Diablo(III) is
not a RPG, it is an ARPG. ARPGs (such as
Torchlight II) are
designed for repetition, grinding of content / bosses / loot tables and often use algo's to level 'fix' mobs to present a player with challenge: they aren't RPGs, they're essentially skinner boxes. Fun skinner boxes with more depth than Zynga, but they're essentially putting a RNG in a pretty GUI and getting the player to pull the handle.
Borderlands I / II fit in here (despite the FPS hybrid RPG later on) and so forth.
Then we hit JRPGs, the
Final Fantasy series being the most famous, which feature level scaling and respawning and lots and lots of grinding. As an aside, an interesting mix of these two is
Dark Souls, with NG+(>+++++++), that although featuring respawn & grinding have set levels / loot tables (which just aren't revealed to the player, but trust me, all the mobs are a set level/HP, chest loot is fixed and so forth). You'll note that DSI+II
make you replay the entire set content at the same fixed pace, bumping on NG+. I count DS as a JRPG in disguise, really.
Many posters in this thread seem to hanker after a DS design.
This is a bad idea, especially in open world RPGs, as shown by Oblivion / Legends of Amalur. DS works because their level designers (esp. in the first) were making linear maps linked in clever ways - the grinding is there, really, to off-set the difficulty.
Then you have old-school RPGs,
Ultima IV-VII etc etc. By Ultima VI-VII-Serpent, Origin had the pacing down to a tee, although they often enforced content themed locks [e.g. not getting magic until mages isle in Serpent; limiting reagents in U5 etc]. Ask any old-time player about magic axes in Ultima V and you'll get some fond remembrance of power-leveling parties. This category is vast, but the story / quests were more important than levels. You have FPS hybrids such as
System Shock 1/2,
Deus Ex and so forth. Content is fixed, and respawn is very limited (e.g. SS2 had a couple of mobs respawn, infected humans but never higher level mobs), and as such, you can control the progression of the player much easier. These are much more RPGs than
Diablo and co.
D:OS is an old-style RPG and has permanent spawns [i.e. once removed, stay removed]. However, it does feature level scaling gear [chests] as well as permanent fixed gear [quest rewards, e.g. orc's armor from the beach]. However (and this is the important part): the # of chests is fixed, and they don't respawn. With fixed mobs you can estimate, to a high precision, exactly how much XP is available to a player. Obviously, completionists who find all the sub-quests will be at an advantage - however, this is a price they pay for allowing their lesser 'casual' friends to play along. As such, there is no grinding in D:OS, nor is there loot farming, nor is there even the potential to really out-level content.
The alpha certainly had a difficulty issue in that the end-sections were ~level 5, whereas the party would be level 7-9. I've not had time to see the changes (D:OS update d/ling now). Whether or not it would be desirable for D:OS to have a NG+ is a separate matter - I'd think not, given the quest repetition, but you never know.
TL;DR
The mechanics of designing the three are vastly separate; I'm not getting into a pointless internet debate, but Gyson (despite typing a lot) clearly doesn't understand the difference, nor does he have much useful input. For the record, Gyson complained that Skyrim had no scaling:
this is entirely false, it had a more tinkered version of Oblivion's - he was one-shotting dragons because it's a
terribly easy game designed for consoles / casual players, and the entire series (from Morrowind onwards) purposely make the spectrum of bonuses / multipliers (*cough*enchantabuse*cough*) allow power-players to run wild.
Not because of lack of scaling.
Even quicker synopsis: fixed content / spawns cannot have level scaling, if you want to design a proper system.
This entire thread was a pointless /derail. Difficulty, I'll see: although I did tell people that there would be tears over the light house
