yea in my version they cost more mana xD
And I would understand learning them later but still I like it to be a connected tree but also not with prerequisites
Maybe with a tree like we currently have but sorted, there could be a single nod at the bottom that you can infinitely put points into and it increases fire/ice/shock damage and moves you up the skilltree without having to invest into skills
I don’t know if its possible to properly balance such a thing but titan quest kinda had it
I get where you come from but strongly advice go against the “been there done that” route
The game must be FAIR and “gimped” at start
Your skills must feel “incomplete” at first so that when you either unlock or find an affix that makes it better/convenient/more-reusable, you’ll appreciate the upgrade/addition
ALSO, additional benefit of not having “I’m the master of the universe” skills when upgraded some nodes that the game won’t need to “cheat” into unfair stuff (or unfair mobs), just to “pose” a challenge
Again, that’s a simple math problem, if you have to “keep adding stuff” then you better make sure that there’s some “prephase” where not much stuff will be added at all… I really wouldn’t mind if less than 3 items per level drop at first 5 levels for example, don’t need to be “showered” in gear, give me HP potions, resistance potions, armor potions, shield enchants, weapon enchants, spell enchants, mirror images, scrolls of avalanches/falling-rocks, whatever that makes you “phew that was damn good” when used it the right way and right time… Stuff like those
Keeping the game “scarce” makes the endgame more appreciative and balanced, start the game as a “game starts from lvl10 premade vs lvl1 mobs” just not it tbh, don’t need to make “sure” that a mob from first 3-4 sections from act 1 won’t be able to kill us (or even worse, whole act 1 except boss)
It should really feel something like (add to these numbers below 10-15% if playing bad per section)
Act 1 - chance to die per waypoint (15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%)
Act 2 - chance to die per waypoint (25%, 30%, 35%, 45%, 50%, 55%)
Act 3 - chance to die per waypoint (30%, 35%, 45%, 50%, 55%, 65%)
Act 4 - chance to die per waypoint (30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 65%, 75%)
Ofcourse, these numbers on the very first gameplay will be a tad higher, but you get the idea… And think of the phrase “chance to die” more like “chance to die 5 times” at a certain spot 
, so the table abovewritten (die once at those) is true after some 5-10 attempts of gameplay/character 
You get the idea the bottomline is:
Don’t take pride in beating the game, take pride in not dying where most die (or you died often before)
THAT’s a real nice way to “celebrate small successes” at a time, and make you trully appreciate the game/dept more
Heck, even put a death counter if need be and “count” per act, if you die less than 10 times, that’s a damn nice goal achieved, if it’s between 10 and 30, that’s ok, if it’s above 50 then you’re (probably) doing something wrong :P, the point is (again)
Make the game feel like it has IT’S OWN SKILL GROWTH (regardless of how many RPG’s or otherwise, you’ve played before)
And OFCOURSE, again, the very important aspect of all that is = FAIR, make deaths be/feel FAIR, not have some “super armored dude that outruns you no matter what” and can kill you 1v1 lol… (or can’t focus fast enough even with highest DPS focus and whatnot), or easily “smokes” 1/3 of your HP even when tanky in build per hit, but there are (and engage at a time) more… Let’s say 2 of them SHOULD kill you unless you’re using your “tactical bonuses” the right way and right timings & whatnot, but again - game SHOULD celebrate not beating it, but more like focused on celebrating proper-gameplay/survival
It ALSO makes it much easier to balance it that way on the long term… i.e. NO LONGER will each new level have to have “almost 50% more HP” than the ones in previous level, but just add some small damage buff to them and increase HP by some 20% and voila = there you go
I’m personally more on the side of having a difficult campaign too, but let’s face it, no H&S ever have had that. It’s a very newbie-friendly genre.
Ok, many recent games offer difficulty options on the first run (Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn, even D3 if I’m not mistaken) but it wouldn’t work on D4’s open-world design. Though I definiteley hope there will be some kind of Nightmare mode available at level 40.
TQ’s masteries is probably the best design for a H&S skilltree ever. It’s concise, easy to get and offers replayability. And it’s so fun to mix different masteries !
Indeed. It’s just impossible to offer a satisfying difficulty to both veterans and newcomers. The best they can do is have hard optional dungeons and a high variability for monster packs.
I think D4’s Talent tree, which still exists under the Skill tree by the way, works more like the old WoW’s Talent trees, you need to invest points into skills to unlock higher tiers. It’s slightly different from TQ/GD which has a separate mastery bar you need to invest on to unlock more skills, so no need to take any unwanted skill of talent.
True. I’d prefer to see somerhing along the lines of Last Epoch. Maybe have three small branches for each talent, then maybe have an ultimate passive that would effect them all.
Talent
Path 1. Path 2. Path 3
Ultimate passive
Not too exorbitant simple enough to grasp with some depth for each talent. That way you can choose the talent you want, not have to worry about prereqs(except in the passive modification of them), and if you want to hit that big passive it could come at the expense of costing significant resources.
However passive skills are a different story than active skills
I am OK with spending points in passive skills to work my way to a capstone its not something that is wasted if it won’t end up in my skillbar
Then don’t call it H&S, if not want to make it a H&S just make it what it is “dungeon crawler”
IDK about T2 never played it, GD is super bad/boring/disastrous, you attach those components that make you go superman mode and from the get-go you have a nasty summoner that you can’t even damage without proper AoE and that fight alone takes like 10 minutes (sometimes even longer) lol
D3 is even worse, if you start on T1/2/3 what you get is “zombies that can’t even get to you” but take forever to kill lol… I guess if you play melee is fine but again, there’s way too much “here I am for the experience, look at me” kind of mob rather than a one that tries to engage (but doesn’t take forever to kill) tbh
The one game that I LOVE that mode of (it’s called masochist mode) is Last Epoch, but the problem on that one is:
A - no subsequent damage reduction (not even option, one zombie hits you, 5 arrows follow, dead in 1 volley, especially cause the very first archers in that game have semi/homing missiles from the get-go :P)
B - super “unfair” stuff, “crits at high distance” combined with homing missile basic attack (I mean WTF), or even
C - super aggressive “tortured scorpions” from 3rd waypoint that simply kill you outright 1v1, they have super high damage with their tail pierce attack and isn’t even dodgeable (or at least highly undodgeable)
IF LE can simply “dial down” on those unfair stuff and allow us to either have affixes of type “reduced projectile damage taken” or “subsequent damage reduced by” but even more importantly - remove hit-stun from the VERY BASIC (2-3 hit to kill) mobs, would be “ideal” IMO… Ofcourse under the condition that “consumables” which give defensive/tactical (or even ofensive bonuses at times), at least at the beginning of acts, more often, and to be frank, that’s how I’d go with D4
IDK much about other classes but say the Sorc:
You start with the basic attack and 1 skill (Arc lash) but the Arc-lash doesn’t even have knockback by default but just “shocks” a mob for a split second so you can hit it again (or 2 times if wanna live more dangerous), then the next skill that unlocks is Frostbolt but it’s “gimped” like 7-8 pixels wide and travels only like 1/3 of your visible radius and takes 4 “chills” to freeze a target & such
The cool part about this is you can make it such that say on lvl2 you unlock either:
A - Arc-lash and Frostbolt distance
B - Frost-bolt damage and faster chill
C - Arc-last giving you a “lightning shield” after few charges of it’s use
D - Some generic upgrade for basic stats & whatnot
That very first decision will ALREADY impact your further not just gameplay but also gear-search
If you start with a “projectile that travels forever” then, what’s the point ?, is the first challenge you’ll get another archer ? , and if it is, what will the damage be for ex. ?
That’s what I’d like to see - start “gimped”, start “incomplete” and “appreciate” the whole step/phase of progress made (and chances are different drops even with same build will feel “different” onward, at least at the very beginning of things for a while) tbh
Why don’t you just use infernal traps that can be hidden or triggered by the player instead of forcing them a hard fight? Just an idea.
Actually developers thought the same and sent their registered players a huge anniversary e-mail a few years ago. Mail celebrated an anniversary or something I think, can’t find it at the moment.
E-mail shortly listed some game related records that players reached as memories of the past along this 20 years. Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone; a complete list of highlighted player statistics recorded. It raised a few questions when they stated that tons of hardcore heroes died in Diablo 3, while for WoW it was simply something about PvP grounds. People simply asked if that shows that players are determined or their servers plain bad.
Who knows, right?
Yeah, just look at Metroid Dread.Metroid vets are clearing 100% runs in sub 8 hours, while new comers are stuck on bisses because they can’t learn patterns citing the game being too hard.
Yeah, the issue with WoWs old trees is it was filled with a bunch if useless passives that you had to take and there really was no alternatives. Every spec was almost 100% identical.
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That’s not because the game was hard, but because it was super unfair overall
Jailor ?, undodgeable damage and CC, Vortex ?, undodgeable CC, Invulnerable minions ?, walls out of nowhere every 3 seconds ? check, walls stacking on one another ?, check, ENRAGE elite mechanic (didn’t kill it for 2 minutes ?, now there’s a “bloodsucking aura” you can’t even see on the whole screen) ?, check
I mean WTF
The problem WASN’t that players died in that game, the problem was HOW, it was “unbeatable” not cause it was difficult but cause counterplay material was super scarce to none, as well as even gear not feeling like providing difference/impact other than stacking up damage & resistance
And to be super frank there weren’t even consumables to help tactically were they ?, everything that was even remotely tactical was “on CD”, Frost-Nova ? on CD, Wave ?, on CD, Ground stomp ?, on CD, Ignore pain ?, on CD, Globe ?, picked up unintentionally 
There weren’t even “secondary tactical tools” to make us “optimise” for lack of initial/locked build strength, instead we were “thrown into a lake of fire” and asked to get out of it tbh… Heck even the initial Ghom fight - if they just gave us a tool to make him “silenced” for a while instead of fart the whole room, people would’ve appreciated the “hard to kill” game design IMO
I give it to you it was so intricately designed and original, it confused lots of new players but it was ground-breaking at the end of the day. You supposed to figure out and play a mass crowd control heavy build as a starter then move onto the balance between damage dealing and defense as you upgrade your gear slowly.
Idea was dedicated players figuring out something to share it with community so things would move forward. To their surprise nobody really figured out the classes balance between damage over time and crowd control as items were a huge variable to a build’s stability here. A build may work for someone, but for another it’s useless because it doesn’t have the required stats or damage output capability. Diablo 3 preparation and optimization was so complicated compared to the Diablo 2’s simple adaptation flow.
You supposed to grab more damage to elites affix just to get that health globe drops they scatter around at certain thresholds. People shrugged but more elite damage usually equal to more frequent globe spawn when fighting elites. If you rely on your potion cooldown alone you would get cornered when you went through all attacks that has cooldown or at the down time of your buffs.
You ain’t supposed to move unless you get stuck in Diablo 3 classic. Large pickup radius would immediately pick nearby globes if you have to move out. Also as I remember, lifesteal (Barbarian belts) were a thing back then on top of life per Spirit spent and life on hit too.
Position heavy fight where you follow along the corners of the area as you fight Ghom. To recall, reduced damage from melee and ranged still exist back then but very rare to find in the market or from drops.
To add, if you could silence any boss or elite, game wouldn’t have dynamic combat feeling to begin with; it’d promote such gameplay if it were to exist as it’s rather a foolproof way to clear content.
See, I appreciate your insight but also not… I can 99% tell you that I played optimal timing/planned fights and still things like “stuck between 3 walls” or that last avenger dude in the pack has 10% HP but kills you before you kill it, GL killing it 1v1 later with quarter/half refilled HP
There’s (again) inherent difference between HARD content and UNFAIR one (requiring to know internal/secrets of a design)
HARD content (usually) wears the player down bit by bit and they die when they get “out of what to use anymore” or “overplay a hand at wrong time” & stuff… UNFAIR design is well, unfair… No matter how good your placement is or your CD timed usage or your anti-body-blocked movement and sticking near to walls & stuff, there will STILL be something that either one-shots you or simply get you “out of safety” without any counterplay available what-so-ever (Vortex), and such
That’s a problem, first of all initial D3 affixes though initially fun at first sight, made both no sense but more importantly - had zero to none counterplays, THAT is an issue
Sure, we all know there were some Korean dudes that killed Diablo on Inferno within a week or so after the game’s initial release but here’s the thing - 10 streamers beating the game doesn’t equal beatable (or not)
The problems of D3 weren’t (again) in the difficulty, but rather the fact that the counterplay (for the most part) was zero to none, and the fairness levels were pretty damn low (to almost non-existant at times). Stuff that killed you was either undodgeable or too hard to “defend through” with stuff
Don’t think that it takes too long to realise that non-dodgeable CC is an unfair design, don’t think that “invulnerable minions” takes a long time to realise it’s unfair design, don’t think that takes long to realise that if the very first flyer/mob in an act takes 3 hits of it’s subsequent projectiles to kill is an unfair design
THAT’s the issue, lack of fairness, (not difficulty) tbh… Sometimes sure, can be hard, but think it’s at utmost importancy to understand the DIFFERENCE between those 2 things for a healthy difficulty/progression game/mob design
Not if that wasn’t “everything” the boss does… Could’ve added IDK worm birthers if need be that may drop a globe here & there, and the “position-heavy” wasn’t really the optimal way to describe, it’s more like “space optimisation” rather, even after the nerf there was super gradual nuance whether you manage to get a poison-free spot in the whole room after a while
I get it, that’s the way they liked it and that’s fine, the PROBLEM was that, you also had a DPS “threshold” to win that fight, don’t think that that’s the right way to approch stuff, if you play well and time stuff well - should (probably) be able to win a “slower” fight (and not be artificially DPS-requirement timed)
Just some stuff to keep in mind , don’t think it’s really hard to narrow fair & difficult where most of the mistakes were misplays by the player vs unfair & difficult where most of the “conditions” to win a fight lie in “thresholds” of a stat in gear/character and/or “internal” ingame details (& potential stat thresholds) tbh
Same here, that kind of tree wouldn’t work for active skill. Even for Talents, I think TQ/GD system is better.
But I want Diablo 4 to be a H&S.
GD was great imo, combat was not that easy, even on normal there was severe difficulty spikes if you ventured in some optional zones.
And there’s not just zombies in D3. ^^ Many enemies are dangerous for ranged characters and difficulty increases very fast when you level up (which doesn’t make sense, but well). Balance is a mess though, I agree on the monsters being PV dumpsters, the game was never intented to be played starting in T2+ and it shows.
I haven’t played LE yet, don’t have a computer to play it comfortably, but I’m eager to try it when it releases (and is more properly balanced) ! 
GD IMO was terrible beyond belief lol, and here are some of those flaws (just of the top of my mind):
1 - most of GD fights were:
- kill everyone but one dude in 3 seconds
- fight that remaining dude 2 minutes
- if you survive through the first “high regen” skill CD cycle then you rince & repeat the same thing until they die, otherwise disengage and try not die
- in case you died it was some “overstacked debuff” you didn’t notice on time (shadow or blood damage that ticks 1/4 - 1/3 of your HP in total :P)
2 - most of damage doesn’t come from your initial build, but from “triggers” you hardly even knew were there, or even components (at least early on)
- steel nova
- doom bolt ** (this one is even more efficient than if you have it as a skill on your skillbar, cause takes super high amounts of mana to cast, but a 5% free doombolt cast = win, even better than have it equipped tbh :P)
- poison nova stuff (the dreg or whatever name was)
I mean, the game simply felt out of place most of the time, you either kill stuff relentlessly OR if stuff kills you then it’s most likely a 1-shot, 2-shot, or 3-shot (difference between these three being: endgame elite critical, overbuffed elite affix, some nasty DoT bleed/stack)
IDK, it’s just I really don’t like GD, felt a bit “too too much” over the place (at least for my taste) tbh
More like 3 seconds to kill everyone and 3 more to kill the one guy. 
I really don’t have the same experience from GD, maybe you played with a bad build. Same for trigging abilitiess, powerful but not as much as your main skills.
But I agree on the debuff thing, that’s really cheap design, and OS still happen too often. Still not enough to make it a bad game, by a long shot.
You mean “lol gearcheck for one-shot dabliege!!”? Yeah. D3 classic had plenty of that however you can’t really diminish such thing in ARPG genre without addressing issues in itemization.
Even Diablo 2 took them quite few years to get the drop rates to where they are right now. Issue about Diablo 3 is that it’s banking on items for character power so player never get to bank their power for a plateau or recovery point. They learnt this with Diablo 3 to hopefully not repeat it at Diablo 4.
As for difficulty, yes that exist but that was for ensuring prices stay and minimizing the bots playing the game with monotonous flow. Most of the difficulty you faced were for serving to slow down the ever growing market and nothing else actually. Player may take it personal but fear of missing out gets to them. I hated it back then too but when I think about it to remember when the timing of quality of life changes appear, it made me think all that hassle was only about the market itself and nothing else.
I actually think is possible, may feel “a bit” weird at first but think it makes things the right way on the longer run…
Let’s say there’s a “10k fire attack” that should be dodged or barely survived with a maximum resist gear at some place or a boss. Well - instead of that, make the attack be something like this 500 minimal damage + 10% max HP + 4000 elemental damage (this one varies based on resistance)
Now let’s assume that the player should have 3K HP at that point in the game, what’s achieved with the change is the following:
Without the change: (10k fire damage shot)
50% resistance ? - one shot (5k received)
75% resistance ? - 25% HP left (2.5k received, 500HP left)
With the change (500 minimal + 10%HP + 4000 elemental)
50% resistance ? = 200HP left (500 + 300+ 2k)
75% resistance ? = 1.2K HP
See how nicely/elegant, YET impactful but not a “day & night” difference between the two ?, so yes, I think that most lategame stuff should have 3 damage components to them (minimal per hit, %HP, and the damage component of the attack itself)
Think that makes for a MUCH LESS FLUCTUATING but yet impactful “gear impact”
The %HP component of attacks also makes it easier to balance the “minimal hits allowed before death” i.e. not make the game be like either not damaging (or too damaging) to your character depending whether you DPS or “tank”
It’s also a good idea (IMO) to reduce the maximum resistances down to 60%, there won’t be such big difference based on that stat alone how the game goes but still feel impactful (where it should) enough, that way it’s much more/better controlled than “hail mary” stuff…
I mean I guess is fine if bosses have that kind of “10k and have to resist to survive it” attack, but there should be some counterplays introduced via well-timed consumables/buffs (like increase your current resistance amounts by 50% in next few seconds, or heck, even 25%) or such, then a cap of 60% becomes a 90% (or 75%) for those few seconds, but that’s it, doesn’t “force” the most of the rest of the game (or at least endgame) a “max resists or get one-shot”
Not only cause it’s (probably) no longer a “gearcheck”, but more importantly cause designed that way feels like an in-combat mechanic I’d say rather than a gear “prerequirement” tbh
Another way (4th point abovementioned) is probably even better idea - add “areas of effect” to each of those “special” attacks, i.e. do the 100% (one-shot) ONLY IF hit by the center of that attack, a bit at the side should be less, say a 50% damage instead, and at the outer-area 25% (or even better, a bit more balanced and less contrasting = 100% inside, 75% a bit outside, 50% at the perimeter), that way I think that MOST of those “gear checks” become a combat-mechanic in a way rather than a “mandatory gear prerequisite” tbh
That doesn’t exactly reward dodging a monster attack and may mislead the player into thinking they have geared enough towards the challenge ahead in case of repeating flukes. I mean, mobility of player matters in that sort of thing as much as how wide that attack is and determined middle point.
There are two questions by the rules. If max health damage can not be mitigated then why do you have to stack health at all after a while? If health damage can be diminished by resistances and such then where do you gonna fit the difficulty scaling?
Monsters supposed to deal more and more damage as difficulty increases, you’re talking about cutting player health percentage down in a single by enemies that could outnumber or overwhelm them. If I get that part right though, as it’s pretty hard for me to focus right now.
Also what sort of fire attack is that, that it deals 10% inevitable max health damage? How often can player heal at this scenery so they wouldn’t feel ripped off if they were to get caught? Does the damage dealt in a single tick or dealt over several?
Math and practical use of that attack, kind of eluded me at this late hour but you gotta remember there are tons of different gears working together while designing something so simple. If anything, this sort of attack only should be attained to a boss monster to keep the tension. Again, it has some shortcomings at either model.
Logarithmic growth is still important for scaling difficulty levels and creating intense combat sceneries. Maybe later I lay the intended character progress design in my head at this forums but it’s pretty vague at the moment. I wouldn’t be brave enough to get near combat and encounter design at this hour when I know absolutely nothing about the game.
Terrible, don’t even think this requires explanation tbh… It’s what makes bad RPG design the one where “I kill stuff in loads and then boom one shot”, that logarythmic scale is the reason behind
It allows for intuitive gameplay, no longer we’ll have to be “bombarded” with telegraphed stuff, all we need to do is watch at the monster itself and where it’s gonna swing, creates a MUCH BETTER playing experience… Or you could just telegraph the center of the attack i.e. the 100% damage area (if really need telegraph stuff)
First of all the good news is that devs also agree with me that players shouldn’t be able to “put stuff in vitality” and become tanks… You can CLEARLY see that by the new D4 design where they deliberately removed max HP to be connected with a stat
But EVEN THEN it’s not useless stat, say having 500 more HP at the examples above would result in 650 hp instead of 200hp left as well as 2.1k left (approx), instead of 1.7k… However having 500 less HP would result in a death with 50% res
Now for the second part of: what does a 10% fire attack have to do with a monster ?
I was kinda “simulating” a boss attack (or a mini-boss for that matter), it’s a VERY GOOD practice to make stuff have a %HP component on their attacks cause it’s by far the easiest way to “scale” difficulty in reasonable manner
Wanna make a situation where ±8 attacks kill the player ?, add about a 7% max HP component to each of them, wanna make a situation where player has to endure less than 5 ?, add a 12% max HP component (assuming there’s some “middle threshold” on both expected/estimated HP at a certain point in progression as well as resistance)
The really only “contradictory” component is the “guaranteed minimal damage” one, but it’s also quite understandable tbh, don’t want to end up in a spot where mobs don’t even “scratch” the surface of a player just cause they have a next-level/class armor of some kind
Sure, will help with mitigation but again, want to AVOID the extremes, and the best way to do that is the way I mentioned above: GuaranteedMinimalDamage to avoid gear dominance, and MaxHP% component to avoid “logarithmyc progression” which is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to avoid for sake of game health (and further progression onward)
Again, long-story-short
Logarythmic progression is a MUST AVOID arguably even at all cost, even design. Even in other games than D3 it is again, TERRIBLE design, it’s the “false freedom” to scale stuff to oblivion, that’s simply bad
Think I talk in the name of all when I say that = noone with their sane mind would consider that normal, especially after the 15 digit numbers in D3, (but even in other games) disaster… Simply put the following that: hey that mob is level 10 and I’m level 7, good luck fighting it (10 times longer than everyone nearby), or otherwise = mob is 2-3 levels below ? = one shot
Simply put (IMO) this is true = ANY GAME that has that “big progression” difference in numbers regardless of how much other stuff are done well is again, TERRIBLE, by design
That depends on the structure. Vitality doesn’t have any logarithmic growth but it stacks and it can be the only worthy dump stat at end game. Defensive abilities such as armor and resistance have logarithmic growth in Diablo 3 with diminishing returns for mitigation rates on each certain increase.
Main stat gains for damage output however can be called exponential growth as each additive stat has a snowball effect on overall damage output. Yet that doesn’t matter because each Greater Rift tier monster health and damage grows exponentially.
What about lag? Telegraphed attacks might not seem “cool” but it helps player to read the combat and act accordingly even with 200 ping average. That also depends on their skill of choice but some spells have animations where you can not use them on the move, some don’t.
To recall, D3 classic I remember people hated Rakanoth because they weren’t able to read when he’s gonna teleport dash with high ping or simply lack the intuition for the flow of combat.
You may hate Ghom but you could avoid his attacks or mitigate them to a degree, Rakanoth’s attack was a single tick huge burst that most of the characters weren’t be able to tank. If they can’t see it coming, they’d have their cheat death trigger and second attack they have to activate their massive debuffs or invulnerability frames.
And that’s a good thing. We won’t have crazy fast paced fights until way later, but at least average player will be ought to prioritize recovery abit.
This is also a question, if player capable of diminishing that 10% max health damage via defense layers then how will the difficulty gonna scale or how fast the combat will be? What sort of damage this monster gonna hit at the next difficulty loop or scale? 20% max health plus absolutes? Okay, then how will you reward the player properly at the highest difficulty?
If as a high end character I revisit that boss monster or area, I expect it to not cause me any problems because it’s a thing in the past already. You’re talking about making it a rather constant threat by cutting health percentage, making player feel never overpowered which is fine. However, the rewards that challenge offers might never catch up with effort required either this way. There’s a mutual feedback for this.
To give an example; if I try to kill Malthael at Normal difficulty with my GR100+ capable character I expect it to go down easily as long as I watch his invulnerability frames and give it space. I don’t expect it to wipe away 10% of my health with its charge attack at the combat start.
Yep. Also this whole ordeal makes the fight flow rather about how large the determined middle point of the attack and the player’s mobility. If it’s too small and player can easily out pace it while monster readying a windup animation, then it can be easily neglected. Next difficulty scale, damage can be up to a notch as well as the area of effect for that infamous middle point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_growth
Logarithmic growth is the inverse of exponential growth and is very slow.
Yet logarithmic growth can be countered by exponential growth and that’s what Diablo 3 did. Not allowing a character to reach 100% damage mitigation via stats has nothing to do with it being something to avoid. This only ensures faster paced combat if used right.
So one thing they are supposedly doing is making zones scale with you because in an open world it would be a waste of resources if after reaching max level, 90% of the map is simply unplayable because they drop underleveled gear
As for difficulty stages, I don’t even know what’s going to be there and what’s the plan outside of key dungeons