Why Does PoE2 Keep XP Loss on Death?

Good day, dear developers and game designers of PoE2!

I’d like to share my thoughts and hear yours on the game mechanic of losing experience upon character death.

While playing PoE2, I don’t use meta builds—instead, I play builds that seem fun to try out. As a result, screens don’t explode (metaphorically), and progression isn’t as fast. So, I’ve been mapping again, reached level 87, and once more encountered sudden one-shots.

This time, it struck me that these deaths frustrate me and create psychological pressure specifically because of the experience loss. I don’t mind losing a map attempt, and I don’t mind replaying the map, but I really dislike that my progression can literally stall if I die more often than I gain experience. Right now, it’s practically at a standstill—I get 5-10% exp from a T15 map with 3 nodes, which I lose with any misstep.

Moreover, I feel this mechanic in PoE2 seems unnecessary and only causes irritation. The game is already challenging enough and demands engagement, both in terms of learning mechanics for build creation and in actual gameplay (dodging, timely skill usage). Players whose builds "explode screens" won’t even feel this exp loss, so the main issue affects players like me. And the amount of exp needed to reach level 100 is already substantial.

In my opinion, experience loss is an outdated, artificial way to prolong gameplay, which only leads to frustration. Without it, I’d still feel my character progressing despite deaths, and higher levels might eventually make things easier. But with this mechanic, players can hit a wall—dying more often than they gain exp.

Since I’m criticizing, I’d also like to suggest alternatives. If this is truly a key and important mechanic (and I’m just missing the bigger picture), perhaps players could be given a choice—for example:

Respawn in town/hideout (lose the map attempt but keep exp), or

Continue the map (lose exp but keep remaining portals).

So, my question to the game designers is: How exactly is this mechanic supposed to improve the gameplay experience? Maybe I’m overlooking something. I’d be glad to hear your response. Thanks in advance!

This patch really killed the momentum for me. You need to invest more time and effort into progressing, but dying is so common now that it just feels like a waste. Losing 10 percent XP at high levels is completely demoralizing.

ok, for u 2 boys we will switch to NO EXP LOSS. but u loose all equipment on death. :)


For real,that is a arpg and not diablo.

I am concerned for individuals who need/want a game that has no chance of losing anything. no permanent death, no loss of progress. do we need to add save states? what happened in your life, are you okay, what can we do to help.

The xp loss is ok when they do a playable game with less bugs, but in this version of games when you die from thin air they should switch to no exp loss or be prepared to lose many more players. Oh sry, they already lost most of players with 0.2 version. So good luck trying 1 week to level up and still at 50% because of bugs. At least in Diablo you are not losing your time for nothing.

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

I am concerned for individuals who need/want a game that has no chance of losing anything. no permanent death, no loss of progress. do we need to add save states? what happened in your life, are you okay, what can we do to help.

Dude, you can start to play with your own life, maybe its more palpitating if you like that way. If the few hours in a week that i have free i want to have fun not to take another job in poe2 to grind maps for nothing.
You guys have too much free time. Take a job and we will talk later, after few years of working if you still want to lose 10% on every bug dead or maybe all items

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diabolick90#9172 wrote:

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

I am concerned for individuals who need/want a game that has no chance of losing anything. no permanent death, no loss of progress. do we need to add save states? what happened in your life, are you okay, what can we do to help.

Dude, you can start to play with your own life, maybe its more palpitating if you like that way. If the few hours in a week that i have free i want to have fun not to take another job in poe2 to grind maps for nothing.
You guys have too much free time. Take a job and we will talk later, after few years of working if you still want to lose 10% on every bug dead or maybe all items

I am sorry, hit a nerve. I understand, I work 12 hrs overnight.. yes PoE2 can feel like a second job :D please don't assume I'm in some category of player and only that category shares the sentiment.

my point is, really what value is in the game if there is only winning? it's an unfathomable request to me. I play HC .. I'm not sure I'll ever get to maps, when I do, probably dead in first day lol.. but alas, two different types of player it seems. maybe they can add a mode for lose nothing on death, or better yet infinite HP, not sure where we are heading here, maybe you see what I'm getting at. isn't it just like pulling a slot machine lever for free in this vision? that's not much of a game. that's a coma. there's apps on the phone for that fix.

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diabolick90#9172 wrote:

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

I am concerned for individuals who need/want a game that has no chance of losing anything. no permanent death, no loss of progress. do we need to add save states? what happened in your life, are you okay, what can we do to help.

Dude, you can start to play with your own life, maybe its more palpitating if you like that way. If the few hours in a week that i have free i want to have fun not to take another job in poe2 to grind maps for nothing.
You guys have too much free time. Take a job and we will talk later, after few years of working if you still want to lose 10% on every bug dead or maybe all items

You can play D4 bro.

"Palpitating"? As in so much fun it gives you palpitations? lol

Personally this is the one thing that I have always hated about POE1, and I equally hate it in POE2.

It's all very simple maths. Imagine that I am a grown up man, I have a job and a life. I play between 1 and 2 hours per day during the week, a little more in the weekend. I think that's actually still a high number of hours for a non professional adult player. I am not a pro, I am not a machine, in the end game it takes me 15-20 mins to complete a map and sort all the loot out. So let's say that I average 4 maps per hour.

Around level 90-92 (not quite sure anymore) with version 0.1, when I died I lost 2 XP bars. To make up for the loss, I had to roughly play 10 maps. So each death directly translates to 2-3 hours lost, just to get back to where I was. So dying in my case basically means one lost day.

And one has to be honest, if we say that you must play so well that you never die while playing 100+ maps, we are quite literally saying that you are playing hardcore and not softcore, though of course you don't loose your character and your gear. But you are still saying that you must play perfectly 100% of the time if you want to progress.

At level 92-94, I personally cannot progress anymore because I am not so good at playing that I can play like a God and never die over 100+ maps to level up. And when I die, it's again 10+ maps to play with the hope I don't die again. But sometimes I can die 2 or 3 times in a row, and that is very infuriating.

Typically, level 92-94 has always been, and still is, the time when I either rage-quit or become disillusioned/demoralized and stop playing to go do something else, because I realize that I am wasting my time and I will never progress anymore.

I really can't say that this is a great feature, in my experience as "serious casual player". I am an average Joe and I don't have the time or the skills that a professional or an unemployed person has. This feature quite literally kills the game at some point for me, always has. And when I say "kills", I mean that I am so annoyed that I don't play the game anymore for 6 months at least.

The XP penalty is just another slogfest layer. It does not make the game harder, just longer. You eighter do longer pulls with backtracking and waiting for all the persistent effects/on-death effects to dissapear, or you do quick pulls with high risk of death and lose hours of XP grind. It's a system designed to make the game longer, one way or another. It has nothing to do with difficulty and "meaningfulness".