Remove the goddamn XP Penalty! (in standard)

If GGG did remove the death penalty, then that achievement you're aiming for (getting to L100) would lose all meaning... It would no longer be a reward for ability (playing and character creation) and perseverance, but only a reward for grinding...

It would also be a horrible slide towards rewarding glass-cannoning...
Oh man, I don't know what I was expecting but come on guys, you're giving me the exact same answers you always post in these kind of threads eventhough my situation is completely different?

I already leveled from 97 to (almost) 100 using the exact same leveling "strategy" (Jun missions) without ever dying. Not. A. Single. Time. Except for that one time where the game essentially crashed. I mean, heck, I didn't even take actual HP damage during all that time. Yes, I'm playing it so safe that I'm basically playing with 2.8k ES and the actual 7.4k lifepool is merely an insurance policy. It works.

Thanks anyway to the people who actually tried to help and give tipps.

Unfortunately it's not worth it to reply to any of the other commenters cause they probably only read "XP Penalty" in the title and stormed off to type their usual comments.

Apparently I also didn't quit (back to 94% already) but I'm taking a break now just collecting my daily Jun missions and then finish this stupid grind once and for all. Cause, you know, there's no more xp penalty once you hit 100. ;P

So let's see if we can somehow spark an actual discussion here about the xp penalty in STANDARD:

The Achievement Aspect

One of the most common replies is "It's a chase goal, it's supposed to be hard". Yeah, I don't agree with that but I can understand it. And if that's the designers decision so be it. It actually is a challenge during a 3 month league. It takes a lot of time and you're losing a lot of currency while doing it. It's not the most elegant mechanic but it certainly impacts the league both economically and psychologically. It's fine to make it a chase goal that people can pursue, trying to get better and better every league.

But what does it achieve in standard? Without a time constraint there's basically zero challenge involved. You can take as much time as you want. You could play half an hour per day and still eventually hit it. The economical impact in standard is pretty much non existant cause the economy is screwed anyway and you're pretty much playing SSF unless you are already rich - at which point, you know, still no economic impact. Without a time constraint all it takes is to make the decision "Yes, I want to level."

The Glass Cannon Aspect

You know what a lot of the 0.1% people play? Glass cannons. Cause glass cannons generate more currency per hour and it's just not efficient to build a character that can tank anything. (Well, unless you're doing it because it's fun)

Now, if you're talking about just bad builds without defense; builds that can potentially be one-shot by regular enemies during any given map, well, I've been there. There was a point during yellow maps where my character was absolutely garbage. Pretty much everything could kill me and there was an uncomfortable amount of maps where I had to bail out because it just wasn't playable. I don't think anyone is going to play a character that way. Dying isn't fun. Using all your portals every map isn't fun. Walking back through the map isn't fun. People won't play builds without defense just because there's no more xp penalty. They will still build defense cause dying isn't fun.

I got nothing here to distuingish between standard and league cause this argument is essentially pointless in both cases. I guess it kinda has economic implications during a league similar to the ones mentioned above but I already stated that those are irrelevant for standard.

The "Get Good" Aspect

Ok, I hate to bring this one up because it might be the only positive thing about the xp penalty. For some reason, losing xp hurts so badly emotionally that it really encourages you to improve your build, learn about game mechanics, think about which modifier or mob combination actually killed you etc.

But isn't it just straight up better to reward good play instead of punishing bad play?

I don't have any idea how to actually do this, I'm not a game designer but I wanted to throw this concept out there and see what you guys think about that type of philosophy change.

That's all I've got for today. Another embarassingly long post that nobody is gonna read anyway... But in case you do, let me know which Aspects I forgot cause I'm pretty sure there are more than just the ones I mentioned.
"
BabyChaos wrote:
So let's see if we can somehow spark an actual discussion here about the xp penalty in STANDARD:

The Achievement Aspect

One of the most common replies is "It's a chase goal, it's supposed to be hard". Yeah, I don't agree with that but I can understand it. And if that's the designers decision so be it. It actually is a challenge during a 3 month league. It takes a lot of time and you're losing a lot of currency while doing it. It's not the most elegant mechanic but it certainly impacts the league both economically and psychologically. It's fine to make it a chase goal that people can pursue, trying to get better and better every league.

But what does it achieve in standard? Without a time constraint there's basically zero challenge involved. You can take as much time as you want. You could play half an hour per day and still eventually hit it. The economical impact in standard is pretty much non existant cause the economy is screwed anyway and you're pretty much playing SSF unless you are already rich - at which point, you know, still no economic impact. Without a time constraint all it takes is to make the decision "Yes, I want to level."

No, the time constraint alone does not void the challenge. But removing the death penalty certainly does. I have had characters get stuck in low and mid tier maps. Additional time investment without changing the characters and improving my way of playing them would never have let me level them to 100.

"
BabyChaos wrote:
The Glass Cannon Aspect

You know what a lot of the 0.1% people play? Glass cannons. Cause glass cannons generate more currency per hour and it's just not efficient to build a character that can tank anything. (Well, unless you're doing it because it's fun)

Now, if you're talking about just bad builds without defense; builds that can potentially be one-shot by regular enemies during any given map, well, I've been there. There was a point during yellow maps where my character was absolutely garbage. Pretty much everything could kill me and there was an uncomfortable amount of maps where I had to bail out because it just wasn't playable. I don't think anyone is going to play a character that way. Dying isn't fun. Using all your portals every map isn't fun. Walking back through the map isn't fun. People won't play builds without defense just because there's no more xp penalty. They will still build defense cause dying isn't fun.

I got nothing here to distuingish between standard and league cause this argument is essentially pointless in both cases. I guess it kinda has economic implications during a league similar to the ones mentioned above but I already stated that those are irrelevant for standard.

There is a difference between playing a glass cannon at 95, playing a glass cannon after reaching level 100, and playing a glass cannon well enough to reach 100.

You are asserting that everyone should reach level 100 with glass cannons regardless of their abilities to be able to compete economically. I do not see why the effort to reach 100 (either in adjusting the build, grinding less dangerous content, or becoming good enough to survive regardless) needs to be removed before granting the economic reward.

Incidentally, I enjoy playing glass cannons and seeing my health flicker from time to time rather than feeling invincible. This is why I play Softcore. I do not mind being locked from progressing in levels due to my lack of compromise however.

I have not played with Cast on Death - Portal yet, but I know people who do. And I do occasionally manually place portals "just in case" to avoid long walks.

"
BabyChaos wrote:
The "Get Good" Aspect

Ok, I hate to bring this one up because it might be the only positive thing about the xp penalty. For some reason, losing xp hurts so badly emotionally that it really encourages you to improve your build, learn about game mechanics, think about which modifier or mob combination actually killed you etc.

But isn't it just straight up better to reward good play instead of punishing bad play?

I don't have any idea how to actually do this, I'm not a game designer but I wanted to throw this concept out there and see what you guys think about that type of philosophy change.

Simply put, levelups are rewards for playing well and safely for long consecutive amounts of time. I think that this disagreement in perception is one of the fundamental sources of the argument over the exp penalty in the first place.

I do not think that the rewards need to be shifted, though I agree that it could be communicated better. How to communicate it better is a harder question to answer.

Hypothetically, if EXP was hidden and only levelups were visible, people would be less frustrated with visibly losing the EXP they spent hours to accumulate, but on the other hand, never leveling up without any indication of why could be similarly frustrating. It is my impression that not even knowing why they are stuck (as in will no longer level up rather than why they keep dying) would lead more players to quit the game entirely.

I think that communicating to the player that "something is wrong" about repeated deaths is important (regardless of whether those repeated deaths are frequent enough to not level to 90 or just barely frequent enough to not progress from 99 to 100).

The one thing the game almost never does is give advice on how to actually do something right after it tells you that you are doing something wrong. This leads to a high degree of freedom along the lines of "you can do anything and we will not tell you what to do or suggest to go in either direction - play as you like".

On the other hand, giving struggling players some pointers on what to improve or whether they should consider running less dangerous content if they wish to progress their character further first might alleviate the feeling of being helplessly subjected to a penalty they perceive as arbitrary.

It has been a long time since I have played it, but an example of a game that decently communicates these things is Pokémon. You are advised to train your Pokémon and select the appropriate types before battling the gym leaders to actually progress your story.

PoE is no different in the requirements it asks from a player (though mostly in asking for the required defence, whereas all methods of offence lead to similar results), and grinding non-dangerous maps before attempting a boss fight in order to reach an appropriate level first is a regular approach. The main difference is that PoE does not tell you any of this. But in guides created by players you might be advised on what content to run and what defences to prioritise against certain bosses.
"
BabyChaos wrote:
So let's see if we can somehow spark an actual discussion here about the xp penalty in STANDARD:

Standard and the leagues follow the same game mechanics. If they didn't, then GGG would have two very different games on their hand, and would have to balance them differently.

You'd be taking away this challenge, to design and play a character well enough that you achieve L100, from all players in Standard. That achievement would be worthless after such a change that you suggest. What's worse, you'd be taking it away from the people who have done them in the past as well.

Challenges should be hard, especially the toughest of them...
Last edited by Cyzax#3287 on Jun 18, 2021, 9:05:25 AM
I play standard, Exalts and mirrors should rain from the sky ! Why not, this is standard after all also why do we need to grind anything ? It is slowing down our progress. Legacy Kaom should drop from killing A1 mobs and Sirus should die as soon as we buff our aura stacker, no need to fight him he ll be dead anyway.

Xp penalty should go also because it is standard so why put any difficulty anyway right? I think actually because it is standard we should just be able to create a level 100 chars with free legacy gear on each slot too.

:)

Forum pvp
https://www.instagram.com/critterspencils/
We should also add a pob import function to standard. You make a item in pob, and import it into your crafting bench to instantly generate it.

And add a mirror of kalandra vendor that sells it for 1 alch.

And instead of losing xp when you die you should instead gain xp.
I have a better idea - sell some mtx tokens, let's call it Holy Balls of Innocence, one dollar a piece. When you die in standard, you have a choice - either lose 10% xp, or pay one Holy Ball, hehe.
"Path of Exile's engine is currently modern, lean and fast." - Chris Wilson, September 19th, 2019
lol
d:-D*
"
dW2005 wrote:
"
Balcyn wrote:
So basically when you want to level up - one of the fundamental mechanics of any RPG - you need to avoid almost all the games' content and stick to safe and repetitive stuff. Truly a great game design. How enjoyable.


So basically you have at least to assess your ability to survive a few nasty hits, mmkay. While you do have some armor/life, can't say 64/70/74 resistances with -3% chaos on top of it sounds impressive in any way - throw in some -res map mod or an appropriate curse, or both, or alternatively some elemental/chaos damage mods, your 8k life will go poof quite fast.


WHAT? You are making comments on a build that has nothing to do with this thread. BabyChaos is the opening poster not Balcyn. I have no idea why Balcyn even responded to you?
Over 430 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1040 posters in support (thread # 1702621) Thank you all! GGG will implement a different method for ascension in PoE2. Retired!
"
Turtledove wrote:

WHAT? You are making comments on a build that has nothing to do with this thread. BabyChaos is the opening poster not Balcyn. I have no idea why Balcyn even responded to you?


Well, maybe old blind me replied to wrong post, mmkay. Shoulda stop staring at screens and visit some oculist and whatnot.

Still, leveling via syndicate is a bad idea if you ask me, even if you use smart and interactive summoner of sorts.
"Path of Exile's engine is currently modern, lean and fast." - Chris Wilson, September 19th, 2019

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