[Sept 18] Difficulty and Level Progression

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Sickness wrote:

Alot of semantics here. Anyways, my point is that they are not selectable difficulty settings, and that selectable dfficulty settings would be great.

Again this I think comes down to a staple of the ARPG genre. Ever since the first rogue like games and Diablo 1 multiple 'difficulty' settings have been what people enjoy.

They work well cause once you complete the game you then have to challenge it again with harder content. Currently the difficulty levels arent different enough, but to use Diablo 2 as an example (being the best in class) the scaling from normal to nightmare to hell was unbelievably tough. Not only did monsters get exponentially harder but you got debuffs to all your resists (hefty debuffs for hell level) meaning that your uber toon at the end of nightmare would generally struggle at the begining of Hell.

Currently POE doesnt have that balance quite right, but GGG are aware of this (as made evident by this thread)

Selectable difficulties are divisive and easy to 'exploit' (for want of a better word) they are in short problematic to implement and balance and just serve to segregate players. They are yet again something that works well in an MMO environment but badly in an ARPG. They tried this in Hellgate London and it sucked badly. Also with selectable difficulty levels you only in essence get 1 proper playthrough.

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RodHull wrote:

Again this I think comes down to a staple of the ARPG genre. Ever since the first rogue like games and Diablo 1 multiple 'difficulty' settings have been what people enjoy.

God forbid they do something differently...

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RodHull wrote:

They work well cause once you complete the game you then have to challenge it again with harder content. Currently the difficulty levels arent different enough, but to use Diablo 2 as an example (being the best in class) the scaling from normal to nightmare to hell was unbelievably tough. Not only did monsters get exponentially harder but you got debuffs to all your resists (hefty debuffs for hell level) meaning that your uber toon at the end of nightmare would generally struggle at the begining of Hell.

There is no reason we can't have that and selectable difficulties.

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RodHull wrote:

Selectable difficulties are divisive and easy to 'exploit' (for want of a better word) they are in short problematic to implement and balance and just serve to segregate players. They are yet again something that works well in an MMO environment but badly in an ARPG.

That is a load of crap. How are they easy to exploit??
What is problematic with them?

Just serve to segregate players? LOL so all you can see in selectable difficulties is that they segregate players? Then you don't undersand the first thing about it.


And yet again you stick to your ridiculous notion that ARPGS are somehow soo different from MMOs (this is an MMO, just not an EQ clone mmo) and that the world consists of MMO fans and ARPG fans,
It's getting very old.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Btah wrote:

I would like to see higher HP values (of the mobs) later in the game. I dislike it that your primary aim should be to one-hit at least the white mobs. When the whites would need 2-3 hits even for high dps builds and 4-5 for mid dps, things like utilyzing stun would get more interesting. Of course a change on the flask-system would possibly be needed according to that.

Keep in mind, that until the very last parts of the game, it should be able to beat even with non perfect gear or a more difficult, unusual build... My actual try with a simplesword and shield duelist arrived in cruel, and there is nearly no foe to be one-hitted... and there's almost never just only one foe.

Yeah but there still should be ways to buff the "random gear" or to nerf the absolute top gear to still make it possible getting through. But with more HP so many parts of the game would get more interesting that aren't worth thinking off yet imho...like stun or knockback, even from curses you get way more (never used them before Chaos too much on any character). Monsters shouldn't two-hit you then of course (so damage could be scaled down a bit).

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RodHull wrote:

They work well cause once you complete the game you then have to challenge it again with harder content.

Ack. Its comparable equal to a single-scaled world (beside the missing of different quests, of course): hack&slash against more, harder foes with also scaled abilities.

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RodHull wrote:

Currently the difficulty levels arent different enough, ... Not only did monsters get exponentially harder but you got debuffs to all your resists (hefty debuffs for hell level) meaning that your uber toon at the end of nightmare would generally struggle at the begining of Hell.

Some kinds of this penalties are still missing there, ack;

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RodHull wrote:

Currently POE doesnt have that balance quite right, but GGG are aware of this (as made evident by this thread)

but it will come in some way.

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RodHull wrote:

Selectable difficulties are divisive and easy to 'exploit' (for want of a better word) they are in short problematic to implement and balance and just serve to segregate players.

Thats what I mean too: it allows you to find one spot your char fits best, and to let this spot do all your needed levelling by scaling it with you (similar problem with unlimited levelling in D2 Cowlevel in older patches, long time ago...)

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Btah wrote:

with more HP so many parts of the game would get more interesting that aren't worth thinking off yet imho...like stun or knockback, even from curses you get way more (never used them before Chaos too much on any character). Monsters shouldn't two-hit you then of course (so damage could be scaled down a bit).

As stated by RodHull, there is a lack of some penalties on higher difficulties now, the way this will be solved later sets the route on how to keep/manage the balance.

The increased challenge by this has to be checked first, before laying hands on other scalings; it should be avoided to end up in a ping-pong style of changing values up and down to find the right middle.

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Sickness wrote:

Do you count act 2 as a higher difficulty than act 1?

beside the missing of some penalties - leading to a generally too easy playthrough, yes of course. If there were no increased diff, it would be possible to do starting in cruel with a level 1 char (beside some pro experts that would be able to manage it anyways)

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Sickness wrote:

Anyways, my point is that they are not selectable difficulty settings

And our point is, that the ability to freely scale area levels (to what it comes in the end) by owns demand lead to exploitation; just like all that askings "can I choose the MoS area which suites me best?" - players would only take the best areas (easiest/best rewarded...) and scale them up - for rewards in exp and drop.

If you bring down this idea to a minimum, you would only "need" one area which scales with your level - imaginable maybe as some kind of mirror of an big open world, like in strict RPG or even MMO.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

Do you count act 2 as a higher difficulty than act 1?

beside the missing of some penalties - leading to a generally too easy playthrough, yes of course. If there were no increased diff, it would be possible to do starting in cruel with a level 1 char (beside some pro experts that would be able to manage it anyways)

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Sickness wrote:

Anyways, my point is that they are not selectable difficulty settings

And our point is, that the ability to freely scale area levels (to what it comes in the end) by owns demand lead to exploitation; just like all that askings "can I choose the MoS area which suites me best?" - players would only take the best areas (easiest/best rewarded...) and scale them up - for rewards in exp and drop.

If you bring down this idea to a minimum, you would only "need" one area which scales with your level - imaginable maybe as some kind of mirror of an big open world, like in strict RPG or even MMO.

I also do not want selectable difficulty. At least not until someone has completed the game on all base difficulties with direct play-throughs.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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Sickness wrote:

Anyways, my point is that they are not selectable difficulty settings

And our point is, that the ability to freely scale area levels (to what it comes in the end) by owns demand lead to exploitation; just like all that askings "can I choose the MoS area which suites me best?" - players would only take the best areas (easiest/best rewarded...) and scale them up - for rewards in exp and drop.

If you bring down this idea to a minimum, you would only "need" one area which scales with your level - imaginable maybe as some kind of mirror of an big open world, like in strict RPG or even MMO.

First of all, I'm not talking about boundless scaling. Two different settings would be enough, normal and hard.

But your point is moot anyways, pre-endgame it would be pointless to do what you say, and at endgame they are already planning this.

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wyldmage wrote:

I also do not want selectable difficulty. At least not until someone has completed the game on all base difficulties with direct play-throughs.

Why not?

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Sickness wrote:

First of all, I'm not talking about boundless scaling. Two different settings would be enough, normal and hard.

Hm, so as a sort of the MXL "Hard Mode Charm"? imaginable.
But, at competetive multiplayer, it could have not much reward, for its influences on competition and economy.
And even so, it should not be available at the very start, maybe as wyldmage said, after completing the game with a char. (at least, like the restriction at D2's hardcore mode, with any char)