Chris: ALT-F4 LEGIT STRAT

let me just remind you all of the way Torchlight 2 did it.
the game many of you skipped because you didn't like the graphics:

no portals in boss area.
you die in Hardcore = you're dead.

and that's only a small fraction of so many, many things that game does right, while both D3 and - sadly - PoE do wrong.
like monster AI for example.
and "risk and reward" based loot.

yes, you can panic-logout of that game too. you can even back-up your own save files, then restore them as if you never died.
both are the same as using the (built-in) cheats and going god-mode: zero fun.

and why would you?
no ladder to "compete" on with cheesy tactics.
no developer assuming you use cheesy tactics and balancing the game around it.
you are free to play proper hardcore and challenge yourself, and some people in that game did just amazing things. 100% legitimately.

even Kripp did, though he played an overpowered class in a mod, and I'm sure he did a few exploits because yeah he's Kripp.

why some developers insist on knowing better than others is just beyond me.
as far as I know, no idea is "patented", and you can definitely learn from other games while developing your own.
the Torchlight guys did. they took ideas from Titan Quest and other great games.
and those guys have tons of ARPG experience. some of them are former D2 and D1 devs. they are the Blizzard we all know and love (as opposed to what Blizzard has become today).
most of GGG are "rookies" in comparison, yet they insist on not looking at what other games do.

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Xavderion wrote:

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Pyrokar wrote:

So what is the conclusion after 27 pages?

1. Most people have issues with hardcore's name (as suggested, change the name to babbycore so the softcorers are happy and don't have to feel inferior).
2. Alt+F4 feels cheesy.
3. It's still best for the game, see D3's hardcore which is basically dead because of the 10 second delay. It does not only reduce frustration due to desync/dcs, it also makes playing hardcore more fun since you can play more recklessly.

If they change hc's name to babbycore, i want it to say "B-A-B-A-L-I-T-Y" above the respawn button, when i die in hc(like in Mortal Kombat). Noone uses alt-f4 in hc. I tested it with a friend once and he told me it takes 2-3 sec for my char to leave the server. What people use is esc->logout and many do that in a macro binded to f2 for example. Personally, i never played D3 but isn't it obvious that developers will stay away from mistakes other similar games did? (e.g. AH)

.

Alt F4 is good/necessary which has already been mentioned many times. (yeah i read 28 pages of repeating arguments)

Now i can't help but re-iterate:

If monsters are going to one shot you, alt-f4 isn't going to save you. (kinda makes glass cannon builds in HC useless... which is a good thing.)

It is up to the individual how they choose to use (abuse?) the function.


To all the softcore players complaining about the name HARDCORE... surely it is MORE hardcore than regular league? If it does not follow the same rules as other games with HC mode, who cares?! POE is it's own game with it's own rules.


<3 POE, thanks for being so transparent GGG.

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Qarl wrote:

If it helps you feel better, the people at the very top of the Hardcore and Onslaught ladders don't generally use Alt-F4 at all.

That's not really true (coming from an ex-top 10 Onslaught player).

Even if you just go on poedeaths.com, you'll see in pretty much every death video the guy is trying to alt-f4 (or click logout) but just doesn't do it fast enough. In the cases where they don't do this it's usually because they didn't notice they were dying or they died too fast to react.

I don't have anything against alt-f4 just stating that the top players in HC and Onslaught most definitely will alt-f4/logout if given the chance.

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prizons wrote:

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CaoMengde wrote:

>< if u play hardcore and alt+f4 ... its not hardcore...

i play softcore because i find it fun to jump into the center of hordes often... its just how i play... i died 1512 times on my lvl 80 guy, cause its fun...

hardcore is lame, not dying is lame... alt+f4 is wuss style

Diablo invented the word "hardcore" and you could alt f4, tp to town, esc exit. I can tell the way you are talking you only play softcore.

Blizzard came up with Hardcore as a replacement for Ironman which Diablo players came up with on their own in Diablo 1.

Ironman was much more strict and difficult than hardcore. The one and only thing hardcore ever consisted of was that you couldn't die and continue.

Imagine a hardcore league with no towns, no vendors, no trading and no portals. Your character is allowed to take a break in between acts, but only after they have completed the act, including clearing everything.

The one thing Ironman did have (since it was built into the game) was resurrection. If you found a resurrection scroll, you could use it on a fallen team mate.

u and your small wieners hc friends, going alt f4 every day for 5 days, just to call sc people noobs.

Rather play the alt+f4 league then SC. Poke your poison people.

Heh, i'm the fellow that posted the question on Raptr, very happy to see it spawned a 28 page thread with several dev-replies! Loads of interesting views in here, lovely read!

In case it wasnt clear when i wrote the question, after reading all this, i agree with most people here that the function has to stay. Personally, i don't like the option, and won't be doing it, but i'm all for everyone playing their own game, and am not going to take away another's fun.
My question was mostly aimed at GGG's view on the function: if it's there for technical reasons or not, and if not, how they think about its impact on the game's balance.
Most of that has been answered troughout these pages, some is still in a grey area. It might very well stay there, it's a tough topic, and one that is quite fun to philosophize about.

Here's some more food for thought i had while reading the thread:

- What about a login timer instead of a logout timer?
I agree that logout timers can cause death, and that quitting the game when you want to go to bed should be instant. I'm still a bit on the fence whether it's fair to other competitors in your race though, maybe having a 10-20s login timer after a crash/esc->exit could be a good idea to counter that?

- Dying because of party esc->exits
Fun thing i remember from my time in d2 back in the day: I used to play with a friend who used alt-f4 liberally when he got in trouble. I didnt, because i didnt like it. Many a time he'd go in recklessly with me strategically tip-toeing behind him. A few moments later he'd be surrounded by scarabs and maggots and escape from the game; only to leave me all surprised by half the level switching targets and going after me the same instant. I died many a time from this, and berated him often :).
Not sure if this would lead me to advocating it out of the game, i'd have had less fun if my mate wasn't playing, so..

- Kripparian getting frozen in the week race and changing another player's game.
I like watching high lvl play, i watch professional Starcraft, and occasionally follow a stream of a top race contender in PoE, like Kripparian when he got back to PoE for the week turbo race.
Once during that race i saw him using the esc->exit method to escape from a situation where he got frozen. This is what led me to asking the question on Raptr in the first place.
It fits quite well into the sentiment i've seen coming up in this thread here and there: play your own game and don't get mad because another player goes about things differently, because it doesn't affect you.
Well, in a sense it does. I am no HC player (though i can be quite hard on myself playing variant rulesets), i'm just getting into my 5th toon and still am learning much about the game. However, i do like to watch the top level guys going at it. When i do watch them and they are in a competition for top ladder/race slots with rewards, i like them to play on a level playing field. If Alt-f4 is part of their game, i'm interested in looking at the balance between a guy that used it once and one that used it ten times.

A few other lose thoughts:
- I liked the anecdote of the poster that went into the battle with Vaal, and used alt-f4 after getting hit by his lightning attack, rethought his strategy and went back into the fray. Nice strat, and even though i'd prolly be fumbling on finding my TPs in the inventory, i'm all for this kind of personal playstyle.
- I had a crash fighting Piety the first time on my second character. I loved the moment i fought my way back trough the reset instance of Lunaris 2, and was very delighted to see my progress was still there when i arrived at the stairs within 8 minutes. Lovely this is possible.
- Cutthroat races apparently do not have esc->exit. This is interesting to me, as it shows there áre places where this function appears to be undesirable. (And rightfully so imho, comparing to the days of old when people used to exit SC to avoid game-loss). This means there might be hope for some no-esc->exiting race types in the future, which could also be quite a good solution for my (small) issues concerning its balance at the top.
- A great thing to take away from this thread i've seen posted a few times: Relying too much on Alt-f4 wíll kill you.

[edited some spelling errors]

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Vaxall wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

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Pyrokar wrote:

So what is the conclusion after 27 pages?

1. Most people have issues with hardcore's name (as suggested, change the name to babbycore so the softcorers are happy and don't have to feel inferior).
2. Alt+F4 feels cheesy.
3. It's still best for the game, see D3's hardcore which is basically dead because of the 10 second delay. It does not only reduce frustration due to desync/dcs, it also makes playing hardcore more fun since you can play more recklessly.

Best post so far. Maybe they should additionally implement a hardcore league with a delay timer and see how many people will be playing it after a month. I bet that wont be many.

Playing HC is not about being able to play reckless so you can alt + f4.. Jesus christ none of you have a fucking clue.
They allow it because they can't fix the desync, so they let players cheat to save them a job :)