In Belzebub, to kill Diablo, I must do so in one hour. But I can not even come close to killing the first boss, Doomlord Gam'ar. Not. Even. Close.

So forget it. I am done with this mod. I always intended to try the Hell 2 but I want to know if it follows the same mechanic for killing Diablo. Do I have just one hour to kill Daiblo? Do I have to fight impossible bosses like Doomlord Gam'ar first?

The Hell 2 has 7 game modes that vary greatly in terms of gameplay features and restrictions. On top of that, some features and restrictions are freely configurable in config file. Like changing items in battle, running outside battle, UI elements and so on.

Ther are no time restrictions. For those who want no stress apart from difficulty mode, there is EASY mode.

Also, Belzebub got you mad because of poor balance. Was it a melee character you played? It is widely known that Rogue and Sorcerer perform better than others. Actually Sorcerer starts struggling a lot on 4th difficulty whereas Rogue advances with less effort but her ultimate weapon is Heartseeker. This effectively kills all the effort put into itemization for her regarding weapon.

No mod is perfect for anybody and some people, despite all the customization, dislike TH2. But there was a turning point somewhere in early spring this year when the mod got better and was healed from many problems. Since April, it's doing well and receives a lot of positive feedback. Partly due to wider range of options that allow to play in the way people want. Hard, challenging or good old tourist mode. We also got plans for introducing SPEEDRUN mode but looks like you would not be interested in that.

Yes I played a sword and board character and I intend on playing the same in Hell 2. It is just what I like.

To be clear, I don't mind if a dungeon level requires me to grind a bit on the preceding levels to handle it better. I do mind not being able to even put in a dent on a single boss who I can not bypass. I would have to grind, I am guessing, maybe 10 levels or so to fight this boss which is ridiculous.

I have two questions maybe you or someone else can answer for me about Hell 2.

1. Are you sure there are no timed quests in The Hell 2? From what I read, when you enter Diablo's lair, you have 1 hour to get to him and kill him or he becomes MUCH stronger. The Hell 2 does not have this mechanic?

2. How are elixirs handled in The Hell 2? Is it more like regular Diablo or how Belzebub handles elixirs?

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1. of course. the only quest with timers is Rampaging Demon, where script works through a bunch of timers in 2nd location. it's optional. and made for variativity reasons.

there is also Na-Krull, a boss in dungeon level 23 quest floor two, where you can free him through levers or through reading books. the latter option weakens him.

it's possible to have quests randomly chosen or force all quests through config.ini

2. in a quite specific way. technically, they function like in original: you drink it and your stat is increased permanently. but there are alternative ways of getting stats: perks that increase current stats, shrines, perk that give bosses a chance to drop random elixirs. and also elixirs as a random monster drop starting from 2nd difficulty. also, there is another way: certain character traits allow getting more stats or allow for getting changed or increased maximum stats. there are perks and traits that change number of distributable stats per level-up, too.

Thank you for that detailed response. One more quick question.

There was a zombie in the original game that permanently removed hitpoints. Was that zombie changed or removed in the Hell 2?

that was done back in 2007. that life stealing and permanent mana reduction by some shrines was deemed by me as a bad gamedesign solution and it was removed. not only that, we also added automatic stat recalculation in 2009 which fixed life and mana on character if somehow it got broken. this works 20 times per second and there is a protection added on top of the fix. however, some sort of danger coming from monsters that way is still present. some monsters / bosses can restore their hitpoints when they hit you. and some monsters can steal 1/4 of your CURRENT mana when they hit you. Again, this does not damage your character in the long run, but makes some monsters more of a threat in certain situations.

In general, I read Diablo 1 patch logs many times over and had specific fix lists. Most of the massively hated decisions of original game and its bugs were fixed long ago.

Your mod has A LOT of glaring problems that make people drop the mod (and this is me being nice with the criticism because I could be more brutal with how horrible TH2 is). Who are you to judge!? I told you everything that was wrong with your trash mod in your own thread, but since you probably didn't get the memo:
-Classes are broken, not even complete like every Mage and Rogue class. No really, Mages and Summoners are pure trash in tougher modes. Why is a summoner a worst spell caster than an Executioner!? Honestly, a lot of them aren't unique like the Summoners that just have reskinned pets. A lot of classes can't even beat Iron Man and tougher modes. If Bombadiers start with identify as a class skill, why are Identify relicts dropping for them instead of repair oils they need to clear Iron Man modes?!
-Most Traits don't really help classes at all (Demonologist's stone curse because Summoners have spell casting delays).
-Levels are VERY badly designed with either terrible mob layouts or one-hit chest kills you can't avoid, and one-hit kill chests are NOT fun let alone good design.
-Itemization for a lot of classes is horrible, and it's a nightmare to upgrade a class like Beastmaster
-You broke spells like Guardian making them useless (How do you screw up Guardian?!)
-Broken quests like Shadowfang
-The UI is somehow worse than Vanilla D1 with lack of customization, and no description of spells. I don't understand how you worsened the UI when the UI was just fine in both Vanilla and Beezlebub.

People want a hard challenging game that is crafted and tuned, not buggy broken garbage. Oh boy, Speedrun. Big whoop knowing the game is almost unplayable. No seriously, one-hit kill chests are pure rubbish. To add insult to injury, you're expecting people to pay you to make a mod worse (I get you guys need money to keep on going, but this mod is really flawed to justify any spending).

I have not actually started your mod yet (real life keeps getting in the way) but I will very soon. I liked Belzebub for a time but ultimately, I got annoyed with it.

I will see for myself how The Hell 2 compares. I hope you will be around to answer any questions I have while playing it.

fair enough. i'm always glad to hear criticism and praise. especially when it comes from the standpoint of comparison.

actually, criticism helps more, evn though i like it less : )

I don't need to make 5 paragraphs to explain how Guardian and the UI are bad. The spell book in Vanilla could be accessed with the B key (There are spell descriptions, so I'll take back what I said about the spells not having any information). The Spellbook in TH2 should have its own key again like Vanilla D1, and give players some information about the spells. There are a lot of mobs where Guardian (Hydra) will just stand there not helping my pets.

I have seen the Summoner video you posted, and have experience with all three classes (Highest I got to was level 12 on Beastmaster because I was getting frustrated with finding left over barrels and chests to go to level 13), but Mages and Summoners still feel like incomplete and terrible classes to play past Hard. He played the class on Normal. I've been doing Soft Iron for my sanity knowing how bad Iron Man is for most of the classes. It's not really fun playing Iron man as a Mage knowing certain treasure chests will instakill him even with Mana shield. Summoner itemization is really bad because it's so hard to find +pet stat gear pieces let alone spell books (Which I will admit it has been better finding spell books from unique mobs). Demonologist's stone curse hurts mobs traits is weird unless Demonologists are the only summoner class that can efficiently use Stone Curse without a cooldown (I think that spells has a cooldown). Necro's trait isn't much better.

Mage and Summoners really need to be looked at (your own read me even says Elementalist and Warlock are still incomplete). I'm only talking about Mages because that's the class I've had the most experience with other than Bombadier (again, why are identity relicts dropping in her game knowing she has identify as a starter skill?). I won't be surprised if the other classes are as broken and incomplete as Mages. I don't understand why Summoners have three slots knowing they're only stuck with one type of item (at least with Mages I can swap out for weapons with certain spells). Aside from Beastmasters having pet regeneration and more melee pets, there's nothing really special about Summoners (Both Demonologist and Necro have ranged pets, but it varies on the levels they access both).

your frustration comes from refusing to understand the basics of the mod

it is recommended to not expect it to be Diablo. TH2 is unapologetically different.

you are new to the mod, and you rush to Ironman modes. of course it ends up with frustration. people who play challenge modes have spent enough time on soft modes. the gameplay is deeper than you expect here and takes time to master. again, it does not owe you anything. if you expect different, play something different. there are other mods after all. see if you like them better.

hydra spits fire bolts. it's fire damage. and it is smart enough not to target enemies that are immune to fire. that is why it doesnt fire at them. elementalist has ice hydra and it will not attaack cold immune enemies. that is intended. and im surprised its so hard to understand it. i thought it was obvious.

elementalist and watlock are finished. you must have been playing older version.

spellbook was rewritten and now it shows more information about spells, and there is a different sorting of spells there. if you update, you will see for yourself. 'B' is used to quick access bone spirit spell. there is no hotkey for speedbook / spellbook. just deal with it. we have some major revision of hotkey system planned for future. it might change things by autumn.

i did my best with minion types. and unless you have a better idea, things will stay as they are. the video posted above set the summoner gameplay 9.6 points for The Hell 2 and earlier the author was revising Belzebub and gave its summoner 7.6 score. At least it's better here. Plus, again, if there are ideas that will improve this system, I will listen to that.

concerning finding leftover barrels and chests. o agree. there was a feature added recently. people suggested they are highlighted on automap. i asked my teammate to do that and this feature was added that same day. now in IM/SI modes these objects are highlighted with light grey color on map.

The frustration comes from bad game design, bad itemization, bad class balance, and bad level design. Walking into 30 ranged mobs with fast attack when I start a level loses its charm very quickly even when I figure out how to clear it. I watched videos of this mod before I got into it. Did you even do Isle of the Endless sea with Beastmaster or even a mage? It's not fun at all. There's a different between hard but challenging, and hard but broken, imbalanced. I noticed you did update the readmelog, but it seems like the log on the mobdb page needs to be updated (when you click on the link from the site, it says 1.0030). It was still stupid to change the hotkey for spellbooks and speedbook. Only listening to one person hurts you more. He only played on normal mode. Playing Normal and Iron man is night and day, and a lot of classes seem to have problems with content past hard mode (You did playtest everything, right?). Summoning is not much better in TH2 when I've seen pets not go after mobs. There have been times when a corrupted order Rogue will stand there chilling with my stingers, but because of my positioning they do nothing until I move. The pet should be attacking anything on sight, not sitting there and asking the Rogues what kind of lofi music do they listen to. One thing I would suggest is to give Summoners more variety to stand out (Beastmasters are better at melee, and can wear heavier stuff, Necros have horde armies, and Demonologists are just better with spells. It could compliment the traits you added). Thank god you guys put this in harder modes like IM/SI.

Stay mad, lmao.

"Bad game design, Bad itemization"
ah yes, the other way of saying "im bad at the game"