Out of curiosity who would be interested in a D3 Classic?

General Discussion
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They’ve done WoW classic, and D2 Resurrected, and Warcraft 1/2 remastered etc.

I was just personally hopeful that they would re-release a version of Diablo 3 in it’s original state. Pre-nerf. Maybe some bug fixes so it doesn’t throw Error 37’s at us again (and stuff like the hydra bug that kripparian/krippi used to kill diablo pre-nerf) lol. I also assume it would not re-release a RMAH considering the difficulty implementing it would be and what I also assume was partly removed due to potential legal issues regarding real money trading.

For me, the idea is a fun one to entertain though, because honestly I loved the game on release. I was unemployed at the time and I went hard on it for three months straight, playing hardcore primarily farming Act 2 goblins with the streamers and the other degenerates. The difficulty made the game so much more enjoyable for me, walking into act 2 after clearing act 1 inferno, and getting 1 shot by a bee on my first test playthrough of the game on softcore was such a reality check. Getting surrounded by a bunch of molten fire chain fast frogs in Act 1 on my monk and losing a character with over 250 hours /played is a memory I hate and love at the same time. Having to full clear the story mode on each difficulty in order to reach the next may have felt tedious for some, but I personally loved this and hated when they basically removed story mode from the game and you never had to touch it again. Having yellow gear drop with 5 or 6 affixes on it and getting super excited, having legendary drops so infrequent that they actually felt significant, NOT having 6 set bonus green gear that become the entire focus of the game and you don’t even feel like you have any power without them to do content… these are things I loved about the original release.

I know supposedly there was a majority that hated the game and that’s why RoS didn’t sell too well etc… but for me… the dumbing down of the game, leveling in an hour or two to max level, endlessly farming rifts over and over (which I enjoy in its own way but not as much as how it was before this), the ridiculously high amount of legendary drops to the point that they are often viewed as trash drops and some people don’t even pick them up. The crazy %'s that green items give in bonus damage…

And that’s not even talking about the significance of things in hardcore that were changed that effectively negated the feeling of loss or significance of your character, like adding death procs to every class, and such as when they added paragon and if you died you would lose it all on that character… but then they changed it one and a half years later to be shared paragon with no loss of paragon upon dying effectively negating the significance of the death since you could just get boosted (The same patch that changed paragon to account wide was the patch that removed difficulty walls which allowed boosting to become easier), use the backup set of gear you kept in your stash, and would still have the hundreds of hours of time it took to grind the paragon.

IDK secretly in my heart of hearts I have hoped they would release a D3 classic lol but I figured posting this here and seeing how much interest in it other people had might be cool. Drop ur opinions and stuff… or don’t either way lol.

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We seem to get about 1 post a month asking about it.

Personally, I don’t see a reason to have it. If I want a nostalgic feeling of D3, I can go play it on a PS3 console, as its more limited, with level 60 items, no Necro, 100 Paragon limit, no seasons, rifts, GRs, etc.

In other words, back when the game was more busted and annoying. lol

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Well

  1. I don’t play console and haven’t since I swapped from N64 to PC in middle school lol

and

  1. I like multiplayer aspects of the game, as well as the fact that I doubt that version, though significantly older than current, is not the same as the original state of the game and likely includes nerfs, changes, and paragon (which you mentioned and was not in the original release)

PLUS

  1. In regards to the multiplayer aspect, part of that is the competitive spirit that comes with people all pushing to clear the game first, which was the main sense of nostalgia that I feel I miss. I really only get entertainment in most games from feeling like there are other people I am trying to race against or play better than. That’s my sense of fun, at least.

So with those three major things in mind, I feel that it’s not the same thing I am talking about at all and would be a very different experience.

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I just read the title.

No, thanks.

How to play D3:R :

  • Only play in campaign
  • Do not play in season
  • Do not assign paragons
  • Enjoy few pieces of sets
  • Enjoy your rare items
  • See you in 6 months
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which state would that be? Which version of the game?
And what is this nerf you write about?

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Nope. No classic or similar stuff.

Yes, I would like some new stuff. Even an expansion, maybe the one that got cancelled.

Don’t think it needs to be remastered though.

Raise level cap, new items, new powers, retain popular current powers, discard the stuff no one is using etc.

Bring on more meaningfull dlcs, classes, story, expansions etc.

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They won’t be able to bring that back. Besides that, the loot was centered around the AH being present. And that’s not coming back either.

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You can pretty much get the same miserable experience again if you want right now:

Play only campaign
Set it on T6, T16 when you get to level 70
only play with rare or lower quality gear

As far as a D3 classic release, hard pass for me
don’t want to be stuck in campaign mode forever
don’t want impossible drop rates because they wanted to force people thru the RMAH
don’t want breaking barrels and jars as the #1 way to find gear
don’t want 20 levels of gems where I have to level them 1 at a time
don’t want to have to ID rare items and especially ID them 1 at a time
don’t want to spend 50 hours to get a legendary only for it to be a rare with flavor text
don’t want to have to farm spiders or scorpions because monster density sucked everywhere else
don’t want to be on Hell a1 and the gear I need to beat it is on hell a2
don’t want my only end game content being reloading the same zone over and over simply to farm gear
don’t want to be broke on gold because I hit a monster with a stick and now my stick is broken

if you need more reasons, lmk, I could probably come up with another 10-15.

Original state would be the game on the release.

The original difficulty was nerfed because the only way to progress was to either, hit the lottery, buy gear from RMAH, or cheese it with a build that could perma-stun lock bosses or had very high life leech, so you would take a long time to kill bosses, but you couldn’t be killed.

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i understand why the RMAH was canned. But why didn’t they keep the other AH? IIRC there were two?!

I hoped they meant something a tad bit later. Game at release was :face_vomiting: in my PERSONAL opinion.

understood. Thanks. I had already stopped played when that happened. :smiley:

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It’s not fun it’s too old that you forgot how much not fun it was

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I guess we just have a difference of opinion, and that’s fair, and as i said it was largely unpopular with the majority so it’s not a shock that someone on the forums of a game that is basically entirely different than release who is still playing that version of the game doesn’t like the game that most of the people who DID like are not looking at these forums 13 years later lol

The thing you mentioned might make the currently game less dumbed down, but it also would not be the same experience that I am talking about. The difficulty is nowhere near the same, the drop chance of items is immeasurably higher, the list goes on.

  • As I said the campaign requirement was a positive in my book
  • The drop rates being low were also a positive, current drop rates are “oh its not slightly better then the exact copy I’ve already gotten to drop for me 60x before so ill discard it” like I said drops were meaningful/significant. I personally don’t think they were geared towards RMAH necessarily unless you were too casual to grind it, and it was far closer to D2 drop rates than current D3/D4 by far. Which D2 is generally by the majority considered better than all the others for a reason.
  • Breaking barrels was not the best, it was farming goblins in groups.
  • Some of the quality of life improvements I would agree with you on however
  • Again, the legendary drop rate and lack of OP abilities on the legendary was a positive because skill/build mattered more than getting a REQUIRED item in order to operate efficiently.
  • I never farmed spiders and scorpions really, if anything I farmed specific named monsters like the one inside a cellar in Act 1 during the wretched mother quest that would sometimes spawn an entrance before the named wretched mothers location… I forget the name but it was a quill fiend next to a chest.
  • The act drops issue was a bit of a negative I would agree with that… but also a positive because it caused your progression to slow, and the game is better in my opinion when it’s slower for the same reason that classic WoW is better than retail leveling speeds.
  • I guess the reloading point is valid if you don’t like that, but even today in D4, PoE 1/2, Even D3 currently, is basically the same concept. Farm the same thing over and over by loading the same area or rift etc over and over and farming the randomly generated mobs inside of it. It’s basically what an ARPG is at it’s core.
  • Gold scarcity I felt was okay but I don’t have much of an opinion on that either way.

I do appreciate you taking the time to comment your opinions, and it’s obvious we just enjoy different types of things in a game which is fair. My main question was to see if there was any interest at all, because even if 10% of the current remaining player base would be interested that’s enough to put it into action.

I would willingly buy it as a new game again in order to play it in that format… and that is likely what they would do if they did release it since there is not subscription to make money off of like in WoW.

I don’t personally feel like the RMAH was the reason for the loot scarcity. The game when announced and when advertised was focused on being HARD and guaranteeing people that THEY WOULD DIE and other claims like that etc. and that aspect of the game is a big reason I miss it because atm even the best of the best loot gets to the point that it is insignificant and just another material to crunch. And very quickly within 1 week of gameplay.

Where-as it took me 2-3 months of playing mostly 16 hours per day to farm enough gear to kill diablo on hardcore. You can’t get that experience with loot piñata style drops.

The RMAH and AH were removed at the same time for similar reasons, primarily people like those talking in this thread for instance, were of the opinion that buying gear from the AH was required in order to progress, this made it feel “pay to win” and encouraged farming gold over farming for drops. They also wanted to address the drop rates so that people felt they were getting drops that were more significant and tailored to them (It mostly rolled stats ideal for the class you were on after this change as opposed to equal chance at any class type drops dropping for you),

I don’t feel like the AH was bad personally, I enjoyed it, I also made $3000 or so off of it, and a lot of gold since I was at the highest level anyone else was at on hardcore and was getting the best drops in the game at the time, my gear was selling very fast for a lot of gold when I put it on the normal AH, etc but I was not personally advocating for the return of the AH system in this post per say.

That’s not true, I actually loved that version and disliked the changes as they came out “improving” the game from that version, me and many I played with generally would complain to each other about how the game hasn’t felt good like it used to anymore etc frequently, I personally like the new version as well… but I like the old version better.

Mostly because as a degenerate that spends way too much time playing video games (D4 launch I played 277.5 hours in the first 21 days of its launch for example) and the old version of the game was beneficial for a player like me, admittedly.

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Well, I had over 2k hours into Vanilla. In all that time, I found 1 item I could get more than $5 million gold for on the GAH, and that item I was able to get $20 mil. DH main and never, ever found a 2soc Manticore with dex, never found a tri ammy, list goes on.

Most my friends often laughed at how bad my char was DPS and always dieing. Only difference was they farmed gear and spent $250-$500 a month on RMAH, and I just farmed and try to grind for deals on the GAH.

As the RMAH was their secondary source of income for D3, they most definitely designed drop rates to push players to it.

I don’t know, while D2 grind is far more than D3 current, D3V was many, many times worse than D2. Through farming and trading, I could farm Hell on D2 comfortably in 12 hours or less of game play through farming and trading. Within a week or 2, I usually had all the end game pieces for my lightning Sorc. D3V, it was many, many weeks to get to comfortably farming and never really hit that all end game pieces.

Hell, you even say:

D2, you could kill Hell Baal a day or two into the season, even on HC.

As far as itemization, I do still feel D2 is far the best and smoothest. D3V was made lottery winning hard to push players to the RMAH. Post RMAH, they knee jerked and went far, far to the other side and made drops almost comical.

Agreed. There is always a wide spectrum of what people want. I hope you get what want. Doubt it will happen as the pool of people wanting this would be very, very small and player base would drop of fast and devolve into RMT bot spamfest.

Did the journey once and I am good, hope you get your chance on a return trip.

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Yeah, but in D2 the focus was different, the main reason to play was the ladder and spam run bosses as opposed to D3 it was more about just getting the kill due to the difficulty, getting to Diablo was almost harder than the Diablo fight itself. The last season right before D3 launched me and my irl buddy did the HC LOD ladder and got up to #1-2 on the ladder (I forget if it was at the end of just for a while) but I have no claim to fame on that ranking because he literally just had me stand in a corner and battle shout as a barb and then he would teleport to the end boss and then give the group a port there.

I played D2 super casually and solo I never even got past 2nd act half the time lol i was a total scrub back then. D3/D4 is where I actually got decent and had way too much time to throw at it. My buddy though has been hardcore playing since D2 early days. He goes by Citrina/Vegeta/necrid… few other names lol. But he was top of leaderboards back in D2 all time which is why he was able to carry me like that.

Yeah I never bought gear from the RMAH, and rarely bought it from the gold AH either… but I had this nifty shuffle I did where I would sell hardcore items on the GAH, trade HC gold to SC gold at a 1:3 million ratio, craft 6 property yellow items after utilizing the gold for materials, then I would sell the 6 property yellow items that rolled well for like 30 bucks each. Ended up selling close to 100 which is where I got that about 3000 dollars figure from. I did that for a while after I got the HC diablo kill before I got bored and I think a different game came out… prolly a WoW expansion lol

I still remember when Kripparian sold that horadric hamburger item for 250 bucks when he posted it during his stream lol that was so dumb it wasn’t even a good item haha I had another friend that got a stormsheild drop early on in HC and he sold it on D2JSP for like a couple thousand bucks. (That’s another thing, there was no RMAH on hardcore, so perhaps thats why my opinion of the loot system differs from your experience since it sounds like you played SC and I only ever played SC one time through to test the boss fights and power of mobs etc before going HC)

Either way like I said earlier I appreciate you taking time to respond. Have a good one man.

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Ah ah, you are even more violent than me

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Lets be real for a second… they’re not gonna bring back the AH.

That legislation that came into effect back in the day when the AH shut down means extra paperwork, etc to get an AH running again. There just won’t be the appetite from the player base to make it worthwhile.

The best one can hope for with a classic D3 experience is to start up another battle.net account, only purchase D3, and play the game that way. It’ll be like playing vanilla D3 experience on console where there was no AH and loot 2.0 implemented. The original 5 class sets will have the current set bonuses though so you won’t be making any of the old vanilla builds work… just bastardised versions of RoS builds due to no cube and only items up to lvl60.

Still, I am curious to play an IK HOTA barb that wields the Gavel instead of cubing it.

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I am not interested in the D3 Classic. There is a good reason why they dropped the D3 Classic formula and created RoS. The backlash was immensely due to poor itemization where almost everything was just stat stick, horrendous drop rate and a lack of proper endgame activities in D3 Classic.

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I think kripparian ran a meme build at one point that sounded fun, it was like throwing weapon barb or something, literally fought from ranged and I am pretty sure he did it in HC but I’m not 100% if it was SC/HC lol

I do agree that it wasn’t about endgame, but to me that’s part of the attraction, it was more about the journey/difficulty to reach the endgame. Kinda in the same way Vanilla WoW wasn’t really about the endgame as much as the time it took to get there. I think games these days suffer from the same thing most of our society has moved towards which is that instant gratification type of satisfaction rather than the enjoyment of progressing your character in levels and gear. There is still gearing these days… but like D3 for instance… you literally have your endgame build by the end of day 1 or 2 of each season and after that it’s just looking for slightly better rolls, primals, chasing endless paragon for stats, and primals/gems. But your actual gear pieces stay pretty much the same you are just looking for minor increases in stats… and that is one aspect of modern games I heavily dislike.

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Most players gear up through the Auction House on D3 Classic day.

As for the instant gratification statement, well, Rod Fergusson did address that issue a few weeks ago:

In the interview, Fergusson explained that Blizzard did attempt to go closer to the classic formula for Diablo 4. However, as players became used to the rapid progression of modern games, it became unfeasible.

“We were like, okay, this is what people love about the progression of Diablo 2, that idea of that very long chase, and so we launched that way with Diablo 4 and we found out very quickly that if you don’t give me my Uber in my season, then I’m upset,” Fergusson said.

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I mean on launch when I was playing nobody that was actually pushing seriously were really gearing through the AH unless something stupid good dropped because they were farming the highest content and THEY were the ones putting the good stuff up on the AH… and remember MOST of my perspective comes from someone who played exclusively HC, so there was no RMAH, and there were no upgrades on the AH usually because I was like… 1 of maybe 100 people and that’s being generous farming Act 2 inferno goblins for gear.

If anything REALLY good dropped from that group of people farming act 2+ it was usually put up on D2JSP a third party site, not on the gold auction house.

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Yep, there was backlash in D3 vanilla and they did not learn that lesson when making D4 and look where that got em.

I do miss elements of the open ended endgame in vanilla… it lead to community created experiences like Alkaizer runs and Crypt runs to compliment ubers.

But in saying that, RoS endgame is so much better. Though I’d wish they’d bring Altar and Fissures to NS. Bounties suck and being able to do one activity that handles all your material farming needs makes the most sense as we need to dedicate time to xp farming too.

The other thing that really could have been improved was making Ubers a challenge again. It really needed GR scaling with meaningful rewards.

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