[Sept 18] Difficulty and Level Progression
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Path of Exile is going to become a lot harder in some places. We understand that new players want to be able to play through at least the first difficulty level with relative ease, but we also feel that our higher difficulty levels are not challenging enough. We will ensure that side areas are difficult (especially so on higher difficulties), so that there are optional challenges for players with well-built characters.
We will remove the fourth difficulty level around the same time that we add Act Three. The total number of act-difficulty combinations available will increase from 2*4=8 to 3*3=9. We feel that repeating the game content four times is unnecessary and that there should be more interesting end-game stuff available by that point. After rebalancing, the new third difficulty level may be more challenging than our current fourth difficulty level. We're going to make sure that our subsequent difficulty levels are spread over more levels than they are currently. For example, Cruel difficulty in 0.9.6 only has nine monster levels allocated to it - which means that it's possible to basically run through and still be able to kill monsters at the end. We'll make sure that this is tuned appropriately. Edit (Sept 18): This information is still correct and represents our view of the issue. Last edited by Chris on Sep 18, 2012, 12:26:35 AM
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As the fourth difficulty is removed. 2 skill points and 1 choice between skillpoints/hp/mana/resist will be gone. Hopefully act 3 will reward at least 1 skill points to offset it. This will make sure lv60 build stays relatively the same without much rebalancing.
Unviable build tester.
Fuse mechanics: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/21503 95% Crit Build Without Charges [0.10.1c]: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/172438 | |
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Three acts isn't all you intend to implement is it?
I find running through the same content only times a little tiresome. Unless Act 3 has quite a lot to offer. | |
" There will be more. We want to finish Act Three before doing others though. | |
" I totally agree and feel the same way. It gets tiresome at that point. In fact, I agree with all the changes for difficulty and level progression you have stated here. I know this is in the area of just saying "I love this idea!" but I just had to say it. :) Last edited by Dreamer000 on Feb 20, 2012, 11:00:09 PM
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" Most definitly Chris !! The new third difficulty gotto be at least x2-3 harder than Merciless on all counts; the harder moments the more fun we will have needless to say. " Yes, this is a serious imbalance issue for now, upon after balancing people would not want to skip the current content they are in by this way, so that not always some certain places shall be grinded over and over. "This is too good for you, very powerful ! You want - You take"
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Hopefully with these changes it will add a larger level range to killing monsters before you start to get pentalized in a lower item quantity and rarity drop.
For those of us that enjoy the trip as much as the final destination and want to explore every nook and cranny of each zone as it stands now we end up suffering because of this. As it stands now in beta I have one character that just started ruthless. Without farming any one area and taking my time exploring everything and killing all the mobs I'm level 43 and the starting of act 1 the level of mobs is 36. That means I'm 5 levels into the penalty zone of less drops and lower rarity drops. This is forcing my hand to "rush" through each zone to try and catch up the to the monster level safe zone. I have a second character that already in the first difficulty in act one is already starting to enter into the 2 level above the monsters level zone and I havent even finished act 1. Even though as I said I'm one of those people that enjoys the ride(getting to) as the final destination(end game gear grinding) I don't want to constantly have the feeling that I'm being robbed at every rest stop. Luke: Sorry we have to leave you here, but it just ain't right to eat your wife's and daughter's brains. Plus you're really disgusting and I don't want to spend anymore time with you.
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Selectable difficulty settings is much better than these "difficulty levels".
Why do you even call them difficulty levels? They are just higher level content. Just like act 2 is higher level than act 1. | |
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Selectable difficulty levels don't work well when a game is balanced for multiple players.
What would be the point? Higher likelihood of dying? Arbitrary bonuses to farming mobs with higher difficulty settings for better loot? That is all done with the difficulty progression as it is now -Meteoric Destiny!
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" Ofcourse it does. Why wouldn't it?? There is a huge difference between a good player with good gear and a 'not-so-good' player with bad gear. Either the game has to be too easy for the good player or too hard for the other. With selectable difficulty settings all types of players can get a better game experience by playing in a more suitable difficulty. This is not done by the so called difficulity levels that we have now. They are even planning something like this for endgame. |
