Hardcore latency, major issues [PETITION]

This thread is a petition to reduce the time between heartbeat packets for only hardcore league players to stay connected to something as low as 2-4 seconds.

I would rather be disconnected frequently than suffer illegitimate deaths due to the desyncs that I have no control over and have been the most common cause of deaths between my friends and I.

I expect people to post things along the lines of "well, don't play hardcore then" that is not a solution, I love hardcore and it is the only mode I will play, but I will not play at all if the only cause of deaths for me continues to be issues with hickup lag, latency, desyncs, and warpbacks.
Yes, the things mentioned above can be caused by an issue with the player's connection or client, but their consequences can be reduced greatly by the suggested improvements.

I realize the recommended changes may also weigh heavier on the servers, but remember there are significantly less hardcore players proportionally to softcore players, so please, take this suggestion into serious consideration and test it out before writing it off. Thank you.

Sign/dispute/comment below.

When the server loses contact with the client it leaves your character in the instance for another 3 seconds before removing it. This is to remove the common 'tactic' of players disconnecting their internet when they're about to die to save their character. There's no way to tell the difference between a legitimate disconnect and a player induced disconnect.

I'd much rather risk some players depriving themselves of the true hardcore experience by exploiting disconnects than risk many legitimate players from dying due to faulty connections.
If you ever have to make sacrifices it should never be the player's experience.
The current system depends on the servers performing flawlessly and favors players with better connections.

Another suggestion I have is possibly an intermediate heartbeat packet that works in conjunction with the current one that will alert a player if their ping has gotten very high or they have missed said packet when it was expected so they will know sooner if they are experiencing a desync.

/sign

I love HC mode and the adherents, and find the default audience to be really obnoxious. Getting sent to default 3 times since 0.9.5 due to server hiccups makes me lose interest in playing when the game goes live.

It's just a game, but still.

I like hardcore as well but I don't think there's much that GGG can do. Due to them being a smaller company and this only being closed beta atm. (No income.)

I'd personally like overall better latency for this game, but I know it isn't possible at the moment. I'm happy with what I'm given in the beta.
There's always new, and interesting content coming.

Please don't bring the "It's beta" argument into this, don't bring it into any discussion for any game ever for that matter, it is not relevant and is counterproductive. I'm not even necessarily suggesting the changes be imposed now. I would like to promote this issue to ensure it is widely known while discussing potential solutions.

Having lost 2/3 HC characters due to beforementioned issues I also hope there will be changes to how it works when the game goes live.

As it stands now the HC ladder is merely a display of which people have the most reliable connection (yes I exaggerate a bit but still).

Connection reliability is an issue in every hardcore setting. The inherent exploitable nature of the system is also an issue. Being able to Alt+F4 or pull the plug to save yourself from death, which all but the most extreme hardcore players will do to save their weeks of leveling, is something that has to be prevented.

The current 3-second disconnect timer seems a fair compromise to me. It prevents instant disconnect exploits, and is short enough that it's not a certain death sentence for accidental disconnects.

Server reliability will continue to improve over time, as well.

There will always be exploits, the current solution to this one compromises the quality of gameplay more than it helps it. (Perhaps there was good reason Blizzard never 'patched' the Save & Exit tactic?) There will be people who disagree with this view, there are definitely some negatives including more undeserving players attaining high ranks on the hardcore ladder, possibly a little more saturation of the hardcore economy, but I'm guessing most of the individuals opposing my view have never lost level 50+ characters to the fault of the server.

My first great loss was a bow ranger, the only effective way I'm aware of to build bow rangers is as a glass cannon. In gameplay enemies never have a chance to get near me because I kill so fast and kite well, but when a burst of lag came, right as I realized it, the game resync'd and I was already dead.
I have no problem accepting a loss when I am at fault for not being at my best or building my character poorly, but this would not have happened with a shorter heartbeat threshold.

Also: having tested it myself, the current configuration does not prevent Save & Exit death-evasion at least 9/10 times, meaning this tactic still works fine, and if people are going to use this exploit, it is entirely functional at the cost of their integrity.
So pretty much you have the worst of both worlds here, lose-lose, no benefit for either side, and if you want to use this as your solution to Save & Exit you will have to increase the disconnect buffer to be even longer, making deaths like these even more common.

Like I said before, unless you come up with a proper way to fight this exploit that doesn't compromise legitimate players you don't have a solution. Yet another thing to take into consideration is that if you decide to stick with this poorly weighed compromise, and when players begin to exploit town portal chickens etc., will you again opt to sacrifice quality of gameplay for many legitimate players?

I am not arguing for the sake of Save & Exit tactic nor am I suggesting exploits do not need to be patched, I am merely stating that this is not a well-designed solution and it should be ignored until you come up with a proper fix.

TL;DR: "But it prevents Save & Exit Tactic!" argument is null as it doesn't do this, experience of legitimate player continues to be more important than prevention of minor exploits.


On a side note: In addition to subtle desyncs I often experience warpbacks of such magnitude that I will find myself on the opposite sides of the map at times. These warpbacks are more substantial than ones that I've experienced in any other game.

Let's be productive and brainstorm solutions that don't compromise gameplay experience.

Possible counter-measures against Save & Exit/disconnection exploitation: Keep track of how often a player exits or disconnects while in close proximity to mobs or even just outside of town. You could publicly display this number on the ladder and allow the community to determine whether this player has enough that their net drops inconveniently once in a while, or so many that they're likely dodging death.
This would be detrimental to death-evaders without causing such massive grief to undeserving players.
Another route would be keeping the number private but monitoring a player if it gets too high and they're suspected of abuse.


Something else to try would be enforcing a hardcoded limit to how many times players can abruptly disconnect like this per 24 hour period, which if they exceed, imposed a wait period before their character is logged off similar to the current system. This would allow for hickups once in a while but prevent it from being an overly frequent thing that people take advantage of.

Not flawless ideas and implementation would take some effort, but there's some thoughts.