What do you like most about D2?

[Wraxul]

I would have made this a poll, but it's too broad;

What do you enjoy most about Diablo 2? Is it the creepy, ambient sounds and music as you slip through the dungeons? The easy to learn controls, or the controls in general? The playable classes and/or their skills? Is it the graphics? Plot? Replayability? Deckard Cain? Or is it the combination of these things that make it so great?

Of everything, what stands out most to you to keep you playing after over half a decade? (And don't say mods, or the ability to mod, I'm just talking about vanilla D2 )

[Anson]

Well, I'd say it satisfies my urge to hunt and collect more then any other game. Additionaly it has a lot of dark athmosphere. (Ok, Diablo I had a better one )
And you know, D2 makes you become addicted. I don't know why, but it is a fact.

[Al-T]

It's the variety in character builds you can achieve I like the most. It's great fun to try out single-tree skillers, double-tree and hybrid variations and check the differences in playing ability with them and what items they need to be useful. This goes for both "vanilla" and all the mods I have played. I guess one word to describe the best feature of the game would be "re-playability".

[Psycho]

It doesn't require a fast computer to play it. I bought an old PII-450mhz for $8.00 at the thrift store, and although a little slow, it runs just fine. I know that newer computer are (always) getting cheaper, but still, I'd like to have Win 98 still.

[Brother Laz]

Nothing, absolutely nothing. It contained some good ideas, but stupid design decisions and subsequent patches have ruined it. The talented people then left Blizzard, but not before making a total mess out of the game.

There are so many unique, interesting, cleverly designed skills and the vast majority of them is useless and a small minority is overpowered. You can't get the items you need to compete in Hell unless you do the same as everyone else and farm bosses mindlessly with one or two specific builds, then once you get the uber items, it becomes too easy.

Add to this the bad balancing of game mechanics (defense, stamina), slow and braindead ai, boring monsters and the abundance of instant healing in the form of freely available healing and rejuvenation potions.

Good thing we have mods, lah?

Other games may be great, but it takes a very special game to remain great even after you find out about its glaring faults. Yay!

[brappy]

Nicely said, Laz. Exactly what I was thinking.
However, the part they did best would have to be character variety, even if they are horribly balanced.

[ffej311]

Best part about D2....

Back to Hellfire.

(And don't say mods, or the ability to mod, I'm just talking about vanilla D2 )

I cant make empty posts.

[misharohac]

[quote=brappy";p="269805"]However, the part they did best would have to be character variety, even if they are horribly balanced.[/quote]
I agree with the character variety, and that each character has many "builds", like them or not, which all adds up to fantastic re-playability.

But what I don't get is a rant that I hear very often: the various classes are unbalanced... what I don't understand is why on Earth should they be balanced? Isn't that the whole point of different classes? That they play differently? Some do one thing well, others do another thing well, some are easier and some are harder? That is a strength in Diablo, not a flaw. You know where the balance is? On the character creation screen, that's where. As far as I know, everyone can choose their character at the start of the game, no-one is stuck and forced to play the character they consider weak.

[Doombreed-x]

The challenge.




And no, not the challenge of the game. The game has no challenge. The challenges I make myself. Raise your hand if you've beaten andariel with a level 3 necromancer...

[misharohac]

A good point, Doombreed-x...

Specifically, the challenge of making unter variants... thinking of a tough character concept and then finding ways to make it work. My favourite character that I've ever made (In Vanilla on-line) was Bow-a-Sin... She was tough at all stages but also tough at all stages for the monsters, because in time I learned to make her effective.

This is but one little example, I'm sure there are hundreds of people with this exact same experience.

[Nefarius]

[quote=Doombreed-x";p="269832"]The challenge.




And no, not the challenge of the game. The game has no challenge. The challenges I make myself. Raise your hand if you've beaten andariel with a level 3 necromancer...[/quote]

Sorry m8 but I must disagree. This doesn't make the game itself any better, it's just an excuse not to dump it IMO.






The good thing about D2 is the endless lifetime of a character, you can keep playing ad nauseum, because the game never ends, unlike other games were once you reach the end you can only start everything over from scratch, this paired with the extreme randomness is the good part of D2.

But this good part is overwhelmed by the omnipresent unbalance found throughout every single aspect of the game. And I'm talking about times before LoD! In 108-1.10 they ruined the randomness with all those uniques, making everything except uniques, set and runewords useless, boosting skills into insanity, making monsters harder by doing the same mistake every teenage modder does (stats x10 life x10 damage x10) and every possible bad thing that one could possible have done to an otherwise great game.



The only thing that keeps me on this game is modding, along side public projects I've made countless small patches for lan parties and the like.

One thing about D2 and modding is that modding it is not so utterly simple as some other games, with almost no challenge left (since everything was documented by the developers, or they released their own dev tools, which IMO turns modding a game into a noobfest) --- OTOH there are games that while being modable, are so uncostumizeable that it becomes boring as hell, and frustrating rather then challenging.

[Hygiliak]

[quote=Nefarius";p="269846"]
The only thing that keeps me on this game is modding
[/quote]

Goes the same for me.
After finishing vanilla on hardcore there is absolutely nothing left to do...

Feeling the adrenaline rush in a challenging mod is the bast part of D2 for me.

[Incompetent]

[quote=Nefarius";p="269846"]Sorry m8 but I must disagree. This doesn't make the game itself any better, it's just an excuse not to dump it IMO.

...

One thing about D2 and modding is that modding it is not so utterly simple as some other games, with almost no challenge left (since everything was documented by the developers, or they released their own dev tools, which IMO turns modding a game into a noobfest) --- OTOH there are games that while being modable, are so uncostumizeable that it becomes boring as hell, and frustrating rather then challenging.[/quote]

The question was 'what do you like about...', not 'what is good about...' You can like something that isn't very good, just as people are fond of their bizarre unter-characters.

Also, are you saying it would be a bad thing if DII were very easy to mod? Just because noobs can make mods, doesn't mean that modders must all be noobs. Or are you a codehead who enjoys the challenge of fighting the system?

---

I stopped playing vanilla DII a while ago, in the case of single player, around when 1.10 came out. I did play 1.10 Ladder, mostly because I hadn't played much on Bnet before, and it let me try out characters that don't work in SP like the Cleric. But Diablo II Bnet has been corrupted by patches and powergamers, so I got tired of that as well.

What I did like about vanilla DII was that it was simple to get into, even when badly balanced it gave a lot of room for different characters (far more than DI), and the item-hunting was actually fun (and a lot more varied than DI) if you did it casually, rather than the drudgery of MF cow/boss runs. The fact that I've played DII drunk with no discernible change in difficulty though might say something about the challenge of the fighting part of the game, as opposed to skill/item selection. 1.06 was no golden age, with a heap of bugs, but the early versions lacked the enforced powergaming that has characterised LoD, thanks to the overpowered specific items that soon became compulsory in order to get through Hell at a decent rate.

I think BNorth actually had good intentions with LoD and its patches, and a lot of the new features were good, or had the potential for good (hence the wonders of DII modding). But what happened with the overpowered items is that they thought they were being responsive to the community, while in fact they were falling in tow with the Bnet powergamer lobby (who were presumably the most sensible-sounding voices among the cacophony of AOL kids on the Bnet forums). The synergies blunder probably arose similarly, locking people in to particular combinations of skills and enforcing the idea of building a whole character around one attack (another favourite of Bnetizens). Things might have been worse if they hadn't listened to anyone, but the LoD experience goes to show why the games industry shouldn't give in to mob rule - the customer is often wrong when it comes to specifics of design.

[Nefarius]

The question was 'what do you like about...', not 'what is good about...' You can like something that isn't very good, just as people are fond of their bizarre unter-characters.

I made many bizzare builds myself, I was however pointing out that doing this doesn't make the game itself better, since the original statement sounded like that to me. It's the same thing as trying to beat an utterly easy platformer without killing a single enemy and collecting powerups, of course it can be fun, but it's just an excuse to keep playing the game since the developers failed when it came to the challenge department.

Also, are you saying it would be a bad thing if DII were very easy to mod? Just because noobs can make mods, doesn't mean that modders must all be noobs. Or are you a codehead who enjoys the challenge of fighting the system?

Of course not, but the ratio will be badly skewed towards noobness and communities like that are often ruled by the force of the flame - an unpleasent sight.

And of course I like fighting the system, I don't even want to know how boring would be if everything was just served on a silver platter. That kills of the thrill of outstanding new discoveries, craxing a previously unchangeable aspect or routine and whatnot.

[misharohac]

[quote=Incompetent";p="269863"]The synergies blunder probably arose similarly, locking people in to particular combinations of skills and enforcing the idea of building a whole character around one attack.[/quote]
I'm going to toot the synergy horn some more and tow Blizzard's party line a little, just to show what a swell BNetter I used to be.

What Blizzard kept repeating ad-nauseum was the 1.10 and its synergies were supposed to promote party-play. If you make a character with a very powerful single attack, you will need a partner or two to get through hell. I acknowledge that this creates very stereotypical builds and by extension very stereotypical parties, but I believe the concept was a good one and given the built-in limitations of the game, was well implemented.

[Doombreed-x]

I said I like to challenge myself. This game is just one of the better tools I've found to do so. Note: I still love tetris. I still like busting out old games once in a while to see how quick I can beat them (woot for gunstar heroes!) I see games as a system to learn, and then I find challenges. And the game doesn't have to specifically offer the challenge either, though in some cases they do. Mario 64 let me collect stars... that wasn't so tough, but enjoyable. Bomberman 64 was sheer insanity collecting all the gold cards, and I still haven't completed it yet, thanks to the insane difficulty of the last world.

The point that nef made about the game not really having an ending is also a good one: The games I enjoy MOST are the ones that either I don't beat, or that are so easy that I can challenge myself at them endlessly. But the one thing that all these games have in common is choice, and that really is what my favourite thing about them is. I can choose to use the worse items and see what happens.

So yeah... I like the game's system. The challenge is me.

[Myhrginoc]

Of course not, but the ratio will be badly skewed towards noobness and communities like that are often ruled by the force of the flame - an unpleasent sight.

That is more a function of the community and who moderates it than how powerful the tools might be. While some of the thrill of discovery would be blunted by a serious D2 mod editor, it would not encouranging mod making by the impatient. The Keep is a civilized place because people come to talk mods, we have rules and standards, and they are maintained. I am biased, of course, since I am part of the staff...but the atmosphere is a large part of why I stepped forward when invited in the first place.

[Septar]

Well..
before I beat it, one of the things that made me love diablo 2 is the storyline.
The endless hunt for all the items.. (of course, you can't GET it all. unmodly)

[misharohac]

[quote=Septar";p="269955"]Well... before I beat it, one of the things that made me love diablo 2 is the storyline.[/quote]
I will choose to comment only on the story line, because the beginning of that sentence probably belongs in a different forum.

We all know the story line backwards and forwards, we can recite the NPC dialogues verbatim and the more talented among us can immitate the voices well enough to fool most anybody...

But going back to my first time through the game, I must admit that the story made absolutely no sense to me. I was 28 when I first played, and have been a fan of the sci-fi / fantasy genre my whole life. But this story was just seemed brutally stupid and disjointed. Not because of an effort to create suspense - always being in situations one step ahead of what you know - No, it just seemed like a really, really bad plot.

Years of playing and being involved with the characters we have created and grown to love as children have somehow smoothed the story out, where we understand the big picture and fill in the missing pieces with our imagination, fueled by the 778th Pindle Run when at last the GreatGoldenBow dropped...

But a challenge to all of you who "like the story"... watch all the cutscenes front to back. Aside from the disjointedness, the terrible quest progression (in terms of a fantasy script) and the jarring question of "Where the hell is everybody"? -- my main criticism of the D2 story is this:

Marius is the single worst plot device in the history of fiction.

[Nefarius]

I agree with misharohac, the D2 plot is horrid, while it didn't confuse me at any event, fact is I didn't even care about it until after beating the game the first time (I simply didn't ever insert the cinematics disk).

When I latter saw the cinematics I was wondering how the people that worked up the great plot in D1 made such a nonesense-ish storyline. With only slight remarks of the history (the Izual quest in Act 4 - which is a, less complicated, remake of the unused quest in D1 anyway)

I believe one of the major issues with D2 is that the whole plot ain't really involving, you can play the game easily without ever caring to read up on anything, and whenever you are lost the quest "log" will tell you what to do... The last time I looked a log was a listing of things you have done, not instructions for your future actions. I must say the quest log has severly crippled my first way through the game but unfortunately I noticed this too late (hellforge quest ).

I think I beat the game in about 3 weeks when I first got it just after it was released here.


I've got all those old pre-beta interviews, and the game described by Blizzard in there is so much more then what they delivered to us when it went gold, I have the feeling too much has been cut out to make it fit on 3 CDs, rather then 4 CDs (originally they intention was to have two game-cds, 1 cinematics and 1 install disk IIRC). While they always said that they had to cut out nothing, ACT 4 MAKES THIS {filtered} EVIDENT!

[brappy]

Actually, I believe Act 4 was just an example of 'We're almost done, let's just finish the levels already.' It happens in a bunch of games.

[AdiTT]

1) I love that it have nice storyline
2) I like the belts with 4 rows (back in D1 my potions were never enough).
3) I like the stash (keeping my money on the Tristram's meadow is not the perfect place).
I know I am refering too much to D1/Hellfire, but that will always stay "THE GAME" for me.
4) I like the skill system - you have to learn few things before knowing everything; step by step your char gets better and you have to balance with skills/weap/stat.
5) I like the ranks for the chars.
I also agree with probably all of the previous posts about the challenge.
(enough for now)

[misharohac]

[quote=AdiTT";p="270006"]5) I like the ranks for the chars.[/quote]
In case anyone has forgotten the titles, especially the D2C ones, here's an exhausting list.
Classic
Softcore

• Sir / Dame
• Lord / Lady
• Baron / Baroness

Hardcore

• Count / Countess
• Duke / Duchess
• King / Queen

Expansion
Softcore

• Slayer
• Champion
• Patriarch / Matriarch

Hardcore

• Destroyer
• Conqueror
• Guardian

-- Edit --
To justify this post in this thread, I too like the ranks, they really add to the sense of achievement when finishing a level, especially the first time through, when you don't know what the title will be.

[onyx]

Is this thread the place for this post? Let's keep this on-topic, please.

[Elle Woods]

I'm a little bit obsessive compulsive... I am able to happily arange and re-arange my clothes drawers for hours...

In that spirit, I love to arange and re-arange potions and gems in my stash and inventory. There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing a full PlugY page of Full Rejuvs.