nobbie,Oct 15 2004, 05:23 PM Wrote:The "LoD Classic Style MOD" has got an update for Hirelings!
Hirelings got their "Experience/Level" value reduced by 75%, resulting in 4 times faster leveling. This was especially necessary for the Act 1 and 2 Hirelings in "Normal" difficulty, who previously had significant problems to catch up with the quickly increasing character level of their owner. Also, if one decides to switch the Hireling to another type in the middle of the game, it's now much easier to level him up again. Note that the modification of the "Experience/Level" value also results in lower experience requirements between levels, so that a Hireling from the MOD automatically loses levels when it is loaded into the original 1.10 game, where experience requirements between levels are higher. The Hireling must be leveled up here further again, if it shall have its previous MOD level.
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Finally Act 2 Normal mercs become useful! Before, it was virtually impossible to make progress leveling those buggers (and the Rogues) because your main character gains experience several times faster than your merc through most of Normal, often rendering them worthless despite their much-touted virtues because they simply can't keep up level-wise.
EDIT: An interesting side effect of this new change is that mercs leveled up in the normal 1.10 game GAIN levels when you load the character in the mod. I picked up my level 26 trapsin for the first time since downloading the update and found her merc had shot up to level 37. Not that I'm complaining, just pointing this out.
EDIT AGAIN: I've been using the mod in tandem with ATMA's bottomless stash to create a sort of offline database of items (set and unique), similar to the Arreat Summit - since I can't get on the Internet 24/7. While doing so, I noticed that it's apparently impossible to cube up the Cow King's set. Either it's not enabled in SP, or not just available through the CubeMOD - I've tried actually standing in the Cow level (after clearing some space, of course) and cubing, so that's not an option either. Since I'm not about to go back to endless MF runs (in this case trying to do so without taking out the Cow King himself, who's the only cow with a decent chance to drop the set), is there anything that can be done about this?