Simple testing of offline Terror Zones

[ThatDrunkGuy]

Finally finished my Paladin on the PS4. Running time clocked in at 250 hours on the PS4, but I did most online play for the other characters on the PS5. Flayer Jungle/Dungeon is what I stuck with, since it generally always calculated out to be the best xp per hour. Occasionally tough elite pack combos, but mostly easy to do while watching TV. Level 98 to 99 took roughly 30 hours at P8. This was distracted playing, with no xp boost charms(good gear but not best in slot everywhere). 

 

Looks like I'll get both done in roughly 600 hours of play time...a lot of that was just having fun with the game though.

[NoMoreUpdates]

On 2/16/2023 at 9:30 PM, Property_Damage said:

Fuck..So i Finally figured it all out, i just wish it didnt cost me one third of a level, a shitty roll (but still ultra rare) 1os crown of ages, a 2os giant skull (2 of the 3 rarest unique helms mind you, the 3rd being griffons eye) 3 sunder charms and a couple high runes like a sur and cham, oh and now a perfect defense shako, fml..but I digress

 

- so you have to sign into the internet inorder to turn off auto sync, so do that

- Now disconnect from the internet

- load up D2R
- go to your ps5 settings and manipulate the time and date you need for whatever TZ you seek

- play the game til your hearts content and save and exit when youre done playing..now read the parentheses beneath!

 

(when playing with manipulated time, your  save file on your console wont update until you readjust the time to a later date, meaning if your previous D2R save file has a date of 02/20/2023 at 12:58pm, you would have to manipulate your T/D to atleast 02/20/2023 at 12:59pm inorder for your current save file to update, so if you’ve been rerolling that date for example of 12pm and you leave off at 12:30pm, your save file wont be updated, it’ll still be left off at your previous save file of 12:58pm..so re-adjust your time as needed like mentioned above inorder for your save file to update, play D2R, save and exit, now your save file has a new updated time)

- exit D2R

- now reconnect to the internet again

- upload your newly updated and current diablo save file to the cloud 

- now youre free to re-adjust to the correct date and time and your progress will be saved

 

When playing offline and manipluting your date / time, make sure you end your gaming session with a time and date later than your previous save file shows

edit; by turning off auto sync and following these steps also insures you that if you happen to die on your journey, you can always redownload your last upload from the cloud back to your console, bringing your character back to life!

 

hope this helps!

So just to clarify, after disconnecting and manipulating the time of the system, do you have to save & quit each time you want to change the time? Or can the game update synchronically with the system time change so I wouldn't have to save and quit?

 

Lastly, I just need to ensure that after all my time manipulation shenanigans that I revert my time to one minute later from what my save file originally was in order to maintain the progress I made while disconnected?

[ThatDrunkGuy]

For me, I didn't do any of that. I turned off auto-sync and turned off the thing that auto sets the time.

 

When I do play I just change the time and play....load the game, select single player, and I'm in. I haven't run into any issues doing this.

[NoMoreUpdates]

5 minutes ago, ThatDrunkGuy said:

For me, I didn't do any of that. I turned off auto-sync and turned off the thing that auto sets the time.

 

When I do play I just change the time and play....load the game, select single player, and I'm in. I haven't run into any issues doing this.

Okay that's great info.

Sadly I started this ages ago (before the Zones) and so my character is an online character that I was running with friends. We dropped off from playing and haven't touched it since. So I'm considering just starting a new HC character over again in Offline mode. It really sucks since I already had Hell unlocked and had beaten Baal on that HC character, so the idea of starting over is dreadful

Any recommendations for "quickly" leveling back up and unlocking Terror Zones in Hell?

[Property_Damage]

4 hours ago, NoMoreUpdates said:

So just to clarify, after disconnecting and manipulating the time of the system, do you have to save & quit each time you want to change the time? Or can the game update synchronically with the system time change so I wouldn't have to save and quit?

 

Lastly, I just need to ensure that after all my time manipulation shenanigans that I revert my time to one minute later from what my save file originally was in order to maintain the progress I made while disconnected?

Its been like a year and a half since i last played this game, soon as I finished the platinum was the last time i booted this game up, i tried to be very descriptive in my responses, just try to follow them as best as you can, i remember running into several issues when manipulating the times but as Ive said, just read through my adivce the best you can and hopefully you can avoid the issues I ran into, who knows, maybe my methods been nerfed since, i couldnt tell you definitively but when i made my posts, i always try to be as clear as possible

[NoMoreUpdates]

3 minutes ago, Property_Damage said:

Its been like a year and a half since i last played this game, soon as I finished the platinum was the last time i booted this game up, i tried to be very descriptive in my responses, just try to follow them as best as you can, i remember running into several issues when manipulating the times but as Ive said, just read through my adivce the best you can and hopefully you can avoid the issues I ran into, who knows, maybe my methods been nerfed since, i couldnt tell you definitively but when i made my posts, i always try to be as clear as possible

All good, tbf I didn't even look at the date you posted your comment - so that's on me.

No way I could reasonably expect you to remember all the details. I think I got it pretty understood by now. Do appreciate the tips for sure!

[Property_Damage]

1 hour ago, NoMoreUpdates said:

All good, tbf I didn't even look at the date you posted your comment - so that's on me.

No way I could reasonably expect you to remember all the details. I think I got it pretty understood by now. Do appreciate the tips for sure!

No worries, i just read through my instructions on the first page of this topic again, its all there! Just read through the redacted parts too and you should be all set, as i said, i tried to make it as detailed as i could without sounding too confusing, for future generations who might stumble upon it, goodluck traveler!

[ThatDrunkGuy]

On 4/25/2024 at 3:29 AM, NoMoreUpdates said:

Any recommendations for "quickly" leveling back up and unlocking Terror Zones in Hell?

Use this...

 

https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Area_Level

 

Always be in areas at or around your level at players 8 for max XP. For safety, it's a good idea to farm terror zones in Nightmare before going to Hell. Get to the cap in Nightmare Terror Zones(around 75) while farming gear to raise all resistances. You want to start Hell at max level with maxed resistances if possible.

 

Don't worry about starting over if you don't have a full team online. It will be faster solo on P8, you can back up the save, and you can dupe gear.

 

Cheers

[NoMoreUpdates]

8 hours ago, ThatDrunkGuy said:

Use this...

 

https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Area_Level

 

Always be in areas at or around your level at players 8 for max XP. For safety, it's a good idea to farm terror zones in Nightmare before going to Hell. Get to the cap in Nightmare Terror Zones(around 75) while farming gear to raise all resistances. You want to start Hell at max level with maxed resistances if possible.

 

Don't worry about starting over if you don't have a full team online. It will be faster solo on P8, you can back up the save, and you can dupe gear.

 

Cheers

Thanks mate! I really appreciate the help and tips! I did see there was a discovered dupe method…will be interesting to see that exactly! 
 

Feeling reinvigorated to get back to it! Cheers!

[dieselmanchild]

Question for anybody who has achieved the platinum recently — with all the changes to the game since release, like solo P8 mode and these terror zones, how much has it reduced the grind for platinum? I’d imagine it’s a lot shorter than the guide estimate suggests now, and probably a lot more fun too (although I don’t know what these terror zones are, they sound more fun than running a boss 10k times). I really haven’t kept up with the updates to this game since it was first released, so any insight is appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ThatDrunkGuy]

12 hours ago, dieselmanchild said:

Question for anybody who has achieved the platinum recently — with all the changes to the game since release, like solo P8 mode and these terror zones, how much has it reduced the grind for platinum? I’d imagine it’s a lot shorter than the guide estimate suggests now, and probably a lot more fun too (although I don’t know what these terror zones are, they sound more fun than running a boss 10k times). I really haven’t kept up with the updates to this game since it was first released, so any insight is appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, I posted earlier about the time needed with terror zones. I just wanted to add to that by saying this game is still a grind. Luckily the patches make the grind more tolerable. For instance, I never had luck farming bosses for the SOJ to dupe. The terror zones allowed me to just play on with what I had, and possibly get lucky with the increased treasure class in terror zones. Terror zones make it so all enemies give proper XP/gear till the end, but it's still very time consuming. Expect to put in at least 200 hours. 

[dieselmanchild]

12 hours ago, ThatDrunkGuy said:

Hey, I posted earlier about the time needed with terror zones. I just wanted to add to that by saying this game is still a grind. Luckily the patches make the grind more tolerable. For instance, I never had luck farming bosses for the SOJ to dupe. The terror zones allowed me to just play on with what I had, and possibly get lucky with the increased treasure class in terror zones. Terror zones make it so all enemies give proper XP/gear till the end, but it's still very time consuming. Expect to put in at least 200 hours. 

200 hours is nothing compared to what it was! I’m not scared of a long game, I just finished Path of Exile and completely fell in love with it so I’m just hungry for something similar and thought D2R might be a great option since it’s a classic and I never really played it back in the day.

 

I was quite interested in D2R when it came out for these exact reasons, but as soon as I saw the trophies were going to require a 1000 hour grind that consisted of running one boss tens of thousands of times, I completely lost interest in the game. I can handle a long game and/or a grind, but it has to remain fun for me. I don’t think I could stomache something so mindless and tedious for so long.

 

I haven’t been following the updates closely, but I’ve heard of several changes over the years that have drastically reduced the grind by buffing XP rates. Then last night I read about these “terror zones” and these in particular are a game changer for me, as from what I understand now it looks like you can basically reach 99 by simply playing the game “normally” (ie. killing mobs, hunting rare loot), which is really no different than say farming Atlas maps endlessly in PoE, which never lost its appeal to me.

 

I appreciate the insight man, thank you. I’m definitely excited to know it’s within the realm of possibility for me now. I’ll look into it a bit more but I’ve added it to my wishlist and gonna pick it up next time it’s on sale for sure. Cheers. 🙂