Introducing Diablo II: Merciless

[1eyedking]

Helllo Codexians,

I've recently finished putting up together a Diablo II: Resurrected mod which is now available for download.

It's called Diablo II: Merciless, and it's a very ambicious project that attempts to fix almost all of the long-standing issues in Diablo II.

Charms, inventory size, the Hammerdin, Teleport, potions, dead-set gear roadmaps, Runewords, bad Magics & Rares, age-old unbalance and abuses, the lack of a "true SSF" mode—you name it, it's been fixed.

The list of changes is gargantuan, but the mod stays very close and true to vanilla, both in feel and gameplay; it's just every run has been made incredibly exciting since Rares once again rule the day, and has even returned much of a "Roguelike" feel to the game.

Here's a teaser of the mod:



You can also watch the full trailer here:



There's also an autistic playthrough* of me going through the mod's Beta in my personal channel:



*: includes a couple of very minors bugs, fun blunders and comments on the current state of ARPGs.

Here's a list of the mod's main features:

• New foundational Recipes have been added, inspired in Path of Exile’s crafting Currency, making items in the game much more dynamic and interactable.
• All previous non-quest Cube Recipes have been disabled.
• Massive Rare and Magic item affix overhaul, with higher floors on certain modifiers, more tiers, and more endgame affixes, rewarding players who are proactive in updating their gear until the very end.
• Socketed items have been reworked and have become an item archetype in itself, competing with endgame Rares and Uniques
• Resistances are generally harder to acquire—particularly Poison.
• '% Chance to Get Better Items' is harder to obtain, with Set items becoming key transitional stepping stones. Putting up together a strong, endgame MF character is now meant to be a player's crowning achievement.
• Larzuk and Qual-Kehk's quest rewards have both been disabled.
• Runewords have extremely high affix variance.
• The Countess no longer deterministically drops Runes.
• All other drop rates and treasure classes remain the same (ie., your chances of dropping a Mara's Kaleidoscope, a Zod Rune or a Diamond are exactly the same as in vanilla).
• Vendors no longer sell equipment items except for some very basic gear and consumables. You must now acquire all your gear from drops.
• All items sell for 1 Gold. Large quantities of Gold can only be accumulated in its raw form.
• A new Currency type that enables a familiar style of crafting, which only drops under certain conditions and on a separate item pool that does not affect core drops.
• Movement and crowd-control skills have cooldowns.
• Characters start with +33% Stamina, and +20 Life (previously +30). All classes receive -25% less Life/Stamina points per Vitality point, however, more Life can now be acquired from gear than before. You must now keep upgrading your equipment to not fall behind in your defenses.
• Rebalance of overpowered builds and archetypes
• Two-Handed Melee Weapons now deal damage in a small area.
• All non-Sundering Charms have been permanently removed from the game. As a consequence of this change, the inventory size has been increased +50% to a 12×5 grid (previously 10×4). With Rare and Magic items rolling better stats on average, the introduction of late-game socketable items that can grant '+To Skill Tabs', and a larger inventory, their retirement should not be missed.
• An additional optional version of the mod—the Modder's Cut Edition—with a more traditional Roguelike feel and balance, pushing players into making harder, more permanent choices with their items.
• Includes full controller support.

As mentioned, the mod can be downloaded at Mod Nexus, where you can also read the full documentation autism and changes.

Feel free to join the Discord as well. It's crappy and it's just been set up, but I will give you a 'glittering gem of hatred' tag while you're at it if you tell me you come from here.



Anyway, I'll be around here in case you want to discuss the mod further or ARPGs in general, as they've become a recent passion of mine—enough to push me into making a mod.

Cheers,
1eyedking

 

[Peachcurl]

Cool ideas, very interesting. I'm a bit worried about Melee's reduced mobility, being unable to compensate the lack of range.

 

[1eyedking]

Cool ideas, very interesting. I'm a bit worried about Melee's reduced mobility, being unable to compensate the lack of range.

What reduced mobility? You mean the barb's Increased Speed passive?
2H Melee feels awesome btw, it's an archetype you should definitely try out: area damage and beefy Rares have given the Barb a lot of new life in the mod.
He's the most fun character at the moment IMO.

 

[Lacrymas]

This might make D2R actually playable.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Huh D2R ended up moddable?

I read that due to no dll access complex mod couldn't be made

 

[Lagi]

This might make D2R actually playable.

if you watch the trailer, its still running around and 1-shooting mobs and collecting (filtering?) garbage drops. Hard pass - D1 Tchernobog only.

unless you were not satisfied with "casino" element of d2?

 

[Fedora Master]

Putting up together a strong, endgame MF character is now meant to be a player's crowning achievement.

Includes full controller support.

 

[Robber Baron]

I wish someone fixed mam'azon animations instead

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Sounds interesting, but I would have to analyse the changes with a more critical eye.

Wait a second, how can you play it on MP since support for LAN and IP were removed?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Massive Rare and Magic item affix overhaul, with higher floors on certain modifiers, more tiers, and more endgame affixes, rewarding players who are proactive in updating their gear until the very end

Based, Rares and Magic ittems deserved more love.

• Socketed items have been reworked and have become an item archetype in itself, competing with endgame Rares and Uniques

Hmmm... curious. So no more Socketed Magics and Rares, nor adding Sockets to Magic and above items?

• Resistances are generally harder to acquire—particularly Poison.

This is good, but worth looking at the balance in harder difficulty levels.

• Vendors no longer sell equipment items except for some very basic gear and consumables. You must now acquire all your gear from drops.

Uh, what? Why? Vendor equipment is mostly pretty meh, occasionally a vendor may have a better magic item than what you own. Gambling is the main gold drain by the end of Act I and beyond.
What about gambling? Did you just remove gambling?

• All items sell for 1 Gold. Large quantities of Gold can only be accumulated in its raw form.

What is even the point of this? The point of looting was a) Get better gear and b) Get gear to sell for gold. In MP you can't just loot everything, you must loot the items which give you the best gold benefit.

• Rebalance of overpowered builds and archetypes

Mite ambiguous there.

All non-Sundering Charms have been permanently removed from the game. As a consequence of this change, the inventory size has been increased +50% to a 12×5 grid (previously 10×4). With Rare and Magic items rolling better stats on average, the introduction of late-game socketable items that can grant '+To Skill Tabs', and a larger inventory, their retirement should not be missed.

Hmmmm... not sure if this is good. I always thought Inventory Management Game was composed of the following conflict:
Loot vs Charms vs Consumables.
(Tomes of Identify and TP are practically free bingo space, they will always be there, might as well eliminate them as inventory items, I think I saw a mod which does that)
Plus, Charm Management was all about Effect vs Size, with priority being replacing bigger ones with smaller charms with same/better effect, so you can stick more smaller charms in there.
But if all items are worth 1gp now, what is even the point? Seems like you should just reserve enough space for a few items of equip-worthy loot, then just fill it Potions - and later, some Sundering Charms if necessary.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

• Includes full controller support.

Gay


(you knew we were going to say this)

No seriously, if I hear ANY OF YOU are playing Diablo II on PC, with a Controller, I'm campaigning to digitally tarry and feather your ass.

(I do wonder how it would work if we could map movement in Diablo to WASD)

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

• Two-Handed Melee Weapons now deal damage in a small area.

This seems interesting, I'm all for melee getting buffs.

 

[1eyedking]

This might make D2R actually playable.

You've no idea how much life good magics and rares actually breathe into the game.

Putting up together a strong, endgame MF character is now meant to be a player's crowning achievement.

Includes full controller support.

MF in D2 was broken and needed an urgent fix.

Also, it will be a cold day in hell before I play a PC computer game with a controller, but I know there's a large audience that enjoys controller feedback immensely (and I do get where they're coming from). In the end I didn't want to leave them out just because I'm a die-hard boomer, and it just took a day to port it in.

This might make D2R actually playable.

if you watch the trailer, its still running around and 1-shooting mobs and collecting (filtering?) garbage drops. Hard pass - D1 Tchernobog only.

unless you were not satisfied with "casino" element of d2?

Casino was exactly what D2 was missing. The game had become absurdly deterministic.
And you'll be 1-shooting mobs only if you build a strong enough character

 

[Fedora Master]

MF in D2 was broken and needed an urgent fix.

Reading the changes just makes me think Diablo 2 was never the game for you.

 

[1eyedking]

1. Based, Rares and Magic ittems deserved more love.
2. Hmmm... curious. So no more Socketed Magics and Rares, nor adding Sockets to Magic and above items?
3. This is good, but worth looking at the balance in harder difficulty levels.
4. Uh, what? Why? Vendor equipment is mostly pretty meh, occasionally a vendor may have a better magic item than what you own. Gambling is the main gold drain by the end of Act I and beyond.
5. What about gambling? Did you just remove gambling?
6. What is even the point of this? The point of looting was a) Get better gear and b) Get gear to sell for gold. In MP you can't just loot everything, you must loot the items which give you the best gold benefit.
7. Mite ambiguous there.

1. Rares and Magics rule the day. With the new affix systems I've gotten some truly awesome beasts I'm still proud of owning.
2. Exactly. Only White items can have sockets, they're sort of a D2 Tabula Rasa now. The exception are Belts which are meant to function as wildcard items to deterministically fix your Resists.
3. Poison has always been a non-issue in Vanilla D2, even at -100% you only have to watch out for certain enemies. You can now get a lot of +Replenish Life to offset poison damage, or hunt down Sets and Uniques.
4. Vendors depreciate Normal, Socketed, and Magic items: why kill mobs for items when you can get them for free at vendors? Also you could vendor-farm some Hell-worthy items from vendors (eg., Charsi Cow Portal exploit on NM)
5. Gambling is there and has been buffed in fact.
6. Gold is now a much more limited resource, pushing you into doing harder choices with it. Do you gamble? Do you buy Elixirs? Do you respec your character? Do you keep a buffer for potions? In the future I'll add more things to vendors since actually limiting access to Gold opens up a lot of new and interesting ways to make vendors more special.
7. Do you really want to play the Hammerdin for the nth time? Or the Sorceress? They were absolutely broken. Now the Hammerdin needs some gear to actually function—and he can still kick some serious ass btw

1. Loot vs Charms vs Consumables.
2. (Tomes of Identify and TP are practically free bingo space, they will always be there, might as well eliminate them as inventory items, I think I saw a mod which does that). Plus, Charm Management was all about Effect vs Size, with priority being replacing bigger ones with smaller charms with same/better effect, so you can stick more smaller charms in there.
3. But if all items are worth 1gp now, what is even the point? Seems like you should just reserve enough space for a few items of equip-worthy loot, then just fill it Potions - and later, some Sundering Charms if necessary.

Carrying Charms were always a no-brainer. You would always wear them and in the end they'd just your inventory tiny and make item management a living hell as you'd fill your inventory with them and do the cringe put-item-into-cube to carry more of them around. They're also an ARPG design mistake since they require no hard investment from the player whatsoever:
a) they don't occupy a gear slot.
b) they don't consume a socket slot.
c) they don't require you to spend a skill point (the passive tree in PoE fulfills the purpose of Charms)
They were absurdly broken items that needed to go.

Gay


(you knew we were going to say this)

No seriously, if I hear ANY OF YOU are playing Diablo II on PC, with a Controller, I'm campaigning to digitally tarry and feather your ass.

(I do wonder how it would work if we could map movement in Diablo to WASD)

This seems interesting, I'm all for melee getting buffs.

2H Melee is now officially awesome. You previously sacrificed an entire gear slot for almost no benefit (some gay-ass +1 range and very little extra damage). In PoE they made it so 2-H weapons have 6-sockets and deal much more damage, so it's actually a good compromise. Not so in D2.

Reading the changes just makes me think Diablo 2 was never the game for you.

If you want to Teleport around like mad and the game to be finished in 2 days as you fill your character with nothing but Uniques and Runewords you still have the base vanilla game waiting for you.

 

[Gregz]

Helllo Codexians,

I've recently finished putting up together a Diablo II: Resurrected mod which is now available for download.

It's called Diablo II: Merciless, and it's a very ambicious project that attempts to fix almost all of the long-standing issues in Diablo II.

Charms, inventory size, the Hammerdin, Teleport, potions, dead-set gear roadmaps, Runewords, bad Magics & Rares, age-old unbalance and abuses, the lack of a "true SSF" mode—you name it, it's been fixed.

The list of changes is gargantuan, but the mod stays very close and true to vanilla, both in feel and gameplay; it's just every run has been made incredibly exciting since Rares once again rule the day, and has even returned much of a "Roguelike" feel to the game.

Here's a teaser of the mod:



You can also watch the full trailer here:



There's also an autistic playthrough* of me going through the mod's Beta in my personal channel:



*: includes a couple of very minors bugs, fun blunders and comments on the current state of ARPGs.

Here's a list of the mod's main features:

• New foundational Recipes have been added, inspired in Path of Exile’s crafting Currency, making items in the game much more dynamic and interactable.
• All previous non-quest Cube Recipes have been disabled.
• Massive Rare and Magic item affix overhaul, with higher floors on certain modifiers, more tiers, and more endgame affixes, rewarding players who are proactive in updating their gear until the very end.
• Socketed items have been reworked and have become an item archetype in itself, competing with endgame Rares and Uniques
• Resistances are generally harder to acquire—particularly Poison.
• '% Chance to Get Better Items' is harder to obtain, with Set items becoming key transitional stepping stones. Putting up together a strong, endgame MF character is now meant to be a player's crowning achievement.
• Larzuk and Qual-Kehk's quest rewards have both been disabled.
• Runewords have extremely high affix variance.
• The Countess no longer deterministically drops Runes.
• All other drop rates and treasure classes remain the same (ie., your chances of dropping a Mara's Kaleidoscope, a Zod Rune or a Diamond are exactly the same as in vanilla).
• Vendors no longer sell equipment items except for some very basic gear and consumables. You must now acquire all your gear from drops.
• All items sell for 1 Gold. Large quantities of Gold can only be accumulated in its raw form.
• A new Currency type that enables a familiar style of crafting, which only drops under certain conditions and on a separate item pool that does not affect core drops.
• Movement and crowd-control skills have cooldowns.
• Characters start with +33% Stamina, and +20 Life (previously +30). All classes receive -25% less Life/Stamina points per Vitality point, however, more Life can now be acquired from gear than before. You must now keep upgrading your equipment to not fall behind in your defenses.
• Rebalance of overpowered builds and archetypes
• Two-Handed Melee Weapons now deal damage in a small area.
• All non-Sundering Charms have been permanently removed from the game. As a consequence of this change, the inventory size has been increased +50% to a 12×5 grid (previously 10×4). With Rare and Magic items rolling better stats on average, the introduction of late-game socketable items that can grant '+To Skill Tabs', and a larger inventory, their retirement should not be missed.
• An additional optional version of the mod—the Modder's Cut Edition—with a more traditional Roguelike feel and balance, pushing players into making harder, more permanent choices with their items.
• Includes full controller support.

As mentioned, the mod can be downloaded at Mod Nexus, where you can also read the full documentation autism and changes.

Feel free to join the Discord as well. It's crappy and it's just been set up, but I will give you a 'glittering gem of hatred' tag while you're at it if you tell me you come from here.



Anyway, I'll be around here in case you want to discuss the mod further or ARPGs in general, as they've become a recent passion of mine—enough to push me into making a mod.

Cheers,
1eyedking

It's really refreshing to see people still working on D2R mods. Keep it up!

 

[Gregz]

Includes full controller support.

Controller support is one of the best things about D2R in general.

 

[Peachcurl]

Cool ideas, very interesting. I'm a bit worried about Melee's reduced mobility, being unable to compensate the lack of range.

What reduced mobility? You mean the barb's Increased Speed passive?

That and the Assassins reduction play a lesser role, more importantly the cooldown of movement skills is what I referred to. I get the intention, but it messes with combat dynamics as a side effect.

2H Melee feels awesome btw, it's an archetype you should definitely try out: area damage and beefy Rares have given the Barb a lot of new life in the mod.
He's the most fun character at the moment IMO.

Yeah, that sounds like fun.

 

[1eyedking]

Cool ideas, very interesting. I'm a bit worried about Melee's reduced mobility, being unable to compensate the lack of range.

What reduced mobility? You mean the barb's Increased Speed passive?

That and the Assassins reduction play a lesser role, more importantly the cooldown of movement skills is what I referred to. I get the intention, but it messes with combat dynamics as a side effect.

The Movement skill nerf was a very hard decision.

The problem in these type of games is that anything that increases movement dramatically ends up doubling as a farming skill.

What was previously an innocent defensive/offensive skill ends up degrading the game into a blinkfest and used as a farming tool more than its intended purpose (escape from monsters, jump in and attack them, etc.).

People farm the runes for Enigma to farm faster, not to get an extra layer of defense.

I am seriously considering reverting these changes in the "Modder's Cut" edition of the mod, where you play in a true SSF environment. In that context, "failed" drops for the Sorceress such as a Bartuc's can't be traded, nor passed on to other characters, so farming efficiency as a concept is framed entirely differently.

 

[Peachcurl]

Yeah, I'll experiment how well it plays with these cooldowns. Maybe it works well enough.

btw. to what does that 2h area damage apply? all single target melee skills that work with two-handed weapons, or is this more specific?

 

[1eyedking]

Yeah, I'll experiment how well it plays with these cooldowns. Maybe it works well enough.

btw. to what does that 2h area damage apply? all single target melee skills that work with two-handed weapons, or is this more specific?

All 2H melee weapons have an "area damage" automod, so yes, it applies to every skill, whether it's a regular attack, Impale, Jab, Stun, Bash, etc.

As for the cooldowns, I selected 3 seconds because it still allows you to (utterly) trivialize boss fights such as Duriel with the Sorceress, whereas he's a real, major PITA for any other character pretty much.

Teleport is still very strong defensively: it just can't be used as a farming tool any more. And not that you really need to, since farming Currency and white items from normal mobs along your way to a boss is actually incredibly profitable: you now get to select an item base and turn that base into Rare more often. That is, statistically speaking, an incredibly powerful combination that skews probabilities into your favor massively.

The new currency added into the mod (which is awesome) also doesn't drop from bosses, btw. Bosses are still a great source of Uniques and Sets, it's just the little guys now offer a lot more interesting possibilities for gearing a character up.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

if I start this is not available online right? need to create offline char.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Putting up together a strong, endgame MF character is now meant to be a player's crowning achievement.

Includes full controller support.

It's actually rather surprising how well arpgs play with a controller.

 

[Lacrymas]

I can never play anything with a controller because I'm not used to it and it feels strange in my hands, so you have to be a serial controller user to even think of playing most games on one and by that point you are already a filthy console peasant. However, I can see why hack and slashers would be *playable* with a controller, it depends on the build. Piano builds won't be, but there are really mindless ones out there in almost every single hack and slasher.

 

[1eyedking]

if I start this is not available online right? need to create offline char.

Nope, only offline. D2 Resurrected does not allow TCP/IP stuff.

I can never play anything with a controller because I'm not used to it and it feels strange in my hands, so you have to be a serial controller user to even think of playing most games on one and by that point you are already a filthy console peasant. However, I can see why hack and slashers would be *playable* with a controller, it depends on the build. Piano builds won't be, but there are really mindless ones out there in almost every single hack and slasher.

Controllers in item management-intensive games have always been a no-no for me, but I won't leave unironic controller enjoyers out of the mod just because I'm a die-hard boomer.