Question to veteran D1/hellfire players.

[Belix]

Greetings to you.

When you play by yourself, do you play in singleplayer, or do you play multiplayer for the increased difficulty?

I almost never play by myself these days. The game is far too familiar to me to hold much appeal by itself. When I play either game now it is generally with the company of a good friend or two. But that's just me.

I would assume the true lastability of the game comes down to playing in multi (again, when playing by yourself) because of the increase to monsters hp, etc.

For me what makes the game last isn't replaying Hell difficulty repeatedly, but starting new games with different classes. I enjoy all of them. Sometimes I only finish Normal with them, sometimes Nightmare, or even Hell, but the game is most fun for me when I start out fresh with a different play style/class than last time, develop my character and gear, and slay Diablo on a difficulty for the first time.

I suppose that means I enjoy the journey more than the destination. There's no wrong way to enjoy Diablo by yourself, though.

Sometimes, when none of the classes seem appealing to me, I'll play try to play by some unusual set of rules. You can find an example of these here:
http://realmsbeyond.net/diablo/variantsmaster.html

These range from awesome to tedious, use your judgment when selecting one. Haha. I did a coop game with a friend where we did a Bushido/Geezer team. That was a humbling experience. A Warrior that can't tank and a Sorcerer that can't annihilate everything!