I dont think I like where the patch direction(exp)

[Guest]

I think Im a pretty average version of the palyers who has spent far to much time in this game :)

When I play I like - to lvl up, get nice items, and have fun doing it.

Now in this patch I understand the monsters are tougher - thats great. If every monster was twice as hard to kill as before I would love it. If that slows down lvling Im still all for it. Maybe it will be more like the game was before nonstop cow and bloody runs.


But if leveling is to be slowed by making monsters worth less - thats not cool.

I want to have more fun killing monsters as I level. Im not big on killing more monsters just for the heck of it.


I originally liked this game because I could lvl up to 80-85(I have never went past lvl 86) relativily easily and end up with a competent character. This indeed was messed up by the speed lvling that came along with LOD. But the answer is tougher monsters/weaker skills. If they try to solve this by upping the kill count, they are admiting defeat before they release the patch.

I hope the goal isnt just a longer game. I hope the goal is a better game which results in a longer game.

[Brista]

The latest information from the Summit news page is that the exp nerf will hit players at level 70 onwards

Now most people playing their way through the game finish at around 70-75 so it doesn't really change questing

It just means there is a longer spell at the top end for those who like to level up their characters for the sake of it as well as a smaller amount of people right at the very top

Seems fair enough

[CorwinBrute]

There are pro and cons to nerfing XP past 70.

As of now, due to large and extremely easy to get amounts of experience, it's very easy (if a bit tedious past 85) to level (even without including pure leeching). This means that it's perhaps a bit too easy to get an extremely powerful character, as far as skills and stats are concerned. So nerfing XP will force people to make trade-offs for their character builds. A few examples :
- nearly all barbarians have maxed Battle Orders, maxed Mastery, at least one attack skill maxed, and good levels of Natural resistance/Stone Skin/Shout...
- all sorcs have at least two trees with one maxed skill and maxed mastery, plus a few "utility skills" (Static Field, Telekinesis...)
- assassins can have maxed Claw Mastery, one or two maxed Martial Arts skills, one maxed trap...
- paladins have one maxed aura (Fanaticism is very popular), maxed Vengeance, maxed Holy Shield.

So in a way, nerfing experience forces players to make trade-offs, and will increase build diversity and reduce the number of cookie-cutter characters. That's good.

The big problem I see coming is if Blizzard doesn't recalculate monster levels across the board. With nerfed experience, where level say 80 will be very hard to achieve, if all monsters are still Mlvl 90 past Act 3 Hell and are harder than now, then it will be hugely problematic for melee characters to play (and they already are "weak" when compared to ranged attackers and spellcasters). Of course, perhaps Blizz will have rebalanced things a bit, as far as the Mlvl/Clvl curve is concerned, which I hope so.

[jondifool]

with an exp nerf hitting around lvl 70 there is now as usual 2 straightly different cases.
The road- beat the whole game.
the goal - getting a high lvl character (with uber items)

blizzards claims that the monster improvements include enhanced AI, more skills, greater damage, and higher resistances. (more challanging game play ?)

Blizzard claims that players can expect to encounter more randomly distributed unique monsters in every locale and even a few guest monsters where players wouldn’t normally expect them . ( a new world?)

A lot of the impact in the battle net community would circle around how efficient leeching exp and tedius farming areas for exp would be!
Lets say that blizzard actual manage to get players to follow "the road" to get to "the goal".
This would mean "a lesser gab" as the road now becomes "harder and longer"! This is calling playing the whole game! And as such its a begining ! (in a patch 1.10- an end maybe)

But unless using a real tool to enforce/encouarge players to "play the whole game" its unlikely that the gab would not stay as every powergaming loophole is explored. Real tools rewards playing the whole game , either by nerfs (diminishing exp for unbalanced kill numbers this means to many bloddy runs= no exp!) or by using rewards (as big rewards for doing all quest again and again!).

But at least it looks like some steps have been taken! as blizzard now claims "The first time a player defeats an Act-ending boss monster, the creature will yield significantly better treasure than in subsequent encounters. Some of the other quest rewards have been improved as well. "

This system would work perfect if all quest where reset after last where done (and rewards adjusted to could be given repeately!). But still its not that bad (and not new either!).

But I see no real tool used to reward players to play the whole game as compared to exp farming so I expect the gab still to be there!

To another worring topic!
the synergic effects! this is interesting as it at first looks like this is goodiant material. But it might actual be another gab trap as items with + skills becomes a lot more important !

( looks like a good time to advocate that + skill items does not add to synergi effects! If applied in 1.09 it would mean that + skill items didn't gives dire wolf life bonus to a grizzly bear , but did get the other bonus!)

[CelticHound]

Since it seems that part of the LL's charter is analyzing the game, I figured I'd make an attempt at predicting the effects of 1.10 on gameplay. Quotes taken from the Arreat Summit.

What can everyone else infer from what we know so far?

More Challenging Gameplay - Diablo II players who adventure in the Nightmare and Hell difficulty levels will experience a world in which the monsters have become more powerful and substantially harder to defeat. Players may need to develop new tactics or enlist aid from others in order to face these strengthened minions. The monster improvements include enhanced AI, more skills, greater damage, and higher resistances.

Also, in the interview on dii.net, Flux's buddy said that monsters were speeded up (ala Seven Lances). Though I wonder how I'll manage to enlist aid in single player, I'd guess this will encourage forming parties to play through the game in higher difficulties. I worry that "more skills, greater damage" implies more one hit kills, which means the balance tips (further) away from melee characters and more towards ranged attackers.

A New World - Players can expect to encounter more randomly distributed unique monsters in every locale and even a few guest monsters where players wouldn't normally expect them. In addition, characters above level 70 will require increasingly more playtime in order to gain levels.

This implies that people who are willing to severly twist gameplay are evne more favored than before in creating high level characters. I'd also read that the cow level will be much less rewarding. I worry this just means a delay until the new sweet spot is found, and then that one map will be exploited.

As someone whole replays entire acts for exp, I found that it was already taking a tedious amount of time to reach levels above 75.

Enhanced Skills - The skills of each player-character class have been thoroughly revised. On top of that, a new system of "synergies" has been added to each character's skill set. Allotting a point to certain skills will result in synergy bonuses to one or more of that character's corresponding skills. After the patch is released, visit The Arreat Summit for more details.

From the peek at the inaccurate pages, it seems that becoming a "one trick pony" is going to be rewarded. (Is this some kind of latent envy of Sirian's firebolt-only sorceress?) I predict chaos will ensue on the realms, until the two or three thinking sites analyze the game and new cookie cutters emerge.

Enhanced Class-Specific Sets - The class-specific sets in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction have been significantly improved - some with abilities never before seen in the game.

We'll see. Just because we haven't seen it before doesn't mean we need to see it now. I'll note my reaction to most of the mods I've played has been "Now I know why Blizzard didn't do that."

I do wish they'd added more set so that each class might have useful low, middle and high end sets.

New Unique Items - Around 100 new unique items have been added to the world (many being elite uniques), some of which can be found only in either single-player, TCP/IP, and Open games or in 1.10 Ladder games.

Given the high level requirements of the new items we've seen combined with the stated experience nerf, I think the gap between "players" and "minmaxers" is going to widen.

Possible consolation for Roland, you could read this sentence as meaning that the ladder items will also drop in the client hosted games - they would be able to prevent someone from making a mod to do so anyway. It's a pity that effective use of the English language isn't one of the Blizzard webmaster's strong points.

New Unique Item Properties - Some of the all-new unique item properties introduce entirely new twists to the world of Diablo II. Imagine a Barbarian who can shape-shift into a Werewolf.

Same "we'll see" comment as above.

Roland has already pointed out that this breaks with the back story for the druid class.

On the other hand, this also means a modder will be able to implement a "girdle of sex change" ala D&D. For example a sash that only a barbarian can wear that makes him look like a sorceress. Just imagine the stories Occhi could write with one of those in the game!

New Rune Words and Horadric Cube Recipes - The patch will introduce new Rune Words and new Horadric Cube recipes. Some Horadric Cube recipes will work only in either single-player, TCP/IP, and Open games or in 1.10 Ladder games.

The inaccuate runewords were temendously high level. Right now I think several of runes in those recipes only drop in late hell. If rune drops are not altered significantly, this is another gap item.

Improved Treasure Drops - The quality of items dropped by regular monsters has been greatly increased.

This is good, depending on what they mean. It will likely encourages full clears. Are treasure classes for normal monsters boosted? Or has the affix pool been cleaned up so that monsters in Act V Hell won't drop a Ring of Craftsmanship?

Improved Quest Rewards - The first time a player defeats an Act-ending boss monster, the creature will yield significantly better treasure than in subsequent encounters. Some of the other quest rewards have been improved as well.

This can be good and bad. It may discourage rushing, for fear of loing the uber-drop. It may discourage Meph runs, depending on how the non-uber treasure class for the boss is set up. It may bring bakc the bad old days of drop steals and encourage people to solo act bosses in private games.

Better Gambling Odds - The average quality of items won via gambling has been improved.

I think this is good. The people who were calling for lower odds were a bunch of idiots. (We have met the enemy, and they is us.)

(arg! must run! will edit later)

-- CH

[Guest]

I like almost everything Blizz has said about the patch - except the part implying that you will have to kill more monsters to lvl after 70. I want quality not quanity.


I saw you mention the changes "symbiotic" skills. Blizz says those new skill lists were inaccurate. Personally I thought even as shown they were a big improvement over the current skills. It has always seemed rather silly to me that to make the best build you often have to wait till lvl 20-30 before you spend any points. With a little more balanceing this looks like a big improvement.

[Roland]

Since my name was mentioned (well, that's not the only reason, but shush :P).

Possible consolation for Roland, you could read this sentence as meaning that the ladder items will also drop in the client hosted games - they would be able to prevent someone from making a mod to do so anyway.

Nope. If you look closely, it states "SP, TCP/IP, and Open or Ladder only". What that means is that there are two new "mods": those that appear ONLY in SP, TCP/IP, and Open (thus negating my comments earlier about SP taking the shaft; curse you Blizzard! ;) Oh, wait, does this mean they actually LISTEN to me now? :D), and those that appear ONLY on the Realms for Ladder characters. So, essentially, non-Ladder Realm characters end up getting the shaft. ;) Woot! :P I imagine, however, that items found in Ladder will be carried over to non-Ladder when the characters get bumped down, so the point is somewhat moot.

This is good, depending on what they mean. It will likely encourages full clears. Are treasure classes for normal monsters boosted? Or has the affix pool been cleaned up so that monsters in Act V Hell won't drop a Ring of Craftsmanship?

It means that, while Bosses are still your best bet for MFing, normal, non-boss monsters are improved a bit. Take it as you will (good or bad). In the end, all it means is more ways to get items. Good news for SP players, bad news for MP players. *shrug* I'll remain indifferent, because I can't pick a side. :P

As for everything else... no real comment at the moment. Too little to go on to comment, so no point. ;) I only comment on what I know. Alot of this is new stuff, or at least changes that can't be guessed about through the words alone. On the one hand, so far there's only a few guaranteed broken elements. On the other, they've got ALOT of room to play with. :P My bet is on it being slightly worse than 1.09d. Or, in other words, roughly of the same caliber as 1.08 for Diablo II Classic. ;)

(Hey Bolty! Is THIS a whole new game? :D Yes, you can smack me. I know I deserve it. ;))

[CelticHound]

Since my name was mentioned (well, that's not the only reason, but shush :P).

I thought I had to say your name three times to summon you!

Nope. If you look closely, it states "SP, TCP/IP, and Open or Ladder only".

I will merely note that you are assuming a bit about the communication skills of the person who wrote that text.

It means that, while Bosses are still your best bet for MFing, normal, non-boss monsters are improved a bit. Take it as you will (good or bad). In the end, all it means is more ways to get items. Good news for SP players, bad news for MP players. *shrug* I'll remain indifferent, because I can't pick a side. :P

But that's natural, as I've said in another forum. As the number of people scales up from one in single player to billions and billions on b.net, the drop rate (in general terms, so include gambling) needs to go down. The economy that develops has a larger ability to get the items that do drop to the people who really want them. Or from another point of view someone who wants a particular item has a better chance of discovering someone who had found it.

As for the part you aren't commenting on, I think it will be "interesting times".

(Hey Bolty! Is THIS a whole new game? :D Yes, you can smack me. I know I deserve it. ;))

Hey! that was my line! ;)

What I want to know is: From the info about 1.10 we've been given, is it likely to encourage people to party and play through, to play through solo, or to rush as now?

-- CH
(If there was an Evil Great Old One named "Hey!", the Monkees would have been in deep doo doo.)

[Kevin]

Actually my biggest gripe with it is that is seems to be another quantity over quality patch. I didn't mind it taking forever because I knew they were externalizing a lot of information and I figured some of that was so that it would be easier to fine tune things as need be. I was hoping that there was going to be a lot of testing to help ensure less bugs and better "balance". But then we find out there are over 100 new uniques, new secret quests, etc. Blizzard even refers to it as being as big as an expansion pack. That creates that sinking feeling.

While I don't think the game necessarily needs to be "balanced" (however you want to describe that term in such a multifaceted product) there were some exploits and annoyances that many people agreed should have some work done to them so that the game would be more fun. I was hoping all the time and effort was going to make the existing product be more fun as well as more easily modified, not changing the product so much that it is basically something else (ala LOD makes enough changes to make it feel like a different game than classice D2). That isn't going to happen, and that saddens me a little.

Of course this isn't to say that the changes aren't going to be fun, I don't really know. I still play the game after 3 years and I still have fun most of the time (especially in NM, that to me is the best difficulty, access to all the skills good exp gains still, and you don't have the problem of just cruising along then getting one hit killed by a special like Hell has). I doubt 1.10 will "drive me away" from the game or "suck me back in". It may breathe some more life and get me to binge on it for a bit again, but I don't see them changing the core concept of the game that much, just the trappings on that concept. The simple game play mechanics, decent interface, decent variety, and limited annoyances are what keep the game fun. The variety and the annoyances are really all that be affected at this stage, and of those 2 the variety really does usually go up with every patch (and there are several kinds of variety in the game). As for annoyances, a clean realm will fix one of the bigger ones, so that is a plus as well. So, despite my misgivings that I started out with, I truly don't believe the patch can destroy the game. It can make it significantly different on the edge, but the real core will still be there for me. Just like with Dialbo I, which is why I still play that 7 year old game. So, I'll worry and anticipate until I finally have it downloaded and installed, and I'll see if it really is a new package on the same product like I fear.

[Roland]

I thought I had to say your name three times to summon you!

Nah. That's Beetlegeuse. ;)

I will merely note that you are assuming a bit about the communication skills of the person who wrote that text.

Hey. Aren't I allowed to assume SOMETHING? :P Hehe. And yeah, I am, but I think it's a pretty accurate indication of what he meant. It is, after all, what the text itself means. Whether that actually makes it into the patch or not, however, is another thing entirely. :P

But that's natural, as I've said in another forum. As the number of people scales up from one in single player to billions and billions on b.net, the drop rate (in general terms, so include gambling) needs to go down. The economy that develops has a larger ability to get the items that do drop to the people who really want them. Or from another point of view someone who wants a particular item has a better chance of discovering someone who had found it.

Yes. But, in order to do this, they have to have two seperate versions of the patch. That means *gasp* extra work for them. :P So, it's not gonna happen. Ever. ;) Believe me, it's tough enough trying to make balance for one or the other. To make two seperate patches would be a whole lot more work.

All that's aside from the fact that Blizzard wants to be able to item farm as much as the rest of B.Net. ;) Though I agree that, to a point, more players should equal less drops. Not per player in-game, but rather per player in the environment (i.e. the server). However, again, balancing for such a scale would be tremendously difficult.

None of that is an excuse for shoddy balance. It's just that to attain anything even close to perfect balance, you'd need to invest at least twice the work. Thank God for mods, eh? ;)

[Bolty]

(Hey Bolty! Is THIS a whole new game? :D Yes, you can smack me. I know I deserve it. ;))

Har.

-Bolty

[ldw]

Personally I read that 'synergy' stuff as something along the lines of:

- Similar behaviour to some of what Druid's wolves/bear summoning skills do to each other.
- Enhanced passives ... e.g. perhaps barbs's extra stamina will do something more now.

I mean cmon... lvl 18 skill that only increases stamina that most barb's have so much of as to care less.
On the other hand necromancer gets skeleton mastery at lvl 1 (ok 2!) which enhances 3 types of minions.
... and most ppl regard necros as weak now (as opposed to D2C 1.0) oh the irony.

btw: if it were up to me I'd make increased stamina lengthen the warcries length (BO/BC/Shout etc.) and make their default duration and increase/slvl a lot shorter. That'd promote a bit of variety. But I'm sure that'll not happen because as Bliz (oops was that Isolde only .. ) has already stated 'no nerfs'.

Anyway I'm rambling.. I'll stop now :lol:

[ldw]

It would be ironic if it indeed changed that much as to be truthful to that ill-fated article Bolty wrote so long ago . I think we all agree that we (the players .. or perhaps representative of what players are like on LL) would like it to be the 'whole new game'. But if it doesn't happen that's what the various mods are for :)

* ldw waves to FoxBat and his 7lances!

[Brista]

Oddly enough, in Seven Lances online play many of the things that people seem most uncomfortable with when thinking about the patch changes are very much present

(Perhaps not true of everyone, but the following is true of most people in hardcore)

People exp farm. There's nothing like getting a severe kicking or finding out your second string attack doesn't work to make you want to drop back to an easier area for a while

People magic find. This is both an attempt to make the game easier and sheer enthusiasm to see the cool new items

People group up in parties. It is very difficult solo, especially in hardcore although one player reached Guardian really rather fast

People twink

People min/max. A lot. You almost have to

What is noticeable by its absence is
- cheating
- rudeness
- leeching
- characters in areas where they are useless
- high level characters dropping back to help in low level games
- PKing

I really think that most of the issues are related to other people's behaviour rather than being integral to the game design

So perhaps the real issue is will other people's lameness spoil our game experience in 1.10?

Well clearly not in SP

On Bnet the three really significant changes in this regard are
- the ongoing Ladder wipes
- the Cow level nerf
- the revised drops

So maybe it will get more like Bnet D2 in the early days when you might not especially appreciate the other players but the reason everyone was there was to run through the game killing stuff. I certainly think the current dismal showing of public games will change where you simply don't see games that would be fun to join

(Says Brista fresh from a 2 hour Seven Lances attempt on NM Baal that ended in a draw ;) )

[Guest]

On your list of issues you put "PKing".

While YOU may not enjoy it, its one of the core design features of diablo/Diablo2.

Using that line of reasoning maybe the fact we level up by killing monstrers is am "issue" too.

Its not comparable to real problems like cheating.

[Brista]

All I'm really saying is that PKing is noticeable by its absence on the 7L server :)

[WarBlade]

Personally  I read that 'synergy' stuff as something along the lines of:

- Similar behaviour to some of what Druid's wolves/bear summoning skills do to each other.
- Enhanced passives ... e.g. perhaps barbs's extra stamina will do something more now.

   I mean cmon... lvl 18 skill that only increases stamina that most barb's have so much of as to care less.
   On the other hand necromancer gets skeleton mastery at lvl 1 (ok 2!) which enhances 3 types of minions.
    ... and most ppl regard necros as weak now (as opposed to D2C 1.0) oh the irony.

Heh. Barbarians are not the characters that you need to worry too much about with regards to the synergies, but you do hint at a problem with synergies.

From what I saw, the Paladin with his problems inherent in having to stretch two trees now was presented with encouragement to stretch between three trees. :blink: There may be potential for the Assassin to fall into the same problem.

The associations between Holy Bolt and FoH were fine. Likewise Defiance and Holy Shield looked like a fair mix, despite the dual tree focus. Unfortunately many of the others looked like they had the Paladin groping for points in a three tree mess. If this is supposed to encourage new styles of play, then Blizzard got it almost totally wrong for the Paladin . With the two skill combos that currently dominate Paladin builds, this one class is prehaps the most versatile in creating character concepts as it is and all I saw in the accidental 1.10 leak was a badly plotted move to stick him in a more tightly defined set of grooves.

Fortunately the synergies presented of Meditation and Prayer, Clensing and Prayer looked like a definite work in progress, so I'm hopeful that the 'patchers' might still wake up and see the need to make the synergies operate within the confines of a single tree in order to retain parity between classes.

Otherwise the complaints from Paladin players are going to equal the noise from the Sorceress fans with the introduction of Spell Timers.

[Guest]

The Barb synergies are an example of skills SHOULD be changed. Right now there are 3 "good" ways to make a barb - WW, Frenzy, Beserk. The proposed changes dont make any other skills more powerful than these 3 but they become viable alternatives.

Personally I think the Paly changes are fine to, but its not as clear as with a barb. I dont think the builds are any better than the standard paly builds now so I dont see a problem.