Hardcore latency, major issues [PETITION]

I only kill myself while crashing if:
1: I am surrounded by monsters & use a way point.
2: Or i am surrounded by monsters and use a Teleport scroll.

Both will get you killed in the 20 seconds the monsters get to finish you, while you crash.
So when you logon your character are in Valhalla ( SC ).

I only lost 1 lvl 50 ++ char this way in 095, but my connection speed are 100 Mbit/ 100 Mbit.
My computer are build for gaming only, so not lowend.

I guess some unfortunate people got alot worse off with this problem unsolved, compaired to me.

Just lost my lv 60 Ranger to a Game Crash -.-

"

Jetcutter wrote:

I only kill myself while crashing if:
1: I am surrounded by monsters & use a way point.
2: Or i am surrounded by monsters and use a Teleport scroll.

Both will get you killed in the 20 seconds the monsters get to finish you, while you crash.
So when you logon your character are in Valhalla ( SC ).

I only lost 1 lvl 50 ++ char this way in 095, but my connection speed are 100 Mbit/ 100 Mbit.
My computer are build for gaming only, so not lowend.

I guess some unfortunate people got alot worse off with this problem unsolved, compaired to me.

Or surrounded by monsters and your horrible ISP drops -> Connection Error -> Noobcore

"

Chris wrote:

We do intend to reduce the timeout in hardcore so that deaths due to disconnections are less common. Currently the timeout is high due to problems tracking timeouts during asset loads.

As a hardcore player myself, I acknowledge this is very important.

Also, I get messages every day from people complaining they lost their hardcore characters during disconnections when no monsters were around. We've investigated them all, and they were all deaths due to monsters killing the character during the timeout (which is unfortunate, of course). There are no known bugs related to characters dying during disconnections without monsters involved.

I hope you don't make it too short. Should not be less than 10 seconds at least.

I am thinking in regards to PvP.

I think it's ridiculous the logic that goes on in a hardcore player's head:
"I think I'll play a version where if I die, my character is gone for good, despite the fact that **** happens in the world, including computer crashes and ISP failures."
then,
"my choice should be a valid method of play, and just because i made the choice that deaths always kill my character permanently i should now get a free ticket to being able to avoid any penalties to when anything goes wrong, and even be given the ability to exploit the system so that I can get out of any nasty situation without dying which I promises I will not do*"

The problem is with hardcore people — not the timeout delays. Abuse of intentional disconnects will not only exist in PvE, but with a hardcore cutthroat league that would be exploited 10x as much. Blame hardcore, don't blame the disconnection time; That is at least if the timeout delay is reasonable to begin with.

I don't know what sort of time is intended for timeouts, but I would think something like 5-10 is reasonable. Perhaps it's longer than that as it is currently.

"

jawsofhana wrote:

I hope you don't make it too short. Should not be less than 10 seconds at least.

I am thinking in regards to PvP.

I kinda agree, but other things like portals or manual logout would still be options. If you want to make disconnect times no less than 10 seconds, portal and logout times would have to be just a bit under that, like 9 seconds.

The decision on how long that delay should be is a design choice that has pros and cons. I don't think making it great than 10 seconds really changes much compared to a time of 5 to 10 seconds, since it doesn't take long to kill a player if they're in a bad situation in the fight already. Players already will have huge notices to log out in advance when a player joins their instance (notification) or looks at their minimap (which has a long range), so the timeout duration there wouldn't really change anything unless the times were set to be values like 1+ minutes which would obviously be a big hassle to everyone.

"

Xapti wrote:

I think it's ridiculous the logic that goes on in a hardcore player's head:
"I think I'll play a version where if I die, my character is gone for good, despite the fact that **** happens in the world, including computer crashes and ISP failures."

What?
I think you have your head and hardcore players' confused.
You are right that it is impossible to account for everything that happens in the real world, but that is by no means an argument against reducing the consequences as much as one can.

I typed out some long rambling monologue addressing how subjective/just plain wrong most of what you said is, but I decided to delete it. Not sure what your beef with hardcore players is.

"

jawsofhana wrote:

I hope you don't make it too short. Should not be less than 10 seconds at least.

I am thinking in regards to PvP.

I'm not sure what the benefit of a longer timeout is in pvp that you're thinking of, but 10 seconds is an extremely long time for any online game, especially if you're a squishy build that relies on fast reflexes and kiting. If you can explain your thinking and it holds any ground, my response will probably be: use different timeouts for PvP and PvE.

The current timeout is 20 seconds for the fifth or sixth time.
The heartbeat interval I recommend is still 2-4 seconds.
A few creative ideas have been submitted in earlier pages of this thread to benefit people with unreliable internet connections and reduce exploitation.

I really hope this issue gets bumped up on the priority list so I can get back to play-testing for you guys with my friends.
There is not a problem I can think of that is more substantial. Poor balancing can be worked around temporarily, death by surprise disconnect/desync cannot be insured against on the player's end. Adding more content comes after you get the existing content working properly.

Has this been fixed or even worked on yet?

Thanks for that link.

"

"2)
A server crash that would occur if one player in the game experienced enough lag (or had a slow enough connection) while doing an area transition.

The server crash is fixed, but the player will still get disconnected. Changes coming in a patch soon will significantly reduce the amount of bandwidth required for joining town which should significantly speed up town joins and the lag spikes you get when other players join town."

Seems quite relevent.
Hopefully the last bit there is an indication that the issue this thread is about will be fixed/improved next patch then. :)