This is in no way to criticize the hard work, talent and effort put into this game.
So I’m giving it a go. There are a lot of bugs and glitches which are to be expected, but some of them may be due to my rig only having a GTX 870 and recording with OBS at the same time.
My intention is to get to Duriel and level my barbarian past clvl 30 in order to give Whirlwind a go. I want to see how it feels with the new animation. I suspect the change in animation will have a nuanced effect on the skill, hindering it’s damage dealing abilities. I figured I’d use Double Swing and Frenzy making it quicker for me to get to clvl 30, as well, it’ll give me an opportunity to get a feel for the three attack skills on the right skill tree, Double Throw included.
Where I’m At.
At this time I can bind hotkeys mouse wheel up and down as well as mouse 4, however I cannot allocate any skills to them. I bind my main attack to scroll wheel down, I bind Battle Cry to scroll wheel up and Leap/Teleport to mouse 4. As the game is now, I don’t have these hotkey features, which completely dismantles the way I’ve always played my barbarians.
The barbarian animations, personally, are not improvements. They slow and clunky. I’ve only unlocked Bash and Double Swing. Double Swing looks terrible. There is an animation delay or pause in each attack. It’s like they can’t figure out attack speed animation, and so are using a pause duration speed. I don’t know, it looks weird–ugly.
So far I am not liking a lot of the sounds. Hitting monsters, regardless of weapon type, has a new sound that is, squishy. The iconic D2 club-hitting-monster sound is gone and replaced with a sound that is not too far off from an organ being placed in the stash sound. It’s similar to vibrating your top lip off your teeth to make a fart sound. My barbarian, when he walks/runs, sounds as though his boots are full of water. Is it just me, or am I hearing D2 sounds being replaced with D3 sounds.
The art work, I don’t like it, it’s more PoE than it is D2. It’s too glossy. D2 2000 art work is all round far superior. The Legacy view of the game is nowhere near as crisp as D2 2000 using Glide.
To close the inventory screen using the button on the screen, one has to move the mouse all the way to the top right of the screen. Compare that to the Legacy game where the button is an inch from the stash. It might seem trivial, but it’s a big deal when picking up an item, identifying it, throwing it on the ground or keeping it, then closing the window. To close the inventory window I don’t use esc or the hotkey it’s bound to, my left fingers are hovering over 1234.
What I do like is being able to click items from inventory to the ground and stash. I’d like that feature brought to D2 2000. I also like the sound of the skeletons hitting the ground.
Whole heartedly agree on 90% of this, but that 10% is just matter of opinion =D
Clunkiness I am praying gets worked out. Btw, take note on the barbarian casting animation, and as to how far he thrusts his chest out on warcries. That same silly animation looks RIDICULOUS when horking for items, and absolutely absured when teleporting hahaha. Imagine 63 fcr bp, or even 105 fcr bp and teleporting with that animation hahahah (not that 105 is often used outside of a BO swap setup).
The boots filed with water made me spit some coffee up through my nose too haha, spot on XD
What might be the reason for the clunkiness, and I had a similar feeling when turning my character 180 with the turn rate animation they added is because there are extra frames of animation now. OG game was a 25fps 2d game with fairly discrete animations (few different frames, pretty “snappy”) whereas now it’s a 3d game with over twice the framerate and animations are continuous and with extra movement between the original frames. I think this was the wrong approach.
There is a technique for creating 3d animations that feel like 2d ones, it is used in fighting games like Guilty Gear Strive and Dragonball Fighterz. That technique is basically to manually draw, pose and illuminate 3d frames as if they were hand drawn 2d. The result, in those cases, is that it feels like you’re playing a 2d sprite-based fighting game with their characteristic “snappy” feel. I think they should have used that technique in D2. The gameplay itself, I feel like there is way less input lag which was something that made me quit the original game, but the animations do feel like they’re “slowing the game down” even though they aren’t. It’s something I can live with, but I 100% see the problem
Out of all your complaints (all of which I find valid and quite agree with), this is by far the one that I have the biggest problem with. In my case, because I play racing simulators and use all sorts of exotic peripherals like steering wheels and shifters, and had plenty of problems with configuring those things in games, I advocate highly for complete customization options for keybinds and such. Your way of binding those shortcuts is quite unusual, but it’s how you like it, and supporting all preferences for input is the #1 accessibility option.
99.99% of my game play is with a barbarian. I have about 20 different single player hc barbarians, 3 necros, a pally, 2 zons, a sin, 3 sorc and a druid. Everyone of them I use this configuration except the pally, for obvious reasons. My main character on every ladder has always been barbarians. There is no other configuration that is remotely close to this level of efficiency. Even my run/walk is mouse button 5, which actually works in D2:R. Without access to these hot keys, I simply won’t buy the game.
It’s sad too, as I have a change of heart in the art work of the environment and sounds. With all the lights out and headphones on the game looks really good and the sounds I can get use to, some of the sounds I like a lot. As well, I can live with the horrible gear and character art. I’m even willing to accept the oddity of the animations. I want to buy the game, but without my mouse hotkeys, it’s a total no go. Thank goodness I still have D2 2000.
Also, I use to troll the complainers of W3:R in the old classic forum, how the tables have turned on me. Karma bites back. I’m kinda disgusted in myself for being such a turd to them. I’m getting what I deserve.
I just wish you could change to the legacy mode sounds without putting the entire game in legacy mode. It doesn’t look nice, it looks bad compared to regular D2 in direct3d mode even (which was already bad), the upscaling is horrible.
As for keybinds, in D2 I play with defaults, but there are games where I’ve made my own personal layouts that are very specific for my tastes and efficiency, and as such, I believe this stuff needs to be fully customizable.