About the 1 Portal Mechanic

By now, most of us have heard Jonathan and Mark talk about their view of the "1 portal issue" with Ghazzy and DM. If you haven't seen it yet, here you go: https://youtu.be/WjxzTAcJqAM?t=5353.

From what I gather, these are essentially their 2 main reasons in favor of 1 portal:

1) It wouldn't feel the same with 6 portals; the whole "death actually mattering" thing is very important.

2) In a game, some level of failure has to be possible. With 6 portals, it never really led to a situation where failure was possible.

I'm sure they could have gone much more in depth, but this is what we've got for now, so let's discuss.
Short disclaimer from my side: I'm what I would call a "casual PoE1 veteran" - I have played PoE1 since 2013 and have played most leagues, but I'm not a super high end min-maxer with mirror tier gear. I actually play this game (and PoE2) for fun. So far, I have played a Deadeye (solo), Invoker (in a 3 player party) and Stormweaver (in a 2 player party). I have included the impressions of my party members because all of them are rather inexperienced with ARPGs in general (only one of my friends had played PoE 1 before).

I'm actually not entirely sure that I get Jonathan's first point here, that it would "feel different" if they were to allow the use of 6 portals. Is it just that a death would be less impactful with 6 portals and thus it would "feel different"? What do you guys think?

The second argument is much more interesting. I would agree that failure has to be a possible outcome. However, in the current state of the game, failure, i.e. death in map, is not only possible, but also severely punished.
As you all know, a death in maps leads to an XP penalty, which can be quite severe for higher level characters (in terms of XP/h) and more casual players (who are usually also playing at a much slower pace than more experienced or competitive players). I know that XP penalties have been discussed here with regards to PoE 1 for years (I'm actually in favor of XP penalties), so I'll leave the Poe 2 side of this issue open for you to discuss.

Adding to the "punishment", there is the actual map (waystone), crafting cost of the map, potential loot that could have dropped if the player were able to finish the map + the map boss / other additional mechanics that the original map might have had. Again, this seem to punish casual and, more specifically, inexperienced players to a much greater degree than experienced players.

The last portion of punishment comes in form of "lost progression/wasted time" - a feeling that all my party members felt after dying in maps. I realize that this is highly subjective and probably depends mostly on available play time. For players who can play 3,4 or even more hours per day, this might be a non-issue.

All these punishments combined seem a bit too harsh (and we haven't even talked about pinnacles/keys here, feel free to do discuss), especially for newer, less experienced players who have less available play time. Among my friends, it lead to quite a bit of frustration and a few rage quits XD.

So, would a death feel meaningless if GGG were to go back to 6 portals? Would 6 portals not allow for failure to be an option?
My initial answer would be "No" - we have discussed different aspects of punishment above. And, with the exception of rather high end builds (who wouldn't need additional portals anyway), I would argue that even with 6 portals, plenty of players will still struggle with endgame/pinnacle content - so failure will still be an option for most players while top end players mostly don't care because they would rarely need more than 1 portal anyway.

One last aside regarding "failure as an option": I'd be really interested in how many players actually beat pinnacle bosses in PoE 1 first try with 6 portals. I remember beating Maven on my third or fourth try (so had to use 6 portals the first two or three times, but failed). I would assume that they have internal statistics for this kind of stuff and would love to see if failure isn't an option in PoE 1 because of 6 portals.

Please let me know if I missed one or more of GGGs arguments in favor of 1 portal, and feel free to add your own "1 portal" pros or cons.

It's fine. Wall of text not needed or read.

the 1 portal mechanic takes away all my lust making fun MEME builds as i dont wanna die, ever. The exp thing should be enough of a hinder.

Hopefully they dont stop supporting poe 1. PoE 1 = fun meme builds and customizing shiz, poe 2 = meta builds only.

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eye_356#2542 wrote:

the 1 portal mechanic takes away all my lust making fun MEME builds as i dont wanna die, ever. The exp thing should be enough of a hinder.

Hopefully they dont stop supporting poe 1. PoE 1 = fun meme builds and customizing shiz, poe 2 = meta builds only.

I'd be surprised if they'd actually stop supporting PoE 1.

The main reason I'm struggling with this issue is that there already are real penalties for dying and adding the 1 portal mechanic seems a bit over the top. As mentioned in my OP, I think that experienced players probably die less than new / casual players, so they should be less affected by the additional penalty. It's quite rough for players on the more casual/inexperienced side.

So far as I can tell we get 6 portals when we make a map.

What's this 1 portal "issue" you're on about? Are you confusing deaths with portals?

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superbomb1967#5561 wrote:

So far as I can tell we get 6 portals when we make a map.

What's this 1 portal "issue" you're on about? Are you confusing deaths with portals?

One portal means if you get killed in a map, you have used your 1 available portal and can't re-enter and complete that map (at least that's how it works in PoE 2). The 6 initial portals are only there so you can play with other people or exit your map, empty your inventory and go back in to the map.

Sigh...of course it wouldn't feel the same, because it wouldn't be the same. That said, if maps had 6 portals (6 deaths), I guarantee you that NOBODY would complaining and asking for one portal (death) per map.