Diablo vs Diablo II

[Malakal]

Seems like an actual improvement of tp.

 

[shihonage]

Does it create a shimmering blue town portal through which you and your party members can transport to safety?

Or does it disappear you, and only you, into thin air, like WoW's hearthstone?

It poofs you, but at least there's a portal left behind in town that you go through on your return trip. So I guess it's a town portal, but it forms around you rather than near you? I'm not sure if other players can use it though, haven't played enough co-op. My guess is not, but I don't really have a problem with that. The point is that you can't use portals to run from danger so easily unless you've already eliminated a threat in the area, so in that respect it works fine.

I'm quite butthurt about TP (town portals, not toilet paper!), so I'll drag this on.

Town portal used to be a "team mechanic". It's something that you cast, and others can use it. Making it an "instanced" mechanic removes a piece of "coop interaction" from the game. It's a step toward WoW soloing mindset, being alone while not alone.

Yet WoW actually has proper "Town Portals". They take time to cast, but all members of your party can use them. Why Diablo3 didn't do this, I just... I don't understand.

Ducking into portals used to have an element of exhilaration. "I barely made it out with a slither of health!".

But now, there's so much opportunity lost here. Namely, protecting the caster and sacrificing lives against overwhelming odds so that at least two of you could survive. This could be done if they adopted WoW portal mechanics. It would've been even cooler than Diablo 1/2 insta-portals.

 

[sea]

The issue is that Diablo III is not a game about running back to town. Many aspects of the game, from breaking items down into junk for crafting, to the forward-moving pace of quests, all is designed to keep you out of town, to health orbs making potions damn near obsolete, and abilities charging mana/fury/etc. rather than more potions. Town portals as a mechanic are gone because they do not make sense in a design where there is no "get out of jail free" card.

 

[shihonage]

But WHY? I loved going back to town!

 

[Codexlurker]

I liked Diablo more due to the atmosphere and possibly the small scale of the campaign. Diablo 2 got dull by Act 2 and by ACT 3, I was bored out of my mind.

 

[shihonage]

Its amazingly to note the trashmob difference between Diablo 1 and 2. In Diablo 2, pretty much anything is a trash mob. You can just jump at a immense mob of monsters and start hacking/casting away, and if they start to mob you, its just a mater of running away easily, then doing it again. Also, ranged projectiles and spells are too damn slow, its easy to dodge arrows and the like. In Diablo 1, during my gameplay, I did the poisoned water quest and had serious problems killing two Goatmen warriors 1x1. They shrugged or even dodged my spells and they hit fast and hard, whereas my monk barely annoyed them.

I feel this is a part of a system requirements phenomena. Diablo came out for Windows running on the first versions of DirectX, when Windows games were still regarded as slow bloated shit, and DOS games were still awesome and optimized (Duke Nukem 3D, Terminator: Future Shock, Hi-Octane, Magic Carpet, etc).

Yet Diablo was probably the first Windows game that actually _ran very well_, despite being one of the prettier games of the time. At that point, its lightsourcing effects were something to behold, and, outside of few games like Quake and Terminator:FS, they were a rarity.

To afford all that, they needed to save on pathfinding AI cycles, save on lightsources, etc. So, they limited the number of enemies you fight at the time, and made them count.

A change of the same kind happened between Doom1 and Doom2. Doom1 had less enemies, and their placement made them matter more. This is why it didn't have the double shotgun, used to mow down crowds of trash mobs behind the next corner.

It was a more suspenseful, scary game, unlike Doom2, which became more of a monster genocide simulator. This was even reflected in the general music tone change between Diablo1/2 and Doom1/2.

Both Doom2 and Diablo2 expanded into larger sprawling spaces, which on one hand seemed like a good step forward given the increased CPU power, but on the other hand, it took them away from their haunted core.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Its amazingly to note the trashmob difference between Diablo 1 and 2. In Diablo 2, pretty much anything is a trash mob. You can just jump at a immense mob of monsters and start hacking/casting away, and if they start to mob you, its just a mater of running away easily, then doing it again. Also, ranged projectiles and spells are too damn slow, its easy to dodge arrows and the like. In Diablo 1, during my gameplay, I did the poisoned water quest and had serious problems killing two Goatmen warriors 1x1. They shrugged or even dodged my spells and they hit fast and hard, whereas my monk barely annoyed them.

I feel this is a part of a system requirements phenomena. Diablo came out for Windows running on the first versions of DirectX, when Windows games were still regarded as slow bloated shit, and DOS games were still awesome and optimized (Duke Nukem 3D, Terminator: Future Shock, Hi-Octane, Magic Carpet, etc).

Yet Diablo was probably the first Windows game that actually _ran very well_, despite being one of the prettier games of the time. At that point, its lightsourcing effects were something to behold, and, outside of few games like Quake and Terminator:FS, they were a rarity.

To afford all that, they needed to save on pathfinding AI cycles, save on lightsources, etc. So, they limited the number of enemies you fight at the time, and made them count.

A change of the same kind happened between Doom1 and Doom2. Doom1 had less enemies, and their placement made them matter more. This is why it didn't have the double shotgun, used to mow down crowds of trash mobs behind the next corner.

It was a more suspenseful, scary game, unlike Doom2, which became more of a monster genocide simulator. This was even reflected in the general music tone change between Diablo1/2 and Doom1/2.

Both Doom2 and Diablo2 expanded into larger sprawling spaces, which on one hand seemed like a good step forward given the increased CPU power, but on the other hand, it took them away from their haunted core.

Interesting... so it was a good feature created by system requirements? How odd.

Diablo II took trashmobs to ridiculoous levels. Anything weaker than a champion monster was pathetic. The only dangerous normal enemies I remember in Diablo II were Finger Mages, Vampires (pretty much the Diablo II version of those annoying end-game mages, would've been scary as fuck with phase), Fetishes (Pigmy Fallen on steroids. Fuck them fuck them fuck them fuck them fuck them), Concil Members, Abyss/Oblivion Knights (fuck them and their spell spamming and hacky swords), Scarab Demons (charged bolt spam fuck them) and some Act V monsters I can't call right now.

Yeah, outdoor areas were boring in Diablo II. The only cool outdoor places I remember were Travancal and the Kurast Jungles. Everywhere else was featureless as fuck. All those deserts in Act II could've been much more compressed.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Someone posted a link to Diablo's Tristam theme on the VGM thread and while I listened to it a trip down the memory lane ensued.
It was possibly the first RPG I ever played. And it was an amazing experience.
I'm tempted to try it out again just to see if it has withstand the test of time. Can it still be interesting or is it just the nostalgia?
But man... there was just something special about simply running away from that fast and scary powerful butcher in Diablo 1.

Then Diablo II came out. It seemed to do everything better. You had more classes, more weapons, potion and weapon crafting, and even companions. Incline, right?
But somewhat it seemed to lack something.
Or maybe it had an excess of something. Maybe too many items? Too many dungeons? (can a dungeon crawler have too many dungeons?)
After a while I just stepped back and thought "wtf am I doing here?! stupid mindless clickfest action for uber items?" and quit.

They're both shit.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

I'm going for Diablo 1. Darker atmosphere, more concise theme.

Did not like getting EVERY spell. Did enjoy how spell tomes were tied in with exploration!

 

[DraQ]

This topic inspired me to play Diablo again, this time using the Hellfire expansion. I'm playing my Monk like a weird mix between Sorcerer and Warrior. Think a monk that hits multiple enemies with his staff blows and uses his 77 charges Charged Bolt staff to kill large crownds of dangerous enemies. I'm already at Level 6, I'm doing well against crownds of weak enemies but a small number of strong melee fighters forces me to use my charged bolt staff. Hell, my monk can't defeat a Winged Demon 1x1 on pure melee, so I soften him with some charged bolts and finish with staff. My monk is doing pretty good, but I need to find a better staff.

Its amazingly to note the trashmob difference between Diablo 1 and 2. In Diablo 2, pretty much anything is a trash mob. You can just jump at a immense mob of monsters and start hacking/casting away, and if they start to mob you, its just a mater of running away easily, then doing it again. Also, ranged projectiles and spells are too damn slow, its easy to dodge arrows and the like. In Diablo 1, during my gameplay, I did the poisoned water quest and had serious problems killing two Goatmen warriors 1x1. They shrugged or even dodged my spells and they hit fast and hard, whereas my monk barely annoyed them.

Also, there's a Trashmob's Moment of Glory in the Stolen Sign quest, when Snotspill spills open that small army of Fallen Ones he had hidden. In my current playthough, I had to use lots of potions and scrolls, and my charged bolt staff and the Monk's multiple hit ability pretty much what saved me from death at the hands of freakin' fallen.

Fucking this.

In D1 if you just run into a thick group of enemies with not overlevelled character you will get stunlocked and you *will* die.
And then there were some uniques that could be fucking scary in how powerful they were.
And most had full entourage of minions.

In D2 you could just run through a large group of enemies and cut yourself a corridor, then turn around and do it again and again till the group disappeared.

A change of the same kind happened between Doom1 and Doom2. Doom1 had less enemies, and their placement made them matter more. This is why it didn't have the double shotgun, used to mow down crowds of trash mobs behind the next corner.

It was a more suspenseful, scary game, unlike Doom2, which became more of a monster genocide simulator. This was even reflected in the general music tone change between Diablo1/2 and Doom1/2.

Well, OTOH you had fucking Archviles.
Fucking Archviles.
Fucking fuck.

Both Doom2 and Diablo2 expanded into larger sprawling spaces, which on one hand seemed like a good step forward given the increased CPU power, but on the other hand, it took them away from their haunted core.

Well, I'm not sure about that - for example D1 dungeons were much less cramped than the ones in D2 and featured wide open spaces (caves, dungeons under the cathedral), but unlike D2 exteriors they were still cramped enough for obstacles to matter.

Yeah, outdoor areas were boring in Diablo II. The only cool outdoor places I remember were Travancal and the Kurast Jungles. Everywhere else was featureless as fuck. All those deserts in Act II could've been much more compressed.

Act v (LoD) was pretty cool and atmospheric, it was also completely out of place in Diablo (then again, so was entire act III and over half of the bestiary in most acts).

Deserts should be compressed, changed into something more along the lines of mountains in desert climate and/or abandoned cities and RID OF FUCKING CATGIRLS AND OTHER DERPY MONSTERS.