Playing your way back to HARDCORE league.

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Arrowneous wrote:

PoE Hardcore mode is a great way to add extra excitement to playing this arpg knowing that you are always just 1 death away from Default League (DL). It increases the adreneline flow when you attack large mobs and higher level bosses which IMHO increases play value. The downside is that just 1 mistake either by you or by desync and boom, hardcore game over!

I've been thinking about this double sided problem for awhile and would like to offer a way that you can work your way back to hardcore mode when you die. PoE should have a mechanism that keeps track of the amount of experience you have when you die in HC. Then as you play that character in DL if you never die even once you should eventually be able to work your way back to HC by gaining enough experience points.

For example, I'm playing my Shadow character and am currently at level 43 DL. I started in HC and when I got to level 32 I was in the Marketplace sewers and came upon the creature that throws explosive blobs at me. Since I have zombies I can distract it with them, run past the creature (I have +15% speed boots), and shoot it from behind to kill it. That strategy works well. Unfortunately, 1 time in a narrow pipe I did that, the creature continued attacking my zombies, and I got behind it and was shooting it. Then out of nowhere (from off the bottom of the screen) I was jumped upon by 4 of the large leaping frog like creatures. They unfortunately trapped me so I couldn't move out of danger, and even though I was firing everything I had and was pressing my flask keys I was dead in 2 seconds. Rats, I'm now back to default league on yet another character! This time I liked how my build was working so I decided to continue playing. I deliberately created a new "red shirt" HC character so I could get to my HC stash, load up on the orbs and gems I wanted, and then let it die to get these into my DL stash. Now I'm up to level 43 in Cruel difficulty level and haven't died again.

Wouldn't it be great to earn the right to get a character you've played for 100s of hours in HC with only 1 death to be able to get back to HC? I'm not sure what the quantity of experience gained in DL would be right to earn your way back to HC mode (I've come from level 32 to 43 so far) but I'm sure the devs could figure that out easily. When you've earned enough experience you would then be given an option from 1 of the NPCs in town to advance your character back to HC. Since it should be done just like a quest reward you would have the option to not use it and stay in DL as long as you liked (I'm assuming playing DL and HC have the same monster strengths so default isn't easier to play). The last part of this should be a minimum experience needed in HC for this option to be available. We don't want players dieing in HC too soon and then play through DL at too low of levels and then jump back to HC that way. Since I've never died in HC below level 32 and my other characters were upper 40s and 50s whatever experience is average for a level 32 character (or maybe 42 so more players will know the meaning of HC life) would be appropriate before this feature would be activated.

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VenatorPoE wrote:

OK I've actually read the whole thing.

The basic problem is that in that case, all that HC adrenaline and what not is -lost-. Because you know that even if you die, you will come back to HC again.

And this completely defeats the idea and purpose of HC, so it is most definitely not going to happen.

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Arrowneous wrote:

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VenatorPoE wrote:

OK I've actually read the whole thing.

The basic problem is that in that case, all that HC adrenaline and what not is -lost-. Because you know that even if you die, you will come back to HC again.

And this completely defeats the idea and purpose of HC, so it is most definitely not going to happen.

I've watched several videos where the player died in HC due to desync. Do you think it's fair to die in HC due to circumstances out of your own control and have no recourse except rage quitting or flaming posts? Until desync is less of a problem there needs to be at least a 1 time chance to get back to HC. If you die a 2nd time in HC then that's it, hardcore game over for that character permanently.

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Arrowneous wrote:

I've watched several videos where the player died in HC due to desync. Do you think it's fair to die in HC due to circumstances out of your own control and have no recourse except rage quitting or flaming posts? Until desync is less of a problem there needs to be at least a 1 time chance to get back to HC. If you die a 2nd time in HC then that's it, hardcore game over for that character permanently.