Sweep damage in Hellfire

[the Langolier]

I've been toying around lately with some low level hellfire characters, and I'm a little concerned with the sweep damage. Hellfire has a bug so that sweep attacks do normal melee damage in three tiles at once (instead of 1/4 in adjacent tiles as intended). I think that is ridiculous, but apparently people have been playing that way for years now, so let's run with it for now.

I am wondering how high-level barbarians and bards take sweep damage into account with low-AC setups. I pick on them because generally both of those classes can't block with standard setups. Obviously, with low-AC and no blocking in hell/hell, most characters would get eaten up pretty quick - but these classes can stun-lock three enemies simultaneously. To be anything but frustrating, it seems like they would have to rely on the sweep damage. Are there many players that take that route?

The other option for barbs and bards is, of course, high-AC setups, which realistically is more like mid-AC setups. Both classes are likely to use HOS, and have no shield, which should make getting near auto-hit AC difficult. I would guess that the AC would be good against dogs, maelstorms, and low snakes, but would be found wanting vs. knights, balrogs, azure drakes, etc.

As for the monk: how effective is his blocking speed at higher levels with low-AC? Certainly the bugged sweep damage decreases his need for good blocking, but let's discount the sweep for now. How would a monk with low-AC (and no sweep dmg) compare to a low-AC warrior at high levels? Does 3-frame blocking end up in block-lock too often?

I ask because I am considering removing sweep damage for any character except a monk using a staff. The sweep damage would intentionally be 100% of his normal attack, but I would decrease his attack speed with staves from .40/.35/.30 to .50/.45/.40 (just one unit too slow to stun-lock advocate type enemies) and possibly even .05 seconds slower. The general idea is staff = slower to swing but harder to hit. His swing speed for swords would be that of staff now. C'mon... When you think of ancient warriors, how can swords NOT come to mind? Also thinking about increasing block to fast-block.

How would removing sweep-damage for the other classes affect their versatility? It would kinda be boring to be limited to high-AC plates just so you can face 3 enemies at once without getting killed every 10 minutes. At the same time it is kinda cheesy to be able to face 3 enemies with low-AC just because you can stun all three. I'm mostly concerned about the barbarian's performance, since I will not rest until I can make the bard block (probably at .15 sec) with two swords equipped. That will allow some flexibility and balance to her at least by exchanging some buggy offense for sensible defense.

[Jim]

Hi,

The Monk is my favorite Hellfire character. :w00t:

I tired to play my saved characters after I upgraded my computer, however I get a ERROR message . :(

Do you play multiplayer on Kali...have you played the VK Mods ???

Hellfire Resources

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[Dako-ta]

Hi, King Jim,

I tired to play my saved characters after I upgraded my computer, however I get a ERROR message .  :(  

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What do you mean by "upgraded my computer?"

If you just mean installing a new hardware device, there could be lots of possible causes, but possibly could be some type of driver incompatibility. I don't think I'm the best to advise on this type of problem, but I think anyone will need more details on what you did to have a chance to solve this.

If your "upgrading" involved a new Windows installation, I might have the cause of the problem, at least if you are playing 'vanilla' HF, and not one of the mods. If you are playing a mod, the cause might be the same, but I don't know if "The Dark" folks or other mod-makers played around with this or not.

If you are talking plain HF, you are locked into an early patch (IIRC, about 1.04 or 1.05) of Diablo. Before the 1.08 patch for Diablo, the Diablo save files included the computer name (i.e., the 'name' assigned to your computer by Windows - this was mostly done as a network feature, but was done on computers even with no network software installed). If you copied the save files to a computer with a different name, or reinstalled windows and ended up with a different computer name, the files would not work. I think the default name created by Windows was based on your last name plus some initials from your first & maybe middle name.

Big Note: After writing almost all of the above, I suddenly had a qualm - what I wrote MIGHT only apply to multi-player save files. I just don't remember for sure, but I think maybe the single-player files didn't have the computer name embedded in them. Damn, it's frustrating to get so rusty with this information! :wacko:

So, if you are talking about HF Single-player saves, you can probably ignore most of what I wrote. :blush:

Hmmm, I'm reminded of the old SNL sketches with Roseanne Rosannadanna..."Never mind!"

Edit: I think I should have stayed in bed...I double-checked how to spell Rasannadanna and ended up finding out that it wasn't the Roseanne character that said "Never mind," it was Emily Litella [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella]

Sorry I (probably) couldn't be more help, but I decided to post this anyway, just in case it sparks something useful.

Regards,

Dako-ta

[LennyLen]

If you are talking plain HF, you are locked into an early patch (IIRC, about 1.04 or 1.05) of Diablo. Before the 1.08 patch for Diablo, the Diablo save files included the computer name (i.e., the 'name' assigned to your computer by Windows - this was mostly done as a network feature, but was done on computers even with no network software installed). If you copied the save files to a computer with a different name, or reinstalled windows and ended up with a different computer name, the files would not work. I think the default name created by Windows was based on your last name plus some initials from your first & maybe middle name.

Big Note: After writing almost all of the above, I suddenly had a qualm - what I wrote MIGHT only apply to multi-player save files. I just don't remember for sure, but I think maybe the single-player files didn't have the computer name embedded in them. Damn, it's frustrating to get so rusty with this information!
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If he's talking plain HF, then there is no multiplayer mode, therefore no multiplayer save files.

[Thenryb]

If he's talking plain HF, then there is no multiplayer mode, therefore no multiplayer save files.
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But there is a modified dll which allows you to play HF and multiplayer mode, and Jim and I used to play it a lot together on Kali. We also played the VK hellfire mod and the Dark on Kali. I suspect Dakota's theory about the computer name probably has some validity. What I remember about the computer name thing is not that you receive an error message but that your characters simply do not show up when you launch a game. Knowing the error message Jim is getting would certainly help track down the problem. I had an error message once which said something like "memory could not be read". What I ended up doing is moving all the hellfire characters to a separate folder and introducing one of them at a time (by pasting back in windows) until the error reappeared. It turned out that one of the characters was corrupted and deleting that character solved the problem. Oh well, Jim, you are probably spending all your time playing Asheron's Call anyway:)

As to the sweep damage issue, you could play HellfireFixed which "fixes" that along with most other regular HF "bugs". I would rather hate seeing only the monk benefit from sweep damage, as I think Bards and Barbarians should have it too since, unlike the monk, they cannot block attacks. Barbarians and Bards can never have any useful high ac on hell difficulty so sweep is essential to both unless you can figure out how to allow them to use weapons to block. This has been done I believe in the latest version of the Dark and Dr. Zed in his great Diablo mod also gave warriors using axes an ability to block.

[Dako-ta]

Hi, Thenryb,

But there is a modified dll which allows you to play HF and multiplayer mode, and Jim and I used to play it a lot together on Kali. ... I suspect Dakota's theory about the computer name probably has some validity. What I remember about the computer name thing is not that you receive an error message but that your characters simply do not show up when you launch a game. ...
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I'm glad you replied before I got back here! As soon as I read LennyLen's reply, I thought, "Gee, I'm sure I played some HF solo-MP," but based on my multiple strike-outs last night, I might have concluded it was just my imagination.

After reading your reply, I thought, "I wonder if that hacked .dll is even still available anymore?"

I just discovered yesterday that Henjo's site is apparently gone. Hadn't checked to see if it was still around for a year or two, but couldn't access it last night or today.

Then scratched my head some more, remembered what a pack rat I am, and checked my Diablo Downloads directory. Lo-and-behold, I not only have that a copy of that modified .dll, I also have a tiny .exe file that will patch the HF file to allow MP play (at least solo-MP worked, I never attempted to play HF on-line).

As I remember the story, HF was concieved to allow MP play (I think, even on b.net), and the appropriate code was put into HF, but shortly before HF was released, Blizzard objected, so Sierra left the code in but just disabled it. Therefore, all that needed to be done was to inactivate the inactivation code! Or, maybe, reactivate the MP code; maybe that's why the two different methods of obtaining MP play that I downloaded?

Anway, re: the issue of an error message. Getting a different computer name only happened to me once (ever since then, I've made a point in a new Windows installation to choose my original Windows computer name, just in case I ever wanted to play pre-1.08 Diablo :whistling: ), and that was over 5 years ago, so I didn't remember exactly what happened. You are probably right that the characters just don't appear.

Anyway, I'm glad someone else knew about this, so I didn't think I was slipping even worse than I know I am! :P

Regards,

Dako-ta

"We should have our minds open, but not so open that our brains fall out."

- Allen Ross Anderson

[Thenryb]

Hi, Thenryb,

Anway, re: the issue of an error message. Getting a different computer name only happened to me once (ever since then, I've made a point in a new Windows installation to choose my original Windows computer name, just in case I ever wanted to play pre-1.08 Diablo :whistling: ), and that was over 5 years ago, so I didn't remember exactly what happened. You are probably right that the characters just don't appear.

When I first got a cable connection I was required to change my computer name (that would no longer be true but it was then). What I ended up doing to salvage my hellfire and pre-1.08 Diablo characters was to use Raymond's and Stu's to save them. Then I created new characters on the newly named computer with identical names and pasted over them. I regard this as about the only acceptable use of a so-called trainer.

[Jarulf]

Regarding multiplayer in Hellfire.

Hellfire qwas supposed to just be single player, that was one of Blizzards wishes and demands. However, the multiplayer code was never removed, it was all in there (and would not really have been that easy to just move out) but the options to start multiplayer mode was simply not shown to the user. But synergistic did some test inhouse and noted that everything seemed to still work well, so they added the "multitest" (I think) command to the txt file along with the secret quests and Bard.

This of course made Blizzard furious and they demanded a simple removal of it in the next patch, period. At one time, Synergistic thought about removing the multitest in the form of simpyl changing the text so that it no longer was "multitest" but would still be available although being a non meningfull word instead. However, in the end they did not dear to do it, especially due to all other controversies and problems and anger they got with Blizzard for various other things. So they removed the ability to get multplayer menue options through the command.txt file. However, all nessecary code to play multiplayer was still in there, and it was an easy "fix" to change a few bytes to allow it, and hence the modified dll with that change (or alternatively a small program that made the changes, which is what I assume the other file mentioned here is).

In the end, it did not really help much, Blizzard was mad, and Sierra took out the blame on Synergistic and basically fired the lead and broke up the rest of the comany and moved those that stayed to other parts of Sierra. A bit sad.