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.
Since Inferno is supposed to be a plateau, you could slip in these extra bosses in various places without messing up the plateau, but give players another reason to run through ALL the content in Inferno - to see if they can get the bosses they couldn't get in Normal/Nightmare/Hell.
The idea was to get people playing whatever area of the game they like so they don't get bored of the same things. Apparently people just ended up playing areas with the least annoying monster AI and the ones they could kill the fastest. As a result people ended up in specializing in particular areas and just farming those. They ended up scrapping the idea.
Obviously Diablo 3 is a different game and they are going to be incentivizing playing other areas, but I hope this isn't an issue. Its just strange to have this the interview then a week later have 'Inferno' announced.
Coincidence? Yes. But an interesting one.
They said that they will try to patch the game to counter exactly what you said. Only time will tell how successful they will be at it.
Has to be elements that will make players want to run and complete the Inferno level repeatedly. Having to explore new content in the Inferno level will only be an one time thing.
I was thinking perhaps maps can be heavely randomized to the scale of sometimes running into dead ends, make the idea of constantly recreating the level works as an interesting end-game mechanic. Act 1's dungeon crossing into Act 3's area, that sort of thing. The uglier the better.
can you venture to any area of the INFERNO difficulty level from the very start of this difficulty, meaning no principal quests, or do you have to go through the same procedure as previous difficulties (like Nightmare and Hell) and finish INFERNO before you can roam freely?
From what I gather you can start in INFERNO difficulty and move freely to any location.... please confirm or deny.
While i have no concrete evidence, it makes complete sense that you would have to play through the entire game once again to unlock the whole thing. (I'm guessing because of achievements and such, like 'complete inferno').
I can never find the quotes when i need them, but there was a recent blue post about this issue, and addressing people asking if they will scale the monsters to be killed at the same rate. It was either jay or bash but they said they were toying with the thought of slightly screwing around with the drop rates to normalize inferno, so yea you can go into that area and decimate the 4k skeles, but added together they have the same drop rate as those huge berzerkers in a different area.
I heard they have incentives for those that explore
Indeed. The randomly generated environment, mobs, and rare chests all play into rewarding the player for exploring.
Think about how long its going to take to get the best armor/runes/gems/etc. There better not be no f*cking reset.
There is that saying again "Chinese Farmers" you do realize that the Chinese will be in their own realm, thus not affecting anyone in any other region of the world. Only the Chinese will have to worry about "Chinese Farmers".
Unless I'm just misunderstanding the word "Chinese", in that it just means somebody who plays a video game for 8+ hours a day for the purpose of selling virtual gear. If that is truly the case by saying "Chinese Farmer" you are formulating a stereotype about a specific race, thus actually saying something racist and it needs to stop.
I'm not trying to single you out, I just find it really annoying and disturbing.
Maybe there can be a new term to describe such people, I dunno maybe something like "Human item Vacuum" or "Manual Gear Retriever".
I agree with your overall message but Chinese is not a race, there are no races among humans were all just one/same race with different geographical adaptations.
Does anyone else think the item & weapon graphics for the inventory look awful compared to the gritty, "realistic," brutal graphics used in past Diablo games? I know the graphic style is becoming more colorful in general, and more akin to WoW's sensibilities - but I mean, that's a pretty radical departure from something that really sold the brutality and grimness of the universe.
Remember getting the Butcher's cleaver for the first time? By attaching glowing colors to the item graphic ON TOP of the in-game equipped style just seems like more than a little much.
Also, the items now being relegated to these boxes, all seemingly having the same uniform size I think diminishes the feeling of an "inventory," or the feeling that you're finding pieces of this shattered world. It's instead these really "software-referential" graphics that just tie to stats, as opposed to the collection of interesting artifacts from around this unique world.
I'm an artist who was heavily influenced by Metzen and Samwise as well as the general art style of "early" Blizzard (read: PRE-WoW) games, so obviously I'm being super-critical here, where most people might dismiss these things entirely (and embrace them).
I like the butcher axe comparison and I agree with you on that aspect.
I've played D1 & D2 way too long and quite frankly I'm sick of the old school feel of the inventory. Going back to town every couple of minutes is VERY disruptive. Imagine your a hero in some tomb and you clear and room and run back to town because you can't carry anything anymore... that in a sense also defeats the adventuring feel for me.
It's just a weird and inappropriate design decision to try and make all of your unique franchises - each with similar, but very distinct stylistic differences bend towards a more dumbed-down, company-wide branding. It's like bands that build their careers on a classic, unique sound, and then deviate to pop crap and dismiss and discourage the sound that made them popular.
Do some of the higher armors look wow-esque? Sure. Will they continue to when covered in demon blood and bits? I don't know.
More importantly, will the monsters and environments look like Dalaran? My guess: <explitive deleted> NO!
I really think they can do a very good horror effect with proper use of blood and guts, as well as inspiring dread for opening a door or crossing a bridge (this will mostly be relevant on Hell and Inferno I think).
Nobody's head got bitten off by any monster in D2. That can happen in A1 of D3. I think the brightly-colored armor will provide a nice juxtaposition for how @#$@ed Sanctuary is now. And lets not forget Dyes.
DEATH TO THE COLOR! LONG LIVE THE <NEWLY CHOSEN BY ME> COLOR!
Exact figures don't exist, but we're talking about a global market worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
And that's never happened. And it totally doesn't work either
I think there are several factors to why Diablo 3 looks as it does, foremost is probably the fact that the organization has expanded in size yet not diversed as much since the creation of WoW. That said, I am one of those who do like it.