→Hell Difficulty
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The experience loss death penalty is increased to 10% in Hell. Again, this penalty is taken from the experience your character needs to gain the next level, and this loss will never level-down a character, or take away more experience than they've gained towards the next level, so go dueling right after you level up. Recovering your corpse in that same game returns 75% of the experience lost. (Recovering your corpse in town in the next game gains you nothing in terms of experience, but it beats dying five more times trying to recover your first loss.) | The experience loss death penalty is increased to 10% in Hell. Again, this penalty is taken from the experience your character needs to gain the next level, and this loss will never level-down a character, or take away more experience than they've gained towards the next level, so go dueling right after you level up. Recovering your corpse in that same game returns 75% of the experience lost. (Recovering your corpse in town in the next game gains you nothing in terms of experience, but it beats dying five more times trying to recover your first loss.) | ||
Leveling up | Leveling up speed has varied quite a bit between the versions of Diablo II, as each patch tweaks the monsters' experience values, experience gain penalties, and other variables. In v1.09, leveling to 99 was not at all difficult since the high level penalties were not very strong, and when the last ladder reset of that patch kicked off a worldwide race to the top, new characters reached level 99 in less than 48 hours. In v1.10, reaching 99 is a much greater achievement, since the experience penalties gain teeth past level 90, and really begin to bite past 95. Hundreds of Baal runs are required to gain levels at that point, and marching to 99 has become quite an endurance effort in v1.10 and v1.11. | ||
Item quality continues to increase in Hell, since monsters have much higher odds to drop exceptional and elite items. Items dropped by Hell monsters have a, | Item quality continues to increase in Hell, since monsters have much higher odds to drop exceptional and elite items. Items dropped by Hell monsters have a, | ||