I've changed my mind on XP Penalty

I've long supported the XP penalty in principle as a means to make achieving level 100 more of a stretch goal. However, having recently actually started to play end-game a bit more seriously, I've grown to dislike it for a reason I hadn't fully expected.

It's not that I can't reach level 100, even. It's that I'm incentivized to hoard or trade away all my hard content rather than giving it a try. T17 maps? Got 4 of them, but I'm at 25% XP! Exarch invitations? Got 2, but I'm at 25% XP!

I don't know what the 'right' answer is here, but I know that sitting on all these fragments and maps that I'd honestly love to go try feels bad, but I can't bring myself to "throw away" my XP. I know at some point I'll get popped 3 times in a row and I'll be back at 95 with 0% XP, and then I'll run all this content I'm sitting on, but it feels bad to be in this spot.

Why not just finish current level and then do the risky stuff?

I've had the same problem. Once I get into the high 90's I can only do challenging content at the start of each level I am at because I don't want to lose experience. Furthermore, once I have achieved a high enough level, like 97 or 98, I just give up on trying to gain experience because it is just too restrictive on my gameplay.

I don't believe in removing the penalty though... I just wish I could do what I want whenever without the long, long gaps of grinding maps before doing fun stuff.

GGG staff has occasionally talked about level rollbacks as a penalty for when you die at the beginning of a level, but I don't think that is the answer as it complicates things. For example, how do you take away a skill point from the player without potentially bricking their entire character? I've considered a potential solution of an experience debt that you have to regain in order to continue progressing, but seeing as how there are so many threads here against the implementation of the current experience penalty, I don't think this would go over well with much of the fan base.

Sadly, it is likely that the current implementation will remain.

I see no point on XP penalty. You’re already losing time and portals to do a content so why have another penalty on top?

Level 100 is not a bragging right as it can be done in several ways and there is no real competitive scene so no one should really care if anyone else got there.

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DarkJen wrote:

Why not just finish current level and then do the risky stuff?

I do, but, at least for me, at level 95 we're talking about days of gameplay. By level 98 (the highest I've achieved) I assume it would be weeks. Weeks between boss attempts, which I generally enjoy, means I'm having less fun than I'd like.

I agree with the OP. I like leveling since then I feel like I can do the hard stuff and not feel like I lost out on exp grind time. Kinda like this morning. Tried my first ever Maven. Let's just say all six portals were gone and she was still in there. Laughing I think.

That's pretty much why everyone's always hated it lol. Anyone can level to anything, either by buying the XP (via 5ways or other methods) or just playing it safe until they level.

The issue is, while leveling everything is a boring grind. You can't do fun juicy content. I find it such a chore to level - went to 98 this league which I think is the max I've ever gotten. And this only because I didn't die until I was around 40% (unintentionally farming something safe). Then all the way to 100% I kept wanting to do fun stuff and couldn't. Those were the 2 worst days of this league tbh, and the reason I'm not going to 99.

I generally grind up to 96, then it's "if it happens it happens". I won't kill my fun for that one extra skill point.

I'm not advocating for or against removing it, I personally don't care because I don't find leveling past 96-97 mandatory in any way. I've done all content on 96lvl characters several times. But I do agree that it makes leveling an unfun experience.

I wonder what the game might be trying to tell you if something feels severely punishing. Might it be that your character is lacking something?

The game was telling me that it was my first ever Maven attempt and no matter how many strat videos I watched, the lack of muscle memory for the event might end up going badly. I almost won though. I made my goal to get her under ~25% on first attempt. I had degen pools all over the place...

I mean they could make an orb that could be applied to invitations/boss fragments etc that reduce drop chance of items by let's say 20% but you would not lose xp from dying to the encounter. That way people that level slowly don't have to stop doing any invitations or boss encounters for a week while getting the level. I think that could be a fair trade. Personally I have stopped at 99 this league since I want to farm gold for mappers and T16s starting to be too slow to keep up with multiple mapper stations :P I could stop mappers, stop bossing and play T16s safely all the way in but seems not worth it for a tiny bit more hp and 1 passive. Life of a berserker I guess :P