More Details on Inferno Revealed
Posted 30 March 2012 by Nizaris
Bashiok has been a little more active of late, having recently explained why they’ve chosen the system they did for skill runes. In a follow-up response to the thread, he also dropped some important information regarding progression in the final difficulty. The result is that Inferno difficulty is no longer a flat difficulty.
- 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 feel that this change makes a lot of sense as long as there are no enemies that are at or below your level as you start it. This way you are ensured to be continually challenged as you progress through the final difficulty. Previously, if you were to continue through the difficulty, you would find that you still need to complete the content but progressing at a constant rate – perhaps even faster as your continue with the gear you’ve collected previously. Does the community feel the same? Or do you feel that a flat difficulty was the way to go.
There is it again: Blizzard saying that they made the game hard. Really, REALLY, BRUTALLY hard.
He mentions the “elite” players taking months for acts in inferno?
If this is true, we’re in for one hell of a ride!
Sounds good to me!
Something to get steamrolled by, and something to steamroll to ease the frustration!
Also I like trouncing “easy” content sometimes just for fun, but it gets boring when its all you have. On paper this setup sounds like it’ll be perfect.
“There’s a wide variety of players out there and we wanted to make sure everybody had something to sink their teeth into”
What about the variety of players who want to just play inferno and not the easier difficulties? Bet they didn’t think of those players…
Or did they? Considering Acts 3 and 4 present the hardest challenge and overall best loot chances, that’s plenty of variety for people who want to spend their time only on Inferno to clear through, never mind whatever secret level exists
The “really hard” and flat difficulty should not be mutually exclusive. In fact, if they wanted, they could make it a progressive difficulty for the first Inferno completion ONLY. Then ramp up the difficulty of Acts 1 and 2 to be aligned with Acts 3 and 4. Call it Inferno – heroic mode, if you want.
This way, after you’ve gone through the entire game on Inferno once you can freely choose which acts you want to farm for gear. On top of that, it also gives an incentive to redo Acts 1 and 2 at the same difficulty as the later acts. I would have liked this change much better than what they chose to do.
The difference is a fallacy; first off, we don’t know that they made anything that much weaker. Maybe they just made the later mobs even stronger. That being said, you get just as much/just as good loot killing 20 monsters for 1% chance of drop as 1 monster for 20%.
They’re not restricting the areas where you can farm (is what Bashiok is saying); they’re just giving you more options for *how* you farm.
Not sure which difference you are referring to. Progressive difficulty means that in time, as people accumulate more high-end gear, farming lower difficulty will simply not be as effective.
I still think they could switch to a flat difficulty AFTER the first Act 4 final boss kill for each character and thus offer the best of both options. This is even more compelling when you take into account expansions. With the proposed change (but no flat difficulty after completion), you can BET that once an expansion ramps both difficulty AND player power even higher, top players will start avoiding the lower difficulty Acts.
u forgot thats not solo diablo how will it work for another players who didnt finish inferno yet?
@Krikri
Simple: when players who finished inferno create games, they could have an option to create one with flat difficulty, that can only be joined by others who have also finished. Or, alternatively, they could create regular games with progressive difficulty, joinable by all currently on inferno.
Or add a /flat switch
Yeah, I’m not sure exactly how “they’re just giving you more options for *how* you farm.” I don’t care one way or the other, I just want people to explain things rather than just throw out this… rhetoric.
I mean, I understand that now you can’t out level content, but Diablo 3′s character progression seems to be based much more on itemization, not levels, so I don’t find it to be a great argument comparing to D2′s system.
I’m trying to contemplate how this impacts the nephalem valor buff. Just going to elite hunt in the last act before the boss? Kind of like hitting the elites before Diablo? I dunno, maybe they’re cutting this system.
Either way, after beta I never want to see the skeleton king again, so to hell with act 1.
What they mean by D2′s system is that even though the top loot only came from act 4-5 hell, many people still farmed Mephisto simply because it was easier, thus took less time per run. Also Andy nightmare for SoJ anyone ?
What they mean is, even though the very best loots will only drop in act 4, there are plenty of very interesting loot you can get in act 1, and even though there will not be as many interesting items dropping, you will kill things quicker which compensates for it. So once you have the whole inferno available, it’ll still be worthwhile to run act 1.
Also keep in mind Diablo’s a game that relies a lot on trading to get you what you want. Odds are you won’t ever find that specific item you want for your character yourself.
Just to be nitpicking. The chance is not the same! 20 monsters with a 1% chance of drop is 1-0,99^20 = 18,2%
I don’t think he meant it will take a month, but rather after a month of being in inferno, you still have something to do.
We have no choice but to trust them at this point about inferno. Though with one swift post Bashiok manages to change what i thought to be a core aspect of the end-game content
It may be ‘One swift post’ from your point of view, but it’s the result of intense play-testing at their end, so I think you’re right in your instinct to trust them – remembering it’s a core aspect of..something any of us have yet to experience. Let them change it all the want as long as it’s for the better eh? 6 weeks and counting!
Totally.
what i said
Problem is that all that play-testing was done under the wrongful assumption that Inferno needs to be like the previous difficulty levels and a player has to finish all the acts once again in order to gain access to the next one…
Of course people had little incentive to continue past Act 1 with a flat difficulty and drop rate everywhre, that’s why i always assumed Inferno would just have all the waypoints available from the start so that one can just farm in the area he\she likes most…
Instead Inferno is just another replay of the game with monsters with higher HP and dmg… they might as well have made Hell harder.
I kinda liked the idea of a flat difficulty and being able to play where you want…
I get the difficulty ramp thing, but i was looking forward to being able to spend most of my time in my preferred act/area. I guess we don’t know what it’s ACTUALLY like, so maybe this was a good change, but I hope that the item drops across Inferno are still relatively the same (and from the sound of the article there will be minimal if any variation on gear levels across Inferno).
The second part of Bahioks post does address that issue. Good items/upgrades can still easily drop from the earlier acts. The mathematically most pimp items will drop from the later inferno acts, yes, but with the variation in items you can still hope to get heaps of cool stuff earlier. I don’t reckon it’ll actually be an issue tbh.
Yep, in practice I’m sure it will be a non-issue, but before we can actually sink our teeth into Inferno (or the game at all for that matter) all we can do is speculate and debate potentiality.
Or we can plainly trust our loving masters of blood and random chance
…a position i feel oddly compelled to endorse
Cut the Inferno and give us game faster.
lol ! gahahahahahaha
Inferno is too hard, we cut it off. lol
Sory It’s soo funy to me.
I don’t remember how diablo II was 5 years ago, but now You have area(Hell) in Act I, Act II, Act III, where monsters have 85 lvl, and Uniques 90, so they can drop any item in game. More kills more drops, simple. I don’t know why people still stick with Mepho, Diablo, Baal runs, it’s wrong farm. Anyway, I understand changes and I think it is better now for D3 sake.
But, really? Now we should complain…
Cuz everyone will farm at act III and IV no treasure in I and II… lol
Because Diablo and Baal are located at alvl 85 areas?
And because mephisto is one of the easiest bosses to farm and can still drop useful uniques like shako, arach.
You clearly don’t know DII.
__Yeah, sure. Now I see wiki problem. There are enormous people like You, and me saying that, x it’s true, without any prof. In next corner, is some one who say y is true, and x is bad. Every one think that, only they have right. That’s internet reality. Normally You should have unimpeachable evidence and describe it, maybe in wall of text.
__I cut one’s teeth on Diablo2, in good and bad way. I have to confess, I’m guilty, I boted, maphacked ,duped, writed and so on. You are right, Meph, DiaBal, boss spots, are first steps of new players to farm, because they don’t know any better spot. Now we have 1.13x, and I’m saying to You, that I compared one weak of non stop Baals and one for rare areas. Baal is only 2/10. It’s not new since theory, and I don’t have to pic, video of my founds.
__It’s my first and last respond for obvious things for me. I’m not here for teach world. That’s too much, everywhere I see people blabling about things, they really don’t understand, and true believe in theirs state. I am done here, Said Atheist.
Enlish learns should you argue before do.
So what’s the point in 4 difficulties, if the new one, Inferno, behaves the same as first 3 ones? They’ll add few more difficulties in an addon and make Inferno even more easy, so that casual players can go there without any fear?
It doesn’t behave the same, the whole thing is still capped at level 60. So you will never outlevel Act 1 Inferno the way you outleveled Act 1 Hell in D2.
Zek did you read even a little bit of the blue post?
Yes I read it, did you ever play Diablo 2? In Diablo you get stronger both through levels and through gear. When you beat Act 5 Hell, Act 1 is already too low level for you. And then it just keeps getting easier as your gear gets better. In Inferno, your level is capped so it’s only your gear that improves, which means the gap won’t be as huge.
Also, it’s clear that the net impact of this change is that the ultimate endgame is now harder. They would never have made all of Inferno that hard – otherwise no one would ever be able to start playing it after Hell. But with this change they can make Act 4 incredibly hard while Act 1 remains very hard. Maybe Act 1 won’t be the highest efficiency farming spot for hardcore min/maxers, but I imagine it will still be fun for trying new builds which will probably be impossible in Act 4.
“Yes I read it, did you ever play Diablo 2? In Diablo you get stronger both through levels and through gear. When you beat Act 5 Hell, Act 1 is already too low level for you. And then it just keeps getting easier as your gear gets better. In Inferno, your level is capped so it’s only your gear that improves, which means the gap won’t be as huge.”
First off the Zek is jesus and he never lies
Second, the lvl cap is off major importance. once you outleveled D2 everything was a joke except perhaps Ubers if only you had semi decent gear (tales of a barb). Want challenge then my best bet is that D3 is vastly superior compared to D2… It bloody well better be 8)
You mention that because of the lvl cap only your gear can improve once you reach inferno…. I disagree!!!! If the game is truly great the need for players to improve their skills should be of atleast equal importance than that of them SC sweeties improving their gear
Just my two useless Dollars
Flame on
That is not entirely accurate. It may be true for the game as it first ships, but once expansions made you WILL outlevel at least some acts in Inferno.
Example: Let’s suppose that each act is just 1 lvl higher in difficulty than max Clvl
D3
Max Clvl: 60, Act 1: 61, Act 2: 62, Act3: 63, Act4: 64
Once the first expansion comes out, inevitably the Clvl will go up. Let’s suppose it’s only 2 lvls. Now,
Max Clvl: 62, Act 1: 61,…. Act4: 64, Act5: 65. You now outlevel Act 1 and are on par with Act 2.
Come a 2nd expansion and you can guarantee you will be now breezing through Act 1 Inferno. I proposed a simple solution to this: once you have gone through the regular difficulty progression once, all the previous acts align with the last difficulty level added, such that now Act 1 is also lvl 65.
When a new expansion is adding Act6: 66, you would have Acts1-5 at lvl 65 and Act6 at 66 for the first completion of Act6, then everything would ramp up to 66. And so on, for as many expansions as they care to add. This way the lower Inferno acts never get permanently outleveled, regardless of how powerful the expansions make the player, and you still get a sense of difficulty progression for the first time you complete new content.
It seems that they changed the purpose of Inferno since its introduction. Initially, it was just a big farming place (but farming was only useful for $$ in the RMAH since, one properly equipped, the only real need for farming is if you change your build). Now Inferno is a challenge. Achieving Inferno is only possible for the hardcore hardcore (hardcore or softcore) player. The only question is how much time/money and skill it costs to achieve it. I think that 30 days/100$ (4h a day) is not enough but 300 days/1000$ is too much.
My hat goes off to all you hardcore players.
Yeah i suspect we’ll see an increase in suicidal rates when D3 hits the shelves
Indeed. If this really is as difficult as it sounds, mortal characters who defeat the Inferno end boss should be few and far between. Hopefully this is only possible with elite groups of players.
A year after the first kill, some (Demon) Hunter is free to solo the boss while his pet tanks it…
Yeah I played on HC on D2(LOD), but this time I’ll start on SC and check out how difficult the game will really be, I don’t really wanna get one-shotted when making HC chars.
This also makes me believe that you need to grind/outlevel the **** out of lower difficulty area’s all the way up to Inferno. Like example: usually normal is 1-30 but just grind it till lvl 40 then start NM. For those HC people.
And probably farm the **** out of Hell for gear before even trying Inferno.
I hope Bashiok’s words make truth when I get my hands on the game in 44 days
So, any actual end-game system has been delayed even further. With nothing better to add for high level players – Inferno gets the one cool, unique, and innovative aspect of it sliced and we get a generic item progression grind.
BUT ITS REALLY HARD SO ITSOK
I waslooking forward to flat difficulty but if you really think about it it couldn’t work for all players…to many variables.
So all the tip top items are going to drop in Act 4 Inferno to reward the really skilled players now, right?
Basically Inferno = D2 Hell, Hell = D2 Nightmare, and Nightmare = D2 Normal, so they added a 4th difficulty to appeal to the casuals. Great!
And Inferno Act 4 is going to suffer from the same problem D2 Hell did… certain groups of mobs that can 1-shot you as a way of making the game “difficult”. And the really elite players will do what they did in D2… run by them and just go to the next area.
Cool story bro!
I spent nearly the same time killing Baal on normal with my first playthrough as I did defeating the Skeleton King on a first playthrough… so I’m not entirely sure if I agree with your equations.
If there were downvotes in the current comment system, you would get all of mine…
They have said SEVERAL times that the “One-Shot = difficult” formula will not be in this game.
They’ve said a lot of things several times that aren’t true any more. I’m not saying they will renege on this point, just that Blizzard saying something doesn’t hold a whole lot of water anymore.
You’re delusional if you think that Blizzard can’t make a brutally hard game. Say hello to WoW Raid Hardmodes, only harder to compensate for smaller scale, bro.
So, make a “Brutally Hard Encounter”, then cave in under pressure of whiners for whom said encounter is too hard? Yup, that would be accurate for Blizzard’s definition of “hard”.
WoW raid balancing isn’t really done around “whiners”, it’s done around statistics. If not enough people are progressing through hard-mode content, they make some tweaks.
They’ve made normal modes (and now “raid finder” modes) quite easy so that the content will be accessible to all sorts of players, but that frees them up to make hard-mode content quite genuinely challenging.
This would have been the case if Diablo had the same format as WoW, which it does not. Developers tweak content difficulty when it is new content. They tweak it so more people can be able to see it. The original statistic in Vanilla WoW was that nearly 10% of the entire player-base saw end-game raid content.
However in Diablo, by the time you’ve hit Inferno, you’ve already seen all the content so they have no need to tweak it. The only thing they’re missing out on is gear, and Blizzard has an incentive to maintain value for gear so the RMAH can thrive.
Yeah, minus the part where they nerf things only many months later (months in WoW = years in Diablo), and even nerfed, hardmodes are accessible by a tiny part of wow’s playerbase, because they are still pretty damn hard.
Makes sense to me and I’m excited for the challenge. I believe Inferno should increase in difficulty just like the other acts. Its all about progression. The best items should drop from the toughest bosses.