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BTW, the "should" there is just a word to fill up the void... You could try "could", "might", "pls pls pls rily add", or whatever you want to that phrase...
Meph-clone and Baal-clone, anyone?
X Annhilus Charms sold to increasingly annoying merchants.
Mephisto floats above the Earth.
or
Baal's Festering Appendages tunnel beneath the Earth.
Anyway, anything to be posted?
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It would be cool if:
They had reziarfg. It would be an extra level after hell, something like the cow level, and would say something like "from before the prime evils were a dream, from a realm so dark the upper reaches of hell are glaring, comes a long forgotten beast more powerful than the prime evils themselves" or something like what they say on the arreat summit. Reziarfg would have several million hit points, 99% resist all, etc. probably less, but it would be really hard.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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To be honest, I don't think a new clone would be that great. I dislike the Diablo clone because it detracts from Diablo's uniqueness. I also think some of the 'guest' monsters are out of place in Act 5. Many of these were designed specifically for prior acts, and have no proper place in Act 5. Maybe keep Annihilus, but allow it to be gained some other way.
I'd like it if Hell difficulty was uncheesed, but still kept challenging. Seeing every other monster immune to something reminds me of a design weakness in D1 that typically reduced my powerful sorcerer to a stone-cursing melee fool. Normal is better since the patch, Nightmare is fun, but Hell is tedious.
Of course, fix the bugs. One that bothered me last night was with the boars in Act 5. Their attack animation doesn't match their attack calculation. In other words, they roll to attack once their swords are raised up, not while bringing them down. It's a bit odd to look at, and misleading if you are trying to get away before they drop their swords.
It might require some adjustments to prevent overpowering, but I'd rather see synergy bonuses reflect levels gained from items. I say this because Blizzard now gives us reason to spend many more points (to be viable in Hell), but they don't bother giving us more points per level or quest. Case in point: my 1.09 tri-elemental sorceress, designed to survive everywhere, is now too weak in Hell because her item-provided +9 or +10 to skills doesn't count toward synergy bonuses, and there's really no other way to spend limited skill points on a tri-elemental build. I've already modded this into my offline game, because I love playing tri-elementals.
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More act 4 monsters would make sense as added ones in the act 5 lava dungeons.
The problem with synergies from items is that skills that have a lot of synergies would get a lot of damage from +tree skills, which could especially make one or two tree sorceresses and some paladins too powerful. Think a blizzard sorc with +1 cold skills getting 15% extra damage multiplied with some -resist on cold mastery multiplied by the damage increase for blizzard. Or think an avenger with +to defensive auras getting 12% extra damage for each element per level, compared to 3.33 or 2% extra average damage for the elements from putting 1 actual skill point in. (the 3.33 comes from averaging the 10% damage bonus over all elements.)
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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I did say some adjustments would likely have to be made. I see no reason to kill triple-tree characters, which can be a lot of fun, and other finesse builds, for the sake of people who like to focus on one or two trees, or skills, only. Besides, powergamers will always find a way to overpower their characters, no matter what is done.
Another thing to keep in mind is that synergies can be adjusted on a per-skill basis, so there's no need to assume a change will affect every skill of every class.
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So in that case does something like a maximum amount of synergy points sound like a way to balance everything out. In that case blizzard would have a max of 60 synergy points, hurricane would have a maximun of 40 damage synergy points unless it gets more damage synergies, etc.
Actually I agree with the idea that tri-elemental type builds should be able to play good. I was figuring if someone gets stuck playing with a power character than the power character should at least be in the same power area as another type.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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As long as we're making a wish list of things that will never happen... The option to turn off darkness effects. I don't get any "atmosphere" from playing darkened areas, I just get annoyed. I am the type of player that explores the entire map for every nook and cranny and opens every chest and barrel of every level of every area. Darkness just means I have to take that much longer because I need a tighter search pattern. I know that I can up the gamma for a marginal improvement but to do so requires me to play full screen and just makes everything ugly. Come on guys, let me see your pretty level designs.
Lochnar[ITB]
Freshman Diablo
![[Image: jsoho8.png]](http://i61.tinypic.com/jsoho8.png) ![[Image: 10gmtrs.png]](http://i60.tinypic.com/10gmtrs.png)
"I reject your reality and substitute my own."
"You don't know how strong you can be until strong is the only option."
"Think deeply, speak gently, love much, laugh loudly, give freely, be kind."
"Talk, Laugh, Love."
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-Clean up line-of-sight for casting Chain Lightning and Lightning, it's horrible. I can be in a clear hallway and not be able to hit something I can see, thanks to the pillars/walls/etc getting in the way mysteriously. In D1 I could run a line of lightning along a wall. In D2 I have to be near the middle of the hallway or it won't fly.
-Allow Chain Lightning to auto-target enemies around corners more consistently. Basing this upon character line-of-sight is silly and unrealistic.
Fix some quest activation bugs/issues:
Act 1:
- Charsi shouldn't initiate the quest for the Horadric Malus until you've entered the Monastery's front door. Also, Charsi sometimes waits until the Countess quest is done before initiating this quest, but usually doesn't. Make this more consistent.
- If you read the moldy tome to initiate the Countess quest and then leave the game and start a new one, the quest won't show up as having been initiated.
Act 2:
- Increase the range at which the Summoner quest initiates. I usually have to kill the guy before I can go back to town because this quest initiates so close to his platform.
Act 3:
- Get rid of extraneous quest info regarding the Compelling Orb. After working to get Khalim's Flail built and hearing all of Cain's spiel, then I get told to "Ask Cain for more info." after smashing the orb, even though he's already given me a complete thesis on what to do.
- Allow Golden Figurines to drop more consistently while helping other players do their quests. This is such a pain right now I usually tell them to make a solo game and do it alone to guarantee they get the item.
- Have Ormus initiate the final quest earlier, like as soon as the player enters the Kurast Causeway.
Act 4:
- Have Cain wait to initiate the Hellforge quest until you actually enter the River of Flame. Currently he gives the quest immediately upon your entering Act 4.
- Have Tyrael wait to initiate the Izual quest until you have actually entered the Outer Steppes.
Act 5:
- The Rescue Soldiers quest lights up as soon as you enter the Frozen Steppes (can't recall the actual name) to grab the waypoint after offing Shenk. Make this quest initiate after talking to whats-his-name or once you get close enough to the soldiers, like the Council quest does.
That's it on quests. There are some loopholes that allow rushing to be about as easy as it was in 1.09, and I'm sure there are a few other points I forgot to mention.
- Get rid of the potential for stair traps in the Throne of Destruction and Countess tower.
- Get rid of the auto-hiring of rogues upon completing Akara's quest in Act 1. If I want a merc, I'll hire one.
- Adjust the sound environment for the Monastery gate, so that one can't hear interior sounds while still standing in the Tamoe Highland wilderness just outside.
- Won't happen, but it'd be nice if flames didn't cast shadows.
- Make the 'gifts' provided by Akara, Ormus and Anya more useful and make this usefulness occur more often than not. 99.9% of the time the gifts are junk compared to what I already have.
- Fix the bug that allows monsters and mercs to attack through doorways that are closed to the player.
Can't remember anything else right now, but I know there's quite a list.
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The only way I know of to accomplish this is with a cheater's tool, unfortunately.
Perhaps one could mod the dark maps to remove such effects, but I haven't done any research to see if that would be possible and, more importantly, easy to do.
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smoketest Wrote:Get rid of the auto-hiring of rogues upon completing Akara's quest in Act 1. If I want a merc, I'll hire one.
What's wrong with free rogues? It's like free damage while the character is building up. If you don't want a mercenary, don't give the rogue equipment and let it die sometime.
I may be dead, but I'm not old (source: see lavcat)
The gloves come off, I'm playing hardball. It's fourth and 15 and you're looking at a full-court press. (Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun)
Some people in forums do the next best thing to listening to themselves talk, writing and reading what they write (source, my brother)
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Smoketest,Jul 12 2004, 02:50 AM Wrote:-Clean up line-of-sight for casting Chain Lightning and Lightning, it's horrible. I can be in a clear hallway and not be able to hit something I can see, thanks to the pillars/walls/etc getting in the way mysteriously. In D1 I could run a line of lightning along a wall. In D2 I have to be near the middle of the hallway or it won't fly. This is a big problem with just about every class and it annoys me to no end. Line of sight and clipping detection is so messed up on both ends.
Necromancer = Bone spear. Half the time I will be clicking directly on a mob and the spear will still zing past them doing no damage. I am forced to reposition myself lower on the screen from the mob for my spear to hit it. this seems to happen a lot on skeletal mages/archers where it is obvious they are not moving. Mostly a problem in Act 2 palace cellar where you travel mostly from top left to lower left/right.
Paladin = Same problem as with Necromancer. Holy Bolt. This isn't noticed as much because hardly anyone uses Holy Bolt but a magority of the time you can be clicking on a party member and the bolt will either completely miss or be deflected randomly by other objects in the area (walls, chests, etc.)
Barbarian = Whirl Wind. This one is really annoying. 90% of the time if you start a whirl wind in the vicinity of a wall or chest the path finding/clipping of the WW will be obscured by the object stopping the WW. This is great cause your character will sit there stuttering while you pound the WW to start cursing like hell. Then you have to break out your secondary attack to clear a path away from the offending objects so you can start WWing again.
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Hi,
Quote:Seeing every other monster immune to something reminds me of a design weakness in D1 that typically reduced my powerful sorcerer to a stone-cursing melee fool.
You must be speaking of Obsidian Lords (magic immune, fire immune and lightning immune)
or Sould Burners (also triple immune)
or Advocates (also triple immune).
All other monsters aren't immune to all three forms of magic IIRC, so for a well trained 'powerful' sorceror, they should represent no problem.
Of course there are the double immune, one resistant monsters that require you to really have at least one good spell of each magic department (usually either CL or FB is sufficiant):
Blood Claws (magic immune, fire immune, lightning resistant)
or Azure Drakes (magic immune, fire resistant, lightning immune)
or Hell Spawns (magic immune, fire immune, lightning resistant)
or Steel Lords (magic immune, fire immune, lightning resistant)
or Blood Lords (magic immune, fire resistant, lightning immune)
or Magistrates (magic immune, fire immune, lightning resistant)
or Cabalists (magic immune, fire resistant, lightning immune)
but they, too, should be managable while adding spice to the game. I don't see any design weaknesses there.
*defending the legend* B)
Disclaimer: I might have missed some. Please refer to the bible in case of doubt.
Greetings, Fragbait
Quote:You cannot pass... I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The Dark Flame will not avail you, Flame of Udun. Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass.
- Gandalf, speaking to the Balrog
Quote:Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash! Be water, my friend...
- Bruce Lee
Quote: There's an old Internet adage which simply states that the first person to resort to personal attacks in an online argument is the loser. Don't be one.
- excerpt from the forum rules
Post content property of Fragbait (member of the lurkerlounge). Do not (hesitate to) quote without permission.
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Hi,
Just one wish on my side:
Please make music volume adjustment autonomous from sound volume adjustment. I lay the blame chiefly on that bug that the atmosphere of DII is nowhere near DI.
Of course there are other thingies, but they have been summed up nicely so far :)
Greetings, Fragbait
Quote:You cannot pass... I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The Dark Flame will not avail you, Flame of Udun. Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass.
- Gandalf, speaking to the Balrog
Quote:Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash! Be water, my friend...
- Bruce Lee
Quote: There's an old Internet adage which simply states that the first person to resort to personal attacks in an online argument is the loser. Don't be one.
- excerpt from the forum rules
Post content property of Fragbait (member of the lurkerlounge). Do not (hesitate to) quote without permission.
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07-12-2004, 10:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2004, 11:29 PM by Smoketest.)
It's less work for someone to manually hire a rogue once they are available than it is for someone who doesn't want a rogue to get one anyway and have to go to the trouble of getting it killed. Of course, Blizzard decided to hand-hold the new players, so the rest of us end up having to put up with it.
Furthermore, even if I want a rogue merc, there's a chance I won't get the one I want through the auto-hiring mechanism. If that occurs, I have to go to the trouble of hiring a new one. Better to just kill the auto-hire feature and let players be responsible for hiring or not.
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I have all that information on a quick reference sheet, so you could have saved yourself the typing, and the attitude.
What some people view as "spice", "challenge", etc., is tedium to me. I'd already waded through Hell in D1 with my warriors and rogues, so I decided to try the challenge of a sorcerer, which I'd read about on various forums. I had a lot of fun and grew very "powerful" thanks to books and Enchanted shrines. I knew Hell would be a challenge, but I didn't have any trouble until levels 14, 15 and 16. True, some monsters are resistant to at least one form of magical attack, but that resistance is usually high. I might have tried Flash and some other magic-based attacks, but I can't remember now. What I do remember is that it was tedious in those last levels, and nowhere near as fun as playing the warrior and rogue.
Defend "the legend" all you want, but it still has unresolved issues and bugs. :)
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