Diablo Games, Glory and Approbation to Diablo, Lord of Terror, and Leader of the Thr Options

[SubRosa]

I was surprised that there was not a topic here just for Diablo. I guess because the games are just too old. So I went ahead and created one.

I also went ahead and picked up Diablo II Resurrected a few days ago. For those not in the know, it is an official update of the original Diablo II to run on modern systems. It supports modern graphics (1920 x 1080, not sure if it will go higher). It is not exactly a remake. It is the same game as before. But it does seem to come with a lot of little quality of live improvements. The graphics do look better at the higher resolutions, and the UI is scaled up with it, so you do not to squint to see everything (which tends to happen when mods do old games at higher resolutions).

But the main thing is that it will run on Windows 10 (and I would guess 11 as well). I have tried several times to install the old game off its original cds, but have had no luck at all in getting it to work. This does work.

For example, the starting camp

It seems Blood Raven's fame has preceded her.

Here is one of my old pics of the original Diablo II for comparison


So naturally I have been playing a lot of Diablo II right. Of course not!

Here I am, back playing good old Diablo I, because of course...

I am using the DevilutionX mod on Diablo 1. It runs it in up to 1920 x 1080, and comes with a lot of little improvements and options, like enabling the test Bard and Barbarian classes that never got fully implemented.

I experimented a little with the Bard. It is an interesting class. It's special skill is to Identify magic items, so you never need to use scrolls or cart them back to town to have the old guy at the well do it for you (I forget his name, Cedric?) It is basically a jack of all trades class. It is the second best at magic, and I think second best at melee. You also get to dual wield. But that is not really that powerful. It seems to work best if you use the right magic items, with the right kinds of buffs. You are a bit of a glass cannon though, since you cannot use a shield, and you can't raise your strength and vitality as high as a Warrior.

But I have mostly been playing as the good old Bowazon that I so fondly recall from days of yore.

[SubRosa]

I beat the original Diablo like a red-haired Dremora stepchild. It was really challenging. Toward the end I was loading up nearly my entire inventory space with healing and mana potions, and just spamming them every fight. That was how I defeated Diablo. It was just one finger constantly hitting the attack button, and the other continually mashing the healing potions.

One tricky thing about using DevilutionX is that the old Diablo trainers do not recognize it, so won't work with it. However, I did find a workaround. You can take your save file from Devilution X, and put in your base Diablo or Hellfire folder, start the vanilla game, then use the old trainer on your character and save. Then when you are done copy the save file back to the Devilution X folder.

I did not really do much with that however. I was mainly just curious. I think all I really did was sort of reverse the effects of a shrine that gave me a -1 to damage, while giving me a +1 to armor class. I used the Boba Fett trainer to add an extra +1 to my attacks to make up for it.



For reference, here is how the Diablo 1 saves work:

Single Player Diablo save games are titled single_0.sv
Single Player Hellfire saves are titled single_0.hsv

Standard (original) Diablo saves are located in the base Diablo folder.
Standard (origional) Hellfire saves are located in the Diablo\Hellfire folder.

DevilutionX saves are located in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\diasurgical\devilution folder.

(There are also files named single_0.sv in the Diablo\devilution folder, and Diablo\dx folder, but these are not the save files. I have no idea what they are for.)




In the meantime I have actually started playing Diablo II Resurrected some now. Because I have never done it before, I have been trying a Spearazon. I like the overhand spear animation, and spear and shield combo. I just wish it was not just for javelins. The regular spears are all two handed, with an underhanded grip that just looks awkward for a solo combatant to use (as opposed to a pikeman lined up with a few thousand others in a pike hedge).

You can use the javelins in melee as well as throw them. But unfortunately they do a lot less damage that way. And you cannot upgrade javelins with gems like you can other weapons, because they are throwing weapons.

For now I have been going back and forth between javelin + shield and a 2-H spear. Thankfully you have two weapon sets, and can switch between the two with a hotkey.

Penthesilea is here to put an end to Blood Raven's terrible reign

Evil smited

I am not sure if I am going to finish the D2 game or not. The save game system is annoying me. I am pretty sure it is exactly the same as the original game. You can only save and exit. When you reload the game, you start back at the beginning rogue encampment, no matter where you were when you did your save and exit. So you have to shlep your way all the way back to where you were before, which can be annoying if you were a couple of levels into a dungeon, or far off the beaten path.

If you left a town portal open to where you have been, then save and exit back at the camp, your town portal is gone when you restart. At least there is a waypoint system, which each major outdoor level having a point you can teleport to from the rogue camp, once you find and unlock them at least. But the monsters also reset every time you save and exit, so you have to fight your way through the same hordes as before.