UPDATED: Developer-Friendly & Condensed Proposal for an In-Game Pause: Pausing Character, Not Game

Easily exploited. Makes esc+logout 100x easier and safer.

I supposed we should add pause to online FPSs as well?

Why are you leaving in the middle of an area anyway? Who does that? The only time you don't have portals is early on when you've just started a fresh account. Use them, that's why they are there.

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Hulkcore wrote:

I supposed we should add pause to online FPSs as well?

In single-player, people definitely should.

I'll challenge this.

There are several more limitations that would need to be implemented:
1 - Character must be at full health and energy shield
2 - No enemy may be agroing you
3 - The game doesn't recognize you as being in the area at all
4 - You do not get XP
5 - You do not get items
6 - You do not get quest progression
7 - You do not provide item quantity or quality boost to party
8 - Takes 5 seconds to pause
9 - Takes 5 seconds to unpause

This should probably do it.

I hope I don't have to explain why these are needed.
It should be obvious.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Hulkcore wrote:

I supposed we should add pause to online FPSs as well?

In single-player, people definitely should.

Because single player FPSs are usually played online?

No, they usually aren't. But what's "usual" isn't really important: online doesn't mean multiplayer, it means online. After all, single-player RPGs are usually offline too, but hey, I play POE single-player and it's online. If I were playing D3 single-player, it'd be online too, and I could pause. Similarly I can play Starcraft, multiplayer, online, and I can pause.

There's really no fundamental problem with pausing online games, though I also don't really like the OP's particular implementation. If you're going to pause the game, just pause the game.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

No, they usually aren't. But what's "usual" isn't really important: online doesn't mean multiplayer, it means online. After all, single-player RPGs are usually offline too, but hey, I play POE single-player and it's online. If I were playing D3 single-player, it'd be online too, and I could pause. Similarly I can play Starcraft, multiplayer, online, and I can pause.

There's really no fundamental problem with pausing online games, though I also don't really like the OP's particular implementation. If you're going to pause the game, just pause the game.

Nothing wins people over like dickish pedantry. The point is that there are online two options for pausing online multiplayer play and both are terrible.

Either one person is paused while the other players continue, which can give the paused player many advantages. I'll just pause while everyone else kills Piety and them unpause just in time to get the quest and loot.

Or, each player has the ability to pause the instance for everyone, which is just a fucking asshole thing to do to everyone else. Hey, I'm take this phone call, you guys have to wait for me to get done. Etc...

PoE isn't a single player game, it's a persistent world. Even if you play the whole game solo and never trade or talk to anyone else, you're still going to be standing in town next to someone. There shouldn't be a pause. Just like there should be a pause in online Call of Duty modes, etc... Deal with it.

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to be pedantic, I just intended to say that there's no harm allowing pausing in single-player online games. That's not pedantry, single-player online play does exist. I was only forced to play pedant by stating a definition when you commented on what's "usual".

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Either one person is paused while the other players continue, which can give the paused player many advantages. I'll just pause while everyone else kills Piety and them unpause just in time to get the quest and loot.

I agree, this way of doing things is likely to lead nowhere.

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Or, each player has the ability to pause the instance for everyone, which is just a fucking asshole thing to do to everyone else. Hey, I'm take this phone call, you guys have to wait for me to get done. Etc...

So have pausing able to be turned off or on, and have that option visible so people can choose not to enter parties with options they don't like, or with people they don't trust not to screw with them. You know, same as GGG already does with loot options.

Or, you know, let the behaviour of a few bad apples restrict features for everyone else because it's easier than thinking about solutions. Not really sure what the point of being in a suggestions forum is if you're going to take that option.

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PoE isn't a single player game, it's a persistent world. Even if you play the whole game solo and never trade or talk to anyone else, you're still going to be standing in town next to someone. There shouldn't be a pause.

Town isn't relevant, you can't die in town. So, so what if I'm standing next to someone? There's really two options:
1) If I press escape, I can now be standing next to someone paused. What does that change for them? Nothing. They can't trade with me I guess, but they can't trade with me if I AFK anyway. Ergo, problems: zero.
2) Pause doesn't do anything in town, because there's no need to bother implementing it there. Again, doesn't affect other players. Problems: zero.

POE is for all intents and purposes a single-player game when you play it as one. The persistent world part doesn't matter. There is no way in which a pause function breaks anything for other players. So what on earth is the problem? "There shouldn't be pause" isn't argument. It's as useful as me saying "you should wear frogs on your head".

I'm not going to go back and forth about whether or not its a single player game, I don't think it is, but whatever.

The point about it being persistent is that it fits the theme of the game and the stated intentions from the beginning by the devs. The whole idea of this game is that you're stuck on an island with a bunch of other people who are stuck on the island and there's a bunch of scary shit happening outside of town. Being able to pause outside of town (I have no idea why you would want to pause in town, since being in town is essentially pause already) eliminates the danger of being outside of town. Which is the whole point of being outside of town. There are supposed to be limited safe havens in this game and adding a pause would make the most dangerous places in the game into safe havens at will. And it breaks the persistent nature of the game and the nature of towns as little hubs of safety and community.

As far as having it be an option on party creation like loot options. I just think that's starting down a path where finding "the perfect party" will become nearly impossible. So, now I have to find dock runs that are the loot allocation I want and the pause option I don't want? What next? Ah ha! I've found a permanent allocation, no pause, no totem, no summons dock run, hallelujah!

And the thing is you DO have a pause option, portals to town. There's barely any difference between the two. What you're asking is to be given the option of not having to plan ahead, not have to search for waypoints, etc... You may as well be asking to not have a limited character inventory. It's just not meant to be a part of this game.

lol, not exploitable? /me looks at Kole about to groundslam, me hits esc, groundslam over, unpause, hit Kole until he is about to groundslam again, hit esc...