Playing classic D2 and I’ve had quite a few run ins lately with really nasty mobs spawning at the base of the stairs on a new level with no ability to kite away before I’m nearly instagibbed at the bottom of the stairs. Makes body retrieval a huge pain as well. I’m all about keeping true to the classic D2 experience but I think this is one change people could get behind. don’t reduce the number of uniques spawning, just make the bottom of the stairs have a cushion around it so you can at least gain your bearings before getting waylaid. Its especially bad with extra fast and lightning enchanted uniques, at least in my experience.
Edit: I should note that this is on hell difficulty but I think it could apply across the board.
Eh, I like a challenge. I like surprises. For the most part it’s fine. Just be on your toes. You can always go back up the stairs if needed. If you’re getting instagibbed, it’s usually a good indication that your character is not yet ready for that difficulty, or something is drastically wrong with your character gear/skill/stat setup.
Which character are you playing? Also classic as in non lod?
I’m a lvl 71 necromancer decently built, its not literally an instagib but when you get 2 unique spawns right at the bottom of the stairs of a place like say the caves or tower cellar lvl 5 its a nightmare to try and deal with things. I certainly have plenty of room to get significantly stronger as I don’t have all the big bad runewords yet. This is LoD yes.
I dunno, D2 is supposed to be challenging and dangerous, especially around super unique enemies, champions or bosses.
I’m not saying kill the challenge, leave the uniques power alone just shove them backwards in the level far enough that you can at least react to whats there before you are dead. I’ve been playing D2 for twenty years and there is a point where challenge isn’t “fun” I can fight just fine in pretty much every area but enter a tight place with 3 uniques up my rear the moment i step in isn’t “fun” its just frustrating and a huge annoyance that makes you want to ragequit.
Edit: Finally carved my way through again 600,000 gold and many deaths later through the countess but, point remains. That section of gameplay wasn’t challenge in a “fun” way. Its been a while since I’ve been on hell difficulty and I can certainly appreciate its challenge. I’m someone who has played through Dark Souls and other very challenging games so I’ve got nothing against challenge. Challenge should be fair though however. Super nasty triple unique spawns at the base of the stairs in somewhere like tower cellar 5 where its really cramped without much room to maneuver is a bad day for someone without teleport via enigma or being a sorc. I can control mobs a bit with bone prison but doesn’t matter much if I’m trapped in my own circle cause of the spawn location or I don’t have any way of getting out bar being lucky post death that they dispersed enough to give me breathing room to charge deeper into the room to clear the stairs and sacrificially die to give me room to pick up my initial body and then fight the horde in a manner I can actually fight them in.
If say you took those three mobs and say pushed them back into the main chamber there. You still have that really nasty fight, but you at least can engage the battle and perhaps drag in some of the fodder before pulling everything. You have decisions you can make. You can still bury yourself on the stairs if you don’t manage the mobs but you can at least fail on your merit at that point. But its it more fun to deny the player any decision making cause its instant reaction to near instagibbing levels of power depending on unique traits or is it more fun to keep that challenge but give the player the ability to approach the engagement rather than be set in terms so unfavorable that you are borderline logging and resetting rather than engaging.
Just a little tip that’s used a lot in hc, summon your golem in the room you’re about the enter. You’ll know exactly what’s in there.
The pain of defeat. It makes you a better player. Ahh. Good stuff
I like it when 200 red skeleton for archers meet you at the bottom. I actually hate it but this makes Diablo, Diablo. Know what I mean Vern?
I hear you guys. I use my golem a lot as necro to bait in mobs and then prison around golem, amplify damage, bonespear until mobs start dropping then clean up with corpse explosion. Really effective. But the mobs at the base of stairs in the level isn’t like getting swarmed from offscreen. These instances I’m running into are a matter of load into level, mob has me surrounded off the spawn with no way of putting golem, prisons, merc, etc between me and the mobs and then I die and thus all allies die with me. I mainly notice it happening in the lvl 2 areas on dungeons, river of flame stairs, pandemonium fortress stairs, and other areas with a hard exit like that on harder difficulties. In the main areas you can kind of run forward deeper into the area and then portal, exit town again and then bait the mobs back with the created breathing room, but these hard exits are just borderline instant death without serious gearing up. And 99% of players aren’t going to have all their bis gear when they are starting hell.
Mobs like these cause a really unfun difficulty spike. Don’t get me wrong, Hell is tough and it rightly should be, same with nightmare. Don’t nerf the mobs in any way, shape, or form in their stats as they can be geared around with time and effort. Simply adjust the spawn locations to allow players the ability to enter the level and react to what may be lying in wait very close by, but not so close its all aggroed and killing you before you even realize whats happening. And we all know D2:R has loading screens unlike D2:LOD because pcs can’t have the entire game loaded on the raam like classic D2 due to the increased file size of the remastered assets. So this problem will be much worse in D2:R because of that alone.