Diablo 4 needs MORE difficulties

PC General Discussion
1

Yes, I know it’s a VERY unpopular opinion, but let me explain.

I was thinking about Diablo 2, and I remembered that each map you went through was more difficult than the last.

So… I realized that each new map was like a new difficulty.

(To clarify: I never got past Hard Act1, but I created a lot of characters and I really liked it a lot. I was a kid who didn’t know what a build was, so don’t exaggerate. I was just a very bad player. So I don’t know if this difficulty-map-change was maintained throughout the game… I assume so.)

This means that, even though Diablo 2 only had 3 difficulties, it actually had dozens of sub-difficulties.

And to be honest, it was fun to go through them. Some you passed without problems, others you had to stay a little longer and farm. (And others you just ignored because you found a very good item).

So I think we should recreate this a little more in Diablo 4.

Yes, Pits exist, but unlike a Diablo 2 map, you could stay on a map farming until you can access the next one.

In Diablo 4 you have to, ideally, also farm outside of the Pit to improve your items. And when you do it you do it on one of the 4 difficulties.

So, actually, it is the torment difficulties of Diablo 4 what correspond to the maps of Diablo 2. It’s the place where you stay a while and list… farm. It’s the place where you farm, until you can access the next “map”.

In conclusion… Diablo 3, surprisingly, was not wrong in adding 16 difficulties… in fact, 16 may not be enough compared to Diablo 2.

(I know… you want to kill me… I’m sorry)

Edit: Sorry again, I forgot something.

What I said at the beginning of thinking about D2 has more context. I was thinking about this:

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I think the fact you feel the need of more difficulty levels and what they did in D3, is yet another proof that level scaling is often not a good thing.

It also high synergetic in bad way with the item system we have, since item power is tied to difficulty setting.

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Wait… how does this work? If I think I need something, is it because I don’t need it?

I think you skipped a step.

Feeling like you need something means that there is a problem and not that the problem is X.

yes, I forgot to mention that… the items would have to be changed too… sorry.

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More difficulty’s is 100% not the answer

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Not related with that, but with the fact that you used D2 as the start on the reasoning you need more difficulty levels.

However, from all examples D2 is the only one that doesn’t have level scaling. So when you play D3/ D4 and feel it needs even more difficulty levels because the game that doesn’t have it make you feel a better difficulty progression, it make a point that the level scaling and difficulty level in D3 and D4 failed.

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Yes, it was wrong. Probably played D3 so long that brainwashed you. Try any other proper RPG game with proper difficulty design. You don’t even progress step by step in those D3 difficulties. Most of them gets skipped. D4 should avoid this mess.

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It’s a feeling.

I’m not saying that D2 is good, I’m saying that it felt good to advance through the “difficulty-maps”.

In other words, what I’m saying is that that feeling of progress is good, and we should recreate it better in Diablo 4

Oh, yes, the game is in a certain way very fast, as I say, I forgot to mention that more modifications would have to be made.

I was thinking that everyone should die in one hit but it should take you A LONG TIME to reach that point. It is there that I remember Diablo 2 and its difficulties.

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D3 Torment 16 just as trivialized as D4s T4.

What D4 doesn’t need is further separation of the playerbase.
T4 is fine.
Add:

  • Profane Mindcages
    These will apply to ALL AREAS with the exception of The Pit.
    This will allow Players to tailor their difficulty level while still playing with others in T4 vs stretching out playerbase further and unnecessarily though arbitrary(and futile) additional “Tiers”.
    Allow Mindcages to stack 5x @ 10 levels per.
    Example:
    T4 = Pit 65
    Mindcages = 75x1, 85x2, 95x3, 105x4 and 115x5.

This will also allow for Scaling Experience and give players a sense of substance and possibly challenge vs ‘other than pit’ content.
It’s possible (and up for debate) to also scale Rewards (loot, materials, gold etc) with each Profane Mindcage used.

Currently, T4 feels unrewarding (XP)and unchallenging vs endgame builds.

It’s my opinion that adding such consumables (and NOT making them jump-through-hoops fetch farm or stupidly rare) will add what’s missing vs again, just slapping on more Tiers that will only work to separate the playerbase.

(Name it what you wish - the idea is the same)

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Yeah, what I am trying to say is that the difference between D2 and D3/D4 is that the world doesn’t level up with you there.

Like, here you level up and everything is re-balanced to suit to you now. In D2 each zone had its level and difficulty. It is up to you to survive there.

Now, when you start having like 16 difficulty levels, for me it is a very clear sign that you missed mark in the difficulty system. It would not surprise me they doing the same here, as it looks like they just want to remake D3 now…

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Yes, I know. But the feeling is like each map is a step.
I think it’s good to have “steps”.

And I added the context at the beginning.

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Yes, I agree steps are good, but I meant if you have a system that in theory would solve this necessity but in the end you feel like it would be better to have almost as much difficulty levels as character levels it becomes a little funny.

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Obviously it does, it’s a game.

And I know you’re not referring to the fun of the game.
I’m saying games don’t make sense in the first place.

Torment 4? Hell difficulty? It is the same with different colors and numbers. It’s ridiculous.

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yes please

Exactly.

:point_up: :point_up: :+1:

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I wouldn’t say that it needs more difficulties so much as it needs more difficulty. The problem is that it’s basically impossible to manage when you’ve got endgame builds anywhere between 5-10 scalars of each other, because if you make the game properly difficult and tactical, most builds get splatted everywhere they go while a few others just nuke everything they touch and don’t take damage in the first place. We could anchor it to EHP, but even that can vary substantially, if not as much as DPS.

This means we could do more difficulties, but we’d probably need a couple dozen to make it possible for all builds to go somewhere that makes meaningful gameplay possible, and that would fragment the base to the max and make some people playing weaker builds feel like outcasts and would probably lead to everything below S tier being ridiculously underplayed. I’m not sure if this is something that can be avoided in modern games because we all want more, more, more to grind for with several layered systems that render balance and permanent challenge a pipedream unless we enforce twitch response gameplay, which seems to kinda go against the spirit of most iso-ARPGs. Rock and a hard place, basically… :v:

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Well, it is funny because this is basically going back to remove the auto-scale or making the game fake its existence.

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It is, ironically, Tiers. Sub_Difficulties as in D2, and therefore equivalent to extra torment difficulties.

Now, I understand the point of masking something to make it feel different. I totally agree with ““lying”” to the player if it makes them feel better.

True, but auto-scaling has an extra purpose: To ensure that the content does not become obsolete.

If only 1 map is good, you’re wasting everything else.

But in exchange for not having obsolete content, we lost the progression, so we have to recover it somehow…

If difficulties masked as sub-difficulties (Mindcages) get it done, then I say let’s do it.

Yes, that’s why the context I added is important.
If it is possible to reach the maximum difficulty anyway, even with tier F builds, then you no longer have that problem.

But reaching it immediately is pointless, so it has to take you a long time, unless you are a very good player who knows how to do it.

This causes the problem of very slow improvements… which is solved with significant improvements… but this causes power creep… And power creep is inevitable anyway so… why not?

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I’ve brought this up before, but there isn’t even a need to divide the player base. All you have to do is have inbound damage and monster EHP scaled to an individual player’s torment level, and all can play at the same time.
Each player gets their own multiplier for drops, XP, and gold, since this is all player-specific also.

It’s essentially what the game already does for pre-torment content for players at different XP levels, and would mimic mindcages without needing to actually use them.

There was a comment last time I mentioned this that this would enable players to cheat the system by setting their torment level higher than they can actually do and having someone else power them around. Now,

  1. people already do this; and
  2. I don’t care;

The easy answer is just to lock torment level selection behind solo pit clears at the equivalent level.

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I would argue that there were other ways to not loose the content and keeping it relevant, that way nailing progression and itemisation would be far easier, I am not saying it is impossible to have scaling and good itemisation at the same time, but I believe one need to be really good to make it work well.

Anyways, I was a big fan of mind cages and I thought they would expand on it, but instead they “fixed” difficulties and here we are. Best state progression loot wise for me were S4 and S5.

19

That is solved with Solo Difficulty Unlocks.
But not completely though.

Yes, but “relevant” is not the word.

Put a lvl 1 mob that gives away mythical items and I assure you that it will be the most “relevant” mob in the entire game.

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The Devs hinted in the last D4 video maybe we getting some form of old Mindcage items to increase the monster power and exp/reward in your current torment.

Its the same as turning a T4 into a T8 just by clicking 1 item in your inventory anywhere.