@Bash: End game philosophy

The general philosophy is that we want to make finding better loot at the end game more enjoyable, and attempt to address 'path of least resistance' style gameplay.

There's a couple ways we're doing that, some of which we're not talking about just yet.

Primarily it's focused around Inferno and creating a consistent difficulty across the entire act. By having a flat difficulty across the entire game in Inferno it evens things out so that no matter where you want to go you're being challenged, and you have a good chance at getting good drops. That's intended to open the game up so there's simply more freedom for the player to go anywhere in the game and have an equal chance at good drops.

There will probably still be a slight difficulty curve in Inferno, as enemies simply become more complex and have greater abilities later in the game, but we're making an effort to make it as even across the board as possible. It's something we'll very likely have to keep tweaking after release.

In addition we're attempting to de-emphasize path of least resistance by creating a more equal value across monster types. We're not going to get into specifics about who can drop what or how much, but our intent is that being out in the world exploring should be as lucrative (potentially more) as simply aiming for the quickest-to-reach boss and running that over and over.

Getting people out into the world of the game and away from repetitive boss runs is essentially our goal. It's going to be tough because people will find a path of least resistance, and they will make that the game. We're going to have to keep on top of it, and truthfully it's something we're still working on. We'll likely want to have some additional features to support these ideals, but just getting Inferno tuned right is our current end-game goal for ship.

Q u o t e:
But inferno is exactly what a lot of people have been asking for since D3 was announced (and even before, during LoD development) so it is certainly a welcome addition to the game. But there's still lots of questions surrounding it that probably can't be answered yet.

I don't think it's ultimately what we want for the end game either, but it's a great start, and we think plenty to keep people engaged for the initial release.

Q u o t e:
so if people flock towards the path of resistance, you believe jumping in their way and resisting their primal urge is the right thing to do?

If we believe it will make their play experience more enjoyable or rewarding, absolutely.

The problem is people do boss runs over, and over, and over, for years, and it's not because the boss run is fun, it's because it's the path of least resistance to finding an awesome item. No one wants to do repetitive boss runs.

If we can instead say the path of least resistance is the entire game, that there's no single boss you have to repetitively farm to get the most items per hour, then the game is better for it and the players are liberated. They now have options to go anywhere they want to look for items. Hitting that perfect balance is probably near impossible, but we think we can get pretty close.

Q u o t e:
Yah. I think "extra content" is what people were going for, as in, unique content to that difficulty or maybe even different ways to play, but that's outside the intended goal of the developers, I think. From what I understand, at least.

All others, here's a pic from judgehype from the gamescom presentation:

http://www.judgehype.com/screenshots/gamescom2011/confpressed3/23.jpg

Directly on subject.

And we probably think most of those ideas are awesome, but what we're talking about right now is purely Diablo III at release day. :)

Anything beyond that we're keeping close to the vest.

Q u o t e:
Forcing players do kill monsters because blizzard believes thats the fun part is just ignant.

Well... but that is the game. Killing monsters and seeing if they drop something awesome.

I wouldn't count out potential improvements to that idea, or something complimentary, but our intent isn't to change the Diablo formula.

But as the Beebs says (or Fievel), never say never.

Q u o t e:
Just how close to the vest? I am curious if expanded philosophy on end-game content is something that you would consider for a hearty patch, or if you are more likely to save it for an expansion.

I'll say we're definitely looking to implement new features and content with patch releases, and we have them planned out in advance, but as things can and do change we're not ready to announce what those could be.