Classes - the biggest problem of Diablo 1

[Paar]

With the discovery of this mod I started to think about what I call "the biggest drawback of vanilla D1". The game itself is amazing, no doubt about that, but there are many things that work only partially or don't work at all. And the most problematic are in my opinion the classes themselves.

Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer. You could choose if you wanted to play as melee, range or casting character. But I always thought that Warrior was somewhat underwhelming even though he was my favourite character. He could (and still can) just hack and slash and cast low level spells.

The Belzebub mod addressed that by adding four new skills to every character and even added three new classes (of this Necromander is still unplayable) with their own skills. But one remains the same - everyone can cast spells as the Sorcerer.

It's rather dissapointing to see so few differences between them. And when you select Barbarian, Assassin or Necromancer, you even get the same models as before. I always felt a little cheated by it. I alway felt that the new classes are a bit alien and don't really belong to the game.

So what do I propose? Merge them. Let the player choose which path he wants to go. You don't need Barbarian to use axes more efficiently. Warrior is already strong melee character, so why won't you give him an ability that allows him to use two-handed weapons more skillfully?

Three classes are enough, it just needs variety. Something like skill tree that was introduced in Diablo 2. You could choose which skills you want to use and what skills you want to ignore. There could be skill tree that is more Warrior-like and skill tree that is more Barbarian-like. The same could be said for Rogue and Sorcerer. They just could have the abilities of the Assassin and the Necromancer. But it would be optional. But only the Sorcerer could use spells like Fireball or Chain Lightning.

Of course, that would change the core mechanics of the game. Spell books would not be relevant anymore, only to the Sorcerer. Does that mean that they would need to be removed? Absolutely no. They just could have different purpose. There could be some common curses that could be learned by all characters and some books could give you one talent point for example. So they could still be used by all characters.

Regarding scrolls, I think they could be removed, apart from Town Portal scroll and Identify scroll, and maybe few others (e.g. Ressurect).

To sum it up, I would like too see old classes improved rather then adding the new ones. To give them their own abilities, differentiate them and make them more replayable, so the spellbook could be removed and replaced with the skill sheet (see the pics).


Warrior's skills/Sorcerer's skills

What do you think about it? Is it too bold? Do you think it's interesting or do you like the current system more? I'd like to hear (read) your opinions. Thanks for you attention.

[SlapZ]

(...)
To sum it up, I would like too see old classes improved rather then adding the new ones. To give them their own abilities, differentiate them and make them more replayable, so the spellbook could be removed and replaced with the skill sheet (see the pics). (...)

No, and no again.
I want Belzebub to be a mod for Diablo, not a Diablo 2 port for D1.
Spellbook is fine as it is. It was, and is, essential to D1 gameplay and atmosphere. Warrior and Rogue compliment their gameplay with some spells, while for Sorcerer spells are his Modus Operandi. classes are fine as they are, and their skills make the difference they should.

To every other player who wants to turn Belzebub into D2:
If you want Diablo 2 hd - Install D2, HD patch and Plugy.
And leave iconic features alone.

[riesa]

I agree with SlapZ. It's too much to change in game mechanics. I was almost raised on Diablo 1 so i still don't like Diablo 2 skill system: one character - few builds. Builds should depend on items found, not on skills. In D2 you could find anything that suits any build. In D1 it's always were who had better equipment. And this should stay as it is. Sure, maybe new sprites for new chars would be nice but... It's still entertaining now as hell ;p

[Paar]

I just know that the devs made plenty wrong with D1 and fixed those thing in the sequel. I remember that it bugged me even when I played the game for the first time thirteen or fourteen years ago. It's weird when a warrior is throwing fireballs at his enemies.

But keep in mind that it's just an idea. I don't urge the devs to change everything. Even if they won't change it I'll still be happy with the outcome.

[riesa]

It's not weird as in real world. You have some knowledge in something but not enough skills or talent to be a master in that (in relation to Diablo - you have some level of a particular stat). But still you can use this.

[SlapZ]

I just know that the devs made plenty wrong with D1 and fixed those thing in the sequel. I remember that it bugged me even when I played the game for the first time thirteen or fourteen years ago. It's weird when a warrior is throwing fireballs at his enemies.

I disagree.
Magic in D1 is not entirely something you just do instinctively, you need knowledge. Magic stat is raw power, but spellbooks you find in the cathedral represent the knowledge. Think medicine or law. You need both knowledge and the skills to use it. Imo it's a better system every modern talent system in games. Sorcerer will posess more raw power, but without knowledge he is even weaker than warrior with no knowledge at all.

And the warrior of D1 is a trained, experienced and battle-hardened fighter. Such a person would use EVERYTHING they can to stay alive and survive the next battle, magic included. Granted, he won't be as good as a Vizjerei, who trained his magical skills for decades, but on the other hand - he is more proficient in melee weapons.

[Paar]

I just know that the devs made plenty wrong with D1 and fixed those thing in the sequel. I remember that it bugged me even when I played the game for the first time thirteen or fourteen years ago. It's weird when a warrior is throwing fireballs at his enemies.

I disagree.
Magic in D1 is not entirely something you just do instinctively, you need knowledge. Magic stat is raw power, but spellbooks you find in the cathedral represent the knowledge. Think medicine or law. You need both knowledge and the skills to use it. Imo it's a better system every modern talent system in games. Sorcerer will posess more raw power, but without knowledge he is even weaker than warrior with no knowledge at all.

And the warrior of D1 is a trained, experienced and battle-hardened fighter. Such a person would use EVERYTHING they can to stay alive and survive the next battle, magic included. Granted, he won't be as good as a Vizjerei, who trained his magical skills for decades, but on the other hand - he is more proficient in melee weapons.

Interesting point of view. I like it. But still, I think the addition of new classes is somewhat pointless. For example why do you need Warrior and Barbarian? They look the same (apart from minor color scheme) and both use melee weapons. Barbarian is just better with axes and has five different skills. You could pretty much make Warrior more universal and give the player choice what weapon will he want to be more efficient with.

Same applies to Assassin/Necromancer. Assassin could just be Rogue with different set of skills, just like Necromancer. In my mind it would be better if you could choose only the Warrior/Rogue/Sorcerer and then pick the route you would want to go. To have more room to build your character.

If you don't want the Belzebub to become the next D2, then maybe it would be better without D2 classes. And Barbarian/Assassin/Necromancer are D2 classes.

[Doubtful]

OR... Remove all classes.
Meaning: When it comes to *how you want your hero to look (appearance) or if you want a female or male char*, you will have a choice to choose Mage, Warrior or female look. Besides that all of them will be able to use all skills/items etc. From the modder(s) part this will require an decent amount of passive and active skill implementation in order to create a variety of possible hero builds.

At this point i want to mention that there is a reason why in Diablo 2 (maybe in other games too) Sorc, Assa and Amazon are female classes.
In reality females have lower amount of muscle on their upper body compare to males but both males and females have the same amount of muscle on the lower part of body. Remember in D2 assassin using kicks. And in D1 female being a rogue. This is not something random, its actually studied.
So my reccommendation is for the female to have lower max STR compare to male.

If we keep all classes then we should get the feeling that classes really differ.
I dont mind either choices cause it actually depends how good you will develop your choice.

[SlapZ]

Interesting point of view. I like it. But still, I think the addition of new classes is somewhat pointless. For example why do you need Warrior and Barbarian? They look the same (apart from minor color scheme) and both use melee weapons. Barbarian is just better with axes and has five different skills. You could pretty much make Warrior more universal and give the player choice what weapon will he want to be more efficient with.(...)

Imo such a schizm of characters adds more to the atmosphere and roleplaying. Yes, both Warrior and Barbarian use melee weapons. But the Warrior is a moving fortress made of Armor Class which stands in the center of an army of enemies, while Barbarian is a Chainsaw Golem which rips apart through enemies so fast they can't harm him.

(...)If you don't want the Belzebub to become the next D2, then maybe it would be better without D2 classes. And Barbarian/Assassin/Necromancer are D2 classes.

Adding new features to D1?
-Cool, I like that. Stashes, Waypoints, new classes, Set items - those are fine, they work in D1 and compliment the gameplay while preserving the classical feel.

Changing core features of D1 to those of D2?
-No, thank you. D2 + HD Mod + Plugy. Shoo.

[Paar]

OR... Remove all classes.

Wow, that's too drastic even for me .

Adding new features to D1?
-Cool, I like that. Stashes, Waypoints, new classes, Set items - those are fine, they work in D1 and compliment the gameplay while preserving the classical feel.

Changing core features of D1 to those of D2?
-No, thank you. D2 + HD Mod + Plugy. Shoo.

I don't know. I mean, the core features are the same in D1, D2 and even D3 - you kill monsters and gain ton of loot. That's the essence of the Diablo series.
Almost everything in Belzebub yells "Diablo 2!" and I like it, even though I prefer D1. D2 made most things right, it moved the series forward.
But I'm not big fan of those new classes. They're too similar to D2. Every game in the series had different classes, with some exceptions (Sorcerer and Barbarian).
I think the main problem is that D1 classes are more generic, less specific. For example the Warrior. It could be anybody, even barbarians are warriors, amazon are warriors. That's why I would merge the skills of the Warrior and Barbarian together (and Rogue/Assassin, Sorcerer/Necromancer) or create new ones.

Maybe with certain level you could pick one of two available skills? That would be cool, it would add nice replayability. And at the same time, it would stick to the roots of the D1.

[SlapZ]

I don't know. I mean, the core features are the same in D1, D2 and even D3 - you kill monsters and gain ton of loot. That's the essence of the Diablo series.

Spells available to all IS a core D1 feature. I agree that loot hunting is essence of hack&slash series, but still every series and every game has it's own core.

Every game in the series had different classes, with some exceptions (Sorcerer and Barbarian).
I think the main problem is that D1 classes are more generic, less specific.

I don't think the word "generic" really could be used here. It was D1 which not only basically created and defined h&s genre, but also created the Three Archetype Characters:

Spell user
Bow user
Sword user.
Those are the most primordial class roles in the genre, and D1 made it happen. Other, later classes all evolved from this trio.

For example the Warrior. It could be anybody, even barbarians are warriors, amazon are warriors. That's why I would merge the skills of the Warrior and Barbarian together (and Rogue/Assassin, Sorcerer/Necromancer) or create new ones.

This is all semantics and linguistic play.
We could use words such as Warrior, Fighter, Combatant, Mercenary, Soldier - It wouldn't change a thing.
WARRIOR, SORCERER and ROGUE are class names.
And those names were given because of gameplay style, and not the other way around, as you seem to imply.

With your kind of logic we can create just one class named Adventurer, meld all class features untill they are impossible to distinguish and pretend that everything is fine, and that it's still Diablo. We will lose class differences, lore, roleplaying element - all in the name of gameplay matching a word, and not the other way around.

All in all:
Those ideas try to FORCIBLY fix things that are not broken.
What is more, they propose the worst kind of way of doing it: simplification and homogenization. So once again I will say: terrible idea.

[Paar]

All in all:
Those ideas try to FORCIBLY fix things that are not broken.
What is more, they propose the worst kind of way of doing it: simplification and homogenization. So once again I will say: terrible idea.

I want the original classes be expanded, to be deeper. How's that a simplification? But even then, the entire Belzebub mod is about making things easier to read and easier to use. That in its own way is simplification. But in a good way.
More content doesn't automatically mean better experience. There are lot of examples where games are overcomplicated because the developers tried to implement too much. IMHO that's even the case for Diablo 2, in some areas.
Belzebub is very good mod. In fact, it is so good that you could mistake it for retail product. But it's not perfect and in my mind the new classes are not such a great addition. They're breaking the game to small, shallow pieces. And that's probably what I find most problematic - the current classes are shallow. Five skills are simply not enough. That's why I'd rather have three deep classes than six shallow ones.
I discarded the idea of removing spells so let's not discuss that. Let's discuss what the classes can offer and how they can be expanded so the experience could be better.

[Doubtful]

Claiming that due to D1 all the rest of the games were created is like saying: Im the only one who can make a salad. The developers of D1 were from the first groups that did it first but that doesnt mean other people didnt have the same ideas of even better. Thats just being fanatic which doesnt help in any way.

What really makes D1 what it is, is the atmopshere of the game (the main reason why The Hell mod is so good).
One can claim that Monk class doesnt even fit in Diablo 1 game since the game is based on Good and Evil western ideology (christianism) but yet it fits well in Hellfire and mostely in The Hell mod because ITS DONE WELL!

A game can have just one "class" but with so many variety of builds that even 10 classes cant be compared with it. So again it depends on how you are going to develop your game.

[Paar]

A game can have just one "class" but with so many variety of builds that even 10 classes cant be compared with it. So again it depends on how you are going to develop your game.

That's excatly what I mean.

[radicool]

What really makes D1 what it is, is the atmopshere of the game (the main reason why The Hell mod is so good).

I've been trying so hard to find where the line is drawn. Where can this mod go without losing its "D1 feel". What can you add and change before it's no longer diablo 1? I think you just answer that for me. The atmosphere made the game.

What does that mean thought and what can't change? It means the art direction, the scariness, the darkness, the claustrophobic feel cannot be changed. So sure, you can make any changes or additions given it doesn't go against these things.
Art Direction: You can make new units, new objects or update the sprites of the units given the art direction is the same.
Scariness: You can add new units, new songs and new areas as long as they are scary and intimidating.
Claustraphobic: You cannot add a running ability because the dungeon is too small. You can't make the dungeon bigger, or you just don't get that claustrophobic feel anymore.

I think I finally found where the line is. Anyway, maybe my insight can prove useful to somebody.