How/Why Do People Stand Hardcore?

OP, I only play softcore, but I'm nearly 2000 miles away from the GGG texas servers (I'm in Boston, MA), and I still don't experience the desync + packet loss *quite* as bad as you. What's your ping when you're playing, generally? You can press f1 to see it.

Mine's 80ms pretty consistently, which is high (and my internet is as good as yours, same download speed but better upload), but I've learned how to not die to random chance with that. When I'm playing a high level character that takes over an hour to get 10%, I never walk too long a distance at once before stopping. At the first signs of real lag or a rubber band, I /oos. On the occasion that /oos doesn't seem to be working instantly, I'll f1 to check if the connection went sour. If that's the case, I will either TP to my hideout if there are clearly no monsters around, or logout macro instantly if there is even one on-screen. I'll wait until it's clearly calmed down consistently (I'll fire off some test skills and run around in my hideout while leaving the f1 stats open) before going back in. It's just the shit you have to deal with, with this game.

My SRS summoner hasn't died in the last 10 or so hours of gameplay on that char (so, much more than 20 maps, more like 100), so it seems like I'm doing something right.

I got to keep the character in SC.
Why not see how far I can go before the first death? Every solo character I make needs to start in HC; I've already consigned myself to a dead character if I start in SC.
I'll start in SC to party up with my sister and/or her boyfriend for co-op runs and that's it.

HC Global chat is super chill so it's a comfy league to play in for that.

Eventually I may be able to recognise and calculate threats well enough to get a nice high level HC character. Won't know if I don't try.

I just build a Character tanky enough to avoid unavoidable deaths lol. I'm in 195th place right now in the 1MHC at level 84. Incinerate build With lightning coil, acro+phase, 79/79/83 resists, Lvl 19 arctic armour, 5500 hp, 265/sec hp regen, and ofcourse cwdt ec ic. With mostly self found gear, still less than a week into the league, I've survived many things that other people would deem unavoidable. Such as last night on a +pack size 73 dry peninsula, when about 35 spirit walker devourers surrounded me while I was chasing around the storm call exile. Didn't even have to log out.

Even though I built it to be tanky, I still have very good clear speed. This is partly due to having a total of 100% proj speed without using faster proj gem. However, it's also due to having a near instant lightning warp.

This is my main suggestion for you OP. Besides building a character that is built to handle the unexpected, USE LIGHTNING WARP. As long as you don't use quicksilvers with it, it has greatly reduced desync for me. When running around with quicksilvers, every time I /oos I would move a significant distance. However now that I use lightning warp, I don't move at all when I /oos. The only way I can explain this, is that every time you warp it must automatically resync you with the server.

In Invasion I ripped like 20 HC chars. :-)

It's better when you know what you are doing. For example currently on lvl 60 in merc act 2, no deaths in 1 month HC and only having 2.3K HP. :-)

The death can happen usually because you are trying content which is too hard - for a challenge.
Or because you don't have enough knowledge.

The indicators that you are doing something wrong is usually an area where your HP starts to jump down and up. Ofc it depends on the lvl of risk you like. I'm usually risking quite a lot - last death was lvl 74 brutus fight in Zana map quest in beyond. :-)

When you play chicken like, it's usually quite easy to survive - having enough DPS and survivability.

characters die, i play for my stash (i really like to stash nice items for my NEXT character)... :D

and if deaths overwhelm you, time to do some softcore action, or worse, go out or smthing.

Really interesting range of responses here. Seems like we have some people who don't desync much at all (some a little arrogant about how "good at the game" they are :P) and others who have similar issues to me. One interesting thing people keep bringing up is ping. I haven't found ping to be relevant to desync at all; desync is an engine issue, not a packets taking too long to travel issue. My ping is usually around 60, and I've seen monsters be unhittable and then rubber band without my fps moving from that baseline.

People keep on bringing up things I could/should be doing and how the deaths are really MY fault, and those people clearly don't understand what I mean when I say unavoidable death. I mean that I'll be in a room with no monsters (and thus no way to detect desync at all, because nothing moving to watch), and suddenly the server is like "wait a minute, no, you're in THIS room! And also dead!" Literally will teleport to a different room at the same time as the death screen pops up. There just isn't anything to be done about that.

One hypothesis I get looking at responses here is that I play a character with an extremely high movespeed. Maybe the server doesn't handle that well, especially when I quicksilver. I've been trying spamming /oos as I run through monsterless areas and it seems to be an improvement. My character routinely moves a LOT when I /oos.

Unfortunately, also what I'm learning is that to be successful in HC you need to play and build around desync to such a degree that the game doesn't sound fun anymore. Stacking hp, making an alt F4 macro, and pausing to /oos every few steps to make sure you aren't about to randomly die sounds really frustrating. People might call that "skill," but to me it just sounds like tedium. I might stay out of HC permanently.

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Green9090 wrote:

suddenly the server is like "wait a minute, no, you're in THIS room! And also dead!"

Sounds like something that happens when you attack a desynced mob without using hold ground and in theory player error indeed. But I agree the performance issues make playing this game in HC mode very frustrating. Why play still?

- Higher standards for character builds. You can't just shrug off the occasional death to reflect or devourer packs until you've hit level 90.
- Better economy, much more likely to be able to sell even mediocre items you find well into the lifetime of a league.
- The thrill. Always having to be somewhat alert and check map and monster mods, use potions preventively, etc.

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

Probably because it is fun. The same reason people play SC.

I think it is this.

Also, you kinda have to learn to deal with desync. It becomes another dimension you need to know to survive in hardcore.

First you need to know how to build a character, second you need to know how to play and third you need to know what might horribly desync you and avoid those situations or get ready to /oos (or log out, if it goes wrong.. bad) instantly after if you have to put yourself through such situation.

I'm not here to try and justify desync (and the third dimension of gameplay that comes along with it) but that's just how it is currently.

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rockmassif wrote:

Seriously? Are you guys not bored of discussing the same thing over and over again?

Protip: fix it and maybe it won't come up every other second of the day whats so hard about that

It says something bout the game when people make the same posts again and again and again i think and GGG don't seem to care

Sure they may not be able to fix it but maybe there could be something done like ingame timer on anyone who connects that resyncs every 10 times without us having to type it...

To many timers? FIX THE FUCKNIG CODE THEN :D

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Green9090 wrote:

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Dahmura wrote:

oh look another thread about desync.

Oh look, someone who didn't read the thread!

but its true- your thread is exactly on desync. it does not really differentiate from all other threads about desync. it asks one question which is basically 'how can someone with a different mindset on accountability of player death be enjoying an aspect of the game I don't'?
excuse me for being harsh, but really essentially, that's what your question asks.


if you 'can't see' how people enjoy hardcore with desync present now since you were around since CB, that you most likely wont really get it even after this thread predictably blows up for 20 pages or so.

because its really easy to see why people play hardcore (even though I personally dont play it). people who always play the highest difficulty available and play competitively will always play hardcore temp leagues- those are the most 'competitive' and 'prestigious' level of poe by far.

they also enjoy 'oh shit' and 'buttclench' moments and some of poes rips are forever framed. some people play because death is extremely meaningful in HC because you HAVE to start a new toon from scratch after ripping.

people playing HC assume that at some point they will die of desync and not their fault. and people who play HC are ok with it. its kinda a fault tolerance thing - there will be failures beyond your control.

some people are ok with it and are playing in spite of it. some, like me, dont give a shit about deaths beyond our control, even in SC, even on high levels. some people don't care much about dying not because of your 'skill' but because of crappy client-server predicting syncing model. PoE doesnt really have much skill to it anyway- its a pure time investment for most part.

the question is- are you able to 'see' and accept the notion that some people can enjoy a game where the outcome isnt inherently bound to their 'skills' and inputs ?