Yeah, I think incentivizing hell with an exp bonus is a good idea... I just hate the idea of the "ultimate push to 99" happening in nightmare. That's really anti-climactic.

Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of good DEX items.. I have 100+ Elite items now and have only found like two items with dex made for melee. Most have Attack Speed / Casting Haste / Dex or some weird combo like that.

Would it be possible to include melee chance to hit on the character sheet so we can make an educated decision on gear selection?

Good idea. Sure.

Something to keep in mind too - you rarely get elite items in Nightmare.. I've received 99% of mine in Hell, so people will definitely want to farm Hell to improve their gear. I wish I could get the best XP in Hell, so I could farm items at the same time.

Think out of the ~60million XP I've done.. the breakdown is roughly:

25m in Hell
35m in Nightmare

My intended design is for act 1 hell to be a good "beachhead" to break into elite gear so that people will be prepared for more difficult challenges that await in act 4.

I'm thinking back to how Diablo 2 handled the leveling curve. Does Nevergrind use the same system?

Specifically:

Player level difference to the mob is used in the exp calculation.

Champion mobs and bosses are considered several levels higher for the calculation.

Yes and sort of. Level difference is definitely considered. Champions/bosses simply have more exp assigned to them, so sort of, yes. They're not considered "higher levels" exactly.

What level is crap at the high end of nightmare? Like 78ish?

Diablo 2 used the following leveling curve to encourage players to fight mobs their level if they wanted to get experience.

Experience gains are penalized when the monsters are more than 5 levels below the character.


I take it Nevergrind has no where near as steep of a penalty as Diablo's 5%. TadaceAce makes a good point about swarming offering a fun alternative way to play so I'm not saying Nevergrind should have to do the same. Just wanted to put that info out there.

Reference

Yeah, Nevergrind's curve is way more generous. I still think the right move is slightly reducing mobs < 80% of your level while slightly boosting hell exp across the board.

NM Galeblast Fortress 1 71-72
NM Galeblast Fortress 4 73
NM Ashenflow Peak 1 73
NM Ashenflow Peak 4 75
NM Dire Sanctum 74 - 76
NM Nimgaul 76 - 77

Hell Salubrin Forest 69 - 70
Hell Greenthorn Cavern 1 72

Unfortunately, you can't endlessly chain in Dire Sanctum or Nimgaul. I usually do my grinding in Ashenflow Peak 2 on L.73 mobs since I don't need to reload after I've cleared the zone.

It would certainly be nice if you could endlessly grind in all of the zones.

That change seems likely in 1-0-5.

Exciting!

Confirmed chaining in all zones in 1-0-5. Umm... I put this in for some reason... I forget why now. It'll probably come back to bite me lol.

It was so your level 98s could skip through nightmare namby pamby land instead of grinding in hell.