Concerned about PKers using Talismans in HC

I'm worried that Talismans may become part of the core game in the future. While I can see that there are no serious issues with it in Softcore, the same cannot be said about Hardcore.

There has been a rise as of late of players with the intent of PKing other players in public parties with the use of Talismans:

One method is dropping a whole ton of talismans, usually deadly ones like bonespires, so as that many monsters grab them as much as possible and then lure the players into a trap via waypoint or portal, or even during boss kill services. Not only are they scammed, but they die in the process.

Though I despise the type of players who get involved in these kind of services, especially in hardcore, the exploit is what seriously concerns me. Not only it drops fps by a ton with that many effects playing all at once, it greatly increases the chance that players get killed. I've heard of players dying in Dried Lake thanks to this abuse. It's currently the easiest area to bait someone as it's the most played area in merciless to level up, and people usually go into anyone's portal without much hesitation.

Another method that was tried on me (which actually ended up killing the whole party, including the PKer), was spawning high level monsters from the stone altars on low level areas with the use of high level talisman. The PK didn't seem to care about his death, because he doesn't really take his build seriously. His only intent is getting others to die, thought I could easily see them clicking the summon button and logging out of that area immediately, while the rest of the party is left to die.


These kind of abuses are happening and is reminding me of Diablo 2, of how it all began, slowly turning public parties from being helpful to untrustworthy and avoidable. Hardcore is already a small community, but with issues such as these getting more prominent by the day, PK may end up killing any joy of playing HC and finding any honest public parties would become impossible, forcing players into private parties with the constant thought that someone may or may not be trusted.


The root of the issue are the talismans. A good design idea for softcore, but without much thought of the consequences it can unleash in hardcore.

My hope is that Talismans won't make it to the game core once it's over.

LOL I never thought about using talismans to kill other players!

it's such a good idea thx OP

Don't you have a grace period upon entering a portal?

PKing is just stupid. But then again, I don't play in public parties much anyways, so the problem doesn't affect me all that much.

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Char1983 wrote:

Don't you have a grace period upon entering a portal?

PKing is just stupid. But then again, I don't play in public parties much anyways, so the problem doesn't affect me all that much.

Grace period is 30 sec OR until you move iirc. So that won't help in these situations.
I rarely party and only with my guildies (and in SC) but I'd hate to lose a HC char this way.
But how are you supposed to prevent this without taking away talismans?
Unless you take away the "feeding" mechanics ( e.g. monsters can spawn with talismans but don't pick them up)... and that still leaves the second method intact...

Why doesn't it help? Just don't move immediately when going through a portal? Takes some getting used to I guess, but still...

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Char1983 wrote:

Why doesn't it help? Just don't move immediately when going through a portal? Takes some getting used to I guess, but still...

Exactly! if you portal or go into a room and all hell is breaking loose in there and the second you go in your golem gets trashed you know to leave right back where you come from.
BTW your golem doesnt get that grace period i noticed last night! LOL

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I'd like to ask the developers how they intend to deal with these kinds of issues. This may prove to cause heavy issues, especially within the top players, where killing a player this way can completely push him out of the competition.

They likely intend to do nothing, its your choice to party with other players there are a number of things in the game in which another player can cause you to die 1\2 of which likely GGG couldn't do anything about the other half they could, but is it worth the effort, probably not.

I've seen prior monster gathering and dangerous portal making, and also people gathering mobs near the ends of zones (such as Fellshrine / Crossroads.) But the key exploit here is being able to create much higher ilvl monsters than intended for a zone, which seems borderline on the exploit/unintended side.


The high ilvl talismans used in a lower ilvl zone is really the key concern i see here. You could lower the ilvl of the monsters summoned not to be above N levels above zone level... but then you'd also need to limit the combined talisman's ilvl as well, as otherwise you won't be fighting the intended ilvl pack of monsters. This might mean high ilvl talismans will need to be combined in high ilvl maps, and high ilvl rigwald will also need to be opened in high ilvl maps.

But you can't have it all. I mostly play with guild mates I trust, but Talismans makes that even more so. I never doubt the innovation of players of POE.


"WTB Cruel Oak boss kill - offer 1c"