Diablo III Demon Hunter trailer - Inferno difficulty mode gets level-scaling

[James]

Diablo III Demon Hunter trailer – Inferno difficulty mode gets level-scaling

Diablo III Demon Hunter trailer – Inferno difficulty mode gets level-scaling

 

[Kurike]

someone please help me understand, did he just say that you will need to grind for weeks to eventually get past Act 1 Inferno?!?!?

is that the new bar for difficult "no skill, just grind untill you hit harder and tank more and then you get through"



my ampness for this game just went down a notch

 

[Kurike]

oh and before i get flamed, Diablo 2 was a little like this but i don't remember having to grind for weeks to extend the games life

 

[OmegaFenix]

someone please help me understand, did he just say that you will need to grind for weeks to eventually get past Act 1 Inferno?!?!?

is that the new bar for difficult "no skill, just grind untill you hit harder and tank more and then you get through"


my ampness for this game just went down a notch

“You’re going to die, a lot, and you’re going to have a horrible character for quite a while. You’re not going to hit 60 and finish the game on Inferno. You’re going to be smashing your face against Act 1 Inferno for weeks,” he said.

I think it implied you will need the best possible gear/character build which will only be attainable through extensive play time. It will probably entail some grinding but most RPGs do anyways.

This caught my eye though:

“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.”

Dynamic level Scaling like this is an idea I had been considering for my own project. Im curious about the exact mechanic behind it, for our project we draw up a enemy difficulty chart (hitpoints, dps, etc) with the character level as variable, at the start of the NG+ mode the system calculates how powerful the enemies are and what their level is in relation to the player. Lower level players the enemies are a level or two behind the player while at higher difficulty levels the enemies can end up being multiple levels above the player. But what Blizzard is doing sounds like it will rescale enemies during the game depending on the player. However I doubt it would scale down if you suddenly started sucking.

Roll on May 15th so I can see what they did.

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

It's nothing really new for RPG's ...... maybe for an action-rpg it may seem a bit odd but grinding is part of the genre. I know that when I play DDO, in order for me to play Epics, I have to grind to put together epic gear. Attempting an Epic raid being undergeared is just silly, lol. I'm all for scaling, too many games have easy quests as it is.

 

[Kurike]

It's nothing really new for RPG's ...... maybe for an action-rpg it may seem a bit odd but grinding is part of the genre. I know that when I play DDO, in order for me to play Epics, I have to grind to put together epic gear. Attempting an Epic raid being undergeared is just silly, lol. I'm all for scaling, too many games have easy quests as it is.

MMORPG yes, there is grinding, obviously, cause otherwise you'd finish and uninstall but D3 is not a MMORPG.

D2 would basically pit you with enemies your level so it was always fair.....ish but this just sounds like a fake way to extend the life of the game i.e.. their "Dynamic scaling" is if you are level 50, let's make the enemies on Inferno 10 levels higher than whatever you are and make the player grind to meet that level and they win.

sounds like fun

 

[Kurike]

aaggg don't mind me, i'll still get this game, just didn't like that they openly admit to saying you will have to grind to beat it, sigh oh well

 

[Avatar]

D2 would basically pit you with enemies your level so it was always fair.....ish but this just sounds like a fake way to extend the life of the game i.e.. their "Dynamic scaling" is if you are level 50, let's make the enemies on Inferno 10 levels higher than whatever you are and make the player grind to meet that level and they win.

That is A) not what D2 did, and B) not what dynamic scaling is.

Dynamic scaling simply means that the scaling isn't fixed. We have no idea what the parameters are that changes the scaling yet, but I'd be very surprised if it was only your current level. D2 was also insanely difficult in higher levels, just like they're alluding to with D3 now. It honestly doesn't sound much different to me. Also, I don't believe it'll be a grind, but rather adjustment of tactics that'll be the key. Perhaps some teamwork..

 

[OmegaFenix]

MMORPG yes, there is grinding, obviously, cause otherwise you'd finish and uninstall but D3 is not a MMORPG.

D2 would basically pit you with enemies your level so it was always fair.....ish but this just sounds like a fake way to extend the life of the game i.e.. their "Dynamic scaling" is if you are level 50, let's make the enemies on Inferno 10 levels higher than whatever you are and make the player grind to meet that level and they win.

sounds like fun

D2 wasn't always fair, far from it. In Act III or even later in II you got swarmed by powerfull, hard to kill enemies, especially on higher difficulty. Only way to beat them is having the best gear be a high enough level which meant going out into the wilds and clearing the same demon infested pit sever times over, each time getting xp and gear.

If the enemy is always your level its boring, this happened in Oblivion when all the enemies scaled to your level during the game. Meaning that getting EPIC gear means nothing as the enemies scale to adapt. By making the enemies harder to kill, i.e. up their levels, you will need that Golden armor set and epic runes/perfect jewels socketed in every available slot just to survive.

Also if you set the difficulty in stone at the start of a new game, especially with a game like Diablo where the mobs respawn once you've killed them, this would mean later levels could be beaten simply by grinding in the earlier missions and being Level 60 when you reach the final boss thats only lvl 50 or something.

Diablo 3 also has more in common with a MMORPG than most RPGS. Respawning Mobs, co-op (PvE) centric play, etc. So traditional RPGs, lets call them Static RPGs, like Fallout or Baldur's Gate has the player progress through areas and once the area is clear the enemies dont repopulate an area (this isn't always true for newer RPGs like Skyrim, Fallout 3 or New Vegas as enemies often respawn) and all in game weapons are balanced before release thereby restricting the players ability to level or carry grossly overpowered weapons and ensuring that a properly managed character will always be able to progress past the next encounter or boss as the designers can predict what level the player will be or what kind of gear he/she will have. With a Diablo style RPG, lets call them Rolling RPGs, where enemies respawn and can be "farmed" for XP/Gold etc and the weapon drops, while still regulated are alot more random especially effect wise, the designers ability to predict what level the player will be or what kind of gear they will have is greatly diminished. Enter Dynamic Scaling; a formula calculates your defence, DPS etc and then scales enemies accordingly to ensure a steady increase in difficulty. At higher difficulties the curve of this scaling ramps up significantly.

 

[Namdrater]

I'm happy about this change, I want Inferno to be crazy difficult to beat.

 

[Grievous]

MMORPG yes, there is grinding, obviously, cause otherwise you'd finish and uninstall but D3 is not a MMORPG.

D2 would basically pit you with enemies your level so it was always fair.....ish but this just sounds like a fake way to extend the life of the game i.e.. their "Dynamic scaling" is if you are level 50, let's make the enemies on Inferno 10 levels higher than whatever you are and make the player grind to meet that level and they win.

sounds like fun

Think you making a big deal out of nothing, just stop playing when you get bored. They not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play endless hours of the game.

 

[OmegaFenix]

Found this on the Diablo Wiki:

What is known about inferno:Items and Runes specific to that difficulty, with specific looks/graphics.

• Highest level of difficulty in the game.
• Minimum Enemy lvl of 61 across the entire difficulty.
• More aggressive monster behavior with modified AI, and possibly exclusive boss modifiers (or a higher chance of rolling specific [nasty] modifiers) for Inferno.

In addition to that summary, this is official Blizzard word on the matter as well, from an interview with popular gaming site Kotaku:
Monsters will see an increase in health, damage, damage resistances and aggression in Inferno. They’ll also have access to a larger suite of powers in Inferno, making minions and boss monsters even tougher. Expect a tougher game across the board, with broader than ever challenges even for the most skilled demon hunters.
“The idea was that we wanted a difficulty mode where the entire game was viable,” Wilson says. “So you don’t have to pick and choose key areas [to replay].” Diablo III’s Inferno difficulty, he says, will be “very difficult, very challenging,” presenting a “flattened” difficulty experience that Blizzard hopes will provide a more balanced, but more challenging end game for Diablo diehards.
That “flattened” difficulty will mean, Blizzard hopes, that players revisit the entire world of Diablo III seeking bigger and bolder challenges, not just go on “Mephisto runs” or fight a specific breed of minion in search of experience points and sweet loot drops.

Source

Considering that the level cap is 60 a minimum enemy level of 61 would mean every enemy in the game would be a higher level higher than you. So if your basic demons in Act 1 is Level 61 imagine the final boss of the last act... No amount of grinding will help you here.