Guardian Latro (WW Barb) & underwhelming farming in D2R

ffs

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Feb 7, 2017
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Guardian #2 in my HC set sept done (#3 for me overall):

2021-09-25 (20).png

Having quested the Barb in the sept here and there in recent weeks, he was in A5 NM when D2R came around, so I figured finishing him was a nice first dive into the beautiful new graphics of D2R and play through the game casually.

I had thought about Bear initially, but ended up going the very boring WW route in the end. Gear was super basic:

Code:
IK helm (2x PRuby)
IK armor (PRuby)
IK hammer (IAS/ED, IAS/AR jewels)
IK gloves
IK belt
IK boots
Raven (wanted CNBF in HC)
Crap rare ring with some AR, leech, res
Crap rare ammy with some AR, res, stats

Build: 20 WW, BO, Mastery, rest Shout and some FI

Merc: Reaper, Tal, Duriel

Action shots with the fancy new graphics:
2021-09-25 (2).png

The Druid in my sept actually still needed this so that was a welcome sight.

2021-09-25 (3).png2021-09-25 (8).png2021-09-25 (9).png

Having started HC relatively recently, I'll mostly play D2R to continue HC there.

So after finishing this Barb, I promptly moved over some gear and turned him into a Travincal runner. Very basic stuff, I don't even have HLW in HC yet. :D Two Griefs, Enigma, LoH, Arreat's and some random items that help with resists, stats and FCR. I generally prefer Blizzy for Trav (by a long shot), but don't have good stuff for her in HC either yet, and most importantly I figured it's better to go with the more sturdy Barb anyway for HC Trav farming.

As mentioned elsewhere, so far I really don't think D2R is where you want to be when doing any kind of "serious farming" in SP. At least that's when assuming others have similar loading times as me, where most types of runs to take at least 5-10 seconds longer, mostly just down to those everlasting loading screens...

Anyhow, here's a quick recording of how D2R Travincal runs look like for me... and it's a bit painful, unless you like to stare at opening fiery doors. ;) I settled for this map even though it's not super amazing, I was happy to see it within 45 minutes or so because the rolling process is of course very slow as well.


So unless there's some way to improve the loading times, I guess it's better stick to legacy D2 for magic/rune finding. :) I was thinking about moving my untwinked 99er HC Barb who's currently around 97.5 to D2R, just because Nihlathak runs in legacy D2 have this terrible S&E lag anyway... haven't properly tested D2R Nihl runs yet, but I'm not holding my breath..

Anyhow, see you guys around. :)
 
Congrats on the guardian!!

Regarding farming, maybe it's time for multi-target maps? :)
 
Heh yeah that probably makes it less annoying and may be worthwhile, if nothing else just psychologically :) although personally I like to build characters for specific targets. Also you'd still have those loading times when switching areas. :/

Based on my initial experiences probably Barb is better off than most other classes in D2R specifically, just because he gets a lot of his efficiency from horking and tends to have somewhat slower run times anyway. So proportionally it's not a complete catastrophe. For example when looking at Pit, AT, Travincal farming, Sorcs need very fast run times to even be "competitive" with Barb... slower loading/menu times are even more painful for them.
 
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Interesting write up and some absolutely amazing action shots. Will be fun to see the rest of this sept.
 
I saw multiple threads that recommend to install D2R on SSD to improve loading speed, maybe worth checking?
 
wow those loading times are terrible. mine are ok so far in act1.

edit: i guess the boost to expirience gain with anni kinda makes up for the time loss due to loading screens. atleast when it comes to exp farming xDD
 
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I saw multiple threads that recommend to install D2R on SSD to improve loading speed, maybe worth checking?
That is with an SSD. :D In the meantime I also tried fiddling with system settings for higher performance and running on low D2R graphics settings... it improved things a little bit at least, although still far from satisfactory when thinking of any kind of tournament situation. :)
wow those loading times are terrible. mine are ok so far in act1.

edit: i guess the boost to expirience gain with anni kinda makes up for the time loss due to loading screens. atleast when it comes to exp farming xDD
Just progressing through the game was perfectly fine for me too, it's just for runs where you switch areas frequently that the seconds pile up a little too much for my liking. Seems switching acts in particular increases loading times, e.g. entering Travincal from A3 town is a little faster.
 
thats a huge turn off.

but on the other hand i dont think there is a going back for me. the graphics just hurt my eyes sooooo bad now xD
 
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I'd rather wait an hour every time I play than go back to 800 x 600 resolution.
 
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Hehe depends, for general gameplay I agree, I'm just talking about dedicated farming such as during MF or RF tournaments, or indeed 99ing. Curious as to how your Nihl runs turn out @Pax1990. For me the S&E lag down there is terrible in any case, so maybe D2R is not too bad in this specific case. I currently can't test it properly and probably will be a while before I forward a character that's suitable for Nihl running.

In the end, if for example 98-99 takes 200 hours instead of 100 hours due to loading times, I wouldn't mind 800x600. I mean after all most of us came back from D3 to "ugly" D2 at some point. :D
 
I will post about it as soon as i run nihla in d2r.

But if you count +5 seconds to your run for the worse load time thats about 18 hours more at 13000 nihla runs. So yea pretty bad but i dont think its gonna be +100 hours.
Considering iam playing my barb for 2 years now 18 more hours dont sound so bad if i can enjoy all the other advantages d2r brings . more time to enjoy the nice graphics xD
 
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Congrats on your guardian

Some great footage

How was questing through the WSK and durance does look more dark and feel more dangerous in Hell than in D2L

Are your load times are affected by map discovery, graphics setting etc?
 
How was questing through the WSK and durance does look more dark and feel more dangerous in Hell than in D2L
Felt pretty much the same as legacy D2. :) The game is a little dark overall even with max brightness both in system and game settings, but it's fine overall.
Are your load times are affected by map discovery, graphics setting etc?
Map discovery doesn't play a role, graphics settings "maybe". As mentioned above, to me it felt like going to lowest settings in D2R helped a little, but even if actually helps the difference is small either way.

But don't want to complain too much, the game is awesome really, just not well suited for max efficiency farming. In every other way it's really enjoyable, to me at least.
 
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I googled and was looking for a solution to the loading time problem. I found some tipps to improve the performance of the ssd. Have you tried playing with the settings? I will test some stuff in the evening. Mabey i can reduce the loading time a little bit. Every second less would be awesome.
 
Huge congrats! Great accomplishment and write up and I really like the screenshots!

Has this already been on the new laptop? I really hope that loading times will get better with future patches!
 
I really hope that loading times will get better with future patches!

Yea I hope so too. And I just noticed, that my loading times when starting a game into act4 are only 3-4 sec and not 10 sec like in act5. You are also able to move during the loading screen and alot of players are complaining that they are getting killed by monsters during the loading time. I hope they fix this asap.
 
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