Major endgame rework to patch 2.5 and onwards

General Discussion
1

GENERAL

  • Rework the resistance of all bosses, from elite to superboss, so that infinity, lower resist wand and items with chance to cast level 12 lower resist can break all relevant immunity. This will significantly buff fire builds, which is currently the weakest compared to cold builds pre-infinity and lightning builds post-infinity. Well, maybe exclude cold immunity in this rework because blizzard sorc is already freaking strong from early to late game, shouldn’t give more advantage to it.

ENDGAME ACTIVITIES AND TELEPORT BALANCING

  • A new item dropped only from monsters in area level 85, called Entrance of Anguish/Hatred/Destruction (maybe Pain too). This item is in the shape of a key. It has a small but not too small chance to drop. The formula using this item is similar to secret cow: key + tome of town portal. Can be used anywhere. When activated, the respective key will open a portal to the entrance of Catacomb Level 4, Durance Level 3, Throne of Destruction.
  • Move the waypoint of cold plains in Act 1 from entrance of the cold plains, to near entrance of the burial grounds. Additionally, change burial grounds and the crypt to level 85. This gives reason to do the quest, and good access to the 1st level 85 area in Hell. By the way, make the cave level 85 area also. This area feels being left out, compared to all other caves/dungeons that have been upgraded to level 85 areas in 2.4.
  • Move both the waypoint of stony field and the tristram entrance to be next to the road (but no need to be near each other). Make tristram level 85 area. This area has very good mob density, but they move slow enough that even the weak chars doing the quest to save Cain and get the wirt’s leg are not much affected anyway.
  • Move darkwood waypoint, black marsh waypoint, forgotten tower to be next to the road (again, the forgotten tower doesn’t need to be near the waypoint).
  • Move stony tomb to near the entrance of dry hills (at most 2 screens away). Similarly, move ancient tunnels to max 2 screens away from the waypoint of lost city.
  • Make halls of the dead (all 3 levels) level 85 area and spawn no further than 2 screens away from dry hills waypoint. Give this location a reason for you to visit after normal difficulty.
  • Make all the fake tombs in canyon of the magi level 85 areas. Don’t touch the true tomb.
  • Except ruined fane and disused reliquary which already have fixed locations regardless of map seeds (can easily reach by moving back from travincal waypoint), the other 4 level 85 areas in upper kurast and kurast bazaar should be spawn no further than 2 screens away from their respective waypoints.
  • Similarly, abbadon, pit of acheron, internal pit red portals should be no further than 2 screens away from their respective waypoints.
  • Drifter cavern and icy cellar should always be at the next corner clockwise from their respective waypoints.
  • In fact, since river of flame and chaos sanctuary are already level 85 areas, and compulsory to pass through, it makes much more sense that the whole act 5 should be level 85 as well. It’s not very logical to downgrade area levels after the end of act 4. If your char is strong enough to survive the level 85 mobs in end of act 4, no reason you can’t do the same with the whole act 5.

THE LOGICS BEHIND

  • Rebalancing the damage types, so that fire damage is in better relative position unlike now (worst among the 3 elements)
  • More area level 85 to enjoy games and reduce boredom. More areas will be accessible to each damage types. No need to log out and in so often anymore, thus reducing the server load.
  • Since the level 85 areas and the superboss (andariel, mephisto, baal) are more accessible even to non-sorc classes, it will boost the diversity of builds in the ladder. You have to admit that sorc has the most advantage when a good farming spot needs countless of teleports to reach. By making the farming spots less random, easier to reach even without teleport, the advantage of playing a sorc early ladder is not that huge anymore compared to other classes.
  • Last but not least, most of these suggestions are a way to nerf teleport without actually touching the skill teleport itself. Just like when a country wants to promote public transport (non-teleport), there are 2 ways of doing it: 1/ making public transport more convenient to everyone, or 2/ making personal transport (teleport) more troublesome. I prefer number 1/. Many threads in this forum have been created to suggest how to nerf teleport, making it troublesome and cumbersome to use. But here I choose a different approach that doesn’t touch the skill teleport, but making it less mandatory in an indirect manner, while making builds without teleport more convenient to farm.

Opinions and discussions are welcome.

8 Likes
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When do you launch your mod with all of this content on it?

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Where is the free Pizza for every player?

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Let’s nerf teleport without actually nerfing teleport, by making the alternative to teleport better. We need better public transport, not worse personal transport.

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Some of these are pretty good, I’d like to see them FINISH a few of the classes though too. I’ll try to go through them.

Necro has a few build options that NEVER had a chance to really exist. Golems need another look, and improvements so they can be a viable option as a specialization with more leaning into their own individual bonuses. Blood needs to add more survivability to the necro for example through its heal, clay needs to be a jack of all trades, fire golem should be a damage dealing powerhouse, which leaves iron. Iron deserves its own section.

Iron golem: Iron golem allows for a level of customization for a golem specialist that should be amazing. It should be a possible consideration that you can decide to be a golem specialist and max your golem skills and make an iron golem out of the best item you can, and that should be effective even lategame. Iron should be a permanent powerhouse if you are wealthy enough to make it from something powerful, and should only die if IT dies, not if YOU die, not if theres a bug and it gets out of range, not if you leave the game. This would allow the iron to be customizable in role and people to use really expensive, even socketed unique or runeword items without worrying and have it be a permanent sacrifice. You could also set it up so you basically socket the golem with the item and can revive it just by resummoning it, but you cant get the item back, but it kinda takes the fear of loss away a little too much. Its defense should scale with the weapon used, or its weapon damage should scale with the defense of a shield used, but a weapon iron golem should be more damaging and a shield should have less damage but be more survivable and tanky. Also, summoning another golem shouldnt delete iron golem. Either have them be a separate group, and able to have one iron and one of the others, or set it up so resummoning the iron brings back out your last created iron like a pokemon so you can switch to your powerhouse if you need him but not lose him just because you want to use something else “for now”

Also…the skeleton mages, they NEVER properly finished skelly mages. They should be an option as a proper damage source, just like the skeleton warriors or golems are an option as a tank.
Summoner needs OPTIONS for how he wants to build out his army. Do you go with a stronger individual golem or two maxxed out, or do you go with weaker individuals but WAY more OF them as a swarm tank? Perhaps golems could be set up so that you would have enough points to make either golems strong, or skellys strong, but not enough points for BOTH to really be maxxed and still have the curses or corpse explosions needed to make them effective. Just… theres a lot of unused skills in the game basically that REALLY need buffing to become viable options, but must be done carefully so that they dont become the new META.

The curse tree could be used as synergies to boost golems, bone spells, or even potentially add a melee variant daggernecro using poison dagger but we would need the bone shielding to work better and a way to build for survivability because they’re JUST too squishy for it to work. It SHOULD be possible since the poison dagger skill is BASICALLY useless except to add damage to other skills.

Amazons… I’ve heard they’re doing pretty well, I haven’t gotten a chance to try the changes yet, but i KNOW Javazon is strong, I do believe there are still a lot of skills that could use buffing as viable options. Maybe a poisonzon should be doable, physical skills SHOULD trigger special bows too…like bows that make your arrows explode. There’s no reason if you’re shooting a multishot or strafe as a skilled archer out of a bow that magically makes your arrows explode that you shouldn’t have just shot a swarm of exploding arrows. It’d be hella sick and would give a lot of options for gear that didnt exist before… or we can be stuck with a single META item at the top and nobody using anything else like basically every class currently

Survivability is gonna be an issue in later stages with the spearzon. I don’t know if you need itemization or what but just…take a look at it and make sure its solid because spearzon should be possible both in 2h and 1h/shield versions. I don’t know the class well enough to make specific suggestions.

Items are an issue right now. Time should be put into adding ways and interactions for items to interact with different classes attack skills, and for other items to be more viable than just the one or two META picks at the top… There also are survivability issues with a few classes…for example, the martial arts assassin who I’ll get to soon. There’s items like the wolfhowl helmet that REALLY need to allow a barbarian to use his OWN frenzy skills while transformed, rather than the few points the helmet gives in wolf frenzy, so a niche build could exist around it. it’d add a WHOLE other playthrough of the game for someone with just one item and a little tweak to what skills can be used transformed. Maybe let him leap too… just better judgment stuff, if it seems logical that a werewolf could do it, a barbarian werewolf should DEFINITELY be able to.
Singerbarb is great, it’d be fun to have berzerker barb be more interesting than just a niche endgame farming build with a single set of items it uses… and maybe we could have like…a leap attack barb? Jump from enemy to enemy tearing at their faces? Just an idea, currently leap attack is pretty pointless and you could probably just get rid of it. Oh… but for thrower barb, frenzy stacks need to build when using doublethrow and having the frenzy skill too. let the synergy happen so you don’t have to get close and thrower barb will be perfect and viable in hell. As it stands he has to build as a sort of hybrid melee or need absolutely PERFECT gear and it just makes him not really great at anything even with the best stuff.

Martial sin needs a little more tweaking to be perfect, item variety and especially survivability are issues right now, and there needs to be an option for dealing damage in hell mode besides just becoming a kicksin. I don’t think you guys intended us to have to focus ONLY on kicking enemies when you made the tree with all those cool skills and buildups and such, but either theres not enough survivability, or theres not enough damage, on just about every martial arts build when playing endgame areas without the absolute BIS META gear. There’s SO much potential here for customization. Just make sure, like with the other classes, that you need to put a lot of points in to get really good that way you can’t just put one point in everything and stack +skills to be able to do all the charge types maxxed in one finisher. maybe use synergies to allow you to tailor your build to what you want…

Trapsin is good already, maybe blades could be improved a bit more to match in level of effectiveness but have a different playstyle and that’s really what we need in the game. Different playstyles and builds to keep the game interesting and fun.

There’s a lot more that could be said, but really the idea is simple. The TLDR version is that Blizzard should make it so every skill in the game is a skill WORTH having for at least SOME reason. You should be able to customize and choose what skills you want access to, what you want to max out and really be strong in, etc, and if you’re a build that relies on being right up on your enemies you should be able to survive that encounter if you play properly, aggressively enough, and have decent gear for the area you’re in.

I should add that if you need the absolute BEST gear in the game for a build to work that build is underpowered. The auradin for example. They buffed him, and that was good, but then they nerfed him because if you had MAXXED out, extremely expensive gear including multiple runewords he was actually quite strong. Of course he was, that was the POINT of spending the equivalent of 80 dollars of REAL money worth of runes, but that shouldn’t even be needed to be effective. NEVER tune a class so you need the most powerful gear IN a game to get through the game, you should always tune based on average gear in gameplay, and then make the absolute top end gear feel powerful and worthwhile, even overpowered in regular content, and still strong in the top end areas.

Just my 2 cents…as a guy who spent 4 years studying game design and graduated with a Bachelors in it… lol. If Blizzard had a branch in my home area I’d even gladly sign up to work for em on the d2 project and help make the game better…but I’m too decrepit to be moving my life out to CA. Body wouldn’t handle the move real well at this point…ive just taken too much damage.

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I saw a similar post in world of warcraft wrath 2008. I clearly remember how someone who wrote that they have to make heroic 5mans harder, and the bosses harder etc. Remember that many players who wrote that the game is too simple. What blizzard did then I remember, that they only reduced the characters’ dps and raised the monster’s HP vips, the game was difficult again =). I can imagine that they can do the same in D2 ressurected? Best about this is they dont need to add more level 85 areas, =))…

Make ladder for us who wants play with only “Rare items” The game will be harder with out any runewords and set, or unique items =)

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Rework bosses to be boss, millions of hp, 4k+ damage every attack, and better drops!

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what I would like to see it that runes and gems could become stackable. and more bag space so that I don’t have to create mule accounts to store stuff

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Yeah gems should be but not sure about runes.

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  • Rework the resistance of all bosses, from elite to superboss, so that infinity, lower resist wand and items with chance to cast level 12 lower resist can break all relevant immunity. This will significantly buff fire builds, which is currently the weakest compared to cold builds pre-infinity and lightning builds post-infinity. Well, maybe exclude cold immunity in this rework because blizzard sorc is already freaking strong from early to late game, shouldn’t give more advantage to it.

I’d rather have immunity system gonna

By immunity system I mean the monsters that become immune by having more than 100% resistances

Some monsters would still have immunities but only through specials mods, ie: fire enchanted

Effective resistance should be capped at 99%

Overcapped resistance wouldn’t be lost, but rather added back as extra life

This doesn’t make lower resist or infinity worse as they still work the same

ENDGAME ACTIVITIES AND TELEPORT BALANCING

  • A new item dropped only from monsters in area level 85, called Entrance of Anguish/Hatred/Destruction (maybe Pain too). This item is in the shape of a key. It has a small but not too small chance to drop. The formula using this item is similar to secret cow: key + tome of town portal. Can be used anywhere. When activated, the respective key will open a portal to the entrance of Catacomb Level 4, Durance Level 3, Throne of Destruction.

Meh… not a fan of new areas

I’d prefer for current areas to be made interesting first rather than have them even more outshined

D2 is the game where endgame is clearing hell Campaign areas

It would be quite easy to fix them all though

Through king of the hells which makes the game harder the more cleared it is

Adding mlvl/dmg/life/xp/no loot/resist according to the % game cleared

Once this system fixes the endgame, it can be used to have new areas and challenges, but that don’t invalidate campaign areas. Making those new areas and event only possible at certain %clearedinsures that

Stuff like:

  • 25% cleared you can cube a leg+tome+ organs to have Uber cows

  • cube something in harrogath corner at 75% to face Bul Kathos revived by nilatak

  • cube something near the tainted glasses of act 4 at 85% to turn it into a portal that leads to Diablo 1 hell architecture map filled with sucubus and doom knights

  • cube something in town with at least 95% game cleared to turn all remaining monsters into clones of bosses (boss mod)

  • at 99% it Could be a Super Special boss Spawn that drops a special item. For example, Tathamet using the model of Reziarfg http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-reziarfg.shtml

But that’s only a way to revive endgame

There are what’s called real activities

Like:

  • Anya personalize is now transmog

  • Natalya gives you cleansing bounties for areas with empowered monsters with higher density and a boss

  • Pvp point system

  • Move the waypoint of cold plains in Act 1 from entrance of the cold plains, to near entrance of the burial grounds. Additionally, change burial grounds and the crypt to level 85. This gives reason to do the quest, and good access to the 1st level 85 area in Hell. By the way, make the cave level 85 area also. This area feels being left out, compared to all other caves/dungeons that have been upgraded to level 85 areas in 2.4.

Being closer doesn’t give more reasons to do the quest but rather just increase the odds of doing it inadvertidly

Give a reason to do it like “norm Na1q2 grants a rogue merc, nmA1q2 grants an extra one, same for hell one” making you have 3 rogues Merc. Pretty sure people would do the quests

  • Move both the waypoint of stony field and the tristram entrance to be next to the road (but no need to be near each other). Make tristram level 85 area. This area has very good mob density, but they move slow enough that even the weak chars doing the quest to save Cain and get the wirt’s leg are not much affected anyway.
  • Move darkwood waypoint, black marsh waypoint, forgotten tower to be next to the road (again, the forgotten tower doesn’t need to be near the waypoint).
  • Move stony tomb to near the entrance of dry hills (at most 2 screens away). Similarly, move ancient tunnels to max 2 screens away from the waypoint of lost city.
  • Make halls of the dead (all 3 levels) level 85 area and spawn no further than 2 screens away from dry hills waypoint. Give this location a reason for you to visit after normal difficulty.
  • Make all the fake tombs in canyon of the magi level 85 areas. Don’t touch the true tomb.
  • Except ruined fane and disused reliquary which already have fixed locations regardless of map seeds (can easily reach by moving back from travincal waypoint), the other 4 level 85 areas in upper kurast and kurast bazaar should be spawn no further than 2 screens away from their respective waypoints.
  • Similarly, abbadon, pit of acheron, internal pit red portals should be no further than 2 screens away from their respective waypoints.
  • Drifter cavern and icy cellar should always be at the next corner clockwise from their respective waypoints.
  • In fact, since river of flame and chaos sanctuary are already level 85 areas, and compulsory to pass through, it makes much more sense that the whole act 5 should be level 85 as well. It’s not very logical to downgrade area levels after the end of act 4. If your char is strong enough to survive the level 85 mobs in end of act 4, no reason you can’t do the same with the whole act 5

All these are useless If you make the whole game mlvl85 and give an incentive to kill all monsters

People would stop teleporting and just clear all they see

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Overall I like your area 85 and near waypoints suggestions.

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…isnt there a ladder for classic mode? that’d be no runeword and honestly MUCH harder than xpack although there are uniques and set items in that. I’ve actually been having fun messing around in classic mode on regular server just cuz life is weird without runes. Personally I think the absolute highest END of the game needs to have some new, challenging, content, but the reality is some of the classes and intended builds are incapable of dealing with the currently existing content, much less anything new. They need buffs and balancing before we add ANYTHING harder, or at least alongside adding harder stuff for the people who dont want to make a 50th new alt.

The thing is I don’t want us to lose the FEEL of the old game, so all the currently working character builds SHOULD still work normally after changes added in D2R, but there should be MORE possible character builds that can work properly. Thrower barb is a great example of this principle…it’s almost up to scratch and honestly with a little work will be very fun. Just needs the frenzy stacking added to doublethrow. I want the game to still FEEL like it used to, but to have way WAY more possible builds and ways to fight your way through the game, every skill to be a useful skill to have and even MAX for some reason rather than how we have it now where like 80% of skills never get more than 1 point and some never get ANY.

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Not new areas, but a convenient way for non-sorc classes to access to these early ladder farming spots. Of course sorc still has advantage, but the mf convenience gap is closing. At the current state of the game, farming mephisto is mainly done by sorc (99% of the time) 1 month into a ladder, which is not a good thing. Game should not try to make players feel like making a sorc starting ladder is mandatory.

That’s not the main focus, the main focus is to have easier access to level 85 areas: mausoleum (and potentially the crypt). Mausoleum is a go-to spot for many players to farm their 1st monarch, because the mobs move slow and don’t deal that much magic damage, and only have lightning immunity.

That’s not a good suggestion. You have to leave room for survival for those chars that barely have any decent items and low survivability when entering hell, to do quests in hell. I tried to be very careful with level 85 areas so as not to hurt the convenience of doing quests. The only quest level before act 5 I propose to upgrade to 85 is tristram for the reason I already state. Imagine going into the den of evil, an area level 85, with your best item being spirit sword, and your best resist is 30% lightning, and only 600hp, that’s truly hellish.

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no more patch every patch the dev add something that break the core of the game

2,4 break the fhr and fbr table
2,4,3 kill a lot of ww build and screw the ww ias table
what the next core feature or table will be break :roll_eyes:
all table have any issue for 20 year but in less of a few month these table are screw

with any info or update on the new table everything is keep hiden

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That’s a crappy counter argument

Just make the mechanic unlock once hell baal has been killed and your whole narrative goes to waste

I’m getting tired of lazy uncreative people that deny a whole concept for a single easily fixable issue

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Easier said than done. Plus, there are things called mob density and area-specific immunities. Maybe you should stop your wild thought and think carefully for a moment why these lvl 85 areas: river of flame, WSK level 2-3, have never been popular farming spots for the past 20 years? If you can answer that, you will know why making the whole map level 85 is not a good suggestion.

And what might that be? Dear my IQ 1000 friend?

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This concept adresses density

And this one immunity

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Look friend, you’re trying to turn this game into something else, a completely different ARPG. You should preserve those ideas for your own game studio when making a new ARPG. And remember to advertise it here in this forum. Maybe I’ll play it if I receive a free copy.

Now let’s go back to constructive ways to improve d2 without making it not d2 anymore. If I’m tired of immunity, there are tons of other ARPGs for me to play. I don’t need d2 to change this core feature. Improve it, not make it disappear.

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Lol it’s funny how purists claim that Immunities are what makes D2 what it is

Meanwhile the widespread immunities we currently have in the game wasn’t a think for the first 9 of 15 major patches the game has had

Widespread immunity was created to be a proper game mechanic, it was added in 1.10 as a test mechanic, 1.10 wasn’t meant to be a real patch, it was a testing ground for multiple mechanics for D3

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Before immunities came along, any well built character encountered little to no resistance anywhere in the game while facerolling everything in their path. Immunities came along, which forced people to rethink not only their character development strategy, but also brought back using at least an inkling of caution proceeding through areas.