Remove the stupid idea of losing xp in standard on death

I come from a RPG background so grinding by yourself to gain a level is a natural thing. Which is why I was surprised to learn about the "carry service" in this game. I am trying to understand better the current scenario in POE.
So if the player base is divided into the following population groups A-D that managed to get to >lv90, it will be something like this?
I wonder what are the population numbers in B-D.

So for the current XP loss, Population D is penalized the most I supposed?
And if XP loss is removed, Population A will suffer huge income lost so they will defend it to their grave?

If I am not in Population B, I am playing/levelling this game wrong?



Population A: 0.1%
A bunch of Elite players that get to 95+ on day 1, maybe hit 100 in week 1 with great gear and start doing carry service with pure breachstones?
Hardcore is basically a walk in the park for these players.


Population B: ?? %
Players that are good at farming currencies and pay for these carry service, from say level 96 to 100.


Population C: ?? %
Veteran players whom know the game well, play decent amount of time, able to get to level 96-100 in say 2-4 weeks without carry service on meta or even off-meta builds.


Population D: ??%
Players (new+veteran) that don't join carry service, diligently grind through maps/delve/heist and perhaps make it to 90-98 after 5-8 weeks.
Meta or off-meta builds included.
(i see myself in this group because I can only afford to play 1 character and usually hit 93-95 on 7-8th week.)

While I strongly believe xp penalty on death is a must for softcore leagues I think removing it on standard would be quite ok. Noone really cares. Those that do care mainly play the challenge leagues anyway.

The "accomplishment" argument doesn't really matter there and I am pretty sure noone plays on standard to "become a better player". Standard is usually about other stuff than that. Goofing around etc :)

Standard is nice for:

-People that don't have time available to restart every 3 months but want get to the end game(and have the opportunity of seeing the last bosses more than once). They rather want to keep playing their character.

-Hoarders that love collecting items and keep the items "forever"

-People that love playing around with broken legacy items. Some of those like to make builds that cannot be made in leagues.

-People that like the feeling of "breaking the game".

-People with disabilities (or bad computer/internet setups) that for some reason slow their progression down.

xp penalty on death doesn't have any positive effect on the above and there is really no economy impact involved nor does it take away the accomplishment of others reaching 100 in a challenge league.

They could even remove the "reach level 100" achievement from standard if that is what is making people dislike the idea.

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Balcyn wrote:

Penalty is acceptable.
Penalty is reasonable.
Experience penalty is not.

I'm gonna give you some very real truth. You don't have to like it, but understanding will help a lot.

The game isn't designed like an old school RPG like say Final Fantasy where every player has more or less the same experience and the same win condition. It's designed more like an arcade game with a 'high score' ladder. It's a PvP game really, even though we're all mostly playing solo - just like the space alien shooter with a never ending amount of levels at the arcade. Sure it's an RPG too, and anyone who beats Sirus and Maven can say they beat it, just the same as you.

But everything else? Every other goal you set for yourself is one of competition, creativity, or challenge. To that end GGG put obstacles in the game which, when overcome, make hurdling them that much more satisfying.

Competition could be first to level 100 or first to kill a boss during a temp league (or private custom league as we will soon see in the Zizaran gauntlet).

Creativity could be collect one of every unique.

Challenge could be 'beat Sirus using only white items'.

Players mix and match too. A goal like 'be the first player to collect every unique in SSF' is all 3.

The thing is these are essentially PvP objectives because the point of doing them is to brag about them. I know this offends the modern sensibilities, but this fun comes at the expense of others. I got something you didn't. Or, I grinded harder for something you weren't willing to grind for.

That's why we have trade leagues with fresh economies and level resets. It's why there's an experience penalty. It's one of the reasons why trading has 'friction' and not an AH. That's why challenge leagues are generally harder than the rest of the map they are in. That's why there are super rare drops like HH and Mirror instead of free loot raining from the sky. That's why Harvest was nerfed instead of kept in its 2.0 state.

I could go on and on. The obstacles exist for you to climb over them - not so that they can laugh while you fail - but so that you can feel proud when you do overcome them. You did something hard, challenging, rare. You outsmarted the market and got a great deal on an item. You grinded out X challenges and got the exclusive hideout reward and now everyone will know it when they trade with you forever more. You hit level 100 when many others gave up. Whatever the goal it couldn't be called an 'achievement' if everyone did it.

Again, I know the modern sentiment is 'everyone should get to do everything' and 'exclusion of anyone from anything is inept at best and morally wrong at worst' but that's not the design at work here. It's rare, hardcore, and cut throat - and I like it and I should like to see it preserved. 'Medium core' mechanics like Heist and exp loss, time exclusive rewards that will never be offered again, pointless grinds for shiny glistening badges that separate the casual from the psychotic. You can't have them without embracing concepts like 'penalty' 'exclusion' and 'grind' though.

"

innervation wrote:

"

Balcyn wrote:

Penalty is acceptable.
Penalty is reasonable.
Experience penalty is not.

I'm gonna give you some very real truth. You don't have to like it, but understanding will help a lot.

The game isn't designed like an old school RPG like say Final Fantasy where every player has more or less the same experience and the same win condition. It's designed more like an arcade game with a 'high score' ladder. It's a PvP game really, even though we're all mostly playing solo - just like the space alien shooter with a never ending amount of levels at the arcade. Sure it's an RPG too, and anyone who beats Sirus and Maven can say they beat it, just the same as you.

But everything else? Every other goal you set for yourself is one of competition, creativity, or challenge. To that end GGG put obstacles in the game which, when overcome, make hurdling them that much more satisfying.

Competition could be first to level 100 or first to kill a boss during a temp league (or private custom league as we will soon see in the Zizaran gauntlet).

Creativity could be collect one of every unique.

Challenge could be 'beat Sirus using only white items'.

Players mix and match too. A goal like 'be the first player to collect every unique in SSF' is all 3.

The thing is these are essentially PvP objectives because the point of doing them is to brag about them. I know this offends the modern sensibilities, but this fun comes at the expense of others. I got something you didn't. Or, I grinded harder for something you weren't willing to grind for.

That's why we have trade leagues with fresh economies and level resets. It's why there's an experience penalty. It's one of the reasons why trading has 'friction' and not an AH. That's why challenge leagues are generally harder than the rest of the map they are in. That's why there are super rare drops like HH and Mirror instead of free loot raining from the sky. That's why Harvest was nerfed instead of kept in its 2.0 state.

I could go on and on. The obstacles exist for you to climb over them - not so that they can laugh while you fail - but so that you can feel proud when you do overcome them. You did something hard, challenging, rare. You outsmarted the market and got a great deal on an item. You grinded out X challenges and got the exclusive hideout reward and now everyone will know it when they trade with you forever more. You hit level 100 when many others gave up. Whatever the goal it couldn't be called an 'achievement' if everyone did it.

Again, I know the modern sentiment is 'everyone should get to do everything' and 'exclusion of anyone from anything is inept at best and morally wrong at worst' but that's not the design at work here. It's rare, hardcore, and cut throat - and I like it and I should like to see it preserved. 'Medium core' mechanics like Heist and exp loss, time exclusive rewards that will never be offered again, pointless grinds for shiny glistening badges that separate the casual from the psychotic. You can't have them without embracing concepts like 'penalty' 'exclusion' and 'grind' though.

3 problems with those arguments.

1. Despite it's uniqueness in some aspects - PoE is still an RPG game. RPG generally is defined by 2 most crucial factors: role-playing element, which usually consists of decision making and therefore impact on the game world, characters and story; and character development system - which also fall under the role-playing aspect in a way. If we don't have the first aspect in the game - we deal with an Action RPG, like PoE. In that case what's left of crucial parts of the game is the character development system, and usually some grind for better items and currency. This is a defining aspect of action RPG - you don't have to like it, but it's very real truth. And therefore allocating points in our skill tree - actually developing a character - shouldn't be a privilege reserved only for some who care enough to struggle and grind - it should be a right that anyone can fairly earn.
And it is especially true for PoE specifically, because of its complex character development system, amazing passive skill tree that actually encourages planning, fine-tunning and min-maxing your build - and actually developing it. From a perspective - that is exactly what PoE is primarily about.

2. Your point could make sense in the context of experience penalty, if it wasn't for the fact that it's not about overcoming obstacles. Existance of obstacles is fine and justified - if they're fair. Fair obstacles in this context consist of: increased number of experience points needed for level-up, progressively harder content required to complete etc. Non-avoidable one-shots and deaths that aren't your fault and cannot be prevented are not fair obstacles - they're artificial walls, which are sometimes called - rightfully so - fake difficutly. This isn't a challenge and overcoming obstacles, because that would have to refer to your in-game skills and performance, whereas in reality it has nothing to do with climbing or overcoming like you describe - it's more like roulette. You could say that that's actually a separate problem, which is game balance, and I would wholeheartedly agree, however untill the game remains in this - to call it lightly - "imbalanced" state, it is very relevant to the problem with exp penalty, because it is unfair also for this reason.
And as a side note, while mentioning other problems - what adds up to that is lack of any death recap. Healthy challenge should also be encouraging to some degree. Information regarding what type of damage and what sort of skill I've died to could be an encouragment to further improve my character and adress weak points. In the case of it's absence death usually remains simply an infuriating experience from which we learn nothing. That's not an obstacle - that's fake difficulty.

3. In your first response in this thread you wrote: "you've made an assumption and projected onto reality your wish of how things should be".
I think in a way you're making your own mistake. What you've written above is your interpretation of the game, the way use see it, and you look at it through this specific context. It isn't true for every player. Not every player feels the need to compare themselves to other players, how fast they achieved something etc. For some - like myself - it doesn't bring any sense of challenge. Not for everyone the game is PvP really. So I detect inconsistency here - on one hand people can make up their own challenges, but on the other hand they're forced to look at the game through challenge that consists of grinding through something more than others.
Your argument is false in my opinion in this general sense, that even if we look at the game through lens of challenges like you described, players can have different sense of challenge. As a reminder, this thread originally mentioned removing exp penalty in standard. Standard by design is a place where people are allowed to progress in their own pace, so in a way, set their own challenges, which, as far as I understand, is consistent with what you described.
But even if you you were right on this, the game fails on that front too to some degree. Good example that I can think of is reseting the atlas. One of the goals we set for ourselves with my wife (we usually play together) was to over time complete all the maps with bonuses. We both have jobs, other interests - life, to call it shortly - so that would take us months at least, simply because we don't play for hours every day, and like to progress at a comfortable pace. But guess what - we're unable to do so, because of regular atlas reset. When this happened for like third time it almost made my wife quit the game, and highly discouraged her - we play much less together now than we used to. So it's just another example where you actually set yourself a challenge, are willing to go throgh it and overcome necessary obstacles, but instead you're faced with unfair and artificial walls and ways to prolong the grind - same case with exp penalty.

And regarding your last sentence: notice that not one time I mentioned having a problem with "death penalty". I only have a problem with "experience penalty".

I know just how the original poster feels, and I agree on the death penalty being to harsh in Standard. I'm betting that at least 95% of the people telling him that they think he sucks or whatever learned their super uber builds from other people rather than figuring it all out themselves. Seems like the PoE community has both the best and the worst of people.


But the thing I found most hilarious was: "...meaning that GGG would have to spend enormous amount of resources in balancing the two differently."

Wait? you think they make an attempt to "balance" things? ROTF LMAO. OMG that is the funniest thing I have read online in months.

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DimlyLit wrote:

I know just how the original poster feels, and I agree on the death penalty being to harsh in Standard. I'm betting that at least 95% of the people telling him that they think he sucks or whatever learned their super uber builds from other people rather than figuring it all out themselves. Seems like the PoE community has both the best and the worst of people.


But the thing I found most hilarious was: "...meaning that GGG would have to spend enormous amount of resources in balancing the two differently."

Wait? you think they make an attempt to "balance" things? ROTF LMAO. OMG that is the funniest thing I have read online in months.

Truer words are hardly ever spoken.

"

1. And therefore allocating points in our skill tree - actually developing a character - shouldn't be a privilege reserved only for some who care enough to struggle and grind - it should be a right that anyone can fairly earn.

It's obviously not reserved you're being extremely melodramatic. The last few points that you don't need are gated behind having a good character and piloting it well. Completely reasonable. Starting with your logic and working backwards, anything that prevents the progression of the character is 'unfair'. Well taking damage leads to death so that's out. Getting a HH on the first day would help me 'develop my character', why should it be a reserved privilege for the lucky? Silliness.

"

2. Fake difficulty

Yes, everything you don't like is 'unfair fake difficulty'. Let me guess what is fair...something you beat 100% of the time? Silliness.

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3. What you've written above is your interpretation of the game, the way use see it, and you look at it through this specific context. It isn't true for every player.

Not true, I'm telling you what the devs have said since the game's inception. This is the way they see the game, and that's what matters since they're the ones making it.

"

innervation wrote:

"

2. Fake difficulty

Yes, everything you don't like is 'unfair fake difficulty'. Let me guess what is fair...something you beat 100% of the time? Silliness.

Fair would be something I have a chance of reacting to and beating/avoiding given my proper skills and performance. That isn't too much to ask as far as I'm concerned.

Nah.

10% is nothing on a softcore league in actuality for those who care about leveling. Theres no reason to remove it with an abundance of resources and juicing available even though its not needed.

If youre at level 95-96 and i think even 97 its pretty much 1% per map so long as the packsize stays consistent and the magic monsters. Thats pretty much 100 maps per level, even less if juice them up by adding things like breach, delirium.

If someone cares about speed running getting to 100, its actually not that hard these days even if you die a few times a long the way.

Im 96 right now and i leave T11-12 with Roughly 1% per map, maybe even a little bit more than that depending on how well rolled it is. Ultimatum also gives a huge amount of experience points, based off my rampage numbers by wave 6-7 you generally have killed over 1000 monsters.

The higher tier maps you play in, the more experience youll gain. A lot of builds, made for clear speed are doing maps in under 2 mins per run. Even if you take into account that 95-97 is 100 maps each, at 2 mins per run, thats about 3 hours worth of time per level. Thats nothing compared to the time it took before.

Assuming you can keep up 1% per map as you go 97-100 in higher tier maps that would also mean roughly 3 hours per level. So in total you might need around 15 hours play time purely running maps to hit 100 from 97.

On top of that, i heard about a weird EXP boost carry thing that can have you go from 90-95 in like 5 maps. That shows how broken and easy it is to gain experience if you can have 90-95 within 40 minutes.

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BrightHeart_99 wrote:

I've been stuck at lv 85 for the longest time now

Dude what. You can get 10% exp on alched yellow maps. If you're stuck at 85, you are actually dying on every single map.

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

Assuming you can keep up 1% per map as you go 97-100

97 is actually about 33% of the way to 100. In my experience, just using alcs on T14+ maps this league, I get about 10% exp per Sirus cycle at level 99.

If you haven't hit 98 yet, you haven't felt the grind.