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