End Game PVM - Add Inferno Difficulty - ideas?

I’d like to see the dev’s do a “final hurra” and add a final difficulty “inferno” to provide a high-end PvM challenge. I don’t expect them to add new areas of the game but could see them implementing a 4th tier of difficulty. In my mind, this would be designed for GROUP play – requiring multiple players in the same area stacking abilities to beat it (unless you’re crazy). New runewords/items would NOT be introduced to provide your characters new power – simply you’ll need to work in groups to clear each area.

Monster Changes:

Monsters: +200% damage, +350% life, +10% elemental absorb (fire, lightning, cold), 30% physical/magic resistance.

Champions/Unique: As above. Spawn with +500% life and 4 additional NEW modifiers and can spawn with multiple auras. Has a second immunity that is either magic/physical/poison.

Act Bosses: Spawn with modifiers SIMILAR to uniques! Magic/Physical resistance 30%. Each act boss ALSO spawns with a unique mob near its location for added difficulty.

Inferno Cows: 25% fire/cold/lightning/poison absorb. ALL have the “extra fast” mod.

Item Drop Changes:

No new items would drop; no new items would be added to make this difficulty easier. HOWEVER, when an item drops, the variance in a mod would be improved by mitigating the lower 30% of the roll. For example, a magic ring (in hell) can spawn from 0-90 mana. In inferno, the ring would spawn from 30-90 mana. This would make the drops “better”, only on those that have varying stats.

All areas would be a level 85; all act bosses level 99 (might affect people who aim for reaching 99 first in a ladder?).

Almost ALL characters (solo) would be better to farm hell (more efficient timewise).

Act bosses would be increased to all be monster level 99 (maximum value).

Ability Changes:

Crushing Blow would deal half as much damage as it does in hell

-120 all res (instead of -100).

Reward Quests

All would not provide any new skills/stats. Larzuk excluded.

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Everything has multiple immunities, meaning a TEAM of people using different elements is required to clear content.

My design basically only added a 2nd immunity to uniques that is of physical/magic/poison. So not ALL things have multiple immunities; but there would be more on some monsters, ideally those that are under-represented in hell.

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Seems like a cool idea. I also like the item drop changes. I would vote for an increased drop rate chance as well. I guess my overall (and possibly blizzards) criticism would be, how long until this no longer satisfies people and they want a whole new idea

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Why? Hell is scary enough for HC as it is. Even with perfect gear, given right rare mob with the right mods, many chars can still be instagibbed… don’t see a point with extra difficulty. In SC, PvP is the real end game. Also a higher difficulty would only force more players into more cookie cutter builds. As it is, hell is just barely easy enough for many obscure builds to do ok in it. Another difficulty would add another 4 skill points from quests but given that most builds have all their skills and synergies maxed out in the high 80s, it is pointless.

Meh

An extra difficulty would be better than nothing but it’s very sub optimal

I’d rather have a challenge increasing mechanic that is

  • progressive
  • gamified
  • designed to equalize areas to all be interesting

You also have to understand that to do so you need to adress mlvl, density and add all resistances to monsters including magic, but also preventing it from creating immunities cuz that’s a crappy mechanic

So in the end you would have monsters with extra dmg extra Life mlvl 85-86 with 95 all resists

That’s why I really love these 4 concepts

  • the demonic list
  • every time you kill a super Unique, the whole game gains +1mlvl(unactivated mobs, capped at 85-87), when all areas reach mlvl85, the buff to mobs is dmg/life/xp/noloot/resistances

Ideally super uniques would gain more buff than regular mobs, making each next one harder and harder. There could even be some shenanigan with them being allowed to higher mlvl lvl and TC so down the line they can drop everything to compensate the fact that no-loot bonus doesn’t affect them

This would incite people to hunt them

Finally we would have a reason to kill blood raven

We would have a reason to revisit the den of evil for Corpsefire, the barrack for the smith, maggot for coldworm, etc

All especially all those more unknown

People would learn about all the Super uniques and potentially their story

There are like 60 of them

Killing them all could even trigger a special event. Potentially using legendary super Unique removes from the game or some never seen like Reziarfg http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-reziarfg.shtml

People would create games and hunt parties to kill them all, have better farming areas and ultimately trigger the Event


  • Restless Darkness

When you full clear an area, sunbeams appear like in the den of evil and you character says something

At that moment, a time starts

10 minutes(example time) later a message springs

“Darkness has engulfed The far Oasis, evil walks again on this land”

the area is repopulated with monsters, stronger ones

This buff to monsters is similar to what playercount provides

  • dmg
  • life
  • xp
  • no loot

But also

  • mlvl*
  • all resists(including magic and up to 99 )
  • maybe even a bit more density

  • King of the Hell

Game with hell baal quest completed have this mechanic. This mechanic determines the total number of monsters in the game and the least of them are left, the stronger they become.

For more details:

The PERFECT endgame solution!

You have a tracker displaying the % of the game that is cleared. This is where the leaderboard gets it’s data. Highest % reached, highest % boss kills, fastest time to reach 100%


  • The 9 circles of hell

where hell becomes harder each time you complete it. On the last Hell act bosses are harder than regular ubers. First to complete the game on this ultra hard difficulty

Not to mention that increasing the difficulty of the game is one thing but the game also needs extra activities to do

Like

  • holy grail
  • bounties
  • gear customization
    -etc

I do like the idea of adding a final difficulty “inferno” to provide a high-end PvM challenge.

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No thank you. I enjoy the game already.

It would serve as a PvM endgame that requires team play. Yes, it would be super hard solo, and super scary for HC - hence why I don’t want it to be necessary to farm for items. In your situation (a HC player) it might not add MUCH to the game.

For cookie cutter S tier builds only…every other fun obscure build would suffer… nty

I wanted to be careful to not make this mode “mandatory” to play - as people who play solo and hardcore wouldn’t find it enjoyable. Thus I didn’t want item drop bonuses to be TOO much where players feel forced/obligated to play in it.

For me, things get boring when they get “easy” - and I think having the mode designed for multiple people focusing on the same mobs/monsters would prevent it from becoming boring TOO quickly.

How would they suffer? Regular content would still exist…

Builds that can’t kill ubers don’t “suffer” because they can’t, they just do content they can handle

Also, if you do it my way, The disparity between S-Tier and b-tier would greatly reduce

If you give monsters resistances, it’ll be harder for Hdin since monsters would have magic resistances

Every damage type would be on equal footing rather than Fire eating a Crapcake alone

I’ll openly disagree with this.

SINCE you should be playing with multiple people, less popular builds can shine in group play that suffer in solo play. For example, a fireclaw druid with a high oak sage is FANTASTIC option due to its insanely high single target damage, crowd control (from shockwave) and insane tankieness would provide tremendous utility to a party, but would suffer on its own.

Also, this would be your parties main source of fire damage - so other players would, ideally, represent other damage types.