Turning off XP loss/gain as an option?

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

I ignored it because I found it a baseless point to make. Not everyone needs or buys a carry. Farming for the next level is no different than a crafting session. If you are going to argue how that is any more relevant with a death penalty, I don't know what to tell you.

The specific example of buying Legion carries was also somewhat supplemented by me additionally quoting an example of grinding Sanctum to level 100; I just focused on one over the other for simplicity. The point was that having different goals = doing different things = good.

Prior to officially launching v1.0, a game design team will likely discuss no one topic more than the question "We have put different things to do in our game - how do we ensure people actually engage with them?", as one of the worst things that can befall a game is everyone decides one activity is objectively 'correct', nobody does any of the other content, and then everyone stops playing because they got bored of all one things [sic] they were actually doing.

Have you ever noticed that Delve is a thing that exists, Heist is a thing that exists - but out of the 47 challenge leagues GGG has released, almost all of them are heavily Map-centric?

One of the biggest concerns for Path of Exile is what happens when a person is fundamentally a bit 'done' with grinding Maps, regardless of what the Atlas is doing in that specific patch or what new mechanic is spawning additional enemies inside the Map during that league.

On the one hand, Maps have definitely been enduring - impressively so. On the other, every league people become that bit more efficient and individual Maps and the Atlas both become that little bit more of a solved problem - which leads to the challenge league feeling 'completed' in the first half of a league / first month of a league / first fortnight of a league / first week of a league. And, frankly, every league people just become bored of grinding Maps that little bit sooner.

There are fundamental constraints on the design space that exists for fiddling with Maps and the Atlas, and I suspect GGG hoped that a greater proportion of players would spend time in alternative stuff (e.g. Heist; endgame Labs) than what their internal numbers actually show. So the game's in an awkward Catch 22 where everyone does Maps because they're what GGG focuses on, but GGG focuses on Maps because nothing else really 'sticks' the way Maps do.

If the death penalty - or, perhaps more accurately, the optional grind to Level 100 - discourages grinding endless maps mindlessly and encourages alternative behaviour even just temporarily, then that is prompting the person playing the game to ask themselves what their goals are, what the best way of achieving their next goal is likely to be, and then embark on that course of action. Which is exactly the kind of thing game designers set out to achieve.

The game is at its healthiest when people playing it are doing different things.

It's not exactly the same thing, but https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/mirage reports 17% of people playing Hierophant. I wonder, if it reported endgame activities, what those statistics look like.

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BaumisMagicalWorld#0673 wrote:

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Sarno#0493 wrote:

Removing the XP death penalty in some ways gives Level 100 to everyone - but in another, very real way, it removes it from the game. XP loss on death matters, and is good for the game.

That seems rather disingenuous. level 100 is already accessible to everybody. And it's not like removing the death penalty would change that. It takes time to pull it off. If you can go from 99 to 100 in less than 2 hours by running the right content, the argument is dead in the water from the very beginning. Next, you are gonna cry about how that is bullshit and that EXP gain from certain mechanics needs a nerf.

I think what's really happening here is that some folks would prefer to keep up the illusion of feeling like a superior player by achieving something their "lesser" peers most of the time do not.

Yep, exactly this. Its just elitist gatekeeping and nothing more than that. "Oh no how dare you desire to level up in peace while casually grinding the content you want to do?!?". People need to stop pretending as if allowing the random casual to passively reach lvl100 over a long period of time is a bad thing. It isn't, you are expected to reach level cap in most RPG games eventually no matter how you play.

PoE is the only game I've seen where its actively against the player and trying to slow down their progression of leveling up, and it is pure insanity. Why do people care so much about exp loss in Softcore anyway, its the easy mode. Let us have our fun?

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

PoE is the only game I've seen where its actively against the player and trying to slow down their progression of leveling up, and it is pure insanity.

What in the world are you talking about? This is a blue ribbon forum comment worthy of preservation for all the wrong reasons. It might be the single most disingenuous thing you have ever written on these forums.

You LITERALLY claim to play this game and find enjoyment ONLY in getting 40/40 challenges. You LIVE for the game being "actively against the player". You brought up other examples countless times of games that are 100% "actively against the player". Without that simple truth, you would have nothing to play, nothing to do.


I would ask you to name a single example of a game that ISN'T "actively against the player trying to slow your progress." Any single one will do.


Why do games require us to kill things? Why do games require us to get better gear? Why do games require us to gain skills? Why do games require us to WALK? Why do games require us to press a button on a keyboard? Why don't we start right at the end credits? Hell....why do games even exist in the first place? Instead of, you know....reading a book?


Even the first "video game", pong, is designed to be "actively against the player". That's where "winning" or "achievement" comes from.



If you are specifically only highlighting the "leveling up" part of it......games that have leveling up as a feature are HEAVILY weighted to penalties and barriers to hitting max level, or leveling in general. Like probably well over 90%, if not even higher than that. Man, even idle cellphone games work in barriers and are "actively against" you leveling up...to the point where its a main part of their monetization re: energy systems and other roundabout limiters and barriers.
Even your own poor example of Last Epoch still has systems of this nature such as the over leveled area exp penalty system. Why else does this exist if not to "actively" reduce your progression rate lol.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

What in the world are you talking about? This is a blue ribbon forum comment worthy of preservation for all the wrong reasons. It might be the single most disingenuous thing you have ever written on these forums.

You LITERALLY claim to play this game and find enjoyment ONLY in getting 40/40 challenges. You LIVE for the game being "actively against the player". You brought up other examples countless times of games that are 100% "actively against the player". Without that simple truth, you would have nothing to play, nothing to do.

Nah, that slippery slope argument is meaningless.

And also, I never said I play PoE or any game to be "challenged" by it lmao

You know the only reason I go for 40/40 is cuz of the free MTX right? If I didn't get my free reward every league I wouldn't even bother coming back if the league mechanic doesn't look fun enough or is unrewarding.


I don't play games for a """challenge""". I play them to have fun. You know what isn't fun? Dying and losing hours of your progress for literally no reason except "oh the game has always been like that".

Exp loss is a hardcore mechanic forced upon all players, which is why so many complain about it.
If you die and lose exp, you lose X amount of hours.
If you die in Hardcore, you lose X amount of hours.

It is bad,outdated game design. And I'd rather quit a game instantly than deal with ancient ahh game mechanics like exp loss. And so I do, cuz there's nothing for me to do and the game clearly doesn't want me to play cuz it doesn't let me just reach 100 in my own way. And that's fine, I can cast my own vote by simply not playing after reaching the only goals I care about, and leaving a Steam review aswell.

Dying and losing hours of progress is literally the game telling the player "You just spent all that time for nothing, no reason at all. Your hours of exp have been deleted." and it makes them wanna alt+f4 and uninstall. That's what exp loss does, nothing else.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

Dying and losing hours of progress is literally the game telling the player "You just spent all that time for nothing, no reason at all. Your hours of exp have been deleted." and it makes them wanna alt+f4 and uninstall. That's what exp loss does, nothing else.

You might not like it, but death penalties exist for one reason. To punish failure. Every game has one in some form, and that is simply the nature of games. No punishment means no stakes, and no stakes means nothing matters.

In PoE, you lose experience when you die. That is already a fair deal, especially when you look at how much harsher other games can be. These days the penalty is barely even noticeable. You gain absurd amounts of experience, you can sustain maps endlessly, and progression is faster than ever.

So it comes down to something very simple. Are you dying occasionally, or are you dying a lot?

If it is occasional, it does not matter. That is just normal gameplay. Everyone makes mistakes, reaction slips, bad calls, brain lag, it happens. 1 or 2 deaths here and there will not make or break anything.

But if the death penalty feels frustrating, then we are not talking about random mistakes anymore. We are talking about repeated deaths. And repeated deaths are not “unlucky,” they are a player forcing content they are not ready for. Overconfidence, weak gear, lack of awareness, greed, refusal to adapt. Pick your reason, but the result is the same.

At that point the game is not the problem. The player is.

Frequent deaths are the clearest message the game can give you. A big bright neon sign saying, you are not ready for this content. Nothing more, nothing less.

And let’s not pretend the punishment is extreme. You lose maybe 1 or 2 maps worth of experience. 10 to 15 minutes, even if you are playing slow. Your build is already done around level 90 anyway.

And this is where people lose the plot completely. Even if you somehow cannot push past level 90, you are not locked out of anything meaningful. Not at 90, not at 95, not even at 98. The last 10 levels are not going to make or break anything for your build. The last 5 are even less so. The last 2 are basically nothing.

Pretty much every build is finished and fully functional by level 90, often even earlier. Everything beyond that is just extra. It is the cream on top of an already complete cake, not the cake itself.

If you reach 95 and still struggle to push further, struggle to improve gear, struggle to clear content, that is not the game holding you back. That is a player problem. And if someone somehow hits 100 and still cannot clear most of the game, that is also a player problem. Levels are not a substitute for understanding, execution, or proper build design.

Meanwhile, other games are far harsher. Look at Last Epoch, where dying can cost you your rewards entirely. In many games you lose loot, progress, get sent back to checkpoints, or get locked out of content entirely until the instance resets, which in some cases can take hours or even days. Compared to that, PoE is generous. It even gives you multiple portals, multiple chances for redemption on an unlucky death.

PoE2 is doing it better. It is more direct, more honest. Fewer portals as you push higher, real consequences when you fail. That is how it should be. If anything, that approach would make perfect sense in PoE as well.

So if the death penalty frustrates you, the solution is not to demand the game change around you. The solution is to fix what is causing the deaths. Improve your character, play more carefully, or stop forcing content you are not ready for.

And if that still does not work for you, then the reality is simple. Maybe this is not the kind of game you are looking for.

There are plenty of games out there that are less punishing. Games with full modding access where you can tune everything to your liking. Or something like Minecraft, where you can switch to peaceful and remove most of the danger entirely, though somehow people still manage to get farmed by pixels anyway.

PoE is not trying to be that. It never has been.

Deal with it, improve, or die.

It is very weird to see a 40-challenge guy arguing against the penalty. You'd expect them to be a good player.

I haven't had the time to read everything but I will at some point. But it seems many people didn't even understand my suggestion. No where did I say to remove the experience penalty. If you want to gain experience quickly they can still make it a risk/gain scenario. A toggle wouldn't effect this at all. It would simply allow you to attempt content which you're unsure of because of rewards other than experience. Also are we really acting like many of the people who play this game don't already know exactly what to expect? Therefor eliminating any risk to begin with? Come on.. If losing experience is such a benefit as some of you believe it is.. Why not make the game strictly hardcore? Why not have durability on items? Why not when you die, all of your loot is lost? There's many ways to create attrition so that success feels like relief thus creating a feeling of achievement. If other people have the ability to turn on a feature that helps them enjoy the game more and has zero effect on you what so ever.. what's the issue??? Ultimately I don't think they would even invest time in something like this as it appears the company is much about creating new things as efficiently as possible. There's many things to appreciate about path of exile for me.. and this latest update has continued to impress.. I am just offering a suggestion that I know would help me personally.

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Exiliest#5062 wrote:

No where did I say to remove the experience penalty. If you want to gain experience quickly they can still make it a risk/gain scenario. A toggle wouldn't effect this at all.

You are wrong....unless this toggle is ALSO paired with heavily reduced drops. The reason "toggles" are not very common in video games is because, on the surface, it may SEEM like it doesn't outright remove a very basic part of a game but in practice it absolutely does. Asking for a toggle is one-for-one the same as asking for the exp penalty to be removed.

Basically...you are completely stuck at the absolute surface level of understanding the exp penalty, why it exists, and the pros and cons of removing it.


That's why games that have difficulty levels nearly ALWAYS have a penalty associated with choosing the "easy mode", whether that be far less exp gained, far less loot, lost access to the "best" loot, etc. Even Diablo 4, the easiest most casual-friendly arpg that has ever been created, has this in place.

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Exiliest#5062 wrote:

I haven't had the time to read everything but I will at some point. But it seems many people didn't even understand my suggestion. No where did I say to remove the experience penalty. If you want to gain experience quickly they can still make it a risk/gain scenario. A toggle wouldn't effect this at all. It would simply allow you to attempt content which you're unsure of because of rewards other than experience. Also are we really acting like many of the people who play this game don't already know exactly what to expect? Therefor eliminating any risk to begin with? Come on.. If losing experience is such a benefit as some of you believe it is.. Why not make the game strictly hardcore? Why not have durability on items? Why not when you die, all of your loot is lost? There's many ways to create attrition so that success feels like relief thus creating a feeling of achievement. If other people have the ability to turn on a feature that helps them enjoy the game more and has zero effect on you what so ever.. what's the issue??? Ultimately I don't think they would even invest time in something like this as it appears the company is much about creating new things as efficiently as possible. There's many things to appreciate about path of exile for me.. and this latest update has continued to impress.. I am just offering a suggestion that I know would help me personally.

An on/off toggle really isn't a valid option, though, because of the way it could be used to circumvent core game elements. There has to be a significant cost to doing so, which is why the Omen of Amelioration exists: it's a fairly rare consumable which can alleviate a single death.

You are giving me an idea that might be workable, in terms of game difficulty balance, but I know some of the participation trophy players would probably not be on board. Let me know what you think: players gain the option of "safe xp mode" at character creation and are allowed to participate freely in the economy of their chosen league if applicable (SC challenge, HC challenge, SC standard, HC standard). But they receive tremendously reduced experience starting in act 6, which would be reduced even further after clearing the campaign, corresponding to the 5% and 10% experience penalty benchmarks. And when I say tremendously, I don't mean 50% less, I mean 90% less in act 6 and 95-98% less after act 10, and this penalty would ALSO apply to your skill gems. Safe exp mode would not be a free ride, it would be a meaningful choice with a clear upside and downside.

The idea is, players would be able to reach level 100 with an infinite amount of deaths, but it would take much, much longer than reaching level 100 via smart play and solid character building. And similar to migrating a character from SSF to trade, players could take their characters out of Safe Mode at any point, but the transfer would be only in that one direction.

Man I will never understand why people pretend like exp loss is this magical,mystical important mechanic that is core to PoE.

If its so important why does half the campaign not have it and work perfectly fine?

Why don't we just make the whole game hardcore then? And make it void your whole stash when you die too, we wouldn't want you to have too much progression now would we?

Let's put durability on items too, make 1 random piece of gear break when you die. You could endlessly put in bad game mechanics and pretend like its making the game "more challenging" and "more satisfying to overcome". When that's a complete lie lmfao


I love how people defending exp loss are like "you will never understand the benefits of it and how it would affect the game if its removed" and then proceed to explain none of it. Because we all know exp loss is pointless and there is no reason for it to exist.

I don't care about games trying to "teach me a lesson", I don't care about upgrading my build. I don't care. About any of it. Its my choice alone how I want to enjoy a game, the game has no right and no business trying to force a player to do anything. And the very concept of a game "filtering players out" is elitist and toxic, yeah good luck growing your playerbase like that lol

Taking away a player's progression is disgusting when that player hasn't opted into it. I don't remember choosing to play with exp loss on character creation. Its like forcing hardcore on everyone, same thing.

Eventually GGG will do something about it when enough people complain, and I can't wait for that day. Because exp loss gets in the way of me, and many other player's fun. So its pointless and should be deleted, I don't like it. It feels bad. Just delete it already, there is no other solution. Cuz if its not deleted then I will keep quitting early every league.