At my wit's end with Syndicate one-shots

Just an observation pertaining to death penalty.

Here, in this thread, you see how people react to eating death penalties. In this case, of course, you see a disproportional amount of complains about difficulty because syndicate is currently overtuned.

However, that can lead to the understanding that death penalty only works when you don't encounter it too much, else it ruins the game.

Now pair that with the disparity between meta builds and "regular" builds, now mix in the understanding that the only competitive builds for top content are but a few(unless assuming insane player skills like doing atziri 1 es etc), and then you begin to comprehend the true damage death penalties has been doing to this game for ages.

A huge part of the potential population has been culled by death penalty, making the game unattractive for them. Frustrating, annoying. Requiring a decently high level of skill/theorycrafting to even play the game at a reasonable level. Because of death penalty, a lot of people who could otherwise have enjoyed the game has left with a bad taste in their mouth instead, annoyed and pissed, frustrated.

I have close friends etc, they don't play poe because they will feel they are worthless because of death penalty and frustratingly give up on the chars, refusing to go meta. They won't admit that to me, but i know since childhood and i know what events occur at ragequit moment, it's failed char time again again again. When the game starts killing you chancelessly and you feel worthless and not good enough.

Poe is not well balanced, white mobs can do insane damage if you let them beat undefended and even all the way up till ubers the most important thing is to have enormous dps + mechanics to reliable hit everything to delete monsters before they can really catch you in their attacks. And that may work for a good portion of builds, maybe top 10% builds, but death penalty culls all the rest, and thereby culling a huge population of people who could otherwise have played their builds.

Death penalty has culled soo many builds that simply can't reach higher levels and forced to stop(not because they don't like playing them, forced to stop doing the build you like most is real demotivator+++++ and the worst you can do a player, disallow them from doing what want because of some dumb "rule"). All of this is the absolutely opposite of what you should strive to do with a game and the experience it delivers.

And finally in the end, you may ask yourself - what is the gain from this death penalty? What makes it essential?

The true answer is - very little. It is a relic of the past. At best it protects softcore first-to-100 race from glass cannons - but at what price? It's an extreme price that far far far far outweighs the benefits.

Let's be real - if you wanna compete for max glory race-to-100, hardcore is where you go. Death penalty already completely out of the picture there. What harms does it do to you, if mr average joe has a failbuild that he enjoys and using several portals every map because he dies? - he will never be a threat because already in failing he's not abusing lack of death penalty for anything, he is just plain bad.

Have you not noticed how archaic these systems of stripping peoples progress from them is? So many arpg's, mmo's have learned the simple lesson that it's not good psychology, it makes people get frustrated annoyed and leave - most people prefer to steadily work towards something and depending on how good/bad you are it goes faster/almost halts, but the principle behind it is that it just feels better to keep moving forward.

And i haven't even gotten into mentioning how many aspects of the game will be improved - you can now run your insane corrupted maps, shapers, nasty t16's etc at any time you want. It won't be this dissynchroniced period(that increase the closer you get to 100) where you have to avoid the hard content that you really just wanna do because.. yea you can easily end up dying a few times there throw away way too much xp. Then you can just play.

Did i mention PoE already has a soft-"death penalty"? Nope i don't think i did, well it is already in the core systems it's called 6 portal limit. Means if your builds is uber shite tier then it can't sustain into maps, but here the limit is far lower and allows a ton more builds to pass that bar.

I tell you this, for real, from the button of my heart.

Fuck Death Penalty


PS: and for christ sake, with removing it you can make bosses much tougher but also hold a lot more of the map drops. Which will stabilize more the disparity between the super knowledgeable and the regular player. You will also begin to address the way that everyone plays the game - avoid hard things in general. Instead, people can go full out ham on trying the hard stuff and if they fail they can still keep progressing their char and won't lose the whole days worth of xp.

If people wanted to play hardcore - they would play hardcore, don't try and forcefeed it down everyone's mouth it will never be a win. Then you can make leagues with death penalties instead now for those who want a rougher experience. Tell me though, how big a percentage of players do you think would enable death penalty if it was a choice? As in, how many do you think would rather prefer to play in peace how they want than be constantly frustrated by it? I think that number is huge.

this death penalty meme is getting absuridiculudicrous.

'let's complain about the death penalty in every thread, regardless of what the thread's about! it makes way more sense than actually using defenses and not standing in slams!'

To all of you who keep whining about death penalty: there are plenty of other games out there WITHOUT a death plenty. Bye bye, you won't be missed.

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

To all of you who keep whining about death penalty: there are plenty of other games out there WITHOUT a death plenty. Bye bye, you won't be missed.

Lemme know when Grim Dawn, Wolcen or Diablo 3 (I threw up a little) has summoning remotely comparable to what Path of Exile offers. Hell, skip summoning, lemme know when they have a skill gem and passive tree system as remotely complex as Path of Exile. Hell, skip those, lemme know when those games have endgames as remotely enjoyable as Path of Exile.

Your argument is pointless and serves no purpose than to inflame issues.

actually, he was spot on.

for months, the same people have been incessantly complaining about the death penalty. their fixation with it showcases that single point's importance to them.

ergo, advice to play a game that won't result in incessant complaining about the same thing for months... seems to be quite valid and relevant.

actually, he was spot on.

for months, the same people have been incessantly complaining about the death penalty. their fixation with it showcases that single point's importance to them.

ergo, advice to play a game that won't result in incessant complaining about the same thing for months... seems to be quite valid and relevant.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

To all of you who keep whining about death penalty: there are plenty of other games out there WITHOUT a death plenty. Bye bye, you won't be missed.

Lemme know when Grim Dawn, Wolcen or Diablo 3 (I threw up a little) has summoning remotely comparable to what Path of Exile offers. Hell, skip summoning, lemme know when they have a skill gem and passive tree system as remotely complex as Path of Exile. Hell, skip those, lemme know when those games have endgames as remotely enjoyable as Path of Exile.

Your argument is pointless and serves no purpose than to inflame issues.

Death penalty is as much a part of PoE as everything else you just mentioned. Does that make your argument pointless as well?

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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Anonymous1749704 wrote:

To all of you who keep whining about death penalty: there are plenty of other games out there WITHOUT a death plenty. Bye bye, you won't be missed.

Lemme know when Grim Dawn, Wolcen or Diablo 3 (I threw up a little) has summoning remotely comparable to what Path of Exile offers. Hell, skip summoning, lemme know when they have a skill gem and passive tree system as remotely complex as Path of Exile. Hell, skip those, lemme know when those games have endgames as remotely enjoyable as Path of Exile.

Your argument is pointless and serves no purpose than to inflame issues.

Death penalty is as much a part of PoE as everything else you just mentioned. Does that make your argument pointless as well?

Why, though? Why is it necessary for 10% exp loss on death to be an integral part of the game? The examples I listed are mechanics that define the game (Okay, summoning is a personal one for me), exp loss isn't all that comparable. :P

To make you mad, thats why. Its as good of a reason as any.

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Pizzarugi wrote:

Why, though? Why is it necessary for 10% exp loss on death to be an integral part of the game? The examples I listed are mechanics that define the game (Okay, summoning is a personal one for me), exp loss isn't all that comparable. :P

Pretty sure this has been said a thousand or so times, but because there's no point playing anything but glass cannons if current PoE loses exp penalty. Losing exp is the only setback you get from dying (no, map portals don't count).