Whenever I create a game, some much more experienced players join and there is no way to filter to find people at your experience level, and I don’t mean the ingame-level.
Usually, the new players in your group then procede to bulldoze through the level and boss and you have run behind them to even keep up.
Then you kill the boss - together is optional. And then the new player grabs all the loot and you get f* all. Then you try to watch the story sequence while the other player just proceeds to the next area and bulldozes down every quest without you.
I am sorry, but who is having fun with this? Why is there no separate loot for everyone?
Dunno how you feel about this, but playing like this makes me sad. What’s the point of playing together if you don’t share any loot or experience?
I’m thinking about refunding the game after this. Does anybody know what the refund policy is regarding this?
Unlimited Teleport for all classes, shared loot and power creep runewords destroyed every cooperative aspect of this game.
It would be easy to fix, but blizzard doesn’t want to invest into this game anymore.
There is only a few ways to deal with these issues:
-Play solo or with friends.
-Set a level cap AND a players cap (±10 levels, 3 or 5 players for example). This will keep SOME ninja players from joining.
-Make games with “no tele” or “no rush” title. SOMETIMES players will stick to your wishes. But don’t count on it. The more players joining, the higher the chance someone will do his own thing. See point 2.
-Play Nonladder. Folks are a bit more relaxed there.
You’re playing when the ladder season is about to end, why don’t you try out first day of ladder starting at the beginning of December? Now everyone will be forced to start from zero with you and so there should be plenty of people to progress with. If you want a guarantee, the majority of players who are really into d2r will create private groups before the ladder starts, you will find many people on these forums close to the start date looking for a team, otherwise find d2r communities in discord or you can find plenty of people over at d2jsp.
Think you should beat d2r by yourself first so whether offline or just private online games, think you would best be served trying to beat the game on your own and then after killing baal 3 x, go join pubs
Hey there, friend! Hope we can help you out here on the forums. Sounds like you might be newer, so I want to welcome you and see where we can support or help you out.
I agree with Doom’s post above me. If you are very new to the game, it would probably be best to experience a playthrough on your own pace solo, or with some people you know. This gives you the time to really explore and learn things at your pace and is ultimately such a fun experience if you let go of what you think the experience should be. This also gets you at least familiar with the game so you can have a better chance if you do join parties.
If you need any advice on some character builds, I’m happy to share my knowledge, as I’m sure others here would as well. I’ve played since original D2 launch, and can weigh in on all character classes.
One thing to keep in mind, is this game is supposed to actually be hard. And when you are new, it definitely is. There is an unforgiving element of the game that is treasured by the fan base, and separates this game from so many other copy cats. One of those elements is the shared loot for everyone. If you want to make a game with other players to help you, then you have to sacrifice that they will also have dibs on the loot. You have to weigh your choices on what you value most. Sometimes people just want to get the experience quickly with a group, and enjoy the exhilaration that comes with a good item dropping and trying to race to it.
For your specific issue of no personal loot - You also have to take into consideration that that gg item might never have even dropped in the first place without the group you’re playing with since the drops are increased with extra players. I see a lot of people get mad about the loot being shared in parties, but never acknowledge that part.
i dont think it would get better at a ladder start, idk a good time, you really just need a good person.
there are really 3 types of people
the new players who want to experience the game without rushing
the players who have played for years who want to get to act 5 hell asap, so they can find items with good trade value
the players who have played for years and aren’t in a rush to do get to act 5 hell, and just want to experience it at a normal pace again
id say the vast VAST majority of players are type 2
id say mid season about 2-3 weeks in is the best chance to find type 3 players
as even they do like to lock on good prices on jsp st the start of the season so they can then gear thier characters
but playing with type 1 and 3 is the most fun for sure
im definitely type 3, but sometimes i go type 2
I mean this is the kind of game were you are stepping into someone people have 2 decades of experience with. I’d honestly recommends starting in single player and learning how to play the game before you judge it too harshly. I mean there are basically two ways to play, fast or solo.
That said if you don’t like going fast, (and as a new player you’re going to be a bit lost) there game can be a LOT of fun solo as well. Play through Hell Baal a few times on different classes to get a feel for the game. Read up on farming methods, TZs, Runewords etc. Heck feel free to ask questions on here.
To address a couple of your issues things like Baal/Chaos runs are where you’ll group xp if you build can’t keep up in a TZ. Farming is generally done solo, or with a strong build people split up for the player count bonus to loot.
If you want a “coop” experience you sort of need to either make friends, or bring your own friends into the game.
Best way to think of public games is everyone is your frienemy. It’s competitive coop. Heck you can even go hostile and start killing lol. They aren’t your friends, they are your business partners.
Wait, what is ladder?
I just created an online character, because I wanted to play D2:R with others…
Does this mean my character will stop existing after a certain time, because of a “season”?
That’s awful…
And no, I don’t want to compete with others… I just want to enjoy my weekend. I don’t necessarily need to hear the story again, although the new visuals are nice. I played the original D2 back in the days.
I couldn’t enjoy public multiplayer either and yes Teleport is a big issue here. Turned the game from cooperation to afking in town waiting for Sorc to skip entire maps and open portal for the rest. Only had fun when played old good lan party style with a friend.
There are both ladder and non-ladder (nl) characters. When a ladder season ends, all ladder chars become nl and can still be played.
So why create a L char? Out of the many many items which can be found or created in the game, there are a very few, which can be gotten only on ladder. And in the original game, monster in L were actually a bit more dangerous / had more life.
Plus there is the so-called ladder for seasonal characters - don’t worry about that in the beginning.
(on a site-note: there are two game modes which can be played: Hardcore (HC), where characters which die stay dead and unplayable (permadeath) and the so called softcore (sc) where you resurrect in town when you die. In higher difficulties you also lose a bit of experience when you die, but not in normal mode.)
Since the original game is now 24 years old, many players have done everything over and over and over again (there have been 34 seasons in original d2, d2r had 8). So many players rush thru the game like mad(wo)men since normal and even nightmare difficulty are a mere distraction from the ‘real’ game, the highest difficulty.
So if you want to experience things in peace and quiet, either create password protected games or find likeminded people, e.g. on discord.
Good news is at ladder starts people end up back at square 1 together. It’s so damn fun. It comes only a couple times of year so make sure to mark the date!
I mean to be fair everyone can get TP at level 24 Bit limited, and expensive on gold, but I mean it’s still damn helpful. Shopping a Tp staff at 23 is the first thing I do on every non sorc pretty much. Also if you got enough gold stashed away, it’s not even that bad to use it on a sorc 2pre insight just because tp is so mana hungry with without insight.
That said, yeah for the 1-dead hell baal sorc is pretty quick about it.
D2 is a low skill ceiling, decades old, and solved aRPG… so in multiplayer even ‘bads’ are going to rush through the content. It’s also the end of season, so gear is ubiquitous which makes the story line trivial to complete.
With D2 (or any other game) multiplayer, if you want to go through and see all the content you’re going to need to coordinate a team of like-minded players. The general population of public games’ attitude is either ‘get it done as quickly as possible’ or ‘use this game’s players as farming fodder’ because of how player count affects item drops.
Find other noobs, or explicitly state in your game name ‘walk’, ‘slowly’, ‘complete’, ‘noob’, etc. Keep in mind there is no shortage of trolls across all of BNET who enjoy ruining games for others.
Finally, expect people to be going faster and not slower when the ladder resets. They will have worse gear, but the attitude will almost certainly be ‘complete this asap’.
ive played diablo 2 since 2001 and when the season restarts i play like a new guy. i know too much information to be truly new so have a lot of the efficiencies but i avoid rushes and tricks and usually walk the game with a little hand hold to the new guys who don’t know how khalims flail works or whatever.
i think there are significant subgroups other than what you’re implying. even mediocre guys who just do consistent baal/chaos runs at a scheduled times or something. not min/maxing exp every second but just regular dudes.
there is a lot to catch up on from a game that has been redesigned like 5 times over two decades but it is far less daunting than something like world of warcraft.
in reality diablo 2 boils down to:
get strong enough to kill andariel in hell
get strong enough to kill mephisto in hell
get strong enough to not die in chaos
get strong enough to not die at baal’s minions
get strong enough to have 200 magic find and not die from anything
kill a handful of bosses as fast as possible to gamble the loot game
a lot of the old school diablo 2 “cheats” had been fixed such as rushing act 3 or sitting near the portal for cows or iron maiden in chaos. the game corridors you about as efficiently as any has ever.
and i’ve played like 5 of the seasons and there are always casual players to 8p with in the early days who are still figuring things out or trying to recapture their memory of 2003. it’s a good game to be a newbie at.
If you’re new to D2, it can be rough since the game doesn’t hold your hand and the internet was in its infancy when D2 was made. Since then, multiple guides/videos have been posted but if you truly want to have a multiplayer experience, it’s best to make a few friends who aren’t in a rush at Ladder start to reach Act 5 Hell ASAP. I recommend looking for a group to join. Many clans/guilds exist, all of whom have Discord servers and the like for group play. Some of these clans/guilds actively advertise/recruit on here so consider giving one a look.
Just be aware that when walking the game, loot is shared and that certain quests are best saved for another day. These include Act 1 Quest 4 since Countess quest drop can yield insane luck with respect to runes she can yield, especially if you do so while it’s Terrorized. Repeating her is a great source for low to mid runes, although you can luck into a Hi rune or two, especially if Terrorized. Act 4 Quest 2 is also typically saved since each player in the party will want their own shot at the Rune roulette wheel plus Gems that spawn from Hellforge. Not sure if River being Terrorized affects outcome though. Outside of that, quest at your leisure.
This is a topic about a NEW guy who’s also NEW to the forum who could use some pointers. Not a in-depth scientific treatise targeted at folks who played for 20+ years.
But if you really wanna derail things, you forgot Duriel and Diablo on Normal (can be quite challening for “normal” players playing “normally”) and the Ancients (any diff). ;-p
this is how you (and many, and also myself) play it. Others are finished after killing Baal on Hell.
Some also want to do UberTristram, which you omitted.
And there is PvP …
I agree, this sucks. Sometimes I wanna chillax and play slowly on an off-meta build, but people join in and start rushing ahead with their optimized stuff. But unfortuantely you cannot defeat metagame in any game, especially in a non-competitive game. If you have an idea, it’d be interesting to read.
Funny thing, Grubby (the Warcraft 3 player) just told basically exactly the same thing about multiplayer of WoW retail in a YT video.
Yeah, it sucks, but apart from playing alone or with friends there’s no way around it. You can’t force people to watch cinematics with you.
But it’s actually the opposite. You DO share loot and experience. More people around = more loot drops (every person in the same area as you adds more loot, and every 2 people in your game outside your area add more loot for everyone).
Don’t be sad about people grabbing loot quickly, because in D2 you repeat the runs, and sometimes you’ll grab good stuff off them too.
i’ve been playing d2 since release almost, i might have missed the first month or two cuz i was 11 and didn’t know it was out yet.
but i STILL haven’t watched the cinematics. lol.
but if I joined game with you, i wouldn’t start killing everything without you, i’d wait til you’re done and continue on with you, some people have no manners.
In my experience playing on PC and Xbox currently, and since original release on pc, there is actually a big community of people who love to help noobs in a non rush fashion. I recommend a play through solo on all difficulties so you understand what the different affixes and prefixes do, and how monster resistance and immunities work. Make one of every character as well, I think you can have something like 30 characters. Just be patient and when you find someone helpful friend them and they’ll always hop in your games and help with bosse fights, upping player counts and they’ll often give you sweet starter gear that you wouldn’t be able to loot on your own until later stages of the game when said items become more or less useless for you anyway. Then you find yourself passing those items down the line to the next guy.
You most definitely shouldn’t start there but Hardcore mode has the best people, not a lot of people but the best. It’s not for the faint of heart.
Bit limited, and expensive on gold, but I mean it’s still damn helpful. Shopping a Tp staff at 23 is the first thing I do on every non sorc pretty much. Also if you got enough gold stashed away, it’s not even that bad to use it on a sorc 2pre insight just because tp is so mana hungry with without insight.