People look at difficulty the wrong way. Difficulty should scale well with two factors--player skill and character power (gear and level). This scaling should be nice and smooth so that the game remains fun for everyone.
I don't have time for a graph, but in words, every player should be able to progress without hitting a brick wall if putting enough time (or sadly money) into gearing up.... Up to the point where player skill becomes the absolute limiting factor (e.g. in best possible gear a player of that skill can't every beat that level). So basically, up to your skill ceiling, putting in time to gain better gear (and levels) can allow a bad player to suceed; a good player will just succeed faster.
A bad game would have roadblocks where the game is suddenly too hard and require way too much farming of earlier levels for that stage in the game, or worse, a discontinuity where a player fails and is forced to quit when if past that point they could continue on fine.
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In terms of the original post, the character power (gear plus level) is actually not that bad for the "Level 1s" in question. It might be a bit alarming if a naked level 1 suceeded, but even then its so early in the game who cares?
And I got through most of hell mode with a naked sorceress in Diablo 2 and I'm not even that great a player....but I had to play very differently than I normally would; I wouldn't conclude Diablo 2 was way too easy....
Mantra of Conviction - Recite a Mantra that causes all enemies within 20 yards of you to take 20% additional damage....
Its seems to me every 4 person group would want a monk in inferno. Even if they don't do anything hardly at all, they are improving the group by almost as much as someone spamming abilities.
As for the 3 seconds every 30 seconds--sounds good, especially because skilled players can time the mantras to crucial moments.
Blizzard are trying to make money, shocking! Lets rant about "the man keeping us down" in our hemp jumpers around the campfire tonight in the old commune.
Blizzards strategy will be to release D3 when they believe many people should be getting sick of Star Wars. This will get people to buy Diablo and maybe stop paying a monthly fee for Star Wars. Then when they are bored with Diablo maybe they will go back to Wow instead of Star Wars.
Its a sound idea but in the end it depends on the merits of the games involved, and most importantly, their lasting power. Getting mad about a corporation trying to screw another corporation is like getting mad at the laws of physics.
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I don't have time for a graph, but in words, every player should be able to progress without hitting a brick wall if putting enough time (or sadly money) into gearing up.... Up to the point where player skill becomes the absolute limiting factor (e.g. in best possible gear a player of that skill can't every beat that level). So basically, up to your skill ceiling, putting in time to gain better gear (and levels) can allow a bad player to suceed; a good player will just succeed faster.
A bad game would have roadblocks where the game is suddenly too hard and require way too much farming of earlier levels for that stage in the game, or worse, a discontinuity where a player fails and is forced to quit when if past that point they could continue on fine.
--
In terms of the original post, the character power (gear plus level) is actually not that bad for the "Level 1s" in question. It might be a bit alarming if a naked level 1 suceeded, but even then its so early in the game who cares?
And I got through most of hell mode with a naked sorceress in Diablo 2 and I'm not even that great a player....but I had to play very differently than I normally would; I wouldn't conclude Diablo 2 was way too easy....
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Its seems to me every 4 person group would want a monk in inferno. Even if they don't do anything hardly at all, they are improving the group by almost as much as someone spamming abilities.
As for the 3 seconds every 30 seconds--sounds good, especially because skilled players can time the mantras to crucial moments.
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Blizzards strategy will be to release D3 when they believe many people should be getting sick of Star Wars. This will get people to buy Diablo and maybe stop paying a monthly fee for Star Wars. Then when they are bored with Diablo maybe they will go back to Wow instead of Star Wars.
Its a sound idea but in the end it depends on the merits of the games involved, and most importantly, their lasting power. Getting mad about a corporation trying to screw another corporation is like getting mad at the laws of physics.
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I hope I'm not.