Do all the XP penalty complainers just body brigade through the game? Honest question
|
Let's think logically for a moment... Here are the objective facts:
1. There is an XP penalty on death with explicitly "educational" purpose. The higher your level - the harder the XP punishment upon death. This means (not interpreting, but explicitly stated by Johnathan) that players having reached higher levels should know the mechanics and must upgrade their character power in order to take on more challenging content without death. (Let's not talk about bugs, one-shot mechanics, off-screen nukes etc, we focus solely on facts about the stated purpose of the XP punishment) 2. There is the Omen of Amelioration which reduces the "educational" XP punishment by 75%, almost completely invalidating it. These two facts are contradicting each other because the "educational" purpose of XP punishment gets almost completely lost by having enough currency to use the Omen of Amelioration constantly. Who uses these in POE2? The answer is: almost exclusively high-level players which were supposed to be punished even harder for their death (due to the way XP loss is scaling up to 10% with lvl 95). The same item exists in POE1 as well but is not used that often due to XP punishment being way less impactful. So, if GGG is to stick with the dogmatic XP punishment, the Omen of Amelioration has to go (along with any means to avoid the punishment). Having both in the game does not make any sort of sense. It just adds fuel to the XP punishment argument on both sides. |
|
|
I think it boils down to one thing: was the death fair?
In "fair" deaths, penalties are generally taken and accepted. In "unfair" deaths, even small penalties feel bad. And wether a death is fair is mostly a subjective feeling, so the debate will never find resolution. I think most of the "unfair" deaths being talked about are things from effects that are hard to see that happen extremely quickly, so fast that it's not possible to react to, and the only way to avoid is to play extremely defensively, for example always waiting up to 3 seconds after any mob death before walking over. If the game can improve on the "can't see shite" deaths and do something about the low visibility after-death effects, I'm sure the dissatisfaction over the death penalties would reduce. |
|
|
How fun. A rare with both purple orbs and fire orb mod, as melee. And just as i get an opening to slap it, it spams a aoe that 2 shots me.
This is after i had already cleared half the map and map boss with delirium active. Last edited by mrfox123#7595 on Jan 6, 2025, 11:09:41 AM
|
|
" Another objective fact is that a lot of players don't/can't use the trade league and use Omens when they have it on their chosen character to avoid most of the penalty. Remove the Omens wouldn't be fair to them. |
|
" It's not the point of being fair or not. This does not resolve the fundamental contradiction of the "educational" punishment and an item to almost completely avoid it. The punishment must be applied equally to all players without being able to mitigate it if you can afford it. EDIT: being fair or not is an extremely subjective point and there is no point discussing it because everyone has his own understanding of it. Last edited by CTRL-ALT-SPACE#9511 on Jan 6, 2025, 11:22:41 AM
|
|
" Why wouldn't players not be able to trade time (currencies) for time (omens) ? You can already trade time (currencies) for other variants of time (gear, crafting components, carry services), I don't see why trading Omens should not follow the same rules. Meanwhile, non-trading players are happy to get time savers to use too, whatever the form. Players can avoid the XP penalty in many ways, which are all form of time. Mainly by not dying, which is often done by playing lower level (less XP), tankier build (less dps), or with better build (obtained with time) or better gameplay (knowledge and skill, again, time). Else, you spend more time grinding, which is fine too ; but relative to the other options. |
|
" The omen is not meant to be used a dozen times per level. If you cant afford a 50ex item at level 94, something is also fundamentally wrong with what you are doing in the game. I died like 3 times at level 94. Maybe twice level 95. Once level 96. So far once level 97. Im not "constantly using the omens". I use one every few days, which means 1 every 20-30 hours of gameplay. Its meant to ameliorate, as the name implies, XP loss, its not meant to be spammed every 10 minutes because you die repeatedly in maps. If you are dying repeatedly the omen will not help you, you have to fix your build or playstyle. Last edited by Waitn4D4#0477 on Jan 6, 2025, 12:32:07 PM
|
|
" No, there is no other way of avoiding the XP penalty upon death. Death is the condition that has to be met in order for the XP loss to be enforced. Hence, not dying is not avoiding the penalty, it's avoiding the cause of it. And that's exactly the purpose of the penalty itself - educating players to avoid death itself. The Omen of Amelioration explicitly mitigates the penalty itself thus defeating the purpose of "educational" punishment and turns it into an explicitly selective one. This contradicts the statements of Jonathan et al. In other words, there are logically only two options that make sense: 1. XP punishment upon death applies to all characters without exception. 2. XP punishment upon death applies to no character without exception. "XP punishment applies only to characters not having the appropriate item in the inventory upon death" is not "educational" but selective, because it literally states the condition upon which it is enforced. That's why I'm advocating for either sticking to the XP punishment for all players without means of mitigation or dropping it completely. The current state only produces memes like this: "I like the XP penalty because it makes death meaningful, but I use the appropriate omen to mitigate it, just in case." or "I hate XP penalty on death because it feels like a poor players tax who can't afford the omens". Do you see how this discusion leads to nowhere because the game's mechanics regarding XP loss upon death themselves are contradictory? |
|
" Again, what's the "educational" purpose of the XP penalty if I can afford to mitigate it? It's not about how you use it, it's about the logical contradiction of the mechanic itself. It doesn't make any sense to say "death must feel meaningful... but not this one because I have an Omen of Amelioration in my inventory". |
|
" This is the bit that is most relevant IMO. I hate ODE because, frankly, they're pointless and a waste of time. Having to run away from kills and just sit motionless waiting for a timer to tick down isn't rewarding, skillful, or engaging. Covering the floor with a ton of effects and burying dangerous ones just reinforces a kite back to the entrance style. Again, not engaging or skillful - it's just tedious. Just like being one-shot by a high crit mob, or some random spell, or corpse explosion from off screen isn't something you can counter act, and isn't about raising a skill ceiling. It either happens to you, or it doesn't. Same with some layouts spawning with you surrounded. By the way, just off screen is your corpse explosion prepping to nuke everything around the portal as soon as you start and hit a skill. Also happens to be on a mob with Haste, and 0-100% life regen in 2 seconds. GG. I don't have a problem with XP penalties... but there are a lot of things that need a second look. Once you start stacking them up and encountering ridiculous situations that you have no way of avoiding (in part because it's a required kill, and/or they have 200%x your move speed), the penalty starts becoming more arbitrary than knowledge based. |
|
