User blog comment:Taldin/Some thoughts on redesigning the Boss/Quest Lists... Again/@comment-24150802-20151231232958/@comment-24150802-20160102021655

To clarify my thoughts on quest difficulty:

Boss strength determines the danger of the quest; whereas the overall quest's difficulty is more a function of boss health.

If you were faced with an angry guinea pig that had high health (perhaps because it was wearing armour, it would take a long time to defeat it - it would be a difficult battle, even though it could do very little damage to you.

If you were faced with a unprotected lion while you had a good weapon, it would be a dangerous battle for you (high boss strength), but not necessarily a difficult one (you could overcome the low-health lion rapidly with a few good hits).

That's why I've used a mixture of "boss difficulty" (boss strength) and quest length (boss health) to categorise quests into easy/medium/hard.