My survey timed out on Monday and is now expired but I couldn’t not give my feedback for my favourite ever game’s remake so here goes. Keen to hear if people encountered the same things or I’m on my own!
PROS:
Visual - The updated graphics and lighting captured the essence of the original game almost perfectly. Lighting in dungeons and caves meant light radius felt meaningful much like the original game (something I’ve only felt with the original D2) and even with the extended screen space caves felt claustrophobic (in a good way). The extended screen space was also a joy for all characters (not just ranged) to find those waypoints you just walked by slightly easier. The new textures feel like what the original game was aiming at in almost every case and in 4k it was breathtaking.
Audio - Both NPC and character voices sound like they were untouched and this makes the experience. Likewise the sound of gems, skills and items almost all sound the same and updated ones mostly just sound like deeper versions of the original. The footsteps are perfect and seem to reflect the armour you are wearing but I may be imagining that.
UI - More screen space is brilliant as when organising stash and inventory means you can drop things from stash without leaving the inventory screen. The addition of the shared stash is amazing although not being able to deposit a cube is a pain. There are already workarounds to giving quest items to alts (simply dropping copies in act 1 when with multiple people) so I am unsure why quest items can’t be placed, especially the cube that you can farm. A statement on this would be highly appreciated.
Ctrl + click is heavenly.
New keybinds make so much sense (they didn’t save and one was incorrect but this is a stability/ alpha issue I’m sure). I would have liked to have tried unique keybinds for secondary weapons but this option did not work though on paper seems like a great idea.
Gold autopickup is great but am worried I will pick up a dead teammates gold in multiplayer and be unsure how much I picked up which may put people off using this permanently for a very rare circumstance.
Gameplay - Jerhyn was behind Kaelan in the palace and mini teleported past him next to me when I tried talking to him to get access to the palace so I didn’t have to relog. This made me smile. If it is a bug, its a happy one. Some bugs like being able to walk through doors in Tombs if you open and close them really fast still work and this captured a lot of the charm of D2. Gambling not removing the item you buy is a great addition.
CONS:
Visual - With some updated textures the functionality of the original game has been lost for aesthetic reasons. One example is that enchant, when used on a long staff (and probably other items) is almost impossible to notice in D2R. This means it is very difficult to see when it expires, whereas in original D2 the top of the staff was bright red and much easier to see. Another example is dim vision and the other amazon curse which are difficult to spot in D2R compared to D2 legacy. Another issue was with the ground textures - in some locations ( especially the caves) tents or other things were added to the edge. Some looked like you could walk next to them but this section was actually before the wall and you couldn’t. This actually resulted in my chars getting backed into a corner I didn’t know was there and almost dying. The original game had very defined edges and walls in caves which is missed in a few of the randomly generated structures (although this happened once in many hours of gameplay so may just be an issue with one particular texture).
On the other hand blizzard felt a bit too clean and functionality has been put over capturing the essence of the skill - most notably the projectiles looked too thin or small. Although this made it easy to see the skill and enemies you were targeting, it made blizzard feel lackluster compared to the original game.
Gargantuan beasts (Act 1) and Crushers (Act 2) have different coloured fur in D2 but this didn’t appear to be the case in D2R.
Seemingly the smallest but weirdly most important thing I noticed was that the cow corpses in Tristram glow when hovered over in D2R, they do not do this in D2 original or the legacy graphics. I feel the glow draws attention to the fact the cows do something when you walk up to them and this loses a lot of the joy of new or returning players going “oo thats a cow” then standing too near it and having it blow up in their faces (Something I have done many many times)
Finally the ability to have an alternate install of just the legacy game would be ideal to allow players to truly play anywhere. I assume the game will be to large for a smaller ssd laptop. The game would also not boot on my surface pro 7 now and so I couldn’t test just legacy mode for this (this may be a stability issue). On this note a borderless windowed mode so you can play lower than your screen’s native res would be awesome.
Audio - Tomes of TP and ID were off, I can’t exactly place why. The noise when picking up the horardric cube and completeing quests was a bit too clear and thus sounded too high pitched at the end as a result. Some voice lines cut off or don’t play but I’m sure that just bugs at the moment. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here as most audio was fantastic.
UI - Hiring follower interface is very difficult to use, clicking on a name once did nothing and double clicking opened the mini window to hire them and then instantly hired them. Advanced stats page is not present in legacy mode which was irritating.
Gameplay - Rejuvenation potions don’t appear to be instant in D2R but look like they are in D2 legacy - unsure if this is visual bug or the mechanic is different.