Any way to force harder difficulty?

[Demonseethe]

My wife bought this game and I am so glad I resisted. She likes to enjoy games and not race to the "end game" so she is currently in Act 3 (Chapter 1 whatever that means) and on Expert difficulty. She is getting more and more frustrated with how easy everything is. Enemies melt, goblins melt, bosses melt. She just fought some boss and it died instantly. IMO gating difficulty behind story progress is lazy, but I wanted to hop on here to see if anyone knows of any ways to increase the difficulty without having her have to rush the story (likely to make her quit) or have her slog through the wet paper enemies (also likely to make her quit).

Thanks all

[Demonseethe]

Originally posted by Fleanis:

Tell her to take off half her equipment.

Yeah, we had thought of that. Was just hoping there was something less lame to do to make a Blizzard game enjoyable, but that era ended a long time ago. Thanks though :)

[Neithan]

Sadly, to have somewhat of a challenged balanced campaign experience, you indeed have to "rush" it, that means, only focus on the campaign, do NOT engage in sidequests or open world activities.
The point here is, you will quickly outlevel the campaign difficulty, even if you crank it up, so better gain as few experience as possible.

Sounds lame, sadly they completely borked the progression with sidequests letting you outlevel the campaign, was a problem since release, the difficulty rework might have even piled onto the issue, dunno.

But the "good news" is, from what I gather they are going to (again) rework the whole difficulty, especially regarding campaign and leveling, lets hope for some improvement.

[Demonseethe]

Originally posted by Neithan:

Sadly, to have somewhat of a challenged balanced campaign experience, you indeed have to "rush" it, that means, only focus on the campaign, do NOT engage in sidequests or open world activities.
The point here is, you will quickly outlevel the campaign difficulty, even if you crank it up, so better gain as few experience as possible.

Sounds lame, sadly they completely borked the progression with sidequests letting you outlevel the campaign, was a problem since release, the difficulty rework might have even piled onto the issue, dunno.

But the "good news" is, from what I gather they are going to (again) rework the whole difficulty, especially regarding campaign and leveling, lets hope for some improvement.

Yeah, that makes sense. My wife and I generally are completionists so we do not leave an area until we have completed everything. She has stopped doing side quests now and said she will go back after she can turn up the difficulty.

Way to go Blizzard; self spelunking again and you forgot your mining hats!

[crzyfsh123]

Finish the reqs. and move into Torment. Expert JFC. Meanwhile let's see how you like next season and the slower progression.

[Demonseethe]

Originally posted by crzyfsh123:

Finish the reqs. and move into Torment. Expert JFC. Meanwhile let's see how you like next season and the slower progression.

I think this misses the entire point of my post. I was trying to confirm on behalf of my wife if there was another way to increase difficulty that didn't involve sprinting down the main story. Not sure what you mean by "Expert JFC", but at least I won't need to see how the next season is as Blizzard does relatively nothing to entice me to give them a chance again.

[crzyfsh123]

Originally posted by Demonseethe:

Originally posted by crzyfsh123:

Finish the reqs. and move into Torment. Expert JFC. Meanwhile let's see how you like next season and the slower progression.

I think this misses the entire point of my post. I was trying to confirm on behalf of my wife if there was another way to increase difficulty that didn't involve sprinting down the main story. Not sure what you mean by "Expert JFC", but at least I won't need to see how the next season is as Blizzard does relatively nothing to entice me to give them a chance again.

Sorry if I skimmed your post. Yours is not the first one to complain how easy it is. If you finish up what ever the difficulty reqs are, they are listed at char log in, you can continue your merry way on the main quest only with harder mobs.

The only issue may be if a quest you started in a lower difficulty level, you may have to drop back to finish it.

The JFC, was an eyeroll emoji.

[Josh]

Diabo newb here, but veteran gamer. NEVER liked the point and click gameplay of the original so skipped the series all together. But with a controller, at least it its improved.

Am I missing the entire concept of the game just killing things as quickly as possible? Is that it? Am I supposed to be treating this like an MMO, where every mob is just super simple and basic and designed to easily die so you can level up? Just a dark evil variation of WOW? I stopped playing MMOs, mostly due to getting married and having a life and realizing just how utterly pointless they all are, because there's nothing challenging about them.

Is that all it is? A kill simulator, with just loads of different ways to make everything die fast, to level up to 60, when its supposed to get hard? Super casual and easy, then it just shifts at the end if you want it to?

Glad it was only $24 and there's a fun aspect to it, until you come to the realization, just WHY? What is the point? Love the quality of the design, art, music, etc. But its just so damn easy. Just hit lvl 25, but is the leveling up process just this, over and over? Like leveling up in an MMO? Click die, click die? Why explore? Anything unique to find but its all useless an hour later? Have I played too many Souls game, Monster Hunter, growing up being challenged to even appreciate what this is? I see you can raise the Difficulty, but then you get more EXP too, so you level up even FASTER? What's the point of the entire world when you can't even explore it because its too easy?

I just don't know what the game is supposed to be? POE2 I read is harder, but not playing anything early access. But its the same game, but you have to think? =)

[steven1mac]

They added higher tiers of difficulty after you beat the main campaign, which will slow you down, but it does seem to rely on killing things faster for the most part. If you want an AARPG game that is focused more on the story, you can try Grimm Dawn and less killing the enemy as quickly as possible, but in the end, the core design of any ARPG game is kill monsters, get better gear to kill bigger monsters.

[agentkido]

Originally posted by Josh:

Diabo newb here, but veteran gamer. NEVER liked the point and click gameplay of the original so skipped the series all together. But with a controller, at least it its improved.

Am I missing the entire concept of the game just killing things as quickly as possible? Is that it? Am I supposed to be treating this like an MMO, where every mob is just super simple and basic and designed to easily die so you can level up? Just a dark evil variation of WOW? I stopped playing MMOs, mostly due to getting married and having a life and realizing just how utterly pointless they all are, because there's nothing challenging about them.

Is that all it is? A kill simulator, with just loads of different ways to make everything die fast, to level up to 60, when its supposed to get hard? Super casual and easy, then it just shifts at the end if you want it to?

Glad it was only $24 and there's a fun aspect to it, until you come to the realization, just WHY? What is the point? Love the quality of the design, art, music, etc. But its just so damn easy. Just hit lvl 25, but is the leveling up process just this, over and over? Like leveling up in an MMO? Click die, click die? Why explore? Anything unique to find but its all useless an hour later? Have I played too many Souls game, Monster Hunter, growing up being challenged to even appreciate what this is? I see you can raise the Difficulty, but then you get more EXP too, so you level up even FASTER? What's the point of the entire world when you can't even explore it because its too easy?

I just don't know what the game is supposed to be? POE2 I read is harder, but not playing anything early access. But its the same game, but you have to think? =)

Sounds like you're just an ARPG newb not just a Diablo newb. The point of arpg's is that there's a campaign which is basically the tutorial and then there's mapping which is gearing up to get stronger and stronger till you can do the hardest endgame content. That's the way it's always been in these games, grim dawn, torchlight, Poe, last epoch, Diablo, ect. They all have similar after campaign mechanics and each league we do it again to see what new gear/mechanics they've added into the game to enjoy them.

[Mizuki 水城 泰士]

Is she using Witchcraft? I find those make the game a lot easier. I recommend not using them if you don't want the game to be too easy. You can even disable the Seasonal character option upon creation, though I personally would say keep it on just in-case but simply don't pursue it in-game. But yeah, as the others also said; doing side quests and other things can give you too much of an upper hand, best to just do the storyline alone and if you can unlock Torment do so but do NOT try anything beyond storyline otherwise even for Torment you can become overpowered. I found gear at ilvl 700-800 makes even Torment easy. Keep below 700 or even better; keep below 600. Also, keep your armour value below 80% (basically less than the value of 800 as 1k is cap) and resistance around 30%-50%. Yeah, you shouldn't NEED to downgrade your gear to have the sense of difficulty but this it seems difficulty in this game is a bit flawed. Fact is the higher difficulty does in fact debuff your gear but it's easily amended, just got to resist temptation of upgrading your gear.

[D]

I have never seen so many stupid consecutive comments inside the same discussion in my life. And I've been here for almost 15 years, so that's something.

[everythingsucks]

Originally posted by Demonseethe:

My wife bought this game and I am so glad I resisted. She likes to enjoy games and not race to the "end game" so she is currently in Act 3 (Chapter 1 whatever that means) and on Expert difficulty. She is getting more and more frustrated with how easy everything is. Enemies melt, goblins melt, bosses melt. She just fought some boss and it died instantly. IMO gating difficulty behind story progress is lazy, but I wanted to hop on here to see if anyone knows of any ways to increase the difficulty without having her have to rush the story (likely to make her quit) or have her slog through the wet paper enemies (also likely to make her quit).

Thanks all

wtf are you talking about?

the campaign is just the tutorial in ANY arpg. you are literally wasting your time in the campaign and luckily we can skip it after doing it one time.

IDK about the campaign but yes there's like 8 difficulty tiers that lock loot behind it. you can't expect to drop the best gear during the campaign.

either you're gaslighting your gf to make her think she should be struggling or you're a poe 2 shill that's only played it as your only arpg and don't understand what fun actually is.

game's are meant to be fun. not a struggle. but luckily in d4 you can make it more difficult with better rewards for your struggle.

[Maestro]

you can increase difficult easy if you don't use items and inventory :D

[unhinged takes]

Originally posted by Demonseethe:

My wife bought this game and I am so glad I resisted. She likes to enjoy games and not race to the "end game" so she is currently in Act 3 (Chapter 1 whatever that means) and on Expert difficulty. She is getting more and more frustrated with how easy everything is. Enemies melt, goblins melt, bosses melt. She just fought some boss and it died instantly. IMO gating difficulty behind story progress is lazy, but I wanted to hop on here to see if anyone knows of any ways to increase the difficulty without having her have to rush the story (likely to make her quit) or have her slog through the wet paper enemies (also likely to make her quit).

Thanks all

its funny im in end game trying to get to wt4 and im having the same issue in wt3. i melt everything. but when i go to do the pit to unlock wt4 its like im hitting them with cardboard and the enemies have nukes. the scaling in this game is horrible compared to Diablo 3

[Josh]

Originally posted by agentkido:

Sounds like you're just an ARPG newb not just a Diablo newb. The point of arpg's is that there's a campaign which is basically the tutorial and then there's mapping which is gearing up to get stronger and stronger till you can do the hardest endgame content. That's the way it's always been in these games, grim dawn, torchlight, Poe, last epoch, Diablo, ect. They all have similar after campaign mechanics and each league we do it again to see what new gear/mechanics they've added into the game to enjoy them. [/quote]

Yep, I've avoided the genre because of the point and click and hoped D4 being modern with better control and gfx, might provide SOMETHING interesting. I was wrong. Shame.