This game is too easy

You're right, Spitfire, the game itself isn't harder on hardcore.

But it is more challenging...because of what's at stake.

It's a psychological difficulty and it appears you are immune to it. I'm still not sure if you've tried or not, but I recommend you do so if you haven't.

Here's an analogy. It might even make sense.

When I was a kid, I'd walk along a balancing beam, no problems. I could even do it with my eyes closed.

Now that I am an adult, I can still do it, but I know that if the same beam were stretched over a gaping chasm, even if the beam had the exact same dimensions, I would be terrified. I wouldn't be able to do it, eyes open or closed.

Same beam, different conditions. Different penalties for failure.

I view hardcore the same way. And with that in mind, it is more difficult than default for me.

Like I said, you might be able to walk that balancing beam across a canyon, but not me.

But having town portals and alt + f4 is one hell of a safety net.

I don't use alt-f4. People can choose to if they want, but to me it defeats the purpose of hardcore. It's meta-gaming. GGG acknowledges it as a method some players use to avoid death, but I really don't think that's the point here.

As for portals? Shit, we can't exactly stack 20+ potions like we could in D2. When those 5 suckers are empty, I'm pretty much fucked. I try to build good regen characters but sometimes, it just doesn't happen.

So even with that safety net, the analogy stands, because that safety net is applicable to both hardcore and default.

The psychological ramping-up of hardcore is still a factor.

So let's make a challange.

CI-Melee-Shadow solo-play or a cleave-ranger. Both is doable, but compared to a ranged char it is totally easy.

I tried out a high-crit bow-shadow, since I don't want to waste passivs in defense (since that would delay testing the actual crit-part) and I was surprised how incredibly easy most of the content was. Kraityn wasn't doable (he oneshots you with Flicker-Strike^^, but I expected that and just sided with him :P) and Piety and Merveil was quite hard (Merveil mainly because Cold-Snap freezes a low-HP build even with ES up^^). The rest was easy, not because I'm that good or because the game is easy in general, but because you can run away from almost every threat while still doing tons of damage as a ranged char.

Just taking merveil as an example is so much different for a melee. A Melee simply eats all 3 Ice-Spears and is permanently chilled by her Melee-Attacks even with 80% Resists. Viper-Strike is incredibly nasty for melees, the same goes for degeneration-auras. Enemies with Life-Leech are actually leeching from Melees-Char since they are able to get hits on them. For ranged chars the game propably is easy, but for melee the game gets challanging in quite a lot of situations.

Melee have a large advantage in normal, exspecially with claws who basically drain all your lost HP back, but later it gets a lot tougher.

"

So even with that safety net, the analogy stands, because that safety net is applicable to both hardcore and default.

Well in my opinion if you compare hardcore to softcore the different views on this topic are not because of hardcore, but softcore. I know a lot of people who are so incredibly thrilled even while playing softcore and want to avoid death so badly that it doesn't matter if they play hardcore or softcore. For me playing hardcore and softcore would be a very similar experience. I like some of the races, which is basically the only time I play hardcore to a larger degree. I still tend to rely to much on very strong and often not that fun builds in hardcore, which is something that keeps me away from it. The CI-Melee-Shadow as an example would barely survive very long in hardcore, since there are a lot of situations where he most likely just dies. And since I know this before I don't bother making him in hardcore.

"

Charan wrote:

Brec:
Try the same with melee.

True, same as a melee would be a lot harder, can't deny that. But there is another flip side of a coin here. Our famous gap between ranged/melee builds is still valid and not fair; being in a pretty problematic nature for a very long time, and your statement also rubs salt into the wound, unwittingly ;)

We have a continuous problems that effects each other one way or around, and this is one of worser ones unfortunately.

"

Spitfireqt wrote:

It's just harder to reach max lvl, but the game itself it's not harder, it's a fact. I did reach 100 in hardcore on Diablo2

I can guarantee that you never reached level 100 in Hardcore on Diablo 2.

There are very few games out there that are hard no matter how you play. Diablo 3 hardcore can be cheesed just like any other game, the only difference is Diablo 3 is designed to be a endgame game. They wouldn't have made level 1-60 the most boring gameplay in any ARPG to date if that wasn't the case with no reason to reroll.

Please, for the sake of humanity, understand that Path of Exile isn't hard to reach max level, it isn't hard to beat Merciless, it's only hard when you choose to make it hard on yourself.

Anyone with a small amount of gaming experience can beat this game using a good build on softcore. You make a mistake, you lose experience, you keep going. Most people can even beat it on hardcore with patience. Grind until your level is really high, use OP build, clear content; win.

If you want to play a hard game, then you have to make it hard. Play hardcore, don't overly grind any area, use a build that works, but doesn't cheese the game; run difficult maps. Diablo 2 wasn't hard for most, that's why Iron Man challenges came out.

You can make this game easier than Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 combined, but you can also make it as hard as you want; you just refuse to do it.

You can either enjoy Path of Exile with forced challenges, or you can wait for ladder races to pose a challenge for you. All increased difficulty is going to do is force people into certain builds, force GGG to spend more time balancing an ARPG, and cause a lot of rage.

There is a reason a lot of us don't play Diablo 3, and it isn't because we are all level 100 paragon waiting for new content.

P.S. I haven't gotten to endgame on hardcore mode yet. Sure, I could if I wanted to. I could run with Lightning strike, I could grind until content posed no challenge, and I could have beaten the game. But why? I play Path of Exile on Hardcore, without grinding, without Alt F4ing and solo because I like the challenge. I want my eventual completion of this game to mean something. Making the game challenging and beating it means way more than making it easy to show the world how good I am.

Of course, I'm someone who had more fun in Diablo 3 going from 1-60 on MP 10 then I ever had getting through Inferno.

Spitfireqt

1 character

AceofSpadez
(League) Default
(Class) Ranger
(Rank) 1318
(level) 74
(XP) 520,351,808

I guess that gives you the right to say the game is too easy. I mean 1 toon to 74 in default. Game must be easy.

B. (Rinse and Repeat)

This game is hard if you're melee. But only if you don't use temporal chains. If you use temporal chains then everything is faceroll.

It's incredibly faceroll if you're ranged as any spec.

Too all the people who say "play hardcore", you can exit out if ever in trouble. It's not hard in the slightest.

There are no horde/molten/arcane/waller phase beasts in this game.

"

bredin wrote:

Spitfireqt

1 character

AceofSpadez
(League) Default
(Class) Ranger
(Rank) 1318
(level) 74
(XP) 520,351,808

I guess that gives you the right to say the game is too easy. I mean 1 toon to 74 in default. Game must be easy.

B. (Rinse and Repeat)

How do you check/see people's characters?

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

bredin wrote:

Spitfireqt

1 character

AceofSpadez
(League) Default
(Class) Ranger
(Rank) 1318
(level) 74
(XP) 520,351,808

I guess that gives you the right to say the game is too easy. I mean 1 toon to 74 in default. Game must be easy.

B. (Rinse and Repeat)

How do you check/see people's characters?

I'm curious as well.