Improving Death Penalties // Unofficial Poll: Are Current Penalties Making You Quit?
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I doubt anyone wants death penalties removed entirely, but the current state of them seems an almost increasingly common--even daily--complaint. Having given it some thought, it strikes me that these factors are the major contributors:
1. Progression of character (gear, level) slows significantly in end game, especially for level as you hit the 90's, so any perceived loss of progress is that more noticeable. 2. Difficulty scales faster than character progression, especially given the nature of what feels like exponential power spikes in mobs, especially when they get Extra damage from map or mod. This is aggravated by the fact the difficulty scaling is impossible to gauge given how cleanly plenty of people will clear map after map only to get "one-shot" with little understanding or feedback as to why or how. 3. The Atlas passives scale difficulty even further, with no tangible increase in drop rate of viable gear upgrades. These passives are also the only tangible source of progression other than levels and the game clearly intends for you to use them once it rewards them to the player. As such, perceived loss of progress grows even more noticeable, especially when trees get filled. 4. Dying and losing experience then feels like a huge waste of time given the sheer commonality of "one-shots" versus the time required to advance in level. 5. Dying and losing the waystone (+tower influence, mechanics, and loot drops) feels like a loss of what little potential for gear progress the game offers, further amplifying the feeling of the game not respecting players' time spent. A lot of the game's current systems go into how much players feel the game "wastes their time", so death and loss of the one clear and tangible source of progression--that of leveling--becomes a huge demotivator and source of stress, severely subtracting from the gameplay experience (that plenty of these players otherwise clearly enjoy). In light of the fact that progress becomes akin to a brick wall (especially if you don't trade/are SSF), death penalties as they are now become that much, well... shittier. In fact, I bet there's room to argue that if gear progression remained reasonably steady, death penalties as they are now would be much better tolerated. Besides all that, the current one-attempt system is incredibly anti-multiplayer, leaving those that prefer playing with friends or PUGs even more demotivated and frustrated. It also strikes me that many if not most people fed up with the current state of death penalty would be ok with just exp loss or just waystone loss but not both. So, below I have a list of ideas GGG should experiment with and discuss internally as options. They are not mutually exclusive and combining two or more should be considered. But first, the unofficial poll, because I think it's important to help GGG get a clear indicator of how impactful they are at current. If you have or are considering no longer playing because of the current death penalties, please respond in RED and BOLD a simple +1. Every +1 I see will be added to the tally. You can count me in that list as I am sincerely incentivized to quit the game given the current state of Standard's death penalties. So, +1 Ideas for Improving One-attempt Maps - Restore 6-portals
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The simplest, though least elegant solution. There is clear reason why GGG wants to shy away from this and that is to prevent players from head smashing a brick wall to find out what drops by intentionally overjuicing maps in ways they cannot reliably clear and hoping the extra magic find gives them a reward. Of course, this behavior could also indicate how little players feel rewarded in their loot drops in the first place, but that's for another thread. As a stop-gap measure for a better system, this wouldn't be a bad idea to just give us.
- Allow for 3 deaths per player with unlimited town portal (just disable it if the boss is aggro'd)
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This feels like a simple compromise. With unlimited town portals but allowing only three deaths per player, this will help ensure players not only can sell off, slam, and store all worthwhile loot but still have an opportunity to learn and reattempt what they failed (excluding already triggered mechs like Breach, of course) while reducing overjuice cheese. This also has the added benefit of having a per-player failure rate rather than eating up a portal per party member and losing that many re-attempts like what would happen if 6-portal restored. Such an approach should be considered for PoE1, as well, for those reasons.
- Unlimited/6 portals, but waystones de-level one tier
Spoiler
In practice, -1 to map level per respawn until out of portals or a cap. Players can use a fresh waystone to reset the map, allowing them to complete any incomplete non-wapwide mechanics and maintain tower influence (e.g., map has a Boss but it isn't dead yet and player resets with a fresh waystone, the Boss mechanic is retained). Certainly a possibility, but this might be hard to implement with multiplayer.
- Unlimited/6 portals, but waystones "brick" and lose one mod per player death
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Like above, this could be hard to implement with multiplayer, and also comes off as clunky, but it is an idea. The map eventually "bricking" to White but not losing influence, drops, or incomplete mechanics could be a good penalty. And again, as above, a fresh waystone resets the map and retains incomplete and map-wide mechanics (e.g. a boss that wasn't killed, or spawning of Beyond mobs)
- New or existing currency re-opens a portal without resetting the map.
Spoiler
Personally, I like this approach. As long as the currency is reasonably common--say, Alchemy drop rates at rarest--this could work. If existing, I'd recommend maybe Exalteds, which would thus require a buff to drop rates (introducing Exalted shards might be enough, but a new currency is ideal). An additional way to make this work (and reduce overjuice cheese) would be to require one piece of currency per map mod including a Vaal orb if Corrupted. Alternatively, each map tier range (1-5, 6-10, 11+) could have its own currency, and only drop in said range. Each party member that needs to re-open a portal to re-attempt would have to expend the necessary amount of currency, which should make this a simpler idea to implement with multiplayer, as well. As above, popping in a fresh waystone resets the map and retains all incomplete and map-wide (i.e. Irradiated, Corrupted) mechanics if the player decides it's too juiced. Resetting with this system, however, cooould be abusable (namely, irradiation and corrupted increasing map level) in a way similar to their concerns in the recent interview, so maybe this way the map cannot be reset, at least not without a cost like losing an incomplete or mapwide mechanic. Doryani should absolutely give you one or few when entering end game for free, and maybe each tier completion.
Improvements for Experience loss - You only lose experience gained in the map
Spoiler
This may seem like too much of a pendulum swing in the other direction from the current flat 10%, but given the sheer amount of time necessary to start leveling at 90+, especially 95+, this could be a very fair option as you're only going to reasonably advance if you can reliably survive the maps you enter. If the map is overjuiced, you aren't going to get much of any experience for your efforts, but at least you aren't losing what you've already earned.
- You build a "debt" up to a cap of lost experience
Spoiler
This might be the "sweet spot" for most players frustrated by experience loss. The debt should cap, say at 20% debt. This way, you don't risk losing all of your progress. The experience bar should show how much is "left" to clear.
- Reduce exp loss to 5%
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Simple solution, more tolerable level of loss, and should be seriously considered especially for how easy it would be to implement.
- Reduce experience gain per death
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Basically the "exp debt" above, just in a different approach. Once you "clear" the "debt" you restore normal experience gain rates, but each death increases the reduction, capping say at 50%. This way you never actually lose progress, only slow it down, which is one of the single biggest complaints with exp loss. The experience bar should show how much is "left" to clear.
+1 Tally: 19 Last edited by CPTBRUMBL3Z#3146 on Mar 4, 2025, 7:18:40 PM Last bumped on Mar 5, 2025, 9:58:32 AM
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This isn't going to show much. We would have to poll players still playing, and even those that quit. Barely anyone gets on the forums anymore.
Last edited by Akedomo#3573 on Feb 20, 2025, 11:11:21 PM
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Another option: Completing maps and/or bosses of a certain tier could simply grant players non-tradable resurrects for other maps of that tier, so they can kinda put successful runs "in the bank".
That way dying once in a while isn't an issue anymore and people can also "save up" for the hardest boss fights, but it's not "free" as they need to generally be able to complete maps of that tier reliably to gain resurrects. Otherwise, no, I'm not quitting. My current infernalist build at level 95 works pretty well. So far I've done about 400 maps and Xesht 0 - 4 with it and I only died once in endgame (because I'm an idiot). My mercenary is at level 90 and also was doing well with only about 10 deaths in endgame. |
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im from daily player to weekly player. the bad loot drop + the random instant ko + the penalty + the really bad map design, everything is just invisible obstacles, a small rock pillar, rock, grass can make you stuck and even not able to use skill.
+1 Last edited by riverskents#1726 on Feb 21, 2025, 2:38:15 AM
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+1
Last edited by MarcoBezzecchi#3752 on Feb 21, 2025, 2:23:00 AM
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My opinion:
Boss maps (Breach boss, Arbiter, Citadel Maps...) - 6 portals, 6 possible attempts. Regular maps - as it is now, 1 entry, death = loss of map. XP loss on death - keep the current 10% BUT reduce the xp needed to lvl up after lvl 95, or make higher tier maps available, the current max monsters level 82 is really not enough, first get t16 + have corruption and irridated.. and the progression (xp gain) per map is negligible so personally I would welcome to reduce the xp needed to lvl up, or make higher tier maps available. |
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+1
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+!
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+1
I personally feel that if they want to keep the xp loss, they need to have it in from the start and make it progress with level. Also have a way to mitigate it by retrieving your body, staying more true to the D2 and other models. They'd have to figure out how that works with the one try maps, but I don't agree with that mechanic either. Should have at least more than one try. I expect they will do exactly what they want to do, though, and likely already have a plan regardless of what us peons say here. |
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+1
I'm only back on the forums to complain about PoE2 ascendancies AGAIN. After going through the lab again with Phyrexia, it renewed my hatred for what they did to ascendancy trials in PoE2. A death penalty was the final straw that actually made me quit. |
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