The Road to Hell is a record of my journey as a new Diablo II player to beat the game on Hell difficulty with a hardcore character in a solo self found environment.

A Bit of Background

Seeing as this is the first post, I feel a bit of background is in order. Anyone who knows me knows ARPGs are a passion of mine. The first I ever played to a serious degree was Diablo III. I’d heard for years about Diablo II’s cult following though I’d never played it, and when Diablo III neared release I started to pay attention to some of the buzz online. That’s when I listened to a podcast (Diablo IncGamers) speculating about the game, and it was through that podcast that I first heard of the thing that would ultimately hook me and pull me headfirst into the genre: hardcore mode.

Hardcore mode offered the same game in every sense except one, and it was a big one. If your character died, that was it. They were gone for good. Dust.

After listening to discussions about the game online for weeks, launch day hit and, after getting a normal character to the prerequisite level to unlock hardcore, I switched and never looked back. I ended up playing Diablo III for ~2,000 hours, most of it during vanilla. Playing hardcore was a rush, but over time the changes to the game sent it in a direction I just couldn’t get behind and I found myself wanting something new.

Enter Path of Exile. Hailed as the true successor to the famed Diablo II, Path of Exile showed me a level of complexity and depth far greater than that of Diablo III and proceeded to suck up my free time as Diablo III had. To date I have, according to Steam, 1,243 hours in PoE and expect that number to continue to climb. In the time since playing Diablo III I’ve tried out a number of other ARPGs including games like Torchlight and Grimdawn, though none of these really stuck. I’d even dabbled in Diablo II to a lesser extent, though I’d quit before the end of Act 2 in each case.

That brings me to now. Due to some circumstances beyond my control, I recently found myself unable to run Path of Exile until I get a new PC. At the time of writing this, most of the world is in lockdown due to the Coronavirus. Since I’m spending a lot more time at home these days and unable to blast through maps in PoE, I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do for a while: sink some serious hours into Diablo II.

The Challenge

I’ve set a personal goal of beating Diablo II’s hardest difficulty, Hell, on hardcore mode. For those not familiar with the game, this means a single character must progress through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulty in sequence without dying. I’m also playing SSF (solo self found), which means no trading or partying with other players. I am using the Plugy mod, which allows for a larger item stash shared between characters, but considering Diablo II players historically made mule characters with multiple CD keys, I’m okay with this convenience.

My First Character’s Life

My first character was a barbarian named Einhar (after everyone’s favorite PoE hunter). It was a relatively short run, but it was enough to leave me itching to reroll.

This run was interesting in that, given my small amount of exposure to the game, almost all of the systems were new to me. I haven’t looked up build guides or done extensive research. I’m going in more or less blind and looking things up as I go. Much of what makes ARPGs fun is the learning process involved. I find that many people who bounce off of these types of games or don’t try them have a misconception that killing monsters is the core of the experience. While that’s true to an extent, it’s really much more about building a character and overcoming hurdles in progression long term.

I’m going to try to give some highlights for each character I play, so for this first post I’ll share a moment that stood out to me while playing Einhar.

I had a particular piece of armor drop that turned out to be far more interesting and useful than I thought at first glance. Throughout the game there are what’s called ‘ethereal’ items. These items have a ghostly appearance and tend to be rather powerful with their downside being that they can’t be repaired. They’re cool while they last, but when they break, they break for good.

At this point in the game, Einhar was having a bit of mana trouble. I was having to chug mana potions to keep his skills going between packs and I was looking for a solution. Then an ethereal chestpiece drops. It’s got some good stats, but it’s a bummer since it’ll just break on me after a short while. I’m about to sell it when one of the affixes gives me pause.

Repairs 1 Durability Every 33 Seconds

This particular item can repair itself over time.

I now had a powerful ethereal item that wouldn’t degrade. To top it off, it had sockets, which I then filled with a few runes I’d found earlier. These runes gave me mana regen and mana on kill. Just like that I went from juggling mana potions to blasting through packs with abandon in my ghostly new armor. And it’s things like this that make me love ARPGs. There was a little story there. I can almost see Einhar turning over a monster’s corpse with the toe of his boot and finding this ethereal armor knitting itself back together. And what’s more, it made me feel smart as a player. There wasn’t some bigger number on the item that told me it was good. It took some thought.

My First Character’s Death

As expected, I didn’t reach my goal on my first character. Not even close.

Einhar met his end in the Arcane Sanctuary of Act 2. While some of the areas I’d played through up to this point had narrow corridors, none had felt quite so narrow as the stairs connecting the floating platforms of the Arcane Sanctuary (pictured above). Things went bad when i got myself pinned between monsters on one of these stair sections and suddenly kept getting frozen. I panicked. The amulet I had equipped cut the duration of freeze effects on my character by half, but it wasn’t enough. I tried to batter my way through, chugged my potions, and ultimately died in a pool of my own blood on the stairs.

So, what’s the takeaway here? Well, for one, don’t fight on the stairs (or in other narrow sections of maps) where I can be boxed in. If I’d pulled the mobs back I could have handled them in a more open space and then retreated if needed.

Another takeaway is that I need to remember the tools I have at my disposal. My barbarian had a shout ability that drives enemies away briefly. If I’d remained calm, and if the monsters were low enough level, I might have been able to scare them off long enough for me to reposition. I hadn’t used this skill for a while since I was crushing mobs so quickly, and my over confidence got me killed.

But hey, it’s a learning experience and I got farther in the game this time than when I’d dipped my toe in before. I’m already looking at the items Einhar left in my stash and thinking about what character to play next.

While most updates will focus on character progress, I’d like to start doing some posts about ARPG design as well, but this post is long enough.

That’s all for now. Until next time!

See you in hell.