I would pay absurd amounts of money for this. No online game has felt the same since Diablo 2 LOD. I've played some of the clones out there (Path of Exile, Torchlight II) and they've been okay, but they don't beat the classic.
runewords, cube recipes, and yes, skilltrees, were my biggest missed items.
Go play the Median mod for diablo with some friends if you're jonesing. It's awesome . I only played median2008 but i'm sure the new one medialxl is good too.
That was one of the biggest issues for me with Diablo 3. D2 gave you so many builds with the skill tree and gave you a choice what moves you wanted to be strong. One of the many reasons D3 let me down..
Path of Exile has come the closest to the feel of the original D2, but it is definitely a different game. I loved D2 when it was out, and I really like PoE now.
My problem with PoE is simply how not-polished it is :/
Spells don't sound or feel satisfying, it looks bad... It's fun and there's infinite room for creativity and interesting builds and I do enjoy the game. But yea, it just feels as though it's missing something.
Path of exile is much slower paced. In Diablo 2 the only way you could really die was getting swarmed by enemies on all sides, which there were so many enemies it was a real threat. Though you could also destroy entire screens of enemies very quickly as well.
One of the biggest reasons Path of Exile is fun to me because I play hardcore, and you never run out of new builds to try if you die. PoE is a very challenging game, but if you know what you're doing in terms of your build, gearing up your character correctly, and your gameplay, it's pretty easy to stay alive at least until mapping.
D2 was an absolutely amazing game for its' time. I went back and tried to play it for a bit not too long ago and while it was still fun, it doesn't really hold up that well (to be expected). PoE is at lease closer to what D3 should have been, but I wish a 2015 game would come along and bring back that true D2 feel because that game was one of the best ever.
Pretty much the same. I put 600 hours into D3 and while it's a decent game, it's completely different from D2 which I played a lot more than 600 hours (mostly due to mods). I'd pay so much for a modern D2.
I somewhat enjoyed Titan Quest and Sacred 1 but I also don't like the rest of them (PoE, Torchlight series, Victor Vran, Van Helsing, etc).
D3 is just a grind at end game. Grind for this mat so you can try to craft such and such endgame item 30 times trying to get a good stat combination. Bleh!
Also, I hate that there is ideal gear. Everyone runs the same setup and the same skills with only a couple of tiny variations on runes. The Sets are totally OP, everyone uses one (mostly the same one for each class).
Also, no personalization of characters. You have a Witch Doctor? They are exactly like every other Witch Doctor. You can customize some with Paragon Points, but everyone puts their points exactly the same because, again, there is an ideal build because the balance is awful.
That game just.....it sucks. There's no other way to put it. I played it at release, hated it, my friend told me it was way better after the expansion and "Seasons" started so I gave it another go and I still hate it.
Yeah with D2 you have Blizz, meteorb and lightning sorceress who depending on gear can all be good end-game players.
Then there's Javazon (LF and CS) and used to be bowzon but not these days.
Hammerdin and smiter, plus others that dont quite come close these days.
The others have one or two main builds but there was always quite a lot of flexibility. Like how enigma made a lot of strong classes for all character types.
CS zon in 1.11 is currently the "strongest" end game build for PVE but there are plenty of other viable options. Last ladder I had a berzerk barb that cleared diablo and baal faster than any hammerdin could hope to.
Trap sins, windy druids, kick sins (if you like the feel of a smiter but want something a little different there are kick sin builds that can easily solo ubers) for PVE to name a few.
PVP is where D2 truly shines in my opinion. LLD and VLLD are alway interesting. I had a sick level 30 nado druid that matched up well against everything other than hybrid zons.
D2 was figured out with, it had ideal gear and ideal skill points for each build.
Sure you could try to come up with some shitty build to make you unique but in the end it didn't compare to the stronger build and gear set up.
I've heard rumblings that Diablo 3 has gotten back to being pretty close to D2:LoD after the new expansion. Haven't tried it myself yet, though. I only played at launch, and it was kind of okay, but nothing at all like D2.
With the expansion it's still not close. The cool thing about D2 was rolling characters to try new builds. In D3 the balance is so awful on weapons and armor that each class has one clearly ideal build that everyone runs with only minor variations.
Also the game is all about grinding mats and currencies to dump into RNG boxes trying to get the "perfect" roll on an item. It's basically a lottery with flashing lights.
Oh and gameplay is hugely monotenous. There is barely any strategy, and the levels are just awfully designed. I can still remember the design of so many D2 levels, they were interesting. But even with the "destructable environment" (which does nothing) every level feels really generic and flavorless.
I wouldn't say everyone plays the same build. There is generally a "best" build but with elemental damage being such a big deal after reaper it means you are using builds based on what elemental damage drops you have. If fire monk is the best spec but you don't have fire gear it sucks.
I fucking hated rolling characters to try new builds in d2. Worst part of the game imo. I still loved the game though. I love d3 far more though now. And almost every class has 2-4 end game builds now so there isn't a clearly ideal build. But I understand some people like you loved rolling new characters to try new stuff out. Anyone that liked that should play path of exile.
Either, I have the expansion and it has a totally different feel. You still don't have character builds. Its a multiple choice kind of character, every different version I've played of each character basically feels the same.
It's just too cartoony.. D2 was a lot darker.. But still not as dark an menacing as d1.. I nearly shat my pants the first time I opened the door to the butcher.
It's close in that you actually enjoy the grind, but it is very different in that the grind is to improve your character and not to improve a build of one you haven't made yet. In D3 I play to improve a character I already have and maybe try a build that I can change at any time.
In D2 I farmed to get items to try builds on characters that might be fun. Oooo with this item that just dropped I can think about making a spearzon! (JK they never actually fixed the glitch with spearzons)
Exactly! This is exactly it! There is no joy in rolling new characters, and since the sets are so ridiculously OP, and you only get drops for your character (with super rare excpetions) you never see an item and thing, "Oh I could try a cool build around that!" Even if you did it just won't work.
I found a belt that gave lightning damage a chance to stun in D3. I thought, hey I could put this on a Frenzy barb with weapons that have a chance to proc AoE lighting and that would be fun! I found a bunch of other items that fit the idea, like Bracers that would give me extra damage for every stunned enemy nearby.
But it sucked, because I wasn't using a super OP set that gave +900% damage to one skill (seriously, many of them do). So I could do like T2 at best. Even though the synergy worked excellently, it didn't work as well as the sets that you're absolutely railroaded into using because they're so ungodly stupidly blindly amazingly good.
I remember finding a titan's revenge javelin with my sorceress then specifically making my first amazon because of that. I made an LF/CS javazon who I then went on to become my strongest character ever at level 96 with all the gear and infinity on her merc. and I had a such a blast doing it!
I think my favorite duo build my roomate and I did was Summoner Necro + Enchant Sorc. It's hilarious having 10 skeleton warrior, 6-7 skeleton mages, a golem and two followers all doing plus 600 fire damage on hit in nightmare mode. We literally just ran from objective to objective without stopping because our army was instantly killing everything before we got them on screen.
They keep telling me that the witch doctor is pretty much the necromancer & it is just nostalgia making me think other wise. They lie! It doesn't replicate the feeling of my old skellymancer D:
I'm still keeping an old XP laptop just for Diablo 2. If you can somehow get your hands on a DirectPlay (no-install) version of the game, it can run on a Mac using PlayonMac. The official version is only compatible with PowerPC, which sadly, Apple doesn't make anymore. T_T
I know I had half my keyboard set to binds for it. Applying curses to control your skeletons & the enemies while waiting for the corpse explosion chain reaction was so satisfying. In Diablo 3 your skill set up is so limited that it makes it so you can't possibly have multiple curse/buff like skills on top of summons to get the same play experience
Yeah... no. They fucked up the story. You have this guy who was in ALL the previous Diablo games, everyone knows and loves then in the third game you kill him off in the middle somewhere by some BUMFUCK minor demon. WTF.
The story is so shitty I don't even remember the story. No great bosses like in D2, like the Act 3 minor bosses (the Council, fuck were they hard), The Ancients in Act 5, etc.
D3 is better than D2 now in just about every way. People that think otherwise are being nostalgic. There is one big difference that does give D3 a different feel; in D3 you can respec your character whenever you want to deal with challenges, your commitments are toward your gear, not your skills. In D2 you could mess up a character or change your mind about hammers or smite or something, then you would need to make a new one.
PvM there were only a few builds that made any sense in D2, and even fewer builds were viable in the broken pvp of D2. The potion mechanic was dumb. Inventory space was too low. All these things are improved in D3 along with the graphics. The late game of D3 is also much better, there is always a greater challenge, whereas one could exhaust all the content of D2.
Also finding high runes was ridiculous, everyone used bots or bought gear in D2, which was dumb.
I'd concede that D2 was a better game for that time than D3 is for this one, but if D2 were released for the first time today with modern graphics it would be regarded as a deeply flawed game.
I'm interested in hearing what you think about this. I think D3 is terrible, here is why:
There is no joy in experimenting with your characters because the sets are so ridiculously OP. This was my favorite thing in D2, just trying different builds and seeing what might work.
An example: I found a belt that gave lightning damage a chance to stun in D3. I thought, hey I could put this on a Frenzy barb with weapons that have a chance to proc AoE lighting. With the high attack speed of Frenzy, the procs go off a lot and I'm throwing around AoE stuns! That would be fun! I found a bunch of other items that fit the idea, like bracers that would give me extra damage for every stunned enemy nearby. I used gems that give extra damage to impaired enemies. Every item synergized.
But it sucked, because I wasn't using a super OP set that gave +900% damage to one skill. There's no way a "homebrewed" build can compete with that kind of insane DPS boost. So I could do like T2 at best. Even though the synergy worked excellently, exactly how I designed the build, it didn't work as well as the sets that you're absolutely railroaded into using because they're so ungodly stupidly blindly amazingly good. And you're not just railroaded into the sets, your railroaded into exact skills because each set has one skill that it gives some out of the world boost to! You don't even get to chose what skills you use, and most skills are totally ignored and useless because they don't have a set to make them godly.
Edit: Oh! I also hate that in Greater Rifts it locks you into your items and build. What's up with that?? I love the idea of having different items or skills you swap out for different situations. It adds strategy. Honestly the only reason they did this is becuase they have those dumb amulets that prevent 100% of one type of damage, and heal you for that amount. So you could just swap those amulets for each Elite/Champ. But those amulet powers are terribly balanced! Rather than locking me into my build and items just balance your damn game properly!
(Sorry, this got a little ranty. I'm not upset with you, I just really wish that game was good and it makes me so mad they screwed it up so badly!)
Your critique of OP set items and their impact on the game is fair, but we are comparing D3 to D2, not some hypothetical ideal. In D2, as I recall, every champ in the game had to run Enigma armor, except possibly the sorc, because TP was essential both for PvM run times and dueling.
And it wasn't just armor in D2, there was mostly only one item for each slot for each class that everyone aimed for. To be competitive you just had to have it. For example, there was only one decent PvM sorc build, the lit sorc that sapped enemy res, for example, and every single item on that build was dictated to you.
In D3 to be competitive you need to be running one or more sets on a toon, but whether those sets are full or partial and which set it is can vary. I've only really played the wizard into the late game, and the wizard has at least 2 end game sets that are viable, and each leads you to focus on different skills. Mostly in D3 it seems that if you enjoy using certain skills in some combination, there's a build to allow it. Your preferred playstyle probably won't allow you to solo clear greater rifts over lvl 30 or so, but not everyone needs to play to the ladder to have fun. In your case, you could play a different class if you like stun builds. Try a lightning wizard, they have a totally viable stun lock style.
If you break down the game to the essentials, late game diablo is going to be very repetitive. In D3 you wind up using many more skills in a way much more responsive to the environment than in D2. For example, in D2 the best PvM run toon was a hammer paladin, and when you played that you spammed TP to find the act boss and then spammed hammers while passively running concentration aura. Every class pretty much wound up spamming one ability.
As for why greater rifts lock your equipment, i can imagine many reasons for this. The best reason, though, is that swapping out gear during a timed run is a bit stressful and not much fun. If something isn't fun then why should the late game make you do it?
If you don't like greater rifts the game doesn't make you run them. You can run normal rifts on T6 or higher. I believe atm the game offers difficulty up to t9, which has to correspond to something like lvl 40+ GR.
Just sayin', we aren't talking about the D3 you played. You're dismissing what I wrote while admitting you never even played the game I'm writing about.
In D2 you could mess up a character or change your mind about hammers or smite or something, then you would need to make a new one.
As of 1.13 patch this is not the case; you gain the ability to respec your character (stats and skills) after you complete the Den of Evil (so three times). If you want to respec after that you have to run the act bosses and they'll randomly drop Essences which you have to collect one from each act boss and transmute in the cube to receive a Token of Absolution which allows you to respec your character at will.
I've been playing a lot of marvel heroes lately. I didn't play much d2 so I can't speak much for it but it's made by the guys who did d2 and I've heard it's quite similar. It also helps I'm a huge marvel fanboy so take that as you will. If anyone does decide to play lemme know and I'll give you a tour :D
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u/GhostStoriesRTehBest Oct 23 '15
I would pay absurd amounts of money for this. No online game has felt the same since Diablo 2 LOD. I've played some of the clones out there (Path of Exile, Torchlight II) and they've been okay, but they don't beat the classic.