D2R Ladder SSF League, New Areas, New Items, and QOL Updates

D2R Ladder SSF League, New Areas, New Items, and QOL Updates | Diablo 2 Ladder 1 Changes

5/23/2022 10:52:39 AM

In this guide, we are going to be talking about the potential introduction of an SSF league which would address the level 99 controversy for the first ladder in D2R. And we’ll touch on the potential of adding new areas that would shift up the dynamic to raising to level 99. At last, we talk about a couple content ideas that we would like to see implemented in terms of itemization that would shift up the met a little bit, then some QOL updates that people think the game truly does need in addition to quickcast.

D2R Ladder Changes: SSF League, New Areas, New Items & QOL Updates

The game experience of most players’ so far in the ladder has been phenomenal, it's been at least 1000% better server-wise compared to launch of the game, the introduction of new character classes, playing with summon druids, other builds like the photon using an ak5 mercenary, it's all been a very fun experience and it's been a lot better than launch of the game. So the changes have been phenomenal.

SSF League For Ladder 1 Diablo 2

An SSF league would make the ladder very legitimate to play for everyone willing to put in the time. If you don't have the efficient group in the ladder progression as it stands there really is not point of a "race". Essentially, the SSF ladder D2R would just be single player but an online experience, so you're racing to level 99 but you can't interact or trade with other people. The purpose behind this is to try and eliminate any advantages that certain communities might have between being able to get extra people for leveling or rely on gifts or certain D2R ladder items or just having an unfair advantage over other people.

Controversy to racing level 99 with streamers in the communities? You can’t fault people that have spent years making content for a game to then rely on their communities for a ladder is it maybe a little bit of an unfair advantage sure. But the introduction of a SSF league would eliminate that and make a more fair level playing field to racing 99, but the big problem here is that in D2R, if you're only playing players one difficulty and you don't have a player's x command, it's impossible to reach level 99 when players want difficulty or virtually impossible, so that would have to be changed and whether or not that is ever introduced.

More options for players to experience the game a different way is not necessarily a bad thing and in the grand scheme of things, if you already have classic softcore hardcore, non-ladder softcore hardcore and you have ladder hardcore and softcore, it's not that big of a deal to introduce another league on top of that, that's just a SSF league. It has the potential to adjust player count on the flye, and for the viewers of streams, it’s more exciting to see drops more frequently or higher risk gameplay for hardcore players in /players 1-8.

New Areas To D2R Ladder

In regards to the race to level 99, the idea has been put forward to introduce new area levels that would shift up the dynamic of farming Nihlathak, Diablo and Baal to get experience from 98 to 99. This is a great idea and they have the basis for a mapping system, it's sort of already in the game because if you farm three keys, put them in your cube, combine it for a red portal that takes you to a randomized area to farm the mini ubers. Why not introduce a consumable item that drops after you've killed Baal, it's a map that you right click on and then opens up a red portal now have that map spawn different attributes like no fire me monsters, no quality monsters, no letting me monsters, extra magifying maybe ghosts in that map. This has been introduced in other Diablo 2 mods like path of diablo and project diablo 2, but that would be a great way to add additional content besides just farming the same areas over and over again that are in the game. So this would be a good change.

SSF league for the first ladder in D2R

So, to dovetail off the concept of a "red portal" or higher tier content, perhaps we finally utilize a few mechanics in the game. Clicking the gem outside of the game could increase all 85 zones to 95 zones (maybe). Or perhaps we use a standard of heroes + token of absolution + tome of town portal to launch a higher difficulty area. Just some concepts that would require us to farm the content of the game as we do now, with the option of using those farmed materials in other ways for additional challenging content.

Token of Absolution

Miscellaneous Item

Allows you to reset your skill/stat points

New Items To D2R

There are a couple of other changes that would like to see first and that would be the shifting up of some of the items in the game. There are numerous super rare items that are basically never used. So whether it's items like stormspire,

Stormspire

Two-Hand Damage: (100-140) To (285-399) (192.5-269.5 Avg)
Required Level: 70
Required Strength: 188
Required Dexterity: 140
Base Weapon Speed: [-10]
150-250% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 1-237 Lightning Damage
2% Chance To Cast Level 20 Charged Bolt When Struck
5% Chance To Cast Level 5 Chain Lightning When Struck
30% Increased Attack Speed
Lightning Resist +50%
+10 To Strength
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 27
Indestructible
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

materials might, soul drainers,

Soul Drainer

Defense: 129-149 (varies)(Base Defense: 59-67)
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 106
Durability: 16
+90-120% Enhanced Defense (varies)
4-7% Mana Stolen Per Hit (varies)
4-7% Life Stolen Per Hit (varies)
-50 To Monster Defense Per Hit
8% Chance To Cast Level 3 Weaken On Striking
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

templar’s might,

Templar's Might

Defense: 1622-1923 (varies)(Base Defense: 487-600)
Required Level: 74
Required Strength: 232
Durability: 60
+170-220% Enhanced Defense (varies)
+250-300 Defense vs. Missile (varies)
+10-15 To Strength (varies)
+10-15 To Vitality (varies)
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
+40-50 Maximum Stamina (varies)
+1-2 To Offensive Auras (Paladin Only) (varies)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

saraph's hymn amulet,

Seraph's Hymn

Required Level: 65
+2 To All Skills
+1-2 To Defensive Auras (Paladin Only) (varies)
+25-50% Damage To Demons (varies)
+150-250 To Attack Rating Against Demons (varies)
+25-50% Damage To Undead (varies)
+150-250 To Attack Rating Against Undead (varies)
+2 To Light Radius
(Ladder Only)
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.10 or later)

there are so many rare uniques that are never used. In addition to, for the most part all the full sets except for the tail rashes set like the seven piece character end game sets are like almost never used besides Tal Rasha's set, so we would really like to see some itemization updates in regards to some of those rare items to make them more useful, because one of the coolest things about this ladder was experiencing new characters, so like the first of the heavens paladin pairing that with an act 5 mercenary that had plague and lawbringers for different stat sticks, for cleansing aura and sanctuary was really cool. We would like to see that taken even further with just new possibilities with new existing items that just give us other options from those rare items/unique items that drop that we never use.

Diablo 2 Resurrected QOL Updates

Quickcast has been the single greatest change to the game, it has been just a phenomenal update but on top of that, we would actually like to see a loot filter. A basic loot filter could remove items like stamina pots, buying pots, bolts, arrows, wool piles under certain value, cracked items, if we could reduce or eliminate certain potions like minor pots, greater pots, like whatever, that would go a long way to making the game a little bit more user friendly.
The second much needed QOL would be a currency tab, this would alleviate the need to have dedicated mules for things like mid runes or jewels for crafting, if we just had a dedicated, stash tab that we could stack things like D2R runes, jewels, organs, keys, etc. It would make for such a more user-friendly experience than having to make mules to hold those items.
It would be nice that ethereal items can be recognized because they have a special label. It would also be nice if the hot keys would also work between the inventory window and the trading window. What would be even better is that we when trading can pull items for our stash immediately to the trading window.

Other QOL enhancements:

Sticky single player difficulty setting (ex: when you start a new game, automatically pick the last difficulty you used, and provide a separate button to change difficulties), hotkeys for choosing the waypoint you want to go to (number key 1-9), runeword / crafting recipe book so you don't have to switch to a browser tab to double-check, option for showing area / monster / item levels (as others have suggested), option for what act you spawn in when you create a new game (once you unlock that act), and a grail chest that could hold grail items and help you track your progress (with some sort of checklist).

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