A question regarding items and difficulty levels

[Deleted]

Can someone clarify which of these variations is in place for d3?

Every single individual item (weapon, armor piece etc) is available in normal mode through drop chance, quests, crafting etc. These same items are all available in harder difficulty modes with increased stats and slight name amendment as difficulty progresses.

Or

Only some items are available in normal mode. In nightmare difficulty, generally speaking these same items aren't used or required as better items (totally different, not just a name amendment and slight stat increase) are available. This follows on for hell and inferno mode. If this is the case are the drop tables in every difficulty completely different?

Thanks

[Banzubie]

I believe they have said the higher the difficulty the higher the loot you get.

[Venant]

Is the loot that drops in hardcore mode different?

[Deleted]

That actually a good question OP, i have no idea :s

[Archaeon]

I'm fairly sure that drops depend on mob level. I don't think you'll be able to cruise through normal on your level 60 and get level 60 legendaries. As for hardcore, I'm also pretty sure the same loot rules apply as with softcore.

[Deleted]

First things first, hardcore is the same as softcore with only one major difference. You only have 1 life so when you die...it's over.

As for drops right now we can only assume it's going to be similar to how D2 worked.
Normal dropped items up to about lvl 30
Nightmare dropped items up to about lvl50
Hell dropped everything.

Translating this to D3 works quite easily when looking at the pages for legendary items and looking what they salvage into :
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/monster-hunter "normal"
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-...r-of-zumakalis "nightmare"
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/doombringer "hell"
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/azurewrath "inferno"

Those are the difficulty levels to find them on.

[Saturate]

I'm fairly sure that drops depend on mob level. I don't think you'll be able to cruise through normal on your level 60 and get level 60 legendaries. As for hardcore, I'm also pretty sure the same loot rules apply as with softcore.

Basically this.
Each new difficulty adds a whole bunch of new items that become available due to the monster level increase, and hardcore shares the same loot table as softcore.
It goes something like this - the higher the monster level the higher the chance to get a higher level item drop from it.
With that in mind, you may possibly see some Nightmare quality items drop from the later acts of Normal mode, but you are almost certain never to see a Hell quality item in Normal mode. That trend continues, and in the later acts of Nightmare, you'll have a small chance of getting a Hell quality item drop for you, but it is highly unlikely that you'll see an Inferno ilvl item dropping for you anywhere in Nightmare.
The whole system works very much like in Diablo 2, they are only improving upon it.

[Cernunnos]

That actually a good question OP, i have no idea :s

Hardcore drops the same level of gear s normal. Just more of if it. Higher risk bigger reward.

The same gear in act 1 normal softcore drops on act 1 normal hardcore.


Only difference is bosses and elites drop more of it on HC, also mobs have a higher chance to drop better loot, but it is still within the bounds of the act you are in. Just because it's HC doesnt mean act 3 quality loot is going to be dropping in act 1

[Deleted]

The difficulty levels normal, nightmare and hell are basically nothing more than level ranges. Thus, they will drop level-appropriate gear. Items that require level 60 won't drop on normal or nightmare.

Inferno will have a higher tier of level 60 items (or maybe two higher tiers, can't remember exactly), which will be much rarer.


So basically there are level 1...58-60 items that drop on normal, nightmare and hell, and then there are level 60b (and possibly 60c?) items that drop on inferno.

[Deleted]

Actually Sydänyö I think it's more like 1-58 split over normal, nightmare and hell with 59-60 on inferno.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/goldskin lvl58 dropping in hell.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/skycutter lvl59 dropping in inferno.

[Cairhiin]

Item drops are most likely the same as in Diablo 2 as in that they depend on monster level. As you go from normal to nightmare to hell to inferno, monster level will steadily increase and they will be able to drop from higher level loot tables. Furthermore, and this is speculation, it stands to reason that super uniques, act bosses, and champion/bosses drop better than normal monsters as their levels are artificially increased.

However it needs to be said that higher level monsters still can drop low level items. Their loot tables basically expand and do not exclude items that can drop from monsters in normal.

To illustrate this let's say that at level 20 you find a legendary bow named Pluckeye from a super unique boss in Act III. Now a couple of days later you've all manned up and are a tough guy. You kill this super badass guy in act IV hell and low and behold he drops a legendary bow. After identifying you find out this was the same Pluckeye you found already in normal and you are a sad sad panda. This is what makes the item hunt in Diablo so addicting. You keep looking for that extremely rare legendary with perfect stats.

---------- Post added 2012-05-02 at 11:38 AM ----------

Thus, they will drop level-appropriate gear. Items that require level 60 won't drop on normal or nightmare, and items meant for level 20s won't drop on hell.

This is not true as explained by my post (or try to explain). Hell Diablo can and will still drop low level items. At least if the system is similar to D2 which is not entirely certain of course.

EDIT: If it is still not clear I can try and explain it more in detail.

[Deleted]

Actually Sydänyö I think it's more like 1-58 split over normal, nightmare and hell with 59-60 on inferno.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/goldskin lvl58 dropping in hell.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/skycutter lvl59 dropping in inferno.

I'm assuming that's just your own guess based on what those uniques used to be in D2? I see nothing in that database that would indicate where those items drop from, and furthermore that database is nowhere near finished, nor are the stats on those items, so they could end up being something completely different.

In any case, here's the video where they mention the tiers of items:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=IzhoGX_7uFY#t=8m35s

This is not true as explained by my post (or try to explain). Hell Diablo can and will still drop low level items. At least if the system is similar to D2 which is not entirely certain of course.

Well, normal bosses never dropped exceptional or elite items in D2, and while nightmare and hell bosses did drop normal items, it was pretty stupid, and I'm pretty sure they've done away with it.

[Cairhiin]

Well, normal bosses never dropped exceptional or elite items in D2, and while nightmare and hell bosses did drop normal items, it was pretty stupid, and I'm pretty sure they've done away with it.

Yep bosses can't drop upwards, ie a low level boss wont be able to drop an exceptional or elite item which makes sense, but high level bosses (ie Hell) can drop normal, exceptional and elite and I am not sure will they do away with it because it makes the item pool they can drop from bigger. You shouldn't always get a useful item when killing boss as it would ruin the economy. It will probably be the same as in Diablo 2 that high level bosses can still drop a load of crap. Remember also that these low level items they drop (ie normal or exceptional) will have affixes and suffixes that still raise the item level of the item well above what a character in normal difficulty could use. It's basically just a big giant slot machine every time you kill a monster that is what makes Diablo addicting.

For those REALLY interested in the nuts and bolts of item drops the following link is a very good read.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Guide:...v1.11,_by_Hrus

[Deleted]

I'm assuming that's just your own guess based on what those uniques used to be in D2? I see nothing in that database that would indicate where those items drop from, and furthermore that database is nowhere near finished, nor are the stats on those items, so they could end up being something completely different.

I was looking at the salvage part, it shows what it salvages into and that should be a good pointer at where it's going to drop.

I agree that the list isn't complete yet and they still need to add stats and probably change requirements and such...but I don't think they're going to change that much about the idea of only dropping the last two levels of items on inferno.

@Cairhiin :
Another cool site for anyone wanting to know about drops in D2 : http://dropcalc.silospen.com/item.php

[Cairhiin]

That's a nice site. I'm not sure if you ever used ATMA, it had a somewhat similar method of calculating drop chances per item and per boss/monster type.

[Deleted]

Yes I have, I probably used everything for D2 except bots. I never really used dropsites to find items though, I just killed for fun hoping to get something nice

[Venant]

It seems like the stacking drop buff in inferno changes the calculations when it comes to loot dropping at that level, since it is supposed to encourage groups to not just farm end bosses. Perhaps the endgame strategy will be like 'raiding' where you play through the entire game with an elite 4 man to maximize returns.

[Cairhiin]

Yep Nephalem Valor will definitely change the way we play the game at high level, and I'm all for that. After having killed Pindleskin thousands of times, as well as Shenk, Eldritch, Diablo and Baal I think that change was very much needed.

[Rocketsurgeon]

70% of the items in D3 only drop beyond the normal difficulty. There are new affixes. There are new models. New sets and uniques.

There was a recent video clip interview where Jay Wilson used that percentage and offered the obvious example of resistances. People in normal aren't that concerned with resists. So they didn't include them until higher level where they start to really matter.

[Deleted]

70% of the items in D3 only drop beyond the normal difficulty.

Exactly, which is why I personally doubt level 1-30 items which drop on normal difficulty will be dropping on hell, let alone inferno. They could, but it would feel stupid.

Doing 100 pindle runs or meph runs in a row on hell difficulty, just to get like 80 Sigon's Cages... Yeah, that was real fun.