Difficulty tiers are… 💩

PTR Feedback
1

Some things:

  • difficulty tiers are artificially locked behind levels instead of our capabilities, which is not fun
  • unlocked difficulty tiers are too easy, but we can’t go to the higher difficulty tiers due to level restrictions
  • difficulty tiers split the player base, meaning we see less people in the world and coop reduces
  • infernal hordes are fun from lvl 1 but not available at lvl 1
  • pit is the central place for unlocking difficulty, but it’s not immediately available

Suggestions:

  1. as the only real difference between non-torment difficulty tiers is the monster level, simplify it to a single world tier where we can use a drop-down to apply 1-10 mindcages, so we can play with the difficulty that fits our power. Experience & drops scale with monster power already so that fixes itself
  2. Make the Pit available straight away, so if we can clear it at any level below 50 we immediately get access to Torment and play with our friends
  3. Enable infernal hordes from lvl1. Yes, to casual players it might seem mad, but many D4 players know what they’re doing and will be clearing it anyhow.
7 Likes
2

Tell me, how far did you get starting from a Lv 1 character?

3

I made a new druid leveled to low 30’s via nmd’s, without much threat of dying. Now I used potions some but it would be more fun for me if I could have had Penitent difficulty available. I didn’t go to 50 because I saw after doing one stronghold that I could just do those exclusively the rest of the way, and those are easier than nmd, so what’s the point?

I logged in my season0 melee rogue in legacy S0 gear and ran several nmd’s at Penitent diffculty with an even easier time than the druid I was leveling. Shouldn’t I be encouraged to get modern gear?

1 Like
4

Make sure you Copy and Paste all this to a Bug report In game.

5

It’s intended that way. Blizzard didn’t want players to feel betray by making all gear Legacy. This is them saying, “See, you’re still strong. Keep playing the game.” It starts to slow down at Pit55 or so depending on legacy gear investment.

6

It’d be much more important once you do The Pit, as has been mentioned already.

7

The highest difficulty you can choose at start is Expert
It’s challenging until you get around level 20, after that the game is just super easy until you try Tormented 2 very under geared.

You can clear Penitent nightmare dungeon without challenge on simulated level 35 rogue that has bad gear. As shown here: https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo4/comments/1f990nu/comment/llktgkw/?context=3

8

I completely agree with the original post. When I started a new character on Hard mode, I found the difficulty to be decently challenging, requiring careful planning and making each move more impactful. It was a positive experience that made the early stages of the game engaging. I didn’t even bother with Normal mode. However, by the time I had half of my legendary items equipped and was at level 20, even Expert mode felt too easy. It reminds me a lot of Diablo 3, where the difficulty scaling becomes less intuitive as you progress. I’d argue that this issue isn’t just present in the PTR but also in the current retail version of Diablo 4, albeit in a slightly different way.

I understand that the Diablo 4 developers are trying to streamline the difficulty to make it more intuitive, but it still ends up being too easy, even on Expert mode. As the original post pointed out, this approach splits the player base and makes the game less fun, as it isn’t necessarily based on your capabilities.

I also would like to add, and this might be an unpopular opinion, that one thing I miss from Diablo 2’s difficulty is the presence of high-resist and immune monsters. It forced players to rely on other strengths beyond just damage output, such as using mercenaries or debuffs against immune enemies. Building hybrid characters, playing with other players with different damage types or accepting that you could clear some content but not all - added a layer of challenge that I actually enjoyed.

1 Like
9

They do need major adjustment. They don’t say how much % more life the monsters have so I have to guess. People overall are saying “not hard enough”. I think there should be a smaller jump from Penitent to Torment 1 since you are rewarded with Ancestral chance to drop and also have to be 60.

Now -vs- what it should be (relative… obviously playtest for viability):
Normal - 100% HP+ / 100% gold+exp -vs- (good as is… base line)
Hard - 150% HP / 175% gold+exp -vs- 200% HP / 220% gold+exp+drops
Expert - 200% HP / 225% gold+exp -vs- 400% HP / 480% gold+exp+drops
Penitent - 250% HP / 275% gold+exp -vs- 800% HP / 1,040% gold+exp+drops
(Do not level lock penitent… let them try)
Torment 1 - 300% HP / 400% gold+exp+drops -vs- 1,000% HP / 1,400% gold+exp+drops
Torment 2 - 1,000% HP / 500% gold+exp+drops -vs- 5,000% HP / 7,500% gold+exp+drops
Torment 3 - 5,000% HP / 600% gold+exp+drops -vs- 25,000% HP / 40,000% gold+exp+drops
Torment 4 - 25,000% HP / 700% gold+exp+drops -vs- 125,000% HP / 200,000% gold+exp+drops

You are currently best off doing the lowest Torment tier you can “blast through” as it is not efficient if you take 3-5x the time to kill for x1.5 rewards. It should be the other way around where if skill-wise you are not capable you have to spend the time grinding.

If Ancestral GA are base 0.001% (x0.00001) drop rate… T1 would be 1/7,142 drops, T2 is 1/1,333 drops, T3 is 1/250 and T4 would be 1/50. Each bump would feel both significant and rewarding. Yes, it takes 5x longer to kill from T1 to T2… but it is MUCH better rewards. This also gives time to get legendary recipes before people start getting too many ancestral they want to upgrade with them.

10

Well geared minion Necro+thorns. I can 1 shot Beast in Ice Torment I… Torment II, I get one shotted. Lilith Dies from thorn damage when she drops on me on T-I. Definitely need some level tuning.

1 Like