How to get into multiplayer

Hello,
How do I get into the multiplayer or Battle.net playstyle? I've tried multiple times, but I can't seem to grasp it. I miss my "/players 8" command and having my maps "saved." I genuinely don't know how to farm in this constantly changing online environment, let alone trade effectively. It feels a bit overwhelming, even though it's such an old game, so I'd appreciate some tips on all these aspects.

In multiplayer D2, how do I farm, level up effectively (including the early grind and joining "baalrun 32-33-34-35..."), trade properly, and most importantly, have fun?

If playing online isn't fun for you, then just... don't.

All point's you mentioned are valid - farming is more tedious, so you need to learn map layouts for having any chance of keeping your sanity and not just running around in random directions. Also, items that have any value in trade are few and far between, and you have limited number of online chars. If you don't have buddies you can play with regularly, then just stick to offline, if that's what gives you fun.

juanitakelvy wrote: 2 months ago

and most importantly, have fun?

To be honest, nobody can tell you how YOU are supposed to have fun. That's on you.

I don't have fun in rushing through the game or getting bored in endless baalruns, so most of the time I play solo or with friends.

If you want to grind effectively, make an S-Tier build (Javazon, Hammerdin, Mosaicsin or Novasorc) and join MF-Split games or Cowruns for example.

There's another thread around here explaining how to get "rich".

Here you'll find the best source of ingame mechanics summarized.

If you want to trade, just stay here. It's a great community! I did most of my trades on this site. Never had any problems.

I'm switching to offline because I don't like trading.

What I enjoyed about online gaming is to play with other people. Most of them I met here so if you are making a new post "looking for gaming group for season 13" you will likely find like-minded players.

There are also discord communities where you can meet and organize.

I did LOD offline SSF for over 20 years and only recently switched to D2R online. I play online mostly very similar to how I do offline. I just play through with a character with a build in mind. Online D2R lets me transfer gear between characters a lot easier than D2 LOD did so it makes the middle of the game levelling period smoother. Once I save enough pgems or low runes I'll trade for some higher runes or gear that I haven't obtained yet, so I'm slowly building up my characters to be BiS or close enough. I have found a few items that other people wanted and I traded for gems or runes as currency. Rinse and repeat. Occasionally I do some rushes or power-leveling for other players. On a rare occasion I'll see someone just chill playing and I'll jump in for casual fun.

When it comes to the actual multiplayer aspects, you kind of have to intentionally set things up. A lot of players are just rushing characters to end game, power leveling, then doing magic find runs on repeat so you won't get a good multiplayer experience where you play through the game with a party. If you go in the lobby you will see some game called "walk act 2" or similar and commonly that is a group playing together. A problem I have occasionally encountered with that is a high-level, high-geared player can jump in and wipe all the mobs/bosses and you're left with nothing but exiting and creating a new game.

If you want to do a multiplayer, unrushed playthrough you might be able to set something up here in the forums or on a discord. Just keep in mind that a lot of us are "old" gamers and have families and careers and three kids and no money and limited time.

I, for one, would love it if they brought back LAN play in D2R, but that's probably a pipe Dream at this time.

DasNarf wrote: 2 months ago

Here you'll find the best source of ingame mechanics summarized.

That's a great link. Thank you. Now I don't need to look through seventeen bookmarks and saved images to find what I'm looking for.

Doing my first ladder season rn actually after years of playing the original LoD on and off but almost all offline single player. Some thoughts that might be relevant to your situation (mostly if you're thinking of doing ladder with the new season starting up, zero experience doing non-ladder here)

Trading:

Make mules. If I remember correctly back in the day you used to have to grind them to a certain level or they'd be deleted off the servers, this isn't the case anymore, they never need to leave the Rogue Camp at all and with the ladder shared stash tabs it's super easy to squirrel away basically everything that drops that might be even marginally valuable. I've got some decent trades on low level set gear and niche mostly worthless uniques that way, occasionally people want them for leveling niche builds (or dueling or something idk)

Has been touched on in one of the linked posts up thread but the easiest way to build Wealth for trading for something like a

Shako or high runes is to convert large lots of cube recipe ingredients into Ists. Keep every single jewel and low rune you find. You can flip 40 generic worthless jewels for an

Ist easy, cube the lowest runes into lots of 20 Rals and above

Ral into lots of 8 Hels. Keep a couple of each of the low runes at all times, rich players sometimes need them for runewords or something and you can exchange them for Rals or Hels or

Perfect Gems.

The best trade currency for good mid game gear is perfect amethysts. Imo it's worth picking up every single

Amethyst regardless of quality to cube up. Generic pgems I'd stick to flawless and above. Also despite it sounding like rubies and skulls have more value than generics in my experience so far that's pretty marginal unless you're dealing with 30+ lots late season

Just because something is hypothetically worth a

Lem-

Ist unless you need a specific mid rune specifically sell stuff for pgems, etc. even if you don't need them. Focus on selling to build value you can eventually convert into Ists instead of specific runes, not everyone has a

Pul but everyone has a few pgems. If you're in doubt price for cheaper, remember that everything that drops you essentially got for free. Trust the process, your pgems, Rals, etc. will sell. Might make exceptions to this here or there for very valuable stuff you can self use if it doesn't sell right away

Play:

I did 95% of the season as basically single player except with trading which I think is essentially what most people do. Have just recently started joining some split MF games to get the player count up and have had little issue just jumping in. Best model as far as I can see is just starting a game where you say what you're doing and letting other players know everything else is up for grabs then letting them know you're starting a new game when you're done. Have zero experience doing an actual multiplayer playthrough so no advice there sorry

Farming:

Chaos Sanctuary layout is always the same, Pit and Cows are also super easy to get to quickly and have easy layouts. Have no experience farming

Travincal but lots of people do it and it has a consistent layout every time as well

Hope any of this is helpful. I've enjoyed it so far. I actually find I've really enjoyed the trading as kind of an additional level of loot hunting metagaming. I've really put in way more hours than is healthy the last few months but I've gotten an Infinity, Phoenix,

Griffon's Eye, Grief - basically a ton of the high end stuff I could only Dream about doing single player - which has helped make it feel like a unique experience.

Antheris wrote: 2 months ago

cube the lowest runes into lots of 20 Rals and above

Ral into lots of 8 Hels

There is no need to cube them, I say this as someone who sold 20x

Tir's for an

Ist a few minutes ago.

My advice for playing on non stop switching maps is making 200%FCR sorc build. Maybe you will teleporting in circles, but at least fast )

Yeah, I've been thinking about that - I'm talking very confidently here about a lot of stuff I've only really figured out fairly recently lol.

I miss teleporting, maybe next season

The best way to get into multiplayer games is to join a group that promotes multiplayer games for HC L/NL, SCL/ SC NL.