So, as we have seen, a month and some change has passed since Diablo 2 Resurrected has launched and people are still vocalizing their discontent with the game for a myriad of reasons - a lot of which are still things that do not need any modifying or outright removal.
I’ll preface this with a congratulatory statement on behalf of the development team. The game is wonderful and I am happy to have been alive for it. While the launch was bumpy, I have still been able to enjoy the game quite thoroughly and have rekindled my faith in team based/cooperative play - and that may seem contrary to some because of the nature of Diablo 2’s endgame.
Now, every game is not without its shortcomings, and I’m fully aware there are more than enough threads highlighting a lot of what I am going to list off everything relevant to this post. A lot of these I’m sure are going to be corrected in future upcoming patches, and hopefully I can shine some light on the topic points here, but here we go.
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Player Login Queue - It’s artificial and doesn’t represent any quantifiable level of players actually logged in trying to log into the game, designed to levy the player capacity towards the server’s ability to process and maintain a specific load at any point in time, and will for certain be changed in the future.
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Lobby Rate Limiting - Probably the least necessary feature towards the end that the developers are trying to achieve but it is also the only solution currently viable to keep the servers from exploding again…
I’m sure the original 30 second rate limit will be more than enough in the future, as I was able to comfortably do dedicated Pindle runs with this - primarily due in part to loading screens taking up 4-6 seconds of initial load, and 1-2 seconds to load Nihlathak’s Temple, and then the additional 2-3 seconds when leaving the game.
- Depreciated Backend Functionality - This one pertains to the infamous “Failed to create, wrong name, doesn’t exist, same name” lockout, wherein if you did any of those, you’d have to wait the applied Rate Limited game lockout time before you can attempt another join or create.
Unfortunate as this may be, it is not an easy fixer up. This one will require modifications to the logic the servers go by for the coding that Battle.net 1.0 used - likely an entire overhaul - something that the developers are currently working on.
- Game Lobby List Refresh - As many of us have vocally spoke up about, this is a supremely unneeded feature that is reminiscent of internet gaming days long gone.
I’m sure they felt this wasn’t going to harm the experience much but to their benefit, they weren’t expecting the servers to annihilate themselves they way they have been. Hopefully this will be removed and allow users to refresh the list on their own - when that Refresh button actually works. Furthermore… I am suggesting and hoping that we be given some additional features to alleviate the frustration of the lobby list… such as;
1: Sort by game type - Boss Runs, Boss NAME Runs, Act Runs, World Run, MF Runs, Rushes etc.
2: Improve lobby name and description character limit.
3: Increase the rate at which lobby details load (I’m aware this is a Battle.net 1.0 thing and likely will change with the next upcoming patch/s)
4: MUCH larger list of current games.
5: Auto snuffing of old lobbies (also something I’m sure will change in the future… Nothing more frustrating than seeing 2 day old lobbies)
- Client Crashes - This one is a very messy bucket of worms and everyone’s mileage will vary but for the most part, it seems as if they’ve been hard at work to stabilize the client so that it isn’t crashing 3-4 times an hour.
I say this is a problem because not everyone runs on the same hardware so it’s going to be a while before they snuff out every potential variable.
- Frame Rate Instability - The biggest problem the game has at the moment. Imagine you’re running/teleporting around a rather monster infested area, to suddenly go from 60 FPS to… 20-30. It is a very jarring experience and it also quickly mucks up your ability to make split second decisions, never mind also lags your motor response to reacting to a pack of elite monsters spewing Charged Bolts at you because your merc’s Holy Freeze aura decided it wanted to be relevant and help you out.
Countless times I have died, frustratingly so, because of my frame rate dipping out to infinity and beyond. I am praying for the swift and accurate correction of the optimization of this game, for mine and everyone else’s sake, as this is the make it or break it for me. I won’t be quitting over it, but it is definitely coming to make me consider playing less in the near future as the experience is really bad when you’re trying to do World MF runs, PVP or PKing.
- Walk and Run/Teleporting Not Reacting to Dead-end Walls - This one is a very big personal complaint for me. Never have I been able to get more frustrated playing this game than when I’m trying to avoid certain death and teleport, or simply trying to run in a general direction, while my cursor is over a dead-end wall (walls with nothing but empty impassable world behind it) and suddenly my character just stops, period.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I’m pretty sure Diablo 2 LOD did not function this way. The way I remember it, your character would just aimlessly move towards that wall until you stopped clicking. As for Teleport, your character would aimlessly teleporting side to side at the wall in attempt to go where you’re pointing. If this wasn’t the way D2LOD worked, it absolutely should be because it is a jarring and frustrating user experience for your character to simply stop and have no feedback as to why.
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Chat - Very simple issue… Chat simply doesn’t work.
You go from being inGAMEchat… then someone suddenly whispers (sending a direct message) to you and now you’re inUSER NAME HEREchat… and you don’t realize it when you’re busy curbstomping monsters.
Now you’re sitting here wondering why chat is so quiet, an hour later. You missed everything, and then notice when you open the chat dialogue… there’s blue text, and you switch back to GAME chat… or you’re like me initially and wasn’t sure how to change back because it wasn’t readily obvious and now you wanna destroy the world. 
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Chat Part2 - Channels rapidly and randomly joining/leaving.
Not sure what the deal is here. It’s almost as if my game is infected with paranormal activity…
Halloween antics aside, not sure if this is a client or server bug. - Chat Part3 - Chatbox in-game is VERY intrusive.
Now let me explain here real quick as they intrude on the same territory as the Walk/Run and Teleport issue I highlighted… Often times when the chat box has activated (users actively talking, or NPC dialogue pops up), the Chat Box becomes an active and interactable object. This is a problem because it then takes priority over the cursor’s ability to use spells or the ability to click in that general area and this ultimately means you cannot do anything game related behind that Chat Box until it has timed out… which is something like 10 seconds.
My suggestion is to simply allow the chat box to be hidden, with a "quest “!” "to indicate when you’ve got messages. shrug
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Interface lockout - I’m really not sure how this one is triggered but every once in a while you will become unable to click on anything or press any keybindings and be forced to force your game closed.
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Cow Portal - Being able to be opened outside of town, creating “UNKNOWN AREA” portal or whatever it renames to, rendering the Cow Portal useless.
It’s of particular concern because several games I’ve seen griefers run to Tristram in the guise that they’re going to open the portal for the game, and ultimately ruin the run by purposefully spawning it outside of town.
- Stat Allocation via Shift + Click - Sadly, fallen victim to this on several occasions. I’m unaware at this point if this was a feature in D2LOD but it has claimed 2 of my respecs so far… as in most mods I played, I’d use Shift or Ctrl while clicking to allocate 5-10 stat points at a time.
I respectfully request that this be removed or reduced to 5-10 points per click. Every point being allocated is a little excessive and I’m sure we all have at least the dexterity (hah, i made a joke, look at me) to click those buttons 30-50 times instead.
Anyway, that is all I have for now. Thank you for joining me on my ted talk, etc?
dons spam hardhat
