Observations in Nightmare Classic

[brianc84]

I tried to check a statement at diabloii.net that said Nightmare Andariel in classic is level 37. I made a character and rushed him through normal with the help of settting the exp gains in normal very high and monster hp, damage, and defense very low through monlvl.txt. Then I teleported all the way to NM Andariel only to remember that I had not changed stats for Nightmare so I'd have a tough time killing her with low damage weapons and ~18% chance to hit. I shrugged at this and swung at her for about half a minute and saw that she was barely taking damage.

I quit and edited the HP-L (N) and AC-L (N) properties in monlvl.txt to 1 for the level 49 row (only entries I modified at that time). I restarted the game and went back to Andariel, who now went down after about 2 swings. I picked up everything she dropped and used ATMA to check the ilvls. Oddly enough, they were all 37.

Soo...modifying properties of level 49 monsters will affect her stats but she still drops ilvl 37 items?

Modifying the MonLvl2 value for Catacombs Level 4 doesn't affect the ilvls for items in Andy's drop and it doesn't affect the ilvls of the items other monsters drop either. It won't affect regular monsters' stats either. The ilvls of their drops do seem consistent with monster levels in classic. The tohit percentages are also consistent with them having their classic levels but AR as it'd be in the expansion. Modifying minHP and maxHP and other things in monstats.txt affect the monsters life and things as well.

The Level(N) entry in monstats.txt appears to be telling the game which row to use in monlvl.txt when modifying monsters' base hp stats. Setting HP-L (N) for level 1 in monlvl.txt to 1 and Level(N) for a monster to 1 will cause any instance of that monster to have abnormally low hp, even unique monsters, which are dropping items that have ilvls of normal mlvl+3.

So probably the most fitting conclusion fom this:
Monsters in classic have their old levels but their stats are similar to what they would be in the expansion, except kinda weird.

Sound right? Old info? Sorta kinda useless? Moo?

[-Tempus-]

humm i'll have to go with the Moo optioin :D

[BOB2]

Hi,

I posted here a question about area level.

My question is next to your observations. Do you know if there are some good (=xp return on time investment) spot in D2C as it exists some in LOD (pit in act1hell, ...).

Thanks in advance,

BOB2

[Raziel]

I can confirm that what we know about area levels absolutely does not apply to classic, or at least to the monsters and what they drop.

The exp is still fantastic in NM/Hell at level 50, though. But the Pit doesn't seem to result in level 85 drops in classic, nor does the Chaos Sanc.

[lfd]

The exp is still fantastic in NM/Hell at level 50, though.  But the Pit doesn't seem to result in level 85 drops in classic, nor does the Chaos Sanc.

What exactly is a "level 85 drop" in Classic? Classic doesn't have elite items or exceptional uniques/sets, so the highest qlvl item is going to be far below 85.

[Thrugg]

Certainly you would expect Classic to use the columns MonLvl1/2/3 from Levels.txt, and not MonLvl1/2/3Ex, for the classic area levels.
This would give Hell Pit level 57 in Classic, and Hell Chaos Sanc level 78.

Of course this is likely to affect at most item levels, and therefore which random mods can spawn on magic/rare items.
The whole TC upgrade system is designed for the expansion. I have no idea if it applies to classic, nor how, if it does.