Experience System/Grind Feedback from rank 1000.

So I want to adress a few issues with the current xp system and the incentitives for grinding to level 100. My overall opinion is that there are no incentitives to grind to level 100. Let me explain why.


The build it takes
You need to teleport around and screenclear without dying to do this efficiently. This basically excludes most of the builds already. The build is also expensive (Temporalisis). You need to grind 100-300 hours to be able to afford it.


The time it takes.

At level 99, a lvl 79 map yields around 1,5 million xp/hour without any buffs. You need 318 million xp. Assuming that you set up your towers and use waystones with xp affix, tier 16 maps, you might bring it up to an average of 4 million/hour. So the time to reach level 100 will take take approx 100 hours.
You also need to set up your towers, juice up your waystones, purchase experience tablets etc.


But basically in the next 100 hours you are teleporting around, screenclearing without looting. 100 hours of pure mapping from level 99 to 100.


The statistics.

Assuming average playerbase of 200k at the start of each season. After 3 months og playtime less than 0.25% of players are expected to reach level 100.
Given than there will be 36 ascendancies, it is statistically unlikely that any player will be able to reach level 100 on all 36.

I moved 400 ranks in one day after reaching leaderboard. The competition is not present. People in the bottom 1000 are moving 4 million xp a day.- Thats roughly 1 hour of gameplay at level 98.
40% of the leaderboard on Standard consist of players below level 99.

A goal has to be realistic, otherwise people wont chase it. If GGG wants people to spend more time in-game, engaged in the grind, then reaching level 100 must feel as something that is possible to achieve. Difficult enough but not unrealistic, as it seems for the 99.75% of the players.

The only reason I do it is because I want to make history and be one of the few on Standard. I consider it a huge achievement. And if I manage to place myself within top 300 in the next week then my bragging rights are reserved.


Suggestions
- Nerf temporalisis and all screen clear builds. Buff baseline xp.
- Reduce variance in Tablets - 10%xp on all tablets if it rolls the affix.
- Control Affixes on Waystones. - Make it possible to select 'experience' affix.
- More fun ways to do it ? - Buff xp from Chaos trials, Sanctum, Pinnacle content.

I played POE 1 off and on, usually every other league, from the day it released.

And I only ever hit level 100 once (in settlers) and only because I used a 5-way leveling service to do it.

Every other league I stopped playing around level 92 because the grind was so horrible and the loss of time from one random 1-shot too punishing.

At this point it'll be the same way with POE 2. I'll probably play every other league, get to around level 92 and go play something else.

I'm 94 in POE 2 on my monk but it took me fully two weeks of farming sekhemas to go from level 93-94 and that's because it's incredibly difficult to die in that place.

A significant factor that makes reaching level 100 so difficult is also the structure of the economy in the game (and crafting as part of it).

Making it easier to get better gear will also make reaching level 100 (or any level at all) easier (if not the same, in which case the market will die).

The only question is: do the GGGS want it? Apparently, they need such complexity, and the economic model confirms this. The change in this vision is actually tectonic shifts.

They need to add higher tier maps. Which are both more challenging but also give better exp. Once I could do t16 without even looking at what modifiers were on the map. Then the game is effectively done. There's only t4 bosses left which require specific builds which concentrate on burst damage. Which most of the time I couldn't be bothered to spec into because I already had the rewards from these bosses. I guess you can reroll a character (which I did many times). But if you don't want to reroll then all that is left is reaching level 100. And at the moment with the poor experience gains and lack of challenging tiers on maps. It is boredom incarnate.

How about capping the level at 99 ?

Edit
And sell a "lv.100" MTX :)

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/edmund-hillary-and-tensing-norgay-reach-summit-of-everest

Edit2
And add free +5 attribute points after the bloated miller.

As someone who began wanting to hit 100 as a Pathfinder before realizing it's a fool's errand, I think by far the biggest is issue is the XP penalty is ridiculous and needs removed and/or set at a baseline of 2.5% without requiring an omen.

Like you said, without having some type of auto bomber build where you tp all over the screen, it is not realistically achievable to hit 100. That's why I am top 6 in the world as a PF according to poe2 ninja and I'm only 98. Only 2 lvl 99s exist, and zero 100s. It's also why 75% of the builds on ladder are spark.

I don't get the luxury as a PF to spam spark or blink around autobombing, and the reality is without it you have no hope of not dying to SOMETHING that is usually outside of your control because defenses in this game are terrible. I've had as high as 9k ES with 1.3k hp and can and do still get insta deleted by nonsense you can't account for.

Nobody in my friends group even made it passed 96 on their chars, and they have all quit playing as a result of xp system.

Even with an omen, to grind 2.5% is usually a good 4-5 hours after taking into the time it takes to build up towers/tablets/waystones/etc. Having an entire day (or more) of progress wiped because a delirium boss off screen jumped on top of you in the middle of mobs and 1 shot/stunning you while rest of mobs stun you til dead is not something anybody wants to put up with for long.

I gave it an honest attempt multiple times, hit 50% or so through 98 and said I'm done. End game is a mess right now honestly.

Rank 141 Standard - Level 100 Gemling here. Took me about 160ish hours to level 99-100. I pretty much loved every minute of it. I know I'll get flamed for saying that but I did. It's a crazy grind and not for everyone. I build changed every level after 96 and it felt different each level and even half way through 99. Would I change anything about it as far as experience gained per hour? Probably not. It forced me to find the most efficient farming methods for exp and by the time I reached 75% to 100 I had it dialed in and the last 25% flew by. I was over 4mil/hour and felt great compared to when I started at under 2mil/hour. Now I know tips and tricks to level faster next time. Total played time was just over 22 Days in-game - but which the knowledge I have now I think I could drop that to around 14-15 days. Granted, A TON of things will change so who knows. It will be easier to get to 100 in the future.

Have fun

"

Took me about 160ish hours to level 99-100. I pretty much loved every minute of it.

I know that it is great fun. I'm having fun myself teleporting around with skele-snipers. One-shotting everything. It was also fun figuring out a way to do it most efficiently. So to speak ;'figuring out what works and doesent'.

However, this discovery you only make once. Afterwards you are following the same 'recipe', which is what makes you burn out.

Lets assume that it takes 300 hours to get a character from level 1-100, including gearing etc. (That is a very best case scenario - more realistically it will take 500 hours). Lets say you want to level up with 36 different ascendancies. Thats already 10800 hours of gameplay where you play in the exact same 'optimal' way.