Can there be an alternative to XP loss? I HATE POE in cruel/merciless!

Im pretty sure im not the only person that gets extremely furstrated byx POEs death penatly on cruel/merciless. Im sure alot of peole also consider this to be a "challenge" or part of the diff level.

In my opinion, the XP loss makes POE almost unplayable and very, very frustrating and grindy at its later stages which is realyl a shame since its not the 90s anymore. The problem is also that death in POE happens so often due to lags and desyncx that in many cases its not even a punishment for loosing the game ie dying in the game but simply a bug or network error. It also leads to a behaviour where the player is forced to grind level after level and save u any misons and boss batles for the beginning of each level unless of course you like to grind the same % of XP over and over and over and over again - because no matter how great of a player you are on merciless some bosses and mobs simply kill you instantly and if its not that its a lag or desync.

- xp loss turn POE into a boring grindfest at its later stage (lvl 60+)
- frequent lags and dysyncs mean you loose xp on a regular baiss without your fault
- there HAS to be a better wyay of making high lvl content available to casual player without alienating hardcore gamers! xp loss is simply laze game design!

id like you read your opinion on this - and please can w refrain from calling each others names likes noob etc?

Agreed. There is no need for having a league with an xp loss. If people want a heavy death penalty, they can simply play a hardcore league. If people want a extremely low death penalty they should have a league tailored for them too. PoE has no such league yet.

Strictly from a business perspective, I am willing to bet that GGG would attract and retain far more players if Standard was changed to having no xp death penalty.

How about you dont play a glasscanon (even in softcore)?

If you die a alot at 60's and 70's then I HIGHLY recommend you to roll a new character. Even a decent character can complete normal and cruel without dying at all. I didn't die with my marauder until I reached merci A3.
You don't need op builds to survive. Just a lot of life and little grinding. Stop playing with glass cannon chars.

Also, there are already a lot of xp loss whiney threads. I accept that desync deaths are irritating, but, if nemesis/hc players can survive, then I'm quite sure that you can too if you just plan your build carefully instead of making random decisions and pumping damage.

XP loss is necessary in this game.

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Dakkz wrote:

How about you dont play a glasscanon (even in softcore)?

That's precisely the problem. The only builds that aren't glass cannons, would also do well in hardcore, so why even have that softcore?

Softcore needs cater more to the glass cannon builds. And by glasscannon, I mean: less than 4.5k hp. Even 4.5k hp dies easily against many mobs and certain map mods.

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Blah wrote:

If you die a alot at 60's and 70's then I HIGHLY recommend you to roll a new character. Even a decent character can complete normal and cruel without dying at all. I didn't die with my marauder until I reached merci A3.
You don't need op builds to survive. Just a lot of life and little grinding. Stop playing with glass cannon chars.

Also, there are already a lot of xp loss whiney threads. I accept that desync deaths are irritating, but, if nemesis/hc players can survive, then I'm quite sure that you can too if you just plan your build carefully instead of making random decisions and pumping damage.

XP loss is necessary in this game.

So, why should non-hardcore leagues even exists if both are encouraged to play exactly the same builds? That's just dumb and reduces the retention rate.

How about get better?

the point im trying to make is there are different kinds of players. I like my shadow, I like the way I build it, and Id like to continue leveling it without this forced XP loss - if I die alot its my problem but please allow me the freedom to choose if I like to torture myself or not. This is a game, its supposed to be fun - if I want a challenge Ill do another masters degree thank you. Hammering on the keyboard and twitching around with a mouse is not a challenge and no achievement, please can we stop acting like it is? Its simply a fun actvity, its a game!

there are plenty of other ways to implement some sort of punishment
- make a standard league with no xp loss but less rare item drops
- allow players to re-gain their lost xp faster (double xp gain after death or smth)
- think of a different punishment - for example let ppl sacrifice a currency item for keep their xp

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lechuck12 wrote:

the point im trying to make is there are different kinds of players. I like my shadow, I like the way I build it, and Id like to continue leveling it without this forced XP loss - if I die alot its my problem but please allow me the freedom to choose if I like to torture myself or not. This is a game, its supposed to be fun - if I want a challenge Ill do another masters degree thank you. Hammering on the keyboard and twitching around with a mouse is not a challenge and no achievement, please can we stop acting like it is? Its simply a fun actvity, its a game!

there are plenty of other ways to implement some sort of punishment
- make a standard league with no xp loss but less rare item drops
- allow players to re-gain their lost xp faster (double xp gain after death or smth)
- think of a different punishment - for example let ppl sacrifice a currency item for keep their xp

No exp loss will make survavibility *almost* pointless on softcore.
I understand from few aspects why exp loss is unnecessary. When you die, you may have to re-run area or two (loss of time) and on end-game maps you lose portals (=less gear to bring from maps). However, while leveling 1-70, 5-10% exp loss is easy and quick to get back. At higher levels (+70) it gets somewhat annoying, but that's the nature of the game. Dying is bad and generally in almost every game you have to avoid it.
Why even play a build that does not survive? Don't you find constant "losing" frustrating? I find surviving and "few deaths" playstyle far more enjoyable than weak builds.

Also, you can use currency items to reduce deaths by using them to roll/trade better gear. No point at spending currency to get lost exp back IMO.

Yes, GGG has indirectly admitted that their very tight server/client game simulation control to prevent client side cheats (bots, hacks, etc.) is what causes the frequent desyncs. You are also correct in that most players are waiting until they have just leveled up to take on the level end and other tough bosses for fear that desync death will cheat us out of many hours of hard earned XP.

We can ignore all the troll posts telling us not to play glass cannons or that we deserve to die frequently if we have a crappy build. These no-lifers have figured out the best builds and run with them so they are the outliers and are not typical of the majority of PoE players.

The strange thing about all this is that GGG is actively wanting build diversity. That is always good. But then they set the difficulty bar so high because they like it that way and then we find out that over 95% of our builds are crappy and won't survive Cruel Dominus or Merciless difficulty. GGG wants it both ways, they give us the wonderful skill tree and the freedom to experiment with builds, then they set the difficulty so high as to nullify most of our builds. Strange people these New Zealander's are. GGG loves that PoE is harder than the other arpgs and I mostly agree with this too as if I could (as a non-hardcore player) run through the content too easily I'd have gotten bored and quit long before now (as I did with TL2). But then desync smacks us in the face and our builds die and we are angered and frustrated that this is happening all too frequently.

So we are trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place with the frequent desync deaths due to GGGs server/client controls and they expect us to be understanding of this and adapt. It's damn frustrating to die through no fault of our own from desync and lose 7.5% or 10% of our XP. But there has to be some kind of death penalty. There is no easy way to take currency away from us when we die (and that would be worse than XP loss) so the only thing GGG has to work with is XP. It's not the ideal but then the German TANSTAAFL rule applies here: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".