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 am bored. I need something to complain about. Oh, I can complain about this even though it doesn't make much sense."
Maybe he should clean up this post too.
May I add this also, "omg I have beaten inferno, what after that, play another game, they should add another difficulty after inferno"
What I do not agree IF its the case, going through normal act 1-2-3-4, being able to do wtf I want, going afk on boss fight and come back from making a sandwich and I'm still alive. They could just make a tutorial on how things work.
One good thing tho, you can get rushed through level difficulties, no need to waste your time running around to get to a difficulty matching your skill or gameplay...
Nope. But the point isn't that he could be beaten so easily so much as it is the details surrounding it. It's that a third of the way through act one, when you're supposed to be level 11-13, you can beat a major plot boss at level one. I think that screams broken. That's a boss that you shouldn't be facing until you've achieved 18% to 21% of your total experience in the game at 0% experience. And this isn't limited to one case. You can see countless examples of players beating him at all sorts of low levels.
No, I don't believe I said that.
Exactly. Why should a level one character be able to kill a boss? Why should it be able to wear extremely over-leveled gear? I think there's cause for concern there.
But as long as this stirred up responses, I've achieved my diabolical task. I'm not here to shitstorm Blizzard; nor do I think I did. You'll notice I, at no point like you did to me, said Blizzard's work was dumb. I simply pointed out some issues that might need to be addressed. I've been here for nearly five years to keep people thinking, active, and communicating I'm simply raising a subject that others have voiced concern for.
Of course, your feedback on the topic will help me tailor articles in the future to what you guys want. That's the problem: you can't please everyone, and sometimes you can't please almost everyone. It's a roll of the dice. So, from post to post, we have to analyze responses and think about how this plays into the broader role of front page articles.
terribleawfulholy balls this is overdonenightmarishly bad jokes in there for you magistrate?You've gotta be the only person who can hear "inferno difficulty is really hard, hell is really hard, nightmare is hard but we think you can handle it if you can beat normal" as "OMFG NIGHTMARE SO EASY EASYMODECASUALGAME LOLOL."
I can vote down posts at the Blizz forums, why no here D:
This is the most entertaining post on Dfans in a while!
No, it won't. We only delete troll posts for trolling. You posted your thoughts and I respect that.
I honestly thought it would be a good point to take a stance on something and post something controversial. I did that, and obviously came off more subjectively than I intended. I'm sorry I've ruined your experience here and I hope I can make up for it in the future, OmniNom.
Um, just a question. If Hell was not challenging enough for you people because of duped/traded top tier gear...why in the world did you do that?? I really sometimes can't understand people. I have beaten Hell with all character classes without twinking and such and the sense of accomplishment was awesome. Why in the world would any sane person deny themselves that? It's like playing Doom 2 for the first time ever and having IDDQD on.
I don't know. Ask the thousands of players every day that do
There's not really a way to know what is and isn't duped and what is and isn't farmed by bots. Once it's in the economy, it's part of the completely legitimate trading game. Should we deny ourselves trading opportunities?
The part about nightmare basically being a ramp up to hell diffiulty is concerning though. In Diablo II, at the beginning of each Difficulty level you felt challenged. Of course, this game does add Inferno, which sounds amazing to me.
When I play through the beta I have almost always fought him at level 7-8.
Regardless. These characters killing him are:
1. Obviously using gear that does not have level restrictions.
2. Have farmed health potions on them.
3. Due to these things, they have enhanced stats.
It's like saying World of Warcraft PvP is broken and then citing the reason: "This level 29 character that has spent thousands of gold on specific items for his character can kill my level 39 who has terrible gear! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?"
Yeah, he can kill them at level one. I think I'd rather fight him at level one with gear that I spend two/three weeks gathering up than fight him at level 7-8 with just the gear that I pick up along the way. That doesn't mean "THE GAME IS BROKEN!" though... it just means that some dude farmed a bunch of items and spent time so he could kill the boss at the end of a freaking beta at level one.
I'd like you to go try to kill Leoric when first entering the game at level one. No extra loot, no extra potions. Just log on, go to the WP, go to Leoric and then just fight him. My guess is you can probably kill him, but it'd take (like some of these videos) 3-5 minutes. Mainly because Leoric is slow and his mechanics are made easier for the easy difficulty. It won't continue like that through the rest of the game.
I honestly don't know why I come to this site anymore. All you see is people bitching. I remember when people had reasonable conversations about things that mattered in the game... that was awesome. But I guess everyone is getting bored, so that is understandable.
Skeleton King is more on the 6-8 level range than 11-13.
The problem then is gear restriction. But I feel it's too soon to complain about gear restriction. If later it appears you can wear gear that enables you to beat nightmare at level 15 without much issue then please yes I will complain with you. Right now... meh. Blizzard is aware beta is easy and players complain, it's up to them to do the right thing for what comes next but be assured they know it by now.
You just had to go and ruin my perfectly good internet rage with kindness and understanding, didn't you? D:
I'm getting enough of it right now. I don't think it's necessary to return more to justifiably upset readers.
go read the thread this video is in, it explains all this already.
I guess some people never learn but mostly I and surely many others have already discovered that cheating isn't fun. I cheated throught several single player games and playing them just wasn't fun anymore when all the options were unlocked, everything was possible and any goal was within my reach. There's no fun without challenge and the best thing about Diablo is the endless hunt for the best item you could get. If you just buy, dupe or bot it then any appeal that Diablo has goes out the window. Just looking at youtube videos with characters head to toes garbed in the best items possible makes me go