[Sept 18] Difficulty and Level Progression

CREATE A MALE MAGE PLEASE!!!!!

"

brobbeh wrote:

Last reason: those maps in these areas are TOO big. I love huge maps where I get lost, but when they are filled with weak ennemies it makes it extra boring.

God No! Personally I really love those big area's and the big dungeons this game has (the pyramide almost had my cry with joy, what an amazing dungeon). Fixing difficulty issues by reducing the size of the game? Please don't.

"

brobbeh wrote:

Or if you can do that, make a dynamic evolution of the difficulty: each time you beat one of the bandits, the level of the monsters in the areas near the remaining bandits raises. Might be tough to make, but might be the best way to keep the freedom of the player while still keeping the game interesting at all time.

I agree with this. Note that Oak is allready on a higher difficulty level though.

Regarding difficulty in general: At first I thought my necromancer was just a bit overpowered, but than I realized I was continuously playing under my level ever since completing the first 2 quests in act 2 normal. I have never farmed xp (no I lie, I farmed 1 level in normal after being pawned by merveil to get an "extra minion life dot", didn't help, but proper strategics did the job) but I do look in every corner. This game is so well designed and dungeon randomization is awesome, so I don't want to miss anything and have fully cleared every map ones; this really an issue in normal mode, but I think that clearing all maps ones, no grinding, no rushing, should keep you on par with the areas difficulty level.
I am now in cruel act 2 and finished the first quest (church) at level 38, which means I should be heading for the pyramid now and I'm really starting to feel that I cream everyone I meet. Merveil for instance was a done job no swet this time.

The client just finished installing the latest patch. Things should be more difficult now, so I'll go in and see :D

edit:
Just did the chamber of sins and actually died when overeagerly trying to kill and raise an master of sin to do my bidding (and enjoy me with their incomprehensible rumbling). I didn't pay attention and the fact that I had 4 levels over the monsters didn't save me. Nice job on altering the difficulty, the chats show that people really have to rethink how they approach things.
/edit

Thanks again for this terrific game, can't say it enough.

I wanted to add a little more about levelprogression in act 2 cruel. I have now arrived at the waterfall waypoint and just turned level 42. When I arrived in act 2 however, I think I was level 35, could be 36. I leveled up two-three times by completely clearing out the church, chamber of sins and everything between there and the village. As of level 38 I have pretty much rushed (for as far that is possible as a summoner) through all the area's up to the pyramides, killing whatever I encountered but trying to get to the objective in as straight a line as possible. This leveled me up four times.

Now act two varies between level 33 and 36. Those three levels hardly cover the 6-7 levels I gained with a character allready overpowered for those area's, that didn't even clear all maps. I think that a curious player that would arrive in act 2 at the intended level 33 can easily level up 8-10 times in act 2 cruel, without (re-) farming maps. Now I'm not suggesting that this playstyle is what should be perfectly accomodated for, but I think the three monsterlevels present now don't cut it for those players.

Having said that, my minions had a great laugh exploding in the monsters faces and I had a great time sending em there and finding new ways to do that more efficiently. It is clear that (a lot of) monsters do more damage since the patch.

With kind regards, Alice_fromWonderland

My first time through the game, and I know my build is pretty bad, so I am underpowered for my level. I am level 38 (or is it 39?) in Cruel and just got the two items to open the waterfall in Act 2.

I have been consistently several levels above the mobs in the zone, but I still can die easily if I get swarmed. So it's fairly challenging. On the other hand I can usually just run through the zone ignoring the mobs, which I have done when the zone got reset on my for whatever reason and I didn't want to repeat all the content. I didn't over-level on purpose, but had to repeat a lot of content during the open beta stress test due to zone crashing.

So, since I am more than 5 levels over the zone level, am I being penalized in drops/quality (I saw something like that at the beginning of this thread)? I'm not sure that's very fair, as my gear isn't very good and I could really use good drops!

I guess I am an example of a not-good-player in this case. It needs to be balanced so good players can't abuse the system by farming good rewards for no risk, but not-good-players can still get the upgrades they need to improve their ghetto characters enough to progress.

I'm also unclear what will happen to the levels for each act when a new act is added. Will Act 1 Cruel start at a higher level to make up for the insertion of a new act in normal?

Great game! I am really enjoying it!

"

NancyNM wrote:

So, since I am more than 5 levels over the zone level, am I being penalized in drops/quality (I saw something like that at the beginning of this thread)? I'm not sure that's very fair, as my gear isn't very good and I could really use good drops!

It's 2 levels, if you're more than 2 levels above the area currency items (scrolls, orbs) will have their drop rates lowered. Everything else is the same though and with the speed you can clear a place you'd probably be getting currency items at the same rate, I think the penalty is to make sure speeding through low level areas shouldn't be the best way to get up the currency ladder, but not make it impossible either.

As for build, it's hard to make a bad build so long as you stick to one form of fighting and take bonuses that fit your class's armour and weaps. I probably didn't spec my templar up perfectly but after making sure I have enough armour and resist ruthless is getting fairly easy.

Don't worry about overlevelling. It should probably be explained in-game somewhere for sure, but really overlevelling is what you want probably. Just not grinding.

"

Wooser69 wrote:

"

NancyNM wrote:

So, since I am more than 5 levels over the zone level, am I being penalized in drops/quality (I saw something like that at the beginning of this thread)? I'm not sure that's very fair, as my gear isn't very good and I could really use good drops!

It's 2 levels, if you're more than 2 levels above the area currency items (scrolls, orbs) will have their drop rates lowered. Everything else is the same though and with the speed you can clear a place you'd probably be getting currency items at the same rate, I think the penalty is to make sure speeding through low level areas shouldn't be the best way to get up the currency ladder, but not make it impossible either.

Ah this probably explains why my lower level characters, who aren't yet drastically overleveled, seem to get more interesting currency drops :-) I guess that's fine at this point. I still get some drops.

"

Wooser69 wrote:

As for build, it's hard to make a bad build so long as you stick to one form of fighting and take bonuses that fit your class's armour and weaps. I probably didn't spec my templar up perfectly but after making sure I have enough armour and resist ruthless is getting fairly easy.

Well, my build isn't horrible by those standards. It definitely has a theme, just not a very interesting one. I went 1H sword and shield Marauder, and am taking things that will do more damage (STR, attack speed, damage, etc.) and increase my survival (hp and resists). My main issue with it is that I started wandering down a particular path and then realized I had ended up back by the starting nodes. Surely there must have been a better choice that would have involved similar/same intermediate nodes but gotten me to a more interesting place! I considered restarting from scratch but decided it makes more sense to press on and level this guy up so I can see the end game. Plus, if they revamp the skill tree enough while still in Closed Beta, I figure I'll get a free respec :-)

Just started ruthless difficulty, but I got to thinking...

This idea would include 2 parts. The first one being to remove the level cap. Yes, theoretically you would be able to get every passive in the skill tree; if you where that bored with your life :p

I know you have the random maps for "end-game" content, but you could also do something where if you complete all the difficulties, then the "open-world" game maps would change like this:

Normal difficulty: Mobs are the same level, blue mobs spread out, yellow mobs are rare (1 per map if lucky). The mobs level range is 100% of your level.

Cruel difficulty: Mobs are 110% of your level (ie: at say, level 100, the mobs would be level 110). Blue mobs are not so rare, yellow mobs are spread out (2-3 per map), gold(?) mobs are rare. Level range: 110%

Merciless difficulty: Mobs are 125% of your level (level 125). White mobs are a rare occurrence, almost all the mobs are blue and yellow. Gold mobs are frequent. Level range is 125% of you level.

Ruthless difficulty: Are you insane? Mobs are 150% your level, no white or blue mobs, every mob "pack" is a bunch of yellows surrounding a gold mob.

Inviting other players is also possible, the level range would be:

Highest level player + (the additive levels of other players / total amount of players)

So if you had a level 100 player, 90 player, and 70 player, the mobs' level ranges:

Normal: 153
Cruel: 168
Merciless: 191
Ruthless: 230

PS: pardon me if I didn't explain this too well, getting ready to hit the sack.. went from cruel -> ruthless difficulties today :D

Hi.
harder levels as you progress are fine, but i think it should be ballanced so that you can play it solo, a lot of online mmo games force you to join a clan or team up with other players to finish a level or instance or a quest, all well and good if you want to do the party thing, so i hope the difficulty is scaled to enable solo play, dont get me wrong tho i dont mind dying from time to time, just as long as i can complete it and not die in the same spot for eternity.

I admit not reading 23 pages of comment, too tired today to do that.

Just some minor comments. Are we raising difficulties for the sake of challenge, or tying average drop quality-cum-quantity to this.

We have in D2 the option to raise "difficulty" through raising number of players upon creation of instance, but the option was abuses to raise drop quality. Something to take into consideration when designing the actual mechanism of instance creation.

Difficulties presented depends on build. Some builds laugh at physical damage, some build can avoid being surrounded. We need a lot more variety in mob mechanics to present challenges to every kind of build, to avoid the need to nerf builds when they beat every kind of mob.

Upon high levels, say 70+, viable build will dry up no matter what. If new difficulty arises that makes a previously viable build obsolete, the player will be in awkward position. The cost to respec is high, the time cost of rerolling likewise. GGG might want to look at some ways to alleviate this problem. This is one sad consequence of the amazingly elaborate skill tree.

My suggestion might incite some flames, so I want to reiterate this: this is just my thoughts.

Make difficulty somewhat less proportionally scaled with drops. This reduces drop inequality, allowing the less "pro" players a reasonable chance to gear up as well, without totally taking away the purpose of our elite players to excel at mob murdering. Tougher setting should give players a slightly better chance at rewards, but not too skewed.

Varied mechanism can be supplemented by smart mechanism. Meaning against certain builds, the instances will give a higher chance to roll out certain predator mob designs. This way the mobs need not have 1 trillion hp just to make it challenging, against builds the mobs have little chance to win (aka WoW bosses).

As for rerolling, the original GW1 method can be referenced. Players can earn 1 respec point per certain efforts at playing, say number of mobs killed, XP gained or something. With enough effort a player can respec, and still cost substantially less than a reroll.

Question, and hoping for dev input.

With the inclusion of the third act, will the levels in the 3 acts and 3 difficulties scale so that the last level before endgame is lvl 58? Or will it scale to somewhere near lvl 70?

This is something I'm wondering about as there are lvl 60-70 items that currently are only available to us by looting end-game maps. If the acts and levels are rebalanced so the that last area before endgame is lvl 70ish, it really gives players more passive points to play around with and create a more solid build considering that anything past lvl 70 is a long and hard grind with the current incarnation of end-game maps system.