The patch D2R needs

General Discussion
1

=>The 9 Circles of Hell:Improving and widening endgame farming areas

Note: could be less circles, 9 is thematic to Dante’s inferno. Could be lowered to 4 like Diablo 1 area 13-16 but it would create a steeper progression and i think we should avoid the D3 Inferno mistake which cranked difficulty too fast

How it works

Beat Nightmare and you appear in act 1 of the 9th circle of hell

Only this circle grants you skill/stats/resist rewards. But to compensate, it grants respec

Besting the 9th circle of hell you gain access to the 8th circle of hell which is harder, +2 to all Monsters and area levels

Follow this concept until you arrive at the final circle of hell where All areas are at least alvl85 allowing people to farm in new ways but beware, everything is harder…Diablo is now stronger than Uber diablo

  • This would open farming to all the areas of your liking

You would see people doing full clear countess runs, hell tombruns, cow game would be back on the menu

This way the game doesn’t get new content, it just unlocks already existing content to new approaches

  • This would also be a Huge component of the ladder, now not only people look for who’s going to be 99first but also who is going to beat Final Hell first

This is the minimum alteration of the game I think we can do to get something close to an endgame buff but it comes at a huge cost in difficulty… this isn’t powercreep, it’s risk vs reward

Note: people often talk about /players x command on bnet but this is different, /players x only affect “no drop”, it doesn’t change the a/mlvl which is important for drops limitations which is why people do Pitruns, it’s alvl85

=>Spawning Dclone through Unique item sink

Note these values are examples, blizzard could tweak them to make them bigger or smaller

  • Each unique/set item are yielded a %chance to spawn Dclone based on rarity( ie:minimum soj to spawn Dclone is 75, so let’s say soj has 4% chance to spawn Dclone, mang song being 10x rarer would be 40%, the ward being 20x more common than soj would be 0.2%)

  • If you are the one that triggers the event, Dclone spawns in your game, X number of random game that have Baal quest completed see the event trigger as well

Voilà! Now you have a way so that everybody, rich and poor can participate in

Every unique/set item that drop now has a value/meaning and you got a sink/purpose for those items rather than leaving most of them on the ground. You bad luck streak finding only bad unique could be saved by those crappy unique spawn Dclone

This would give back the thrilling feeling of finding unique items to all of em, good and bad

That Eth Griffon you find isn’t completely useless anymore, it could exponentially increases your chances of spawning Dclone due to its rarity

Dclone spawning on soj is an incitement to dupe and a way to launder those duped items… that’s kinda dumb

Dclone SOJ counter was basically introduced to fight against duped soj, but nowadays there is no reason anymore to sink duped soj, if this stays based on soj, not only only rich people will be able to participate which would kill the community event aspect of it but it actually incite people to actually dupe soj to feed the mechanic lol Blizzard should learn from the Indian cobra bounty failure: wikipedia,org/wiki/Perverse_incentive)

Note: this doesn’t make Dclone easier to spawn, there wouldn’t be much more Anni’s floating around, but it would make it a real Community event rather than hackers/cheater incited to dupe soj and sell them to launder them and make profit

It would turn the Dclone event from an Lottery with only golden tickets to a lottery where there are golden tickets as well as bronze, iron, copper, silver ones

=>Quality of item

Base items can spawn Crude/Low quality/Cracked/Normal/Superior

This system is now expanded to magic/rare/unique/set items

Pristine rarity is added and has a 30% increased effect

A cube recipe is added to improve the quality of items up to a maximum of “normal”

=>Class specific unique/set items to spawn class skills

Stuff like unique scepter is now able to spawn up to 3 random skills on it like white/rare/magic do

This would be a really fun chase to find good combo

Ie: mang song with +3 fireball implicit, making it a +10fireball staff

Ie2: aldur helm with +tornado

Ie3: astreon with +hammer

I think that adding this to the game could revalorize plenty of class oriented base unique and create a more healthy balance between unique and runewords

=>Synergy system 2.0

While the intent behind synergy system was noble, it ruined a lot of aspects of the game

  • it kills skills with bad synergies

  • it kills skills with too many synergies

  • it kills skills with too low synergies

  • it greatly weakened the concept of Hybrid build

  • it killed most of charges skills

  • it killed most of Oskill

  • it killed most of Trigger skills

  • it greatly weakened build diversity

————————————

The current synergy system is bad, By “bad” I mean the damage only aspect of synergy system. By being damage only it make it so skills that get low total %damage synergy or decent total damage synergy but with too many synergy are doomed, they can never be good or take too much investment to even be decent.

Also the way synergy system got implemented was bad because it mostly add synergies on the same branch of the tree, so if you make a fireball sorc, your synergies are also fire which sucks in terms of tactics against immunes. So if you want to be hybrid it will most likely suck/be impossible because you would need 2 skills with few synergies and high total damage% from sysnergies

The way they added synergy system also killed item granted skills… those skills were already balanced by being low level in a mindset of not requiring synergies, but since they added synergies they have been kept at the same low level and cannot benefit from synergies on other classes.

—————————————

A better approach to Synergies would have been skill effects based on general skill type rather than Class and damage restricted

  • projectile
  • melee
  • cold
  • fire
  • magic
  • physical
  • lightning
  • poison
  • area
  • buff
  • summon

Here’s a quick display(fine tuning required) of what it would look like based on what i started to do for a Mod i wanted to make before Blizzard cut mod support

docs.google,com/spreadsheets/d/1mRk7BNo9Mf5HciVSb0aFXuZcU1joQhPbSesyrHTmqJI/edit?usp=sharing

————————————-

Then the synergy bonus from each skills is special perks proper those skills

Ie: magic arrow’s synergy bonus:

  • Gain 1 additional projectile per 10 projectile skill hard point

  • Gain 5%attack rating per attack skill hardpoint

  • gain 5% magic damage per Magic skill hard point

That way a sorc/pally/barb/necro/assassin using a bow could invest in their projectile/attack/magic skill to get that bonus on Witchwild String

Other example of what could be done with such system , take Vengeance

Ie: Vengeance’s synergy bonus

  • gain 5% fire damage & 1% chance to cast firestorm(same level as vengeance capped at 20) when striking per fire skill hard point

  • gain 5% cold damage & 1% chance to cast Glacial spike on striking per cold skill hard point

  • gain 5% lightning damage & 1% chance to cast shock web on striking per lightning skill hard point

  • gain 5% attack rating per Attack skill hard point

This system also makes it less reliant on “same type skills”. Ie: fireball being synergized by fire bolt which are both pretty much the same skill. But with this system you could buff your fireball through aoe,projectile and fire skill … allowing you to synergize fireball with a plethora of choices that aren’t just a projectile fire spell like it

TLDR: by changing specific synergy skills to more general type synergies you

  • revive ctc

  • give some love to cross class oskill

  • improve viability of builds that use more than 1 tree type

  • give a lot of flexibility in your choice of synergy

  • allows you to customize your skills

=>Enigma

Enigma now has a new modline “Afflicted by Level 20 Blood mana curse when equipped” (Lvl20 blood mana: use life instead of mana with 100% increased cost)

=>Mouse confinement

Added an toggle option that allows you to select if you want your cursor to be confined to you game or not when using the fullscreen game setting

=>Offline character profile

You now have access to your character’s informations (character sheet+Gear+merc) while not connected in the game

Other players can also have access to this information via a link you can share

=>Merc upgrade

Act 1 merc:

Now uses a rare quiver bound to the merc, this quiver has (*lvl) affixes, the mods of this quiver can be reroll via Ashera with gold cost

normal Merc now use strafe and exploding arrow

  • nm Merc now use immolation arrow and guided arrow

  • hell Merc now use freezing arrow and multi shot

Act 5 barb:

  • Norm Merc now use berserker and battle cry

  • Nm Merc now use throw and find potion

  • Hell Merc now use frenzy and howl

As for act 3 merc, they are iron wolf like was D1 sorcerer:

  • don’t try to melee anymore

  • norm Merc now use flame/shock/cold wave

  • nm Merc now use fire/cold/lightning elemental

  • hell Merc now use apocalypse fire/cold/lightning

=>Indestructible affix doesnt prevent the item from spawning ethereal anymore

=>Socketing upgrade

Unique/set/Rare Items that can spawn 5-6 socket now can roll 1-2 sockets at Larzuk/cube recipe
Magic items that can spawn 5-6 sockets now can roll 3-4 sockets at Larzuk/cube recipe

=>Kicking players

You can now kick players from your game

=>All skills can now be used on both mouse clicks

Obviously restrict auras from character skills to 1 to avoid abuse

This would help so many builds, melees especially

It’s annoying to have a 3skill(wc,teleport,find item) rotation on right click for a singer but a Paladin only have 2( teleport conc) because somehow blessed hammer is allowed on left click but not war cry

It’s annoying that melee builds cannot benefit from the melee auto targeting mechanic on right click as soon as they have auras or other stuff that require right click

Note: for those who don’t know right click+melee skill has a special mechanic that makes you automatically attack monsters you encounter

You can make fun of console how much you want but damn the controls are superior just because of this

Changing this doesn’t changes the game, it makes it less clunky and more enjoyable

=>Immunity replacement

Immunity are no longer a thing, they are now replaced with Super-resistant mechanic.

99% is now the maximum resistance a monster can have

Overcapped resistance still counts for resistance reduction and the overcapped resistance penalty (⅕) still exists

Overcapped resistance provides %life increased in exchange to the monsters. Meaning a monster with 125 fire resistance will have 99% effective fire resistance + 26% increased life bonus

=>Runeword over-restriction removal

Runewords that require is specific item class to be created are no more, instead they now are all limited to Gearslot. So no more “can only be made in a sword”, its now “ Can only be made in a weapon”
Runewords can now be created in Magic/rare/set/unique items but with a harsh effectiveness penalty of 25%/40%/50%/60% respectively and this on both the stats granted by the runeword and the base item

=>Shrine/Curse/Buff&debuff

Shrine now protect you from curses, up to 10 times
You can now have multiple shrines at once
Shrine also apply to nearby party members when activated
Curses do not share the same spot as battle cry anymore

=>Ingame lootfilter

The game now has a loot filter that allows you to hide undesirable items but also personalize the appearance of items you may want to be more noticeable

=>Game creation/Join

Game name now increments from you last game if that game name ended with “-#”

refresh game list should be player triggered only

  • like console and D3, being able to filter/tag the activity of the game(not a replacement for current game system but rather as a filter) Baal run, chaos run,farming,trade,progression(updates in real time in which quest and act the game is),service,pvp

  • Game run timer

  • game you click on is copied to top box

  • players/description should be only one tab not 2

  • there should be a search box

  • you should be able to sort by new/fullness

  • there should be a game type like on console so people can choose act/quest/run/trade

  • kick player from game function(some restriction to avoid ruining hostility system)

  • typing the name of the game should show it’s information like when you click on it

  • you should be able to link items in your game name/description

  • longer game names

  • don’t need to leave the game to create a new one, you have access to it from ingame

=>Social

The game now has a serverwide chat where people can chat together
You get your friends activities notified to you like it was back in D2lod “ “xXreaperxX has joined a Hell game called Boobiesbaal-32”
Text colours are brought back to D2lod colours. (Gold=Game System, people joining/leaving games, soj counter, white=ingame, people chatting ingame, green=Whispers, people and friends whispering to you, blue=Server system, servers are going down, etc

=>Anya quest reward upgrade

[visual representation of the process: imgur,com/eziwaIc

Disclaimer: Have to mention beforehand

  • completing the quest grant you 1 for free, so 3 free shots like Akara’s respec

  • This is only a visual transmutation, not stats is changed to the item in the process

  • Theres also a toggle created to switch Alt art on and Off for people who wants to know what other wear during Pvp (ideally inspect function)

  • there is also a warning message when trading a personalized item

  • The used item is gone… sacrificed in the process, cant get it back

  • this would have for effect to valourize items that look great/special but are bad, ie: Girswold edge or BoneSnap

why standard of heroes? First because it has no value and also Because Standard means “Banner, a visual representation of what you represent” and Heroes, therefor Standard of Heroes means " The visual representation of heores" and [Anya Kinda thinks you are a heroe: imgur,com/VW48DLW

The term Transmog doesn’t belong in Diablo franchise, even less in D2, by definition transmog is to change an appearance to look grotestque and funny, that’s not what we would aim in Diablo 2, we want to look good, heroic and intimidating. I’d called it personalized gear

=>We brought back organs

  • monsters now drop organs
  • Those organs have different ilvl and different effects
  • Those organs are used to craft White items into magic/rare items
  • ie: Heart= resistance, Brain=Skills, eye= damage. Fallen being fire oriented monsters, they heart would tend to give fire resistance to an armor, fire penetration to a weapon
  • Organs were originally meant to drop in D2 and be used to craft items

=>Diablo loot table

Diablo and his lieutenants now have the right drop table according to the Level
The game is named after him afterall

=>Crafting upgrade

1) Goodbye specific item restriction

No more “to make a caster helm it has to be a Mask!”, welcome “Helm craft requires… a helm”

If the person wants to make it in a barb helm… let him do it

If the player wants to make a blood craft Bow… let him do it

most crafts have bad fixed mods anyway, having restrictions is just detrimental to the game, which is why crafting has never been a thing in D2 beside a handful of craft like caster ring/amulet and blood gloves

2.1) Magic affix retention

Make it so that the sacrificed item has an impact on the craft by having a chance to retain the affixes

So if you have +3 jav magic gloves and blood craft them, you have a slight chance of keeping that +3jav on your crafted gloves

The chance to retain the mod isnt big, i think that 50/50 at max ilvl is a solid base but again it could be balanced differently

that 50% chance is split if there are 2 affixes on the magic item

This would greatly increase the interest over magic items, more interest over itemization = more interest to the game

2.2)Retention bonus

i think it would be cool to make the quality of the jewel help for the retention as well, ie: rare jewel gives+5% chance to retain, facet 10% and then ilvl of the jewel gives between 1-10%(ilvl1 to 99). so a rare ilvl 80 jewel would add 13% chance to retain on top of the

Conclusion

I can imagine all the Jeweller’s Plate of the whale getting destroyed trying to do a blood or hit power craft on them hahaha

So combining the 2 you could have people trying to sacrifice their:

+6 skill sorc orb with caster craft

Cruel GMB of the fool with Blood craft

etc

this would help crafting a lot rather than having only 3-4 good craft out of 40

People would be hoarding rare and high ilvl jewels, people would be identifying magic items in hope of getting cool affixes to sacrifice to RNGesus, that would be an awesome buff to endgame

=>Ingredient stacking

Runes, gems, organs, keys, token now stack everywhere(inventory, stash,trade, vendor,cube)

Please Stop Whining!