Bad mechanics and player retention -core mechanics that need a major rework

Great post, OP. I agree with all your points.

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Slicer9875 написал:

However, dying too many times weeds out the bad builds from the ok-great ones.

But why do we need the game to force that on us, though, with a punishing mechanic? Is dying a lot a fun way to play to anyone? I suspect that even if death penalties weren't there, if a char is dying a lot, the player would seek ways to improve that situation including, but not limited to, weeding it out.

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Doomstryver написал:

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Slicer9875 написал:

I also think the exp penalty should be a bit less harsh, making it 10% of the exp you already have as opposed to 10% of the exp to get to the next level. However, dying too many times weeds out the bad builds from the ok-great ones. I had a build this league which was failing miserably because of the way I built it. So what did I do? I identified the main issue with my build and began thinking about how to fix it. Guess what? I leveled from 84 to 86 in 1/10 of the time it took me to get to 84 from 83.

Life is also hard to get on acrobatics builds. Even with a belly, I was barely able to reach 5k life. The only 2 uniques I had were Atziri's slink boots (had 75 life) and Rat's Nest. I had life on all of my other pieces of gear.

CI makes it really easy to get 6k ES even just using skin of the loyal. Just invest properly. Then as long as you clear fast, you actually don't die that often.

The thing is though, I get comparable experience running easy T11 shaped strand as I do running T15 abyss. Because the strand map is easier I can play more sloppily and go faster which results in killing more mobs per minute so my overall experience per hour is around the same as what I earn in Abyss. In addition, there is the risk I could get gibbed by a particularly unlucky situation in the Abyss if I have rolled difficult mods onto it.

This should not happen. Running harder content should always be the most rewarding way to progress.

Of course I was agreeing with you! And I am also further agreeing with you points.

I have more than 3000 hours played, and most of them, >2000 hours, are on my main Juggernaut that reached 97 and I think that build is finished, as it's unrewarding to try leveling for the last 3 points running Shaped Strands. I also died on that character more than 2000 times - hey, I started him around 1.3, goofed around a lot, and always played him on single target namelocking skills, with the notable exception of Ice Crash which was used with Concentrated Effect, as main damage on the 6L.

I could respec him as an Aegis or try some totem/range "magic" if I felt that 100 is the main goal. @%~^ that. I want to play the most difficult content with this build, which is my own creation and feel rewarded for my choices and the continous improvement of my skillplay.

But to have entire hours of playing maps wiped out due to deaths that can't be avoided is dishearting, especially when you are encouraged to play "safe" content below your character capability...

These days I prefer to start working on my other characters, instead of just pushing for 100. I find 0 challenge and worse, 0 fun in that.

I do hope that GGG will eventually encourage players to pursue end game as a leveling challenge so that 100 will have further "weight" added by having to grind end game worthy fights...

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Doomstryver написал:

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TenTonBlue написал:

Ya people complaining about XP loss are crybabies. If you dont lose something on death then you might as well just not be able to die, then whats the point? its not even a game anymore. Unfortunately as PT said, PoE is starting to cater to the casual player, but i seriously hope something like this never happens.

Im 28 and people my own age even annoy me on how they want everything to be easy. They all seem to think they should be handed everything and never have to work for it, and that line of thinking is just getting more common.

Gamers that like difficult content are a dying breed unfortunately.

What does XP penalty provide to the game minus a way to deter players from enjoying dangerous content that pushes their build to the limits?

There is a hardcore option available upon character creation for those who wish to be punished by dancing the lines of what their build is capable of.

Yeah this is what I am trying to say. Loosing map portals is probably a good enough punishment for dying in softcore.

Yep, I decided to crawl somehow to 95-95 for last couple of passive points (and even now at 93 it already feels bad) and drop "exp question" for eternity, to never again think about it. I just have nor time, nor patience, nor interest to grind hundreds shaped strands (what is indeed best way to achieve 100).

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QuiquePoE написал:

Great post, OP. I agree with all your points.

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Slicer9875 написал:

However, dying too many times weeds out the bad builds from the ok-great ones.

But why do we need the game to force that on us, though, with a punishing mechanic? Is dying a lot a fun way to play to anyone? I suspect that even if death penalties weren't there, if a char is dying a lot, the player would seek ways to improve that situation including, but not limited to, weeding it out.

It is necessary for improvement as a player. It's really easy to tell yourself, I died b/c of 1) server connection/lag or 2) bad luck instead of thinking about the deeper reason behind why you're dying. Dying a lot is always painful especially when you're at the 50% or higher mark and somehow you died so much it went all the way back to 0. I have 2 or 3 builds bottlenecked at 87 b/c of some design flaw I made.

You don't have to make your own build. There are plenty of build guides to follow which work really well even with a low budget. When you make your own build, it is for challenge and fun. It's too see how far you can go with your self-made and how to improve it. Like any work in progress, the build ends up modified in some way.

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Slicer9875 написал:

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QuiquePoE написал:

Great post, OP. I agree with all your points.

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Slicer9875 написал:

However, dying too many times weeds out the bad builds from the ok-great ones.

But why do we need the game to force that on us, though, with a punishing mechanic? Is dying a lot a fun way to play to anyone? I suspect that even if death penalties weren't there, if a char is dying a lot, the player would seek ways to improve that situation including, but not limited to, weeding it out.

It is necessary for improvement as a player. It's really easy to tell yourself, I died b/c of 1) server connection/lag or 2) bad luck instead of thinking about the deeper reason behind why you're dying. Dying a lot is always painful especially when you're at the 50% or higher mark and somehow you died so much it went all the way back to 0. I have 2 or 3 builds bottlenecked at 87 b/c of some design flaw I made.

You don't have to make your own build. There are plenty of build guides to follow which work really well even with a low budget. When you make your own build, it is for challenge and fun. It's too see how far you can go with your self-made and how to improve it. Like any work in progress, the build ends up modified in some way.

Is it necessary for GGG to force player improvement?

I am fine with EXP loss on death in theory, but it is the collateral damage (disconnects, etc) which are the problem.

I haven't played in a month, but there were big issues with the North American servers. Wasn't my connection because leaving one server that was having lag issues for another would fix the issue. At least until that server had problems and you would have to change again.

I ended up dying several times in the Den map to invisible wolf spam. I literally did not receive the wolf swarm attack on my end and would just fall over dead with nothing near me. I quit playing after that.

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Lord_Tao написал:

Loosing map portals is probably a good enough punishment for dying in softcore.

it really isnt.

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Lord_Tao написал:

Is it necessary for GGG to force player improvement?

its necessary for the game to have a real downside when you lose, yes. Its not a movie, its a game, theres winning and losing, playing right and playing wrong, if you play wrong and lose the outcome is not the same as it is if you play right and win. when you lose it sucks and something happens that makes you not want to lose again.

I could make an absolutely shit glasscannon noob build and die maybe once every 2 or 3 maps playing the hardest content at breakneck speeds. Why would I do anything different if that ends up more rewarding because of the speed it can farm at when the only downside is once every 3 maps I lose 1 of my 6 portals? Whats the point in having a game with all this build creativity if it doesnt matter and you can just make a shit build that fails all day long and you end up in the same place or even a better place than someone who makes a build that never fails?


the way you remove the death penalty is you learn how to play and stop dying, its that simple.

Adjust your settings. Plan out your builds trying to keep graphics in mind. If your computer has issues with lag or graphics, do not create a lightning strike raider.Yes it's not fair that you can't try out full variations of builds, but that's not improving any time soon. I died today because Perandus mobs stormed me the moment I entered the map and I happened to lag. The servers for me tend to be pretty poor, but things did get much better after I adjusted graphics settings. Turn graphics down to 5; despite what everyone says, I really don't see much of a difference in most cases. There are flags and ways to start the game to improve performance.

I have a poor connection too and lousy graphics so I know the frustration, but just think of it as an additional challenge to build for.

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Slicer9875 написал:

Adjust your settings. Plan out your builds trying to keep graphics in mind. If your computer has issues with lag or graphics, do not create a lightning strike raider.Yes it's not fair that you can't try out full variations of builds, but that's not improving any time soon. I died today because Perandus mobs stormed me the moment I entered the map and I happened to lag. The servers for me tend to be pretty poor, but things did get much better after I adjusted graphics settings. Turn graphics down to 5; despite what everyone says, I really don't see much of a difference in most cases. There are flags and ways to start the game to improve performance.

I have a poor connection too and lousy graphics so I know the frustration, but just think of it as an additional challenge to build for.

I have a 6 core i7 6800k with 32GB ram. I also have a superclocked GTX 970. Trust me, from what I saw it definitely is the servers ;)

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Slicer9875 написал:

Adjust your settings. Plan out your builds trying to keep graphics in mind. If your computer has issues with lag or graphics, do not create a lightning strike raider.Yes it's not fair that you can't try out full variations of builds, but that's not improving any time soon. I died today because Perandus mobs stormed me the moment I entered the map and I happened to lag. The servers for me tend to be pretty poor, but things did get much better after I adjusted graphics settings. Turn graphics down to 5; despite what everyone says, I really don't see much of a difference in most cases. There are flags and ways to start the game to improve performance.

I have a poor connection too and lousy graphics so I know the frustration, but just think of it as an additional challenge to build for.

Nope.

As long as they insist that DX11 mode keeps shadows on always, and not implementing options regarding toning down particle effects, we will keep insisting that level 20 Lightning Strike + Multistrike + Faster Attacks should be playable, and if the number of drops + monster packs on maps hinders serverside calculations and server-client communication, those have to be addressed just as the cluster@#%^ of shiny colours and particles should.

This game has no excuse for not running above 30 FPS on decent specs at ALL TIMES. It's not Star Citizen. They are confident they could provide an even smother experience so they made their choices, => they get the "flak" for not taking every goddamn skill, use it in high APS/cast speed situations and test extensively.

Not to mention it just took "a while" for them to improve Cyclone movement problems, hopefully it will not take this long for every skill that delivers a lacklustre experience and underwhelming performance...