My opinion on difficulty.

[Pren]

A long time ago, when we played single player rpgs, action games, etc, you had a set path to take. You could do lots of stuff, but ultimately, you could only kill Bob the Big Demon once and get The Sword of Infinite Eternal Beatdowns once per game.

Most people play d2 as a farm game. In multiplayer, that's certainly the case. You do exp runs, etc, get better gear, make twinks, etc. Ultimately, the game loses the higher purpose and becomes a simple "gain level"/"get item" program.

The 'higher purpose' is to defeat baal in hell difficulty, one time, to get your title and complete the game.

If you look at diablo 2 /players 1 like an actual epic fantasy game (don't laugh), then spending 20 hours to clear each act on hell difficulty makes sense. You're bludgeoning through the forces of evil, slowly, but surely clearing a path towards your ultimate goal.

So it takes 5 hours to clear the worldstone keep. That sounds fair to me, it is afterall the final area of the game.


The problem with this, of course, is that there's no way to save game state. Waypoints are really halfassed. I mean, really halfassed. If you go back to a previous act while playing single player, but in a new game... you can redo the entire act. Rekill all the bosses. Even the big bad boss you just killed in the last play session. Danger, walls of the virtual world crumbling.

Item drops. Certainly runes and uniques should be rare. A 1/1000 chance of getting a unique would be perfectly fair in a single player game. Afterall, if it's an item you can't use, you just sigh, sell it, and hope the next one is The Necromancer's Guide to the Galaxy so you can benefit from it. But no, items can be traded, because single player = multiplayer. If each person is guaranteed (by the odds) to get 50 uniques by the time they clear act 5 hell, then you stick 200000 players together, there won't be anything unique about uniques.

Many people ask how difficulty should be balanced. The simple answer is that blizzard #$%&ed up horribly by making single player and multiplayer the same thing. If you have a character that is comfortable soloing in 8 player games, and pair him with 7 other people (who can all presumably solo in 1-8 player games as well), what challenge is there? What tactics are there when everyone can simply run over everything? It's a novelty. "We are co-operating!"

And back to the 'virtual walls collapsing' train of thought. Does anybody else feel ridiculous changing difficulty levels on the fly while playing single player? Hm, 1 player is too easy, let's turn on 4 players. Wow, this section is hard, let's set it back to 1. Holy crap, this new skill kills everything in one hit even in 4 players, let's ramp it up to 8!

The ability to set /players in single player is nice in that you can increase the challenge for strong characters, or simply level faster. But, consider this. Using even /players 4, especially /players 8, a character can reach level 25 in act 2 easily. In classic diablo, I've finished act 4 with characters lower level than that. You're not supposed to have fire wall when you kill andariel. You're not supposed to frenzy duriel to death. The council was not supposed to have to contend with Lightning fury.

Virtual walls caving in.

So, I guess what I'm saying is... the game tried to make multi and single player interchangable, and it failed miserably. Single player should have had a persitant world with a fixed difficulty level and unlimited storage space. Good gear should be several times more common than it is now.

Multiplayer should be as it is now, only balanced for the very best equipped characters or for parties. You should have difficulty in late nightmare and hell difficulty if you are playing multiplayer without multiple players.

And if you don't like that... why are you playing the game? When you throw the absolute best gear on a character and say "See how well this build works? I can do anything and it's trivial", you miss the point...


edited to add that, of course, a single player character would be able to start a new game if they so desired, because running into an impossible situation would be inappropriate. Even diablo 1, with the extreme difficulty of single player, allowed you to do that.

[Guest]

I think your mostly right.

In my opinion multiplayer has never been as good as it could be(up through 1.09).

It think in the ideal setup you can only handle hell/hell in a good group or with amazing gear.

[--Pete]

Hi,

First, the only thing I totally disagreed with: "Even diablo 1, with the extreme difficulty of single player, . . ." You did mean "extreme easiness", didn't you? With the exception of a couple of bosses, SP D1 is a cake walk.

Now, back to the D2 problems. The first issue is that there are NO difficulty levels in D1 or D2 multiplayer. Let me explain. In games with difficulty levels, you start out a brand new character with a new game. In "easy" difficulty, the character is actually overpowered so that any dweeb can "beat the game". In "normal" difficulty, the game is pretty well balanced for the average gamer. And so forth. What is important is that, while the character stays the same, the opposition gets tougher as the difficulty increases.

What D1 and D2 multiplayer have is just a cheap way to triple the dungeon levels without having to design new levels and monsters to populate them. Sure, the game gets relatively harder as you go on, but that is the case in most well designed games -- the difficulty grows faster than the character's ability to handle it -- the difference is made up by the increase (hopefully) of the player's skill.

Now, both D1 and D2 have a real "difficulty" system in single player, but both are broken. In D1, the difficulty system comes from the ability to start a single player character in nightmare or hell mode as a level one. It is broken in at least two ways. First, because it is a "loophole" and was not intended as part of the game. It takes advantage of the fact that single player games don't reset the difficulty flag to "normal". It is broken in a second way because of the lack of an experience point cap. So, for instance, the first kill for a level 1 character in hell mode pops him up to (IIRC) level 5.

Now, in D2, the "difficulty" system is the "/players x"command. However, as you pointed out, the ability to change it up and down at will makes it broken. Partially that is design failure. When most players can mow down the hordes of run of the mill monsters at "/players 8", that's a pretty good indication that the ROTM monsters might be too weak. But if the "/players x" option was set at character creation and stuck with the character for life, then it would be a fairly decent difficulty setting.

As for the multi-player game, I don't know what could reasonably be changed to give true difficulty levels. Many players looking for a challenge handicap themselves in various ways (variant scum :) ). But making the game harder or easier just makes it that way for all.

Many people have talked about "balance", usually either in terms of PvM or PvP. I'm thinking of a different "balance", that between entertainment and aggravation. D1 had a high degree of entertainment with a relatively low degree of aggravation and is still a great game six and a half years after release. Dungeon Siege was a game with fairly low entertainment and much higher aggravation -- it has pretty well disappeared from the mind and HD of most gamers. D2 is somewhere in between. The LoD expansion added some entertainment, but even more aggravation. So far as I've seen, 1.10 added a lot more aggravation while adding just a little more entertainment.

One of the problems seems to be the failure of Buzzard to understand the concept of scaling. If the monsters are made twice as hard at the same time that the top level gear is made twice as good, the net result is nothing in challenge and a big, boring addition to the item farming. But, enough of that -- I'm still working on my opinion of 1.10. When I've played a character through it (or given up in frustration), then I'll say more.

--Pete

[DSTheHermit]

Of course, to get "amazing" gear you have to be able to survive Hell to begin with.

Bliz seems to keep forgetting this point, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Why don't you watch where you're wandering? Why don't you watch where you're stumbling?" Tool - Swamp Song

[Longhunter]

This game truly is amazing isn't it, how many other games are there as old as D2/LOD that generate this type of conversation, passion. So many good games come and go but this game just seems to still be growing in some way.
I digress, I have just taken a new Amazon up to Act 2, lev 20. (just starting Act II). The game is definitely more difficult and for me has become aggravating on more than one occasion. Most of it is due to my inablility to survive for any length of time at /players 8. So, like mentioned above, I was constantly experimenting with different numbers, sometimes right back down to players 1. (I am still not certain if the increase/decrease in difficulty level is immediate I.E. as soon as you type players 4 for example, does it change?)
I can survive without much difficulty at players 1 and have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that if I want to continue playing, I'm going to stop fiddling with the numbers. Maybe the best way to look at this, in the Single Players game is that you don't need players 8 anymore with the increased difficulty.
I'm probably wrong, but the players 8 option is to provide the opportunity to make the game more challenging, and also to let you level up faster, especially at very high char levels.
Using the gear I have found, to this point I find it quite challenging in many areas, using players 1.

[kandrathe]

Actually, IMO, Players 8 can be easier. Once you get used to playing at that difficulty, it is hard to go back to players 1. I also tend to be some ways behind in terms of map to char level. For instance, I recently started Act 2 at Level 19, while normally one would be level 12. So, when I am fighting Radament it is with 5-7 levels advantage. Monster HP scale up, but if you have a hireling or summon a valkyrie their HP scale up too, while the damage that monsters do stays the same. The upside is that drops are supposedly better to compensate 8 players (not quite that good, though but better). I think more monsters spawn as well. You won't kill as fast as players 1, but your NPC will survive better and be more useful. When you fight bosses, your support NPC take a huge penalty in being able to damage the boss, and the boss hits the NPC much harder. In that case, it may be better to play at Players 1.

[Dagni]

Of course, to get "amazing" gear you have to be able to survive Hell to begin with.

No, not necessarily. For example, you can get +10 to a skill tab of your choice just by spending endless hours farming monsters in late NM for Grand Charms.

- Dagni

[Professor Frink]

Most people play d2 as a farm game. In multiplayer, that's certainly the case. You do exp runs, etc, get better gear, make twinks, etc. Ultimately, the game loses the higher purpose and becomes a simple "gain level"/"get item" program.

The 'higher purpose' is to defeat baal in hell difficulty, one time, to get your title and complete the game.

This is mostly how i treat the game; except it is rare for me to beat hell baal (i've done it exactly once), particularly since I often play hardcore and often play in permanent parties where one character dying probably means the survivors won't be played again. The only time I do the item/exp runs is when a character is having difficulty proceeding due to being far too low level or needing a certain item (i.e. a venom-bow assassin needing a bow of correct type and ilvl to be socket-quested and a small pile of emeralds).

If you look at diablo 2 /players 1 like an actual epic fantasy game (don't laugh), then spending 20 hours to clear each act on hell difficulty makes sense. You're bludgeoning through the forces of evil, slowly, but surely clearing a path towards your ultimate goal.

So it takes 5 hours to clear the worldstone keep. That sounds fair to me, it is afterall the final area of the game.


The problem with this, of course, is that there's no way to save game state. Waypoints are really halfassed. I mean, really halfassed. If you go back to a previous act while playing single player, but in a new game... you can redo the entire act. Rekill all the bosses. Even the big bad boss you just killed in the last play session. Danger, walls of the virtual world crumbling.

I suppose the save system requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I always found that skinny sorceress's ability to carry around a few full suits of plate mail but not being able to wear them a little incredible as well...

Even a (great, imho) game that saves global world-state like Fallout 2 lets you repeat "random encounters" as needed to get exp and items. A fixed number of "bosses" that can only be killed once and an infinite supply of faceless goons to bump into makes no more sense to me, roleplay-wise, than a world that reloads itself completely every time I log out. At least you have to chop through a sane number of minions to get at the big guy, instead of the "if there's hundreds, thousands or more enclave goons patrolling the wasteland, why are there only a few dozen when you attack their outpost? Shouldn't they call them back for help?" issue.

A game that didn't give you an infinite supply of profitable opponents to face through some mechanism would require that the total world population be "balanced" for a certain style of play, which would make less efficent variants much less viable and hurt varieity and replayability.

It would be more realistic, but I fall pretty firmly in the "playability over realism" camp.

And back to the 'virtual walls collapsing' train of thought. Does anybody else feel ridiculous changing difficulty levels on the fly while playing single player? Hm, 1 player is too easy, let's turn on 4 players. Wow, this section is hard, let's set it back to 1. Holy crap, this new skill kills everything in one hit even in 4 players, let's ramp it up to 8!

Yes, the secret word you say to nobody in particular that suddenly gives the monsters more hp, experience, and loot is kind of silly. I like how it works, if it had been in the game since day 1 perhaps they could have found a way to integrate it into the gameplay better. (belt of raw steaks: attracts stronger monsters +25%)

The ability to set /players in single player is nice in that you can increase the challenge for strong characters, or simply level faster. But, consider this. Using even /players 4, especially /players 8, a character can reach level 25 in act 2 easily. In classic diablo, I've finished act 4 with characters lower level than that. You're not supposed to have fire wall when you kill andariel. You're not supposed to frenzy duriel to death. The council was not supposed to have to contend with Lightning fury.

Virtual walls caving in.

You don't have to use players n to get high-level in low acts, just avoid actually doing the quests and hang out in the wilds killing small furry creatures over and over. Will it unbalance the game? sure. Should you feel like a dork for needing to be level 30 with leet itams to kill normal andariel? probably. Unless you're playing an intentionally underpowered variant or the like where that behavior might be normal or necessary. Aside from the townspeople getting irked by your cowardace, that doesn't seem like a breaking roleplay at all though.

So, I guess what I'm saying is... the game tried to make multi and single player interchangable, and it failed miserably. Single player should have had a persitant world with a fixed difficulty level and unlimited storage space. Good gear should be several times more common than it is now.

Multiplayer should be as it is now, only balanced for the very best equipped characters or for parties. You should have difficulty in late nightmare and hell difficulty if you are playing multiplayer without multiple players.

And if you don't like that... why are you playing the game? When you throw the absolute best gear on a character and say "See how well this build works? I can do anything and it's trivial", you miss the point...

I guess I don't really like single player d2, so I don't play it, so much as I play multiplayer alone, with the "unlimited storage space" of mules and the accumulation of good items as a way of unlocking increasingly challenging (or sometimes merely different) builds and playstyles. Some characters play well untwinked, some need a dozen previous characters worth of godly loot bestowed on them to get anywhere. That sort of varieity is what I look for in a game; if d2 forced me to play "the way it was meant to be played" I probably wouldn't.

-- frink

[mageofthesands]

(applaudes.) Single player, true single player can still be very hard. Check out my Tales.

[Pren]

Pete, D1 single player's difficulty comes from the fact that if you get a stair trap, or a bad monster combination, don't have the attack rating to hit the monsters, or get stunlocked every time, you're looking at starting a new game. It's not really difficulty, per se, just an exceptionally long 'argh' timesink.

I've never come across something like that in d2, though. Immune bosses/packs/champions/etc that must be parked, but never had to abandon an area of the game that was required. NEw hell mode might make it that way, but again... what's the point? There is an entirely new world each game, just flip the switch and try again.

I had completely ignored the fallout/baldur's gate style monster spawns. That would be perfect for diablo single player. Static quest and lore creatures would be one time shots, but you could have plenty of random respawning encounters. Clearing a dungeon or act out could stop that, though.

Hrm, what else. Yes, one could conceivably get lvl18 before facing andariel in act 1, but it would be such a ridiculous pain in the ass that nobody in their right mind will do it. Setting it to players 8, you can get 18 easily in act 1. Big, big improvement over lvl12... and abilities that you weren't realistically supposed to have at that point. Also, you can begin relying on life/mana leech in act 1 with /players 8 (well, you could in 1.08), whereas it doesn't become viable until act 4 or later normally.

I suppose I like a constant to base everything else off of. What is an accomplishment, a difficulty, a failure, without a standard to compare it to? But the problem is that yes, players 1 is often quite lacking.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Pete, D1 single player's difficulty comes from the fact that if you get a stair trap, or a bad monster combination, don't have the attack rating to hit the monsters, or get stunlocked every time, you're looking at starting a new game. It's not really difficulty, per se, just an exceptionally long 'argh' timesink.

I think you are forgetting D1's SP save system. Only if a person is so stupid as to save when they are in trouble will a stair trap or bad monster combination screw them. If a player has the wit to save only in safe places, then there are few problems in D1 that "go slower" doesn't cover.

Of course, if a player, playing his first character, chooses a warrior and tries to play it as a spell caster, then that player will probably have troubles. And not just in the game :)

--Pete

[zaffo]

Hmmm... for me this was always more of an arcade/action game with character development and the back-story is just atmosphere.

Virtual Walls? The first time through I cared about the story a bit, but to this day I could not tell you the story. As far as I can tell it's all pretty silly. I'm bright enough to follow a good an interesting plot but I was always more interested in characters.

I played D1 and loved it, but did not play much multiplayer. When d2 came out I played each of the original 5 classes through Normal single player (softcore of course). As an interface designer I certainly noticed that the single player model had changed from D1 and there was no such thing as "saving". It took some adjustment but I found it added to the experience rather than detracted.

Heh, I remember my first time doing Normal cows with my first barb, and quickly having a popped corpse and a swarmed red portal. It took me an hour and countless deaths to get my gear back. It was genuinely tense and exciting and "real" but it had nothing to do with the story, which I had already forgotten.

My characters have lives, and they live them in this strange world where they are trapped, only being able to relive parts of the same story again and again. Imagine if the Matrix decided its virtual world should be based on D & D instead of 1999... Heck, I buy this notion easier than this silly world where the landscape is overun by monsters who don't pose any danger of coming into town.

What virtual walls?

When I tried out multiplayer and the experience was exactly the same except I could co-op with others I thought it was tremendously smart design decision. When I finally came online with D1 I did not have fun, but with D2 I understood immediately how to play the game because it was exactly the same action/arcade game I had learned SP.

So, I guess what I'm saying is... the game tried to make multi and single player interchangable, and it failed miserably. Single player should have had a persitant world with a fixed difficulty level and unlimited storage space.

My experience was completely different from yours and I came to the opposite conclusion. I think it was a forward-thinking design decision. D2 is not Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights; those games offer more of the kind of varied and evolving single player experience you are asking for.