Im a longtime Diablo fan. I know season 4 is said not to have a PTR but below are some easy changes that are mostly just simple text edits that would be very welcome changes in my opinion. Below these will be suggestions that would require development.
Ultimate no effort season changes that will make the world love and praise you with just simple text edits.
Diablo 4 is just around the corner, I believe it is time to introduce some easy changes that would shake up the game for the better and be true to the spirit of d2. I will offer some brief explanations on key points.
Adjust crafting to allow for any item type to be used instead of restricting players to a specific base item for each. Any weapon can be used for each recipe. Any armor can be used for each recipe.
(This one easy change would skyrocket crafting to amazing new potentials while adding value to many neglected blue drops and creating whole new areas of theory crafting. If you change nothing else, please do this very simple thing. The world will love you for it, no hate possible.)
Adjust gambling chances 1/8 for rare, 1/800 for set, 1/1500 unique.
Add ability for any base item in game to spawn on gambling screen.
(The any base item ability to show up on the gambling shop part would be simply amazing, it’s a small but potent change that adds a new way to spend gold in a meaningful way. Being able to gamble class specific items would be great. The values i suggested to modify gambling odds to are about a 20% increase from base values, with d4 coming soon, giving the players a slight bump here in chances would not change any metas, but it would make gambling more enticing.)
Durriel drops are a joke because of the 2/3 chance to drop a tp scroll for every potential item drop, make it so he can’t drop scrolls/keys/potions.
(This should have been done a long long time ago. 30 second of text editing… that’s all you need to do. Duriels drops are legendary for being terrible, just make it in line with the other bosses.)
Physical weapon damage buff, +40 - 50% to min and max damage across the board.
(It’s no secret that physical builds perform well under the caster options, or that grief runeword is the best weapon by far for melee builds. This change would greatly increase the viability of other runewords and slightly narrow the gap between casters and melee.)
Move Cain in act 5 to platform between tp area and stash.
(QoL change that’s been requested for decades and present in every single d2 mod, just do it, there is no reason not to. You would be a hero.)
Fix TZ mephisto drops to scale with level and allow access up to act5 good treasure class like literally every other boss does.
(TZ meph drops don’t scale with level, it’s a mistake, fix it.)
Remove soj requirement for re rolling rare of same quality.
(Some of you might not even know the Cube recipe for this but requiring a SOJ for it is madness. Remove / replace the soj component.
Recipes are as follows:
1 Perfect Skull + 1 Rare Item + Stone of Jorda = 1 High Quality Rare Item of the same type
3 Perfect Skulls + 1 Rare Item + Stone of Jordan = Will add 1 Socket to the Rare Item IF the item is socketable)
Remove chance for monster to flee from hit power amy recipe, replace with % pierce chance.
(No one wants chance to flee on this. Replacing with chance to pierce would make this recipe instantly valuable for several classes)
Buff all crafting predetermined mods by 20-40%
(Crafting is fun, it’s underused and it make gems/jewls/low runes worth keeping and trading. By buffing the predetermined stats for the crafting recipes you make them slightly more competitive, combined with my first suggestion to allow any base item to be used in the recipes, it would add a lot of fun, itemization potential and meta shake up to the game)
Give all mercs +30% more run/walk speed base. Give act 1 rogues +20% attacks speed base.
(QoL change. It’s not super important but helping act 1 rogues hit breakpoints and making all merc get to targets faster would be nice)
Increase base stack size of javelins +50%
(QoL change like you did for arrows/bolts. Consider making keys stack to 50 also.)
Change quest reward for act 5 quest 2, rescue barbarians. For nm mode drop thul. Amn, sol. For hell, shael, dol, Hel.
(Guarenteed runes from quest here would make sense to scale with difficulty, like the hellforge. None of these runes are even mid level but all are useful. It’s a small but nice change.)
All quest chest are locked after completing quest but have greatly increased drops with very high rune chances. (Countess, Cube, act 3 heart, brain, eye)
(Runes are the real money of the game, getting a 1 shot drop from completing these few quests would feel really nice.)
Hell forge quest drops 1 less gem (lowest quality is removed) and now rolls 2 runes to drop.
(D4 is almost here, give the players a little something extra. 2 runes on the hellforge would be a big deal and a super easy change. Imagine gaining the love of tens of millions with 2 minutes of work)
Act 5 suicide explode dudes… make them drop items. They drop literally nothing right now, it’s one of only two monster like that.
(Small but annoying detail, not important but would be cool of you did)
These below may require a small amount of testing. And are perhaps more controversial, but should still be considered.
Remove physical hit cap, allow up to 100% chance to hit.
(A big buff to physical damage dealers helping to close the gap on casters.)
Give act 3 mercs passive mastery levels (fire,light,cold). 1 per 3 levels past 30 so that at level 90 they got 20 mastery level base. Have it be affected by plus skills. Allow for plus sorc levels to affect act 3 mercs. Allow them to wield orbs.
(Act 3 mercs still underperform quite a bit. Adding the mastery skills for them will help their damage become closer to viable. It is important for physical damage dealers to find a alternate source of damage, this would help that. Spell casters already have amazing physical damage options on the barb and act 2 merc, the physical damage dealers need love here.)
Act 3 merc spell replace.
At level 30 remove base skill (charge bolt, fire bolt, ice bolt) and replace with new skill. (Chain lightning, meteor, blizzard)
(Again, helping the act 3 mercs and physical damage dealers at the same time. Having a level 90 act 4 merc cast a firebolt, hitting 1 target for like 100 damage after resistances is just silly. )
Allow act 5 mercs to use any weapon type.
(Might need to add some animations or graphics for this but would be nice)
+5 or more account shared stash tabs.
(Or more, I would pay cash for it. It would honestly reduce the number of characters made as over half are just mules to hold items. Everyone has been asking for it, you could have universal love for this)
+10 more online character slots.
(Not needed if you add the stash tabs)
New shrine, luck shrine. Adds 150% mf and 400% gf.
(Would be very nice, with d4 almost here, let the loot chances be better with this!)
Increase monster density above current volumes. Normal +10%, nm +20% hell +30%.
(Would make the game like 5% harder but 50% more fun)
New rare shrine, rune shrine. Drops a random rune appropriate to difficulty level. (Normal 12 and under, nm 12-21, hell 17-26). Equal choice weights like hellforge quest.
(Please do this, runes are the real money and the good ones drop so rarely. It would be amazing. D4 is ganna steal all the players anyways, give us this)
Allow any number of shrines to be active at same time.
(QoL change, would be nice but not important)
Imbune quest will always give max stats on the affix and prefixes rolled.
(Would make this quest very important and be a unique reward)
All affix and predix mods that a rare/magic/crafted item could roll on, make new higher tier levels that can only spawn on higher ilevels. This would allow rare, magic and crafted items to reach new heights and desirability, they have a chance to compete with uniques and runrwords.
(Honestly the number of rare items that could compete with the godly runewords and uniques is extremely low. Adding a new high level tier of affix/affix that could roll at higher ilvls would shake up the meta greatly and make those items much more desirable.)
Allow online games to set the player count at creation.
(Honestly, you should have done this a while ago. You want us to love you right?)
Slightly lower no drop chance at 1,3 and 5 player counts.
(It’s a bit dangerous to suggest but with d4 coming, let the loot rain!)
Raise the asymptote of magic find by 100% so that MF scales a little better
(Let the loot rain! The golden age of d2 could still be ahead.)
Make the repaire all button also fill stacks (javalins,arrows,bolt…etc).
Create button at shop to generate new inventory so you don’t need to run in and out of town.
(Big QoL change bit would be super nice)
Loot goblin: add a small chance per entering each zone (suggested 1%) to spawn a loot goblin. Once killed drops a random combination of gems / runes / 1 whole set or several set items and chance for unique, rare and/or crafted items and a lot of gold. Base Items dropped match difficulty level. This will encourage clearing full game. Always drops normal base items in normal mode. Exceptional base items in nm and elite base items in hell.
(Everyone’s favorite d3 addition, the loot goblin, would be super cool in d2. Don’t need to make portal mechanic. With d4 almost here this would be a amazingly welcome update and give a strong reason to clear zones instead of just teleporting through them.) More time spend in every game created means less server stress)
Leaf runeword split into family for casters. Tir ral / tir Thul / tir ort for fire cold and light tree all requir level 19, in a staff or sword and very similar. Tir tal necro wand for poison tree, white already exist for bone. Ral thul in druid helm for low level (19) elemental tree runeword
(Just evening out the low level caster runeword so that every caster class would benefit.)
Cube recipe for making white item magic
(Any jewl, any perfect gem)
Cube recipe for making magic item rare (p topaz, p sapphire, p ruby and p emerald)
(This adds significant value to white and blue items, and gems. This would allow for even greater itemization of this game.)
Make griswald, hephisto and the Smith have much higher chances at dropping runes and have 3 rolls for random crafted gear.
(Would be fun. We need more ways for runes to drop. These 3 monsters are associated with smiting and item creation in lore. Having them uniquely drop random crafted gear would be a nice nod to that lore and a fun new mechanic)
Fix cast rate, move rate, attack rate bug on Trang set when transformed into vampire.
(Low priority but the set already feels underwhelming, experiencing the breakpoints bugs on top of that feel particularly bad.)
Items that summon pets (think peace runrword), even when used by merc. Make those summons last until death or resummon occurs.
New rare item: master key allows infinite uses, not consumed. Any chest unlocked with it will give double drop.
Necro: golem mastery skill allows for 1 additional golem to be summoned per 10 points. Poison dagger big buff, changed to poison weapon and allows for scythe weapons. Summon mage damage buff or they gain spells to cast also at higher levels.)
Amazon: immolation arrow big buff. Fend/impale buff. Decoy adds passive resistance to PC in addition to valkary.
Barb: WW small buff, shout duration base increased. Allow two handed axes and maces to be wielded in one hand.
Druid: vine buffs, next hit delay improvement for casters variants. Buff to spirit hp, stronger base and synergy stats for summons weighted towards end game.
Palidan, vengeance buff.
Assassin, blade skill buffs. Clone/master buff.
Sorc, lightning storm damage and frequency buff and has chance to cast nova on hit, higher with level. Hydra has chance to cast fireball, higher with levels, duration and number cap increase with level. ice armor has high chance to cast frost nova when hit, higher with levels.
Requires development but totally worth it.
Currency tab for gems/runes/keys/essence that allow stacks.
Merc has slot for all gear like Player character. Act 1 merc can use x bows and use slower missile instead of insight. act 3 merc can use sorc only items and benefits from plus sorc skills. Act 5 mercs use BO instead of shout and taunt.
Change spawn event for diablo clone.
100 mill gold plus all act bosses dead and standard of heros is sold to shop and consumed. Spawns him in current game only, not server wide. - this gives purpose to the standard and greatly increases the value of gold find and gold in general. This will stimulate the player economy and add gold as a viable trading value.
Change stash gold resivoire to one pool and cap of 100 mill.
Fix the lying character sheet to be accurate.
Add back in ethereal item bug as a feature. The ethereal armor and damage bonus gets double applied when adding sockets with cube.
Add new rare consumable that adds 1 socket to an item with no sockets.
Add new rare consumable to downgrade a rune into what it requires to Cube up to it.
