Solving the act 4, 5, 6 dilemma and Cruel difficulty

1. go ahead and release new acts as they become available (we and YOU want to test them sooner than later and balance / fix stuff instead of leaving everything until the last moment)
2. drop Cruel completely (deleted from the game)
3. once you finish the last available act (whichever that this, e.g. act 4) then insta-boost the char to the lvl you'd expect them to be when starting T1 maps (e.g. lvl 65 ... if you were 45 before, now you get 20 more points to allocate)
4. completing the last available act drops (gives?) you a hardcoded and complete set of gear... a helm, a chest, boots, gloves, rings, one of each weapon type, etc... every item has reasonable max health + resistances only (no other crazy stuff)... just enough to get you started with T1 maps and start dropping actual gear/loot by doing endgame content

There's no point in bothering with Cruel and repeating certain acts.
People want to get into endgame anyway instead of repeating the same acts... whichever those are... helps you test end game sooner as well.

Insta-leveling a char to give some extra points and hardcoding some loot drop at the end of the last act is most likely way less time consuming than fiddling around with Cruel... honestly, you should have done this from the get-go and never waste energy/time/money on Cruel to begin with.

Anyone else has a better idea? That's the simplest I can think of and I don't think the majority of the player base would have anything against such a temp solution during EA.

They put off finishing acts 4-6 to give us a more in-depth end game.

Act 4 is replacing cruel 1
Act 5 is replacing cruel 2
Act 6 is replacing cruel 3

then you hit maps just like today.

Artificial boosting is not a good idea since they want to test the flow of leveling throughout the different Acts leading to end game.

@kryadan#1199 I guess you misunderstood something.

How would my solution not test the leveling flow? You'd play the game just as before, you just don't need to waste time re-playing earlier acts in Cruel because there's currently no other way for you to grind more levels and items to reach the min level/power required to start attempting T1 maps.

Let me give a concrete example.

1. you still play through acts 1-4 (act 4 being the latest introduced) as normally
2. at the end of act 4, you're level 45... so they auto-level you to 65 because that's what they currently believe is the min level you should be to start end game mapping (T1 maps). And you're given some basic loot to actually be able to do T1 maps and start grinding endgame...
3. in a month, they introduce act 5...
4. they remove the boosting/hardcoded loot logic from act 4 and move it to act 5... let's say you're lvl 55 by the time you finish act 5, so they now boost you 10 more level to reach that magical lvl 65 and that's when you get the hardcoded loot and can jump into endgame mapping.
6. two months later they release act 6... they can now drop this auto-boosting and hardcoded loot logic altogether because it's no longer necessary, game is feature-complete and you can play all acts normally and get into endgame the way they want you to by the time you finish the last act (all as intended).

Cruel is an absolute waste of time and GGG stated it's a temp solution because they didn't know how to better get you to a high enough lvl so that you are ready to start running endgame maps...

They want to test the game in a state of normal leveling progress, giving people free levelups would give bad information on player behaviour and general balance testing.

not a bad suggestion since Cruel isn't properly balanced anyway and its just formality to go through it since its not meant to be played with higher level characters

@MEITTI#3999 So repeating acts in "cruel difficulty" is your understanding of "normal leveling flow"?

Cruel shouldn't even exist, it's an AE thing that will be deleted the moment all acts are implemented. Ok, anyway, it seems like none of you are actually reading what i wrote... or if you did, you clearly aren't comprehending it. Sorry, I don't know how to make it any clearer than with the examples I've provided. Thanks for your comments though.

EDIT: @AintCare#6513 thanks, I started doubting for a moment whether what I wrote is really that hard to understand for people. Thank you, good to know I'm not alone. :)

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Khathuluu#7116 wrote:

EDIT: @AintCare#6513 thanks, I started doubting for a moment whether what I wrote is really that hard to understand for people. Thank you, good to know I'm not alone. :)

no worries, i actually run into the same problem on here with my own suggestions and it can be very frustrating so i feel you

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Khathuluu#7116 wrote:

@MEITTI#3999 So repeating acts in "cruel difficulty" is your understanding of "normal leveling flow"

More normal than players skipping leveling altogether. Beta testing is not just bug crushing, its also adjusting the overall game balance based on player behaviour during the game. If you want to play a game where you actually can skip right to the end, just play Diablo 4.

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MEITTI#3999 wrote:

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Khathuluu#7116 wrote:

@MEITTI#3999 So repeating acts in "cruel difficulty" is your understanding of "normal leveling flow"

More normal than players skipping leveling altogether. Beta testing is not just bug crushing, its also adjusting the overall game balance based on player behaviour during the game. If you want to play a game where you actually can skip right to the end, just play Diablo 4.

you are not testing any balance/player behaviour by letting ppl crush content with over level characters... its literally a place holder

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

you are not testing any balance/player behaviour by letting ppl crush content with over level characters... its literally a place holder

But its still better than letting people just level up for free.