**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[Dumac]

The difficulty system has been completely revised
Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno modes have been removed
Difficulty is now dynamic and monsters will level up with your characters
There are now five difficulty settings to choose from: Normal, Hard, Expert, Master, and Torment (1-6)
Normal, Hard, and Expert are immediately available
Master unlocks upon completing Act IV
Torment unlocks upon reaching level 60
Torment level also includes a difficulty slider, offering an additional six adjustments with increasing rewards and more powerful monsters
Each level offers new bonuses and rewards, visible in the difficulty selection menu
You can now lower your difficulty setting in-game
However, increasing your difficulty still requires exiting your current game
This option is disabled in Hardcore mode
To account for these changes, monster density has been adjusted across all Acts

I don't get this change at all.

It seems WAY more complicated.
It seems harder to effectively use.

What the heck was the thought behind these changes?

 

[darkewaffle]

To me normal/hard/expert/master imply different effects than normal/nightmare/hell at least. The former sounds more like a traditional difficulty curve where it's including both behavioral and numerical modifications which are available at any point in the game whereas Diablo's difficulty levels have typically been [almost?] exclusively numerical and normally level-gated.

Maybe you can start level 1 on "Expert" now. Though I have a little bit of a hard time seeing how that kind of 'difficulty' can be applied given the "close eyes and left click" nature of the series, who knows.

Either that or the entire game is just governed by Monster Power behind the scenes and they simply renamed the lower levels of it to make it more approachable. Normal/Hard/Expert/Master/Torment1/2/3/4/5/6 is still ten levels.

 

[Snock514]

"Hey everyone! I’ve got a new update regarding today’s maintenance.

Earlier today, we discovered a hardware issue while conducting internal testing on patch 2.0.1. We’re currently working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, but the issue itself is going to require significant time to address and additional downtime will be needed. As a result, the earliest we anticipate servers will be available is 8:00 PM PST."
Link


FAK

 

[akahoovy]

Well look at that. Blizzard added a way to spend points on your character after gaining paragon levels. Go figure.

 

[tedrodai]

Either that or the entire game is just governed by Monster Power behind the scenes and they simply renamed the lower levels of it to make it more approachable. Normal/Hard/Expert/Master/Torment1/2/3/4/5/6 is still ten levels.

That's what it sounds like to me:

1) automatically level-scaled monsters throughout the game and
2) renamed monster power system.

I imagine it has to do with their new loot system and this makes it much easier to manage as a whole. And someone at Blizzard decided their previous difficulty system was too confusing.

Initially, with the game being so heavily influenced by your gear, I'd think it could suck being unable to go to a lower-level zone to work your way up in, but maybe the new loot system & difficulty levels take care of that for you.

 

[akahoovy]

That's what it sounds like to me:

1) automatically level-scaled monsters throughout the game and
2) renamed monster power system.

I imagine it has to do with their new loot system and this makes it much easier to manage as a whole. And someone at Blizzard decided their previous difficulty system was too confusing.

Initially, with the game being so heavily influenced by your gear, I'd think it could suck being unable to go to a lower-level zone to work your way up in, but maybe the new loot system & difficulty levels take care of that for you.

I think the way it's supposed to work now is that you only have to play through the game once to unlock Inferno/Torment difficulty.

 

[tedrodai]

I think the way it's supposed to work now is that you only have to play through the game once to unlock Inferno/Torment difficulty.

The patch notes say Torment is only unlocked at level 60. If they've crammed levels 1-60 in 1 run-through of Acts 1-4 I'll be flabbergasted.

 

[Mir96TA]

Its odd update.
First it update the Client then optimize the Daiblo Now D/L game 15 Gig at speed of 3.02 MB/s .........
Seesh...... what in the blizzard going on!

 

[tedrodai]

FYI I just checked if my patch had finished downloading and tried to log in, and the servers were up. It's live.

 

[lupi]

Life Steal has been redesigned and is now less effective at higher character levels
At level 60, Life Steal is reduced to 10% effectiveness

yikes.



trying to read through rest of the patch notes, seems like you need patch notes on reading the patch notes.

 

[akahoovy]

The patch notes say Torment is only unlocked at level 60. If they've crammed levels 1-60 in 1 run-through of Acts 1-4 I'll be flabbergasted.

Oh yea, I think you're correct. Maybe it was Master after one play through. Still, I think I was very nearly 60 ages ago at the beginning of Hell. Paragon levels are now account wide too.

Honestly I was disappointed they left a lil sticky note saying, "Go play the game to see how we changed the classes and skills!" lol, I'm waiting for those patch notes.

 

[badb0y]

badb0y#1355

Add me.

 

[TallBill]

Saw in an interview that torment was roughly mp10, but that doesn't seem right. Maybe at lvl 70 or once km using new gear, but it seems easier than mp10.

 

[pandemonium]

Interesting. So any notes about how magic/gold find are translated to these new difficulties?

Also, any recognition for the monster densities changes?

 

[DeathReborn]

Saw in an interview that torment was roughly mp10, but that doesn't seem right. Maybe at lvl 70 or once km using new gear, but it seems easier than mp10.

Health of mobs in high Torment goes massively up into the billions, even my nuker DH with a Barb Tank & Utility Monk on the PTR took forever to take down some bosses. Expect some fights to take a long time until they further tweak it or great gear/builds come about.

 

[lupi]

game does feel real different. popped in on my sub 60 wizard, selected 2nd difficulty and went to act 4, fought the first mini boss using whatever my old archon build was without looking at skills and had 6 rares drop after killing. squishyness of the character way less than before, at several times while waiting for archon to recharge just stood and fought off all the adds with them in melee range, only moving when the boss dropped something on me or had reached melee range and had me down to <50%.

 

[TidusZ]

I don't get this change at all.

It seems WAY more complicated.
It seems harder to effectively use.

What the heck was the thought behind these changes?

More proof that they're clueless and it's not improving

 

[Rhezuss]

Tried it a few minutes yesterday and thought i'd give Torment a go, what a disaster

It was on my 60 Barb at a low 72k DPS and 36K HP...
Nut in my memory I was way over those stats before the patch...my DPS was 90k and HP around 40k...dunno what happened.

I toned down to Master but didn't tried it yet, we'll see.

And yay for skill points in Paragon levels

 

[Rhezuss]

Other question: If you buy the expansion now, do you get to use the new class and level 70 cap already?

 

[stlcardinals]

Other question: If you buy the expansion now, do you get to use the new class and level 70 cap already?

Nope.

 

[tedrodai]

I played towards the end of Act 1 on my old witch doctor build a little last night. With the old MF gear I had about 75k DPS and 35k HP +dogs and gargantuan. Expert seemed easy so after a couple of zones I tried vanilla torment. I wasn't killing quickly, but I didn't really have any trouble. I did die a couple times when I got frozen or jailed by a boss pack. It seemed kind of like monster power 2 (or so...it's been a while ) HP but they dealt waaaaaay less DMG. Regular torment is definitely not mp10.

I switched in a couple of old DPS pieces after I found legendary gloves off a normal zombie. The gloves had almost 400 int, over 450 vit, and 5% IAS, and boosted my DPS from 85k to 91k...I had played less than 30 mins. I saw a bunch of new impressive looking legendaries linked in chat. Other items I found were definitely better in general and had much higher main stats, and I like the new 'less loot but better' theme.

The butcher seemed easier too...again high HP but not hitting so hard. I gained a little over 1 paragon level to hit 32 in the hour or so I played.

 

[tedrodai]

It was on my 60 Barb at a low 72k DPS and 36K HP...
Nut in my memory I was way over those stats before the patch...my DPS was 90k and HP around 40k...dunno what happened.

I don't know specifics but I heard people saying barbs were getting nerfed, so you're probably not misremembering completely. Life leech was also lowered in effectiveness.

 

[lupi]

From my 5 minutes in game, I would say it seemed similar. Feeling a lot more like the old diablo instead of the glass cannon junk when 3 was released.

 

[Aikouka]

Out of curiosity, I tried it out last night, and my goodness... the difference in loot is staggering. I almost think that the drops can be too good at times as it seems most of the items I got were either fairly comparable to what I had (maybe not better, but not laughable) or better. I was playing on sub-60 characters (56 Barbarian and 34 Monk I believe) on the Hard difficulty, and I think I only ever saw two gray items... and that might have been before I realized my Monk started on Normal.

 

[smackababy]

Out of curiosity, I tried it out last night, and my goodness... the difference in loot is staggering. I almost think that the drops can be too good at times as it seems most of the items I got were either fairly comparable to what I had (maybe not better, but not laughable) or better. I was playing on sub-60 characters (56 Barbarian and 34 Monk I believe) on the Hard difficulty, and I think I only ever saw two gray items... and that might have been before I realized my Monk started on Normal.

They were talking about removing grey items (or at least, severely limiting their drops) because they are completely worthless.

I knew this would happen when Blizzard listens to people. The drop rate has been incredibly high (I was averaging quite a few legendaries an hour months ago) and they are only increasing it. They are removing the time investment required to actually get a strong set of gear, and it ruins the game IMO. D2 didn't have that (until dupes took over, at least).