Diablo II 1.10 Fan Site Chat

[HeLRaZR]

Anyhow, what do you think?

Hmmph, perhaps I'm being a cynical baysterd but all in all that seemed pretty disappointing as far as new content goes. Seemed like more of a PR gig. I am however happy about the RUST STORM!, and the ambiguous answer about the rares left me thinking much the same as you mentioned, they'll still suck.

Which of course really, well, sucks for us HC classic players. This raises my ire a wee bit in that the answer concerning changes for classic was also non-existant. I can see it now, cool synergies, harder monsters and the same crappy 1.09 rares to fight monsters with.

*SIGH*

[TaiDaishar]

Did anyone else noticed that nice little quote:

Q: Are other skills besides Whirlwind getting new graphics

Blizzard: Yes!!

I wonder what animations and to what skills...

And armageddon in were-form, that can be deadly if they still upgrade it like all the rest.

[Griselda]

Fragbait wanted to know about the cows, and, since I figured they were planning on doing *something* to change it from the ridiculous state it's in now, I asked. I was hoping they'd say something about the red portal or credit changes, but I guess I should have expected that they would just "beef it up" :lol:

I'm sure they would have stuck that one in there even if nobody had asked, though. Don't blame me! :P Really!

I think the funniest part, besides the mass-D2 client crash, had to have been Bill Roper's "damn the lag" comment that they seem to have removed from the official transcripts. Well, I remember "damn the lag", but Flick was actually typing and got "darn", so he was probably correct.

Anyway, that was a lot of fun. It would have been more fun if a 3' X 2' glass refridgerator shelf hadn't shattered here right after I rejoined from the crash, of course. Glass was everywhere! Everywhere!

OK, back to waiting. <_<

-Griselda

edit- missed a bracket

[Hammerskjold]

>Which of course really, well, sucks for us HC classic players. This raises my ire a wee bit in that the answer concerning changes for classic was also non-existant. I can see it now, cool synergies, harder monsters and the same crappy 1.09 rares to fight monsters with.

Unfortunately, the pessimist in me agrees with you. When LoD came out, bliz mentioned that they wanted to bring over some functions in LoD to D2C. In order to give the D2C players a few conveniences without having to buy LoD.

I admit some of this is quite true. The 3 chipped gem + any sword recipe is handy. Not overly powerful, but quite useful. Ditto with the players X command. Unfortunately things like Rares in D2C also got the dumb down like LoD. Of course Classic players don't really have much alternatives like Elite or crafted items. Well at least there's socketed Exceptionals. Thank god for small miracles. ;)

As it stands now in 1.09 however, imo LoD isn't D2 with improvements. To me it's more like D2C has been turned into LoD "lite". I'm hoping 1.1 will change this.

[Ignatz]

Just because something is uncommon, or, say, rare, doesn't mean it's any good. So there we have it: rares are simply rarely good.

You know, I hate to complain, but let's say for a moment that they allow the 'Cruel' affix to appear on rare weapons. Suddenly rares can be good...better than any unique or magical item for damage. The chance of it being so are still quite small, given the *ahem* probably-still-watered-down affix pool. Still, how much more excited would you be about yellow text if you knew that it were at least possible to top a unique or magical item?

I say that if rares aren't going to be any better, or even significantly better, they should simply stop spawning. Every time I see a rare weapon drop, I bemoan its yellowness: If only I had slightly less MF! At least then it might spawn a GOOD damage modifier.

Harumph I say!

Edit: Should I ever learn to spell, beware -- the apocalypse hath come.

PS: Anybody have any idea how to get an em dash up in this place? I tried using the ampersand decimal HTML code, the standards-correct use of it, and get, well: ?. Wow, which is weird because my browser is displaying the dash correctly in the text field. I'm very fond of em dashes and I'd really like to be able to use em. Er, with the pun and the...see, it's an...ah fudge it.

[Rataxes]

We have also changed how experience is shared between party members including how close they need to be to a monster death to receive experience.

This comment has worried me a lot. Exactly what kind of distance are we talking about here? Short enough so that you actually have to expose yourself to the threat that the monsters pose? That would mean no less than maybe 2/3 of an 800x600 screen.

Then what about those characters that are actually meant to be able to kill from a safe distance? I mean, Fireball sorcies and Multishot amas can kill from more than two screens away. I know I'd be pretty fudging pissed off if when v1.10 came out, my Fireball sorcie would no longer get experience for monsters her own bloody fireballs killed a few screens away!

Worst thing though, is that this isn't going to do a bloody thing to leeching. No one, at least not in HC, is stupid enough to simply park a leeching character in a corner and leave him there. No, he will most likely lurk near the ones who make the kills - but far away enough to stay away from any danger.

I can only see two possible results for this change, either the distance is long enough so that characters who can kill from a safe distance, will be able to continue to do so, but this sort of distance will not in any way deter leechers. Or, the distance is so short that it will somewhat deter leechers, but will completely screw those who rely on killing from afar.

[WarBlade]

We have also changed how experience is shared between party members including how close they need to be to a monster death to receive experience.

This comment has worried me a lot. Exactly what kind of distance are we talking about here? Short enough so that you actually have to expose yourself to the threat that the monsters pose?

Yes, I'm pretty sure that is the idea.

That would mean no less than maybe 2/3 of an 800x600 screen.

I'd suggest that would be a gross overstatement. From what I've read so far on the subject it sounds like just off-screen will be sufficiently close enough.

Then what about those characters that are actually meant to be able to kill from a safe distance? I mean, Fireball sorcies and Multishot amas can kill from more than two screens away.

Indeed. <_< Somebody should really fix that problem.

I know I'd be pretty fudging pissed off if when v1.10 came out, my Fireball sorcie would no longer get experience for monsters her own bloody fireballs killed a few screens away!

Worst thing though, is that this isn't going to do a bloody thing to leeching. No one, at least not in HC, is stupid enough to simply park a leeching character in a corner and leave him there. No, he will most likely lurk near the ones who make the kills - but far away enough to stay away from any danger.

This is but one of what looks like several incentives to push people into actually playing through the game. Who said anything about preventing leeching? It looks like something to assist in curtailing XP leeching and not a lot more. Another thing I've seen mentioned is changes to the experience awards so that if someone (read: leech) were running through a game at a massive level deficit from the parasite host then that leeching character would only be getting diddly squat for experience awards. Add those two together with the 'unable to portal until certain quest objectives are completed' feature and I'm pretty sure you'll see a few more people questing with other similarly leveled characters rather than skipping through 90% of certain acts.

I can only see two possible results for this change, either the distance is long enough so that characters who can kill from a safe distance, will be able to continue to do so, but this sort of distance will not in any way deter leechers. Or, the distance is so short that it will somewhat deter leechers, but will completely screw those who rely on killing from afar.

Or, assume a distance long enough to remain practical and having the general effect of 'those who are partied remain close enough to act as a team' and therefore share in the rewards. Any notion that things you shoot yourself might be too far to gain experience from is absurd.

[kier]

I've got a friend who was talking to a bliz rep, and he said something along the lines of "if your char has killed the king, he will no longer be able to enter the red portal". this and some other changes will come in, probably things such as random res, to make cows harder than they currently are. there will be other secret levels added, but who knows :blink:

The distance is a good idea, a party has to fight together, you won't get as much exp if you are a ama or sorc who goes rambo style into the cow game, kills 1/3 of cows, or you won't get people standing around doing nowt.

the only problem i can see is that leechers will have to follow you, which may mean more grabbing, allthough leeching will be harder :D

maybe if they made some cows with bows, a ranged attack, or made them target really low level players, might make it a bit more of a challenge for those who want to leech ;)

[Dyntheos]

hmm the hydra thing worries me, I like to be able to cast hydra right on the edge of the screen so they fire up to another half a screen or so away at targets. This is the easiest way to get round leb bosses, by not being near them.

What about traps? If you lay down some traps and then retreat, do you get the XP? It goes on, if your a zookeeper and your skellies are all over the place sometimes they can be engaged up to 2 screens away.

What i would have LOVED to have heard is that with max skelly mastery your skellies become doom knights as found in the CS, even if they just used the graphics and not the necro abilities, would have been a simple but scary looking graphical touch.

[Rataxes]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that is the idea.

There's a problem with that though. Not every characters playing style involves getting close to the monster. You cannot force characters who were meant to act as artillery units, to step closer to the enemies.

Indeed. <_< Somebody should really fix that problem.

The problem of certain characters being able to kill from a safe distance? These skills were designed to be usuable at a very long range. Fireball sacrifices the damage and the large AoE of the other powerful Fire spells for it's ability to be fired from a long distance. Why would a fireball extend for more than 2 screens if you weren't supposed to be able to kill anything from less than one screen?

This is but one of what looks like several incentives to push people into actually playing through the game. Who said anything about preventing leeching? It looks like something to assist in curtailing XP leeching and not a lot more.

Any difference to exp leeching and leeching? They're just about the same in my opinion.

Another thing I've seen mentioned is changes to the experience awards so that if someone (read: leech) were running through a game at a massive level deficit from the parasite host then that leeching character would only be getting diddly squat for experience awards.

Isn't this already implented? An outrage if it isn't, one of the most obvious leeching deterrents there are.

Add those two together with the 'unable to portal until certain quest objectives are completed' feature and I'm pretty sure you'll see a few more people questing with other similarly leveled characters rather than skipping through 90% of certain acts.

No doubt about that, deterring leechers is a very good thing, and I'm sure all these things will greatly reduce their numbers. But I still strongly disagree with the range issue. Forcing someone to be within a screen of a monster when it's killed to gain the experience is nothing but a mockery of the playing style of certain characters.

Or, assume a distance long enough to remain practical and having the general effect of 'those who are partied remain close enough to act as a team' and therefore share in the rewards

I don't think that's possible though. A minimum of two screens is needed not to curtail on the playing style of the likes of Fireball sorcies and Multishot amas. Meanwhile, two screens is far too much if you want to force leechers tostand close enough to actually be in any danger.

[Rataxes]

The distance is a good idea, a party has to fight together, you won't get as much exp if you are a ama or sorc who goes rambo style into the cow game, kills 1/3 of cows, or you won't get people standing around doing nowt.

It's one thing to prevent people who are on the other side of the map from gaining any experience for monsters she doesn't kill. I agree that this should stopped. Parties should work together and not split up all across the map just to clear it faster or want to play solo but still enjoy the benefits of party experience.

But preventing ranged fighters from doing what they do best - rain support fire on the monsters from behind the frontline of melee fighters, is not good. This is what will happen if they introduce this and make the limit any less than 2-2,5 screens.

[kandrathe]

There is a difference between the experience you get from killing, and the experience you get from others doing the killing. I think what they will do is calculate who is in proximity to the killer when the monster dies. So party members will probably need to actually work together and stay pretty close to one another, and not just all run off to do their own thing.

[Dagni]

The problem of certain characters being able to kill from a safe distance? These skills were designed to be usuable at a very long range.

Two things on this one: first, you seem to define 'safe distance' as anything that is not...

close enough to actually be in any danger

If you are never in any danger, then, yes, that's a problem. Monsters are supposed to be dangerous, that's an integral part of the game. If multishot can solo the entire game without even seeing a non-boss monster, that's a problem.

Secondly, these skills certainly have long ranges, one assumes that was an intentional design decision, but that does not mean they were designed to be usable at very long ranges! The screen was designed to be only one screen length long. I don't even know how one aims a Fireball from two screens away, and I doubt the designers anticipated such a tactic either. Multishot, who knows, maybe it WAS designed that way. If so, perhaps that was a design mistake, certainly Multishot is very good even without its huge range.

Who said anything about preventing leeching? It looks like something to assist in curtailing XP leeching and not a lot more.

Any difference to exp leeching and leeching? They're just about the same in my opinion.

The difference is "preventing" (entirely) versus "assist in curtailing". They're going to make it harder, not impossible.

A minimum of two screens is needed not to curtail on the playing style of the likes of Fireball sorcies and Multishot amas. Meanwhile, two screens is far too much if you want to force leechers tostand close enough to actually be in any danger.

In spite of what you said in your first post:

No one, at least not in HC, is stupid enough to simply park a leeching character in a corner and leave him there.

from what I've heard, this was happening a lot particularly in SC.

From dii.net's interview with Bill Roper at E3:

Dii.net: How is the party system changed to make leeching less common? Greater proximity required? Less exp gain for lower level characters?

Bill: Both of those. We changed a lot of the proximity rules; there's actually a little bug in there now being worked on. Also we evened out the experience between high and low level chars. The biggest one is we've really gotten fairly restrictive with range.

It used to be you could be nowhere near the guy, but now you really have to be in *the party* for it to be happening. That's probably the single biggest one, since [previously] people could almost be sitting in town or someplace else and getting experience.

But it's worked out pretty well, we've done a lot of tests with it, and I think it will really help; I think you'll see that a lot in the ladders, the new ladder where people will really have to be out there fighting with each other, contributing to gain experience it's not just kind of hanging out riding the coattails of the higher level guys.

(Dii.net's post-interview conclusions)So less experience for low level chars, and you have to be much closer to the characters doing the killing to get any experience.&nbsp; No more parking on the red portal and waiting for the cows to all die.

Obviously it's still possible to leech, you just have to follow along more closely, which is dangerous at lvl 15 in hell, but if you're say lvl 40 and your lvl 80 friend is plowing the Bloody Fields, you can follow along happily enough.&nbsp; You'll just gain a lot less experience than you would have in v1.09.

So basically ALL that this range nerf is designed for is to prevent parking. Blizzard would have to have done a very poor job of testing to have the range be such that if you *were* in the party, you still sometimes *didn't* get exp.

- Dagni

[Archon_Wing]

Yes, I can assume that people will hate it if gaining exp means exposing yourself to any danger. :)

You can multishot monsters two screens away. You can exp if you play solo. But if you wanted to get more exp, you have to take more risks right?

[Rataxes]

If you are never in any danger, then, yes, that's a problem. Monsters are supposed to be dangerous, that's an integral part of the game. If multishot can solo the entire game without even seeing a non-boss monster, that's a problem.

Utilizing skills like Fireball and MS at a "safe" distance does, of course, have it's drawbacks. It's obviously very hard to aim it (Fireball at least), you're most definitely not gonna have any chance at the loot if someone else is near, and you wont know when the enemy is dead. My fireball sorcie also does most of her killing within one screen, but there are occasions where I wish to use the tactical advantage that the extremely long range of Fireball provides, where I am prepared to deal with aforementioned drawbacks to gain in safety, such as when battling lebs, mslebs, or extremely dangerous ranged fighters (de seis).

Should I not be allowed to do this? Why would Fireball extend to such great distances if I shouldn't?

So basically ALL that this range nerf is designed for is to prevent parking. Blizzard would have to have done a very poor job of testing to have the range be such that if you *were* in the party, you still sometimes *didn't* get exp.

Then I am satisfied, preventing parked leechers and party members going out on little solo adventures in the same map with this method will most likely not interfer with the artillery playing style.

[TPJ]

oh yeah, I forgot, the funniest thing about the Fan Site Chat was when every D2 chat client in the channel crashed out with an exception error.&nbsp; Oops, Blizzard

That was fun, wasn't it?

Nice to see Bolty and Gris last night. Good ol' Bolty even gave me some pointers on getting my questions answered. (Didn't take him long to rub in the fact that he was getting a whole slew of his own answered, though!) :)

[Bolty]

"Yep, them folks at those other sites get them thar goodies up fastar than myself."

Uh, yeah, but you proofread yours. ;)

I was wondering if anyone would notice that. :)

-Bolty

[Bolty]

I think the funniest part, besides the mass-D2 client crash, had to have been Bill Roper's "damn the lag" comment that they seem to have removed from the official transcripts.

Ho ho, I forgot about that little comment. Interesting post-edit by Blizzard. Can't imply anything BAD about Battle.Net! "What Lag?"

-Bolty

[Bolty]

Nice to see Bolty and Gris last night. Good ol' Bolty even gave me some pointers on getting my questions answered. (Didn't take him long to rub in the fact that he was getting a whole slew of his own answered, though!)&nbsp; :)

Nyah nyah! *thubs tongue* :lol:

Hope to see you and Flick at many more such chats in the future! Half the fun is seeing all the webmasters again, although a lack of Gaile was disappointing. Maybe they ban Arena.Net people. :(

-Bolty

[TPJ]

a lack of Gaile was disappointing.&nbsp; Maybe they ban Arena.Net people.

Ouch!