Difficulty Levels in 3.0.0

I can't overstate how much I'm a fan of the way you're going about this, GGG. I always considered it a misstep by Blizzard to remove Nightmare, Hell & Inferno difficulties and replace them with... nothing. It's one of the reasons I complete the "three month" seasons in < 1 week.

I'll definitely get a support pack for that expansion. :)

F**k YEAH . getting to the maps was starting to feel like a really annoying chore already.

Why not just get rid of Act 1-4 once you've beaten them once? The core enjoyment of the game comes from Maps. Not a stale rigid fixed story that we have all played HUNDREDS of times.

"

Hilldrake wrote:

I have a suggestion for difficulty progression:

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Instead of repeating the game over and over through the 3 difficulties, why don't we get a progression system like this:

Act I ~ Act III = Normal Difficulty

Act IV ~ Act VI = Cruel Difficulty

Act VII ~ Act X = Merciless Difficulty

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Then, instead of removing a difficulty, we can have all the 3 and make it naturally progressive through the gameplay.

• Of course the Skill Points gained through Quests should be adjusted to fit the new system properly.

• Some repeated Quests would need to be remade to 'repeat' through the 10 acts (1 quest each 3 acts) but respecting the old rewards, and this even increases the number of Quests of the game, making it more interesting.

Why do so many people here make suggestions based on the clearly false idea that PoE has 10 Acts? It DOES NOT have 10 acts yet! Yes, they intend to have 10 Acts eventually and yes, they intend to have only one smooth, continuous progression when they do...BUT THEY DON'T HAVE 10 ACTS TO WORK WITH YET! There's nothing original or particularly innovative in this suggestion - it's pretty much broadly in line with what they already plan to do. The only problem is - your suggestion makes sense for around 2020, NOT 2016. And we don't want to run through 9 Acts 3 times before they finally adjust the system with Act 10. Or, if implemented right now, then changing difficulties with every 1-2 Acts would be way too extreme a progression. They can always re-introduce difficulty mechanics through the course of the game later, if needed.

P.S.: Apologies for the forceful tone, nothing personal.

"

Ashwin wrote:

Woot!

what no frist?

Cruel will not be missed.

I'm curious how you guys will work in the -elemental res penalty going through the acts.
As well as the quest reward skill point distribution.

On a more important note, I'm hoping you guys do something epic with Act 5.
I really liked the start of Act 4 with the aquaduct and Dried Lake. But it sort of ended up being a series of let-downs. The atmospheric bird of prey in aquaduct was just a slightly larger Chicken. The Beast was pretty much nothing as it seems to have died when Malachai died. It was also a very short act all things considered. It introduced and ended so many of the lore based historical figures we've heard about, and then killed them all.


Btw. Act 5: Snow/ice act? I want a winter environment dangit.

I really hope they reconsider the insane one-shot mechanics that have slowly been creeping up into the game. Hits like Vaal smash, Touch of God, Malachai's burrow etc are totally fine because you can hear/see them and react, but when white/magic monsters destroy you in one hit, that's just not right.

Vaal Pact and Seething flasks and other ways to top of your health instantly/fast used to mostly matter against reflect, but somehow it turned into the standard meta. Feels like a snowball that just got worse and worse since around Beyond league, where IIRC it was the first league where getting 1-shotted from offscreen AOE balls was a thing.

You know what's a better mechanic than getting 1-shot? Getting hit by an insanely powerful bleed/poison DoT when you don't have a way to mitigate it (Imagine T15 Rigwald DoTs). It feels spooky and wonderful and I think would make the game better if damage like that was more common while 1-shot situations were more rare.

Ultimately minimizing the number of difficulties for less repetition would be perfect for this game.

One day, when there are say, 10 acts (your final aim from what I've heard), you could just make 1-4 have no death penalty, 5-7 to have 5% like Cruel, and 8-10 have the Merciless penalties.

No chore, only fun and exploration of the lore and the story.

Finally no more cruel! Thanks GGG!

what did cruel know about Hillary Clinton????