Gameplay

[eisprinzessin]

Additional difficulties would become obsolete then. Just make a cut once you have completed normal ... hence you have it your way.

[Adyy]

All I'm saying is that it will be a new approach . Besides no one would have really cared if in TQ for ex u would have ended normal diff killing a telkine and then continued the story on the other difficulties . Once you ended legendary you would have maxed the class out and simply start a new game with a new class like in other hack&slash you would have start on normal diff and so on.

For those few who would like playing the whole thing on a diff lvl a new diff lvl like insane can be added and if your class is like lvl 60 or so u can play the game on that diff lvl from start to beginnig , for interest I would have added some special gear here but I think by doing so we are the start of the o the problem.
Ofc for story It can be done something else . We should learn from WoW let's have two sides so you start with a good side here - normal story in TQ and then you can start the with a negative hero form evil perspective like you start from Hades backwards but this will need some new quests and new monsters . It will be fun to face your own good or bad developed hero at the end .... just imagination as I was saying
Ah and about diff it doesn't exist in this games is just a notion so that u replay the whole game , gain lvls and stuff . Are there really any changes besides those ?! Are the monsters we face any where near smarter ? I belive not .

[yerkyerk]

Well, I'm with eisprinsezzin. Stop the game after you beat it on Normal difficulty and you pretty much have what you're talking about wanting.

[medierra]

As I mentioned in one of the other threads, the majority of players will probably only play through the game on normal difficulty once. Then there are people who will play through normal a couple times with different builds. Only a very small % of the audience will play through Epic and Legendary. I think a large portion of the audience would be incredibly frustrated if the game was paced out so that you had to play 40hrs and go through legendary difficulty to finish the main story.

I think a lot of hardcore players assume that they are fairly representative of the gaming audience at large but this just isn't the case. I used to feel this way myself before I entered the gaming industry. Before I got my first design job, I did some playtesting work for Ensemble Studios (that is actually how I accidentally ended up becoming a designer). I remember arguing with them about the importance of multiplayer balance and they told me that it just wasn't a huge priority since only 10% of the audience at that time even played multiplayer. I was totally shocked... I thought the campaign in Age of Empires was kind of boring so I assumed most people MUST be playing multiplayer. Of course, today a much larger % of the audience will play multiplayer in any given game but it is still less than you'd probably expect. I don't have actual numbers for Titan Quest but I would be surprised if it is much over 30%.

Since we're focusing on digital distribution, we're leaning slightly more towards the hardcore audience than we did on TQ but even so, we have to appeal to both ends of the gamer spectrum and most of our audience probably still won't play the higher difficulties.

[Adyy]

TQ wasn't so popular on MP bec it was very easy to cheat in there, my opinion ,so it may not be right . Regarding the fact that most ppl finish with one class on normal and start with another one I don't know what to say most ppl I know in fact played the game with the same class on epic and legendary to max it out , for gear to beat the few new monsters that appeared only on epic and legendary like Talos , Hydra and so on .
After that they tryed other builds but got bored bec they had to play so much to max the class out I included here . I liked TQ so much so I wanted to max out three classes but I ended up barely maxing one.
Regarding the difficulties I realy don't belive in the ideea that the ppl will get frustated really I mean for what reason ? If it was only for a subtle change like the diff icon color and so on realy no one would have even noticed . Also the mobs on normal acts it would have been some crap mobs then on epic some stronger mobs so u get more atention from your enemy and at end more general , etc more challenging mobs . It's normal to get better gear drops in Olimp then at the start of the game for ex .
Most ppl who play hack&slash games don't really play for story maybe first run but they play for gear , for lvl and this kind of motives .You don't farm Typhoon bec u just want to kill him you want to get better gear from him .
The very ideea with the three difficulties lvls is a copy from D2 but D2 shined at the MP part .

[eisprinzessin]

From time to time I envy people, who have achieved more in a game. And I can get frustrated from the fact, that I will not be able to catch up with them. That's one of the reasons, why I prefer single player. Then I can play the game at my pace and as I like. There is no competition with anyone, and I don't need to observe any deadlines (used to play WoW) *ignoring the fact that MMO is differnt from MP *

So, this is just my personal issue, and I don't expect any developer to consider my feelings. Why am I writing this? Adyy, I wonder if we are somewhat similar in this respect. Well, you emphasised that you get bored from re-playing stuff (that's not the case with me). But you want to reach the end game, which is not acceptable for you, as long as you have to replay everything on epic and legendary mode. This seems to frustrate you

You threw in a few other aspects, which have been discussed in other threads, or for which you might want to start a new thread. This brings me back to my previous recommendations, meant to spice up epic and legendary modes

[eisprinzessin]

Originally Posted by medierra

[...] the majority of players will probably only play through the game on normal difficulty once. [...] Only a very small % of the audience will play through Epic and Legendary. [...] we're leaning slightly more towards the hardcore audience than we did on TQ but even so, we have to appeal to both ends of the gamer spectrum and most of our audience probably still won't play the higher difficulties.

I've been assuming that GD will have 3 difficulties as TQ has them. But I did not find any confirmation of it. Although you can recycle most of the stuff for the higher difficulties, you still have to create unique items and balance the game. Sounds like you will have to invest a lot of work/money for this "very small % of the audience". Will epic and legendary modes already in the initial release?

[medierra]

Originally Posted by eisprinzessin

I've been assuming that GD will have 3 difficulties as TQ has them. But I did not find any confirmation of it. Although you can recycle most of the stuff for the higher difficulties, you still have to create unique items and balance the game. Sounds like you will have to invest a lot of work/money for this "very small % of the audience". Will epic and legendary modes already in the initial release?

We're planning on it. The work is significant but not that costly since it doesn't require a lot of new assets. It is a small but important part of the audience since the hardcore crowd tends to be the most vocal and we expect them to play the longest (if we do a our jobs well) and do the most to spread the game through word of mouth. Ultimately, to be successful, I think we have to take a balanced approach and do what we can for all segments of our potential audience.

[Ironpunta]

I think that one of the worst aspect in TL is the lack of the feeling that the hero in game is your creatures.
In all the ARPG I played, I feelt that sensation only at the half of the second level of difficulty (epic in TQ). I never stopped my build at normal level, because to see if it works I have to arrive at least in half of the epic.
In fact in TQ was Teslos who make me understand if my build is good or not...
All I want to say is that the story and the percentage of develop of your hero have to be in balance. For example when u are in half of the second difficulty your character, in my opinion, have to stay at 40-45% of the Cap level. In TL u finish the total History at lvl 27 of 100 if i don't wrong and this is not in balance

[alexei]

TL is just not balanced at all for me. I just spam through same final skill until fight with Odrok (whatever his name is). Given enough attention when spamming skill, you wouldn't died at all and although TL is doing good job in the hit-feeling with all the effect, it's still feel like crop harvesting. Too easy for normal diff. I stop playing there.