Disable insta logout for 3.9

I love those threads and fanbase of POE (together with GGG), they contradict themself on this topic so hard.

"We cannot block instant logout because it would be unfair if someone died and lost progress due to technical issue or bug"

and on the other threads...

"Dont remove death penalty because we need to punish people who die even if its due to technical issue or bugs!"

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herflik wrote:

I love those threads and fanbase of POE (together with GGG), they contradict themself on this topic so hard.

"We cannot block instant logout because it would be unfair if someone died and lost progress due to technical issue or bug"

and on the other threads...

"Dont remove death penalty because we need to punish people who die even if its due to technical issue or bugs!"

I used to advocate for the death penalty being removed and now i have reversed my position, I am all too familiar with what removing a challenge however small or large can lead to, The end result does depend on each person however.

It would not make me quit the game but i would fight against it 100% and the reasoning behind fighting it are not because i want people to feel punished or any malicious thing like that, I truly do believe its for the best that we have the death penalty.. It makes reaching 100 and making a build capable of doing it mean something, As you might have seen with Legion the majority of users tend to take the easiest way out

And now onto the instant logout quite a lot of mmorpg and similar games have timer bound exit functions (you can always close the process they cant stop or tell you not to do that) but it would still be bound server side to a timer so it would not allow bypassing it.

I do feel bad for HC players who are pushed towards using the instant logout because of various changes in the game over time including decreased server performance but that should not be an excuse to justify its main usage which is not to avoid lag or some (insert excuse) but simply to avoid dying and people in standard/leagues as well hc/leagues mostly use it for just that.

Anywho as said above the majority will generally choose the easiest option.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

Logout is ok atm because it's only way to protect the character vs bursts unless it's one-shot.

That shows an inherent design-issue with the game. If a HC-game has a necessity to implement such a measure as a workaround then the base-concept has failed. It's similar to save-scumming in other games and hence should be removed.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

The other way - rebalance the HC but atm we have same rules for SC (shitcore) and HC. So, keep logout on its current state.

I'll give you the 5head solution here since you went off-road with your thoughts quite a bit there:
Adjust the game so both SC and HC can viably play the game with their respective risks behind it.
You know... like the majority of other games do it which have a HC-component?

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Fluffy_Puppies wrote:

Have you played any difficult content...ever?

It's a pitiful sign of the player to use mechanics which act as a panic-button. And it's an even worse sign for a game to warrant such a panic-button.

Once again, if that's the case --> something went wrong with the balance.

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xMustard wrote:

and even with the macro people cannot avoid the lag/dc delay which will bring them death. maybe if GGG could stop those issues 100% of the time and actually introduce defense back into the game then there wouldn't be a need for insta-log macros

Yes, that's absolutely true, and the major reason why the logout-macro is still a thing.

The solution for such an issue is a network-tracker so any lag-spikes, packet-losses or sudden disconnects are deemed as an 'unfair death' and restoring your character back into the HC-league.

It's a necessity for a online-only game which enforces a character to be played for hundreds of hours to reach the pinnacle, network-issues are very likely to occur in that amount of time. A fraction of a second can spell your doom after all with the speed of the game, hence a mechanic to alleviate this has to be properly implemented.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

Agreed. No idea why the hell SC players even care how HC players play their mode.

Because HC is quite dead for a reason. Ever thought that there is more then a single person in SC who would love to actually play HC... but unforeseeable damage-spikes and connection-issues are such a heavy deterrent that they rather play in SC?

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

More like a typical Shitcore player. :D

The only shit in the game is players who think they're superior for playing a specific mode, just sayin.

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Aynix wrote:

Disable it and see how HC league drops from "1% of playerbase plays it" to "0.000000001% of playersbase plays it"

Surprisingly that's only the case in PoE. There is quite the variety of perma-death games which are played online out there, some of them needing quite a hefty time-investment as well. None of them needs a logout-macro though.

Well... but then we're back again that none of them has such an unbalanced game-play in the first place.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

As I said - literally there's no way to prevent damage spikes or possible game crash and stay alive. Very often you cannot predict when it happens.

And that's not something which gets you to think in the first place?

How to prevent damage spikes as a dev:

Don't let character one-shot your mobs as those mobs then need to deal enough damage to still be dangerous.

Don't give characters the ability to out-heal incoming damage (on-hit, leech) to such a degree that you need to cause big spikes to give any sense of danger.

Don't let your mobs fire a concentrated volley of projectiles as all of them trigger at the same time, cause them to have staggered attacks for a permanent barrage.

Don't let your mobs fire projectiles when they're outside of the screen, the same goes for the projectiles of players. Fights need to be visible for the player. That's also one major complain about the Kitava-fight, if you're too far away then you can't see the tells for the next attacks anymore, often leading to a death which could've been evaded easily. Another sign of bad design there.

And if nothing of that is in your ability as a dev then pick the cheap way out: Invul timers for both players and mobs to not allow either side to be bursted into oblivion like that's the case in poE at the moment.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

Moreover, logout cannot protect the character from one-shots or from bad decisions. It cannot protect the character in case of high ping (or just bad connection) combined with Predictive game mode.

The first highlighted statement is is utterly wrong. The logout-macro is near instant, this means it's exactly the tool to use when a situation becomes too dangerous.
Is staying in the area likely to kill you in a moment? --> logout macro.
That's how it's (ab)used at the moment, which is the whole issue.

As for the second part: Obviously predictive mode won't help you. Predictive doesn't show you where mobs actually are and neither where your character at the moment actually is. There is a reason why rubber-banding is seen there. If you want to play HC then lockstep is the only viable solution for that.
And yes... some servers are simply just too plain bad to use lockstep, and some ISPs are just too bad to use it either, it's a shame... but then you can't play it, it comes to the cost of all the other people who would just love to get into HC for a complex game like PoE and have an actual competition based on pure in-game skill rather then 'panic'-skill.

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Droch_Rendger wrote:

If you suggest to disable logout - fix the damage spikes and technical issues that CAUSE to use logout because the player doesn't have a right on a single mistake, like Std [Removed by Support] players have.

Exactly what I'm talking about!

GGG... fix the damn balance. I know you can't do anything about lag-spikes and connection... but then implement a proper tool to keep watch for players so those situations are alleviated. (They can't ever be 100% solved, but at least made vastly better)

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Heidern2880 wrote:

[Removed by Support]
The majority of time people dont logout at all, if you have to constantly log out then youre char is noway achieving anything and very likeley to die anyway.
Never heard someone from HC bitching about other gamemodes.

It doesn't matter if the majority isn't doing it repeatedly, they are just limiting their actual options.
A large portion of the characters which make it to lvl 100 in HC on the other hand DO use those macros, prominent streamers also DO use those macros.
And you can't blame them either, it's a competition, not using it would make you less competitive... hence it's something which has to be managed by GGG and not personal flavor.

Which brings us back to the part that HC shouldn't have a 'panic-button' in the first place as that goes exactly counter to the spirit of HC, thus making it not a viable place for people who want a proper HC experience rather then a washed down one as PoE presents in the current time.

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AxiomOfAnarchy wrote:

Yes, and then GGG might actually try balancing things properly instead of assuming logout macros. That would be a good thing for balance.

Exactly! It enforces them to do that or actively kill HC off completely.
Not that the current state of HC isn't close to being just 'dead' in the first place, which is a massive shame. A bit longer and it'll go the same direction as PvP and simply not be a thing anymore.

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007Bistromath wrote:

He's talking about legit disconnects. It's impossible from GGG's end to tell the difference between "internet had a fucko-boingo" and "hardcore player hit the eject button."

Not in the current state at least.

Many games have programs running in the background to look out for cheats or third-party programs. A similar method can be used to keep track of the connection-status as well.

If a character dies it simply checks of user-input happened during or even after that event. If yes then it checks if there was packet-loss during the event. If no then the character stays dead.
Otherwise the character simply is still alive with a minor rollback. Such a program obviously has to end only after synchronizing the data between the client and the server, hence making sure abuse is kept to a minimum and not allow the simple Alt + F4 method or similar.

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Fruz wrote:

It would prohibit any kind of experimentation in HC, and that would be bad.
I had a lot of fun running the a4-10 at first completely blind.
I don't think that I logged out to get out of a stinky situation during that, but not being able to portal out of combat with all the small arenas would just be a no-go imho.
GGG has been developping everything with this in mind, they would need to rebalance many things if they were to add a combat timer before using a portal.

Such a timer would make sense in many ways, but it would not fit PoE currently.

But isn't SC the place to experiment and HC the place to show your skills?
It's a bit counter-intuitive to make HC a place for experimenting things as you only got a single chance, doing so in SC makes you able to discern if your experiment is a success or a failure a lot easier.

So in that case I don't see why that should be taken as a reason for the logout-macro or the insta-portals which are possible. Both aren't a healthy thing for the game.

For example an easy solution for the portal-problem is to give them a inherent cast-time of 2 seconds where your character simply can't move without interrupting it, this at least enforces a tactical usage of a portal-scroll.

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007Bistromath wrote:

They did implement it as a feature

It's called logging out

Pressing escape and hovering over the 'logout' button or actively writing /logout into the game is a vastly different experience from using a single button to write + send that /logout.

Which is the major reason why I'm advocating against such a system in the first place.
Not only is it against the spirit of any sensible HC-experience but also as an extra layer enforces the usage of a third-party program to make the utmost use of it. Which clearly isn't optimal.

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iMirageX wrote:

This person has absolutely no clue how to play HC. Do you think logout macro is a one button god mode in HC? Logout macro is only useful when your ping spikes, you freezes or you need to attend to something immediate for whatever reason. Logout macro will not prevent one shot death, dying from an unexpected burst damage or normal mobs crits and 2-3 shots you. Its really easy to post in forums when these people are so ignorant about HC. Play in HC metamorph this league and I bet these people wont even make it to 16 challenges and quit HC.

Maybe... just maybe you should go down from your high horse and back onto solid earth again. Might do you some real good there, especially with what you're writing.

First of all, the logout-macro IS the foremost used method to get out of a DANGEROUS SITUATION IN A FIGHT. Your health dips below a certain threshold? 'Oh shit, hit that button!' is the method then.
Yes, it's not god-mode, yes, you can still die until the game closes the connection. But also... it's far more likely for you to survive in this manner then actually trying to fill your life-bar again while a threat which already brought you down to near-death is targeting you.
Obviously you still need to be quick enough to use it in the first place, but that is leagues easier then recovering from a dangerous situation otherwise. --> it makes the game easier.

You don't need to play HC to see that... that's just being able to even realize how a specific mechanic can be used. The basis of PoE in general, getting the utmost functionality of any mechanic in the game.

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iMirageX wrote:

Tbh and not being rude. Playing in hc and doing real content and not just low level farming takes way more skills vs playing in SC.

Tbh... calling HC 'the real content' in itself is really really disgusting. You realize that not even 10% of the player-base over the course of a league play HC? Who are you to say such a thing? Those 90% make it even possible for you to play HC in the first place as far too little demand exists for it to exist as a standalone-game. Neither Sc nor HC are 'superior' in any way.
Seeing it like you do is only worthy of pity sadly, thinking you're 'better' then others.

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bitsymphony wrote:

So you're making a suggestion on how others should play the game so that it's more entertaining for you as a spectator to watch? Talk about entitled

Well... while it's not a viable reason from a player-perspective it's a very viable one from a monetary-perspective. Engaging to watch game-play brings a bigger influx of players.



Oh damn there was a ton to quote here, mostly the same simple stance though.
Removing the logout-macro AND properly solving the issues around it is possible even if it's quite hard. That alone warrants the effort as it would lead to an influx of interested players which abstain from interacting with that type of game-play out of quite the variety of reasons. Either because the macro is against their personal points of view, the game-balance itself is screwed and the macro gives a great excuse for leaving it that way or because the field simply isn't 'leveled' properly for a competition because of it.

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Kulze wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

It would prohibit any kind of experimentation in HC, and that would be bad.
I had a lot of fun running the a4-10 at first completely blind.
I don't think that I logged out to get out of a stinky situation during that, but not being able to portal out of combat with all the small arenas would just be a no-go imho.
GGG has been developping everything with this in mind, they would need to rebalance many things if they were to add a combat timer before using a portal.

Such a timer would make sense in many ways, but it would not fit PoE currently.

But isn't SC the place to experiment and HC the place to show your skills?
It's a bit counter-intuitive to make HC a place for experimenting things as you only got a single chance, doing so in SC makes you able to discern if your experiment is a success or a failure a lot easier.

No.
If I play SC, I pretty much don't give a crap about dying, it makes basically no difference, there is close to no tension or anything durings fights.

I want to experience the game where dying means something, where I need to be careful not to fuck up.
The single chance is what makes things much more interesting.

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Kulze wrote:

So in that case I don't see why that should be taken as a reason for the logout-macro or the insta-portals which are possible. Both aren't a healthy thing for the game.

Don't forget that this is purely your own opinion.

If the balance was different, I might even agree with it.

But given that I got screwed by something outside of the game that I had no control on the moment it happened recently, and had it lasted one second less my logout macro would have saved my character's ass .... then I would still rather be able to instantly logging out and have the game balanced around it I think.
(3 seconds is VERY long, especially in a fight like the Shaper fight)

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Fruz wrote:

No.
If I play SC, I pretty much don't give a crap about dying, it makes basically no difference, there is close to no tension or anything durings fights.

I want to experience the game where dying means something, where I need to be careful not to fuck up.
The single chance is what makes things much more interesting.

Yeah, I get that, quite a lot, I'm not without reason mostly playing rogue-likes besides PoE, exactly for that reason.

But you stated the experimenting part... for that SC would be simply superior, exactly because it doesn't matter if you die or not, the character can be adjusted to another mediocre build without another 10 hours of time-investment to see if it would work in concept. And if it does then properly playing it in HC to show the skills behind the concept are also existing.

They aren't mutually exclusive after all.

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Fruz wrote:

Don't forget that this is purely your own opinion.

If the balance was different, I might even agree with it.

But given that I got screwed by something outside of the game that I had no control on the moment it happened recently, and had it lasted one second less my logout macro would have saved my character's ass .... then I would still rather be able to instantly logging out and have the game balanced around it I think.
(3 seconds is VERY long, especially in a fight like the Shaper fight)

Yes, that's exactly the reason why I'm saying: The balance needs to be fixed and a measure to alleviate the problems with networks to be implemented.

Imagine it like this, you either got the choice between:
-Logout-macro and situations like packet-loss (which won't let you use it anyway) still being able to screw you over.
-Or no logout-macro but a mechanic to ensure your connection during a death was stable (still possible to screw you, but less likely)

Which one would you choose there? Given that the balance of the game is properly adjusted so those unforeseeable situations are taken care of (which is a necessity to even take it into consideration after all).

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Kulze wrote:

They aren't mutually exclusive after all.

They are not, but one is clearly much more interesting than the other to me.

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Kulze wrote:

Imagine it like this, you either got the choice between:
-Logout-macro and situations like packet-loss (which won't let you use it anyway) still being able to screw you over.
-Or no logout-macro but a mechanic to ensure your connection during a death was stable (still possible to screw you, but less likely)

Which one would you choose there? Given that the balance of the game is properly adjusted so those unforeseeable situations are taken care of (which is a necessity to even take it into consideration after all).

I'm really not convinced regarding this, and if it was easy + hacking proof to implement, maybe GGG would have done it.

If there would be such an ideal solution, that would definitely be worth a shot, I don't quite see that happening though, GGG are not willing to balance the game between archetype, so rebalance the whole game to fit a new networking system ? Very unlikely to put it nicely.

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Fruz wrote:

If there would be such an ideal solution, that would definitely be worth a shot, I don't quite see that happening though, GGG are not willing to balance the game between archetype, so rebalance the whole game to fit a new networking system ? Very unlikely to put it nicely.

Yeah, sadly. It's nice to simply put it out here though as that's actually done surprisingly easily. It's also not something on the base-level as any engine-rework which they're (hopefully) doing in the background steadily.

Encrypting the data towards the server via the login-token in itself makes it fairly impossible to abuse, simply because that unique token is created again at every login.
And even if it's abused the only functionality you'll get is... the logout macro at best... a ban most likely at worst since it's fairly easy to see the difference between the data provided by that attached function versus what actually happened. A bit hard to explain when the server received inputs while the program repeatedly shows there was no connection at the time.

Obviously it's a fickle thing to produce... and the sad reality is that I don't give GGG the credit for being able to implement something similar, much less so after they showed their ineptitude so clearly with the melee-changes in 3.9. 'We know Melee is in a bad state right now' --> 'Let's smash melee even more into pieces with the patch-notes!' is a prime example.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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herflik wrote:

I love those threads and fanbase of POE (together with GGG), they contradict themself on this topic so hard.

"We cannot block instant logout because it would be unfair if someone died and lost progress due to technical issue or bug"

and on the other threads...

"Dont remove death penalty because we need to punish people who die even if its due to technical issue or bugs!"

I used to advocate for the death penalty being removed and now i have reversed my position, I am all too familiar with what removing a challenge however small or large can lead to, The end result does depend on each person however.

It would not make me quit the game but i would fight against it 100% and the reasoning behind fighting it are not because i want people to feel punished or any malicious thing like that, I truly do believe its for the best that we have the death penalty.. It makes reaching 100 and making a build capable of doing it mean something, As you might have seen with Legion the majority of users tend to take the easiest way out

And now onto the instant logout quite a lot of mmorpg and similar games have timer bound exit functions (you can always close the process they cant stop or tell you not to do that) but it would still be bound server side to a timer so it would not allow bypassing it.

I do feel bad for HC players who are pushed towards using the instant logout because of various changes in the game over time including decreased server performance but that should not be an excuse to justify its main usage which is not to avoid lag or some (insert excuse) but simply to avoid dying and people in standard/leagues as well hc/leagues mostly use it for just that.

Anywho as said above the majority will generally choose the easiest option.

The thing I wanted to point out is simple, you either go one way or the other. We are using the same argument to win two wars in totally different directions - this is not consitent and is very annoying.

Personaly I advocate for both, removal of daath penalty and all macros in the game. For few reasons:

1)If you need macro for something it means the game have problem that need to be solved. Ask yourself why you or other people use logout or flask macros in the first place? Fix it by simply updating the mechanics in game and the people wont have need to use them.

2)Dont get me wrong, I dont want the game to have no death penalty. The current one is just poor since it discourage many people from challanging themself and trying harder stuff. The game take away bunch of your progress, and if you win it give you almost nothing new comparing to easier content.

There are other ways to punish death, good ones are like labirynth - you died, you lost your time doing the run, the end room rewards and the entry key.

I would rather see all maps open with just one portal - you die, you lose map, you lose cartographer stacks since the map is caunted as used, you lost all the events that were on the map etc.

I would even implement rare rooms where you enter taking a challanging fight or mechanic head on. You win then you boost your next map for +100%+ loot or exp or some chest with league uniques, if you lose then you get nothing. Thats punishment in itself, because you knew there is good stuff next door and you just died next to it. Your chance was lost.

easily the worst idea ive seen so far :D

I think TP/logout cheesing for spatial movement/gameplay alteration is even more ridiculous than someone avoiding death.

When you watch someone race a boss kill like Kitava they're spending more time in a load screen than playing the game, it becomes rather silly when every mechanic and most of the gameplay is just skipped by town portal and area transitions back and forth, whether that's from TP or logouts.

I don't blame the racers and the speedrunners, they're just playing the game they were given, but the fact that GGG thinks this is fine is rather crazy to me. It's pretty close to "tool-assisted speedruns" in other games in my opinion, when what everyone does is skip the actual gameplay with these "intended mechanics" it starts to cross a line to me. Like, we are here to play the game, right? Not avoid it?

At least someone who logs out every once in a while to avoid death is still playing the game the rest of the time, not porting out of a boss fight every time it starts to animate an ability.