for others they still take pride in that accomplishment.

There are many good alternatives. One on my favorite is exping by endgame - up to 70-75 level normal exping, after that exping by unlocking maps and endgame bosses. Level 100 = 100% content done - plain and simple. For most dedicated players possibility to overlevel - huge grind.

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Vresiberba wrote:

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

You say archaic design, but you aren't offering any alternatives to increase difficulty either.

I have no interest in doing so in this thread and others have done so just a few posts up. I'm not a game designer, I'm just here to play the game.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The genre is limited by its very nature - acquiring quality gear tends to trivialize content whereas the same character with weaker equipment may find the very same challenge impossible.

Without the constant hunt for better gear and wealth there's little incentive to spam the same handful of skills over and over.

Don't know what this has to do with the topic.

Um, difficulty?

The only reason to complain about death penalty at this point in SC is how it inhibits leveling up - if you're dying enough for it to be even a noticeable hinderance to progress before hitting the 70s, that means the player is failing to recognize glaring holes in their build/equipment and/or playstyle.

After the 70s, deaths slow down progress to the point where just a handful of deaths can negate all progress to the next level.

Most D2 players didn't concern themselves with hitting 100 or simply ran bots because it became a mindless slog where one was more likely to die to something silly after becoming complacent from mindlessly running the same handful of areas.

Actually reaching max level had meaning, plenty just didn't feel it was worth it.


The only reason to even have an issue with the game's death penalty is how it inhibits progress. The problem is when you take it away you just turn mediocre players into weaker ones, and the weakest players nothing more than mindless button mashers who feel entitled to the same things the best players have.

You can see this trend extensively in mmorpgs because of their group content, where people get spoiled by a really easy single player experience and fail to learn even the basics of their character. When those players are thrown in the lowest difficulty grouped instances they die frequently and/or get their fellow teammates killed because they have had to do anything but press buttons before.

The death penalty in SC does not permanently disable your character and/or require someone to loot said corpse to salvage the gear like D2 did in HC. In comparison, that's drastically more severe.

But what's abundantly clear is the OP's lack of gaming experience - losing xp is far worse when you can actually lose levels too. Games like Final Fantasy XI would remove a level if you lost enough xp. Thankfully, that trend never got popular but it wasn't the only game to punish folks so severely.

So while the OP may have never seen "worse" death penalty mechanics, most experienced gamers are well aware it can be far more unpleasant.

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Buster1013 wrote:

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

You say archaic design, but you aren't offering any alternatives to increase difficulty either.

The genre is limited by its very nature - acquiring quality gear tends to trivialize content whereas the same character with weaker equipment may find the very same challenge impossible.

Without the constant hunt for better gear and wealth there's little incentive to spam the same handful of skills over and over.

To take away the xp penalty would make the value of hitting 100 almost meaningless. As it stands, it mostly just means that someone was relatively careful. So while it may not be all that meaningful to some, for others they still take pride in that accomplishment.

There are many good alternatives. One on my favorite is exping by endgame - up to 70-75 level normal exping, after that exping by unlocking maps and endgame bosses. Level 100 = 100% content done - plain and simple. For most dedicated players possibility to overlevel - huge grind.

Um, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're basically saying leveling when you say exping/xping.

Hitting 100 is overleveling. It is hitting max level.

Have you even tried to level in your 70s by doing story content? Unless you're undergeared and in HC there's no reason a player shouldn't already be at maps. Trying to level to the 80s without mapping? You may be at little risk of death but it sure will take a while.

Xp in storyline is stream-lined really well, and just going through it a player will already be ready for maps --- unless they're really bad and fail to understand basic concepts. Throw in a league mod like incursions and players will be "overleveled" for tier 1 maps before they even have access.

There's also a very distinct difference from completing achievements, completing content and just plain leveling. Most people killing uber elder and the rest of the end game content don't bother hitting max level (100). Hitting 100 doesn't magically grant you the ability to do everything nor should it - by that mindset mindlessly grinding entitles a player to do everything.

For example, I used to play Swtor. It wasn't terribly painful to hit max level. I had COMPLETED most content, but avoided achievements that required me to do the same instance 50+ times. I had done most of the group content, but only partially defeated the two most difficult group (Operation) encounters.

Part of the challenge was finding people capable of playing at that level - the other part was actually me being to play at the level.

People wanting to complete those achievements did so not for the dropped rewards, but the actual achievement. The achievements meant something - you couldn't just mindlessly slog away you actually had to have in-depth knowledge of mechanics and understanding of the "fight choreography". In other words, you actually had to be good.

Overleveling in say borderlands 2 to OP8 is just hitting max level, but the reason for the distinction is that you're not actually leveling but gaining access to npcs above your level - level gaps add penalties to the player - from no xp for the player having too many levels on the target to things like increased accuracy and damage for the target having so many levels on the player.

Level 100 is one of the main goals in PoE, but it forces players to use special builds and play defensively = much less fun. It is impossible for typical casual player to reach level 100.
Everybody in video game industry knows, that "casual players 30-40 years old, playing 2-3h/day" are one of the best target audience for F2P games. They usually have stable job and family, so they can spend money to have some fun, but they don't have too much time. Current death penalty gives them only bad choices:
1. play for fun, but forget about level 90+,
2. play defensively with much less fun, but even then you could get one-shoted,
3. play normal until stupid one-shot death take all exp from last two days and rage quit after few times.
Games are not work - they should be fun in the first place! Death penalty is needed, but there are many better solutions than taking exp like reducing drop rate for 2 hours.

The game does have way too much visual clusterfuck on the screen, there are random damage spikes out of nowhere, you can easily die in less than a second without realizing what killed you (on some death videos I had to slow down to 0.25 to figure wtf happened), the camera is too close so you can easily get offscreened.
All of these are valid problems which probably won't be solved, since there is no need for it. Most people who reach endgame run brain afk builds that simply don't interact with most fight mechanics at all (something that the game easily allows to achieve btw), so they aren't bothered by this crap and won't consider it an issue.
So yeah, you build your character to be able stomp everything without actually properly engaging enemies, because fighting and interacting with enemies and their mechanics for vast majority of time is too clunky and horribly inefficient.
Core gameplay loop is so "exciting and wonderful" that most successful builds are made to avoid it.

You don't need the monitor to have the same effect, you can download an app to force the display 2560x1080 which has the same effect. Only difference is the screen is a tad smaller.

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opeth wrote:

You don't need the monitor to have the same effect, you can download an app to force the display 2560x1080 which has the same effect. Only difference is the screen is a tad smaller.

Using actual hardware to get that (the monitor) is absolutely fine.

If you use a 3rd party program to simulate that you will be permanently banned. 100%

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The only reason to complain about death penalty at this point in SC is how it inhibits leveling up - if you're dying enough for it to be even a noticeable hinderance to progress before hitting the 70s, that means the player is failing to recognize glaring holes in their build/equipment and/or playstyle.

No. Dying in video games is a common occurrence, it's something that's supposed to happen or the experience loses all attraction. Dying, happens, there's nothing wrong with that and dying every now and then isn't "glaring holes" in neither play style nor builds, it's just part of the game. This is a video game that's supposed to be fun to play, not a chore and something that pisses you off.

And I'm going to completely ignore your moving of the goal posts by mentioning level 60, no-one here including the OP and me, is referring to level 60 dying.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

After the 70s, deaths slow down progress to the point where just a handful of deaths can negate all progress to the next level.

Which is exactly why I have a problem with it.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The only reason to even have an issue with the game's death penalty is how it inhibits progress. The problem is when you take it away you just turn mediocre players into weaker ones, and the weakest players nothing more than mindless button mashers who feel entitled to the same things the best players have.

And this right here is the problem with people like you; you're a stuck-up, high-horse elitist. You don't want "sCrUbZZ!1" to equal your performances because then you can't brag about it. That isn't a feature games should have, it's completely and utterly useless.