Infinite map and infinite difficulty

So I saw a conversation on reddit where an idea cropped up that I think would be really interesting. Basically it was about the comparison between the endgame in PoE 2 and Delve from PoE 1, where you could keep going further and further, increasing the difficulty, or start going sideways if you wanted it to stay at the same difficulty, or even go back if you wanted something easier.

So people were suggesting that maps could get harder and more rewarding as you go further from your starting area. The problem with this idea is that you could run out of easy maps though. Maybe it doesn't matter, you just reset? Though I was thinking, maybe just pick a direction and maps get harder but more rewarding as you go that way, and maybe even the opposite direction makes things easier but less rewarding.

To me this solves two problems; one is that I don't like the idea of getting to a point where you farm pinnacle content and everything else is easy, and also I have a bit of a fear that at some point as power creep continues combos will become useless because any given skill is capable of one-shotting everything. This would allow for people who want a nice easy game to play like that, and for masochists like me to go to whatever difficulty feels nice for me.

Infinitely scaling content belongs in sub-systems (vide delve in poe1), not as a core for endgame.

Various reasons for it, chief amongst them that at some point your character will not be scalable to match the difficulty.

What current poe2 atlas actually lacks is the completion element to it, not the other way around.

Maps can already be modified in various ways (waystone/tablet mods, atlas points, delirious) in order to increase the difficulty, which already requires the level of gear that trivializes everything else.

If you allow your core content to scale further, then you need to allow the character power to match that, which in turn impacts the balance of every other mechanic (either too easy, or too hard).

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arandan#3174 wrote:

Infinitely scaling content belongs in sub-systems (vide delve in poe1), not as a core for endgame.

Various reasons for it, chief amongst them that at some point your character will not be scalable to match the difficulty.

What current poe2 atlas actually lacks is the completion element to it, not the other way around.

Maps can already be modified in various ways (waystone/tablet mods, atlas points, delirious) in order to increase the difficulty, which already requires the level of gear that trivializes everything else.

If you allow your core content to scale further, then you need to allow the character power to match that, which in turn impacts the balance of every other mechanic (either too easy, or too hard).

If anything, it's the other way around, because they can scale the difficulty of all other content based on where you are on the map. You might even say that some particular content is harder or easier for you, so maybe you have bosses at +200, delirium at +50, etc, depending on the character you're playing.

You don't have a reason to need to go for the highest difficulty if you don't want to; just stay at whatever difficulty you like. So there's no reason to worry about scaling your character to match the difficulty.

Delirium exemplifies why difficulty should be scaled in this way by the core content. What if you like a challenge, but you don't like Delirium? That's just too bad, that's where the greatest challenge lies.

No, character power does not have to scale to match the difficulty, in fact that would completely defeat the purpose of what I'm proposing. The whole point is that it should always be possible to adjust the difficulty of the core content to be easier or harder depending on your preferences.

I've covered your reply in my post.
If they did what you're suggesting, then every other sub-system would be too hard for an average player to even consider attempting.

If there was no way to scale character power way past those systems, then there is no point in adding infinite scaling, since nobody would be able to attempt it.

Which is why it belongs in side content, not as a core for endgame. That way specialized builds can be used to tackle that challenge and it doesn't exclude a large portion of the player base from the meat and potatoes.


e:
I'll actually expand here, since I don't want to be forced to explain this again later.

If you want to attempt the hardest maps currently in poe2, your character is at a power level that already trivializes any pinnacle fight.

If you allow maps to scale further, then that will inevitably lead to power creep, since people will expect to be able to hit and overcome certain thresholds (d3 died to this and so will last epoch).

You cannot really add infinite scaling to every facet of the game, it's not feasible to balance the bosses that way and at that point it's not really a choice anyway, since players expect to be able to farm pinnacle fights.

This also extends to every other sub-system that will be added later on. Unless scaled the same way the core endgame is, it'd be trivial on release, or very hard which in turn would limit its accessibility to the top 1%.

An elegant solution for the "run out of maps" issue is to make it Cartesian instead of circular. Your starting position is the standard difficulty. As you move north, the maps get harder and more rewarding. If you move horizontally, they stay the same difficulty. Then you make it impossible to move back from the starting poistion by some terrain limitation (sea, cliff, lava, whatever)

I personally like the idea of infinite scaling; D4 has this more or less with the Pits. This is a cool feature that can lead to leaderboards and interesting personal goals.

Awful idea, butchering build diversity, feel of progression even more. Keep this scaling nonsense in Diablo.

This sounds so bugablo-like... No.

Core idea is interesting but maybe too extreme. These difficulty ways to go in a map, why not, but an infinite amount, per map is unrealistic and too far from the current game design.

Why not 3 difficulty modes where mob density changes, so mode 3 would be the same mobs, but really mass mobs, with more challenge, rewards and fun

It's awesome idea like old Attari games...
Proceeding deeper will bring more challenging mode.

But there is one thing that should be adaptive: XP loss.