The stamina bar is completely irrelevant in mid and late game.
I don’t see what good it would do to remove it.
Just embrace the slower pace in normal difficulty - you will speed through the game soon enough.
Regarding the instanced loot:
No matter how you would try to get it to work, in my opinion it would always affect the D2 gameplay in undesirable ways.
When it comes to picking up loot player behavior in D2 is very diverse.
The only loot that everyone will pick up is the very expensive stuff.
After that it depends heavily on how wealthy the player already is, how good their character is equipped, if they bother to trade with lower value items, what character they are playing and a lot of other stuff.
If you now simply randomly split the loot, many items that at least 1 of the 8 party members might have wanted will remain on the ground and get deleted when the game closes instead of getting picked up and used by the finder or sold to other players.
That would heavily impact the prices and probably put less wealthy players at a disadvantage because they can’t snag the loot anymore, that rich players will ignore.
I wouldn’t be against instanced loot in D4 if they implement it right, but I believe that it doesn’t have a place in a proper D2 remaster.
I tried to look at this more rigorously, personal loot actually promotes a more robust trade economy while simultaneously discouraging cheaters and leechers.
99.9% of people are playing the game for emotions. You suggest to change the emotions from classic shared drop, which can be very bright in positive or negative key, depending on whether you managed to pick a valuable loot up or not, to emotions from a personal one which are usually absent.
And you argue with mathematics. Don’t you see any problems with such statement?
Is this an equivalent exchange?
The problem is:
You are assuming that all the items that have no personal value but value to someone else will somehow end up in the ingame economy even in an instanced loot scenario.
That is definitely not going to be the case.
If you play D2 a lot, you will often see people looking for stuff that you don’t even bother to pick up anymore.
In an instanced loot scenario that loot is lost and this will lead to higher prices for low to mid value items while the people who will actually buy (or pick up) those items will get less drops overall.
If something works like the stamina system (even with its quirks), don’t fix it.
Instanced loot on the other hand could work, perhaps one instanced item per player, but still that is not how D2 works at its core. You were supposed to share the loot with others and figure out how to split it fairly.
If I don’t need that magic staff, I will just drop it for the other player who might need it more.
I agree that stamina does have a place. Is it annoying when starting off? Yes. However, it is a trade-off mechanic for wearing heavier armor that offers more protection. Also has that feeling of getting more powerful to outclass your starting low durability. You start the game huffing and puffing your way through the game, but some agility through Nightmare and feel tougher, only to be knocked back down in Hell.
I like the guy but he hasn’t made a good game since Diablo 2… Maybe it’s a good idea to not listen to what he has to say about game design. Also I’d like to remind you that Brevik wanted Diablo to be a turn-based strategy game. His team ran a vote and decided it should be real-time action while Brevik was among the few who voted against this!
Regarding stamina, potion belt and other ‘annoying’ mechanics in D2 - I think they are some of the most important things in the game. They allow the power creep to start at a negative.
As an example, D3 doesn’t have such hindrances and the game feels the same at level 1 as it does at level 70 and at Paragon 5000. The only thing that changes is your damage goes from 1 to 1 million to 1 pepegaquintillion.
100% my thought as well. Stamina bar is SO ANNOYING for the first like 10 levels then disappears after 20 or so.
“At least as great” Not in terms of impact. He has made a few other very good games and one, Hellgate:London, that was very good but just ran out of money since Blizzard wasn’t there to provide the resources (1st game after D2).
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As for the instanced loot debate (didn’t see anyone I directly wanted to reply to) I am very indifferent towards whether we do or do not have it as long as there is no talk about bringing in BoA along with the personal loot system.
I neither liked nor disliked the loot system in D3 when it came to it mechanically but once they did the BoA and BoG stuff it became MUCH worse as I couldn’t collect stuff to give to other people.
OK, this is what I came up with a little bit of searching (see all the quoted posts below). Do you want me to find more? There are at least 30 unique posters who favor personal loot that have taken the time to post that. In another thread where the first post advocated for personal loot as an option, it has 58 likes at last check.
Again, having the option to have either personal loot or global loot is a win-win for all. People who like the original D2 model can play their way. The people who see the merits of personal loot such as David Brevik and mysel and the myriad of others quoted below can play their preferred way.
Many of the quotes shown in my post 2 above are from the D2R forum. Each quote supports personal loot or the option for personal loot in addition to global loot.
I have not counted how many want global loot nor have I counted how many prefer personal loot. Simply put, there are MANY diehard D2 fans in both camps.
The solution is to have personal loot and global loot selectable to match personal preference.
Hell, sometimes you don’t even see what the boss drops it goes so fast, and I doubt the bots pick it is set to auto pick everything. I’ve seen more unique people either in favor of or don’t care than absolutely against. Usually the same few absolutely against in multiple topics.
He honestly wants to ruin the game because he is jealous or something. Why would you remove stamina? It’s actually a part of the game mechanic and removing it would make things feel different in a way. And if the argument is that it doesn’t do anything, why change it? It won’t matter anyway lol just would feel less true to original.
Instanced loot will literally kill the game, and I will ask for a refund immediately if this is the case. I have lost all respect for David brevik because of what he just said. He is either trying to sabotage the game for his own benefit or straight up has dementia. DO NOT LISTEN TO DAVID BREVIK
If upon character creation, you could select that character to be restricted to EITHER global loot OR instanced personal loot, why would you request a refund?
You can still play with like minded people who prefer global loot while other can play their way with players who prefer personal loot?
Personally, I do not boycott my favorite hamburger joint if they start also selling chicken sandwiches. It is about choice. You choose what you prefer and let other choose what they prefer.
That solves nothing. It is an invalid argument. It would like me saying D2 has global option. You should play that and not D2R.
D2R is both a single and multiplayer game that supports public games. D2R can be compelling for people who want global loot and personal loot. Win-Win.
Kill the game for those that want to keep the market rigged against the average player for the purpose of rmt perhaps? Why else would botting and rmts persisted so long on a 20 year old game? Granted people will spend the money or their wouldn’t be an rmt market, but not really fair to the community as a whole.
So will there be a separate server for personal loot only players? When someone joins the game the amount of loot dropped increases. How will that account into drop rates? Will the people who have personal loot only get 1 players worth of drops in game filled with 8 players? Will the rest of then 7 players get the loot of that one player who went personal loot? Can I kick people from my game who have personal loot? If you are asking to have a completely different server for personal loot only people that could split the populations up. I dono just stay true to the original and stop trying to turn diablo into Warcraft 3 reforged disaster
If your problem is auto pickers just make your own game. With that logic bots doing Baal runs should have personal xp. Why should you get xp that a Bot is farming for you in Baal runs let alone get the loot. One whole aspect of diablo is ninja looting and finding people you can trust to share open loot with. Stop trying to change from the original diablo experIence by just making things more convenient for yourself
