Changes

  [[Diablo IIIInferno]] will have four '''is the new difficulty''' levels, just like [[level added in Diablo 1]] and [[Diablo 2]] did. They'll even still be called '''Normal, Nightmare'''. '''Hell''' and '''Inferno'''III that is aimed at max-level characters for a challenging end-game content.

<blue>Jay Wilson::"The combat model doesn't have a lot of depth in the previous games. It was very much a "one-skill spam" kind of game, which I think works great for the Normal [difficulty] playthrough. I think most of the audience is just fine with that, and through most of the Normal difficulty, it's going to be like that. But as you go into Nightmare and Hell difficulties, I think that the more serious player will appreciate a game that's a little deeper on the combat-mechanic side."</blue>

Later, in an official interview, [[Kevin Martens]] discussed a possible fourth difficulty level called "[[Inferno]] which was confirmed in August 2011."[http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/index.html#beta:d3-interview]

<blue>Kevin Martens::"Ultimately, it’s going to take the game's harder difficulty modes -- Hell and Inferno -- to challenge the limits of the best Diablo III players."</blue>

There are four [[difficulty]] levels in Diablo 3. There are the standard Diablo difficulties called "normal'''Normal'''," "nightmare'''Nightmare'''," "hell'''Hell'''," and Blizzard also announced a fourth difficulty level in August 2011 called "'''[[Inferno]]"'''. How much more difficult and what sort of variety the higher difficulty levels will add remains to be determined. [[Jay Wilson]] addressed this issue in a November 2009 interview. [http://diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23550]

::'''<blue>Jay Wilson:''' We haven't really gotten into the difficulty settings a lot; we're still just working on the core content for the game at this point. The primary reason as to why a player would want to progress through the game, through the several difficulties, would be for more of a challenge.

::There will be also better item customization, for example a Level 100 character in a higher difficulty would see and wear [[items]] that a Level 30 character would not have a chance at seeing in the lower difficulty. Said items will also look and feel completely different whereas in Diablo II a lot of times you just had a remodel of the same old items with different names.</blue>

We do know that many of the basic game changes in D3 have large effects on the difficulty of the game. There will not be many [[potion]]s, life leech will be quite rare less effective (or non-existantcompared to [[Diablo II]]), and most [[heal]]ing will come from [[health globes]]. On the other hand, [[monster]]s won't be full of immunities and blessed with cheesy one-hit kills. The D3 team has discussed this issue several times, and always pointed out that the abundant potions and life leech made D2 characters essentially immortal. [[Death]] came only from cheesy super damaging kills, most of which were bugs, and that's no way to balance a game.