A long time ago, when we played single player rpgs, action games, etc, you had a set path to take. You could do lots of stuff, but ultimately, you could only kill Bob the Big Demon once and get The Sword of Infinite Eternal Beatdowns once per game.
Most people play d2 as a farm game. In multiplayer, that's certainly the case. You do exp runs, etc, get better gear, make twinks, etc. Ultimately, the game loses the higher purpose and becomes a simple "gain level"/"get item" program.
The 'higher purpose' is to defeat baal in hell difficulty, one time, to get your title and complete the game.
If you look at diablo 2 /players 1 like an actual epic fantasy game (don't laugh), then spending 20 hours to clear each act on hell difficulty makes sense. You're bludgeoning through the forces of evil, slowly, but surely clearing a path towards your ultimate goal.
So it takes 5 hours to clear the worldstone keep. That sounds fair to me, it is afterall the final area of the game.
The problem with this, of course, is that there's no way to save game state. Waypoints are really halfassed. I mean, really halfassed. If you go back to a previous act while playing single player, but in a new game... you can redo the entire act. Rekill all the bosses. Even the big bad boss you just killed in the last play session. Danger, walls of the virtual world crumbling.
Item drops. Certainly runes and uniques should be rare. A 1/1000 chance of getting a unique would be perfectly fair in a single player game. Afterall, if it's an item you can't use, you just sigh, sell it, and hope the next one is The Necromancer's Guide to the Galaxy so you can benefit from it. But no, items can be traded, because single player = multiplayer. If each person is guaranteed (by the odds) to get 50 uniques by the time they clear act 5 hell, then you stick 200000 players together, there won't be anything unique about uniques.
Many people ask how difficulty should be balanced. The simple answer is that blizzard #$%&ed up horribly by making single player and multiplayer the same thing. If you have a character that is comfortable soloing in 8 player games, and pair him with 7 other people (who can all presumably solo in 1-8 player games as well), what challenge is there? What tactics are there when everyone can simply run over everything? It's a novelty. "We are co-operating!"
And back to the 'virtual walls collapsing' train of thought. Does anybody else feel ridiculous changing difficulty levels on the fly while playing single player? Hm, 1 player is too easy, let's turn on 4 players. Wow, this section is hard, let's set it back to 1. Holy crap, this new skill kills everything in one hit even in 4 players, let's ramp it up to 8!
The ability to set /players in single player is nice in that you can increase the challenge for strong characters, or simply level faster. But, consider this. Using even /players 4, especially /players 8, a character can reach level 25 in act 2 easily. In classic diablo, I've finished act 4 with characters lower level than that. You're not supposed to have fire wall when you kill andariel. You're not supposed to frenzy duriel to death. The council was not supposed to have to contend with Lightning fury.
Virtual walls caving in.
So, I guess what I'm saying is... the game tried to make multi and single player interchangable, and it failed miserably. Single player should have had a persitant world with a fixed difficulty level and unlimited storage space. Good gear should be several times more common than it is now.
Multiplayer should be as it is now, only balanced for the very best equipped characters or for parties. You should have difficulty in late nightmare and hell difficulty if you are playing multiplayer without multiple players.
And if you don't like that... why are you playing the game? When you throw the absolute best gear on a character and say "See how well this build works? I can do anything and it's trivial", you miss the point...
edited to add that, of course, a single player character would be able to start a new game if they so desired, because running into an impossible situation would be inappropriate. Even diablo 1, with the extreme difficulty of single player, allowed you to do that.
Most people play d2 as a farm game. In multiplayer, that's certainly the case. You do exp runs, etc, get better gear, make twinks, etc. Ultimately, the game loses the higher purpose and becomes a simple "gain level"/"get item" program.
The 'higher purpose' is to defeat baal in hell difficulty, one time, to get your title and complete the game.
If you look at diablo 2 /players 1 like an actual epic fantasy game (don't laugh), then spending 20 hours to clear each act on hell difficulty makes sense. You're bludgeoning through the forces of evil, slowly, but surely clearing a path towards your ultimate goal.
So it takes 5 hours to clear the worldstone keep. That sounds fair to me, it is afterall the final area of the game.
The problem with this, of course, is that there's no way to save game state. Waypoints are really halfassed. I mean, really halfassed. If you go back to a previous act while playing single player, but in a new game... you can redo the entire act. Rekill all the bosses. Even the big bad boss you just killed in the last play session. Danger, walls of the virtual world crumbling.
Item drops. Certainly runes and uniques should be rare. A 1/1000 chance of getting a unique would be perfectly fair in a single player game. Afterall, if it's an item you can't use, you just sigh, sell it, and hope the next one is The Necromancer's Guide to the Galaxy so you can benefit from it. But no, items can be traded, because single player = multiplayer. If each person is guaranteed (by the odds) to get 50 uniques by the time they clear act 5 hell, then you stick 200000 players together, there won't be anything unique about uniques.
Many people ask how difficulty should be balanced. The simple answer is that blizzard #$%&ed up horribly by making single player and multiplayer the same thing. If you have a character that is comfortable soloing in 8 player games, and pair him with 7 other people (who can all presumably solo in 1-8 player games as well), what challenge is there? What tactics are there when everyone can simply run over everything? It's a novelty. "We are co-operating!"
And back to the 'virtual walls collapsing' train of thought. Does anybody else feel ridiculous changing difficulty levels on the fly while playing single player? Hm, 1 player is too easy, let's turn on 4 players. Wow, this section is hard, let's set it back to 1. Holy crap, this new skill kills everything in one hit even in 4 players, let's ramp it up to 8!
The ability to set /players in single player is nice in that you can increase the challenge for strong characters, or simply level faster. But, consider this. Using even /players 4, especially /players 8, a character can reach level 25 in act 2 easily. In classic diablo, I've finished act 4 with characters lower level than that. You're not supposed to have fire wall when you kill andariel. You're not supposed to frenzy duriel to death. The council was not supposed to have to contend with Lightning fury.
Virtual walls caving in.
So, I guess what I'm saying is... the game tried to make multi and single player interchangable, and it failed miserably. Single player should have had a persitant world with a fixed difficulty level and unlimited storage space. Good gear should be several times more common than it is now.
Multiplayer should be as it is now, only balanced for the very best equipped characters or for parties. You should have difficulty in late nightmare and hell difficulty if you are playing multiplayer without multiple players.
And if you don't like that... why are you playing the game? When you throw the absolute best gear on a character and say "See how well this build works? I can do anything and it's trivial", you miss the point...
edited to add that, of course, a single player character would be able to start a new game if they so desired, because running into an impossible situation would be inappropriate. Even diablo 1, with the extreme difficulty of single player, allowed you to do that.
*Pren_LL-AB
USEast HC
Dark_Mutterings (Necromancer)
Doug_Winger (Wearbear)
Heroic career and 1.10 aspirations cut tragically short because NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING WITH A 22.2K CONNECTION WHY DOES GOD HATE ME.
USEast HC
Dark_Mutterings (Necromancer)
Doug_Winger (Wearbear)
Heroic career and 1.10 aspirations cut tragically short because NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING WITH A 22.2K CONNECTION WHY DOES GOD HATE ME.