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

The thing is, the death penalty isn't there in order to "make the game less fun". Nor is it there to "separate the boys from the real men".

Removing the death penalty would be basically the same as increasing the speed in which people earn levels. GGG is terrified of this - their business model consists on keeping people around as long as possible, so anything that makes people closer to moments when they could stop playing (the credits, the end of the storyline, the level cap, having maxed gear) is either removed or delayed as much as possible.

So it's very, VERY unlikely that GGG would ever remove the death penalty. No, it's not because "too many people are glass cannons", or because they want to annoy their players, or anything like that - that's how GGG's business model works.

I'm honestly very surprised that they have made levelling faster than it was in 2.0.

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Holmiester wrote:

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DER_PSYCHOPATH wrote:

90% of the improvements of a character after level 90, if not more, come from gear, not levels.

Irrelevant.

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Levels are only there to keep a few people who love the grind playing for a little longer. If losing something as meaningless as exp prevents you from enjoying the game, then I'm not sure if you would enjoy it otherwise.

A player has just stated that they would enjoy it if there was no penalty. Which makes sense, because that means the character is still experiencing growth.

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I'm not a hardliner saying that exp penalties on death are absolutely mandatory, but for the time being, they fulfill their purpose, and I have yet to see a viable better solution.

What is their purpose? Currently, there are many players (OP is far from the only one) who find it irritating that level 100, or even 95 plus, is only within reach if they restrict themselves to only the safest environs in order to avoid dying.

I don't see that the game is harmed in the slightest by removing death penalties, which I regard as a throwback to a bygone era of game design. The reasoning behind them appears to be nothing more than 'because we want it that way.'

Perhaps these discussions would be more productive if you and all the other people posting them (instead of keeping it to a single thread, which would be even better) actually read some of the other threads about the same topic, because I'm getting tired of repeating the same arguments. If this goes on, it might be more efficient for me to do some research (that you're not willing to) and collect all the arguments in a single thread that I could refer to instead of relisting them time and again.

On the most simple level, exp penalties on death mean the alternative of not dying is better than dying. There could be better ways to reward going without dying for long periods outside HC, but again, I have so far not seen an alternative that was well thought out.

Exp penalties are warning signs. If you die, but don't lose anything (other than a portal, of which you have six per map), you can just ignore it and will barely even pay attention, let alone figure out why you died and improve on it, be it your build or playstyle.

Exp penalties put a hard limit on extreme glass cannon builds doing top content. You can go around this by boring yourself to death in low maps, but if you don't, you will at some point reach a level at which you lose the same amount of exp as you gain. I personally use this as a metric to judge the ability of my builds. There are two that I stopped playing at 89, but the others all actually got stuck and I couldn't get levelups in dozens of hours.

Exp penalties put a soft limit on glass cannon builds. If you die too often and aren't too stubborn to change your build, the frustration will work as a motivator to adapt your build defensively, decreasing the number of glass cannons being played overall.

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The_Risen wrote:

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DER_PSYCHOPATH wrote:

Stop expecting to reach max level on glass cannons and all the frustration flies out the window. This isn't Diablo. Endgame doesn't begin at max level. 90% of the improvements of a character after level 90, if not more, come from gear, not levels. Levels are only there to keep a few people who love the grind playing for a little longer. If losing something as meaningless as exp prevents you from enjoying the game, then I'm not sure if you would enjoy it otherwise.

I'm not a hardliner saying that exp penalties on death are absolutely mandatory, but for the time being, they fulfill their purpose, and I have yet to see a viable better solution.

I just wanted to get to max level, but i also wanted to do it while having fun. rofl, also i never play glass cannons......

If you don't play glass cannons, you either don't have a problem with exp penalties because you don't die, or you need to, as it is often put "git gud". If you play decently with a non glass cannon build, you won't die anywhere near a significant number of times for it to prevent you from leveling, unless you play the absolute hardest content of the game, where exp advancement shouldn't be expected.

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The_Risen wrote:

i wanted to get to 100 because thats just the way i play, it's not for the passive points or hp.....

Then you apparently failed to notice what way to play getting to 100 means in this game.

And @Erasculio, who I'm not going to bother quoting for this: Being an economically motivated design choice doesn't mean that there can't be other benefits. I think the choice is adequate
from almost every point of view and the best alternative presented at this point. If the crying babies ever come up with a real alternative instead of whining about the fun they lose because they either can't build, can't play, or both, I'm willing to pay attention.

Economic concerns will have to be addressed eventually to have it implemented in the game, but I believe that there's a majority of players who is mostly silent in the suggestion forums, who would be quite disappointed in the removal of a death penalty without a mechanic to replace it. Glass cannons and clear speed meta are already prevalent, there's no need to go further in the wrong direction.

In conclusion it would just lead to different problems if GGG suddenly removed or replaced the death penalty, and making sure not to aloenate their core player base of non casuals is part of the deal.

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Removing the death penalty would be basically the same as increasing the speed in which people earn levels. GGG is terrified of this - their business model consists on keeping people around as long as possible, so anything that makes people closer to moments when they could stop playing (the credits, the end of the storyline, the level cap, having maxed gear) is either removed or delayed as much as possible.

Or maybe the whole concept of layered defenses and defensive classes relies on there being some sort of a penalty for dying? Cause elsewise whats the point of something like Gladiator or stacking ES.

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DER_PSYCHOPATH wrote:

Perhaps these discussions would be more productive if you and all the other people posting them (instead of keeping it to a single thread, which would be even better) actually read some of the other threads about the same topic, because I'm getting tired of repeating the same arguments.

I've read many of them. They are not very impressive. For example,

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On the most simple level, exp penalties on death mean the alternative of not dying is better than dying.

Not dying is already better than dying even without xp loss, for the simplest of reasons: dying wastes time. Maps in particular have an excellent disincentive for deaths: limited portals.

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Exp penalties are warning signs. If you die, but don't lose anything (other than a portal, of which you have six per map), you can just ignore it and will barely even pay attention, let alone figure out why you died and improve on it, be it your build or playstyle.

Dying is the warning sign, and mapping already has the limiting factor of portals already, to eliminate zerg dying to clear maps. As for figuring out how a person died, that is actually heavily undermined by another player-unfriendly stance of GGG: providing zero information to the player upon death.

So on and so forth: the arguments you complain are being ignored, are being ignored because they are underwhelming to say the least.

Only a total noob would think that portals would in some way limit zerging maps in place of exp loss.

I am pretty sure the complainers die at least 6 times per map.

dying takes considerable skill and game knowledge, and should be thusly rewarded.

Defences are wonderful things that stop you from dying and therefore losing xp.
Oh wait. The game is full of one-shot traps if you don't know about them, or when certain mods roll together.

I don't mind the current smaller-than-it-was penalty, but the gameplay still has a fair way to go before its fair about when you lose xp.

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Holmiester wrote:

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DER_PSYCHOPATH wrote:

Perhaps these discussions would be more productive if you and all the other people posting them (instead of keeping it to a single thread, which would be even better) actually read some of the other threads about the same topic, because I'm getting tired of repeating the same arguments.

I've read many of them. They are not very impressive. For example,

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On the most simple level, exp penalties on death mean the alternative of not dying is better than dying.

Not dying is already better than dying even without xp loss, for the simplest of reasons: dying wastes time. Maps in particular have an excellent disincentive for deaths: limited portals.

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Exp penalties are warning signs. If you die, but don't lose anything (other than a portal, of which you have six per map), you can just ignore it and will barely even pay attention, let alone figure out why you died and improve on it, be it your build or playstyle.

Dying is the warning sign, and mapping already has the limiting factor of portals already, to eliminate zerg dying to clear maps. As for figuring out how a person died, that is actually heavily undermined by another player-unfriendly stance of GGG: providing zero information to the player upon death.

So on and so forth: the arguments you complain are being ignored, are being ignored because they are underwhelming to say the least.

There's quite a huge difference between being limited to dying once every day 20-50 maps and not having significant downsides to dying five times per map. If you have Portal Cast on Death and short loading screens, a death won't take you more than ten seconds.

The reason why I see my arguments as significant is that I don't think dying even once per map is acceptable on a good build, and if you don't pick up all the trash, the number of portals is hardly limiting at all. I certainly can't remember the last time I had issues with clearing a regular map on six portals.

You can very much zerg through maps by consuming portals at an insane rate, and if you die five times per map (not limited by portal count), you should most certainly be limited in different ways and not reach level 100.

Dying is not a warning sign if you don't lose anything on death. You know how it's commonly accepted that in PoE some of your characters, especially the first few, will just get stuck and you have to start over? In a version of PoE where there is no exp penalty, people would come to the conclusion that "dying every now and then is part of the game". It's not, and people would most certainly not understand death as a warning sign if they didn't lose something significant. Be it exp they already earned or a positive reinforcement alternative for staying alive that they're not eligible to earn anymore.

And yes, you can't tell why you died every single time and they could improve on showing the type and magnitude of the last significant hits and damaging effects (to include DoT) before your death. But maybe, just maybe, if you have very low life, uncapped resistances, no bleed flask, or happen to be killed by a telegraphed ability, you can figure things out for yourself by thinking a little and doing some research.

90% of the people posting about some encounter they find unfair or generally can't progress through are lacking in some basic defences. Even if you got the message "enemy that looked entirely trivial hit you for 10k", the message wouldn't include "because you're too stupid to build your character in a way that lets you take more than half of it". Unless it's really about something you should have avoided manually (most famously Lightning Mirages nowadays), you still have to figure out how to survive it on your own. The game and GGG won't do that for you.

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HousePet wrote:

Defences are wonderful things that stop you from dying and therefore losing xp.
Oh wait. The game is full of one-shot traps if you don't know about them, or when certain mods roll together.

I don't mind the current smaller-than-it-was penalty, but the gameplay still has a fair way to go before its fair about when you lose xp.

I appreciate this sort of input, but actually you're pointing at a different problem, and the fact remains that most deaths are in fact not caused by unpredictable undefendable oneshots. The people who die only to those are a very small minority and the fewest, if any of them are advocating against an exp penalty.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

Or maybe the whole concept of layered defenses and defensive classes relies on there being some sort of a penalty for dying? Cause elsewise whats the point of something like Gladiator or stacking ES.

The thing is, the death penalty was there long before the gladiator ascendancy was even created. Defensive mechanisms and etc are a consequence, not the cause. Deep down, the death penalty exists because that's what's more profitable for GGG, not because there are mechanics that help characters to survive longer.