It's Hard

As much as I'm personally enjoying the difficulty tweak - I do think that it's gone from being too easy to too hard for the initial difficulty/act.

Hardcore players and vets of the game can probably manage fine - but for total newbies to the game - I can see it being too off putting. I don't see the harm in reducing the difficulty of the First Act / Normal a little bit to help ease players into the game.

It's like the difficulty went from 3 to 11 - maybe it needs to be dialed back to about an 8.

I'm fine with hard, however it needs to be a 'smart hard', not 'dumb hard', and chain-cold snapping/flickering/off screen firing enemies tend to be in the 'dumb hard' category, especially when characters have not had the time yet to get the gear and passives to make the situation manageable.

I do think that some of this could be offset if a) You got a quest reward early on that was a flask with a 'Dispel Chill', b) Have Nesse always have sapphire rings.

Ease players into things, then it's like 'Oh hey, Flasks have effects that help!' and 'Oh, resist gear matters' - leave the need for farming/etc for later acts and difficulties.

I'm fine (and prefer) for later difficulties to get extremely hard, with the final end-game levels getting into the 'stupid for the hardcore only territory'. But GGG risks scaring off more players than attracting them with the current difficulty of act1/normal.

Nothing impossibly-hard level on any place of the game speaking for Normal. Remember every difficulty should be challenging from start to finish as of now, patch is successful doing that, except some nerfing could be done for specific skill using monsters solely, but thats all.

I actually having real fun that i have never had till this patch arrived, honestly. Thinking and using my brain on a game was never that much funny.

Just try your hardest and never surrender, you won't believe yourself how much you will have, i mean it !

Quite liking the new difficulty overall (monsters, loot mechanics, the works). Alter the coldsnap / flicker type skills so theyre not autohit and the patch is pretty much perfect.

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kaniz wrote:

It's like the difficulty went from 3 to 11 - maybe it needs to be dialed back to about an 8.

I'm fine with hard, however it needs to be a 'smart hard', not 'dumb hard', and chain-cold snapping/flickering/off screen firing enemies tend to be in the 'dumb hard' category, especially when characters have not had the time yet to get the gear and passives to make the situation manageable.

Ease players into things, then it's like 'Oh hey, Flasks have effects that help!' and 'Oh, resist gear matters' - leave the need for farming/etc for later acts and difficulties.

Couldn't agree more. The distinction between smart hard and dumb hard is extremely important especially in this genre of gaming.
Really hope they pick up on this and quick-fix the difficulty soon.

There is a big difference between "challenging" and "frustrating"

Challenging is good. It forces people to think and plan instead of blindly rushing in and spamming skills.

Challenging allows someone who plans ahead and thinks about an engagement to emerge victorious with a sense of accomplishment.

Frustrating is bad. It rewards people running in and spamming skills hoping they kill things before things kill them because they've got a 50/50 chance of dying anyway.

Frustrating is getting frozen by cold snap (with as much cold resist gear as you can reasonably obtain at a given level) and instantly gibbed by flicker striking skeletons who popped out from around a corner.

Frustrating is having this happen even with EVERY SINGLE PASSIVE POINT IN DEFENSIVE NODES (and did I mention cold resist gear? pretty sure I did).

Frustrating makes me want to warn my friends away from buying in to the game or trying over the open beta weekend.

Frustrating definitely does not make me want to run around telling everyone I know about how awesome a game is.

Frustrating is shitty, it's annoying, and it's indicative of poor design and lack of foresight by the development team.

New AI? It's great. It's challenging. New mob skills? Need looked at, they can be very FRUSTRATING.

Why is there no resist curse gear? Why are mobs using un-dodgeable skills? Why is cold damage so completely out of line compared to every other type of damage?

Come on guys. Make the game challenging, not this scream-of-hate inducing frustrating bullshit it is right now.

Not eve going to touch on drop rates or how jacked up summon AI is right now.

Well, I just lost a lv 11 HC Marauder to, surprisingly, burning damage - from a unique goat shaman in the Rocky Climb. This was a shock because burning never really hurt before, and this time it actually outdamaged my potion so I died even though I escaped off screen with Shield Charge.

I think most enemy damage in Act I could be dialed down a notch. Also, Necromancers tend to be the most resilient target and there's just no way to sit there and wail on them while a reraised pack of cold mages destroys you. They should lose a little HP.

Part of the problem is there's no development yet; I'm still looking for a decent skill gem to show up in a drop or quest reward. I've only just hit the level req for resist rings and haven't geared up yet. I focused on damage passives first and haven't had a chance to get HP and armor/resists yet... etc.

I find myself just avoiding quite a few fights because I know I'll die: Hailrake (usually come for him later), False God, Necromancers... the going's slow so I haven't made it to the Cold Snap/Flicker Strike mobs causing so much grief.

On the other hand, every area requires adaptation and is more interesting now with all the new enemy skills. It's a huge step in the right direction, just needs some balancing.

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deMoxE wrote:

I like it.

I know that feedback hammer will come very soon including words: this is impossible, that is terrible etc.

I'd like to see devs carefully look into this. The game seems to be much much better when monsters actually force to start thinking instead of mindless clicking with one ability. And harder mean always better this direction is right direction !

I like the lowered drops too now it will take more than week for me to get godlike EQ and wealth again ^^. I just hope it will be possible to farm solo instead of party / leecher farming only and those rates were improved.

Small suggestion for now, is freeze mechanic fix/addjust ... I mean It's goddamn too annoying it either freeze you totally or don't work at all (high cold resist owns) I think it would work much better with slower freeze duration and longer chill duration so the slow effect would be harmful but player would be avaliable to have at last illusion he can do something more than waiting for death.

Thank you so much. When I opened this topic I though it was another whinefest. But there are still some reasonable people on this forum.

Although it doesnt really bother me I have to say the general masses will be pretty frustrated by the current difficulty of the game. Some players will be simply running past every rare mob that looks like trouble and power level at easymode fellshrine , telling everyone they suck , compounding the problem. I think certain combinations of mods on rares can get out of control. What is a mage supposed to do when attacked by a rare with puncture, haste, all elemental resistances etc. If he runs hes dead..if he stands and fights hes dead. The new lightning mobs are slightly out of control also.

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CptLain wrote:

Frustrating is getting frozen by cold snap (with as much cold resist gear as you can reasonably obtain at a given level) and instantly gibbed by flicker striking skeletons who popped out from around a corner.

Wippt's current favorite piece of equipment:



Go ahead. Cold snap me. You're dead in 2 seconds.