While it’s definitely true that Marvel Heroes doesn’t have the graphical fidelity of a DII Resurrected or Path of Exile 2, I still think that it looks quite good in places. Especially the various set pieces scattered across the story campaign, like this rune pattern created by the Bifrost for example, look pretty awesome.
Speaking of the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge connecting Himinbjorg and Odin’s palace looks great, too, and also grants a nice view of Asgard’s lower levels.
I really like how the game manages to convey a sense of height despite being essentially two-dimensional. When you’re running across rooftops it really feels like you could fall down at any moment if not careful.
They also did a good job with getting the locations to look right. The scene above is supposed to take place in New York City, and I actually would have guessed that if I hadn’t known.
This, on the other hand, is Madripoor, which would be located in south east asia if it was a real place. I’ve not yet been to Singapore myself, but I’ve absolutely seen places in Vietnam and Hong Kong that strongly resemble this.
This was taken somewhere in Asgard, I believe, and I just find it pretty. It’s also uncharacteristically tranquil for a game that usually has more action and mayhem going on than basically any other I’ve played.
The bulk of the action in Marvel Heroes takes place outdoors, but I like the few interior sets we get to see a lot. They’re all quite detailed and, shall we say, tastefully decorated.
Of course once the action starts they get absolutely shredded to pieces within seconds. I do appreciate having the ability to destroy a game’s environment (anyone else looking forward to Battlefield 6, by the way? Oh, look, Naithin does!), but here it’s almost a pity to wreck these beautiful places.
Almost.
This cold room gave me lots of Predator 2 vibes, but unfortunately (or fortunately…) there weren’t any invisible, discus-throwing aliens around.
In hindsight, the screenshot I used when talking about loot explosions in my first impressions piece (after a nine-year hiatus we can call them “first” impressions, no?) was much too tame of an example. So here’s a better one, taken in Castle Doom’s throne room right after whupping the good Doctor’s ass. I still get a kick out of gobbling up those XP bubbles.
The wanton destruction wasn’t on me this time, in case you’re wondering. What can I say, that’s what you get for messing around with the fabric of the multiverse.
So, yeah, doesn’t look too shabby, now does it?
Nevertheless this will probably be my last post about Marvel Heroes for a while. Not because I don’t enjoy it anymore, but a) I’ll be on vacation starting tomorrow, and b) the other day I finally caved and bought a game I’d been very intrigued about for quite a while, and so far I’m really liking it.
Another week, another character for me to play in Marvel Heroes – this time around it’s Moon Knight’s turn. Once again I was inspired to try out someone new by seeing him do his thing in the live-action adaptation made by Marvel Studios.
I couldn’t tell you whether it’s actually any good as an adaptation because I know nothing about the comics, but the show in and of itself is absolutely brilliant in my opinion.
It’s very much carried by Oscar Isaac, who plays the character(s) to perfection. The way he switches from Marc Spector to Steven Grant or vice versa in a heartbeat, completely changing his accent and speech melody, as well as his whole demeanor and body language, is nothing short of amazing. Sometimes you can see the transition in his eyes alone! I liked him as an actor before, but this performance easily made him one of my favourites.
As I’m a big fan of ancient egyptian mythology, Moon Knight’s adventures also get bonus points from me for their themes and setting. In any case, I can strongly recommend watching the show if you haven’t yet.
“Oh, the idiot’s in control…” “I heard that!” *angrily shakes his fist*
So what about the ARPG’s take on Khonshu’s avatar?
I think he’s really fun. Unlike some other heroes he isn’t more or less locked into either melee or ranged combat, as he’s got various abilities of both flavors at his disposal. He can even morph some of them into one or the other via his talents and traits, which are unlocked from level 32 onward.
When fighting up close he uses weapons like truncheons, nunchucks and a bo staff, while depending on his signature crescent blades for ranged combat. Strangely, some skills have him shoot those blades out of a pair of pistols. I don’t know how that’s supposed to work, but I assume that it’s canon.
“Did he just throw the gun??” Well, not exactly…
His unique resource is called Khonshu’s Favor. It starts out empty, and some abilities build it up over time. Once at 100% he can use either of two spenders (or both at the same time if specced for it), which completely depletes all favor and gives him big buffs for quite a while.
What’s great about this is that most of his skills need no resources whatsoever, so you can basically use everything off cooldown, and spam those that don’t have one endlessly.
His signature ability is a barrage of very quick attacks with a big finisher at the end. This one, too, can be switched between melee and ranged, and while the former does more damage I prefer the latter as it’s much easier (and also safer) to use. You can “weave” it around a bit if you’re quick, but in essence it’s a single-target skill, which is quite unusual for a signature. The upside is that it literally melts bosses…well, not literally, but…you know what I mean…and that’s a trade-off I’m very willing to make.
His Ultimate, however, is by no means lacking in room clearing capability, as it peppers a pretty large area with gunfire and rockets for 20 seconds straight. You can still move and attack with your other skills in the meantime, too. Great stuff.
Call in the Batwing…err…I mean, the “Moon Copter”
I gotta say, I really appreciate how unique every hero I’ve tried up to now plays and feels. I believe they doubled down on this when they released the BUE (Biggest Update Ever) in January ’17, and while that patch was met with a ton of criticism by the playerbase as well, I think they did a good job in this regard at the very least.
I also really like how much control I have over each character’s specific playstyle. The aforementioned traits – it’s basically a talent tree that lets you choose one out of three options every few levels – offer more substantial alterations to a hero’s kit than most games do. Said switching between melee and ranged capabilities, or giving an attack a huge damage boost and additional DoT in exchange for a longer cooldown are just a few examples.
Granted, I’ve only scratched the surface so far, what with 58 more heroes waiting to be played. But, again, the ones I have given a shot are really unique and fun, and Moon Knight is no exception.
“What are we wearing??” “She said I needed a suit.” “Yeah, the ceremonial armor from Khonshu’s temple, not psycho Colonel Sanders!”
Basically the only thing that he’s lacking is a high-quality costume based on his signature armor from the show – which is no surprise of course, as the game was shut down five years before that even came out. Fortunately the one I’m wearing on all screenshots seen in this post, based on Steven Grant’s version of MK (known as “Mr. Knight”, I believe), comes pretty close to the one Oscar Isaac wears when Steven’s in charge, so that’s at least something.
Anyway, that’s enough for today. Now please go and visit Project T.A.H.I.T.I., so you too can play this awesome game again (or for the first time). The more the merrier!
My Marvel movie watching binge is still in full swing. Having concluded the Avengers timeline…Thanos timeline…whatever you wanna call it, I’m now revisiting the few good flicks operating outside of that. Ok, if you also count the X-Men franchise it’s actually more than a few, but I’ve watched those too recently to go back to them yet again.
So I’m mostly talking about stand-alone entries now. For example, I still quite enjoy Punisher: War Zone (rest in peace, Ray Stevenson), and just the other day I had an absolute blast with 2018’s Venom once again.
Since I’d just hit level cap with the Punisher in Marvel Heroes I thought, well, what better time to give everyone’s favourite symbiote a spin. Boy, what a great decision that was.
WE are Venom!
Like many heroes (or villains…depending on who you ask, I guess) he has his own mechanics and special resource to go along with it. Actually he has two resources to manage, because some of his abilities consume his own hitpoints, and also deal more damage the less he has left. To make permanently running around on low health feasible he’s a pretty tanky dude, and I’m looking forward to how this feels at higher levels.
His unique resource is called Ichor, and it looks the part. Yuck. Thankfully it starts at full when you enter a level, unlike, say, Scarlet Witch’s Chaos Energy, which has to be built up first (I don’t know her full kit though, so take this with a grain of salt).
Consequently you can go all-in right from the start, spending Ichor as well as hitpoints galore. As long as you weave in abilities that recharge at least one or the other, depending on what you need, you should be good.
Have a nice life
Most importantly, it plays well, and also looks and feels really great. It’s hard to get good screenshots of it, because his powers move so damn fast and twitchy (as they should), but I hope it comes across at least somewhat on the ones I’m showing here.
So many snacks, so little time
Having played a new (to me) hero for a couple of hours now has also highlighted some more aspects of the game where the developers went the extra mile to make each of them unique and fun.
For example, every character has a basic movement ability right from the start. It’s basically a short dash, meant to get out of harm’s way quickly. The Punisher does a forward roll, Captain America lunges with his shield held in front of him, Venom shoots a tendril of ichor and then pulls himself after it. Some are too lazy to move on their own and just teleport.
It gets really crazy at level 10 though, when everyone gets their “travel power”. These aren’t for combat (they even have a short cast-time), but they’re a godsend for traversing the huge maps quickly. And I mean quickly. I really wish every ARPG had something like this, because not only takes it the sting out of any backtracking you might have to do, it’s also fun as hell!
Cap and the Punisher just sprint really fast, Blade, Wolverine and Ghost Rider…well, ride their motorbikes, while Iron Man, Wanda and others fricking fly (Ant-Man rides a flying ant of course)! It’s not just for show either. While they can’t go over higher obstacles like freight containers or buildings, getting to another floor level or from rooftop to rooftop without taking the stairs or bridges is no problem. And as for Venom, well…
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Holy macarony, how awesome is that? I assume Spidey and Carnage do something similar. Mechanically it’s the same as flying, so bonus points for that.
Of course each hero also has their own lore-appropriate ultimate ability. Iron Man activates the House Party Protocol, the Punisher calls in an armored and armed-to-the-teeth van that would make B.A. Baracus blush, and Cap…take a guess…AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!
They’re really powerful, too. To balance that they have a whopping 10 minute cooldown to begin with, but you can shave that down to 7 or so (I think) by upgrading it.
Hell yeah, THAT’S what I’m talking about
Another cute tidbit is how heroes automatically talk to each other when they meet in the hub areas. When I’m standing around with the Punisher and an Iron Man walks by, my guy says “You should stick to making the hardware, Stark, not using it!”, for example.
Sure, stuff like that can get repetitive after a while, but I usually can’t help but chuckle at the amount of snark these guys have for one another. I wonder whether this is where the Overwatch devs took their inspiration from, because those heroes do it in quite a similar fashion.
Now you’ll have to excuse me though, those bad guys aren’t gonna bite off their heads themselves…
I’ve recently felt the urge to re-watch my favourite Marvel flicks once more. As it turns out they really knew how to make fricking awesome movies during the first ten years or so – in my opinion, obviously – and I’ve now binged on over a dozen of them in less than three weeks.
In addition to just enjoying the experience, seeing Cap, Iron Man et al. in action also made me reminisce about a great game that actually let us play all those characters and was really fun while it lasted – Marvel Heroes.
As a fan of both the movies and the ARPG genre I obviously had to check it out back in the day, and while it wasn’t quite as good as Diablo II or Path of Exile I still liked it a lot. They totally nailed the feel of playing those iconic heroes, which is arguably the most important thing to get right for a game with a license like this.
Before I knew it I was investigating the possibility of playing the game in 2025, and lo and behold, there’s actually a number of fan projects in various states of completion and with different server concepts to choose from.
About two hours later (because I first had to procure the right version of the original game client) I’d created an account for Project T.A.H.I.T.I. and started to punch and shoot my way through Hydra’s henchmen once again.
By now I’ve played the Punisher up to level 57, Iron Man to 26 and Cap to 20, and I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t just nostalgia that drew me back to the game – it still holds up really well. Sure, the graphics aren’t that great, and it doesn’t feel as polished and smooth as the aforementioned kings of the genre either, but, again, being able to play these iconic characters totally makes up for that.
Insert obligatory CLANG sound effect
As far as I can tell this is the game just as it was right before its shutdown in 2017, but with a few important distinctions.
Most notably, all heroes are unlocked from the get-go. I haven’t counted, but if memory serves it’s 63 of them, and you can play each and every one to level cap if you so desire without paying a dime. As a matter of fact it’s currently not possible to spend any money period, not even donations are a thing. I don’t know whether that’s going to change once they release the 1.0 version, I guess we’ll see.
Speaking of which, the game is currently in alpha, with the launch slated for “early 2026”, and while they’re saying that there won’t be regular wipes until then, there will be one wipe prior to 1.0 going live.
Due to this, since I’m not one of those ARPG players who basically live for starting over from scratch every few months, I’m probably not going all-in quite yet, but for the time being I’ll continue to play. It’s just that much fun!
Like I said, the heroes feeling absolutely great to play is a big contributor to that. They achieved this by various means. For one, they got the animations and sounds right, especially for the main characters from the movies. Cap’s awesome flying reverse kick (or whatever it’s supposed to be called) from his fight against Batroc looks basically the same in game, and you can almost feel the impact when it hits. Many ability names are winks and nods to the films as well, like Cap’s sprint “On your left” or Iron Man’s 360-degree laser attack “One-Off”.
But wait, there’s more. Many a hero’s kit was specifically designed to fit what they do mechanically. To use the Punisher, my main in 2015 and probably again now, as an example: instead of having a mana/energy gauge and abilities with individual cooldowns he has an ammo system, and his big hitters can only be used a certain amount of times per reload cycle.
Consequently playing him revolves around using his basic MG stafing attack (at my current level it’s a fricking minigun!), which consumes a certain amount of ammo per second, and weaving in his various grenades, rockets, shotguns and whathaveyou until you have, optimally, used up all the things and also expended at least 75% of the ammo. Then you can hit his quick reload with a reduced cooldown, rinse and repeat. I really like this playstyle because it gives me a lot of agency, and aside from his signature-ability I basically never have to wait out any cooldowns.
If this doesn’t sound fun to you, well, there are 62 other heroes to check out, many of whom play very differently.
Instead of energy or ammo the Hulk has a rage meter that starts out empty and has to be filled up before he can smash, Blade needs to keep his bloodthirst in check, and Deadpool…well, he doesn’t need to manage anything. He just kicks ass, and where his ammo gauge should be you just see his logo, which, if you hover over it, says “Awesome 100/100”. Raise this stat (as you would energy), and all of his damage increases, just because. How cool is that?
There’s much variety on offer here, is what I’m saying, so any ARPG connoisseur should find something to enjoy.
Just as important for an ARPG is the loot, and boy, I’d totally forgotten how good the game feels in this regard. It’s quite addicting, really. Now, granted, there’s a lot of crap lying around, too, but after a short while I was already back in the groove of what to pick up and what to hoover in (to automatically be fed to your pet for additional stat bonuses).
There’s also a lot to work towards long-term. For example, each character has a Relic slot. These drop semi-rarely and give pretty minor stat buffs at first glance…until you realize that you can stack up to 1,000 of the same type on top of each other. One thousand! Which means that even at low levels you’ll find stuff that will basically be of use to you until the end of time, which I think is very good game design.
My favourite thing are the XP bubbles (the green ones seen above). It feels so damn satisfying to see them pop out of chests or enemies, then to walk over them and watch the XP rolling in. Sure, some players may find this annoying and unnecessary, but I prefer this over XP just getting added to my total whenever an enemy dies. I don’t know, seeing these bubbles drop and then collecting them somehow makes the whole thing feel more tangible and rewarding to me. Also, it makes the already impressive loot explosions even more ridiculous.
Speaking of loot, a handful of little treasure rooms are spread out over each of the bigger areas. In there you just have to kill two or three groups of enemies to spawn yet another loot chest. I like these a lot because it’s a quick and easy way to grab even more stuff and XP, and more importantly, as their entrances don’t always lie directly on the path to your next main objective, they reward exploration and let me see parts of the map that I’d otherwise miss.
By now I’ve also started to do Terminals and One-Shots again, which are the game’s version of instanced dungeons and…well…bigger dungeons with a bit of story. It’s all quite addicting, really, but in a good way. Just like an ARPG should be.
Long story short, yeah, Marvel Heroes is still a great game, and as far as I’m concerned Project T.A.H.I.T.I. is, in fact, a magical place. I’m here to stay!
For quite some time now there’s something going on in the gaming industry that I just can’t wrap my head around.
On the one hand, many developers and/or publishers try to make us spend all the money nowadays, their methods getting more dubious – often to the detriment of the gaming experience itself – year by year.
But there are also cases where I can’t help but wonder how a game can possibly stay afloat at all, let alone generate profits, with the so-called business model its overlords have chosen for it.
In my opinion ArcheAge Unchained was one of the titles that suffered from and ultimately died because of this. I voiced my concerns in that regard less than a year after its launch, when Gamigo had come forward and admitted that they weren’t generating enough income, so they had to charge for the upcoming expansion despite their initial promise that those would always be free.
Granted, it took another three years before they eventually pulled the plug by merging the Unchained servers with the legacy (i.e. Pay2Win) ones, but the writing was on the wall almost from the beginning.
Conversely, The Secret World was arguably over-monetized at release. It came out with a full box price and a monthly subscription on top, at a time when only the most successful games, or the ones with fiercely loyal fanbases like EVE Online, could still get away with that.
It didn’t take long until Funcom realized their mistake – the subscription went away only six months later. However, aside from that they basically carried on as if nothing had changed, resulting in many players not spending another dime beyond the box price and maybe a cosmetic outfit or two.
What they should have done the moment the decision to ditch the sub was made is to considerably ramp up their production of cosmetics, and also to find additional ways for us to part with our money.
But Mail, I hear you say, you always claim that you hate being nickeled and dimed for every little thing. True, but: when I really love a game I want it to succeed, so that it stays alive and (hopefully) keeps getting better and better for years to come. Thus having reasonable (!) ways to support its continued development is crucial.
What’s more, for basically every game you can always think up a plethora of features that would be nice to have, but not really necessary. Players have proven that they’re willing to spend money on that kind of thing time and again.
Which brings me to…
Diablo 2 Resurrected has been out for almost four years now, and to this day there’s absolutely no way to spend money on it beyond the box price.
Now, I’m obviously very happy that they haven’t taken the least bit of inspiration from their mobile abomination wearing the same brand name. But, again, if we want the game’s future to look bright, additional ways for us to support it financially would surely go a long way.
It’s no rocket science either. Whoever’s in charge of D2R needs to look no further than Path of Exile, which was and apparently remains bloody profitable by selling its players just two kinds of things: cosmetics and stash tabs.
Please deliver me from this mess…
To me the currency tabs were probably the greatest and most game-changing gimmicks that were added to PoE while I was playing it between 2014 and 2019 – and they also introduced fricking housing during that time frame, so, coming from me, you know how much I value a quality of life feature like this when it’s done right.
More stash space in general, preferably with options to name, sort and color-code the individual tabs, is always welcome too of course.
Shouldn’t stuff like that be there right from the start and included with the box price though? If we’re talking about a one and done game that has to be feature-complete when it ships, yes. But, again, amenities like these, which are obviously very nice to have but not strictly necessary, lend themselves very well to generate additional funding for a game that’s supposed to be supported and expanded for years to come.
And as for cosmetics…
Pictured here: Crap Necro
This is what my level 82 Necromancer looks like right now. If you’re thinking I’ve deliberately dressed him up badly for illustration purposes, think again. This is the current high-end gear he’s actually wearing.
Spending a grand total of ten minutes I’ve superficially skimmed some stashes and mules, and compiled an approximation of how I would want him to look like if it wasn’t gonna royally screw up his stats:
Pictured here: Drip Necro
I would happily pay five bucks or so per character to be able to use items just for their looks, while retaining the stat bonuses of that goddamn green panholder he’s wearing on his head in the first picture. If a wardrobe system is too complicated to implement, sell a consumable that turns items into skins, and let us use those to overwrite the look of something else.
I think for them to do something, anything, along those lines is not only wishful thinking on my part, but basically a necessity. Why? Because active development on the game has ground to a halt about two years ago, and I’ll eat my hat if that doesn’t have anything to do with revenue drying up.
I don’t know, maybe there is such a thing as a studio’s big cash cow titles funding the smaller ones, making the latter being profitable unnecessary. Unfortunately the last two decades have made me cynical enough to not quite believe this to be a long-term solution though.
To be fair, Blizzard have kept the original D2 servers’ lights on for a very long time, but still…I can’t help being worried that D2R might suffer the same fate AA Unchained and TSW did, and that would be truly heartbreaking as far as I’m concerned.
So, yes, please shut up and take my money already!
Today marks this here blog’s eighth anniversary, so it’s yet again time to look back on another year of playing and talking about video games.
In doing so two things of note stand out to me.
One, with only a few exceptions the games I’ve played since my last blogiversary are at least ten years old by now. As a matter of fact I’ve just made my return to a title that was released in fricking 2000 – in its original form, anyway.
Granted, it didn’t quite look like this back then
I’ve lamented more than once that all too many modern games are designed with maximizing player retention and monetization in mind. Being actually, you know, fun to play seems to be an afterthought at best.
For example, I liked Zenless Zone Zero quite a lot – for about a month and a half, that is. By then I was already burnt out by all the stuff I was expected to do on both a daily and weekly basis, and even then it wasn’t enough to beef up my characters, their skills and weapons and so on to a satisfactory level. I’m sorry, but I’m done playing games that feel like a second job.
Obviously Diablo II is basically ancient at this point, so there’s luckily no trace of “modern gaming” to be seen, and (much to my surprise) they didn’t mess things up with the release of Resurrected either. Quite the contrary, in fact. So, yeah, I’m having a blast once more, killing shit entirely at my own pace while reveling in the game’s unmatched style and atmosphere as I go.
As per usual I also played quite a lot of Warframe, probably for a total of four to five months this past year. Aside from being an absolutely awesome game it’s also one of the poster childs for Free2Play done right as far as I’m concerned, and while there is a lot of stuff to do I never feel pressured to do anything, which, to me, is a very important distinction.
Another playthrough of The Secret World was also on the agenda. I haven’t finished it yet, but I had a hell of a good time once more. As long as they keep the servers up (fingers crossed) I will revisit this gem time and again for sure.
ZZZ aside Helldivers 2 is by far the newest title I’ve played this year, and fortunately the devs have overcome their initial urge to make an otherwise great game harder and less fun with every patch. My group has picked it back up about a month ago, and it’s a hoot every time we play.
The most recent main update, big enough to almost call it an expansion, added not only new enemy types to the Illuminate faction and a new urban biome – the combination of which resulting in the most epic battles I’ve ever seen in a video game – but also a whole new customization system for primary weapons. Want to unlock less recoil or a bigger magazine for your favourite shooter? Chances are you now can. Great stuff!
Finally got them speedy swimfins, yay!
The second thing of note when looking back on the blog’s eighth year of existence is that, for the first time in quite a while, I had lots of fun playing actual Massively Multiplayer content again.
The catalyst for this was my return to ArcheAge. Not only is the ArcheRage private server rocking a much more player-friendly version of the game when compared to the now defunct official servers, it also has a pretty big and lively community. Participating in the various PvEvP-events and having a really good time isn’t hard at all even without joining a guild and such.
Which is great because, while it really is a lot of fun and all, I’m still not quite ready to commit myself fully to any game’s multiplayer aspect and become a member of a regular gaming-group again – my buddies being the exception, obviously. The drama and toxicity I’ve experienced (or at least witnessed) over the years are still too fresh in my mind, and I just don’t want any of that in my life.
He must be so sick of getting beaten up all the time
Be that as it may, overall I’m quite satisfied with the state of affairs. There are more games to choose from than ever before, not least because the really good ones tend to hang around or even get remastered, so it was never easier to vote with one’s wallet and outright ignore the bad eggs.
Also, many developers seem to have gotten the memo by now that a lot of gamers do like to play with others, but don’t want it to be a big commitment or take up too much of their limited time. I’m still in awe about how quick and reliable the matchmaking in Warframe works, and Helldivers 2 does a pretty good job with that too.
So, yeah, for me as a consumer gaming is in a pretty good spot right now. Here’s to another year of playing stuff and talking about it.
About a week ago Ginger Gaming Mentorreleased a video in which he reminded me of a very important aspect of well designed (i.e. motivating and fun) itemization in RPGs – arguably the most important one, in fact – that I completely forgot to address in my own recent post on the subject.
Actually I didn’t so much “forget” to include it, I just didn’t have this particular design philosophy on my radar as something worth mentioning, because it absolutely feels like a no-brainer to me, one that any RPG worth its salt should adhere to.
I’m talking about the (supposedly) simple concept of item power not being dictated by item level.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let’s have a look at this pretty well known Diablo II item. These are the Magefist unique light gauntlets, a very good pair of gloves for many caster-type builds in the game. As you can see a character needs to be only level 23 or higher in order to equip them.
This is not to be confused with the level of the item itself however. Each piece of gear in D2 has one, but it isn’t actually displayed anywhere. If you really want to know a certain thing’s item level you have to take note of what kind of monster it dropped from, and where.
Let’s say you find a pair of Magefists in early Act III on Normal difficulty, which is the earliest where they can drop due to their treasure class (another stat the game hides from us). If a normal monster drops them in the Great Marsh, for example, the item level will be 21.
Now let’s look at the exact same scenario, only on Hell difficulty. This time around the gauntlets will have an item level of 80. Quite the difference, no?
Aaaaaaaayy have some gloves for youuuuuuuuu…
Here’s the thing though: for all intents and purposes there will be absolutely no difference between the two. This is because an item’s level has no effect whatsoever on its stats. Magical affixes, defense, and in the case of weapons even damage – none of this is determined by item level.
In my earlier post linked above I said about D2:
There’s always something to feel good about. […] You find useful stuff all the time and at all levels.
I believe the detachment of item level and item power is the main reason for this, because whenever you find a good item, it really is a good item. You will never have to feel disappointed and say to yourself “Why oh why did I not find this on my max level character, it’s no good to me at this ilvl!”.
Goblin toes are always great to have, believe it or not
If a game lets you level your characters up to, say, 100, but is designed in a way that only loot dropped by level 90+ monsters can potentially be good enough to actually use at late game…what’s the point of the 90 levels that came before? Why even bother?
For me personally that’s really the biggest turn-off any kind of RPG can have – an itemization that’s completely item level (or, to use the more modern term, gear score) focused, because it eliminates almost any chance to hit big jackpots along the way. Sure, you’ll find items that are good at and around that particular level, but you’ll always know that you’ll have to replace them sooner rather than later. I don’t know about you, but I can’t derive any joy from that.
I’ll rather take my…err…chances…with these
It gets even worse when the power of items you find isn’t just dependent on monster levels, but also capped by the gear you’re currently wearing.
New World has (or had, I don’t keep myself informed about the game) such a system at endgame, and while I didn’t experience it myself because I didn’t play long enough I almost threw up in my mouth when I read about it over at Belghast’s.
In a nutshell, if you had an item with a gear score of 600 equipped in a specific slot, let’s say the headgear, whenever another helmet dropped it could only have a maximum GS of 602 (I’m making up these numbers, but you get the picture), no matter how high level a monster or chest you got it from.
This is stupid on so many levels that I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would think this was a good system. Unless “good” means “players need to grind for a bazillion hours to get the gear they want”, then, yeah, I get it.
Only that it doesn’t just cause gearing up to take a buttload of time. It also forces you to completely screw up your gear choices along the way, because you always have to wear the items with the highest gear score available to you, even if the stats are utter garbage for the build you’re playing. Where’s the fun in that?
Now, even in Diablo II item level isn’t completely meaningless. When stats for magic and rare items are rolled their ilvl determines which affixes are available and how high the bonuses can go – you wouldn’t find a circlet like the one above at level 20, for example. The maximum number of sockets non-magic items can have is determined by ilvl too. Also, quite a few high-end unique and set items just can’t drop at low levels because of their aforementioned treasure class.
And I’m fine with that. I mean, of course levelling up should enable you to find better and better gear, right? I’ve never suggested this shouldn’t be the case. What I am saying is that accumulating your dream gear should be a process that’s stretched out more or less evenly over the whole levelling process, from start to finish, so there’s always something to rejoice at.
Which brings me back to the Magefist gloves. I believe I got these when my sorceress was somewhere around level 30 or 40, and she’s still wearing them at 91. I was happy to find them then, and I’m still happy to have them now. Her weapon, on the other hand, is a Death’s Fathom, which I got when she was already 88 or so, and I’m still waiting for Tal Rasha’s Adjudication to finally drop, so her gear isn’t even finished yet.
In my opinion that’s how a character’s gear curve should look like, and that’s only possible if the level of an item doesn’t determine (all of) its power.
Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few days after talking about the Barbarian being a hot candidate for my next Diablo II Resurrected character I indeed started playing one. Or more precisely, I dusted one off that had been lying around at level 24, unused, for quite some time.
My initial plan for him, shortly after D2R’s release, was to use Frenzy as his main skill. However, I then decided that I wanted to level a buffbot-Barb on my second account first and use Frenzy as a means to get him through the game quickly. In doing so I had to realize that I don’t actually like the skill all that much.
First off, you basically have to clobber each single enemy one by one, and for my taste that’s never been a recipe for success in an ARPG. Sure, D2 doesn’t throw nearly as many mobs at you as, say, Path of Exile, but it’s still too damn many to deal with them more or less individually. A Frenzy Barb compensates for that with speed, but therein lies the second problem: he moves too damn fast for me to be able to control him properly. I’m not getting any younger, you know.
So after the buffbot-to-be had beaten Nightmare difficulty – and given me motion sickness in the process a couple of times, I kid you not – I immediately respecced him into his warcry-build and didn’t touch the other Barb again for almost two years.
A look fit for a king – especially an immortal one I guess
I’ve always been a big fan of the game’s class-specific elite sets though, and since I now had a complete Immortal King set at my disposal – yet another “first” for me – it felt about time to give that Barbarian another shot.
The set’s centerpiece is a two-handed hammer, so using Frenzy or any other dual-wield skill doesn’t work with it, which suits me just fine. Some other skills, like Concentrate and Berserk, are purely single-target and thus out of the question for the aforementioned reasons.
Which leaves Whirlwind.
“Wheeeeeeee!!”…unfortunately it doesn’t look impressive at all on screenshots
I’d never played a WW-Barb before, and to be honest, I didn’t expect much. But boy, have I missed out! I respecced into it at around level 40, and it’s so much fun!
The skill works like this: you point at a certain spot with your mouse; then, when you activate WW, your character starts spinning around in circles and attacking a couple of times per second, depending on weapon speed, while continuously moving towards the target spot at the character’s normal walking pace.
I didn’t think about it before, but what’s really remarkable about this is that you actually deal damage while moving. Usually you can either attack/cast or move in D2, but not both at the same time. It’s hard to describe how very different Whirlwind feels due to this, but it’s totally awesome. It’s especially great against weaker monsters – you don’t even slow down, you basically run them over and keep moving.
Now, technically speaking it’s also a single-target skill, as each individual attack hits only one enemy in range. You can get that speed up to about five attacks per second though, and coupled with a hard hitting weapon this shreds normal packs in a heartbeat. Even uniques and their minions don’t take very long to kill, and while it’s not the most efficient build to farm act bosses it can do even that pretty stress-free, albeit more slowly.
Look, mom, I glow in the dark now!
Speaking of stress-free, holy crap, dude is tanky!
His passive skills, which increase armor and resistances, combined with the massive HP and armor buffs from his warcries Battle Orders and Shout as well as a good amount of life leech make him a tough nut to crack indeed, even though he’s not wearing a shield. Aside from the Annihilus he also has no resistance charms whatsoever in his inventory, and they still all hit the maximum of 75% in Hell difficulty.
This is of course mainly due to the IK set itself giving a good deal of bonuses on that front. As it occupies a whopping seven of the ten available gear slots it kind of has to though, so it’s pretty well thought out in that regard. Also, all pieces except for the hammer sport pretty high armor values. Enhanced by the aforementioned buffs the total thus reaches a magnitude where it’s actually worth a damn, which is not something many D2 characters can achieve.
As I’m writing this he’s just spun his way through the first two acts on Hell difficulty, and I didn’t need to use a single potion of any kind! As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure his health never dipped below half, not even when surrounded by enemies while also being poisoned and/or cursed, which just…doesn’t happen! It’s a completely new experience to play the game like this.
It’s written in green, so it must be good!
The IK set brings two more features to the table that I really dig.
One, with the full array of set bonuses active the hammer deals all kinds of damage. Literally. There are six types of damage in the game, and it deals a good amount of each and every one, as seen above. Consequently he pretty much doesn’t care about immunities, another luxury not many characters have. Sure, he can’t leech off physical immunes, and those take a bit longer to kill too as that’s the only part of the hammer’s damage that gets increased further by his Whirlwind skill and Mace Mastery, but I feel that’s a small price to pay for not needing a sunder charm, a way to cast Necromancer curses and stuff like that.
The second “special feature” is that the gauntlets also get a bonus for wearing the full set which reads Freezes Target +2. I don’t know exactly how the game calculates this, but from experience I’d say that the corpses of normal monsters shatter at least 80% of the time now. Champions shatter less commonly and uniques only rarely or not at all, I’m not sure on that.
What this means in practice is that, for example, Fallen Shamans don’t keep resurrecting their foot soldiers all the time anymore, because there’s nothing left to resurrect. I’ve always found those to be quite annoying when playing melee characters, so I like this a lot. The downside is that the usual practice of Barbarians using the Find Item skill to loot corpses a second time doesn’t work with this set, and Necromancers won’t like grouping up with you either, but I can live with that.
In addition to all of the above playing a Barbarian also has some more universal perks, regardless of the gear and main skill you’re using.
Two of his passive skills increase run/walk speed and stamina, respectively, so he’s generally pretty fast (which also benefits Whirlwind move speed) and can sprint basically forever.
Furthermore, his skill Leap Attack is the only movement ability in the game aside from Teleport that can actually cross non-traversable terrain like rivers and sewers in Act 3 or lava in Act 4, which is obviously super practical.
Lastly, since his warcries are AoE effects his mercenary is tremendously tanky too. Unfortunately my mercs are chronically undergeared (and I’m usually too lazy to log in my buffbot just for that), so I’m used to them dying regularly, especially on my Sorceresses who actually use them to tank stuff. Well, this one just refuses to go down, which is another very welcome side effect of playing this big hunk of meat and muscles.
And there you have it, the IK Whirlwind Barbarian in Diablo II Resurrected. Highly recommended.
About two weeks ago I celebrated yet another “first” in my long Diablo II career: the Windforce unique bow finally dropped for me.
This immediately prompted me to create and level up my first D2 Amazon in well over a decade, and just three days later she’d aleady reached the required level to wield this illustrious and mighty item. Yeah, I kinda couldn’t wait.
She’s really fun to play and absolutely shreds places like the Chaos Sanctuary, which, incredibly, she already clears almost twice as fast at level 83 as my level 91 Sorceress does.
What’s remarkable about this, however, isn’t just that I’ve looted a strong item and use it to good effect now. Stuff like that happens all the time in any kind of RPG, and for ARPGs in particular it’s basically the whole raison d’être, isn’t it?
What this really does exemplify is why Diablo II’s itemization is, in my opinion, still the best out there, with nothing else I’ve played even coming close.
Arrows are really hard to see with D2R graphics, so here’s the classic version
D2’s item design wasn’t perfect right from the get-go, mind you. At launch the majority of unique and set items in the game were garbage compared to even mediocre magic and rare items, and pretty much unusable.
In case you don’t know, uniques and sets mostly have a fixed selection of stats, while magic and rare items are rolled completely at random, only limited somewhat by item type. While rares can be extremely good, the chances to ever find a specific base item with the exact stats you want are basically zero.
This, of course, wasn’t a very motivating or satisfying state of affairs, because seeing stuff with a green or golden name drop (set and unique items, respectively) usually wasn’t a cause for celebration at all, and picking up something yellow (rare) more often than not led to disappointment too once you identified it.
“What the heck is this craaaaaaaaap???” he seems to say
Thankfully the dev team must have realized that this was a problem, because during the following year they put a lot of work – and, more importantly, thought – into it. With the game’s first and only expansion, Lord of Destruction, and some subsequent patches they added lots and lots of new unique and set items, as well as runes, runewords, jewels and charms to the game. They also beefed up the vanilla sets, which made at least some of them very usable.
While great, this still doesn’t explain why the whole thing works so damn well though. After all, more doesn’t necessarily mean better, right?
Well, they somehow managed to design and balance all that stuff in a way that’s really, really satisfying to engage with. At all levels I regularly find items that push my account-progress forward in a noticeable way – there’s always something to feel good about. Also, there are so many rare and powerful items in the game now that it’s not very hard to find at least some of those along the way, despite their rarity.
Even if you get one that your current character doesn’t need you’ll at the very least have increased your wealth, so to speak. Trading is pretty easy and always an option, but even if you don’t fancy doing that, chances are the item won’t be worthless to you. Maybe your mercenary or one of your other characters can make good use of it. Or, as finding Windforce did in my case, you might even feel encouraged to create a brand new one because you just can’t hit the jackpot like that and not take such a legendary item out for a spin.
Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!
This is actually the most incredible feat they’ve accomplished – several of the game’s items are not only good – they’re basically famous!
If you’ve ever played Diablo II and maybe also engaged at least a little bit with the subject matter outside of the game, like reading forums or build guides, it’s more than likely that you’ve heard of Harlequin Crest (or Shako, as many just call it), Stone of Jordan, Enigma, Windforce and others, even if you were never lucky enough to find them yourself. Not only that, you probably also know, more or less, what they do, and what you’d use them for should you ever get your hands on them.
Hell, just look at what I’m up to at the moment: right after levelling the Amazon (a process that isn’t even finished yet of course) I also got another Sorceress going – I’d never had a lightning sorc before, and my Griffon’s Eye just begged to be used, you see. While playing her through Nightmare difficulty, electrocuting monsters left and right, yet another treasure fell into my lap: the last missing piece of the Immortal King set. I guess a Whirlwind Barbarian is next on the list now.
Too bad he can’t actually wield both hammers at the same time
So, the items are really strong, and that’s the whole secret to good itemization? No, definitely not.
I mean, sure, if the overwhelming majority of stuff you find isn’t good enough to even use that’s obviously not satisfying or fun at all. So, yeah, a game like this absolutely should have lots of items on its loot tables that are guaranteed to be strong and of use to you. But there’s way more to it.
In D2 it’s also pretty easy to see whether an item is actually good or not, because the amount of possible stats, while not small, is still manageable, and most bonuses you can get are applicable all the time, not just under specific circumstances.
Additionally, many set items, uniques and runewords are, well, unique, in that they have bonuses on them that you’d not normally get on that type of item – or at all. This enables imaginative players to create amazing effects and synergies. However, only very few individual items offer stuff that you absolutely can’t get any other way, so if the one specific shiny you’re looking for just won’t drop there’s usually a way to work around that too.
Which highlights one more virtue D2’s itemization has up its sleeve: giving players options.
Sounds like something a chiropractor would use
Let’s use my Bowzon as an example. Her signature skills are Multiple Shot and Strafe, the latter being the main damage dealer. In order for Strafe to reach an acceptably high attack speed with the Windforce I need a total of 80% Increased Attack Speed, IAS for short. The bow itself already has 20% on it, where the rest comes from is up to me.
I decided to socket a Shael rune into the bow for another 20%, use a Highlord’s Wrath amulet for 20% more, and Laying of Hands gloves for the last 20%. There would have been lots of other options, like the Treachery body armor, which alone sports a whopping 45% IAS, but the amulet and gloves have additional stats that are beneficial to my build, as has the Lionheart body armor when compared to Treachery, so I went with that combination.
The build’s one limitation is that both main skills dish out pretty much purely physical damage, so dealing with enemies immune to that was another problem to be solved. Fortunately Sunder Charms aren’t “Ladder-Only” anymore, and I’ve already found the one that breaks physical immunities, as seen above. However, what these things do is set the monster’s resistance to exactly 95%, which means that you do deal damage to them, only it’s not exactly a whole lot.
The two Necromancer curses Amplify Damage and Decrepify are both capable of lowering physical resistance, and luckily there are a few ways the other classes can also add these to their arsenals. The recommended item for a Bowzon in particular is the Atma’s Scarab amulet, which has a 5% chance to cast AD on striking. Since I don’t have it and also think that Highlord’s is overall better I instead chose to equip my mercenary with The Reaper’s Toll, a unique polearm that has a 33% chance to cast Decrepify on striking. Socketed with another Shael rune it attacks relatively fast, making the curse proc regularly. With the Sunder Charm in my inventory and Decrepify on them even enemies that are immune by default melt just as fast as all the others.
To recap, I think Diablo II’s itemization is awesome because it’s (mostly) easy to understand, you find useful stuff all the time and at all levels (which you can use right away without having to upgrade/level/link it first or some such), you have lots of options to make your characters really strong and to think outside the box if you so desire, and many of its items are so recognizable (and good) that you already know you want them even if you don’t need them yet, and actually finding them feels like Christmas has come early and it’s your birthday.
I believe this is one of the main reasons why the game has always had a strong following and is still played by many, almost a quarter of a century down the road.
Since we’re living in times where “Players are having fun” doesn’t seem to be the main goal of big development studios anymore – unicorns like Larian Studios being the notable exception – I doubt we’ll ever see something like this in AAA-space again, but if someone building a new title asked me which game’s itemization to use as a role model if they want to make players happy, this would be my answer.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to dip back into Diablo II Resurrected after about a year-long break. I’d been without a game that managed to really grip and excite me for quite a few months, and I was definitely missing something. Since D2 has never failed me in that regard it seemed like the perfect time for another comeback.
Sure enough, it has delivered once again. Right now I play whenever I can, and think about playing when I can’t.
Of course it helps that they’ve really done an outstanding job with Resurrected, and still continue to improve it on a regular basis without messing up the basic formula.
Robocop can shoot around corners, and so can I
For example, I’m still having a tremendously great time with my Frozen Orb / Hydra sorceress, which only exists because Hydra, along with a couple other hitherto underused skills, was reworked in patch 2.4 and is really good now.
The build is fun, and also relatively safe to play, because both skills can deal damage from quite a ways away. The hydras in particular can easily reach enemies off screen or behind corners, which makes fighting dangerous opponents like Nihlathak much less perilous.
I hope the FBI won’t mind me using the word “terror” so much…
What bothered me was the game setting an arbitrary schedule for my gameplay. Zones in D2 aren’t created equal in terms of layout, enemy types and -density as well as various other factors, so I naturally prefer some over others for farming or levelling.
However, by now I’ve come to terms with the hourly rotation. Playing in different areas does make for a more varied experience after all, and whenever one of the few zones that really aren’t worth running come up I just do something else for a while, like playing an alt.
The main thing that’s won me over though is the loot. Within a matter of about two weeks I’ve found many awesome items scattered across various different terror zones, some of which so rare that they’d never dropped for me before, and I didn’t think it was ever going to happen either.
These are “just” my personal highlights. Click to enlarge
The Griffon’s Eye, for example, dropped in Nihlathak’s Temple, though not from the boss himself, but from a random monster on the way. That’s the magic of terror zones for you.
In addition to better loot the mobs also give lots of XP. A couple of years ago I talked about level 89 having been the highest any of my Diablo II characters had ever reached, and at that point Baal runs were pretty much the only thing that moved the bar at all anymore. Well, my current sorceress hit 90 a week ago and is now well on her way to 91.
I will say though that I still enjoy boss runs the most. Andariel, Mephisto, Baal and the Uber-key bosses retain their status as my favourite targets. But even those benefit greatly from the new(ish) system, because whenever their lairs are terrorized they seem to drop even better loot, and every monster I kill on the way has the chance to do the same and also gives noticeable amounts of XP to boot.
What’s this, a cage fight where the cage’s made of fire? Bring it on, bro!
Speaking of bosses, the event I’m most happy about right now is getting my first ever Annihilus charm.
Interestingly, this item only exists because the game had a massive duping problem back in the day (duping being the illegal duplication of items by utilizing bugs or glitches). The most-duped item by far was the Stone of Jordan ring, and to get those out of the economy again Blizz devised a system where players realmwide needed to sell large amounts to NPC vendors in order to spawn Uber Diablo in every Hell difficulty game on that realm. Killing this pretty strong foe guaranteed a unique small charm to drop, the Annihilus.
It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much toil and loss over so small a thing
As far as I know the rampant duping has long been a thing of the past, but they decided to keep the whole system in place. They may have reduced the number of SoJs that need to be sold, but other than that nothing’s changed.
Which means that we can still get our hands on this powerful charm, but it also means that every ring that’s ought to be sold has to be acquired the hard way. It’s not a common drop either. Personally, I’ve yet to find my first SoJ in Resurrected – and I’ll definitely keep the first one or two, should they eventually drop, as it’s quite a good item (it wasn’t duped that much just for the hell of it).
There are websites that try to keep track of every realm’s status – the approximate number of SoJs that have already been sold can be displayed ingame – but still, at the end of the day only the player(s) that sell the last batch know the exact point in time when Uber Diablo will spawn. If you don’t have a Hell difficulty game open at that exact moment you’ve missed the opportunity.
About a week ago my time had finally come. I was farming with my sorceress when the message “Diablo has invaded Sanctuary” appeared. My heart skipped a beat, and I may or may not have screamed out loud “Hell yeah, finally!!!”.
However, my second thought was, damn, I need my Paladin for this. The sorc might be able to kill the bugger too, but it would be a lot harder and probably cost me quite a few XP due to deaths. Fortunately I always use password-protected lobby games to play, specifically because I can join those with a character from my second account. Usually I use this to mule stuff around or to buff my main character with an Enchant sorceress (great for levelling up alts), but this time around I just logged her in to keep the game open safely and then switched my main account to the Paladin.
Really, I can take this now? Don’t mind if I do!
The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
So, yeah, for over 23 years now I keep coming back to D2, mainly because it’s just an overall awesome game that holds a special place in my heart, but also because it still has, after all this time, new experiences and huge endorphine rushes up its sleeve. At least for me.
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