Diablo 2: Resurrected remaster

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Perkel I remember the skill synergies being implemented prior to LoD--though I could very easily be wrong. While I do remember being a little annoyed at the changed incentives, the original skill tree had a perverse incentive to hoard your skill points for the capstone abilities. All later (gated) skills were strictly better than the lower tier skills. Anything more than 1 point to navigate to the end skills was wasted. It was only later, with the synergies that lower tier skills were enhanced to be worthwhile. I understand the resentment of the change, but the original implementation wasn't worthy of being idolized. Skill advancement is one regard where D2 stepped backward.

 

[J1M]

Perkel I remember the skill synergies being implemented prior to LoD--though I could very easily be wrong. While I do remember being a little annoyed at the changed incentives, the original skill tree had a perverse incentive to hoard your skill points for the capstone abilities. All later (gated) skills were strictly better than the lower tier skills. Anything more than 1 point to navigate to the end skills was wasted. It was only later, with the synergies that lower tier skills were enhanced to be worthwhile. I understand the resentment of the change, but the original implementation wasn't worthy of being idolized. Skill advancement is one regard where D2 stepped backward.

I think they should scrap the synergies and go with a simpler and more flexible system. Basically a "mastery" value for each tree that is equal to the total of all points assigned to the tree. That tree mastery value would feed into each skill the way that synergies do, usually as a damage modifier.

You could also set a maximum effective value for mastery at different amounts depending on how much you wanted to encourage people to utilize two or three different skill trees.

'Putting more points in the fire tree makes you better at fire magic' is a concept that everyone can understand.

 

[Gregz]

Perkel I remember the skill synergies being implemented prior to LoD--though I could very easily be wrong. While I do remember being a little annoyed at the changed incentives, the original skill tree had a perverse incentive to hoard your skill points for the capstone abilities. All later (gated) skills were strictly better than the lower tier skills. Anything more than 1 point to navigate to the end skills was wasted. It was only later, with the synergies that lower tier skills were enhanced to be worthwhile. I understand the resentment of the change, but the original implementation wasn't worthy of being idolized. Skill advancement is one regard where D2 stepped backward.

I think they should scrap the synergies and go with a simpler and more flexible system. Basically a "mastery" value for each tree that is equal to the total of all points assigned to the tree. That tree mastery value would feed into each skill the way that synergies do, usually as a damage modifier.

You could also set a maximum effective value for mastery at different amounts depending on how much you wanted to encourage people to utilize two or three different skill trees.

Chronicon has this

 

[copebot]

There's not only one story on the internet about people whose hearts started racing during the Butcher fight in D1. So yeah, story or, more precisely, context matters.

The Butcher also stunlocks you in melee, unlike most of the other enemies you have faced. He's not actually tough if you are prepared for him, but since most of the other challenges to that point were trivial, he comes as a big and thematic surprise. For a lot of us who were kids at the time, that dude was the scariest thing we had ever seen in our whole lives.

 

[Grotesque]

Blizzard can't write and story in hack 'n slash games and RTS isn't relevant.

Ole Blizzard was a completely different company, pretty much all old employees arent on Blizzard anymore. I also disagree that story isnt important, if you are talking of traditional rpg stories with lots of dialog, yeah, I agree with you that this type of storytelling isnt compatible with certain genres but some interesting backstory, lore and some cutscenes and dialog on some strategic points can only make things better and arent hard to do.

On StarCraft 1, the briefing dialog before the missions started and the well done cutscenes on the beginning and end of the campaigns made the whole setting interesting and reinforced the fantasy. When you are on a match with other players, you may not be thinking on this backstory consciously but it is on the back of your mind, the same reason companies invest alot of propaganda even for people that might not buy that product right away when they are exposed but the propaganda make the product stick on your head and you will remember it when you actually go searching for it. Story affects your overall impression of a product on a similar fashion. Loved StarCraft 1 and each unit is iconic for me but never got into Age of Empires.

It depends of the player, but in the end, what really matters is the mechanics that are the main dish but why should I refuse a good presentation?

To be fair, the guys from "Old Blizzard" went on to make such hits as "Hellgate: London" and "Torchlight".

Just look at this ignorant loser
I wonder if he even knows the difference between Blizzard Irvine and Blizzard North

 

[Gregz]

There's not only one story on the internet about people whose hearts started racing during the Butcher fight in D1. So yeah, story or, more precisely, context matters.

The Butcher also stunlocks you in melee, unlike most of the other enemies you have faced. He's not actually tough if you are prepared for him, but since most of the other challenges to that point were trivial, he comes as a big and thematic surprise. For a lot of us who were kids at the time, that dude was the scariest thing we had ever seen in our whole lives.

His combat mechanics were not why you were scared as a kid

 

[Perkel]

Perkel I remember the skill synergies being implemented prior to LoD--though I could very easily be wrong. While I do remember being a little annoyed at the changed incentives, the original skill tree had a perverse incentive to hoard your skill points for the capstone abilities. All later (gated) skills were strictly better than the lower tier skills. Anything more than 1 point to navigate to the end skills was wasted. It was only later, with the synergies that lower tier skills were enhanced to be worthwhile. I understand the resentment of the change, but the original implementation wasn't worthy of being idolized. Skill advancement is one regard where D2 stepped backward.

I am pretty sure they were LOD exclusive, you had to have LOD to get synergies. But it was long time ago so...

As for no synergy vs synergy. Remember that there are 99+ extra points to spend and max level for manual spending is 20 for each skill. Which means that yes you usually had one skill maxed out which was your main damage dealer but after you spend those 20 points you still had rest to spend.

Moreover the higher on tree it didn't usually mean better skill. Perfect example of that is pala. I don't think i ever used any high tier skill. My main was Zeal and Thorns which were both from middle of tree and toward upper rather than lower part of tree. Amazon ? Split arrow was my go to and that auto target one. In original system you much more easily mash skills. With synergies it was basically gone because synergies were just too good to not use. This also had knockoff effect on gear. In original it was ok to mash different gear because you could mash skills and you were not locked into synergy build. So on Sorc getting that getting that staff with blizzard while you had main fire damage made sense.

Like you said it was not some perfect system but imo it was much better when there were no synergies. Imho the right aproach to D2 system should be to interoduce new skills rather than synergize skills

I think they should scrap the synergies and go with a simpler and more flexible system. Basically a "mastery" value for each tree that is equal to the total of all points assigned to the tree. That tree mastery value would feed into each skill the way that synergies do, usually as a damage modifier.
You could also set a maximum effective value for mastery at different amounts depending on how much you wanted to encourage people to utilize two or three different skill trees.
'Putting more points in the fire tree makes you better at fire magic' is a concept that everyone can understand.

I don't see point in it. You just make everything synerginze with everything. You can as well remove it and there will be no difference only base damage will change which can be adjusted. Moreover if you have say 3 trees like in D2 you effectively make one tree better than others which is even worse situation than few skill synergies because now you synergize whole tree out of 3 which then makes it even worse to invest in skills in other trees.

 

[DeepOcean]

There's not only one story on the internet about people whose hearts started racing during the Butcher fight in D1. So yeah, story or, more precisely, context matters.

The Butcher also stunlocks you in melee, unlike most of the other enemies you have faced. He's not actually tough if you are prepared for him, but since most of the other challenges to that point were trivial, he comes as a big and thematic surprise. For a lot of us who were kids at the time, that dude was the scariest thing we had ever seen in our whole lives.

One: You see the mangled guy bleeding to death at the entrance of the Cathedral.
Two: He says to you that the village organized a raiding party to rescue the young prince, son of King Leoric, and that Archbishop Lazarus gone insane.
Three: The guy dialog is full of reference to the horrors they faced inside and how the whole group was slaughtered by a demon, called The Butcher.
Four: There is no extensive dialog here, just enough for you to be fearing this Butcher, of course the game doesnt tell where this Butcher actually is so you go from the first level to the level where the Butcher actually is waiting for him, the game milks the suspense as much as it can.
Five: You find a strange room, lonely, separated from other rooms (to focus the attention of the player as the room is isolated from the rest and increase the suspense), they did this on purpose as a rule for all unique quest rooms on the random room generator script they have for Diablo 1.
Six: Once the player go to investigate, he notices a small trail of blood coming from outside and the player can see the room seems to be actually filled with corpses and blood.
Seven: Imediatly the player remembers the guy dying on the begining and knows this is The Butcher room.
Eight: The player, confident, as he pretty much killed everything on his path to this point with little difficulty with a mixture of fear and confidence opens the door understimating The Butcher and that half his potion belt is empty and he didnt bothered into getting a decent weapon.
Nine: The Butcher says "Ahhh, Fresh Meat." when the player opens the door and The Butcher proceeds to pound the player relentlessly with stun lock attack after stunlock attack with a massive cleaver and seems to take a ton of punishment too, the player runs out of potions and die.
Ten: However, this is still on the begining of the game and the designers achieved the effect they wanted, they cant make a monster that is impossible to defeat at player level 3 or so because this will force the player to ignore it and have to backtrack afterwards and that isnt that fun. They make The Butcher, strong enough to kill dumb players but weak enough to be killed by prepared players.
Eleven: Player turns back and kill The Butcher and as reward, gets his axe that is an unique weapon and pretty decent for early game, so every time the player opens the inventory, he will remember this fight.
Twelve: As result, this fight marks an impression on the player, he now knows there is dangerous shit for reals to take seriously on the dungeon and this encounter increases the suspense level at least for the next few levels. I would argue that they sort of dropped ball midway through the game because Diablo 1 starts strong, then the middle really fails to ramp things up and keep momentum but it ends on a strong note again.

Yeah, sure enviroment design, storytelling is completely useless for hack and slash games... hummm...hummm... maybe if the rest of the Diablo clones actually learned a thing or two from the design of Diablo 1 they maybe would end better for it.

 

[deuxhero]

What was the "trick" to beating Butcher? Just kiting him with ranged attacks?

 

[DeepOcean]

What was the "trick" to beating Butcher? Just kiting him with ranged attacks?

Kitting for long range characters and a quicker attack speed weapons with lots of potions for melee, avoid two handed melee weapons, they arent as good because he can stun lock you before you hit.

 

[copebot]

What was the "trick" to beating Butcher? Just kiting him with ranged attacks?

The easiest way? Lure him to the entrance, cast flame wall, close the door, wait while he roasts. You could do that on almost any door if you didn't catch him in his room. You aren't likely to have the spell at that level, but you can also cheese him with ranged attacks of any kind through the grates.

 

[markec]

Yeah, sure enviroment design, storytelling is completely useless for hack and slash games... hummm...hummm... maybe if the rest of the Diablo clones actually learned a thing or two from the design of Diablo 1 they maybe would end better for it.

Grim Dawn does a good job building world and atmosphere with journals scattered around the world. There are some quite dark things to read like a loving family of refugees that slowly goes from just trying to survive to killing other people out of enjoyment.

 

[Daedalos]

Since they probably won't remaster D1, what is currently the best mod that comes close to a remaster in terms of graphics update/upscale and good balance changes / fixes?

 

[Reinhardt]

Feels good not being graphic whore so i don't need "remasters" to play old games.

 

[Perkel]

Since they probably won't remaster D1, what is currently the best mod that comes close to a remaster in terms of graphics update/upscale and good balance changes / fixes?

There is none.

 

[Tyranicon]

Feels good not being graphic whore so i don't need "remasters" to play old games.

But don't you want to pay full price for a 20-year-old game with fresh bugs? What kind of consumer are you?!

Also hilarious for the entire Diablo-clone genre that they haven't surpassed Diablo 2 in two fucking decades.

 

[Daedalos]

Since they probably won't remaster D1, what is currently the best mod that comes close to a remaster in terms of graphics update/upscale and good balance changes / fixes?

There is none.

But what comes the closest? Are't there a few ones? I seem to remember some, like belzebub or whatever?

 

[Gregz]

Since they probably won't remaster D1, what is currently the best mod that comes close to a remaster in terms of graphics update/upscale and good balance changes / fixes?

There is none.

But what comes the closest? Are't there a few ones? I seem to remember some, like belzebub or whatever?

Belzebub is a pretty radical overhaul. It has some good features, but the difficulty curve is all over the place.

There is a mod that just increases walk speed in town, and nothing else, but I forget what it's called.

check out EQUINE on github, since it makes trying out these mods ridiculously easy to do.

as for recommendations: if you are simply looking to get a vanilla experience but without any nasty graphical bugs that need a shit ton of manual fixes, get devilutionX.

if you want a vanilla+ experience i recommend infernity (based on an old version of devilution, once it catches up it will be hassle free) and diablo torch (havent tried it but i heard its good).

if you want something weird go for the hell 1 and 2 (the hell 2 is a remake, but it adds a shit ton of features and a new codebase, some new features arent that good to be honest) and belzebub (HD gameplay with a great engine and a bunch of new quests, terrible balancing and new saving system though)

 

[tritosine2k]

Feels good not being graphic whore so i don't need "remasters" to play old games.

Also hilarious for the entire Diablo-clone genre that they haven't surpassed Diablo 2 in two fucking decades.

Well , let's not pretend fans of "character sheet simulator"-s deserve anything better than one shoebox shape room/area after another and dumbed enemies ?

At least cyberpunk STILL has a savefile resembling a savefile and go over 8mb with dire consequences ...

 

[Perkel]

Also hilarious for the entire Diablo-clone genre that they haven't surpassed Diablo 2 in two fucking decades.

POE up to 2.0 had serious shot at it, then they went chinese with zoom zoom and ascendacies retardation. And instead of fixing core issues of game with POE2 they just made it into bigger patch.

But what comes the closest? Are't there a few ones? I seem to remember some, like belzebub or whatever?

You ask for graphical overhaul, there is none. D2 for example only has widescreen fix which works unly up to 1.13C but playing anything higher than 720p breaks AI.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Blizzy Blizzy has a game.
Decades old,of major frame.
Remade now for you and i.
Expectations rather high.
Waiting now with bated breath.
These characters look now hooked on meth!
Meet now:The ma'amazon!
Mannish face to focus on.
Left the gamestop in a huff
Changing genders sure it tough.
His haggard face shows 40 years.
Misgender and you'll get the spear!
The paladin is still a thief.
Darker skin is his motif.
Holy works he has employed
Recreating his saint Floyd.
Assassin players not left out.
Her racial background hard to scout.
They made her face a stunning scene.
From Elder Scrolls creation screens!

 

[OctavianRomulus]

this whole thread lmao

Geralt, is that you?

 

[Ismaul]

this whole thread lmao

Geralt, is that you?

No. Geralt's features are softer.

 

[Zlaja]

I do not understand these 'you just want wank-bait, incel' arguments

Liberals use this smearing rhetoric because they want to shift the focus of discussion to people behind the arguments and therefore avoid talking about what THEY actually like in these new character designs and why. If they did that they would expose their agenda in a way they would not be able to deny. So instead of "I like that the new amazon looks like a transwoman" you get "anyone who doesn't like the new amazon design is an incel".

 

[OctavianRomulus]

You don't need to be a raging coomer to appreciate beautiful people. We're not playing Nephalem in D2 but they are still heroes. A hero needs to represent the peak of physical, intellectual and martial beauty. You're not just a random soldier.