New 1.10 item

[Kevin]

I figured I'd chime in a few of these points too.

More interesting play experience and not impossible for non-uber characters can actually work together. What is the last normal monster that killed you besides a Frenzytaur (Moon Lord, Death Lord, etc), a stygian doll, or an oblivion knight (which are classed as champions anyway)? Are there any normal monsters that really pose a challenge? The things that kill people are bosses and even then it isn't all of those that are a challenge, and some of them aren't fun at all, only really annoying. So, if you up the power of normal monsters and lower the power of the bosses you can get where you want. Bosses are still going to be more powerful because they will still have minions and those minions will be even tougher. This means you may have to worry more about seperation. Having bosses that might be able to kill you in some fashion besides a one hit kill would be a good thing too. Make them hit faster and better but for less damage, so instead of dying in one hit, you die in 4 but those 4 hits come a lot quicker, possibly locking in you place, but still giving you a chance of getting away (the thing will still have to miss, or a party member could stun it). This would also take away one of the greatest annoyances of the game. The whole cruise, cruise, cruise, oh crap an extra strong, extra fast, fanatic boss! oh no an MSLEB! Hopefully with tougher more varied monsters you aren't really cruise cruise, cruising anymore, and then with slightly weaker bosses (or stronger but not one hit kill fear types) things are as stupid as they can be now.

Items. As was said if there are some new items for the lower powered, smaller chars, better rares, some more accessible runewords and crafts, that will help a lot. It would be nice if the drop system could be tweaked so that you can find some of the little uniques when you can still use them. While something like hotspur can be used on a few variants, finding them from Rakinishu the first time you kill him in normal is cool, because they are generally way better than anything else you can get.

Just some thoughts. I do agree that the gaps are one of the biggest problems, and closing some of them will fix a lot of issues.

[Arutha]

Imho, not nerfing anything was something utterly wrong to aim at.

"Nerfing" was needed, badly needed.
1.06 had balances problems. LoD should have aimed at correcting them. You don't balance things by widening the "gap".
LoD widened the gap, and made the balance even worse.

By now, it was probably too late. But by setting "not nerfing" as a goal, the designers made sure 1.10 would fail at balancing the game.

D2 was from the start a very hard game to balance. Just too many variables. 30 skills per character class, 20 ranks for each of those skills, same skills can be used throughout the game, game can be played from SP untwinked to 8 players heavily twinked, and so on...

But by constantly raising the "power factor" (more powerful opponents, more powerful items, more powerful skills) you made the job from "impossibly hard" to just "impossible".

I find it a pity D2's designers fell for that. It's a well-known pitfall in the PnP RPG community.

[HunkyDory]

Windforce is an extremely boring bow if I might say.

At times I fall asleep while using it.

Regards, Hunky

[Albion Child]

God, when I looked at this item I could almost laugh....at how ridiculous the whole thing is. Why focus on the sanctuary aura? That's just icing on the cake! This thing is fast, has godly high physical damage (and remember it's still no socketed) and adds 500-1000 magical damage....which is as much as manay of my characters do TOTAL! Now, it also has...+ to all stats, + to skills, pretty much everything... add to this it is indestructible, so imagine an ETHEREAL azurewrath!!!

When Blizz said they were making new items I expected that they would make a unique for all items that don't have one...such as normal throwing items, and the many many elites. However, making a sword that is basically a LS on steroids....what's the point??? This thing looks like a hacker made it. Besides, the old azurewrath was a NICE SWORD!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Blizzard needs to fix what is wrong first and foremost.

Destroy all dupes/hacked/bugged/etc.
If new items are to be made, add what is missing. such as...
A godly spear weapon and throwing Javs/axes/knives for barbarians.
Fix all the bugs that have been known since last friggin year.
MAKE AN ANTI DUPE PROGRAM THAT WORKS 100% OF THE TIME AND EVEN WHEN IT FAILS BACK IT UP WITH GOOD OLD HARD WORK.

Oh, and just my simple little opinion....Hell difficulty SHOULD be impossible for all but the uber1337 or the very skilled player...It should be an acomplishment to beat hell act 5....

And most importantly, fire GFrazier or at least get him off the forums at battle.net.

[gekko]

It's becoming more and more obvious that whatever blizzard says about their "zero tolerance" policies; no matter how many times they repeat that hacks/dupes/3rd party programs/cheating is unnaceptable, they learned one very important lesson from D1 -- the vast majority of players want instant gratification. They want it bad, and they will pay for it.

New hacked items ruining the realms? Just make more powerful actual items, right? It obviously won't work. In terms of hacks and dupes, blizzard has failed its customers miserably. And nothing they say takes away from that.

You know, if I found out tomorow that blizzard is somehow involved in the selling of those hacked items, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not accusing them of doing so, but I wouldn't be surprised. Balance by rarity, indeed. Zero tolerance to cheating, indeed.

I understand that blizzard has put far more time and effort into D2 than most game companies, particularly considering bnet is a free service. Howerver, maybe they need to be reminded that quality is better than quantity (and I don't mean in the items!!). Working on creating more powerful items, rather than halting or at least slowing the flood of ridiculous hacked items simply doesn't count.

I still don't understand why they don't just delete all these items. I mean, the game has to know what each item being used does, or they wouldn't work. And blizzard obviously knows it's impossible to have a small charm w/ +7 all skills and about 10 other mods. Now, I can see how deleting the dupes could be problematic. But how can they NOT catch these hacked items?

Anyways, while I am (somewhat) looking forward to the new patch, I've long since given up hope that it's going to "fix" the game. It may breathe new life into it for a time, but I've realized that we have to simply get as much enjoyment as we can from what we have. Counting on blizzard to follow through on their promises is simply no longer an option. And you can bet I'll remember that before purchasing any game from them in the future.

gekko

[Amaethon]

Id be willing to wager that at least three of those mods are variable, (damage, skills, and +to attributes) we all know how blizzard likes variables on the uniques. Personally I dont like what I am seeing so far in the previews. I LOVED the old azurewrath and dont really care to see it changed. That has always been my biggest gripe with patches they always seem to change some uber item and further unbalance the already rediculously unblanaced economy. I can see it now...people will be saying "my 09 azurwrath for your GF!!" in the trade channels. (not likely I know but I feel like ranting!)

Personally I liked the "mule character" idea somebody posted here a year or so ago. Id much rather see that than new items. Especially the strange things that are poping up so far. Meh to Blizzard!

[Dozer]

add to this it is indestructible, so imagine an ETHEREAL azurewrath!!!

Ahem.... If indestructable appears on an item as a mod, it CAN'T appear etheral.... ever seen an etheral Schaefer's Hammer, Or Lightsabre, or Stormshield? That is why... they have indestructable on them(Well Lighsabre doesn't, specifically, but ALL Phase Blades do so it's the same thing{which bring'd up another point, why is Indestructable listed, anyway?)

[Quark]

I just love these posts. People go on and on and on about how miserable Blizzard is, mentions that they'll probably never buy another Blizzard product, and yet are still playing a game that came out 3 years ago and they payed at most 60 bucks for.

You guys just can't understand value can you?

[Jugalator]

Some of these goals have mutually conflicting vectors and this patch has been anything but easy in the making.  When you've already given the players items like WF, how do you give them anything else to strive for?  If you do give them something "better" how do you make the game more challenging?  And if you do make the game more challenging, what happens to the players that don't have WF or "better"?  Anyway, most of these problems are pretty obvious to the people who read this forum.

Only one thing's certain: the patch will somehow manage to piss *everybody* off.

I'm pretty annoyance-resistant personally. I don't think I've actually been pissed off to the level of "WTF ARE THEY THINKING" anytime so far. :) And I'm pleased to hear about the kind of hurdles with the patch, since that shows that you're taking it serious and also share my opinion. This sounds great! :D

[WarBlade]

why is Indestructable listed, anyway?

So that people know they can't break it perhaps? :huh:

Indestructible is always listed on indestructible items (surprise!) and durability is not.

[FenrisWulf]

But Indestructible is not always listed on Phase Blades, despite the obvious fact that they don't use their durability. Example: Lightsabre. This is why seeing the Indestructible on the 1.10 Azurewrath is a bit unnerving.

EDIT: Oh, and in case you guys didn't notice, Blizzard has either removed the base+1 rule with +% ED on weapons, or they shifted the base damage of the Phase Blade down by one. Check the listed damage on Azurewrath, compared to the standard 31-35 base of Phase Blades.

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

no text

[DralaFi]

Also, one thing that has not yet been considered (as far as i know) is that we don't know what changes will be done to the Sanctuary Aura in 1.10. It may be made better or worse.

You never know untill the patch arrives.

[Guest]

Its not all that powerful(my favorite barb uses 2 cruel phase blades with shael and they arent that much worse). But its good.

I think sanctuary at lvl 16 is a great thing. It doesnt make the weapon "uber" but it makes it special and it will be useful in some circumstances.

[Rudishoes]

Monster variety eh? How about the Undead Stygian Doll level. :D (Idea stolen from someone I can't remember over at the Basin.)

And level 85 is a fair price to pay for a sword like this. WF is only 73. Only. <_<

-Rudi

[Albion Child]

I just love these posts. People go on and on and on about how miserable Blizzard is, mentions that they'll probably never buy another Blizzard product, and yet are still playing a game that came out 3 years ago and they payed at most 60 bucks for.

You guys just can't understand value can you?

I don't say how miserable Blizzard is...It just seems very...no incredibly...still no, PAINFULLY obvious what the biggest problems with the realms are. And yet the new patch, which I may add is long overue, does NOTHING to address these problems.

[Albion Child]

And level 85 is a fair price to pay for a sword like this. WF is only 73. Only.

Yeah, and Blizz says that it will be incredibly hard to attain higher levels with some sort of exp nerf....oh yeah, and noone will be able to solo hell in 8 player game...And blizzard has a zero hack policy...and 1.10 came out a month ago.

I hate to rant even more, but isn't Diablo 2 THE best selling game of all time? Don't you think a gaming company lke Blizz should take care of it? I don't care if it is years old and on a free realm, go to your local EB. This game is still selling TONS of copies as well as merchandise (action figures and such) The EB in my very small town of 4000 people has sold fourteen copies in April of either D2 or Lod or the Battle Chest with both in it. that's one store in a small town.......

[LavCat]

Indestructible is not listed on my Lightsabre or on any other phase blade I remember seeing (although there is no durability listed either). It could be that 1.10 removes this attribute of other phase blades. It could also be that someone stuck "of the ages" on the new sword, even though it was redundant.

I do hope they make it like the old Stones of Jordan, whereby one has to be carrying Lightsabre to have Azurewrath drop...since my mf hireling is holding Lightsabre.

[Quark]

Then to that I have three replies:

1) Are you sure 1.10 doesn't fix them? Have you played it?

2) Just because you think something's wrong, does that mean everyone else thinks it's wrong?

3) Since everything is so obvious for you, what games have you produced?

[br0d]

nice forum, i wish diabloii.net forums looked this good :blink:

Isolde, do you work for blizzard?

Quark, are you the same Quark who released the hacked items on west?