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Diablo II Set to Receive its First Balance Patch & Content Update in 12 Years.
Now that it’s been Diablo 2 Resurrected, it’s time to reinvigorate it. Diablo II’s last meaningful balance-focused patch arrived on March 23, 2010. That was to be the evermore version of the classic action RPG. And yet, more than 21 years after Diablo II first launched, that’s not the end of the story. That version of the game – 1.13c to be precise – was the foundation upon which Diablo II: Resurrected was built. That game took the underlying game logic of the original and laid a 3D engine laid over the top, and the goal was to keep the gameplay (almost) exactly as it once was.
Now, however, Blizzard has announced a new patch coming to Diablo II: Resurrected that will once again take the experience somewhere new. Patch 2.4 – which will be coming to a PTR (Public Test Realm) on PC early next year – is set to make significant changes.
The changes will be gear around opening up new opportunities. The team isn’t interest in messing with things that work, and will instead focus on giving players more options. All seven playable classes are being rework to some extent capitalizing on the game’s impressively open class design to elevate class fantasies that aren’t currently viable in high-level play. A few examples of builds the team has focused on, for instance, are melee-powered Amazons, martial arts-focused Assassins, and ax throwing Barbarians.
Diablo 2 Resurrected- What has to change?
The re-introduction of Ladder Play (seasonal play), meanwhile, will introduce new Rune Word items, which are high-level armor pieces and weapons crafted using hard-to-find pocketable items. Set items are being buffed too, and Mercenaries (AI support characters) are being reworked.
These changes are a big deal considering how sacrosanct the original game was during Resurrected’s development, but it makes sense. The light touch tweaks that were made for Resurrected, such as (optional) auto-gold pick-up and adding a skill bar for PC players, were well-received, and the team has had many months of community feedback too.
“The first stage was, let’s launch the game, have it be successful, and make sure that all the bugs and all the kinks and all the server stuff… was taken care of and smoothed out before moving on to stage two,” says Matthew Cederquist, Senior Game Producer. “I think we took the right approach, making sure everything was good before making changes. There was such an abundance of feedback that came through too, it was almost overwhelming. Players still love this game, 20 years later, and want to see updates. We took that and ran with it.”
Let’s dig into the changes in more detail.
Class Balance Changes
As mentioned, the changes to the seven playable classes (Amazon, Assassin, Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Paladin, and Sorceress). Won’t alter what they can already do but instead will foster new viable builds.
“Conservative is a good way to put it,” says Robert Gallerani, Studio Design Director. “We’re taking baby steps… which is why you’ll notice that nothing’s being nerf.”
The Amazon changes are being describ as melee-focused. With skills like Impale and Fend highlight as two that are being buff to increase damage potential. There’ll be changes to synergy requirements too. Meaning you might not need to put a decent number of skill points into a synergy skill purely for the buff it can give.
High-level play Assassins in Diablo 2 Resurrected are usually all about placing sentries and traps and keeping your distance from mobs. With Patch 2.4, the martial arts skill tree is getting a rework specifically to offer up more choice. Not only that but lesser use traps are set to get a damage scaling buff, which means more options than simply going for Lightning Sentries every time.
For the Barbarian, in addition to the aforemention Throwing Barbarian (Double Throw and Throwing Mastery) build, Leap Attack and Grim Ward are being look into. For the Necromancer, Skeletal Mages and lesser-used golems are getting a rework alongside bone skills for damage reduction.
Druid, meanwhile, is getting what sounds like a substantial rework of fire skills (right down to timings) and other elemental skills. In addition to this, the pet side of the Druid, the summons, is being buff with a mind towards high-level Hell runs. This means that the Druid’s pets should be getting increase health, higher damage output, and some new synergies.
The Paladin’s cool-sounding but not that cool Fist of the Heavens is getting a buff of some sort alongside Offensive Auras. For the Sorceress, skills like the Hydra will be improve whilst the team is looking to make the Inferno skill “less clunky” to use.
Diablo 2 Resurrected Mercenaries Rework and Set Item Buffs
Another area the team is focusing on is Mercenaries and making all of these recruitable AI characters useful across all difficulties. This means buffing their skills and base stats, with new Rune Words also supporting the lesser-used Mercenaries. Anyone other than Act II’s Desert Mercenary.
It’s a significant move. Especially for those that struggle to keep their Mercenaries alive as they progress onto Nightmare and Hell. The goal here is to try and service the player base that sits in the middle. Between casual and high-end experts. This philosophy is also driving the changes that are being made to some of the sets found in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
“Diablo 2 Resurrected is easy to get into and hard to master,” Matthew Cederquist says. “And there is a middle point that’s a little vague. That’s where the set items come into play. We wanted to be able to identify which ones were solid and didn’t need changing at all. We put a couple of the others in front of the community and they were like, ‘oh yeah, I instantly sell those’. When something like that happens, you probably want to design them a little differently.”
An example of a set that isn’t changing is Cow King’s Leathers; a useful collection of green goodness you could work into any number of builds. Gear that’s confirm to be getting a rework is Death’s Garb, which currently falls into that “instantly sell” category.
This the Season for Ladder Play
Ladder Play will also be coming with patch 2.4, but this is no great surprise. As it announce as a post-launch feature when Resurrected was first revealed. It will take a form that’s very familiar to old-school Diablo II players – a race to level 99. Each new Ladder Play period generally lasts for a few months, and players start from scratch at the beginning of each season. Ladder Play encompasses four modes covering vanilla Diablo II, the Lord of Destruction expansion, and Hardcore versions of both.
Which has historically seen the debut of Rune Words in Diablo 2 Resurrected and that tradition will continue with Resurrected. Ladder Play will be the only place where the new Rune Words coming in Patch 2.4 will drop. Focusing on Rune Words as opposed to new uniques is an ingenious way to introduce new and powerful items, as it relies on crafting, negating the need to alter things like drop rates covering countless variations or possible loot.
Diablo 2 Resurrected Introducing the PTR
For the development team, remaining true to the original Diablo II and its Lord of Destruction expansion. So even though patch 2.4 sounds a little bit like a Trojan Horse-style 180 on that idea. It was only after the positive reception from fans that the team felt they could “start acting on a lot of those theories and ideas we had through development.”
“When we were very first thinking of remastering this game I went out to these storage lockers around the town”. Matthew Cederquist says. “And they had all of these handwritten books and notebooks, ancient things that you had to dust off. But within them were the original thoughts of the designers. So when you’re looking to change something that’s so many years old, you don’t want to simply add something because you think it might be cool. These changes hearken back to what the original team created. Getting to see what they were thinking, we put ourselves in that position and then built upon that.”
Diablo 2 Resurrected Patch 2.4 will roll out early this year on PC in PTR form. It promises to help keep Diablo II vital as we move through 2022. And best of all? If all goes well, this could be a sign of exciting things to come. If you have any other information requests, feel free to contact us on web-chat, Facebook. Golden Horse Gaming is always open to suggestions and feedback from the community and customers.
