The More Things Change...

[Sirian]

Well, I tried. I gave the new patch and new ladder a go. My verdict is that the problems that drove me away have not been resolved. Melee remains a farce. The gameplay is still all about speed and mobility.

I took a melee char into Hell. A Paladin with defensive build -- Holy Freeze (maxed) and Holy Shield are the main skills, Zeal (all but maxed) for attack, decent damage, high strength, upgraded Iceblink, Defiance merc, Charge for "occasional" use on nasty bosses, high slvl Holy Shock for cold immunes, low slvl Might and Sanct for anything immune to both cold and light, max block, near max resists, clvl 70.

The first bosses in the Blood Moor are tough. Cool, right? No, not really. Can I stand toe to toe with any bosses? No. Can't even toe it with Hungry Dead. I had about sixty of them running around the Burial Grounds in huge packs while I chased Raven all over kingdom come, because I could not kill them faster than she could raise new ones, and I could not stand up to more than two at a time with true safety. Three with an itchy potion finger. Challenging? Yes. Fun? No.

Why isn't this fun for me? It's enormously redundant. There is only one strategy: divide and conquer. I'm safe against low numbers, dead against high numbers. So I spend all my time running around splitting them up or taking hit-and-run potshots. Every other boss is cursed or extra strong or both, so the merc drops like a stone upon even sighting one. The merc is useless, a liability, an expense that gains me nothing. His purpose is to die and nothing more. I can't help him, I can't control him, and his AI is way the heck too bloody stupid not to irritate the daylights out of me. So I run around and around and around in circles. Holy Freeze is not the problem, as I can turn it off and nothing changes. I'm faster than nearly all of the monsters, and if I wasn't it would not be any better.

The Diablo II model of "potions take time to work" is simply inferior to the Diablo model of instant potion effect, in my view. Some here may disagree, but the way I see it, the potion healing is on a timer. If you take damage at a slower rate than the timer, you're fine, but if damage rate exceeds the timer, YOU MUST REDUCE THE RATE AT WHICH YOU ARE TAKING DAMAGE OR YOU WILL DIE. This means you can't stay engaged with the truly tough fights. And since that is where I always got my fun in Diablo, in Diablo II I just come to hate the game more and more every time I reach for that and the game balance slaps my hand and chides me that I should be following the one true path of how IT wants me to play, instead of how I would like to play.

There are purples in D2 but not enough to sustain continual use, and you have to jump through hoops to get more.

I ask myself, what am I doing in Diablo II? What are the actions I take to be successful? There is only one answer: stay ahead of the monsters. If there is enough room, I can stay ahead of anything. If they make the monsters too fast for me to stay ahead, then I'll just die, because I can't toe it with any of them in a sustained way. There is no true melee, there is only hit and run. D1 melee is sort of the same, but not quite. You can't take on too many, and if there are more than you can handle you have to engage a running fight, engage-retreat, engage-retreat. D2 doesn't allow for that to be done precisely. Even on broadband, the graphics get out of synch with the server. You can't trust the lying visuals, so you end up trying to sort out fact from fiction on your screen, and that takes you out of the GAMEPLAY and into metagaming the networking reality.

I had a 30 minute fight with a spearwoman boss in the cold plains. She was LEB, immune to cold and light, so I had to use low slvl charge and might to take her out. The new regen rates are insane, so it was really tedious. Moving bosses to where they regenerate... bad move, in my view. It doesn't add challenge, it only adds time. Instead of getting this kill in five minutes it took half an hour. What's the point??? I don't get it.

Since I cannot, in fact, play a melee character, this means there are only ranged playstyles available. Pick your flavor and fight from a distance. Erg. Back to sorcie play for me. If I have to stay ahead of the monsters, I'd rather do it for real, not this half-assed "in and out, in and out" gameplay.

The same gap is still there. Too easy or too deadly. Impossible to find middle ground because it is impossible to work around the potion timer. So I have made a decision. If Diablo 3 has D1 style potions, I will buy it. If it has D2 style potions, I will not buy it nor waste my time on it at all. Having the maximum amount of damage over time my character can sustain be hardcoded is a gameplay mechanic of which I have forever had my fill.

I've also decided that maxing one skill at a time is a losing strategy. I'm going to try a new char, pick three primary skills and advance them all together, and see how that goes. Perhaps it will recapture a kind of fun that has been missing (for me) since 1.06f. There -are- many worthy improvements in the ladder patch, but I have come to accept that certain flaws in the game are there to stay and I should forever surrender hope of them being overcome before D3. I may still have some fun with the game, but I will have to take care in how I approach it.


- Sirian

[Urugharakh]

I can't agree. I usually play meele chars since I like beating monsters on the head. I had a meele sorc and meele necro last ladder both made guardian. My nood paladin made it guardian. In tough fights my merc did the main work. Simply use him/her wise. Keep him at the right level. If the monsters have a higher level he is without real chances. Entering hell at lvl 70 without appropriate gear is way too early in the new patch. If you're twinked, there is no problem, but in the nontwinked case stay in NM until lvl 75 and have your merc at lvl 75 before entering hell. A lvl 75 merc has no problems in early hell provided he has enough life leech and you feed him an occasional potion in boss fights.

Urugharakh

[Doc]

Like I told you, if you are melee, don't bother with Hell until level 80 or 85. Merc to. Melee can do fairly well in Hell, but, you must be very close to mlvl or else you WILL be eaten alive.

There are things later that will turn your ranged characters into pincushions as well. They get their comeuppance as well. Deal with it. Hell Act 5 is brutal.

The characters that do best in Hell are those that bring the most to the table. Skeleton Necromancers, Sorcies with mass-kill abilities, Paladins that use Blessed Hammer, any character that can engage large numbers and destroy and kill at will. Other characters must rely on cunning.

How is your blocking and block speed? It means something now. Let me guess, a Paladin shield with 4 diamonds? See, you could make it work... But... Monsters in mass will lock you into block animation repeatedly making it nearly impossible to do things like... Leach life. How is your life leach? Higher the better. At least 20% for toe to toe melee. That's 5% in Hell. Damage redux? Any sort at all? Vamp Gaze, Shaftstop, a few Sol runes, String of Ears, etc? It's quite possible to tank monsters in Hell, even large mobs. But you can't do it with second rate gear. What about elemental absorb? AR? Being able to hit is important.

Holy Freeze is nice, but aint all that powerful with out some serious synergy pumping. It lacks damage. It will barely beat regen in some situations. But that is true of any skill. Prevent Monster Heal is a very important mod. Make sure merc has it or that you have it.

Zeal is still bugged. Many times, if you miss the first swing, you miss everything completely. Fend also suffers from this. If you have a slow blocking low blocking shield, and your attack is interupted for block animation, all future zeal swings will miss until you reset your zeal cycle. (Once again, Fend has the same issue.) If you are playing on the cheap and don't have an uber shield to twink, find a 2 socket Paladin shield and get Shael and Eth. It's a life saver!

How about Open Wounds? It's very important now. It's not quite a must have, but it might as well be.

Melee takes both skill and planning now, and solid gear. It's tough but rewarding. Paladins are fragile. Accept that. Use their strength. Hit and scoot. High block. Defense. DO NOT RUN. Your defense and blocking are null and void when you run. Paladins are not Barbarians or Werebears. You must accept this, and play around it.

[Sirian]

Deal with it.

You must accept this

Listen to those words, Doc. This is a game. It's supposed to be fun. If it is something to "deal with" then something is wrong. I don't have to accept it, and that's a fact. I can choose to do something else.

I'm not finding it rewarding. It's the same old same old, from my point of view. I quit years ago and with no regrets. I should have quit six months before I actually did, but I gave it every benefit of the doubt and then some. I gave it a fair look on this go as well.

I identified the root cause of the problem. It's the potion behavior. On the one side of it, the gameplay is too tame, on the other side, it is unsustainable and therefore forces you to disengage repeatedly. Moving the characters from one side to the other with better items and more levels changes nothing. I'm bored both ways.

D1 at its best enjoys an intensity D2 made a conscious choice not to match. I prefer the original gameplay flavor to the "new and improved" flavor. Simple as that.


- Sirian

[Doc]

Potions have never been much of an issue for me so I do not fully understand the bone of contention. Most of the time I walk around with a half empty belt. I might drink a pot after a battle. In battle, in melee, I use life leach and Tank Out™. Make sure blocking is good. And fast. Make sure I have absorb or damage reduction and control how much damage is coming in. If to much, flee. I am not a potion dependant person. Infact, I have had a Barbarian that had no life leach what so ever because he used Berserk. He used a Prayer merc. And so long as he was careful, he did ok. And rarely drank potions.

A good melee player takes more skill in D2. I know this might sound funny... But it's true. Anybody can melee. But it takes serious skill to melee well. KoP is an astounding melee player. I make tanks. I usually sacrifice offense to allow others to kill with out consequence. I have made chars that are very tanky... But when provoked could rip into the worst that Hell had to offer and kick ass and take names. It might take a while mind you, but the job would get done. For the most part, Paladins are not tanks. You must accept this. They are not front line fighters. They are support characters. Paladins are soft melt in your mouth chocolate in a hard candy shell. Crunch them hard enough and you are rewarded with a sweet tasty treat. Unless you are breaking 20k defense with a well armored Defiant, also armed with the very best in damage reduction for those times when a solid hit does get through, your Paladin is at best, a hit and run fighter. Use Conversion. Smite enemies to bounce them away from you. Tilt the field in your favour.

And sadly, untwinked melee is pretty much a dead end. It can be done... But you must stay right at monster level and it becomes tedious even then. No fun at all.

As Occhi says, fun is where you find it. D2 is not D1. There is a lot of good in both games. Lots of fun.

[BruceGod]

Doc, I'm pretty sure that Sirian is fully capable of "pwnzing" Hell if he so chooses. The problem is that he does not like how the game is essentially forcing him to certain builds, making everything else pretty much unplayable. And, of course, he is right. Who wants to be just like every other BH Pally out there? I mean, come on. This guy used a FBolt-only sorcie to beat Hell Diablo. Do you really think he wants advice on how to build his character?
As for Sirian, all I can say is that D2 is still fun for me. I've tried Sacred, and a few other games, but they still don't hold a candle to good ol' D2. Remember, half the fun is figuring out how to work around the system. Of course, you could try a mod or two. (Or even write one yourself if your skills and interests lie in that direction.) I've never had much of a problem with the "health regen" timer on the potions. But, YMMV. I know you would rather have Blizz fix the problems that we all know are so blatant. But, that would make Blizz lose money. More people like the game precisely how it is for Blizz to do more than exactly what it is doing. So, to get them to notice your dilemma, perhaps they need much more than a whisper in the hurricane.

edit: corrected minor capitalization errors.

[Sirian]

The fbolt sorcie only went through Nightmare.

That was plenty far enough. Five Venoms at once saw half an hour pass and zero progress on damaging them, as they were able to combine their regen by covering for one another, causing the damage rate per monster to fall to the regen rate.

Offensively, it can't get any slower than "no progress whatsoever". Defensively, it can't get any worse than "if you get hit at all, you die". I've played both ways and enjoyed it, but not as something to do all the time.

I know Blizz doesn't care what I think. Ironically, I respect the job they've done in this patch. A lot of care and passion went into it and it seems clear there was a genuine intent to improve the gameplay. I even think they got there. But it also serves to point out what was lost in translation from D1 to D2. For those of us who miss those elements, there's really nothing they can do to D2 to bring them back. It's a different game on a different engine with different math in play.


As for Doc... Doc is Doc. He likes to share his opinions, and no harm in that. I was doing the same.


- Sirian

[Doc]

I know for a fact he is.

It was Nightmare Diablo.

Nobody is forcing him into anything. D2 is open ended. From spell casting Barbs to melee sorcies.

Melee Paladins play just fine. No need to be a Hammerdin. But you can not play ala D1 Warrior.

Sirian, I think, is looking for the tactical experience of playing the D1 Warrior. It can be found in D2, just not were he is currently looking. D1W could be very satisfying. D2, is not so much tactical. It's more like a science. There is a lot more thinking and planning. It is a wholy different experience, and can be an enjoyable experience if you change your views and what you are expecting.

I of all people, can understand being stuck in the past and having past expectations intrude on current desires. :P

[WarBlade]

Originally posted by Sirian@Sep 3 2004, 08:26 AM
I ask myself, what am I doing in Diablo II? What are the actions I take to be successful?

Aside from your "divide and conquer" and "staying ahead of the enemy" comments which both cover some of the truth, I also see one obvious thing that your posts highlight: Stop applying 1.06 tactics to 1.10 gaming because this game has evolved a looooooong way past that point. B)

[Sirian]

Stop applying 1.06 tactics to 1.10 gaming

Diablo is not rocket science. My comments have nothing to do with my ability (or apparently, in the estimation of some, my inability) to succeed at the game. Rather, the issue is how much I enjoy it, or not, and looking at why.


- Sirian