I think we need an answer to this for Delve: What is 'harder'?

"

The deeper you delve, the harder the game gets.

There are many ways Path of Exile gets harder, from mobs have more health, to more mechanics, to more defense, to more damage.

Except at some point those capped off before.

For Delve we are being told the game gets harder, and for that, I have to assume a few things because it's not stated anywhere else.

- Monster damage will scale infinitely
- Monster health will scale infinitely
- Monster resistances will scale infinitely
- Monster armor will scale infinitely
- Monster movement speed will scale infinitely
- Monster attack speed will scale infinitely
- Monster accuracy will scale infinitely
- Monster evasion will scale infinitely
- Monster ability usage will scale infinitely

Kinda threw in that last one, not sure if they will pick up new abilities. But regardless, there is only one thing if that list is correct that allows you to push the hardest content: resistances. Because Inquisitor can ignore resistances, and always put damage on target. If you are any other class, you are screwed if "harder" means everything scales harder.

I'd like to know: what does "harder" mean for Delve? If it is all these things, then we all must play Inquisitor crit builds. Without it, there will be a Delve that takes a non-Inquisitor build longer than a day to complete, while the Inquisitor will only reach that point when monster health reaches such insane numbers that it takes that long. Assuming you can survive/prevent the damage at that point.

You might say: "Monster resistances are capped at 75%!" Well then, that's a very specific infinitely scaling 'harder' and it would be good to know if that is going to be the case (in which case, the Delve that takes you 48 hours straight to complete, sitting there grinding on a single pack of monsters for hours on end to kill it, the Inquisitor completes that in 12 hours). If resistances will be static, and only health and damage scale, then it won't be such a big deal and we can play whatever build we want, and thus this forum post.

Evasion builds are also out if accuracy scales. Dodge and Block are the only reliable stats, but are capped. A capped block/spell block/dodge Inquisitor would go pretty far until there is a degen that does 100% of your health as damage per instant, or when a monster Explosive Arrow goes off on you.

Eventually we will all die in Delve. As a Hardcore League player myself, this is pretty fun. This seems a lot of fun for Standard modes who can progress much further than any Hardcore player and say, "that Delve progress took me 100 deaths!" It seems Hardcore will be much more relegated to side-Delving to 'enjoy the content', pushing their character deeper when they are willing to progress (or die!). The fun being in seeing the ladder constantly filled with death messages, and having a true sense of rank against other players; where progress, not play time and leveling, become the focus of builds. Getting Level 100 in Hardcore League will likely be seen as a waste, as you likely wouldn't have touched a single Delve at that point. It is probably going to make this one of the best leagues in a long time for everyone.

This may all be incorrect. Which is why I'd like to know if possible, what does 'harder' mean?

You're ignoring the effects of darkness. Harder might mean that the darkness gets harder to deal with, while monsters just stay the same as their ilvl would make them normally. We don't know yet. It wont be long though before we do. A week. You can do it!

GGG is surely aware of what they can scale and what not without creating too much imbalance between builds.

I expect the primary scaling factors will be damage and health because they affect everyone the same way. Well, mostly; evasion builds will reach the point of being one-shot by enemies sooner than those that use other defenses because evasion is all-or-nothing.

Movement and attack speed might also scale, but there's a limit to how much scaling is feasible. Many monsters move pretty randomly, which makes them impossible to hit with any aimed skill if they can move from one side of your screen to another in half a second. Having too many things happen too fast would also cause problems for the game's network code.

Resistances are unlikely to scale infinitely because, as you said, that would strongly favor inquisitors. They might scale up to a point though. You shouldn't forget penetration and curses either. Against a monster with a capped resistance, a penetration support gives 148% more damage, making it better than pretty much any other option. As long as the resistance is not overcapped, a curse will further reduce it by 44%, making the effective total resistance negative. It's worth noting that the inquisitor passive completely ignores resistances, even negative ones.

Armor and accuracy would also penalize certain kinds of builds too strongly so they're unlikely to scale infinitely either.

Then there's the possibility that delves will have random modifiers like maps. In that case it's possible to scale most things infinitely because you can just skip a delve which is incompatible with your character. Speed scaling will still be an issue for the reasons explained above.

"

databeaver a écrit :

GGG is surely aware of what they can scale and what not without creating too much imbalance between builds.

Thanks! I needed a good laugh.

"

SudianX a écrit :

"

databeaver a écrit :

GGG is surely aware of what they can scale and what not without creating too much imbalance between builds.

Thanks! I needed a good laugh.

Yeah made my day:)

GGG isn't going to tell you. These things are left for players to discover.

It will be health and damage, because the other stats require effort and the game is already setup for the first.

Scaling resists removes some builds from progression while leaving similar power builds in exactly the same spot, so that's out, same for armour, accuracy etc again penalizes certain builds more than others.

It'll be straight damage and life, easiest and safest to implement as well as dealing with the most builds in the most equal fashion.

They can also put in more challenging encounters more frequently since even in SC if you die you lose your progress. Put random bosses (or more than 1 boss at a time) in your Delve and it can become a lot more challenging. Like put an ilvl 84 Chaos Sentinel boss from Geode in a small place surrounded by darkness so your movement is limited.

I don't play HC usually but damn, you'll need a lot of free time this league for retries.

"

NexiieQT a écrit :

GGG isn't going to tell you. These things are left for players to discover.

Yes, and this habit of theirs is both exciting and infuriating at the same time. :)