Diablo 2: Resurrected remaster

[1451]

Indeed, this is the first time I'm playing D2. But I did play Divine Divinity when it was released. But for some reason I ignored D2 despite a friend who was urging me to start it.
I dislike spending gold, even in game, it just feels bad you know.
Gems are worth farming, they are small and sell for a lot of coins.

As for the level design, I liked the first area, it's like England but with monsters roaming the countryside. The desert is indeed boring but I think I will like the snowy mountains. Is it related to the Barbarian's homeland?
I liked Arreat in D3.
I guess if D2 remake sells enough, they might consider a D1 remake. Why not, it's free money at this point. And it's not like Vicarious Visions has anything better to do.

 

[Monkey Baron]

Indeed, this is the first time I'm playing D2.

Your avatar deceived me! You poser.

 

[typical user]

I wish they changed how to play Druid and Paladin. I dislike playing them because when you shape shift you can't use other spells and when you use auras you're locked out of second spell too.

What spells do you want to use as Paladin? Zealot or Smiter have their skills on left-click, you only swap auras when TPing or charging, FoH or Hammerdin just cast spells while holding Lshift. For shapeshifter Druid I guess you could want to TP but you can always shift back.

In D2 you usually build your character to only use 1, maybe 2 abilities, rarely more if you are spellcaster. Only Assassin has plethora of skills like WW/Shadow Master/Fade/Blade Sentinel/Dragon Flight/TP/Traps.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

If your central complaint about D2 is the power creep (which I do agree with) then what do you call shit like POE/Grim Dawn? Those games took the worst aspects of later day D2 and decided to build on them instead of avoiding the mistakes. It is why the modern Diablolike is you filling the screen with a hundred AOE effects and killing the entire room in seconds.

And saying GD is better than D2 is such a horrendous lie because there is nothing GD has that it actually does better than D2. I'll admit that in the bubble of modern day Diablolikes that GD is one of the better ones but it doesn't even begin to fill the massive boots D2 has.

Now I've done a kindness elaborating because let's be real: Grim Dawn fans have more to prove by saying it's better than D2. All I could have said was, "because it's Diablo II, baby!" and be automatically correct. This isn't touching on how D2 kicks the shit in terms of atmosphere, art direction, music, the Necromancer class, etc.

I think you are looking at D2 through rose tinted glasses. I played it on release and loved it (main class was Necro as well), also played most of the modern ones in the past years - Grim Dawn was the only one i kept coming back to. Also liked Last Epoch, but that one is still in EA, so stopped playing until full release.

 

[Lacrymas]

Diablo II was very uneven with its level design. The five areas were completely unconnected to each other thematically, and ranged from boring to kind of interesting and back to boring again:

1. Boring as fuck generic plains level.
2. Somewhat interesting Arabic/Egyptian desert level.
3. Pretty cool Mesoamerican jungle and Aztec ruins level.
4. Generic and fairly short (though adequate for an endgame) hell level.
5. Boring as fuck generic snow mountains level.

Why isn't there a Diablo I remastered/remake being developed? I would much rather repeat the once-in-a-lifetime wonder that was the original Diablo and its descent through dark gothic ruins into the depths of the earth.

Yes, Diablo 2 is schizophrenic in its level design. It's Diablo: Super Mario Bros edition. Forest/plain world, desert world, swamp world, fire world, snow world. I suppose they tried to build up the lore, but it got worse instead.

 

[agris]

Lack of map cohesion aka themepark level design, class-and-level restricted proto-MMO gear, Skinner box design sensibilities and restrictive class system are all components that make D2 a worse game than D1. I cannot imagine those of you enjoying anything inspired by D2, much less the further refinements of this piss into crystallized urea.

looking forward to the remake!!

 

[Daedalos]

Imagine shitting on D2 in 2021.

 

[Black]

Don't have to imagine, D2 has a lot of flaws than even D3 miraculously managed to fix some of them, like the potion chugging mini-game or 99% of skills being one trick ponies whose leveling only increases numbers assosciated with them.
It's still a great game.

 

[Daedalos]

Obviously D2 needs balance changes and qol improvements, which most good mods like project diablo fix. Excellent mods, and I hope blizzard will imeplement more changes.

You realize Blizzard North and anybody wroking on D2 and early D3 was fired or moved right?
D2 would have gotten alot more patches had the past been different.

Theres alot of retarded purist autists who dont want anything changed in D2R, absolutely fucked.

DESPITE the shortcomings of D2 though, its still the genre definingly best ARPG for the past 20 years, NO arpg has been able to surpass it in terms of the entire package... Path of Exile? please.. get the fuck out with that wnana-be garbage.

 

[Naraya]

I can't praise Reshade enough, it's simply an awesome piece of software and I would be willing to pay for it if its author ever makes it paid. I know purists gonna hate but I just love to play with available shaders. I made PD2 work with it and it's going to be glorious!

Spoiler

PRE:

POST:

 

[Saravan]

Imagine shitting on D2 in 2021.

I agree it's a lame cheap-shot for a decades old game that still to this day retained amazing artistical integrity such as the SFX and frankly can't be contested to have elevated ARPG:s.

 

[ArchAngel]

Obviously D2 needs balance changes and qol improvements, which most good mods like project diablo fix. Excellent mods, and I hope blizzard will imeplement more changes.

You realize Blizzard North and anybody wroking on D2 and early D3 was fired or moved right?
D2 would have gotten alot more patches had the past been different.

Theres alot of retarded purist autists who dont want anything changed in D2R, absolutely fucked.

DESPITE the shortcomings of D2 though, its still the genre definingly best ARPG for the past 20 years, NO arpg has been able to surpass it in terms of the entire package... Path of Exile? please.. get the fuck out with that wnana-be garbage.

Well we are fucked. Blizzard decided to appease the purists and mods will not work with D2R.

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Diablo II was very uneven with its level design. The five areas were completely unconnected to each other thematically, and ranged from boring to kind of interesting and back to boring again:

1. Boring as fuck generic plains level.
2. Somewhat interesting Arabic/Egyptian desert level.
3. Pretty cool Mesoamerican jungle and Aztec ruins level.
4. Generic and fairly short (though adequate for an endgame) hell level.
5. Boring as fuck generic snow mountains level.

Why isn't there a Diablo I remastered/remake being developed? I would much rather repeat the once-in-a-lifetime wonder that was the original Diablo and its descent through dark gothic ruins into the depths of the earth.

Yes, Diablo 2 is schizophrenic in its level design. It's Diablo: Super Mario Bros edition. Forest/plain world, desert world, swamp world, fire world, snow world. I suppose they tried to build up the lore, but it got worse instead.

Like I said in the Dark Souls thread, you can go with these base types for your level design, but put a spin on them that makes them actually interesting. DS1 also has a forest world (Darkroot Garden), swamp world (Blighttown and the swamp below), fire world (Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith), Snow World (Painted World of Ariamis), plus ghost world/underground world/etc, but in every case they added a lot more stuff to make them interesting, and also cohesion and lore that make them feel interconnected thematically.

Now, can anyone imagine a more boring start to a game than Diablo II's Act 1? It's not even a proper forest, just lots and lots of empty plains, with a couple of small ruins and caves. And the base town is some shitty hobo encampment. They could have set this in the ruins of a cool medieval European-style city (and its immediate environs) that was recently destroyed by the demons. But no, empty plains and a nostalgia trip to the Diablo I town. Lol, fuck off Blizzard.

 

[Saravan]

Obviously D2 needs balance changes and qol improvements, which most good mods like project diablo fix. Excellent mods, and I hope blizzard will imeplement more changes.

You realize Blizzard North and anybody wroking on D2 and early D3 was fired or moved right?
D2 would have gotten alot more patches had the past been different.

Theres alot of retarded purist autists who dont want anything changed in D2R, absolutely fucked.

DESPITE the shortcomings of D2 though, its still the genre definingly best ARPG for the past 20 years, NO arpg has been able to surpass it in terms of the entire package... Path of Exile? please.. get the fuck out with that wnana-be garbage.

Well we are fucked. Blizzard decided to appease the purists and mods will not work with D2R.

I believe the issues with modding is mostly tied to the removal of TCP/IP connectivity which would be against purists. This is just another move to force always-online per the usual move from Activision/Blizzard. The creator of MedianXL wrote that there is no incentive to keep modding community alive if you can't provide modding in multiplayer (which requires private servers).

 

[Wilian]

Obviously D2 needs balance changes and qol improvements, which most good mods like project diablo fix. Excellent mods, and I hope blizzard will imeplement more changes.

You realize Blizzard North and anybody wroking on D2 and early D3 was fired or moved right?
D2 would have gotten alot more patches had the past been different.

Theres alot of retarded purist autists who dont want anything changed in D2R, absolutely fucked.

DESPITE the shortcomings of D2 though, its still the genre definingly best ARPG for the past 20 years, NO arpg has been able to surpass it in terms of the entire package... Path of Exile? please.. get the fuck out with that wnana-be garbage.

Well we are fucked. Blizzard decided to appease the purists and mods will not work with D2R.

Blizzard wanted to retain utter and absolute dictatorial control over the game with likely monetization plans under right amount of sales*

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Like I said in the Dark Souls thread, you can go with these base types for your level design, but put a spin on them that makes them actually interesting. DS1 also has a forest world (Darkroot Garden), swamp world (Blighttown and the swamp below), fire world (Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith), Snow World (Painted World of Ariamis), plus ghost world/underground world/etc, but in every case they added a lot more stuff to make them interesting, and also cohesion and lore that make them feel interconnected thematically.

You went with the worst possible examples.

 

[Black]

Now, can anyone imagine a more boring start to a game than Diablo II's Act 1?

 

[agris]

DESPITE the shortcomings of D2 though, its still the genre definingly best ARPG for the past 20 years, NO arpg has been able to surpass it in terms of the entire package... Path of Exile? please.. get the fuck out with that wnana-be garbage.

Genre defining? That would be Diablo 1 my (screeching) friend...

 

[Average Manatee]

Now, can anyone imagine a more boring start to a game than Diablo II's Act 1? It's not even a proper forest, just lots and lots of empty plains, with a couple of small ruins and caves. And the base town is some shitty hobo encampment. They could have set this in the ruins of a cool medieval European-style city (and its immediate environs) that was recently destroyed by the demons. But no, empty plains and a nostalgia trip to the Diablo I town. Lol, fuck off Blizzard.

Have you had the fortune of playing Titan Quest? It's 3x as generic with 1/3rd the atmosphere and the first Act is as long as every Act of Diablo 2 combined.

 

[Lacrymas]

Titan Quest isn't generic, lol. Its setting is criminally underused and I can only think of 1 other game with the same premise for its setting - Age of Mythology. Yeah, the acts are a bit too long, but hey, they had a story to tell. I'd have skipped China and made Babylon a bit longer, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

What about Numen?

 

[Average Manatee]

Titan Quest isn't generic, lol. Its setting is criminally underused and I can only think of 1 other game with the same premise for its setting - Age of Mythology. Yeah, the acts are a bit too long, but hey, they had a story to tell. I'd have skipped China and made Babylon a bit longer, but that's neither here nor there.

The mythological setting? Yeah, that's fine. But Titan Quest explicitly avoided using it because people might be offended by the concept of Greek gods and Greek Mythology(https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/why-is-titan-quest-so-bad.62700/). What is left is entirely generic

 

[Black]

 

[Can't handle the bacon]

Like I said in the Dark Souls thread, you can go with these base types for your level design, but put a spin on them that makes them actually interesting. DS1 also has a forest world (Darkroot Garden), swamp world (Blighttown and the swamp below), fire world (Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith), Snow World (Painted World of Ariamis), plus ghost world/underground world/etc, but in every case they added a lot more stuff to make them interesting, and also cohesion and lore that make them feel interconnected thematically.

You went with the worst possible examples.

Lost Izalith was left incomplete, aside from that there's nothing wrong with any of these locations.

 

[Vapid]

Spoiler

"...and then the old dude turns into a pickle! Hahahaha... It's the funniest thing I've ever seen!"