D2:R 2.4 Proposed "Updates" are Retrofittings

General Discussion
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TL;DR Compare Blizzard’s current 2.4 announcements with D2:LoD patch 1.10 and 1.13 notes and the evolution of the game and decide whether or not this update is actually putting the game backwards!

As a Diablo player/fan for the lifetime of the franchise, the current announcement of patch 2.4 just doesn’t sit well with me. I am one of those players who just wanted Blizzard to make it function correctly, then leave it alone.

But of course, we are in 2022 now, so everything just has to be messed with, remixed, and (egads!) “updated”. But what are they really updating?

As a player, I recall the launch of D2: LoD. I remember taking my vanilla gg barb through Act 5. I remember the challenges that we faced while leveling and gearing in Act 5. I remember that so many classes had issues in Hell difficulty. Only certain builds could clear the content. And I remember that one of the things that Blizzard did to close this gap between monsters and players was to introduce the synergy system. When they added synergies, they also redid the monsters, and many other things. This was in Diablo 2: LoD Patch 1.10!!!

This is relevant because, if I recall correctly, patch 1.10 had some of the things that Blizzard is wanting to do now. And what happened was, players didn’t like it! They wanted to go back to some of the builds they loved so much.

We had Impale Zons. Not every Zon used Impale, but some did, as it was strong. But mostly, players didn’t like it much, as it was single target.

We had martial arts Assassins too at one point. But Infinity and Enigma availability made traps into a much better choice. And traps were actually creative. It made Assassins unique, and had made them unique for all these years.

We had throwing Barbs. People got bored with them; they were single target along with Berserk, and people and wanted to Whirlwind again. So in 1.13, Blizzard buffed Whirlwind and Combat Masteries.

We used to have fire Druids, and more Werewolves. Fire Druid skills received a total buff in 1.10, and Werewolves were good. So much so that in 1.13, Blizzard only buffed Werebear, to try to bring it more in line and get more use out of it.

Necromancers got an overhaul in 1.10 like the other classes, but only minor adjustments in 1.13. But overall, Necros have summoners, and less representation in poison and bone skills, respectively. There used to be a lot more Bone Spear necros. The way current Blizzard is, I fear they will buff the bone skills to the point that they will be so much better than even summons, that every Necro will be throwing Bone Spears… much like they used to. See the pattern yet?

Paladins… we used to have Thorns pallys, zealots, and shockadins. Mostly now it is just Hammerdins and Smiters. They are just so much better in godly gear. They were so good after 1.10, in fact, that in 1.13 Blizzard made the Undead and Demons more resistant to hammers. And they also made “Immune to Magic” immune to hammers. But no one is playing hammerdins without Enigma, and people just play Smiters to Uber and maybe dual.

Sorceress… All the armors were buffed and given synergies in 1.10. All elements were rebalanced. Hydra was a fan favorite, but it got the shaft in 1.10. So in 1.13 Blizzard buffed Hydra. So current devs want to… buff armors and hydra. /facepalm

And that’s basically how it went! All these things discussed above are things that the current dev team is talking about changing yet again. Were they not present during 2003-2010 D2:LoD? Because that’s how the game rolled back then.

Nowadays, mostly because of outside of the game item trading sites, the best items in the game are more readily available. Before say, Enigma, there were more Poison necros and bone necros. But after Enigma, why do either of those when you can teleport around as a clump of 50+ units? Why bother learning kicks as an Assassin when you can teleport into a room, toss a couple traps, and loot? Diablo 2 is a game of runs, and speed is king.

So right now, it appears that Blizzard is attempting to balance around the current meta. They are going to take these lackluster skills that the REAL devs of this game and the veteran players of this game already decided were not the most fun parts of this game, and force them into the meta. So we collectively discarded those builds. I hope the reader understands that. So basically, the builds that the current devs are trying to highlight now are the builds that many already played from 2003-2010. And in 2010, the best of the builds were adjusted into the game/meta that we have today. It is the current content that has survived the test of time and has been the ARPG GOAT for the last 11 years, not the 1.10 version. And what Blizzard is currently doing now, is bringing is the 1.10 version to try and play alongside the current meta. Which is going to change the meta. Which will change the game completely. It will not be the Diablo 2 that we’ve known and loved for so many years. It will be some new modern remix of Diablo 2. It will be Diablo 2.4.

RIP Diablo 2. Enter Diablo 2.4. As of now, I won’t play it. I may even cancel my preorder of D4 over it. I may go back to D2:LoD and play with the bots.

I can’t make them not change anything. I can’t even get enough people to get them to remember CAIN of all people! Remember Cain? Initially in LoD, in Act 5 Cain was near the gate in Harrogath, currently where he is now in D2:R. However, as LoD progressed, the players and the devs discussed Cain. Players didn’t like using Cain in Act 5. It is much quicker to just ID everything manually at Malah, or even use the wp to go to Act 4 Cain and use him! Of course now switching Acts causes a loading screen nightmare, so it’s no longer feasible to go to Act 4 Cain from Act 5 just to ID. So everyone just uses Malah. But the REAL devs didn’t like that we weren’t using Cain. We didn’t like that we weren’t using Cain either. So, they moved Cain to the wp in Harrogath, where he currently is in D2:LoD v1.14d. But it’s like this current dev team doesn’t realize that. Such a small detail, but such a large difference. Come to think of it, the D3 dev team killed Cain. So what does the current Blizzard have against Cain, that we can’t even get him over to the wp in Act 5, and who should be fired for missing that detail?

In a nutshell, I remember the evolution of this game. And with the currently announced plans, Blizzard appears to be going backwards in this game, and retrofitting it with 1.10 ideas. Ideas that we all tried for 7 years, and loved, but ultimately ended up immortalizing the creme of that crop, which is the current state of the game.

And the current world and players aren’t making it any better. Diablo 2 was one of the biggest “L2P” games ever. And it should remain that way. When I heard this game was being re-released, I was excited! A modern day look at my favorite game ever! Just like Warcraft 3. And I played the crap out of D2:R… all the way up until this patch 2.4 was announced. I personally believe that this game should not be changed! If you actually take the time to read the patch notes for D2: LoD patches 1.10 and 1.13, you may see what I’m saying. The REAL devs at Blizzard North worked their tails off to bring us the game we have now. It should remain how they intended it to be, minus maybe bugs.

Speaking of bugs, the whole “fixing” Act 3 thing is just going to punish rushers. We are still going to rush characters through the Acts. It’s still going to happen. But now instead of Act 3 taking 5 minutes, it may take longer to get through Act 3 than to get through even Act 2. So whatever. You are just punishing rushers. No one cares about the story on their 99 zillionth playthrough. You could’ve buffed spider zones without doing this “fix”. The people who play for the story aren’t getting rushed. This “fix” is just a penalty. It’s not like Act 3 hasn’t ALWAYS been that way since day 1! I’d say it is currently working as intended, and doesn’t need to be “fixed”.

I’ve heard people claim that Blizzard North really didn’t want the game to be in the current state, they just weren’t able to change it before they were gone. I don’t necessarily buy that. You don’t take 7 YEARS to release a patch, and then not be somewhat satisfied with it. And as patches went back in those days, you were lucky to get a patch for a game at all. Sometimes, you would buy a game off the shelf, and it wouldn’t work out of the box, and no patches were available! And if the store wouldn’t take it back as a return, you’d have a $60 box of trash. Patches are actually one of the things that helped Blizzard increase the longevity of their games and gain such a faithful following. So no, I do not believe that the devs weren’t at least satisfied enough with the patch to present it to the world in a manner that they would’ve known then could’ve been their final major patch.

The game is the way the original devs made it. It is balanced according to the original devs. I’m of the “leave it alone” camp. It’s like a bunch of programmers dug up a time capsule, and now they want to mess with everything inside of it! Why not just polish what is there and let it shine as it has shined all these years? Why do you have to try and mess up a good thing? A GOAT, at that? It’s not like the current Blizzard team has a great track record for keeping its audience/playerbase. Why not leave D2:R alone and let us veterans have our nostalgia? Put your “balances changes” and ideas into D4. Why do you have to ruin every single one of your games?

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Blizzard north had nothing to do with patch 1.13. Reread 1.10 patch notes, the process of balancing skills was made easier for their purposes, hence they anticipated doing more. One guy primarily made that patch anyways.

The news leading up to release was clear, launch would be fairly scrict to og live. Then, they would update based on community feedback.

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Thanks for the correction on the patch notes. They did do a lot in patch 1.10. They wanted to do more of course, but as I said, you don’t put out a major patch like 1.10 was if you aren’t confident that it is a solid patch. Especially not in those days. Not that it was perfect. But its flaws helped make it into the game it is today, and I love it for its flaws too.

“Community Feedback” contains a lot of “why are runewords so powerful” written by someone who doesn’t know how to find and trade runewords. I’m not sure the current community is the best source for input. They stand the risk of turning one of the greatest “learn to play” games of all time into a watered down version of itself. I hope they don’t add Whimsyshire too.

I would appreciate a “Legendary Mode” that is just basically a polished version of the current game as it exists before everything they are about to change. Except Cain. They really need to move Cain.

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They did do a lot in patch 1.10. They wanted to do more of course, but as I said, you don’t put out a major patch like 1.10 was if you aren’t confident that it is a solid patch. Especially not in those days. Not that it was perfect. But its flaws helped make it into the game it is today, and I love it for its flaws too.

1.10 was literally the worst patch ever released. 1.09 is a close second.

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I like 1.10. It gives challenges. 1.09 or before are not bad but when everyone can just spec into 3 or 4 spells it kind of lost some flavor. Not so unique or specialized as one would be.

Of course there’s drawback and things, but this kind of meaningful decision making is what make thing fun to be honest.

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I enjoyed 1.10 because it brought change and new things to try; however, years of experience has shown many of the flaws it brought as well.

Certain skills are end game skills. Others can’t compete. Most classes only have a few viable builds. Most items are junk. As a player who plays many different classes I’d appreciate more diversity without the frustration of horribly handicapping myself.

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I like 1.10. It gives challenges. 1.09 or before are not bad but when everyone can just spec into 3 or 4 spells it kind of lost some flavor. Not so unique or specialized as one would be.

1.10 gave the illusion that people can spec into more than 3-4 skills, but actually, they don’t. Each class still has 1-3 viable builds, just like before.

Of course there’s drawback and things, but this kind of meaningful decision making is what make thing fun to be honest.

There is no meaningful decision making. You focus on a primary skill and max all of its synergies. :roll_eyes:

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They did test 1.10 as well back in the day, though not as elaborate as they have done with current modern day PTRs. I believe there are remnant links on The Arreat Summit detailing how the test was rolled out. However, a lot of the problem with 1.10, when you dig into the patch notes, was that much of the decision making behind that patch, was to stop exploitation of the game. They failed imo, and with only one person (Peter Hu) coding the patch, and David Brevik and the rest of the main crew leaving Blizzard after a failed attempt to stop some company decisions by turning in resignation forms a month before patch launched…well, the rest is pretty much history.

After 1.10, the community began to wane, and I’d say a good portion of it left (I did). 1.13 reinvigorated the game again (I came back for that patch), but with failed promises of more to come, and then eventual D3 release, I think the community shrank back down to mostly the extreme hardcore, PvP, Botters, and JSP communities. I think the emergence of some of the more popular “modern” mods such as Plugy, PoD, and PD2 began a reawakening again, but the game was still a shadow of it’s former self on Bnet when I last played Legacy in 2018 and 2020.

These devs are not just blindly following the community feedback, they are still weighing cause and effect on the product itself with changes, and if it veers too much off of feeling like D2. They are pretty passionate about the game. So I really doubt we’ll see some of the “nerf teleport/nerf this/nerf that” stuff, I really doubt we’ll see any nerfs to the current meta as we know it, and only nerfs to any new stuff they bring to the table if it is too powerful. I also highly doubt we’ll see a forked online patch. It would be neat however, if they kept pre-2.4 an option in Offline.

People talk of meaningful decisions. Synergies are not meaningful decisions really, they are blueprints to builds. You want to use Skill X? Put points into Skills A, B, C to pump damage. Before synergies, spending skillpoints into utility or extra damage spells was common, like I’d build various sorcs that either used Enchant or Thunderstorm, depending if it was more for solo play or party play. I’m happy as hell that they have plans to cull back some of these high synergy costs to open points up to spend elsewhere.

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I agree with the “Put points into Skills A, B, C to pump damage” comment, and there only being a few viable builds. But I also think that at the end of the day, all games are like that. I think that especially in the modern day, every RPG is full of guides to give you the best potential from your character, in any game, and people are going to go for that. And it is a constant goal of RPGs to try and make as many viable builds as they can for their games, and almost all games fall short, and people end up maximizing niche builds. I’m not sure that will change at all with the currently proposed changes. If, for example, with the new runewords, Firebolt all of a sudden does 40k damage, every sorc will become a Firebolt sorc. Especially on ladder. It’s just the way it works.

This is actually one of the reasons I really enjoy the runeword system. While the runewords have specific intentions in mind, they are also fairly general in some cases. Such as +1 to Teleport. It doesn’t change your build at all, but maybe influences which build you use.

When it comes to balancing this game, I think they should’ve started with the meta tbh because some things in the meta aren’t where they should be, such as Whirlwind. Whirlwind has always been a comparatively lackluster skill when paired with other classes. The barb is supposed to make up for that by being tanky and yelling, but those two things go out the window when everyone can 2 shot monsters and has a CTA. But that’s part of the game that I even love, just the intricacies and the things that aren’t necessarily balanced. I originally even wanted them to include the Black Wall of Death! :smiley:

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Personally, I’m on the boat that the 1.10 runewords hurt the game. They are what they are now, but I feel that runewords were a compliment to itemization before, but then they took over itemization. After serious thought over this year, I do like the idea of the high end runewords like Enigma, Infinity, etc as something to strive for in end game, but at the same time, it shouldn’t come at the cost of the excitement and use of high end rare items like Tyreal’s Might and such either.

As for Whirlwind, I never was a big whirlwinder back in the day, as I didn’t care for how it controlled. However, a few years ago I decided to build one with full IK set, and did enjoy it, and even replicated it on D2R, since I found the Soul Cage pretty darned fast, like week 2 or 3 as I was leveling my Paladin to 85 primarily using the Pits to equip an Azurewrath that I found before Lightsabre. I do agree, it would be nice for it to either have some better damage scaling to make it viable with lower tier equipment, or even removing the IAS on weapon only lock.

I’m really hoping to see some good stuff with Bowzon in 2.4. Pre-1.10 were fun as hell. A little worried though they still won’t show physical bow some love, and focus only on elemental, even though I love the idea of reducing mp costs for cold; Freezing Arrow is pretty rough to use at current mp costs unless you decide to go for Insight Merc.

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it is going to be a very exciting ladder season

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lol the old devs were not omnipotent. The game has bern out so long it’s easy to see what needs to be done which is more viable builds after the huge updates/rebalance before and after 1.10.

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I have not read the proposed patch notes yet and I’m not disagreeing with you OP but if they are buffing Hydra to bring it more in line with skills like blizzard etc I think that’s a good thing.
It should be in line with the other skills like that imo. + I want my old 2003 D2 hydra sorceress build back! :stuck_out_tongue:

Looking at sites like Max Roll and Icy Viens there really is not many “S” Tier builds most are in "B’ and “C” and guess what Hydra sorc is in the very bottom like “F” I’m like WTF my dreams were shattered.

Might also be a bit too much to ask for them not to make changes and updates to the game, Games are evolving things.

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If there are more viable builds that players will be able to play then that is a plus. What should Sorc and Pallys be the only classes we ever play.

Some of the buffs that were given out by Blizz might not be enough to put them where the need to be.

So balanced because all you ever play is either a sorc or paladin. Great idea where the rest of the classes and skills are so far behind it isn’t funny at all.

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Hi, you did write a lot here…
Why did you use so much energy ?
I have to say
Be patient and trustful.
And stop sleeping with a gun under your pillow.

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