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How will @Diablo did confirm, in November 2010, that difficulty was probably going to be based on the game's difficulty increase with more number of players in the game? The team has said that it will increase considerably, to the point that playing solo in a group game will be a very bad ideanot their Clvl. [http://diablo.incgamers. But what mechanism will create this? More monster hit points? More monster damage? Improved AI?com/blog/comments/diablo-awakens/]
That's not been revealed, but @Diablo did confirm, in November 2010, that difficulty was probably going to be <blue>Difficulty currently increases based on the number of players in the game, not their Clvllevels. [http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/diablo-awakens-Diablo</]blue>
<blue>Difficulty currently increases based on number This remained true upon release of playersthe game. The health of monsters scales with each player who enters the game, and when Diablo III shipped, not their levelsmonster damage did as well, which was subsequently removed in a patch. --Diablo</blue>
How hard they will be remains to be seen, and hasn't been much discussed by the The [[D3 team]]promised that players would die in higher difficulties, and for the most part, they did. It's likely they havenHowever, with Inferno difficulty at least, it isn't planned so much of an issue of a gear-check as it out in that much detail; difficulty balancing is usually with Diablo II-style monsters one -shotting players with cheap skills and [[boss modifier]] combinations. Upon launch of the later details game, players found ways to finalizeplay cheaply in a cheap difficulty, since it requires but imbalances between classes and skills, glaring imbalances that were simply exploitation, were almost everything immediately [[hotfix]]ed. The D3 Team is still working on tuning Inferno and Hell difficulties to be finished in the game more playable and balanced, and then extensive play testingthus enjoyable, but only [[patch]]es will tell.
bit of updating, maybe too editorial, remove comments if you feel the need
There will be also better item customization, for example a Level 100 character in a higher difficulty would see and wear items that a Level 30 character would not have a chance at seeing in the lower difficulty. Said items will also look and feel completely different whereas in Diablo II a lot of times you just had a remodel of the same old items with different names.
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Inferno was originally designed under the premise that the entire difficulty level would be scaled to an [[mlvl]] of 61. The design team felt that didn't play very well, so they later made Inferno ramp up in [[mlvl]] like all of the other difficulties, with most of the [[bosses]] in Act III and Act IV inferno sporting an mlvl of 63, three levels ahead of the player.
===Unlocking Difficulty Levels===
Much like in Diablo II, difficulties are unlocked by beating the previous difficulty. So to unlock nightmare, the player must have completed the quest [[The Prime Evil_(Quest)|The Prime Evil]] in normal. The same goes for Hell and Inferno.
However, there is a level restriction on difficulty levels. For Nightmare, the player must be level 30. For Hell, the player must be 50. Level 60 is the minimum entrance for inferno.
If a player defeats a difficulty but is still behind the level requirement, the game will automatically place them at the beginning of the game in their current difficulty after defeating the final boss in Act IV. So if a player beats Hell mode, for instance, they will be brought back to the character screen at [[The Fallen Star]], still in Hell difficulty.
When the appropriate level is reached, the game will inform the player once they level up via a special splash screen, seen in this screenshot:
[[Image:Hell_unlock.jpg|center|thumb|500px|Unlocking Hell difficulty.]]
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===Difficulty Scaling in Multiplayer===
==Level of Difficulty==
We do know that many of the basic game changes in D3 have large effects on the difficulty of the game. There will not be many The highest level [[potion]]sare a stop-gap emergency measure, life leech will be is less effective (compared to [[Diablo II]]), and most [[heal]]ing will come comes from [[health globes]] or [[skills]]. On the other hand, [[monster]]s wonaren't be full of immunities and blessed with cheesy one-hit kills(outside of Inferno difficulty). The D3 team has discussed this issue several times, and always pointed out that the abundant potions and life leech made D2 characters essentially immortal. [[Death]] came only from cheesy super damaging kills, most of which were bugs, and that's no way to balance a game.
In D3 they want wanted a much steadier progression of difficulty, so that monsters can be challenging, without being buggy insta-death dealers. The D3 Team has also talked about the difficulty ramping up smoothly. They want normal to be fairly easy, so new players can have success and find their way into the game. The D3 Team doesn't want D3 to be a total cakewalk, since that gets boring too, but they're not looking to turn normal into a tooth and nail struggle to survive. Nightmare and Hell? Perhaps, which it isn't, but upon [[release]] was considerably more difficult than the content found in the [[beta]] test.
==BlizzCon Demo Difficulty==
Players who have had tested out the game at demos in 2008, 2009, and 2010, have given varying reports of the difficulty. It's hard to judge across the board, since a lot of the people playing are were not experienced with the Diablo games, and are were struggling with the controls, don't know how to use skills, are were playing a new class for the first time, or are were just rushing around madly during their short demo play time, rather than clearing out levels systematically.
More experienced players have found the game pretty easy, especially when playing solo. The multiplayer is a lot more challenging, but much of that comes came from people going their own way in large games where the monsters are scaled up in difficulty, or from being partied with noobs who don't know what they're doing.
Also note that the demos are were modified from the normal game. The characters are were turned up a bit to make them stronger (so noobs won't die repeatedly and get frustrated), and the drop rate for items is was increased, so players find found more fun loot.
The [[D3 Team]] has acknowledged that the early stages of Diablo III will be fairly simple, but they claim that the difficulty will ramp up over time and become quite challenging on Nightmare and Hell, especially in multiplayer games.
[[category:basics]]
[[Category:Gameplay]]