A portion of older Diablo 2 players are very resistant to change, why?

General Discussion
30

I’m up for change but they should work only with what already is in the game. I’m still against new content like Act 6 or another runewords. I liked everything they did with D2R until Sunder Charms and Mosaic came.

Add currency tab, rework immunities, make uniques good, class balance to make others good not only sorc that means nerfing teleport.

I’d like to play a solid melee Barb from 0 for a change but I have to use caster items like Spirit and cry enemies to death instead. Overall I’d like more builds to be viable without specific gear. Currently I feel limited to 1 build per class if I start fresh and almost all of them are casters.

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31

Only after they create new expansion pack for Diablo 1 then it would make sense to create Act VI for d2r

Also what happens when you change to classic graphics in A6? Black screen?

32

Looks like you don’t know what you want after all. New act is voice acting and lore too, not only grind. If you want grind then it sounds like you want a new gameplay mode instead.

If your group is so dedicated you probably skip acts as fast as possible to reach endgame. You would complain that you have to do additional act every normal/nightmare/hell playthrough making leveling longer.

33

seems like you’ve already been fooled twice. bunch of idiots LOL. people like you are the SOLE reason they think d4 is doing well, they sold lots of copies. and i bet. 50-60% of everyone that played it doesn’t like it. and bought it just to try it… blizzard loves people like you.

i did not buy d4. they could only fool me once. but since they didn’t refund me d3 i just botted 60$ worth of gold. sold it, and called it even lol.

now do you really want the team that made d3 /d4 to make more acts… i don’t.

34

Because the gem requirement is dumb and impedes the process

Making it more straigthforward allows the runes to be a wealth storage

When I’m playing my mod I combine all my pairs which leads me to have like 1-2 runes that are the sum of my rune wealth

Do you even know how economics work mate…
If runes are less useful yet still in the same upgrade/downgrade path… they have value

your crappy Hr that’s worthless because no good runeword are made of it would be worth something because of its rarity

Who are you to tell other people that their way of playing the game isn’t valid?

Also all these mechanics already exist in the game and only need a cube recipe created to be done

All gameplay focussed… no mtx

35

It doesn’t make sense that you are fighting the Devil himself and they have the power to help you and only do it once in exchange of something

Also, rewards can be samples of a mechanic

And that mechanic in my mod is costly

That Horadric hammer is like 90 salvaged unique items

Which makes more sense to push people into playing the game rather than spamming new character and rushing them for no other purpose than the quest rewards

36

Kaelos you talk gibberish.

  1. We click through the voice acting without listening. Voice acting is fine for the first or second time through after that, along with the movie clips, they are clicked past. Doesn’t mean we don’t want an act 6 to have another place to farm or a fresh place to explore and die. Weve been playing the game for 20+ years in spite of the voice acting and not because of it.
  2. Maybe some do skip past some areas getting to hell level. But upon arriving, every area gets action with TZ zones and farming. The same would be true with Act 6.
37

instead of a new act I’d rather have a Game+
an extra difficulty accompanied with overhauled lacking game mechanics

something like once you killed baal hell
activities unlock

king of the hells: where like the den of evil, it counts the remaining monsters to be slain… but it’s game wide and the less there are the stronger they get
and upon this at certain % events happen

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38

Bring on an expansion and act 6. I played since beta. Change it all. But keep legacy and 1.14.

39

The concept of having 2 realms « Diablo 2 Legacy » and « Diablo 2 reincarnated »(improvements) has been suggested countless times and even before D2R actually launched
Yet all the times it was suggested a bunch of purists were putting all their basement dweller light into bashing the ideas because they knew that this would meant that they’d be alone on their realm

Now 3 years later they are alone in the game overall because the masses left because the masses want novelty

40

I think this is the answer to the ops question. The game is marketed as Diablo II resurrected in the English world.

There is a huge difference in resurrected and reincarnation. Resurrection is same person, same body. Reincarnation is same person, new body.

Why do you say this? Is that the translation in foreign countries?

41

I am very resistant to Blizzard making changes with their current dev team. Problem here is the only persons qualified to make any changes to this old game and preserve the feel and legacy of D2 no longer work for Blizzard. The current dev team and the way they run things now at blizzard is only gonna turn the game into one of their dumpster fire , WoW lookalike, trash games like D4

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42

The game was never going to be able to keep up with the amount of novelty the masses want anyways. What the masses want is novelty for the sake of novelty, which means perpetually reinventing the wheel. This requires a heavy team to add content, and perpetual monetization to pay for it. This would have pushed away the community coming back because they love D2, and it’s unlikely it would have kept newcomers, which would have already left due to the aging mechanics of the game.

43

There is always a way to make a system that solid enough to provide long term gameplay
Ain’t D2 good enough proof of that?

It’s been popular for so long because it’s gameplay felt fresh for so long

Now that is tired you just need to another twist to make it last

Don’t need to constantly inject new stuff when you got a solid game with a brilliant loop

That’s one reason why in my mod I’m adding stuff like

  • simplified rune stacking, so you don’t hit that cluttered stash wall

  • true unique upgrades with big roll variation, so the odds of rolling perfect are lesser so you have to try again. This also buffs the holy grail challenge (chase)

  • synergy and Oskill changes, so that there is a crapload more possible builds

  • logical crafting rework where the affixes of the sacrificed item have odds of staying, giving magic items a meaning, making people want to pick them up (chase)

  • unique reskin, so people like how their characters look, being gated behind endgame currency this pushes them to keep playing even when the end is hit

There is plenty of other small changes that can be done to extend to lifetime of the game for long

Adding a Holygrail counter for example

By making it and ingame official counter you get more people to participate in that journey

You can even add another challenge that’s super easy to make with hardcoding ability

King of the hells: where you use the /players mechanic with the den of evil Remaining counter and expand it to the game

The more you kill monsters in a game the more the remaining ones become stronger and more rewarding. This makes the whole game a viable playground. Create strategies as people will need to avoid certain types at empowered levels, etc

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44

When it comes to fanbases of retro games, some are naturally more welcoming of changes than others. Imo it boils down to many things.

Good faith earned by the devs: The Diablo 2 community does not trust modern Blizzard to deliver the experience they want. Most of them hated the game design decisions taken in Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 and are naturally gonna be inclined to be skeptical or wary of any attempts Blizzard make to change D2. If you look at some other fanbases that are more welcoming to changes in remasters, like Age of Empires, they trust the devs because the devs have been communicative with the community and have a history of delivering quality products. That’s why, despite Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition having significant changes compared to the original game, including some QoL changes that sparked some controversy (like autoscout button and auto-reseed farms), it’s overall a really well received product by the core audience that keeps getting DLCs that add new content 20 years later. For example, I actually quite like modern Diablo games, but fully understand that they are a bit too much of a departure for long running fans of the series and that blizzard dropped the ball hard in many occasions, the most infamous one being Diablo Immortal.

Game’s culture: Some games just have more conservative fanbases in general. Diablo 2 I’d say is a middle ground, they were reasonably welcoming to some of the changes in D2R like auto gold pickup and instant cast hotkeys. Starcraft fandom would probably be upset even with minor changes like this, which is why starcraft remastered has very little in terms of QoL improvements. I think they got away with adding the option to rebind keys and that was it. Then there’s games that want the “classic +” type of experience. World of Warcraft Season of Mastery was one such example, it was fairly successful. And probably the most well known case is Oldschool Runescape, which is kind of an “alternative timeline” version of runescape where runescape 2 continued being actively developed and receiving new content and runescape 3 never happened.

45

Im BW fan and player since 1999 and one thing why I stopped playing is no changes. Before SCR Blizz asked pros about changes and they finally decidted to not change anything, even Dragoon movement and Scarab bug. Scout and Ghosts are still useless, but no1 cares so I dont care about SCR anymore except ASL and KCM Race Survivals, maybe its better for pros that less ppl play the game and these ppl just watching their vods and tournaments xD

46

Honestly the only thing I ever bothered with BW is UMS and campaigns. As an actual RTS I usually prefer games like AoE 2 that have longer early/mid games and a bit of a slower pace overall. I just don’t have the quick wit to play starcraft in any competitive capacity lol

47

Yup, and D2R is the pacifier to keep them happy. Its somewhat working. The 12 people playing consistently seem to enjoy it. The rest of us come here like tourists at a zoo, to come see the animals.

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48

The only animals around here seems to be the apes that find their way back to a game they dislike tho?

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49

this is what happens to you when you see mechanics that make sense

first you are impressed by adding 1-2 points in skills… you are becoming so much stronger

then you are impressed by blue magic items that you randomly find

then you realize that there are synergies and that you may optimize your skills, you are beginning to understand builds

then you finish normal

then you are having a bit of trouble and you start finding more usefull items, gems, runes

you realize that there are sockets and runewords

there are items that give skill bonuses

you realize that you need to build you resistances

you start planning

you go for obedience, pride and other items

you start reading, you learn about fcr, crushing blow, prefixes and sufixes

you finish nightmare

you start getting problems with immunities so you are starting to consider alternative damage types, even better builds. Gear and runewords are now a necessity

you realize that you can farm certain areas

you realize the value of MF and that there are sets and class specific items

you realize that you can kill the DClone and get the best small charm

you farm a lot, you optimize for fire and lightning res, you are in search of skillers

you win the game in p1 and start farming in p8

you realize that there is a grail quest, outside the game

you start understanding the value of some rare drops

you realize that there is the world event

you start considering the possibility to go for lvl 99

you have tried a couple of sorcs, necros, amazons and pallys who have been good enough to finish the game but strive above lvl90 or so… you are starting to consider finer optimizations

you realize that you can play with friends

you realize that you can speedrun

you realize that you can go hardcore

you realize that you can play online (which is another game)

you realize that you can trade

you realize that you can pvp (which is another world entirely)

you are having a great time and maybe a lot of time has passed. All these mechanics work and are meaningful. You have read the formulas, understood them, and they make sense. You start comparing the eras of the game. Were the era before runewords better? Did enigma run the game? Is pride OP for its money ? Should the melee chars be stronger ? Are the casters OP in comparison ? Should all skills be viable in the endgame ? Are some new runewords OP and break the game ? How much of a problem are the bots ? Is the economy of the game rational ?

as the time has passed you realize that D2/D2R is the best game you have ever played (and you have played quite a few) and you do not want it to end up like other game. You would like to see it thrive and you would certainly pay for an expansion or new content

this is not exhaustive, written quickly

the point is that all of the above is a progressive learning experience that keeps in interested and focused… it is so very rare…

you have read a lot, you now know the history of the game and you comprehend that all of this can be easily ruined if the game diverges from its roots… you play D3, you play D4 and you understand that this is what they are missing… so you do not want D2/D2R to lose its unique character, its unique soul that makes it an absolute stand out among the graphically well polished current ARPG…

is this enough for you ?

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