Why I won't be returning to PoE

Well, I've just decided to stop playing PoE altogether due to the desynch and penalty issues. For my lunch today, I logged into docks to make L66 to use my Lioneye's Glare (I built a toon to use it - he is L65 LA). Died twice in two minutes to voidbears which melted me in desynch (e.g. they were not in visual proximity to do so, and I've been playing this game awhile now - I know how to handle voidbears with my LA). This is with 60ms ping to the Dallas server from San Diego. 30% experience gone. Granted it's only L65, that's about 20m of gameplay lost in 2 minutes. Just sick of losing progress to desynch and bad mechanics. When you have a beautiful Lioneye's Glare waiting for you in one level and you walk away halfway to that level, it's really indicative of a much larger issue of resentment for the system as a whole as I think to myself "who cares if I get it; I'll be pissed off again at level 75+ when I die to desynch or just make a mistake and lose an hour+ of gameplay".

This is very sad given my support for the product. Unless it's fixed, I don't see a reason to return as the game has caused more anger and frustration than fun the more I played it. I want to be clear; my dissatisfaction is not due to the challenge of the game, but the fact the game steals the time, energy and effort I put into it. I just won't do it anymore. If I wanted that, I'd play Hardcore.

Note I do think this game is fantastic and fun up to about L60 or so; even with the penalty (which isn't a big deal at that time). But after making so many toons on different leagues, the overall feeling is "this game will just end up pissing me off". And it has. I'm simply fed up.

I wish everyone the best and will keep an eye on news and patch notes, but until something is done about the penalty, I won't be returning.

Chris wrote:
The main reason for having a death penalty is so that players aren't able to attrition their way through every fight. We're okay with the strategy of throwing yourself at a boss several times if it's a little too hard for you (which allows us to have pretty challenging mandatory boss fights), but there needs to be a penalty so that this doesn't become a dominant strategy.


This makes no sense for a level 90+ player who can lose days of gameplay through a single death, and this is the real problem with the current death system, and why players abandon their L80+ characters. The “new adjustment” will not help resolve this problem at all, and the key problem is: you don’t steal a normal gamer’s time. If a gamer wants massive risk, they’ll play Hardcore. If you want to prevent them from “abusing” their way through progression, add a mechanic specifically to address that (e.g. the limited portals for a map). Do NOT steal their time, energy, and effort. Until GGG understands this, PoE will have a lot of churn and fail to keep the retention that it could as players will abandon the game because they feel they can’t have fun building their high level characters anymore. That’s why I quit playing my L80+ characters. That’s why a lot of people have quit and will continue to quit.

SOLUTION TO ATTRITION: 0% Penalty, when a player dies, they lose access to all open zones. This includes maps. Forces a reset and player loses progress in that zone.

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Chris wrote:
We (and many of our more hardcore players) are worried that a lower death penalty may reduce the importance of building characters correctly and playing carefully. However, there are hardcore leagues for players who want deaths to be extremely meaningful. The new values do still strongly discourage dying.


It’s now clear why GGG is failing to properly address this issue. Chris makes it apparent GGG believes hardcore players should define (and it looks like have defined) what the standard penalty should be. This is a fundamentally flawed approach and lacks in proper connection relative to the monumental difference between hardcore and standard players. Hardcore is completely different from standard, and for good reason; and as Diablo 3 has shown us (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/9691895/diablo-iii%E2%80%99s-one-year-anniversary-infographic-5-20-2013#best), less than 10% of players are hardcore. While the number might be a little higher for PoE, it’s certainly not a number that should define the gaming experience for all players. So, why do they define the penalty for standard? This is reaffirmed by the numerous people who only play Hardcore who have been commenting in this (and other) threads saying what the penalty should be. Hardcore players have no reason to even be in this discussion. Hardcore and standard are completely different gaming experiences, and should be treated as such.

As long as GGG approaches the death penalty issue basing it on “hardcore principals” there will never be a proper or reasonable solution. Letting Hardcore gamers define the standard penalty is simply absurd.

I don’t play hardcore (I have in the past, but decided not to do it anymore). I like occasionally diving into a tough risky situation that may likely result in my death and blasting myself and the enemy to hell – heck, who doesn’t? But I shouldn't have my effort taken away for engaging in such behavior in a non-HC world. And guess what? The massive majority of players agree, which is why they don’t play Hardcore either! This is why Hardcore caters to a minority of gamers. It does nothing but angers me to see my character lose hours (or days) of gameplay due to a single death, and when I die (L80+) it’s NEVER due to me attempting to progress through attrition. As such, I believe GGG is completely disconnected with the impact of the penalty on non-HC players, a penalty which drives them away. Lowering it from 15% to 8% won’t change this. A L90+ character will now only lose 12 hours of progress vs. 24 for a single death (for example). Players will still be just as pissed and will still quit just as much.

The current system (even with the proposed adjustments) also builds resentment. That’s not good for an online game which survives on micro-transactions. I have no intention of spending any more $ because I am resentful towards the current death penalty mechanic. Why should I give more $ to GGG when I resent the fact they won’t fix a broken mechanic which steals my progress (time, energy and effort) when I make a mistake and die when I'm not even player Hardcore? What about the time I don’t make a mistake and die? (e.g. desynch)

I don’t think GGG understands the real reason the death penalty simply does not work at higher levels. Until they do, and until they realize Standard is not Hardcore, and should not be defined by Hardcore players, simply adjusting the numbers won’t make a difference.

I shared the penalty change announcement with my friends (and wife) who have avoided playing the game due to the death penalty, and their response was unanimous. A laugh with a general “so I’ll only be 8% pissed vs. 15% pissed. No thanks.” I hope GGG understands how many potential players they are driving away through this poor design.

blackvampire wrote:
i really don't care what a hardcore player has to say ...


When it comes to death penalty in Standard, I agree.

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blackvampire wrote:
go outside and play the game called life,try to make a living and after a couple of months of that come back and play Path of Exile,i guaranty you that at the first death you would be like "Christ i even lost the xp i made 2 months ago wth?" boom log out...from the creator's point of view that's bad business because frankly it is bad business to loose players in the first 30 mins of game time, i don't care how many "bla bla supporters" still play,and i'm sure the numbers say that death penalty in soft core is 100% bad business.


This is actually what caused me to stop playing. I jumped on my L7x LA Ranger in docks one morning and within 2 minutes died twice to desynch. I looked at my XP bar and said "screw this" and quit.

PoE is the only "current" ARPG (e.g. less than 5 years old) where you can end up worse off than you were when you started when not playing hardcore.