I think they plan to have different difficulties combined in the same world map. This is be able to rise the level of key dungeons, and dungeons with different levels (equal or above our level). And the monster’s lvls will scale with our level.
I thought I heard that monsters will scale with the character and keyed dungeons will be scaled to the key.
I heard nothing else. No, normal, nightmare, hell - no torment, inferno or any other hint of added difficulty. Maybe I missed something but that’s all I remember.
I imagine every instanced dungeon will have multiple difficulty options available. Probably not as many as D3 has torment levels though, which would arguably be a good thing.
As for the shared world, i think they might have separate servers for a few different difficulties. The shared stuff might feature a return to normal/hell/nightmare difficulties, with the instanced dungeons having +0 to +5 difficulty options, or something similar.
Also, core game should have one and ONLY one difficulty setting. The difference should come from zones’ level, not from difficulty slider. And zone itself should NEVER scale to player’s level.
The difficulty levels are: If softcore becomes unchallenging to you, it might be time to start considering the hardcore mode. Games that don’t have penalty for making mistakes gradually become easier. This can be combatted, but for the most part remains true. The longer you play, the stronger you get, the easier the game becomes when learning from your mistakes literally costs you 15 seconds of play time as opposed to your entire career up to that point. These are extreme polarities of the spectrum.
I think it’s going to operate similar to the way Marvel Heroes did. All players shared servers in the open world zones, then difficulty changed upon entering instanced content to whatever the player or group had set.
Now, Blizzard might be doing it different in that Marvel Heroes had open zones whose difficulties were pre-set. It sounds like Blizzard plans to make them scale instead, so rather than high-end players having to leave open zones for harder content, everything would just adjust to their power level.
I lo ed Diablo 1 and 2.
I loved at the beginning Diablo 3, though, when new difficulties where not a reward for compleating the game at lower difficulties, I stopped playing.
I tryed evergthing I could, but the neverending grinding game type it became made it feel awful.
I loved when, in Diablo 2, after defeating Baal, finally you would unlock Hard mode. And then, going back to the beginning, was a beatifull experience, with a lot of “I can’t wait to see how it will be different from before in the next quest”.
To unlock a difficulty was a great reward.
In Diablo 3, it feels more like driving a car: want to go fast or slow? Your choice.
D2 was more like: good, you made it so far as an apprentice, now get up and taste the real game.
Even not fully levelling up in one run made it feel as if there was much more wonderful content.
They mentioned in the last quarterly update that they are still heavily working on end-game content and will share at a later date. Which difficulties obviously plays a huge role in creating the end-game so thats probably why they haven’t talked about it.
The first one is SUPER BAD idea… Overcrowded places vastly favor AoE compared to everything else, but also (and even worse), pigeonholes classes (completely)… Ranged have to maximize damage at all costs (to prevent being surrounded), and melee have to stack max sustainability (lifesteal, life return per hit, knockbacks, those kinds of things)… In other words PREVENTS EXPERIMENTATION and lategame “balance” of builds
2nd one is the MOST CORRECT choice to add difficulty… Definitely, instead of having 50 skeletons, have 10 where a few ones are “prowlers”, i.e. can burrow underground and crawl out from the other side… Have a couple be “unholy” meaning immune to debuffs and curses but also their attacks reduce duration of your bonuses/buffs/barriers (and any kind of buff duration thing)
If having an archer pack, instead of having 20, make a “group” of 10 mobs where 2 are melee warriors with shields effectively protecting the 8 archers, out of those 8 have few of them shoot elemental-empowered arrow occasionally, or a “rain” a volley at an area down from the skies… (Perhaps have a flier or two to assist in “bombarding” purposes)
THAT’s how you increase difficulty without being “retarded” at either overcrowding (nor scaling), making “tactical units” of mobs and having them “combined”… 5 Archers, a trapper and a brute is more effective (or should most of the time) than having 20 archers in one place (well, more balanced at least)… It’s really retarded for melee classes that haven’t completely MAXIMIZED against projectile damage or have super-duper-uber OP AoE to fight a group of 20 archers or sth… So, kinda simple/intuitive really
Balance between mobs/types = balance (to a reasonable extent) of builds
I also like the idea of “extra-tag/extra-ability” system for parties (as multiplayer-only affixes added on top of items you wear when in party), but that’s a too extra bit
Now, instead of potions having less effect (being less effective), here’s a “concept” I might prefer for having “difficulty at start of game” something like THIS:
Notice how there aren’t things like “extra XP”, or damage scaling or such things… It’s just the chance that if there are good gear drops you’ll get more of them earlier in exchange for being “broke” more often/early… As for the challenge itself, think 25% more damage/resist is just fine tbh (as long as there’s a lot of trading/crafting/gear-swapping mid fights, using “useless” gear to prevent damage at “easier to beat” places, though extreme when near-broke even a desperate move like that might help to “overcome” a hump at times)… Basically:
Maximum OPTIMIZATION of resources (and using them wisely) = Difficulty
Don’t think it would be fair to have those bonuses (like 180% magic find) in the late game (once you max out) though, [ but on the other hand why not keep a portion of it ]
LOL: the Necro is real with this one… but ok, like the topic
The biggest flaw with D2 difficulty levels is that I don’t want to replay the campaign time and time again. It happened in other games like PoE and Grim Dawn too, which fastens my boredom for the game. IMHO, D3 and Torchlight 3 implements a very interesting approach to difficulty, where you can change it at the start of every game. What’s the point of repeating conversations with NPCs 3-5 times?
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