Difficulty: Tiers are no longer gated by lvl or the Pit.
Tiers Normal & Hard remain unchanged but gain the rewards of Expert & Penitent.
Tiers Expert & Penitent made twice as difficult with rewards remaining the same.
Torment 1 & 2 remain unchanged but gain the rewards of T3 & T4.
Torment 3 & 4 made twice as difficult with rewards remaining the same.
Low tiers remain inclusive for everyone yet provide much higher rewards. Lvl up faster, get better loot faster. Higher tiers get substantially more difficult but their rewards remain the same. Meaning, players have the choice to play fast and efficiently with the highest rewards possible, or decide to challenge themselves by engaging in higher difficulties at the expense of efficiency. Either way, the rewards remain the same. The only difference is the challenge. Efficiency vs Challenge. Your choice.
Content:
Boss runs will not require materials. Rare drops are tuned accordingly to this change.
Glyphs can also be upgraded in Infernal Hordes and NMDs. The Pit also drops masterworking materials.
The new co-op dungeon will not be more rewarding compared to IH, pit, NMDs, etc.
Balancing will be taken more seriously with buffing weak builds and nerfing builds that break the game.
Leaderboards should be added for all modes, including the Pit and PVP.
Leagues:
SSF League is added to the game. Loot is bound on account.
Trading League is added to the game. All non-altered loot is tradable. Players have access to the in-game AH.
D4 is probably the only ARPG not offering these type of experiences which are core to the genre. Players should have a choice to whether they want to participate in trading or not while also making sure trading is adequately supported.
Modes:
PVP is actively supported by balancing with the help of the PVP community.
Ruthless is added to the game offering a different take on character progression. Taking a page from RPG’s like the original Diablo.
PVP may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a valid and very cool aspect of the genre. Besides, it’s the only true way for competitive players to express themselves. Besides speedrunning. D4 should try expanding the experience of the genre in some way. It’s a game that overall took little to no risk. Sure, blasting can be fun but it should not be the end all be all way of play. The Diablo franchise has a rich history in terms of gameplay, and by introducing Ruthless could be a way for old and new fans to revisit old classics.
Hmm no?
The loot of T1 and T4 is the same, the more challenging the content is, the greater are the chances. Risk/Challenge and reward.
What you suggest isn’t playing according to player wish, rather play base on the most casual player who doesn’t like challenge and want all rewards.
Big problem with this making the normal and hard but gain the rewards of Expert and Pentient. Players will gravitate to the most effective and efficient in terms of loot. Thus with the easier modes, having the same drops as the harder modes.
Thus players will speed farm the most efficient mode such as normal or hard, while getting fully geared out thus enabling them to go steam roll the harder difficulties with ease. Nullifying the harder difficulty.
Sure there are players out there that don’t care about efficiency or speed farming, but others do. Which you do say that in your post.
I’m one of the worst players there is in terms of skill. I’ve never beaten a tormented boss solo, on any build in any season. I’ve never gotten past Pit level 80 either.
But as long as BiS can drop in T1, I’m fine with it. As long as the higher difficulties offer no exclusive loot, I’m fine with it.
Absolutely. The thing is, I would argue Blizzard’s difficulty system caters strictly to the most casual player without providing an actual choice for the player that wants a challenge.
100%. If that’s what they want to do, let them have it.
I suppose a player that wants challenging content AND being efficient won’t be pleased by the system. I agree. Even though I don’t have a solution for that player, would you feel the current system in 2.0 is adequate for you? Do you feel it provides both a challenge and efficiency?
Adequate for me? Yes, but that is just for me, I can’t speak for others. The way I’ll approach it just like I have every other season. I’ll start expert since im sure it’ll be a cake walk just like WT2 is. Once decent aspects / gear go test out harder difficulty if it takes me 10 minutes to clear something vs 2 minutes on a lesser difficulty I’ll stay on the lesser until that gap shrinks on the harder.
I doubt there are many players that would spend 20-30 minutes trying to clear something, vs 2-3 minutes with a minor increase in % for drops. Thus you could do 10 runs for a lesser chance, but in fact you having more attempts = more rewards possibly
That’s absolutely fine, that’s why I asked you. It seems you prefer Blizzard’s difficulty system which good for you. The highest difficulties the way I broke them down were meant to be aspirational content, not a progression in itself. If a player never engaged with them, they would lose nothing.
In the same way you have difficulty in other games where you pick one and finish the entire game. You won’t get more content from picking the higher ones.
Because it can be an illusion of difficulty.
You can fight weak monsters with weak weapons. But if you increase monster strength/numbers AND increase rewards (drops, exp) at the same ratio, the difficulty hasn’t really changed.
We don´t talk about exclusive items for each difficulty. We are talking about highter drop chance for same items like you can get at lower diff. You can get same items at T1-4 but at harder content you should have better chance to get them.
That items won´t appear in your inventory just when you change diff, you have to drop them first. So no it would not be same.
Correct if a player never engaged with them, they would lose nothing. So why would I make the game harder if we don’t gain anything? Which leads me into your second line.
In other games yes, there are difficulty selectors. However please do note that some games offer additional endings / extra mission depending if you play on a harder difficulty. Some games went as far if you beat on Hard or Expert you got a “true” ending.
This is a Diablo series aka a Looter. Look at Diablo 1, 2, 3 & 4 the quality of loot changed when you went up in difficulty. Diablo 2 is prime example for this. You can’t find certain items in Normal, or in Nightmare.
As a player that wants to be efficient, you have 0 incentive other than to challenge yourself. It’s your choice. You can keep farming at the most efficient Tier, or bump it up a notch if you’re bored. In expense of efficiency, of course.
I understand that. In this case however, it’s just a plain challenge bump.
100% correct that is your choice. Which having choices are always a good thing in games. Not everyone is the exact same and they enjoy things at different difficulties. I don’t know like I said maybe its just me lol but i’d find it weird finding Mythics in normal.
Maybe its just me being nostalgia to the looter type games that have progression tied to difficulty