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On July 17 2011 06:23 GDbushido wrote:
So I'm going through the campaign for the first time since I was nine and, well...is the game supposed to be this easy? I just stomped Andarial with my 15 Druid, had to resummon my wolves once and took two potions.
That was also the most threatened I had felt through out Act One. >.< Someone please tell me the rest isnt such a breeze.
Nightmare is even easier 
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Hell is way harder though.
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On July 09 2011 13:32 RANDOMCL wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. The game is much more difficult now than it used to be. The gameplay is the same. The "rune system" is not a system, but simply another method of item variation (which is always good), and many of the runewords create entirely new playstyles. They don't drop very often at all, so I don't know what you're talking about concerning inventory... but it is the same in LoD as classic. Just thought I'd correct some of those errors. Runeword & unique based item system good? No offense, but it is the direct opposite of any concept of artistic or strategic idea of good. Runewords have the same affixes every time, you know what youre getting, once you see one once youve seen them all. And because of this "mass-produced" similarity of runewords and uniques everyone interested in performance ends up using the same fucking items. And worse than that, everyone also looks the same! The boring war hat&kite shield & archon plate look, all colorless to boot.
While classic has: all items rares (well shard isnt. but already that is bad enough cookie cutter welfare item to remove originality that proves my point) on everyone, so people must use care in selecting which rares to combine to get the breakpoints and resists (and item appearance colors for style) they desire. There is choices to make: what to take and what to forego for every single character.
Bottom line, Diablo 2 Classic has the best item system of all Blizzard games(and possibly of all RPG games), expansion was a big step backwards.
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On July 09 2011 13:32 RANDOMCL wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. The game is much more difficult now than it used to be. The gameplay is the same. The "rune system" is not a system, but simply another method of item variation (which is always good), and many of the runewords create entirely new playstyles. They don't drop very often at all, so I don't know what you're talking about concerning inventory... but it is the same in LoD as classic. Just thought I'd correct some of those errors.
Unique and runeword (and crafting) based item system destroys variety, not create it. It eliminates the entire organic diversity that rare items have between their looks and affixes. There is no more excitement of "what will the affices be" when you pick up items, you know its the same as always, very little replay value in expansion item system. The game's balance is also perverted, with the presence of immune monsters concept creating disjunction between content exploration, acting as a punishing agent. Class and skill balance is terrible in 1.10+, been going worse ever since 1.06, with only high end dupewords creating a balance band-aid where every build is strong enough to kill stuff due to ridiculous item stats.
On July 09 2011 09:33 Supamang wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. Im one of the players to tell you that youre wrong. D2 Classic was stupidly easy for me. Even in Hell mode most of the time I was only afraid of anything that could cause lag on my old shitty computer The expansion is so much better merely because of the amount of content added to the game. Types of Unique items increased by like 3 or 4 times, different types of modifiers for Rare and Magical items also increased. Crafted items, different Horadric Cube recipes, Runes and Rune Words, etc. Theres a ton of stuff in there that lets you customize your character a lot more than in D2 Classic. Also, the 2 new classes are pretty fun I dont know about hardcore mode. When I played D2 Classic, my comp was so bad that I wouldnt make it past Duriel without dying at least once Ironic you say that, as the way it ends up there is a lot less variety and customization in expansion than in classic. Look at trade forums, its all the same stuff, same cookie cutter unique & rune offer lists that the bots have been coded to pick up. Youve seen it once, youve seen it all. Low Level Dueling scene is the only place with interesting rare based market in expansion, which says something about the game.
Also strange that you talk about Expansion difficulty, when the actual end-game content of expansion is brutally boring and simple baal runs which unlimited number of builds can solo, compared to classic CS runs which no single character can solo at a useful speed and that demands orchestrated team work to do at a decent rate.
And expansion is very limited in item-farming areas due to the messed up alvl and monster drop probability statistics, whereas in classic you get decent chance for godly items from every area.
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On July 17 2011 08:10 xarthaz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 13:32 RANDOMCL wrote:On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. The game is much more difficult now than it used to be. The gameplay is the same. The "rune system" is not a system, but simply another method of item variation (which is always good), and many of the runewords create entirely new playstyles. They don't drop very often at all, so I don't know what you're talking about concerning inventory... but it is the same in LoD as classic. Just thought I'd correct some of those errors. Unique and runeword (and crafting) based item system destroys variety, not create it. It eliminates the entire organic diversity that rare items have between their looks and affixes. There is no more excitement of "what will the affices be" when you pick up items, you know its the same as always, very little replay value in expansion item system. The game's balance is also perverted, with the presence of immune monsters concept creating disjunction between content exploration, acting as a punishing agent. Class and skill balance is terrible in 1.10+, been going worse ever since 1.06, with only high end dupewords creating a balance band-aid where every build is strong enough to kill stuff due to ridiculous item stats. Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 09:33 Supamang wrote:On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. Im one of the players to tell you that youre wrong. D2 Classic was stupidly easy for me. Even in Hell mode most of the time I was only afraid of anything that could cause lag on my old shitty computer The expansion is so much better merely because of the amount of content added to the game. Types of Unique items increased by like 3 or 4 times, different types of modifiers for Rare and Magical items also increased. Crafted items, different Horadric Cube recipes, Runes and Rune Words, etc. Theres a ton of stuff in there that lets you customize your character a lot more than in D2 Classic. Also, the 2 new classes are pretty fun I dont know about hardcore mode. When I played D2 Classic, my comp was so bad that I wouldnt make it past Duriel without dying at least once Ironic you say that, as the way it ends up there is a lot less variety and customization in expansion than in classic. Look at trade forums, its all the same stuff, same cookie cutter unique & rune offer lists that the bots have been coded to pick up. Youve seen it once, youve seen it all. Low Level Dueling scene is the only place with interesting rare based market in expansion, which says something about the game. Also strange that you talk about Expansion difficulty, when the actual end-game content of expansion is brutally boring and simple baal runs which unlimited number of builds can solo, compared to classic CS runs which no single character can solo at a useful speed and that demands orchestrated team work to do at a decent rate. And expansion is very limited in item-farming areas due to the messed up alvl and monster drop probability statistics, whereas in classic you get decent chance for godly items from every area.
I agree that most uniques were terribly designed and implemented, that led to a stupid unique item economy where only the same few items had any clout.
I somewhat agree about runewords. It created a sub-market for whites/socketables, which made the game better on many levels. The idea of creating items from collected parts created another sub-market in the economy and the idea was fantastic. However, the problem again was with the final product item, which was just a pumped up unique item, which again was absolutely terrible.
I absolutely 10000% don't agree about crafting. That (and godly rares/magics) was the bread of butter of end game Diablo 2. Crafting took the idea of creating items from parts, and added not just the beloved randomization of classic, but discriminating customizable randomization. There were 3 layers to crafting. Instead of making an item, you rolled an item. This added the great randomization that rare items had. The final product item was a character-specific rare. Certain types of crafted items were more valuable to specific classes or builds, which creates amplified circulation and trading in the economy. The value of the item was discriminated between different people because not everyone wanted it, like everyone wants an Enigma. The last thing is that you could customize your character without needing to wait for the perfect drop. You don't have to wait for that mana leech weapon or Fool's mod weapon. You can make a shitty version of it immediately to use until you finally get a good one, which allows you to continue playing out your character.
The way Blizzard designed the crafting process to be dependent upon item levels and character levels allowed it more potential, but Blizzard seemingly abandoned crafting and left it in a gimped state.
Also, about end game difficulty, the only reason why CS would be hard was because of iron maiden. I've played the game on every patch for a decade. CS is easy beyond ridiculously easy (edit: in comparison to WSK). WSK is the hard area. The problem again is with the items. As long as you have Enigma, any character can bypass WSK and hit the throne room in no time, and that's very easy. In CS, at least you have to open the seals.
Edit: I forgot to say, I think you're missing the point of immunities and how they relate to your idea of CS needing diverse characters to beat. I want to preface this by saying that I have no idea what the Blizzard devs actually thought, but to me it makes perfect sense this way as I watched them change the game over the years.
In classic, CS was the area that forced players to diversify. Iron maiden made it so that melee chars needed ranged chars to support. They were probably hoping the increased monster damage output of the area also made it so that ranged chars needed melee chars to tank for them. The problem was that ranged chars became so powerful in end game that they just killed everything anyway. On top of this, it didn't make sense to force a player to be unable to explore an area if CS was going to be that kind of place. The basic game content was 4 acts of quests and story. It sucks for a player if he actually can't complete the 4th act, and thus can't complete the game, and thus Blizzard was denying game content to the paying customer. So Blizzard made CS workable, while adding immunities to higher difficulties. Denying players access to basic game content is a bad idea, but denying them access to higher difficulties until they were strong enough makes perfect sense. This killed 2 birds with one stone because immunities also weakened sorceresses, who were dominating the game. So in the end that took the idea of forcing players to diversify from CS and gave to it Hell difficulty, which I think was the right call.
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On July 17 2011 08:00 xarthaz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2011 13:32 RANDOMCL wrote:On July 09 2011 08:48 Diks wrote:On July 09 2011 08:34 Jayrod wrote:
If I just bought diablo 2 and not the expansion pack could I still have some good nostalgic fun? Or is the expac worth it? Expansion is not worth it imo. The game becomes much more easier with it, and the gameplay just suffers a lot from the new stuff. The rune system is absolutely dumb as it waste of the space in your inventory; having to go back to town every time you pick an item sucks and doesn't provide any gameplay improvment. If you really like diablo, stick to classic. The community in hardcore is absolutely awesome, it's all about survival and helping each others. This is just my opinion. There are a lot more player in LOD than classic, so a lot more players to tell that I'm wrong. EDIT : The increased resolution is a very nice addition though. Soo it might be worth it depending on the price. The game is much more difficult now than it used to be. The gameplay is the same. The "rune system" is not a system, but simply another method of item variation (which is always good), and many of the runewords create entirely new playstyles. They don't drop very often at all, so I don't know what you're talking about concerning inventory... but it is the same in LoD as classic. Just thought I'd correct some of those errors. Runeword & unique based item system good? No offense, but it is the direct opposite of any concept of artistic or strategic idea of good. Runewords have the same affixes every time, you know what youre getting, once you see one once youve seen them all. And because of this "mass-produced" similarity of runewords and uniques everyone interested in performance ends up using the same fucking items. And worse than that, everyone also looks the same! The boring war hat&kite shield & archon plate look, all colorless to boot. While classic has: all items rares (well shard isnt. but already that is bad enough cookie cutter welfare item to remove originality that proves my point) on everyone, so people must use care in selecting which rares to combine to get the breakpoints and resists (and item appearance colors for style) they desire. There is choices to make: what to take and what to forego for every single character. Bottom line, Diablo 2 Classic has the best item system of all Blizzard games(and possibly of all RPG games), expansion was a big step backwards.
Definitely agree with this. My ideal system would be something like in classic but with an auction house system tacked on. Making rares good again would actually make the currency valuable too because gambling would be worth it.
I also think the addition of Synergies in skills was a horrible move. Before synergies you could build, say, a hammerdin and once you maxed out concentration and hammer you were free to put points in whatever you wanted, creating a huge variety of hammerdin builds. Now there's only really one build because almost all your points have to be invested in synergies.
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On July 17 2011 06:23 GDbushido wrote:
So I'm going through the campaign for the first time since I was nine and, well...is the game supposed to be this easy? I just stomped Andarial with my 15 Druid, had to resummon my wolves once and took two potions.
That was also the most threatened I had felt through out Act One. >.< Someone please tell me the rest isnt such a breeze.
I'm kinda sad that I never tried hell until now. There are actually some challenges.
Edit: most of the time it's running away from conviction, curse, and other oneshotkillyou monsters, but still... some challenges.
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Sorc are really good @ MF, because they do well untwinked. Teleport is really a must for mf.
Light sorc works well. You can also try this one : http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=708646. I tried this build and found it very powerful.
It's a fire/orb sorc, who can MF easily. Fire/frost immune mobs are not too common, and you can still Static Field & let your merc finish them and tada! the big concern of sorc (immunities) is gone.
That being said, I don't know if this is a good build for d2c. I know it works with LOD and as you mention it I thought I could post this here...
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I bought my cd key in that site, i received it quickly with nor problems.
If you plan on playing D2 classic HC, add me ingame, my account name is Diks.
I made a mistake in post about runes, i wanted to talk about charms; the dumbest feature of LOD.
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LoD isn't as bad as the neo-d2c purists make it out to be. The grand issue with it is the inherent imbalance in the item-system and the absurd inflation of items on the realms due to botting & duping. These aspects combined with a perverted approach to how the game should be played amounts to a flawed perspective of what LoD is.
Give it a fresh go on hardcore without trading/taking freebies or playing with players that use such. It's a quite a difficult task to assemble/find such a group solely online as these players are usually hard-to-reach or mostly active around ladder resets. If you have a couple of good buddies interested in revisiting D2 this way of playing may give you a renewed perspective on the game.
D2C is horrible compared to what it was pre-1.10, the balance between the classes is significantly wider than that of LoD because you do not have access to equipment that improves your character significantly for compensating.
I've slowly been workng on a mod that aims to first and foremost fix what's wrong with the game as of now (item+class balance) and secondly add some content once I familiarize myself with how to do so without making it gimmicky. It hasn't had attention for a while though, once the dust settles after D3 is out we'll see what makes out the diehard D2-fans and then I'm sure something will come out of that.
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On July 18 2011 06:05 Corr wrote:
LoD isn't as bad as the neo-d2c purists make it out to be. The grand issue with it is the inherent imbalance in the item-system and the absurd inflation of items on the realms due to botting & duping. These aspects combined with a perverted approach to how the game should be played amounts to a flawed perspective of what LoD is.
Give it a fresh go on hardcore without trading/taking freebies or playing with players that use such. It's a quite a difficult task to assemble/find such a group solely online as these players are usually hard-to-reach or mostly active around ladder resets. If you have a couple of good buddies interested in revisiting D2 this way of playing may give you a renewed perspective on the game.
D2C is horrible compared to what it was pre-1.10, the balance between the classes is significantly wider than that of LoD because you do not have access to equipment that improves your character significantly for compensating.
I've slowly been workng on a mod that aims to first and foremost fix what's wrong with the game as of now (item+class balance) and secondly add some content once I familiarize myself with how to do so without making it gimmicky. It hasn't had attention for a while though, once the dust settles after D3 is out we'll see what makes out the diehard D2-fans and then I'm sure something will come out of that.
How will you ever get D2 players to play your mod after D3 comes out?
edit: Oh are you relying on D3 sucking?
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On July 18 2011 06:05 Corr wrote:
LoD isn't as bad as the neo-d2c purists make it out to be. The grand issue with it is the inherent imbalance in the item-system and the absurd inflation of items on the realms due to botting & duping. These aspects combined with a perverted approach to how the game should be played amounts to a flawed perspective of what LoD is.
Give it a fresh go on hardcore without trading/taking freebies or playing with players that use such. It's a quite a difficult task to assemble/find such a group solely online as these players are usually hard-to-reach or mostly active around ladder resets. If you have a couple of good buddies interested in revisiting D2 this way of playing may give you a renewed perspective on the game.
D2C is horrible compared to what it was pre-1.10, the balance between the classes is significantly wider than that of LoD because you do not have access to equipment that improves your character significantly for compensating.
I've slowly been workng on a mod that aims to first and foremost fix what's wrong with the game as of now (item+class balance) and secondly add some content once I familiarize myself with how to do so without making it gimmicky. It hasn't had attention for a while though, once the dust settles after D3 is out we'll see what makes out the diehard D2-fans and then I'm sure something will come out of that.
Whats there to fix? 1.06 already achieved (near) perfect balance between classes and excellent gear and environment utility balance. The only problem is there doesnt exist a d2 gameserver version for it so realms with it cannot be created. Some guys tried to do a serverside mod of it so 1.09 clients could effectively play it.
And the "balance" of lod 1.10+ is only that items are so strong that even crappy builds can complete the content in p1 games. In p8 games their pathetic performance compared to javazons, hdins, light sorcs is still blatantly apparent.
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Wooo I just made my first single player Matriarch!
Rylai the Blizz sorc <3
Hell Ancients was surprisingly easy, as was Baal. Hardest part was trying to get the 110 fcr breakpoint so I could tele past all the hard parts ^.^
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On July 18 2011 05:30 Diks wrote:I bought my cd key in that site, i received it quickly with nor problems. If you plan on playing D2 classic HC, add me ingame, my account name is Diks.
Sadly blizzard fucked me over 
I installed D2 LOD 1.13c from a torrent, which had a cd-key already (and I forgot to change it), so I connected to battle.net europe which resulted in me getting IP-banned on Europe =/, for 2 weeks ...
Changed the cd-keys to the legal ones, I can connect to every realm except Europe
How is this not shooting yourself in the foot blizzard ? If I had a dynamic IP, it's entirely possible someone else gets my IP and suddenly is banned ....
The worst about it is, that this is probably a measure against bots. Bots will never have this happen cause they know this. So it's only a normal player like me that gets this shit. Good job blizzard
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On July 18 2011 23:23 Talho wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 05:30 Diks wrote:I bought my cd key in that site, i received it quickly with nor problems. If you plan on playing D2 classic HC, add me ingame, my account name is Diks. Sadly blizzard fucked me over I installed D2 LOD 1.13c from a torrent, which had a cd-key already (and I forgot to change it), so I connected to battle.net europe which resulted in me getting IP-banned on Europe =/, for 2 weeks ... Changed the cd-keys to the legal ones, I can connect to every realm except Europe How is this not shooting yourself in the foot blizzard ? If I had a dynamic IP, it's entirely possible someone else gets my IP and suddenly is banned .... The worst about it is, that this is probably a measure against bots. Bots will never have this happen cause they know this. So it's only a normal player like me that gets this shit. Good job blizzard
Man, that sucks
you have no way to renew your IP ?
Anyway, in 2weeks, I'll be waiting for you, I could help you a bit for the start if u want
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To people complaining about runewords:
The trouble isn't the fact that runewords are so good. It's that there simply aren't enough of them, and there are only a few standouts. Every non-barbarian wants a CTA, for example. If you were to triple the number of runewords and also increase the number of really good ones, you'd see a great increase in item variety.
The thing that's great about runewords is that they give you a tremendous amount of latitude in designing your character. I'm specifically thinking about runewords that give cross-class abilities (oskills is the term) or special "on-equip" abilities (auras, chance on attack, etc.). Anyone who's never built a zeal sorceress or or aura/bear paladin is really missing out. Sure, you could implement these in rare items, but there wouldn't be any way to plan your build or optimize a non-standard character.
At the end of the day, Diablo is an incredibly simple game. If anything, runewords have given it longevity.
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I would rather have runewords that offer cool alternative characters than ones that everyone has to have. like enigma/cta were the worst offenders in the "staple" runewords.
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That's completely true. I actually think teleport is a pretty bad skill to begin with. It's just too convenient. Creating a runeword that gives everyone the chance to use it was a big mistake.
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On July 18 2011 06:34 obesechicken13 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 06:05 Corr wrote:
LoD isn't as bad as the neo-d2c purists make it out to be. The grand issue with it is the inherent imbalance in the item-system and the absurd inflation of items on the realms due to botting & duping. These aspects combined with a perverted approach to how the game should be played amounts to a flawed perspective of what LoD is.
Give it a fresh go on hardcore without trading/taking freebies or playing with players that use such. It's a quite a difficult task to assemble/find such a group solely online as these players are usually hard-to-reach or mostly active around ladder resets. If you have a couple of good buddies interested in revisiting D2 this way of playing may give you a renewed perspective on the game.
D2C is horrible compared to what it was pre-1.10, the balance between the classes is significantly wider than that of LoD because you do not have access to equipment that improves your character significantly for compensating.
I've slowly been workng on a mod that aims to first and foremost fix what's wrong with the game as of now (item+class balance) and secondly add some content once I familiarize myself with how to do so without making it gimmicky. It hasn't had attention for a while though, once the dust settles after D3 is out we'll see what makes out the diehard D2-fans and then I'm sure something will come out of that. How will you ever get D2 players to play your mod after D3 comes out? edit: Oh are you relying on D3 sucking?
I'm not really concerned with that, I'm sure there will be players left and probably people being disappointed with D3.
The oskills (non-class skills) that Enigma and such added was a really cool idea. It became an issue though because the "+x to all skill levels" property increases those skills as well, allowing you to get a Battle Orders f.e. close to the potency of a Barbarian's.
Many items were just too universal like the Harlequin Crest/Shako putting almost every other helm in the shade. Way too few items were class-oriented, most were just either good for a "caster" or a melee char.
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EPT
