The Devil wants sacrifices, not QoL!

Diablo II: Resurrected General Discussion
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Hi,

I see many topics about various QoL suggestions: infinite stash, stackable gems/runes, charms inventory, personal loot, loot filters, easier respec, etc…

I really understand the arguments behind each of this ideas, which are mainly about the famous “Quality of Life”. However, I think a big part of D2 soul, success and longevity, is precisely not having too much QoL. It’s an important difference with more modern games, including D3.

Everything must have a price.

  • Why not an infinite stash, since we can mule ?
    Because handling mules (by creating characters, switching between them, moving stuff…) is the price for keeping a lot of stuff.

  • Why not stackable gems ?
    Because the storage of hundreds of them must have a price higher than a few cases in the stash. Otherwise, we could even imagine to store them outside stash, through a no-limit counter :-/

  • Why not a charms inventory ?
    Because it’s up to each player to fill his inventory and to use the “hold item + exit game” trick, or to free enough space to pick 1 item then to TP, or to free more space for more items and identification book or single scroll. That way you choose the QoL price you want to pay for power. Or the power price for QoL.

  • Why not infinite skills respec ?
    Because leveling a new character or farming essences or trading for a token is the price.

  • Why not personal loot ?
    Because loot competition is the price to pay in a multi-player game where you also benefit from other players power / auras / MF / increased XP.

  • Why not loot filters ?
    Because a ground with many white crap is the price for enjoying unique drops.

This “price” concept can also be applied to potions rather than health or mana globes, to TP scrolls rather than infinite TP key, to items identification (which could be removed for QoL), etc…

QoL is about making things easier… but do we really want D2 to be easier ? Probably not. And not too much “comfortable” either.

Let’s take an absurd example. Gambling was boring due to enter/exit interactions with vendors, so a refresh button has been added. That’s QoL. Now, we can find a specific item type more easily by refreshing several times. So, we could also imagine to choose the item type through a drop down list, avoiding multiple refresh. And we could imagine to enter a number of times we want to gamble it… This looks like QoL too. Then maybe we could just choose the item we want then pay a gold price calculated from the probabilities to get it. And finally, just replace “Gamble” word with “Buy” ^^

What I mean is that each of the many possible QoL improvements can alter the game experience. It can change the feeling with loot drop, the items we pick or not, the value of stuff we trade, and so on…
To be honest, I think it’s too hard to predict if the consequences of this changes would be really good or not for the game. So I would prefer Blizzard not to take the risk.

The Devil wants sacrifices, not QoL.

Thanks for reading.
Regards.

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You got it right, friend. I agree 100%.

Positive stats and Negative stats are a part of Diablo history.

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You nailed it, Dyrio.

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So, basically, you are against even the smallest QoL changes because ‘Back in my day…’.

That’s a horrible reason. That’s like saying ‘Well, there was a bug in Diablo 2 that wiped your hard drive if you killed the Act Bosses in alphabetical order! We had to learn about that 20 years ago, so Blizzard should keep it in!’
You’re arguing FOR mules simply because that’s what existed 20 years ago, either because Blizzard could not make a shared stash, or did not see the need for one.

‘My nostalgia’ is the worst excuse to keep clunky, outdated mechanics, like mules & needing to click on tiny stacks of gold, or not having stackable gems.

Literally NONE of those 3 ideas I mentioned ruin the game to add. People are just pushing back because ‘My nostalgia!’ :roll_eyes:

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Too much quality of life makes to much damage and changes for D2:R. This will totally ruin the game in the long term. And this will become the death of Diablo 2.

Blizzard should never forget WC3:Reforged.
Be very carefull what you do to D2:R.

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So you don’t want ANY QoL because they MIGHT go too far?
Great mindset to never improve on anything, because it might, maybe, possibly go wrong.

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I completely agree. Op has terrible reasons.

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I’m not against any change due to “nostalgia”. Otherwise, I can just play D2 as it is ^^

But ANY change will have an impact on the game (including graphics improvements themselves, btw) and IMHO it’s very hard to predict all their consequences.
It would be pretentious to say you can measure them right.

So, I’m a bit afraid that the sum of all QoL suggestions would totally change the gaming experience, even if I understand the interest of each of them individually.

I like gold auto-pick, I like enlarged stash and shared tab, I like gamble refresh, etc…

However, my point is that if we accumulate too much (supposed) “improvements” for QoL reasons, we will lose the notion of “effort” and “price to pay”, which entirely contribute to make D2 what it is.

I respect your point of view and your own “ideal bundle of changes”, but it’s probably a different one for each player.

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bruhh , personal loot is not even a Qol, its worse , it core changes so yea but i agree mate, idk whats going on with some people their head to turn d2 into a easy game like d3 with all noobfriendly made features.

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I agree with this. Blizzard should add QoL changes to Diablo 4 so it’s a modern game.

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The only reason for infinite/large stash for me is the chance to lose your items because of non-permed games. As long as we can create limitless mules and don’t have to worry about our items, I’m fine to keep going this way.

Explain me the sense of the higher price of having to switch 12983721983712893 characters to give someone my 12983712398471324 gems. I just don’t get it, if the point is not just wasting everybodys time.

For the rest of your arguments, I totally agree with you. They should not be added and I’m sure they won’t be.

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I definitely think some people don’t measure the real impact of all this QoL “improvements”.
They would change the way we play the game, i.e the game experience.

Limited space in stash or inventory (due to charms) have an impact.
Boring things, like mules, have an impact. Precisely because they are boring.

This kind of constraints make us do some choices, some efforts. It makes us pay a price.

In D3, I first found a lot of things “better” : stash tabs, gold auto-pick, globes, skills access, etc. But, finally, I’ve never been as addicted to the game than with D2, despite all this QoL and comfort.

I think many people are under-estimating the role of game’s drawbacks in the way they play. They think the most comfortable the game will be, the best the game itself will be.

I think they’re wrong, a game experience is more complicated than maximizing QoL.

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Way to use hyperbole to completely avoid creating a real argument.
Having ANY amount of gems is based on their drop rate, not if you can stack them or not. But keep making up utter BS and world-ending (and not at all reasonable) scenarios to avoid real arguments.

Gem stacking would be fine, so long as drop rates are not inflated. If you can’t understand that, and have to resort to hyperbole, then you have no idea how game balancing works.

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So…you admit they are boring, but because you had to deal with them 20 years ago, they should be kept…Again, for ‘my nostalgia’. :roll_eyes:

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As I tried to explain, the trade you describe is an effort. You don’t enjoy it. I don’t either.
If you do the effort to collect gems, to create mules, to switch characters and to move every single gem into the trade window, you will be rewarded, because you created some rarity comparing to me, since I have been too lazy to make the same effort.
That way, it’s like you played the role of a “gem vendor”. And it has a value.

If everybody can stack hundred of gems without effort, due to stacking facility and/or infinite stash, then trade them just entering a quantity in a field (why not…), your “job” will disappear.
So maybe gems will worth nothing. Maybe crafted items will be very common. Maybe everybody will pick flawless gems, or even lower quality ones, when they weren’t doing it before.

In various ways (which are hard to predict), your game experience will be impacted. The economy will be impacted. And so on…

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Agree!

  • Why not an infinite stash, since we can mule ?
    The few shared stash tabs that D2R currently has is good enough QoL. Don’t want too many because muling is a part of D2. So, if you want to hold more items then you have to make more characters to hold the items, or sacrifice items by either selling/trading them off to make space for the better items you want to keep. D3 has a max of 13 stash tabs, and D2R does not need to follow suit.
  • Why not stackable gems ?
    Inventory/stash management. Gems should not stack like in D3. Each gem should still take up one square in inventory/stash like in original D2. Gotta manage with what you have.
  • Why not a charms inventory ?
    Inventory management. Although D3 doesn’t have charms you have to decide if you want to have no charms, half charms, full charms, etc. in your inventory. Most of the time people play with full charms when their character is already decked out, and for PvP, and solo games. Otherwise, public games you probably don’t need as many charms in inventory because the party is probably gonna kill the monsters without the help of charms in your/their inventory anyways.
  • Why not infinite skills respec ?
    D2 started out with no respec so once you put a stat/skill point in then you would have to create a new character to change the desired stat/skill point allocation you messed up on. Current D2 has 3 free respecs and farming Essences for infinite respecs. Fine as is, and just gives another way of playing/farming the game. D3 has infinite skills so you can change any skill/items to make any build over, and over on the same character. D2R should not follow suit. What D2R could do, though, is have an armory like D3, but without the different skills and just for different item setup. That way, when I join game if I want to MF then I click on armory, and click my MF setup character(only has different item setup, not skills. Skills still same).
  • Why not personal loot ?
    D2 = shared loot(FFA loot). D3, and most other arpg’s = personal loot. Let D2R stand out, and shine with the shared loot(FFA loot) like it’s always been. There are consequences, and reward in shared loot(FFA loot). Also, once you start making friends, and eventually clans/communities come along shared loot(FFA loot) becomes more shared, and you won’t have to worry about loot unless you’re in public games. So, with friends/clan/community members, and solo games you won’t have to worry about people ninja looting. D2R does not need to follow suit with D3, or other personal loot games.
  • Why not loot filters ?
    D2 is meant to look for the awesomeness of items among the worst of items. D3 made it too easy to see the different items on map, and main screen. Just to scroll over items, and see the one/couple awesome items whether it be a high rune/unique/set item is super exciting.

So, conclusion is every QoL/change that some people want are already in D3/other arpg’s. D2R does not need to follow suit to make the game easier. D2 has always been a game about being hard, low drop rates, management of different aspects of the game, etc. Just to be clear I do love playing D3, and all the Diablo games. It’s just D3 is a fun fast paced game that has a ton of QoL that makes the game easier, but D2R should stay D2 with minor QoL changes, and eventually more content, expansions, etc.! Long live D2, and D2R! :smiley:

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Yes, they are boring !

But if I accept to keep them, it’s not for “my nostalgia”. It’s because their removal would change the way we handle our items, the decisions we take about picking an item or not, about trading it or not, etc…

And nobody can predict exactly if it will be a real improvement for the overall game experience. For sure, it will help you if you decide to keep a lot of items whatever the way you must do it (i.e through mules or infinite stash). But maybe more players will keep more stuff… Maybe it could reduce trade. Maybe it could make some unique items much more expensive.

I don’t know. And you don’t either.

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In theory, D3 should be the best game ever. All the QoL features you could ask for. Heavily streamlined.

Should be fun, except it isn’t.

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Gem stacking and gem drop rate does not affect each other in this situation. The question is about to be able to stack your dropped gems, why are you even talking about the drop rate here? And it doesn’t matter if I use a hyperbole to demonstrate the nonsense of using ANY amount of mules, even 1 mule just for gems is stupid. It has just no sense to force us to have ANY amount of mules to stash the gems and runes. It is not avoiding a real argument, I rather think you just didn’t understand the argument.

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I understand your point, but imho the real value of gathering gems is crafting and re-rolling. I don’t think anyone pays the “You put 964 Gems in a trade window”. They pay the “you cubed all those flawless gems to perfects”-factor. As long as gems have their value in crafting and re-rolling, there will be a “job” for gathering those gems.