Van's Sigma 3 ideas and thoughts on game design

+ Point of No Return redesign
+ Xiphos update/redesign or at least an orange mod idea

+ i'd like to see Unholy melee paladin blood thorns buffed

Vanarchy wrote:+ Xiphos update/redesign or at least an orange mod idea

Love your stuff, keep up the good work and hopefully dev-team gets something of it.

New Xiphos is a great idea but can be a bit too powerful, then again it would require crafting and RNG so what's the difference...

+ Skills with Charges and Boss Orb concepts (in second post of the thread)
+ 2 Boulder-utilizing item designs that no one asked for (right above Meme items)

Jampula wrote:
Vanarchy wrote:+ Xiphos update/redesign or at least an orange mod idea

Love your stuff, keep up the good work and hopefully dev-team gets something of it.

New Xiphos is a great idea but can be a bit too powerful, then again it would require crafting and RNG so what's the difference...

Thank you for the kind words

Thank you for the thread.

There are two things I really wish for Sigma 3:

- Better/reworked graphics, maybe even a resolution above 800x600, or at least a 16:9 aspect resolution.

- Enemies should be stronger from the beginning. I sometimes finish normal/nightmare/hell difficulty in about 10 hours (excluding Baal in Hell, of course) and reach at least lvl 100 in this time. I sometimes got the feeling that the "normal" D2 sections in MXL are just annoying work to get to the Uber-LVLs/Dungeons.
My idea is to make all enemies stronger from the beginning, so that you just have a much longer playtime in normal/nightmare/hell.
In vanilla D2, there was a prompt "/players 8" that set the enemies' strength about 8x higher and you gained 4x more experience. This made playing all passages a lot more valuable and you werent been able to just rush through normal/nm/hell, just to get stuck on the 10000 Uberlvls, like it is now.
It would make the game a lot longer / add a lot of value without the need of creating more and more content just for endgame.

lieblingsbesuch wrote:- Better/reworked graphics, maybe even a resolution above 800x600, or at least a 16:9 aspect resolution.

You can already improve the game visuals right now - by using d2gl or Reshade. I dunno about further graphic improvements, but I wouldn't be surprised if d2gl or something like that eventually becomes a core Median feature that launcher automatically sets up for you

lieblingsbesuch wrote:- Enemies should be stronger from the beginning. I sometimes finish normal/nightmare/hell difficulty in about 10 hours (excluding Baal in Hell, of course) and reach at least lvl 100 in this time. I sometimes got the feeling that the "normal" D2 sections in MXL are just annoying work to get to the Uber-LVLs/Dungeons.
My idea is to make all enemies stronger from the beginning, so that you just have a much longer playtime in normal/nightmare/hell.
In vanilla D2, there was a prompt "/players 8" that set the enemies' strength about 8x higher and you gained 4x more experience. This made playing all passages a lot more valuable and you werent been able to just rush through normal/nm/hell, just to get stuck on the 10000 Uberlvls, like it is now.
It would make the game a lot longer / add a lot of value without the need of creating more and more content just for endgame.

I play Diablo 2 since 1999 and I'll be honest, I got tired of leveling new characters through the campaign over 20 years ago. Going through same quests again and again and again. Those "normal" D2 sections are indeed just work to get to the main Median content, that's what they are. Veteran players get to Hell in ~4-5 hours, top speedrunners can rush Hell in under 2.

Those easy leveling sections are still needed to introduce new players to the game. If you make those significantly harder:
1. It would push away some players who are totally new to the mod who don't know what they're doing yet
2. For veterans it would make the process of getting through that tedium longer and thus even more tedious
3. It would also heavily reduce the variety in specs used for leveling. Players would just find one spec on every character that gets to Hell fastest with least amount of trouble - and use it every time. Leveling meta always exists, but low difficulty of Normal & Nightmare doesn't force you into it, it allows you to use whatever spec you want

Vanilla D2 basically had no endgame (infinite p8 Baal runs lol). Median is the the mod that fixes that. Endgame is where the game is. You can make a comparison to PoE: players just want to get to maps asap, they are tired of going through the same campaign all over again on every new character. If you want more highlights / points of interest on the road to Hell, sure, I wouldn't be opposed to that. But making that road a lot longer is a no-no in my book.

There's a rumor that Nightmare difficulty might eventually get cut. I would 100% welcome that change.

Vanarchy wrote:snip.

Agreed with all points.

Vanarchy wrote:There's a rumor that Nightmare difficulty might eventually get cut. I would 100% welcome that change.

When that day arrives, I’m diving headfirst into Median. It’s way more important than just having the mod switch to Resurrected. Plus, they really need to ditch that D3 launcher and interface. Median deserves its own unique design!

MXL has found that sweet spot for exp and leveling gratification, so I don't think that making monsters harder is the answer, nor is lowering the XP earned from monsters. The only way I can see this making sense is if there were an entirely new Act to increase the length of the game. Taking out NM seems a little counterintuitive to me also; I'd actually instead add another difficulty called EXTREME where Angelic items drop and the whole difficulty has lab penalties. Ubers in Extreme would be nearly impossible but would drop Perfect charms, no random results.

If you don't play more than 1 character per season, for sure. But currently NM is neither here nor there, it mainly makes leveling with non-optimal chars painful with no effect on the endgame whatsoever. Acts in Hell are easier than in NM (if you don't play some twinked out leveling build) because of this.

I HAVE PLAYED MEDIAN SINCE 2008
I have ADHD and have quit playing a plethora of games over my 31 years of life because it wouldn't hold my interest. BUT you guys (and/or girls) behind Median, have exceeded my expectations and consistently captivated me through the years.

**-> I believe introducing new character(s) & mercenaries are something that could truly separate 3.0.
**-> Allowing the capability to customize aesthetics, equivalent to Diablo 3. BUT, a more in depth version & Applicable to mercs!

I remember when doing solo mf runs as a Hammerdin in Vanilla D2, having an act 2 merc with Insight was crucial, almost required.
I also remember one of my old favorite character builds in Vanilla D2, THE BEAR SUMMON DRUID. Total 'MEME BUILD'! BUT I mention this because, it wasn't just like any other summoner build. It was 1 sole tanky and catastrophic creature you would rely on, that would even kill endgame quality builds.

**->Possibly introduce new aspects and items regarding renovating mercenaries, to bring them to a platform of not just being useful, but builds where they are necessary.