It's a little counter-intuitive, but the best way to tell is actually waypoints. When you abandon all question progress, you lose your checkpoint, location, etc. - any progress you may have made on your current quest. The consequence of that is that you'll need to go back to the last waypoint the next time you start that quest again.
There is a stipulation to that - for Act bosses, there is someone you talk to after defeating the boss to actually complete the entire quest. For example, after killing the Act I boss, there's actually a second quest before the next act (which consists of "talk to the person who takes you to the next act, and go to the next act").
I had this happen to be when I defeated the Act III boss - I recommend always either finding a waypoint or going to the next act before losing any current quest progress.
You are correct that level 60 is the current maximum level. However, as of patch 1.04, any experience earned after reaching level 60 contributes to your Paragon Levels.
Paragon Levels (Source)
- There are 100 paragon levels that a character can earn
- Each paragon level increases a character's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality permanently and adds a permanent 3% bonus to both Magic Find and Gold Find
- The amount of time it takes to gain the first Paragon Level is close to the time needed to increase in level from 59 to 60.
Nephalem Valor
Another gameplay change that occurs at level 60 is Nephalem Valor. This doesn't permanently improve your character, but it does allow them to gain some bonuses to gold and magic find that last until they log out or change their abilities. See the link for a full description, but here's a summary:
Nephalem Valor is a buff that becomes active for level 60 players when killing an elite monster.
...When you kill some of the previously mentioned monsters, you get a stacking buff that increases both gold and magic find bonuses.
...if you change a skill, your Nephalem Valor bonus drops off.
Edit: As Holger pointed out, switching acts also causes you to lose the Nephalem Valor bonus.
Also, it isn't mentioned ion the site that I linked to, but there is a limit of five times that NV can stack. Killing more elites/champions will continue to refresh the bonus, but it can't stack more than five times.
The linked site also sounds uncertain as to whether changing equipment will reset the buff. I can confirm that changing equipment and/or potions does not reset the bonus.
Another benefit of Nephalem Valour is that each stack of it increases the amount of XP you gain from killing enemies by 15%. This improves the rate that characters gain Paragon Levels.
UPDATE
Paragon 2.0
Paragon 2.0 will still work as an end game feature, providing players with a way to continue earning levels and experience even once their characters have reached max level. There are several major changes to the system:
All experience earned by max level characters will count towards an account-wide Paragon level. This level, rather than the individual character levels, will award paragon points that can be spent on all characters; not just the specific character who earned the experience.
The Paragon levels earned and points awarded to Hardcore and Softcore characters are tracked separately. Since Paragon levels are for the account, Hardcore players will not lose Paragon levels or points even if/when their individual characters die.
Paragon points allow for a great deal of character customization, with specific bonuses that can be assigned to things like attributes, offensive stats including CC, CD, and AS, defensive stats like blocking %, and general properties like Faster Movement and Pickup Radius.
There is no maximum paragon level (though the individual bonuses may have varying hard caps).
The Paragon experience earned by all existing characters will be added into the system when it goes live.
Characters at Paragon 100 do not earn experience currently, so any play time with them prior to Paragon 2.0 is "wasted" in terms of exp gain.
Exp earned by all Hardcore characters on an account, dead or alive, will probably be added into the Paragon level when Paragon 2.0 goes live.
Many questions remain, and the system is still under development, but the basic functions have been confirmed by Blizzard as essentially set in stone.
Best Answer
Yes and no. Health globes heal a percentage of your character's maximum health based on which type of health globe you pick up (Depends on the Size of the globe). The only way to get more than the percentage you're supposed to get is through items that increase the amount of health you get from health globes by X, abilities, or passives. You'll always gain more from them the more health you have, but otherwise you can only improve them with items, abilities, or passives.