Difficulty Level Naming

To be honest;

Cruel
Ruthless
Merciless

is an awesome naming convention.

Keep it as is!

If you want to add a ridiculous 5'th difficulty you can name it 'Double'.

Dreadnaught anyone? I don't know if someone posted that already I dont feel like reading 80 threads xD

Quake Rape!

Endless difficulty like Dark Souls. NG1 NG2 NG3 NG4 NG5 ...

I pretty much think the current naming is absolutely suiting.

Visceral

I currently really like the existing difficulty names.


I've also read somewhere that the 4th difficulty will be removed for Open Beta.

So, we will have something like:

Normal
Cruel
Ruthless or Merciless

I vote ditch Ruthless because Merciless sounds cooler. I know, this isn't up for a vote... just sayin'. ;)



Regarding the difficulty themselves...


I think that moving from the end of one difficulty to the beginning of the next should be a bigger jump in difficulty. E.g. right now, the beginning of Merciless feels exactly like the end of Ruthless in terms of difficulty.

Diablo 2 accomplished this with a resistance penalty. PoE Could do something different, but it needs to do something (imho).

Also, I think the difficulty between the acts themselves should should be ramped up a notch or two. E.g. right now, the beginning of Act 2 feels exactly like the end of Act 1 in terms of difficulty.

I don't know what D2 did, but it did something. ;) I remember my first playthrough in D2... kicking ass in Normal Act 1... when I got to Act 2 I got my clock cleaned by the first mob pack.

I had to take my ass back to Act 1 to gear/level up some more. Not a super long grind... Just something that can be accomplished in a single play session. I felt accomplishment when I went back and smeared those mobs all over the ground. :D

Aside: I didn't start playing D2 until I got out of the service (Honorably, in case anyone cares), so I'm not mis-remembering stuff that happened when I was a kid, either.

In PoE I took my very first character (Dual Claw Shadow) through Normal and into Cruel -- on Hardcore without trading for items and no real grinding whatsoever. Sure, I'm a D2 vet so I know how to click on things... but still. I've never played Hardcore mode in any game in my life, and I played this char no differently than how I would've played otherwise. ;)



Don't get me wrong -- I LOVE this game. You guys are going to do what you're going to do, and it shouldn't be any other way. That's part of the reason this game is so great -- uncompromising vision and the fortitude to see it through. Also, I had and still have loads of fun playing this game. I just think the above changes to difficulty would have enhanced my gameplay experience.

"

tpapp157 wrote:

And everyone pulls out their thesaurus.

Really, I think ness is on to something. Instead of naming the difficulties something generic you can use the opportunity to add a little more flavor to the game.

outcast -> forsaken -> banished -> exiled

Banished and Exile are kinda the same thing but this is a really good idea im trying to search for some better nouns like forbiddance ....

"

Silver wrote:

Here's some names that I like -

- Brutal

- Cutthroat (Might be misconstrued)

- Relentless

- Merciless

- Infernal

If I can think of any more I'll post them, these sound pretty good to me.

well i know we got them up to merciless but what possibly

-unfathomable

I like the sound of Roughshod for the middle difficulty and something like Merciless/Suicidal for the final difficulty


But I also liked the idea with the "Path of ...."-style, so:

Path of Exile
Path of Exasperation
Path of Exitus

but for the sake of simplicity - keep it short and snappy