The loot changes is a double edged sword. You're absolutely right about the frequency of drops lowering the dopamine. But as a busy dad I just can't grind the way I used to so I also appreciate being able to find good items without grinding for 30 hours straight, as I just can't do that anymore lol
I'm in this exact same boat, used to be able max a tune and start clapping them out on runewords within a month, im 2 months into my javazon now and not quite at level 80 yet lol.
@@Thenatureboy801 Just can't match that 15 year old with a 30 rack of mountain dew and stack of totino pizzas energy where you treated D2 like a full time job haha
It's hard to grind levels and loot when you're 50 and your bedtime is now 9PM 🤣 😴. For those of you who can still pull allnighters you are my people. Live well while you can. 👍
This video took valuable time away from playing PD2. Time I'll never get back. Corrections & Clarifications: - I refer to Rare drops as "Legendary". - The comparison to D3 drop rates is a bit extreme. PD2 has the drop rate set to P5/5 by default. - 100 hours is an example. Don't want to imply it takes that long to get to endgame in PD2. - Mapping and corrupted gear is directly copied from POE.
Video it's amazing bro Ty for highlighting this to me. I play D2 LOD since mid 2001 and I still didn't complete the Immortal King set😂😂😂😂I am missing mace.
@@BoardAndConfused oh I made it yesterday but I can't get it how to set up graphic like yours. I mean it looks nice but I realized that there is so much option to explore
All Good loot in PD2 has two (and sometimes three) filters: The initial item rolls (which is where Vanilla/D2R's loot ends), then the worldstone shard and puzzle box. The luck required to get godly item rolls, a godly slam, and a high socket puzzle box is insanely narrow - akin to winning the lottery. It makes these items stand out among all others as the pinnacle of what can be achieved. I once saw an eth schaeffer's with an ED/IAS slam, puzzled for 2 sockets (fitted with two ohm runes). There were countless failures, bricks, and 1os puzzles which helped this item come to fruition. PD2 NEEDS lots of loot because of how slams andn puzzle boxes affect the game.
The fact that this "mod" is free is mindblowing. I have chosen to donate to the development team and i would encourage any PD2 enjoyer to do the same. This is how we keep it going.
Yeah I'm right there with ya. I enjoy POE, but I felt like I had to read the entire wiki before I had even a basic understanding of the game. Diablo 2 is a much more immediately understandable game imo, and by extension so is PD2.
@@BoardAndConfused its a perfect diablo 2 clone with much content, its not that hard actually but the learning curve is really enjoyable, you have to think about how you want to play it, the uniques and crafting system is more "unique" and the customization let you more freedom than any other game. whoever reached lvl90 on d2 more likely really loves poe because its for hardcore gamer fans.
100% agree on your points sir. I think its not just a diablo 4 problem its every ARPG and even MMO problem where the end game is the "Real game" PD2 is freaken amazing but those slight changes in normal and nightmare would probably up this addiction to equivilance of video game crack. I can understand why its not looked out though these guys volunteer their own free time to do these changes for free.
Oh 100%, I'd probably never be able to stop playing if the early game was rebalanced 😂The amount of work the devs have put in is absolutely insane. The fact that mods like PD2 exist and are free is nothing short of amazing.
@@BoardAndConfused Funny because just today i was talking about how early game is mind numbing easy and when you compare it to the original vanilla experience which is a brutal one...PD2 makes it too casual
Normal and nightmare have always been easy for casters in normal d2. Pd2 did bring melee in line with that and they are pretty breezy, perhaps too much. But hell progression is where pd2 shines. You can actually find and craft upgrades. The extremely slow old school play throughs of untwinked melee druids gives you a pretty niche perspective. The way d2 is normally played is everyone runs a caster, and powers to teleport or gets a rush. Pd2 gives competitive and varied ways to level all the classes with great balance, which even carries to endgame where teleport isn’t even necessary.
Oh for sure! I think PD2 is a far more balanced experience overall, and it deserves all the praise in the world for that. Sorc not being the only viable ladder start character is probably extremely refreshing for longtime fans of the game. Hell is as you said, is where the mod shines and I couldn't agree more with ya, its an absolute blast to progress through, along with maps. I just wish it didn't come at the cost of Normal/Nightmare being absolute child's play (regardless of your class).
It is possible to scale PD2 drops and difficulty by editing some .ini files. Not ideal, I'll grant you, but you could create different configs for Normal and Nightmare if you wanted. I'm not 100% familiar with this process, but I'm sure there is someone out there to help you with jumping into this rabbit hole...
Oh sweet, thanks for sharing! Yeah definitely not ideal, but I don't mind tinkering with game/server files. Maybe I'll take a stab at that at some point just for fun 🙂
@@BoardAndConfused And don,t forget to check into Loot Filters. They remove the annoying flood of useless items when killing mobs. There is extensive documentation on these in the Wiki. There are many filters already defined. You just load and enable them. Or you can roll your own, but I just use Kryszard's.
This was an interesting video. Every 4 seconds I would agree with something you said, and 4 second later would disagree completely with something else. I am also a d2 nerd and have been playing pd2 since season 3, so I am very easily offended and cry at even the slightest criticism. For the sake of being argumentative on the internet, here are some counter points: 1)You are "drowning in [trash] loot" because you are the only person not using a loot filter which is built into the launcher. 2) The increased item drops fit well into to a ~4 month season. The marketplace/economy works extremely well and I think that supports my opinion that the rarity of items and season lengths has a good balance. You may be accustomed to never ending non-ladder grind. 3) There are EXTREMELY rare drops that you are likely not even aware of, so that satisfaction of grinding for a grail still exists even when vanilla d2 items may more common. The "less rewarding" feeling you describe makes sense when you compare apples to apples, so if you get a shako you're not spitting out your coffee anymore. But let me know how you feel when you get a Vial of Lightsong. 4) Immaculate attention to detail was paid when designing the increased drops around usability of added/adjusted runewords and builds. It is NOT as simple as a linear increase in items so everyone gets good gear. 5) Norm and NM are easier because of the added mechanics that end up being important in hell. No argument there. They shouldn't be a chore. I find them a chore in d2r, especially with a narrow selection of builds and play styles. TLDR: If you're on the fence about trying PD2, play it when a new ladder starts for 3-4 weeks. Come back to this thread and comment how great pd2 is. Good video! Good content.
@@BootShootBoogie Hey thanks for taking the time to put together such a thoughtful response! I wouldn't say anything you've said is "crying" over the criticisms I've made. You actually responded thoughtfully and politely, Which is more than I can say for some of the weirdos who've engaged with this video 😂 That said, it's been really awesome to read all the different perspectives/opinions on the video and PD2 in general. When I first put this video out I thought I'd be crucified lol. So it's been nice to see the reception be largely positive, and maybe even start a broader conversation or two. By most people's definitions, I think I'd slide firmly into the "casual" spectrum of D2 enjoyers, so I'm not the least bit surprised that some of my opinions don't match that of the broader player base, or might even be considered bad takes by hardcore fans. I still stand by a lot of what I said in the video, but can totally appreciate how if I invested even more time into the mod or if I had been playing D2 for 2 decades, my perspectives could/would change. As you pointed out, I'm sure there is tons of shit I haven't even seen 😅 Anyway, thanks for being passionate and taking the time to comment on my silly video. Hope you have a good one!
I'm always happy to hear about people discovering of rediscovering how great D2 is! That being said, I have one comment about the loot drops in PD2: while it does take away some of the wow factor, I do believe it balances the game significantly when playing SSF or with only a small, tight knit group. I've invested more hours in vanilla and D2R than probably any game ive played but i've never had more fun than with PD2's drop rates and enhancements. I'll be honest I have run bots before in vanilla and that experience let me know just how absurd finding certain loot was. Even with a bot running 8 hours a day for a month straight you might never see a piece of moderately hard to find loot, let alone incredibly hard to find. Being able to enjoy the grind and getting rewarded at a more reasonable rate is simply too good to go back to vanilla now :P
Hey thanks for sharing! Yeah for as much as I complain about it, PD2 still has great loot. I can totally appreciate why the vanilla drop chances aren't ideal for many players (especially based off your findings above lol). I think you're totally right that PD2 rewards you more consistently and cuts the grind down big time. I had heard that some of the rarer drops in the game had stupidly low chances, but that's wild 😂
It is also worth to mention here that in PD2 most of the BIS items are actually corrupted with an actual exact + mod... In my opinion th get that in PD2 is just as difficult as to get a "clean" BIS item in D2. So it is somewhat ver similar in the end!
I have found every rune in the game EXCEPT a Jah and Ber...which is crazy to me since a Zod is technically more rare than either but even my bots never found a jah when I ran them. shits wild. Great video btw!@@BoardAndConfused
@@thatusernameinusestill haven't found a ber rune playing pd2 or a zod, playing avg 3-4 hrs a day for last six months. Drop rates are higher but don't feel insane
I just jumped into pd2 for the first time this season and have been having a blast. Ive played d2 since it came out 20+ years ago. The mapping system is so much fun
I made my own mod. Has bags. Has blood shards item sot gambling. Has inscription. Has enchants. Has special cube recipes to reroll uniques. Reroll sets. Has ancients. Has primals. Has variant stats on sets and uniques. Has about 1000 new uniques and several new sets. Has 100 more bosses. Harder content. More zones. Has fixed spells. Has dex and str matter. Has hero charm that can appply legendary effect to end game. Has quests line for each act they are randomly chosen with end quest line reward. Way more difficulty. No town portals. Way slower xp gain. Each difficulty has its own new enchantment materials and materials from salvaging. And it’s no d2 not crappy d2 res so you can play with friends I’m going to set up a server soon Also has special potions. Enchant mats oh and a salvage system that progresses with random outputs.
Sadly no, at least not currently. PD2 is only compatible with the 1.14d version of the game. If you own D2R though, you can still install the old version of the game for free from Blizzards website.
@@BoardAndConfused hey i want to get into pd2 and d2r is on sale right now, but is this really true? i cant find anything that seems to indicate it is, and the article you linked seems to have been updated or something.
Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, Titan Quest, hell, even Torchlight2 all exist. The genre has grown up, and it's a beautiful thing that everyone should enjoy. Signed, 10k hours guy.
I have been playing since release and can safely sau i have never toggled my walk/run to avoid getting hit - I wonder if I'm in the minority with that. I will say though, your review is impressively thorough, even including this aspect. Kudos.
the only thing I'll really say in response to your list of negatives; the mod was developed specifically with long-time D2 players in mind, most of whom have already played through early game content hundreds of times (if not more) and experience no gratification from that part of the game. essentially breezing through early game content is kind of a given when your target demographic is primarily people who want to breeze through it. this concept applies to nearly all of the negatives you listed. pd2 devs know their audience and have catered the game (and it's seasonal updates) to their (generally) collective taste.
Hey fair enough. I can appreciate how long time fans of Diablo 2 might not care to experience Normal and Nightmare for the 4000th time. That said though, I still think that if the devs took some time and balanced the early game, the mod would be a much more consistently entertaining experience throughout its whole runtime. I just prefer when a game/mod puts in the effort to make the journey to the end just as fun as the endgame itself.
As a longtime D2 player (since 2000 on and off)..... Personally my favorite part of the game is early game---- up to level 80, then I lose interest (since mfing gets boring) Early game is full of upgrades, every next item might be better For me its fun, that frantic search for upgrades, even if its a pair of blue gloves
I still play PlugY... it's the good ol D2 experience, but with QoL for solo play.. like shared stash, ladder exclusives in single player, and multi boxing so i can rush my own alts. :D
PlugY is an awesome addition to the base game! It's also compatible with PD2 solo, but I had it eat my stash on me and I foolishly didn't have a backup, so I avoided it after that 😂
I’m a HC party player so I disagree with the points about it being too easy during the early game, but I can see how you have that opinion on SC ssf. If I had a Pul for every death during p4+ normal I might actually be able to make a Ber.
Normal was always terribly easy. I used to play on "players 8" for normal/nightmare, and "players 4" for hell back in the day. And I was not too good at the game even.
I dunno if you've ever played it, but Median XL is an awesome full conversion mod that is well worth checking out. Entirely new skill trees and builds, entirely new uniques and sets, TONS of new ubers all dropping badass charms like torches. If you ever wanted to play an exploding crossbow Necro or poison Sorc it's the mod for you!
a huge part of d2 and pd2 is the in game economy. myself and many others enjoy the aspect of trading in an active economy that changes quickly. so while pd2 isnt the best "hack & slash" it does offer the best experience with an in game economy.
Yeah I've had that one recommended to me as well. Sounds like it goes even further with changes compared to PD2. Definitely gonna check it out at some point 🙂
Regarding the loot system, the addition of variance to many items and WSS/corruption (plus the fact that the playerbase is a lot more casual than it used to be) justifies increasing the drop rates slightly imo. It definitely feels overboard in LoD content though. You're right that Normal and most of NM feel like a joke, with sets and uniques and PGems dropping left and right. Kind of ruins the leveling experience. I wonder if this is driven by the most active/streaming/"elite" players who tend to rush every ladder as a team to start EXPing and farming in hell/maps ASAP. It's been suggested to the dev team many times to lower the drop rates to e.g. P1/P2/P3 instead of uniform P5 like right now. They've also added new mechanics like Corruption zones and map events that provide wss, keys, etc. that have flooded the market and hurt specialization of labor. Still the best hack&slash around.
Comparing loot drops in PD2 to Diablo 3 is WILD. It's p5/5 loot, which reduces the no drop chance, a bit more loot for sure, but it's not drastic enough for loot to feel trivialized imo. Also you have an extra layer of RNG on items due to the corruption system, which can even make finding otherwise meh items early, really exciting if you were able to find some shards along the way. This doesn't help your power creep criticism, but it does add more RNG to getting the best items and makes finding items in SSF way more enjoyable. In vanilla, dropping multiple copies of an item starts to lose its excitement quick, but a Shako drop in PD2 always feels amazing even if it's your third, fourth, fifth, because of the potential for those crazy slams. To each their own, I will always love vanilla D2 of course, but I think PD2 has found a great middle ground.
Yeah you're probably right, that comparison is maybe not the best. It's not THAT severe, but comparing it to Vanilla D2, it's still a massive increase in drops. Considerably more than P1/1 (which is what I'm personally used to from D2). Again though, the loot in PD2 is awesome, and way more varied than vanilla. I'm just a masochist who enjoys getting fewer drops lol
I agree with you---- normal and nightmare are too easy Its fine for hardcore, but softcore it takes the fun away They should make it way more challenging...... we like a challenge (not just endgame) Generally speaking---- increasing monster damage by like 10-40% should do the trick.......................Loot should be set to player 2 or 3, not 5
Agreed! Even if they simply buffed monster damage and not HP, I think that would make the early game far more interesting without all that much effort (I'd assume anyway).
I TOTALLY agree that the challenge for Normal/Nightmare can get a boost. However, striking the balance for the 5-10% of your gameplay (and that's generous) for a team of volunteers is tough. It IS slowly being tweaked every now and then still, so maybe it'll work out. Plus, you are playing Barbarian. It is still somewhat difficult to die on them compared to a early level Sorceress (obvious, I know). Fighting normal, basic monsters isn't ever special even in hell with immunities, it's the elites and rare packs that kick ass every time. The lack of skills also counts towards difficulty. Nightmare for me is the easiest because the skills are all available. The frenzy will really make most mobs feel slow or samey. As for loot, I feel ya there too man. I prefer the loot changes because running solo is just usually harder (maybe subjective/class based) and I like the bonus rewards of it, you still get more from running a full party, but I like my solo playing. Solo Self Found (SSF) is super fun in PD2. PS. Please use one of the loot filters lol. I did read the edited post in comments. Keep a look out for the next seasons.
Hey thanks for such a thoughtful comment. Totally! PD2 is clearly a labor of love, but it's not as if the mod team is making a living off of it, nor is rebalancing the whole game and adding additional systems easy so I totally understand why the chose to focus on end game since that seems to be what their target demographic is after 😅 It was suggested to me to boost early game difficulty by cranking the player count, which is not a perfect solution of course but definitely makes early game more enjoyable imo. I'll be following the mod as it continues to develop for sure 😁
Hey man to each their own! For my money though, that just proves my point even further. If veteran players are seriously resorting to paid boosts to get to the fun part of the mod, I think the devs should spend some time making the early game more challenging and interesting to progress through, not providing means for players to skip it. That said though, I can totally appreciate that if someone has been playing the game for decades, they might not want to progress through the early game for the millionth time. The vanilla acts aren't exactly diverse in the content you can play through. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
I liked the part when you said "It's too easy" then the background is you taking 5 mins to kill 1 elite and chugging HP potions. I get the point though, have a friend who loved the difficulty spikes of NM/Hell. A lot of ARPG enjoyers do enjoy/prefer "I did the work to get my fat items now I wana blast." versus "I can't do anything until I find better items so I can go back to slowly progressing". Two different mindsets, no world where both are 100% happy.
True, melee in vanilla is too weak, especially after the successive nerfs over time, like what they did to whirlwind. And you kinda have to use Grief to be efficient. OTOH, splash damage makes PD2 too easy. It should probably be an item mod, with range and/or quantity of mobs hit expressed as a stat. There should be a jewel or rune to increase these numbers, and most melee uniques and RW should have at least some splash damage, but way less than what we have now. It would be cool to have a set dedicated to melee that gives the best possible splash damage as full set bonus, but with other drawback like not being the best option for damage or survivability.
Nah, I disagree. The point of charms is that you have to decide whether you want more MF, power, or room to pick items. D2 was so successful because it remembered to real life, real pain, real rewards felt more intense... Now we replace all hard decissions with "quality of life improvements", so many, that then you don't even think anymore. Stacked gems look just like an image with a number, instead of having an identity. Only stuff for the worse.
So long as you've got a copy installed and patched up to 1.14d you're golden 😁 Alternatively if you have d2 on battlenet, you can actually download the 1.14d version directly from blizzards website. Have fun!
I find it really strange that people like the loot drops in original D2. I played for 5 years and that's what I hated the most. 1 SoJ, 1 Zod rune, and tons of meaningless trash while running a bot for the last 2 years on my off time. Drop rates that low for things that are essentially required to make your character good is ridiculous. This is one issue I NEVER had with Path of Exile. Their currency system gives you a way to build up to anything you want in trade league, the crafting allows you to get something close to what you want and fix it, uniques are only required for specific builds since uniques tend to be build defining items instead of higher stat sticks, and many items can be target farmed from specific bosses. D2 loads you up with tons of rare items that are loads of crap and EXTREMELY RARELY even 1/2 as good as a damn unique item or rune word. Rune words essentially crush all other types of gear in nearly every instance, so even if you do find a good rare armor, that shit ain't a Fortitude or Enigma, so who cares? Loot in D2 is total garbage by today's standard, but IMO, its just because of rune words. Now the charm slots... OH... MY... GOD... WHY DOESN'T BLIZZARD DO THAT? Now that builds are based on the damn charms for extra customization, you have no inventory space. Even in D2R they didn't even consider this OBVIOUS choice. Its sad that a guy making a fan mod can do such an obvious thing! That's another point against the loot. I can't even pick the shit up!!!
You make a lot of great points, drop chances on some items are abysmally small. I too am not a huge fan of rune words in vanilla D2 for the same reasons. Makes almost all of the loot drops completely irrelevant in the late game. That said though, I personally do think the rate of drops otherwise is tuned really well, but that largely just comes down to personal preference. Needless to say the jump to PD2 was quite a shock for that reason 😂 And yeah.... why Blizzard won't even make simple QOL changes is beyond me. Another addition I love from PD2 is the added bars for your belt which display how many potions you currently have equipped in your slots. Its a simple UI change that benefits the game greatly imo, seems like a no-brainer to me lol
If you're running a bot in the first place you're doing it wrong. D2's basic loot system allows a random white item on the ground to be more valuable than the majority of runewords & uniques in the game if you happen to get a good base. A 15ed Eth Thresher with 4os for example is almost priceless due to it's rarity and desirability. You can pick up perfect gems and random junk magic rings and jewels, and craft the godliest caster jewelry in existence. A random blue set of Javelins can be the elusive +6skill/40ias that are so sought after. That's the beauty of D2, all the random "junk" that your little bot wouldn't even look at, can be some of the most valuable and powerful items in the game.
@@KingJerbear main word in this wall of text is "can", just pick every blue trash item for the 700 hours and you *can* find some rly good items... gtfo
As much as i like PD2 it has the same issues as every mod of this kind. It turns the whole game into casual mode. It removes every hardcore aspect like stamina, of course the no penalties when running away from enemies at close range, shower you with loot. At the end of the day the so called devs of this mod are just casual players who seem to want D3 with a D2 old school skin. All they had to do was add the maps and not touch anything else. D2R now has terror zones so that's better than nothing. You also got awesome mods like stackit, equip merc, bigger stash, more blood effects, item filter. But yeah i too love the graphics of PD2 they did an amazing work on the HD sprites, but fk me beating this casual play mod twice only to get some challenge is painful, i guess this mod is mostly for casual players because no one really complains. if anything they love it.
At this point I'd have a hard time returning to vanilla due to all the QOL changes and the lack of a "proper" endgame, but yeah I still feel the same way about the mods difficulty. Until you get to Hell it's very dull. One method that was suggested to me that definitely makes getting through normal and nightmare more engaging is to up the player count. You might even die in normal if you up it to p5-p8 (I certainly have lol), but I still think if the devs took the time to properly rebalance early game that would be far better.
@@BoardAndConfused Yeah that was the first thing i did from the start and to be quite honest i noticed no difference, things are still dying in 2 or 3 hits sure some may have more hp but it doesn't create enough tense moments, my companion from act 3 still destroys everything in his path with the ice spells. Note that i have never played hell difficulty on this mod or played the maps. Beating the game the first time with the mod left a very bad impression on me so i moved on to D2R, i don't think i can go trough all of this 2 times more
The challenge is in the maps. You can roll some pretty hard ones. Stamina is useless past lvl 5 in LoD. Loots are p5 so like playing pub or Px singleplayer 👍
I agree with you. PD2 is spectacular. It does have issues, though. Some issues are Diablo II issues, and others are PD2 issues. One thing I would appreciate alot, would be if they could add two difficulties to each difficulty. Kind of like you said, improve upon/work on the basegame. This could work like this: both difficulties for each difficulty could first have monsters with refreshed abilities, attacks, animations. Like Izual as an example. Add a ranged attack to him. Like ice blast/glacial spike maybe. What Im saying is: where its logical to add to the monsters abilities, do it. Then for the main differences between, lets say, the two hell difficulties: difficulty 2 could have monsters with higher damage, defense, life. Some areas could have increased density (like all places which is important in the story line where it makes sense to increase density). It could also just be that the base density is always turned to max, since the base density differs from game to game. There are many more things to be considered, I know. Like players penalties, droprates and the like, I just wanted to put this out there. This is very simply put.
Man I think those are some great suggestions! I've been trying to think of potential solutions all week ahah. One thought I had is maybe the mapping system could even be made available from a low level, provided maps could be scaled and/or lower level maps created. Although that may take away from the drive to get to the endgame, it would offer veteran players a way to level through normal and nightmare, while still getting "fresh" content. Ofc that wouldn't resolve things like quest rewards (ie resist boosts or skill book drops) but it could potentially give veteran players a means to bypass the normal and nightmare acts if they so choose. I think I like your suggestions better though, freshening up the vanilla acts so they're still worth running through on all difficulties is a much better solution than providing a means for players to skip them imo.
thanks. I wish I could put all of it into words. Its a good thing that contentcreators like you exist so that others are atleast given a chance to try and compress their ideas into some sort of format. I like your idea about maps being accesible at lower levels. I just wish that it could be called something else, or that it could be something else. Like, new acts, instead of low level maps. I know thats a pretty wild statement and a greedy wish, but, that would be ideal. Since I know that this is greedy wishful thinking, Im suggesting what Im suggesting, that the PD2 team would refresh the basegame, by revamping areas, important places, monsters. They have proven to be very talented when it comes to making monsters and giving them abilities. So it seems fair to suggest such things. Yes. You are right concerning all of those things. It would offer another way to level up. It would also, probably, take away some important elements which exists in the base game (if they dont put alot of effort into it and manages to maintain those things). And unless they get really creative with it, then, like you said, it could take away the drive to get to the high level mapping. But, more importantly, it would disconnect players from the basegame, which is bad. There needs to be progression and excitement in between the different stages of the journey, and, having two kind of separate spectrums in the game achieves that. Basegame -> MFing in basegame -> leveling a bit in groups in the basegame -> maps -> ubers -> dungeons -> Diablo clone -> Rathma. Im glad to hear that you like the ideas, and that they fit into another Diablo players fantasy. I think the PD2 team could have some fun with it. Giving the basegame somewhat of a new coat could prove to be very stimulating. Also, it would hopefully work really well with the two difficulties per difficulty thing. Fresh paint + fresh challenges and rewards could be what season 9 (or 10) needs.
@@joacimohrnell3346 Man thanks for taking the time to write such thoughtful comments! While its definitely wishful thinking, I too will be crossing my fingers to see some sort of balancing done for the early game. I foresee that making this already excellent mod into something truly incredible, and equally hard to turn off lol. I already feel like the hours melt away when I play PD2. Fleshing out the early game might make me forget what year it is 😂
@@joacimohrnell3346personally I'm never bored with pd2 so I don't think it needs a fresh coat of paint honestly. But I understand ur point about some new early-midgame content. But they are always working on the game, it is an ongoing labor of love, so u could always make ur suggestions in the pd2 discord.
I'm playing Barb SSF offline too. season before was zeal pally.. I strongly suggest /player count 3 or above(I do 5) and stick to that. this makes the game much less about farm efficiency more about slow paced progression of your character. With melee splash and all that added skills and base item damage buffs player count 1 is just not enough. But high mob HP means spell casters will have a harder time because they are much harder to up the damage incrementally IE you need that skiller charm drops or auras. It's fantastic feeling when you successfully craft that mid level weapon that you need :) And as a melee focused player fact that melee splash is not in resurrection alone I'll never play that.
Hey thanks! I'll definitely give that a shot. If it makes early game progression more engaging, I'm all for it! And I hear ya, going back to Vanilla after getting use to Melee splash is tough 😅
@@MycketTuff I'm right there with ya. Never liked the runeword meta either, makes loot extremely boring once you've managed to find/put a handful of them together.
I understand how you feel about melee, but for me, I feel it brings melee closer to as powerful you feel as a caster in the early game. It does change things, but I have grown to enjoy it. As far as walking, it’s somewhat relevant early game, but I don’t mind it being useless later on
Oh 100%. I do really love melee splash, but it took a long time to grow on me. Walking is still somewhat useful in that you can control your movement speed a bit more, but I do miss it being a relevant part of melee.
Agreed! I hate it when changes trivialize a game. For me challenge and friction is what makes the game fun or rewarding. I think it's very easy for modders to make changes that buffs our characters, but without remembering to buff the enemies as well, to compensate and balance it. The game should be fun and challenging from lvl 1, not after x hours. Did you end up going back to normal D2, or continue with PD2?
I eventually modded an install with the D2GL wrapper and HD text mod, but otherwise base LOD. That way I got to keep the glorious 60+ FPS and higher upscaled sprites, but everything else is base game. I loved my time with PD2 and its end game don't get me wrong, but the balance of the LOD (flaws and all) is still unmatched in my eyes. It was never a fair fight haha. I did put a great deal more time into PD2 before switching "back" mind you, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss all the quality of life stuff. Most of all stackable runes and gems 😂 I predict I'll one day return to PD2 and lose many more hours of my life to it in the process.
@@dannyp9210 Oooh tough question. So I'd say it mostly comes down game preservation for me. I mostly play 1.14d because its a version of the game I know I'll always have access to. D2R is great in its own right and arguably the best way to play D2 in more or less intended state. I've hypocritically put many many hours into it and will in the same breath tell you I'm the kind of weirdo that can't abide always online DRM or Activision Blizzard 😅
Yeah honestly Hell Unleashed definitely did difficulty progression much better, but just about everything else is much better in Project, especially Inventory OMG.
Im hardcore lover of Diablo 2 LOD....i still have character from 2001 Barbarian....i still didnt complete Immortal King set for him. But now i stopped long time ago since i find moded Diablo very very good for playing. I am using 5 mods
Been playing PD2 for the last couple years! Now I'm sort of tempted to play vanilla just to see if PD2 really is easier in normal and nightmare. Because to me it seems like you just get a lot better at D2. As in, you know exactly how to skill a character and how to get the items you need to easily progress through normal and nightmare. To me it actually feels like vanilla was a bit OP. Runewords like spirit were just soo good requiring zero currency. Grief only required a Lo and gave you 400 flat damage, so OP that it outclasses nearly every other weapon. The QOL and graphics alone is worth playing PD2. I think instead of the loot drop giving dopamine like in vanilla it's now the corrupting and hitting an absolute GG corrupt on a GG drop. Finding a griffons and slamming +1 skill on it or getting am eth cranium basher and corrupting it for 6OS is the new excitement.
You did a mistake about the additional column of inventory space (above the dedicated charm space). There are 10 columns, same as the base game. Only the cube got this extra column you've displayed in red. When it comes to the drop rate of the loots, it has been "increased", but for the best given how the new currency named "World Stone shard" works. But I was thinking the same, during the first seasons, especially coming from almost 20 years of D2 LOD, and playing it religiously until then. And I also felt this kind of loss of flavor when finding some items that seemed to take way more time to find in the base game. But, actually, it wasn't a fair impression. The drop rate hasn't been increased directly, but the game runs in /players 5 everytime you create a game. And in D2 LOD, when there were 5 players in the same game, monsters had more chances to drop items. But, as far as I know, this rule hasn't been changed between D2 LOD and PD2. I also felt the game was easier than the base game, during the first seasons, but numerous of changes and item balance have been made until now, and several seasons later, if doesn't feel that easier. The only complain I still have with the mod is this "splash damage" thing tied to the melee classes, especially early of the game where it makes everything really easy, indeed. But, in a way, the beginning of the game isn't the most fun part aswell, especially 20 years later... so making it more easy to run for the classes that struggled the most to go through it isn't such a bad idea imo. What's the most interesting to me about PD2 is how the mod managed, over the seasons, to balance items in order to not have to rely on runeword only. And crafting is more relevant than ever too.
Hey thanks for the call out lol. Here I was trying to be super careful not to make mistakes, but seems regardless of what I do some will inevitably slip through 😅 A lot of folks here have echoed the same points you have, especially veterans who have been playing the game for decades. I know that is PD2's target demographic as well, and my perspective is very much that of someone whos only been playing for handful of years. That said, I do think early game being a total breeze sucks, but again I've not been playing for 2 decades and I can totally appreciate why someone who has doesn't want it to be a time consuming "chore" just to get to the part of the game they enjoy. I like my games to be challenging throughout their entire run times, so I'd make that same criticism for any game/arpg with similar issues (most ARPGs have the same problem in my experience). D2 is my golden goose in terms of progression and difficulty for the genre, so when the delicate "balance" of the base game was upended, it took quite a bit of time to adjust on my end. Crafting and rebalanced rune words are among my favorite changes with the mod as well 🙂
I tried this mod and I could not play it because there wasn't any server available near me. I got 150-200 ping on any server that I connected. It's really a shame for me.
i mean, 5 years ago i would agree. But these days, path of exile has gotten to a place where its easily the greatest arpg of all time. Sure they've been less precious about it and its been a moving target, but its now in a place where its just amazing from a core game perspective. I play d2 for a few weeks after the poe league and when i got back and do a fresh playthrough of poe its like stepping up from a wheelchair and going for a jog. It just feels so much better, mostly because of the quality of life they've implemented over that last ~3 years. I love d2, grew up playing it and still revisit once or twice a year, but tits the second best arpg of all time. Poe took what it did well and blew it out of the water.
Thanks for your video. I ultimately decided against trying the mod because of the melee splash. The mod is _very_ cool but I'm just not interested in that kind of change.
PD2 isn't compatible sadly, but there are mods for D2R now. D2R Remodded is the most well known and a pretty significant rework from what I understand 🙂
Even thou I get you're point, I feel like the splash damage is just to make the melee built viable. Ofc you can melt through mob packs but you also can do it in vanilla but just with sorc, hdin and javazone (maybe with some other builts like wind druid or trapsin). But I need to say, normal and especial nightmare are easy af in vanilla as well. Funny thing is, in all d2, nightmare is always the easiest difficulty. Somehow its the worst balanced difficulty between gear, level on the one hand and difficulty on the other hand. They could make it harder imho, I fully agree on this. Even normal could be hard, I have no probs with taking a few days to reach hell baal etc. And I completely get the point on the loot thingi. Mf runs in d2 was THE thing which for me ruins even all other hack'n'slay games cause I need this mechanic with drops and runes. But in pd2 I feel you need to think the mf thingi different. In pd2 it is not the thing to find a unique once. The uniques like griffon or anything else are still rare but due to the droprate equals player3 or players5 in vanilla d2 and the higher mob densitiy ofc make them drop more often. But you will corrupt them and the goal in pd2 is maybe to find tje most rare uniques and slam them with a good mod. And I think you need to switch on this point of view in pd2 to get kept by the game for longer time. Again, as a d2 ultra from the first hours I can understand your complains and I'm in. But overall pd2 is for me the best way of experience d2. Stash, stackability, balancing and rework of skills (vengeance pally my absolut favorite class in pd2), corrupting items and brick them as well as qol features totally get me.
If im playing a d2 mod personally, I want a very new experience with lots of content and be difficult enough to have it compare as an actual game to today's standards. Median xl hits all of those marks for me. Pod, pd2, d2r dont.
The video would have better viewer retainment if you saved the negatives for last - people might decide that it's not for them from hearing just the negatives, and stop watching before you get to the positives. Just a friendly note :)
Hey thanks for the suggestion! Bizarrely this video actually has some of the best audience retention out of all my videos lol. I'd like to think that's partly because I spend the better part of 2 or 3 minutes in the beginning making it painfully clear I'm not just here to shit on the mod, but hey who knows :P
@@BoardAndConfused >that's partly because I spend the better part of 2 or 3 minutes in the beginning making it painfully clear I'm not just here to shit on the mod I think that's true, but I think that's because the vast majority of viewers are already fans of PD2 - there is a sorry lack of decent quality videos on PD2, so I imagine a lot of people, like me, just appreciate seeing a decent video on the game. What I noted only applies to people who aren't already familiar with PD2, which, as I realize now, constitutes a minority of the views
Melee splash is definitely a massive buff. While I wouldn't call it OP, especially considering it basically just levels the playing field for melee classes vs casters, there is no denying its way stronger than vanilla melee. That said, part of me wishes melee splash was something you could roll on an weapon/item and not just a guarantee.
@BoardAndConfused it definitely ends up being 'that' in path of diablo. Maybe we should be playing path of Diablo then. After all they're quite similar in some ways.
D2 is the best!! PD2 is also, wish it was on D2R. Id never play anything else im sure. There is a mod for D2R i forget the name of it tho. Reimagined maybe.
"Maps are rifts from Diablo 3" Loved the video, but ngl, that sentence destroyed my mind Maps are a system that is directly copy+pasted from PoE, same with corruption of gear
Haha, yeah not a big POE fan myself. Hadn't actually made it to its endgame at the time of making this, but knowing what I do now I 100% agree with you. Sadly can't update the video 😛
Totally fair. I definitely would prefer if the whole mod was tuned to have more challenge in the early game, but if you've been playing since 2000 I can appreciate how Normal and Nightmare mean nothing to you by now lol.
PD2 has those mods that take people's FG on JSP and then ban the accounts right? Then they transfer the FG off the accounts to avoid losing it when the JSP account gets reported. I understand not wanting JSP but their methods are.....
Huh I hadn't actually heard of that (not surprising since I'm a solo player). It does look like there are a number of forum posts about that from a couple years back though. So if you're a trader that is definitely something to be aware of, or even a potential write off for the mod I bet.
That's good that they bann everyone using d2jsp. Because d2jsp is a huge scam and should be removed from the Internet. D2jsp just ruins all the fun and makes all pay to win.
Charm slots is a fail already in my opinion - was it annoying to have to choose between the ability to pick more stuff up and have more charms? SURE - but THAT'S THE GAME! That crap is sacrilegious.
i think pd2 is for the people that likes the lod game, so thats why they did not touch the story, also i dont know about the new seasons, but the game starts at players 5 iirc
Yeah my understanding is PD2 was developed for fans of the vanilla game in mind, however at this point I think is strayed pretty far gameplay wise and has definitely become its own thing. You're right as well, PD2 is P5/5 base for mobs and loot, rather than P1/1 by default in the base game 🙂
I disagree about the discussion in early game. Yes normal and nm has become easier but thats because what was mid game and late game in LoD is different than pd2. Most ppl that pd2 is are also somewhat familiar diablo 2 and dont need trivial gameplay. So its nice to get into hell after one day. Becauae there is still some mid game before getting into late game. And theres so much more to do. I understand youe issue with higher item and rune drops buts needed for the exetreme late game of the highest tier maps or highest difficulties of ubers, dclone, and rathma.
Hey to each their own! I'm still definitely a newer player, so I find progressing through Normal and Nightmare to be time consuming (though maybe that's because I'm not bypassing any quests along the way lol). So progressing to Hell feels like a chore to me, and stands out as a blemish on an otherwise fantastic mod. That said, if you can blitz through Normal and Nightmare in a single session, and have been playing D2 for ages, I can appreciate why the early game of D2 would lose its appeal. As for drop rates on runes, you're absolutely right in pointing out that the late game makes use of them in a much more demanding way, so getting frequent rune drops is a boon for PD2s late game.
Agreed 100%. The only thing that bothers me in PD2 are the graphics. I mean, c'mon, I know they tried to improve it, I acknowledge that, but unfortunately it will not go anywhere beyond the old graphical design, as it's technically limited to it. And in no absolute fckin way the graphics are even comparable to D2R. I dream (and I'm sure all other players do too) that one day we would be able to experience a hybrid between PD2 and D2R.
Yeah it's a shame that D2R isn't compatible. I don't hate the old graphics myself, but there is no denying that D2R is a much prettier game to look at.
@@BoardAndConfused does PD2 come with a Glide tho? because Glide was the best on old D2 , and was also ported into D2R with some fix/add-on on top of it , i hope it does because would be a waste to not include it since it's based on an original game which supported it on voodoo gpu (but d2r supports it just fine on any gpu so there must be a way)
@@cskillers1 It sure does. It uses D2GL, which includes Glide and a bunch of other visual options (Bloom for example). When I play 1.14d, I now always run it with D2GL XD
PD2 while good, is just adopting 90% of its “new” content from the real heavy weight champ. Path of Exile is the best ARPG of all time. Though Diablo II held that crown for over a decade.
Hey to each their own! Path of Exile is excellent, but for me it'll always be D2. I personally prefer the relative "simplicity" of D2 or PD2. While D2 definitely has mechanics that are not explained well, its nowhere near as overwhelming. My biggest gripe with POE is its learning curve. When I first got into it I felt like I had to read an entire wiki or complete a masters degree to even have a basic understanding of the game and all its mechanics (So many currencies lol) but maybe that's just cause I'm a dummy. That said, still hyped for POE2!
Yea I can definitely understand that. I won’t pretend it’s not bloated at this point. But when a game is constantly developed and curated for a decade that is inevitable. It’s a problem, but if the content is good, it’s a good problem. I still log into D1/D2 for a few days every 6 months because they are great games that really hit that 11 year old kid in me. But damn the amount of stimulation I get from PoE is amazing. I enjoy the deep dive into the numbers and stuff because I love mathematics. A lot of ARPG’s have potential to scratch that itch but have really bad math at it’s core. Sorry for the long winded response, and thank you for the video and opinions. I should start trying to play PoE with random new players and help smooth some curves. It’s really fun as a vet getting to show a newbie how fun it can be
@@originaltnb9213 Hey man, no need to apologize! I totally get the appeal of POE, its insanely deep compared to most ARPGs out there, so can totally appreciate where you're coming from. Thank you for sharing your thoughts too! Always love to hear other peoples opinions 😀
Completely agree! PD2 is amazing but the lack of challenge in Normal and Nightmare it's something that definitely needs improvement. Long live the King!
Yeah I'm hoping the devs will do some balancing for the early game, but even still I adore the mod. If they DID rebalance the early game, I might not be able to turn the game off 😂
Personally I didn't mind it, I can imagine they had to reward players who made good builds and found good gear in normal and nightmare because there are of course new players to the game who would get crushed with sub par builds otherwise. Personally I'd rather that than the boring grind of d2r; which is basically a game for botters at this point, trading is ruined, and ina year of playing I never once found a jah, vex, ohm, ...let alone a fukking ber or zod (although haven't found the last two in pd2 either I feel it's possible). So I can see why people made bots fo d2r, it's drier than a dead desert lizard. Honestly I don't even wanna think about d2r anymore, d2r is like that pretty girl u marry who turns out to be the most shallow person, boring, golddigger, bad mother, self-centered, cheats on u with ur best friend...pd2 is like that homely girl who isn't as pretty but still attractive, but she is honest, funny, great mum, great work ethic, great body, can have deep conversations with her, is loyal, reliable, intelligent...I hate to crap on d2r so much but for me that's the gulf of difference. One game is a labor of love, the other is a labor of profit
Hi I'm Dave I always Love My precious CGNMTB That is ALL tho my Silly weird word annoying but with dictionary Alwasy Perfect Pd2 Forever. Now Im in espania
Haha. Even hardcore in PD2 is still made less entertaining from the early game balance imo. Still more entertaining since there are very real stakes, but suffers from the same problems a normal run does.
I don’t care what kind of fallacy it is, if I’m not having fun and enjoying a game, then I don’t consider it fun. I’m sorry but I can’t say something is fun if only 3% of the game is actually fun lol
I have to agree with the man. I'm 50 and I still have fond memories of MANY hours going through the labyrinth in the first game and up through Act V in the second game. Diablo III didn't satisfy as much and I'm hearing grumbling from the rest of the old crowd of gamers about IV.
Haha, I do enjoy POE quite a lot actually(picked it up again recently), but its never managed to hook me the same way that Diablo 2 has. You're absolutely right though, its undeniable that PD2 basically lifted the mapping system wholesale from POE. That said, I think it fits the mod like a glove 🙂
dude no offence man but pd2 lootis way better than diablo 2 loot its way better because every item is useful not like d2 that has 1 in 100000 chance of dropping an item that is useless for example tyraels might and templars might both are so useless while in pd2 tyraels might is one of the best items in the game so as templars i get that pd2 has better drop rates but atleast every unique is so useful in d2 only runewords are good anything else except runewords is shit and people who get excited to get tyraels might all because its rare
No offense taken ahah. Its cool to hear other folks thoughts on the mod. I think the loot in PD2 is really great too, and the balance changes to the gear does make the hunt even better. I personally just prefer P1/1 drop rates from Vanilla. But hey to each their own!
The loot changes is a double edged sword. You're absolutely right about the frequency of drops lowering the dopamine. But as a busy dad I just can't grind the way I used to so I also appreciate being able to find good items without grinding for 30 hours straight, as I just can't do that anymore lol
Lol.
I'm in this exact same boat, used to be able max a tune and start clapping them out on runewords within a month, im 2 months into my javazon now and not quite at level 80 yet lol.
@@Thenatureboy801 Just can't match that 15 year old with a 30 rack of mountain dew and stack of totino pizzas energy where you treated D2 like a full time job haha
It's hard to grind levels and loot when you're 50 and your bedtime is now 9PM 🤣 😴.
For those of you who can still pull allnighters you are my people. Live well while you can. 👍
Oh no. Please I thought i got out. Why? I have/had a family...
Diablo is a drug lol.
@@BoardAndConfused Legit slot machine hidden behind the facade of a game. And a damn good one.
@@Proximity94 No doubt 😂
This video took valuable time away from playing PD2. Time I'll never get back.
Corrections & Clarifications:
- I refer to Rare drops as "Legendary".
- The comparison to D3 drop rates is a bit extreme. PD2 has the drop rate set to P5/5 by default.
- 100 hours is an example. Don't want to imply it takes that long to get to endgame in PD2.
- Mapping and corrupted gear is directly copied from POE.
Excellent video
@@purepk7514 Thank you!
Video it's amazing bro Ty for highlighting this to me. I play D2 LOD since mid 2001 and I still didn't complete the Immortal King set😂😂😂😂I am missing mace.
@@BurnBabylon1990 Hope you enjoy PD2! :)
@@BoardAndConfused oh I made it yesterday but I can't get it how to set up graphic like yours. I mean it looks nice but I realized that there is so much option to explore
All Good loot in PD2 has two (and sometimes three) filters:
The initial item rolls (which is where Vanilla/D2R's loot ends), then the worldstone shard and puzzle box.
The luck required to get godly item rolls, a godly slam, and a high socket puzzle box is insanely narrow - akin to winning the lottery. It makes these items stand out among all others as the pinnacle of what can be achieved.
I once saw an eth schaeffer's with an ED/IAS slam, puzzled for 2 sockets (fitted with two ohm runes). There were countless failures, bricks, and 1os puzzles which helped this item come to fruition. PD2 NEEDS lots of loot because of how slams andn puzzle boxes affect the game.
The fact that this "mod" is free is mindblowing. I have chosen to donate to the development team and i would encourage any PD2 enjoyer to do the same. This is how we keep it going.
100% Modder's never cease to amazing me. The folks behind PD2 definitely deserve it.
I love pd2. PoE isn’t my thing, but it takes a lot of cool ideas from it.
Yeah I'm right there with ya. I enjoy POE, but I felt like I had to read the entire wiki before I had even a basic understanding of the game.
Diablo 2 is a much more immediately understandable game imo, and by extension so is PD2.
@@BoardAndConfused its a perfect diablo 2 clone with much content, its not that hard actually but the learning curve is really enjoyable, you have to think about how you want to play it, the uniques and crafting system is more "unique" and the customization let you more freedom than any other game. whoever reached lvl90 on d2 more likely really loves poe because its for hardcore gamer fans.
100% agree on your points sir. I think its not just a diablo 4 problem its every ARPG and even MMO problem where the end game is the "Real game"
PD2 is freaken amazing but those slight changes in normal and nightmare would probably up this addiction to equivilance of video game crack.
I can understand why its not looked out though these guys volunteer their own free time to do these changes for free.
Oh 100%, I'd probably never be able to stop playing if the early game was rebalanced 😂The amount of work the devs have put in is absolutely insane.
The fact that mods like PD2 exist and are free is nothing short of amazing.
@@BoardAndConfused Funny because just today i was talking about how early game is mind numbing easy and when you compare it to the original vanilla experience which is a brutal one...PD2 makes it too casual
Normal and nightmare have always been easy for casters in normal d2. Pd2 did bring melee in line with that and they are pretty breezy, perhaps too much. But hell progression is where pd2 shines. You can actually find and craft upgrades. The extremely slow old school play throughs of untwinked melee druids gives you a pretty niche perspective.
The way d2 is normally played is everyone runs a caster, and powers to teleport or gets a rush. Pd2 gives competitive and varied ways to level all the classes with great balance, which even carries to endgame where teleport isn’t even necessary.
Oh for sure! I think PD2 is a far more balanced experience overall, and it deserves all the praise in the world for that. Sorc not being the only viable ladder start character is probably extremely refreshing for longtime fans of the game.
Hell is as you said, is where the mod shines and I couldn't agree more with ya, its an absolute blast to progress through, along with maps. I just wish it didn't come at the cost of Normal/Nightmare being absolute child's play (regardless of your class).
It is possible to scale PD2 drops and difficulty by editing some .ini files. Not ideal, I'll grant you, but you could create different configs for Normal and Nightmare if you wanted. I'm not 100% familiar with this process, but I'm sure there is someone out there to help you with jumping into this rabbit hole...
Oh sweet, thanks for sharing! Yeah definitely not ideal, but I don't mind tinkering with game/server files. Maybe I'll take a stab at that at some point just for fun 🙂
@@BoardAndConfused And don,t forget to check into Loot Filters. They remove the annoying flood of useless items when killing mobs. There is extensive documentation on these in the Wiki. There are many filters already defined. You just load and enable them. Or you can roll your own, but I just use Kryszard's.
This was an interesting video. Every 4 seconds I would agree with something you said, and 4 second later would disagree completely with something else. I am also a d2 nerd and have been playing pd2 since season 3, so I am very easily offended and cry at even the slightest criticism. For the sake of being argumentative on the internet, here are some counter points:
1)You are "drowning in [trash] loot" because you are the only person not using a loot filter which is built into the launcher.
2) The increased item drops fit well into to a ~4 month season. The marketplace/economy works extremely well and I think that supports my opinion that the rarity of items and season lengths has a good balance. You may be accustomed to never ending non-ladder grind.
3) There are EXTREMELY rare drops that you are likely not even aware of, so that satisfaction of grinding for a grail still exists even when vanilla d2 items may more common.
The "less rewarding" feeling you describe makes sense when you compare apples to apples, so if you get a shako you're not spitting out your coffee anymore. But let me know how you feel when you get a Vial of Lightsong.
4) Immaculate attention to detail was paid when designing the increased drops around usability of added/adjusted runewords and builds. It is NOT as simple as a linear increase in items so everyone gets good gear.
5) Norm and NM are easier because of the added mechanics that end up being important in hell. No argument there. They shouldn't be a chore. I find them a chore in d2r, especially with a narrow selection of builds and play styles.
TLDR: If you're on the fence about trying PD2, play it when a new ladder starts for 3-4 weeks. Come back to this thread and comment how great pd2 is.
Good video! Good content.
@@BootShootBoogie Hey thanks for taking the time to put together such a thoughtful response! I wouldn't say anything you've said is "crying" over the criticisms I've made. You actually responded thoughtfully and politely, Which is more than I can say for some of the weirdos who've engaged with this video 😂
That said, it's been really awesome to read all the different perspectives/opinions on the video and PD2 in general. When I first put this video out I thought I'd be crucified lol. So it's been nice to see the reception be largely positive, and maybe even start a broader conversation or two.
By most people's definitions, I think I'd slide firmly into the "casual" spectrum of D2 enjoyers, so I'm not the least bit surprised that some of my opinions don't match that of the broader player base, or might even be considered bad takes by hardcore fans.
I still stand by a lot of what I said in the video, but can totally appreciate how if I invested even more time into the mod or if I had been playing D2 for 2 decades, my perspectives could/would change. As you pointed out, I'm sure there is tons of shit I haven't even seen 😅
Anyway, thanks for being passionate and taking the time to comment on my silly video. Hope you have a good one!
I'm always happy to hear about people discovering of rediscovering how great D2 is! That being said, I have one comment about the loot drops in PD2: while it does take away some of the wow factor, I do believe it balances the game significantly when playing SSF or with only a small, tight knit group. I've invested more hours in vanilla and D2R than probably any game ive played but i've never had more fun than with PD2's drop rates and enhancements.
I'll be honest I have run bots before in vanilla and that experience let me know just how absurd finding certain loot was. Even with a bot running 8 hours a day for a month straight you might never see a piece of moderately hard to find loot, let alone incredibly hard to find. Being able to enjoy the grind and getting rewarded at a more reasonable rate is simply too good to go back to vanilla now :P
Hey thanks for sharing!
Yeah for as much as I complain about it, PD2 still has great loot. I can totally appreciate why the vanilla drop chances aren't ideal for many players (especially based off your findings above lol). I think you're totally right that PD2 rewards you more consistently and cuts the grind down big time.
I had heard that some of the rarer drops in the game had stupidly low chances, but that's wild 😂
It is also worth to mention here that in PD2 most of the BIS items are actually corrupted with an actual exact + mod... In my opinion th get that in PD2 is just as difficult as to get a "clean" BIS item in D2. So it is somewhat ver similar in the end!
I have found every rune in the game EXCEPT a Jah and Ber...which is crazy to me since a Zod is technically more rare than either but even my bots never found a jah when I ran them. shits wild. Great video btw!@@BoardAndConfused
@@thatusernameinuse Still never seen a Zod or Ber on my end 😂 Also thank you!
@@thatusernameinusestill haven't found a ber rune playing pd2 or a zod, playing avg 3-4 hrs a day for last six months. Drop rates are higher but don't feel insane
I just jumped into pd2 for the first time this season and have been having a blast. Ive played d2 since it came out 20+ years ago. The mapping system is so much fun
I made my own mod. Has bags. Has blood shards item sot gambling. Has inscription. Has enchants. Has special cube recipes to reroll uniques. Reroll sets. Has ancients. Has primals. Has variant stats on sets and uniques. Has about 1000 new uniques and several new sets. Has 100 more bosses. Harder content. More zones. Has fixed spells. Has dex and str matter. Has hero charm that can appply legendary effect to end game.
Has quests line for each act they are randomly chosen with end quest line reward. Way more difficulty. No town portals. Way slower xp gain. Each difficulty has its own new enchantment materials and materials from salvaging.
And it’s no d2 not crappy d2 res so you can play with friends
I’m going to set up a server soon
Also has special potions. Enchant mats oh and a salvage system that progresses with random outputs.
please tell more :D
I think this video missed the loot filters. Those make a HUGE difference to the game. Pretty much solves the issue with clutter on the ground.
any way to get this to work with the new graphics from remastered/
Sadly no, at least not currently. PD2 is only compatible with the 1.14d version of the game. If you own D2R though, you can still install the old version of the game for free from Blizzards website.
@@BoardAndConfusedreally? is that true?
@@cisco1655 Sure is!
eu.battle.net/support/en/article/13867
@@BoardAndConfused hey i want to get into pd2 and d2r is on sale right now, but is this really true? i cant find anything that seems to indicate it is, and the article you linked seems to have been updated or something.
Yeah the main point of me sticking to original D2 was I liked the balancing more. It feels better while lvling.
Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, Titan Quest, hell, even Torchlight2 all exist. The genre has grown up, and it's a beautiful thing that everyone should enjoy.
Signed, 10k hours guy.
I have been playing since release and can safely sau i have never toggled my walk/run to avoid getting hit - I wonder if I'm in the minority with that.
I will say though, your review is impressively thorough, even including this aspect. Kudos.
Hey thank you!
the only thing I'll really say in response to your list of negatives; the mod was developed specifically with long-time D2 players in mind, most of whom have already played through early game content hundreds of times (if not more) and experience no gratification from that part of the game. essentially breezing through early game content is kind of a given when your target demographic is primarily people who want to breeze through it.
this concept applies to nearly all of the negatives you listed. pd2 devs know their audience and have catered the game (and it's seasonal updates) to their (generally) collective taste.
Hey fair enough. I can appreciate how long time fans of Diablo 2 might not care to experience Normal and Nightmare for the 4000th time.
That said though, I still think that if the devs took some time and balanced the early game, the mod would be a much more consistently entertaining experience throughout its whole runtime. I just prefer when a game/mod puts in the effort to make the journey to the end just as fun as the endgame itself.
As a longtime D2 player (since 2000 on and off).....
Personally my favorite part of the game is early game---- up to level 80, then I lose interest (since mfing gets boring)
Early game is full of upgrades, every next item might be better
For me its fun, that frantic search for upgrades, even if its a pair of blue gloves
It's so good! I'm so happy to be back on D2 after 15 years or so. Thanks for the video!
I still play PlugY... it's the good ol D2 experience, but with QoL for solo play.. like shared stash, ladder exclusives in single player, and multi boxing so i can rush my own alts. :D
PlugY is an awesome addition to the base game! It's also compatible with PD2 solo, but I had it eat my stash on me and I foolishly didn't have a backup, so I avoided it after that 😂
@@BoardAndConfused personal stash is still broken with plugy on pd2, the shared stash works perfectly
I’m a HC party player so I disagree with the points about it being too easy during the early game, but I can see how you have that opinion on SC ssf. If I had a Pul for every death during p4+ normal I might actually be able to make a Ber.
Normal was always terribly easy. I used to play on "players 8" for normal/nightmare, and "players 4" for hell back in the day. And I was not too good at the game even.
I dunno if you've ever played it, but Median XL is an awesome full conversion mod that is well worth checking out. Entirely new skill trees and builds, entirely new uniques and sets, TONS of new ubers all dropping badass charms like torches. If you ever wanted to play an exploding crossbow Necro or poison Sorc it's the mod for you!
Just so the pvpers know. This mod is basically Pvm paradise. The PvP is how ever is hit the other guy first you win. But lld is good actually.
yep, LLD is the proper way to pvp in pd2
Hey thanks for sharing this! Haven't done PVP myself so it's great to hear opinions on it 🙂
Still happy with plugy but I’ve also never had a chance to get past 92 on any toon before i create a new one to try for a gul on forge
a huge part of d2 and pd2 is the in game economy. myself and many others enjoy the aspect of trading in an active economy that changes quickly. so while pd2 isnt the best "hack & slash" it does offer the best experience with an in game economy.
There was another mod for Diablo 2 called Median XL. I played a little bit it added more skill tree's
Yeah I've had that one recommended to me as well. Sounds like it goes even further with changes compared to PD2.
Definitely gonna check it out at some point 🙂
If you think PD2 early game is mind numbing then you don't want to play Median, its PD2 up to 20x worse
I used to play the hell out of MedianXL.
I'm 6 months behind but I am @ing you. I'm now doubling my intro time on the analogies.
Haha, jokes aside you're the one I'd credit most with getting me interested in the mod initially, so thanks for that! Many hours were lost lol.
@@BoardAndConfused This reminds me of geopolitical situation in Thailand in the 1970s. I'll be sure to do a 15 minute intro on it for you next time.
Regarding the loot system, the addition of variance to many items and WSS/corruption (plus the fact that the playerbase is a lot more casual than it used to be) justifies increasing the drop rates slightly imo.
It definitely feels overboard in LoD content though. You're right that Normal and most of NM feel like a joke, with sets and uniques and PGems dropping left and right. Kind of ruins the
leveling experience. I wonder if this is driven by the most active/streaming/"elite" players who tend to rush every ladder as a team to start EXPing and farming in hell/maps ASAP.
It's been suggested to the dev team many times to lower the drop rates to e.g. P1/P2/P3 instead of uniform P5 like right now.
They've also added new mechanics like Corruption zones and map events that provide wss, keys, etc. that have flooded the market and hurt specialization of labor.
Still the best hack&slash around.
Comparing loot drops in PD2 to Diablo 3 is WILD. It's p5/5 loot, which reduces the no drop chance, a bit more loot for sure, but it's not drastic enough for loot to feel trivialized imo. Also you have an extra layer of RNG on items due to the corruption system, which can even make finding otherwise meh items early, really exciting if you were able to find some shards along the way. This doesn't help your power creep criticism, but it does add more RNG to getting the best items and makes finding items in SSF way more enjoyable. In vanilla, dropping multiple copies of an item starts to lose its excitement quick, but a Shako drop in PD2 always feels amazing even if it's your third, fourth, fifth, because of the potential for those crazy slams.
To each their own, I will always love vanilla D2 of course, but I think PD2 has found a great middle ground.
Yeah you're probably right, that comparison is maybe not the best. It's not THAT severe, but comparing it to Vanilla D2, it's still a massive increase in drops. Considerably more than P1/1 (which is what I'm personally used to from D2). Again though, the loot in PD2 is awesome, and way more varied than vanilla. I'm just a masochist who enjoys getting fewer drops lol
I think p4 loot would be perfect
I agree with you---- normal and nightmare are too easy
Its fine for hardcore, but softcore it takes the fun away
They should make it way more challenging...... we like a challenge (not just endgame)
Generally speaking---- increasing monster damage by like 10-40% should do the trick.......................Loot should be set to player 2 or 3, not 5
Agreed! Even if they simply buffed monster damage and not HP, I think that would make the early game far more interesting without all that much effort (I'd assume anyway).
Then just play HC? I get the idea but in SC you'll never ever face any challenge
I TOTALLY agree that the challenge for Normal/Nightmare can get a boost. However, striking the balance for the 5-10% of your gameplay (and that's generous) for a team of volunteers is tough. It IS slowly being tweaked every now and then still, so maybe it'll work out.
Plus, you are playing Barbarian. It is still somewhat difficult to die on them compared to a early level Sorceress (obvious, I know). Fighting normal, basic monsters isn't ever special even in hell with immunities, it's the elites and rare packs that kick ass every time. The lack of skills also counts towards difficulty. Nightmare for me is the easiest because the skills are all available. The frenzy will really make most mobs feel slow or samey.
As for loot, I feel ya there too man. I prefer the loot changes because running solo is just usually harder (maybe subjective/class based) and I like the bonus rewards of it, you still get more from running a full party, but I like my solo playing. Solo Self Found (SSF) is super fun in PD2.
PS. Please use one of the loot filters lol.
I did read the edited post in comments. Keep a look out for the next seasons.
Hey thanks for such a thoughtful comment. Totally! PD2 is clearly a labor of love, but it's not as if the mod team is making a living off of it, nor is rebalancing the whole game and adding additional systems easy so I totally understand why the chose to focus on end game since that seems to be what their target demographic is after 😅
It was suggested to me to boost early game difficulty by cranking the player count, which is not a perfect solution of course but definitely makes early game more enjoyable imo.
I'll be following the mod as it continues to develop for sure 😁
@@BoardAndConfused I love the walk, so I always provide feedback on my walks with classes. A3 went from my least fav to my close second because PD2.
The item drop buff is a known problem in d2 if you played online, 8pp drop rate is way more than solo/self find.
I'm glad they made norm-nightmare easy to breeze through. Every veteran player just pays fg for a rush to hell anyway.
Hey man to each their own!
For my money though, that just proves my point even further. If veteran players are seriously resorting to paid boosts to get to the fun part of the mod, I think the devs should spend some time making the early game more challenging and interesting to progress through, not providing means for players to skip it.
That said though, I can totally appreciate that if someone has been playing the game for decades, they might not want to progress through the early game for the millionth time. The vanilla acts aren't exactly diverse in the content you can play through.
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Its not really easier. Its just that more builds are viable instead of the same old ass builds from LoD
Really enjoyed your vid thanks man
I liked the part when you said "It's too easy" then the background is you taking 5 mins to kill 1 elite and chugging HP potions. I get the point though, have a friend who loved the difficulty spikes of NM/Hell. A lot of ARPG enjoyers do enjoy/prefer "I did the work to get my fat items now I wana blast." versus "I can't do anything until I find better items so I can go back to slowly progressing". Two different mindsets, no world where both are 100% happy.
Did you mention a proper loot filter? That's an amazing QoL change.
True, melee in vanilla is too weak, especially after the successive nerfs over time, like what they did to whirlwind. And you kinda have to use Grief to be efficient. OTOH, splash damage makes PD2 too easy. It should probably be an item mod, with range and/or quantity of mobs hit expressed as a stat. There should be a jewel or rune to increase these numbers, and most melee uniques and RW should have at least some splash damage, but way less than what we have now. It would be cool to have a set dedicated to melee that gives the best possible splash damage as full set bonus, but with other drawback like not being the best option for damage or survivability.
Nah, I disagree. The point of charms is that you have to decide whether you want more MF, power, or room to pick items. D2 was so successful because it remembered to real life, real pain, real rewards felt more intense... Now we replace all hard decissions with "quality of life improvements", so many, that then you don't even think anymore. Stacked gems look just like an image with a number, instead of having an identity. Only stuff for the worse.
Hell yeah playing PD2 while listening
Noice.. right now i'm looking for my old discs , that mod accepts only original copies uh ?
Not a problem.. xD
Thanks for your review !
So long as you've got a copy installed and patched up to 1.14d you're golden 😁
Alternatively if you have d2 on battlenet, you can actually download the 1.14d version directly from blizzards website.
Have fun!
I find it really strange that people like the loot drops in original D2. I played for 5 years and that's what I hated the most. 1 SoJ, 1 Zod rune, and tons of meaningless trash while running a bot for the last 2 years on my off time. Drop rates that low for things that are essentially required to make your character good is ridiculous. This is one issue I NEVER had with Path of Exile. Their currency system gives you a way to build up to anything you want in trade league, the crafting allows you to get something close to what you want and fix it, uniques are only required for specific builds since uniques tend to be build defining items instead of higher stat sticks, and many items can be target farmed from specific bosses. D2 loads you up with tons of rare items that are loads of crap and EXTREMELY RARELY even 1/2 as good as a damn unique item or rune word. Rune words essentially crush all other types of gear in nearly every instance, so even if you do find a good rare armor, that shit ain't a Fortitude or Enigma, so who cares? Loot in D2 is total garbage by today's standard, but IMO, its just because of rune words.
Now the charm slots... OH... MY... GOD... WHY DOESN'T BLIZZARD DO THAT? Now that builds are based on the damn charms for extra customization, you have no inventory space. Even in D2R they didn't even consider this OBVIOUS choice. Its sad that a guy making a fan mod can do such an obvious thing! That's another point against the loot. I can't even pick the shit up!!!
You make a lot of great points, drop chances on some items are abysmally small. I too am not a huge fan of rune words in vanilla D2 for the same reasons. Makes almost all of the loot drops completely irrelevant in the late game.
That said though, I personally do think the rate of drops otherwise is tuned really well, but that largely just comes down to personal preference. Needless to say the jump to PD2 was quite a shock for that reason 😂
And yeah.... why Blizzard won't even make simple QOL changes is beyond me. Another addition I love from PD2 is the added bars for your belt which display how many potions you currently have equipped in your slots. Its a simple UI change that benefits the game greatly imo, seems like a no-brainer to me lol
If you're running a bot in the first place you're doing it wrong. D2's basic loot system allows a random white item on the ground to be more valuable than the majority of runewords & uniques in the game if you happen to get a good base. A 15ed Eth Thresher with 4os for example is almost priceless due to it's rarity and desirability. You can pick up perfect gems and random junk magic rings and jewels, and craft the godliest caster jewelry in existence. A random blue set of Javelins can be the elusive +6skill/40ias that are so sought after. That's the beauty of D2, all the random "junk" that your little bot wouldn't even look at, can be some of the most valuable and powerful items in the game.
@@KingJerbear main word in this wall of text is "can", just pick every blue trash item for the 700 hours and you *can* find some rly good items... gtfo
alright im sold, downloading it now
it would be perfect if blizzard wasnt assholes and allow full mod support for d2r.
graphics... just too old
@@myhorseisamazing5883 Yeah it's a real shame that D2R isn't compatible 😞
As much as i like PD2 it has the same issues as every mod of this kind. It turns the whole game into casual mode. It removes every hardcore aspect like stamina, of course the no penalties when running away from enemies at close range, shower you with loot. At the end of the day the so called devs of this mod are just casual players who seem to want D3 with a D2 old school skin. All they had to do was add the maps and not touch anything else. D2R now has terror zones so that's better than nothing. You also got awesome mods like stackit, equip merc, bigger stash, more blood effects, item filter. But yeah i too love the graphics of PD2 they did an amazing work on the HD sprites, but fk me beating this casual play mod twice only to get some challenge is painful, i guess this mod is mostly for casual players because no one really complains. if anything they love it.
At this point I'd have a hard time returning to vanilla due to all the QOL changes and the lack of a "proper" endgame, but yeah I still feel the same way about the mods difficulty. Until you get to Hell it's very dull.
One method that was suggested to me that definitely makes getting through normal and nightmare more engaging is to up the player count. You might even die in normal if you up it to p5-p8 (I certainly have lol), but I still think if the devs took the time to properly rebalance early game that would be far better.
@@BoardAndConfused Yeah that was the first thing i did from the start and to be quite honest i noticed no difference, things are still dying in 2 or 3 hits sure some may have more hp but it doesn't create enough tense moments, my companion from act 3 still destroys everything in his path with the ice spells. Note that i have never played hell difficulty on this mod or played the maps. Beating the game the first time with the mod left a very bad impression on me so i moved on to D2R, i don't think i can go trough all of this 2 times more
The challenge is in the maps. You can roll some pretty hard ones. Stamina is useless past lvl 5 in LoD. Loots are p5 so like playing pub or Px singleplayer 👍
Pd2 has way harder content than all of vanilla combined.. try rathma
My dude. Thanks for covering PD2. Have a follow from me!
Also, you should play hardcore PD2 for the extra excitement through normal and nightmare. ;)
Thank you!
Yeah I've been wanting to give hardcore a shot. Haven't ever tried it (in either vanilla or PD2) so might have to do just that :)
dunno if you knew but you can adjust the loot filter strictness so you dont get eye cancer from all the garbage haha!
Hey thanks! Yeah I'm aware just never played around with it in the launcher 😅Probably worth doing so I don't go cross eyed lol
I agree with you. PD2 is spectacular. It does have issues, though. Some issues are Diablo II issues, and others are PD2 issues. One thing I would appreciate alot, would be if they could add two difficulties to each difficulty. Kind of like you said, improve upon/work on the basegame. This could work like this: both difficulties for each difficulty could first have monsters with refreshed abilities, attacks, animations. Like Izual as an example. Add a ranged attack to him. Like ice blast/glacial spike maybe. What Im saying is: where its logical to add to the monsters abilities, do it. Then for the main differences between, lets say, the two hell difficulties: difficulty 2 could have monsters with higher damage, defense, life. Some areas could have increased density (like all places which is important in the story line where it makes sense to increase density). It could also just be that the base density is always turned to max, since the base density differs from game to game. There are many more things to be considered, I know. Like players penalties, droprates and the like, I just wanted to put this out there. This is very simply put.
Man I think those are some great suggestions! I've been trying to think of potential solutions all week ahah.
One thought I had is maybe the mapping system could even be made available from a low level, provided maps could be scaled and/or lower level maps created. Although that may take away from the drive to get to the endgame, it would offer veteran players a way to level through normal and nightmare, while still getting "fresh" content. Ofc that wouldn't resolve things like quest rewards (ie resist boosts or skill book drops) but it could potentially give veteran players a means to bypass the normal and nightmare acts if they so choose.
I think I like your suggestions better though, freshening up the vanilla acts so they're still worth running through on all difficulties is a much better solution than providing a means for players to skip them imo.
thanks. I wish I could put all of it into words. Its a good thing that contentcreators like you exist so that others are atleast given a chance to try and compress their ideas into some sort of format.
I like your idea about maps being accesible at lower levels. I just wish that it could be called something else, or that it could be something else. Like, new acts, instead of low level maps. I know thats a pretty wild statement and a greedy wish, but, that would be ideal. Since I know that this is greedy wishful thinking, Im suggesting what Im suggesting, that the PD2 team would refresh the basegame, by revamping areas, important places, monsters. They have proven to be very talented when it comes to making monsters and giving them abilities. So it seems fair to suggest such things. Yes. You are right concerning all of those things. It would offer another way to level up. It would also, probably, take away some important elements which exists in the base game (if they dont put alot of effort into it and manages to maintain those things). And unless they get really creative with it, then, like you said, it could take away the drive to get to the high level mapping. But, more importantly, it would disconnect players from the basegame, which is bad. There needs to be progression and excitement in between the different stages of the journey, and, having two kind of separate spectrums in the game achieves that. Basegame -> MFing in basegame -> leveling a bit in groups in the basegame -> maps -> ubers -> dungeons -> Diablo clone -> Rathma.
Im glad to hear that you like the ideas, and that they fit into another Diablo players fantasy.
I think the PD2 team could have some fun with it. Giving the basegame somewhat of a new coat could prove to be very stimulating. Also, it would hopefully work really well with the two difficulties per difficulty thing. Fresh paint + fresh challenges and rewards could be what season 9 (or 10) needs.
@@joacimohrnell3346 Man thanks for taking the time to write such thoughtful comments!
While its definitely wishful thinking, I too will be crossing my fingers to see some sort of balancing done for the early game. I foresee that making this already excellent mod into something truly incredible, and equally hard to turn off lol.
I already feel like the hours melt away when I play PD2. Fleshing out the early game might make me forget what year it is 😂
@@joacimohrnell3346personally I'm never bored with pd2 so I don't think it needs a fresh coat of paint honestly. But I understand ur point about some new early-midgame content. But they are always working on the game, it is an ongoing labor of love, so u could always make ur suggestions in the pd2 discord.
I'm playing Barb SSF offline too. season before was zeal pally.. I strongly suggest /player count 3 or above(I do 5) and stick to that. this makes the game much less about farm efficiency more about slow paced progression of your character. With melee splash and all that added skills and base item damage buffs player count 1 is just not enough. But high mob HP means spell casters will have a harder time because they are much harder to up the damage incrementally IE you need that skiller charm drops or auras.
It's fantastic feeling when you successfully craft that mid level weapon that you need :) And as a melee focused player fact that melee splash is not in resurrection alone I'll never play that.
Hey thanks! I'll definitely give that a shot. If it makes early game progression more engaging, I'm all for it!
And I hear ya, going back to Vanilla after getting use to Melee splash is tough 😅
I want Diablo 2 classic to be developed, never liked LoD and the unique and runeword meta
@@MycketTuff I'm right there with ya. Never liked the runeword meta either, makes loot extremely boring once you've managed to find/put a handful of them together.
oh, what a sweet summer child, i hope he never learns about Diablo XL or he will have an stroke
That one is definitely on the list of mods I want to check out...Eventually... Pray for me lol
Median is too far from the original in my opinion. Might aswell play another game like PoE or LE
The creator of medianXL made a solo player mod for d2r too
@starwind13 ohhhh, that's news, I will check it out
Edit: sadge, the project is pretty much deadge
I understand how you feel about melee, but for me, I feel it brings melee closer to as powerful you feel as a caster in the early game. It does change things, but I have grown to enjoy it.
As far as walking, it’s somewhat relevant early game, but I don’t mind it being useless later on
Oh 100%. I do really love melee splash, but it took a long time to grow on me.
Walking is still somewhat useful in that you can control your movement speed a bit more, but I do miss it being a relevant part of melee.
If walking gave +25% defense..... people would use it
I'd be down for walking to be useful again
@@BoardAndConfused
@@tremblence Same! Anything to incentives players to actually use it would be better 😂
splash dmg is dumb, i would love to try it without having to have fkn mellee splash damage
It makes it to easy I don't like it
Bruh didnt even mention slamming uniques with worldstone shards...thats the most fun part of pd2!
He did
Agreed! I hate it when changes trivialize a game. For me challenge and friction is what makes the game fun or rewarding. I think it's very easy for modders to make changes that buffs our characters, but without remembering to buff the enemies as well, to compensate and balance it. The game should be fun and challenging from lvl 1, not after x hours.
Did you end up going back to normal D2, or continue with PD2?
I eventually modded an install with the D2GL wrapper and HD text mod, but otherwise base LOD. That way I got to keep the glorious 60+ FPS and higher upscaled sprites, but everything else is base game.
I loved my time with PD2 and its end game don't get me wrong, but the balance of the LOD (flaws and all) is still unmatched in my eyes. It was never a fair fight haha.
I did put a great deal more time into PD2 before switching "back" mind you, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss all the quality of life stuff. Most of all stackable runes and gems 😂
I predict I'll one day return to PD2 and lose many more hours of my life to it in the process.
@@BoardAndConfused I see; but why don't you want to play D2R if you want the OG D2 balance then?
@@dannyp9210 Oooh tough question. So I'd say it mostly comes down game preservation for me. I mostly play 1.14d because its a version of the game I know I'll always have access to.
D2R is great in its own right and arguably the best way to play D2 in more or less intended state. I've hypocritically put many many hours into it and will in the same breath tell you I'm the kind of weirdo that can't abide always online DRM or Activision Blizzard 😅
Yeah honestly Hell Unleashed definitely did difficulty progression much better, but just about everything else is much better in Project, especially Inventory OMG.
A guy who never hear of magic find/fast damage ratio per loot value
Im hardcore lover of Diablo 2 LOD....i still have character from 2001 Barbarian....i still didnt complete Immortal King set for him. But now i stopped long time ago since i find moded Diablo very very good for playing. I am using 5 mods
@@BurnBabylon1990 Damn that's impressive! Your Barbarian is old enough to drink, and then some :P
Been playing PD2 for the last couple years! Now I'm sort of tempted to play vanilla just to see if PD2 really is easier in normal and nightmare.
Because to me it seems like you just get a lot better at D2. As in, you know exactly how to skill a character and how to get the items you need to easily progress through normal and nightmare. To me it actually feels like vanilla was a bit OP. Runewords like spirit were just soo good requiring zero currency. Grief only required a Lo and gave you 400 flat damage, so OP that it outclasses nearly every other weapon.
The QOL and graphics alone is worth playing PD2. I think instead of the loot drop giving dopamine like in vanilla it's now the corrupting and hitting an absolute GG corrupt on a GG drop. Finding a griffons and slamming +1 skill on it or getting am eth cranium basher and corrupting it for 6OS is the new excitement.
You did a mistake about the additional column of inventory space (above the dedicated charm space). There are 10 columns, same as the base game. Only the cube got this extra column you've displayed in red.
When it comes to the drop rate of the loots, it has been "increased", but for the best given how the new currency named "World Stone shard" works.
But I was thinking the same, during the first seasons, especially coming from almost 20 years of D2 LOD, and playing it religiously until then. And I also felt this kind of loss of flavor when finding some items that seemed to take way more time to find in the base game. But, actually, it wasn't a fair impression. The drop rate hasn't been increased directly, but the game runs in /players 5 everytime you create a game. And in D2 LOD, when there were 5 players in the same game, monsters had more chances to drop items. But, as far as I know, this rule hasn't been changed between D2 LOD and PD2.
I also felt the game was easier than the base game, during the first seasons, but numerous of changes and item balance have been made until now, and several seasons later, if doesn't feel that easier. The only complain I still have with the mod is this "splash damage" thing tied to the melee classes, especially early of the game where it makes everything really easy, indeed. But, in a way, the beginning of the game isn't the most fun part aswell, especially 20 years later... so making it more easy to run for the classes that struggled the most to go through it isn't such a bad idea imo.
What's the most interesting to me about PD2 is how the mod managed, over the seasons, to balance items in order to not have to rely on runeword only. And crafting is more relevant than ever too.
Hey thanks for the call out lol. Here I was trying to be super careful not to make mistakes, but seems regardless of what I do some will inevitably slip through 😅
A lot of folks here have echoed the same points you have, especially veterans who have been playing the game for decades. I know that is PD2's target demographic as well, and my perspective is very much that of someone whos only been playing for handful of years.
That said, I do think early game being a total breeze sucks, but again I've not been playing for 2 decades and I can totally appreciate why someone who has doesn't want it to be a time consuming "chore" just to get to the part of the game they enjoy. I like my games to be challenging throughout their entire run times, so I'd make that same criticism for any game/arpg with similar issues (most ARPGs have the same problem in my experience). D2 is my golden goose in terms of progression and difficulty for the genre, so when the delicate "balance" of the base game was upended, it took quite a bit of time to adjust on my end.
Crafting and rebalanced rune words are among my favorite changes with the mod as well 🙂
I tried this mod and I could not play it because there wasn't any server available near me. I got 150-200 ping on any server that I connected. It's really a shame for me.
i mean, 5 years ago i would agree. But these days, path of exile has gotten to a place where its easily the greatest arpg of all time. Sure they've been less precious about it and its been a moving target, but its now in a place where its just amazing from a core game perspective. I play d2 for a few weeks after the poe league and when i got back and do a fresh playthrough of poe its like stepping up from a wheelchair and going for a jog. It just feels so much better, mostly because of the quality of life they've implemented over that last ~3 years. I love d2, grew up playing it and still revisit once or twice a year, but tits the second best arpg of all time. Poe took what it did well and blew it out of the water.
I'll subscribe just because you like ARPGs, good vibeo
Thank you! :D
Frenzy Barb doesn’t need to run
Out here going 200mph lol
Thanks for your video. I ultimately decided against trying the mod because of the melee splash.
The mod is _very_ cool but I'm just not interested in that kind of change.
Can they mod Resurrected, or is it too closed?
PD2 isn't compatible sadly, but there are mods for D2R now. D2R Remodded is the most well known and a pretty significant rework from what I understand 🙂
Even thou I get you're point, I feel like the splash damage is just to make the melee built viable. Ofc you can melt through mob packs but you also can do it in vanilla but just with sorc, hdin and javazone (maybe with some other builts like wind druid or trapsin). But I need to say, normal and especial nightmare are easy af in vanilla as well. Funny thing is, in all d2, nightmare is always the easiest difficulty. Somehow its the worst balanced difficulty between gear, level on the one hand and difficulty on the other hand. They could make it harder imho, I fully agree on this. Even normal could be hard, I have no probs with taking a few days to reach hell baal etc.
And I completely get the point on the loot thingi. Mf runs in d2 was THE thing which for me ruins even all other hack'n'slay games cause I need this mechanic with drops and runes. But in pd2 I feel you need to think the mf thingi different. In pd2 it is not the thing to find a unique once. The uniques like griffon or anything else are still rare but due to the droprate equals player3 or players5 in vanilla d2 and the higher mob densitiy ofc make them drop more often. But you will corrupt them and the goal in pd2 is maybe to find tje most rare uniques and slam them with a good mod. And I think you need to switch on this point of view in pd2 to get kept by the game for longer time.
Again, as a d2 ultra from the first hours I can understand your complains and I'm in. But overall pd2 is for me the best way of experience d2. Stash, stackability, balancing and rework of skills (vengeance pally my absolut favorite class in pd2), corrupting items and brick them as well as qol features totally get me.
Claims loot drops are broken; proceeds to show zero drops. K…..?
If im playing a d2 mod personally, I want a very new experience with lots of content and be difficult enough to have it compare as an actual game to today's standards. Median xl hits all of those marks for me. Pod, pd2, d2r dont.
The video would have better viewer retainment if you saved the negatives for last - people might decide that it's not for them from hearing just the negatives, and stop watching before you get to the positives. Just a friendly note :)
Hey thanks for the suggestion! Bizarrely this video actually has some of the best audience retention out of all my videos lol.
I'd like to think that's partly because I spend the better part of 2 or 3 minutes in the beginning making it painfully clear I'm not just here to shit on the mod, but hey who knows :P
@@BoardAndConfused >that's partly because I spend the better part of 2 or 3 minutes in the beginning making it painfully clear I'm not just here to shit on the mod
I think that's true, but I think that's because the vast majority of viewers are already fans of PD2 - there is a sorry lack of decent quality videos on PD2, so I imagine a lot of people, like me, just appreciate seeing a decent video on the game.
What I noted only applies to people who aren't already familiar with PD2, which, as I realize now, constitutes a minority of the views
Melee splash damage is OP. I hope they'd found another way around it.
Melee splash is definitely a massive buff. While I wouldn't call it OP, especially considering it basically just levels the playing field for melee classes vs casters, there is no denying its way stronger than vanilla melee.
That said, part of me wishes melee splash was something you could roll on an weapon/item and not just a guarantee.
@BoardAndConfused it definitely ends up being 'that' in path of diablo. Maybe we should be playing path of Diablo then.
After all they're quite similar in some ways.
@@5heddy Oh really? Been meaning to check that mod out too, along with MedianXL. Guess I'll add it to the pile XD
D2 is the best!! PD2 is also, wish it was on D2R. Id never play anything else im sure. There is a mod for D2R i forget the name of it tho. Reimagined maybe.
norm and nm are easy on reg d2 too man but thanks for the video havent tried this yet
"Maps are rifts from Diablo 3" Loved the video, but ngl, that sentence destroyed my mind
Maps are a system that is directly copy+pasted from PoE, same with corruption of gear
Haha, yeah not a big POE fan myself. Hadn't actually made it to its endgame at the time of making this, but knowing what I do now I 100% agree with you. Sadly can't update the video 😛
@@BoardAndConfused That's fair, again, loved the video regardless :)
@@maddyleaf Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!😁
To bad this game keeps blue and black screening my computer everytime i try to install it. After the 15th time im done.
i guess since ive played d2 since it came out. i couldnt care less about normal or nightmare. the maps in pd2 are a great addition
Totally fair.
I definitely would prefer if the whole mod was tuned to have more challenge in the early game, but if you've been playing since 2000 I can appreciate how Normal and Nightmare mean nothing to you by now lol.
PD2 has those mods that take people's FG on JSP and then ban the accounts right? Then they transfer the FG off the accounts to avoid losing it when the JSP account gets reported.
I understand not wanting JSP but their methods are.....
Huh I hadn't actually heard of that (not surprising since I'm a solo player). It does look like there are a number of forum posts about that from a couple years back though. So if you're a trader that is definitely something to be aware of, or even a potential write off for the mod I bet.
That's good that they bann everyone using d2jsp. Because d2jsp is a huge scam and should be removed from the Internet. D2jsp just ruins all the fun and makes all pay to win.
I'm not a fan that PD2 team will ban you for swearing where D2R does not give a shit
In game? No. I swear a lot and very profusely. In all chat? Words like shit are fine. In discord? I don't use it. You probably did something naughty..
Charm slots is a fail already in my opinion - was it annoying to have to choose between the ability to pick more stuff up and have more charms? SURE - but THAT'S THE GAME! That crap is sacrilegious.
D2 has an endgame if you play on ladder, which IMO is the only way to really play the game. Also, many changes are straight ripped from Path of Exile.
i think pd2 is for the people that likes the lod game, so thats why they did not touch the story, also i dont know about the new seasons, but the game starts at players 5 iirc
Yeah my understanding is PD2 was developed for fans of the vanilla game in mind, however at this point I think is strayed pretty far gameplay wise and has definitely become its own thing.
You're right as well, PD2 is P5/5 base for mobs and loot, rather than P1/1 by default in the base game 🙂
D2 is my favorite game of all time but all Diablo series runs into the same problem. It's boring as fuck once you get geared
Yeah, sadly I think that's true of most ARPGs. Thankfully can always roll new character(s) 😉
I disagree about the discussion in early game. Yes normal and nm has become easier but thats because what was mid game and late game in LoD is different than pd2. Most ppl that pd2 is are also somewhat familiar diablo 2 and dont need trivial gameplay. So its nice to get into hell after one day. Becauae there is still some mid game before getting into late game. And theres so much more to do.
I understand youe issue with higher item and rune drops buts needed for the exetreme late game of the highest tier maps or highest difficulties of ubers, dclone, and rathma.
Hey to each their own!
I'm still definitely a newer player, so I find progressing through Normal and Nightmare to be time consuming (though maybe that's because I'm not bypassing any quests along the way lol). So progressing to Hell feels like a chore to me, and stands out as a blemish on an otherwise fantastic mod.
That said, if you can blitz through Normal and Nightmare in a single session, and have been playing D2 for ages, I can appreciate why the early game of D2 would lose its appeal.
As for drop rates on runes, you're absolutely right in pointing out that the late game makes use of them in a much more demanding way, so getting frequent rune drops is a boon for PD2s late game.
i use walk on my necro and druid all the time
Agreed 100%. The only thing that bothers me in PD2 are the graphics. I mean, c'mon, I know they tried to improve it, I acknowledge that, but unfortunately it will not go anywhere beyond the old graphical design, as it's technically limited to it.
And in no absolute fckin way the graphics are even comparable to D2R.
I dream (and I'm sure all other players do too) that one day we would be able to experience a hybrid between PD2 and D2R.
Yeah it's a shame that D2R isn't compatible. I don't hate the old graphics myself, but there is no denying that D2R is a much prettier game to look at.
@@BoardAndConfused does PD2 come with a Glide tho? because Glide was the best on old D2 , and was also ported into D2R with some fix/add-on on top of it , i hope it does because would be a waste to not include it since it's based on an original game which supported it on voodoo gpu (but d2r supports it just fine on any gpu so there must be a way)
@@cskillers1 It sure does. It uses D2GL, which includes Glide and a bunch of other visual options (Bloom for example). When I play 1.14d, I now always run it with D2GL XD
@@BoardAndConfused oh that's amazing 😍 thanks for the rapid response!
PD2 while good, is just adopting 90% of its “new” content from the real heavy weight champ. Path of Exile is the best ARPG of all time. Though Diablo II held that crown for over a decade.
Hey to each their own! Path of Exile is excellent, but for me it'll always be D2.
I personally prefer the relative "simplicity" of D2 or PD2. While D2 definitely has mechanics that are not explained well, its nowhere near as overwhelming.
My biggest gripe with POE is its learning curve. When I first got into it I felt like I had to read an entire wiki or complete a masters degree to even have a basic understanding of the game and all its mechanics (So many currencies lol) but maybe that's just cause I'm a dummy.
That said, still hyped for POE2!
Yea I can definitely understand that. I won’t pretend it’s not bloated at this point. But when a game is constantly developed and curated for a decade that is inevitable. It’s a problem, but if the content is good, it’s a good problem. I still log into D1/D2 for a few days every 6 months because they are great games that really hit that 11 year old kid in me. But damn the amount of stimulation I get from PoE is amazing. I enjoy the deep dive into the numbers and stuff because I love mathematics. A lot of ARPG’s have potential to scratch that itch but have really bad math at it’s core.
Sorry for the long winded response, and thank you for the video and opinions. I should start trying to play PoE with random new players and help smooth some curves. It’s really fun as a vet getting to show a newbie how fun it can be
@@originaltnb9213 Hey man, no need to apologize!
I totally get the appeal of POE, its insanely deep compared to most ARPGs out there, so can totally appreciate where you're coming from.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts too! Always love to hear other peoples opinions 😀
It’s got QoL features PoE doesn’t even have lol so ducking good
Yeah the amount of QOL changes in PD2 is pretty unreal. One of the main reasons it's so hard to go back to Vanilla 😅
@@BoardAndConfusedvanilla never happening again for sure
Project D2 has become nothing but open bnet...
Completely agree! PD2 is amazing but the lack of challenge in Normal and Nightmare it's something that definitely needs improvement. Long live the King!
Yeah I'm hoping the devs will do some balancing for the early game, but even still I adore the mod.
If they DID rebalance the early game, I might not be able to turn the game off 😂
@@BoardAndConfused Same here. But great things can become even greater. Let's hope our prayers are heard!
Personally I didn't mind it, I can imagine they had to reward players who made good builds and found good gear in normal and nightmare because there are of course new players to the game who would get crushed with sub par builds otherwise. Personally I'd rather that than the boring grind of d2r; which is basically a game for botters at this point, trading is ruined, and ina year of playing I never once found a jah, vex, ohm, ...let alone a fukking ber or zod (although haven't found the last two in pd2 either I feel it's possible). So I can see why people made bots fo d2r, it's drier than a dead desert lizard. Honestly I don't even wanna think about d2r anymore, d2r is like that pretty girl u marry who turns out to be the most shallow person, boring, golddigger, bad mother, self-centered, cheats on u with ur best friend...pd2 is like that homely girl who isn't as pretty but still attractive, but she is honest, funny, great mum, great work ethic, great body, can have deep conversations with her, is loyal, reliable, intelligent...I hate to crap on d2r so much but for me that's the gulf of difference. One game is a labor of love, the other is a labor of profit
its online no offline
100 hours aren't you cute
Not as cute as you
Hi I'm Dave I always Love My precious CGNMTB That is ALL tho my Silly weird word annoying but with dictionary Alwasy Perfect Pd2 Forever. Now Im in espania
Have solution for you😂 it's called Hardcore 😂😂😂😂
Haha. Even hardcore in PD2 is still made less entertaining from the early game balance imo. Still more entertaining since there are very real stakes, but suffers from the same problems a normal run does.
perspective user
I don’t care what kind of fallacy it is, if I’m not having fun and enjoying a game, then I don’t consider it fun. I’m sorry but I can’t say something is fun if only 3% of the game is actually fun lol
try 90% instead of 3
This comment is about d4 right?
@@OLONOODLE D3&D4&Immortal💩
Diablo 1&2 were much better games!
I have to agree with the man. I'm 50 and I still have fond memories of MANY hours going through the labyrinth in the first game and up through Act V in the second game.
Diablo III didn't satisfy as much and I'm hearing grumbling from the rest of the old crowd of gamers about IV.
I made my own mod. It’s easy. Mine is better.
If this ever gets to be played with the updated graphics I'm all in to play it. I just can't handle the outdated graphics now.
lol do you even poe brah...sry saw the map's in this and couldn't help myself
Haha, I do enjoy POE quite a lot actually(picked it up again recently), but its never managed to hook me the same way that Diablo 2 has.
You're absolutely right though, its undeniable that PD2 basically lifted the mapping system wholesale from POE. That said, I think it fits the mod like a glove 🙂
dude no offence man but pd2 lootis way better than diablo 2 loot its way better because every item is useful not like d2 that has 1 in 100000 chance of dropping an item that is useless for example tyraels might and templars might both are so useless while in pd2 tyraels might is one of the best items in the game so as templars i get that pd2 has better drop rates but atleast every unique is so useful in d2 only runewords are good anything else except runewords is shit and people who get excited to get tyraels might all because its rare
loot is*
No offense taken ahah. Its cool to hear other folks thoughts on the mod.
I think the loot in PD2 is really great too, and the balance changes to the gear does make the hunt even better. I personally just prefer P1/1 drop rates from Vanilla.
But hey to each their own!