Hellfire Patch v1.02.A5: Classic HF with less bugs and more polish!

[Belix]

Thankz Belix.

You're welcome, I hope it was worth the trouble.

I've changed the .dun files for the town such that Adria's house is where Gillian is much like how the Hell has it. I prefer this way so that I don't have to walk a mile to sell a book or staff.

I know how you feel; that's pretty much why I moved Wirt. Wirt's distance wasted hours of my life when I was younger; those hours are precious now, better spent actually playing and enjoying the game.

Do you think it's possible to change Gillian's location so that she's at the house near the portal location?

If I provided the graphics, could you do the programming in the next version?

It would make more sense to me to move Adria's shack to replace the house just a few steps Northwest of the portals, and leave Gillian where players are accustomed to finding her.

I know nothing about tile editing, but I'd guess it would be very easy for me to include such a change in my next version if you provided the altered file(s). The only problem you might have is getting my approval - I can be super picky, so if you don't move the shack to exactly the right place... We should discuss that through PMs, but I'm open to the idea. You could send me a screenshot of the moved shack, or maybe I could send you one showing where I'd like it moved to.

As an aside, if you're feeling really bold with tile editing, I'd love to implement Darren Lamb's beautiful illuminated water fountain that didn't make it into Hellfire for some reason. I'd do it myself if I had time to mess around with Diablo more. I think the glowing fountain would look really spiffy behind Cain and add a touch of atmosphere to the town square.

Also when are you going to make your own exe with all these changes?

I've been thinking about it, but I'm currently leaning against it. I feel that the ability to customize this mod easily is possibly its best feature - a feature that would be lost if I hardcoded changes into Hellfire's exe.

As it works now, it allows users to keep the changes they like and ditch the rest. So if our vision of a 'better Hellfire' differs somewhat, it doesn't become another tiresome case of all or nothing. I'd rather like to keep it that way. [/code]

[qualakon]

How's this look for you?



I wanted to keep that "edge of town" feel.




  towndun.zip (Size: 3.13 KB / Downloads: 9)

[Belix]

How's this look for you?

I wanted to keep that "edge of town" feel.

That's great. The placement of her shack is great there - far enough away that it isn't in your face when you exit the portal, and the cauldron is back far enough to not be an obstruction if you make a beeline to Adria from the portal.

I already tested it in the game, here's are some comparison images for anyone curious what this would look like when implemented:

BEFORE: http://imageshack.com/a/img841/6835/g6rw.jpg
AFTER: http://imageshack.com/a/img33/2440/o385.jpg

There's only one thing that bugs me about this, I looked at it for awhile and figured it out. There's too much empty space below Adria to the road. I did some copy/paste image magic and came up with this:

Wall Example: http://imageshack.com/a/img843/8400/fme5.jpg

I think this would look nice and add a touch more 'recluse flavor.' But I wouldn't want the wall to be any longer than that, or it might become a navigational nuisance. What do you think, qualakon? A worthy addition?

EDIT: Turned embedded images into links to reduce post size.

[qualakon]

How's this?



That's as far down I could push the wall due to the alignment of tiles. One tile down I'm redoing the road.

Edit: Changed wall, hopefully..


  shackdun.zip (Size: 3.14 KB / Downloads: 5)

[Belix]

How's this?

Looks nice! And good use of the ruined wall section on the right side, it doesn't obstruct player movement in and out of Adria's front yard.

When/if there's another update, I'd like to include this. I believe I know how to make it an optional feature that can be disabled for players who prefer Adria where she normally is. Thanks!

EDIT: Here's what the final product of qualakon's change looks like in the game, after I moved Adria there:
Adria's new spot: http://imageshack.com/a/img41/1286/gq5t.jpg

[qualakon]

WHEN there's another update.

[Malek]

First of all I'd like to say thank you for your work. Admittedly I barely got to try out this mod/patch due to my current laptop issues, but the list of changes looks well thought out, and the ability to turn them on and off to fit personal playstyle is great.

With that in mind some comments:
- Is it possible for you to provide options to turn off features from Marsh's mod that you use for base? While most of his fixes are good as well a few strike me as things that would be nice to be possible to turn off (not blocking attacks you're resistant to for example strikes me as bit of an double-edged mod).
- Regarding "affixes that can't be fixed without causing items to morph" - assuming I understand "morph" correctly here (i.e. that it means existing items with those affixes changing), would it be possible to include a fix for them anyway and just have it turned off by default. That way people like me who play SP mostly and don't care about affecting those prefixes could use those fixes
- According to Jarluf's Guide class inherent block value resets to 0 in games after the first - any chance of fixing that?
- Another potential bug for fixing from JG - Monk and Bard multipliers for hp/mana recovery is 1.0 instead of 1.5 when using potions of rejuvination.

Mmmm, I think I had something else on my mind but it eludes me. Anyway regardless if any of the above can be done, thanks again for doing a great job.

[Belix]

First of all I'd like to say thank you for your work. [...] the ability to turn them on and off to fit personal playstyle is great.

You're very welcome, Diablo is one of my favorite games. It was fun to polish it up for the years ahead, and I'm glad it can help improve the experience for others too. Turning features on/off was originally a side-effect of implementation, but I now regard that as a feature instead of a bonus, so I'm going to keep it.

- Is it possible for you to provide options to turn off features from Marsh's mod that you use for base?

I only have a few of Marsh's changes toggleable now, but eventually do hope to have them all optional. Marsh only gave partial info about changes he made to the Hellfire.exe, so I have to rely on mod notes and byte comparisons to pin them all down, which is an arduous process. If we're lucky, Marsh might see this and volunteer more info.

Regarding your specific example, not blocking projectiles you're resistant to was a change Blizzard officially made to Diablo in a patch. But, since I'm trying to find all of his changes anyway, I can aim to find that particular one early so you can toggle it next version.

Regarding "affixes that can't be fixed without causing items to morph"...

Unfortunately, it wouldn't change only items with the affected affixes. Diablo basically generates a data table containing all possible items, and items saved on a character and in the stash are tied to an item code that points at their location in this data table. Modifying what can or can't exist in the game can shift things around a lot in this table, and suddenly my Lord's Sword of Vampires becomes Grand Rags, because that's what the item code now points at in the altered data table; now my Warrior may not have a good weapon, or even any armor.

Since Marsh's mod included the feature of Gillian's Stash, I am reluctant to make changes that would invalidate all the treasures some of you have been collecting, especially since the stash would still offer your old items - only for them to randomly morph into some other item later if they're on your character when you start a new game! That could cause a lot of frustration for someone.

That said, at some point I'll probably implement those fixes as an option you can switch on, but I'll first try to set it up to avoid ruining existing characters equipment/stashes by forcing it to use new saves/stash files if possible. For now, most of these issues only effect low level gear and would hardly be noticeable to the people it would most inconvenience.

According to Jarluf's Guide class inherent block value resets to 0 in games after the first - any chance of fixing that?

I did think about looking into this, but it slipped my mind at some point and never ended up in my notes. I have now added this and the rejuvenation potion bonus bug to my list of stuff to look into.

Anyway regardless if any of the above can be done, thanks again for doing a great job.

And thank you for taking the time to offer feedback and suggestions, I appreciate it. Most seem to prefer to enjoy it silently - which I'm completely okay with! - but the little digit displaying how many downloads it has isn't as encouraging as a warm thank you.


EDIT: Malek, because I'm uncertain when I'll get around to updating this, I decided to dig around for you and was able to find the blocking behavior change Marsh made. If you'd like to go back to always blocking spells, create this new entry in the dat file:

Code:

start HF1.02Marsh "Reversion: Block spells regardless of resistance"
42F8CA 90E9A2920500 8B45083945F8
488B72 837DF4000F8F956DFAFF8B45083945F8E9496DFAFF 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
end

Just be be weary of block-lock. It is easy to get overwhelmed in a fight with a mix of melee & casters this way, especially with the slower blocking characters. Blocking a projectile you're 75% resistant to only to get hit instead by a Blood Knight's blade may not be such a good trade!

[Malek]

You're very welcome, Diablo is one of my favorite games. It was fun to polish it up for the years ahead, and I'm glad it can help improve the experience for others too. Turning features on/off was originally a side-effect of implementation, but I now regard that as a feature instead of a bonus, so I'm going to keep it.

Yeah, Diablo is a favourite of mine too. It was the very first game I got for my first PC so it holds dear memories, and - in my opinion at least - it aged better than Diablo 2 did (I had my fun with that one back in the days it was fresh but looking back it feels like Blizz messed up many thing trying to innovate... but I digress).
Glad to hear you're keeping feature customization

I only have a few of Marsh's changes toggleable now, but eventually do hope to have them all optional. Marsh only gave partial info about changes he made to the Hellfire.exe, so I have to rely on mod notes and byte comparisons to pin them all down, which is an arduous process. If we're lucky, Marsh might see this and volunteer more info.

Regarding your specific example, not blocking projectiles you're resistant to was a change Blizzard officially made to Diablo in a patch. But, since I'm trying to find all of his changes anyway, I can aim to find that particular one early so you can toggle it next version.

And also good to hear you're doing what you can on that front. Blocking was just something that stood out first that I used as an example (and I was surprised to learn it actually came from vanilla D1 - live something new each day it seems), but thanks for digging out that toggle code - I'll put it to good use and worst come to worst if monsters block-stun me into death I'll turn it off

*stuff about affixes and morphing*

Ah I see. I can understand why you're reluctant to change those if that's the case.

****

Just to add something to your to-look-into list I managed to play the game a bit (after learning that on being freshly booted my laptop can handle about one level of the game before trying to spontaneously combust), and it seems like the Search spell fix might either not work as intended or mess up Scrolls of Search a bit. I fired up one of those and it lasted me about a third of a level - didn't really keep track of time but I doubt I managed to clear out that much in those ~30 seconds that the scroll should provide going by calculation in JG (working on assumption here that is the intended calculation after the fix since you made reference to it in changelog). Edit: Managed to play the game some more, burned a second scroll of search I had with timer in hand to test this. Search lasted over three minutes O_o

Oh and a slightly off-topic question if you don't mind. You seem to be familiar with Marsh's mod and it speaks something about adding unique monsters to Hives and Crypts which left me a bit confused - did Hellfire have unique mobs and they were commented out? Or did Marsh do some custom-content job here?

[Belix]

[...] in my opinion at least - it aged better than Diablo 2 did

I have similar feelings. Diablo II is a decent game in its own right, but it wasn't what I wanted in a sequel to Diablo. I still replay it about once a year, hoping it'll finally charm me like its predecessor, but after finishing the game with on Normal (and some higher) with 30+ characters since I first got it and its expansion, it still hasn't happened.

Glad to hear you're keeping feature customization

The value of this became apparent to me as each update I have to decide what things should be on by default or should be specifically enabled, because there's so many things that feel like they're somewhere in the middle. In a future update I'd like to make it stupidly easy to turn features on/off, when time allows. That could be awhile though.

And also good to hear you're doing what you can on that front. Blocking [...] I was surprised to learn it actually came from vanilla D1

I have approximately half of all the changes Marsh made nailed down now, so if there is anything else you'd like to turn off, let me know and I'll see if I have the info yet.

Haha, yeah, if the shield block change wasn't basically gospel, I definitely would of included a reversion for that. Were it a user decision instead of Blizzard's, it would be a pretty radical alteration to the gameplay mechanics.

[...] it seems like the Search spell fix might either not work as intended

You're right, I've noticed this as well. When I tested this modification (from Hellfire: Fixed), it was with a character that had Search maxed out. The time it ran in the game was, as best I could tell, exactly what it should be for Level 15 according to Jarulf's formula. But playing with other characters since I notice the duration of it at low levels - even Level 1 (which scrolls normally cast) - is far too long. So it seems Lemming's formula only appeared to match Jarulf's coincidentally at Level 15, or perhaps he simply set it to always be the maximum duration.

I'll have to take a closer look at the assembly code and maybe rewrite it. Meanwhile, I prefer this to having to recast it every 15 seconds, and I suspect some people wouldn't mind if it lasted 15 minutes or could be activated by pressing ALT.

[...] did Hellfire have unique mobs and they were commented out? Or did Marsh do some custom-content job here?

That's an interesting question! I'd have to say a bit of both. As you may know, there were a lot of things that were intended to be implemented in Diablo that never made it to release. Pieces of some of these things exist in various stages of completion inside the game. One such case are monsters that were never implemented, for which information is defined internally, such as their 4 varieties, names, stats, and uniques.

For adding unique monsters to Hellfire, Lemming and Marsh changed these unused unique foes to be derived from monsters that actually do exist (from Hellfire), and set them to what seemed to be appropriate levels.

So you could say they already existed and were just enabled... or you could say it is a bit of mod flavor. Marsh's implementation seems largely based on Lemming's, so many consequently share the same looks and placement. Names are another matter; in some cases the original name from the unused unique monster was kept, in others Lemming took some creative license (anyone remember uniques with names like "Smellsbad Tastesworse"?) and in these cases Marsh either kept them or gave them, erm, more serious names.

[Malek]

I have approximately half of all the changes Marsh made nailed down now, so if there is anything else you'd like to turn off, let me know and I'll see if I have the info yet.

Hmmm, if you have a toggle for Black Death zombies not dealing 1 perma-damage anymore I'd like that. It might sound weird but not having to dread facing those yellow zeds feels wrong somehow

Meanwhile, I prefer this to having to recast it every 15 seconds, and I suspect some people wouldn't mind if it lasted 15 minutes or could be activated by pressing ALT.

Haha, yeah, I can see that. Search and jogging in town, two greatest gifts Hellfire gave to Diablo fans.

[Belix]

Hmmm, if you have a toggle for Black Death zombies not dealing 1 perma-damage anymore I'd like that. It might sound weird but not having to dread facing those yellow zeds feels wrong somehow

Heh, that doesn't sound weird at all! I had a similar thought and want to give Black Deaths some other ability (since irreversibly damaging your Life isn't very nice). The code you need to revert to the old behavior should be:

Code:

start HF1.02Marsh "Reversion: Black Deaths steal 1 max life per hit"
43E3BA F0 03
end

Would you (and anyone else reading this with interest) like to offer some opinions on potential new special abilities for Black Deaths? I have a few ideas for alternate abilities they could have which don't inflict irreparable damage, but are still rather nasty. List your impression of them from best to worst (that way if I can't implement the most popular choice, I can fallback on the second one).

Vitality Drain: Reduces your Vitality, essentially the same result as the original effect, but repairable; Vitality can later be restored with Level Up points, Shrines, and Vitality Elixirs.
Mana Burn: Black Death's touch empties your Current Mana reserve. Won't matter to characters not using spells.
Life Reduction: Your current health will be reduced 35% (along with the normal attack damage), so at full health (with or without Mana Shield) you can survive at most 2 consecutive hits from a Black Death before dying, no matter how tough you are.

I like Vitality Drain most solely because it is truest to the original Diablo experience, but some players might understandably feel that it creates too much of an inconvenience, and it might be the trickiest option for me to implement. My second choice would be Mana Burn. Sorcerers are awesomely powerful and I think a little humility once in awhile serves them well.

[Malek]

Goooooatmeeeen aaaaarcheeeeers!

Ahem, pardon this, just relived the less pleasant aspect of my Diablo memories. Onwards to the main subject.

First of all thanks for the code. As for the question you ask my opinion here is as follows:

Vitality Drain - first because it's simple, true to the original and replaceable. Also it mirrors the change already done to the mana-damaging shrines so consistency, yay.
Mana Burn - listed second because eh, it feels like better of the two remaining ones but in all honesty I don't really think it'd humble Sorcerers any because any smart sorcerer would leg it as soon as he activated a yellow zombie and then deal with it from range without having to fear the mana drain.
Life Reduction - this one I don't like. Feels to powerful and too swingy. Too easy for someone to get killed by bad luck with that one. Perhaps at lower % of damage taken it'd be workable (10% maybe? 15% perhaps but I'm not sure if I'd risk more) but still feels like the worst option here.

That being said, myself I'd probably stick to the original version. A little bit of perma hp drain never killed any- *drops dead*

Bonus thought - since it seems most of the changes here seem to be done by hex editing the exe file when it runs perhaps it'd be possible to implement all of those here and let people choose? Then again some of those might need more than just the hex edit so perhaps it is impossible.

Edit: It seems that your change on "of Thieves" affix also changed Empyrean Band. Won't find me complaining () but I figured I'd let you know all the same.

[Belix]

Goooooatmeeeen aaaaarcheeeeers!

I love how different monsters become your mortal enemies depending on your class. Remember encountering the seemingly harmless Illusion Weavers with a Sorcerer?

Thanks for your thoughts on a possible Black Death ability. As for trying them all, sometimes it takes just a few minutes to get a change like this done right, other times it takes hours, maybe even days; thus at most I'd probably just try two at most.

Edit: It seems that your change on "of Thieves" affix also changed Empyrean Band.

of Thieves has always behaved this way in Hellfire, I only changed the description itself to reflect its real behavior. Hellfire was based on v1.04 or thereabouts, so some of its bugs and differences are because the base version of Diablo is older. I'm a bit unfamiliar with older Diablo versions so the line between old Diablo and new Hellfire are unclear to me sometimes, as with this particular case; I have no idea if of Thieves used to be like this, or Hellfire itself changed it.

Either way, I have no idea how to change it (yet... and I've never seen anyone suggest it is an unfavorable change).

Sounds like you're having a blast playing Diablo again. I wish sometimes I could make myself temporarily 'forget' a game, book, movie etc. so that I could experience it fresh all over again like it was my first time, then conveniently remember my previous experiences with it again afterwards. That'd be awesome! But I still enjoy Diablo despite having played through it so many times over the years.

[Malek]

Sounds like you're having a blast playing Diablo again. I wish sometimes I could make myself temporarily 'forget' a game, book, movie etc. so that I could experience it fresh all over again like it was my first time, then conveniently remember my previous experiences with it again afterwards. That'd be awesome! But I still enjoy Diablo despite having played through it so many times over the years.

You could say that's what's happening to me now - it's been a long time since I last run the game so now I am bumbling around realizing how much slipped my mind. I even managed to mess up order on Tavern Sign quest which boggles my mind (good thing that Harelquin Crest was of no interest to me).
And the game is being nice to me too - from Snotspill coughin up the Mangler, to Steel Ring of the Sky on the same level (not only is it useful but I'm really used to not seeing rings until deeper), to the game giving me the Valor quest... quite possibly the best early-game run item-wise I ever had.
And it doesn't hurt any that I'm in a middle of a wait for when I have money to spar for long overdue upgrade to my dying laptop, and somewhere along the way I realized the new one will probably let me play Diablo 3. So now I have hype and anticipation for that spilling back to the original
TL;DR Yeah, I am having a blast.

Edit: A random encounter with the fire/lightning arrow multi-hit bug (ouch, instakill from a trap, didn't even knew what hit me) made me wonder is there a possibility of fixing that particular issue or is that sort of thing beyond what you can do.

[Nystul]

of Thieves has always behaved this way in Hellfire, I only changed the description itself to reflect its real behavior. Hellfire was based on v1.04 or thereabouts, so some of its bugs and differences are because the base version of Diablo is older. I'm a bit unfamiliar with older Diablo versions so the line between old Diablo and new Hellfire are unclear to me sometimes, as with this particular case; I have no idea if of Thieves used to be like this, or Hellfire itself changed it.

"Of thieves" did behave that way in Diablo until fixed in 1.07 by Blizzard. I'm pretty sure this behavior was one of the bombshells that Crystalion dropped on the DSF.

I'm not sure your earlier comment about spell blocking is accurate. I played a lot of Diablo in the 1.04 patch and I don't think it had the Hellfire style blocking. I believe this was a case of Hellfire "fixing a bug" that was better off left the way it was.

[Belix]

Thank you for the clarification, Nystul! And thank you for the correction about spell blocking. My memory insists that I read this somewhere a long time ago as a behavior in D1 that was patched out, but since I can't find this change listed in D1 patch notes now, it must of been an incorrect statement I read way back.

A random encounter with the fire/lightning arrow multi-hit bug (ouch, instakill from a trap, didn't even knew what hit me) made me wonder is there a possibility of fixing that particular issue or is that sort of thing beyond what you can do.

I really don't know until I try. I'm still relatively new to reading and modifying ASM (Assembly Language), sometimes even finding the code or memory addresses related to certain game behaviors seems beyond my abilities, and sometimes changing them more so. Then again, sometimes it only takes me a few minutes to do either.

The fire arrow traps can be a nasty (even fatal) surprise for a low level character, but changing the code responsible for the heap of damage would render Elemental Bows much less useful for Rogues (who are already robbed of Attack Speed bows in HF). I believe some players consider the elemental arrow damage a feature instead of a bug, so I'm not sure I should 'fix' it. However, an easier and more practical adjustment to address your specific issue might be to move Fire Arrow traps lower so they can't appear as early as the Catacombs.

I regret that I've been unable to make sense of the Rejuvenation Bonus Bug for the Monk and Bard, but on a more positive note, I am happy to report that I believe I've fixed the Block Bonus bug that you mentioned earlier. Apparently in Hellfire v1.01, the Block Bonus is always 0, even in a new character's first game! In v1.02.A4 the Block Bonus should work properly for all characters, new and old.

[Malek]

The fire arrow traps can be a nasty (even fatal) surprise for a low level character, but changing the code responsible for the heap of damage would render Elemental Bows much less useful for Rogues (who are already robbed of Attack Speed bows in HF). I believe some players consider the elemental arrow damage a feature instead of a bug, so I'm not sure I should 'fix' it. However, an easier and more practical adjustment to address your specific issue might be to move Fire Arrow traps lower so they can't appear as early as the Catacombs.

I wouldn't wish being hit with one of these even on the Lord of Terror himself, but I don't have any experience with Rogues so perhaps this is needed as a "feature" indeed.

I regret that I've been unable to make sense of the Rejuvenation Bonus Bug for the Monk and Bard, but on a more positive note, I am happy to report that I believe I've fixed the Block Bonus bug that you mentioned earlier. Apparently in Hellfire v1.01, the Block Bonus is always 0, even in a new character's first game! In v1.02.A4 the Block Bonus should work properly for all characters, new and old.

Now this is good news. Not the fact that Block Bonus was 0 always but that it'll be fixed - after Nest, Crypt and Hell I am convinced blocking is the best thing since sliced bread and not even MAX resistances across the board convince me otherwise

Wouldn't be my post without a bug report though (experienced this with few other games in past, sometimes I feel like a walking bug detector ). After meeting Diablo himself and showing my sword up his... errr, I mean gently persuading him to leave the mortal realm, I decided to make a new game with the same character (didn't save though thankfully) only to find out that Veil of Steel morphs on new game, turning into Mana Potion of Butcher's Cleaver. Stranger still, some quick searching revealed that such behavior was supposed to be fixed by patch 1.0.1 - but a quick revert to that version and doing the new game test again revealed this not be the case either Not sure if anything can be done about this, but I can upload the save file for testing if needed.

[Belix]

Veil of Steel morphs on new game, turning into Mana Potion of Butcher's Cleaver.

This appears to be a random issue. I have yet to witness it myself with my SP chars. One of them has a Veil of Steel and a new game causes no morph. You can work around this issue by depositing 'bad' items at Gillian's stash. Items in the stash will not morph between games, so you can pull it out again after you start a new game. This won't fix the underlying problem though, as the item should still morph if it is in your inventory when you start a new game again later.

I might be interested in your save, but I suspect the morphing is just a symptom of a problem that likely occurred when your Veil was originally created.

I have some theories about what might cause this bug, but when I looked at some of the code that appears to write stats to an item from the item table, it was too complex for me to grasp yet. If I fully understood it, I might be able to fix this and even make Oils have a permanent effect between games. Perhaps some day.

[Malek]

I might be interested in your save, but I suspect the morphing is just a symptom of a problem that likely occurred when your Veil was originally created.

Save available here then (hosted on dropbox - mentioning it because I had a person freak out about dropbox in past, apparently there is an antivirus out there that labels it as an unsafe site). Perhaps it will be of some use, perhaps not. And thanks for the tip about the stash, will use that whenever I decide to start this character on higher difficulty level