The Great Race; a proposal for "Khalim" awards

[Crystalion]

As in if you did this in HC, the results would be similar to hitting the "Go to Jail" square in Monopoly; go back to act 1 normal and start a new set of characters over from there, do not pass the act, do not collect any rewards.

This is technically inaccurate. As things stand now, a dead HC character still on screen enables the reward of quest credit to party members in town when a remaining (rusher) character that does not enable the reward completes the quest kill. While safe spots or your technique, under present circumstances, are indubitably a superior method, that does not constitute either "start over" or "no reward" to the suidide-carry-along technique.

As I mentioned, the speed of mindlessly rushing level 1s without any concerns for xp is so great that the "booster stage" rocket concept actually does mean, if given no alternate superior method to prefer using, that you could use dying HC characters to promote living ones. (general historical note: "smart" people thought we couldn't escape earth's gravity well, based on reasonable calculations--they didn't consider the booster rocket principle: jettison mass as you go)

This is no different than a difficult situation in which you don't really care if your merc dies, as long as the thorns type effect on him takes down enough enemies to make progress.

While hardcore suicide rushing technique is not of much importance now, as things stand, it should still be considered when whatever further anti-rush tweaks are made to the code for v1.10 release. (Since I don't know the details of the DiabloClone encounter I can't predict whether knowledge of suicide credit techniques could be exploitable there, but perhaps you see my point that no major oddity should be ignored? They tend to come back to haunt you later)

This seques into my next point...

Some of the posts in this thread are touching on parts of 'how to do it'.

Most are not seeing the forest due to the trees you are looking at.

Actually, most of us don't discuss forests because we are so in love with trees. :D

But I think it is very clear--and not at all from just this thread, but also from snippets I see casually alluded to in many threads--that the following things are "understood" in the sense of many people knowing about them or how to accomplish them...

1) ways to easily level characters quite rapidly

2) ways to easily location rush characters very rapidly

3) ways to easily get quest credit for superficially "on-site required" kills (e.g. my suicide simplicity; "safe but present" techniques; your technique isn't in this "known" list apparently)

4) the way to "carry along" extra quest credit drones in town (and yes, I've seen quite a few thread references to this, in my searches, that suggest to me that this is well known to practical meta-gamers on bnet, so I don't see any value in hush-hushing it... better to scream about it pre-release to increase the likelihood something is done)

So "the forest" is pretty much: you can rush easily and rapidly, even if we discount #4 and even if we don't learn the nuances of Ruvanal's method for #3. The one exception is that Ruvanal's special #3 is apparently of additional value in hardcore, where safe or suicide techniques are non-optimal.

I also think it is pretty clear, in this thread at least, that as things stand in v1.10s you can probably coax/exploit at least 7 nm hellforge rune drops per 3 hours. I have, as yet, no good idea of the time for the hell hellforge rush. These are both significant numbers given the rune distribution involved and the probable value of the runes/runewords ala eBay. That's quite a forest for you.

While this also means that any character normally advancing through the game can, at present, make use of #4 to ridiculous effect, that is one forest I'm going to continue to ignore, because if Blizzard doesn't chop it down for release, they'll have an embarrassing forest fire to fight on the v1.10 ladder, later on.

So, since you've not detailed your technique for #3, I'm left with guessing, an a purely intellectual activity (because, as I've indicated, I think #3 above is already quite foresty without knowing your contribution) unless I see evidence that your timings are substantially better for rushing tasks than are otherwise achievable. I did not get that feeling at all from your earlier post (which I deliberately didn't link to when starting this thread, since you seemed to not want to reveal much there and I didn't want to call a horde of pesterers down upon thee).

So, if I were a hardcore eBay exploiter who thought the code won't change for release, I'd be very eager to know your optimization (and then lock you in a dungeon, so no one else could learn it :P ). As it is, I'm rather puzzled as to why you'd be under the impression that our of love of nitpicking trees has caused us to miss seeing the angry Ents advancing.

Another way would be to change the limited TP access is coded for the restraint.  Have it limit the leaving town based on the clvl and level of the area going to.

I, at least, am studying rushing under the presumption that #4 will go away, and hoping something like your clever TP/area level restriction idea comes into effect (although, by the numbers you cited, 1/2 is cutting it pretty close, as at a glance I see 43/2 is 21, and a player who defeats the ancients legit, as Walkiry just has, is right on the edge--so I have to wonder if any of the other numbers might clip "normal" progress).

My personal interest in rushing is both in the intellectual challenge (which is why your mystery technique intrigues me, in case it happens to be one I don't know, even though I can't imagine it matters apart from HC) and in the possibility of guiding players to methods of *earning* runes for runewords that are more time bounded than: just run the countess a few hundred times and hope you get really lucky.

...

Do you really think, as long-winded as I always am, that anyone but a fanatic is still reading at this point?

At times discussion of the "trees" endangers the forest, very unintentionally. To give an example: say I suggest that, since I've observed a delay between kills and quest credits (e.g. Andarial's death sets off a long sequence before some of the quest state changes: death anim...generic portal), that it is possible, with excellent communication or game switch timing, to sleaze "on site" kill quest credit with essentially no risk, by portaling in after death but before quest state transition. (I, of course, have slow switch times, and would not be inclined to exploit implementation in this way--this is like using D1 current HPs < clvl under Mana Shield: a sleaze that should either be fixed, or made not to matter in some other way).

To continue my hypothetical example: I might thoughtlessly mention this seemingly very innocent technical point but conceivably not have realized that this minor implementation detail could be a huge pandora's box for the game's online community as a whole (this is certainly the case for several bugs/oddities I published back in D1 days). But this case is really better treated like disease control... you don't keep a child totally away from disease, because then their immune system doesn't respond effectively to threat when they are older. The answer to players use of effective or even sleazy techniques isn't security through obscurity (or rust storms, albeit necessary in retrospect), but in limiting the damage the "disease" can inflict ahead of time. For a child, this means you let/want them to get sick, mildly, for their future benefit, or even artificially immunize them.

Ergo, openness in discussing the severity of disease risks, is generally good, as you can plan ahead and get some resistanance now.

The *consequences* of #4 (above) *must* be dealt with. One way of dealing with part of it, your creative suggestion (of additional generic area entry clvl restriction), also mitigates the general game problem of super-rushing, and thus helpfully mitigates the damage of any optimizations exploiting game implementation vs. intent.

Speaking of minor implementation exploits, I ran into a lovely one earlier today: my level 6 PJavazon was being terrorized by extra fast LEB Rakanishu... then it happened to fall into place that he, I and one of his minions formed a diagonal line, with his minion exactly in the middle. Rakanishu then jittered behind his minion, bump bump bump, spastically, unable to simply step around to get at me, while I stun locked the minion, and got the poison cloud to tag Raggy as well. The slight respite gave me time to think, as I'd been in a run-away panic. Clearly monster pathing (as it was bigtime in EQ) is a candidate for exploits.

By and large, however, most implementation errors don't threaten the integrity of the game. If they do, in combination with some other consideration, then now is a great time to make Isolde aware of it, don't you think? (Is he like Kibo I wonder? Do you suppose he greps for his name? :lol: )