What was Diablo 2's endgame for you?

whether from lack of knowledge or what, d2 never held my interest.

if I knew then what I know now i would have played and played.

Playing with fun-builds.

Amazone:
Strafe
Multischuß
Gift
Crossbuild Ele

Barbar:
Konzler
Zerker

Necro:
Giftdolcher

Paladin:
Rachepala
Opfer

Zauberin:
Ench
Hydra

Assasine:
DTail
Phoenix
Ninja

Druide:
Wut
Holzhammer-Feuerklauen
Armageddon

In german because I made the list in german and I'm too lazy to translate.

D2 play-through for me was:

- Play the entire game once for the story and cinematics with a summoner through normal on my own. Enjoy every second of the unspoiled story

- Play the game again with a build, getting rushed through all the acts and difficulties(since quest checks weren't there yet, whoever implemented these, .... just... fu... seriously.)

- Get to 80 with bhaalruns that give insane amounts of xp, had pickit and maphack installed, so getting loot wasn't a problem. Maps were known and straight forward, so you could have diablo/bhaalrun 000-999 on a good day. (because you could play in a party and because most of the damage came from the skilltree and stats, rather than gear, you actually felt your character getting stronger through investment of time doing the pve end content.)

- 80-90, you were now organizing diablo/bhaalruns on your own, instantly killing the endboss for loot. Meaning you were getting very nice xp but also very nice loot.
- 90-100, felt more like POE does after level 40. But by then, you had enough stuff from trading that you were able to lessen the impact it had on your playing experience.

-100 play a bit of pvp just for the fun of it(day, maybe two), try out another build. Have fun for another month. Most builds relied on one unique item to be functional that was either easy or difficult to get. Everything from a wirtadin to a titan's amazon all the way through to a stormbringer full block build if you wanted to go excessive.

None of these builds made the game difficult, the entire gaming experience was fluent, it was cathartic. 99% of the drops weren't absolutely craptastic because you didn't need perfectly rolled stats to be viable. Maybe 95% of the rare armors you found had enough sustain options(mana/lifeleech, armor, hp) to be qualified as an upgrade for what you were wearing. There were also no different types of defence except maybe manashield which was an issue for stats, not gear. And you didn't need to 5-6 link the gear either, which is about as much fun as slowly chewing off your wrist with your teeth.
Even gambling is vastly, vastly superior in D2 as it required you to use useless gold and already provided the right piece of armor. No collecting chance orbs, no collecting siege ages, just open the gambler 3-4 times and buy. That was it. Everything on the battlefield(especially armors) sold for quite a bit of cash, so there was actually a reason to pick it up. Unlike POE where there's a useless item pinata everywhere, cluttering up the playing fluency and making my computer slow down.


Controls felt sharp, responsive, virtually no desync. The game just wanted you to enjoy the grinding experience. More balancing and introduction of runes and other shit just made the game less fun. Quest requirements, triple resists, runes, those shitty things you had to keep in your inventory for +1 masteries. The teleport armor. Egh, horrible.

But before 1.10, I had around 30 accounts with lvl 90+ characters and mules. As perfect as that gaming experience was, it's basically made every game after that feel like utter shite.
Titan's quest, Diablo 3, torchlight 1/2, sacred, poe, whatever.
Poe is the closest, I'll grant that. By far in fact. But on the ladder of quality, Diablo 2 pre 1.10 was godlike, poe is ok and the other iterations don't even have a reason to exist.
(D3 is abortion tier, as in "the lead developper should've been +/- 40 years ago" to prevent it).

It didn't really have one, the game didn't hold my interest for much more than just leveling up. The closest thing to fun was PvP but that was pretty flawed. There hasn't been an aRPG with a good end game yet. D3 has the potential but then again the entire game is built around end game so they HAVE to make it good or the game is just worthless like it is right now.

Looting and trading was my end game for D2. Trading for "currency" (SOJ, runes) and trading to get BiS items for all my toons, only one of which was an MF'er who did Baal runs to fund the trading. Trading was/is way faster than just doing straight MF.

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sodium777 wrote:

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Herpy_Derpleson wrote:

The second I found Median, D2 was no more. (I found Median in 08)

Median's endgame was like POE's

farm to farm more to farm more.

But D2 had PVP, and i would like to know from other D2 veterans if endless farming or PvP was your endgame

My endgame was a group of characters. My Smiter, Hdin, and a Fishy Necro, a few Sorcs, and druids all made it into 90's.

I was constantly creating new characters. I didn't press for 90+ all the time, mid 80's were fine. That was a relaxed weekend, if that. For PoE, Even mid 60s takes too long for me to play the way I want to play. I give up on characters before even starting Merciless, because the ones that are going to make it end up dull and blow through content like its a joke, and the ones that will struggle take forever. I'm not the same player I was back then, but PoE just feels too grindy for my play style. Hopefully with new Acts coming, that will change. But with 3 acts that have gotten very dull, I hardly play anymore.

My end game for D2 was every few months me and some friends would get together and level some characters in a LAN party. I have never played D2 online as I didn't see the point since I usually got bored with my character by the time any "end game" would start and I wasn't interested in PvP. The best part of any arpg in m,y opinion, including PoE, is leveling. Once that stops i get bored since end game is grinding the same shit over and over with usually little to no progress made. I did this frequently for about 10 years and I already see the same pattern emerging with PoE.

Baal Runs - Other Bosses too
Ubers - smiter
DClone - loved tracking him down!
PvP - here and there when friends were up for it
Trying New Builds - Same in POE
Trading big boy's toys

So far POE has
Trading
Maps
Lunaris
Trying New Builds
I have not gotten into PvP much yet

baal runs over and over or just keeping leveling a new dude for fun and try new things, far, gear

Addictive PVP (griefing => popping them items)
High standard private PVP league (where you pvp on equal grounds = no ITH bow, usage of exploit or whatever bug and disadvantages like pierce)
Funning Uber Diablo tracking + farming ==> Annihilus Charm
The cow level and it's King.


After one of them patches (I think 1.11) I lost interest in PVP and that is when my D2 adventure ends.