This is may be a good a time as any to REVEAL TEH SEKRITS! that Inferno monster levels aren't linear any longer. They get progressively more difficult. This was really a reaction to Inferno playtesting. Our original intent was to have a flat difficulty level where you could go wherever you want, farm for items, and it'd be no more or less difficult than any other area in Inferno. This caused a few inherent issues for us, though:
It just felt wrong. It didn't feel right to be progressing through the game and have it stay pretty much the same difficulty the whole time. It felt like a letdown to get to the final boss of the game and it be no more difficult than the first.
There’s a wide variety of players out there and we wanted to make sure everybody had something to sink their teeth into. We expect that anybody with enough time and dedication will reach level 60. But the jump in difficulty to Inferno needed to be different amounts for different people. For the crazy people they need a HUGE ramp in difficulty, for a more “casual but still hardcore” audience you want an obvious but milder increase in difficulty. So for the crazy people who play non-stop they’ll hit Act I and get a challenge, but 1 month later they’ll still have something to work on (Acts II, III and IV). For the “hardcore-casual” they will reach level 60 later and not get brick walled when they reach Inferno. They can experience some “small victories” working on Act I with the dream of maybe someday reaching the later acts.
Longevity. We know people really want goals to work towards and challenges to overcome. We made Act III and Act IV really, really brutally hard, for the most elite players only. It felt wrong to make ALL of Inferno that brutally hard.
Now, you may be saying “I thought you wanted us to be able to farm anywhere we wanted. Now we only have half as much area in the game to farm in? What gives?” Our goal is to make the loot mathematically better in the later acts without making the earlier gear completely obsolete. We feel Diablo II actually did a very good job with this and we expect Diablo III to perform similarly.
Specifically, people in D2 did Diablo runs, Mephisto runs, Pindleskin runs, Pit runs, Baal runs, etc. because the loot in Diablo is extremely random. Even though the theoretical best items might come from the later Acts, well-rolled items from earlier acts will still be better. Internally we find sometimes after an intense session of brutally hard Inferno it can be really fun to cruise through Hell Act III or IV and it’s not too uncommon surprise when an upgrade drops. We expect this to carry through to Inferno difficulty where somebody who can theoretically farm Act IV will likely still enjoy romping through Act I simply because the drop potential is still there. It’s all because of the highly random items having lots of overlap in their power distribution curves
I neer thought it made sense that it could be one difficulty the whole time. Incoming Act 4 farming!
So either harder content for better drop chance of the best gear or easier content for a lower drop chance of the best gear? I think the kill rate will make up for the drop chance loss unless they really perfected the math on it. I have a feeling people who are trying to get the best gear will just beat Act III and IV for the achieves then farm Act I and II forever, giving us less content (with the proper incentive) to farm.
Think of it this way: it prolongs how long you spend trying to beat Inferno. Previously, barring boss mechanics increasing in "difficulty," if you could beat Act I easily then you could beat the whole game easily in Inferno.
Now it progresses in difficulty like any other mode, making it even more challenging.
This is awesome. I was hoping this would be the case. Thanks for the post!
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"I'm just getting started. I'm gonna pull the whole thing down. I gonna bring the whole fuckin' diseased, corrupt temple down on your heads. It's gonna be Biblical."
lulz bashiok posted itll take "weeks" even for the super dedicated veterans to beat inferno. hes effing high. i give it 4-5 days before im 60 and itll take me a week at the MOST to beat inferno even if mobs can 1 shot you. they really overexaggerate the difficulty of these games and its just going to piss off the veterans when it comes out. a game labeled "hard" is only really considered that by the masses or unskilled gamers. WoW 25 man HC raids werent even hard and you only wiped because of idiocy so this wont be anything to write home about but i am glad that inferno goes up in difficulty though
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Hmm. I understood the flat difficulty idea and kind of liked it because you could choose where to farm on your own, but I couldn't help but smile as I read this.
It really does just make more sense for it to get harder as you go up in acts. And the best part is, when they release an xpack, inferno act 5 will be the place that will hold all the best goodies, so they've solved the inevitable loot problem from adding content.
I approve, I think people are going to find this game is going to challenge them more than they thought it would.
So either harder content for better drop chance of the best gear or easier content for a lower drop chance of the best gear? I think the kill rate will make up for the drop chance loss unless they really perfected the math on it. I have a feeling people who are trying to get the best gear will just beat Act III and IV for the achieves then farm Act I and II forever, giving us less content (with the proper incentive) to farm.
Thats not how I read it at all
Its Hard Content (Act 3 and 4 in inferno) for chances at the best possible loot
Or less hard content (Act 1 Inferno, At 3 and 4 of Hell) for steam rolling, fast kills, lots of drops for good, maybe and upgrade here and there .. but not the best loot.
The changes makes total sense. Ive been wondering ever since August how inferno would work with a flat difficulty.. because with inferno only rewards, once you got items from inferno, it would actually get easier as you go. This is better and I cant wait to get deystroyed by Act 3 Inferno!
so start of inferno is good for noobs then... sigh.
I read "Casual but Harcore" to mean, skilled players but with out massive amounts of time to dump at the game. I think inferno act 1 will give youa challenge, just not for months.
Hmmm... I want to believe that this game can be hard (and I sure hope so), but I cannot see how can this be possible. Since you can solo content, there is no need to take an idiot with you who would stand in fire or ruin a game for you in some other way.
Im especially worried about the fact that Blizzard is actually stating, on daily basis, that d3 will be super duper insanely hard game. This looks quite weird for me, but maybe they have their reasons for that.
Anyways, I know I won't be disappointed in d3 for sure, but the difficulty of the game (or to be precise, the game not being difficult enough) might be a slight drawback.
lulz bashiok posted itll take "weeks" even for the super dedicated veterans to beat inferno. hes effing high. i give it 4-5 days before im 60 and itll take me a week at the MOST to beat inferno even if mobs can 1 shot you. they really overexaggerate the difficulty of these games and its just going to piss off the veterans when it comes out. a game labeled "hard" is only really considered that by the masses or unskilled gamers. WoW 25 man HC raids werent even hard and you only wiped because of idiocy so this wont be anything to write home about but i am glad that inferno goes up in difficulty though
You're delusional. But it's okay, we'll get to see just how much so in a few more weeks.
Hmmm... I want to believe that this game can be hard (and I sure hope so), but I cannot see how can this be possible. Since you can solo content, there is no need to take an idiot with you who would stand in fire or ruin a game for you in some other way.
Im especially worried about the fact that Blizzard is actually stating, on daily basis, that d3 will be super duper insanely hard game. This looks quite weird for me, but maybe they have their reasons for that.
Anyways, I know I won't be disappointed in d3 for sure, but the difficulty of the game (or to be precise, the game not being difficult enough) might be a slight drawback.
Farm gold then pay to win if you're not in for hard content
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
Bashiok stated they expect it to take weeks for the first person to get through act 2 on inferno. Considering the crazy gamers outthere, that seems appropriately daunting ^^
Im especially worried about the fact that Blizzard is actually stating, on daily basis, that d3 will be super duper insanely hard game. This looks quite weird for me, but maybe they have their reasons for that.
Blizzard keeps saying thats its hard because of what you just typed. People have been saying since it was announced that it would be too easy, and blizzard caters to casuals. I belive them when they say, we will be getting our brains blasted out by inferno, specifically now, act 2-4
Official Blizzard Quote:
This is may be a good a time as any to REVEAL TEH SEKRITS! that Inferno monster levels aren't linear any longer. They get progressively more difficult. This was really a reaction to Inferno playtesting. Our original intent was to have a flat difficulty level where you could go wherever you want, farm for items, and it'd be no more or less difficult than any other area in Inferno. This caused a few inherent issues for us, though:
Specifically, people in D2 did Diablo runs, Mephisto runs, Pindleskin runs, Pit runs, Baal runs, etc. because the loot in Diablo is extremely random. Even though the theoretical best items might come from the later Acts, well-rolled items from earlier acts will still be better. Internally we find sometimes after an intense session of brutally hard Inferno it can be really fun to cruise through Hell Act III or IV and it’s not too uncommon surprise when an upgrade drops. We expect this to carry through to Inferno difficulty where somebody who can theoretically farm Act IV will likely still enjoy romping through Act I simply because the drop potential is still there. It’s all because of the highly random items having lots of overlap in their power distribution curves
I neer thought it made sense that it could be one difficulty the whole time. Incoming Act 4 farming!
-Temp
I gotta say now that I think about it, I like this new system better. I wouldn't like the challenge not increasing. Good change.
Now it progresses in difficulty like any other mode, making it even more challenging.
- Clay Shelton
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
It really does just make more sense for it to get harder as you go up in acts. And the best part is, when they release an xpack, inferno act 5 will be the place that will hold all the best goodies, so they've solved the inevitable loot problem from adding content.
I approve, I think people are going to find this game is going to challenge them more than they thought it would.
Thats not how I read it at all
Its Hard Content (Act 3 and 4 in inferno) for chances at the best possible loot
Or less hard content (Act 1 Inferno, At 3 and 4 of Hell) for steam rolling, fast kills, lots of drops for good, maybe and upgrade here and there .. but not the best loot.
The changes makes total sense. Ive been wondering ever since August how inferno would work with a flat difficulty.. because with inferno only rewards, once you got items from inferno, it would actually get easier as you go. This is better and I cant wait to get deystroyed by Act 3 Inferno!
I'm very much looking forward being able to enjoy unpressured progression
I read "Casual but Harcore" to mean, skilled players but with out massive amounts of time to dump at the game. I think inferno act 1 will give youa challenge, just not for months.
Im especially worried about the fact that Blizzard is actually stating, on daily basis, that d3 will be super duper insanely hard game. This looks quite weird for me, but maybe they have their reasons for that.
Anyways, I know I won't be disappointed in d3 for sure, but the difficulty of the game (or to be precise, the game not being difficult enough) might be a slight drawback.
You're delusional. But it's okay, we'll get to see just how much so in a few more weeks.
Farm gold then pay to win if you're not in for hard content
Blizzard keeps saying thats its hard because of what you just typed. People have been saying since it was announced that it would be too easy, and blizzard caters to casuals. I belive them when they say, we will be getting our brains blasted out by inferno, specifically now, act 2-4
you wish. its a month and a half away. but yes we will get to see because ill be posting videos of it a week after release.