Diablo 2: Resurrected remaster

[Sykar]

Hammerdin.

 

[Fenix]

Worst shit.

 

[Sykar]

Hammerdin with Dupenigma is complete degeneracy.

 

[Aemar]

Brand new endgame content and additional challenges for all those high level characters. Yay or nay?

Could NuBlizzard come up with additional endgame content without ruining the classic D2 experience?

 

[Aemar]

More like PoE's Atlas of Worlds, or something along those lines.

 

[Gerrard]

If you like to be the cameraman, pick a Necromancer and focus on Summoning.

There are particular rules to playing necro, at least early game.
Either you max TEETH and fill the screen with many little... teeth, or you max SKELETONS, all of them, and then revs and lag your team as much as possible (maybe max teeth and sumons?). Actually now with new grafix it might be possible maybe, although not as good as when people had only pentium something and 200 ram.

In 1.09 you can use Arm of King Leoric to raise both skeletons to 39 or so, thus running around 80 skelies and extra revives for 120 total minions +golem +merc.
I think, as I only so far managed to get around 40 skeletons total (my necro is level 40ish, although I did get Leoric from meph with my druid).

They are all, of course, utterly useless except maybe Players 1 cowruns or something.
...on Normal.

I assume you haven't played D2 past 1.09? Skelemancer can waltz through the game with no gear.

 

[Hassar]

Synergies kind of made the game too easy for the classes that worked in 1.0. The big problem with earlier versions is that Necro summons were absolute trash and only work on Normal/Nightmare and even NM is pushing it.

ChaDargo i only have my original, pre-LoD experience. I played a bit after lod but not enough to make it meaningful - only enough to cement my preference for D1 over D2.

That’s my primary interest in revisiting D2 v1.05 or 1.00, to see if it scratches that D1 itch more than I remember. I know modern 1.09+ does not, with level gated gear and Skinner box itemization maximizing dopamine hits. I much prefer low and slow.

D1 is the equivalent of listening to Black Sabbath’s self titled album, where modern D2 is to it much like late-stage Ozzy. Yeah it was more popular (I think) but it definitely wasn’t as good…

I agree completely. Playing D1 as a kid was an amazing experience, first game I ever played online. D2 was pretty fun for being fast and flashy and new, but it was so heavily feeding off of my love for the art/setting of D1. Same reason I prefer Starcraft BW over SC2. At some point Blizzard slowly started turning into a company that churned out games to sell copies to anyone while pandering to their core (I guess all these fuckers learned to be "creative" this way in college?). So, I too would like to see if D2 could have that better pacing/immersion and not just be a boss-run fest.

Edit: In a few days I'll try whatever version I can get to run (I'll check out the Cactus Project) and report back!

Honestly I still think D2 is the better game. D1 is just better aesthetically and in terms of execution of its "tightness", ambience, everything being perfectly matched to each other. D2 is a sprawling sequel with downsides and upsides, but it's way more replayable than D1 which is basically a singleplayer game you play through once or twice until your memory of it fades enough for it to be worth playing again. It's more like a PS:T or BG in that way, at least in my opinion.

The major thing I remember sucking about D2 at release compared to D1 was the animations. D1 animations are just so much more richer, "juicy". And the ambience in D1 was a lot better. But everything else in D2 was arguably better.

There's something about the earlier sprite-based games that just have so much more artistry in them, and then the transition period where it was sort of 3D, sort of not, still mostly sprite work, the artistry seemed to fall off.

Do you think making synergies player-controlled would be more fun?

Kind of like having the choice to have the close combat sorceress you wanted to play be able to synergize nova-type spells, enchant, and thunderstorm or etc. Basically, you design your own build and then have the system reinforce it.

 

[Zeriel]

Synergies kind of made the game too easy for the classes that worked in 1.0. The big problem with earlier versions is that Necro summons were absolute trash and only work on Normal/Nightmare and even NM is pushing it.

ChaDargo i only have my original, pre-LoD experience. I played a bit after lod but not enough to make it meaningful - only enough to cement my preference for D1 over D2.

That’s my primary interest in revisiting D2 v1.05 or 1.00, to see if it scratches that D1 itch more than I remember. I know modern 1.09+ does not, with level gated gear and Skinner box itemization maximizing dopamine hits. I much prefer low and slow.

D1 is the equivalent of listening to Black Sabbath’s self titled album, where modern D2 is to it much like late-stage Ozzy. Yeah it was more popular (I think) but it definitely wasn’t as good…

I agree completely. Playing D1 as a kid was an amazing experience, first game I ever played online. D2 was pretty fun for being fast and flashy and new, but it was so heavily feeding off of my love for the art/setting of D1. Same reason I prefer Starcraft BW over SC2. At some point Blizzard slowly started turning into a company that churned out games to sell copies to anyone while pandering to their core (I guess all these fuckers learned to be "creative" this way in college?). So, I too would like to see if D2 could have that better pacing/immersion and not just be a boss-run fest.

Edit: In a few days I'll try whatever version I can get to run (I'll check out the Cactus Project) and report back!

Honestly I still think D2 is the better game. D1 is just better aesthetically and in terms of execution of its "tightness", ambience, everything being perfectly matched to each other. D2 is a sprawling sequel with downsides and upsides, but it's way more replayable than D1 which is basically a singleplayer game you play through once or twice until your memory of it fades enough for it to be worth playing again. It's more like a PS:T or BG in that way, at least in my opinion.

The major thing I remember sucking about D2 at release compared to D1 was the animations. D1 animations are just so much more richer, "juicy". And the ambience in D1 was a lot better. But everything else in D2 was arguably better.

There's something about the earlier sprite-based games that just have so much more artistry in them, and then the transition period where it was sort of 3D, sort of not, still mostly sprite work, the artistry seemed to fall off.

Do you think making synergies player-controlled would be more fun?

Kind of like having the choice to have the close combat sorceress you wanted to play be able to synergize nova-type spells, enchant, and thunderstorm or etc. Basically, you design your own build and then have the system reinforce it.

Honestly I think it's fine as it is. My view is that synergies are a kludge to avoid the scenario early on in Diablo 2 release cycle where people would hoard points to a ridiculous degree and the trees were mostly dead, any skill that you weren't going to spend 20 points on was worthless, etc.

 

[Shadenuat]

Lol people were hoarding points because there was no Respec, and because many skills were utter trash (20 points damage teeth, 1.5 points damage flame aura, etc.) and were irrelevant literaly moment you picked them. On the other hand, some were p good and you could combine multiple ones into a build.
There is about a million ways you could play around with this (like not making every skill 20 points for example, or limiting it to 20 points *with* items while items giving +to particular skill, or playing with skill growth - some could grow rapidly then slow, some could improve more with high investment; powerful spells having longer casting times, etc.); what you got instead is "here is build, level all these skills" instead of "here are skills, make your own build".
It's arpg with PREPLANNED BUILDS FOR U! IT'S HORRIBLE!
Just look at how meta changed too, let's check say necro golems. day 1 blood golem is gut, because IM returns hp; then iron golem is gut, because lots of hp/thorns/life tap; today clay golem is gut, because slow and whales can play with aura iron golems i guess.
Now just take all these ideas and make every golem gut.
Game already had all these concept is place even. Bone Spear & Spirit are not one > other, zeal & charge one is clear another mobility skill, sorc elements could be juggled due to immunities, etc. It's just that developers did not push far enough into that territory and pushed into max damag instead.
But that would require developer to thinking actively about what plays well, and if you simply glance at patch history of the game (pindle bug killed players for how long lmao) they never even bothered to fix 2 wrong quest icons in journal in act 4. i had good laf at amount of "actually this doesn't even work" in patch history. my favorite is still "on release game enemies had x5 more attack rating bug".
Developers really sucked bad at understanding what skills even did or what players expected or wanted to play. It is honestly hilarious how incompetent they were, today they would never get away with balance like that (would produce similar rage to Overwatch).

Still fun to play cause of funny monsters and items. I made another 1.09 char, a paladin with vengeance, potentially fist of havens, holy shock aura/Sanctuary (150 damage to undead wat) & charge for moving around, it's cool. His melee damage is 1 to 500 already, it's like melee sorc (unique flail).
Imagine in 1.07 there was a druid build that used bow, direwolves and hurricane. Kinda interesting.

 

[Perkel]

someone complained about art change with nudity ? Here you are.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

What happened to his penis?

 

[JamesDixon]

What happened to his penis?

You ate it...

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

You ate it...

Uh oh...

 

[Black]

 

[PlanHex]

If you like to be the cameraman, pick a Necromancer and focus on Summoning.

There are particular rules to playing necro, at least early game.
Either you max TEETH and fill the screen with many little... teeth, or you max SKELETONS, all of them, and then revs and lag your team as much as possible (maybe max teeth and sumons?). Actually now with new grafix it might be possible maybe, although not as good as when people had only pentium something and 200 ram.

In 1.09 you can use Arm of King Leoric to raise both skeletons to 39 or so, thus running around 80 skelies and extra revives for 120 total minions +golem +merc.
I think, as I only so far managed to get around 40 skeletons total (my necro is level 40ish, although I did get Leoric from meph with my druid).

They are all, of course, utterly useless except maybe Players 1 cowruns or something.
...on Normal.

I assume you haven't played D2 past 1.09? Skelemancer can waltz through the game with no gear.

Waltz sounds a bit too fast though.
Can crawl slowly through the game with no gear and walk at a slow-medium pace with decent gear.

 

[Daedalos]

So my newly summon necro is now lvl 83 on hardcore

and I just found a fucking jah rune..

im back neggas, kicking ass and taking names

whats that shit worth anyway?

 

[Morblot]

whats that shit worth anyway?

Your dignity, apparently.

 

[jackofshadows]

lvl 83 on hardcore

Did you trade or did you farmed all the gear by yourself? Is there nightmare hc baal runs going on?

 

[Daedalos]

lvl 83 on hardcore

Did you trade or did you farmed all the gear by yourself? Is there nightmare hc baal runs going on?

farmed everything myself bro.. yea theres trade games

 

[jackofshadows]

Holy shit dude. I only vaguely imagine playing this in the pure single mode. I mean, I like hardcore myself but this is like some sort of self-restriction territory.

Yeah I know about trading ofc there's trading websites like https://forums.d2jsp.org this one even. But I meant the good old baal runs. Nevermind, I probably will not go into/support nublizz one more time after all. Who knows about me and D4 though.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Went back to try Grim Dawn again last night and I'm actually stunned at how aggressively boring it is. All these modern Diabloclones have zero character to them and become these games where you theorycraft more than you actually want to play.

Having 1,000,000 builds means fuck-all if playing your game is as exciting as experiencing dysentery.

 

[Lacrymas]

Grim Dawn isn't boring.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Grim Yawn xd

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Generic-Giant-Splat-On-My-Rolled-Up-Newspaper

 

[Fenix]

On stream someone said some rune could be sold for 17? K rubles. People are crazy and rich bitches.