Minimum Level for Difficulties In my recent rompt through Diablo1 I rediscovered that it, unlike Diablo2, had a required level minimum before you could advance to the next Difficulty. Nightmare was 20 Hell was 30 It wasn't quite tuned how it should be, the first 8 or so floors in the next difficulty were easier than the last 4 or 5 floors from the previous and could have been balanced better of course. However I thought to myself: Diablo2 could have really benefited from this to prevent a few different forms of rushing, namely the uber trist power leveling and chaosing. Now, I'm sure Blizzard is going to do quite a few things to prevent rushing in Diablo3 already, but I think they could still benefit from having this last roadblock. Thoughts? Comments?
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties It would be the same I think, I mean enemies stop giving exp in diablo 2 at a certain level, so even if you rush you wont get exp from the enemies anyways. Though I guess it couldnt hurt, unless someone is finding it too easy.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties As best I recall, the Clvl limit on D1 was only to create a game. Not to join one. However, the lack of shared party exp, limits on max exp per monster, and so much of the game's difficulty being keyed to Clvl made rushing fairly pointless/impossible. As for your suggestion, I think minimum Clvls would be a fairly easy feature to at least prevent the most exploitative types of rushing. That might not be necessary; D3 could easily tweak the exp tables so chars too far out of the Clvl vs. Mlvl range would get nothing, but I wouldn't object to some other caps. Not as low as they were in D1; a well-equipped Rogue or Mage could easily be ready for NM before 20 and Hell before 30, but something...
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties D2 did benefit from min requirements. Grushing is what made it possible to Uber level a lvl 1 char. Without that, you have to be 60 just to get to baal and do runs there.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties Just like in WoW as well. All instances had minimum lvl requirements. This also made it impossible to stockpile gear from said instances. They also had a system where you wouldn't gain xp if you were too high or too low a lvl. Example: A lvl 60 takes a lvl 1 into a lvl 50 area and starts nuking. The lvl 1 would gain no xp. I think you had to be within 8 lvls or something. I can't remember if D2 was like that, but I don't think it was/is. I think D3 could benefit from a similar system.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties D2 had a huge penalty (only 5% Xp or something) if the levels were too far off. It's the main reason why getting to level 99 takes so long when the monsters are ~85.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties If I recall correctly, they said characters would be finishing normal at, or near, experience level 30, so I guess an appropriate requirement would be minimum level 30 for Nightmare and minimum level 45 or 50 for Hell. They should apply that requirement both for joining and creating, that way rushing would be completely out of the table, at least in the way of D2.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties Yah, in v1.10+ at least, but even 5% of the exp from a high level monster is still much, much more than low level chars can gain by themselves. Hence rushing to the cow level or Uber Tristram or wherever remains by far the fastest way for to level up a new char. Unfortunately, in my view.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties If I can kill mobs in a difficulty before I "should" be there, why is Blizzard stopping me? I don't think level requirements stop rushing, they just add a level requirement for rushing. Most rushing I participated in was a rush through one difficulty at a time, doing Baal runs for experience in between rushes... The removal of town portals slows down rushing quite a bit. With severe leeching penalties, I don't think a difficulty level cap is really needed...
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties Nah, it just takes patience. In a full game, you can level very well, even untwinked. It won't be the 1 hour to 80 that Hell Chaos or Cows used to do, but it's better than grinding a 95+ >< That's brutal.
Re: Minimum Level for Difficulties But you can warp to your party and there are checkpoints everywhere, right? So it doesn't really matter if there are TPs or not, unless you can't always warp to your party unless you've completed certain quests. If they really want to kill rushing then level caps are a good fail safe because it's pretty doubtful they'll close all the holes in their design. Glitches and oversights will be discovered. As long as the cap is reached by playing normally and never requires grinding to reach then the only negative effect will be for speed runners.
