Although there's probably a hundred videos on YouTube that attest to feats of extraordinary gear planning and strategy, Jack112 posted a video today (shown below) showcasing the toughest of the tough in Diablo III's beta, the Skeleton King, being beaten by every character class in the game. At level one.
While Blizzard representatives have stated on multiple occasions that Normal
Further statement in a recent interview with Lead Systems Designer Jason bender on VG24/7 may raise even more concern.
In response to a question about the difficult of higher-level play modes, Jason said, "Nightmare’s very playable. After you’ve gone all the way through normal, you should have the practice and chops you need to handle Nightmare. We don’t think there’s really a wall there."
That kind of takes the nightmare out of Nightmare.
So, with Normal mode being nothing more than an elaborate, testing-the-waters, tutorial-like difficulty, and with Nightmare being little more than a slope to Hell mode, what can we expect from Hell? Jason continued: "On Hell [difficulty], there is a bit of a wall. We don’t expect everybody to play that effectively in Hell. It might be beyond some players’ abilities."
If Hell mode is anything like Diablo II's Hell mode, then we're certain to have our hands full for a while. It's likely that without the mass availability of cheap gear--mostly due to duping and botting--Hell would have been even more challenging. Just imagine trying to beat Hell mode without that Enigma, Call to Arms, or Infinity. Many of us can admit that such a version of the game would require significantly different strategies than the Teleport-and-spam-Traps/Hammers/Lightning/Fireballs/insert-your-skill-here that many players are so accustomed to.
However, if the first couple hours of gameplay, specifically the first major boss in the game, can be beaten by a level one character, what does that say about the rest of the game? Will we see players creaming Nightmare with level fifteen's and Hell with level twenty-five's?
"And, you know, it’s funny," Jason continued, "because – as casual as it seems – we don’t try to handcraft Diablo so that everyone can beat it all the way through to Inferno."
With the possible exception of Hell, it's sure sounding quite the contrary. For the full interview from VG24/7, see its posted article. A special thanks goes to Jack112 (as well as some applause!) for posting his brilliant footage. CherubDown also posted a thread specifically about the interview here, if you're interested in more discussion about the VG24/7 article.
I apologize for any undue amount of negativity that this post conveys. I highly value your feedback and will do my best to improve my approach to writing content that you read in the future. No, no one asked me to say this. I say this because I care about the community that's been gathering here since 2006. When you're not happy, I'm not happy.
-Magistrate
I also don't think this video is fully as it seems, all those characters had gear on them, the monk has damage reduced by 80% as one example.. the gear he used probably isn't typical of the average player going through the skeleton king, let alone a level 1 character...
Oblivion: Beating the game at level 2, with corresponding speed challenges.
Skyrim: Developer speed challenge finished the main story in 2.5 hours, so who knows what players will do.
Diablo 2: Hardcore naked characters finishing Hell Baal.
FF1: Beating the game with a single white mage.
Tecmo Super Bowl: Going 16-0 and winning the Super Bowl with the Patriots (or other similarly bad team) Only threw this in because I love the game.
I'd like to see a collection of supposedly tough "bosses" that players found ways to beat at absurdly low levels.
Overall, the article brings up some interesting speculation, but because we're in still in beta (and because the game likely won't be released before the end of the decade) I don't think we can accurately judge the final product's difficulty.
Not an issue at all.
However this has one really bad thing that the game you play .. sorry fly trough at normal will have pretty much no more surprises for you in Nightmare.. except the loot and the odd random dungeon / zone..??
So essentially normal is like the really really easy zone.. .the only problem is that it is the whole game before you can get to the next level Nightmare which is sounding like where the game should really be starting.
Let's say that these are speculations... because it is only act 1 and it is only the Beta... so there is hope... right??
Also sorry if I am totally wrong.. just my opinion currently on this subject... but I will be very dissappointed if normal turns out to be a cake walk and no more challenging than a cafeteria food fight.. ( lol ) simply due to the fact that I will have waltzed trough the game in a hurry to get to the level which is right balance and challenge for my expectations..
Sure the game and the content will still be fun... but I think it should be challenging ... and as I said I hope we are reading too much into the beta and act 1... by release we hopefully will be wrong!!
peace.
B
Gear>level, I think you hit the nail on the head. For everyone just starting out when the game finally releases will absolutely not have gear and will not be able to do what the person in the video did. The only case I can see where this could occur would be via he RMAH. Even in this case, however, if a person buys a ton of gear to twink themselves out and easily beat the first portion of the game, they would only be trivializing a small portion of the game. For the vast majority of people playing this game, it will be a non-issue.
A couple interesting points brought up by other players that caught my attention:
1.Gear > Level (I have to agree with this after getting a barb to hell)
2. Blizzard has to be able to make the game easy enough at the beginning for people to want play it and not just get roflstomped.
3. The normal game should not be a cake walk or the whole story will just be finished in a day and the "newness" factor will be mostly gone.
That being said I think the important point is "How early should the difficulty ramp up?".
I have not played the beta, and I won't try to speculate anything. As long as this boss poses a little bit of a challenge. (like blood raven perhaps) I will be content.
Additionally I hope there are still at least some minor challenges along the way through normal to keep players on their toes at least a little bit.
I leave it to Blizz.
-ZTZaorish
P.S: Gonna love D3
"omfg if easy is EASY then wtf will hard be? oh it must be easy too" -the D3 community of turds
Magistrate - don't apologise for anything. If it's not for articles like this the site would be essentially a worthless news aggregator. Only small-minded individuals can interpret "I have potential concerns" as "I hate diablo 3".
its an epic fail thread. in a nut shell - "omfg if easy is EASY, then what is hard going to be? probably easy too!?" fail fail. zero logic.
not to mention the lvl 1's have twink gear that makes them more powerful then a lvl 8 would be normally getting to him.