Blizzard has detailed the Monster Power feature coming to Diablo III. In patch 1.0.5, Blizzard will add the Monster Power system, which gives players “more control over how challenging enemies are in each difficulty setting,” similar to the “Player X” feature in Diablo II. Monster Power lets players adjust monster health and damage based on various power levels. The harder the enemy, the more bonuses to stats players will receive, plus more drops. Monster Power will be available beginning at level 1 in the Quest Selection window and can be adjusted separately within Normal, Nightmare, Hell and Inferno.
At launch, Monster Power will be available in solo and private multiplayer games. According to a post from Blizzard’s Stephanie Johnson on Diablo III’s official site, “Whenever you join a private multiplayer game, your hero will temporarily adopt the Monster Power level set by the party leader, and it will return to the previous setting you selected as soon as you leave the group.” Players won’t be able to adjust Monster Power in public games, but Blizzard is “looking into the possibility of adding that ability in the future.”
Adjusting Monster Power will offer “bonuses to experience, Magic Find, and Gold Find (which will stack above the 300% cap), and Blizzard showed off the difference between the bonuses in Normal, Nightmare and Hell versus those in Inferno. Inferno will offer increased bonuses, plus offer a chance for monsters to drop an additional bonus item.
“In Inferno at Monster Power 1 or greater, monsters in every Act will also be bumped up to level 63 and share the same high-end item drop rates,” Johnson explains. “This means that no matter which act you're progressing through, the monsters in that act will all have the same shot at dropping items level 61-63, including crafting recipes, Legendary items, and set items. While monsters in Inferno will all be level 63 at MP 1 through MP 10, their skills, abilities, and attributes will still vary from act to act. This means that certain Acts or Chapters may still be more difficult for you than others based on what monsters and Elite packs appear in each, but -- since the rewards will be identical across the entire difficulty -- where you choose to play is ultimately up to you and your personal play style.”
As for the philosophy behind adding the system, Johnson explains that “the intent of Monster Power is not necessarily to make the game ‘unbeatable,’ but to provide better ways for players to measure their progress as they become more powerful.” The team built the system around that idea, focusing on two areas.
The first is Monster Damage vs. Monster Health. Johnson explains that “with each Monster Power level there's a heavy emphasis on increased monster health rather than monster damage. This is because, in general, it's more fun to find ways to maximize your damage than it is to be forced into taking every available form of damage mitigation. We also didn't want to create situations where ‘hard to beat’ could become ‘impossible to beat’ because players couldn't survive long enough to make any progress.” The team tried testing scaling up monster damage but found that it made some fights more challenging in unfair ways or made it too easy for heroes to die after one hit. Increasing monster health, on the other hand, “allowed the game to scale up in difficulty more naturally and in a way that still felt manageable.”
The second area of focus is Efficiency. “By now, some players have reached a point where they can kill monsters so fast that even Inferno provides almost no challenge, and enemies die as soon as they appear on the screen,” Johnson wrote. “For these players, the bottleneck for efficient farming is actually the speed at which they can traverse the map rather than how well they can dispense with enemies.” Blizzard feels that Monster Power fixes this, as players can increase Monster Power for more of a challenge with better rewards. “Will some players be able to kill Diablo on Monster Power 10 as soon as 1.0.5 goes live? Absolutely,” Johnson writes. “Will that be the most efficient Monster Power level at which to farm items? For most, probably not. Monster Power allows each individual decide what that ‘sweet spot’ is for them.”
“In Diablo III, your character's power can grow by multiple orders of magnitude, but up until now there hasn't been a way for you to truly put that potency to the test,” Johnson concluded. “The Monster Power system provides a new outlet for high-powered heroes to truly see how far they've come and tangibly experience just how epic the gear they've collected is. Different players want different levels of challenge, and with Monster Power you'll be able to determine what the right level of challenge is for you. Whether you're in it for the guts, the glory, or simply the goodies, we're excited to offer players the opportunity to face the forces of evil on their own (possibly slightly insane) terms.”
Previously, Blizzard explained how patch 1.0.5 will reduce Inferno difficulty along with its changes to defensive skills and monster damage. For more on how patch 1.0.5 changes Diablo III, read our interview with senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng and game director Jay Wilson about the patch’s two biggest features, plus when we can expect PVP to come to Diablo III.
Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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