Sadly I Am Quitting due to Desync ruining the game.

Recently I really got into your game, specifically the 4 month Hardcore ladder races. The amount of depth, ingenuity, and originality within your "rogue-like" genre had me hooked. It reminded me of the days of playing Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Hardcore Ladder mode. The idea of racing versus other players is a fun way to innovate PvE and still be competitive. I quickly learned the ins and outs of the game; the ingenious currency and economy; the randomness of spawns; the difficulty of bosses; flasks and the passive tree that is all entwined; the endless, challenging endgame maps. I loved it. I quickly tried to rally my more hardcore friends into playing the game. One friend had played it for almost a year and warned me that it's a great game and that there's one reason he had quit: the Desync issue. I scoffed at him and said, "Just fight the system, stack your resists and have potions ready". I wish I wasn't so naive.

Fast forward two 4-month seasons (Nemesis and now Invasion) and I am quitting as well. The 2 main deaths that have lead me to this decisions, ironically, have nothing to do with the invasion mechanics, which I find amazing. Instead my two "best" characters have both died to desync/lag issues. The first to merciless Vaal. I died to a "tunneling" Vaal, that did not tunnel. I was hit with a Vaal smash plus cave-in across the entire room, for instant death. I thought to myself, "there's absolutely nothing to desync to in that room. No walls, no pillars, Nothing." I was pretty mad, that after everything I had survived and the amount of time and effort and currency I had sunk into this character, I was dead in an instant to something I could not have prevented, something not on my end. I thought it to be a fluke, that it would not happen again.

I took a few days off, regrouped, and made a new character. I made sure to buy the top end gear, and spec even more HP/Defense heavy, only to be fooled again. In act 1 cruel Fetid Pool I had cleared the entire floor, including the normal area boss and an exile with no problems. I encountered the invasion sea witch boss, the one that rains down cold spikes in rapid fashion, and in my opinion is one of the harder invasion bosses at higher difficulties in the game. My flasks included a remove chill/frozen debuff, an instant recovery life, and a quicksilver. I was using whirling blades to quickly move out of the debuff and kite the boss, while throwing heavy life stealing spectral throw at the boss. I must have gotten caught on a pillar or whirled too much (which I am EXTREMELY, cautious to spam, even within 5 second of each other). I was frozen in place, using my remove frozen flask, move commanding and last ditch effort using whirling blade to try and save myself as I was being rained on. Not even dual strike+multi strike attacks on the boss got me "unstuck". My reaction was too slow to alt+f4 (or exit screen) and sadly I died hung up on a pillar unable to move or attack the boss, spamming flasks with 1500 life, and 75 res all.

During the few days break I had taken off, I decided to revisit a game I had dropped very quickly: Diablo III. The 2.0 Reaper of Souls patch had been released. New features and fixes had been promised from the failure that was Diablo III. While the exp boost, heavy unique drops and removal of the auction house are all enticing to players to come back, one thing really struck me as I was playing the game: the smoothness and flow. Sure it doesn't have the depth, or end game that PoE offers, or even the difficulty, but it does have a very smooth flow of gameplay. The gameplay is so smooth and effortless, that you can play without worry of lag, or using certain moves that have a greater chance of making the game glitch out (ie leap slam, whirling blades). In Diablo III , the player controls the difficulty. It scales to the player, so that no matter what zone you're in, you are facing appropriate enemies and gaining appropriate loot. In the Hardcore leagues of PoE I felt the need to be 6+ levels higher than the content I want to clear just to progress through the normal game difficulties. I needed to out-scale the zones I was in by 6+ levels just so that IN CASE of lag, or desync or random glitches I have a chance to live.

In the end, Path of Exile would be the best game on the market by far, especially for more hardcore gamers, if the desync was not an issue. But the fact that you cannot offer a stable game to a hardcore mode makes the game unplayable. I find little to no enjoyment in standard "softcore" modes, especially those without ladders, or PVP. Testing builds is fun and all, but the new leagues offered are so dissimilar, that the builds are often not viable, and for the hardcore leagues boring over-powered builds like searing bond or spectral throw must be used for leveling, only then to be completely respecced in the 70+ range to a real end game build. I hate comparing this game to Diablo III, especially since D3 was such a let down, but it does have a lot of things going for it.

I hope this raises some awareness and will hopefully one day change.

(P.S. the short races are also completely ruined by desync, especially the 1hr-ish races. The amount of times I have desynced to a quicksilver flask, or leap slam is gross. It's necessary that you must use these abilities/skills to finish in the top tier's of players.)

At least this was written well.

It's a constant battle for GGG to improve the syncing issues with Path of Exile. I wouldn't suggest quitting it completely for this reason, as I'm sure it will eventually be minimized enough to have fun or play the game more proper. Also for your comparison to Diablo III, they have been having server issues here and there, I think they are probably stress testing for their newest expansion, but that's just speculation. I do hope you find the kind of game you want to play and enjoy doing so, sorry to hear Path of Exile didn't meet your expectations due to a connection/server issue.

That's sad, very sad.
I mean, desync.

Sorry to hear about your deaths.

This is the only reason I never wanted to play hardcore leagues in path of exie, except the races, even in which I have died several times due to desync. I solely used to play hardcore in d2 lod, but here its just not worth the effort.

Hope you change your mind about quitting and try out the ambush league. It is really really great and one of the redeeming aspects of PoE :)

i lost like 6 summoners and then i built a really good build, it was working really well... i was level 68, but then i died by desync to a oneshot boss (big skelleton boss), i was nowhere near to the boss and i still died, it was really painful because i was almost full gear, and i died with it.

Didn't read OP.

OP, give me your stuff.

Died to a tunnel Vaal 2 days ago, nothing more frustrating than dying when you have done everything right.

+1

OP: +1 for writing this post in accordance with proper grammatical rules.
OP: -100 for complaining about the same damn thing that everyone else has. We get the idea. Desync sucks really bad. Understand this: You complaining will change NOTHING at all. They are trying to fix it. Don't just repeat the same thing that everyone else has already said.

I apologize for being a douchebag, because I know I have been.

In retrospect: +10000 for proper grammar and punctuation. I don't think you understand how much respect you have earned from the people reading this thread. lol.

Ironically a 'I am quitting thread' and a 'Desnyc' thread, but not terrible.

All games have quirks regarding internet stability, I am sad for you that this has caused you to not want to play further.

Unfortunately Desync is not an easy 'fix', it is only something that can be improved upon, and while they are always working towards this it is easy to feel nothing is occuring.

My suggestion is do check back in 2-3 months, maybe for the start of the next league. You might find the game has changed a lot and enjoy yourself again, and nothing wrong with taking a break