Path of Exile, Gameplay Criticism

Grim Dawn has a very lenient death penalty(body retrieval one too) but it was not designed with multiplayer in mind. No servers, no seasons, no trade website, the game is strictly single player made for a different kind of audience.

In case you missed it the first time and want to listen to me talk for another 11 minutes (for some reason), this presentation summarizes my position on penalties in general:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XIzHGUnVE

The arguments "penalties increase challenge" and "penalties teach players" are logically sound, but there are limits. Arguments like these can be rejected as easily in games as they can in real life, for which we can all probably think of many examples.

"Penalties are very thrilling" is a much better type of argument to make if you want to push the "death penalty is fine" idea. As far as I have been able to discern, "thrill" doesn't have an objective logical basis, and thus cannot be defeated by objective logical arguments.

Keep in mind, nobody is making an argument for the complete removal of all death penalties. At most, they are talking about changing them for the sake of other qualities the game has (or could have). So, if you don't want to take the recommended "thrill" road, and want to argue a logical basis for the penalty staying the same, you'll need to, at minimum, answer the following:

How can we tell whether a penalty is appropriate?

You don't need oxford dictionary levels of precision, just show that a standard exists. Does the current penalty hit the bullseye of this standard?

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robmafia wrote:

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51 dmg reduction

it's likely much less than that.

Well my armours around 13k and its says 51% dmg reduction.. un fortified and I run fortify and endurance charges. Quite honestly, I cant remember a death that wasn't one hit cept maybe in a Vaal temple map where the Degen was to much for the lack of chaos res. But just take a look at my gear Mr. know it all, and tell me where Im going wrong? Farm for 10 exalts to get +1% to something? is that going make the difference? .. which brings up the Gear issue in this game that buddy didn't even want to touch base on cause its so bad. 99% of anything that drops is garbage, and maybe id be able to upgrade if it wasn't required to have res and life on every frigin piece of gear. Endgame is pretty much cookie cutter cause of this.

Of course the penalty is good. If it didn't exist classes like gladiator and juggernaut wouldn't be able to work at all. Who would care about defenses when you can gain way more by rushing the content in a quantity gear with elemetalist/deadeye? The defensive ascendancies will only be viable in hardcore. And this will only be the tip of the iceberg. Usually the items which get nerfed/destroyed provide insane defense scaling. So defenses are important now. Without the penalty there wont be any need for them. So classes, items, the core of the game will be highly destabilized and unbalanced.

And no, the alternatives are all the same, people who cant handle dying after 90 looking to soften the pain while making the whole process overly complicated for the others who have no such problem. Pass.

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Well my armours around 13k and its says 51% dmg reduction

Your mistake is right here.

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Millar wrote:

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robmafia wrote:

"

51 dmg reduction

it's likely much less than that.

Well my armours around 13k and its says 51% dmg reduction.. un fortified and I run fortify and endurance charges. Quite honestly, I cant remember a death that wasn't one hit cept maybe in a Vaal temple map where the Degen was to much for the lack of chaos res. But just take a look at my gear Mr. know it all, and tell me where Im going wrong? Farm for 10 exalts to get +1% to something? is that going make the difference? .. which brings up the Gear issue in this game that buddy didn't even want to touch base on cause its so bad. 99% of anything that drops is garbage, and maybe id be able to upgrade if it wasn't required to have res and life on every frigin piece of gear. Endgame is pretty much cookie cutter cause of this.

poe 2019.

make false claims and then double-down on them while giving attitude and namecalling the person you're mockingly asking for help.

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Without the DP people would just plow through the game like destiny 2. We do not want this.

Removing the DP would also make the ladder meaningless. Any old newb can troll the game and throw their body at it until they are the 2 millionth player to hit 100.

So the DP is all about making you feel elite, even though most people don't really care about getting to level 100? Why would a newb be bothering with grinding all the way to level 100 every league. And how are they a newb if they are doing that?

Are you saying that the DP is the only think stopping people from getting to level 100? If that is the case, the system is messed up already.

And why did you quote that post if you weren't going to talk about it at all?

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I am wondering if anyone has played any other ARPG, where there is no DP. Those are fun for about a week.
We would drown in a sea of bland RPGs if we removed our defining features.

Sorry, but the DP here is the bland generic RPG one. There is nothing original about it.

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Millar wrote:

Well my armours around 13k and its says 51% dmg reduction..

And do you have any clue how armor works? How damage of a physical hit is calculated? It's on the wiki, look it up.

The short version is that the reduction depends on the damage of the hit, so that there is no set percentage that you mitigate. The percentage in the character sheet is sort of an average. It's basically useless because it doesn't apply to any specific situation.

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HousePet wrote:

So the DP is all about making you feel elite, even though most people don't really care about getting to level 100? Why would a newb be bothering with grinding all the way to level 100 every league. And how are they a newb if they are doing that?

Are you saying that the DP is the only think stopping people from getting to level 100? If that is the case, the system is messed up already.

And why did you quote that post if you weren't going to talk about it at all?

Sorry, I am having trouble following you. It is usually the people who get stuck around level 90 who are having these issues. They blame everything but themselves. Instead of realizing that their build and playstyle needs to evolve.

A lot of players will bust out path of building and switch things around until they can progress further instead of cry about it on forums.

But please, have fun with Torchlight or Grim Dawn. No DP. You can just cruise to level 60 or whatever and be done with it.

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Khalixxa wrote:

How can we tell whether a penalty is good or bad for a game?

Yeah, for the sake of discussion that is a question one needs to provide a solid answer and also articulate which game a person is playing.

I can give a partial answer: in case your purpose is to enjoy gaming as leisure time well spent with a video game, there are such things as 'public opinion' or 'consumer wants'. But in general, if someone plays video games to enjoy their leisure time, then I think he isn't actually seeking any punishment at all. He wishes his leisure time rather feel rewarding than punishing.

In fact, I remember bringing up more effective ways to prevent zerging than current level dependant death XP penalty which also effectively is a regressive mechanic. League racers would in fact be more hurt zerging if their grind for some rule upon death reason was put into a halt for some time. They are so gut that they don't die anyways, so zerging to 100 with a death timer in league slows down only bad players. Do you think this assumption is right or wrong, Johny_Snow?

So, is the current system promoting a way between 'zerging' and 'grinding'? I personally think not. The grind is forced with map trading (no scarabs in standard AFAIK) and imitating HC playstyle which means pretty much deathless at highest character level. This is true whether the player chose to play softcore mode or not, because it is dictated by a regression mechanic to every player. It has to do with a player choice. Tastes are another thing, and no one's taste prefering regression mechanic in a game otherwise purposely leaning to a progression of character in the end is designed to cater certain taste of what makes playing a game enjoyable. It's also about whether the game is enjoyable enough to later on get back to it rather than look for a game with no regression. Saying 'you need to work for it' is so utter bullshit from the perspective that games should be enjoyed, not feeling like a household work. At least I already have work to do in my household. Supposedly next grind in game will be tidying up your hideout each time you log on. That will give more meaning to amazing adventures made throughout Wraeclast. It would also be regressive mechanic in the sense you had to tidy your room every time before popping out a portal. Oh, wait.

Now then, there are distinct tastes. It does not follow there are anything but statistical methods to give a 'right answer' to such a fundamental question. People do make a personal distinction between reward and punishment, that much I can tell you. Mine is as good as yours. Still grinding for that 50 000 perandus coins to some day buy a headhunter, you know. Man can have dreams, don't you think?

There must be death penalty for sure, but not in the way it is now.
The current death penalty:

1)Therethicaly prevents zerging - it does not, its just block you from leveling, doesnt block you from obtaining gear
2)Therethicaly make the game harder - it does not, the game is stat dependand not player skill.
3)Therethicaly give you "hardcore" feel into the game - it does not, actualy it make the reverse. You evade hard and risky content with would make you like playing something hardcore.
4)Does not prevent you from being rewarded - you can still get good loot, since best loot is RNG drop anywhere, not just from something that require you to risk
5)Piss you off since you loose even up to x hours of time, sometimes not even by your mistake.


Other death penalties that work better and are actualy in the game already:

1)Max X portal to the area - when you die you loose all rewards linked to that area. Sometimes it might be high loot reward with is really a penalty for a player profit. Works really well if you have the 1 portal zana areas.
2)Kick you out of content if you die - especialy in labyrinth, you dont get to the end, you dont get the chest so main pool boxes. And those boxes can be really rewarding.