Why are these QoL things not fixed in D2R?

I know that the original game was very QoL unfriendly by modern standards because of the pioneering D2 did in the ARPG genre. But there seem to be a lot of missed opportunities to modernize the game with some tweaks.

1) Chest Keys - why do assassin's not need keys while all other classes need keys? Thus assassin's have +1 inventory space over all other classes? Why couldn't there have been a "keyring" slot that is simply infinite for assassins?

2) Inventory space - Why was there no option to pickup an item and put it in the cube if it doesn't fit in the inventory (and if there's space in the cube)? Along the same thought, why can't we rotate things to fit them better (e.g. 3x1 rotated into a 1x3)?

3) Stacking - While there are some things that stack (e.g. tomes of town portal and simple keys), but why not: potions (of same quality/type), gems (of same quality/type), runes (of same type), uber keys, tokens of absolution, etc.?

4) Ammunition - Why can't the bows simply be repaired at the NPC instead of needing to buy

Arrows -> top off existing stacks -> sell excess?

5) HUD options - Why can't we see damage numbers and active buff/debuff durations (perhaps as icons on the side with timers)?

6) Shrines/curses - Why are these exclusive to each other? I hate when I click on an experience shrine only to get it overwritten with curse only seconds later.

7) Additional weapon and armor swap - some builds could benefit from multiple swaps like (main damage)/(mobility)/(CtA buff) and armor swaps between Enigma and a more functional armor like Fortitude.

8) In-game communication - The online lobbies are very barren (full of spam bots for 3rd party RMT sites) and searching for in-game trades is a chore with VERY limited text in game names/descriptions.

All fair questions, but the answer now is "Blizzard does not care any more about D2(R) and won't change a thing, most likely, ever"

You can post on the Blizzard forums though, but most likely for nothing.

Yeah, it's too bad as some ore most of these minor tweaks would make the game a lot more enjoyable.

All fair considerations, in my opinion.

I have additional commentaries in a couple of items:

3) The only stacking items are harmless to economy: Tomes and Keys. I think stacking runes, uber keys and other could lead to exploits and ruin trading economy, and could be a point of 'fear' for devs based on state of 2000's. Also, runes and gems are meant for socketing by drag and drop mechanic, and there would have to be an additional UI solution to pop those items from stack when using them.

5) For nostalgia gameplay sake, I think it's ommitted. For modern gameplay standards, there could be a HUD checkbox option. I would keep it disabled. (Thats the way I like to play D2R)

6) I think that is a pure gameplay mechanics design as intended for game devs.

8) It's funny I think MrLLamaSC already have made a video about it. That's why we have trade sites like d2io!

1. Probably inspired by DnD Rogue, who has Lockpicking as one of her skills. An additional "keyring" slot would need quite massive changes in the inventory system.

2. I think it's better without the possibiliy to rotate items. Many players already complain about "inventory Tetris" (I don't), but adding rotations would make inventory management excessively more complex. And also add a little power creep, as you could fit more skillers.

3. Difficult to implement (stacking/unstacking, as you need single items for socketing, potion belt slots, cube recipes...) - remember that we're still running the old 2000 game with a graphic overlay. Notice that mods use cube recipes as a workaround, which is not true stacking, but each stack size is actually a different item.
Also, as YugoHell noticed, an incentive not to hoard.

4. We were supposed to have magic quivers (they even have distinct item types), but they were not implemented finally. Maybe we were supposed just to spend them (i.e. use trash quivers for mobs and good ones for bosses - yet another annoying swapping), so repairing does not replenish quivers, magic or normal)? Mods that use magic quivers, like Median XL, solve this by making skills not consume ammo - quivers are just yet another stat stick. Anyway, this is indeed a missed opportunity.

5. Damage number would be too much clutter. Just look how awfully it looks in D3 (even worse with quadrillions of damage!). Buffs/debuffs would be awesome (implemented by some mods).

6. Lazy development. They use the same "state". Can be easily fixed by editing data files, even one can make shrines stackable (and some mods do so).

7. I'd rather limit swapping, like, say, in D3 Greater Rifts. With easier swapping already mandatory pre-buffs would become even more mandatory. Builds should be about choice, not hoarding every (or most) possible pre-buff item.

8. Again, legacy mechanics behind a shiny graphics. Notice that single player games (created from character screen, not from the lobby) are just standard multiplayer games with random names and passwords.
Chat is obviously bugged and should have been fixed.
But there is an issue with the community itself. D2R is not as popular as legacy D2 was; it's mostly nostalgia. Old players are too old to play, and new ones have better games to choose. And even those still playing prefer Discord or sites like this one, not to mention RMT sites. If we had a functioning chat, the game would be more alive, but not much more.


As a final note, D2R was supposed to keep the popularity of the series until D4 was released. Those who planned to buy D2R already have done it, so there's no incentive to improve/expand it. It's effectively in maintenance mode now; we do not receive promised content patches anymore.

Iria wrote: 2 months ago

I know that the original game was very QoL unfriendly by modern standards because of the pioneering D2 did in the ARPG genre. But there seem to be a lot of missed opportunities to modernize the game with some tweaks.

1) Chest Keys - why do assassin's not need keys while all other classes need keys? Thus assassin's have +1 inventory space over all other classes? Why couldn't there have been a "keyring" slot that is simply infinite for assassins?

2) Inventory space - Why was there no option to pickup an item and put it in the cube if it doesn't fit in the inventory (and if there's space in the cube)? Along the same thought, why can't we rotate things to fit them better (e.g. 3x1 rotated into a 1x3)?

3) Stacking - While there are some things that stack (e.g. tomes of town portal and simple keys), but why not: potions (of same quality/type), gems (of same quality/type), runes (of same type), uber keys, tokens of absolution, etc.?

4) Ammunition - Why can't the bows simply be repaired at the NPC instead of needing to buy

Arrows -> top off existing stacks -> sell excess?

5) HUD options - Why can't we see damage numbers and active buff/debuff durations (perhaps as icons on the side with timers)?

6) Shrines/curses - Why are these exclusive to each other? I hate when I click on an experience shrine only to get it overwritten with curse only seconds later.

7) Additional weapon and armor swap - some builds could benefit from multiple swaps like (main damage)/(mobility)/(CtA buff) and armor swaps between Enigma and a more functional armor like Fortitude.

8) In-game communication - The online lobbies are very barren (full of spam bots for 3rd party RMT sites) and searching for in-game trades is a chore with VERY limited text in game names/descriptions.

1. I think it's an interesting perk of the assassin that makes sense from a Lore perspective, giving the ability to the other classes would lose that bit of depth and make it more generic, keys would also lose their purpose. It's a tradeoff, 1 inventory slot for a chance of loot.

2. Cube loot for MKB would be nice, it's an option for controllers and while they did add a new hotkey for MKB that allows you to directly open the cube it's not the same, you still have to click the item and drop it in. As for the non-rotating of items in the inventory it'd likely be too much work for little benefit, inventory management is part of the game as tedious as some might find it.

3. I would've liked stacking in the stash, whether it apply to all stash tabs or if there's a specialized currency stash tab or something like that. I'm against inventory stacking though, going back to the inventory management aspect and like Trang Oul said there's some considerations with socketing items and whatnot.

4. Repairing the bow itself is how it was done in Diablo 1, not sure how I feel about them changing it to quivers in D2. If the repair button would refill your equipped quiver and maybe the ones in your inventory I think I'd be happy with that.

5. I wouldn't care as long as it were optional, I'd like buff/debuff timers as icons, would be a nice little QoL for

Battle Orders and

Werebear and whatnot.

6. I like that they're exclusive, I think it makes for an interesting gameplay mechanic and adds a layer of strategy. Like if you're feeling brave you can try focusing down a cursed monster when you've got an experience shrine, if you do it right then the payoff is big but if you fail then bye bye shrine (admittedly some monster affixes make this difficult if not impossible, elemental enchants like lightning or

Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock [hitscan curses anyone? ] in particular are problematic). The opposite is also true, you can use a shrine to overwrite a curse which is quite useful.

7. Like one of the others said I think there shouldn't be too much of an emphasis on prebuffing, I think the current single weapon swap is sufficient. The single swap means your weapon choices are more meaningful, if you want more options then you'll have to carry them in your inventory which comes with the tradeoff of less room to pick up items and/or charms and I think that's a fair system.

8. Yes, this is one of the biggest downgrades in D2R compared to D2LoD. The whole Bnet 2.0 implementation in D2R is very gimped and will likely never be overhauled sadly, it really downgrades the ingame social aspect and pretty much leaves it to external sources like Discord or forums which is quite sad given how rich the social aspect was in D2LoD. Stuff like custom channels/clans and even the possibility of expanding on unfinished content like guilds and whatnot, a real missed opportunity.

QoL is a good thing but I disagree with some of your suggestions that are more gameplay related than pure QoL.

1) (Assassins don't use keys). Yes, it's one advantage the assassin has, making the game just a bit richer for it. You can run an area full of chests like the Durance of Hate or

Lower Kurast with your assassin and enjoy this comfortable little quirk that other characters don't have. Of course now with Mosaic existing in the game, it's arguably unbalanced.

6) (Curse overrides shrine). It adds a little layer of strategy that you have to avoid being cursed if you want to keep the effect of a shrine. Or the game is just trolling you by putting and experience shrine at the start of the

Chaos Sanctuary. I never managed to keep it running 'til the end.

7) (Additional weapon and armor swap slots). This brings a lot of changes to the builds, and probably makes the game too easy, don't you think? Serious prebuffing is tedious, so it can be a goal to make the character viable without this kind of long prebuff sequence. When you choose to keep CTA on swap, maybe you give up something else, for instance

Demon Limb that gives a nice

Enchant to melee characters. It's once again a layer of strategy that makes the game more interesting to me.

Some of these details and asymmetries in different aspects of the game are among the things that make Diablo 2 still interesting 25 years after its release. Several of your suggestions have been implemented in mods. For instance PD2 has double the inventory space, a much higher stacking limit for keys and scrolls, you can stack runes, gems and shrine effects on your character, which are then not overridden by curses since they stack too. The mod is very popular because it brings many interesting new things to the game, but these particular elements make the plain progression through the three difficulties less interesting IMO. The mod makes up for it with its focus on endgame and other elements. But I don't think I would like to see these changes in D2R. The devs made this remaster, it seems, with care not to break the balance and charm of the original game (although the presence of Mosaic could make one doubt about it). I think they are right to be careful, the charm is fragile, and too much power and ease could break it. I'd prefer to see new and more challenging content, like a new act and/or an infinite dungeon as was suggested by someone here not long ago.

I just need to see an automatic adjustment mechanism. If I need to pick up a horizontal 3 square item and if I have not organized 3 rings in my cube, I'd like to put the item in it and the rings should be reorganized to make space.

Other than this, maybe if we wait 25 years or so, there could be another remastered verson and maybe then they fix such things.

renard wrote: 2 months ago

6) (Curse overrides shrine). It adds a little layer of strategy that you have to avoid being cursed if you want to keep the effect of a shrine. Or the game is just trolling you by putting and experience shrine at the start of the

Chaos Sanctuary. I never managed to keep it running 'til the end.

It could add some strategy to the game, if curses were applied by melee attacks or missiles (with finite velocity - Succubi's Blood Stars fit thematically). But most curses are applied as an instant AoE (with some exceptions, such as

Taunt, Hit Blinds Target and Hit Causes Monster to Flee, but they are not applied to players), so there's no strategy involved, as they are unavoidable.

Trang Oul wrote: 2 months ago

renard wrote: 2 months ago

6) (Curse overrides shrine). It adds a little layer of strategy that you have to avoid being cursed if you want to keep the effect of a shrine. Or the game is just trolling you by putting and experience shrine at the start of the

Chaos Sanctuary. I never managed to keep it running 'til the end.

It could add some strategy to the game, if curses were applied by melee attacks or missiles (with finite velocity - Succubi's Blood Stars fit thematically). But most curses are applied as an instant AoE (with some exceptions, such as

Taunt, Hit Blinds Target and Hit Causes Monster to Flee, but they are not applied to players), so there's no strategy involved, as they are unavoidable.

They are avoidable with distance, so yeah basically melee characters are in trouble. In the

Chaos Sanctuary they are cast as normal skills, so you can really avoid them, but it's hard. Also a little layer of "strategy" is to use shrines to remove curses, keep them for after the fight. Just a little thing to think about while running. In PD2 it's mostly mindless, see a shrine, click on it.

Besides 8 i wouldn't want any other of the proposed changes so i am glad that they didn't.

Nice points. I also have some to add.

1) It's a racial trait. Barbarian can dual-wield + he can use 2h swords as 1h. I think it's fine and I wouldn't think about it in min/max way and say Assasin saves 1 slot. I don't know what are other class traits frankly speaking, do they have any? Paladin can wear exclusive to him shields. What about rest?

2) I agree with what you are saying (apart from rotating items) + I would add one more interface option to make it possible to display inventory + cube at the same time so that I can sell items to vendors directly from Cube. Apart from that I would love to see have a possibility to buy additional Stash and name them. In Titan Quest, they did it that way and I think it's a very nice approach. New stash become more and more expensive the more you buy up to a limit.

3) That would break the economy in my opinion but it would be nice to have for HP and Mana potions (for example stack up to 5). Reju potions should not be included in my opinion, furthermore they should have cooldown implemented

5) I think dmg numbers on the screen would make the game unreadable, however I do miss any sort of combat log which could be used for analysis purposes (something like we have in World of Warcraft).

6) Good point

7) I don't like that approach. Guild Wars 2 works on such a mechanic where you keep switching gear all the time. I think it makes the game just easier because it allows you to adjust your character to the situation while in such games, there shouldn't be a way to build one ultimate character suitable for everything. I think a weapon swap is enough.

8) True

Ahlen wrote: 2 months ago

1) It's a racial trait. Barbarian can dual-wield + he can use 2h swords as 1h. I think it's fine and I wouldn't think about it in min/max way and say Assasin saves 1 slot. I don't know what are other class traits frankly speaking, do they have any? Paladin can wear exclusive to him shields. What about rest?

Every class can equip class-specific items.
Besides, assassin can dual-wield too, but only claws.

Ahlen wrote: 2 months ago

5) I think dmg numbers on the screen would make the game unreadable, however I do miss any sort of combat log which could be used for analysis purposes (something like we have in World of Warcraft).

Fine, I'd be OK with an official DPS meter, but no add-ons, please! They already ruined WoW by being mandatory (and borderline cheating).

By the way, what is the best way to provide Blizzard with feedback and enhancement requests? Blizzard forum? I believe we have quite a community here which might have some impact on the decisions made by Blizzard

Be Elon Musk, acquire Blizzard and make any changes you like.

Otherwise, there is none. D2R is already in maintenance mode.

Ahlen wrote: 2 months ago

[..]
I believe we have quite a community here which might have some impact on the decisions made by Blizzard

Blizzard has proven to long since no longer be in the business of "listen to what people want, build it" as much as they've taken to "build random pathetic BS and try to talk people into accepting that that's what they want even though they clearly don't".

Nothing said or done here will ever have any impact on what blizz does.

I totally agree with Trang Oul and Schnorki, but can't help but think there's still the simple equation: make a DLC, multiply the price by the number of D2R players, make some money. Probably not worth it though. I suspect they make enough money from people buying new accounts to start a season fresh without deleting characters, for way less effort. Actually no effort at all, seeing the almost complete lack of changes in the last few seasons.

I saw in one of the MrLlamaSC videos where he says he made so much content related to what should be fixed and Blizzard never cared. I like this game I just wish it was not forgotten as Heroes of the Storm, similar scenario. It's there, but Blizzard does not care.