Hello, I made this account just to post this question.
Why is there still three difficulties? Can’t the Devs just scale the game so when we reach the last ACT of the dlc we get to like lvl 80-90 and then just grind to 100? Having three difficulties make it seem meaningless to unlock areas in normal and elite difficulty if I know eventually I will out level them. I am sure this has been brought up, and its a single player game so it doesn’t really matter but I do think making a single difficulty game that with proper scaling would make this game 100x better than it already is. Thanks
Because the game and it’s progression has been designed and balanced around 3 difficulties for literal years now. The devs arn’t about to throw out a lot of work balancing enemies, areas, quest xp rewards and so on this late into development with no notable benefit at the end.
We have difficulty merits now if the 3 difficulties are a problem to you. Feel free to use one and skip Normal/Elite if desired.
What Evil_Baka said. The game was designed around 3 difficulties so ripping that up and effectively starting anew isn’t going to happen. Development on the game is winding down so it would be a lot of work for no tangible benefit over what we have now. The question has been asked a few times over the years and being able to skip difficulties using Merit tokens is Crate’s answer to that question. When you skip monsters scale all the from one up to max level.
Without merits monsters will scale up to their area max, whatever that is as far as I know. This is why you sometimes don’t get XP or rare materials dropping because you’re too high a level. In Ultimate monsters will often be above 100 as is normal for the game.
That’s because FG is over a year old. It was released on 27th March 2019.
The 3 difficulties became kinda pointless with the 2 expansions as you end normal in the 70-ish range if you do everything. But there is nothing wrong with the option being there.
I now always switch to Ultimate after normal because of the enemy scaling. The game can be easier in many cases if you go to Ultimate at 70 right away and slowly work your way up instead of the sudden jump of switching to 100 Ultimate. Because the last levels offer minimal returns for the massive scaling the enemies undergo. I don’t remember the last time I actually played through Elite since the merits were introduced.
I lose most of my drive once I hit 100 and the rest of it goes once I finish the Ultimate campaign. The levelling is currently laid out pretty horribly since if you go through all 3 difficulties, you hit 100 somewhere around late Elite, making Ultimate pointless. My last char with which I went straight to Ultimate after normal hit 100 somewhere past fort Ikon on Ultimate, without using anything XP related, which IMO feels much better.
If you want a chance at getting highest level MIs without backtracking (I don’t like farming), then you have to play through entire campaign at or close to level 100. Which is exactly how current difficulties seem to work. Normal/Elite are for gaining skill/attr/devo points while Ultimate is for gaining items and testing more or less complete character against entire campaign.
This is why I feel like Normal is obsolete. The game makes much more sense as a 2-act drama: Elite & Ultimate.
Much better to start in Elite, though it is quite a bit harder. If you start in Normal, then Elite is far too easy and boring, and feels like a tedious stop-gap between Normal and Ultimate.
Though there is an advantage to having Normal even when you start Elite - you can pick up a handful of shrines (i’ll usually grab those of Act 1) to help kick-start your Elite campaign, especially if your character doesn’t come with an auto-heal (grab Bat for example).
personally I tend to skip Elite… As to the original topic, given the option to skip difficulties exists, I see no reason to remove any of them. I also do not think it should be rolled into one difficulty that gradually becomes harder, at most I would bring it down to two (but a mechanic for that exists already)
Some people think Veteran is too hard, that’s why Normal exists. Some people think Ultimate is too hard, that’s why Elite exists.
Why do you still have to play through all 3 on the first character? Balancing, and easing new players into the difficulty curve. Would we approach difficulties the same way if we do a sequel? Difficult to say, but changes would probably be under consideration.
We added the Merits for a reason though for players levelling alts.
