Player Retention, Growth, and the XP Penalty – A Call for Change

GGG has crafted an incredible ARPG with deep mechanics and rewarding gameplay, but if they want to retain newer players, ensure long-term player engagement, and drive revenue growth, the XP penalty system must be re-evaluated. This outdated mechanic disproportionately punishes players, particularly newer and more casual ones, and could be a serious roadblock to PoE2’s success.

The Reality: XP Penalties Hinder Growth


Barrier to Entry for New Players – The learning curve in PoE is already steep. Adding harsh XP penalties discourages new players from sticking around long enough to master the game. If GGG wants to expand its player base beyond the ultra-hardcore, this needs to change.


Kills Experimentation and Creativity – Players should feel encouraged to try different builds and strategies, not forced into ultra-defensive meta setups just to avoid losing hours of progress from a single death. The fear of XP loss stifles innovation and replayability.


Creates Frustration, Not Challenge – There’s a difference between engaging difficulty and sheer frustration. Dying from an unavoidable one-shot due to latency, an off-screen attack, or simply trying out a new build shouldn’t set a player back hours. This drives players away instead of keeping them invested.


The Business Case: Retention = Revenue

GGG must recognize that player retention drives long-term revenue. If newer and casual players keep hitting the wall of XP penalties and quitting in frustration, PoE2 will see weaker engagement and less monetization. More players staying in the game means more potential MTX sales, league participation, and word-of-mouth growth.

The Solution: Cut the XP Penalty


The data is clear: removing XP loss will lead to higher retention, a more engaged community, and a more vibrant economic ecosystem for PoE2. GGG has an opportunity to redefine the experience for both new and veteran players alike—one that’s rooted in fairness, growth, and empowerment. The decision is yours: continue with a system that alienates potential heroes, or embrace change and unlock the full potential of PoE2.

I urge GGG to listen to the community, recognize the need for a paradigm shift, and commit to a future where XP loss is a thing of the past. For the sake of player satisfaction, community growth, and the long-term success of PoE2, it’s time to remove XP loss completely.

PoE2 has the potential to be the best ARPG on the market, but if GGG refuses to adjust the XP penalty, they will continue to alienate new players, weaken retention, and ultimately harm their own revenue potential. Hardcore players will still find ways to push the limits, but for the game to grow, it must evolve.

GGG, the choice is yours. Adapt and thrive—or double down and risk watching players walk away.

Most casual gamers think they want a guaranteed, smoother experience, but what actually keeps them engaged is a sense of achievement. If everything feels inevitable, the game loses its excitement, and players burn out faster. The key is balancing friction—enough to create meaningful progress without making it feel punishing. Without any setbacks, victories feel hollow, and the game becomes just another routine rather than something worth mastering.

All that being said, I think a good compromise would be XP loss beginning at a higher level.

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N3vangel#0037 schrieb:

All that being said, I think a good compromise would be XP loss beginning at a higher level.

XP loss is already at higher level, 70. At this point the player have finished the campaign and has the hang about the class, the skills, the itens needed... and how the game mechanics work.

The aggravating issue is One Portal per Map. Not because we lost the waystone, the mechanics in it, loot, XP, etc etc etc... Is the TIME LOSS that hurts more.

Time farming the waystones, time farming and weeding out the bad layout maps, time setting up the towers, time perusing the trade site... the TIME WASTE is the real issue and the whole Atlas concept boils down to ONE PORTAL attempt.


Bit by bit, GGG is backpaddling in this decision - first Arbiter of Ash, then pinnacle bosses, soon enough will reach the regular maps... why not just do it now it is in EA?

Or we might just start admitting they have no interest in expanding their player base making PoE 2 a much more improved experience for a larger audience over PoE 1.

Is just a reskinned game with few changed mechanics but the core of the end game and all that make it tedious, unappalling, boring and all that things that chase away the casual players looking for a fun and relaxing experience.

Just look at steam statistics 2 month ago payer peek almost 600k nowadays barely 100k. And what they change to the core game mechanics nothing

Will the game die because of this NO. The old hardcore players that enjoy PoE1 will probably play both.
Will the game community grow and thrive also NO.

Right now, I think their biggest issue is that PoE 2 feels like a half-built house—there’s a solid foundation, but the walls and roof are missing. They’ve stripped out a lot of depth, maybe to rebuild it differently, but they haven’t replaced it yet, nor do we really know if they ever are going to.

At around level 92, progression just stalls, and there’s no real sense of mastery or high-stakes achievement to keep players engaged. If they don’t define what meaningful progression looks like in this new system, PoE 2 potentially risks getting stuck in an identity crisis—not hardcore enough for longtime fans, but not casual-friendly enough to bring in a new audience.

Almost like its an early access game???



XP penalty is staying by the way.

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Barrier to Entry for New Players – The learning curve in PoE is already steep. Adding harsh XP penalties discourages new players from sticking around long enough to master the game. If GGG wants to expand its player base beyond the ultra-hardcore, this needs to change.

No offence, but if you don't want to stick around for long enough to "master the game" because you lose 10% exp on death - then you got filtered.
And that's not even meant in a "git gut" way; it's just how it is. Some people get filtered when they see the passive tree, and some get filtered by Brutus - well, actually most, anyway.
Some things are not everyone's cup of tea, but especially with the exp loss, it's not hard to overcome.

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Kills Experimentation and Creativity – Players should feel encouraged to try different builds and strategies, not forced into ultra-defensive meta setups just to avoid losing hours of progress from a single death. The fear of XP loss stifles innovation and replayability.

That does not happen. The exp loss is a thing in PoE1 and the variety of builds is insane. Play glass canons, zoomy mappers, tanks, bossers, whatever you want. The viability of all the different build archetypes proves that your statement does not reflect reality.
The only restriction you get is "don't play bad builds and expect to get far with them", but then the exp loss is not what hinders you from getting somewhere.

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Creates Frustration, Not Challenge – There’s a difference between engaging difficulty and sheer frustration. Dying from an unavoidable one-shot due to latency, an off-screen attack, or simply trying out a new build shouldn’t set a player back hours. This drives players away instead of keeping them invested.

I leave every single argument aside why ppl want the exp loss to stay because I have enough experience to know - ppl asking for the removal don't care, so...
I go a different route:
"Death" is the worst in-game thing that can happen to your character, right!?
Like technically and lore-wise - because you died. When "death" is the worst thing that can happen to your character there has to be something in-game in place to reflect that or it becomes meaningless.
So, it's logical to set up a direct and explicit punishment for "You ripping your character". And no, losing a map and the things on it is a result when you die, but it's not the direct and explicit punishment for your character's death.
They could delete the character on death because he died, but that's too hardcore for most ppl. They could take away a level when you die, but that could hard-lock you if you got unlucky. They could remove 10% from your exp so you get soft-locked if you die too often, but that's something some ppl don't like.
Now, what kind of punishment for DYING do you think is reasonable? And take a minute to think because many other ways could hard-lock a character.

"

The Business Case: Retention = Revenue

GGG must recognize that player retention drives long-term revenue. If newer and casual players keep hitting the wall of XP penalties and quitting in frustration, PoE2 will see weaker engagement and less monetization. More players staying in the game means more potential MTX sales, league participation, and word-of-mouth growth.

Sure. Making the game this or that way could end with more money for GGG, but the actual question is - do they want to do it if it changes the game to something they don't want!?
I mean, they could technically implement level boosts for money, make cool gatcha companions, give us the revive token for a few bucks and so on.
Where do you draw the line? First you remove exp loss because some don't like it, then you remove the ability to roll low tier mods on high ilvl items, then you remove picking up items at all because some like to be a vacuum cleaner, then you give ppl infinite tries on boss encounters, then you increase drop rates that everybody can farm a mirror in 100 hours. Don't get me wrong, it's an exaggeration, but you get the point.

"

The Solution: Cut the XP Penalty


The data is clear: removing XP loss will lead to higher retention, a more engaged community, and a more vibrant economic ecosystem for PoE2. GGG has an opportunity to redefine the experience for both new and veteran players alike—one that’s rooted in fairness, growth, and empowerment. The decision is yours: continue with a system that alienates potential heroes, or embrace change and unlock the full potential of PoE2.

Which "clear data"? If you think the exp loss is bad and should be removed, sure, that's your subjective view, but if you say stuff like that - implying objective "data" - you should better be able to back it up.

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Mashgesture#2912 schrieb:

Almost like its an early access game???



XP penalty is staying by the way.

If GGG had a clear endgame vision and just needed to tweak numbers or difficulty, that’d be fine. But right now, the game feels structurally incomplete, and that’s a bigger issue than just ‘waiting for updates.’ Early access should be about iterating on a solid framework, not hoping one materializes later.

When the penalty is low compared to how much you can gain per time. I don't mind... but at 90+ 10% is massive.

I Agree in conjuction with map loss is bad.

Also lighten up on penalty at high levels.

keep in mind there is a setting for hardcore for elon monk and friends.

The XP penalty sucks. Every person for the xp loss is a seasoned player who it doesn’t affect very much. The game isn’t just about you. You act as if your years spent playing POE 1 entitles you to a bigger piece of the opinion pie. GGG doesn’t care about any of the things I see listed here as reasons to keep the xp loss. They care about making money. That’s it. That’s the number 1 goal: Get people to spend $50 on an outfit.
You want to make more money, then make the game enjoyable to more people. Playing for 2-3 hours and one death removing everything you just spent your time playing is beyond stupid. The loss at death is already enough without the xp loss. Losing your map, your node, the loot on the floor, etc is more than enough for players to try not to die. Add in all the stupid one shot mechanics GGG likes to use because they can’t figure out how to make something challenging without one shot mechanics. If YOU want to be scared of death in the game then go play hardcore. They made a special mode for you guys. For the 95% of potential money spenders, we have lives. We don’t want to lose everything we’ve spent our limited time earning because a single mob in a pack of 30 explodes on death or drops some exploding something on death that we can’t even see because of all the visual clutter in this game.

If this was a game like Dark Souls where you can learn from your mistakes and have the opportunity to grow from the experience of the death, it would be one thing. This isn’t like that at all. Punishing players by ripping hours of gameplay from them simply because framerates dropped and we couldn’t see something is insane. The fact that any of you goobers are defending it is WILD. You obviously have an ego problem and like to feel superior to those that don’t have 10k hours on POE.

The goal here should be to make the game enjoyable for the most people possible. Yet, GGG often time wrecks the experience for the regular gamer because you try hard cry about something. It’s why GGG has gutted so many awesome things or leagues in the past. Deterministic crafting, more currency dropping, fun and engaging mechanics for regular people… all destroyed the very next league because those spending 10 hours a day on the game everyday were upset that so many more were obtaining the power usually reserved for you guys farming mirrors every league.

So now we’re getting stuck with another game meant solely to feed addiction problems to suck every last dollar they can from people with low dopamine who get high playing the game because they don’t get dopamine hits from anything in real life.

Time loss is a BOGUS punishment to the extent you’re making GGG and nobody is going to stick around while wasting their time. I’ve been playing this game for many years now but I never stick around long term because of this problem. My limited time to game is far more valuable than you guys are making it. Want a game tons of people love to play? Then make a game that respects player’s time. It’s a seasons game. There is zero reason to make so much out of reach in a season. The HC guys and gals will be back each season no matter how far they get. The casual gamers will not when they realize they will never be able to achieve the highs possible in the game because you’ve made it to where only the no lifers and or those playing path of trade market can obtain.