The Exponential Punishment Scaling Map Modifiers

Dear GGG,

Fundamentally, I don't think you understand the point of having a differentiated hardcore and softcore versions of your game, because the exponential scaling of punishment as map modifier counts go up, genuinely makes the game feel like hardcore all the time when you reach the peak of the endgame, and it genuinely makes me want to turn the game off every time I make a mistake and die.

I will freely admit that the deaths I suffer, are from my own mistakes. Even the offscreen shotgun death to bladefall from runic monsters that just bricked my citadel, can be boiled down to my being too aggressive in choosing remnants when placing my explosives. I feel I deserved the death.

However, losing the 12+ maps it will take me to path to another citadel. The 3 div in fragments I was likely to get from Geonor, the several hundred exalt worth of logbooks on the ground next to my corpse, 10% of the couple of divines worth of tablets I spend juicing up the place, the 6 mod chaotic rarity modified and abyss crafted marked for death map, the 30 minutes or so of bad map layouts I ran to path this direction, and 10% of my experience points seems like way too many penalties stacked on top of each other, and it left me wondering what the point of choosing to make a softcore character was if I was going to be setback so much on every death anyway.

I've come to the forums and turned the game off for tonight. We'll see if the mood hits me to play again this weekend, but honestly, I may just log off completely until 3.27.

The changes in 0.3.1 are a good step in the right direction, and I was thoroughly enjoying the freedom to explore the infinite atlas and juice as I went, but the need to run 6 mod maps with 1 portal on every map to unlock the use three tablets highlights the issue with exponential penalties for death, and the total lack of efficiency you have to suffer to run a 1 portal safety net (which was a comparatively small sacrifice to make in 0.3.0) really highlights this sore spot in design.

I chose softcore. I consciously picked the mode where my mistakes are supposed to be forgiven, and they just aren't. There is just no forgiveness for any mental lapse. As a person with a stressful job and stressful life, who looks to gaming as a low pressure arena to unwind, I want that mode. I want the mode where I say "well shit" and try again with minimal setback. This game just doesn't have it right now.

Pretty much how I feel like as well. The game doesn't seem to respect my time, so why should I respect the game? I get that some people like to be punished, but that's what Hardcore and Ruthless (in PoE 1) is for.

I'm over 40 years old. I'm past the point of spending 10+ hours a day doing nothing but playing a Videogame. After I spent my entire day working on algorithms, coding and double-checking submissions of co-workers I don't want to play a game that constantly feels like more work or like some ducking performance test.

I just want to enjoy a game without constantly being punished for the tiniest mistake. Every time I lose a map it just makes me want to quit and play something else. It's what keeps driving me away from the game. Something I never feel when playing PoE 1.

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NagaBreeder#9017 a écrit :

Pretty much how I feel like as well. The game doesn't seem to respect my time, so why should I respect the game? I get that some people like to be punished, but that's what Hardcore and Ruthless (in PoE 1) is for.

I'm over 40 years old. I'm past the point of spending 10+ hours a day doing nothing but playing a Videogame. After I spent my entire day working on algorithms, coding and double-checking submissions of co-workers I don't want to play a game that constantly feels like more work or like some ducking performance test.

I just want to enjoy a game without constantly being punished for the tiniest mistake. Every time I lose a map it just makes me want to quit and play something else. It's what keeps driving me away from the game. Something I never feel when playing PoE 1.

i actually enjoy ruthless but the semi-HC in poe2 is hard to stomach. I like being under geared and constrained on higher difficulty but i don't enjoy playing safe and be risk averse. i enjoying dying a lot , esp to bosses that regenerate to full on death. beating them when under geared is more satisfying the more i ripped during the fight. esp after i ripped at <5% hp left. killing them on first try, even if i executing the mechanics that I learned before is still less satisfying. i get into some mode after i rip few times and it becomes personal. the juicing of content should make margin for error much tighter and therefore beating such content at all-no matter how many tries will be even more satisfying. too bad its not here and prob never will be.

edit: btw in (old) poe1 this was much more punishing if you were above 50% xp, loosing half a level to one rare (bosses were never very hard) fight and still not getting the drops was brutal

+1

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AintCare#6513 a écrit :

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NagaBreeder#9017 a écrit :

Pretty much how I feel like as well. The game doesn't seem to respect my time, so why should I respect the game? I get that some people like to be punished, but that's what Hardcore and Ruthless (in PoE 1) is for.

I'm over 40 years old. I'm past the point of spending 10+ hours a day doing nothing but playing a Videogame. After I spent my entire day working on algorithms, coding and double-checking submissions of co-workers I don't want to play a game that constantly feels like more work or like some ducking performance test.

I just want to enjoy a game without constantly being punished for the tiniest mistake. Every time I lose a map it just makes me want to quit and play something else. It's what keeps driving me away from the game. Something I never feel when playing PoE 1.

i actually enjoy ruthless but the semi-HC in poe2 is hard to stomach. I like being under geared and constrained on higher difficulty but i don't enjoy playing safe and be risk averse. i enjoying dying a lot , esp to bosses that regenerate to full on death. beating them when under geared is more satisfying the more i ripped during the fight. esp after i ripped at <5% hp left. killing them on first try, even if i executing the mechanics that I learned before is still less satisfying. i get into some mode after i rip few times and it becomes personal. the juicing of content should make margin for error much tighter and therefore beating such content at all-no matter how many tries will be even more satisfying. too bad its not here and prob never will be.

edit: btw in (old) poe1 this was much more punishing if you were above 50% xp, loosing half a level to one rare (bosses were never very hard) fight and still not getting the drops was brutal

The thing is, when you encountered a Rare with bad mods in PoE 1 you didn't immediately lose your map and everything you invested into it. You had 6 portals to work with and, worst case scenario, you'd just ignore that Rare and clear the rest of the map instead.

I'm just tired of PoE 2 not respecting my time. Put that garbage into HC but leave that shit out of SC.

This pretty much sums up my feelings about endgame penalties as well. Losing a map plus invested resources and everything you could have gained from it feels bad. To potentially lose hours of work you successfully achieved before you even put the map in the device is on quite another level.

This is a game where perfect storm events can kill you outright even in areas where you normally feel safe. You should be able to dust yourself off and go back for another try without feeling that you would have been better off progression-wise not having booted up the game at all.

I totally agree. The insane visual spam and one shot mechanics in PoE1 weren't as much of a problem cause 6 portals meant a random, one off death wasn't the end of the world (though it sucked losing the XP).

Here when I fully juice a map it just makes me extremely nervous and I creep the screen over slowly which isn't frankly very fun to play. I get that defenses should matter and dying should be discouraged, but if you want to design a game with borderline impossible to see one shots and monsters that move at the speed of sound then we're going to need some room for error.

IMO the XP loss is pain enough in and of itself. If you can't clear a map in 6 tries then you're reaching to far for that char and need to turn it down.

I wish they'd just give us always 6 portals. If they're super attached to this 1 portal thing then at least let us do 3 tablets regardless on how many mods a map has. The endgame juicers are going to run a 6 mod map anyways - you could at least let the early mapping experience be enjoyable with 3 tablets.

In general I just think the game needs to tone down the punishment. Sometimes it just feels like every single thing in the game is trying to bust your balls and it just gets exhausting eventually.

Signed another full time worker with a wife and hobbies and responsibilities and etc.