Since this timeless classic was resurrected, daring heroes have diligently decimated ranks of hell-raising demons across all five acts of Diablo II: Resurrected, forever loosening the Lord of Terror’s hold on Sanctuary.
In Patch 2.4.3., which goes live on June 29, we introduce a variety of new features and improvements set to elevate multiplayer lobbies for console and PC. Accompanying these new features are quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. Partying up with like-minded demon slayers is a cornerstone of the Diablo experience. Because of this, we‘ve been closely monitoring your feedback around multiplayer lobbies, and the changes highlighted below are a direct result of this. Sanctuary wasn’t built in a day—while we have made great strides in refining various aspects of Diablo II: Resurrected, we are dedicated to enhancing your pursuit of the Dark Wanderer even further. As always, we want to make the flames of this beloved classic burn hotter and brighter than ever before and invite your feedback to help aid us in this communal effort.
Now, make ready, hero of Sanctuary! You will need the knowledge below to topple the demons that lie in wait.
BACKEND IMPROVEMENTS
One common issue among players is that their Game List did not populate with enough games, even when they felt it should have. When you create a game in D2R, it gets hosted on one of many game sites in your region. Prior to ladder’s launch, the Game List would only populate with games from just one single game site in your region—whichever you had the best connection to. This was done to preserve a high-quality gameplay experience in any game you may join through the lobby, but we found our criteria to be overly aggressive. When ladder launched, we expanded this to provide players games from up to three game sites. This helped players see more games in their Game List without a cost to connection quality, but players still weren’t seeing enough games. We’ve decided to broaden it even further in Patch 2.4.3. Now, any number of game sites in your region that you have a strong enough connection to can contribute to the results in your Game List. To provide even more options for those looking to join a game, we’ve also doubled the maximum number of games that can appear in the Game List at a given time from 20 to 40. Plus, we’ve fine-tuned game details to refresh in almost real time. You still must manually refresh your Game List, which is something we decided to keep so the Game List would not shift while players select a game. These improvements have been applied to both the console and PC lobby experiences.
CONSOLE LOBBY UPDATES
Following the successful launch of Ladder Season One, the team has turned their focus to features that required the most attention. Console Party Finder was the top item on our list by a large margin. Patch 2.4.3. brings multiple improvements to the console multiplayer experience, providing new and improved ways to create and find games by replacing Party Finder with Game Creator and Game List.
Three Options Lie Before You
Selecting the “Play” button on the main menu with your selected online hero will now present three options for online play:
Private: Enter a private game that will not populate to the Game List. The only way for others to join your game is through the Friends List or by being invited.
Game Creator: Create a public game that will populate on the games list.
Game List: View the games list, use the search feature, or join a public game.
Game Creator
Game Creator will equip you with the ability to quickly create the type of game you desire. To aid you in doing so, all previous game categories that were available in Party Finder have returned in the Game Creator. Selecting and confirming one of these game categories will generate a pre-made name for your game, accompanied by an assigned number—this is to prevent games with duplicate names from being created. Level Difference, which was previously only available as a Game Creation option for PC players, has been added as a game creation option.
We have also added an additional category called Custom—this category consists of two options:
Public Game: Create a public game to populate in the games list with a name of your choice.
Password-Protected Game: Create a public game with a password that must be entered to join. Just like in the PC lobby, a password-protected game will not appear in the games list but can be joined through a separate “Join Game” button found by pressing the “Search Game Name” button on the Game List menu and going to the Custom category.
A preview of your Custom or generated game name is displayed on the top-right portion of your screen. Once you are comfortable with your selections and confirm them, your journey to Sanctuary can begin.
Game List
Selecting the “Game List” button will display up to 40 matching games created by other players that your selected character is able to join. To aid in finding specific games, you can use the search feature to locate a specific game or filter games displayed using keywords. Within the filtering options you can set the following parameters:
Difficulty: Filter to display only Normal, Nightmare, Hell, or any combination of the three options.
Ping: Restrict your results to only display games of a particular connection quality or better.
Game Name: Pressing the Triangle button on a PlayStation controller, Y button on an Xbox controller, or X button on a Nintendo Switch controller while on the Game List menu will open the Search Game Name menu. Here, you can search for both Custom and pre-made game names using the same familiar layout you would use during Game Creation. Searching for a game name using the Custom category will only return game results that were created using the Custom category. Searching using one of our pre-made categories will only return game results that were created using that same pre-made category. For example, selecting the pre-made Den of Evil search option will only yield pre-made game results. Inversely, searching “Den of Evil” under the Custom category will yield Custom game names with those phrases within them. Custom games, with or without a password, can be joined directly through the Search Game Name menu.
Modifying any of these filters will refresh your list of games and return a new list of games (up to 40) based on the criteria you selected. Players also have a refresh button available to them to manually refresh the list at any time.
PC LOBBY UPDATES
We want Multiplayer lobbies to be the bridge to many hours of slaying demons, collecting loot, and memorable moments with friends. Unfortunately, many players have experienced difficulties in finding specific types of games they would like to join. To solve this, we added a search functionality in the lobby—specific keywords or game names can now be typed in to return a list of games based on that search term.
With Patch 2.4.3., the Game List will now display each game’s connection quality in a tooltip that pops up when you hover your mouse over a specific game. Games will populate into the Game List based on their connection quality, offering you expanded knowledge when deciding which game to join.
We cannot stress enough how appreciated and crucial your feedback is. We’re always looking for opportunities to iterate or reshape aspects of Diablo II: Resurrected so your trip to Sanctuary continues to be memorable.
MAGIC FIND BONUS
You feel an intense rush of energy coursing through your veins, a faint internal humming overriding your own pulse. From June 30–July 4, a mysterious energy source will grant you a 50% buff to Magic Find, providing an increased chance to receive Magic, Rare, Set, or Unique loot as a drop from slain foes. This bonus stacks with any additional increases to Magic Find provided by your items.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Gameplay
- Players can now start a new Whirlwind, Leap, or Leap Attack immediately after a Whirlwind ends.
- Changed the logic for determining how often Whirlwind attacks occur. Whirlwind now incorporates Increased Attack Speed (IAS) from all equipment. The frames between each Whirlwind attack are equal to the attack frame of a basic attack for that character (modified by increased attack speed). While dual wielding, the attack frame for each weapon will be averaged (rounding up). Overall, Whirlwind attacks should be at least as fast as they were before. Slower weapons will attack notably faster.
- Added a new “Loot to Cube” skill for controllers in the general skills menu. Using this skill on an item will pick it up and place it in your Horadric Cube, if there is space.
- Added a bindable hotkey for mouse and keyboard to directly open the Horadric Cube if it is in your inventory.
- Added a new button shortcut to open the Horadric Cube from the inventory menu.
- Players can now bulk assign stat points using a controller.
- A confirmation prompt will now appear when bulk assigning all remaining stat points on both PC and console. This option is unavailable while using legacy graphics.
- Added an Automap Auto Open setting to allow players to set their preferred Automap position.
Online
- You can now double click on a game to join it in the PC lobby.
- Players on Switch can now join a friend’s game via the in-game Friends List.
- Game List size has been doubled from 20 to 40.
- Game list details in both the details panel and in the Game List now load faster upon selecting a game.
- Friends playing D2R are now sorted to the top of the Friends List.
- Console players now have an option in the options menu to toggle Game Name visibility.
BUG FIXES
Gameplay
- Fixed an issue where Deckard Cain was not able to identify items in the Horadric Cube. Now he will do so when the Cube is in your main inventory.
- Fixed an issue where short-distance whirlwinds could end without executing a single attack.
- Fixed an issue where Whirlwind would still apply properties and damage from a broken weapon.
- Fixed an issue where the first attack of Whirlwind was treated different from the rest. When dual wielding, the first attack will choose two targets, just like all the other attacks.
- Fixed an issue where resurrect costs were inconsistent for high-level mercenaries.
- Fixed an issue where corpse skills were not auto-targeting corpses when using just right click.
Online
- Fixed an issue where you couldn’t select and join lobby games on PC with a controller.
- Fixed an issue where players could impersonate developers by mimicking the chat font color used to display system messages.
- Fixed an issue where lobby figurines would disappear while whispering.
- Fixed an issue that would rarely prevent players from joining a private game.
- Fixed an issue in Hardcore where both players had to mutually flag each other to be able to loot a corpse, even if the dead player had the other player flagged.
- Fixed an issue where ladder rankings with six or more digits would begin to overlap the character name.
Character Select
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause the most recently played characters to not sort to the top of the list.
- Fixed an issue where an off-hand flail could fail to animate on the front end.
Language
- Fixed miscellaneous localization bugs.
- Stability and Performance
- Fixed a performance issue that could occur when spamming refresh at a vendor for an extended period.
- Miscellaneous crash and stability fixes.
