The enigma about Enigma, a teleport discussion

I can't help but strongly disagree with large parts of that. But then again, maybe I'm just weird like that...

To me, a game is exactly that: a game. By its very definition, it should be a fun activity before ANYTHING else. I certainly do optimize the everliving f*** out of things but never "to optimize the fun out of it" but rather "to optimize in the context of how I want to play because I genuinely enjoy doing that".

As a result, some builds include

Teleport and I thoroughly enjoy that. Others do not include

Teleport and I never miss it. The options are there and it is up to you to pick whichever you prefer and to play in a way that makes it fun for you.

Honestly, if people feel such an insane need to optimize (which let's be honest isn't usually optimizing but rather "copy YouTuber xyz's build to the letter without thinking about it") and they lose all of the actual fun of the game because of it...that's not the fault of a skill or a runeword. That's not even the fault of developers or designers. That is solely the fault of those same "gamers" actively choosing to

Sacrifice fun for "do what someone told me to!". I'll just never understand that.

Also, speedrunning certainly isn't the only viable playstyle. Unless you aim to be in the top ladder spots I guess but that's only an option for a tiny fraction of typically RMT-abusing streamers with a massive support system anyways so nothing normal players legitimately worry about. Personally, I never suicide-

Teleport with an inventory full of mana potions, even when starting a new season as a sorc. Why? Because it is boring and annoying AF (to me). Does it cost me a few minutes along the way? Sure. Does it stop me from still being done with hell faster than most? No. Even if it did, would I lose anything by some randos being quicker? Also no.

Imo folks need to focus more on what makes things fun and positive for them, rather than always compare and constrast and go "person xyz gets a more of b [in time c] so I have to, too, regardless of whether that ever actually really affects me in any way other than taking the fun out of everything!" (and yes, that applies to far more than just D2/gaming).

The only 'real' issue I for one do see with

Teleport (which I actually made a post about here back when TZs were first introduced) is that if you are in pugs that span across zones (so anything but a

Baal run really),

Teleport/Enigma is obligatory if you want any real chance of keeping up and getting xp, let alone contributing and getting loot. That's in part because you simply can't run as fast as someone can

Teleport. But in even larger part in the previously mentioned fact that most content is regrettably useless so your pug will simply

Teleport past all of it, moving from champ to champ, seal to seal, whatever it may be while you get stuck behind mobs you can't

Teleport across, making you fall behind even further.

Simply making content not be so useless would be an easy fix to that. Alternatively, no-

Teleport as a game mode actually would fix it as well for those who actually enjoy playing without it, be that in general or merely for their current build. Hell, the more I think about it, the more I'd actually love that. I def want to keep

Teleport on my sin or nec or sorc or ... and want my runs (pug or not) be a blurred

Frenzy of teleporting and blowing things up left and right. At the same time, given the option, I would totally run no-

Teleport pugs on my zon and pally for example.

For everyone in this thread, consider stamina for a moment.

I've definitely seen people rant about stamina and how it's antiquated and awful and not fun. But stamina limitations early in the game give you a sense of progress, achievement, power, improvement, as you move through the game, and this is part of what makes it fun. I would never get rid of stamina - because of how it makes you feel when it's not a problem anymore. Run/walk does the same thing.

Your character feels locked down, weak, slow, almost helpless at the beginning. But slowly you get little boosts the help you move more consistently, faster, and more efficiently - it makes you feel the progress and power and makes you want to keep playing. This is exactly the sort of thing that D3 and D4 miss out on with their more homogenous play feel.

Teleport is a continuation of that theme for end-game.

For example:

Schnorki wrote: 9 months ago

The thing is, when you're talking about significantly changing or removing

Teleport (or simply Enigma for any non-sorc), you aren't talking about adjusting one skill. You're effectively talking about massively changing the entire nature of the game.

It's one of the things I like about it - how transformative it is. Getting

Teleport for non-sorc builds lends a sense of great achievement to them because of how transformative it is in terms of gameplay. You start the game unable to run for long periods of time, literally walking up to creatures to smack them with a stick. You end the game popping through reality in an endless stream of Death like a god - it's what makes the game great.

I love that the game changes when you get Stealth, or level 30, or that one skill that opens everything up. And I love that it changes again when you get Enigma. It gives you a reason to feel rewarded by the time spent playing, and gives distinction to the play styles through different portions of the game.

I don't want every stage to feel the same. I want them to feel distinct, partly so that I can get a sense of progress and accomplishment as I move through. Enigma is a great chase item for precisely this reason. It's not great because it's expensive, it's great because it's expensive AND transformative.

Trang Oul wrote: 9 months ago

ghostpos wrote: 9 months ago

I've thought about this a lot. I think what annoys me about Enigma today is the ridiculous attributes in addition to

Teleport.
(...)
IMO this is what destroyed item diversity because the runeword could have served a role akin to

Naj's Puzzler without charges (for example). Like, isn't it kind of ridiculous when a Sorceress considers Enigma due to the attributes not related to

Teleport? It feels awkward to me.

IMO even if there was another armor that offered +20 all skills, and Enigma had only

Teleport oskill, everyone would still wear Enigma.

Teleport is too good to ignore it.

And to fix this situation, I see only one possible solution: remove

Teleport from the game. Not Enigma, but

Teleport skill itself. Or at least nerf it heavily (cooldown, mana cost ×10, life cost, restrict teleporting through walls...).
Just look what D2 has become:

• "Walk" games past level 18 are just sorcs' suicide tele runs (chugging mana pots all the time), no one walks anymore because it's inefficient.
• Baalruns: 7 slackers wait for TP, and don't even move an inch even when the runner struggles.
• Boss farming is 95% teleporting and 5% killing the boss.
• You've encounter a nasty Might, Cursed, Extra Strong pack? You just
  Teleport past it.

One skill made the entire game all about skipping the content...
Last, but not least (arguably "most"): would D2 suffer so much from cheating (botting, RMT) if there was no

Teleport? Most likely not.

I like the idea of removing

Teleport ofskill only sorc should still get to keep their inherited

Teleport skill but add cooldown for sorc to use, and to improve the cooldown aspect for the sorc, she needs to add pts into

Teleport synergy(8mif they make this applicable) in order to reduce the

Teleport cooldown. This way, sorc has to balance her playstyle: u want all damage with long cooldown

Teleport? Or some damage with faster cooldown

Teleport?

Overal, we can all wish etc, but no changes will ever be made to the official d2r,m. Changes like this would be gamebreaking, creating more bugs etc for bliz, means more manpower to debug etc, and u know, that is something bliz does not want.

departure wrote: 9 months ago

For everyone in this thread, consider stamina for a moment.

I've definitely seen people rant about stamina and how it's antiquated and awful and not fun. But stamina limitations early in the game give you a sense of progress, achievement, power, improvement, as you move through the game, and this is part of what makes it fun. I would never get rid of stamina - because of how it makes you feel when it's not a problem anymore. Run/walk does the same thing.

Your character feels locked down, weak, slow, almost helpless at the beginning. But slowly you get little boosts the help you move more consistently, faster, and more efficiently - it makes you feel the progress and power and makes you want to keep playing. This is exactly the sort of thing that D3 and D4 miss out on with their more homogenous play feel.

Teleport is a continuation of that theme for end-game.
[..]

Never quite thought of it as a continuation of that theme but..yeah, agreed.

d2rppa69 wrote: 9 months ago

I like the idea of removing

Teleport ofskill only sorc should still get to keep their inherited

Teleport skill but add cooldown for sorc to use, and to improve the cooldown aspect for the sorc, she needs to add pts into

Teleport synergy(8mif they make this applicable) in order to reduce the

Teleport cooldown. This way, sorc has to balance her playstyle: u want all damage with long cooldown

Teleport? Or some damage with faster cooldown

Teleport?

In order to make it a real choice,

Teleport should retain some cooldown even when maxed. Otherwise the guides would just state "Teleport: 20" or "Teleport: enough for no cooldown with +skill gear" instead of the current "Teleport: 1" (in other words, sorceresses would effectively have 90 skill points to spend on other skills instead of 109).

Trang Oul wrote: 9 months ago

I don't know how the bots are today, but years ago they were quite dumb. Something unexpected, like inability to move, made them leave the game. Probably the cheating tools have evolved (unlike
Bli$$'s anti-cheating tools...).

Ehm... I was botting the hell out of the game back in 2003 or whatever, using various cracked versions of bots like d2jsp (Blizzhackers was my browser's hompage, rofl), and they were doing a great job. Granted, I was farming

Andariel and

Pindleskin, nothing "complicated" like

Chaos Sanctuary, but it was more than enough. I can only imagine how much better the bots of today are.

AFAIK bots today no longer read the game memory (difficult/detectable), but, like live players, rely on what is shown on the screen (using libraries such as OpenCV).

Aye, from what I've seen (haven't used any myself), D2:R bots are actually significantly worse than D2 bots were 20 years ago.

Then again, my google assistant also gets noticeably worse every month so I guess that might be a general trend. ^^
(Srsly, how was voice recognition soooooo much better 25 years ago than it is in any application today?! Ugh...)

Schnorki wrote: 9 months ago

Then again, my google assistant also gets noticeably worse every month so I guess that might be a general trend. ^^
(Srsly, how was voice recognition soooooo much better 25 years ago than it is in any application today?! Ugh...)

Pff, try using Siri, she is like the most useless thing ever. 99% of my questions to her are met with a "This is what I found on the web" type of reply.

Anyone remember what

Teleport was like in the original diablo? I always played warrior in that game, so i just didn’t use it that much

Nate2.0 wrote: 9 months ago

Anyone remember what

Teleport was like in the original diablo? I always played warrior in that game, so i just didn’t use it that much

Teleport in D1 was pretty much exactly like in D2, from what I can recall, and all classes had access to it (but that's because all spells were available to all classes, you learned and leveld up spells through single-use spell books that were consumed upon use). Cast rate was fixed but different per class, Sorcerors had the fastest cast rate. I do remember teleporting around rather fast as a Sorceror, doing "Diablo runs" together with other people I met through the game. Good times.