XP loss on death is atrocious game design and should have no place in PoE 2

To preface I haven't played PoE 1. I used to play D2 when I was younger and now hopped on PoE2. Due to being out of work with an injury I had time to put 350 hours into the game with 2 characters, one being lvl 94.

So, this is an opinion piece and you are welcome to disagree, but please be constructive and not like „this is how it always was“ or „maybe this is not the game for you“.

My issue with the XP loss is that it tries to serve a purpose but completely fails to achieve it and does nothing but frustrate the player instead. As far as I can see the point of the XP loss is to disincentivize glass cannon builds that die their way to high level. However, it fails at achieving that. For one because the clear speed those builds give you translate to more loot, more currency and more progression in every respect. Instead of playing different builds, all it does is that it leads to risky builds not engaging with risky content - the upside of high clear speed is too powerful to give up. Additional, the one death per map mechanic already covers disincentivizing dying from a game design standpoint.

From my personal experience (playing as spark mage) I will avoid a host of bosses for the sole reason that one unlucky play or one panic roll can cost me hours of XP progression. Additionally, I will avoid pinnacle content entirely when I have already gathered some XP to the next level. Once I did level up I will do all the pinnacle content at once and then go back to „safe“ content until I hit the next level. The prospect of a poorly played encounter erasing hours of progress is too daunting.
From a game design standpoint that is just atrocious. Game mechanics that disincentivize players from playing the content is bad. Big bad.
Additionally it is a form of punishment that does not reset you back to the start. It erases progression. All the „jobs well done“ before are deleted. That erasure gets so severe on high levels that risk-benefit analysis always swing in the favor of not taking the risk.

On a rational level I know that this penalty doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. The remaining points on the skill tree do not really matter in terms of power. The 50 or so deaths I had from lvl 80 to 94 set me back about 1 level in the grand scheme of things due to the exponential nature of xp requirement for leveling.

However, that doesn't change the fact that emotionally this punishment just feels terrible to receive. You already died, you already lost time, you already lost a waystone, you already lost currency to juice the map, you already lost modifiers on the node, you already lost potential drops from a boss/monsters. I notice myself after a death and XP loss to log off due to frustration. This however only happens due to the XP loss. I do not care much if I die 2-3 times doing risky content after a level up.
Is this additional kick in the balls erasing hours of progression really necessary? What does it achieve from a game play/game design perspective except player frustration?

Personally I hope GGG rethinks having this mechanic in the game. It achieves nothing but player frustration.

Tl,dr: XP loss on death fails to achieve it's goal of disincentivizing glass cannon builds and instead disincentivizes engaging with risky content. It is redundant in it's goal since we have one death per map mechanic. Additionally, due to exponentially increasing XP requirements it doesn't achieve anything, not even setting you truly back in terms of levels, but only wasting your time.
However, emotionally it feels incredibly frustrating when it happens. It has all the hallmarks of atrocious game design. Why is it in the game? What does it achieve gameplay wise?

I disagree 100%. Death has no meaning without penalty.
Why would I invest in defenses at all if I can just mindlessly keep dying.

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Fapmobile#0758 wrote:

I disagree 100%. Death has no meaning without penalty.
Why would I invest in defenses at all if I can just mindlessly keep dying.

this is a pretty bad take. losing the map is already a huge penalty. and once you reach a character level you are ok with the xp penalty means nothing anyways so guess what? you can just mindlessly keep dying right now anyways lol

but you wont do that, because you gotta play this goofy minigame juicing maps and setting up towers and you already lose time and currency every map failure

I think the xp penalty could be ok if they capped at a flat number...

correct me if im wrong tho but the reason xp slows down so much at these higher levels isn't because it requires that much more xp to level up but because the monster level is capped and your xp gain is diminished the higher lvl you are compared to the mobs

running a maximum level map vs just one level down is going to do way more for your xp than lets say 500% increased xp gain

Tho I think the loss XP on death is a bit high 10% would prefer 5% if they don't have one all players would get to level 100 easily and have nothing to work to

I am level 91 would be 100 if I had not died all the damn time

sorry to say I like the XP loss makes me try to get better and not die as much tho as I said would want 5% tho as 2 bars (10%) is annoying to lose at level 90 as you only get like 4% a map now

Yeah I should also have full perfect rares, chase uniques, and lvl 100.

Oh wait no I shouldn't, because didn't earn those things yet.

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Fapmobile#0758 wrote:

I disagree 100%. Death has no meaning without penalty.
Why would I invest in defenses at all if I can just mindlessly keep dying.

but there are already penalties? and you cant just keep dying cause in most cases you lose the waystones you put in and the map bonuses, any items that dropped, and that's not even talking about trials.

exp loss is just a bad, dated mechanic that isnt needed and there is no good argument to keep it in as there are already much better punishments in the game.

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MrSidious#1498 wrote:

Tho I think the loss XP on death is a bit high 10% would prefer 5% if they don't have one all players would get to level 100 easily and have nothing to work to

I am level 91 would be 100 if I had not died all the damn time

sorry to say I like the XP loss makes me try to get better and not die as much tho as I said would want 5% tho as 2 bars (10%) is annoying to lose at level 90 as you only get like 4% pure map now

if you are lvl 91 right now i can gaurantee you that you wouldnt be 100 with no xp penalty, you would not even be close.

also "get to level 100" in the current state of the game is not going to be the goal that most players set for themselves, because at any point over level 93 you are going to realize that it is unattainable without a crazy amount of time investment and almost completely pointless to even shoot for. lets say you hit lvl 95 for example, you can get 5 more passive points, generally at 95 your going to have it set up so that there won't be a significant power gain with just 1 passive point at a time and that single passive point does virtually nothing for you. with 5 you could reach another jewel or notable....

are you going to drop all those hours for a notable? or are u just gonna say fk it this is a lvl 95 build? most people are going to say fk it if they know how xp works

it seems to me like they want "lvl 100" to be just an achievement for unemployed turbo grinders or pros to obtain for bragging rights, not something designed for hardly anyone to get within a season

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Fapmobile#0758 wrote:

I disagree 100%. Death has no meaning without penalty.
Why would I invest in defenses at all if I can just mindlessly keep dying.

But there is already ample penalty. You lose the waystone, the currency juicing that map, the modifiers from the precursor table and all the mechanics on the node (boss, breach, etc.), you lose potential items drops, etc.

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MrSidious#1498 wrote:

Tho I think the loss XP on death is a bit high 10% would prefer 5% if they don't have one all players would get to level 100 easily and have nothing to work to

I am level 91 would be 100 if I had not died all the damn time

sorry to say I like the XP loss makes me try to get better and not die as much tho as I said would want 5% tho as 2 bars (10%) is annoying to lose at level 90 as you only get like 4% a map now

Trust me you wouldn't be 100. Not even close. Due to xp requirements growing exponentially you would probably be 92. 93 at best.

As I mentioned above I died about 50 times from 80 to 94. Now on the way to 95 I get about 2% XP per t16 map, which means that the 50 deaths set me back about I full lvl 95 XP bar. So 1 lvl less due to punishment.
That's partially my point. It doesn't really do much in terms of total progress, but every death feels just horrible

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b_ko#7756 wrote:

Yeah I should also have full perfect rares, chase uniques, and lvl 100.

Oh wait no I shouldn't, because didn't earn those things yet.

Not even remotely my point. But let's do a hypothetical. As I pointed out XP loss on death is setting you back in progress significantly. Now imagine for the hypothetical that upon death you would permanently lose one item on your character at random. How would that make you feel? Because that is the apt comparison here.