Choose Your Own Difficulty In PoE - Does It Work?

So we all know that PoE isn't a game with a difficulty slider. However, there are various systems in the game through which you can, if you want, tailor the difficulty of the game to what you can handle. Map tiers are the oldest example, but they're also part of the progression system so I'd rather not count them. But many recent leagues had mechanics that sorta worked like this - and were even acknowledged as such. Legion league, for example, allowed you to decide how much of the army you felt ready to face (but then got bogged down by the fact that apart from certain builds you couldn't actually release the whole army in time even if you wanted to). But most recently Metamorph league allows you to tailor the difficulty of the custom boss monster you'll be facing - even down to the level of choosing to not have them have certain attacks or traits i.e. their very mechanics (rather than just a slider or two for HP and damage multipliers).

But how much do people actually use this ability? When people complain about the metamorphs being too hard, does it strike them that they had the opportunity to make it easier? Why didn't they? Also, consider this comparison - Dark Souls 2. Those in the know know that choosing to play a ranged character, especially a mage, is effectively a hidden difficulty slider in Dark Souls. The game is balanced around melee, and so rather than putting in a clunky difficulty menu, like every other game, they chose to allow your playstyle determine what difficulty you wanted to play on. There are pros and cons to this approach, but I want to focus on the reaction to it - before long people figured it out and thereafter people playing wizards in Dark Souls became the butt of jokes. So if you choose Easy mode on a game menu you're dismissed (or even just internally feel bad), and even a more subtle attempt at a difficulty mechanic is also dismissed (or ditto the same feeling). What could PoE do then? Is there any way to design this game or league where people don't feel compelled to bite off more than they can chew?

P.S.:- Note that I know even Metamorph ties its rewards to the difficulty of the mob you spawn, but I rather doubt that's the only reason people choose the hardest mods. It's (mostly) random rares anyway. And also especially since it's not as simple as a damage/hp slider - the real Metamorph danger comes from giving them certain mechanics (whose names you'll quickly learn through experience), whose rewards may be comparable to any of the other choices, yet people give them those attacks anyway (the only major exception I know of i.e. where a lot people do seem to be avoiding it, is the Regen mod, mainly cos they find those fights tedious, rather than difficult).

I think the problem with it is I'm not going to give up a good reward just to make the fight easier. That just goes completely against how I play these games. I'd rather die over and over than take the lower loot option. It might at some point frustrate me and cause me to dislike the league, and that might be my own fault, but I think there's some basic psychology there and most people are going to feel the same way. For a difficulty option to really work it has to not affect rewards.

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Astasia wrote:

I think the problem with it is I'm not going to give up a good reward just to make the fight easier. That just goes completely against how I play these games. I'd rather die over and over than take the lower loot option. It might at some point frustrate me and cause me to dislike the league, and that might be my own fault, but I think there's some basic psychology there and most people are going to feel the same way. For a difficulty option to really work it has to not affect rewards.

Yeah but making so all contents lead to the same reward no matter the difficulty, makes so there is no incentive to ever do hard content lol. With that the psychology effect is that most will only do the "easy way".

We are already taking the aftershocks of it from the minion league, where the majority of the playerbase was introduced and "spoiled" with minions afk play style. Why would anyone play a self-cast aim build, if you can just summon some dudes that kill everything around you for way cheaper without needing any input from you (i like minion builds btw).

But going this reward route has some dire consequences for a game in the long run.

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Mortyx wrote:

Why would anyone play a self-cast aim build, if you can just summon some dudes that kill everything around you for way cheaper without needing any input from you (i like minion builds btw).

Just fyi, I've played a minion build only once in my 5+ years of playing this game - and it wasn't last league, plus I also disliked the build (as I'd expected). Don't play totem builds either. And I don't think I'm alone. Playstyle does matter to people.

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Exile009 wrote:

So we all know that PoE isn't a game with a difficulty slider.

PoE is a game with a difficulty slider though. 16 tiers of maps and your choice to run them white/blue/yellow/vaald

and with or w/o sextants, scarabs, and zana mods.

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Mortyx wrote:

With that the psychology effect is that most will only do the "easy way".

That's fine. Difficulty options should be just that, an option, for the people that want the challenge. I'm playing a non-meta self-cast SSF build this league, because I find it fun. I'm not playing HC, because I don't want that level of logout macro, I mean challenge, but if HC had a +200% loot rate or something I might feel obligated to play it.

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innervation wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

So we all know that PoE isn't a game with a difficulty slider.

PoE is a game with a difficulty slider though. 16 tiers of maps and your choice to run them white/blue/yellow/vaald

and with or w/o sextants, scarabs, and zana mods.

That isn't what's considered a difficulty slider. Conventional difficulty choices are options to alter the whole game's difficulty, not merely picking easier and harder zones to play. There're other ways to do difficulty - the post even mentions another of them - and they aren't called difficulty sliders either.

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Astasia wrote:

That's fine. Difficulty options should be just that, an option, for the people that want the challenge.

Two things drive players to return league after league. Economy resets & races.

If you want a game like Torchlight that has no risk vs reward (ie difficulty sliders) they could only feasibly do that by putting you in a ssf league with no option to migrate.

This is kind of a core business model aspect, and a total non starter

If you don't constantly go after the biggest rewards you are not doing it right.

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Zakaluka wrote:

If you want a game like Torchlight that has no risk vs reward (ie difficulty sliders) they could only feasibly do that by putting you in a ssf league with no option to migrate.

This is kind of a core business model aspect, and a total non starter

SSF isn't running on a unique set of hardware or anything, it's actually using the same servers and instancing as the base league. If you are saying creating a bunch of different league options for varying difficulties isn't feasible, it is, with only relatively minor alterations required to keep track of extra league type options. I don't think it's required though, I think HC and SSF are good enough in terms of difficulty options. Players can tailor the experience themselves if they want more or less challenge, following a faceroll meta build if they want to semi-afk through the game, or creating their own unique builds around underused (and generally underpowered) mechanics if they want more of a challenge.