Chris: ALT-F4 LEGIT STRAT

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BRavich wrote:

The core issue here seems to be the way that Chris defines "interesting" and "difficult"



The bottom line is that he created a game which he wanted to be *difficult*, and then he implemented a flask and life leech system that makes it incredibly easy to top off your health in an instant.

Additionally, he wanted to make PoE a game with very simple mechanics. You click to move, you click to attack. The game revolves around using the same skill many times in a row.

Because the actual mechanics of the gameplay are so simplistic, they cant be used to create difficulty, unless you consider moving out of the way of a Vaal smash difficult.



That leaves one option: in order for enemies to pose a threat in a system where you can top off your health in a split second, enemies need to be able to remove large amounts of your health in a split second.

But then go ahead and throw into the mix a wide variety of build options, and subsequently, a wide range of defensive values. What might take 75% of one player's health will instantly kill another player.

And the kicker: enemies can crit. Get unlucky and you take massive burst of damage. You survive the attack 90% of the time, and the other 10% you die instantly. You're fine in the midst of a crowd of enemies but then you get unlucky and take 3 crits in a row, resulting in your death.





Frankly, aiming for "difficulty" within the system that GGG set up is plainly bad game design.

They are quite good at designing in such a way to make impossible what they are trying to achieve.

Challenging content, for example.
In PoE we have the map system which is designed to be challenging in high level maps.
But, that content is gated behind an insane amount of currency. To access that content at any frequency, one does two things, trades heavily and groups.

Trading the amount required to access the content is by default going to see you in gear that negates the challenge, grouping in PoE makes most content stupid easy.

But, if you want to take this content on solo and as progressive challenge, i.e. being under-geared and always pushing at content that might give you upgrades slowly to push further, not simply buying the gear, not trading; you are locked out to such an extreme that you actually out-gear would be challenging content because the insane amount of time spent farming lowball to attempt to gain access to the challenging content will give you rare top tier rolls or GG uniques.

In short, the required methods to access challenging content negate that challenge. Not negating the challenge will not get you access to the content.

Bad design. Or possibly a working as intended pretend hardcore game design.

I never alt+f4 myself so I dont know if you can continue fighting the same boss immediately after.
If they can,
I just wish alt+f4 or esc+exit UNABLE to finish the fight. one must start a fresh fight or be better prepared the next time. being able to continue is not fair.

[Removed by Admin]

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oBLACKIECHANo wrote:

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Jackel6672 wrote:

Funny, so Alt+F4'ers are actually making the game harder for characters that do not. That is, if he's not trolling.

"For those that do not" You mean people that put idiotic arbitrary restrictions on themselves and then blame the game for not suiting their play style? It seems most people whining about this are people that are too slow and can't act quickly enough to get out of a bad situation.

How fast does anyone have to be to bind alt F4 to a mouse key or keyboard macro, Muppet? I am sure you imagine you are some super elite gamer with reflexes no one can match; reality check, your head is so far up your own arse it has made you oblivious to reality.

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draygourn wrote:

I never alt+f4 myself so I dont know if you can continue fighting the same boss immediately after.
If they can,
I just wish alt+f4 or esc+exit UNABLE to finish the fight. one must start a fresh fight or be better prepared the next time. being able to continue is not fair.

If you logout or exit the game, you start the fight again (if you are solo - not if you are grouped obviously).

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Qarl wrote:

We balance knowing that players will play solo.

LOL
Oh God, my sides were not prepared for that one. My summoner would like to have a word with you regarding the new A3 "content".

It's quoted because it's not content, it's a direct counter to Summoners.

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wftico wrote:

Wow, this is dumb.

One the one hand, I admit the honesty of the developers. On the other hand...
The Designconcepts are really fucking wierd.

Who the hell likes bosses who just onehit you to almost no life? Especially
if you can't even avoid it? This is really your sense of a great boss fight?

The vast majority of the time, if bosses are doing this to you it's because you're trying to push the envelope, so to speak.

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I mean the Dominus Fight for example is just mind blowingly stupid!
You've got to portal in and out thousands of times, and if you go in with
a random party, at the end of it, you end up with complete different people,
because everyone leaves because the fight takes fucking 20 minutes or whatever.

On my melee shadow I don't need to port out at all. On my summoner I ported out 3 times, mainly because I was simply running out of mana (I probably went in to the fight too early as a summoner).

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Another example of just plain bad boss design is brutus (i think he is called that way).
He basically one hits you down to no life at all, pulls you with his chain CONSTANTLY
without a damn cooldown.... the fight is SOOOO stupid.

Learn to use your environment. You can "interrupt" the pulls by clipping the corner of the very discernable wall in the room, thereby leaving yourself with space despite being constantly pulled. If he is coming anywhere near 1 shotting you you are either doing the fight too early or far too geared/talented for glass cannon status.

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Bosses should have special attacks which do tons of damage, but you NEED to be able
to avoid those! Else it's retarded. The only good boss GGG has designed is probably Vaal.

All the bosses are exactly like this. Some of them you can ignore most of the mechanics assuming you gear correctly. None of them _REQUIRE_ portaling or logging out.

Brutus: The large damage swings are completely avoidable, he does a windup before using them. Run through the mob to avoid, or stay at range (using previously mentioned strategy) if viable.

Merveil: No real need to follow strategy here unless you are trying to do the fight without cold resist. No risk of death either.

Vaal: Plenty of stuff to dodge/avoid/control.

Piety (fire place): She uses particular animations before winding up the balls of lightning, which have a relatively large area of effect. Some specs/builds can probably ignore - others have to dodge.

Piety (Lunaris): It is quite beneficial to manage which element spheres she has available; killing ice ones near her simplify the fight significantly. You have to decide whether or not you can kill it before she uses it, or whether you should just leg it for a pillar and ride out the ice.

Dominus: Phase 1 (adds): the combinations of adds can make this section challenging if you don't outgear it and get caught in the wrong place. The slow combined with the cyclone is quite nasty if you get caught in it.

Dominus: Phase 1: The electrical smash does a tonne of damage if you don't dodge it (and, again, if you aren't overgeared/leveled), however, it is very easy to dodge. That is, as long as you don't get slowed in the middle of a bunch of lightning totems without an escape. These also make it more difficult to run away from suicide bombers as well.

Dominus: Phase 2: There is absolutely no "1 shot" mechanic here. 99% of deaths are because people didn't notice a stack building on them and act appropriately, either by moving into the protective barrier or using a pot to remove bleeds. The boss himself doesn't hit very hard at all, and is reasonably easy to keep range on as long as you are considerate of the first point and don't stack damage on yourself in doing so. Manage debuffs, keep adds under control - win.

I have done all of these fights under both ends of the spectrum; FAR too undergeared to really be attempting it, and so overgeared that I can ignore most of the mechanics. The fights tend to be the most fun when they are on the bottom end of that scale, and there has never been a case where I have logged as a result of the fight itself - only when I am miles across the screen and still taking melee hits from a boss who is clearly nowhere near me.

The ability to logout/alt-f4 probably does cheapen the notion of hardcore, but god-damn am I glad it is enabled. There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than "hardcore" modes in online games that cause deaths outside of my control. It isn't hardcore to die to a random erroneous packet of data that didn't go to the right place. For me, it is an extremely small price to pay to avoid connection-related deaths that you can escape legitimate deaths with a timely alt-f4. The day the game goes offline-mode or the internet becomes instant and 100% reliable, I'll be right there picketing with you.

Odd to think the devs are actually saying the game is balanced around jumping out of the game like that. Still as the original poster said, if you really feel like doing it, escaping-exit would at least be a legit game command. Alt-F4 will always feel simply cheap. I personally wouldn't do it though, sorry, but not exactly 'hardcore'.

I don't mind it despite i never use it. But there are times when people with real life's have to completely drop everything and go at the drop of a dime. Whether my two kids need my attention or my wife needs me. I go to NYC every month at least once, in the hours before i have to leave and start my journeys. I jump on POE and don't get off until the very second my rides here and i have to run out the door.


Now if I played Hardcore all the time and could not F4 if i needed to, I probably wouldn't be able to play Poe barely ever. Because truth be told: "Life doesn't wait for you to pause your game or finish your battle, or get to a safe point. 97% of the time when you have to leave your surrounded by mobs or on a map.


I personally don't see the problem.. I mean i get it but The same people got everything nerfed,And still not happy... Sometimes you just gotta let go and accept things are out of your control. Also remember POE is Heavily based on Diablo when it was Diablo pre D3.

Competitively it may give some players a unfair advantage (a small amount in fact). Which really is the only people it effects, with that said whatever rank you are did Alt+F4 help or hurt you to achieve it? Chances are probably not. Most likely it was hard-work and lots of play time. And of course trial and error. Now lets ask the top ranked players in both Hardcore and Leagues if they would like to remove Alt+F4. Chances are most of them wouldn't really care and a small hand full of them would miss the feature most likely for QoL reasons.

Give that the last post on this thread was almost 4 years ago, I doubt there is any current pressure to remove Alt-F4.