PSA / Clarification & Plea to Blizzard regarding Elixir of Death Evasion / Flame Shield passive in Hardcore

PC General Discussion
1

Hello!

I see some discussion and a worrying amount of push back against the notion that Elixir of Death Evasion or Flame Shield passive for sorc does not belong in the Hardcore game mode. I will list and explain why some of these are problems that needs to be addressed and hopefully removed from the mode, and why smaller problems are “Necessary Evils”.

I’d appreciate it if you read through the motivation behind my points before writing a comment since I put some thought & a fair amount of discussion into writing this, respectfully!

Things that are good for Hardcore:

  • Scroll of Evasion.

Things that are “Necessary Evils” for Hardcore:

  • Logout Macros / Alt + F4 / Instant Save + Exit.
  • Manual use of Scroll of Evasion.

Things that are straight up antithetical to Hardcore:

  • Sorcerer’s Flame Shield Passive.
  • Elixir of Death Evasion.

I’ll start off by Clarifying why Scroll of Evasion (SoE) is a great idea & why it is different from the others. SoE is deliberately meant as a tool that prevent disconnect- & crash deaths in Hardcore. It is a “rare” drop consumable and works as follows: If you either internet lose connection, have a power outage, or your game crashes for a multitude of reasons, you will auto-consume this scroll and get teleported safely to town.

While this is an amazing solution which will encourage more people to genuinely try HC without worrying about bad luck in real life, this also creates a smaller problem. It allows for alt + f4, pull internet cord, escape + exit game, & logout macros to save you in the brink of death. This is why in the game currently we are also able to instantly log out in situations where you know you’re about to die, and by using the scroll manually (presumably to avoid people crashing their client or using macros).

So why is this a good thing if it brings problems, why can’t we just do like D3 and put a timer on Teleport & Save + Exit such that you die if you try to Alt + F4~?

Well, IF we want to protect 100% of Hardcore players from dying to things out of their control (DC, power outage, crashes), which in my opinion is an amazing thing, we MUST allow for these “Necessary Evils” to exist in the game due to the mechanics of the solution. Since they are side effects of allowing the SoE to work properly, we cannot have one without the other, period.

In my opinion, and please tell me if you disagree with me, it is 100 times more important to completely safeguard against uncontrollable deaths, if that means we allow for sweaty gamers to either manually consume their SoE or exit the game when they are quick enough to realize they won’t survive an encounter. Keep in mind, it takes some kind of reaction to realize you’re about to die, but it takes no reaction to realize you have just cheated death while already having “died”. This brings me to my Plea…

Sorcerer’s Flame Shield Passive & most importantly Elixir of Death Evasion ought to be removed from the Hardcore game mode.

The reason these are incongruent with Hardcore mode is because these items essentially allows a player to cheat death, plain and simple. Now you might ask “but doesn’t the Scroll of Escape do that as well?” Yes, to an extent it does. It certainly allows a player to realize they’re in an unwinnable situation they cannot leave, Pop the scroll, and escape safely.

However, there are very clear differences between these:

  • Scroll of Escape serves a larger, arguably more important purpose for the Hardcore game mode by safeguarding against DC’s/outages/crashes. The others don’t.
  • Unlike Flame Shield & the Elixir, you cannot flat out die and AFTER you have died, safely return to town unscathed using Scroll of Escape.
  • If anything, I could even argue that Flame Shield & the Elixir would completely prevent the deaths that one truly deserve, which are deaths by lack of attention to the game & missplays. In order to safely quit the game you need to pay attention (as with SoE), but with these two you don’t need a care in the world while playing Hardcore, which trivializes the entire experience & cast doubt on the “achievement” that it’s supposed to be.

So to wrap it up:

  • Scroll of Evasion is a great feature that prevents uncontrollable deaths.
  • Logout macros or manual use of Scroll of Evasion are small but still Necessary Evils to allow for the SoE to work.
  • Flame Shield & Elixir of Death Evasion allows a player to not need paying attention, die a deserved death, and still not lose your character. In other words, antithetical to the Hardcore game mode.

Thank you for reading, I really hope for a response at the very least.

EDIT (important):
A BIG problem with having both cheat death mechanics AND the Scroll of Escape is that you now become unable to die in Hardcore challenging content. If your Elixir or Flame Shield Passive pops, you use the Scroll of Escape and you’re safe. In Diablo 3 they had cheat death mechanics, but you were unable to leave the area unless you fought your way out after the short period had ended. We cannot appeal to D3’s system because this one has the Scroll of Escape mechanic.

1 Like
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Thanks for bringing attention to this topic. I know Hardcore generally comprises only a small portion of the game’s overall playerbase but this elixir and sorcerer enchantment affect that entire game mode. Hardcore is a one-life format and these two effects that allow the player to “cheat death” are completely antithetical to the game mode.

In an ideal world, I would like to see the following changes:

  1. Remove “cheat death” effects (elixir, flame shield enchantment).
  2. Make characters persist for 3-5 seconds (can adjust time as needed) after any logout, alt+f4, or disconnect instead of “instantly” dropping them out of the game world.
  3. Keep Scrolls of Escape how they are: can manually be used by the player to instantly teleport safely to town, OR be used automatically when the player disconnects (or alt f4s) outside of town, instantly teleporting them safely to town.

These changes would restore the single-life paradigm of Hardcore by removing cheat death effects while also making logout macros (or just save+exit game) extremely unsafe because your character would persist for multiple seconds and still be able to die. Finally, the Scroll of Escape would help safeguard against disconnects (which have always plagued online hardcore games) while also acting like a very limited version of a logout macro (when the scroll is used manually) since the scrolls cannot be traded, bought, crafted and can only be acquired as a random rare drop. While this is not a perfect solution, I think it adequately addresses all three of these conditions and would be a massive improvement for the hardcore experience.

3 Likes
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I don’t play HC so maybe I’m wrong, but didn’t the various cheat deaths in D3 work in similar fashion to Flame Shield? I could be wrong, just curious.

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I appreciate the idea, however in this case, what would stop someone from simply manually using the Scroll of Escape when in a boss fight for instance? What does the 3-5 seconds solve when it comes to mitigating logout macros when from what I read, SoE already does the job and better since it gives you a free passage to town right? SoE should already be mitigating most of the need of the macro since it’s also attachable on the emote wheel for quick access.

If anything people would just make a logout macro that triggers the Scroll of Escape faster I’m thinking, not sure we can do anything about them more than SoE sadly.

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I would like to begin by acknowledging the time and effort put into your post. It is well articulated and presents valid concerns and potential solutions for those concerns.

Personally speaking, I have played 1k hours in D3 HC and am accustomed to most classes having a cheat death mechanic. Even with access to this mechanic, I have lost many characters to HC.

Being as most classes in D4 no longer have access to this mechanic through passives, it appears they are providing access to this mechanic through an elixir.

D4 feels even more dangerous than D3 with elaborate boss mechanics, portals that open unexpectedly in the middle of encounters and nightmare dungeon affixes. These can create unescapable and sometimes unanticipated situations, that even with a cheat death mechanic, could still mean certain death.

I would propose that we fully play the game as the developers intended to form a more informed opinion before we cry for complete removals of features they obviously felt were needed.

2 Likes
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This is already the case and is fine, or as you say it is a necessary evil.

I’m not sure what you are confused about. If logging out (alt+f4, logout macro, save+exit) takes multiple seconds for the character to log out and scroll of escape is instant, scroll of escape is the safer choice but it requires a limited drop item to achieve it. Logout macros, alt+f4, save+exit will be VERY unsafe to use and won’t be relied on. Scroll of Escape will be the only safe way of getting out of dicey situations with the changes I proposed.

I think you are confused because again this makes zero sense, there is literally no point in having a logout macro that uses a scroll of escape. Literally just use scroll of escape, the logout macro that uses the scroll of escape is redundant and completely pointless. My point is that if all forms of logging out (alt+f4, logout macro, save+exit) have your character persisting for multiple seconds, they are unsafe and players must rely on a Scroll of Escape (manual or automated on disconnect/crash/alt+f4/etc) to get them out of danger safely.

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My argument is also that this cheat death mechanic combined with the Scroll of Escape makes you 100% unable to die in Hardcore. In D3, when you pop your cheat death there you are unable to teleport out instantly because of the timer that prevents it. If you can’t escape the situation by fighting your way out you will die. In diablo 4, whenever you pop your elixir you use the scroll after for a safe escape. These are very different scenarios.

In my opinion one of these has to go, and I’ve written down my arguments for why it should be one over the other. We either have the 100% safeguard against DC/crashes and no cheat deaths, or we don’t have the safeguard but allow cheat deaths combined with a timer that locks you in the server / instance until you beat it or escape yourself.

Could present some argument for why it’s a good idea to make people completely unkillable unless AFK in the Hardcore game mode? I would say sure lets play the pre season this way and see how it goes, but the fact still remains that these two mechanics together breaks the Hardcore game mode. Maybe I should edit that in the OP.

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Yes lol, with much shorter cooldowns, and no consumable cost (and while flameshield doesn’t have a consumable cost giving up an enchantment slot is a huge tradeoff).

Really I see 2 massive pros and one potential con for the cheat deaths in D4.

  • Pro 1: It basically enables HC PVP. Without these, HC PVP would be super dead outside of LLD. The game is NOT going to be balanced so having it be that if you “kill” someone they have to TP out or permadie is preferable to having PVP zones that are literally just full of stealth rogue 1shot builds and 12man gank squads that all managed to get in the same shard together and are just waiting for a random person to be sharded with them.

  • Pro 2: It lets you test the waters with more dangerous content you are unfamiliar with. If you look at Path of Exile this is almost always done on softcore permanent league with old characters. With D4 however there is so much new stuff with unknown levels of danger, just going in blind would potentially be a lot worse than a normal HC experience and HC would be even more dead on launch. There are already tons of people saying “no way I play HC at the start” due to this.

  • Con 1: It might feel mandatory to farm an elixir every time you do some particular boss. However, I don’t know if this is actually a full con, because it also allows bosses to be designed far more dangerous without being unfair. You can add lots of “do the mechanic or die” checks, because it’s not like you are guaranteed to lose your character if you mess up. However clearing the boss will still require not messing up.

Scroll of Escape is fairly rare though. I’ve found 1 in like 30h of beta gameplay. And the elixir is going to require you crafting it. It’s not like you’ll just have this all the time. You’ll want to save it for PVP or dangerous endgame boss fights you have no practice on.

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Sorry but that’s not enough, people found several during the betas and imagine how many you will accrue over the entire campaign, you would always keep them for whenever you are about to die.

The elixir lasts for 30 minutes and allows you to plan on safeguarding yourself from any hard content you’re about to attempt. Answer me, how is this congruent with the Hardcore game mode? How is it a pro to be able to do any unknown or potentially lethal content with 100% certainty of surviving? Diablo 3 had cheat death mechanics but D3 also locked you in the game unable to escape like we can in D4.

If people don’t like to lose their character when they die then WHY insist on playing Hardcore? What do you gain from Hardcore as opposed to Softcore if you want to be able to do any hard content without risking losing your character? I know this may sound presumptuous but it truly feels to me like people who are for this want the credit of playing Hardcore without actually playing Hardcore. It trivializes the game mode completely. Furthermore, Sorcerer’s will have the ultimate safeguard as they are the only class that has the cheat death passive, all they need is a scroll and they’re safe forever…

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For clarification what is the current system? I do not play hardcore.

Are you saying currently there is a scroll of evasion and elixir of cheat death?

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I think you are confused because again this makes zero sense, there is literally no point in having a logout macro that uses a scroll of escape. Literally just use scroll of escape, the logout macro that uses the scroll of escape is redundant and completely pointless. My point is that if all forms of logging out (alt+f4, logout macro, save+exit) have your character persisting for multiple seconds, they are unsafe and players must rely on a Scroll of Escape (manual or automated on disconnect/crash/alt+f4/etc) to get them out of danger safely.

Scroll of escape requires you to press E, move the mouse to the scroll and click it. Logout macros generally requires one button which for the sweaty gamers using macros will probably use those anyway.

I’m not sure what you are confused about. If logging out (alt+f4, logout macro, save+exit) takes multiple seconds for the character to log out and scroll of escape is instant, scroll of escape is the safer choice but it requires a limited drop item to achieve it. Logout macros, alt+f4, save+exit will be VERY unsafe to use and won’t be relied on. Scroll of Escape will be the only safe way of getting out of dicey situations with the changes I proposed.

Sure it all depends on how frequent the Scrolls drop. Already we see them in the betas, I don’t think it will be uncommon for people to have several of them stacked or at the very least farmed and kept for the hard content. I wouldn’t characterize it as a limited drop item, it’s “rare”, but it can drop from any monster. By the time people start farming this game it will be another item we have 100x stacks of.

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You can bind it to a key actually, don’t have to do that.

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I think I understand where you are coming from and agree there may be room for improvement when it comes to the implementation of the mechanics.

You appear to be OK with either mechanic on its own, but are concerned about circumventing the dangers of HC by their combined use.

Being as it was stated that the intention of the scroll of escape was to safe guard from disconnects, and that this item would be quite rare, this may resolve itself.

Depending on the rarity of these scrolls, potentially a person who used them for the purpose you have described could easily exhaust their limited supply and would not have any on hand to activate in the event of a disconnect.

It is entirely plausible that we simply have access to the elixir of death evasion to compensate for the lack of a cheat death the scroll of escape as a disconnect safe guard and if used as intended, maintains the spirit if HC. For those that abuse those mechanics, they would inevitably face consequences for that misuse.

This would entirely hinge on how “rare” the scrolls truly are, and in my opinion, would be the issue to address once we have a baseline for drop rates.

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Did the death evasion elixir work in server slam?

I found a thousand recipes for it but it never showed up in my craft list even after I learned it.

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I believe someone mentioned that they were of a higher level requirement to craft than what we had access to in server slam

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You can hotkey this in game and bypass the radial menu.

I mean if you are saying that the item is “rare” but not “a limited drop” that’s fine, I am not sure why you think we are saying different things. I also don’t see anywhere in your post where you describe adjusting the drop rate to this scroll. The statement you quoted is me saying there is literally no reason to make a logout macro that uses scroll of escape. And there isn’t. As I mentioned just above you can keybind the scroll in game and not use the radial menu, which means using the scroll is a simple keypress, no more than using a logout macro.

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could be

I obtained higher level elixirs and could not use them

Maybe cant even see higher level recipes

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Im not a fan of any cheat death mechanics on HC. This includes logoff macros or Alt+F4.

Softcore can do whatever they want. I play hardcore for the true hardcore experience.

Otherwise can we get a “True Hardcore mode” with all cheat death items disabled?

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you could just not use the mechanics that are in game… rather easy solution. Also, Flame Shield doesnt seem to proc anyway… hence why i found this old thread.

save scumming is way worse… cant believe someone used that as an argument.