A Smarter Hardcore Mode: Death with Consequences - Not just Moving out

Proposing a new hardcore style mode where dying drops your entire gear and the backpack inventory, applies XP/Level penalities(could be dynamic or interacted with passive trees or new Omens), but does not permanently move out the character to standard(which means kill the entire character cuz players who plays hardcore is to play hardcore, if being moved out, then they will delete it and continue hardcore new character with similar name or be afk)

in this way, in hardcore mode and on death:
1. you drop all gear and inventory items
2. you suffer a significant XP or level penalty(dynamic or interacted with passive trees or new Omens)
3. keep your character in hardcore mode and the passive tree.

Why it works:
1.keeps tension still high - you fear death still, respect enemies, every zone matters again. - you have died, your body lies broken, your gear scattered, your spirit shaken, but you are not finished!
2.most players quit after losing HC characters.
3.gives players a reason to rebuild and keep playing, avoiding afk and quit.
4.Fuels the game economy - losing gear = trading, crafting, grinding again, which drives demand for backup sets, insurance items and others.
5.creates the most dynamic mode, players enjoy rebuilding, not rage-deleting.

6.brand new mode, could be a competitive force and lead the innovation of ARPG!

Only thing GGG to take care:
1. avoid RMT as much as possible and with this hardcode mode, players will never get tired - farming always make sense.

can work for both POE1 and POE2, especially POE2.

make POE great again!
welcome corrections on this idea.

BR
Sinisea

GGG to take care:
2.avoid bot

What about a limited number of lives you can set yourself in softcore?

Minimal dev time:
- just enable players to set this number when creating a softcore character
- end their journey if the "number of lives left" reaches 0.

Hardcore is equivalent to Roguelike. What you are proposing is equivalent to Roguelite.

While I got no issue with your idea, the only thing that bugs me about it is the EXP lost on death. Like, why are people so dead set on this being a thing. Just a horrible archaic mechanic. XD

So everyone will build unkillable tank char to collect their gear from the ground.

no, to clarify in this thought the gears after death will gone entirely, no picking up possibilities.

the key point of this mode is to not let player repeatedly delete and recreate hardcore roles again and again with rage-deleting and rage-afk.

but why they don't play standard mode? the main reason is that don't you think that standard mode is not fun at all? never die and gears just improving and improving and never lost? what is the different meaning of 1M dps and 100M dps?
actually no sense, a mirrored gear is expensive, true, but what is the feeling after buying this gear? 5 minutes you lose your interesting in this new bought.

but, but, things changed if you will lose all gears equipped along with a significant level and other penalties i.e. 5 levels removal + some designed inflicts, challenges come again, everything turns to be meaningful.

game economy is foreseeable well fuelled.

just think deeply about it, change APRG to a higher level.

*hardcore one life was an old concept raised 30 years ago, but check your calendar you will find it true that today this year we are living in 2025.

Leveling to 95 is WAY faster than acquiring good items, even in trade. There's no point in keeping naked char.

^ This is pretty much correct.

But i'd like a HC lite mode personally as GGG are progressively moving away from HC balance - that being said they haven't gone overboard since T17s were added and while they are bullshit for diversity the settlers buffs actually increased options significantly if you ignore 17/ubers.

Complicated issue

"

Draegnarrr#2823 wrote:

But i'd like a HC lite mode personally

what do you mean? Hardcore literally means "permanent death" in this genre. How do you have a lite version of that, without it ceasing to be hardcore? Are you saying you want the challenge mode to be balanced easier than the normal mode? Because that also doesn't make sense.

The second permanent death of your character stops being a part of it, it can no longer be called hardcore. It's something completely different.

I don't really have an answer for you aside from the fact HC lite is just a term. You can call it SC Hardmode if you want but fundamentally the point is that character death is significantly more relevant than it is in SC but less relevant than it is in HC.

PoE2 started as HC lite, bosses/maps all only had one death permissable before you lost the content you were doing the issue there is the game isn't setup for it so it was frustrating more than anything and while I personally didn't struggle with it I know why so many players hated it.

Right now SC is fundamentally ultra casual and GGG's recent changes have only exacerbated this - that isn't an insult guys either its a description.

Meanwhile HC has become ultra sweaty if you want to do all the content again not an insult.

I'd personally like a middle ground though i still lean towards HC as my natural zone of entertainment.