[WIP] Diablo 2 Immortal - Development

[Violos]

This thread contains general information and the development history of the Diablo 2 Immortal mod, from the first public announcement to today.


The latest download is in the respective release thread.
Any major events appear in the news archive.
And all the videos can be found on my Youtube channel.




Development Topic Spotlights

• The 1+1/2 Mastery system
• Why no Druid?
• A story to every skill
• Improving the spear-wielding Amazon
• A new resistance system
• Staves as melee weapons
• On difficulty design
• Post-release development
• Concerning the new DoT system
• Rise of the Paladin

[Violos]

About the Mod






As some of you know, I've been dabbling in the recreation of the classical Diablo 2 skills for IT ever since I started modding. Originally a way of teaching myself and testing limits, over time it has turned into a mod of its own, which keeps incorporating an increasing number of improvments beyond the skills themselves.

EDIT:
On Nov 2011, the first release version was finished.
By 2012, it was out of beta.
And since July 28th, the mod is officially complete!


By today, it not only changes the skills, graphics, animations, sounds, items and enemies, but generally overhauls a number of core mechanics that were rocky or exploitable in the original game in order to create a better overall experience and more strategic options.

When combined with the Lilith mod, which adds the new world of Jalavia along with original D2 music, it is now also possible to play it as the total conversion known as Diablo 2 Lilith.








Feature List in Detail

* Play Immortal Throne with Diablo 2 skills
And replay your favourite builds - or new ones, with skills you have always skipped before. They were recreated close to the originals, but also rebalanced so every single skill is useful.

* Six fully playable Diablo 2 classes
Choose from Amazon, Necromancer, Sorceress, Barbarian, Assassin and Paladin.
(The Druid will not be included, but one had to be left out. And shape-shifting is impossible in TQ.)

* Original characters, sounds and designs
Complete redesign of the whole UI, based on art of the original game, or inspired by it. Original sounds, class hair helmets, boss voices... and many other well-known bits and pieces.

* Unique new skill types
Javelin specific skills, homing missiles, a properly working teleport and other new mechanics you probably have not seen anywhere else before.

* Rewritten game balance, nerfed exploits, support for "weak" damage types
Mechanics were redesigned in several places, especially around poison, bleeding and the other DoT getting buffed to keep up, while preserving the full effect of % increases that players can collect. High dodging, cooldown reduction and DA values are much harder to achieve. Resistances follow a new system, and are harder to reduce in higher difficulties. Pet scaling was smoothened all around, and now also preserves the effect of your % increases across difficulties.

* New enemy skills and AI
Birds dodge, crocodiles bite, healers actually heal... you will find that the enemies have a lot of new tricks up their sleeves, and use their old ones more effectively.

* Realistic resistances for all enemies, immunities in Hell
Fighting efficiently will require intelligent adaptation to the enemy, as it would in a "real" phantasy world. Player immunities, in turn, are much more difficult to obtain. The reward will be more experience in grim/hell, and of course better drops.

* Proper scaling and challenging play across all 12 acts
Skills were designed from concept in ways that allow them to remain balanced across large spans of the game, instead of being overpowered early or weaksauce later. Leveling progresses normally at start, but will not slow down as much at higher levels. Difficulty transitions do not roll back the challenge anymore, which lets "Hell" difficulty basically begin where the original game ended.

* Stat hybrid and class mixture support
You can mix any two masteries, which allows all kinds of Diablo multiclassing! Also, the masteries' inherent stat bonuses now make strength/intelligence hybrids more viable in relation to one-stat damage specialists.

* Javelins and dexterity-based swords
Javelin (1 hand ranged class) weapons are fully implemented for every creature, vendor and loot drop. Dexterity swords (for element-based melee) drop from certain dextrous enemies. Also, dex armor is directly supported by some classes.

* New item sets for all classes, and reworked bonuses for all old sets
All pure classes have specific mutli-tiered sets to go with their hair pieces, which can be upgraded with higher tier versions of any part without "breaking" the set. Bonuses of all original TQ and IT sets have been reworked in order to make collecting and using them worthwhile.

* Famous Diablo 2 loot and many bonus items to find
A bunch of items that were created with help of the German community's "D2 to D2I item conversion project", as well as some fun things and honors for people who contributed to the mod.

* Major sound overhaul
More atmospheric battle and UI sounds to improve the experience, based on YourFriend's sound mod and of course Diablo 2.

* Adjusted spawns, guest monsters, more champions
Not hordes of weaklings, but slightly more, increasingly tough and sometimes unexpected encounters. Additional players will now increase monster numbers as well as their strength.

* New enemies, new heroes, secret encounters and ambushes
The works. Prepare to meet some old "friends", and to run into some nasty surprises!

* Epic boss fights and large-scale endgame quests
Mutli-stage bosses that use different skills to respond to different player tactics. Collected pieces from certain bosses combine into especially rare items.

* Lilith to D2 Lilith assimilation ability
Files that overwrite certain parts exclusive to the Lilith mod are already included, creating a true Diablo 2 Lilith when merged with any version of it.

* All of the latest Fanpatch Fix changes
All files in D2I are based on the Fanpatch 1.17, and were also updated with any post-fanpatch fixes.









Thanks to

• Kirii for contributing the original UI
• Asylum for general helpfulness and inspration
• Samsonite for mesh editing
• Tamschi for his great animation and mod-merging tools
• MadAerkel for proxy scouting
• Chronikuz, Enrique and Aeab15 for bringing D2I to the Spanish-speaking world
• Spartan116, Talon, SirPortalez and Knacki for the German translations
• FOE for lots of useful input, site management and help with D2 Lilith
• Spectre aka Malgardian for his post-Fanpatch fixes
• Jaelrin, Insaneforever, Flix, Mausi and everyone I forgot for playtesting

Also to all other modders whose work helped advance the state of the art to where it is today,
and all of you who keep helping with their feedback, support and ideas!




Support D2I

[Protagonist]

Very Nice. It sure looks like you've got the skills working the same.

[BeaverusIV]

Did you get Death Sentry working? Awesome stuff so far.

[Violos]

Very Nice. It sure looks like you've got the skills working the same.

Thanks.

The other part that limits you first but is really important later is to make them function and scale the same behind the looks, of course. Like forming synergies, or using the actual weapon for the attack. But those things are hard to show in a video.

Did you get Death Sentry working?

The assassin is not implemented yet. But since this is one of the skills that uses corpses - one thing that seems to remain impossible in TQ - it will certainly become a workaround (some kind of ranged splash attack).

As you can see, all of the Necro's corpse skills use those skulls instead to create a similar mechanic of delay/preparation.

[CrocMagnum]

Oh my dear God!! Titan Quest with Diablo II classes!!

Go Violos go!!

Note: can someone give me the title of the song used for the vid? C'an't get it out of my mind. Thanks in advance.

[Erevos]

i cant wait!!!!!!

[Violos]

@Croc
It's Temple of Love by Sisters of Mercy, from 1983.

Note the lyrics - they're not random.

[Chronikuz]

Great job Violos, please show the barbarian a paladin skill please.

[Snake 1995]

Great work men keep going it will be a great mod.When will it be done?