Path of Exile, Gameplay Criticism

I want to clarify something I'm now regretting more than ever that I didn't clarify in the video, regarding the suggestion about the XP recovery / loot quest.

-We acquire this quest-starting item somehow (prophecy? map? random drop?), and the in-game market would determine its value.

-Since the quest would recover lost XP and award loot on a ratio based on how much XP a player has lost, the two purposes of this quest compete with each other, which makes it self correcting. The more people exhaust one purpose, the more the value of the other will increase.

-If there is any loss of survival instinct because of the possibility of this quest item recovering lost XP, it will be reflected by an increase in the quest item's value, and also a decrease in the market supply of loot from the quest. This is an added positive reinforcement effect to survival.

-It also doesn't directly affect the underlying penalty; if people don't like the quest it, it can easily be removed, but we will learn a lot in the process.

I honestly cannot think of a less invasive and easier-to-undo way to go about it.
Last edited by Khalixxa on Jan 16, 2019, 10:26:25 PM
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Khalixxa wrote:
What makes the current death penalty unique in granting these qualities? Hypothetically, couldn't a completely different penalty, or even a higher penalty like 20% or 30% or 100% also have those qualities?
Nothing. Any penalty would work the same but they all pretty much just equate to more time you have to grind to gain a level. And is that even a penalty? If it is, is it desirable to increase the grind?

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Khalixxa wrote:
Are you in favor of somehow preventing ALT-F4 from being used to avoid death?
Yep.

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Khalixxa wrote:
Are you in favor of making the penalty apply consistently, even to low level characters, and even if it means losing levels?
Yep.
For both of those, I'm interested to see how many people are still in favour of the penalty when there aren't ways of avoiding it.

I don't see it as a penalty anymore. Its just a weird game mechanic where I lose experience at random arbitrary times.
Half the time I've died and I'm not sure what happened, so its either some desync or a random planetary alignment of damage multipliers/crits.
Other times its where I was supposed to know one particular telegraphed attack is going to one shot me, even though the other telegraphed attacks don't.
Some times I've failed to avoid all the projectiles in a random bullet hell encounter. I guess those are fair? (When did this become a bullet hell game? Don't they usually have better movement controls?)
Other times I've just half fallen asleep because I'm doing a boring grind and didn't notice something. Or forgot my elemental resistances aren't over 80%.
LOL I'm falling asleep thinking about and typing this. I'd better finish quickly...
I don't consider 90% of my deaths to be from lack of skill, and I don't consider the death penalty a deterrent or challenge.
There was an interesting point in the video.

-XP risk proportional to XP gain -

Current death penalty slowly ramps up during campaign:

Act 1-5 : 0% loss
Act 6-10 : 5% loss
Maps: 10%


Maybe for maps there should be a new & dynamic formula which follows a similar ramp-up pattern like campaign mode, which would have a similar learn-by mistake effect.


Numbers pulled out of thin air, but you hopefully get what i mean.
white maps: 0.5 -2 % exp loss
yellow maps: 2-5% exp loss
red maps: 5-10 exp loss

Masterpiece of 3.16 lore
"A mysterious figure appears out of nowhere, trying to escape from something you can't see. She hands you a rusty-looking device called the Blood Crucible and urges you to implant it into your body."

Only usable with Ethanol Flasks
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HousePet wrote:
Some times I've failed to avoid all the projectiles in a random bullet hell encounter. I guess those are fair? (When did this become a bullet hell game? Don't they usually have better movement controls?)


My exact thoughts, but in the end I think it's common to have unfair mechanics.
Other APGS have some attacks that locks you in place and deliver unavoidable damage, surely less fair.

What I mean is that since players will be always more skilled than the AI, the game will always resort to unfair mechanics to raise the challenge.

So yeah, unfair but common in ARPGs. Thing is the penalty for dying to unfair mechanics should not be unfair too and IMHO it is now.

I'm an ex-exile beacuse I play more rewarding ARPGs! :-P

I miss the "Daily Insightful Charan" with my coffee!

English is not my main language: that means I'll write strange things! :-D
Would it be more fair to take away all the currency you've found during your last hour instead of your exp?
I'll be writing out my thoughts on each point you make in the video as I watch it and pause it, and then do a summary at the end.

1. I disagree, ARPG for me is mostly in the theorycrafting and making it work is what makes me get that feeling of accomplishment. I don't play ARPGs to have 20 things to think about casting, if I wanted that, I'd be playing an MMO. In fact, I think the game has too many things I need to click, heralds, banners, auras, blasphemy curses, 5 flasks, movement skill main skill secondary skill vaal skill...

Anything more than 5 is risky pushing it, past 7 is enjoyable for me.

2. Completely agree. Basically every build you make HAS to have at least 100% inc life from tree. At this point might as well give everyone 100% increased base life and remove 20 levels from the game and put the max level at 80. Also the regen and life leech argument is completely valid I think.

3. Yep, agree completely. It takes sooo long to finally be able to sort of differentiate the animations for abilities in all that clutter even at minimal graphics options to avoid pointless clutter. In combination with the death penalty it's just not fair.

And before some elitist says "lol git gud". No, It's not about getting good, it's about being objective. I love this game, just like the OP, but there is no perfect game, and this game has a few huge problems and the OP seems to be nailing some of them on the head.

---

Summary

Remove clutter, remove death penalty, rebalance exp increments so that it's a less steep curve as you get higher, once you fix the so called "rate war" yo can remove insta-log-out option and put a 5 second log out timer so that people can't abuse insta log out as if it was a legal cheat.

I dislike the quest to get back exp idea. I dislike the idea of forcing party play - I don't want to play with other people, the game accommodates people who do and people who don't, I would probably quit the game if I was forced to play in a group to be able to do all content.

Overall a constructive commentary and I respect that you spent the time to make it, even if I don't agree with some things you said.

GGG is doing great work, but feedback needs to be taken into account if they want to push the game into something much better.
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Johny_Snow wrote:
Would it be more fair to take away all the currency you've found during your last hour instead of your exp?


.... and if I die in the first ten minutes of the playing session? :-P

It's never fair to remove anything you already earned while playing because an unfair mechanic killed you or because you did a mistake.

Since I died (mistake or mechanic) it's fair that a penalty will make me work more for the next earnings. Even work more exponentially to discourage throwing away life easily.

Examples: penalty to exp gain, to loot, to rarity, to crafting, to Masters encounters, etc. There are a lot of RNG things that can be penalized in this game!

Always IMHO.
I'm an ex-exile beacuse I play more rewarding ARPGs! :-P

I miss the "Daily Insightful Charan" with my coffee!

English is not my main language: that means I'll write strange things! :-D
Last edited by Anteo12 on Jan 17, 2019, 5:38:08 AM
See, this is the problem, you find the way you die unfair, you base it completely on your subjective opinion on what is fair and what is not. Doesn't work this way.

And if you die in the first 10 minutes you lose the currency you gained + from the last 50 minutes of the previous session. And if you don't have it anymore you go into debt you must pay first before you start gathering your currency again.
Last edited by Johny_Snow on Jan 17, 2019, 5:40:29 AM
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Johny_Snow wrote:
See, this is the problem, you find the way you die unfair, you base it completely on your subjective opinion on what is fair and what is not. Doesn't work this way.


I did not write that I find the way I die unfair, I wrote that the mechanic that kills me could be unfair, and that is acceptable, but the penalty that follows should not be unfair.

... and yes, my opinion is subjective as it's my opinon, as "doesn't work this way" it's your opinion. ;-)
I'm an ex-exile beacuse I play more rewarding ARPGs! :-P

I miss the "Daily Insightful Charan" with my coffee!

English is not my main language: that means I'll write strange things! :-D
Last edited by Anteo12 on Jan 17, 2019, 5:57:54 AM
You cant throw the unfair label and expect changes. You need a tad more than that.

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