King of Bullshit: 10% death penalty

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

The other part that you're missing is that if there was no death penalty, the experience needed to level up would be FAR higher (see, Diablo 4).

Well no; if there was no death penalty and a far higher amount of experience needed to level up, then the amount of experience needed to level up would be far higher. Thats two separate changes, not one that requires the other.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

The part you're missing is that games aren't automatically stressful just because there are fail states. Challenge is what MAKES a game fun for many if not most people.

This is why I play HC, I literally can't enjoy an ARPG where I can succeed automatically.

Now that isn't everyone obviously plenty of players don't want that at all, but this is why the xp loss is a choice rather than being a mistake - it isn't possible to please everyone because what one player loves the other hates.

Truth is most players struggle with the xp penalty is at the exact point its intended to make them struggle, whats lacking is that they don't accept it and just see it as a road block artificially gating their progress. You can always do something about it, iterate on your build, choose safer content or do what a huge chunk of players do now and circumvent the entire thing with 5-ways (separate topic tbh)

"Challenge" is honestly a pretty bad argument for the death penalty because there is absolutely nothing challenging about it. Even mediocre builds can run into the low 90s without ever caring about it, good builds can go into the high 90s without ever giving a damn.
Once you've reached the point where it does start mattering you have to make a choice.
1) Stop leveling and caring about the penalty -> no challenge added.
2) Proceed with leveling by limiting yourself to the easiest content available for a set time -> no challenge added
3) Just buy yourself out of this shit with 5-ways -> no challenge added.

No matter where you are on that path and which direction you take, the penalty isn't adding any challenge to the gameplay, nor does it make the gameplay more interesting it's a randomly occuring nuisance at best.

All it really does is adding a (fun) tax to the level 100 status. I guess that's what GGG wants since they love taxes like that but we shouldn't mistake that for challenging gameplay.

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N4mex wrote:

It's really sad to look at these replies literally wanting to grind even more.

Such replies are written by someone with no life, that's clear as a day.
If you want a challange go outside, lift some weights, I bet that not a single of you "But muh game must be challenging, muh penalty for dying is too ez, i need to grind more", would not benchpress 90kgs.

Games are not to be stressed about, we don't come here to work, stress, worry.
We come here to entertain ourselves, relax and have fun.
If you want harder level then go play hardcore or something.

We don't want to sit all stiffed up and worrying if something wont suddenly one hit us and we lose 10% of exp.
You want to stress constanlty? get a job.

You're playing the wrong game.

The founder likes to inflict pain on the weak.

This game is for those who want challenge and even if you're not up to it PoE still offers gaming reward. If anyone can walk into end game like Diablo or dozens of other games then this game would have no identity and nor would it's players.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

"Challenge" is honestly a pretty bad argument for the death penalty because there is absolutely nothing challenging about it. Even mediocre builds can run into the low 90s without ever caring about it, good builds can go into the high 90s without ever giving a damn.
Once you've reached the point where it does start mattering you have to make a choice.
1) Stop leveling and caring about the penalty -> no challenge added.
2) Proceed with leveling by limiting yourself to the easiest content available for a set time -> no challenge added
3) Just buy yourself out of this shit with 5-ways -> no challenge added.

No matter where you are on that path and which direction you take, the penalty isn't adding any challenge to the gameplay, nor does it make the gameplay more interesting it's a randomly occuring nuisance at best.

All it really does is adding a (fun) tax to the level 100 status. I guess that's what GGG wants since they love taxes like that but we shouldn't mistake that for challenging gameplay.

Yes, it all seems so simple when you ignore the paths forward that do add challenge:

1) Play better -> challenge added
2) Improve your character via research, planning, testing, and grind -> challenge added

What's really funny to me is the league designers still act like experience is a great reward for a league mechanic - Lake, Sanctum, and the Crucible special maps give 'lots of extra exp'...like 5 ways aren't a thing lmao. They're designing these exp rewards into new leagues like safe exp doesn't exist like in the pre-Harbinger days.

I ignore them because they don't exist.
"Play better" sounds nice and all but with all the stuff happening on screen and the vast amount of RNG involved with monster damage output it's impossible to improve your play to a level where you won't die despite running content that poses a risk to your build.
As for improving your build to a point where you can run just about anything with zero risk of dying, that's possible but it's not a challenge in any way.
If your build just roflstomps everything you won't have any challenge, it's just walking simulator at that point and if you can't do that then leveling to 100 without dying while playing hard content isn't going to work.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Spoiler

I ignore them because they don't exist.
"Play better" sounds nice and all but with all the stuff happening on screen and the vast amount of RNG involved with monster damage output it's impossible to improve your play to a level where you won't die despite running content that poses a risk to your build.
As for improving your build to a point where you can run just about anything with zero risk of dying, that's possible but it's not a challenge in any way.
If your build just roflstomps everything you won't have any challenge, it's just walking simulator at that point and if you can't do that then leveling to 100 without dying while playing hard content isn't going to work.

Most accurate assessment.

The conundrum of death EXP penalty AND EXP gain penalty simply need an update - PoE 2 should be the perfect moment to add such an improvement IMHO.

The Devs should take pride in their game and tune the content to more accurately reflect the awesome work they placed in the lore, the design, the gameplay and the mechanics.

We need some encouragement to play the "right (old school) way" - where choices matter, fights feel fair during the actual fight, and you won't be killed most of the time by on death effects.

Why aren't pinnacle bosses / harsh content the most challenging and the most rewarding from an EXP point of view?
Because easier content since Harbinger added a side track to fastlane EXP gain, while sadly said content requires minimal effort to get to level 100 in a blink.

Where are the races on HC (SSF) where you need to level to 100 via only pinnacle content? Nowhere to be found as you're better served by "cheating your way" and choosing the path of least resistance...

Danger/reward ratios should be fixed, especially EXP wise, but current setup allows so many flaws to be easily hidden, that I fear they won't further improve on it - they think it allows them to eat their cake and still have it too (and they are partly correct).

Reaching level 100 stopped being a meaningful "achievement", and sadly the challenge got from "play the game" to "pay the game" if you want to reach it faster...

The annoying fact that the Devs can't properly balance the game better than now when you have such large discrepancies between damage (starting from below 1 MIL DPS versus BILLIONS), HP, outright immunities to mechanics and "phases", seems to be the main takeaway...

Level 100 remains a hollow goal, that can be reached easier today than in the past, and the Devs seem currently satisfied with current system...

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Baharoth15 wrote:

I ignore them because they don't exist.
"Play better" sounds nice and all but with all the stuff happening on screen and the vast amount of RNG involved with monster damage output it's impossible to improve your play to a level where you won't die despite running content that poses a risk to your build.
As for improving your build to a point where you can run just about anything with zero risk of dying, that's possible but it's not a challenge in any way.
If your build just roflstomps everything you won't have any challenge, it's just walking simulator at that point and if you can't do that then leveling to 100 without dying while playing hard content isn't going to work.

It isn't impossible for an overwhelming majority of players that hate the xp penalty to play better and it is a challenge to iterate on a builds defences to make them viable because its intertwined with knowing where power lies and all the systems for how you get there.

Yes there isn't a challenge in hitting 100 via doing white T8's for an endless length of time but it becomes an endurance objective instead which is a challenge in its own right. If a player wants to remove the challenge but go 10x slower that is literally what many players in this thread are advocating with "make it take 10x longer but remove the penalty" the system is already in place for them. Hitting 100 at 1.5% progress per map absolutely is a challenge.

The only one that bucks this trend is 5-ways which are rocket speed and completely safe but that is a standard wallet to bypass system which sadly turns up in every game of this type at some point.

Agree completely btw that pinnacle bosses, invitations and content of that type should give vastly more XP than it does with you guys discussing that. It should be possible to level while bossing if that is your preferred content type and you are setup to do it.

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It isn't impossible for an overwhelming majority of players that hate the xp penalty to play better

Sure, they can play better but that won't solve their problems with the XP penalty because unless they go safe mode one way of another they WILL keep dying during mapping. Mapping in this game simply isn't designed for mechanical skill to matter. None existing visual clarity, absurd mob density and random affix stacking causing crazy unpredictable damage spikes makes it impossible.

Mechanical skill matters immensely, yes you aren't dodging shaper slam when mapping but you can play absolutely juiced maps and comfortably skill your way through.

The juicier it gets the more you have to focus but that is a choice for each of us, how juicy do you want to go?

The fact you can't see anything is honestly irrelevant other than how you approach responses to content in this regard. You simply can't look for a cue that you need to respond to because there isn't anything to see. That doesn't mean there isn't anything mechanical you can do lmao you can mechanically dodge almost every attack in PoE without looking because hitscan enemies are almost non-existent.

To me your argument comes down to I don't want to, which is a perfectly legitimate argument to bring to a developer incidentally the game might be more popular without an xp penalty but that isn't the same as you CAN'T play better.

So should players have to play better to achieve 100? I think its a worthy goal personally whereas I think its pretty irrelevant without any penalty. Honestly if they removed the penalty entirely i'd prefer if they just lowered the thresholds so you hit 100 at about the time we hit 96/97 now in a linear fashion. Its either aspirational or its not.