Got the game recently since it was on special. and yes, I am rather new to the series, as back then I never managed to play it.
Just curious why the game never continues where I last left off? I’m still in act 1 and managed a difficult part after dying over and over again. Every time when I want to continue, I see myself back at the camp again. Need to teleport back to the nearest part where I left off, and then I need to fight the same enemies again.
I easily lost over 30min progression and wasn’t very thrilled to slaughter my way through again.
Is it normal that the game always starts at the camp, even though you click ‘save and exit’? I honestly expected to continue where I left off and all the enemies I killed stay dead.
You will always start in town in a new game. This game only saves progress in the form of the quest log and waypoints.
Most players run the same maps (e.g. Chaos Sanctuary) over and over. To make this easier make sure you grab all the waypoints.
This is normal, you will always spawn in the town of the last act you were in. If you switch difficulties you’ll spawn in act 1 by default
I see. Thanks for the response. Yes, I try to reach the waypoints but not knowing where they are, does make it a bit difficult.
You mention difficulty. Where? I never saw this being asked when I started the game.
Difficulty in D2 is sort of weird. There are 3 difficulties, but they are sequential. Completing normal will unlock nightmare, which is the same 5 acts but with higher level monsters and the uniques will have an extra ability. (Higher level gear will also have a chance to drop.) Completing nightmare unlocks hell which works the same way.
As for progress, as you get familiar with the game, you’ll learn where the good stopping points are where you won’t have to re-clear a ton of stuff. When you do need to re-clear, don’t think of it as losing progress, think of it as getting more XP and loot!
2 Likes
So true. I never stop between Frigid Highlands and WSK 2. I hate having to reclear all those caves in act 5. So it’s one shot it all and open up Baal.
If you played the original Diablo, you may have expected the game to save progress the same way, which was picking up exactly where you were when you saved and quit the game. Diablo 2 works differently and instead regenerates the game world upon game start and plops you in the town of your current act. In single player mode, the physical map stays the same, but all the monsters respawn.
Diablo 2’s way of saving progress is done through waypoints scattered throughout the game world. This is similar to Diablo 1’s shortcuts to the catacombs, the caves, and to Hell that opened up in Tristram once you reached those levels. You probably noticed the first waypoint in Cold Plains when you left the Blood Moor. Activating these will allow you to take a shortcut and continue your adventure from that point and allow easy travel between points of interest.
2 Likes
So moral of the story, always try to reach the furthest WP or act before you log off or you will be doing a lot of backpedaling…
As a new player, you can use the WP menu to know which areas will have them.
1 Like
Looks like it. I make sure I reach the next WP.
Regarding the difficulty. I noticed something in the options, but there is nothing to adjust. And I play in offline mode as it says this feature only works in offline mode. Yet, I can’t do anything there. So have no idea what difficulty I’m at.
You’re confusing things…
There are 2 completely independent difficulty settings.
The first one is the actual difficulty of the created game. As mentioned, there are three: normal, nightmare and hell. Your game is currently in normal and you can only unlock the other two by progressing through all 5 acts which you will need to do a total of 3 times, once in each difficulty, to complete the storyline but not necessarily “beat” the game as that is sorta up to you (keep going to 99, reaching your final build, item hunting, PvP, etc)
The other difficulty adjustment is based on how many players are in your game. More players = stronger monsters = more exp. You have the ability to manually change that if you play single player/offline… however, since you mentioned that you couldn’t change it, it sounds like your character is actaully an online character even though you’re playing by yourself…so either play in public games or make some friends if you want a higher player count in your games…or you’re forced to recreate your character in single player if you want to use the slider…
There’s two things at play here:
Difficulty game modes are Normal, Nightmare, and Hell and work as described where you unlock the next harder difficulty after you beat the final act boss in a given difficulty.
The hp, damage and experience are also increased with more players in the game, and the drops are increased as well (but only odd numbers like 3, 5 and 7), so that increases difficulty of the game somewhat within any given game difficulty.
Since offline single player doesn’t have the ability to play with others, you are able to use a command or the UI slider to set the player count.
Once you unlock Nightmare and Hell, in single player games (or online quick launch no lobby games) a pop up window will prompt you what difficulty you want to play. For online lobby games the difficulty of chosen during game creation and you can filter the difficulty that the game list displays if you are joining am existing game.
Note that single player offline games save the map layout (and all areas you’ve explored in a previous game still show “filled out” on your map) but the enemies will respawn with a new game.
Also note that switching difficulty will cause the map to regenerate. So if you go through normal then unlock nightmare then play that a while and then go back to normal, the maps will be randomly regenerated in normal and not the ones you previously explored. If you then switch back to nightmare, those maps will also be regenerated again.
I see now. Thanks for the clarification.
Oh boy. Good luck in Act 3. I already feel your pain!