Thanks for the clarity. So, isn’t D4 set up in the same way? Where certain items will only drop after you’re level 85?
Is the main difference that you need to kill specific 85 mobs in D2, vs kill basically anything or open chests or do bounties in D4? And does that make it feel more productive in D2?
I’m just trying to understand why people like D2 more.
D2 didn’t have mob scaling, so most of the mobs in the game wouldn’t be appropriate for a max level player, correct?
It makes the uber uniques worse off to be honest. Like in D2, your build can be strong enough at 65 if you got the gear, go kill TC87 monsters and find those items. No level requirement to find the best items in the game.
Putting a lvl 85 requirement on these Uber Uniques for D4 also reduces the already absurd drop rates for those items. This game is much harder to kill higher level monsters if you aren’t within the level range due to the scaling difference, so casuals can expect to never find them underleveled if they can’t punch above their weight.
Yup, been playing D2R since the mega nerf patch, and actually having a great time. You’re enjoying it because the game is balanced, and the sense of progression feels good, and the drop rate for meaningful items is decent.
Just my thoughts.
Thanks for the detail.
D4 is a gateway drug to D2R. Why play an inferior copy when you can play the newly remastered original that even has Diablo in it?
It makes me laugh that some people say D4 is like D3… it’s nothing like D3 it’s an obvious try hard copy of D2.
TLDR I’m playing D2R as well
I also believe that for an Uber Unique’s to drop, an item had to have an IPL of 820 to even roll an Uber correct? In which case, the highest IPL that I had dropped at level 98 has been 818.
Nostalgia. Lots of that
But D4 doesn’t really have much to do past level 70. It’s missing a loooooooot. The itemization is pretty dull. A lot of builds are grossly underperforming. Running NM dungeons which are the exact same dungeons you already ran for eons is boring as well
Personally I think they also had a big opportunity to make some wonderful sweeping changes on the unique items in D2R and have spent over a year to tweak the BK set 
Terror zones are a nice addition.
Both games need significant help to keep any of my attention beyond a week or two per ladder though
I will say the company that remastered Diablo 2 did an amazing job at that. It’s just Blizzard has basically done nothing from there
I couldn’t agree more with this statement, Vicarious Visions shattered all my expectations with this remaster. It’s also an amazing feature that you can press F5 and see the original gfxs live on the spot
It’s like 0.0000001% droprate, so it’s just utterly ridiculous it’s like 1 in 800,000 uniques or something like that
Ediot: To be honest, we’d see more confirmations if it was 1:800,000 uniques. Cuz you’d have to figure on launch with 3m players, at least 800,000 had to have been 85 and doing 85+ content in WT4… with that, there’d be at least 1 found per day, which there wasn’t. It took like 2 weeks for the first Uber Unique to be found and it was a bigfoot quality picture of a Shako
The problem with D4 is unused potential and “recycled” engame activity i.e. NMDs
They should add “endgame” events at the Overworld (not the helltide, that’s something else, but actual places where there are elites +10 levels above yours), have them drop something useful, not necessarily items but drop Sygils and consumables also
Then expand the concept of Sygils into more than just NMD
Itemization is the second part of the equation but people somewhat tend to overreact when it comes to it though, it’s closer to what it should be than many people think IMO 
I like that you are drawn to D2. I have also been considering playing D2 again. It was my first PC game, and sentimental to me.
Diablo 4 has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve even considered going back to D3. I’m just waiting for season 29 to start, then I’ll see if I can waste some time on it.
Other than that, I’m playing AC Odyssey for the first time. It’s very exciting and fun. Open-world. Good mixture of action and RP. Also, the world is apparently massive and takes over 100 hours to enjoy fully. Loving it so far.
You make some good points. Still think that itemization is not good in D4 and at the end of the day it’s what keeps you playing, the hunt for a better item which in this new iteration is close to nonexistent after level 70 or so. D2R has rares with 9 affixes vs 4 in D4, that’s a huge difference when it comes to builds variety and upgrades. This is not counting RWs, Unique’s and Set items.
Im a semi casual player.
With the duration of seasons combined with hidden/seen stipulations associated with getting real dopeamine inducing uniques, this may not be the game for me.
Aside from MF, uber unique drop chances were actually random, which works for my playstyle.
Unfortunately, D:IV has some glaring issues that I simply cannot look past at the moment:
I went back to Diablo 3 for some time. I’ve recently become disenchanted with it now as I’m approaching 3k paragon and not getting any worthwhile drops anymore.
I played D2 hard back in the day, but I cannot get into D2R. It feels like I’m on a date with a long gone ex. Plus, D2R is a butchered experience from pre-1.10 D2:LoD - I’m not a fan of the game since that patch.
I’ve been just playing Desert Strike (an arcade map) on Starcraft II. I don’t have the time or energy at the moment to sink into a new RPG, regardless of the sub-genre. I also feel let down by the poor release of D:IV this summer, so I’m skeptical to try new games.
Its pretty simple, itemization and trade. Both plays a key role in the longevity and replay value of D2R. The reason its so much better in D2 vs D4 is that items actually have identity in D2 and u can instantly tell just by looking on the loot on the ground wether u want to pick it up or not. In D4 everything is generic rare junk that looks and feels just like the last 50 other u found and aspects and rares drops all the time, its litterally raining legendaries and rares. Having trade in D2 meant that the droprates didnt have to be artificially high to make people able to finish a build, this also meant that it was actually exciting to find a good and valuable item.
The loot system for starters.
Gee I don’t know maybe the fact that you can trade everything giving people a reason to grind for items and keep playing. The fact that they want us to try and find these items we need on our own is a burn out situation. Or maybe because the stash isn’t shared between your whole account limiting space for new chars. Or maybe it’s because max party size is 8 instead of 4. Or maybe it’s because you can duel anywhere not just in one area. Or maybe it’s the limit of the use of 4 skills only. Diablo 2 is a much better game, they ruined D3 and D4. I stopped playing when they patched everything haven’t been back since. Not a fan of being a beta tester in a game I paid full price for. Spend weeks playing for them to ruin all my chars in one go, na I’m good.
You are 100% right, in my opinion there’s 3 thing that made D2 fun to play for over 20 years.
-RUNEWORDS
-Randomized environment
-Easily playable with strangers “Andy act1, help”
I’m literally scrolling the D4 map for interactive things to do with other players but there’s zero…
-can’t easily give loot
-can’t easily find groups for similar objectives
They didn’t include anything that made diablo 2 legendary.
Diablo 3 got a paint job
I can answer you that.
That’s called emotional attachment. Nostalgia factor is working.
For me, the crux of the issue are the monsters.
In Diablo 2, you never knew when you would find a unique, a 6-socket etherual weapon, a good rune, a set item, etc… People didn’t just farm the bosses. World stone keep, some of the caves (The Pit), the cow level. In any of those places, you could find rare items better than unique itmes, set items, runes, or even uniques.
The monsters were the slot machine. They were not in the way of you getting your loot, they were the loot. That is why I also went back to D2R before the season started. I jumped on my sorceress. I didn’t know which one because I had 4. All different. This one was blizzard/hydra. I went to run Worldstone Keep and I was running past the monsters to Baal when it hit me…they have loot!! I had been playing D4 where monsters were not going to drop anything good.
One of the core problems with D4 is the designers want to reward you for completing an event, or a dungeon. They made the monsters in the game an obstacle between you and loot. What you do in Diablo 2 is get rewarded for killing the enemies. There is no end point where you get the loot. Sure, bosses in D2 have a better chance of dropping good items, but the rest of the mobs are not just an obstacle.
In D4, monsters are an obstacle. I run past them. I don’t touch treasure chests or shrines in dungeons because I will get more obstacles that spawn for at least a minute.
What D4 has done, is watered down the loot pool and increased the drop rate significantly. You have to spend time looking at every item in your inventory to see if the 1/10,000 or more chance of an item being useful gives you a marginal upgrade.
What you do 99% of the time in D4, killing enemies, is not what is rewarding. The reward is always at the end of what you do 99% of the time. More often that not, it is just as useless.
This is why I continue to play D2. I can spend 10 minutes or 4 hours. There isn’t anything like hell tides where I have to play a certain amount of time to get good loot.
I like hell tides because the monsters drop something useful, cinders. That is the best part of the game to me. Everything you kill will more often than not drop something you can and will use. They are not longer the obstacle, but the reward.