PoE2 Needs to Rethink XP Loss – Here’s a Simple Fix

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Orion_3T#9801 wrote:

1. It heavily discourages and even outright prevents engaging in challenging gameplay where death is a possibility. That makes the only viable gameplay boring repetitive gameplay. Bad design.

Why? I'm experimenting. If something doesn't work, I either create or run back to my portal and switch to something that works for me. If you're dying, it's not because you switched your build, it's because you have no defenses and you're not careful.

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Orion_3T#9801 wrote:

2. If you have a bad run, it actually makes you go backwards. Which is simply never fun.

You cannot delevel. The punishment for dying is not significant until you're at a very high level, which is also the level that the game is designed for. You're not meant to reach level 100, it's something only very few can do. All you have to do is pick either 90, 93 or whatever you think is reachable to you specifically, and once you reach it, you stop caring. You reached your level cap.

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Orion_3T#9801 wrote:

3. It can actually force you to go down in difficulty in order to progress. For example you might be levelling fine on TX with an acceptable death rate but a level or three later if you haven't had any luck with drops that improve your defense the increased XP loss makes TX no longer viable as your death rate hasn't decreased proportionally. So now you are a few levels higher forced to go to TX-1, or TX-2 or whatever. So again progression is going backwards.

If this happens, it means you're doing something very wrong and the game is telling you to start thinking about your actions, because there are consequences. It's a form of gatekeeping, which is good. Otherwise the game would appeal to absolute casuals. It shouldn't. Some games should be hard, punishing, or have other forms of friction. If that's not what you want, great. I don't want Diablo 4 to be hard or punishing, it was made for the crowd that wants to blast. PoE 2 is punishing and that's good, because it simulates hardcore without actually ending your character outright. It has consequences, so your actions are always meaningful.

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Orion_3T#9801 wrote:

Add to this the fact that those who purport to rarely die would not in any way be negatively impacted by its removal

Not true. I rarely die, but the fact that I can die and have to pay the price is enough to maintain a certain tension in the gameplay. And it's also gatekeeping the game from complete casuals, which is great and something more games should do.

I understand we probably have completely different views about game design and difficulty, but just so we're on the same page, despite what people claim about XP loss on death, it doesn't seem to impact PoE 1's growth.

I agree with the gate keeping analogy if one shots by white mobs were not happening.

I cant get a PHD in what works and what is in a broken state enough.

The bottom line right now in my playstyle is cautious since anything can kill u if it touches you so I basically refused to juice maps or progress even though my guy was annihilating mobs. Why risk losing several play sessions of my time for a single death? Heck my build has tons of defence and still get one shot.

Why HAVE fun? Instead play vanilla boring waystones with no mods so I lower risk of dyin.

Dont matter. The game will still F you over with an overtuned white mob in the mix.

I can accept one death when I clearly was not paying attention.

But when a white mob slams there mace from off screen shooting out like 30ft with a 10m reaction time is complete BS. All the mobs play with AI like they got super ultra wide monitors and are attacking and shooting projectiles before you can even attack them.

That crap ticks me off.

What really really pisses me off is dying two times because said mob was near the checkpoint and I die again!! That is absolutely crap. There should be at least some spawn protection.

My solution is just delete it because its an outdated,archaic mechanic that should not exist anymore in any game at all.

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Summoner#7705 wrote:

You're not meant to reach level 100, it's something only very few can do. All you have to do is pick either 90, 93 or whatever you think is reachable to you specifically, and once you reach it, you stop caring. You reached your level cap.
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I'm tired of this regurgitated talking point. A lot of people want to reach 100 to max out the skill tree and a lot of us do care about continuing to lvl up, especially in a seasonal ARPG. If it supposedly doesn't matter getting those few extra skill points, and we should just do other content, then it should matter if I hit 100 because there's more content, right?

The only argument for saying not everyone is meant to hit 100 is self perceived bragging rights, as if other people actually care. It's directly at odds with the very notion of a seasonal ARPG.

I think this is a really good take

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

I'm tired of this regurgitated talking point. A lot of people want to reach 100 to max out the skill tree and a lot of us do care about continuing to lvl up, especially in a seasonal ARPG.

Earn it.

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

If it supposedly doesn't matter getting those few extra skill points, and we should just do other content, then it should matter if I hit 100 because there's more content, right?

The game is balanced for a level 90 character, that's why it doesn't matter that you're not level 100. Anything after 90 is extra power above the intended character level. You are rewarded with more power for playing well. It's a lot better than a game that is designed around level 100 and you're getting level 100 if you show up. Again, you are rewarded with EXTRA power for playing well, power above the intended character power.

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

The only argument for saying not everyone is meant to hit 100 is self perceived bragging rights, as if other people actually care. It's directly at odds with the very notion of a seasonal ARPG.

I will probably never be a level 100. I want the XP loss for death to stay. I want it to stay so that getting level 100 is an achievement, a goal. Not just a participation reward.

I love how "you're not meant to reach 100" is still being used as an excuse to defend this trash mechanic lol

Why is it that PoE is the only game still stuck in the 2000s with this death penalty? Other similar games don't make you lose exp on death, and if you do at least they give you a chance to get it back(like Titan Quest).

Nobody cares about the "achievement" of reaching lvl100 in HC SSF-whatever. People just don't want 3 hours of mapping to be deleted when they die. PoE has essentially trained its players to accept that exp loss is "normal". Like I see Last Epoch gameplay where people die in SC and the exp doesn't move and I'm like "whooooah, you can just like, not lose any progress on death in a videogame? it doesn't have to be full-on CBT punishment the moment you get oneshot in 0.1 frames? insaaaane"

Exp loss is such a cooked,outdated,bad mechanic. It is completely undefendable, its objectively bad.
B a d

You know what else is bad? PoE 2 and its direction and vision.

There are other ways to reward those who want to EARN something special.

100lvl should be baseline goal for all who play the game. You could introduce EXTRA special tasks to gain additional points if completed to go above lvl 100. Now that would be earned.

Dangling the exp bar in front of all players to only remove it on random death is something that people came up with decades ago in a game where you could gain it back in way shorter time. Was it Ultima Online that started this? I think even there you had the option to get your things back if you got to your corpse.

TLDR

Exp loss on death is Such a LAZY design that it makes one question the game developer ability to innovate. This was made in 1997....

Are devs incapable to come up with something better in 28 years of gaming? Seriously ?

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Kodavor#1200 wrote:

Exp loss on death is Such a LAZY design that it makes one question the game developer ability to innovate. This was made in 1997....

Are devs incapable to come up with something better in 28 years of gaming? Seriously ?

Sadly it seems like that's the case. Simply lazy and outdated game design.

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Summoner#7705 wrote:

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

I'm tired of this regurgitated talking point. A lot of people want to reach 100 to max out the skill tree and a lot of us do care about continuing to lvl up, especially in a seasonal ARPG.

Earn it.

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

If it supposedly doesn't matter getting those few extra skill points, and we should just do other content, then it should matter if I hit 100 because there's more content, right?

The game is balanced for a level 90 character, that's why it doesn't matter that you're not level 100. Anything after 90 is extra power above the intended character level. You are rewarded with more power for playing well. It's a lot better than a game that is designed around level 100 and you're getting level 100 if you show up. Again, you are rewarded with EXTRA power for playing well, power above the intended character power.

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CovidPatientZero#0332 wrote:

The only argument for saying not everyone is meant to hit 100 is self perceived bragging rights, as if other people actually care. It's directly at odds with the very notion of a seasonal ARPG.

I will probably never be a level 100. I want the XP loss for death to stay. I want it to stay so that getting level 100 is an achievement, a goal. Not just a participation reward.

That's nice. Before 0.2, I put 300+ hours on a lvl 92 character and the only way to "earn it" would involve putting in another 300 hours for another 8 levels. That's completely excessive and the death penalty to experience gain ratio only made it frustrating, not fun.

You're in the minority, but go ahead and keep defending a horrible design instead of admitting what the vast majority of players want.

And no, the game isn't balanced for a lvl 90 character unless you use energy shield.