Let’s have a respectful discussion about the experience penalty upon death.

I’m curious—could someone explain why even a slight adjustment to experience penalties on death is met with such strong opposition?

What potential side effects are people worried about if such a change were implemented?

Understanding those concerns might be a great starting point for communication.

I witnessed a beautiful moment in the post titled "is poison dead or something" where someone asked a genuine question and received kind, informative responses. That’s the kind of constructive exchange I was aiming for.

This is what makes POE enjoyable—sharing insights, learning together, and embracing the complexity.

When I first posted, I didn’t intend to attack anyone. But some replies weren’t about discussion—they felt like displays of knowledge meant to shut others down.

That’s not the healthiest way to engage, so I shifted my tone. In my second post, I replied in their style, adding my own twist.

I understand my language may have come across as harsh, and I truly apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable.

It made me wonder—why is this topic met with such polarized reactions? One side wants to scrap the death penalty entirely, the other insists it should remain untouched.

Is compromise really out of reach?

In the post titled "Beast farming QOL is much needed," the writer talks about frustrations with beast management. That’s the core issue I want to highlight—unnecessary discomfort and stress.

The experience penalty works the same way. After twenty years without revision, even a small tweak could help reduce frustration.

Would that really cause serious issues? If you believe so, I’d love to hear what specific problems you envision—without the usual condescending “go study the game more” kind of remarks. That way, we can truly listen and explore possible middle ground.

Wishing you the best on your journey through Wraeclast—and may the RNG gods smile upon you with a Mirror drop someday. Cheers!

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It seems my two posts ended up appearing together, which makes it look repetitive. I understand that and I’m sorry—it wasn’t intentional.

My previous post came off too aggressive because I was responding to people who were attacking me, and honestly, I don’t like how it turned out. I wrote a new post because I wanted to stop the hostility and hear what others think. I didn’t realize the new post would get attached to the previous one, making them appear as a single thread.

Again, I sincerely apologize. I'm truly sorry.

Without exp loss most defenses become redundant. Almost everyone would play glasscannon builds

stop making the same post over and over

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Jaikai#2905 wrote:

Without exp loss most defenses become redundant. Almost everyone would play glasscannon builds

I agree, which is why I also oppose completely removing the experience penalty.

However, I believe a 10% penalty is excessive. I'm not suggesting we nullify all defensive mechanics.

I'm proposing a slight adjustment to the penalty so that players can make an effort to recover their experience without too much stress.

As you can see, some players feel stressed about dying. Please understand that not all of them are trying to gain results without making any effort.

"

Rextec#4521 wrote:

stop making the same post over and over

Are you still not getting it? Even when I write in English, you fail to grasp the context. I repeated certain parts of my message because you're unwilling to listen, and that emphasis was necessary. Still can't understand and going off again? If you don’t like it, walk away. I want a “conversation” with civilized people, not a sermon from arrogant elites.

The exp penalty has been part of the game for more than a decade. It carried over to its successor, Path of Exile 2. At some point you have to let go and accept that it's here to stay. For good reasons, too.

Omen of Amelioration takes this down to 2.5% experience loss per death. I seriously doubt they'll ever budge from that and it's a bit excessive in my opinion.

You can get over 2% experience @ level 99 -- per map -- with Breach + Beyond + Evolution...so a death is a little over one map's worth of experience if you do it right.

I think it's fine.

"

Celestriad#0304 wrote:

The exp penalty has been part of the game for more than a decade. It carried over to its successor, Path of Exile 2. At some point you have to let go and accept that it's here to stay. For good reasons, too.

You're right. It's been maintained for a very long time, and maybe it's time for some changes.

If we give up discussing change just because it hasn't changed in 20 years, then nothing will ever improve.

I understand that GGG probably won’t accept this suggestion.

Still, I wanted them to know that there are people who hold this opinion. That’s freedom of expression, and everyone has the right to speak up.

I don’t know if you read my whole post, but I never demanded immediate changes or the removal of the penalty system.

I simply asked, “What do you think about discussing this?” That’s all. Sharing thoughts and exchanging opinions.

Ultimately, the decision lies with GGG, and I respect that. I know it takes tremendous effort to make a great game.

However, I believe people should feel free to voice their thoughts. Arguing over who's wrong between players doesn’t help anyone.

I’m not sure—maybe others who raised this issue before strongly insisted on removing XP penalties? Maybe that wore people out so much that now the mere mention of it feels exhausting.

If that’s the case, I can understand why my suggestion received such a hostile response, even though I was simply offering an idea.

I was quite surprised, though. 😅

I understand the concerns too. Removing all penalties could ruin the game.

That’s why I brought it up in the first place—I was genuinely curious whether a small change could help reduce stress without affecting the core gameplay. Is there really no middle ground? Something that still makes death in-game meaningful, but doesn’t make players feel discouraged or want to quit—instead, it gives them the drive to recover and keep playing.

I just hope we can reflect on the idea together, rather than arguing over what's possible or not. That’s all I hoped for.

I'm pretty neutral on the topic overall. If they removed the exp penalty tomorrow I wouldn't really be bothered by it.

I do think the exp penalty serves a useful role of making level 100 be an actual achievement. The other side of that coin means when I hear requests to remove the penalty it sounds like people just don't want a challenge, and I feel there are already other ARPGs that provide fun blasting experiences with little challenge. Reaching level 100 serves as a good kind of mid level achievement imo. I didn't do it for several leagues. Even now I don't get every character to 100 because it just doesn't matter. By 90 I can do just about everything in the game except like top 1% content, so hitting 100 would just be for achieving a personal goal. I also agree with others that it doesn't have to be as drastic of a setback as people usually mention, as long as you're farming exp efficiently. Even if you're not farming super efficiently, it's entirely possible to just be more selective and run easier maps that you don't die on until you can improve your gear or skills to progress. I feel like I often see glass cannon builds complaining about this, which is not a super convincing argument to me since they opted into a risky build.

I also think this game already suffers from not enough reasons not to die. Like during the campaign especially, there's 0 reason for me not to run into a boss repeatedly until it dies. Exp loss in maps is about the only reason it matters at all - portals are the only other thing I can think of. Maybe I'm an older gamer, but I do think dying should include some consequences even as a softcore Andy. I don't think a short lasting screen is a consequence. I also think because you can just brute force through so much of the game and even end game while dying a ton, it's actually doing a bit of a disservice to the players because they're not given an incentive to improve until it's a brick wall and they have to improve multiple layers instead of one at a time as the continue progression. But I also think this game is ridiculously rippy for 95% of players, so I'm not going to say it should have insane death punishments either.

Overall the current implementation feels good to me. Early priorities were things like just being the campaign, trying different build, getting to yellow maps, getting to red maps, doing quest bosses, I'm sure others I can't remember. After I had accomplished those over a few leagues getting a character to 100 became a goal I set for myself in another league alongside the harder challenges like killing every Uber boss. Which is probably a factor in why requests to remove exp sound like wanting something for nothing to me - because to me it's an equivalent challenge to killing Ubers. Since nothing in the game requires the player to be level 100, I think that's a good balance.


I can see though how reaching max level is usually not viewed as a stretch goal like that, especially coming from other games. Though I can also see how Uniques feel really underwhelming after coming from other games, and that's a part of the game that I don't think has to change. So I don't think the level cap or exp loss has to change either.

That said, since this is so popular a topic, I've come to think they might be able to either remove the exp loss, or make the total exp to 100 be the same as current 95, and then add some sort of stretch progression like a paragon system that has a steeper penalty for dying. That way the line is clearer that progression past this point is optional and not required to do anything in the game. But then if you have 10 extra stretch levels and those are included n every build guide, then you're going to have people complaining about losing progress towards that too. So I think ultimately changing the exp/level system at all is a bit of a losing proposition for GGG.

"

Beavith#5056 wrote:

Omen of Amelioration takes this down to 2.5% experience loss per death. I seriously doubt they'll ever budge from that and it's a bit excessive in my opinion.

You can get over 2% experience @ level 99 -- per map -- with Breach + Beyond + Evolution...so a death is a little over one map's worth of experience if you do it right.

I think it's fine.

You're right—there are many ways to recover experience. Players who can earn that kind of experience using the setup you mentioned likely aren't too afraid of dying. With parties, it's even easier to level up, and some might even use leveling services.

It’s extremely difficult to explain the situation of casual players to those who play more intensely. No matter how carefully I try to organize my thoughts, it's tough to offer an explanation that you’d find convincing.

I’ve written and erased my message several times, thinking it through. And from your perspective, I can understand how this kind of request might seem like asking for an impossible solution that accommodates everyone’s situation.

That’s the part I’m really struggling with.