PlugY released version 14.00. This is a significant upgrade. First off, it is now compatible with Patch 1.14d, the latest Blizzard client. This means you can now use this mod with the version available for download on your Battlenet account, and don't have to install from your old discs. In-game, it's alot of quality of life stuff like naming stash tabs and more stat pages. The biggest draw however is that the Uber Event with Diablo, Mephisto and Baal now has the proper scripting. In earlier versions, they would not spawn the adds they did on the official servers, making the fights a pale imitation of their actual challenge. This has now been rectified, and the one of the best and most essential mods ever is now pretty much feature complete.
@JuliusBorisov Whatever Diablo 1 lacks in features, it makes up for in pure atmosphere, which only certain sections of Act 1 in Diablo 2 (mostly the Monastery) ever matched. This is mostly due to Matt Uleman's claustrophobic soundtrack, which gets even better on floors 5-8 and 9-12. There are some real moments of nightmare fuel in this one, and it's nice to see that the Butcher is still as effective as it was 25 years ago when I first encountered it as a young child. I (like most people) literally put down the game for an extended period of time after the first encounter, assuming it was impossible.
While Diablo 2 is the one that introduced an implemented Hardcore mode, the original Diablo was intended from the start to be very similar to Rogue, and the initial intent was to make it with perma-death. In the end, it's not hard to force yourself into this anyway, as you simply don't reload your save file (there is no respawning in town in Diablo, you die, it's reload or game over).
The shrine effects, loot, etc are all very much inspired by the aforementioned Rogue. There are cursed items that sell for 1 gold, and the special skills of the three classes aren't remotely balanced. None of them are that good, but the Rogue's Disarm Trap ability is practically useless, the Sorcerer's recharge stave is fine, but it reduces the amount of charges on the staff permanently, whereas recharging it with Adria doesn't, and the Warrior's repair armor does the same, reducing the total damage the item can take each time it's used, but it's still the most useful in pinch deep in the depths.
"Diablo II Resurrected will feature both the classic and remastered visuals, and no major gameplay change. Players will also be able to switch between the two visual styles on the fly. Among the new features that will be included in the game will be controller support, toggleable auto-gold pickup, a shared stash, an advanced stats summary - no more counting needed"
First impressions:
I like general smoothness of animations and the graphic is overall nice. But - some animations are stiff, not in FPS area but rather in "living creatures don't move this way". Also, some spell effects doesn't work well with me. Diablo's fire nova should feel much more powerful, for example.
On the official site, there is already mention of improved interface (aside from what you could have in normal D2, you'll have access to more advanced stat info) and shared stash is coming. Since the game will be relased on consoles as well, I wonder whether controller support for PC version would be also included - I am just curious to see how playing via controller would feel.
I have more questions, but these will be answered later. I think.
They are NOT getting rid of the original Diablo 2, which is a HUGE piece of news. The shared stash is a huge update, as I flatly refuse to play without PlugY anyway. So thank god for that. As for the look, these graphics look almost as good as Diablo IV does.
To be honest the remaster is only worth it if they make a lot of skill balances, monster balances and meaningful drop increases. More fun rune words with underrepresented runes will help too.
I spent years of my youth in the game having tons of fun but when restarting and having to farm endlessly for items again, bleh... That was the worst I had to cope with in my hardcore run last year (2 years ago?).
To be honest the remaster is only worth it if they make a lot of skill balances, monster balances and meaningful drop increases. More fun rune words with underrepresented runes will help too.
I spent years of my youth in the game having tons of fun but when restarting and having to farm endlessly for items again, bleh... That was the worst I had to cope with in my hardcore run last year (2 years ago?).
I doubt they are gonna change rune drops again. They were massively increased in 1.11 and 1.13 and when the Remaster hits, trading will once again mean there are thousands if not millions of them out there (and not duped this time). The original drop rates of the items will, essentially, make sense again with a massive playerbase across PC and both consoles. They should definitely fix a few of the broken skills though. A couple are still bugged.
So, basically, to dumb it down, what is going on here is the base game of Diablo II is going to be running underneath the new graphics engine. It will be doing all the math and calculations, but it's going to manifest itself on screen in the modern graphics. Much like the LucasArts graphical adventure remasters such as Monkey Island 1& 2, you will be able to instantaneously switch back and forth between the old game and the new one to compare and contrast.
Runedrops and farming of them is still focused on kurast mega chest farming with a sorceress, or clearing a high level area. I find that very lackluster. And once you have one you need to save up for many more to make those nice words. It's just not balanced.
Runedrops and farming of them is still focused on kurast mega chest farming with a sorceress, or clearing a high level area. I find that very lackluster. And once you have one you need to save up for many more to make those nice words. It's just not balanced.
I just don't seeing anything that fundamental changing. Tyrael's Might is still going to be a nigh impossible drop, and farming Runes is still going to involve chests in Kurast and making infinite numbers of characters for the initial guaranteed drop from the Hellforge quest. I think all the quirks will be left in. The only fundamental changes will be the graphics, interface, the stash, modern Battlenet, and shorter ladders. Aside from that, I doubt anything will be altered.
Runedrops and farming of them is still focused on kurast mega chest farming with a sorceress, or clearing a high level area. I find that very lackluster. And once you have one you need to save up for many more to make those nice words. It's just not balanced.
I just don't seeing anything that fundamental changing. Tyrael's Might is still going to be a nigh impossible drop, and farming Runes is still going to involve chests in Kurast and making infinite numbers of characters for the initial guaranteed drop from the Hellforge quest. I think all the quirks will be left in. The only fundamental changes will be the graphics, interface, the stash, modern Battlenet, and shorter ladders. Aside from that, I doubt anything will be altered.
I know when they remastered sc1, they purposefully left out quality of life changes (such as being able to select more than one building at a time, or having more than 12 (or is it 16?) units in a control group. They also left in some pretty famous bugs (like Scarabs that dud and do no damage, for example).
I think those were left in because there was still a huge esport pro scene in Korea for sc1, and they didnt want the remaster to change the meta in any way.
I dont know if that's also true of Warcraft 3, but it makes me believe that D2 will err on the side of not making any meaningful changes/balances. Maybe I'm wrong since D2 is mostly a single player or cooperative experience - but if the past is any indication, that's how they'll approach it.
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For my own personal opinion. I'm thrilled this is coming out for the people who want to play it. I'm super happy and hope it's exactly what the community wants. While I did play D2 waaaaaay back in the day enjoyed it - it was never that important to me. I dont think I honestly liked it more (or less, really) than D3, despite all the hate the latter got. I'll play D4 when it inevitably launches, but probably not D2.
Wc3 and sc are competitive games. The balance was fine and predictable.
D2 is a single player co-op game where everything is random. If no quality of life is added then the only gain is graphics and for an old game those are not that bad and plugy brings a lot to the table already.
D3 is too many pop ups for me, and flashy screen effects and it is less clear to me where I am always walking to for a quest. I guess I didn't like the system and classes much because I never got the expansions for it, not even the story continuation. D4 is looking to be closer to D3 so I might just pass it as well.
I'm so glad everything stays the same, mechanic-wise. All the new classes, skills, etc - will be available in Diablo 4. D2 is a classic and there is a reason for it. And I couldn't even imagine it would be looking that good.
Wc3 and sc are competitive games. The balance was fine and predictable.
D2 is a single player co-op game where everything is random. If no quality of life is added then the only gain is graphics and for an old game those are not that bad and plugy brings a lot to the table already.
To be honest - I dont envy the choice Blizzard has to make here. The more changes they make, the less some of the hardest of the hardcore D2 fanbase will like it. The less they change it, the more you're still playing a 20+ year old game just with improved graphics.
If I were to choose for myself, I'd want them to make a ton of changes (Since I'm not really in love with the original game). However, I'm not the base they should be trying to appease.
I can see the argument for changing very little in Diablo 2, because Diablo 4 will eventually come out for people looking for a new experience.
I would just update some synergies such that it increases variability in classes, optimize damage for a few skills, fix those that are somewhat broken (like fend and strafe), and make gameplay more accessible in the way of drops and more runewords since everyone starts from scratch.
That's not a very large scope. One can do most of those things via modding.
Wc3 and sc are competitive games. The balance was fine and predictable.
D2 is a single player co-op game where everything is random. If no quality of life is added then the only gain is graphics and for an old game those are not that bad and plugy brings a lot to the table already.
To be honest - I dont envy the choice Blizzard has to make here. The more changes they make, the less some of the hardest of the hardcore D2 fanbase will like it. The less they change it, the more you're still playing a 20+ year old game just with improved graphics.
If I were to choose for myself, I'd want them to make a ton of changes (Since I'm not really in love with the original game). However, I'm not the base they should be trying to appease.
I can see the argument for changing very little in Diablo 2, because Diablo 4 will eventually come out for people looking for a new experience.
One of THE main, oft-repeated lines you will hear from people who hated Diablo 3 (for the record, I am NOT among them) was "just give me Diablo 2 with better graphics, and I'll be happy forever". The Diablo official forums are a toxic sea of negativity in general, but this IS what many, many people have been clamoring for. And fans of what has now become a whole sub-genre at Blizzard (their old games being modernized) is that people will accept some changes that are inevitable (for instance, since all private servers used the end of Vanilla talent trees in WoW, there was never any question Classic was going to as well), the audiences for these games are pretty gung-ho about having things stay as close to the originals as possible.
I knew the shared stash would have to exist, because all it does is eliminate muling, which was is a tedious and pointless exercise in 2021. Obviously, the UI has to be revamped for 1080p and 4k resolutions. And the graphics go way beyond anything I was expecting. But the game is going to be the game. Endless Baal and Mephisto runs, farming the Countess and The Pit, the ease of getting to Pindleskin to run on an endless loop. You take these things out and it really isn't Diablo 2 anymore. Moreover, PvP (the bane of my existence in almost any game that isn't Dark Souls) is still going to be as bare bones as it was in 2000. Toggling yourself to hostile and dueling in town.
And to your last point, this is absolutely also meant to be a holdover until Diablo IV, as all indications are it is going to be at LEAST 2nd quarter 2022, if not longer, before there is any hope of a release. Even the new remastered art-style is very, very similar to what is being aimed for in Diablo IV. It's an act of goodwill more than anything. It's just going to be a really meaty one.
The fact is, the most positive praise Blizzard has gotten the last 4 or 5 years is submitting to the will of the internet on WoW Classic (and now BC Classic, which was inevitable, and so will Wrath of the Lich King, but I think it will stop there) and now this. Warcraft III: Reforged has god awful press, and was destroyed on Youtube. There is actually essentially nothing wrong with that game, and everything said about it is either completely overblown or sometimes not even true, but don't think they aren't highly aware of the reaction it got and avoiding a repeat.
I find this interesting, that so many want new things all the time (I see it a lot in the overwatch community where it seems many youtubers shout about updates, or the lack thereof, while waiting for OW2). I guess being an older guy and having played games for 30+ years it means I was brought up in times where games were done and completed and then left. You, as a player, had to come up with "new" things yourself, ie new types up runs, challenges, or just make do with what was.
This is of course speculation, but I kinda get the feeling the other fanbase, those who want changes and new content, is perhaps tied more closely to the streaming crowd. With no new content, it's hard making videos and getting the views you need on twitch, YT etc. Well, I base this only on OW since that's the only one I am following (and SC2 championships), so I might be off.
Point being, I'm not surprised at all that there is one large group of players who want the "old" D2 to stay true to itself and not change. Was it tedious? Yes, haha.. incredibly so sometimes. Running Meph or Bhaal for 100 times in a row was basically the end game for a long time until ubers and all that (but I had personally quit playing by then) but that was enough for me. I have good friends who plays WoW Classic again and have been since it got out and seems content doing that. For a while at least. Even I feel I cannot hold the same attention for as long nowadays so I reckon I will play D2 for a couple of months and then move on again, but during that time which will probably be rather short, it will be glorious.
I'm curious if the old builds will all stay the same. If yes, I guess the first char will be the same old hammerdin as first char as always. I hope some tweaks are included though, nothing major, but perhaps some tweaking of certain skillsets to make more builds viable without uber-gear, like kickazons who reap through normal/nm and then so easily get stuck in hell without the BiS gear.
I like what I've heard about the QoL changes, that they are optional! That's a great addition and I assume I will personally tick all those boxes to be active (ie auto pick-up of gold etc) but for those who don't want it, they can un-tick it and everyone's happy.
Kicksin you mean? Julius ran one recently (see above).
Magic find runs I am okay with. That is part of the game. But taking ages to find anything is not something I look forward to. And if paladins are only competitive in hell as a hammerdin then I also have issues with the remaster.
I looked at the gameplay from blizzonline and the graphics do look impressive.
Magic find runs I am okay with. That is part of the game. But taking ages to find anything is not something I look forward to. And if paladins are only competitive in hell as a hammerdin then I also have issues with the remaster.
Both Vengeance + Conviction combo and standard Zealots can be insanely powerful. Auradins are also. Not to mention of how smitter makes Ubers look like joke. Hammerdin's aren't the only good Paladin builds aout there. Paladin is probably the strongest class in the game, in my opinion.
Hammerdins greatest benefit are twofold, they are cheap to kit up as a first char and perform decently, and their dual damage means you can hit basically all monsters and do well even at player 8. But yes, there are definately other skillsets that are viable but most require more and better items to perform as well, ie the smiter. But that's true for most classes of course.
Now I just got another thought. I don't think it will happen, but I would love to have the game reset to pre-skill charms. IMHO those last additions to the item pool wasn't my own personal favorite flavor. Been too long, what patch was that, 1.12 maybe?
I admit I was overstating it a bit. There are a lot of variants viable, but it shouldn't have to take extreme effort, farming and item dependency to get there. However, that is the end state of d2.
The part where it devalued was when runewords did much more than uniques and sets.
Hammerdins greatest benefit are twofold, they are cheap to kit up as a first char and perform decently, and their dual damage means you can hit basically all monsters and do well even at player 8. But yes, there are definately other skillsets that are viable but most require more and better items to perform as well, ie the smiter. But that's true for most classes of course.
Now I just got another thought. I don't think it will happen, but I would love to have the game reset to pre-skill charms. IMHO those last additions to the item pool wasn't my own personal favorite flavor. Been too long, what patch was that, 1.12 maybe?
Yep. Hammerdins are also critical in building up a gear supply for other builds. You can basically make a spirit sword and spirit pally shield and you're pretty close to set in terms of defense and offense, allowing you to commit most of the remaining gear slots to MF. And as you say, the class encounters very few immunes monsters -- importantly it's impossible for the game to produce a magic immune in chaos sanctuary. So the hammerdin can efficiently run there, arguably the best bang for your buck MF area in the game. And they can get there and run there with next to no pre-farming.
I'm super pumped about the remaster announcement. D2 without desync and without cheaters sounds like a dream to me. I was not a big fan of D3.
Comments
While Diablo 2 is the one that introduced an implemented Hardcore mode, the original Diablo was intended from the start to be very similar to Rogue, and the initial intent was to make it with perma-death. In the end, it's not hard to force yourself into this anyway, as you simply don't reload your save file (there is no respawning in town in Diablo, you die, it's reload or game over).
The shrine effects, loot, etc are all very much inspired by the aforementioned Rogue. There are cursed items that sell for 1 gold, and the special skills of the three classes aren't remotely balanced. None of them are that good, but the Rogue's Disarm Trap ability is practically useless, the Sorcerer's recharge stave is fine, but it reduces the amount of charges on the staff permanently, whereas recharging it with Adria doesn't, and the Warrior's repair armor does the same, reducing the total damage the item can take each time it's used, but it's still the most useful in pinch deep in the depths.
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-15-diablo-2s-unreleased-second-expansion-would-have-been-arpg-mmo
Also, we will be getting more Diablo news this week. Blizzard is set to host a "Diablo: What's next?" panel at BlizzCon.
"Diablo II Resurrected will feature both the classic and remastered visuals, and no major gameplay change. Players will also be able to switch between the two visual styles on the fly. Among the new features that will be included in the game will be controller support, toggleable auto-gold pickup, a shared stash, an advanced stats summary - no more counting needed"
https://wccftech.com/diablo-ii-resurrected-features-both-classic-and-remastered-visuals-game-is-coming-to-all-major-consoles-rumor/
I like general smoothness of animations and the graphic is overall nice. But - some animations are stiff, not in FPS area but rather in "living creatures don't move this way". Also, some spell effects doesn't work well with me. Diablo's fire nova should feel much more powerful, for example.
On the official site, there is already mention of improved interface (aside from what you could have in normal D2, you'll have access to more advanced stat info) and shared stash is coming. Since the game will be relased on consoles as well, I wonder whether controller support for PC version would be also included - I am just curious to see how playing via controller would feel.
I have more questions, but these will be answered later. I think.
I spent years of my youth in the game having tons of fun but when restarting and having to farm endlessly for items again, bleh... That was the worst I had to cope with in my hardcore run last year (2 years ago?).
I doubt they are gonna change rune drops again. They were massively increased in 1.11 and 1.13 and when the Remaster hits, trading will once again mean there are thousands if not millions of them out there (and not duped this time). The original drop rates of the items will, essentially, make sense again with a massive playerbase across PC and both consoles. They should definitely fix a few of the broken skills though. A couple are still bugged.
I just don't seeing anything that fundamental changing. Tyrael's Might is still going to be a nigh impossible drop, and farming Runes is still going to involve chests in Kurast and making infinite numbers of characters for the initial guaranteed drop from the Hellforge quest. I think all the quirks will be left in. The only fundamental changes will be the graphics, interface, the stash, modern Battlenet, and shorter ladders. Aside from that, I doubt anything will be altered.
I know when they remastered sc1, they purposefully left out quality of life changes (such as being able to select more than one building at a time, or having more than 12 (or is it 16?) units in a control group. They also left in some pretty famous bugs (like Scarabs that dud and do no damage, for example).
I think those were left in because there was still a huge esport pro scene in Korea for sc1, and they didnt want the remaster to change the meta in any way.
I dont know if that's also true of Warcraft 3, but it makes me believe that D2 will err on the side of not making any meaningful changes/balances. Maybe I'm wrong since D2 is mostly a single player or cooperative experience - but if the past is any indication, that's how they'll approach it.
edit
For my own personal opinion. I'm thrilled this is coming out for the people who want to play it. I'm super happy and hope it's exactly what the community wants. While I did play D2 waaaaaay back in the day enjoyed it - it was never that important to me. I dont think I honestly liked it more (or less, really) than D3, despite all the hate the latter got. I'll play D4 when it inevitably launches, but probably not D2.
D2 is a single player co-op game where everything is random. If no quality of life is added then the only gain is graphics and for an old game those are not that bad and plugy brings a lot to the table already.
D3 is too many pop ups for me, and flashy screen effects and it is less clear to me where I am always walking to for a quest. I guess I didn't like the system and classes much because I never got the expansions for it, not even the story continuation. D4 is looking to be closer to D3 so I might just pass it as well.
To be honest - I dont envy the choice Blizzard has to make here. The more changes they make, the less some of the hardest of the hardcore D2 fanbase will like it. The less they change it, the more you're still playing a 20+ year old game just with improved graphics.
If I were to choose for myself, I'd want them to make a ton of changes (Since I'm not really in love with the original game). However, I'm not the base they should be trying to appease.
I can see the argument for changing very little in Diablo 2, because Diablo 4 will eventually come out for people looking for a new experience.
That's not a very large scope. One can do most of those things via modding.
One of THE main, oft-repeated lines you will hear from people who hated Diablo 3 (for the record, I am NOT among them) was "just give me Diablo 2 with better graphics, and I'll be happy forever". The Diablo official forums are a toxic sea of negativity in general, but this IS what many, many people have been clamoring for. And fans of what has now become a whole sub-genre at Blizzard (their old games being modernized) is that people will accept some changes that are inevitable (for instance, since all private servers used the end of Vanilla talent trees in WoW, there was never any question Classic was going to as well), the audiences for these games are pretty gung-ho about having things stay as close to the originals as possible.
I knew the shared stash would have to exist, because all it does is eliminate muling, which was is a tedious and pointless exercise in 2021. Obviously, the UI has to be revamped for 1080p and 4k resolutions. And the graphics go way beyond anything I was expecting. But the game is going to be the game. Endless Baal and Mephisto runs, farming the Countess and The Pit, the ease of getting to Pindleskin to run on an endless loop. You take these things out and it really isn't Diablo 2 anymore. Moreover, PvP (the bane of my existence in almost any game that isn't Dark Souls) is still going to be as bare bones as it was in 2000. Toggling yourself to hostile and dueling in town.
And to your last point, this is absolutely also meant to be a holdover until Diablo IV, as all indications are it is going to be at LEAST 2nd quarter 2022, if not longer, before there is any hope of a release. Even the new remastered art-style is very, very similar to what is being aimed for in Diablo IV. It's an act of goodwill more than anything. It's just going to be a really meaty one.
The fact is, the most positive praise Blizzard has gotten the last 4 or 5 years is submitting to the will of the internet on WoW Classic (and now BC Classic, which was inevitable, and so will Wrath of the Lich King, but I think it will stop there) and now this. Warcraft III: Reforged has god awful press, and was destroyed on Youtube. There is actually essentially nothing wrong with that game, and everything said about it is either completely overblown or sometimes not even true, but don't think they aren't highly aware of the reaction it got and avoiding a repeat.
This is of course speculation, but I kinda get the feeling the other fanbase, those who want changes and new content, is perhaps tied more closely to the streaming crowd. With no new content, it's hard making videos and getting the views you need on twitch, YT etc. Well, I base this only on OW since that's the only one I am following (and SC2 championships), so I might be off.
Point being, I'm not surprised at all that there is one large group of players who want the "old" D2 to stay true to itself and not change. Was it tedious? Yes, haha.. incredibly so sometimes. Running Meph or Bhaal for 100 times in a row was basically the end game for a long time until ubers and all that (but I had personally quit playing by then) but that was enough for me. I have good friends who plays WoW Classic again and have been since it got out and seems content doing that. For a while at least. Even I feel I cannot hold the same attention for as long nowadays so I reckon I will play D2 for a couple of months and then move on again, but during that time which will probably be rather short, it will be glorious.
I'm curious if the old builds will all stay the same. If yes, I guess the first char will be the same old hammerdin as first char as always. I hope some tweaks are included though, nothing major, but perhaps some tweaking of certain skillsets to make more builds viable without uber-gear, like kickazons who reap through normal/nm and then so easily get stuck in hell without the BiS gear.
I like what I've heard about the QoL changes, that they are optional! That's a great addition and I assume I will personally tick all those boxes to be active (ie auto pick-up of gold etc) but for those who don't want it, they can un-tick it and everyone's happy.
Magic find runs I am okay with. That is part of the game. But taking ages to find anything is not something I look forward to. And if paladins are only competitive in hell as a hammerdin then I also have issues with the remaster.
I looked at the gameplay from blizzonline and the graphics do look impressive.
Both Vengeance + Conviction combo and standard Zealots can be insanely powerful. Auradins are also. Not to mention of how smitter makes Ubers look like joke. Hammerdin's aren't the only good Paladin builds aout there. Paladin is probably the strongest class in the game, in my opinion.
Now I just got another thought. I don't think it will happen, but I would love to have the game reset to pre-skill charms. IMHO those last additions to the item pool wasn't my own personal favorite flavor. Been too long, what patch was that, 1.12 maybe?
The part where it devalued was when runewords did much more than uniques and sets.
Yep. Hammerdins are also critical in building up a gear supply for other builds. You can basically make a spirit sword and spirit pally shield and you're pretty close to set in terms of defense and offense, allowing you to commit most of the remaining gear slots to MF. And as you say, the class encounters very few immunes monsters -- importantly it's impossible for the game to produce a magic immune in chaos sanctuary. So the hammerdin can efficiently run there, arguably the best bang for your buck MF area in the game. And they can get there and run there with next to no pre-farming.
I'm super pumped about the remaster announcement. D2 without desync and without cheaters sounds like a dream to me. I was not a big fan of D3.
Challenge accepted.
(Hopefully)