the_mad_poster's Journal: Playing Diablo II Always Reminds Me Why...

I quit playing the last time.

Don't get me wrong, Diablo II is a fun game for what it is. It's an enjoyable experience, watching your character level up, gain all sorts of new equpiment and skills.... die at the hands of a horde of three foot munchkins with kitchen knives...

And that really sums up the D2 experience. You get this big, beefy hero slinging arrows and swords and magic and then you turn a corner and BAM YOU'RE DEAD.

Why? Because you were ill-prepared for the journey ahead? Because you lacked the necessary skill to negotiate the new terrain?

No, because Blizzard's idea of making the game harder starts and ends with cramming as many of the most annoying, hard-to-reach enemies as they can into one tiny spot where there's no room to fight, run, or think. How many times my Barbarian turned a corner only to face eight or nine of those stupid skeleton mages, all slinging cold blasts that froze him and prevented him from responding or running, I couldn't tell you. And you can't just prepare for that kind of thing unless you maintain four different sets of equipment because Blizzard's brilliant programming team set the game up so that in any one area, one level will be completely packed with cold-equipped enemies, the next with poison, the next with lightening, and the last with fire. If it's not that, you'll be bombarded by a hundred of some stupid little thing that will stand around at a distance shooting arrows or darts or something else at you and then run when you get close, meaning your only option is to either try and lose them or figure out a way to hit them with a ranged weapon which probably won't do enough damage to kill them anyway because of how fast they heal.

Which brings me to the next subject: monster, dungeon, and item creation. Blizzard says these things are done "randomly". This is apparently a code word for "mindlessly" because I encountered one of those wonderful nearly invincible enemies today while playing the game.

It was a ghost type unique creature. It had Stone Skin and it was regenerating so fast that every hit of my 15-36 life-stealing Crystal Sword was healed before I could hit him again. Ultimately, I was fortunate enough to be carrying a bad ass short bow that does 20 poison damage over 2 seconds, and after - I shit you not - 13 minutes of running backwards through the level and shooting this motherfucker I managed to kill it.

I got a worthless jewel, a healing potion, and a mana potion. Nice. Thanks for the reward for defeating such a difficult creature.

And, you know, for a game that's most complex maneuver involves holding the Shift key and clicking a mouse button, Blizzard sure fucked up the controls.

I always love when I'm trying to run from the enemy and my Barbarian instead goes barreling forward right into the face of two dozen angry liches and kicks open a jug as his final, heroic action. Way to go, meathead, that one will be chiseled right into your tombstone with all the reverance it deserves.

I mean, christ almighty, is it really that difficult to develop a way to clearly shoot a bow and arrow at a certain angle? I mean, since the most complicated tactic in this game involves shooting blind down hallways so some batch of dung beetles shooting out electric charges doesn't rip you apart, it would be nice if there were some way to control that activity.

Again, don't get me wrong, Diablo II can be fun in all its simplicity. I just think Blizzard banked a little too much on people being interested solely in that simplicity and overlooked some critical gameplay elements.

Like any actual gameplay.

Strateegery

[cyranoVR]

Diablo ii is a team game...

Sounds like you need to team up with a Paladin with some defensive auras...and perhaps a Sorc with Static Field to take care of those stone skin/self-healing fellas

Unfortunately, all i have right now is a summoning lvl 36 druid :(

Re:zOMG NERD ALRET!

[the_mad_poster]

I wouldn't mind subscription based games if all they were making you pay for was the service - i.e. the bandwidth and transfer and maintenance on the server. But they make you pay so they can profit off you playing the same game every month. I mean, I guess if would be worth $20 a month if the game was completely new every other month or so, but to have to keep paying to play one game? Uh.. no thanks.

Re:zOMG NERD ALRET!

[kesuki]

I can't wait for subscription toothpaste and toilet paper

It's called 'Amway'

Sorry, that goes WAAY back to NETHACK

[mekkab]

And that really sums up the D2 experience. You get this big, beefy hero slinging arrows and swords and magic and then you turn a corner and BAM YOU'RE DEAD

Sorry, that really sums up the NETHACK experience. Everything else just derives from it.

Re:Sorry, that goes WAAY back to NETHACK

[daniil]

Sorry, that really sums up the NETHACK experience.

My Nethack experience is summed up in these famous last words of yet another unknown hero: "I can beat them."

Munchkins

[whiteranger99x]

Personally, I hated the little bastard shamans that NOT ONLY revived the other little bastards, but also if you got too close, they'd spew fire point blank and barbeque my HP down to 0 in seconds. :|

I may have to reinstall that game to frustrate myself again