Saturday Morning Gaming: Diablo II Resurrected (for real this time)
There were a couple of weekends a month ago where I participated in the Diablo II beta/stress test. This only involved the first two Acts (of five) and, over the two weekends they had the game available, I was only able to get up to level 25 or so.
Well, the game released on Thursday of this week! And I’m finally in Act 3!
But, like, I’m only about two quests into the third act. So I don’t really have anything to say that wasn’t already covered in my last post about the game.
So far I have observed a handful of things, though:
Unique drops are *SCARCE*. I don’t have a single unique yet. I’m not saying that I should be swimming in them or anything, but I kind of expected at least *ONE*.
I am swimming in gems. I don’t remember having this many gems back when I was playing the first time. Thanks to upgrading three likes to the next highest level, I have a flawless gem already (and normal versions of all of the other ones) and I’m only in Act 3.
I have no recollection of how to do the F1-F4 dance to quickly jump between skills. How did I play this back a million years ago?
Anyway, if you remember loving Diablo II the first time you played it 20 years ago, this game does an amazing job of being the exact same game.
HOWEVER! This is the first weekend of the game being back and, of course, it’s attended by some absolutely maddening server problems. Tens of thousands of people were locked out of their games with an error that said “This character is already in game on the server” when they tried to start one up.
[#D2R] We are continuing to identify and resolve issues with characters locked from play. Thank you for your patience.
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) September 24, 2021
Additionally, there were issues where characters are disappearing entirely or players are failing completely to authenticate.
Blizzard assures us that those problems are now fixed.
[#D2R] The server issues have been resolved. We still continue to investigate characters being locked out of games and the game unable to launch for some players.
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) September 24, 2021
If you look at the replies to the tweet, though, there are players who disagree.
I know from personal experience that nothing ever works right and no matter how much prep work you do, you’re never prepared enough for the transition from “not live” to “live” but it’s also difficult for me to not think thoughts like “there are no physical copies of this game… they knew, to the exact number, how many units they sold… they should have been prepared for 99% of those people to show up the first weekend.”
But the same thing happened when Diablo III came online and I have no doubt that the exact same thing will happen when Diablo IV finally goes live.
If you can get past the whole issues with the servers, it remains an amazing game. I do wish the drops were better, though.
Maybe Nightmare will turn things around.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is a screenshot of the game, taken by the author.)
I tried Diablo II back in the day, I loved it, it required so many mouse clicks I instantly got hand problems. I realized I wasn’t physically able to play it without hurting myself. Every time the Warrior swung his weapon it was one click.Report
Stay far away from this one, then. It’s probably not as addictive as it was the first time (for example, I can’t imagine playing it regularly in 6 months) but I expect it will take over my life for the next week or so.Report
So they did not add in the “hold mouse button to attack” option from D3?
My gaming is pretty much the same as it has been. I’m trying to finish up Kingdom Hearts 2, and I am chugging away through G-Rank in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. However, I have reached a bit of a wall. I’ve been playing solo, but the quest that need to complete to unlock the next level of quests is annoying. To beat it, I probably need to make a set of armor with specific skills. It’s also just not a fun fight. Instead of fighting the monster like normal, you are supposed to use a bunch of siege weapons like cannons and ballista. I’m not sure if I will keep pushing onward, or take a break for a while.Report
Just tested, that *IS* there.
But, as a necromancer, it’s less useful than it would be for a frenzybarb.Report
“Diablo II claw hand” must have been a common medical diagnosis back in the day. The best way to avoid it (other than not playing, because that wasn’t going to happen) was a build that needed less clicking, like a summoning necromancer. Build a tanky golem, let your minions kill an enemy, then use Corpse Explosion. I think the hurricane druid with a pack of wolves was similar, but I could never get much success with it.
I liked the paladin because it cut down on the keyboard work. Set up one good aura, Holy Shield, and a portal on the right click, and Zeal on the left click.
Jaybird’s frenzybarb could destroy your cartilage all the way back to your elbows.
ETA: The worst thing wasn’t the one click per swing, it was the 10 clicks per swing because you were whaling on the mouse trying to get in a hit.Report
If memory serves, I found out later that mage had some options and if you had a bow based guy you could hold the mouse down and it would continue to fire. However I liked warriors and dropped out before I learned that… and having dropped because of absurd cartilage issues, wasn’t willing to explore what “less bad” would be like.Report
Got my first unique. A Skewer of Krintiz.
Saving for my future frenzy barb.Report
I tried Diablo II for the first time a year or two ago, and I found that the inventory management really took a lot away from the game’s enjoyability.
I also got to the end of Act IV and just hit a wall. Apparently I was supposed to be saving up fire resistance gear?Report
My Necro is hitting a wall at Act III.
Part of the problem is that the game does this thing where there are awesome support characters, awesome tanks, and awesome DPS… and if you all play multiplayer, you’re going to have a great time.
But if you’re just playing solo? Well… there are builds for when you’re just playing solo.
And they are not the same as the ones for when you’re playing multiplayer.Report
I started it last night with a Barbarian, as I typically do for my first times through games like this. I will probably play through with either a Druid or Necromancer after I finish one playthrough with the tank.Report
I started it last night on Switch, and I had forgotten about the awful inventory system.
I don’t play video games for realism, and I don’t play dungeon loot-fests like Diablo so I can be selective about what I keep in inventory and what I sell/store.
Diablo III, for all the crap it got from fans of the series, at least had a much larger inventory so instead of having to sort through things multiple times in a dungeon run, you could wait and purge after each run.Report