Do all the XP penalty complainers just body brigade through the game? Honest question

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

If you're butting up against the XP penalty a lot: its because you're not playing the ARPG correctly. You're intentionally losing; Stop that. You'll enjoy the game a lot more if you stop intentionally losing.

Your instinct as a gamer playing a hack and slash ARPG when you die to often should be to go back to a previous or optional zone and farm a bit. Get some upgrades, maybe a level. Why do you think you're supposed to just steamroll ahead until the last boss dies or you reach a leveling equalibrium because you lose XP throwing your face at it faster than you gain XP? Thats not the intent of the game or genre.

Playing well in an ARPG mostly means killing things for loot until you're powerful and not dying. Unlike a souls game or a platformer or a strategy game, here the entire goal of the game is to outscale the content with a powerful character. NOT puzzle solving acumen, 4d chess, thinking 20 moves ahead, not precise flinch jumping skills at the pixel edge of a platform and not pattern recognition of what moves the enemy always does on repeat. (though ofc POE2 is weaving a bit of this in, again though its still mostly outscalable as it should be using the ARPG gameplay loop)

Imagine this mindset in a strategy game: I'll just keep using the same tactic and hope for a different result via some RNG; sounds like the definition of insanity right? Its sure as hell not gaming.

I know this seems obvious to some but the amount of complaining about XP penalty suggests that a LOT OF PEOPLE CLEARLY NEED TO HEAR IT.

Stop losing intentionally.

Ummmm no ..
You need to hear it.
GGG needs to hear it...

The game isn't fun enough to do that.
Every level is a slog so advocating going back for what ?

To be annoyed at insta death explosions ?
To have garbage loot drop that you dont need or want ?
Ohh wait I know to spend your time on a trade site paying to win?
Or perhaps the fun of randomly flipping a coin or as it is called here crafting.

The game doesnt give the tools for success .. ohh perhaps it will after 20 hours of uninspired boring unrewarding time investment ....

I got news ... you can't get people to go back one step cause they are already fixated at just getting to the end ... and they will stop playing ... say i win ... and never look back . Fact.

This is a one and done game , you persist to the end win and move on .

Test it ...
Take someone and ask .. hey wanna start a new character , level up , and to the trials again.. answer will be .... NOPE.

Hey wanna go play together in a system where if you die you ruin the game for us
and you can stare at the ground for 20 minutes because you got one shot by the mob i killed in front of you while i keep playing.

Or hey you can just feel like shit cause you ruined the map I bought.

Nobody is going to do any "farming" to improve anything.
It's a random chance that if you dont randomly get one shot , and that randomly you make it through a set of required trials and randomly find some gear that doesnt suck .....

OR 100% deterministically buy what you want ... game is broken

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dwqrf#0717 wrote:

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

There are baseline expectations that you have to meet and one of them in a rpg is that people want to feel closure by "finishing" the game

Finishing the GAME and getting closure is done by killing the boss of Act 6 (currently Act 3 Cruel).

Back from your timeout I see.

If the game ends after the story then there is no reason to waste resources on an endgame, instead make the game's campaign more in depth so it lasts 90hours or something.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

I'm currently 94 on my highest char and close to 92 on my farm char (MF), never changed gear or skill since level 80 and just farm easy t15, 16 maps and avoid any risk.

yeah endgame was thrown together its EA and GGG has shown they know how to cram content into 3 month live service windows.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

Exciting challenge, game working as intended by boring me to death. Makes me never want to return since the time requirement for a max character is way too much. Rather play "inferior" competition which will somehow to everyones surprise be profitable when the hardcore game is left in the dust long term.

You think getting to level cap quickly = good gameplay? I have a game for you, its called D4. It honestly sounds like you're caught up in the illusion that the fun part of a game is when you reach the end and there's nothing left to do.

If your focus is on playing the game that makes the most money for a large corporation then D4 is the game for you. You're also their perfect customer because you apparently care about them making money more than gameplay.

My focus is on games where the choices feel impactful, well crafted, and the gameplay isn't dumb.

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Jitter912#4278 wrote:

I got news ... you can't get people to go back one step cause they are already fixated at just getting to the end ... and they will stop playing ... say i win ... and never look back . Fact.

This is a one and done game , you persist to the end win and move on .

If this is your mindset well enjoy your next game whatever that is.

But also why care about penalties for thing you'll not be doing?

Tbh no game can cater to all players and the games that try to the hardest end up like D4 and most MMO's...

shallow trash for normies and guide gamers.

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MEITTI#3999 wrote:

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avastcosmicarena#5899 wrote:

I love Souls-likes (not just From Software's games, but also Nioh 1/2, Lies of P, Mortal Shell, and other standouts in the genre) and difficult games, in general, but punishment like this just feels disrespectful, IMO.

Bringing up Souls and Nioh games feels strange, given how in those games if you fail to retrieve your body once after your death, you don't merely lose a little bit of your xp like in PoE, you lose ALL of it. Those games are much less forgiving when it comes to XP penalties yet you seem fine with that.

I don't think you have much experience with these games, because, in practice, they are far less punishing and feel far more fair than POE 2.

First, they don't have anything close to the unpredictable 1-shot deaths that POE 2 (and also POE 1 if we're being honest) has. Deaths are far more predictable. You have much more agency to react to danger in those games than you do in POE, where you can easily get 1-shot from a random white mob just offscreen even after heavily investing into defenses. This is a separate problem related to poorly tuned enemy damage and poorly tuned defensive options in the game, but it strongly relates to why people dislike XP loss and having only 1 chance at maps.

Second, defenses are not hard to achieve in those games. You can always easily build defenses or have a solid strategy for playing defensively (using shields, parrying, etc.). You don't have the atrocious balance from class to class like you do in POE, where certain classes have a much, much easier time than others due to having much easier access to HP or energy shield, while other classes suffer because the defense mechanisms intended for them (ex: armor) were poorly implemented and poorly balanced vs the other defenses in the game.

Third, those games always give you an opportunity to rectify your mistake by recovering your exp/Souls/runes. POE 2 gives you no such opportunity. You get 1-shot, and, not only do you lose your exp, but you may actually end up with less exp than you started with when starting the map. It literally sends you backwards in terms of progression, something that never happens in Souls-likes.

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

I'm currently 94 on my highest char and close to 92 on my farm char (MF), never changed gear or skill since level 80 and just farm easy t15, 16 maps and avoid any risk.

yeah endgame was thrown together its EA and GGG has shown they know how to cram content into 3 month live service windows.

"

BK2710#6123 wrote:

Exciting challenge, game working as intended by boring me to death. Makes me never want to return since the time requirement for a max character is way too much. Rather play "inferior" competition which will somehow to everyones surprise be profitable when the hardcore game is left in the dust long term.

You think getting to level cap quickly = good gameplay? I have a game for you, its called D4. It honestly sounds like you're caught up in the illusion that the fun part of a game is when you reach the end and there's nothing left to do.

If your focus is on playing the game that makes the most money for a large corporation then D4 is the game for you. You're also their perfect customer because you apparently care about them making money more than gameplay.

My focus is on games where the choices feel impactful, well crafted, and the gameplay isn't dumb.

It feels good to get a talent point, and reaching level 100 gives you a feeling of closure "now I can focus more on other content". Ignoring all the complications of death penalties, the time it takes to level up is unreasonable. Leveling up faster is not affecting the gameplay. I've given a few suggestions for it in the past, you should get more xp the more you clear without dying so you get close to nothing until a good 10% per map 95+. If you can get to 90+ you will get to 100 but the time investment is not worth it. This is a game and not a job. I want to play poe over d4 since it is a better game but if one game simply makes you feel like shit you will end up not revisiting it since humans desire positive emotions.
I know that there is other stuff to do, making new characters/builds and try uniques with it etc but when you have the lingering feeling that you will never complete it, i.e. level, it is demotivating to many.
If 100 is not required the game would benefit from lowering max to like 90 for example. I'd rather be encouraged to play through the game more than once with characters rather than feel jailed to one.

Also you are making the mistake of assuming something (level quickly=good gameplay) when that is neither something I have said nor hinted towards. Leveling quickly is not leveling reasonably either and gameplay is not attached to leveling up as far as I am concerned. The journey to the end is fun but if the end is unattainable then it sours the journey. A good end is one of the major proven factors for returning and satisfied customers (huge movie studies, same phenomenon) and for those who want more there should be a meaty endgame (challenge lv100+ characters, gear, builds) next to encouraging making new characters. Not everyone wants the same thing after all.

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

shallow trash for normies and guide gamers.

Does... does being one of the few who can stand the game and get to the end make you think you aren't shallow trash? My man, we are all currently arguing about a video game on a forum. We are shallow nerd trash. Embrace it instead of insisting it makes you cool.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

You think getting to level cap quickly = good gameplay?

No, but being able to on skill does. Most people wouldn't get there quickly even without XP loss. Everyone defending this seems to want the only way to play to be a slow grindy time sink. If that's all you want, go play WOW.

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adrenrocker#5143 wrote:

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

shallow trash for normies and guide gamers.

Does... does being one of the few who can stand the game and get to the end make you think you aren't shallow trash? My man, we are all currently arguing about a video game on a forum. We are shallow nerd trash. Embrace it instead of insisting it makes you cool.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

You think getting to level cap quickly = good gameplay?

No, but being able to on skill does. Most people wouldn't get there quickly even without XP loss. Everyone defending this seems to want the only way to play to be a slow grindy time sink. If that's all you want, go play WOW.

No one who ever got to 100 would call it skilled gameplay or good, you play risk averse and do easy content for hours.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

No one who ever got to 100 would call it skilled gameplay or good, you play risk averse and do easy content for hours.

Right, that is awful gameplay. It certainly isn't the "challenge" people keep insisting it is.

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BK2710#6123 wrote:

No one who ever got to 100 would call it skilled gameplay or good, you play risk averse and do easy content for hours.

That is the problem!!!

This is what we want to change. PoE 2 should require skilled gameplay.

Bosses should take multiple deaths to see and learn the mechanics, than a handful more to figure out how to overcome the challenge. Then finally, being able to execute the skilled gameplay: dodge rolls, movement skills, timing, skill choice.

Maps should be set up where you always have opportunities to be swarmed and killed by packs of mobs and rares that your build has trouble with.

Playing easy content for hours is not an achievement.

Maybe they could put a "Rock of Pain and Woe" in a hub and let characters bash their head against it a few hundred thousand times to level up.