The 3 difficulty mechanic is outdated IMO

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polak86 wrote:

All I know is that every time I get to act 3, my fun halts completely. Act 1-2 is continuously fun, but every time I get to act 3, I'd rather not.

The fun stops for me when I enter Vaal Ruins. It's such a boring slog through the rest of the game from that point. I feel bad saying that cause they worked so hard on act 3, just wish they'd condense it a little bit.

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Barry wrote:

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polak86 wrote:

All I know is that every time I get to act 3, my fun halts completely. Act 1-2 is continuously fun, but every time I get to act 3, I'd rather not.

The fun stops for me when I enter Vaal Ruins. It's such a boring slog through the rest of the game from that point. I feel bad saying that cause they worked so hard on act 3, just wish they'd condense it a little bit.

I agree with you there bud. I love these Devs and this game. The fact that they pulled such an amazing game off is incredible. However these things we are mentioning, while minor to some are nuisances to many others and game stoppers. Act 1 feels incredibly fun and it is the perfect length. Every time I run it I don't mind it at all. Now if only act 2 and especially act 3 felt the same it would be amazing!

Reminds me of titan quest, tbh. I dont think i ever actually found time to beat the game, but daaaaaaamn it was long.

What if when Dominus tells you this world is an illusion, he means it! The second difficulty is the real world, things are much more vicious, its harder to stay alive, etc... all your trip through the first version was just to prepare you mentally. Quests and other things may be different then in the second difficulty. XD

Act 3 length is perfectly fine. The problem with the act is the amount of life like half the monsters have. Shit dies more easily in the next difficulty act 1 than in the act 3 you're in.

And I disagree with not having a 3-difficulty model: 2 difficulties would make the jump in resist drops much more severe and have a much bigger effect. Not to mention that you can probably do all 3 acts on all difficulties in like 3-4 evenings anyway.

I love Act I and II's pace but III is way off. Dominus should have been saved for Act IV and Act III chopped in half. Don't need four sewer areas, a tiresome warehouse section, etc. Act III is the only time I rush through without taking the time to clear everything.

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BlondeKnight wrote:

I love Act I and II's pace but III is way off. Dominus should have been saved for Act IV and Act III chopped in half. Don't need four sewer areas, a tiresome warehouse section, etc. Act III is the only time I rush through without taking the time to clear everything.

Nailed it.

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BlondeKnight wrote:

I love Act I and II's pace but III is way off. Dominus should have been saved for Act IV and Act III chopped in half. Don't need four sewer areas, a tiresome warehouse section, etc. Act III is the only time I rush through without taking the time to clear everything.

Guess what: you're not supposed to clear everything.

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Hodari wrote:

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polak86 wrote:

And I understand that the devs mentioned long ago(I THINK), that with enough acts implemented, the difficulty system will be taken out completely and the levels will just be scaled.

Yes. From what I understand, Act 4 is scheduled to be added sometime around next spring, with another act each year after that. Odds are, once act 4(or at most 5) is added, they'd remove Cruel difficulty, leaving just 2. Then as more acts are added, it could go to something more like how descent races work where you only go through each zone once and after a certain point it just moves to the next "difficulty" setting.

Keep in mind that during closed beta, there used to be *4* difficulties(and only 2 acts), so this process has already started.

This is a great design.

I don't really have an opinion on that, it's just that I wonder why you say "outdated". As far as I know there are no arpgs with a more "modern" style. One could actually say that, with games today being much more expensive and risky to make than they were, recycling content is the most modern way to do it.

The word "outdated" gets flung around too easily these days. No full respec? Outdated. No map? Outdated. No quest-markers and other handholding? Outdated.
I really get angry sometimes because I think this word is used only because it's considered to have the most impact. And usually by people with a sense of entitlement.

I'm not saying that you are one of those people. I think you have a legitimate concern. It's just the wrong word here in my opinion.

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polak86 wrote:

All I know is that every time I get to act 3, my fun halts completely. Act 1-2 is continuously fun, but every time I get to act 3, I'd rather not.

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BlondeKnight wrote:

I love Act I and II's pace but III is way off. Dominus should have been saved for Act IV and Act III chopped in half. Don't need four sewer areas, a tiresome warehouse section, etc. Act III is the only time I rush through without taking the time to clear everything.

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AelloonAct wrote:

3 length is perfectly fine. The problem with the act is the amount of life like half the monsters have. Shit dies more easily in the next difficulty act 1 than in the act 3 you're in.

These three quotes couldn't be more true for me. I just hate Act 3 every single time. I dread it so much that when I get to it, a lot of the time I just reroll a new character. If I can be bothered to make it through though, I LOVE running Act 1 and 2 again.

I don't think 3 difficulties is outdated at all, I just think they shouldn't be INSANELY hard for people with 100+ hours of game time (me). Maybe I'm just terrible lol, but I prefer to not twink; and this makes shit hard. D3 made it too easy (except untwinked inferno) and D2 was incredibly tough for weapon-based builds unless you got lucky.

Maybe two difficulties with the 3rd being scaled to your level? So you can farm the early areas if you so desire.