Why don't YOU play HC?

Why wont you play HC in Future ?

Because of the current route "they" (GGG) take. I think Beyond will be my last one (Played all HC Leagues from Onslaught till now)

Rising spike damage every f***ing league, especialy elemental one, just kills the fun more and more. The design of mobs where you need 80-85 elemental Resists (Hello Magnus and Merveil!), while constantily nerfing the imigation (nerf of Rathpiths ES, Saffels Spellblock + max res, Puritys and +max in passive tree now) is something i dont get. Especially the Puritys/max res in tree were the only flat defenses 2H builds could get.

Spike damage is fun, yea, but if you cannot build arround it...why we have this huge passive tree if all options are removed ?! Then please, do it like diablo 3 and make it and RMT/Equipment festival, were all people simply looking for the same gear and cannot make stat decisions via passive. thx.

Also, path of crit..why every 1h crit build outperforms everything ? (Especially daggers, ofc..)

I don't play hardcore for the following reason, listed in the order of importance:

* I hate losing connection between my stash and my character (IE. getting killed)
* Having a job + wife + cats + hobbies and finally POE does not leave much time for recreating dead characters.
* Losing a character to a strongbox-desync issue is very annoying. It has almost come to the point where I reroll if rogue exile is a mod on the box, since sometimes dead before I can see the spawn (also in Standard)
* General desync is annoiyng way to die (also in Standard)
* I don't like to feel that I've wasted my time. If you are a streamer on the other hand, you do not waste time, since streaming is a goal in itself, but reset to zero, where I could have used my sparse time on something else, is not something I enjoy. Which is also something I hate even for the 10% xp loss in Standard. (try doing it when you're lvl 92, basically the same as losing a lvl 60 HC character)

Yup. Removing elemental defenses, while buffing damage in maps / bosses, in a game where spike elemental damage was already a problem. Also desync seem to be worse, especially the "ghost mobs" problem, where stupid AI tries to rush a pack around obstacles, desynicn' 3/4 of the mobs in the pack.

So far I've brought at least one char to endagme 80+ in every HC league. But havent even checked Beyond yet and im not hyped to check it at all...

Also, speed. They've added 60% movespeed to some Zana maps. On top of speedy mobs, with "fast attacks" mod, with local speed sources (totem / aura)... hahahaha! GGG level/mob designers never heard of desync, lol.

unfair deaths.
-desync
-strongbox spawn lag

HC is not real hc if you can alt+f4 escape or in boss fight TP to heal/refill flask in town.

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NoNamium wrote:

I don't like to feel that I've wasted my time. If you are a streamer on the other hand, you do not waste time, since streaming is a goal in itself, but reset to zero, where I could have used my sparse time on something else, is not something I enjoy.

This is only the case if you view the situation from a materialistic perspective (the focus being on tangible, quasi-physical results). That's perfectly valid, obviously, but when I have lost HC characters, I didn't feel like I wasted my time, because the fun I had with the character didn't "un-happen".

Plus every character always accumulates currency and stuff every time you play. Even a deceased character remains alive in Standard, where his stuff can be sold and traded back to HC, if desired.

I struggled some with this back in D2 when I played, more than a decade ago. Looking back, what I remember now, though, are all the great moments of narrow escape, victory, and defeat. I don't recall anything about the softcore times in D2, but I remember my first HC death vividly, I recall how the response to it (a "fuck this, I don't care" lightning nova sorc that I had no hope for and that was created in rage, ended up being my first ever character to defeat the game in HC/hell without partying), and I remember many of the adrenaline-drenched close-death experiences.

I still mostly play softcore in PoE, but have been expanding my HC dabbling a little more lately. Desync is an issue for me, as are poorly tuned encounters where surviving is too dependent on random effects. D2 had its fair share of such problems (like FE champions until they got fixed, stair traps), but it was an overall easier, less random game (in terms of encounter difficulty). I do find it hard to get attached to my softcore characters, especially the Standard ones, because it all feels so irrelevant. 10% even at 87 is a lot, and no doubt much more severe at 92, but it's different for me.

Looking at my SC deaths, I also have to honestly say that at most one out of 20 was desync related, and all of them lockbox related (got better with an SSD). It's nearly always a result of playing poorly, taking unreasonable risks (which is fun in its own way), playing recklessly, neglecting resists on leveling characters, or general carelessness.

I can relate to the stash issue. Right now I have four different stashes, and it's really confusing. I'll probably let the temporary SC league go (just farm to buy the league-only items, then stop). HC and the HC challenge league tie in well with Standard since you can "transfer" everything down to Standard whenever you want, no waiting time. I look at the HC leagues as some kind of outposts at the frontier, and Standard as the "home planet". :)

But anyway, need to get the level 90 SC achievement out of the way. 2.5 levels to go. If I play HC too much before, I'll never get it done. It helps that I prefer to play self-found and a "make do with what I find" playstyle.

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IlyaK1986 wrote:

Because most of the deaths you will have in this game aren't "oh, I made a bad decision and this could have been totally avoidable", but more along the lines of some ridiculous form of spike damage that takes you from full to death in the span of a few seconds.

I mean heck, imagine that you couldn't use TP for 4 seconds after taking damage, and that you'd have a 4 second delay when using alt+F4.

Right now, GGG is essentially balancing around "well hey, the player can just take a town portal or alt+F4 if things get hairy, so occasionally, we have to kill them so quickly that these options won't' always work"

I.E. I died twice on a wharf map with quad shot mod thanks to voidbringers with far shot. I mean, 60% fire resist + 3k HP -> voom dead in 2 seconds (yes yes, I should cap off my fire resist, I know). Enjoyable? A learning experience? No, not really. Just felt cheesy to me.

EXACTLY...I find this the case time and time again.

Hell, just earlier when I was on. Cruel, Chamber of Sins, with my then 49 Marauder. Im cruising along act 2, murdering this, killing that, visited several zones, no issues, easy peasy...then in CoS, I spend 30 minutes killing the same mobs yet this one room, same skeletons, nothing special, no traps....my dude just dies, full to dead, less then a second.

And yes, that is what really makes this game irritating to play. And its not for lack of a good build I wouldnt think. ive got 58% armor, max cruel resists and more. 2111DPS with a 2hs, 2.9 atk spd, yeah...its not my build...but the random instant deaths in this game...What the hell is going on with them, it really is as you say, GGG has a mechanic that just makes you die if you havent in a while...and I just cannot express how damn annoying it is....it makes me want to punch infants in a nursery....its just so damn retarded.

But besides a few retarded quirks, I like this game overall..

Can't justify HC in PoE yet for two related reasons: Time I have available to play and desync.

Desync: Played HC (and SC) in D2 and D3. Much safer on account of the much more stable engine and servers. I die in Rampage at least once from desync on Fri/Sat evenings if I play. Any time I have lost a HC character in Diablo it has been to poor play decisions, not the game or server. One time my dog tripped the switch on my power bar too lol...my fault, not hers.

Time: I can't/don't want to play for 4-6 hours daily like I did in my early 20's. Can't do it. Even when the GF brings her laptop over we are playing maybe 3-4 hours max and taking frequent breaks. For how little time I have to invest in the game, I don't get enough enjoyment out of re-rolling to gamble on HC stability.

I go to great lengths to not die, even though I am "just" playing Rampage league...it's a point of pride. I like having a well made toon that I play properly, and not dying is a measure of how well my build/gear/play skill is operating.

Re: Alt+F4

Most of the time I have no issue with people quitting the game or town portal to avoid a death (though being able to do this makes PoE "Soft HC" whereas D3 is "True HC" for boss fights). I am guarded with my time and value it, it makes sense to me that others would as well.

When I do have an issue with it, is when you know some clown is mocking "scrubcore" players for not playing HC, but the same clown is constantly "cheating death" (though not technically cheating) using the quit method. I mean...lie to yourself all you want, but if you can *quickly* exit the game to avoid dying, you aren't actually playing Hard Core...not true, always present and dire consequences Hard Core.

I enjoy the mechanics and loot grinding, so I play PoE in the first place. I don't care why you play, but don't insult my preferred game mode and then hide behind a keystroke to save your life lol.

Note: I knoe OP wasn't insulting SC play, just saying...that attitude is out there :P

I just can't deal with putting in hundreds of hours to a build, absolutely loving the results, loving the thrill of HC gameplay then you get totally f***ing robbed by Desync or server drops or whatever.

Your build's wrecking the content, you got all your uniques and quality gems in the new league, you're loving mapping with your guild then...Oh. Sorry. The game is simply not stable. Back to leveling for you and off to Standard for all your gear. GLHF.

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Halezor wrote:

I mean...lie to yourself all you want, but if you can *quickly* exit the game to avoid dying, you aren't actually playing Hard Core...not true, always present and dire consequences Hard Core.

How ironic. You shame HC players for mocking SC players, and then mock HC players.

This forum sometimes... facepalm.

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Myrmi wrote:

unfair deaths.
-desync
-strongbox spawn lag

HC is not real hc if you can alt+f4 escape or in boss fight TP to heal/refill flask in town.

Psh, yeahuh! *Real* HC doesn't exist in PoE. Thats why I play HC because I know it's not real HC so I'll be in the top 20 really soon. It's really easy actually because you can just alt f4 and never die. And GGG designed bosses and combat with flasks and portals in mind so it's so easy yu can jus tp out.

Nas ims jus kidding. I dun play HC, I won't even bother I just know so much about from reading these threads and watching streams.