I dont know if anyone else has already responded to this as theres like 45 messages afterwards, but just wanted to chime in and say Defense is the best offense atm for making it further in the endgame (arena/mof) ive yet to see beastmaster with its 250k ticks of poison damage or any other full out DPS build make it even half as far as say the very defensive FG or huge ward tanks like Sorc/Spellb/Lich
2 Likes
I disagree with that. I think, people who find fun in death penalty, can play HC mode and get huge amount of this fun there. In SC people got different kind of fun and death penalty will decrease it, unless penalty will very small. That way everyone can get what he wants and I dont see a reson for mixing that.
1 Like
Amen Brother! On Mar 3 I wrote: “I like the idea that if your not strong enough to achieve an objective then you do not get in. I do not believe penalizing one for not being strong enough and trying to get in is the way to go. I believe that the current penalty system is exactly what is called for to encourage both the meta-end gamers AND the casual gamer like myself”.
However, I think you and I are in the minority.
Have a safe weekend.
That’s your Point of View. I’d argue many (if not even Most) People of us however find Max Level and Endgame is where the Game really starts, where you can finally focus on gearing up properly because you don’t run into risk that you spent too much time on your gear while leveling but than find 2 levels later trash gear which is way better and stuff.
TBH if i look at my Gaming-Past, and compare Levelgrinder like Diablo 2 (which was a Game which i played for 12 years on a regular basis) with other Games where you can hit maxlevel in a fair time, i spent way more time on my “finished” character after i hit max level, than Games which let’s you grind your soul for hitting Max. Level and get bored while doing so.
Don’t get me wrong, while i enjoy Leveling up new Characters (especially if there is a cool skilltree with build possibilites, in case of D3 i found Leveling after awhile pretty boring) and Level-Mechanics in Games, i don’t want it to become a mere dumb carrot to keep me playing. If “increasing” number on your character is “important” for you keep engaged on a Game / RPG / HnS than i’d say the Game itself have a big issue to begin with…
/Edit: I want to point out, i don’t try to say “Leveling” should be so obsolet that you reach Max-Level within a few Hours with Hardcore Grind and stuff. That’s extreme and problematic as well. But for the last few levels to take many weeks to achieve with Hardcore Grind would be a mess too. A week Hardcore Grind if you know what to do sounds pretty reasonable to me, because in Relation the majority of people (myself included) wouldn’t achieve that anyway and don’t do hardcore Grinding to be fast Max Level anyway.
#Death Penalitys:
I’d say it’s more or less a matter of how it is implemented. IF done well it can spice up the Game and give death a sense, encourage players to get better, while not to harsh of a penality so the get discouraged and feel punished to play their way / experiement with builds and stuff. Especially what i don’t want to see is a complety level Loss for death… that’s one of the stupiest features which i saw in my Gaming Career. But in general to lose some exp and stuff as penality isn’t a dealbreaker to me…
Though we’ve to point out, stuff like this often only affects the newcomers, low-end players (noobs) or casuals, and less the veterans and pro players which don’t die (much) anyway, no matter how well / much of penality is implemented.
I concur with the Path of Exile progression example. Coming from a casual point of view, with limited time, I’m not interested in playing for hours to grind to a level. So I do see your point. That all said, once I finish a game’s story, and gain all the achievements, I tend to be done with the game as well . . . whether I hit the max level or not.
So it might also be in that game’s interest to delay that as long as possible. Chasing carrots and all. But that’s just my humble opinion.
For me it’s less about having “limited” time, or aren’t open to spent much time at all. That’s a misconception of people who read such critique and think this is coming from a guy who don’t want spent proper time on this Game, simply finishing fast and move on. Because that’s not true at all and the complete opposite, i love to spent time on a ARPG / Hack’N’Slay and infact that’s one of my biggest appeal of this Genre.
My Point was that i rather want spent much time in stuff which makes sense and don’t feel like a waste of time… like doing for a long period a number play in sense of the only real progression you see on your character is a raising number, because Gear itself doesn’t do that much due next few level you get new better trash anyway. I prefer to spent hours up to hundrets of hours to work on my Character-Build and grinding for Gear on max level, which then doesn’t feel like waste of time because i do it to “perfect” my character, and if i get a ton of loot, there is good stuff which i can use than for my twinks / alt characters and such.
In Grim Dawn as example, my Sorcerer have around 250-300 Hours of actual Playtime, a Game where you can achieve Max. Level if you are good, within a week.(especially since there is Gear which you can grind for which have exp boosts, plus Exp Potions(all game ingame available, not MTX and stuff). It didn’t took me more than 100 Hours to get Max Level on that character, and i still have spent so much time afterwards on that Character, and even now i’m not close to BiS Gear and stuff. Still it never felt like waste of time, because i had much fun with experimenting on my Character, adjust my Build and stuff, and grind for gear which i can use for my alts / twinks. Which is also another Timesink… spending Time on other Characters.
And that’s my point, i prefer to have actual content and stuff, where it’s more about enjoy the game, go hunting for loot and stuff, instead of mindlessly grind on a mere number(as carrot) so i can say: look it took me a whole year to get max level…
1 Like
Would be cool to get something juicy with max level. Something as a reward for the effort. For me personally just to have a “100” on the stats charts isn’t enough to encourage me to spend that much time grinding xp. In the time getting from 90 to 100 with 1 character I could propably level 3 chars to 80. Ok, stats points will be missing. But the less points are missing the less impact those points have.
What stats are actally scaling with level? Mana, I think. HP, too?
Perhaps a title at lvl 100 with some cool armor or weapon skins. Or a permanent buff (that you perhaps also could choose), not too mighty, but mighty enough to encourage people to go for max lvl.
We will get steam achievements 
Oh… oooh awesome! Now I am hyped 
J’m probably going on the opposite direction, but to me this is taking really already too much…
I’ve 35hours with a single character and I’m just lvl 67…
For me the game start at max level when I will start to improve my gear as much as possible and to reach high ladder…
While leveling I like to go through the story with my first char, but after that. I am the kind of player that ask a powerlevel on Diablo 3 to be “max level” and start then to find the right gear…
I understand that here it is different and the gear seems not too much lvl related (actually with crafting you raise the level of the pieces and my understanding so far is that the higher the level the better Tier you will get as starting base, but however T5 is the max and I already have 1 item full T5 - after some luck and a lot of destroyed pieces).
So if the game still like is today for me is already too much and probably after few time I’ll move to something different…
I like to play different character, but here I focused on only 1 and I did not even maxed to 100 with alll this time… (I work so I play mostly in the evening 3-4h max per day not even all the days having a family too)
2 Likes
It’s a bit different. With LE Propably you will have very nice gear the moment your hit 100 because it takes relatively long to get there.
Let’s see what multiplayer adds to the progression speed. Maybe you can level faster in a group.
1 Like
Once you hit level 76 (I think), everything in the game can drop. At that point you should start gearing and levels will come as a result.
The death penalty was the reason I stopped playing PoE. Plain and simple. If it happens with LE, I’ll stop playing it too. Not everyone is a dedicated gamer. Most are casual, like me. Not everyone has great drops or has that perfect gear to survive. Restarting Monolith runs and Arenas is enough of a penalty. PLEASE… DO NOT add a death penalty, too!
4 Likes
Yeah, that is LE’s death penalty & it’s brutal.
3 Likes
Monolith and arena are not the only endgame. And I might argue that restarting monolith isn’t much of a penalty.
1 Like
This is highly dependend on the time you can sink into the game. Hardcore “nolifers” will have little issues with it while a lot of casual players already mentioned that 5 monolith runs in a row for a key are to much.
And that’s the problem. 5 runs in a row takes like 15min tops. If the game needs to cater to people who couldnt put 15min at a go, then EHG might as well just make a candy crush.
3 Likes
This has become a long thread but I will inject my opinion.
Any penalty that would remove XP is completely unacceptable. Time is far too precious for many of us “casual” players to lose. If you decide to have some type of XP penalty I would flat out quit and fight for my money back. Throw this into the same flaming trash-bin with Wolcen and make sure people I knew didn’t bother with this game.
The whole point of aRPG is to constantly try to build up your strength and test it and the thought of losing time would inhibit that push to challenge your build. Hardcore modes are already there to punish those that want it, there is no need to have hardcore and really hardcore.
I already find a reset MoF a pretty annoying penalty but fair. Add gear fatigue that costs gold to fix, sure. Add a ferry-man tax to revive your corpse, sure. F*** with time I’ve spent and send me back… no way.
I saw a post above mentioning death removes an XP buff you can build up. That is an acceptable idea to me but I am not sure how you implement that. Every successful MoF or Arena wave gives and extra 0.1% XP and death puts you back to baseline XP gain, maybe.
4 Likes
good luck. I’m sure they promised you wont lose xp when you bought the game.
1 Like
I despise death penalties that stall the game out and the experience curve currently seems fine to me. A penalty that resets progress will simply narrow creativity in builds as it did in poe. You either play something over powered , or you simply play safe and never challenge yourself.
Losing the run for arena and losing your progress in monolith already feel like harsh and fair treatments for death.
100% agree with everything you just said…
Also, there can certainly be varying levels of difficulty, correct? Could the developers simply create a normal, hard, elite-type incremental level of difficulty or is that too much? It seems like it would appeal to a lot more people if that were the case. #2cents
5 Likes