I had a similar experience after coming back to D1+2 and playing regularly last year/this year. I'm curious if whether someone likes 1 or 2 the most is a litmus test for what people actually want out of an action/loot RPG: I prefer a lot of aspects in D1, but I admit that's because I don't play RPGs for the loot grind aspect.
Diablo II at launch was closer to being like Diablo I. Years later with things like Rune Words being patched in and build synergies plus harder enemies lead to the extreme loot centered gameplay you see today. Now Diablo II Lord of Destruction and Resurrected are closer to being like MMORPGs where the loot tables are often maddeningly imbalanced and the game becomes a monotonous grind before you are even halfway done getting to level 99 or completing a character. Where you have loot addicted individuals spending hours of their lives doing Lower Kurast runs for weeks on end hoping to hit another Ber Rune which is some of the most pathetic and sad gameplay of any AAA title.
A big problem with Diablo II's loot is that 99% of it becomes useless once you are even in Nightmare. You are in Hell difficulty in Chaos Sanctuary and enemies are dropping minor health potions and 5 gold or damaged items. The majority of items in the game are completely useless for 98% of your gameplay. The ground is often littered with useless garbage that no one picks up ever.
And the experience system was just as poorly balanced. Where once you reach a certain character level almost no monsters even return experience. Meaning you spend from level 96 to 99 killing the same three bosses tens of thousands of times which usually burns most players out or allows bots to just run those bosses because of simply it is to program a bot to do boss runs. At some enemies are basically returning 1% of their experience to the player. They re-balanced this in Resurrected but overcompensated and made it far too easy to hit level 99 to the point where it's not even a challenge anymore.
I see Diablo 2 (helped by Borderlands, maybe also the popularity of WoW) as being where RPGs shifted more to basically just being about the fountains of loot, often to the detriment of the parts of games I actually like: immersion and a cohesive world and story so I feel invested. RPGs bloated the shit out of their loot tables and turned into grinding for hours to try and get perfect values across as many as 8 different modifiers, maybe more in some games - not to actually beat the game of course, you did that days ago - simply just for the skinner box of "get the biggest numbers".
Don't forget that Diablo III also invented the real money auction house. And Diablo II was also responsible for people selling loot on eBay for real money. And bots farming gear to the point where nearly all online RPGs have their economies ruined by botting within days of being released. There was so much botting that Blizzard instead of banning the bots simply re-balanced the economy around botted games.
Now Diablo II Lord of Destruction and Resurrected are closer to being like MMORPGs where the loot tables are often maddeningly imbalanced and the game becomes a monotonous grind before you are even halfway done getting to level 99 or completing a character.
That's what I suspected/was getting at, I just can't really give examples because I've always avoided MMOs like the plague, the only ones I've touched were ones I can get decent enjoyment without other people, like PoE1+2 and Warframe.
I haven't forgotten. I know I said about waiting for D3 to stop being an online service, but that was kinda sarcastic - the RMAH is the main reason I expect that to never happen.
Edit: Also, just saw the very last bit of your post, but yeah an IRL friend of mine still talks nostagically about his years paying his rent and his meth habit just selling shit on d2jsp. Dunno if he still does, I think he has a real job and now just runs OSRS bots to level characters to sell as a side hustle, but D2:R coming out might mean he's back to it and might explain why no one sees much of him anymore.
It's more adding content in spirit of the game mod than a light Vanilla+ QoL mod.
A lot of the skills are tweaked to make them more viable, but I don't think any are radically changed(all the skill trees will look the same, and mostly work close to the same), a basic loot filter is built in, resolution options that alone are worth playing over Vanilla, there is a lot of content added for the late game, including more ubers, new locations, and a nephalim rift style of randomly generated maps with modifiers that is pretty good(including the option to do fewer stronger mobs with higher drop rates if your build is better at single target damage). I've missed a season or two so there is probably more.
But its nothing like Median XL that reworks to characters to be almost unrecognizable(and generally less fun imo), adds map hacks, infinite scrolls(which is kind of a QoL to me) faster run speeds, new mobs and mob layouts, new abilities for vanilla bosses.
Not sure how i missed this. Really gave Median XL a good try for 10-15 hours before i gave up and went back to old school LoD. Played through it the summer before the “remaster” was released.
No other ARPG scratches that itch quiet like D1 and 2. What i want, is Devolution for Diablo 2 that keeps the original content but also gives quality of life changes.
Not sure how i missed this. Really gave Median XL a good try for 10-15 hours before i gave up and went back to old school LoD. Played through it the summer before the “remaster” was released.
No other ARPG scratches that itch quiet like D1 and 2. What i want, is Devolution for Diablo 2 that keeps the original content but also gives quality of life changes.
MedianXL was the first big Diablo 2 mod I tried, since it changed so much. Too much really though, after one play through doing a Summoner Barb I could never get into it again.
Project Diablo 2 is really good, it definitely adds some skills, and rebalances things heavily, but it doesn't change the feel of the game so much, really just giving the game a much more in depth late game.
That said, for another ARPG that scratches the D2 itch, the closest I've ever gotten is Marvel Heroes. David Brevik worked on it, and it has some really fun characters and ideas for the gaming space. Game is dead, super dead being online only and server sided code, but there is a group of Russians that are rebuilding all the server side code from almost scratch, they've already done amazing work and hopefully the game will be restored in a year or so.
That said, for another ARPG that scratches the D2 itch, the closest I've ever gotten is Marvel Heroes. David Brevik worked on it, and it has some really fun characters and ideas for the gaming space. Game is dead, super dead being online only and server sided code, but there is a group of Russians that are rebuilding all the server side code from almost scratch, they've already done amazing work and hopefully the game will be restored in a year or so.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends also scratch a similar itch if anyone wants to try them out. No loot, obviously, not much of an RPG either but you do get to form your own dream teams of heroes.
I'm nearing the end of my first playthru of the first game, and I got to say, my opinion hasn't changed. It's a solid ARPG, and I like it's atmosphere and worldbuilding better than the second game. The gameplay is also tighter, but also a bit more primitive. I still like the second one better, but I appreciate what the first one was trying to do. My biggest issue with the two games is that some of the items are bugged and the game never tells you which one, you just have to guess and head to the wiki to check if your gear even works properly. Big issue, considering how much of the gameplay loop centers around getting the best loot.
That said, for another ARPG that scratches the D2 itch, the closest I've ever gotten is Marvel Heroes. David Brevik worked on it, and it has some really fun characters and ideas for the gaming space. Game is dead, super dead being online only and server sided code, but there is a group of Russians that are rebuilding all the server side code from almost scratch, they've already done amazing work and hopefully the game will be restored in a year or so.
I absolutely loved Marvel Heroes and wish it would have lived longer. Been following the news about Marvel Heroes possibly being restored. Please make it happen.
I absolutely loved Marvel Heroes and wish it would have lived longer. Been following the news about Marvel Heroes possibly being restored. Please make it happen.
It's playable, you can go through the entire story mode, a majority of the active abilities are working, though I don't know how well, last time I tested it out, summons and channeled abilities didn't work at all, but they've since fixed some of those.
Project Diablo 2 Season 11 launches tomorrow. I think it's the best way to play one of my favorite games of all time, so I thought I'd hype it up a bit since it's a great time to get into the Mod.
What is Project Diablo 2?
Project Diablo 2 I would catagorize as a Vanilla Plus Mod. It tries to keep the game feeling like the original, while making up for some of the faults of its age. For Diablo 2 that's mainly underutilized skills, Endgame content and quality of life. Other than new, reworked, and rebalanced skills, there is very little you'll encounter before level 80 that doesn't feel like vanilla content. It's been growing pretty popular, as ARPG content creators have been discovering it's quality compared to modern releases like Path of Exile 2 or Diablo 4.
Under-utitilized Skills.
Definitely the most noticeable on a fresh playthrough, pretty much every skill tree can be run in late game content. Every skill has been rebalanced, a lot have been reworked, and some have been added to give new playstyles. If there was some odd build you thought was interesting even if it wasn't good, it's most likely decent to great. There are going to be builds previously impossible.
Some examples:
Summon Druid is top tier and number one beginner skill. Ravens are great damage in the build, last season added a helm that let you roll with 4 bears and no wolves. Was OP last season and got brought down closer to normal zoo. Going all vines with a poison creeper build functions but isn't top tier. Gets a teleport ability.
Necro has an offensive curse spell that does damage for number of curses on an enemy called Dark Pact, the ability to use multiple curses with a curse matter. Poison/bone caster are both strong. Summoner is still good with golems able to compete, skellies have archers added, but over all it's a mid tier style. Gets a teleport ability.
Barb doesn't change a whole lot, Warcry Nova is much more viable, throw barb is a lot better not still not top tier.
Amazon is a great summoner now, decoys do good damage, Valkyries can be equipped and persist like an Iron Golem, great ranged damage as every with more options, but probably has the worst mobility with no teleport.
Paladin gets a new spell in the Holy line and some rework to auras to make more useful. Elemental Auras are strong with melee builds, gets a weapon version of charge in Joust, Magic build damage around Hammer and Holy Bolt are both in a good place.
Assassin keeps getting new tricks for being the least played class. Martial arts and traps are both still solid, but throw traps, blade skills, and psychics are all viable.
Sorc is still top tier. Her teleport is the best, but needs 50 skill points to be it's best. All the trees have multiple builds that will sweep mobs, but way more options. There is really too many to list. Some of the new stuff is an ice version of enchant and more viablity for melee sorc, two tiers of hydra, a new channeled fire spell.
Endgame Content
Maps - I'd call them similar to Nephalim Rifts, but I've read they are much more similar to something from Path of Exile. Maps are random drops that will spawn a portal to a zone with a new tile set, a set pool of mobs and damage immunities. Maps can have rarity like items giving a mix of positive and negative affixes. Maps are the focus of the end game grind for most characters. Tier lists aren't really measuring capability, most builds should be able to clear the content, but how fast it can clear. There is a lot of mechanics to manipulate maps, the one I find to be very interesting is Fortified. Fortified maps give builds with high damage and low AoE the ability to farm much more effectively, halving the number of mobs but doubling the life and drops.
Bosses - Uber Tristram, Diablo Clone, and a couple new ones. Require different builds usually, and a much larger focus on survivability. Has difficulty tiers with better chances at rewards. I'm not very familiar with boss content.
Corruptions - adding another layer to gear optimization, Corruptions, or Slams as the community calls them, are a gamble on a piece of gear to add another affix to them. The pool is smaller and typically more relevant to higher end play, but there's is a chance a slam will reroll the item to a rare, essentially destroying it. Top tier play requires good slams on high end uniques, so they are usually going to need multiple attempts to get one with good rolls and a good corruption.
Quality of Life
This is just a catch all for changes that aren't directly to doing runs. Shared stash with a lot more Stashes, and a new tab for just materials. A website that allows trading gear. Throwables and quivers no longer have quantity that needs refilled. Built in loot filter. Auto gold collection. A lot of controls and resolution options. Diablo 2 is an old game that kind of runs clunky, and there is a lot to make it feel more modern.
What's New in Season 11
WASD and Controller controls. I tried WASD plus mouse in the Beta, feels great even though I have to reprogram my brain from 20 years of play, kind is amazing it's added as a feature. Not interested in controller, but I hear it's fine if more finicky.
Skill reworks. Bone Wall/Prison now had inate Thorns, hear it works very well in the right situation. Assassin Blade Fury now breaks into smaller splinters when hitting mobs, greatly increasing it's capability to clear packs. Assassin also got a summoner build with a unique claw that allows additional shadows. Shadow AI also reworked so Warriors only use the two skills you have active, Masters will use any ability you have at random. Completely opened up a massive build potential that's still being explored. Charged Bolt now pierces enemies, giving Sorc another strong build to throw on her pile.
Throw weapons can get sockets, but word from the Beta is that it doesn't have a major impact on Throw Barb or Zon.
Diablo Immortal (which is still somehow still going) posted a teaser picture of a Hearthstone collaboration:
However, people quickly started criticizing Blizzard because this picture appears to be AI-generated. With how much cost-cutting is going on at Microsoft's game studios, this wouldn't be a surprise at all.
I don't want to create a new thread to ask a single qustion.
How important was it in Diablo 2 that defense was reduced to 0 and blocking chance to 33% while running? I never played PVP or HC, so I never bothered to look into it. Sounds like a big deal, but I dunno. Do experienced players walk when they're in serious danger?
I don't want to create a new thread to ask a single qustion.
How important was it in Diablo 2 that defense was reduced to 0 and blocking chance to 33% while running? I never played PVP or HC, so I never bothered to look into it. Sounds like a big deal, but I dunno. Do experienced players walk when they're in serious danger?
I never did really high end play in D2 and I don't know if the mechanic is even still in Project Diablo 2. As someone who played thousands of hours I can't say it's ever something I even noticed, but I also never did Ubers or Dclone outside of modded plays.
Since I'm posting in the thread anyways:
Season 12 of Project Diablo 2 has been announced.
Big changes this season focused on Amazon and Bows and Crossbows.
Exploding Arrow reworked to trigger multiple mini explosions like a crackle bomb. Penetrations able to go through 12 targets instead of just 4, Unique Quivers added to the game.
However, people quickly started criticizing Blizzard because this picture appears to be AI-generated. With how much cost-cutting is going on at Microsoft's game studios, this wouldn't be a surprise at all.
>Chinese game
>Chinese methods
It's hilarious how people cant decide whether to love or hate China. They apparently paid to host Blizzard games but are allowed to do what they want with it, so that's why they got unique paid cosmetics or that new "Titan" WoW version where you raid across 3 expansions. You know, shit westerners love. China winning?
Alright i'll bite how much? And is that only because the newest diablo is a steaming turd?
FUCKING I WENT AND CHECKED $60 FUCKING DOLLARS FOR A NEW CHARACTER CLASS AND SOME MORE QOL. BLIZZARD GET FUCKED.
I am so fucking MATI, stupid me thinking oh little dlc maybe $30 at most no full price that's a hard pass or i'll wait for it to go on sale. In fact i'll wait for it to go on sale on steam with base game, lod and now this turd for less then $60 just so i don't have to install battlenet
what in the bloody hell? IS DIABLO 4 AND IMMORTAL THAT SHIT ON PROFITABILITY? jesus christ not even the dead know peace from these terrors.
all of this fucking shit for a dark haired necromancer....
also happy 30 years diablo, they fucking exhumed ressurected's corpse to desecrate it, fucking fitting to the theme if anything.
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what in the bloody hell? IS DIABLO 4 AND IMMORTAL THAT SHIT ON PROFITABILITY? jesus christ not even the dead know peace from these terrors.
all of this fucking shit for a dark haired necromancer....
also happy 30 years diablo, they fucking exhumed ressurected's corpse to desecrate it, fucking fitting to the theme if anything.
$60 ain't worth it, and I don't like how they're trying to change the original D2 with their bullshit woke or non-woke. Resurrected doesn't even look or play like the original D2. Personally, I'm okay with the Warlock being in D4 and Immortal, since he fits in the retarded story. It's D2 that's the problem because no sane person would want to work with a guy who is playing with the same demons that ravaged Tristram and the entire world. The D2 Necro wasn't a super popular guy either. The Warlock feels like a slap in the face to the old Diablo lore.
I am so fucking MATI, stupid me thinking oh little dlc maybe $30 at most no full price that's a hard pass or i'll wait for it to go on sale. In fact i'll wait for it to go on sale on steam with base game, lod and now this turd for less then $60 just so i don't have to install battlenet
I guess the Paladin nostalgiabaiting in 4 didn't work so they're shifting to more content for D2R. I legit thought they had given up on it since basically every season had nothing new in it after terror zones and a few new runewords.
>We also have removed daggers from gambling.
Great, Gull gambling is now gone. Aside from that, the QoL improvements are nice. I'll see the pricing once I get home on shitzard launcher, but on Steam it's $40.
Thanks for confirming that you never played it and only got your info from outrage farmers. D2R is as close to a perfect remaster as it gets. Every time I hear the "uh just mod the original bro" the "modding" is median or some other garbage that turns the game into PoE skill spamming, screen wiping bullshit.
Yeah, I saw those. I hope the SoJ one can be gained through trading, because in 25 years I have literally never managed to drop it once, despite killing a small country's worth of Andariels.
Also, "get a unique item through gambling". Sure. I only managed to get a single set item, Hsaurus' Iron Heel, once, last year I think.
Curiously enough, there's no achievements for completing the game with Warlock. Oh well.
