Diablo III

malkav11 · 2015-09-11T10:13:35.000Z

LMN8R:

I guess what I’m trying to ask is what’s “more efficient”. Expert of course makes enemies take longer to kill, but does the extra experience offset things enough compared to Hard? Or would the fact that I can kill enemies faster on Hard outweigh the bonus from Expert?

The difference between Hard and Expert is 25% exp and gold. The difference in time to kill is almost certainly higher.

stusser · 2015-09-11T10:34:45.000Z

That’s what I was getting at, yeah. Expert isn’t sufficiently rewarded; master is.

Really normal and expert should be removed from the game entirely, or keep the names and shift all the difficulties down to compensate so there’s a reason to use them.

amandachen · 2015-09-11T10:38:24.000Z

When you’re finally able to do greater rifts, don’t forget that +xp gear (e.g. Leoric’s Signet, Hellfire Ring, a ruby in your helm) can make a huge difference.

inactive_user · 2015-09-11T10:40:16.000Z

Blizzard has skewed toward babymode a highly accessible ‘normal’ difficulty for years now. I wouldn’t expect that to change.

KevinC · 2015-09-11T10:40:29.000Z

amandachen:

When you’re finally able to do greater rifts, don’t forget that +xp gear (e.g. Leoric’s Signet, Hellfire Ring, a ruby in your helm) can make a huge difference.

Huge difference in terms of farming Paragon levels, or is the XP mechanic tied to anything else (such as the speed the big bad dude gets summoned)?

KevinC · 2015-09-11T10:42:32.000Z

Adam B:

Blizzard has skewed toward babymode a highly accessible ‘normal’ difficulty for years now. I wouldn’t expect that to change.

Yeah. Remember the good old days when you had to complete the entire game on Normal before going up in difficulty? That sure was fun. I still do not understand how they could have worked on the game for 8 years and it was the way it was at release. Yikes.

amandachen · 2015-09-11T10:47:52.000Z

It helps with grinding those paragon levels. I’m not sure why XP works differently in greater rifts.

LMN8R · 2015-09-11T11:09:13.000Z

malkav11:

The difference between Hard and Expert is 25% exp and gold. The difference in time to kill is almost certainly higher.

thanks!

inactive_user · 2015-09-11T11:12:30.000Z

You can see the % bonuses to XP/gold when you’re choosing the difficulty, btw.

TheWombat · 2015-09-11T11:32:50.000Z

KevinC:

Yeah. Remember the good old days when you had to complete the entire game on Normal before going up in difficulty? That sure was fun. I still do not understand how they could have worked on the game for 8 years and it was the way it was at release. Yikes.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021776/Against-the-Burning-Hells-Diablo linked up thread. It’s a very interesting GDC talk from the Reaper of Souls team leader about just exactly that.

stusser · 2015-09-11T12:03:40.000Z

KevinC:

Yeah. Remember the good old days when you had to complete the entire game on Normal before going up in difficulty? That sure was fun. I still do not understand how they could have worked on the game for 8 years and it was the way it was at release. Yikes.

Normal mode in D3 1.0 was essentially Hard now. The current normal really is babymode. You can’t die unless you’re afk for an extended period of time.

pizzaddict · 2015-09-11T12:10:37.000Z

Man I can’t wait until I finish the campaign so I can participate in all the cool stuff you guys are talking about. Just about to finish act 3 so I’m getting close.

KevinC · 2015-09-11T12:40:32.000Z

TheWombat:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021776/Against-the-Burning-Hells-Diablo linked up thread. It’s a very interesting GDC talk from the Reaper of Souls team leader about just exactly that.

Thanks for re-linking that, I keep meaning to watch it but never have the time when I see it linked. I gave it a listen over lunch, really interesting stuff.

Hanacker · 2015-09-11T17:54:13.000Z

amandachen:

It helps with grinding those paragon levels. I’m not sure why XP works differently in greater rifts.

Because the Torment difficulties increase xp% and any bonus xp% from gear is additive to that already large bonus. So if you’re adding 30% xp onto 1600% xp bonus, you aren’t going to notice it. Greater rifts just increase the xp given out, so that 30% xp bonus will increase your xp by 30%.

Squee · 2015-09-11T22:04:48.000Z

Just wanted to pop in and say I appreciate how Blizzard makes sure their games able to run on toasters. Video card suddenly died on me this evening, and D3 is surprisingly playable with nephalem rift-amounts of enemies exploding using onboard Intel video. Have to turn all the settings down and bump the resolution down so it looks ugly as hell, but at least it runs playably and should help stop me going computer stir-crazy while I wait a few weeks for warranty shenanigans.

Destarius · 2015-09-12T00:19:17.000Z

Adam B:

Blizzard has skewed toward babymode a highly accessible ‘normal’ difficulty for years now. I wouldn’t expect that to change.

I don’t know about “babymode”. As I get older and my reflexes are not as sharp I can imagine being grateful for a mode which will accommodate me as I tell my grandchildren to leave me alone as I play Diablo 6 on Normal.

TheWombat · 2015-09-12T05:25:05.000Z

Destarius:

I don’t know about “babymode”. As I get older and my reflexes are not as sharp I can imagine being grateful for a mode which will accommodate me as I tell my grandchildren to leave me alone as I play Diablo 6 on Normal.

Yep. Blizzard pretty much realized that their focus on uber-hardcore gameplay was one of the things that nearly killed D3 a-borning. The game is much more enjoyable and accessible now and probably has longer legs because of the revamped difficulty.

Equisilus · 2015-09-12T06:44:49.000Z

Speaking of difficulty, do the non-HC players tend to stick to a difficulty where they don’t die or do people even care about death in D3? I’m one who goes for the never-die scenario, but perhaps that’s not realistic on the really high difficulties.

Oghier · 2015-09-12T08:11:18.000Z

Equisilus:

Speaking of difficulty, do the non-HC players tend to stick to a difficulty where they don’t die or do people even care about death in D3? I’m one who goes for the never-die scenario, but perhaps that’s not realistic on the really high difficulties.

Deaths matter in the higher Greater Rifts, as the resurrection timer grows each time you die in one. You can’t afford to die often if you want to finish successfully.

Other than that, I tend to stick to a Torment level one higher than is really comfortable. Otherwise, it’s just too easy to be fun.

Razgon · 2015-09-12T08:29:08.000Z

Weirdly, I am not getting any Greater Riftstone keys on my new lvl 70 wizardress - I play on Master on the PS4 - shouldnt they drop from one rift mission?
Also, I have sets in everything, at lvl 70 - shouldn’t I be able to take on T1?

edit: oh - I play Hardcore.