thinking cap

[jet]

i just found a thinking cap and equiped it, saw a red helm in corner of my screen and then found out that it is 1/1 durablity item??? and everyone has been telling me that you need the thinking cap to be a good sorc...
need to hunt hidden shrines i guess... if i unequip everything apart from the thinking cap will it be guarenteed to increase in durability?

----edit----
maybe it's just my lucky day but... i now have 2 thinking caps and civerbs cudgel :)

[the Langolier]

i just found a thinking cap and equiped it, saw a red helm in corner of my screen and then found out that it is 1/1 durablity item???
need to hunt hidden shrines i guess...

----edit----
maybe it's just my lucky day but... i now have 2 thinking caps and civerbs cudgel :)

>and everyone has been telling me that you need the thinking cap to be a good sorc...

Actually, you dont' NEED any item to be a good sorcerer :)

>if i unequip everything apart from the thinking cap will it be guarenteed to increase in durability?

No. The best way to use a hidden shrine is to equip an item in every slot. With a shield/weapon setup, this will result in a net gain of 20 dur. - which speaks for iteself. By removing gear, you lower the number of items that can be targeted for duribility decrease, thus increases the chance that a given item will be selected (i.e. equiping the TC and a one handed weapon will result in a <roughly> 59% chance to choose either, whereas equiping all four slots brings that chance down to 25%). Also note that an indestructable item will be ignored by the shrine, so don't equip those when you use it.

If you really don't want a certain item to lose/gain duribility, you can take them off, but its best to replace them with some other low quality item. You are going to want to do this for items that are already indestructable, or for items that have a greater duribilty than 245. If it above this, the game could potentially increase it OVER the max, and it will loop over the next game to a painfully low dur. An item having 246 dur. could be increased to 256, which is 1 dur. over the 255 limit, and it will loop over.

[Virgil Tibbs]

In addition to what is above I'll add that you don't need to worry about a hidden shrine destroying the TC. An item can't go below 1 durability due to a hidden shrine.

if i unequip everything apart from the thinking cap will it be guarenteed to increase in durability?

IIRC it will lose 10 durability (or drop to 1 if it is less than 10).

I think in one of the old patches, if you used a hidden shrine while wearing only indestructible items the game crashed.

Tibbs

[!!SaLtMaN!!]

Actually, if you really want to get your thinking cap to a max 251 ac, then you wear a regular (white text) armour, no shield, no weapon, and your thinking cap. The TC will go up 10 durability always, don't forget to get new regular armour when it gets to 1 though.

[LemmingofGlory]

Actually, if you really want to get your thinking cap to a max 251 ac...

I'm sure you mean dur. Max dur is 255 (indestructible), not 251. Warrior's Repair Item skill can lower the dur to a multiple of 5.

...wear a regular (white text) armour, no shield, no weapon, and your thinking cap. The TC will go up 10 durability always...

That's not correct. The Hidden Shrine would still have ample chance to hit either slot.

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[--Pete]

Hi,

...wear a regular (white text) armour, no shield, no weapon, and your thinking cap. The TC will go up 10 durability always...

That's not correct. The Hidden Shrine would still have ample chance to hit either slot.

And, since there are only two items equipped, the TC only has a 50% chance of improving. With 4 items (and ignoring the shield (IIRC) preference bug) it has a 75% chance of improving. But, wait, it gets worse :) With only two items, each will, on average, go up as often as they go down. Net result is no gain. With 4 items, three will go up, one will go down, for an average of 5 points gain per item.

--Pete

[!!SaLtMaN!!]

Hi,

...wear a regular (white text) armour, no shield, no weapon, and your thinking cap. The TC will go up 10 durability always...

That's not correct. The Hidden Shrine would still have ample chance to hit either slot.

And, since there are only two items equipped, the TC only has a 50% chance of improving.&nbsp; With 4 items (and ignoring the shield (IIRC) preference bug) it has a 75% chance of improving.&nbsp; But, wait, it gets worse :)&nbsp; With only two items, each will, on average, go up as often as they go down.&nbsp; Net result is no gain.&nbsp; With 4 items, three will go up, one will go down, for an average of 5 points gain per item.

--Pete

Okay sorry, I meant DUR, not ac, and I was simply giving it a max 251 ac because it starts off at 1. Yes you could use the repair skill but it's only 4 points difference.

And there is not a 75% chance, it is a 100% chance, I don't know why, you figure it out. I don't take risks if you knew me.

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Saltman,

"Yes you could use the repair skill but it's only 4 points difference."

Actually, that four points then makes the item indestructable, so it's more than a slight difference. Personally, I've never taken one past 21 Durability: that is more than enough really.

[--Pete]

Hi,

And there is not a 75% chance, it is a 100% chance, I don't know why, you figure it out. I don't take risks if you knew me.

I've noticed that you've been slinging a lot of misinformation about. Perhaps it is because of all the *experience* you have (about 2% the experience most of the other lurkers do). However, if you are going to make a statement like that, then back it up. For right know, I'll assume you think it is 100% because you are a clueless jerk that's too stupid to know he's ignorant.

--Pete

[LemmingofGlory]

And there is not a 75% chance, it is a 100% chance, I don't know why, you figure it out.

Hidden Shrines randomly select which slot to subtract dur from. You can't force them to always add to Helm any more than you can force them to always add to Armor.

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Lemming,

Perhaps I am remembering wrong, but is there not some bug that makes it do they are NOT random at all? I seem to recall something about having to load multiple dlvls before it really starts to randomise, and I am SURE it was always more likely to select the shield for the reduction than any other item - though, indeed, any item can lose durability.

I remember adding about 50 to my Windie, before lag ate the item...ah, those were the days :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C), that meant the first shrine or two were using a "random" zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot. After loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't remember the details), the grunge that accumulated in memory would start to give Hidden shrines something more along the lines of "random" behavior. Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf that pointed all this out.

Which is why I excluded the "shield bug" in my post above.

--Pete

[LemmingofGlory]

He was asserting that certain item combinations result in 100% Helm-slot improvement. Going into the details about bugs seemed like territory he wasn't ready for. :P

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[!!SaLtMaN!!]

Hail Saltman,

"Yes you could use the repair skill but it's only 4 points difference."

Actually, that four points then makes the item indestructable, so it's more than a slight difference. Personally, I've never taken one past 21 Durability: that is more than enough really.

Well then I take it back and say 3 points difference for max durability. You should know what it's good for - duels.
You can say what you want to say about me Pete, but I'm gonna keep on doing what I think will improve my mage, let alone his TC. When I go on Hidden shrine hunts (22 more for max dur) and if the TC dur goes down, I will apologize. If it doesn't; however, you will probably say it was chance I got all durability in 25 shrines onto the TC and not the armour off of the TC, but that's a (what did you say? .75?) .75^25 chance - I MUST BE PRETTY DAMN LUCKY.

[the Langolier]

I know it is hard, but...

...Don't feed the Trolls!

[Jarulf]

Small technical nit.

>IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not
>stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set
>unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C),

Correct so far.


> that
>meant the first shrine or two were using a "random"
>zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is
>the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot.

Well, the seed is 0, but the slot calculated from a seed is not the same as the seed. The seed would go through one update before you can get a slot out of it and that would not be slot 0 (which is either the amulet or the head, not sure, by the way). The resulting slot from a 0 start seed however will be one of the jewlery slots, and I think it takes 2 or 3 tries before an actual slot is hit and that would be the shield slot.



> After
>loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't
>remember the details),

Levels is enough, games just make it multiple levels.

> the grunge that accumulated
>in memory would start to give Hidden shrines
>something more along the lines of "random" behavior.

You. It is thus actually not random until it catches on to a random seed whenn it turns very random. But since you can't tell when it do that by playing, one can at least say it gets more and more random :)



>Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf
>that pointed all this out.


Well, I was the one who found the reason and exact nature of the bug. It had LONG been noted that the hidden shrine seemed to not at all give random results. The fact that it did so at times after playing many levels just diluted the result and made it harder to pinpoint. Checking the actual initialization code though made it completely obvious they forgot to save a seed in the correct variable for the shrine Hi,

IIRC, the value for each shrine was calculated but not stored. Since the compiler that Buzzard used set unused memory to zero (not required in ANSI C), that meant the first shrine or two were using a "random" zero to figure what slot to hit. Again, IIRC, slot 0 is the "shield" (left hand of the paper doll) slot. After loading a few levels (games? -- I really don't remember the details), the grunge that accumulated in memory would start to give Hidden shrines something more along the lines of "random" behavior. Also, I might be mistaken, but I believe it was Jarulf that pointed all this out.

:D

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, the seed is 0, but the slot calculated from a seed is not the same as the seed. The seed would go through one update before you can get a slot out of it and that would not be slot 0 (which is either the amulet or the head, not sure, by the way).

Sorry, I was sloppy in my usage. You've said it often enough that I should remember that the game stores seeds, not results.

The resulting slot from a 0 start seed however will be one of the jewlery slots, and I think it takes 2 or 3 tries before an actual slot is hit and that would be the shield slot.

I did not know (or remember) that. Thanks for clarifying.

--Pete

[!!SaLtMaN!!]

Do you find more hidden shrines in the church or the catacombs? I think catacombs but you'd never know.

[Vandiablo]

Hi there-- hey Pete, I thought I could count on you to bang my drum forever. I've only really contributed one, maybe two, things to the Diablo community and now no one remembers *sob*.

When Ironbeard (i think) mentioned that he and someone else (sadly and hypocritically I've forgotten who) had discovered that drops were based solely on the start-time of the game, I had a wonderful idea.... and then... it was I who then took that idea and ran to the shrines with it. I discovered that, seemingly, shrines were based on this time too. I could get the same shrine over and over again, and no matter what I wore, what I threw down, the last spell I cast, the last thing I equipped, or anything I did in-game, the results were always the same. (Until Jarulf that is)

This gave the DSF enough info that when ppl came on and said, "HEY WHEN U JUST WEAR WHITE ITEMS IT RAISES YER CAP EVRY TIME" we could say, no sorry WRONG.

As one reg said, I had killed a whole lotta superstition.

(If you can bear with my self-promotion a bit longer, this may get more interesting...)

As it turned out, I wasn't totally correct (aint it always da truth?). Jarulf eventually told us that things you did in-game DID affect the shrine.... and this ties in with the "shield" thing...

We knew it better as the "Chain Lightning bug", which many insisted was pure superstition... I felt that Blizzard MEANT to make the Hidden and ... uh ... Enchanted shrines random, but that their random failed to be random, I had more shields and CL hits than you would expect. People were divided into "it's random for me" and "hits the same thing most every time" camps. Jarulf showed us: it was a playing style issue... if you only play one or two levels a game, you will have a different view of the shrines' randomness than someone who clears six or seven. When I did my tests, I would always take the most direct route to the level involved, since I was testing game-start versus shrine-touch determination. Level-creation was not one of variables I tested. *sigh*

I think we must also give a lot of credit to Crystalion here, too. In terms of reading code, he was Jarulf's master, IIRC.

Oh, how I miss the joy of finding those two shrines .... tho finding a gem shrine almost makes up for it (but not quite).

-Van

PS. Pete, say hi to yer roomie fer me

PS. Salt -- you get the same number of shrines in church and cats (I counted them when I researched the above). If yer shrine-hunting, I found church was quicker because cats levels were often spread out so far, whereas in church, you just look for the small rooms and they're never far. (I seemed to get less shrines on level 4, but that was probably just bad luck... hehe)

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Vandiablo,

"you get the same number of shrines in church and cats"

Really? I would have guessed (and because it was a guess, I didn't reply earlier ;) ) that there would be a higher chance in the Cats, since dlvls1 and 2 are smaller than the other dlvls in the game, and therefore the chance of a shrine appearing on them slimmed somewhat. As a result, the four levels of the Cats have a higher chance of a Hidden shrine. Just my guess though: I never was the most knowledgeable at DI :)