I am enjoying playing with you all again. Spent some time this week with Conner, Charon, Zilla, Ramses and Stern.
Last night I got the feeling that my L39 character was overpowering to some L20-30 players and that I detracted from their experience. I want to be able to "self police" and not stick myself where I reduce the game's enjoyment for my friends. At the same time I want to play with y'all as much as possible.
Is there a good guideline that addresses this sort of level parity? Thoughts?
A sharp sliding scale applies. To a level 1 character a level 6 character is vastly overpowered. To a level 6 a level 12 is. To a 12 an 18, and on to a 30. After 30 the curve changes because you get your most powerful skills, so a level 30 can play pretty comfortably with a level 45. At level 50 you're pretty much set and can play with almost any group if you want to.
However, there is another issue, and that's overpower for the *difficulty* rather than the level of your team. Everyone is overpowered in normal, every single character build is generally incredibly strong in normal and can with minimal effort dominate everything. In a team in normal difficulty there is very little that is challenging anyway, if you want normal to be interesting that stops at about level 25-30 (Though you can easily level up in Act 5 to 45, and in some cases should). In nightmare the game is considerably tougher, especially for melee classes. If you start nightmare at 30-35 (Up to 40 for some classes) nightmare will be extremely difficult. Act 1 nightmare spawns a monkey load of mini-bosses too, they're everywhere and half of them are fanaticism or leb. So the 'good' range for playing all through nightmare with any party is 35-60 I'd say (Though you can level to 70 in A5 nightmare).
Hell is a whole other matter. It's not hard to reach hell at level 50 (Though if you go slow and don't wp/quest twink you should be 60 or so), but it can be very hard to play hell at level 50. Even with the rain of full rejuvs, the insane boss spawn rate in A1 hell combined with 5 ability bosses and the immunity structure makes hell quite difficult for almost everyone. Last night in hell we frequently saw double (A couple of triples as well) boss spawns with nasty abilities that were just stoppers, and our party was in it's 60s. If we'd had a 70 along or a 50 it wouldn't have made much difference.
The other thing to consider is the build of the characters you're playing with. Some characters play poorly with others for various reasons, and some characters are simply extremely powerful or extremely irritating. Also the twink status makes a huge difference, if you don't twink at all you'll be slower than a character that is even lightly twinked. And egad can your high level mercs really tear it up in normal, a barb merc from hell can *handily* tank every single boss and creature in normal difficulty... at the same time. ;-)
So, uhm, the best advice is to ask. If everyone is having fun, levels don't matter. If, OTOH, yer playing with a bunch of 30 melee guys on PIIs with no vid card and you're an 80 lag-o-mancer with 20 skellies, 20 mages, and 20 revives...
'sides, you can always sandbag it. Grab a weapon and shield and play Diablo 1 warrior style with no skills and no spells until the party catches up to you.
#1 - I am 'new' to the game.... generally anything I see is new territory.
#2 - I like to play 'slow', checking every nook and cranny.
Combine these and it's not that the lvl 39 Scruggs was overpowering, my lvl 27 barb was still doing stuff... just not much with Scruggs dozen or so minions running around.
Anyway, if the pace of the game that people are playing bothers me, I'll move on. I can't take too much diablo at a time anyway, and I don't like slowing down those who have a lot more experience in the game as I do.
Comments
I am enjoying playing with you all again. Spent some time this week with Conner, Charon, Zilla, Ramses and Stern.
Last night I got the feeling that my L39 character was overpowering to some L20-30 players and that I detracted from their experience. I want to be able to "self police" and not stick myself where I reduce the game's enjoyment for my friends. At the same time I want to play with y'all as much as possible.
Is there a good guideline that addresses this sort of level parity? Thoughts?
Scruggler
A sharp sliding scale applies. To a level 1 character a level 6 character is vastly overpowered. To a level 6 a level 12 is. To a 12 an 18, and on to a 30. After 30 the curve changes because you get your most powerful skills, so a level 30 can play pretty comfortably with a level 45. At level 50 you're pretty much set and can play with almost any group if you want to.
However, there is another issue, and that's overpower for the *difficulty* rather than the level of your team. Everyone is overpowered in normal, every single character build is generally incredibly strong in normal and can with minimal effort dominate everything. In a team in normal difficulty there is very little that is challenging anyway, if you want normal to be interesting that stops at about level 25-30 (Though you can easily level up in Act 5 to 45, and in some cases should). In nightmare the game is considerably tougher, especially for melee classes. If you start nightmare at 30-35 (Up to 40 for some classes) nightmare will be extremely difficult. Act 1 nightmare spawns a monkey load of mini-bosses too, they're everywhere and half of them are fanaticism or leb. So the 'good' range for playing all through nightmare with any party is 35-60 I'd say (Though you can level to 70 in A5 nightmare).
Hell is a whole other matter. It's not hard to reach hell at level 50 (Though if you go slow and don't wp/quest twink you should be 60 or so), but it can be very hard to play hell at level 50. Even with the rain of full rejuvs, the insane boss spawn rate in A1 hell combined with 5 ability bosses and the immunity structure makes hell quite difficult for almost everyone. Last night in hell we frequently saw double (A couple of triples as well) boss spawns with nasty abilities that were just stoppers, and our party was in it's 60s. If we'd had a 70 along or a 50 it wouldn't have made much difference.
The other thing to consider is the build of the characters you're playing with. Some characters play poorly with others for various reasons, and some characters are simply extremely powerful or extremely irritating. Also the twink status makes a huge difference, if you don't twink at all you'll be slower than a character that is even lightly twinked. And egad can your high level mercs really tear it up in normal, a barb merc from hell can *handily* tank every single boss and creature in normal difficulty... at the same time. ;-)
So, uhm, the best advice is to ask. If everyone is having fun, levels don't matter. If, OTOH, yer playing with a bunch of 30 melee guys on PIIs with no vid card and you're an 80 lag-o-mancer with 20 skellies, 20 mages, and 20 revives...
'sides, you can always sandbag it. Grab a weapon and shield and play Diablo 1 warrior style with no skills and no spells until the party catches up to you.
Ramses II
just keep these in mind when playing with me...
#1 - I am 'new' to the game.... generally anything I see is new territory.
#2 - I like to play 'slow', checking every nook and cranny.
Combine these and it's not that the lvl 39 Scruggs was overpowering, my lvl 27 barb was still doing stuff... just not much with Scruggs dozen or so minions running around.
Anyway, if the pace of the game that people are playing bothers me, I'll move on. I can't take too much diablo at a time anyway, and I don't like slowing down those who have a lot more experience in the game as I do.
Conner
mariusnet home