Guest Article: Infinity Mode

[Flux]

Guest Article: Infinity Mode

http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-infinity-mode.shtml

This guest article by Ai_Guy talks about a 4th difficulty level, one which would not only be hard, but which would gradually become impossible, as more and more players battled their way through it. As he conceives of it, Infinity Mode would add replayability and greater challenge for expert players with very powerful characters, while not being explotively rewarding. But as he says, maybe in diablo 3.


Bonus note: Blizzard actively considered an infinite level when they were designing d2. I talked to Peter about it during our pre-release visit in December of 2000. It would have been what it sounded like; a level that just went on and on forever, with additional monsters being forever generated. They had already decided against it when I talked to him about it, and as I recall it was just becuase they thought it would be cheesy, not because they realized how incredibly exploited it would have been, by powerful characters.

Also, let's just all stop pretending d3 is going to happen within this decade, shall we? Everyone who played a key design roll on d1/hf/d2/d2x has quit or been fired by bliz north within the last 6-8 months, and as a result bliz shelved one of bliz north's 2 unannounced projects shortly after the big 4 left last summer. They're working on their non-diablo project x now, which will take at least another 2 years since they've not even announced it yet, much less gone to beta, and we'll see it at some point, and maybe after that they'll get back to d3, and from there it might be 2 or 3 years until beta. Don't hold your breath, in other words. =(

 

[Slayer193]

Go mod up something to use on open/tcp if only "5% of bnet will be using it"....... Doesn't make sense when there's better things you could add to battle.net that more people would enjoy.

 

[Wuhan_Clan]

You're misunderstanding the point. DiabloII is now what, 4 years old? Almost 5? And people are still crazy about this game? The point of "infinity mode" is a final effort to stretch the replayability of the game. I lot of people have stopped playing because really, there isn't anything left to do. If you play to beat the game, you've done it hundreds of times. If you play to find items, you've found everything. (thats why 1.10 added so many more uniques since by then, most ppl were playing for the MF)

The reason you wouldn't make a mod yourself is because that many people still want to play on bnet, despite all the complaining about "noobish" behavior. Sure, a mod would mean ppl with the mod could play amongst themselves acrosss IPs but it just isn't the same. Something about playing your own mod just isn't official, and there wouldn't quite be the same satisfaction after beating your own mod.

 

[Dredd]

Personally, I would love the challenge brought by 'Infinity' difficulty.

It isn't that I find 1.10 hell to be too easy. I simply find the idea of a nearly impossible task very appealing. It would be one last challenge for my characters to overcome.

Along with the new title, it would be great if one would also be rewarded by attaining a nice even level 100. Also, the extra quest rewards would be reason enough for me to want to play Infinity.

Go mod up something to use on open/tcp if only "5% of bnet will be using it"....... Doesn't make sense when there's better things you could add to battle.net that more people would enjoy.

The author isn't saying that only 5% would use it -- only that 5% may be skilled enough to actually beat it. What's wrong with that?! Excellent playing skill should be rewarded.

Unfortunately, I have to agree that there are probably better things that Blizzard could add. I doubt they will though. I'm fairly confident that aside from some bug fixing, 1.10 is the last major upgrade we're ever going to see for D2.

I can always hope though ...

 

[Mr Evil]

An interesting idea, but there are several reasons why I think it wouldn't work:

1) Such a mode would virtually require party play, but it's far too hard to find a good party for questing on bnet at the best of times, it would be impossible if only 5% of the population was playing there.

2) It would not be hard so much as frustrating. Increasing difficulty by increasing life/damage of monsters can only be taken so far before it becomes silly. I don't want to spend five minutes holding down the left mouse button just to kill a Quill Rat. To truly make a game harder you need to improve the AI, and that isn't going to happen in D2.

3) The need to swap equipment for different circumstances is not practical due to limited stash size. It is barely even possible to hold a second set of equipment in the stash, let alone enough to cope with most possible situations.

 

[wickedWinter]

You're misunderstanding the point. DiabloII is now what, 4 years old? Almost 5?

Off by a year. But yeah, it's been out so long and there's still a lot of people playing it. For the $85 or whatever I've paid for the game+expansion, I've gotten a lot for my money, and a few updates have altered the game along the way.

I wouldn't mind one last bonus level being tossed in there. You know how the cow level is a neat little bonus level? Something like that, but with uniques and super uniques, nothing else. Beefed up, too. And there's no uber drops to be had. Maybe after beating the level, a small charm with no real bonuses could drop, but would give your character a kinda unique look or so. Fairly useless, but something to do.

 

[Fearox]

I'm glad you made your excellent idea an article, AI_Guy. I still think this is something for Blizzard to think about, since this maybe is the most realistic "chance the game"-idea I have ever heard. Well done and well written.

 

[nebby]

Uhh, I think he's confused

This was quite possibly the most stupid article I have read on this website. The most stupid overall goes of course to one on cnn.com, but thats another story.

Saying that people want a challenge for their uber-character completely misinterprets the psychology of uber-character creation in the first place. The reason these people play meteorb sorcs, or hammerdins, or winddruids is precisely to make a character that is essentially godlike in their little world. These same people made WW barbs, buriza-zons, javazons, and nova sorcs before that, and before that they made WW barbs and bone-farming necros.

Those who want challenge long ago gave up these cookie cutter builds, and have become more creative. That, or they become PKers. I'm not talking about softcore here either, since no one who really wants a challenge would play a character with infinite life. Everyone who doesn't fall into those categories, but still longed for a greater challenge, gave up D2X about a year ago, and infinity mode is not going to lure them back.

 

[Geniuz[TUW]]

Perfect idea. Hell is to easy at the moment imho... Get your party up and go. Nothing stands in your way. I've build other chars then the cookiecutters ( singing barb, jumper barb, poison necro and soon im going a melee sorc ), and even with those it was to easy .
I want a bigger challenge...

 

[tl998]

Hell is only too easy with the right equipment. For poor people like me, hell is very much 'hellish' and takes hours to complete an act. Maybe you should try beating the game with nothing but store-bought items using a Barbarian.

 

[Fire_Dragon]

Sounds like a neat idea, I'd like a place where I could level my godly barb in peace w/ out all the noob players and leechers bugging me (not to say this wasn't me at one time, but it's not anymore). I've always wished that leveling was as easy as it was back in 1.09, then you could make high lvl chars fast again and go to infinity mode to battle (it would be kinda cool to see a party of godly 99's all die lol). I also like the idea of less mf in this mode, I mf, but I get TIRED of other mfers coming into baal run games I'm in (to lvl) and then not partying and going on mf runs, it's just rude! Hopefully bliz will reconsider this idea, I'd love to take a crack at it :yep: .

 

[Stealth77]

well, a few additions onto this Infinity Mode could be:

1.) To prevent ANY sort of rushing, you could make it so people can only use tps to areas they already have the wp to. Also, you can only enter a certain area if you are a certain lvl. (black marsh? you gotta be 90+ lets say) by the time you get to act5 Infinity mode, you better be 95+,basically because playing through should gain exp enough and if your trying it any lower, you are probably being rushed. (this is just for instance, not definite of course)

2.) Lets say you beat Infinity Mode for a first time through and u get your God status and it systematically gets harder as you planned, but not for the entire realm, for you specifically. Instead, you start getting God status lvl 1, and your second time through you get God status lvl 2 (ie God1 Stealth77, God2 Stealth77). When you make a new game in your newest God mode, only people of the same lvl may join you. Only God lvl 2's can enter God lvl 2 made games and etc...

3.) As you get into the higher difficulties (i cant specify what), lvl will not matter anymore, but skill to get through it. Hence, the need to be certain lvls to have access to areas as i said in #1 will not matter.

4.) If you implement Infinity Mode, there must definitely be a kick option. If you make a game and get a team together but 1 or 2 people suck really bad maybe because they arent skilled enough, or they were just leeching, you should be able to boot them from the game and make room for more experienced people to join. Also, if you get people trying to pk you in these games, this option will come in handy. Should the person who made decide to leave, the ability to kick goes to the first person who had joined the game and was still there. There could definitely be problems with this, but thats a chance I'm willing to take for it.

Any criticisms on my ideas? O well, they are just ideas to build off of, should this idea ever be brought to life....

 

[Cloud_Walker]

There is a huge flaw with the Infinity Mode difficulty increasing realm-wide idea.

Don't forget eBay and other Diablo II online stores exist. Take me, for example, and some average "pkx/x" game player. Pk player with his store bought BotD and CtA and CoH sit down for a couple days and completes Infinity Mode, making it one bit harder for everyone on the realm, including myself. What does this do for me, someone who wears only what he finds? It makes the nearly impossible task of completing or even attempting Infinity Mode HARDER. Multiply this situation by a hundred and you have the state of the realms after a week. And after trying Infinity Mode just once, and getting killed instantly after stepping into Blood Moor because by then every fallen will be sextuple immune with level 99 Holy Shock and melee weapons with full screen length range, 90% of Battle.net will think it was all a huge waste of a difficulty. Crushed will be dreams of maybe someday finding or trading for good enough equipment to take a shot at attaining that highly sought "God" title.

Not to mention another would-be cause of this downturn: hacked items. Hacked items will inevitably be introduced on the realms, and when they are, this gives those players that have them a chance to get past another Infinity Mode or two. Then let's say Blizzard implements or continues Rust Storm. All hacked items go bye-bye, leaving NOBODY capable of beating Infinity Mode at its current difficulty.

Simple solution to all of this: make increasing difficulty of Infinity Mode player specific. How to tell when someone has completed it multiple times? Well, I think that after you complete Infinity Mode the first time, you should be instantly level 99, given all stat and skill points, however, you have to be level 95 or so to enter to begin with. After completing infinity mode the second time, you attain level 100. A third time, level 101, and so on...

 

[nebby]

bah.

Perfect idea. Hell is to easy at the moment imho... Get your party up and go. Nothing stands in your way. I've build other chars then the cookiecutters ( singing barb, jumper barb, poison necro and soon im going a melee sorc ), and even with those it was to easy .
I want a bigger challenge...

You, my good boy, are a braggart and a moron. Try playing untwinked, and without the rushes from your buddies on Bnet. And quit that softcore crap, where dying only means you lose some gold and exp. If you still need a bigger challenge, then try another game.

And don't bother with telling us lies about how you played a singer barb untwinked, unrushed, through the hardcore ladder in hell, and how he mows down Hell Baal runs in pubbies in 2 minutes without maphack. Its just not that amusing.

 

[Wuhan_Clan]

The whole point of infinity mode is that not everyone is supposed to play it. Some people think that its a necessity to be able to beat every part of the game with any character.

Every new batch of guest articles always has at least one article dealing with 1.10 difficulty in some way or another.

Nebby, I agree that playing hardcore or playing deliberate underpowered builds can make the game more difficult but often, the "fun" isn't there for some people. Personally, I happen to enjoy using Frozen Orb and Meteor and Blessed Hammer. I can make the game harder by using Ice Bolt and Fire Bolt but I don't have as much fun using "wimpy" skills. Maybe I was attracted to these skills because they were overpowered. All being said, many players have to choose between a difficult gameplay and fun gameplay. For players in my situation, and also the author of the article, we can't have both.

That is the basis for Infinity Mode. It is Hell Mode +. If people wanted to make the game hard, there really shouldn't be any point in Hell or even Nightmare. Everyone should just make a naked builds and they could still make beating Normal a challenge. The real question is, how much fun can you have playing underpowered builds?

The theory of underpowered builds is that if the game appears too easy, the solution is to limit the player. The player can't use such and such skills. The player can't use such and such items. My opinion is that this should be the other way around. Instead of limiting the player, the entire game is expanded. The difference between the two methods of increasing gameplay difficulty is that in the first way, you restrict the number of possibilites since only certain builds are considered underpowered. However, if you expand the entire game, all builds can experience the new difficulty.

 

[psyadam]

If they ever did decide to make a d3, who would "they" be?

The whole point of infinity mode is that not everyone is supposed to play it. Some people think that its a necessity to be able to beat every part of the game with any character.

Every new batch of guest articles always has at least one article dealing with 1.10 difficulty in some way or another.

Nebby, I agree that playing hardcore or playing deliberate underpowered builds can make the game more difficult but often, the "fun" isn't there for some people. Personally, I happen to enjoy using Frozen Orb and Meteor and Blessed Hammer. I can make the game harder by using Ice Bolt and Fire Bolt but I don't have as much fun using "wimpy" skills. Maybe I was attracted to these skills because they were overpowered. All being said, many players have to choose between a difficult gameplay and fun gameplay. For players in my situation, and also the author of the article, we can't have both.

That is the basis for Infinity Mode. It is Hell Mode +. If people wanted to make the game hard, there really shouldn't be any point in Hell or even Nightmare. Everyone should just make a naked builds and they could still make beating Normal a challenge. The real question is, how much fun can you have playing underpowered builds?

The theory of underpowered builds is that if the game appears too easy, the solution is to limit the player. The player can't use such and such skills. The player can't use such and such items. My opinion is that this should be the other way around. Instead of limiting the player, the entire game is expanded. The difference between the two methods of increasing gameplay difficulty is that in the first way, you restrict the number of possibilites since only certain builds are considered underpowered. However, if you expand the entire game, all builds can experience the new difficulty.

 

[hotdogtesting]

An interesting article...

I think the author missed the point of 1.10. They are, I believe, as follows:

• Blizzard created 1.10 in an attempt to hammer out the last remaining bugs in Diablo 2 and to offer extended game play, but they also attempted to maintain the friendly game environment we have so long expected from a Blizzard product.
  
• Blizzard attempted to create a patch that would give each player the option of playing according to their own styles.

Some players will often choose the most powerful build. Others may choose a build out of nostalgia. Still more will simply pick one to while away time on a Sunday afternoon.

It is a given that some players refuse to have fun unless they are winning. For them, Blizzard gave the Hammerdin. It is difficult to imagine that such a poorly balanced build could have made it pass all of Blizzard's testing, unless it was on purpose.

It is also a given that some players don't have fun unless the adrenaline is pumping. By all reports, the current MA Assassin and Were-Druid builds provide this in quantities.

The whole idea of this excercise is to give players freedom and choice in game play.



To me, the author seems to imply that Blizzard should create an 'Elitist' game mode that only certain players can join (i.e. those powerful few with skill, or those who use powerful builds). This seems to be an obvious infringement on the goals I outlined above. It takes away a great deal of choice for the player.

I think we can all agree that it would be pretty boring if we all played Hammerdins... "Infinite" mode or not.

 

[Ai_Guy]

Thanks for the responses

Hey, guys thanks for the responses. Even the ones that say I suck. :lol:

As Flux said, and others have pointed out, D3 is not comming out any time soon, and the chances for another patch to add this are about zero. I just thought it was a cool idea.

Anyway, for those of you saying that others would be making it too hard for you with their twinked gear, and your build from scratch etc, that's the point. It would be too hard for you(and me). The idea was just an add on to the game, something you could do once you've spent your year or two magic finding, have every item in the game etc. Yes, of course hacks could ruin it, but hacks ruin everything, not much to say about that. Mr Evil pointed out that swaping equipment would be too hard with the tiny stash as it stands, and he's probably right... so add a bigger stash too, why not? everyone wants it already. As far as hacking away for 3 mins to kill a quill rat, that would suck, hopefully we could make the game harder in some other way... maybe more random skills on monsters, or larger packs or something... gotta keep it exciting.

Nebby, I believe that there are people who enjoy certian builds even if they are overpowerd, just because they enjoy the build, like I said in the article... but even if you don't believe that, you still seem to agree that there are people who want to make the strongest character possible, just to see what could be done. This is for them too.

I've already addressed the having your own infinity level question in my article, which a few people brought up. One of my main ideas for this was to encourage group play, and as Mr Evil pointed out, it's going to be hard enough to find a party for this as is, let alone breaking it up even more. But I do think you'd have a better chance of finding people willing to play together as a party in this level, just because of the difficulty... why don't a lot of people play as a party now? because they don't NEED to, they can do it themselves.

As for additions, a kick method would be cool, but it could probably be abused... imagine a group about to beat the whole thing, baal almost dead and the creator boots everyone else. That'd suck. It'd be nice if it would work though. Level 100 would be cool, or a small charm that gave you a sweet aura or new look, not really overpower, just another cool reward.

I dont' see how the mode would be against any goals of Blizzard. It would extend the life of the game for even more players. It dosen't force anyone, let alone everyone to play hammerdins. I would really think that lone hammerdins wouldn't be able to handle the level, as there would be quite a few monsters immune to them, the same for any other build.

Again, this is probably never going to happen in D2, and D3 probably isn't comming any time in the forseeable future. And I'm sure there are LOTS of other things that would be better to fix or add than making this whole level. This is just my idea of a cool addition or wish, and some people seemed to agree with me when i first put it on the fourms. Feel free to love it or hate it at will.

Ai_Guy

 

[d2hasdied]

This is a bad idea, it will only perpetuate over powered builds such as hammerdins and bone necros. And guess what it will screw all elemental dmg builds completely. Melee chars can't handle hell as is, unless they have botds, doom etc. And think of sorcs..........tri immune monsters being the norm. Guess no one will use sorcs anymore.

Melee is out, sorcs, hurrican druids are out, zons gone, all assassins gone.

2 character builds, bhammerdin, bone necro. Nice try but this idea is horrible and "when somone beats it on the realms it increases difficulty for everyone" Just wow.....so you want one party to be able to go through it once all with perfect builds complementing eachother. Grand idea.

Blizzard should spiff up the exp from all monsters along with balancing the difficulty, why is the chaos sanctuary harder than all of act5?, so people will do something other than baal runs.

And if people on hc played this, any boss would 1 hit k.o. them, its quite pointless.

 

[katanadaishi]

This was quite possibly the most stupid article I have read on this website. The most stupid overall goes of course to one on cnn.com, but thats another story.

Saying that people want a challenge for their uber-character completely misinterprets the psychology of uber-character creation in the first place. The reason these people play meteorb sorcs, or hammerdins, or winddruids is precisely to make a character that is essentially godlike in their little world. These same people made WW barbs, buriza-zons, javazons, and nova sorcs before that, and before that they made WW barbs and bone-farming necros.

Those who want challenge long ago gave up these cookie cutter builds, and have become more creative. That, or they become PKers. I'm not talking about softcore here either, since no one who really wants a challenge would play a character with infinite life. Everyone who doesn't fall into those categories, but still longed for a greater challenge, gave up D2X about a year ago, and infinity mode is not going to lure them back.

I don't think saying "stupid" was appropriate. This is a very well thought-of article but I don't think is possible to implement. I am just imagining what kind of resources Blizzard will need to have to make this happen and if they do have the resources they are better off making a new game or start working on Diablo III. And if this idea could be implemented, this will extend the life of Diablo II only for those who are willing to take up the new challenge, which I really doubt is going to be a lot.

But I agree with nebby when he said that the main reason why people make uber-builds is because they want to be "god" in their own little world. I could think of no other reason why anybody would want to play a fully twinked character unless the intention is to try to kill everything easily and quickly both in PvP or in PvM. I have 7 twinked characters right now (softcore, ladder) and almost every monster in hell mode I could easily kill as though they were in nightmare, Act 1 hell is like Act 1 normal for my top 3 characters. I do not want that changed. That is MY idea of fun: TO KILL QUICK AND EASY EVEN IN HELL MODE.

I think an INFINITY MODE will be an option taken only by those who aren't twinked/uber and still not finding enough challenge. The INFINITY MODE will be for the crazy few who enjoys spending 10 minutes to kill a Quill Rat or 2 hours killing Baal, with the Grandfather that they got from Pindle. But I have yet to meet anybody who actually enjoys doing that.

I believe that Hell is hard enough as it is for those who do not have top of the line items. To introduce an INFINITY MODE will mean that only people who are able to survive hell with little or no problems are the ones who will even think of playing in it -- but if they have the "uber" mentality they will stay in Hell. I cannot imagine my twinked hammerdin (13k hammer damage) taking even 10 seconds to kill a quill rat in hell, let alone 10 minutes. INFINITY MODE won't be for me. However, if there will be items that will make me do 30K hammer damage, that's another story. But that defeats the INFINITY MODE premise in the first place.

I think the simplest solution is: if you don't think you're getting enough challenge, play hardcore untwinked. I never played hardcore because I can never fathom my uber-builds dying a permanent death.