Inferno will be a fourth and even harder difficulty that unlocks after beating the game through the Hell difficulty and getting your character to level 60. Designed as an end game objective for players, monsters faced in this difficulty will all be at least level 61. Designed with more HP, damage, resistances, and more aggressive AI, the monsters pose to face players with the most difficult challenge of the game. Along with this, some monsters and bosses will even have extra skills at their disposal that you will only see in Inferno.
The objective of the Inferno difficulty is to give players something to do once capped but would avoid running the same bosses over and over again like the Baal runs of Diablo II. The entire game will plateau in this difficulty meaning that there will be no one particular place that would be best to farm for items. Blizzard is hoping that this will give the players an incentive to repeat the entire content of the game while looking for the best items and not just one section repeatedly. Even if players find a particular area that maximizes results for their efforts, Blizzard said they will add incentives to run through the entire content.
Official Blizzard Quote:
The idea was that we wanted a difficulty mode where the entire game was viable. So you don't have to pick and choose key areas [to replay].
We do expect there to be a certain amount of... runs to get items, but we wanted players to do it over a lot more content. We're trying to make sure that there's a lot more opportunities for players to see a lot more variety.
With end game finally revealed, and Beta beginning in a "little while" what else could gamescom hold in store for Diablo III. Stay tuned on Saturday when Diablo's two performances and interview are being held for some more possible news.
There was also 14 new screen shots that were shown as well that you can find on our wiki.
You can also check out force's video covering this news as well.
Official Blizzard Quote:
As a side note, any rumors you may have heard about a gate to Diablo’s Burning Hells opening in Cologne are completely unfounded. Seriously, nothing is happening at Rudolfplatz from the evening of August 16 — especially nothing to do with demonic invasions.
A special thanks to Lorgarn for sharing the pictures and evilenginen9 for informing on the Inferno news and hicksology for starting the discussion on the topic.
So at 6:32 of the new video presentation where Jay is showing off 2 items. Is it just me or that weapon is color coded green? I thought green are now only for artifacts (quest or lore items). Hmm maybe my hoping for a new item quality was already in place?
As for the "debate" on monsters over 61 how about all monsters are lvl 61, champions, unique, and major bosses are 62+ happy?
Since Inferno difficulty was slipped (or not) in that interview a while back I've been waiting for an official announcement, as we all have. This is a pretty grand idea to push replayability even most past just farming bosses. If every area of the game truly is equally hard (I still hope bosses are even harder) that really opens up the endgame.. A LOT.
I'm glad we got a little peak into Hell also, it looks.. Hellish :D. The gear shots look epic also O_O.
About the Runes though.. I wonder if they've went with the system spoken about at the Beta meeting, or the original system.
Hmm he did say rare but the color code for rare is yellow. Maybe because it's unique equip (what I meant by this is it's only for barbarian, when you look closely at top right corner of the tooltip)?
"Diablo III's Inferno difficulty is aimed at players who have maxed out their character by reaching the level 60 player cap.
Only then can they tackle Inferno difficulty, a challenge that will throw enemies at the player that are of even higher levels.
Wilson says the level for every monster in Inferno will be, at minimum, level 61 making Diablo III's hardest difficulty setting an overwhelming, often uphill battle.
At minimum level of 61 doesn't mean that Blizzard will make all monsters to be lvl 61, champions, unique, and major bosses are 62+... throughout the Inferno run.
You're idea would simply put them back at step 1 on play-ability. You have to think broader...
Your idea most likely would be applicable only on the 1st Quest in Act I of Inferno, but as the game progresses, so does its difficulty... meaning, the monsters level up successively in different Acts of the game, which would make the end-game an overwhelming, often uphill battle.
Besides, Blizzard sure hell did not design the end-game with noobs or the so called "casual players" in-mind.
It would be safe to presume that Inferno was created as an end-game for the die-hard players who have mostly finished the Nightmare & Hell difficulty levels of Diablo II, who wants to see more content in Diablo III.
Inferno would not be a simple child's play that everyone could just breeze through.
It would distinctly set apart the dedicated players from the lot, because only the few, the proud dedicated ones will try to finish the end-game.
As for the chickens, most of them would try to farm in Act I, while some might make it to Act II of Inferno, but that would simply be as far as they can go for they will get overwhelmed.
So for the noobs here or those pretending to have played Diablo 2 through Hell,
wait for the game, then try playing through Hell this time before making assumptions about going to be able to finish or even reach the end-game, Inferno.
If you want to see the video of the presentation at GamesCon, click thru my link below:
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/27214-new-armor-weapon-item-tiers-exclusive-to-inferno-alone/page__p__636965#entry636965
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Isn't it that green color coded items are part of a Set Item?
This simply means that this powerful & rare Barbarian's 2-handed axe, Savage Mangler, would only be attainable in Inferno.
So aside from the rare individual items you may get when playing Inferno, there's is
a randomized possibility that you may end up collecting a complete epic Set Items as well.
Remember, after you've completed a Set Item & use it as a whole, you get additional bonuses
and possibly affixes & affix combos as well.
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Otherwise you have the Raid idea from MMOs start up. I can see it now "Need full group for inferno run" messages everywhere. You will be able to solo, it will be hard, and whenever someone joins your game it will scale even harder.
I honestly didn't notice the Thousand Pounder in the upper right that's him alright! Either he's not really a mini boss, but instead just a random instance area. Or by dying he got sent back to hell where he lives again.. Those are my two guesses.
Mmm, I don't remember, but was the thousand pounder said to be one-of-a-kind or just a rare variety of monster?
So far this news sounds really good.
My guess is that, in a classic RPG manner, he is indeed an early mini-boss, but ends up being a common closer to end-game. Remember the good old NES/SNES Final Fantasy games? You'd get that kind of treatment for mini-bosses fairly often.
Moreover, having his first appearance in the game spectacular can make for a great first impression, while any further encounters as end-game enemies can be seen as "Oh, damn, a second TP just joined the first one I was trying to kite, going to have to be careful, they can catch up quite fast if you happen to step in the slowing goo puddles the freaking bugs leave on death. Aaaand here comes a third."
They say they want a flat difficulty curve and no incentive to do runs of a particular boss/area. The only way to guarantee this is to give all monsters in Inferno the same drop rates.
So that you don't grind the first area of Act 1 (or the first area which has the highest number of low-HP monsters) they would need to adjust the HP/Resistances of every monster in Inferno to be able to be killed at the same rate.
I know we shouldn't compare to D2, but the portal to Nilathark's temple that Anya made. That was a huge farming spot just for XP. If, in inferno, you could go to a similar style of location (near a portal or waypoint) and kill enemies quickly, then the incentive becomes to just grind that area.
Of course, they could simply just implement a 30 second or 1 minute timer on exiting a game and creating a new one.