Diablo II

>Real Money Auction House
Was it TOO bold?

It was ahead of its time so yeah.

It was a retarded concept from the begging but because blizzard has zero foresight they just assumed it would work because it did in wow

This is why I've given up on most sequels. Not sure why they keep hiring completely new teams to develop them, but they never turn out as well. Not that having the original team is a guarantee for success either, but why wouldn't you try to use the original team for a sequel?

I do love the combat of d3 but the MMO itemisation fucked up the whole game as the loot is the most important part of an ARPG.

I haven't played D3 in many seasons but it always seemed to be just chasing whichever set was the most OP for each class and being shoehorned into that build if you wanted to get anywhere in grifts.

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For me it was the shako

Haha wtf what doesn't the stone of Jordan do?

How come it doesn't +1 to all skills?

yeah even the graphics were a let down.
diablo always left me hungry for something with sharper graphics but somehow they managed to make d2 even muddier and with more errors.

I was so surprised how setting it use DirectDraw instead of D3D made it look better and how shitty that whole perspective setting was

What version is LoD on now? Are the best builds still hammerdin, bonermancer, and lightning sorc?

3dfx/glide is the actual best graphics api to use with D2

>bonermancer
Bone necro isn't that good. Summon necro is. Otherwise yes. It's still on 1.14 and the meta hasn't changed because there hasn't been a patch in ages.

If you want balance changes then I'd look into Path of Diablo though the ladder has been going on for a while now so there might be a reset coming.
>write this and go on the website to look
>ladder reset announcement posted 8 hours ago
So there's a new Path of Diablo ladder starting on August 2nd. If you can wait a couple weeks I'd recommend giving it a go. It's online only but the website has some trade utilities and lists public games and stuff. Also a new patch which usually means some new balance changes or new features.

anyone else playing ladder?

maybe for the effects, it pixelated /distorted the hell out of all character and background art

especially act 1 and hell, hell is just awful you can see all the tiles in the lava its just dumb

Post comparisons. I haven't noticed any of that. Don't use perspective mode that distorts the graphics. Are you sure your glide settings are setup right?

Fuck D3. The hell 2 mod is better
moddb.com/mods/diablo-the-hell-2

>not the same devs
>blizzard is buzfeed sjw now

>>blizzard is buzfeed sjw now
When and why did this happen?

t. haven't bought a blizzard game since lod

d3 was released over a decade after d2, it was pretty much inevitable

Diablo 2 is a decent game, but the fanbase is autistic.

Diablo 1 + Hellfire >> Diablo 3 >>>>> Diablo 2
You know I'm right.

Diablo 2 > Diablo 1 > Path of Exile > Torchlight I/II > Diablo 3

Okay I did a bit of testing and I can see what you mean. Glide has this somewhat blurred feeling to it. DirectDraw is very crisp. Also tried D3D and OpenGL which both result in terrible graphics glitches.

I still prefer Glide because of how it changes the lighting and spell visuals. And obviously it also comes with all the goodies that the wrapper provides which make it much more playable on a modern system. Sure, it would be nice if you could have that stuff with DirectDraw just to have the option.

WoW got popular and was casualized and the company started adhering to diversity quotas and listening to liberal media.

I tried to like The Hell 2 but it just. It makes the bad parts of D1 worse and doesn't really add any depth on top. It's just a chore to play.

>Diablo 1 + Hellfire
>Hellfire
Now you're just baiting.

You know, just the fact that you put Path of Exile on this least is the reason enough for me to ignore you and your opinion completely. And I'm pretty sure you put Torchlight here just to ''fill the void''. You didn't actually play those games.
But thank you for proving my point, about DS2 fans being autistic.

Anyone ever play Grim Dawn?

Thinking about picking it up since I am taking a bareak from path of exile

I played all the games though. Never played Titan Quest which is why I didn't put it on there. Why do you hate PoE so much?

Not as good as poe, but it’s ok.

Grim Dawn is like if Titan Quest came out in 2016. Sure it was alright in 2006 but a decade later that shit doesn't fly anymore. For some reason a game 16 years older than GD feels better to play.

You mean "Why Diablo 2 wasn't able to recapture the magic of Diablo 1" or "Why Blizzard wasn't able to recapture the magic of Diablo 2"?
I guess is the second one, but OP, next time try to be more specific.
Is easy to see why Blizzard hasn't been able to make another Diablo 2 (or D1), the people on Blizzard, right now, are a bunch of fucking retarded morons that have nothing to do with Blizzard North and the people that made the company big and successful, they are so busy with their diversity points and gay points that they forgot the most important part, and that's making the games fun and faithful.

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NuBlizzard completely failed to capture atmosphere of previous entries. Diablo 1 was dark, slow, eerie. And it was silent. Most monsters crept out of shadows making little noise, there was no talking outside of the town and SFXs were kept simple. Similarly, there was a visual "silence". No fireworks, no flashy effects. All that built an incredible dungeon crawling atmosphere, accompanied by excellent, somewhat hypnotizing music that magnified the sense of dread.
Diablo 2, unlike slow and claustrophobic D1, decided to let you explore variety of realms. Although less dark and faster-paced, it still remained faithful to the rule of not bombarding eyes and ears with pointless, flashy noise. While more colorful, it didn't become cartoony and maintained the gothic aesthetic. Transition from dungeon crawling to adventure and exploration was yet again accentuated by fantastic music. Diablo 2 also greatly expanded gameplay aspect, especially the itemization and character variety.

Diablo 3 however feels not like a proper sequel to a genre-defining game, but a shitty clone. Everything is stupidly flashy, aesthetic was completely changed, bosses became Disney villains and the game just refuses to shut the fuck up. Holy shit, everyone has to talk all the fucking time. Villains, followers, NPCs, you can't just get into the exploration flow, because someone has to open their whore mouth or you get interrupted by some cinematic experience. D1 and D2 were extremely memorable - music, visuals, monsters, bosses, locations, items, everything. In D3 all content blends together and is utterly unremarkable and unimpressive. Even music, something Blizzard never had any problems with, was forgettable, with exception of maybe 2-3 tracks.
And don't even get me started on dumbed down gameplay.

I'm not looking forward to D4 at all. NuBlizzard is completely incapable of matching classic masterpieces created by old Blizzard teams.

unlimited respec was a mistake 1 per difficulty should be enough

>Yea Forums has become so contrarian its actually shitting on Diablo 2 now

I'm not exactly sure if it was a matter of "not understanding" the atmospheric elements that made the Diablo franchise great, or if the guys in suits were pushing this idea that the thing wouldn't sell today, because oldfags would just grab onto D2, and play and despise any version of D3, anyway, and the point is to focus on new people. Blizzard as a company has more followers after WoW than Diablo 2 itself. This is why D3 was mainly praised by Blizzard fans. It isn't a matter of "good" or "bad". It's who you ask. These brainlets love the game, probably because they didn't really care about D2 that much to begin with. D3 was a commercial success.
We grew up.

D3 isn't designed at all to accommodate limited respects though. There's no one thing that would fix it.

Kys u dumb nigger
In other news path of Diablo is the best game in existence right now and if you're not playing it you're wrong and potentially worse, a kike
>tfw slightly a kike so I get to say this and you don't, unless you're part kike too

>missing Diablo trip 6's by this much
Oh and I forgot to mention path of Diablo just announced ladder reset August 2nd so get ready niggers my fury druid bout to steal your bitch with my giant wolf cock and massive ethereal thunder maul

They hired a bunch of stooges to make it, since there are only stooges in the video game industry these days

I do not want any impressionable summer children to see this and be misled by your retardation otherwise I would refuse to give this bait a you
Kindly kys and refrain from ever posting on this board again

>fuck that loser
Every time I think of this I want to kill

Big brain comment based boomer schooling the ignorant
Thank you for your service, now gtfo off /virgin/ and come hang with the Chad's on path of diablo

Diablo II is not as good as Diablo

>empire strikes back is not as good as a new hope
this is you rn

The Empire Strikes Back is, according to many, the best Star Wars movie ever. Comparing Diablo 2 to Empire is the biggest insult to that franchise, worse than The Last Jedi.

But a new hope is much superior, the stupid plottwist on empire was unnecessary and had no real meaning, and they left the ending open cuz if you want to see the real ending, you have to watch the next movie! fucking stupid.
a new hope is a story with beginning, middle and end and is perfect.

(((Oh vey)))
Let me guess. You identify as white as long as it's beneficial to you but when someone pulls up white privilege or whatever you're suddenly a kike.

>my giant wolf cock
>its a jew and A FURRY

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Diablo 2 is, according to many, the best Diablo game ever.

has anyone tried Pagan Online?

It doesn't look very good. Haven't tried it though. Mostly because it doesn't look good enough to give it a go.

nope, have you played Dauntless?

Most zoomers on this board were born after diablo 3

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to be honest diablo 2 isn't skill based enough, there's too much brainless mashing instead of reflexive timing or strategical dungeon crawling, plus level design or level generation is too practically repetitive

D3 has only been out a couple years. People born after it can barely read. For D2 that statement is probably very accurate though. Which makes me very sad.

A fair argument but honestly the game is designed around fighting hordes of enemies where smaller details of combat easily get lost. In comparison I hate that PoE tries to pretend like it's some high skill action game and keeps adding these stupid oneshot mechanics to the game that don't fit the genre at all and push their design into a bad direction as a whole.

and that's exactly why it worked
why the hell do you think it was supposed to be "skill" based? go play something else

I was always wondering, despite boring uninspired gameplay, what do you think about the D3 story?
Personally, i liked it

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Any advice for someone just starting Path of Diablo?

never put points into energy, carefully read what skills synergize with your main skill and don't put more than one point into anything else unless it's a passive that you want.

Diablo 2 is the best game in the genre.
Diablo 1 is a close second.
Followed by PoE and Torchlight 1/2, then Grim Dawn.
Then Borderlands 1, Destiny 1, Marvel Heroes
Then the sequels and rest of the mobile trash

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>putting torchshit and PoShit above grim yawn
lmao

That's basic rules for Diablo 2 too, meant about finer points of stuff like class balance and transitioning into endgame.

>torchlight and path of one skill spam above Grim Dawn
Go back

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I don't really like playing PoE either desu, but it has more going for it than grim dawn does, and torchlight 2 has good mod support which puts it well beyond grim dawn except in art style

Oh shit I thought you meant actual vanilla D2 in a joking fashion, didn't know Path of Diablo was an actual thing.

*ahem*

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Main appeal of PoE is just making ridiculous screen clearing/frame drop causing builds, the build function diversity by itself is non existent as it all just turns into clear speed at the end of the day and skipping 99% of the drops. You get some depth if you go as a minion master because choosing spectres for the occasion actually requires you to know the game at least a little, but beyond that it's all about choosing one skill and then the right uniques and supports for it.

because I enjoy having my brain and reflexes tested and succeeding in difficult tasks? Why do you play the game, so you don't have to think or focus?
I don't have an exact gameplay model but you can definitively have hordes and skillful combat, just look at serious sam. Then there's strategical considerations like long-term resource usage and other options, which d2 doesn't have any since you can just tp home whenever (skill builds are another thing).

>Main appeal of PoE
For you.

What else is there? Trading? Running support builds or cullers loaded with %quality and quantity?

Yeah shame it looks too wacky at times

What the hell dude, that's a different genre and put on a fag store. Hard pass from the ground up.

This is for you
This is yours

Diablo 3: RoS was a much better game

I NEED HELP

Diablo 3 was made by Blizzard Irvine not Blizzard North.

And after the activision merger Blizzard Irvine cares only about metrics not about gameplay.

oops
uhh... oops

RoS is utter trash.
>B-but it fixed diablo 3
It made diablo 3 bearable, but it didn't make it good.

That's only true for online playing, where you max out in like an hour. In single player, if you play a magic class, up to lvl 40 you should've spent at least 20-30 points on energy. Even more if it's your first time playing.

>because I enjoy having my brain and reflexes tested and succeeding in difficult tasks?
Who the fuck cares about what you find enjoyable?. As I said, go play something else. There's plenty of other genres that you can enjoy and are all skill-based. Diablo 2 was never about the kind of skill you are looking for, and should never be.

oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about games that had nothing to do with Diablo's style and look like generic crap for retards, my bad

You can't get digits on Yea Forums retard

dilate

explain how skill would make diablo worse, do you just want to turn your brain off and play cookie clicker?

>Torchlight I/II
These games aren't that good. Diablo 3 is much better than them. PoE is also shit in a lot of ways, it's core gameplay is what makes it good, which is the most important part ofcourse but they've managed to fuck pretty much everything else up.

Things from the North are always made better. Faggots

What you call "skill" is only paying attention to your enemy's attack and counter-attacking as fast as possible. Diablo is about planning your character deeply in order to be as effective as you wanna be, not dodging attacks. I enjoy playing skill-based games, either competitive or not, but it just wouldn't work here.
Oh, and by the way, when you find a balanced pvp in Diablo, then you realize it's more about skill than you think.

You don't have to make it about attacking and counter-attacking, even if it's enjoyable. It might as well be more battlefield/skill repertoire complexity, or harder dungeon crawling. By making it more skillful (complex) you also make build options more meaningful. And personally I don't care for clear speed, only ability to overcome challenges, so I would want a number of increasingly difficult levels instead of endless runs that don't really challenge you, but that's more personal taste. Clear speed is like high score to me, it's just an arbitrary measuring point outside of the objectives of the game.

Don't start until the new ladder starts.
Keep charms that have resistances, they're useful to get a headstart in nightmare/hell when you don't yet have the gear to deal with the resistance penalty.
Save Orbs of Corruption until late game or use them for trading. They're referred to as "ooc" and are a somewhat popular trading currency.
Be aware that some skills have been changed or rebalanced so some things aren't as relevant as they were on D2:LoD.

Forgotten Dawn does a damn good job in its most recent iteration.
D2: Median XL is pretty good too.

Grim Dawn is the best ARPG on the market.

Time
To
Die

Notintown

>D2: Median XL is pretty good too.
Zoomers out. This is boomer territory.

They've been treading water since Diablo 1, along with everyone else who simply copied that game with ever fresher coats of paint.
Play Soldak games if you want to see where the hack n' slash genre could have gone if people put any creative effort into it whatsoever.

>Soldak games
Honestly those look like shit. At least visually they didn't get anything right.

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>battlefield/skill repertoire complexity
it already is pretty complex, it's just that OP skills are just very well known by now. For example, I use at least 9 skills with my necromancer. Other than the 3 summon skills, C/E, bone armor, amp and decrepify, I also use terror and attract to control enemy groups. It does wonders in hell difficulty, and switching constantly your skills just to move enemy groups around requires skill and it's fun as fuck.
Barbarian has a lot of debuff options that are ignored by players
Paladin is supposed to be switching auras constantly, but guides recommend sticking to one, either fanaticism or concentrate
Assassin has a lot of combos extremely useful in different situations, but players prefer to stick to one combo, just because it's the one that supposedly does more dps
Sorc has to deal with immunities

Anyway, people always talk about D2 because they mostly played online. Single player hell difficulty gives you another look, and way before guides were so common, the experience was entirely different. It did require the set of skills you seem to be looking for, then... no need for changes in that regard

Gameplay in DIII is actually amazing, but the rest of the game falls really short.

Itemization is bad, and you can't even begin to get into the game's atmosphere because you are bombarded with killstreak popups, character dialogue and explosions non-stop.

DI and DII speak volumes without needing to use voice or text. This seems to be a common theme with most modern game development, though and not just a Blizzard problem.

They haven't changed much visually since 2007, and they didn't look good then. That's still better than every other hack n' slash out there though, which haven't changed in any way other than visually since 1996.
Soldak games are so far ahead of the competition that I would still call them the best of the genre even if they were literally displayed as ASCII code.

forced meme cock sucker

>torchlight 2 has good mod support

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Can't help if you have such a shitty zoomer taste.

Why are they so much ahead? What exactly makes them better?

>posting Reddit images
Shame.

Last season was the best season in a long time. This season is garbage.

Aren't they exactly the same every time?

Hack n' Slash combat and randomized item looting is satisfying, but not really enough to carry an entire game by itself. Diablo 1 had its atmosphere plus the (at the time) novelty of its systems, but everything after that really has no excuse for being so basic. Most of the time they're barely a step beyond idle clickers, there's nothing to them beyond that basic loop of click enemies (activating skills or whatever), loot items, repeat. The only time your attention even needs to be on the game is when it comes to leveling up and character development.
Soldak games are all different, but the common feature is that they all add a whole extra layer on to the game to give the hack n slashing an actual purpose, and give the player something to think about and do other than simply click enemies.
The most basic is Din's Curse, which is Diablo if the quests actually mattered and the bad guys actually existed. If you get a quest to stop Bill McArsehole from summoning a portal to hell, you better actually do it instead of fucking around in that dungeon you found, because if you don't he will summon it and then things will probably get much worse. Or maybe you took that into account and decided you could deal with his portal to hell, but curing the potion vendor who was poisoned earlier is much more vital if you want to survive. There's a whole layer of decision making where you have to decide what to prioritise, what you care about, and what you're actually capable of accomplishing to protect the various towns you're trying to protect with your hack n' slashing.

Din's Curse and Zombasite on the other hand have that same dynamic world/questing system, but also add yet another layer, a sort of 4X clan management system. In those games you're not only trying to protect your town, you're also competing against other clans of adventurers, forming alliances and battling each other, questing together to gain stronger together, that sort of thing.
Drox Operative is a sci fi space ship hack n' slash, which is already kind of weird, but the key thing in that one is that you're a mercenary. A bunch of AIs are playing Galactic Civilizations against each other, and you take quests and missions from them for your own ends. You want to avoid pissing off too many of your customers, while taking into account the situation of the game and either preventing any one faction from gaining too much power and winning, or making sure that if that does happen they're allied to you and your guild and you get to take a share of the credit.
Every one of them adds layers and layers of depth on to the simple formula created by Diablo 1, and results in games that actually take up your attention and have interesting decisions to be made. They make all other hack 'n slashers look like concept demos, a basic combat and item system that has no real game system built around it to take advantage of it. You could delete every one of them after Diablo 1 from history and it wouldn't even make a difference, there hasn't been a single important innovation by any of them since then, except by whoever makes Soldak games (probably one guy, or a small handful of them, considering the graphics).

Can you get that shit at a discount somewhere these days? I did have a pretty good time with D3 at launch, so I don't mind trying the expansion for $10 or so.
The base game is likely in an unplayable state if I tried booting it up now.

similar thing happened to sc2. Brood war was grim and dark scifi + some hillbilly shit mixed in. Sc2 was anything but that. Although it doesnt look bad on itself, it isnt true to the brood war aesthetic. Especially the sound department is better in brood war than sc2.

>autists still mad about d3

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Meh Grim dawn is a better diablo 3 than diablo 3 itself

There was nothing to recapture. Diablo 2 was always shit.

I imagine you could get it for cheap on key reseller sites. You might have fun for a bit but be prepared to be shocked at what they've done to the game.

How anyone can claim Grim Dawn is better than D3 is beyond me. At least D3 plays well even if everything else about it sucks.

Why didn't the hero from D1 destroy the soulstone or at least hand it over to agents of heaven for safekeeping? Shoving it in your forehead to guarantee eventual corruption seems really dumb.

holding that much power in your hand can make you lose your mind, I think that was the point

It was something the cinematic team at Blizzard came up by themselves and Blizzard North kinda just okay'd it. Eventually it sort of became an explanation for the multiple difficulties.

Fuck that loser

How is the GoG version of Diablo 1?
Is Hellfire worth playing?

Hellfire is garbage. Apparently the diablopatch is better than GoG version. The former has all the functionality that the latter does but also includes some other shit like holding alt showing items on ground.

Blizzard-Activision went on a massive lockdown to prevent an online community's economy from spawning that was out of their hands.

Diablo 3 was shit because everything was tailored to pay-to-win via auction house. It doomed the entire franchise. The upcoming Diablo Immortal is the final nail in the coffin.

I was initially off put when I first played 2 after 1, but after giving it a while I liked it better.

I think both 1 and 2 are great.

Don't you have a phone?

New pod ladder starts on August 2. It was just announced.

No. it was the antithesis to actually playing the game. Why play the game when you could just buy what you needed? Then why play the game when there was no longer a reason to play it because you already bought everything?

PoE = D2 > Grim Dawn > Median XL = Path of Diablo > Diablo 1 > Titan Quest > D3

That season was garbage because once the season was over your build was worthless. You lost the seasonal buff that allowed the build in the first place when the season ended.

casuals, pandering to casuals is the death of all franchises!

The bigger the number in game becomes the more people they expect, in complexity and scope not less! and for sure not just bigger numbers!

Diablo can influence the world through the stone
He made the hero think that he, as the one that killed Diablo, was the only one that could contain his spirit to prevent another Tristram.
Keep in mind that Diablo corrupted Lazarus and drove the King mad before the Prince was even STONED

Friendly reminder that Mephisto is the coolest of the Prime Evils.
I love the act 4 cinematic

looks fine on my CRT