How ascending Diablo IV's World Tiers
Hey Everybody, What’s going on? So, a few days ago IGN did an interview with a couple of Diablo 4 developers and is still pumping out content out of the same interview. 20 times a month. The only thing missing from the horde of videos is how Diablo 4 World tiers work. Gentlemen, that’s what we are going to cover today.
Before we move ahead, let me clarify that a lot of the content I’m about to present to you is taken and interpreted from the same interview. So, every word you read here in this Diablo 4 Guide is factual and verified. So, here we go.
The World Tier 1 & 2
The developers break out the information by saying:
“We know that we have an audience of folks that have played lots of Diablo and are looking for a challenge and so our second world tier World tier 2 and our first world tier are available from level one when you first start playing the game”
The game starts with two difficulty levels: Normal and Hard. The developers called them the “World Tiers” and have them available from the very beginning.
Then the developers add that the first Tier mode, or the Normal mode, is all about enjoying the gameplay and not worrying about combatting or heavy fighting. Which makes a lot of sense if we look at the target audience for the game. The vast majority of people playing Diablo 4 would want to casually enjoy the game’s starting and lure their way in, not the other way around. People would be more interested in breezing through and seeing their favourite characters. They would want to know what’s going on with Terrial or whether Decker Kanes is still around kicking. So, great thinking by the developers.
For those players who are looking for a challenge, Tier 2 (Also called “The Veteran”) kicks in. It will give the player some hard time and in return, the players will receive better and greater rewards, increased item drops, increased experience points, and gold. You might die sometimes but it’s not going to be a nightmare. Things will just ramp up a bit.
Level 50 and Beyond
As you level up and reach level 50, you’ll start getting challenging gameplay, much like the Diablo 3 tiers. Each enemy and boss will have more health and you’re going to need some extra effort, and possibly attempts, to kill them. As you progress through the level and your gear improves, you will get a much-improved kill rate.
Soon you start to climb the higher levels and get more sacred and ancestral items. Much like Diablo 3 where you reach the torment levels and you will start to get higher rarity item levels. The same is going to be in Diablo 4 as well.
The Leapfrogging Progression
The progression starts at the baseline difficulty, damage-taking ability, time taken to kill an enemy, and power. Then, you build yourself up by levelling your character and become stronger, more powerful, able to survive longer and kill the enemy much faster.
But, then you move to the next tier. All of a sudden, you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. You are taking a long to kill the enemies, perhaps dying a few times in doing so. You, then, build yourself up again and make yourself stronger.
The same goes on again. You move to the next level, you fall short of abilities and power, you level up and you clear.
That’s the leapfrog progression games like Diablo are built around. But because of the same reason a lot of players got fed up and checked out. It makes sense as it's easy to get bored when the leapfrog progression is the only thing in the game. Personally, I think along with the leapfrogging, these games should also have more milestones in between the dungeons and levels. Like most MMOs, in which you move from one dungeon to another and you see a lot of change in the content. Either the difficulty level varies drastically or the effects become totally new. You get the point.
I really hope the developers are delivering something like what I’ve mentioned above in Diablo 4 as well. One similar thing the developers revealed is that once the players get past tier levels 4 and 5, they will need to defeat a higher-level boss in order to unlock the next tier levels. Much like a test which determines whether you’re ready to move forward or not.
However, a lot of players have complained after playing the beta version that the world-tier bosses aren’t “that” difficult to defeat. Especially the level 100 world tier boss. I really hope this thing changes in the full version. The world bosses should be a challenge for the players instead of being a mere DPS check.
One thing the developers failed to reveal is whether the level 100 world boss is the Pinnacle of the gameplay for which you’ve been working by doing nightmare dungeons and PVP open farming or if is it just a big hurdle in the path which you clear and move forward.
Buff Transfer
One of my absolute favourite things in the D4 is the ability to create builds and move the special effect of an item from one gear to another gear slot. It opens up exciting and varied possibilities for new forms.
In Diablo 3, if you’re going for a particular build you will know exactly which boots you’ll need to get the buff and the buff is only in the boots. But, in Diablo 4, you can have those boots and move the buff from them to another item. It opens up the possibility for the player to wear another pair of boots and has a stronger and more varied build.
“All those choices that it's really going to feel like your power fantasy. It's your class, your character, and your build. Even if we both play barbarians, they're both going to look very different. We're going to have very different builds and they're going to play very differently because of the skill trees and the immense Paragon boards that we can choose our path through those which is going to be very different as well”
Because of this feature, no two characters from the same class will be the same. Unlike in a majority of games where they have a meta, the best build for something. As for clearing levels, people look for a clearing build. Similarly, a single target build, best support build, best PVP build, and a PVE build.
In every new season of D3, there was a meta list available on the internet giving people exact builds to do different things. The possibility of a perfect build is limited and the community has to settle for an ideal build for something they want to accomplish. Hopefully, Diablo 4 will be the only game which will break this paradox.
Ending Note
That’s all the developers revealed in the interview. But, hey, you know what they haven’t revealed and we still have for you? Diablo 4 Skill Tree Guide, Diablo 4 Legendary items guide, and top 10 Diablo-like ARPG games you should play if you’re waiting for Diablo 4. All in our News section.
