Difficulty mode suggestion (Based on Interview information)

For anyone who wasn't aware of the interview(Like myself until recently) The link is here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPfUcXP7AhM

In regards to this, I'd like to make a couple suggestions on something said in. Chris had said that the Ruthless difficulty was meant to be incredibly difficult. Due to failure here Merciless was created, another failed attempt at an insanely nearly impossible difficulty level.

I believe this should follow it's initially intended path. But the reasons for these failures was the negative feedback from the player base.

I have a couple suggestions how to bring back this idea. The reason being I LOVE the idea. As it is, it's just sequentially dominating the same content 4 times over before reaching end game. You just rush through the game, get to end game, then focus on your equipment. I wish for these difficulty increases to actually be difficulty increases rather than mile markers.

Suggestion one: Adding new content at these difficulty levels. As to what sorts, I'm not sure. But if you give players something to focus on while they upgrade their equipment for the difficulty that lies ahead of them, this will cut back on the negative feedback. Just going back and farming a previously completed map is no fun, especially when you see yourself as only completing half the game. Give players a place to stop and collect themselves. Maybe by introducing hidden dungeons, or perhaps keys to areas they passed in their previous adventures, leading to areas with strong bosses with rewarding loot at the expense of these keys. I'm sure there are several ways to add mid-game content. You can do this at the beginning of Ruthless and Merciless, then make the end of merciless where the truly powerful builds and skilled players stand.

I had ideas to suggest a survival mode style thing as end game content, but it seems as not only Chris already though of this, but had originally wanted the entire game to almost be a survival mode, testing you around every corner. I fully support this.

Suggestion two: Add warning flags of some sort. Give the players hints as to what is coming. If they roll from easy mode to impossible mode instantly there's sure to be plenty of complaints. Maybe throw some things in when nearing the end of a difficulty making the player go wait... This is getting kind of tough. You can increase the difficulty of the last area of a difficulty, or make a steadier transition from easy mode to impossible. Another way to do this is making bosses steadily grow even more powerful then they currently are. Or even as simple as a message or event that truly impacts the player. Make them think "Shit's gettin real now."

Basically I would really really love to see this kind of challenging game play. There are already several posts complaining about how easy the game is. I support this fully and will contribute anything I can to see it happen.

I really agree, and the interview was great.

I honestly feel like the most challenging part of the game is the first 20 levels (no twinking).

You have very limited skillgems, scrounging for any decent white/blue gear you can find...

By the time my characters get to merciless they are pretty well equipped and powerful.

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aurisacra wrote:

By the time my characters get to merciless they are pretty well equipped and powerful.

Yes :) Before you get to this point the game should really throw the book at you. Even if it's only a novel, they can throw the encyclopedia at you next difficulty :p

Just changing numbers on the excel spreadsheet, resizing mobs, tweaking colors, renaming them, randomly assigning different powers DOES NOT CONSTITUTE NEW CONTENT.

Ten years ago we spotted these cheapass dev tricks. Recycled content is not new content.


AND

Todays game are designed so whatever development resources/time is spent is implemented in a way that 100% of the player base experience it. Maelstrom of Chaos uses 100% of the game's assets. Nothing new from what we already saw on the earlier levels. No difficulty progression, except... numbers under the hood (more hp, more damage, more resistances), wich does not suffice.

Designing content for a fraction of the player base is bad design. So you cant afford to have a completelly different mob, with its specific animation, sound effects, skills, behavior that requires a particular strategy/approach, that only appears at level 60. Because that is in design, a UNIVERSAL WASTE OF RESOURCES.


So the result is this: what you have on day 1, is what you have on day 100.

Difficulty in just changing numbers, wich is the cheapest way to touch the issue. But it does not convince, satisfy for long.

It doesnt cut it, people get bored within a few days.


"Content only for the true powerfull builds, or content only for group of players"??? Just stop it right there.

Its bad design for the same reason I explained above. You dont want to focus a single man hour of your staff team on something that only a few will experience.

If you are going to create something, you make it so EVERYONE experiences it. Thats why Diablo 3 design doesnt allow people to focus on a single skill and spend 20 skill points on it, but rather force you through the devious means of cooldowns, low skill caps to forcefully use all the game's assets with the excuse of "situational" combat. In reality, its an inside balance of resources to develop versus amount of players actually using said assets. The games nowadays strive to make it so EVERYTHING is EXPERIENCED. Even if they have to add level limits, stat limits, quest completion pre-requisites, previous content usage pre-requisites and so on. Your freedom to skip any kind of content is removed. Thats the current design philosophy.

Thats why quests are offered to everyone: every player goes save the princess. Instead of having unique quests that once one player solves, nobody else can solve.

This is called "Everyone is a hero mechanics". Because you cant afford to have a group of developers working of something that will be vanish once experienced by 1 guy or group of people. So they make it so everything is "re-usable", things "re-spawn", quests can be "repeatable", nobody really affects the world or its chronology. Nobody really becomes the hero and have an statue in the center of the town. Everyone is forced to ignore the fact that everyone is on rails, doing the same content as you just did, and that you will be doing something somebody already did as well. Its phased, pocket universes, nobody affects anything for others.

You cant afford to pay someone hours and have that content be wasted in a single player like that. You cant have unique or exclusive content. Even if people pay for unique content, its simply not worth the time and effort of a dev team to make a personalized/unique quest for just a group of people.

You can have a pet on the cash shop, but its not available for just 1 player, its available for everyone who buys it. So thats not the same thing. Im talking about content that once experienced, cannot be experienced again.

You cant have someone design one awesome set of armor that only one player will be able to have. While at the same time having an ugly set of armor that everyone has access to.

You cant have a game where only people who have played 200 hours previously will have access to AWESOME things that costed developers months developing. If something took months, then its genuinely original, either new gameplay mechanics, monster unique behavior and so on.... then eventually they will go... "wait, we have all this nice things but a fraction of hour player base has access to it and most people quit before they even see it, and some even quit complaining they dont have this."

So what they do? They go and make it available to everyone, scale down what can be scaled (numbers, size, colors) while keeping the cool things (ai behavior, animation, effects, skills, specific gameplay strategy to beat said content).

And then you have the same problem... in the end of the day, what you see on day 1, is what you see on day 100. There is no sense of distinctive, extra, new elements of difficulty, but only numbers tweaked on the spreadsheet.

If you have an enemy that shoots 1 projectile at level 1, then at end game you might have it shoot 3 projectiles. But in reality, these two extra projectiles are nothing new, didnt costed anything to develop apart from teh single projectile. They are meaningless in terms of resources to develop. Its the same thing as changing monsters HP to make the battle last aritificially longer, or make monsters give less Xp to make people waste more time to level up and progress.

Now if you have the same monster use an entirelly new animation/sound effect, not used anywhere else in the game, and that only appears on that monster at level 60, then you have new content. But if its cool, why to waste such cool thing and the resources used to develop it for just a fraction of the player base? Then they go and program it for every monster lower level, just changing maybe the range, knockback strenght, and insidious numbers. And by the time you reach that level 60 and fight that same mob, the difficulty factor will be higher only due to the same reason: numbers on the spreadsheet, and not because it offers new gameplay/strategy challenges, or incentivates players brain to think new ways of dealing with the content or solve the problems. The method will be the same as the one to defeat the level 1 creature, no new neural connections will be made from that experience.

Very nice to see this kind of topic being created and brainstormed by few.

@ Interesting: These are truly truly honest thoughts, well done. Been waiting if anyone gonna mention these facts one by one, and its just done, most excellent.

Let's hope devs get the most out of this at best.

Ok, I just woke up so I hope I understood what you mentioned (I read it twice because of this) I'm also not entirely sure what parts of my post are being disagreed with.

Basically from what I've understood is that by making mid game content and increasing the difficulty it would result in denying content to part of the player base? I could be wrong, but it sounds a lot like "No one is going to finish the game."

It also sounds like you're completely denying the idea of end-game content as well. Just from the interview GGG has already expressed much desire in making end game content. Malestrom of Chaos was also said to be nothing more than testing material for other end-game content.

Repeating the same content 4 times in a row with no difference aside from "Just changing numbers on the excel spreadsheet" Sounds like a far more flawed design. Rather than having content for every level of gameplay, this repeating content creates space for extra content in mid-game situations.

Saying people won't experience this content is the same as saying people won't finish the game. If you base everything off that, you'd have to throw everything you have into the first normal difficulty, to make sure everyone gets to experience every part of your game. What happens after that? The same exact content. 3 more times. The only difference, "Numbers on a spreadsheet".

I never mentioned only making things available to a small group of people. Everyone who progresses to these difficulties should have this content readily available to them. Simply as an alternative to grinding your last area for hours to get the equipment and levels needed to progress. Something interesting and fun would be ideal.

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"Content only for the true powerfull builds, or content only for group of players"??? Just stop it right there.

This is simply a misunderstanding or an attack on word choice. But to be safe, I'll clarify. For people who have spent the time playing, have the understanding of the game, OR even just have worked hard enough to get through a challenging experience. So that when you beat the game and make it to the end game content, you can feel more accomplished than you would have if you just grind for 12 hours.

Of course, the knowledge and experience of having played the game would make this easier.

To be honest it felt more like you where trying to verse me in the difference between spread sheet numbers and new content, rather than give feedback on my post. I also believe you missed/avoided the bigger points I was trying to make in my post.

But thank you for your feedback, I was beginning to wonder if I was gonna get any at all ^^

Have to agree. If you read the OP, then read Interesting's post it kind of sounds like he completely misinterpreted the post or didn't read it at all. New content arising in higher difficulties, not just changes to spreadsheet values, is a good idea. And in no way does it limit this content to only being available to a select few players. It is available to anyone who plays the game, maybe I am misinterpreting that post but it seems like a long winded diatribe directed at game designers and did not seem to be of any relevance to the actual post. Not saying that he does not have valid points, I just dont see how they are relevant to the OPs suggestions.

I'd like some more feedback on this. I still feel it's a good idea, for the currently most disputed topic in the forums.

There are no difficulty settings.
Having a end game that is harder than early game does not constitute a difficulty setting.


Some people want a challenge, some people want it to be more relaxed.
EVERYONE wants to play through the whole game, and not be bored while doing so.
PoE has currently no way to deal with this.


I see no good reason to force everyone to play the game at the same difficulty setting.

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Sickness wrote:

There are no difficulty settings.
Having a end game that is harder than early game does not constitute a difficulty setting.


Some people want a challenge, some people want it to be more relaxed.
EVERYONE wants to play through the whole game, and not be bored while doing so.
PoE has currently no way to deal with this.


I see no good reason to force everyone to play the game at the same difficulty setting.

I am aware there are no difficulty settings. That's what this idea is suggesting changes for.

Just because everyone wants to play through does not entitle them a free ticket. Half the game could easily be designed as learning phases. By the time you hit ruthless you should know what you're doing. (with an exception to precise currency rates)

Who would want to replay a game that you can literally walk through? If you give players the option to just breeze through the game, they will do it. Very few people wish to increase difficulty for no reason other than a challenge. They expect better loot, or other rewards.

If the game is meant to be hard in the first place, a player can feel satisfied with having beaten it. Which adds replay value. As mentioned before, who wants to beat a game that has no challenge? Much less beat it again. You said so yourself, no one wants this. Despite all common sense, if you give players the option to play it on easy mode, they will. They will also complain.

As for your last comment, there are enough debates filled with your posts on optional difficulty settings. This thread is not about possible way to increase the difficulty to please everybody. What I'm looking for is why this said system could/could not work, ideas on how to avoid the massive complaints Chris received when this was initially implemented. Whether it was the wrong choice as it was decreed or if it was actually a diamond in the rough.

So I'd appreciate it if you could give feedback regarding the OP as opposed to your biased opinions on adjustable difficulty.

Sorry if that was a little harsh... But so far it feels like twisting arms to get any reasonable negative feedback.