I finished Diablo tonight, in Normal mode, with now-25th level warrior Mirado.
- I'd forgotten that when you kill Diablo you just go to a cutscene, and then are returned to town. I'm glad I didn't need to mop up all of those teleporting wizards . . . but still, it feels very abrupt.
- The final levels were tough - it took a lot of trips, lots of potions, and almost bankrupted my guy in the process. So many witches. Sooooooo many witches. Tough when you're a melee guy without Teleport and without either mana or life steal.
- I restarted in Nightmare. Should be fun, but Hell mode is where it's really fun. I miss the days of using a trainer program to make a 50th level dude, use it to make a Hell-mode game, and dumping a too-low-level guy into it to try and survive. Ah, the good old days of hacking stuff to make it as hard as possible. I expected the early levels of Nightmare to be a bit of a slog, but at least the loot is worth more sold.
Fun game. I'm glad I messed around and got it working.
Does kinda highlight some of the differences between Felltower and Diablo though. In Diablo there is never not a low level area to go grind in if you start newbie character... but also being procedural, you can't really map it, and it's all the same trash mobs over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
ReplyDeleteWhich is why, even though I played it through with each class, I only ever played it through whit each once. Same with D2. And had there been really anything better to play when D2 came out, I probably would have played that instead of replaying D2 six more times...
Have to give Diablo props though. Even though Diablo was a rough fight, no matter what class you played, he was doable. In D2 I had several struggle classes that if you "built them wrong" Diablo would just faceroll you with no chance. I had to go back to the Outer Steppes or the Plains of Despair and grind up a bunch more levels and do some slight class rebuilding.
Of course, in both games once I beat Big D, never had a problem with the expansion stuff that came after (I know Hellfire can be accessed before fighting Diablo, but I'd completed the game with all the main characters before Helffire came out, so it was just the Monk I hadn't played... and I never knew about editing the game for Barbarian and Bard until today)..
I hear you on the repetition. I probably won't do multiple playthroughs from level 1 with the same kind of character . . . probably. I do want a semi-mindless procedural game with lasting benefits to each individual session of play . . . and it hits the spot. I may install D2 + the expansion at some point. I may not. D2 is excellent, but there is so much design thought you need for the builds. I don't miss choosing poorly on my level-up plan and suffering accordingly. I had multiple guys nerfed during play back in the day, too. That won't happen now that I know of, but it does mean I'm a bit leery to do anything except find a premade build and copy it so I don't find out I wasted skill points.
DeleteWith D2 you really don't have to worry about "wrong build", until you hit the big man himself. I had 'struggle' builds with Diablo (the main boss pre-expansion) because I built several classes to be "lawnmowers", that is to just chew through the mobs, which meant with all them (except Barbarian) when I hit a level boss, my 'faceroll the mobs' routine came to a sudden stop. I could still deal with those bosses (with the Barbarian they weren't even challenges*) but Diablo is a whole nother class of difficult higher. So when I'd hit him, I'd have to grind a bit to build up a "boss" killing skill, because almost every class has a split† in their main skill path; mob killing or boss killing. And since I'm not interested in 'grind-a-thons' I built for mob killing and raced through the game every time.
DeleteAfter my first two times defeating Diablo (first as Barbarian, then as Necromancer), I'd start rebuilding for Big D with the classes as I got to him so I could "gently grind" the last levels, instead of having to go back a few zones and spend like 10+ levels grinding. It meant horde mobs were slightly more challenging, but Diablo was actually doable, difficult but doable, when I'd reach him instead him just kersplatting me instantly or my attacks just being ignored because he regenned so fast.
* The Barbarian just mowed through everything, often I'd hit a boss and not even realize I'd fine red misted them until after. Only had two difficult bosses, the first mini-boss Raven (the undead Amazon in the graveyard) because she moves so fast as a melee class you have to catch her to hit her, and Big D himself who shrugged off my attacks and would tow-shot the Barb.
† A few classes, particularly the Sorcerer can do both at the same time, so there is less of a "what path to do what", in the Sorc's case, it's do you want to kill with Fire or Ice? Burninate or Freeze? Both do good mob killing and boss killing (though sometimes the boss killing is slow, but doable).
Also note, I'm pretty sure you can rebuild your characters now once per difficulty level, so you can lawnmover up to the final few levels, then switch skill paths over to boss killing in prep for Big D. Or just mostly build for boss killing and toss a few points in horde killing so hordes don't slog you down too much.
Maybe that's a change that happened along the way. I played D2 right from release. I remember poor choices on the skill tree - Leap past level 1, Iron Skin didn't seem to work particularly well, you could get locked into strikes with one of the Paladin upgrades . . . it's been quite a while but I remember having guys nerfed out from underneath me, making choices that ended up not meshing as well with later choices as they could have . . . ugh. When I'm in more of a Pathfinder kinda mood maybe I'll install D2 and go to town, but I remember too much crap from back in the day to be really excited about it. D1 has just been what I wanted and more.
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