Diblo 3 Torment System?

Feedback and Suggestions
1

Been reading posts about how braindead easy the campaign and a lot of the early monos can become, so it got me thinking. What about a torment type system that lets you adjust the difficulty of the content to suit your needs?

For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s basically a difficulty multiplier that buffs damage, HP, XP, drops that you can adjust freely.

2

Personally not a fan of difficulty sliders.

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3

I’m a fan of spreadsheets if we can find some way to work those in!

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4

The Torment system is really basic and a bit 80s. LE have some people doing really beautiful things with maths and building up systems from there. The variable challenge and reward from Torment is obviously a great idea, but its been implemented in the most plodding pedestrian manner possible.

Have you come out to the new timelines? I’m having huge fun exploring way out in the unknown. The complexity of added challenge and how you are involved in the managing it is one of those sweet non-linear situations I find so fun in games and draws me to ARPGs. Come try the deep parts of the timelines and see if you don’t agree its better than just a 10 scale difficulty slider than everyone just turns to max after a few days and forgets it exists.

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5

Doesn’t fix the other 90% of the game. This is what Torment style difficulty sliders are for.

6

I think qualitative difficulty (league mechanics/endgame modes) would be more interesting than quantitative (level 1000 enemies). The second challenges the buildmaking step, not necessarily skill expression or agency in actual gameplay. You either survive or you don’t, and at a certain level that constrains your build choices. With league mechanics you decide the way you want to play, and the challenge doesn’t end at the Forge/Crafting Bench/Arsenal. For example:

  • Fight bosses more. Bosses have fancy telegraphed 2-3 shot attacks to learn. You can skimp on gear if you have world class mechanics. Orobyss fight is a great example of both because he has many different attacks and can be encountered frequently.
  • Fight multiple bosses. Admiral Harton/Spymaster Zerrick, Spirits of Fire, etc. This can be even more challenging if you fight bosses that don’t normally spawn together as in PoE Maven (imagine fighting Lagon and Rahyeh at the same time).
  • Roguelike dungeon. Think Slay the Spire or even Hearthstone’s Dungeon Run. Basically it’s hardcore and you don’t keep loot which allows over-the-top drops and enemies to be balanced. Runs are procedurally generated so it’s a different experience every time.
  • Tower defense. PoE Blight comes to mind; you upgrade towers with different attacks to defend a building, and gain resources to build/upgrade more towers as enemies are killed. Waves can spawn different types of enemies or minibosses that beat some defenses but not others.
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7

This is a totally fair criticism of difficulty sliders, but league mechanics are a long ways out and much harder to implement. I’d also be skeptical about their potential influence on the campaign experience, but that’s ones of those wait-and-see type of things.

Edit:

I’m so sick of seeing this forced into ARPGs. If I wanted to play Hardcore, I would. This is the thing that makes PoE’s Lab utter cancer.

8

PoE Lab isn’t cancer just because it’s hardcore though:

  • Ascendancy points/mastery are gated behind it - not once, but four times
  • The fourth one (uber lab) is gated behind 6 different trials that spawn randomly in maps
    • You can spawn the same one again and again and it won’t count
  • The labs are way overleveled relative to the level they’re available
  • You “need” bleed immunity, PDR, reflect immune (until recently), etc.
  • You “need” a third party program (LabCompass) to navigate, and some days the layout is terrible regardless

I actually enjoyed labs when I didn’t need them for ascendancy. They were fun on a specialized labrunning character for farming enchants, at a time when many other farms were profitable. I also didn’t enjoy Dungeon Runs as hardcore game modes with exciting loot/bosses on the side, but vice versa. If they could balance it without the hardcore, I’d enjoy it just as much. In fact that was the problem with it (and similar “seasonal” effects in other games like League); it was more fun than the “real” game to many people and hurt retention afterwards.

2 Likes
9

I mostly agree with this, but I don’t think you really “need” LabCompass. It’s just a convenience thing. The terrible layouts on certain days is just awful, though, lol.

10

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