In depth, *realstic playtest and rant

[Obi2Kenobi]

We don't yet know if it will be possible to solo-8 in Hell

It probably will

With or without "teh ub3r g33r" :huh: ?

[DSTheHermit]

I feel the proper and logical solution to this would be to incur an experience benefit to people playing games with the proper player size for their party; i.e. playing on players 1 with one player in single player, or players 3 in an open game with players 3. Not much more than maybe 10-15%, so it's not as good as players 5, but certainly better than the glacially slow p1 xp. Monsters just aren't worth enough xp in p1 despite the speed at which you can kill them. Perhaps an even higher bonus with diminishing returns, since a p8 party in a p8 game doesn't really need much more experience.

Don't mind me, I just woke up, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Murder now the path called "Must we?" Tool - Sober

[lemekim]

One maxes nova.
One or two curse ones.
A bone wall prison guy (for retreats and holding on to lebs).
One with corpse explosion.
Miniony person.
Rest use spirt and spear.
Everyone also maxes their synergies, and add in mercs and your set.
And if people have extra points, just invest in different golems.

Since the original author was referring to realm games, it seems to me like he was talking about 1.09 patch, and I still say that in 1.09 the sum of 8 necros is less then 8. But in 1.1 it might be different, since I haven't actually played any 1.1 games with multiple necromancers yet. It might be, because each necro will have to specialize in a skill, whereas in 1.09 the first 5 skills that you described could be handled by one person.

[Obi2Kenobi]

I was reffering to 1.10, so that way people could max their synergies.

[Dagni]

Since the original author was referring to realm games, it seems to me like he was talking about 1.09 patch, and I still say that in 1.09 the sum of 8 necros is less then 8.

No, I was referring to Ladder games 1.10. Anyway, perhaps 8 necros was a bad example. I wasn't looking at it from the perspective of overlapping skills. In a real 8 person party (that isn't all necros), you aren't going to have to worry about that kind of overlap. Only a few things that deal damage don't stack with each other. It so happens that the necro has most all of them. Poison, so many minions that they won't even all be able to attack at once, CE.

What I was thinking of, though, was simply 8 Bone Spear/Spirit necros. I don't think there is any question that that would be 8 times as much damage as one Bone Spear/Spirit necro.

- Dagni

[phooker51]

I hadn't intended to focus on necro imbalance exclusively when I started the thread, but Dyntheos brings up a really excellent point. Necros have always been offensively underpowered. Yes, there is CE, and that is very powerful, but none of the necro skills is able to compliment it well (and by that, i mean make a corpse in the first place).

Actually, the other characters are probably viable even in 8 player hell, albeit very dangerously. I tested a sorc yesterday and manged to kill a few monsters in 8 player, and if my merc wasn't killed every few seconds, I could have plotted along. You know how much damage meteor can do? Upwards of 10k damage and 1000k per second with fire mastery and the 2 5% synergies close to max. I was only using +4 skills, I can easily see that skill doing 15000-20000 by the time people are through. And thats for 28 mana, a static number I believe. 11000 damage in 1 shot, followed by maybe 3-4k damage over time.

What does a necro get? 2000-3000 damage from bonespirit, for a similar point and mana investment (60-80 skill points). Direct damage characters, while probably slower than the sorc, still get a significant boost from all the new items, and myraid of ways to get a very nice weapon now (rares having the high %ed mods, upgrading uniques, new rune words, etc). What does a necro get? 355 fire damage fire golem. 2000 damage bone spirit. 10000 poison damage over like 14 seconds. Bone prison. IM that returns 900% of damage, yet barely phases monsters (most regenerate faster than they recieve damage). For something like 120 odd skill points (all the golems and mastery, and summon resist) you get a high life marshmellow that has the damage potential of a marshmellow. I want to see my fire golem using fire spells. Let him fling some 4000 damage fireballs, or call down 8000 damage meteors. I'm only using fire golem as an example, but golems need to be fixed up across the board.

[Animation]

All,

I dont know about anybody else; I never was a great player; but STILL, I could always plod along in Hell in Players 1 and make it past the game. I could always continue to play a character past Hell Baal, and slowly but surely, I could get up to level 80 or more.

So, I grab the beta and I tried 4 different (older, retired Single-Player) level 78-82 range characters in Players 1 Hell in 1.10.

I could barely kill *ONE* monster with any of them.

My old Meteor / Blizzard sorceress would barely even see one archer in the Bloody Hills, and I would die in 2 hits. Even with SLVL 26 Meteor and 27 Fire Mastery, as well as level 16 Fireball, I couldn't touch monsters in solo/Hell/1.

I tried my old trusty Holy Shock Bow Paladin; a Bone Spear / CE / Revives Necromancer; and an Axe Frenzy Barbarian. None of them could kill anything. I couldn't even get out of sight of the Gate of Haroggath.

OK, 1.10 is ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned. At least in hell. And its too bad because I'm having a blast with Holy Fire on a bow in normal. But Players 1 Hell ... I dont personally have the ability to do it.

I can't imagine teams working either in 1.10, even on the realms. I mean, if you meet up with 7 other strangers, what are the odds that your skills will compliment each other? Not very high. You'd have to plan a team of 8 from the ground up, instead of having chance meetings.

"Normal" (crappy?) players like me who could just manage to kinda struggle through 1.09D (and previous) Hell are in for a surprise. I personally expect to try the real 1.10 in hell with 1 new character, but I expect in the end I will revert to 1.09D so I can enjoy the gamel OR else I'll never bother to play past Nightmare, even 1 player.

Just me,

Lewis

[Baylan]

Title should be "My Take" *sigh* PREVIEW MODE EVILNESS

To the naysayers, the soloers, the unimaginative, and all those who want to hear my little say on this.

The game is hardly ridiculous. Hell is tough, very tough in fact, near impossible one might say. The real problem is that people expect an easy game. That is what Diablo 2 has become, "solo 8-land", "bloody experience hills", and "river of experience". I think that everyone just seems to misunderstand the fact that your old characters aren't useful anymore. I mean, your taking a primarily FIRE sorceress against the area with one of the highest concentrations of fire resistant monsters in act 1. Frenzy Barb? In act 5? Solo? Its insanely difficult. Particularly when your being shot at by those catapults, throw in ranged characters along with some of the more powerful meleers in the game and you've got a VERY difficult area to play against. Its the same with the Holy Shock Ranger - You've got one element, and your using strategies from 1.09. Those don't fly anymore, they don't work. The AI has been improved, the monsters have been randomized, the skills have been changed.

Blizzard has done something that seemed impossible, they throw out a patch THREE YEARS after a game was released. They aren't getting paid any extra, they aren't getting anything but a little extra bandwith for FT and a lot of goodwill from us. They have made hell hell, they have made life hard. I think the questions to put out there for everyone is, are you willing to struggle? Are you willing to fight? Are you willing to build, rebuild, and retry characters in order to find out whats effective? Are you ready to find new tactics?

I'm a chess player and though it takes a lot of calculation, a good memory, it also takes a good imagination. You need to look and discover that beautiful combination, the crazy sacrifice, the suicidal idea. You take the the board, the raw ideas, the tactics, the strategy, and turn them into something that can be and is quite beautiful. Diablo 2 is no longer "hack and slash" its "strategy and tactics".

So I'll pose one more question for everyone...

Are you ready to work?

Baylan

Edit: Titled post + removed sig.

[phooker51]

You've got one element, and your using strategies from 1.09. Those don't fly anymore, they don't work. The AI has been improved, the monsters have been randomized, the skills have been changed.

I'm a chess player and though it takes a lot of calculation, a good memory, it also takes a good imagination. You need to look and discover that beautiful combination, the crazy sacrifice, the suicidal idea. You take the the board, the raw ideas, the tactics, the strategy, and turn them into something that can be and is quite beautiful. Diablo 2 is no longer "hack and slash" its "strategy and tactics".

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think many people tend to overexagerate the amount of "strategy" that exists in D2. Speaking strictly for myself, the game is not exactly one that requires thinking. It's hack and slash, always has been, and it was designed as such. I don't believe that 1.10 will create that 'beautiful strategy' you bring up. "Strategy" will be finding the 1 or 2 skills that are the new showstoppers, that work much better than the rest.

I can already give you a fairly accurate picture of the typical "strategy" that will come out of the patch:

Party
Barb - BO, Shout, BC, smack a few monsters
Necro - amp or lr, a meat shield or 2, ce when corpses come up, maybe some poison nova if monsters are regenerating too much
Sorc - static, followed by whatever uber skill emerges (early candidates may be meteor and chainlightning... though I think nova is still pretty strong)
Paladin - some combonation of zeal, fanat, conviction, vengeance, blah blah blah
Amazon - valk, frozen arrow (which I used anyhow), immolation, strafe
Druid - oak, meat shields, smack a few monsters
Assassin - bos, shadowmaster, fade perhaps, smack a few monsters or lay a few traps

Yes, there will be some variation, yes there will probably be a few discoveries of useful quirks, or better combos, but you know what? Blizzard hasn't changed or improved the gameplay much. Given the massive increases in monster hp and regen (I don't see much development of AI) all those synergies are just damage boosters, and many of them stupid ones at that. Parties will work pretty much the same as they have before, the only real change is that Blizzard has forced party play down our collective throats.

When I play 1.10 with friends, dabbling in 'new' possibilities and such, new combonations, do you know what I find? It's the same thing. I just have to drink more pots, retreat, and stand in front of the same monsters for much longer. Boring. Tedius. Frustrating. I think in 3 years Blizzard could have come up with a more elegant solution to game difficulty besides just giving everything more life and damage.

Which brings me to this:

Blizzard has done something that seemed impossible, they throw out a patch THREE YEARS after a game was released. They aren't getting paid any extra, they aren't getting anything but a little extra bandwith for FT and a lot of goodwill from us.

I'd say the patch was incredibly late, not impossible. I think you unintentionally summed it up with the words "throw out". Thats exactly what 1.10 is, a half-assed, untested, unispired lump thrown out to the masses. 1.10 was supposed to be a quick followup to 1.09 to fix the GLARINGLY obvious imbalances (many of which are still in 1.10) and toss in a few new items. Thats not exactly hard work and toil for 2 years. Or maybe it is? I might be completely wrong here, but I think a few dozen half baked synergies, random monsters, bumping up hp and regen, and a few formulas and items doesn't constitute much considering this patch has been 'in progress' since a few months after the xpac release.

Let me clear up that last bit. Yes, those are some significant changes, but many of those were supposed to be included in the first place. Remember the idea of releasing a few new runewords from time to time? Remember ladder resets? How about cleaning up the boatload of hacks and dupes? What about pindlebots? What about meeting players players halfway on certain issues (and I know many will disagree on this one). Personally, I think maphack loused up the game in many ways. At the same time, I thought it had some useful features like the ability to see how many sockets were on an item, drop hack protection, and to some extent, the reveal map. It definately became a crutch, but I for one, don't want to spend 2 hours crawling around the jungle on EVERY single character to get a khalim's will. Maybe the simple idea of being able to find map chunks, a la legend of zelda? Walk into a dungeon, be able to find parts of maps that reveal a chunk of a map, or maybe even just the direction of the boss? Or again, how about looking at the necro for 5 minutes? I know there are too many things to consider, but some of them are pretty obvious, and it would have been nice to see a bit of innovation on Blizzard's part.

Are you ready to work?

Sure, as long as I'm having fun as I go. The problem is that I'm not. There are ways to make a game challanging without making it perpetually frustrating and stale.

That being said, yes, I am being pretty harsh on a beta test. But you know what? Funny thing, in the gaming industry, beta products consistently foreshadow how the final product will turn out. I'll still eagerly read up on changes in 1.10, try to find out where my assumptions are false, and I'll surely try the official release, but just because it comes out of mighty Blizzard does not mean it's good. And by any (well, most) of my standards, this beta patch is not.

[Mavfin]

What a bunch of whiners!!!!!!

God, this reminds me of the 1.08 patch that everyone said would ruin D2. I knew this was coming, but it's just depressing to hear the same crap all over again. "Oh, my <favorite class> is all <pick implied expletive here> up! And my <pick another class> is too. But <some other class> got all these boosts, but I don't like to play them! Blizzard sucks! Blizzard put out a bad patch. Again!"

Oh, and don't EVEN get me started about the "I can't solo players-8 hell" crap with me. I heard that SO many times when 1.08 came out, with the PI's, and the nerfed whirlwind. And the sorcies whining about all the <elemental> immunes.

Hey, everyone, if you can't do anything better than recycle the crap I've seen before, then spare me, please.

Edit: Actually, I'm going to start a thread with this exact post. I've been playing this game all day (yes, I borrowed a nice P4 1.8 Win2K PC laptop to play it, for those of you who know I have a Mac) and I'm having a ball with it.

[DaveO]

So what if solo-8 is thrown out as the "standard" with the new 1.10 patch? Solo-8 is a form of elitist snobbery in my opinion(the old teasing of "inferior" players). I do agree that Hell is tedious and frustrating(on Players 1) even with the Uber gear. Any one playing without twinking is out of luck. So instead of possibly dozens of variations on player equipment, it will now likely come down to massive "cloning" of damage reduction gear and all characters pretty much using the same equipment in order to survive. The problem is that there IS a Single Player component of the game, and anyone trying it better be prepared to not be able to finish(unless you twink). The good thing about 1.10 is that you no longer can just ignore monsters like in versions 1.0 thru 1.09. Now they actually HURT you, so you have to adapt your "tactics".

[Baylan]

Thats a much longer post than I was expecting in response, but *shrug* I'll go at it with some slightly bigger chunks and see how it turns out.

Yes, there will be some variation, yes there will probably be a few discoveries of useful quirks, or better combos, but you know what? Blizzard hasn't changed or improved the gameplay much. Given the massive increases in monster hp and regen (I don't see much development of AI) all those synergies are just damage boosters, and many of them stupid ones at that. Parties will work pretty much the same as they have before, the only real change is that Blizzard has forced party play down our collective throats.

When I play 1.10 with friends, dabbling in 'new' possibilities and such, new combonations, do you know what I find? It's the same thing. I just have to drink more pots, retreat, and stand in front of the same monsters for much longer. Boring. Tedius. Frustrating. I think in 3 years Blizzard could have come up with a more elegant solution to game difficulty besides just giving everything more life and damage. That was a monster post, wasn't expecting something that long in return - but I'll respond as best I can. I'm aching to get back to chess and 1.10 :-)

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think many people tend to overexagerate the amount of "strategy" that exists in D2. Speaking strictly for myself, the game is not exactly one that requires thinking. It's hack and slash, always has been, and it was designed as such. I don't believe that 1.10 will create that 'beautiful strategy' you bring up. "Strategy" will be finding the 1 or 2 skills that are the new showstoppers, that work much better than the rest.

EXACTLY! Strategy is not something that has truly existed in Diablo 2... Ever really. You know what I found when I grabbed a test sorc and ran around Act 5 Hell for a little while for? I was strategizing. Going in there and blitzing through everything wasn't working. I chose Hydra as a primary skill, and when there weren't FI monsters around - it killed effectively if I used it correctly. By using it correctly I don't mean just lying down a hydra every two seconds, I mean stacking them, I mean setting up a crossfire, I mean laying down a few while I retreat and drawing enemies into their fire. I mean hiding myself behind the corner while I spam them around, I mean dodging arrows and spells using teleport, I mean all of that. I had more fun in the few hours that I played that test sorc than I have had in a LONG time playing D2. It was a blast, it was a lot of fun to play. I had to pick and choose my battle-ground, my spells, I had to retreat, regroup, contain, and attack. THAT is strategy, that is using your environment and your skill to your advantage

Yes, there will be some variation, yes there will probably be a few discoveries of useful quirks, or better combos, but you know what? Blizzard hasn't changed or improved the gameplay much. Given the massive increases in monster hp and regen (I don't see much development of AI) all those synergies are just damage boosters, and many of them stupid ones at that. Parties will work pretty much the same as they have before, the only real change is that Blizzard has forced party play down our collective throats.

When I play 1.10 with friends, dabbling in 'new' possibilities and such, new combonations, do you know what I find? It's the same thing. I just have to drink more pots, retreat, and stand in front of the same monsters for much longer. Boring. Tedius. Frustrating. I think in 3 years Blizzard could have come up with a more elegant solution to game difficulty besides just giving everything more life and damage.

Variation, discoveries of quirks and better combos, 'features' if you will are not strategy. Strategy is what I described above. Have you read some of Sirian's stuff? Particularly Ember? Temping fate is tactics, that's outmanuevering your opponent in a situation in order to kick his arse. On the other hand, herding is a strategy, it is breaking down the enemy into smaller, more managable chunks. There has always been strategy in Diablo 2, you just had to look for it and work at it. I believe that 1.10 is going to force strategy down B.net's throat. I think its going to seperate the men from the boys as far as it concerns hell. You'll be able to run around and kick butt through nightmare, but hell I think will remain the smart mans game, I think it will remain there as a challange to those who really want it, to those who really need that extra bit of death and destruction in their characters lives. That little extra bit that requires extra thought, extra effort, and extra time.

Party play is similar. I tend to stick with the same group of people when I party, and it works well. In a group of level-headed people with brains they use their skills effectively, they work as a team, and we accomplish lots more. For example, I've seen ancients killed with some extremely tough mods several times by a good group, without deaths. Another example being MSLEB's that we decided had to die going down bit by bit until it keeled over. Strategy in a party is knowing when to use what skills, when to back down, when to provide cover, and when to run for the hills.

I'd say the patch was incredibly late, not impossible. I think you unintentionally summed it up with the words "throw out". Thats exactly what 1.10 is, a half-assed, untested, unispired lump thrown out to the masses. 1.10 was supposed to be a quick followup to 1.09 to fix the GLARINGLY obvious imbalances (many of which are still in 1.10) and toss in a few new items. Thats not exactly hard work and toil for 2 years. Or maybe it is? I might be completely wrong here, but I think a few dozen half baked synergies, random monsters, bumping up hp and regen, and a few formulas and items doesn't constitute much considering this patch has been 'in progress' since a few months after the xpac release.

Let me clear up that last bit. Yes, those are some significant changes, but many of those were supposed to be included in the first place. Remember the idea of releasing a few new runewords from time to time? Remember ladder resets? How about cleaning up the boatload of hacks and dupes? What about pindlebots? What about meeting players players halfway on certain issues (and I know many will disagree on this one). Personally, I think maphack loused up the game in many ways. At the same time, I thought it had some useful features like the ability to see how many sockets were on an item, drop hack protection, and to some extent, the reveal map. It definately became a crutch, but I for one, don't want to spend 2 hours crawling around the jungle on EVERY single character to get a khalim's will. Maybe the simple idea of being able to find map chunks, a la legend of zelda? Walk into a dungeon, be able to find parts of maps that reveal a chunk of a map, or maybe even just the direction of the boss? Or again, how about looking at the necro for 5 minutes? I know there are too many things to consider, but some of them are pretty obvious, and it would have been nice to see a bit of innovation on Blizzard's part.

Now, for this huge hunk of text ;).

Incredibly late? Yes. Half-assed? I'd say it is underfunded. Uninspired? I would hope not. Yeah, the beta seems like it was thrown out - and it likely was. They make everyone happy with this: they throw the D2 users a bone, and they give FT users a much less laggy b.net. We get the chance to test and play to our desire and Blizzard has a much lighter load on their servers for the all-important FT release. *shrug* I'll take it, D2 1.10 is better than D2 1.09.

As for the hacks, the dupes, the iths, and all that. Your right. They should've been done away with a LONG time ago. Far too long actually. That was a failure in the CS department of Blizzard. A complete and total failure. Now that "Rust Storm" has been announced and is in its beginnings, I hope that it ends. I hope that all the cheaters get banned. Permanently. I'm like every other lounger, hacks should never be permitted. Ever. Never be allowed, turned a blind eye to, or anything else that means ignore them. But now I'm getting way off, so I'll come back to everything else.

As for crawling around act 3 and the like finding all the gear, I will ask you here: why would you want to play the game in a way that was unintended, unsupported, and looked down upon by the company? We've been calling for "added difficulty" for years now (literally!) and now that we finally have it your saying that you've been skipping over the most difficult part of the game for 3 years? Whats the point?! That is like making a variant character and breaking the rules.

Finally, I'll bring some emphasis to your words here...

Personally, I think maphack loused up the game in many ways. At the same time, I thought it had some useful features like the ability to see how many sockets were on an item, drop hack protection, and to some extent, the reveal map. It definately became a crutch, but I for one, don't want to spend 2 hours crawling around the jungle on EVERY single character to get a khalim's will.

In case you missed the forum rules, hacks of any and all kinds are *forbidden* and will get you banned. Just emphasizing that because I for one don't want to spend my time playing with cheaters. If the only reason you stopped using maphack is because Blizzard started banning accounts, you probably don't belong here on this forum. You probably should head elsewhere, like diabloii.net, or the battle.net forums. If you have reformed - then congrats, your not the only one. Stick around and you might learn some of the strategy that I've so professed will be essential to survival in hell. It will be, and I believe that strategy will be much more effecient than just sitting there 'chugging pots' as you so eloquently put it.

Just my take,

Baylan

[Mavfin]

Just a note.....don't mention using maphack yourself. Using maphack is a banning offense around here. Only reason you're not banned now is that the way you wrote it, you don't use it anymore, and may see the bad things about it. Cheaters aren't welcome here.

[phooker51]

Just to pair down the size of the posts, I'll respond without major quoting. :)

Re: strategy

I agree theres something to be said for that type of challange. I'll give you the best example in the game. The Chaos Sanctuary. I gave up xpac after a few months because I found it pretty tedius. I went back to classic hardcore and the good old days of clearing out cs and pairing up with a few people (pallies with salvation, necros with life tap, etc etc) and going after Lord De Seis (I mourn the day he lost his thief modifier). Cleaning out cs that way was exactly what you described, drawing out oblivs, selectively killing monsters, an element of danger, all around good time. I understand perfectly. However, there is also something to be said for variety. I don't want to have to play the entire game that way, pulling 1 monster out of the pack, or running away every single time the action gets hot. Retreating to town every few minutes isn't fun after a while either. All I'm saying is that while a challange is good, there is such a thing as overcompensating.


Re: hell

My original post was an attempt to see how the game would play on the first time around, going into hell. And while I can't comment on how it will play exactly, I get the general impression that a few uber skills will again come to the forefront, and everyone will fall into familiar niche roles. I was hoping that 'conventional' stuff would be changed around. With my findings at least, it hasn't. Necros get powerful poison, and need to recast golems more. At everyone's urging, I did some playing at players 1 to test out revives and such. The problem? Total reliance on merc to get started, and minions still seemed largely uneffective. "well, try gettiing 20 of them" people say... I thought the point of the patch was to provide more variety and balance. I shouldn't only be able to kill monsters with max spirit and synergies and 20 revives.


Re: maphack

I'm not throwing my support to maphack and saying it is necessary or that I think it's good. To the contrary, I said it's ruined much of the game. However, I think despite its dubious nature, that it has some potentially useful ideas. I don't mean turning on fullbright, or seeing monster stats, I mean things like being able to configure the colour of item text, or maybe seeing "socketed xxx" instead of just grey items. Regarding Act 3, again, I see a clear distinction between difficulty and tedium. It wasn't difficult as much as boring. If I had to fight a few kick ass bosses for each chunk of the flail, I would be all over that. (thats not a bad idea come to think of it) I am not a fan of wading through few thousand flayers for a few hours and hitting a few hundred dead ends, however. Would a few map scrolls that revealed hints or general locations really degrade the gameplay? I don't see how. Just because "thats how the game was designed" does not mean there is no room for improvement or change.

[Baylan]

I can definately agree with downing the size of the posts! Those things have been monsters so far :-)

Strategy -

The Chaos Sanctuary. Heh, many many good memories. I remember the last few days of D2C a bunch of friends getting together and doing CS runs in order to help a friend of ours get into the Top 10 of the Necro Ladder. We succeeded, and I will never forget what 'strategy' means in D2 after that.

What your asking for though, is a portion of the game that you can turn your head off, stop thinking, and just mindlessly gain exp. Sure, thats cool and all if you want to be high level - but I don't play this game to level, I don't play it to be |_|63|2 (Uber, for those without the leetness ;)). I play the game to have fun, to have a challange, and to enjoy it with people. In my experiences thus far, I've found that it isn't very difficult to hold your ground. For example, right now I'm alt+tabbed out of a game that I've been trying to Solo-1 the ancients in hell. I cleared the Arreat Way, and it was a pain - but I only had to retreat a handful of times. I was careful not to activate and go blinking around randomly and because of that I had a relatively painless experience. Then comes the Summit, which has been phenominally hard. I spent approximately 20 minutes fighting against what seemed like decent odds only to have to give up because I just wasn't able to damage them anymore. Its a very difficult battle, and I'm hoping that soon I'll discover some way, some how to do it. The only way I can do this though is to keep trying, keep attempting to beat them down. Sooner or later I'll succeed.

Hell -

Of course, there will always be cookie-cutters and 'best' builds. Everyone else will also be a 'n00bl4r' if you don't use said builds too. Of course, there are people like Sirian who go out and build firebolt sorcies and the like, beating NM Diablo in hardcore mode. I don't think I could ever do such a thing, but he felt up for the challange and he did it. He completed it, somehow, someway, he did it. The basic idea that I'm getting at with the increased difficulty/changes in hell is that its like taking a pre 1.03 CE build and throwing him into 1.09. Do you REALLY expect him to succeed?

Btw, as I was writing this, Catboi_Winter (A lurker in the lounge chatroom) said, and I quote, 'Yes, there is CE, and that is very powerful, but none of the necro skills is able to compliment it well (and by that, i mean make a corpse in the first place). <-- and that, my friend, is why CE is not "broken"' Just thought I'd give his little insight on something you said earlier on :-).

He is right of course though, if you have something that as of now scales to the point where it causes mass mayhem rather quickly, you need to be sure that you can't use it all the time. If it was easy to create corpses for the Necro, it'd be easy to blow 'em up too :-). Anyway, back to my point...

Hell is hell, it should be, and it finally is in multiplayer games.

Maphack -

Sure, some of the aspects would be nice but to be honest... Who needs 'em? *shrug* Mavfin has posted the administration's policy in regards to Maphack, and all other forms of hacks. That should be enough of that conversation.

Baylan

[phooker51]

LOL, funny thing - your quotation from catboi is actually him quoting ME earlier. (6th post on the page)

And I still stand by that assertion. No, CE isn't 'broken', but it's incredibly unbalanced. It's indicative of the balance issues that remain. I wager that CE will become a huge crowdkiller even in 8 player hell if it is indeed fully restored and able to scale up to 8 player monster health. I like the skill, but it shouldn't be my only avenue for killing. Look at sorcs - Fireball, Meteor, Orb, Blizzard, Firewall, Static, Nova, Chain Lightning, Charged Bolt etc. Barbs - variety of weapons (which actually alter playing style), Frenzy, Berzerk, Whilrwind, Double Throw, etc. You get the idea. Personally I think there is a problem if 1 skill is super overpowered while the rest are relatively weak. Don't you think that an almost exclusively minion based character should have a minion that (with like 80 points invested) can deal more direct damage than 500 fire? Ignoring CE for the moment, I think if I want to play a zookeeper style character, I should at least be able to kill a monster or 2 to get the army started. There shouldn't be an unwritten law that without CE, you are going to kill ponderously slow, be that in 1, 4 or 8 player. I was hoping that it was these sorts of imbalances and limitations that Blizzard would address for 1.10.

One more thing. I think you give too much credit to blizzard assuming that they intentionally made CE balanced by making the rest of the necro's offensive capabilities incredibly weak. Do you honestly believe they intended for lvl 30 or so IM to be virtually ineffective in hell difficulty? By the same token, where is that sense of balance for other characters? I don't think it has ever existed. How else can you explain charged bolt becoming a tour de force?

[Baylan]

Actually, if you look at the entire quote, at the end there is an arrow followed by a "and that's why CE isn't broken". He was quoting you and adding in a little bit of his own :-p.

He, and I agree with him, feels that if you were able to create a corpse on your own as a necro very easily that CE would be unbalanced. Think about it, the only scaling skill in the game that can kill a monster. We'd be back into the days of the pre 1.03 nerf of CE. No other class has an ability remotely close to that (the closest is the sorceress, who can only use her scaling ability to weaken a monster to half its hp, and oftentimes its not worth the risk as I've discovered with my rampage of hell with the sorc, unless the monsters are bosses of some sort).

The fact is that this game is impossible to balance. Hell, most games are impossible to balance. The most prominent example in my mind being Age of Empires 2. Its a game that is amazingly simple in regards to balance in comparison to D2, and they still goofed it up quite a bit (even though the game is still a *LOT* of fun to play).

In regards to your last point, I believe that IM is a skill that is ment to be somewhat ineffective in hell. Think about it, monsters are given huge hp and relatively low attack numbers. Its just like thorns in that it is rather weak in hell because of those huge health numbers. Charged Bolt, I believe is an exception to the rule. I personally believe that the Lightning Tree is one of the better built ones out there. You have your utility spells in Teleport, Telekenisis, T-Storm and Energy Shield. You have your damage dealers in CB, Lightning, Nova, CL, and you have your mastery. The one skill that seems out of place in there is static - and to be honest while static is useful it really adds very little to gameplay IMO.

Either way, I'm going to stop replying for the night because its 2 am :-). Sleep well, I'll be checking out the forums but I probably won't be able to post coherently until tomorrow afternoon when I wake up. (SUMMER VACATION ROCKS! :-))

Baylan

[phooker51]

Ahh, gotcha. I thought he said that, and that the "it's not broken" part was your comment.

Rather than making corpses being unbalanced (which doesn't make sense, since the necromancer is all about corpses), wouldn't it make more sense to tone down CE and make other skills (again, golems!) respectable? As fun as it was/is to go around blowing up entire mobs with 1 corpse, or entire herds of cows, I would much rather see it reduced in favor of a semblance of balance between the other necro skills.

I agree that perfect harmonious balance isn't in the cards, and perfection isn't required. However, I think many reasonable changes could be made, without too much effort. AOE2 is an interesting example. Another one is Blizzard's own Starcraft, still widely regarded as the most balanced and playable RTS of all time.

For me, it comes down to reasonable assortment of viable skills (and by that, I mean a skill or combonation of skills that makes monsters dead). Other chars have it, and necros, in my opinion, do not. Heh, I never intended to be a crusader for necromancer rights, it's just the sort of persistent issue that irks me.

On that subject, why do wands and scepters at all levels still cost absurd amounts of gold (70k gold in act 1 normal!?), and why can't we gamble them? I'm no rocket scientist, but why not just make them cost more than 35k to gamble? See, stuff like that, it just makes me think that the lights are on, but no one is home at chez Blizzard.

[Wrathraven]

I was a little short before but doodling around with a character you've just hacked up in an editor is not the same as taking on the game with a character you've played through the game

We don't yet know if it will be possible to solo-8 in Hell

It probably will

this is the truth. With a new game comes new tactics, and people just jumping in haven't developed the new skills they'd need to survive something like that. I'm sure, in the end, people will find the way

[Dyntheos]

When does "difficult" become "Hard Work"?

I play D2 to relax for a few hours. Hell 1.10 is not relaxing.

Many poeple seem to see 1.10 Hell akin to wrestling with a stuck Jam jar lid for 10 minutes and then when you finally get the darn thing off you feel elated.

Personally I'd like to be able to just take the lid off and enjoy the Jam. :D