Simple and sweet, that is the 8-Player mod in a nutshell. At its core, the mod does something very simple that changes Diablo II in a big way. By simulating an 8-player game, the mod effectively increases the challenge by a power of eight. This may not seem like much, but in practice makes a huge difference in gameplay.
Everyone who has ever said, "Man, Diablo II is way too easy," or "Hell mode is a joke," or even "Damn, that lightning enchanted, teleporting, unique with stone skin was a joke," -- the 8 - Player mod is for you. Everything simulates the eight-player environment, including drop rates. This increase doesn't flood the player with high-level drops, however, since even the weakest of creatures takes quite a bit more effort to dispatch.
That is the 8-Player mod's one problem. And really, the mod can't be blamed for this; it's pretty much a part of Diablo II. It gets a bit stale when you're hacking away at a monster with eight times the hit points and stone skin. In Diablo II, any monster that takes more than ten hits to put down and isn't a boss is a bit tedious. And with the 8-Player mod, along with most other mods that tweak monster hit points to raise difficulty, this happens quite a bit.
While it isn't enough to kill the mod, it does sometimes kill the fun of an added extra challenge.
Highs: Big challenge, better drops, can reduce hotshot Diablo II players to quivering piles of weeping, sobbing flesh. Lows: Sometimes extremely difficult (Duh), can become tedious.
Since the 8-Player mod is basically standard Diablo II, normal strategy applies. There are, however, a few key differences.
Damage: Doing a lot of damage is very important now. The monsters will hit very, very hard, and are quite tough to put down, so it is now wise to deal with them as quickly as you can. Try to go for weapons with high damage modifiers and/or lots of elemental damage.
Defense: If you've been neglecting your resistances, don't in the 8-Player mod. Enemy spellcasters are very difficult to put down so they have much more time than what would be normal to hammer away at you.
Health: Unless you like corpse retrieval, a few extra points should be invested into Vitality. The longer you can stay alive, the longer you can avoid running buck naked to recover your corpse from a horde insanely powerful monsters.
It should be noted that as of now, most mods do not support either the 1.08 patch or the Diablo II expansion set. Mod makers are hard at work to add compatibility so please bear with them.
Check out the 8-Player mod at the Staff Mod Archives of The Phrozen Keep!
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