I recently returned to the game and brought along 3 others who have never played any Diablo games before (you’re welcome, Blizzard), wanting to just play the story together with all this new found time for gaming we all have!
For a bit of context, I leveled a WD to 60 at launch, then a Crusader to 70 with the release of RoS, and am now back a third time. I’ve never taken the game seriously though, I know next to nothing about endgame content and as in the past, am generally just wanting to replay through the story with friends.
My problem is the difficulty (or lackthereof). Because I’ve played through the story in the past I’ve unlocked harder difficulties up to torment 10 I think? Which is fine, that would be plenty hard (likely way too hard) for what we’re trying to get from the game. However, because my friends have only just purchased the game the highest difficulty they can play is expert (3rd easiest out of like 15 difficulties??). Meaning if we want to play as a group the hardest we can play through our first story campaign together is ridiculously easy, even for people who have never played a game like this before. Am I missing something here or is this just how it is? Your first playthrough just has to be stupidly easy? I’m pretty sure back when I played in the past there were only like 3 or so difficulties, similar to D2? And normal was at least somewhat of a challenge, and boss fights would be tricky the first time around.
We’re still enjoying the game somewhat but all we want to is have some modicum of difficulty in our playthrough, especially because we’re not hardcore players and will likely only play through once all together.
Thanks for reading and clearing this up for me!
Edited because I’m not sure I made it clear enough in my OP: the game won’t allow us to raise the difficulty any higher than ‘expert’.
Yes, 1-70 is now incredibly easy compared to the vanilla experience. Once you all hit 70, you have access to up to Torment 16 where things will definitely give you a run for your money for a while. You’ll also get access to Greater Rifts which have huge difficulty levels.
So who tf in the dev team thought this would be a good idea? Who would want their first play through to be this mindless? I don’t understand Blizzard’s train of thought here…
We’re almost finished Act 2 but tbh I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince my buddies to finish the first playthrough unless it gets a bit harder soon. It’s a joke.
Keep going. Act 2 is mostly pushover anyway. The only real threat is the lacuni and the wasps. You’ll see more powerful stuff in Acts 4 and 5. Even that may be too easy. Eventually the game will allow you to increase the difficulty. My account is old, so I can go up to Torment 6 at lvl 1. I do not know what the current restrictions are on fresh accounts. Trust us. The game gets a lot more challenging.
As for the design decision, this changed with the ROS expansion. The majority of the game was played at lvl 70. Getting there was just a nuisance that was extensively whined about, so they made it progressively easier to level. Now, leveling from 1-70 is a cakewalk that can be done solo in only a few hours, and grouped, even faster than that with the right preparation. It’s essentially a game mechanics tutorial, where they slowly introduce you to gems and sockets, creating a proper build, using the various skill runes, etc. The game designers of D3 have made a lot of questionable decisions, this is one of several I personally don’t like because it creates the experience you’re having now, where the story mode - the introduction to the game - is not fun to play.
No, you can’t do that as a new player. The Game Guide covers it Diablo III
When you start up a game of Diablo III, you’ll be able to select the difficulty level you’d like to play on. By default, Normal, Hard, and Expert are available. You’ll unlock Master difficulty when any of your characters completes the game, and Torment difficulty when any of your characters reaches level 60.
Oh, and by complete the game they mean the story line.
Game was made for console users in mind so having fast reaction times and engaging combat is really hard to make super casual so the entire game suffers from the lack luster combat and gameplay loop.
It’s why when you get geared you just kill 100s of guys at once because there’s no meaningful and deep combat mechanics just a lot of passive garbage. It’s the same problem with BFA. Hopefully blizzard quits trying to make ultra hyper casual friendly games anymore and starts making some with real depth.
Can’t you raise the difficulty level, then invite your friends to join? While they can’t raise the difficulty level past Expert, you should be able to. Of course, you would always have to be the one to invite them into your game, but if you are planning on playing the entire campaign this way, it shouldn’t be an issue.
You can raise the difficulty to T6 no matter if you play the story line or the Adv mode. But if you want to go past T6 you will have to reach lvl 70 before you can switch to a higher T lvl. That is in a private game.
Even with a new account, wouldn’t they have access to Adventure mode during the season, and could go higher than Expert there up to T6?
I have no way to test this, short of buying an account, but non-season I would guess what is said is correct. But if they were to pop into seasons and go that route…
You are not new here so you already know the answer. The Community Manager is the one who passes on feedback, not me. I don’t have any contacts within the Classic Team who handles D3. My contact was Nevalistis. MVPs don’t have contact with the Devs.
Regardless, even if I could, they are not going to change the difficulty levels at this point, especially mid season. I don’t even expect it in a future patch. Most people go through that leveling phase so fast that the game being too easy at first is a minor inconvenience.
It is a complaint that comes up from time to time though.
But this is probably true for non season only?
I have seen new players with only a sub-20 non season char and PLed them in season on T6 with no problem.
Probably not. Same as in normal mode - you can’t start a T16 game with a lvl1 in party or invite him to a running gt16 game.