DII vs. Titan Quest

[Merlinios]

Most players that gives up looking at merchants window do so for a very good reason. Probably for exactly the reason you just stated. That isn't to say it's totally useless, I sometimes shop at merchants to get some crafting materials, or just to look for mostly the humour value.

Under the current standard d2 patch system (read: runewords), I'd say if anyone wants to make merchants more attractive turn the clock back to the before time, in the long long ago. Make them sell normal quality items again. That includes exceptional\elite respective of the difficulty modes. I'm not saying ethereal\superior grade. Just plain white grade gear. (Obviously the chance of this happening in the next official patch is probably nil to less than zero.)

That's an effect of the hyperinflated economy. The days are not long gone when I (and other folks I knew) were buying Cruel exceptionals and elites from Charsi to get by in Nightmare/Hell (playing untwinked). Still makes for good stuff in the beginning of the ladder. Since these two situations share the factor of not really being able to trade, I'd say that item saturation is at fault, not the quality of the gear the merchants offer. The armor is admittedly sub-par, though.

Yeah, to some degree the 1.10 cube recipes addresses this, but it still ignores the bigger problem. Usability is not the only point, being useful is another. Not to mention imo there are too many affixes (and affix range) in D2 that are simply worse than negative, they're boring and doesn't really do anything meaningful. +1 mana??

Think more customizable. What if you could reroll individual mods, or power them up (though it would have to be VERY expensive, considering the current economy, at least for the higher-end stuff). So you could make that +1 mana to ten, to twenty, to thirty, and so on until you have a nice ring.

They're usable in the sense that sure you can re-roll them, but with those kind of affix the ingredients needed to re-roll can be more valuable than the charm itself. (What are you giving up really by re-rolling a +1 mana charm?) It might be more interesting if that charm was useful like say it provides a substantial fire resistance, but by re-rolling you might get lightning resistance. It's not a jump of bad to good outright, rather it depends on the context. If you faced a large group of fire using enemy that previously useful res-fire charm is no longer so. But if you survived the inferno it's still useful against lightning using critters. I'm not saying it should be done like this literally, but you get the general idea.

I'm not sure I understand this one. You want more controllable rerolls? Potentially abusive if they're cheap enough (IE, I'll just keep one charm and cube it with some Els until I get the resistance mod I want, and will thus save inventory (but not lockbox) space).

A potential side effect that I see is a spiral*. You know, kind of like D2 sometimes.;) I need powerful items to defeat monsters to get to higher areas, so I can obtain more powerful items to defeat stronger monsters in order to get to....zzzzzzzz.

Though done right, it would be close to the perfect never-ending game. Done not so right, it's just something else I do to cure my insomnia.

Yep. I've often said it needs another, harder, difficulty level, preferably without anything more powerful than the stuff in Hell. Even better, no drops at all, so you won't get the whiny item-hunters there.

I don't doubt it's difficulty, (and in the larger picture I actually think D2 came somewhat close, or at least good enough for what it is.) But I don't point the fault at the programming side. Many of the things discussed here to me falls under the design side of things. Many of the things here don't even need computers to be worked out on. It would definitely help, but not immediately necessary.

They did make Diablo II somewhat close. Then they released Lord of Destruction and threw it all out the window. Someone in the Blizzard marketing department realized something; the majority of the public wants, or at least thinks it wants, a relatively easy game that has an obvious internal reward system (IE, high-powered items). Back in the days of yore, before runes existed, and when uniques were gambleable on something like a one in thirty rate, there was balance. And yea, it was good. oskills did away with anything remaining after 1.09. Not that the old days were perfect (although the absence of the Lance helped a good deal, whether intentional or not). But now it's almost like a competition to see who can stack the most aurae. The paladin is no longer needed (but is played because Holy Shield, Blessed Hammer, and Smite are rather...good). The barbarian has been relegated to little more than a jukebox. The Sorceress no longer needs to have a backup element to solo. The list goes on, and at the core, oskills and Aurae-on-equip are at fault.

My my...I get a little ranty when you get me started on balance. Anyway, suffice to say it's not really there...anymore. But it was. Blizzard either screwed up and stopped caring, or made a conscious choice to not care.

Let's take randomization of some maps. It's not totally random, since D2 does use a pattern in their level generation. But I'd hazard a guess that even by just looking at say, a map list, some grid paper, and some conceptual sketches the things Thecla mentioned would start to pop up. You don't need D2 to be fully programmed to realize that hmmm, maybe after a player goes through numerous grass fields in Act 1 all grass fields may start to look alike. And the Catacomb and Jail level looks so similar they start to blur into one after a while.

...

I just see randomization done in this way as another version of 'Fight 100 different enemies!' only to find out that it's really at best 10 enemies, with 10 different pallette swaps. Making more pallette swaps probably won't do anything substantial in terms of impact. Making 10 memorable and distinct areas would probably do more than 100 'different' areas.

Agreed, but would you have waited another year and payed an extra fifty bucks for these (Gogo hyperbole!)?

--me