Monster Power
The Monster Power system was introduced into Diablo III in Patch v1.0.5 in October 2012, after being testable on the Diablo 3 Public Test Realm for several weeks. Inspired by the Diablo 2 Players X system, Monster Power allows players to set a level from 0-10 which will increase the difficulty of the game.
With each level of Monster Power, the enemies increase in their hit points and damage. In exchange, players gain greater experience, a bonus to Magic Find and Gold Find, and the potential for bonus item drops.
The rewards and scaling values differ from Normal/Nightmare/Hell vs. Inferno, and playing on even MP1 in Inferno increases all monster levels to 63, creating a big leap in difficulty and item drop potential, especially in Act One.
Contents
Enabling Monster Power
To turn on Monster Power players need to open the Options menu and click the check box to enable it. After that all characters of any level, Hardcore and Softcore, can select their desired monster power on the game creation menu, next to the quest selection box, when creating a new game.
Monster Power is displayed on the screen in-game, so players can see what level it is set to when they join a game with MP enabled.
Enable it via: Options > Gameplay
Select level during game creation from quests menu.
Not in Public Games
Monster Power can only be enabled in solo games or private games with friends. It can not be turned on in public games, due to issues with matchmaking -- players would need to only join games with the MP on a level they found playable, and Blizzard felt the complications of this outweighed the benefits of MP.[1]
It doesn’t work for Public Games. If Monster Power is on, you cannot make your game public. Similarly, when making a public game, Monster Power is disabled.
As you’ve noted, there are a few issues with allowing MP in Public Games:
- In general, harder content tends to be less enjoyable with random strangers.*
- It would make matchmaking more difficult by increasing the number of matchmaking pools (one new pool for each MP level). In turn, that could increase wait times for Public Games.
- Issues associated with “leeching” or similar behavior could be exacerbated, especially if under-geared players chose extremely high Monster Power levels for the games they wanted to be matched into.
Since virtually all knowledgeable players will use Monster Power whenever possible, this seems likely to completely end public games, which are already rarely-used in Diablo III.
Monster Power Stats
Blizzard released full information about the Monster Power effects in mid-October 2012, detailing the exact changes triggered with each level of Monster Power with the aid of some infographics.
Note that the v1.0.5 patch also contained a substantial nerf to overall Inferno difficulty. Playing the game on MP0 in v1.0.5 is considerably easier than it was in previous patches.
Blizzard estimates[2] that MP2-3 is the rough equivalent of v1.0.4's difficulty, though this varies considerably between acts. That equivalency is generally true for Acts 3-4. It's not true for Acts 1 and 2, since the monsters increasing from mlvl 61 and 62 up to 63 makes a big difference in difficulty, as players discovered with early play testing.[3]
Monster Power Pre-Inferno
One key detail is that Monster Power grants very different bonuses and changes while on Normal/Nightmare/Hell difficulties, compared to Inferno difficulty. For the first three difficulties, while characters are still leveling up and not yet finding end game quality gear, the following changes can be enabled.
Experienced players generally find playing a new, low or mid-level character on a high Monster Power setting to be very fun and a great way to level up more quickly than usual. [4]
Monster Power on Inferno
Monster Power grants different bonuses and effects on Inferno, giving high end players a very challenging play mode by greatly increasing the hit points and damage of monsters. The values in the infographic below were accurate for the system when it was first released in patch v1.0.5, but a week after the patch went live Blizzard reduced the damage output. None of the other values were tweaked at that time.
The new values, which apply only to Inferno (Normal/NM/Hell were not adjusted) are:[5]
- MP1: 109.60% (down from 114%)
- MP2: 120.12% (down from 130%)
- MP3: 131.65% (down from 148%)
- MP4: 144.29% (down from 169%)
- MP5: 158.14% (down from 193%)
- MP6: 173.32% (down from 220%)
- MP7: 189.96% (down from 250%)
- MP8: 208.20% (down from 285%)
- MP9: 228.18% (down from 325%)
- MP10: 250.09% (down from 371%)
The key factor not shown in this chart is the fact that all monsters on Inferno instantly become level 63 (the highest level possible for non-bosses) at Monster Level 1 or higher. This effects many game features, and makes them much harder to stun, chill, freeze, knockback, etc.
It also boosts their item level drop potential greatly, and basically "flattens" the Inferno difficulty, granting the monsters in each act the potential to drop the best items in the game.
As you can see in the infographic below, there is no change to the item level potential of drops in Act 3 and 4, but with ML1+ monsters in Acts One and Two drop items with the same high level potential as Act 3 and 4.
Chests and Barrels
Monster Power does affect the items found from chests and barrels and other clickable objects, as those are keyed to drop gear similar in level to the monsters in their areas. [6]
In terms of Monster Power, gizmos will behave like monsters. At MP1+ in Inferno, gizmos in each act will be bumped up to level 63. (At MP0, nothing changes. They’ll just keep their normal level, like monsters do.)
Crafting, on the other hand, is not affected in any way by the Monster Power level.[7]
Player Reaction and Ramifications
After the system was implemented, players spent a great deal of time experimenting with and arguing[8] about the ideal Monster Power level for item farming. After much early excitement over the increased experience and other bonuses, the conventional wisdom coalesced around the idea that fast runs on a lower MP setting are better than slower runs with a small MP bonus.
The early consensus was that Act Three on MP0 was the easiest place for item farming, since the monsters were all level 63, and MP0 on Act Three is much easier than MP1 on Acts One or Two.
The bonus from Monster Power that players found impactful was the increased odds of finding a key from one of the Keywardens, or one of the Demonic Organs from the further battle with the uber bosses. Thus for key farming, playing on the highest MP possible, ideally while teamed up with other players for survival, is the recommended strategy.
