[vkou]

To be fair, the only commonality between Diablo and Diablo 2 was in:

1. The Atmosphere. (Except for most of Act 1, and Acts 2 and 5.)

2. The Name.

Diablo was a slow, tile-based click-and-slash dungeon crawler. Diablo 2 was... Something else entirely. Blast/teleport[1] through everything at top speed to farm bosses. Non-linear power curves. Incredibly high emphasis on gear[2]. Far less tactical, and far more forgiving to mistakes.

In that sense, the gap between Diablo and Diablo 2 was probably bigger then the gap between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. The core gameplay loop of Diablo 3 is the same as Diablo 2 - it's just that getting your first set of end-game gear is a bit faster, and there's less emphasis on farming bosses. And the ham-fisted story is in your face.

[1][2] Enigma... And the rest of the ladder-only rune-words are a game-breaking abomination. They were supposed to be balanced by the rarity of high-end runes, but in practice, those runes are plentiful, because of duping and botting.

[loosetypes]

There was (hopefully still is) a thriving community of D2 single player enthusiasts that had a very welcoming crowd and managed to avoid the craziness of battle.net[1] at the Single Player Forum of diabloii.net[2]. To this day, it's maybe my ideal of the internet done right (though its in-page ads seem a little more obnoxious now than I remember).

It had fairly strict rules w.r.t. documenting what mods you play with[3] but most folks used certain baseline tools such as infinite stashes[4] that greatly helped with playability.

The pace in single player is significantly slower without overpowered items, but also significantly more tactical. And there were often seemingly absurd self-imposed constraints imposed to make gameplay harder on yourself (no uniques, etc.). Here's one player who made it through hardcore in all difficulties (Guardian) doing full clears with a naked Amazon[5].

While not as extreme, and maybe it'd be insignificant on battle.net, I had some of my most satisfying D2 moments there[6].

[1] Good luck getting enigma and other overpowered runewords in single player.

[2] https://www.diabloii.net/forums/forums/single-player-forum.3...

[3] There was a vibrant trading scene but this helped discourage cross-contamination between, say, a vanilla player's items and those of a player who enabled ladder-only runewords.

[4] GoMule and ATMA may have been my first exposure to Java programs.

[5] https://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/how-far-can-superdav...

[6] https://www.diabloii.net/forums/threads/finally-my-first-gua...

[vkou]

There were similar, but in my experience, more vibrant, communities for Diablo I (DSF, LurkerLounge, RBD). Variants (Self-imposed restrictions) were far more prominent in Diablo I [1]. Pretty much everyone in the DSF maintained at least one or two variant characters, even if it was just a naked mage or a SNOB.

Diablo II, especially after LOD, just didn't feel as fun with most self-imposed restrictions. Too much power creep came from gear and patches, enemy health and damage scaled too much, and due to immunities [2], too many strategies for dealing with problematic enemies involved running past or parking them. In Diablo I, with its tile-based movement system, this had to be done incredibly carefully. In Diablo II... It's much more difficult to be boxed in, and if things don't work out well, just save and exit, and reset the level.

[1] https://www.realmsbeyond.net/diablo/variants.html

[2] Immunities worked much better in Diablo I. Every character had a reasonable answer to immune enemies. In Diablo II, with its locked skill trees, there was much less headspace for dealing with them - unless you use overpowered gear!

[EpicEng]

Sure. When I (and others) think "spiritual successor to Diablo" we're almost certainly thinking of D2, not so much D1.

[Karrot_Kream]

I've noticed this in the fandom too, how come? Was D2 just much more popular than D1?

[EpicEng]

Yes. D1 was groundbreaking, but D2 was/is the most played by far (and was also groundbreaking, maybe moreso.) It's still played by many today, D1 not so much.

[mihaifm]

Enigma wasn't an abomination by itself, since the runes were incredibly hard to drop. It was the fact that they were easily accessible through trading from people exploiting dupe bugs and botting. These issues aren't fixed to this day in D2.

[what-the-grump]

You mean we have equivalents of the following:

TPPK ggnore Trust drop tests for joining clans? Griefing with no admins with slow? Buying a zephy on eBay for 600$ Team VIP custom imported items? Going legit on east and wtf pwning kids in bugged gear because you understand mechanics? Having a perfect defense Shako Dropping a full inventory on someone that died in cow level to pop them Having a second account to bot on because everyone and I mean everyone is botting A game made playable and enjoyable by map hack MF stacking and having zero resistance as a result and dying cuz lag DCing while muling Rust storm and logging on to find that everything on your zon was duped and she is naked.

I can go on, Diablo 2 was much more than most remember it, and much more than it is today.

Diablo 3 is a fun game for laid back grinder with some fun mechanics. You feel powerful but dear god it’s not diablo 2, it never will be and shouldn’t be compared.