03-01-2003, 08:03 AM
Well, I never play in public hc games, but the main issue now is hacks, which can be used to kill you, however much you're on guard.
There are drop hacks, which freeze your game so you can't do anything to protect yourself and wake up dead. Then there are trigger hacks. These initiate an almost instaneous sequence of: 'zon fires a guided arrow (with massive one-hit-kill damage added by all kinds of hacked items, and from a great distance); 'zon casts tp; 'zon goes to town; 'zon declares hostility; guided arrow hits victim; victim dies.
So yes, legit PKs are not so dangerous in D2, even hydra sorcs or others if you know what to watch out for; but hacking PKs on hc (they don't bother to do it unless they can cause real grief to their victims) are running rampant. Unfortunately, although maphack provides some protection against these hacks (somewhat analogous to D1 godmode, though not as effective e.g. apparently there's now a "chicken" option to maphack which will automatically exit your character from the game if their life drops below 1/2...), it seems that Bliz has so far done nothing to neutralize these hacks. This means that legit hc players are reduced to playing private games with people they know, just like in D1.
There are drop hacks, which freeze your game so you can't do anything to protect yourself and wake up dead. Then there are trigger hacks. These initiate an almost instaneous sequence of: 'zon fires a guided arrow (with massive one-hit-kill damage added by all kinds of hacked items, and from a great distance); 'zon casts tp; 'zon goes to town; 'zon declares hostility; guided arrow hits victim; victim dies.
So yes, legit PKs are not so dangerous in D2, even hydra sorcs or others if you know what to watch out for; but hacking PKs on hc (they don't bother to do it unless they can cause real grief to their victims) are running rampant. Unfortunately, although maphack provides some protection against these hacks (somewhat analogous to D1 godmode, though not as effective e.g. apparently there's now a "chicken" option to maphack which will automatically exit your character from the game if their life drops below 1/2...), it seems that Bliz has so far done nothing to neutralize these hacks. This means that legit hc players are reduced to playing private games with people they know, just like in D1.