Diablo 4 may seem like a simple game, what with its core “press a button to make the number go up” mechanic. But Blizzard’s isometric action RPG can still present a serious challenge. You may even find yourself wanting to change the difficulty (called World levels in Diablo 4 speech usage).
What are the World Tier Differences in Diablo 4?
During the Diablo 4 beta, you can play the game on two World Tiers:
- World Tier 1 (Adventurer): They’re the lowest difficulty levels, essentially the “easy” or “story” setting you’d get from traditional games.
- World Level 2 (Veteran): What you would colloquially describe as “normal” difficulty in any other game. You get a 20% boost for XP earned and a 15% boost for gold earned.
Both available of the two World Tiers currently available are for characters level 1 through 50. (The Diablo 4 beta caps characters at level 25.) The two higher World Tiers won’t be available until Blizzard fully releases the game on June 6.
Change world level in Diablo 4
You can select which world level you want to play on when you load a game. you can not adjust the difficulty through the settings or any other in-game menu, but you don’t have to go to the main menu to change it. You can also switch it on the fly at every World Tier Statue. For example, there is one in the northeast corner of Kyovashad, the first major city you reach.
Image: Blizzard/Activision via Polygon
What difficulty should you play Diablo 4 on?
There are two considerations when it comes to difficulty.
When playing with a group, you might as well play on veteran (World Tier 2). You’ll earn more XP and gold, and enemies won’t overrun you as often.
If you play alone, however, you’re better off sticking to the adventurer difficulty (World Tier 1). You don’t level up that fast, but you don’t die that often either. And considering you can only roll once every five seconds – yes, even during the most tedious boss fights – that sounds like a fair trade to me.