Exp Loss is freaking unbalanced

I would respond but I think the argument was over when you said that the D3 death penalty was harsher than the XP penalty in D2. The XP penalty was crucial to the design of D2 as it is in PoE. The 20k gold to repair a death in D3 was nothing. Almost as meaningless as the gold loss on death in D2, but not nearly as meaningful as the XP lost.

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thepmrc wrote:

I would respond but I think the argument was over when you said that the D3 death penalty was harsher than the XP penalty in D2. The XP penalty was crucial to the design of D2 as it is in PoE. The 20k gold to repair a death in D3 was nothing. Almost as meaningless as the gold loss on death in D2, but not nearly as meaningful as the XP lost.

The xp loss in D2 was in context quite meaningless, considering how rarerly you died in that game. Again its not just the death penalty, its also how risky/often the death was

D2 had some very obvious mechanics/strategies that made it easy to completely avoid death, PoE doesn't have this (hence why famous people like Kripp have lost endgame HC characters)

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deteego wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

I would respond but I think the argument was over when you said that the D3 death penalty was harsher than the XP penalty in D2. The XP penalty was crucial to the design of D2 as it is in PoE. The 20k gold to repair a death in D3 was nothing. Almost as meaningless as the gold loss on death in D2, but not nearly as meaningful as the XP lost.

The xp loss in D2 was in context quite meaningless, considering how rare you died in that game. Again its not just the death penalty, its also how risky/often the death was

D2 had some very obvious mechanics/strategies that made it easy to completely avoid death, PoE doesn't have this (hence why famous people like Kripp have lost endgame HC characters)

Indeed, if you followed bots all day then it was pretty easy to avoid death. If you were soloing throne rooms in the 8 player chaos runs it was a bit more of reality.

Anyway, you make the point that PoE is awesome in that it is very hard to completely avoid death, as it should be, and that death is meaningful when it happens.

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thepmrc wrote:

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deteego wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

I would respond but I think the argument was over when you said that the D3 death penalty was harsher than the XP penalty in D2. The XP penalty was crucial to the design of D2 as it is in PoE. The 20k gold to repair a death in D3 was nothing. Almost as meaningless as the gold loss on death in D2, but not nearly as meaningful as the XP lost.

The xp loss in D2 was in context quite meaningless, considering how rare you died in that game. Again its not just the death penalty, its also how risky/often the death was

D2 had some very obvious mechanics/strategies that made it easy to completely avoid death, PoE doesn't have this (hence why famous people like Kripp have lost endgame HC characters)

Indeed, if you followed bots all day then it was pretty easy to avoid death. If you were soloing throne rooms in the 8 player chaos runs it was a bit more of reality.

That and certain builds made death (practically) impossible in group scenarios. The content in D2 is very static, the only chaotic part was elites, of which there were certain mods (like immunity) which you had to get around. In group scenarious this was easy to account for (had a well diversified group that dealt with all immunities, and things like reflect), with solo there were certain builds that could completely finish all content without being brick walled

Its not so much that it was easy not to die (it was actually pretty easy to die in D2 in later parts), its just there were items you could get, and builds which you could do, that completely bypassed that, because the death risks where (almost) completely predetermined

If death risks are predetermined, and they are possible to get around, you can just build around it, which is what everyone did. Although people can argue in PoE that theoretically speaking, every risk is also predetermined (if you take into account every combination of things), there are just so many combinations that you cant really build yourself around every single one (which is another reason health is so prelevant, but thats another issue altogether)

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thepmrc wrote:

Anyway, you make the point that PoE is awesome in that it is very hard to completely avoid death, as it should be, and that death is meaningful when it happens.

Yes, which is the same reason why the current death mechanic is out of place, for the various reasons I have stated earlier

I agree that exp loss on death is good.
When I came over from D3 (which I don't hate as much as many others, it seems) I tended to run into mobs not really caring. I died a lot more in normal difficulty in PoE than I did in D3, yet I am not as frustrated to die in PoE because it is nearly always, desync aside, a fatal move on my side that kills me (for example going into Merciless Fetid Pool with a level 49 ranger).
I found it rather pointless that you could die in D3 as much as you wanted and only lost some durability on your gear + had to wait some seconds to respawn. Of course, with the mobs on Inferno you can't really help but die sometimes, so here XP loss would perhaps be unbalanced.


So, what XP loss does is promote a more cautious playing style, which is a good thing in my book.
Desyncs are annoying, but this is still a beta and I'm quite sure that they'll go (nearly) away in time.

It's a game. People striving for meaning in RPGs should find it in the story. Death is meaningless anyway, it's just a sink mechanic. You play, you die, you learn something play again. Being set back with lots of time at high levels is MEANINGLESS indeed.

You don't fuck up with people time like this. You want to fuck up with their time? Do it stealthily, ingeniously, with hidden time sinks, long quest lines, stuff that is enjoyable. You don't kick them in the nuts and take their time too. It's retarded.

Anyway, the thing is that a punishment must exist. But it must be fair to anybody, it must be REASONABLE to anybody, and it must be implemented elegantly. Do not fall into extremes, as in "oh well, I died I'll pay 10 Gold and go at it again" or "OMFG I lost 2 days of playtime, WTF *smashes head on the wall*". Extremes are not good for anybody and they build bad gaming habits, even pure glass cannon carelessness, or overdone tanking in all classes. PoE has a reasonable penalty as you enter Merciless. There's plenty of content to recuperate the XP loss, which is punishing, you won't go doing the same mistake again, yet it is not exaggerated, because in an hour you'll recuperate. It's called BALANCE.

What PoE has now, with desyncs, 15% XP loss translating to days of lost play time at high levels, lack of content to recuperate the XP - these are all factors in the same equation.

XP loss is necessary. If you die so much that you can no longer gain levels it means your build sucks, deal with it and go back to the drawing board.

Anyway, players that whine about XP penalty in most cases aren't level 80+ players who would really lose hours of playing but those that just entered merciless after barely scraping through cruel.

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deteego wrote:

The fact that people can't zerg to gain levels is irrelevant

I am having a little trouble taking you seriously when you say things like this. Its not relevant that people have to play the game the right way in order to level?? Ya if someone wants to spend far more time grinding a safer area they can, so what? Their penalty is being more bored and it taking far longer to do. Its not irrelevant. How is it super strong to zerg a boss leveling and then continue playing normally? The devs made it so that we can teleport back into the boss room and their health is still the same. IF they don't want us doing that then they should change it to make it more difficult.

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deteego wrote:

, because they just farm safe areas to gain levels and zerg really really really badly in other areas (boss fights). In totality, the zerging is the same, which is the real problem.

I'm not going to discuss the old games anymore because its a little off subject. Zerging is a problem but its not killing the game or anything. The game is still difficult and you still have to play correctly to level, you can't zerg rush all of the time to gain your levels, thats the point.

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deteego wrote:

There is no penalty to dying constantly in PoE when you gain a level, there is in D3, there is a massive gold sink through repairing your gear all the time, and the stacking time penalty. Not only that, but in D3 you can't port when you are about to die, and you can't ALT F4 to avoid death

Good for D3. Would you like PoE to copy it or something? Make a suggestion, I realy don't care.

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deteego wrote:

The zerging overall is just as bad as D3. If PoE didn't have "safe" farming zones like docks, ledge and fellshrine it might be another story, but that isn't the case

There are safe ways to farm in any game. That's really not part of the problem.

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There is no penalty to dying constantly in PoE when you gain a level, there is in D3, there is a massive gold sink through repairing your gear all the time, and the stacking time penalty. Not only that, but in D3 you can't port when you are about to die, and you can't ALT F4 to avoid death

Diablo 3 had a big sink in it? Gold inflated faster then it did in diablo 2. Gold is almost whortless in D3 and isnt a penalty. Me for one was very well geared in D3 and had RNG love so i shouldnt really say anything about gold sink. And do you die in D3? Meh..

And the EXP loss is something we softscrub noobs have to live with. If its desync or whatever. It makes the game fun in a aspect that you feel when you die. If you would die with out any penalty why would you even bother to get res caped and "hp caped". Just go fullblown out dmg and get 50k+ flicker strikers and pewpew. You can still do that, but dont think that would benefit you much in later levels...

It's your opinon sure, but IF they would take that away i think you would hate the game more for it.

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Xpire wrote:

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There is no penalty to dying constantly in PoE when you gain a level, there is in D3, there is a massive gold sink through repairing your gear all the time, and the stacking time penalty. Not only that, but in D3 you can't port when you are about to die, and you can't ALT F4 to avoid death

Diablo 3 had a big sink in it? Gold inflated faster then it did in diablo 2. Gold is almost whortless in D3 and isnt a penalty. Me for one was very well geared in D3 and had RNG love so i shouldnt really say anything about gold sink. And do you die in D3? Meh..

And the EXP loss is something we softscrub noobs have to live with. If its desync or whatever. It makes the game fun in a aspect that you feel when you die. If you would die with out any penalty why would you even bother to get res caped and "hp caped". Just go fullblown out dmg and get 50k+ flicker strikers and pewpew. You can still do that, but dont think that would benefit you much in later levels...

It's your opinon sure, but IF they would take that away i think you would hate the game more for it.

I watched gold in D3 devalue by 50% in a single week while trying to liquidate all my stuff in that game. Still have over 400 million gold and I haven't playing it in about 4-5 months, but I can't even sell the gold for 5 cents a million.... The only D3 deaths I had after all the content nerfs were to massive lag spikes, much like D2 I would just freeze in place for 30+ seconds then everything caught up and you were dead. But yeah, that death penalty sure was brutal. lmao.