Octopus Overlords

I'm going to try this on the PS4. Having the option of playing it on the big screen TV is too tempting. Hopefully the controller will feel good. That's my only worry.

Torfish wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:35 am I'm going to try this on the PS4. Having the option of playing it on the big screen TV is too tempting. Hopefully the controller will feel good. That's my only worry.

Controller works great, very similar to D3 on console, if you played that.

It’s become my preferred way to play, actually.

Agreed. After an hour of play, the controller feels good. Nice to play on the couch in front of the big screen.

Only played a bit but ya I prefer the controller myself. The menus could be a bit better but it's not a big deal. Playing offline characters for now as the servers suckkk

I didn't realize I could play offline until I saw it last night. I'll probably change over. Don't care for this laggy online shit.

There is absolutely nothing new to this game, other than a coat of paint and the ability to play it on console. It’s the exact same D2 that I played through multiple times 15+ years ago. I knew this coming in, but it’s still a little disappointing, tbh.

That said…WHY CAN’T I STOP PLAYING?? It’s still incredibly addicting all these years later…warts and all.

Yep, navigating the jungles in Act III still suuuuuuuuuuuucks. My least favorite part of the game, for sure.

Ya that area just didn't fit to the rest of the game. I always hated it too.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:28 am There is absolutely nothing new to this game, other than a coat of paint and the ability to play it on console. It’s the exact same D2 that I played through multiple times 15+ years ago. I knew this coming in, but it’s still a little disappointing, tbh.

This was very much a conscious decision.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:06 am Yep, navigating the jungles in Act III still suuuuuuuuuuuucks. My least favorite part of the game, for sure.

Is that the one with the pygmies? They were so annoying to target.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 2:35 pm Is that the one with the pygmies? They were so annoying to target.

That's the one. You know it's bad when you breathe a sigh of relief for reaching hell.

I'm sure I played a couple hundred hours of this game back in the day. Last time was pre Diablo 3 initial release. The combination of forgetting enough of the game in the last 10+ years and playing it on console I'm having a great time. Probably will play through Hell a couple of times.

My first character is a Druid and later an Assassin.

Chraolic wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 2:38 pm

Alefroth wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 2:35 pm Is that the one with the pygmies? They were so annoying to target.

That's the one. You know it's bad when you breathe a sigh of relief for reaching hell.

My daughter is fascinated when I switch it back to the original graphics. "I can't believe you used to actually play like that!" seems to be the prevailing opinion.

In fairness, I'm actually somewhat shocked at how rudimentary the original graphics look now. The updated version is closer to how I remembered the original in my head.

I thought it looked like crap back then. But man it was even worse than I remembered.

Man, Diablo can bite my ass.

I spent the entire game speccing entirely wrong for that fight. Took forever to chip away at him.

Lol, specced for fire/lightning damage?

I'm spoiled now a days and it takes more to amuse me than it used to. So altho I'm still enjoying myself it's not as mush as it used to.

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:03 am Lol, specced for fire/lightning damage?

Nah, I just couldn't hit him. Even with as many Attack Rating boosts as I could find, I still only had a 53% chance of connecting on my attacks.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:48 am

Sudy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:03 am Lol, specced for fire/lightning damage?

Nah, I just couldn't hit him. Even with as many Attack Rating boosts as I could find, I still only had a 53% chance of connecting on my attacks.

Could be worst. I remember my very first playthrough of Diablo 2 I was fully specced out Skeleton Necromancer. 5 seconds into the fight all my skellies were dead, there were no bodies around to make more and I basically had to whittle him down with nothing but bonespear. I used probably 50 mana potions on that fight.

Finished on Normal with the Barbarian tonight. That last sequence through Baal is a bitch, took me nearly 3 hours to take down first his minions, then Baal himself.

It was very fun to revisit D2 with a new coat of paint, but I don't really see myself playing through it with other characters or at higher difficulties. I got all that out of my system years ago and think once through is enough for me, at least for now.

I may revisit it down the road at some point, but the gameplay systems are really showing their age these days. That final sequence really solidified it. I don't have the patience these days to sloooooooowly chip away at bosses for 3 hours with no ability to leave or save. That doesn't really fit my life any more.

To get to "endgame" is such an unbelievable grind. Runewords? Lol. When I played on Path of Diablo last year I think I hit walls on Act 4 and 5 Hell that just felt insurmountable.

Yeah, it seems I have less than half the patience I did as a wee gamer many moons ago. "Tolerance" is probably a better word.

I'm at the very end stages of playing Black Mesa (fan remaster/remake of the OG Half-Life) and
1. It's WAY longer than I ever remember (I assume they added some content, but I doubt it's THAT much new). I simply can't fathom how I was able to blow through games like this (with that kind of "typical playthrough hours")...ever. And HL isn't ESPECIALLY grindy (though the jumping puzzles, using a physics engine/programming that absolutely SUCKS at jump modelling, is about to make me tear my hair out).
2. ONE kinda big bug has appeared at this OH so close to the end chapter, and it's JUST about to make me quit. The whole point of playing (replaying) this was to set me up to finally finish the 1st and 2nd episodes of HL2, which I never finished (now I see why!). I am not sure I can continue with my plan, but I don't THINK HL2 is as grindy as HL1. If it is, I might just jump directly to HL2 Ep 1.

I have not bought this Diablo remaster because of that...I seriously doubt I could make it through today. If I VAGUELY remember the title as being a bit grindy when I originally played it on release, I hate to think what I would think of it today. Probably "NOPE!"

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:04 pm I'm at the very end stages of playing Black Mesa (fan remaster/remake of the OG Half-Life) and
1. It's WAY longer than I ever remember (I assume they added some content, but I doubt it's THAT much new).

FWIW, having played both within the last few months (sort of - I started with BM then switched over to OG HL), Black Mesa is entirely a 'remake' with a big pinch of 're-imagining.' It has some areas expanded greatly, other areas reduced (On a Rail, for example.) The gameplay is different, and the atmosphere is night-and-day. It's best though of as a complete reboot.

In the end, I felt that Black Mesa was a good game. It just wasn't good Half-Life.

Since I cant afford this I reinstalled Diablo 3 again. But I cant seem to get myself to make a new character and play. I finished it with maxed out Demon Hunter and Necromancer. My favorites. I would maybe like Wizard too but I have a 23 or so one and logged it in. She is right at the boss fight at the desert palace. I tried a few times and kept dying. I guess thats why I left her there. She has cool magic in one is a twin beam attack the other is chain lightning. Her mana globe is purple and almost instantly refills when I left go of casting a sec. But I dont see myself trying to beat that guy forever..especially when Ive forgotten her skills and spells and button controls.

Belial is a very movement-oriented fight. It's definitely been a source of frustration for me on some runs, but I rarely play story mode anymore. You definitely want the escape ability and anything you can cast while on the go on your toolbar.

The annoying thing about that fight is having to replay the not-very-interesting first phase again if you die on the second. If you're underpowered it takes forever.

My wiz has to stand still to use her main attack which is twin beams of..I think fire. She has some diamond armor she can cast and a hydra turret. But to knock him down she has to stand still and fire the beams. I dont recall having trouble with him with the Necro and the Hunter. Everything leading up to him just melts under her beams.

I'm the opposite from many of you. I'm enjoying my time back to D2 and I will probably play a couple of characters through hell. Maybe it's because I'm playing on the PS4 and with a controller. It's a different game from D3. I very much enjoy D3, but I hope D4 is more like D2 gameplay. Keep the endgame somehow within the story and not have things like rifts/adventure mode. D3 story is trivial because of the endgame design.

(this is an edit of a post I made in the Wanderers forum)

I think D2 is seen very differently for each individual. Those wanting something closer to a more traditional RPG will likely not care for the way it emphasizes action and loot and character build choices over story/lore. And on the flip side, those who want a more pure action-oriented RPG don't like the game's way of forcing you to make choices and possibly wrong ones, as well as the (relative) difficulty, particularly as you head into Hell. What's interesting to me is sometimes the same people who enjoy really punishing games like Dark Souls have complained to me about D2 being too difficult. I think there's a perception that the game should be more forgiving, maybe because the perspective looks like a traditional RPG? I don't know. I think what's kind of been lost over time is the game was really more of a roguelike in terms of influences, and it was considered a "rogue-lite" type of game, particularly if you played hardcore. For better or worse, I suspect D3 kind of changed the way people viewed the genre in general, and kind of created a rift with the older school D2 fans. Of course there remain some of us that enjoyed D3, but still remain huge fans of D2 and consider it the superior game.

For me, D2 will always remain a true classic, perhaps the best of its kind, warts and all. Being able to play this new graphically updated version (not to mention portable on the Switch!) is just a wonderful feeling. I actually haven't played that much of it thanks to New World but I just love knowing it is available to me any time I want to scratch that itch.

Anyway, every few years or so I find myself discussing with other people what really sets D2 apart from other ARPGs. There have been plenty of QoL improvements and gameplay changes/enhancements to the ARPG genre over the past 20 years, but shockingly, not one single game has provided the entire feature-set that D2 did/does. It's a fairly amazing achievement to me that this is the case, but you can do the research and prove me wrong if you can. There are games that come very close and do some things better (like D3 and Path of Exile), and/or may eventually come very close (Last Epoch), but even those new games don't/didn't provide everything. And they've had over 20 years to figure things out!

So here's a list of things that set D2/D2R apart. Remember you have to look at this in the complete sense of all these things combined. It doesn't matter whether or not someone values a particular one of these, but the fact is they were able to provide all of them. I won't bother listing all the common features or discuss which games have the "best" skill or loot systems or story or whatever. I'd say you can easily argue there are pros and cons with all of them.

- Full, 8-man co-op multiplayer (this is really a feat in itself, given how many games have settled on 4 players max. I have yet to test this out to see how it works, but I played of the original game so I know how much fun it was)

- Player economy/trade, server authoritative or whatever you want to call it. This is where games like Titan Quest and Grim Dawn failed to deliver. Why does it matter? Because the game balance is a completely different level of complexity once you need to think about full MP, trading, item economy, etc.

- Seamless world, i.e. no load screens (within an "Act"). This is a relatively minor/lesser feature, but it does go to the game 's feel of immersion. I was playing TQ a while back and it was such a start contrast to walk into a cave and have it be seamless versus having a giant load screen delay the process. I noticed D2 does seem to have a super fast load screen when you descend a level, but it is pretty much instantaneous. My question is why do modern games no longer value or support this. Someone said it had to do with the complexity of graphics but I find that hard to buy given the amount of graphics power and memory we have now.

- Randomized maps. This goes to longterm re-playability. I recall after I'd played TQ too many times I had memorized exactly where things were happening, and it kind of dampened the fun. And this is coming from someone who has very poor sense of direction and map memory. GD gets around this somewhat by making some of the maps way too windy and complicated, which I don't think is a great solution either. PoE offers some map variations but I believe ultimately they are fixed and apparently there are tricks that allow you to memorize your way through the maps. D2 is the only one of the big ARPGs that successfully randomizes most of its maps to make it more of a roguelike experience.

Nice write up. One thing that I never really thought about that you mentioned. In 20 years, no ARPG game has fully duplicated what D2 offers as a whole. Agreed 100%.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like D2, it just doesn’t have any longevity for me at this point. I feel like I fully got my $40 worth playing through it once, and don’t have any desire to dive into the rabbit hole of of calculus, probability, and theory crafting required to be successful past that point. Way too much work for me.

I think the fact that it can satisfy players like me as a “one shot” experience while also satisfying others as an ongoing “end-game” experience speaks to how well it is designed overall.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 9:11 pmI think the fact that it can satisfy players like me as a “one shot” experience while also satisfying others as an ongoing “end-game” experience speaks to how well it is designed overall.

Exactly! That was something I remember saying many times over the years. I think the first time I played it I kind of went through it as a single player experience, I don't remember if I even made it to Act 4. I may have dabbled in another class or two. It wasn't until the expansion came out when I "rediscovered" the game, but at that point I think I also had a cable modem, so it was my first foray into online gaming. I ended up joining a group called The Amazon Basin (they are still around!) and met a lot of good people playing in groups together. The online co-op ended up being a complete game changer for me.

For all the PC players complaining about the interface, they are finally going to offer a quickcast/keypress type of interface:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo2 ... oming-soon

It will definitely deviate from the original game's interface feel but I think the vast majority of players will appreciate it. If they were adhering to the strict re-creation of the game's feel, I'd say this goes away from that vision, but clearly they already did that with the console versions.

Been watching people on Twitch play this. It really looks good in the graphics dept. Cant/wont pay full again for such an old game redone but if it goes down to $10 or so I might....or might not because by then no one will be playing and I dont like these type games alone hehe.

rittchard wrote: ↑Mon Nov 29, 2021 7:28 pm For all the PC players complaining about the interface, they are finally going to offer a quickcast/keypress type of interface:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo2 ... oming-soon

Wow! That might actually get me interested.

I'm still play this on console. The fun has not been lost with the updated graphics and controller play. I'm looking forward to the patch as well... console players can up the #of players on solo games.

This seems really interesting though in the patch notes... In the coming weeks, Diablo II: Resurrected will be launching its first ever Public Test Realm (PTR)—a special realm where we can test balance, bug fixes, and other enhancements we make to the game.

Balance changes and other enhancements. Hmmm.

I was surprised to see that patch is already released!!!

I gave it a whirl and if you only played the game PC it's kind of a game changer. I almost felt a weird sense of guilt using the new hotkeys lol. I'm not sure if it changes much for hardcore builds, but if you like to play around it definitely has a very different feel. The traditional system makes you really lock in as few skill changes as possible, but this new one really lets you mess around with other skills at the same time. I suspect that's actually detrimental to a focused build, but it feels like more fun and opens up the playstyle possibilities.

As an example, I am playing (just started) a trap-assassin focused on Wake of Fire. My old version of this was about 90% just using WoF. With hotkeys now I can put something else on right click (I'm thinking like the shuriken or whatever it is), plus I have easier access to her buffs (speed, resistance), which I used to use but didn't really put on major rotation. It's a much better feel.

Now we just need some better inventory management, especially with the potions. If they had an auto pickup for potions and didn't have to play with the inventory for them it would be a dream come true.

for this new version, can you control your character directly with the gamepad and attack with the buttons like one would in an isometric action game? (as opposed to 'click with mouse where you want character to go and attack')

i assume this is already the case for the console port - or is it?

Diablo 2: New runewords, set tweaks, merc buffs, and more coming soon

Check the site link for a full list of changes and additions ...

Diablo 2 Resurrected is getting new runewords and a ton of other adjustments in 2022, Blizzard has announced. D2R Patch 2.4 will introduce ladder and a ton of changes including multiple character class adjustments, a huge tweak to all set items to make them a lot better(most of the set items are simply unusable garbage), new runewords and cube recipes, and even major buffs to mercenary characters (maybe the Act 3 merc will be viable now?).

Daehawk wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:05 pm Diablo 2: New runewords, set tweaks, merc buffs, and more coming soon

Check the site link for a full list of changes and additions ...

Diablo 2 Resurrected is getting new runewords and a ton of other adjustments in 2022, Blizzard has announced. D2R Patch 2.4 will introduce ladder and a ton of changes including multiple character class adjustments, a huge tweak to all set items to make them a lot better(most of the set items are simply unusable garbage), new runewords and cube recipes, and even major buffs to mercenary characters (maybe the Act 3 merc will be viable now?).

Yep, can't wait. First balance patch in 11 years. Ladder and this patch comes out in Jan.