Do you want a balance patch?

[yerkyerk]

I don't think an additional difficulty level would add anything to the game - there are already 3.
I think normal needs to be left alone mostly - Epic much harder and Legendary nigh impossible (just as the manual states it should be).

Anyway, I'm interested in to how a real debate would develop if we can get a forum up for it. I've inquired Batman about the possibilities, but he seems to have disappeared from the surface of the planet, so I'll try contact eh... Gene?

[Irma2]

Originally Posted by Persona

Giving bosses and heroes extra resistances and such sounds like a pretty good idea, to me.

I'd go in the other direction. The problem is not that the monsters don't have enough life or don't do enough damage or have enough resists. It's that the players are either immune or almost immune to whatever damage the monster does, thanks to uber-gear.

Really, how much skill does it take to beat Toxeus when you have -100% Damage from Undead? How much damage would he have to do, or how much HP would he need to have, in order to make the fight 'challenging'?

If people really want harder bosses, then don't buff the bosses. Debuff the players. So I'd give each boss an aura that:

1) Reflects 200% damage back at the player if he attacks from outside a certain radius (stops mages from killing bosses with Eruption from miles away). When the player enters the boss's radius, the aura stops doing its reflect damage and changes instead to:
2) Auto-capping all player resists and +% bonuses. So it would reduce all the player's resists to, say, 20%. It may also cut CAP, Dodge Attacks, Recharge, Less Damage from... etc to a nominal value of, say, 30%. It would also apply a hard cap of 1000 DA for the player, regardless of gear.

Going in to face Toxeus or Nate with a max of 1k DA, only 30% Dodge Attacks and/or -30% Damage from Undead would be a whole different ball-game from the current uber-easy max DA/max Dodge/-100% Damage from Undead approach.

If that still wasn't deemed challenging enough, then simply lower the caps until you reach a point where the vets are happy.

[Extrakun]

Originally Posted by Irma2

I'd go in the other direction. The problem is not that the monsters don't have enough life or don't do enough damage or have enough resists. It's that the players are either immune or almost immune to whatever damage the monster does, thanks to uber-gear.

Consider me a newbie, how on earth could that happens!?

Maybe a "Titan Quest^2" mod, like xMax, can be produced for those veterans.

At any rate, I am not too fond of increasing hit points to scale difficulty because it makes it unfair to casters and just...well, uninteresting. I rather that humanoid monsters use skills and tactics that we use, like Briar Ward, Phantom Strike, Squall, Colossal Form and etc.

[nemhauser]

Originally Posted by yerkyerk

I don't think an additional difficulty level would add anything to the game - there are already 3.

i don't know it if was reply to me but i'll assume it was :-)
i did not mean adding new difficulty (that i think is even not possible) but rescaling the existing one.. and true, the normal one could be left as it is

Originally Posted by Irma2

Auto-capping all player resists and +% bonuses. So it would reduce all the player's resists to, say, 20%. It may also cut CAP, Dodge Attacks, Recharge, Less Damage from... etc to a nominal value of, say, 30%. It would also apply a hard cap of 1000 DA for the player, regardless of gear.

is this a good direction? my vote would go for increasing resists of monsters... on legendary some would have 80% physical, some would have 80% cold or fire or lightning.. and some would have even two or three of those.

Originally Posted by Extrakun

I rather that humanoid monsters use skills and tactics that we use, like Briar Ward, Phantom Strike, Squall, Colossal Form and etc.

i'm working on a mod that basically does what you mentioned, but even more - i'm replacing all humanoid monsters with humans and they have access to all skills (i.e. haruspex monster has access to dream/hunting skills :P)

Originally Posted by Extrakun

Consider me a newbie, how on earth could that happens!?

around 2000 DA and most of the monsters can't hit you in melee
i think you can reach 100% avoid projectile so no archers/casters can hit you
you can also have a shield that blocks always (don't know the details yet)

[Irma2]

Originally Posted by Extrakun

Consider me a newbie, how on earth could that happens!?

Take a look at the videos on YouTube. For the vast majority, the players aren't displaying any skill at all in killing bosses. They have the items and build to make themselves immune (or near as darnit) to whatever the boss is doing. So they just run straight into the middle of the bosses and swing away until the bosses die - without taking a scratch themselves.

You will see many videos in which melee toons stand right in Typhon's meteors, yet take no damage. They're also not taking any damage from Typhon's melee attacks, due to massive DA. Does it take a great deal of skill to kill a boss when most or all of his attacks can't hurt you? Not really.

With 100% CAP, you can walk into a custom map room filled with 200 Legendary Machae Grandmaster archers, stand still in the centre of the room - and not take one HP of damage. Does it take huge skill to kill them all without dying yourself? No. Would it take skill to kill them all if they had double the number of HP, did double the damage, and had 70% resists to whatever damage you were doing? No. It would just take longer, that's all.

Originally Posted by Extrakun

I rather that humanoid monsters use skills and tactics that we use, like Briar Ward, Phantom Strike, Squall, Colossal Form and etc.

They do already. Demons use Phantom Strike, Harpies use Squall, skeleton mages use Deathchill, The Night's Mistress uses Spell Breaker/Spell Shock, and so on.

Still, I'd love to see the reaction when you enter an area of patched Maenads, the sorcerers stun-lock you with -100% recharge on their Lightning Bolt while the poison spear guys just wear you down and kill you while you're helpless. Any patch coder who implemented that would have to change his identity and go and live in Mexico, to escape the vengeful hordes of righteously indignant vets that would be after him.

Similarly, how cool would it be to take your l33t bow Brigand/Ranger/Haruspex into the patched Hades chamber, and discover that he has 100% CAP?

[lufe]

100% anything is damn wrong. It's against the spirit of playing any game, exactly what Irma says above. If not for the impopulartiy of the thing, I would be for capping ANY resistance to 80%, any dodge attack, any huge amount of DA that would make you impossible to hit, etc. 80% is high, it's not very fair for the monsters, but still you're not invulnerable.

When I said that giving resists to the monsters is a way to go, I don't mean that other things shouldn't be done. One of them is for sure having a cap on how invulnerable the player is.

[Extrakun]

Originally Posted by lufe

When I said that giving resists to the monsters is a way to go, I don't mean that other things shouldn't be done. One of them is for sure having a cap on how invulnerable the player is.

True, but Blizzard applying a 50% immunity to physical attack across the board and just turning some monsters immune to everything is just a total co-out.

Is it possible to generate items for monsters that give resists but won't drop?

[yerkyerk]

Perhaps it's possible to equip monsters with a bunchload of yellow items - nobody will pick the crap up, but it'll make the monsters stronger on lots of randomized fronts.

[nemhauser]

Originally Posted by Extrakun

Is it possible to generate items for monsters that give resists but won't drop?

but then they won't drop anything.

anyway, why add items with resists? it is simplier to just change the resists value on that monster

[I_Raps]

Originally Posted by yerkyerk

Perhaps it's possible to equip monsters with a bunchload of yellow items - nobody will pick the crap up, but it'll make the monsters stronger on lots of randomized fronts.

You can give them items that can't be picked up. If the item has no Actor Variable mesh, it shouldn't even appear on the ground.

The advantage compared to changing the monsters directly is changing one loottable versus dozens of monster and proxy files.

Also, loot can be randomized - monster abilities can't.