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Patch 2.5 and Season 2: A missed opportunity?

Diablo 2 Resurrected Season 2

I was super excited for Diablo 2 Resurrected.  One of the things I was most excited about was changing the game from the legacy version.  If I want to play D2L.  I’ll load up D2L.  I want adjustments, fixes, and new things to do.  All while I eagerly await some sort of beta invite to hopefully play Diablo IV just a bit sooner than release.  Either way, within the next 6-9 months I’ll have my hands on it!

Season 2 and beyond

We can anticipate having another season or two that will be launched prior to the official release of Diablo 4. I hope we see improvements from this season 2 launch.  I’m going to speculate a Season 3 is the last we will see based on the botched launch date of Season 2.  Not only that, but the patch notes with this seasonal launch are pretty much some stuff added that don’t really bring much compared to the awesomeness of 2.4. Terror Zones and Sunder Charms as the main dish, really?

My last article detailed that I strongly dislike Sundered Charms.  TLDR Version:   Immunities are something I love about Diablo 2.  It makes you think about how you are going to handle this with a build, and you can prepare.  Really this is only a solo player issue because as soon as you get a second party member, unless they are the same elemental focus as you, it is pretty much nothing to fret about.

Terror Zones:  The general idea is to allow people to hit level 99 faster.   Wasn’t that removed in 1.10/1.11 after you could reach 99 in a few hours in 1.09?

They introduced with the 1.10 the experience penalty as seen on the chart below:

D2 exp table

So instead of adjusting those numbers, they spent time creating mini-rift zones that have improved levels for no real purpose as of yet.  If they did something else, other than be the only place to get the new Sunder charms, I suppose they would be cool.  Did the development team really just spend multiple months doing this instead of something the community wanted? I imagine making Sunder charms function took a bit of work, but I could be way off, and it is a simple priority fix in a line of code.

Terror Zones

Terror Zones could have been very rewarding:  You made a unique item that changed how immunities function.  How about ramping up and making them a great place to find things not available anywhere else across the board?  Changing up the ranges of some of the modifiers on rares?  Cruel is 250-350%, prismatic is 26-35%, and Skill tabs can spawn on rare amulets.  You could have made a whole bunch of cool items dropped and made people feel like chasing them is their best route to finding sweet loot. Yes, it would require modifying monster drops and making a couple more tables, but the end result would have been phenomenal no doubt.

Rune Words?

How about new Rune words with the new season as previously discussed was the plan for each new season?  Unless they plan to at the last second surprise the community, it isn’t happening.  How about fixing some of the unique items to be usable on a character at appropriate levels and adding a bit of power to them as detailed in my speculation article of 2.5 back in early August?

I get it. This game isn’t about magic finding day after day.  It is about rune finding and base item finding for the majority of people since 90% of unique items get no love from the vast majority of the community.  Heck, when I do tournaments, I am banking on making a rune word, because even with 200% MF I’m better off increasing my survivability and kill speed to find runes and make those rune words that’ll get me those small boosts.

Final notes

Let’s be real.  I doubt they can build a new zone or area without major issues as it was built on top of the previous engine.  Maps could open portals as done in some mods as that would be a doable endeavor as the engine would support it and you don’t need to make any new graphics, just code in the command, and items are easy to add in.  It is also easy to add specific items to areas and give maps specific drop tables that could drop new items or specific items.

I also acknowledge that Diablo 4 testing is ramping up and this game is going to see a decrease in playtime in the next year.  But I also know that we should have Season 2 and look forward to Season 3 as well with both being amazing prior to the launch of Diablo 4.  Season 2 looks like a missed opportunity in my eyes.  Cool to ding 99 without a major grind, but that shouldn’t be all. As always, if you can’t figure out how to make some of the unique items usable, hit me up Blizzard as I can take a stab at making a lot of them usable until the inevitable rune word takes over and slaughters that puny weapon, chest, shield, or helm slot.  I would also love to fix a few of the sets too.


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