Blizzard adds new end-game to Diablo III

The biggest game of the year so far, Diablo III, has been recently facing a lot of complaints and criticisms over the lacklustre equipment drops and the utterly pointless end-game, which is nothing but endless farming for more gear. Blizzard is attempting to fix many of Diablo III’s failings, such as spell balance and the pointless end-game in the upcoming 1.0.4 patch.

One of the biggest changes to the game in the new patch will be the addition of Paragon levels. Whenever a character kills something at the level cap, which is level 60, the character will receive experience towards a Paragon level. Getting a Paragon level nets the player many benefits, such as increased stats. Here is a summary of the new Paragon level system according to the Diablo III blog:

“After you hit level 60, any further experience you earn from killing monsters will begin to count toward Paragon levels. There are 100 Paragon levels.”

The new Paragon level system in Diablo III

Every Paragon level will reward you with:

• Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
• 3 percent Magic Find and 3 percent Gold Find
• In addition, a distinctive, increasingly-impressive border will surround your character portrait in the in-game party frame to denote your Paragon progression, with a new frame earned after every ten levels. Your Paragon level will also be visible to other players wherever your normal level is shown

The Nephalem Valor buff that characters at level cap get will now provide a 15 percent bonus to experience gained per stack, which will help players level up towards their Paragon levels. According to the blog post, “The first Paragon level should take about as long as it took most players to get from level 59 to 60, and the experience requirement will rise from there. The time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II.”

This has been the latest entry in a series of posts that were explaining all the changes in the upcoming 1.0.4 patch for Diablo III. A blog post by the game’s senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng explains many of the changes the game will be seeing, and the reasons for these changes. The post says, “One of the general improvements we’d like to make to our item game addresses the difference between an item having a chance of being good vs. knowing the item isn’t going to be good before you even identify it.” To put it simply, there’s a big difference between an item having no chance of being good and the item having some chances of being good. While Blizzard won’t be able to fully address this issue in the patch, it is a long term plan for the company.