Death penalty - a thorough suggestion

I am not proposing just to remove the death penalty. There have been comments saying that's all I am asking for - that is not true. If you're going to respond saying "he just wants it gone to make leveling to 100 easier", "everyone will be 100 and they shouldn't be" or something along those lines, read the whole thing and you'll realize that this is exactly the thing I am addressing in this post.

I will edit this post when good points are brought up, already did it. Please read them as well when writing up a comment.

First things first: this is the acc I have a low amount of PoE played over only 2 leagues (mostly 1), sitting at 434 hours (400 in Delirium alone I think). I also delete most characters which go to Standard League since I don't play it (with the exception of my slayer and farm characters). With that being said...

The exp loss on death sucks. It isn't fun, it isn't engaging, it isn't intuitive, it's not high-risk high-reward, it's just there, and it's, without a doubt, one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, a lot of people stop playing the game past a certain point, new and old alike.

Edit. Due to comments telling me that I haven't explained "why" it sucks, I felt like editing this and explaining why it sucks. Also, I have unprivated my account so people can see that, yes, I do have a 95 Slayer (2 weeks into Delirium, focused on other chars after) and a 92 Glad (reached it in less than a week in Harvest and then stopped playing).

Short version: dying at any point where you have more than 20-25% exp will demotivate a majority of the playerbase.
Long version: with the current state of the game, it doesn't matter if you are a full tank build which can facetank Sirus laser beam, smash from Elder/Shaper, etc. There will come a time where, despite all of your defensive stats, you will die to something. It might be an off-screen death. It might be a disgusting mod combo. It might be something out of your control like a lagspike or FPS drop. No matter what the reason is, you're not going to tell yourself "I sure am glad that there was a penalty for my death, otherwise I would carry on dying!". That's so far from the truth. The fact that you died is already demotivating enough and will make 90% of players go "I should invest into defenses more / play more carefully", provided the death wasn't out of your control. That is the logical conclusion the majority of people would come to and have come to. Truth be told, if the ONLY reason you're playing a build which has any modicum of defense in it is the death penalty, I'm sorry but you're actually the problem, not the more casual or the mid-tier players (as well as a lot of the top 1%). A perfect example is D3 - death doesn't matter, yet people go for the build with most damage AND survivability. The same can be said for a majority of the games out there. Why is that so? It's simple - people know you need to live in order to do damage, being dead =/= doing damage.

With that being said, here's why I think the death penalty exists: to prevent bots from reaching a high level. If that is the case then the solution I've given ensures this can never happen. People saying that it is to filter the bad builds from the good ones are missing one key point - Orbs of Regret. You can literally get to 95 playing a "meta" build, even to 100 if you wish to, and then you can use the Orbs of Regret and turn yourself into a glass cannon, can you not? Sure, maybe it will "filter" how you get to a high level but it for sure isn't there so that people won't play glass cannon builds. You can try to twist it whatever way you like but, given enough thought, you'd realize that is the reality of PoE right now. All that really matters is if a player is down to level using a "meta" build until they are at a level which is comfortable for them when they can then switch to the build they actually want to play. The reason why this is a bad thing is quite obvious - you're playing something you might not even enjoy just to end up playing something you love. Having to spend the first week or 2 of a League playing something which is strong in the meta just so you can play what you want to play seems really counter-intuitive to me and many other players.

I have been reading the forums the past few weeks and people's takes on this, both the positive and the negative, and both seem to miss the mark completely.

Here are a few points I've read and the counterarguments to them.
There's no other death penalty - this is flat out false. If you die in a map, you lose a portal. Die 6 times and you can't get back in. This is for any map, be it a boss fight, a regular map, Delirium, etc.
The game will become too casual - it won't. You just won't be afraid of losing days of progress and farming low tier maps in order to gain safe exp, something a lot of people do (my suggestions remove this possibility).
People will hit lvl 100 instead of being stuck at 92/93 - why is this a bad thing? Having an end goal for a league apart from grinding gear is a good thing! That and GGG can then balance the trees / end-game content properly instead of it being challenging for players level 92 and somewhat of a steamroll for those level 100. Plus, more passives = more fun! This is a game after all and if you tell me that getting 8-10 more passives isn't going to bring up your enjoyment of the game then I don't know.
Playing not to die feels exciting! - does it though? As I've said, most people who hit 100 do it by spamming "safe" maps, not by pushing themselves. To add to that, how many of you actually challenge Sirus or Shaper or do hard T16 maps while at 70% exp into level 96 (or even lower for that matter)? This isn't exciting, this is, quite frankly, draining the excitement of the game. That and if you not dying in the game is what brings you joy, there's Hardcore for you. That's exactly why it is there.

There are other points but there's no point in me challenging all of them instead of just providing a solution which will hammer on all of the points being made. Here are my proposed changes.

1. Remove the death penalty entirely. As said earlier, it does nothing to "enhance" gameplay.
2. Lock EXP gains past certain levels. Here are my proposed changes:
Levels 70-74 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 1 maps.
Levels 75-79 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 4 maps.
Levels 80-84 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 7 maps.
Levels 85-89 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 9 maps.
Levels 90-93 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 11 maps.
Levels 94-97 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 14 maps.
Levels 98-100 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 16 maps.
3. This point has been addressed further down, I am keeping it in for transparency. TL:DR - it is a bad idea. Greatly increase the EXP required to get from level 90 to 100. It should still take less time than that if you were grinding lower maps but it should require you to actually push for harder content if you want to reach a higher level.
New 4. Add a reward for reaching levels 95 and 100 which will make leveling new characters enticing. It should be something which will make your alts feel stronger mostly while leveling, pushing players to try out more than one character.

What do the proposed changes do?
1. You no longer lose the will to live after dying at 93% after playing safe maps for the past 6 days due to a random 1 shot mechanic, you spacing out for a split second, lag, etc. Now, you'll brush it off and get right back to monster slaying.
2. People will be incentivized to do harder content if they want to carry on leveling (especially true post level 95). This is a win-win situation because:
a. more people will engage with harder content, making higher tier maps more sought after;
b. more powerful items will be up on for trade, as well as more people will be seeking out better gear in order to further improve their character;
c. more people will give PoE endgame a shot when they don't have to worry about their progress being erased;
d. people will realize how much fun endgame can be when, again, they don't have to fear a lag spike, a random 1shot, one slight lapse of judgement, etc.
3. The game won't be filled with bots running rampant at lvl 100. I don't know if bots can reliably run Tier 5-6 maps, yet alone Tier 11+ maps. If they can then more power to them I guess?
4. It gives players a very clear sense of progression. Sure, gearing is, and will always be, the most important part of your character progression, however, having that simple goal of "reach level 90" or "reach level 95" before you go to try harder content, well, that's just icing on the cake, isn't it?
5. This is probably the biggest one - People won't be afraid of trying Sirus, Shaper, Uber Atziri and other endgame content just because they might lose their precious exp. Imagine being able to challenge Sirus and being at 86% exp and actually going in to give it a shot instead of waiting until you level. I am a hundred, no, a thousand percent certain that most players have actually carried on doing low to mid tier maps until they leveled and then, at an amazing 3% exp, challenged whichever boss they could've.
New 6. By giving players who reach levels 95 and 100 a node which they can custom tailor for every character, players wouldn't feel like leveling new characters is a drag. In fact, it will incentivize people to go out and try out new builds. Maybe you love starting off as a Cyclone Glad but want to try out a bow character? Now you can do it easier! Disclaimer: this node shouldn't give a huge amount of player power but it should be good enough for a player to say "hmm, maybe I should push myself and jump into T14 maps to get to level 95 at least". Getting more people to play the game is, in fact, a good thing. This won't break leveling, it won't break end-game, it will just be a nice bonus which GGG can balance the game around. Here's how it could work (thanks Nicholas_Steel for basically writing it out):
- Reaching level 95 and 100 will unlock 2 configurable Passive Skill Tree nodes.
- These nodes are unlocked account wide and any character can immediately use them regardless of Character Level/gameplay progression.
- They can be configured differently per character.
New7. There will be a lot more build diversity. Honestly, this is probably the one thing which I've seen a lot of people divided upon. There have been players stating that you should play a full tank in order to get to 100 and there have been players saying you should play what you enjoy. Realistically, most of the new builds won't be dying too often, something like once every 20 maps. This would kill any build's viability in the current state of the game sadly due to artificially lengthening the time required to level. Not only that but a build which would actually become a viable way to play would be a "Cast on Death" build. Currently the only use it has is to open a portal to where you've died. Now, here's my honest question: wouldn't you like to play around with a Cast on Death build? Will it be viable - probably not. Will it be the strongest build out there? Definitely not. Will it be fun to run around dying and taking everything with you? Oh my god yes. Even then, as I said, this build won't be meta defining, especially due to the whole 6 portals per map deal. In fact, no "pure dps build" will become the meta and GGG can easily ensure this. They did break Herald stacking's kneecaps once Delirium ended, didn't they?

Whether you want to admit it or not, implementing the proposed above changes will improve the overall experience of the game for both casual and hardcore players. People on the more casual side will be able to dip their toes into harder content and will catch the bug which so many of us caught all those years ago, making them want to push further and further until they hit their limit. As for the more hardcore playerbase, getting to 100 will now actually be exciting and not mindless grinding for hours upon hours on end. I've read so many posts about people hitting 100 and it not being challenging but tedious, time consuming and, above all, boring.

Riddle me this: should games be fun and engaging or tedious and boring? You could say that getting to 100 (or any high level goal you've set for yourself) is the only "boring" part but, even if so, why should it be? Why shouldn't you be excited to face Uber Atziri, Sirus or Shaper or any more challenging map? Why should you wait with doing what's fun until you're done with getting those last few % of exp in? Why should you cower instead of push forward? And again, saying that without the death penalty there wouldn't be a cost in doing things is a straight up lie. If you enter Uber Atziri with a full glass cannon build, you will die. You will lose the map and you will lose the time you've invested into getting the pieces, be it chaos / exalts you've spent or farming the pieces yourself. This isn't D3 where dying in a rift has 0 consequence on the amount of loot you get in the end, if you die 6 times, you get nothing AND you lose both time, fragments, stones, maps, whatever.

All in all, I truly believe the game will be in a much better state overall if the proposed above changes, or similar ones, are implemented. There were other things on my mind such as stacking death penalty (starts off at 1% and ramps up) but they still missed the mark - it removes fun and adds unnecessary frustration to the game. If avoiding death is your version of fun, there is literally a separate league called Hardcore for you, as well as you can easily make it as a personal challenge to avoid death. People might come at me saying "if you don't like it then stop playing" and, uhm, that's what I did? That's what many players did? They might tell me to "git gud" and my response to that is simple - CE raider in WoW, as well as Legend rank in HS (peak was 1k-ish) and other accolades. I am not a casual gamer and I do not play PoE casually. I am not viewing this from purely a casual lens but also that of somebody who loves to push themselves to the absolute max. The proposed changes satisfy both casual players as well as seasoned players.

With all that being said, this is my proposal. It's one which has been thoroughly thought out and one which has been on my mind for quite some time now. I love PoE but I simply cannot bring myself back to it knowing that, eventually, the time will come when the fun, engaging gameplay loop of murdering hard bosses, as well as pushing myself to go further and further, will be replaced with a mindless grind which will, inevitably, make me quit the game as it did way back when.

GGG, if you're reading this, I want to come back. I want to have fun. With that being said, I also want to push my characters further and further and the knowledge that I can be stronger, yet I have "settled" for a lower level, well, that just makes me feel bad. Bad enough to actually quit the game than subdue myself to mindless "safe" grinding for hours upon hours on end. I am certain that there are many people, both veteran and potential players, who feel in a similar way.

Quick edit:

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Lets give whole HC community a finger because i suck and keep dying.... No ty.

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Removing the death penalty fundamentally changes how people view max level, It becomes an inevitability. People feel entitled to it, and somewhat counterintuitively this can make the grind feel like even more of a chore. Especially if you further decrease EXP rates and "balance the game around it". The majority of players still wouldn't hit level 100 with current rates if the penalty was removed.

These two points are actually really good. I've mentioned in a post where I address more points but I really want to bring a light on these two points. As mentioned in the replies - I overlooked HC when it came to increasing the exp requirements - completely my bad. It was never my intent to actually increase the overall time it was required to reach 100 for them. The exp increase between levels 90 and 100 is a bad idea and should not be implemented.

Addressing the 2nd quote - again, completely true. Looking back at it, the only reason this was implemented was to ensure that reaching 100 would still be a bit of a "prestige", however, with people being required to do content the equivalent of T16 maps or higher, it will already be a challenge in itself. So, long story short - increasing the exp is a bad idea, both for Hardcore and for Softcore.

I will add one final thing to this, something which I came up with in my post addressing people's points: The proposed changes ensure that if you're stuck at a certain level range, it isn't because you cba with playing "safe" and you don't want to mindlessly grind. No. If you are stuck at 94, that is because you do not wish to make your character capable of doing high tier maps.

P.S - I will never understand gatekeeping. If you look at some of the answers (not all mind you, y'all are just lovely when it comes to actual constructive criticism, thank you <3 ) they feel like saying "f*ck you" to the more casual playerbase. Again, leveling will not fundamentally change the game - you still need to do everything else the same way. Another person getting to 100 will not mean they are as good as someone who has a build worth 70ex, it just gives players a clear-cut goal which will make them dip their toes into the best PoE has to offer - it's expansive endgame. Seriously, ask yourself this - how will more people being able to reach a higher level make your experience worse?

Edit 2: I have seen many people say that GGG should make it impossible for there to be random deaths, be it mod combos, unable to see particle effects, corpse explosions, off-screen 1 shots (hello Sirus my old friend), etc. While I agree this is the "best" thing GGG can do, ask yourself this - by removing the death penalty, won't these things bring LESS frustration than they currently do? And also, which is more feasible - for GGG to address all of those issues or for them to just, you know, remove the exp loss on death? In a perfect world this topic wouldn't be brought up again and again because GGG would have already removed all sources of frustrating deaths. It is 2021, almost 2022 and they haven't done it. The game has been out for almost 8 years and instead of reducing the amount of random rips, they've increased it (Delirium says hi). I am not advocating for everyone reaching max level, hell, limiting the ways you gain exp ensures that you'll reach max level only if you want to do the hardest content, not mindlessly grind. In my opinion, there is a lot more prestige in that than what the current norm is. What I am actually advocating is the same thing all of you want - a lot less frustration when dying. If you can't seem to understand it then I really don't know.

+1, wholeheartedly!

to bad that not a single ggg dev will ever read this

OP, I agree with you. Very good write-up and reasoning. Given none of that is rocket science, doesn't it bother you, that in all these years the developer hasn't arrived at the same conclusions?

"The king is dead, long live the king!"

Ah, the innocence of the phase when you still think your reasoning, consumer opinion and arguments might matter.

"

vmt80 wrote:

Ah, the innocence of the phase when you still think your reasoning, consumer opinion and arguments might matter.

Ah the age of act of not actually reading a post you reply to - like in this case, where the person states this will not even be read by GGG, and even calls out some of the typical replies from the GGG faithul.

Right on schedule XD

A few key points, OP:

"

The exp loss on death sucks.

Well... yeah. It's a fail state. Earning a level only feels rewarding because the death penalty exists. Get rid of the penalty, and the game immediately becomes a completely monotonous grind where your levels are simply a measure of the total number of enemies you've killed; in essence, just a timer for how long you've played that character. There's a reason why you don't passively gain experience over time sitting in your hideout: it would make the game worse.

"

There's no other death penalty - this is flat out false. If you die in a map, you lose a portal. Die 6 times and you can't get back in. This is for any map, be it a boss fight, a regular map, Delirium, etc.

This is extremely disingenuous and fallacious. There is literally zero death penalty (other than experience lost) if you die 1-5 times per map. And quite frankly, if you're dying 5 times in the same map there SHOULD be some form of fail state. If you only had one portal per map (per person), your statement would have merit. But that's not the case, so you don't, and I think you know that. This argument seems willfully dishonest to me.

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Playing not to die feels exciting! - does it though? As I've said, most people who hit 100 do it by spamming "safe" maps, not by pushing themselves. To add to that, how many of you actually challenge Sirus or Shaper or do hard T16 maps while at 70% exp into level 96 (or even lower for that matter)? This isn't exciting, this is, quite frankly, draining the excitement of the game. That and if you not dying in the game is what brings you joy, there's Hardcore for you. That's exactly why it is there.

First of all... yes, it does. I don't run safe content because I'd prefer the game to be interesting; all of my highest levelled characters (by which I mean, the dozen or so I've got past level 95) got there by delving, ultimatum farming, Uber Elder farming back when that was a thing, etc. I've never done a single exp rotation, because I find the idea as boring as you seem to. And I regularly fight endgame bosses at 90%+ of a level, even post-95. I know that if I die more than twice either me or my build clearly were not prepared for the encounter and there SHOULD be a difference between that outcome and a flawless completion. And "just play HC" is a completely fallacious non-argument for a LONG list of reasons, not least among which is that the core game is balanced around SC Trade Challenge leagues.

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1. Remove the death penalty entirely. As said earlier, it does nothing to "enhance" gameplay.

You can say it all you want, but that doesn't make it correct. Ignoring the things which make you wrong also does not make you correct.

"

2. Lock EXP gains past certain levels. Here are my proposed changes:
Levels 70-74 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 1 maps.
Levels 75-79 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 4 maps.
Levels 80-84 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 7 maps.
Levels 85-89 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 9 maps.
Levels 90-93 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 11 maps.
Levels 94-98 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 14 maps.
Levels 99-100 - lock all EXP from content which is lower than Tier 16 maps.

I actually really like this idea (in concept, anyway, someone other than me would have to tell me if the specific ranges seem appropriate), which is going to shock some of the lower-IQ people I'm certain will reply to me before reading this far. But I hail from a more enlightened time where nuance and rationality were allowed to exist, instead of everything being black and white. At any rate, the fact that I've hit level 90 multiple times on builds speedrunning white maps for profitable content like syndicate safehouses and div card farming certainly suggests that I'm being rewarded too much for taking zero risk.

"

3. Greatly increase the EXP required to get from level 90 to 100.

I cannot disagree with this idea in strong enough terms. You want to completely remove the fact that gaining levels feels rewarding, and replace it with a pure grindwall that rewards nothing other than who plays this game the most? If not for how well serious and thoughtful the rest of your post is, I would assume this part were a joke.

The last point I want to make is just to specifically call out all the stuff you have wrong, the list is too long to be worth cutting and pasting all the bits together. But generally speaking, just about all of "what these changes will do" is... well, I shouldn't say incorrect because we're talking about hypotheticals here, but your conclusions make zero sense and are extremely improbable to be correct. As an example, you say it incentivizes players to run harder content post-95 to keep levelling, but the exact opposite is true: if it takes much longer to gain level 99 from 98, and you can only do it in T15-16 maps, players are going to just speedrun white T16 maps, or continue to level up in exp rotations. You've DE-emphasized risk by putting the levels behind a grindwall.

Related to the above point, you talk about rampant level 100 bots? What are you even talking about, is that a standard thing? I don't know that I've ever seen a bot at the top of the challenge league ladders, which is easy to verify because most of those top players are streaming at league start. I didn't want to lump this in with the "you are wrong" section above because, I don't know, this might actually be a thing in standard. But I've played in every single challenge league since Rampage/Beyond, and literally never seen this. Not ONCE.

+1 nicely writen OP

Exp death penalty s.ucks

"

Greatly increase the EXP required to get from level 90 to 100.

Lets give whole HC community a finger because i suck and keep dying.... No ty.

A wall of text just to say" i do not want to play better or make a better build, please game adapt to my laziness"

Soft core is already considered a trash league, we have no need to make this worse.

Just see how people play when they have no penalty:
(expedition)
SC Delve record: 17 513
HC delve record: 1 263

For those who specialize in delve, They don't care about defense or dying, because at 0% experience they lose nothing in SC.
In fact GGG should change the XP penalty in a way you lose your last skill point if you are at 0% XP to keep the tension of the fear of dying.


In ultimatum, i was very frustrated because i keep i dying to Sirus, Shaper, Elder. it's true. I stopped the game for few day , yep.

But i decide to make a new build, i had to really think about my defense,
and for the first i was able to do these Boss whiteout the fear of dying and even uber elder. It was the best feeling ever. I would never have tried to be better if there was no XP penalty.