[Sept 18] Difficulty and Level Progression

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

IF we are going to have any kind of system that changes the difficulty/reward I think it most likely would be most efficient to use the system they have have planned for endgame.

IMHO, and that goes along with GGG's explanations on their league plans, the announced options to add a more challenging part for endgame chars, will work the same way like in D2 the option to make HC chars was limited to people that reached the second difficulty at least once...

They could (will?) make it, to have beaten the entire game before unlocking the 'challenge mode' option.

We'll just have to wait and see.

My apologies if I misunderstand the arguments here.

Seems to me there is a supposed issue of being "too powerful / too twinked" for the area or level of mobs currently available in the zone.

If this was D2, I would either join a multiplayer instance and solo scaled content, or move to zones designed for higher level characters and reap the higher level loot and experience given there.

Why do you need to have a "hard mode" when you can simply do this?

Oh and of course if you feel you are too weak for the current area, just backtrack and find a comfort zone.

I see that there are three possibilities for crafting content difficulty:

1. fixed difficulties based on an average player
2. scaled difficulties, forced (normal, nightmare) or choice (slider)
3. Algorithmic difficulty, analyzes your character and sets the difficulty

1 is the current system and forces players to be underpowered, intended, or overpowered. If they are OP they are forced to run through content to harder areas.

2 is currently implemented as linear difficulties, but I personally do not see the need for them to be linear. If someone builds a character that can skip up to an entirely higher difficulty setting, then that is actually a sign that the game isn't balanced properly.

3 is the best choice imo, but it's by far the hardest to implement because it requires advanced statistics and analysis. It would always set the game to a difficulty and reward system that is catered to the party in a zone. Done incorrectly it could suffer from being exactly like #1.

Therefore the only standout I can see is #2... essentially a slider where a player can pick how difficult they want the game to be, with scaled rewards. Perhaps GGG has other ideas to make the end-game really a great and varied experience.

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zeto wrote:

Therefore the only standout I can see is #2... essentially a slider where a player can pick how difficult they want the game to be, with scaled rewards. Perhaps GGG has other ideas to make the end-game really a great and varied experience.

I personally dont have to much of an issue with this as an 'endgame' option (for want of a more fitting term) I still think it will segregate players and encourage elitism in its most ugly forms but at the highest level it tends to be the case that most people will have regular groups/guilds to play with by then or be lone wolves so its not so bad.

Where I have the issue is when you start putting a slider type system through the whole game at every difficulty level. Then it just becomes a case that most people will auto set the slider to max from level 1 and by the time they reach the end of act 3 normal will have found gear that now means that the top difficulty is just as easy as the lower difficulty would have been.

The issue here for me is again one of people trying to use solutions from different genres of games to solve a problem quite unique to ARPGs.

Most games (lets take standard MMORPGs as an example) have a finite level of power. In a MMORPG there are very few ways you can make the stats of your player ever so much different to the stats of another player of the same class. So for example most warriors (or equivalent) in a MMORPG at max level are going to be very similar in power, with very few ways to progress much beyond that. This is because most MMORPGs have a heavy PVP component, especially as endgame activities and the classes need to be finely balanced. There is no room in most MMORPGs, for example, for a sword that is randomly generated and incredibly rare to the point that nobody is likely to find the same thing ever again.

As such its quite easy to add harder content to a MMORPG and allow better players to challenge themselves, as often the difference between good and bad MMORPG players is technical/tactical stuff like skill choice, learning their builds strengths, knowing their role in a group, timing, etc. So you can for instance create a hard mode where you set everything slightly more powerful (on paper) than most players and only very proficient players will ever be able to challenge it.

Guild Wars is an example im very familiar with, there was a high level instance called tombs which was very tough, you could run it with identical group make ups but the real difference wasnt in gear and abilities but in the players ability to work together as a tight knit team. Even then the reward for such an instance wasn't some uber weapon, but more vanity gear in real terms that never made it easier, so the players would on paper never progress beyond that point of difficulty, they would never find it easy.

In an ARPG there is quite a different dynamic. They are less about tactics and skill, and more about loot and creating unique and powerful character builds in the way they synergise with the random loot you find.

You could in theory in an ARPG create two identical builds, played by the same person, but without certain critical pieces of gear they wouldn't function the same. In short ARPGs are very equipment reliant. Add to this that the only rewards that people want in an ARPG are more loot chances/drops and you begin to see why added difficulty levels/sliders/whatever are a poor way to extend challenge and longevity.

How long realistically do you think a 'hard mode' would remain 'hard' for anyone, or a slider for that matter. Within a month or two everyone would have it set to maximum all the time and then require a new uber slider to increase it ever further.

The problem is the loot you find is related to the challenge you face, face more powerful foes and soon your gear will far surpass that of someone who hasnt. Which isnt a problem in itself, but where does that end, with the same people still moaning there is no challenge.

And this is where I might start to sound dismissive or close minded, but this comes to down to people wanting an ARPG to be challenging in the first place.

Has nobody ever played D2 here (well I know GGG must have cause this game is hugely inspired by it) cause honestly anyone whos ever hit level 90+ in Diablo 2 will know the challenge at that stage becomes almost non existent. And yet I never saw people leaving in a mass exodus cause they could solo Baal in under 5 minutes... it just didnt happen, and despite the wailing and nashing I dont believe it will happen here either.

The few monsters at high levels in D2 which offer any threat are rare and random ones which spawn with particularly nasty combinations of auras/abilities, and even those are easy enough to deal with given a little thought. In short ARPGs never have been and never will be challenging. Not in the way people here want them to be, not in an MMO raid style of challenge, or any game where the players power level is strictly controlled or constricted.

The very nature of ARPGs does away with nearly all constraints on a player, they can build whatever silly or stupidly powerful character they want and arm it to the teeth with potentially ludicrous 1 in a million gear. You cant legislate for that or seek to balance it, and you certainly cant provide a consistent and satisfactory level of 'challenge' for it either, not without drastically rethinking the whole concept of the game.

That my opinion anyway.

I can't recall any online game where difficulty scaling by moving a slider (or similar) was allowed.
It's just impossible to apply that without creating serious issues.

For example:
How do you want to implement difficulty slider (or such) with co-op/pvp (cut-throat)?
Either
a) players should be sorted into a lot different groups depending on their chosen diff setting
b) when players with different difficulty settings would co-op game diff will to be averaged (one guy has slider on easy other on hard -> game diff is normal).
Means
a) playerbase would be divided into a lot of groups and their members couldn't interact with folks from other groups (other diffuculties)
b) difficulty won't be fitting for most (or even any) member of the party if partying with folks with other diff settings would be allowed.

I should clarify a bit:

In game design one must remember that if you have 10 hp and enemies deal 1 damage, that is the same as if you have 1000 hp and enemies deal 100 damage.

This simple fact yields the result that 'increasing difficulty' inherently means 'you and your resources stay the same... enemies get stronger.'

The normal game itself consists of leap-frog difficulties relative to the very first area. You find new gear, level up, or obtain new skills, and you move forward into a new zone... the act of which increases your power by X and creature power by Y. The ratio X/Y determines difficulty.

Most games are designed to keep X/Y approximately equal with a few bumps along the way to keep players interested... usually this is in the form of bosses where Y can suddenly jump up.

A 'true' increase in difficulty isn't usually seen much at all... instead what difficulty levels often do is introduce gameplay combinations that weren't present at lower difficulties, without truly changing the X/Y dynamic. (ie. metagame dynamics)

During the 'end game' it's more easily possible to include something akin to a difficulty slider, simply because X is now roughly static and increases in power are fewer and further between. It is then up to the player to determine how hard of a game they actually want.

Such a system could actually be implemented into the entire game (but it won't be.) It would simply shift the original X/Y ratio. The biggest issue is calculating such a ratio in a meaningful way.

I do not think we will be seeing difficulty selection by players as such. It does complicate grouping and I do not think this is something that GGG would want to implement for the game as a whole.

We'll just have to wait and see how they allow end-game content to be attenuated by individuals.... keeping in mind that a true 'difficulty increase' implies that player power stays roughly the same and creature power increases with very little increase in reward.

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zeto wrote:

I should clarify a bit:

In game design one must remember that if you have 10 hp and enemies deal 1 damage, that is the same as if you have 1000 hp and enemies deal 100 damage.

This simple fact yields the result that 'increasing difficulty' inherently means 'you and your resources stay the same... enemies get stronger.'

The normal game itself consists of leap-frog difficulties relative to the very first area. You find new gear, level up, or obtain new skills, and you move forward into a new zone... the act of which increases your power by X and creature power by Y. The ratio X/Y determines difficulty.

Most games are designed to keep X/Y approximately equal with a few bumps along the way to keep players interested... usually this is in the form of bosses where Y can suddenly jump up.

A 'true' increase in difficulty isn't usually seen much at all... instead what difficulty levels often do is introduce gameplay combinations that weren't present at lower difficulties, without truly changing the X/Y dynamic. (ie. metagame dynamics)

During the 'end game' it's more easily possible to include something akin to a difficulty slider, simply because X is now roughly static and increases in power are fewer and further between. It is then up to the player to determine how hard of a game they actually want.

Such a system could actually be implemented into the entire game (but it won't be.) It would simply shift the original X/Y ratio. The biggest issue is calculating such a ratio in a meaningful way.

I do not think we will be seeing difficulty selection by players as such. It does complicate grouping and I do not think this is something that GGG would want to implement for the game as a whole.

We'll just have to wait and see how they allow end-game content to be attenuated by individuals.... keeping in mind that a true 'difficulty increase' implies that player power stays roughly the same and creature power increases with very little increase in reward.

I love this post, it explains what I hope people can understand as: Not dying in two hits to something doesn't mean the game is easy. Things that cause gameplay changes for characters are what will make it more fun and interesting.

Thank god about no more 4th difficulty. Had to take a break from the game because I just couldn't bring myself to level anything past 3 difficulties anymore.

Let me add more trolling to this thread.

Hopefully the last boss of hardest difficulty will not be killed for 1 month after the game release.

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muxecoid wrote:

Let me add more trolling to this thread.

Hopefully the last boss of hardest difficulty will not be killed for 1 month after the game release.

This is actually a useful balance benchmark at many potential stages of the game, not just the absolute end.

The inability to pass specific milestones in the game can directly reflect the economic state of the game and how the power curve is evolving. They could simply track certain kills of specific enemies, some or all of which could be Optional. Being able to kill them would be a great statistical marker.

This same benchmark can be used to examine gameplay exploits and build balance issues... since an exploit will trivialize encounters, leading to being able to fix AI issues, combat juxtaposition, or skill exploits.