I agree with most points in the video, and would have agreed completely up until relatively recently when I was finally able to get a character through the story and into Maps - and that altered my opinion somewhat.
You don't get any kind of death penalty up to and including Act 5, meanwhile the death penalty from Act 6 to Act 10 is very low.
For a long while I took the horror-stories I'd read about the death penalty to heart, and that caused me to plan around the penalty. I've no doubt there are others who do, or have done exactly the same: learn where you will encounter bosses within the story acts, and then grind on the easy trash-mobs until I hit the next level-up, THEN take-on the boss. It meant the death penalty couldn't affect me, so I could easily zerg-rush bosses by throwing myself onto them dozens and dozens of times, and the only penalty was the time taken to do it.
It felt a bit cheap, but I moved past that sensation and fully intended to use that strategy all the way through to the end. And it worked... until Act 7.
Very well-played, GGG.
The exact wall I hit is probably obvious to most of you, and it was indeed Maligaro. The boss fight takes place inside a Map, and it comes equipped with the rules and quirks of Maps - particularly the 6 portal rule.
I didn't believe you'd only get 6 attempts to kill the boss, because I suspected that would lead to a situation where you're stuck without a map and unable to make progress. So I treated the situation as just a visual oddity and proceeded to try and zerg-rush Maligaro.
It annoyed me how deaths placed you back at the map device, from where you have to traverse the subsequent area to return to Maligaro, and even though I saw the portals being used up none of this stopped me from trying anyway. After the 6th portal disappeared, I checked the device to find the Map had returned and was able to be re-used to create 6 new portals, so I threw myself into one intending to finish-up killing the boss - only to find the area and boss, the whole entire instance, had been completely reset.
As a badly built Marauder who'd stopped being viable several acts prior and who's sole strategy against bosses was to zerg them, I knew there was nothing I could do to get that character past that boss.
So after a bit of scouting around I found a really good build, Enki's Arc Witch, which seemed to be much easier to play as and was progressing through the game noticeably faster. And she felt strong, really strong. Able to surprise me by killing bosses in literal seconds when I least expected it.
So my confidence grew to the point where I stopped caring about the death penalty: I felt nothing could kill me, so there wasn't any pressure or incentive to go out of my way to gain level-ups before bosses. When I did eventually die and was hit by the XP penalty, I can't even say I noticed the loss at all because it seemed so insignificant. All in all, I died about 8 times by the time I finished Act 10, but never once felt like I'd been set-back in any way, and it was only the fact that I could type "/deaths" in the chat and it didn't say 0 that bothered me at all.
So I'd literally gone from not caring about death and using zerg-rushing as a main strategy, to wanting to clear the story without any recorded deaths on the character; something I've not yet been able to achieve, but it's changed my outlook on the game and my approach to playing it significantly.
I took that character into maps, and continued levelling it a bit more. I managed to reach level 80, at which I did start to notice the death penalty become a lot more painful than it used to be.
I began to realize the situation I was in: XP penalties mean that you can't just stick to killing enemies you're comfortable with, you have to keep progressing to harder enemies otherwise you'll eventually start to get very little and eventually no XP. That means sooner or later you're forced to put yourself in situations where you'll start to die more and more often. You can't just sit in safe zones and idly grind your way to 100 simply by switching off your brain for 200 hours like in other RPGs.
It did occur to me that GGG have found a solution to the age-old problem of success in RPGs being predominantly tied to time spent playing. If you literally can *never* reach level 100 no matter how many thousand times you farm a level 65 area, then being level 100 suddenly has meaning. The death penalty is a vital part of that, since without it one could easiy just zerg-rush trash mobs and accumulate XP every time they killed one, which again would just make level 100 an inevitability for players who are prepared to do that.
So in conclusion, I see both the death penalty and XP penalty systems as pretty redundant and useless during the story phase, but beyond that they're essential for adding meaning to reaching very high levels. And it's better to put hard walls in front of players who're struggling due to badly built characters, or characters who're not well equipped or prepared because it's more enjoyable and more rewarding to reroll a new character with the aim of being stronger and getting further, than it is to stubbornly force a weak character through content they're totally unable to handle.
I fear that if either of those systems were removed or changed too much, we'd see an increase in people trying to take uber-weak characters to level 100, which would lead to a whole lot of boring gameplay for those players involving instantly dying thousands of times, and so many more people able to hit level 100 that it means nothing and nobody cares when you got there.
This is a very good set of observations, and I think it's shared by a lot of people.
Combine these with the other two problems (rate war and face-rolling) and the fact that many types of penalty systems would have the same benefits without the feedback loop between them and you, more or less, have the whole point of the video.
"
Qiu_Qiu wrote:
Spoiler
"
Pobatti wrote:
It's negligable and can be ignored by players, even in SSF modes, for the duration of the story.
So it fails its purpose in early levels. It should be teaching you where you fail early, rather than let you hit a wall in act 7.
"
Pobatti wrote:
But that problem is being overblown. Horror stories are being told about it, and that leads to new players coming into the game hearing those stories, and becoming utterly terrified of the XP penalty from Act 6 onwards. Which is stupid, especially when you die a few times and hardly notice the XP bar move.
It is an issue if wrong info is transmitted to new players. The penalty is an issue rather late in the game, but when it becomes one, it is massive.
"
Pobatti wrote:
Remove the death penalty and what would players do?
Dude, how many times to I have to repeat this:
"
Qiu_Qiu wrote:
Just so that this is very clear, and I wish I didn't have to state it again and again: I am not advocating for a complete removal of the penalty, but rather a rework to make it fulfill its objectives better.
Where the hell did you get the idea that what is being suggested is that the penalty be entirely removed?
It seems to me that you are having the exact opposite experience to what those complaining about the penalty experience: we try the hardest content we can (thus training our skill), experience the high death penalties, and then decide to avoid the content that hurts us most (thus no longer training our skill and possibly starting regressing), removing one by one all challenging content, until we only play boring content that hardly gives any experience.
This is where I stopped playing the game.
PS:
I am talking about high levels. Hardly anyone finds the penalty too harsh before the 80s (90s in most cases).
Yes, this is the broader picture, and a good addendum to your story.
Players' time spent at end-game is skewed heavily toward grinding, not only because of the avoidance of penalties themselves, but because the game has been balanced to accommodate it. And that's to say nothing of the inconsistent treatment of death while leveling, ALT-F4, etc.
(In a separate video linked in the description to the first one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XIzHGUnVE) I talk about the seldom-spoken-of uses and misuses of penalties in games more generally.)
Last edited by Khalixxa#0534 on Mar 11, 2019, 8:05:55 PM
It can be done by simple elegant solution: if you turn death penalty OFF, you loose one extra map portal after death.
Or maybe only one portal per map (including Shaper, Elder, Atziri, etc.) so you only get one attempt per map or area. No glass cannons allowed.
So that party play becomes definitely impossible ?
On top of that, GGG does not want the highest and least easily accessible content to kick you out at the first internet problem (no, uber lab is not the highest and least accessible content, far from it).
lol what a fanboy defense. A lot of "higher" content than lab has this design too. Synthesis, incursion, delve, abyss, breach, master dailies. Pretty much anything with a timer contradicts your claims that GGG takes internet problems in mind when designing the game.
lol what a fanboy defense. A lot of "higher" content than lab has this design too. Synthesis, incursion, delve, abyss, breach, master dailies. Pretty much anything with a timer contradicts your claims that GGG takes internet problems in mind when designing the game.
- Incursion, lot "higher" content than maps ? WHAT ? Did you even spend half a second thinking about what you were about to write ?
- Master dailies ... WHAT ? Are you aware that this is PoE 3.6.x here, that apart from Zana one portal missions, master dailies are never a "one try" thing ? on top of that - again - èa lot "higher" content than maps' ? wtf ...
- Apart from the inside of cities in Delves, you can always come back later unless you died in HC, if you have one portal per maps, you can't, I guess you didn't spend half a second thinking about that either.
- Apart from pure breachstones, breach .. 'a lot "higher" content' than maps too ? what the ...
*sigh*
The fact that the game is being designed around logging out is partly based on the fact that GGG wants the game to be accessible even to people with a meh internet connection by the way.
Next time, try to have actual arguments ?
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Last edited by Fruz#6137 on Mar 11, 2019, 9:22:44 PM
Please represent what other people are saying fairly:
"
reprot9x wrote:
(...)than lab(...)
His point is simply that many new mechanics are having some form of "one-try" treatment. It's not incoherent to expect them to go through with that and have all content be one-try after finishing the last act.
(I don't talk much about item/loot related issues; only the gameplay)
Thanks for watching. I hope this can help make the game better.
I don't have time to read the hundreds of replies here but I did watch your video and want to compliment you on a very interesting analysis. Thank you for that, one of the most interesting theoretical points made about this game since I started playing over 2 years ago, with many 1000s of hours sunk.
GGG designers and particularly Chris Wilson should watch your video and address the arguments you put forward. It would not be a simple matter to undo many years of design work they have invested, but at least they would understand what is a major limitation to "progress".
I think your arguments about the death penalty being at the root of the huge mess of interrelated problems with damage and experience are essentially correct and at present I can't find any weakness worth mentioning.
HE is a lead designer and doesn't even know what new things get implemented in the game (Ziz pre Betrayal interview).
He is the one who thinks people find all the tedious shit about PoE actually rewarding.
Fuck that guy, he managed to fuck best game ever with his pointless rationalizations that serve jack shit.
But here you go Chris, your wonderful game cant even retain 50k players 5 days after it releases a new league update?
Fuck you and your hamsterwheel content pumps & dumps.
I just had a mental picture of a blood vessel exploding in your head, and you spending the rest of your days drooling on yourself while watching barney and friends reruns. I fail to understand how someone can generate so much hate for someone they don't even know, over something as trivial as a computer game.
Im just mad at people expecting a lightning speed change in the game according to one thread they happen to be agreeing completely.
Please dont mind my bad mouth. Its an old habit i cant shake off.
I am pissed off at the kind of players who can say ''I will skip this league. ''
I want to see POE grow and be successful, but I also sympathize with the frustration. Every time someone expresses that they will "skip league" or "quit the game" we know that they regret doing so at some level, otherwise they would just quit silently and never leave feedback. Frustration is a wish to see the game improve; not a condemnation.
"
Xtorma wrote:
I just had a mental picture of a blood vessel exploding in your head, and you spending the rest of your days drooling on yourself while watching barney and friends reruns. I fail to understand how someone can generate so much hate for someone they don't even know, over something as trivial as a computer game.
People feel like they are out of options, and it manifests itself as anger.
When someone feels like they aren't being listened to, it's like torture. We all know how terrible that feeling is.
Last edited by Khalixxa#0534 on Apr 4, 2019, 1:24:28 AM
This is something I have thought about for years. For all its awesome potential for build diversity, it just isn't there. If you allow me to build a toon that can simultaneously murder entire screens while staying at 100% health, of course i'm going to do it. The hardest content in the game just isn't hard. I think one of the biggest 'proofs' of this argument is standard league. No one bothers with standard league, in part because it is boring as shit to melt screens with no challenge. Remove Alt F4, fix leech/regen, fix movement skills and POE will be better for it.
I tend to love builds that 'externalize' the damage. RF, totems, golems etc allow me to focus all of my mechanics on avoiding damage while my stuff just melts screens. Honestly though, there really isn't any complicated mechanics. Even at the end game content, 99.9% of the time I just spam my movement skill from one area to another. A map clear might be 4 or 5 minutes of me just holding down my right mouse button. Most of the time I'm too lazy to even bother with flasks... just isn't important in my builds.
I wish there was a reason to use flasks, I wish there was a reason to use more than one button. But there just isn't. The beginning of leagues are fun, I usually commit to leveling by trying a skill i've never used before. But once i get to that magical re-spec, its all about right click.
This game had so much potential. For me, part of the problem is that there are too many mechanics that can be abused. If you allow me to theory craft and come up with something that does 10MM DPS, of course the game is going to be broken.
I think GGG tried to do something different when they introduced Essence Drain/Contagion, those are obviously skills that work together and supports a completely different play style. I personally think cool-downs based skill interplay like this is a fun experience. But as the game stands, its the worst of the ARPG's from a play style perspective. Yes, i think Grim Dawn and D3 lack the awesome potential of POE but have a better game.
Suggested changes, remove ALT F4, having this in the game as an option is a cheat. I cannot respect anyone who tries to defend this.
Nerf the crap out of leech and regen. Theres no reason i should be able to have 100% of my life total regenerated every millisecond. Removing the insane leech will result in the balancing of other variables that would be good for the game.
Put movement skills on a cool-down, 5-8 seconds or something so that I have an incentive to have something other than shield charge on my bar. I'm not kidding when I say that footprints and shield charge are the only two buttons on my bar.
Last edited by canbacn#7517 on Apr 6, 2019, 10:59:05 AM
Nice video, can't quite find myself disagreeing with anything.
That said - how do you move with balls that big? Posting something like this here is calling for trouble... :D
Community being stubborn about changing anything is one of the reasons GGG isn't doing anything about core concepts. And honestly I think it won't change until it will be too late.
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
