Alt+F4 or Exit to Log in??

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drew_benton wrote:

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miroslavs88 wrote:

Can someone confirm that this will save your character 100% if you do it in time (if you see enemies taking no dmg or something similar)? Because I am not sure if it takes few seconds before disconnecting your character, or is it instant.

This is not "opinion based" or "guess work", it's all gathered from reversing the client and debugging it in real-time.

As of this writing, version 0.9.13i, "Exit to Log In Screen" is the safest and most reliable way to ensure you are disconnected right away.

When you choose "Exit to Log In Screen", the client executes a graceful socket shutdown process that is not called when you Alt + F4, click the X in windowed mode, or choose "Exit Path of Exile". Before that is done though, what I assume to be a "disconnect" packet is sent to the server. This packet is not sent by any other disconnect method either.

The "Exit Path of Exile" button executes most of the same logic "Exit to Log In Screen" does, except it closes the PoE window instead, and "Exit to Log In Screen" closes the socket instead. If the code were to be updated to close the socket before closing the window, as it should be implemented, then they would both be the same. That is not the case currently, however.

As soon as you click that button ("Exit to Log In Screen"), you immediately start the disconnect process, which the server can handle right away (see shutdown & closesocket for more information). Every other method to disconnect/terminate relies solely on the way Windows works as well as your connection to handle the disconnect.

That means for a lot of people, they won't notice it if their connection is fast enough (which changes how TCP operates in terms of internal settings) and their PC is fast enough (time for the process to shutdown is shorter). Then there will be people who do notice it, as if their connection or PC is not fast enough, the TCP cleanup can be delayed, which means their character stays in game longer.

That's about all there is to it from what I've seen. Hope it helps.

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drew_benton wrote:

You always want to use "Exit to Log In Screen", not "Exit Path of Exile" or Alt + F4. I posted about this in closed beta, but I'll post it again, as it has not changed.

All of the methods are not the same. Logging out sends a packet to the server and shuts down the connection right away. It's as "instant" as you can get, but even so, there is going to be a delay from the time you disconnect and the server disconnects your character. If you are fast enough, you can escape death. If you return and are in Default, you were already dead on the server, and there was nothing else you could have done (aside from not getting into that situation in the first place).

Alt + F4 and exiting the game does not send this extra packet nor shutdown the socket in the same way; it lets Windows handle closing the socket. As a result, there's going to be an increased delay between the time you disconnect. If your PC is lagging or your client is really slow from running a long time, you increase the risk of dying during this window of time. A lot of people don't notice this delay if their PC is fast enough or their client isn't lagging, but it exists nevertheless.

In either case, your latency to the server always matters as well. If you have a 5 second lag spike, neither method is going to matter because whatever action you choose, the server won't know until 5s later, which pretty much means death if you are trying to escape. There's nothing new about that though, as if you were trying to click on a portal and got a 5s lag spike, then it's obvious your action is going to be delayed!

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AzraelX wrote:

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lord_vital wrote:

How hardcore you want it to be? Death in real life?

Wow, the ultimate strawman.

No, I thought he was pretty clear. He wants it so you can't hit a button on your keyboard to save yourself from a bad situation.

To answer your questions:

1) Yes, it's as good as instant. If you hit your flasks and Alt+F4, you'll live, every time. The only situations you could possibly ever die using Alt+F4 are those where you were guaranteed to die within the next 0.2 seconds no matter what you did.

Therefore, you should always use Alt+F4 if you think you might die because there are absolutely no benefits to staying logged in and trying to live legitimately.

2) This was something a dev (I'm pretty sure it was Chris) said while talking to Kripp on his stream once. Kripp asked if it was okay to use Alt+F4 to escape death, and the dev said yes, go for it. They've said that it would be unfair to not allow it, because desyncing has been a significant problem and there's not a lot of recourse other than Alt+F4 to save yourself.

No one ever said it would never be changed though. They only said it's not an exploit to use it right now. I would be really surprised if they don't add a log-out delay after desyncing is reduced to a reasonable level.

3) Well, you have to plan out well enough, or you won't be able to progress without dying; at some point things will instantly kill you, so Alt+F4 won't be an option. However, judging by how the top ranked players play: Yes, you also need to use Alt+F4 if you want to be on the same playing field as everyone else and remain competitive.

You're simply handicapping yourself if you don't take advantage of it.

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So what is the best way to escape death in HC?

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HCpinoy wrote:

is the game that hard that you have to resort to using a quick escape route? What do i know about it, i just played my way up to lvl 100 in d3 w/ out any death. I like this game a lot more than d3 because it is way challenging and i've died atleast 3x already.

Take it how it is and play the game how it should be played... ALT+FTW