What would you improve in d2r

One idea I had was sacrificing character slots for stash space.

Perhaps you could specify a character as a "mule". It wouldn't be playable and wouldn't have any inventory space of its own, but shared stash space would be increased by 1.4 tabs.

There'd be no change in game balance or overall storage space, but it would be a huge QoL boost.

Mercenary Commands; Attack, Defend, Follow, Stay

Change Characters while in Town

Additional Loadouts; Changing Skills, Gear = More Builds

Mail Items to Friends

Reset Quests, Every Map Terror Zone; Perhaps Cube Recipe - Token + Slandered of Heroes + Annihilus = 4th Playthru, Hardest Difficulty, 4ever TZ

Soultego wrote: 2 years ago

Mercenary Commands; Attack, Defend, Follow, Stay

It would be awesome if hirelings (and other minons) reacted to Num Lock voice commands. No additional UI needed!

NecroSandro wrote: 2 years ago

Probably leaning on the wilder side of ideas but I think these could make the game more fun.

In fairness, there's a lot that could be done to revamp a lot of stuff. There's been over 20 years' experience (and many follow-on games, like Path of Exile) that has shown what has and hasn't worked in the original D2. Worth noting that the 2.4 patch gave us a substantial number of skill reworks that make the meta of D2R fundamentally different from D2 classic, too. But going along the same concept for item reworks/rebalances:

• Expand/buff crafted item recipes so that more than 2 are any good. This would include adding at least 2 new types to use Perfect Diamond and Perfect Topaz, and adjusting the automatic affixes offered by the recipes:
  • Blood items see few changes: helmet & Belt-specific mods doubled to 10-20%, (reflecting their lower value than gloves' CB) Blood Weapon bumped to 60-100% ED and gains 5-10% open wounds, Blood Armor changed to have 5-10% increased max life, Blood Shield changed to have 10-20% FBR, Blood Ring doubled to +2-10 strength, and Blood Boots bumped to 10-20 life regen.
  • Caster item base mana regen doubled to 8-20%. Caster Gloves offer mana steal instead of mana on kill. Caster Ring doubled to +2-10 energy. Caster Body, Helmet & Boots changed/bumped to 5-10% increased mana. Caster Weapon bumps increased mana to 2-10% and gains 10-20% FCR. (after all, you can't un-craft an item, so you're risking good staffmods...)
  • Hit Power would elimate that useless "Attack Takes Damage" universal mod: replace it with 5-10% FHR. Hit Power Ring doubled to +2-10 dexterity. Replace Hit Power Amulet's HCMS with Slows Target 50%. Bump Hit Power Weapon's ED to 60-100% and gains Freezes Target. Replace Boot & Helm's defense vs. missiles with chance to avoid projectiles.
  • Safety mods would be mostly just increasing the flat damage/magic damage reduction. Bumped from 2-4 and 1-2 physical/magical to 1-2% and 2-5 respectively. (the shift to % PDR could be huge) Safety Weapon bumps to 60-100% ED and gains Hit Blinds Target. Safety Ring doubled to +2-10 vitalirt.
  • New type: Purity Items, using a Perfect Diamond. Universal mods are 5-10% increased damage vs. demons & 5-10% increased damage vs. undead. Weapon (sword) has 60-100% ED and +50-100 attack rating, Helmet has 25% Poison length reduction, Body has 2-5% all resists, Shield has 5-10% block chance, Amulet has 10-20% FBR, Rings have +1-4 all attributes, belt has 10-20% slower stamina drain, Gloves have +100-200 attack rating against demons, and Boots have 1-4% chance to cast level 10 Blaze on kill.
  • New type: Vision Items, using a Perfect Topaz. Universal mods are +2 light radius and +20-50 attack rating. Weapon (polearm) has 60-100% ED & -25% target defense, Helm has 10% Increased Attack Rating, Body has 2-5% damage reduction, Shield has 5-10% block chance, Amulet has 10-20% Deadly Strike, Rings have 5-10% IAS, belt has +10-20 life & mana, Gloves have 20-40% goldfind, and Boots have 5-10% magicfind.
• Rework medium/heavy armors (at least on the Elite tier) to actually have a desirable use to pay for the high STR requirement & FRW penalty. At a minimum, medium armors should offer up to 50% higher defense than light, (e.g, up to 900 base defense for Sacred Armor) and heavy up to 100% higher. (e.g, up to 1,200 base defense for a non-ethereal Shadow Plate) Possibly add "implicit" mods (always there even on White items) to grant damage reduction on medium/heavy armors, scaling with their STR requirement.
• Permit runeword usage on Sorceress orbs, to work with Staff runewords, and possibly Wand ones as well. (granted, the one Wand runeword isn't great for that...)
• Increase the socket count for Necromancer Shrunken Heads. While maybe allowing them to have Spirit alongside staffmods might be seen as too much for some, at least 3 sockets would allow a better selection of runewords to make them viable rather than just... Replacing it with a Spirit Monarch.

I could go on a lot about the uniques & runewords, but at that point there may as well be another topic specifically on their balance.

^ On the point for armor & their specific "types" of Light / Medium / Heavy.

Instead of just in increasing defense values, give them inherent passive damage reduction. For instance, Light armors do not provide any damage reduction. But medium and heavy armors give 1) DR @ X% 2) Dmg reduced x Hell..or maybe even both.

That way melee types & Finally - Jemali can finally stand his Ground and not faint when Lister sneezes.

Skaijuice wrote: 2 years ago

^ On the point for armor & their specific "types" of Light / Medium / Heavy.

Instead of just in increasing defense values, give them inherent passive damage reduction. For instance, Light armors do not provide any damage reduction. But medium and heavy armors give 1) DR @ X% 2) Dmg reduced x Hell..or maybe even both.

That way melee types & Finally - Jemali can finally stand his Ground and not faint when Lister sneezes.

Yeah, that was my idea kinda nestled in there. That medium armors should provide perhaps 1 DR per 10 points of STR requirement (e.g, from 3 for Ring Mail to 23 for Sacred Armor) with 1 DR per 5 STR for heavy. (so 8 for Scale Mail to 46 for Shadow Plate) Granted, that might have to shift based upon level requirement/tier, since 8 DR once you reach Act 2 would be extremely powerful on Normal.

ACGIFT wrote: 2 years ago

• Permit runeword usage on Sorceress orbs, to work with Staff runewords, and possibly Wand ones as well. (granted, the one Wand runeword isn't great for that...)
• Increase the socket count for Necromancer Shrunken Heads. While maybe allowing them to have Spirit alongside staffmods might be seen as too much for some, at least 3 sockets would allow a better selection of runewords to make them viable rather than just... Replacing it with a Spirit Monarch.

Always did find it weird that Venom was the only runeword you could actually make on Orbs. As for necro heads, 3 sockets seems reasonable -- Paladins could already make Spirit in pala shields with +45 all res so it probably won't be more broken than that.

ACGIFT wrote: 2 years ago

• Rework medium/heavy armors (at least on the Elite tier) to actually have a desirable use to pay for the high STR requirement & FRW penalty. At a minimum, medium armors should offer up to 50% higher defense than light, (e.g, up to 900 base defense for Sacred Armor) and heavy up to 100% higher. (e.g, up to 1,200 base defense for a non-ethereal Shadow Plate) Possibly add "implicit" mods (always there even on White items) to grant damage reduction on medium/heavy armors, scaling with their STR requirement.

I think even without the base defense increase, the damage reduction automods on heavier armor types could be interesting. On a similar note I feel that giving two-handed weapons (except bows/crossbows) a defense stat or even a small chance to block would compensate a bit for not being able to equip a shield.

NecroSandro wrote: 2 years ago

Always did find it weird that Venom was the only runeword you could actually make on Orbs. As for necro heads, 3 sockets seems reasonable -- Paladins could already make Spirit in pala shields with +45 all res so it probably won't be more broken than that.

Of course Venom also being quite possibly the most useless runeword, too!

Granted, even at 4 sockets it'd not be that bad: the only real advantages are that you'd get a chance at staffmods, and be able to get Spirit with 50 fewer points of STR. The flip-side (assuming that 4 sockets would be extended only to Bloodlord Skull) is... Good luck getting decent ones: with a qLvl of 85 and a Treasure Class of 87, it's not like they're common. (contrast Monarch, where they're both 72...) If Necro-specific power was a worry, then perhaps Troll Nest should be allowed to get 4 sockets; same STR, and actually a lower qLvL (76) and TC. (78)

Also worth noting that Paladins usually don't need to worry about Spirit or its STR requirement, since an even more broken option exists: Herald Of Zakarum. Larzuk'd and socketed with an Um, that gets you a total of 288 resists, compared to 285 from a max-rolled shield with Spirit. (Yes, it loses the hefty FHR and FCR, but has a lot of block and an extra +2 combat skills to make up for it)

I'll read thorough, but first wanted to add something.

-4os possibility to Necro heads
-Ethereal mod for indestructible uniques.

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

I'll read thorough, but first wanted to add something.

-4os possibility to Necro heads
-Ethereal mod for indestructible uniques.

I have always wanted uniques to roll ethereal irrespective of indestructible mod. Would be so cool. I also kind of thought bows should be able to be ethereal although could understand the initial design choice not to be.

I'd change the way belts get filled upon picking a potion or a scroll with no regard to what's already sitting in the bottom row of a given column.

ghostpos wrote: 2 years ago

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

I'll read thorough, but first wanted to add something.

-4os possibility to Necro heads
-Ethereal mod for indestructible uniques.

I have always wanted uniques to roll ethereal irrespective of indestructible mod. Would be so cool. I also kind of thought bows should be able to be ethereal although could understand the initial design choice not to be.

Funny, I always looked at it the exact opposite.

I never understood the initial design choice as an ethereal bow makes no more or less sense to me than an ethereal Spear or Javelin or literally anything else. Technically it makes sense as it simply follows the general rule of "spawns indestructible = can't be ethereal" but from an actual design perspective, bows being indestructible and hence non- Eth across the board makes fairly little sense to me.

And yet, I do tend to kind of go "I do get it though cuz...bowzon really doesn't need 50% more dmg".
Plus it'd take the variety out of it and actually end the eternal WF v Faith debate, what with Faith then getting just about a flat 50% buff while WF would change comparatively little (due to most of the dmg being off the +max mod) so...let's not do that.

ShadowHeart wrote: 2 years ago

Ugh, that would drive me nuts, but I’d be fine if it was a toggle on/off

Making this option configurable would be the next step for improvement.

I have tons of things going through my mind to improve... that will most likely never happen.

Anyway, for a few:
- Eased item space management. Can be stackable gems/runes, a couple of shared stashes...

- Sets: I love sets and they don't get the love they deserve.
> Set items can roll ethereal
> Some useless sets can be reworked to be Merc friendly like Sazabi is now for a5. I think of Vidala's Rig (remove Boots/amulet, Helm instead) for a1, Heaven's Brethren (with lots of reduced level reqs and str reqs) for a3 and Hwanin's Majesty for a2 (remove Belt). To notice that when I say "remove" it can just mean that "full" set requirements could simply be triggered at 3 pièces.
> Some ok sets could become nicer with partial set bonuses. I think of Disciple and Orphan - both are not bad but not great and could be significantly better with partial set bonuses on all items BUT their star item (GFace/LoH).
> Trang's: the slowed FCR is ok on Vampire form, but not that much. Easing a bit the breakpoints while keeping the frames higher than normal necro would be nice.
> M'avina's : on bow, partial set bonus to get -enemy cold res like on Wizendraw
> And certainly others for other top class sets (except Tal ? Or replace ll/ml on Helm by maek/laek).

- Some uniques could be upped to be alternatives to runewords
> Tyrael with Oskill TP has been quoted several times
> For necro a simple +5fcr on Boneshade would make it a true competitor to HotO and White
> I guess other classes could also have their "one item increase".

- Add a recipe like Zod+SoH+item => turn item Ethereal. Expensive stuff of course, to use on very well rolled things.

That's some ideas. I have many others...

Ps.
More specifically for Disciple (love that one for names and style, I would:
- Amulet : +5fcr at each of 2, 3, 4 set pieces. Only non crafted amulet to reach 15 fcr !
- Boots: +5frw at each of 2, 3, 4 set pieces. Can go up to 45 - fastest Boots!
- Belt: +5 fhr at each of 2,3,4 set pieces.
- Armor: +3 laek and +1 maek at each of 2,3,4 set pieces
- nothing on gloves, LoH is strong enough.
Full set stays same.

Don't know if this has been said, but a buy-back option. Especially when it comes to accidently selling your Gheeds.
Also being able to kick people from your game.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

I never understood the initial design choice as an ethereal bow makes no more or less sense to me than an ethereal Spear or Javelin or literally anything else. Technically it makes sense as it simply follows the general rule of "spawns indestructible = can't be ethereal" but from an actual design perspective, bows being indestructible and hence non- Eth across the board makes fairly little sense to me.

Missile weapons (bows and crossbows) require missiles ( Arrows and Bolts respectively). So, instead of durability, you need to watch out for the number of missiles left in your quiver.
IMO it would make sense to remove the mechanics of missiles being spent per shot (many mods do so) and to get rid of quivers (or to leave them, but allow magic/rare/unique versions as stat sticks; ditto with mods), and make missile weapons have durability. This does not exclude possible exceptions like Phase Blade.
It is worth noting that in weapons.txt missile weapons do have durability number, despite also having "no durability" flag (columns durability and nodurability respectively).

Trang Oul wrote: 2 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

I never understood the initial design choice as an ethereal bow makes no more or less sense to me than an ethereal Spear or Javelin or literally anything else. Technically it makes sense as it simply follows the general rule of "spawns indestructible = can't be ethereal" but from an actual design perspective, bows being indestructible and hence non- Eth across the board makes fairly little sense to me.

Missile weapons (bows and crossbows) require missiles ( Arrows and Bolts respectively). So, instead of durability, you need to watch out for the number of missiles left in your quiver.
IMO it would make sense to remove the mechanics of missiles being spent per shot (many mods do so) and to get rid of quivers (or to leave them, but allow magic/rare/unique versions as stat sticks; ditto with mods), and make missile weapons have durability. This does not exclude possible exceptions like Phase Blade.
It is worth noting that in weapons.txt missile weapons do have durability number, despite also having "no durability" flag (columns durability and nodurability respectively).

Aye but by that logic (and the general mechanics actually) javelins wouldn't be Eth either (or at least not throwable anymore when Eth) as they use stack size, rather than durability, making them closer to a bow's Arrows than other weapons. Difference being that stack size for them can be "repaired" while not being able to "repair" Arrows (which is again just a weird contrast).

'tis a very arbitrary decision, specifically for bows, with imo no real/valid consistent design argument behind it.

(Not that it really matters)

I would only do quality of life changes or fix things that are obviously broken, the reason I got this is to be able to play D2 just as it was but with better looks tbh, I actually disliked very much them adding new RWs and those disgusting anti-immunity charms, this generation of devs should learn not to touch what their betters (far betters) did in the past, its the equivalent of an amateur painter trying to redo a work from van Gogh

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Aye but by that logic (and the general mechanics actually) javelins wouldn't be Eth either (or at least not throwable anymore when Eth) as they use stack size, rather than durability, making them closer to a bow's Arrows than other weapons. Difference being that stack size for them can be "repaired" while not being able to "repair" Arrows (which is again just a weird contrast).

I forgot about thrown weapons. Surprise! In data files they have non-zero durability, no "no durability" and stack size (i.e. quantity).

"Repairing" quivers would be a great QoL. Since there are no magic quivers, buying a new normal one is just an annoyance.

PabloSL wrote: 2 years ago

I would only do quality of life changes or fix things that are obviously broken, the reason I got this is to be able to play D2 just as it was but with better looks tbh, I actually disliked very much them adding new RWs and those disgusting anti-immunity charms, this generation of devs should learn not to touch what their betters (far betters) did in the past, its the equivalent of an amateur painter trying to redo a work from van Gogh

OTOH, I appreciated Patch 2.4 class changes very much. They made the “meme” builds, such as summoner druid or FoH pala, viable, without introducing power creep, therefore improving the much needed diversity.

Only later all that hard work went to waste, with the introduction of Sunder charms in 2.5 and Mosaic in 2.6.