Where XP loss on death comes from.

A little walk down history lane for the younger gamers here.

XP loss on death was a key feature for Text Based MUD's like Multi-Users-in-Middle-Earth (MUME) and similar games. You would loss a lot of XP if you died to a mob, and a lesser amount if you died to another PC. You also lost all the equipment you had on your character if someone else looted your corpse before you got back to it.

This was necessary to keep you interested in playing your character. Reaching max level wasn't hard, so this gave a back and forth that kept your character interesting as you would play the same character with the same friends over years. There was essentially no chance of dying to NPC mobs once you knew what you were doing, and the XP loss to players was a bit of gambling-esque flavor. XP and gear was all easily replacable. In practice, everyone hovered around in a range near max level, with close to BIS gear as you'd have to regain some of that now and then, as well.

When graphical MUD's like Ultima Online and Everquest started (yes, I know they weren't the first), they kept the XP loss on death because they were basically copying everything over. When they realized it was causing problems for player progression, they allowed priest rez to restore most of the lost experience.

Later MMO's added the idea of XP debt rather than loss, and generally lowered the cost of dying. Today, reaching max level is literally viewed as the starting position for playing the "real game" - raiding, pvp, etc...

Path of Exile 2 is a VERY different game. First of all - players aren't expected to play the same character for years. In fact they are encouraged to create new ones every few months for each new league. You also aren't competing with other players in PvP - you being higher or lower level than anyone else doesn't matter.

Yet, the devs here insist on keeping it in the game. I'll keep asking - Why? How does it improve the game?

If the penalty wasn't in the game, how many players would ask for it to be added?
How many would say, "Wow, this would have been a great game, if only I were punished harder for failing."

In short - I'll say that this mechanic is a hold-over from a long gone era of gaming, and serves no positive purpose in a game like this.

I don't see a need for it with the one portal per map concept. Either have the one portal or have the xp debt. The only reason I see for the xp penalty is to dissuade pushing content you're not ready for, I.E. a time loss, which the one portal per map already accomplishes. Having both just adds a compounding time sink that has no upside or reward to combining them.

I'm going to preface this comment with I like the game and I respect the developers otherwise I wouldn't support it but they have some serious hubris and ego when it comes to design decisions. Their ethos seems to be, the harder and more vindictive we can make something, the better it is. While difficulty can provide a reward in terms of progressions or sense of progress or skill, it can go too far as well when it becomes arbitrary.