[What If] Diablo 2 Expansion after the Remaster

[Vespian]

My problem is, that any change is never enough. It's the just one more effect. Just one more game, just one more episode, just one more change to a game that essentially doesn't need it.

I am terrified of modern developers 'writing' new stories (in other words, they get the least capable multicultural female of undisclosed origine with only a kids book and a biography (at 20y/o), that both flopped, on their resume and then they expect the level of writing will exceed that of a romance novel written by a sexually frustrated manless feminist, but it won't).

They fucked star trek, sideways if you add Picard. They fucked star wars. They fucked terminator. They fucked ghost busters, they fucked everything you ever held dear.

And you expect Blizzard to be able to add onto D2, now!? Now, while they're on a tour to become the worlds most inclusive company in existence?

I don't want them to touch anything of my childhood with a ten feet pole. Unless they hire real writers, people with upwards of 20 years writing bestsellers in the fantasy genre.

[Mojo03]

It’s be cool if there was a patch with a bunch of QOL changes, new items, and a new endgame mode or something better than farm Diablo and Baal endlessly.

And just let people who want to stay in LOD or classic have the option.

Seems win/win.

I’d guess this is what they will eventually do.

An actual new act seems unlikely and I’d be skeptical It’d actually be done right.

Maybe something like side acts, with unrelated different stories, that take you to different locations would be plausible.

[Triceron]

Hopefully that will be what they plan for Ladder and seasons once it rolls out. Having the ladder runewords be pushed to singleplayer opens up the option to have new ones in ladder to get people excited and playing again.

[Vespian]

Hopefully that will be what they plan for Ladder and seasons once it rolls out. Having the ladder runewords be pushed to singleplayer opens up the option to have new ones in ladder to get people excited and playing again.

I doubt they will add new ladder-only items, right on the heels of enabling the ladder-only runwords for non-ladder play. I think they did this to level the playing field and not force people to play ladder and I think it would be against their current design philosophy to add new ones later on.

They might add new runewords, but I doubt they'll be made ladder only.

[Triceron]

They might add new runewords, but I doubt they'll be made ladder only.

Ladder could be the testbed for new runewords without completely F'ing up the rest of the game. Anyone who wants it 'Classic' style can just stick with offline having classic D2 gameplay. That's my thoughts on it anyways.

If the Ladder runewords are successful, then sure they can roll it into non-ladder, but I feel like they'd be hesitant to roll em out for both without some sort of grace period to test em all out. People tend to flip out on any slight balance change.

Also I feel like it's difficult to add any runewords without addressing power creep. Will be interesting to see what they have planned for the future.

[Vespian]

Ladder could be the testbed for new runewords without completely F'ing up the rest of the game. Anyone who wants it 'Classic' style can just stick with offline having classic D2 gameplay. That's my thoughts on it anyways.

If the Ladder runewords are successful, then sure they can roll it into non-ladder, but I feel like they'd be hesitant to roll em out for both without some sort of grace period to test em all out. People tend to flip out on any slight balance change.

Also I feel like it's difficult to add any runewords without addressing power creep. Will be interesting to see what they have planned for the future.

I agree, unless the runeword adds utility, rather than power, but it's going to be a fine line. I do like the idea of adding for example, a couple Runewords to ladder and then picking one based on popularity metrics to add to the game permanently, cycling that system every ladder. It would make ladder more attractive and it wouldn't immediately destabilize the game, because there's plenty of time to do balancing.

I like that idea. I'm in favor of this kind of additional content. It doesn't mess with the game at its core, but adds more to look for.

[Necromantic]

... Why would you want to introduce endless grind into a game that by default makes it hard to get to max lvl to begin with?

D2 should never be mutilated into looking like D3. D3 has nothing on D2.

They should really not touch the game, besides qol

I wouldn't mind more to "do" than just treasure hunting. I'm fine if they add some new things as long as they maintain the D2 feeling. They did this when they came out with patch 1.10. It didn't take away from the D2 feel but made the game much better.

[Vespian]

I wouldn't mind more to "do" than just treasure hunting. I'm fine if they add some new things as long as they maintain the D2 feeling. They did this when they came out with patch 1.10. It didn't take away from the D2 feel but made the game much better.

Absolutely. I'm just very afraid of "expansions". I don't mind tiny additions here and there, but entire areas with their own questlines, ehhhh... if I would trust Blizzard, but not right now.

[Necromantic]

Absolutely. I'm just very afraid of "expansions". I don't mind tiny additions here and there, but entire areas with their own questlines, ehhhh... if I would trust Blizzard, but not right now.

Yeah, I'm on the fence about that too. The idea would be very exciting because they could make something absolutely great, simple and to the D2 line but could very easily screw it all up and ruin a classic... kinda like remaking The Lost Boys.

[Triceron]

As I've said before, I think the work that mods like Path of Diablo and SigmaXL have brought show a lot of potential of opening up more of the niche builds and balance. I just think those mods take it too many steps too far away from what D2 should ultimately feel like.

I'm just hoping the consideration of new content will be done tactfully, and not just for the sake of adding power creep for the sake of progressing some mandate to appease the modern 'Needs more endgame' crowd. I think Mods already do well in that realm.

[xorxhs]

The only expansion for D2 resurrected, should be diablo 4

[Puzzony]

There are like 2 or 3 disabled runewords in the game already since 1.08 or so, they could start by tweaking them to be balanced if needed then enable them. Not even xpansion needed for that.

[Coldkil]

Only real thing they can reliably add is more areas to farm (without any real story around them, literally just more areas), maybe more events like ubers and black diablo with specific drops and in the end, more uniques to enable more builds.

[Vespian]

Only real thing they can reliably add is more areas to farm (without any real story around them, literally just more areas), maybe more events like ubers and black diablo with specific drops and in the end, more uniques to enable more builds.

They could fix Druid Werewolf. I think it's the single most unplayable build in the game. Even Melee Sorc could do better (maybe) :P

[Coldkil]

They could fix Druid Werewolf. I think it's the single most unplayable build in the game. Even Melee Sorc could do better (maybe) :P

Well, werewolf/werebear and melee sorc (with double throw barb and summoner driud) are my next steps into modding. What do they need i your opinion to be viable?

[Vespian]

Well, werewolf/werebear and melee sorc (with double throw barb and summoner driud) are my next steps into modding. What do they need i your opinion to be viable?

To be honest, scale his IAS earlier and reduce it even further as skill levels go up and add a bit of hit recovery. Apart from that, I don't recall him having AoE, though I know there's a rabies\poison build witch AoE, but that's more of an item build I think?

I just feel he's mostly really slow (bad) early game and only good with the right gear, later on.

[RobertoCarlos]

Act 4 visually looks the most impressive imo. I could do with some more larva areas and act 4 would be pretty easy to expand on because its such a small act to begin with.

[Onikaroshi]

Ah yes, hell making the problems rear themselves again.

[Coldkil]

To be honest, scale his IAS earlier and reduce it even further as skill levels go up and add a bit of hit recovery. Apart from that, I don't recall him having AoE, though I know there's a rabies\poison build witch AoE, but that's more of an item build I think?

I just feel he's mostly really slow (bad) early game and only good with the right gear, later on.

Makes sense. Also not really difficult to change. And you may be right about the itemization, in the end many many builds actually lack the proper endgame gear to make them viable. Or even better, they lack the mid tier gear that make the build good while you hunt for your bis.
@Vespian i made it. Changed the function to scale AS faster at the beginning (starting at 25 but caps at 75 instead of 80) and added some hit recovery (10% base +1 per level). Duration is fine since you wanto to get lycantropy aswell.

[Vespian]

Makes sense. Also not really difficult to change. And you may be right about the itemization, in the end many many builds actually lack the proper endgame gear to make them viable. Or even better, they lack the mid tier gear that make the build good while you hunt for your bis.
@Vespian i made it. Changed the function to scale AS faster at the beginning (starting at 25 but caps at 75 instead of 80) and added some hit recovery (10% base +1 per level). Duration is fine since you wanto to get lycantropy aswell.

Nice!

But you know, I just found out that the Druid Werewolf has one of the lowest FHR frames in the game to begin with. It definitely doesn't feel like that, but maybe it's purely related to the extremely slow attackspeed he seems to have. If I equip a fast weapon on any other class, the attack speed makes sense, but when I equip it on a Druid, I have a feeling it is actually slower than its base speed. If that makes sense.

The FHR in the picture is still a good addition. You cross two breakpoints over the course of the skill.