D2R Classic Needs To Be Addressed ASAP

General Discussion
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This has to be addressed, before D4 rolls out and support for D2R gets ignored! Let’s really get into this…(below after the list). Just in case there’s confusion as to how to proceed about what to do to give D2R Classic it’s equal in improvements, here’s 10 QoL changes D2R Classic absolutely deserves to have; with the top 3 being a must have by default.

#1: Shared Stash
#2: Terror Zones (This should have been especially for D2R Classic due to the difficulty of achieving a 8 player game WITHOUT self multi loading)
#3: GREATLY increase the damage of rare bows x3 to x5 ***
#4: Enable socketed Uniques via SOJ
#5: Enable Base Upgrade Recipe for Set Items
#6: Enable Weapon Swap & Mercenary changes (follow from act to act / weapons equip) currently NOBODY uses Mercs because this is needed
#7: Re-enable higher Faster Hit Recovery rolls on boots and helms to the old spawn value 20% maximum. exclusively to D2R Classic
#8: Enable Rare Javas
#9: Enable Essences to drop for making tokens
#10: Enable dual socketed Rares. (This is already in the game’s code, just not activated so it’s very possible)

Bow Zons DESPERATELY need that increase! Even in the Old D2 the highest damage duped bow - Hailstone Nock- was severely underperforming for Hell Act’s 3 & 4. A 2x socketed rare bow in addition to a multiplied damage of 3x - 5x spawn value would give them a fighting chance.

*** FHR change. Let D2R Classic have a defense exclusive, since D2R Expansion has an offensive exclusive to combat immunities. (Sunder charms). This will also provide incentive for Expansion players to want to play Classic if they want rare FHR boots. Think about it Blizzard, it’ll add even more replay value / desire to D2R*** Even in the old D2 LoD players greatly sought after the old duped boots from classic.

Bonus optional #11: Allow Uber Tristram or Abbadon to be accessed through the odd area within the River of Flame in Act 4. If Uber Tristram, then the immunities on the bosses should be removed. The bosses will obviously already have much higher resistances and health anyways

//// FYI Classic players - Despite most Expansion Sets & Uniques being unused and considered as trash in LoD due to Runewords; were not requested on the list because they would drastically change Classic; turning it into Expansion where everyone has the exact same items (Mara’s). even exceptional items i.e. Kira’s, Sanders set boots, etc. --BK ring while not game breaking, would still push the envelope for other uniques to be requested; so it’s better to not have them at all. ////

Blizzard, enough is enough! D2R has been out roughly 2 years now and there hasn’t been any quality of life (QoL) changes to D2R Classic. Meanwhile D2R Expansion has had NUMEROUS upgrades starting from release (Aug 13 2021); and to add insult to injury completely BRAND NEW features were added that were never in any version of the original (2001) game. 2 of which Classic NEEDS - Shared Stash and Terror Zones. Players should NOT have to self load multiple instances of D2R just to get what Expansion is getting by default now (easy transfers & higher experience / players 8)

The original excuse given for the lack of D2R Classic QoL was something about wanting to keep gameplay as close to the original game; so why that same logic wasn’t applied to Expansion made no sense from the start considering the changes implemented such as the Shared Stash and an even bigger sized base stash. Now, that excuse is far beyond the truth that it can’t even be ignored. D2R was initially touted as being simply a graphics improved version of the original D2 with very few QoL changes to keep it close to a remaster instead of a remake.

Why D2 Classic was chosen to be treated separately from D2 LoD is still senseless. If that was the intent from the start, then not only should it have been mentioned BEFORE release; but Classic should not have been bothered to have released at all. If “purists” were the actual concern, then there’s no reason why they can’t purchase the original D2/LoD (2001) game. Don’t insult the intelligence of your fanbase with that “reasoning” cause at this point it’s flagrantly obvious otherwise D2R LoD would have remained as “pure” as D2R Classic.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and PLEASE do not make the same mistake as your rival (they have ignored their player base posts for years, hence why so many people don’t bother with them) Myself and MANY D2R Classic players would appreciate some love shown to Classic with these 10 / 11 changes. With expansion getting new items & runewords, there should be no problem with this list being possible.

4 Likes
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We could vote on it.
Character names are no longer realm specific, they are account specific.
If everybody named their character “Shared-Stash” in the next ladder season,
the leader board would scream Shared_Stash at blizzard.

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Ironically enough my char name this season is “NeedSharedStash”. I had the same idea in mind early on but I know my char wont be in the top 10, 20 or 50

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Agreed to everything. Classic is cool but extremely limited. At best its a way to more easily farm tri res rares that you can carry over to expansion or for speed running ladder starts.

Terror zones alone would be a big change that makes it to where CS, diablo isn’t the only farmable option in classic.

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if wowhead’s numbers for s1 were right they probably have very little incentive to even touch classic.

  • Expansion Softcore: 450,000

  • Expansion Hardcore: 35,000

  • Classic Softcore: 13,000

  • Classic Hardcore: 1,000

that’s a ~34x multiplier on their incentive to ignore classic heh

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So you only bring pointless statistics?

It doesn’t matter how many people play classic. This is the same strain of thought people had before d2r was even in development (“nobody plays d2 anymore. It’s all bots now.”)
On that matter at least you know all those people in classic are players and half of them ain’t bots. And you know 99% of those classic players are sticking to diablo 2 and not running off to other games.

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I suppose you want elite items, rune words, and stackable runes on classic too.

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They can barely be bothered to update stuff for the majority population playing on ladder exp, what makes anyone think their d2r project managers would approve any significant updates to satisfy the 14 people playing classic… yes I’m being sardonic about the 14, but my point stands…

The biggest complaint is about shared stash. I like non exp, I play on rare occasions butnI personally don’t care too much about having it… your normal inventory feels so free and large without ever having to worry about charms and plus with a more limited range of items to drop, much harder to collect trash.

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The only things D2R Classic needs is the shared stash and for Azurewraith Crystal Sword to return. None of those other changes are good for classic as they completely change the game. Yes, legacy classic does have socketed uniques on NL due to a past exploit but keep bugged items out of D2R please.

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…and Sunder Charms, Terror Zones and brand new Runewords didn’t completely change the game right? :saluting_face:

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Yes, but we’re not talking about expansion. I don’t want another 1.10 like patch for classic.

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“I suppose you want elite items, rune words, and stackable runes on classic too.”

Now where on that list of 10 were ANY of those things mentioned at all? Instead of being a dick, how about actually reading OR playing Classic yourself to experience it. Everything listed is strictly quality of life improvements for Classic. We were never given a reason why Terror zones feature was excluded from classic, seeing as it’s obviously brand new it means they had enough time to include it. Same with shared stash.

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Terror Zones weren’t given to classic because they think we’re purists. Though I’m glad they didn’t because it would make leveling to 99 a joke in classic.

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We’re talking about D2R in general. The game itself was changed from it’s release, now the issue is why the preferential treatment for HALF the game (expansion) and not Classic as well. You can’t say you want to keep the game (D2R) pure, when you’re literally including new items and features to one half of it. Even if they were to try an excuse for why they didnt do shared stash as they didnt have enough time before release; what would be it’s excuse now 2 years later + release of new stuff and Terror zones. This half assed treatment of the game has to stop, there’s no reasoning behind it.

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Classic got every new feature except shared stash and terror zones. I’m not saying I don’t want any changes. I’m saying I don’t want changes that fundamentally change the game. For example, Terror Zones would completely change how people level up and make it super fast. Adding a shared stash would simply eliminate the need for you to drop items on the ground to put them on a mule character. One changes the game, the other is just convenience. Most of what you suggested would completely change classic and make it more like expansion. I want to keep what is left of classic. 1.10 did enough damage as it is.

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How can you be happy about Terror zones being excluded? That makes no sense. Expansion being given that on top of already having baal runs (much higher experience given) is where the joke comes in. Not to mention Blizz puts all player chars in Xpac by default when you first make the char; so you literally have to go back and select Classic. Hence why Xpac tends to have alot more people on it from off the bat. So players 8 is alot easier to achieve in Expansion.

Classic is where that feature is needed way more than expansion. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s much harder to get a 8 player game. Why should legit players have to resort to multi loading instead of being given 2 features that were given brand new to expansion? Shared stash and Terror Zones should have been D2R game wide, not half the game and certainly not on the half that needed it the least bit (expansion) Expansion already had a bigger stash in the original but now D2R expanded that stash THEN gave the shared stash tabs feature. This is outright bullsh!t man, idk how anyone can try justifying this. Either keep ALL of D2R “pure” or not at all. Blizz needs to keep that same energy for Classic, not just expansion

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The issue with getting 8 players is due to a small player base. Having terror zones isn’t going to change that. It’s the same reason it would be dumb to have a /players command online. There are players, you just need to find them. I just did a set of 50 CS with 7 other players a few hours ago. With terror zones, you can get a 99 in a week. That’s why I don’t want them. What I would want is to change exp gain to how it worked in 1.09. It was still very hard to get a 99 in classic but it was very much achievable. If you want people to play classic, you have to create an environment that has an appeal over expansion. The more content you put in from expansion, the less appealing it is to drop and come play classic. The most frequent post I see from expansion players who tried to play classic is along the lines of “why does classic have synergies?” They want to try the game as it originally was, not a nerfed version of expansion. That’s why I feel QOL is good but making big changes to how the game is played is not.

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No terror zones dont completely change the game. It makes it to where diablo isnt the only thing worth farming.

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You think this community values facts or that they’re willing to acknowledge contradictions? You must be new here.

Basically, given change X, you lifers decide whether X completely changes the game as if your opinion even matters. In truth, no change I have seen actually qualifies as changing the whole game. If all the areas in the game were changed to emerald forests inhabited by fluffy bunnies and unicorns, that would change the whole game.

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No, let’s not kid ourselves; Terror Zones in Classic will not have a negative impact on the game and it would make more sense than having to worry about needing 8 players in a game. If you saw any posts from expansion players asking about synergies then they’re obviously new (did not play D2 (2001 - 2013). Which brings us to why we’re here needing the QoL changes; because obviously whoever is in charge developer wise did not play Classic back then either. I’ll break down this down further since many current players seem not to know this. Maybe even the new developers need to know & hear this as well.

To understand this let’s get this out the way first - Classic vs Expansion (Xpac) have many changes between them ASIDE from runes, zones, elite uniques and sets. Mercs, weapon swaps, the way FHR works and Breakpoints (FHR, IAS, FCR). They reduced it in Xpac (and skill damages) due to the available new items (charms) and increased values on elite items and runewords. If they kept it the same as Classic it would have made people way more overpowered so they scaled it down.

  1. Experience (Xp) - Instead of scaling down xp in Xpac to have Baal runs = to Classic Diablo CS runs, Blizz kept it the same from Classic to Xpac but with Baal runs being nearly tripled what xp was given from a Diablo CS in Classic.
  • This was proven when many many people used the Act 5 hack to do Baal runs and were able to reach mid to higher 90’s in less time than CS runs.* Newer people obviously won’t know this fact. With the scales already being improper; now they added Terror Zones which wasn’t needed in Xpac but more so Classic instead.
  1. FHR - Somewhere between 1.06 to 1.08 Blizz made lots of unnecessary changes such as removing Barbarian Skills from spawning on rare polearms, removed Orange & Blue colored rare helms, reduced resistance from prismatic + stacked on rare rings and amulets and most importantly reduced FHR rolls spawned on helms and boots (20% max old value) down to 10%. While this made sense to do in Xpac, the problem is they implemented the nerf into the core game (Classic) instead of separating the 2.

*This is why, a) the old duped helms and boots were sought after in Classic. b) the old duped rings and boots were sought after in Xpac, causing players to constantly convert items from Classic to Xpac due to the scaled / nerfed values. Xpac has different spawn values on rares added to the pools which makes Classic more likely to get triple resists, due to not having the random Xpac crap mods added i.e. %chance to cast w/e on hit / level.

  1. Mercenary & Char Weapon Swap features - It can be argued that Blizz simply ran out of time from the original release date of D2 to LoD release date; to implement the “basics” of those needed. (This was way before the current age of DLC where developers put out incomplete games and make players download them later.) Classic back then and Classic now both share this same issue. D2R was & is the chance to correct it.

*Without this problem being changed it’s 100% waste of time for Classic players to do certain quests, which reward you with a mercenary since they literally disappear if you switch acts and if they die you can’t resurrect them nor can you get a Merc who’s level scales with yours (despite this RECENT change that seemed to apply to Expansion only, yet again). Classic players tend to skip Merc quests as well as Hellforge quest in act 4 because who needs smaller gems when you get those from literally anywhere in hell. Even perfect gems have no use without SOJ’s dropping to be able to socket items.

#4) Socketed items & uniques - This is another thing that can be argued / chalked up to the original release dates between D2 and LoD. As such, it also stands to reason that D2R should have corrected this from the core game (Classic) to allow uniques to be socketed.

*Another fact that is unknown to many newer players - Similar to how those 2 runewords were in the game but not enabled to use, within the game’s coding it’s possible to have 2x socketed rare items; but this was a disabled feature. Older players realized this messing with the item editors back in the day. The item editors only worked within the rules of the game and would NOT work if it weren’t code legal. For example if you wanted to create your own item on a Classic char with insane mods from Expansion; then it would say “missing string” on the item and in most cases not be able to be created. You couldn’t use the item or that character if you equipped it with such item in the editor.

  1. Cube recipes - RECENTLY there were brand new recipes added to Expansion only, to upgrade the base of set items. While cool in very very few instances; it was pointless since 98% of sets are ignored in Xpac in favor of runewords and some elite uniques. D2R should have made the recipes involve gems instead of runes, that way it makes Classic players have reason to bother with gems and the Hellforge quest. In Classic, set items would allow for more char build customization if the bases were able to be upgraded. For example, Isenhart set is considered trash due to not having enough mods / damages to justify it’s slots used. However if the bases were able to be upgraded to exceptional it could be used past act 1 normal up to maybe act mid act 3 normal. Arctic and Death sets while pretty good initially, have the lowest possible bases and if allowed upgrades would be quite useful to many people. Nobody in Nightmare or Hell will be using a 2 rowed / 8 slot belt in place of a 4 rowed / 12 slot belt.

*For anyone with the dumb response of “wanting expansion sets and uniques in Classic”, read carefully as this is NOT the case. On this list the only thing even remotely close is asking for essences and that’s for tokens. (Why tokens were made to be unlimited respecs in Expansion only vs the 3 given in Classic is another senseless thing). Essences were NOT part of the original game nor LoD release. Those didn’t come until far later on after the game’s popular run died out. 1.10 was pretty much the last bit of D2’s strong lifespan. 1.11 - 1.13 were only the few of us left that bothered to still play. By the time 1.13 came out and they gave us the initial Akara respecs, most people had already moved on to play other games. Many people weren’t even aware of Blizz’s tease on 1.13c patch teasing us with some “mystery” and no it’s not the pandemonium event; Blizz still hasn’t said to this day. It’s rumored to be Uber Mephisto walking around like Uber Diablo but that hasn’t been proven yet, nor been seen in Expansion nor Classic.

In conclusion, this post is not only justifying why those 10 changes listed are needed but also serves as a small history lesson to all players and developers who were blissfully unaware of it all. Literally all 10 things are the list are well within the game’s program so there’s no excuse needed about “extra resources” vs past 3 patches of D2R there’s been new content for Expansion. Take off the blinders and stop the BS for a sec. Stop trying to say Classic needs to be “pure” when this in general is D2R. Anyone wanting “pure” talk can go play D2 (2001) & LoD and NOT D2R (2021). This game is D2R as a whole, which is new with quality of life upgrades. IF this list of quality of life changes is too much for people to understand then ask yourselves why is Expansion getting all this new stuff instead of simply new graphics. D2R could have been new graphics and NOTHING else at all. No shared stash, no new runewords, no sunder charms, etc. BTW why do we STILL have to manually break pots and jars while our projectiles do not??