While I appreciate the boots option I think it is fundamentally a poor choice of a difficulty implementation because it ignores basic human psychology. Just like water we are hardwired to seek the path of least resistance. It is much too tempting to unequip the boots if you reach a point of struggle and your brain will come up with some justification for it instead of doing the hard work of figuring out how to get past it.
Giving us the option to turn on or off the difficulty from moment to moment isnât a choice we should be able to make. It needs to be an all or nothing choice with no take backs. Otherwise the temptation to cheat ourselves is too great for most people to ignore.
Also I am not an expert on all classes but I would hazard a guess that there could be a build that would not properly function without the ability to use a proper boot. I didnât play before 1.0 but I recall hearing that there used to be such a difficulty mode available. I really hope the devs reconsider and bring it back at some point. I feel like a lot of people would consider such a mode fun and challenging but while itâs simply a choice of equipping a piece of gear I donât have much interest in the challenge.
What is the mechanism for turning on hard mode? Is it taking off your boots?! That is very weird. And how are players supposed to know about this? Isnât it also a fact that when you pick up a piece of gear thatâs not currently equipped, you will automatically equip what you pick up? You wouldnât be able to pick up boots to sell/trade, and accidentally picking up boots would ruin your day, too. So this seems like a horrible way to implement a difficulty mode.
Indeed there was. I think it was called masochist mode
The devs are very much about not bricking characters. The only current choice that is forever is mastery and im sure with enough pushback that will change or be discussed.
Even old maso mode you went into settings and disabled. So no, the idea of a âno take backsâ will never happen.
That is a very shortsighted view and infantilizes the player. You canât accidentally stumble into masochist most. Itâs an active choice the player has to make. Letting you take it back is like making a hardcore character and getting to lagon and letting the player change it to softcore. That defeats the entire purpose of it. You arenât âbrickingâ your character by making an active choice at creation when you know the consequences of said choice.
Thatâs the rub, I wouldnât even know that hard mode exists if I hadnât seen someone else mention it. There is a secret passage in the first cave of the game where you find a boot that gives you a big debuff. But thatâs all it is, a debuff that you can take on or off whenever you want. I bet you could make a macro to do it with one button press so you could just hit it whenever you feel any real struggle.
It also defeats any sort of competition or bragging rights. No one will care what you accomplished because unless you have video proof of your entire playthrough everyone will just assume that you didnât actually wear them all the time. Itâs absolutely mind boggling they thought it was a good idea and honestly feels like something they just threw into the game because they didnât have time to come up with a proper system.
A harder game-mode would definitely be enjoyed, pushing the limits of a character.
1.1 might bring that in since itâs meant to be an end-game expansion, so weâll see.
In the current state of the game though itâs far more important to fix the bugs, get the servers stable and provide the missing functionality of the Bazaar rather then adding more modes/special content and so on.
Which I absolutely love that EHG is pushing in that direction rather then caving in to make adjustments to a game which is absolutely fine⌠no⌠even utterly amazing given itâs a 1.0 and not one of the several year long running looter ARPGs⌠which mostly had vast alpha-/beta-stages too before that and were a LOT less content intensive.
Thatâs all well and good but this isnât asking for new content. The content already existed, it would be as simple as flipping a toggle. In fact making the boots was more wasted time and effort. There was no reason for this choice in the first place.
The boots are in the game since⌠well⌠a while.
Also theyâre not an item which youâre âmeantâ to get, itâs an easter egg. Meaning it was done in downtime when nothing was going on.
Thatâs the state of âthe bootsâ.
As for âjust flipping a switchâ. Included would be the workers on the UI as well as the coders.
Currently they got to fix a lot of bugs as well as (hopefully) provide the missing functionality of the Bazaar.
So given itâs an âeither/orâ for their time I would imagine youâll have to wait for a while.
As mentioned, not against it, quite the contrary. But weâll have to wait a bit if itâs going to be a separate thing or included in 1.1 simply.
What do you mean âsince a whileâ ?
The boots were added in 1.0, so⌠8 days ago.
But yeah, I agree too with OP; a real masochist mode would be really great. I was disapointed to see thatâs the âreplacementâ for masochist mode. Itâs quite a missed shot, like they donât understood the assignement
Players : Why the masochist mode is gone ? We want an harder experience, a struggle that gives gratification by completing it!
EHG : We hear you ! You are a bunch of masochists. You like suffering and unenjoyable experience!
Players : Wait⌠wha
EHG : Hereâs an item that you put on and off that will make you MISERABLE.
Players : Wait, but thatâs notâŚ
EHG : And when youâre sick of it, you just unequip them and continue playing as if you never wore them ! ISNT THAT GREAT ?!
Yeah but thats because they want people to be able to opt out of the difficulty at some point
Are we really gonna make these bad faith arguments when we have people crying and screaming about how hard it is to respec and how you cant change your character at the drop of a hat?
So instead we get the cry threads of âwell I wanted to try maso mode and now my character I love is stuck rotting here and I want it out!â
They would be crazy to create a challenge mode you cant opt out of.
I think the boots are a poor way to do it, but OP seems focused on it only mattering if you cant opt out.
You are the one making a bad faith argument. If you actually believed what you were saying you would be against hardcore mode. But you arenât instead you hold a double standard infantilizing players implying they arenât capable of understanding basic choices.
You canât opt out of hardcore mode, why should you be able to opt out of a game mode you made the active choice to play?
I disagree that itâs a bad faith argument.
And I think, too, that there should be a hard mode that you canât switch midway.
Youâre right about the new players misunderstanding and/or disliking the respec system. But with a very clear (make it double-check if you want) warning at the creation of character, or not available on first character, and you already cut a good chunk of those tantrums threads.
And to be honest, I find it a bit more âbad faithâ and intellectually dishonest to completely wave off the opinion of OP (and mine) by the simple argument that some people will be cry babies on the forum about it. Many people like having a very challenging experience, but want to be aknowledge for it; an achievement, a badge, an in-game reward like a skin, a freaking nod at the end game screen like âyou did it, weâre proud of you, son!â, anything⌠but still something. The possibility of changing it midway makes it meaningless.
But I totally understand the philosophy of having the very strict minimum of unalterable choices in the game. Hereâs an alternate suggestion that (maybe?) can satisfy both point of view :
You put back the option at the character creation. That tags you on your character sheet like Hardcore and SaF. But you have the option somewhere to opt-off of it. Once you do that, you lose the tag. Also, maybe a little treat if you get to level 100 with it ?
oh dont get me wrong, this is the correct way to do it. and thats how you used to be able to do it. you went to options to disable it and you lost the tag.
Im not waving off the opinion, I just think it comes with way more downsides then upsides. There is a reason almost all of the challenge options in this genre are either something you can turn off, or are not completely faithful.
Good example is hardcore, hardcore is âwhen you die, you die foreverâ but you dont. You get to become a ghost and continue to play the game. Heck some people want this feature deleted. But it makes sense to have it. Some people want to dip their toes into a harder/more punishing game mode without it being all or nothing.
you are able to play it like its all or nothing if you so desire, and it works out best that way.
You still canât choose to leave it at will unless you suicide your character. There is no valid reason for letting you quit an optional difficulty mode. No other game does this and for good reason. Iâve already talked about the psychological effects of giving players an out. This is bad game design point blank there is no valid argument against this.
I enjoyed masochist mode way more than regular campaign, but I admit I wasnât aware (or donât remember) that there was an option to turn it off.
All in all, I find it a weird change and I dislike the boots. Of course, there is way more important things to focus on right now. Also, the campaign seems a bit more difficult than before and makes the hardmode/boots even less a priority in my opinion.
For the record, many, many other games let you change the difficulty on the fly, as often as you want. Probably a large majority of games nowadays. If you want examples, all the games I played in 2023: Van Helsing, Hogwarts legacy, Diablo 4, BG3.
That said, I agree that I donât like doing it, when I choose something I like it to be permanent.
Harcore characters shouldnât survive, SSF ones shouldnât be allowed to opt out, etcâŚ
But it is what it is, I donât mind making it a self-imposed challenge if games donât want to build in the challenge anymore.
PS: as for the subject at hand, I agree the boots feel more like a joke than a real difficulty setting. I believe this is just a placeholder until a proper system can be put in place.
That is a disingenuous argument. You are talking about something completely different. That is a global difficulty setting that applies to the entire game. Those games donât have separate game ladders with blocked off characters that can only play at one difficulty. I guess I should have clarified but I thought it was easily inferred that I was talking about other ARPGS.
If you create a character knowing full well that you are choosing a special set of rules there is zero reason why you should be able to just take it back with no consequences. And that is what those boots do which completely invalidates the entire purpose of the mode and goes counter to human nature. The mode means nothing if you can just jump back and forth using it when itâs convenient and dropping it when itâs not.
