| 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... |
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!