I think a GGG response on Vaal Oversoul is due.

"

johnKeys wrote:

sorry to see you RIP Anu, but I'm sure this is only a small bump on the road to your inevitable destination - level 100.

Vaal Oversoul gets many praises, simply because he's the best-designed monster this game has.
he's also one of very few who actually have AI.

I think you are not complaining about Vaal himself, as much as you are complaining that your attempt at outsmarting desync failed this time.
you can't outsmart desync, because desync is unpredictable. you have absolutely no way of knowing what the f*k is going on server-side.

desync should be long gone from this game by now.
but I understand GGG have limited abilities, so it should at least be reduced to absolute minimal levels.

This was on the 92 witch, John. I expect deaths on her atm, I'm an unoptimised self-found-low-life-wander FFS, lol. Death is inevitable.

What I really want explained, is the Vaal-chasing-you thing. Well, that and the telegraph animation being so far out to the damage.

There has to be improvements that can be made there. I just don't understand how a company could accept these in a released fight. And for so long, too. Then go and put 2 of the damned things in their flagship 1st expansion boss instance.

It's, it's amazing.

"

johnKeys wrote:

if a dev response is coming in this thread, I'd like it to be about what have they actually done so far - in over a year's development I've been playing - about desync.

Upped the map haste mod, which stacks with boss haste mod and rare mob aura haste and magic/rare mob affix self haste; to 35%.
GG -_^

"

Boem wrote:

There is nothing that prevents them from developing fights within the current prediction model limit's and alter them when the model becomes better equipped to handle original intended mechanics.

One-hit ko's, given the current model are poor design and give bad-player-experiences, this becomes worse when experienced in a hardcore-setting.

There is nothing wrong with power-full attacks imo's, but overkill in an unreliable system is wrong.

Simply put, an error that is not a player error should have the ability to be forgiving.

In the current state this is not the case, i think because of the lack of difficulty.(also because of the poor prediction model)

Peace,

-Boem-

I agree.

There's nothing wrong with having a design that has 1-shots that are properly telegraphed and should be and can always be avoided if you're paying attention. The problem is they specifically have a system that does not allow properly communication to the player to avoid them. Thus you have a situation where the player is not playing the game. The game just "decides to kill the player randomly." Having no control over your fate, and not playing your character is not fun. You can go watch a movie if you don't want to put your own input into the media you're consuming.

To have a good design they have to do one of two things:

1) Keep the current asynchronous model but reduce the penalty for getting hit because there will be times you cannot avoid it at no flaw of the player. Ways to do this may include reducing the initial damage but adding a damage over time component to it. Basically remove the one shot because it's bad design for a game that deals with desync in this way.

2) When monsters have these sorts of abilities switch to a synchronous model. It may not "feel as good" (their reason for the asynchronous prediction model) as the current system, but it would in fact feel better to not have these situations.

I've died in hardcore before to this. I died to nothing. Then I did my /oos macro and I was far across the screen. I don't mind hardcore, but if I die I'd rather it be something in which I could control and/or messed up. Not a good play experience to basically have the servers/internet/client just randomly roll "Oh, well you get to die today!"

"

tinko92 wrote:

I'm saying this since always... why do they design the game like it doesn't have these performance issues is beyond me.

Nearly everything they add would be great if the game worked properly. Strongboxes lead to terrible desync and rubber banding. The new particle effects in Vaal side areas drastically reduce performance. So many enemies move or attack so fast that you can be confident that they're not where they seem to be on screen, and thinking you'll be able to use skill to dodge their attacks is foolish. They've already hit you on the server well before you actually see them hit you.

The Vaal fight is just another example of how desync makes every aspect of the game significantly worse. The Vaal Overlord killed him in that video because what you see on screen is never what is actually happening in the game. Smart and skillful play is impossible. You can take steps to reduce how much desync ruins the game (always play ranged, always skip anything that could potentially kill you, stack ridiculous amounts of life for when poor coding gets you anyway), but then you're stuck playing a much worse version of Path of Exile.

I'd love it if all new updates were put on hold while they just fixed the game. Seriously, they don't even need to make new gems or bosses or anything. If they finally make the game work for once, it'll make everything we already have that much better. How much better would fighting Brutus, the Overlord, and their clones be in a game that wasn't horribly riddled with desync? How nice would it be to not have mobs teleporting around the screen constantly? How nice would it be to not shoot guys in the face a dozen times when they're not really there?

I just had a look at the 'known issues' thread.

Not only are most issues not listed, not only are old issues that are no longer in game still in the OP, but it hasn't been updated or added to for 15 months.

GG

Here's an addition.

Issue; there are issues with the known issues thread.

A quick thought on how it happened (I didn't get a chance to watch the vid so could be wrong)

You saw Vaal chasing you, then winding up a smash but dying before it even connected.

Serverside, Vaal was standing still. When you saw him walk over to you and start winding up, your higher movement speed had already caused you to run over to his location, letting him wind up the smash earlier than you saw it happening.

Just the standard desync really, no special mechanics going on here.

"

Alea wrote:

What kind of answer would you expect to get from ggg about your... issue ?
Some kind of flat apologizes ?

"

TheAnuhart wrote:

What I really want explained, is the Vaal-chasing-you thing. Well, that and the telegraph animation being so far out to the damage.

There has to be improvements that can be made there. I just don't understand how a company could accept these in a released fight. And for so long, too. Then go and put 2 of the damned things in their flagship 1st expansion boss instance.

Well, no. You said 'expect to get from GGG'.

Expect from a gaming company? The above.
Expect from GGG about Vaal? Silence.

"

lukeiy wrote:

I didn't get a chance to watch the vid so could be wrong

Might be a good idea to, then :)

"

A quick thought on how it happened (I didn't get a chance to watch the vid so could be wrong)

You saw Vaal chasing you, then winding up a smash but dying before it even connected.

Serverside, Vaal was standing still. When you saw him walk over to you and start winding up, your higher movement speed had already caused you to run over to his location, letting him wind up the smash earlier than you saw it happening.

Just the standard desync really, no special mechanics going on here.

Basically anuhart died to a smash (not telegraphed, visually represented) and after /oos vaal was half a screen away from him, which is illogical because a vaal smash has roughly 1/3 screen Aoe range.

The question then becomes, even if the vaal smash was not telegraphed or visually represented, how exactly did it hit him from across the screen?

Peace,

-Boem-

Watching that video just fucking pisses me off.

Desync alone erases any redeeming qualities this game has.

That is the kind of stuff that leaves me infuriated when I play the game. You take all the good things about PoE and you see something like that and it just wipes it all away for a moment. All you can think about is how absurd it is that it is so bad.
It is a shame because knowing something like that can happen, it totally negates many styles of play because eventually, that will happen and you can't react to it. The fact you cannot trust what your eyes see on the screen is just...wrong.