Opinion: I think the game will flop for a few reasons

[UnluckyMan-1494]

@Ziron-1836

1: Mod support is absolutely useless now
Say goodbye to the best mods that made D2 have more depth and variety to it. They should be expanding on this, not removing it. Totally moving backwards.

They cleary stated that mods would work, just not by the same reverse engineered code as before, but as part of their plataform. Like they mentioned on BlizzConline and by the recent post:

@PezRadar

TCP / IP Support

We initially announced the removal of TCP / IP support in our Beta blog, noting that this functionality would not be present in the Beta or in the final game. We want to take this time to share our insight on why we removed this feature. Following the Technical Alpha, we learned that this functionality was enabling significant security-related issues to our game. We’re aware that removing this feature adds a large hurdle for talented multiplayer modders in our community. Still, our priority is to keep this game’s ecosystem as secure as possible for all of our players.

Despite this change, a form of modding will still be possible. Players will have the ability to modify specific files which include adjusting values of skills, items, and more. However, keep in mind the Classic client of Diablo II will still exist and that is not going away.Multiplayer mods will still be able to exist and thrive on that platform by our community there.

So, no isn’t useless you just need the modders to do what you had on classic d2. If they won’t do it, you always could keep playing what you already have. The plataform will be different but doesn’t mean that couldn’t have mods, maybe a fewer at launch and some emerging later on.

@Ziron-1836

2: They are not fixing the battle.net closed networking problems
This has been a problem since 1.09d and it still sticks around and they will not fix it. You will not be able to hit with a 95% chance to hit because the enemy you are trying to hit is in a different location. You will not be able to kill things correctly with spells like fireball and you will kill things behind you, to the sides, etc. instead of the target you actually hit on your screen and targeted. The networking programming is absolutely horrid and they never fixed it for over 10 years. I don’t expect that to change.

That most likely would be solved by using google servers, on d2r open beta the connection was way better than early access beta, but they need some improvements in that end for sure. You also can always play single player if you want it without relying on any internet connection, only periodic ones for validation and updates.

@Ziron-1836

They removed TCP/IP
This destroyed the only hope people had to play locally with friends where you could remove a lot of these closed battle.net networking problems.

They removed a non-secure feature. While most likely the global server with google cloud servers being able to satisfy the connectivity of everyone, they should create a way to improve the latency either tweaking the netcode paired with that. Most likely at first ladder season the servers would be working really well. I had excelent experiences with the same feature on Overwatch, even playing on Switch with folks around the globe.

@Ziron-1836

Lobbys are a set system instead of a search which makes it extremely difficult to want to join certain people.

That’s a thing that will be on consoles, which at launch will be like that. Could be changed in future, like the restriction of nintendo switch to play only with 4 players.

@Ziron-1836

It is funny to me because people complain about not changing the game and they say they won’t but yet they already have and so far they have made very important things FAR WORSE. At least they haven’t screwed up the original balance “yet”. I have a feeling that time will come too at this rate…

They didn’t screwed up anything, they removed a feature that was well know as insecure like the one who made bots, hacks, cheats and mods being a thing on classic d2, after some folks exploiting on Alpha the feature. Because of that they closed that door and will use the battlenet plataform for it, like their other games already have.

They will not mess with classic d2, they just don’t want that the same “bad stuff” that happened on classic d2 happen on d2r. If they kept TCP/IP the same would happen in a couple of hours.

@Ziron-1836

1: Mods can still be played on the original game.
No, Project Diablo and Plugy both said they will not be doing anything with this because they cannot due to how the game is changing.

Those modded servers stopping to work on their own variant of Classic D2 has nothing to do with D2R. Like blizzard stated they wouldn’t do anything towards them. That couldn’t be said about D2R tho. Unless they reach blizzard and accept their terms to begin with, instead of unreasonable demands. There’s a legal section who details everything about how they could approach blizzard in that regard, so far I didn’t saw they even trying to follow it.

@Ziron-1836

2: While there are still netcode ‘anomolies’ like desync, it may be something they can improve on at a later date.
So we all pay and cross our fingers?

If you’re not confident on their work, you should cancel the pre-order(if you had) and wait to see the launch and have your own conclusions about it. You can always go back and play classic d2, like you always did, while you wait about what they gonna do with d2r.

@Ziron-1836

3: LAN play is a huge minority compared to Battle.net play. Yes it is sad that it is gone, but they have their reasons for eliminating it. (Hardening the game against hackers/packet sniffers is likely part of the reason)
Ya, i heard the excuses, not good enough.

I’m not gonna say minority, but with enough optimizations paired with google cloud services, could give you an 20-80 ms easily. On open beta I had moments with 62ms(normally at 120ms) and I’m outside of the U.S. On overwatch I can reach 42ms(normally at 72ms) sometimes. For a person who played on their classic d2 realms with 2k-4k ms it’s really different experience.

@Ziron-1836

I’m pretty sure you can invite/join friends games.
What about casual guys you are just starting to meet that are not on your friends list and you have no interest to go that far? Like a casual random encounter.

Unless you’re playing on console you could do just fine, like you always did on pc. On the other hand they stated some console features:

@PezRadar

Console Lobbies / Chat Update

During the Early Access Beta, we identified and fixed a bug preventing console players from grouping up in multiplayer. As we progressed, this system was working as intended for the Open Beta during our testing; and when we modernized the Diablo II experience for the console, we designed the game so players didn’t have to rely on lobbies to play with others. Instead, players can invite their friends into their game directly or utilize the Party Finder to join up alongside other players with similar objectives. With that said, over the past couple of weeks, we have seen many discussions and expressed concern over the difficulty of joining the appropriate games based on a player’s current activities. In Beta, finding other parties on console was confined to a few conditions. For example, if the player was on an identical quest as you, with a similar character level and the same difficulty, you could join into that other player’s multiplayer session.

For modes such as PvP or the Cow Level, console lobbies don’t propagate until you hit a few minimum requirements. For PvP, players need to reach level 9. For the Cow Level, players need to complete that challenge on their own front first. For these two modes, once those conditions have been met, console lobbies of those activities will become visible for those players. There is also a Free Roam option players can opt into if no quest is selected. There is no quest restriction, but players that share similar levels and identical difficulty will be able to share a multiplayer session. A lobby is automatically converted to Free Roam once a player’s character completes the initial quest that a lobby started as in that multiplayer session.

Following our Beta, we’ve seen many console players requesting more options to better navigate activities in multiplayer. We’ve added Bosses and Zones tabs to the Party Finder, so players can better coordinate on that front, alongside the Pandemonium event, Uber Diablo event, and PvP/Dueling. Some console players have also requested the option to create custom lobbies. That is not a feature we’re supporting at launch, but as we progress, we’ll continue to monitor feedback on this topic after the launch of Diablo II: Resurrected.

Shown below is a breakdown of additional parameters players will be able to sort by in the Party Finder at launch beyond the quest options that were present during Beta:

Boss Kills

• Andariel: Requires Act 1 completion
• Duriel: Requires Act 2 completion
• Mephisto: Requires Act 3 completion
• Diablo: Requires Act 4 completion
• Baal: Requires Act 5 completion
• Cow King: Act 4 or Act 5 completion depending on Classic or Expansion character

Zones

• Free Roam: No requirement
• Tristram: Requires nothing
• Canyon of the Magi Tombs: Requires Act 1 completion
• Chaos Sanctuary: Requires Act 2 completion
• Pindleskin: Requires Act 4 completion
• Maggot Lair: Requires Act 1 completion

Other

• Pandemonium Event: Act 5 completion
• Uber Diablo: Act 5 completion
• PVP/Dueling: Requires level 9

Lastly, we’ve seen a lot of discussion surrounding the Chat functionality on console. We designed the game to be the best experience on each platform you play, for console, the primary way for players to communicate is through native voice chat on their platform. So, we’re not making any changes on that front, but we’ll continue to monitor that feedback to see if it remains a prevalent area of concern for our players. If so, we’ll explore making changes or adding more functionality to the in-game chat system post-launch.

If you didn’t liked what you saw, feel free to refund and see for yourself if will be a flop or not. I hope those info could help you to make your own decision.