Memories... the past

[DarkDwarf]

First of all I want to say that this is not meant to rant, that I am simply disappointed.

I remember a WHOLE while back that when LoD was about to come out, Blizzard was promising new crafting recipes and/or runewords each week or so. Or specially make craft recipes that would only last one holiday. Boy was I excited to hear this, I was overwhelmed with joy and it even gave me goose bumps just to think about it. But well, they shouldn't have promised that since it disappointed alot of people that they didn't go through with this...

I, myself, love crafting. I remember drooling at those crafts they had in the beta test. Immensly powerful Blood (IIRC) Mythical Swords. And I can call back me standing in Hell Bloody with my very own crafted Highlander Blade, boy I was overjoyed (is that a word? :P). Anyways that is the past, I now moved on to the o so 1337 unique weapon.

To bring back the past, I was thinking maybe making a character only equipped with crafted stuff, which could prove to be a nice challenge only using runes and gems found on my way.

Regards

-DarkDwarf

[kandrathe]

As I remember it, Blizzard was a bit disappointed that within hours of releasing the expansion someone had reverse engineered the code and published all the formula's on a web site. Thus, destroying any "fun" they might have had with us in slowly revealing the cube recipes over time.

[Dyntheos]

Unfortunately Blizzard's Idea of fun is somewhat akin to being pulled through a knothole backwards at times.

I like my info all nice and laid out thank you very much. Iam a bit disappointed with the descision not to add any monster stats for this patch on the Summit. Can't work out if it's Blizzard being Lazy, trying to make it more mysterious, or a function of the patch that makes it unviable.

Diablo at least had that beautiful function of revealing information about the monsters. The more you killed a certain type, looks like we get zero info this time around about what we are up against, which will make creating certain builds a little hard, until someone puts it up somewhere once the patch has been out there for a few weeks..

[protoshoggoth]

Unfortunately Blizzard's Idea of fun is somewhat akin to being pulled through a knothole backwards at times.

Yep. What do they want us to do, throw every possible combination of crap into the cube and see what happens? It sounds good, "thrill of discovery" and all, but really it's just a ridiculous exercise in tedium. ("Okay, a perfect emerald, a cracked sash, a Grandfather, and a chipped ruby...nothing. Hm, okay, how about a perfect emerald, cracked sash, a Grandfather and a flawed ruby...nothing. Okay, how about..." That's insane.

I know we're supposed to enjoy walking back and forth in order to shop the hateful item vendors for hours on end to get something useful, but at least there's no record-keeping involved there.

They were disappointed that someone reverse-engineered it...yeah, well join the club. I was disappointed that most of the cube recipes (like the one that makes a savage spetum or whatever) are useless. So I guess we're even.

In a more general sense, the idea that the game is somehow improved by obscuring its mechanics is not one that I cotton to. When I first tryed D1 I played it for 20 minutes and thought it a mindless click-fest. It wasn't until months later, when someone showed me Jarulf's guide, that I realized the depth that was there. I went out and bought the game purely on the strength of that guide. Blizzard marketing take note. (as if...)

[Brista]

Problem with the crafts in the beta was that all rare affixes were available including Cruel

That, I think, is the reason crafts and rares are such second class citizens these days - they discovered it was over-powered after they had released it as "we think this is it" and then had to crack the problem with a sledgehammer

They made many of the best mods magic only and, I think, went too far

Crafts got further nerfed after a few of us described our Safety builds in 1.08. That was about a month before 1.09 and as a result (I think) the greater craft recipes, mdr and even the pre-sets on the lesser recipes were all nerfed. Too much so I think

Foxbat has mentioned a couple of times that Blizzard don't seem to have the min/maxing headspace that many of the players do. It's a shame because I think it would be a much better game now had they anticipated earlier that people might craft a safety item for each slot on the body or that cruel + automods, including an ed% one + other random affixes made a very powerful weapon

And to me those things seem very obvious, although hindsight is always 20/20 ;)

[Jugalator]

I also like crafting, but am also using uniques much more with the state of crafted items right now. :(

I heard they're not adding new crafting recipes to 1.10, but I really hope they'll improve some of them. The Safety recipes seem to be double-nerfed since there were first that bug with magic damage reduced, that was fixed, and then they also lowered MDR on these items further... For example, this one:

Safety Ring (Amn + Emerald + Jewel)
+ (1-5) To Vitality
Magic Damage Reduced By (1-2)
Damage Reduced By (1-4)

... or 7% Life Steal in a weapon? The Vitality bonus on the ring is a joke, and these reductions in the difficulty you'll be in (nm/hell) when gaining a Perfect Emerald + Amn + Jewel seem pretty low too. Of course, you might get lucky and get some useful random modifiers on it (as high chance as getting a decent rare <_<), but shouldn't a "safety" item be themed for safety? At least give it +5-10% Maximum Life or something... It's not like you can boost your life to unbalanced levels with two safety rings anyway...

I've only crafted Blood Rings, a pair of Hit Power Gloves (for Knockback) and a Blood Weapon. I don't like how there are so many crafting recipes that are useless now.

I also remember Blizzard saying there would be recipes working only at specific days and so, and that code is actually in the game right now, but there are no recipes using the feature for some strange reason. The recipes that used this feature ("Deadly" items) were also removed in 1.09 (I think?).

[kandrathe]

Well, I think it would have been cool in the original design where a scroll would drop with a particular recipe. They may have even made the recipe ingredients on each scroll somewhat random, with the scroll itself being consumed in the craft. Forgive me for my slant towards developers, as I too in my past, chose to slog out consumer products with unreasonable timelines in an intellectual sweatshop to be faced with overwhelming task of then making them bug free. I really respect Blizzard's management for standing up to the consumer demand and not setting a release date for patches until the debugging is completed. That was not my experience.

So, far, with Blizzard, I always feel that I've gotten my monies worth of fun, or maybe a hundred fold.

[CorwinBrute]

Crafts have two main uses :
- the first one, useful for no-twink, is that a craft is some kind of freebie rare, with some guaranteed mods balanced by a higher Rlvl. In this case, each time you get the materials for a craft, you can go for it and try to improve your current gear.
- the second one relies on the very few recipes where the fixed mods are actually useful : Blood crafts, HitPower gloves, Caster belts... Those are specific crafts for specific builds, and it is likely that you will do those a couple hundreds of times before getting the ultimate craft for a specific build.

So in this regard, crafts are nice for both ends of the equipment spectrum (from no-twink to ubergear). On the other hand, there are way too few useful crafts for high-end, and no weapon craft worth anything.

[Obi2Kenobi]

It is possible to get a perfect bloodcraft to rival a perfect cruel of quickness... :)

[Taem]

First of all I want to say that this is not meant to rant, that I am simply disappointed.

I remember a WHOLE while back that when LoD was about to come out, Blizzard was promising new crafting recipes and/or runewords each week or so. Or specially make craft recipes that would only last one holiday. Boy was I excited to hear this, I was overwhelmed with joy and it even gave me goose bumps just to think about it. But well, they shouldn't have promised that since it disappointed alot of people that they didn't go through with this...

I, myself, love crafting. I remember drooling at those crafts they had in the beta test. Immensly powerful Blood (IIRC) Mythical Swords. And I can call back me standing in Hell Bloody with my very own crafted Highlander Blade, boy I was overjoyed (is that a word? :P). Anyways that is the past, I now moved on to the o so 1337 unique weapon.

To bring back the past, I was thinking maybe making a character only equipped with crafted stuff, which could prove to be a nice challenge only using runes and gems found on my way.

Regards

-DarkDwarf

There are a few promises Blizzard made for D2 that I have been extremely disappointed to of not seen implemented. The most prominent that comes to mind:

1.) Arenas: Arenas (which are still in the coding) allow you, the player, to create a standard "game" or an arena game. In the arena game, you can duel other players for items. As I understand it, you would put the item in the screen, much like the trade screen works now, and click the button then duel - the winner walking away with both items. I also remember hearing you could duel to the death if you wanted. This would be a fantastic feature for hardcore, to duel for items without dying.

2.) Guild Halls & Powers: As I remember it, guild halls were like arenas in the sense that you could create a standard game, arena game, or join a guild hall. In the guildhall was you stash. After you deposited 'x' amount of gems and uniques, you became a member if okayed by the leader of the guild. And also if I remember correctly, each guild had a "special power", such as Inner Sight, which when you became a member of that guild, you got the power.

3.) Blizzard promises a game 'so-difficult' that "no one will be able to solo hell alone," as promised by Blizzard. Thinking back on this now, its so laughable, it makes me sick! As a matter of fact, one of the only games I enjoy playing anymore is The Dark because it is sooooo hard. I can only hope that 1.1 does something to drastically increase the difficulty without resorting to 1-hit kill monsters.

4.) As already mentioned, Monthly updated crafts and rune words.

[Hammerskjold]

>3.) Blizzard promises a game 'so-difficult' that "no one will be able to solo hell alone," as promised by Blizzard.

>I can only hope that 1.1 does something to drastically increase the difficulty without resorting to 1-hit kill monsters.

I see some problems with this. One is, how exactly would anyone measure a universally accepted difficulty or challenge? Someone's idea of challenging might be someone else's stroll in the park. Or an exercise in pure tedium to others.

Blizzard's promise of Super g0su difficulty just sounds too much like an immature DM yelling "You are all SOOO dead!!!", before the game even begins. You mentioned the 1-hit kill method of difficulty, which I totally agree is a cheap and lazy way of doing it. (Imo, much like the global phys resists in Hell. Global solutions for a local problem just seems clunky and not very well thought out.)

The second problem to me is, the exclusion of casual and single\solo players. Sometimes I read players complaining that this game is too easy. Nerf this nerf that. Nerf the Cow level. Unfortunately I can't agree since some of the people who says this, plays characters that sports high end gears that no casual players would ever see. If people measure difficulty from the point of view of a high end char, who is armed with the fastest, greatest, shiniest toys. Why are they suprised that the game seems easy?

Back when LoD was released, bliz mentioned something to the effect of: Elite class items were their gift to the dedicated hardcore D2 players (not HC I mean). Here's a wild and crazy idea. How about for 1.1, reward the casual players? I'm not asking for a Hell Fallen to be able to drop a Windforce every 5 games. All I'm asking is increase the chance for the casual players to find gears or ingredients that are usable and reachable. Cleaning up the junk affixes in Rares (especially on weapons) would be a great start. Remember when this

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/diablo2/articl...trare0900.shtml
was mostly for laughs, and not the current reality?

[Jugalator]

Here's a wild and crazy idea.&nbsp; How about for 1.1, reward the casual players?&nbsp; I'm not asking for a Hell Fallen to be able to drop a Windforce every 5 games.&nbsp; All I'm asking is increase the chance for the casual players to find gears or ingredients that are usable and reachable.&nbsp; Cleaning up the junk affixes in Rares (especially on weapons) would be a great start.

Arreat Summit list one change as "greatly improved drops from regular monsters" and "boss drops best the first time only" which actually seem to reward non-hardcore (not the game mode) boss rushers, i.e. those who plays the game through, killing beasts along their way.

I wonder how drastic the changes to regular drops are, since they actually use the word "greatly". Sounds like the ratios were drastically changed to show some very noticeable changes. Hmm.

And yes, I'd also like to see some changes to rare affixes. What I'd like to see isn't really magic-only affixes (magic items SHOULD be inferior imho -- that's why rares are harder to get), but perhaps a rare-only affix here and there. Nothing too uber, since a fortunate combination of uber affixes would make a rare item too good, but perhaps something like a possibility to get cool stuff magic items can't, like 10% Crushing Blow or decent MF on a weapon. This would make rares even more like "random uniques", or "random crafts" if you like. Where actual crafts where themed for a special purpose (half-uniques) and actual uniques were of course those with 100% preset stats.

[DarkDwarf]

I agree with Hammer that people are viewing it from a high-end window. And I also agree with Jugalator about the Magic-Only affixes, I even think they should remove these. Why get a Colossus Blade with 200% ED, a bit of IAS and leech when you can have a 300% ED with 40% IAS CB?

Also I think Blizz should NOT nerf the Cow Level, in there everything what Blizz wanted in there (except Leechers). People are working together to kill every single cow. And Freeze Target and Crushing Blow should work again like it once did in Classic :P

[Brother Laz]

Rares are about 100 times rarer than magic items, you can't shop for them, they have to compete with burizas and WFs, give them magic affixes already!

Did you know Craftsmanship actually has twice as much chance to spawn than Evisceration? Small wonder rares suck.

That, and all the 1% chance to cast level 1 firebolt when struck type affixes. If anything, all they do is set off LEB bolts. Or the charges of level 1 inner sight. [repair cost: 703,244]

As for crafts... I say, keep them for specific purposes. Caster belts, because rare belts cannot get any good caster mods. (ignoring Gloomstrap and Tal Rasha's, of course). But for mainstream items (damage weapons, leech weapons) they should not be able to compete with rares (but be better than magicals) because it doesn't involve 'going out and killing for them', just waiting for some rune to drop and sitting in town and cubing. It's like make-your-own-semi-random-unique, a nice way to get some specific items, but it shouldn't be the best for everything.

[Jugalator]

But for mainstream items (damage weapons, leech weapons) they should not be able to compete with rares (but be better than magicals) because it doesn't involve 'going out and killing for them', just waiting for some rune to drop and sitting in town and cubing.

Yeah, runes drop in town all the time for me, without having to kill anything. And those jewels and Perfect gems are just as easy to get from Larzuk. :huh:

You have to kill for crafting ingredients and to gather the ingredients you need for a specific craft can take about as long time as finding a rare of the base item you need. I mean, Shael's, Amn's and Sol's are considered "semi-common" but they don't exactly grow on trees. Or I'm just very very unlucky. :)

[Baajikiil]

It is possible to get a perfect bloodcraft to rival a perfect cruel of quickness...&nbsp;

Technically correct, but how many tries does it take to get a perfect or near perfect bloodcraft?

I have heard from people that they usually collect about 300 chips before trying to cube a cruel sword. How many runes/jewels do you need to craft a perfect blood craft? (max ED, kings/merciless/IAS/extra leach)


Also, the perfect cruel of quickness is usually a sword, and has 3 sockets as well... or if it's not a sword, it can have 2 sockets, while crafts are limited to 1.

I'm not saying that blood crafts are completely useless, but they can barely hold a candle to easily crafted swords/shopped cruels.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Blood crafts are axes though... :) I'm just saying that they aren't "entirely" useless compared to magicals, although they are incredibly rare. ;)