Can We Get Rid of Death XP Penalties Already? Games Are Supposed to be Fun

I find it interesting how many HC players tend to complain about how easy the game has become because of power creep, and yet are against nixing the SC XP death penalty because it would make the game harder.

Granted it's obviously more subtle than that since the ways in which the game would have to get harder are probably not something that would make HC more enjoyable.

But I think it might be interesting to see the kind of balancing needed to make the game more interesting if the death penalty was removed or lessened.

I can only hope GGG got some useful numbers out of Delve so they can balance the game better.

@moderation
Thank you. I feel like this should have come earlier, but I also don't understand what people are trying to do with that anyway.

I believe my last post has gone under as well.

I will once again lay out my arguments, that I believe have not been sufficiently addressed. In the course of that, I may repeat some things, some of which I may have omitted last time as well:

Max level in PoE is not the same as max level anywhere else. You don't have the automatic right to achieve it and if you die too often to ever achieve it, it only makes achieving it more meaningful for those who do.

The endgame doesn't start at max level, it starts at 68, and the very highest bosses are 84 (or is UElder 85? Still only one boss without trash to gain experience from).

The game should be considered as not having a max level and rewarding the last few levels only to the best players. Casuals are not among these.

If casuals lose several days worth of experience in a single death, that means it would take them weeks or a month to actually reach one single level up. Casuals are not the target audience for max level. Most of them will never reach it anyway, and if they were given hope to reach it, they would still find it boring or cry about the time spent, even if there was no death penalty.

Dying on the last few levels can set you back hours. But how long do you think you should be set back for the penalty to matter at all? 15 minutes? I don't think so.

Having the death penalty build up with frequent deaths is one of the worst suggestions I have ever seen relating to this issue. It would cause people to go afk or stop playing and would be much more likely to cause people to stop playing entirely than the current system. Instead of being a regular setback, the stress level would rise, potentially causing additional errors and even greater frustration.

And as I said earlier, the death penalty and high exp requirement exists to set apart core players from casuals. It is something that requires a tremendous amount of effort and a highly consistent performance, and those who achieve it can be proud of themselves. Reduce this to a mere matter of time investment and the joy from achieving it will be gone, because there was no hurdle to overcome.

On one of my characters in SWTOR I have over 2.5k hours of playtime. Even if that much time was spent on a PoE character, it shouldn't reach max level unless the time was spent playing well.

In that game, reaching max level was basic, and my first character took me almost 200 hours to get there, but subsequent increases to the maximum got easier every time to the point of reaching the new maximum in about an hour. Unlike the first time, I didn't feel any relevant accomplishment whatsoever. The real content that kept me playing were the hard endgame encounters after reaching max.

But that is not the case in PoE. Endgame encounters are available much sooner. And here is what that difference means: That difference means, that being able to reach even higher levels and potentially and eventually max, is a goal of its own. It provides content for core players, who have time they are willing to put in, and effort to improve themselves until they reach that goal.

With removed or significantly reduced death penalty, this goal will turn into nothing but a stepping stone. A stepping stone that is as unrewarding as tedious to achieve.

Here's an option to change (not reduce) the penalty:

Have people lose a portion of their current progress rather than the total experience required for the next level up. This would of course have to be more than 10% in order to not be an effective reduction.

What this would do is actually decrease the penalty and resulting frustration of consecutive deaths and extend the period of being able to play a little more recklessly after level up.

After level up, you wouldn't have an all or nothing situation, forcing you to either continue grinding experience or facing greater challenges, but letting you challenge yourself and progress a little, even if you die once or twice.

On the other hand, once you get closer to level up, you know that you really have to buckle down and pay attention to not die, because you would lose a considerable amount otherwise.

The only downside to this that I can see is that the frustration of losing 20% just before level up would be too great.

I alternatively also support the option of the level not being the lower bound of exp, which also accomplishes forcing people to play seriously rather than throwing their lives away, or choosing to stay at that level. The possible downside to this is that people may not find the motivation to go on and catch up to regular exp, if they see that they're still below 0%. My suggestion would be to lower the bound for 0% to whatever experience the player has after dying. Of course the penalty would still be based on the original requirement.

Edit: Clarified my opening statement being addressed at the moderation of this thread, because someone posted before me by the time I was done with this.

sc player here, the power creep has been unreal and has trivialized the game... badly.

the result is that it's easier than ever and the players STILL want it to be easier/want more power creep/want all penalties removed.

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vmt80 wrote:

This is a feedback forum.

And some people understand that giving constructive, well thought feedback is much, much better than just throwing the same tantrum again and again without accepting any input oneself.

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vmt80 wrote:

It is simple: most players do not like mechanics which take back inconsiderable amount of their valuable time invested in game. This is a fact, not an opinion. If they did, they'd be all going for HC leagues anyways, abandoning SC. Whatever your other rationales for keeping the excessive penalty for highest levels might be, will not alter it.

Many people will never be happy that other are more succesful than them in life.
Same in the game, and many people don't want to adjust their expectations to what the game is.
Do I want to change that ? No, there are so many hopeless things that won't just be changed in the world, not by one person. But I guess I am being positive, thinking that some people might understand some things that they had not considered before. Some others ... just won't of course.

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ghoulavenger wrote:

You know, with the way they complain about it, I don't think even removing the death penalty would be enough. And that is coming from someone who actually supports reducing the death penalty. But then I always argued that the core problem wasn't the death penalty, it's the grind.

I agree, anyway the best thing to do for GGG (imho) is not to try to please everybody who is throwing his tantrum about the game ( because if we do what everybody is asking for, the game dies, it's as simple as that ), but to make the game better overall of course.
And since I trust them to at least attempt to do that, the xp penalty on death is pretty 'safe' were it is and here to stay imho.

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Zee wrote:

So HC players like it when they lose several weeks worth of time?

No. we SERIOUSLY FUCKING HATE IT.

We do it because it makes the game feel 'real' it feels scary - it feels serious when you make a decision and have that much of your time on the line. When you have a close call in HC it gets your adrenaline flowing you can hear your heart pounding. This cannot happen unless there are consequences you very much want to AVOID.

I really don't care what you guys do with the SC leagues, but when people are talking about the HC players as some kind of masochists or dumbasses for wanting their character to die, then you are just not getting it.

Do you know why they keep adding shit to this game like no WPs in the lab? or zana one portal only 'don't die' or delves if you exit you cant go back? (among others) Its to make softcore more exciting by adding 'hardcore lite' type mechanics to it. you don't want negative consequences - NOBODY DOES.

If GGG is actually stupid enough to go along with this 'change' it will hurt their game badly, SC will become boring kiddie game and HC will still be there harsh as then ever, and the transition for a SC player to move to HC would be an impossible gap to bridge because the playstyles will not equate at all let alone builds.

Thank you for that post, it is obvious to me ( but I have been playing HC quite a bit, not this league though ), but it's probably good to remind people.
Many are just resorting to using the HC leagues to try to justify their crying, when it's not relevant really ( it is relevant, if we consider that the removal of the penalty would get the game balance eventually messed up and it would impact HC then, that is something to definitely consider ).

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Johny_Snow wrote:

I hope you realize the game is balanced the same for both SC and HC, right? And making both modes so much different from each other will result in poor(er) balance and ultimately one playstyle(almost certainly HC) getting shafted, right?

I mean I know you only care about your fun like every other of the complainers here but even you can understand that a game where death means nothing and a game where death means everything cant really accommodate the same balancing decisions going forward.

If only ...

You heard it here, folks. The reason PoE is not as successful as it could be is the death penalty.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

You heard it here, folks. The reason PoE is not as successful as it could be is the death penalty.

Better "not as successful as it coudl be" than dead I guess ? :P

GGG just give this dudes who whine about death penalty a sepArate league, we ll see how long their "fun" will last. Games are supposed to be challenging and difficult. That s how all games used to be back in the day. Without that there is no reason to play a game. Easy games that do not punish you for your mistakes are not fun. Just give these players what they want and we ll see how fast they will change their mind.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

I hope you realize the game is balanced the same for both SC and HC, right? And making both modes so much different from each other will result in poor(er) balance and ultimately one playstyle(almost certainly HC) getting shafted, right?

I mean I know you only care about your fun like every other of the complainers here but even you can understand that a game where death means nothing and a game where death means everything cant really accommodate the same balancing decisions going forward.

Again this is all speculation assuming is goes all that way and create discrepency, but for me removing the xp death penalty isnt something that is blakc an white.

Even most people for the removal of it in this thread arent against having some form of of death penalty and we are even proposing some solution and this change can iterated through to find a better model in my opinion, especially with leagues that are really suitable for that.

I just want the game to improve for everyone in the end that is why I'm not ditching all your concerns and looking at both side.

Someone might be right though, the culpride might not be the xp death penalty in itself but :

1- the lack of combat log
2- the character level progression vs the content progression
3- the speed meta
4- Boss that suck/no rewards

and removing the xp death penalty might bring some those problems up front and force GGG to be pro-active and improve their game and I have confidence they can do it without fucking up their game.

In the end I'm not in GGG shoes, that is their call, their priority and their money but I would be interested to heir their stance because aside form increasing xp from 95 to 100 they last stance come from when they nerfed it from 15% to 10% and Chris was also saying that the xp death might not be the best soltuion but its been years and I'm too lazy to find the post lol