Blizzards asks for your Diablo II Suggestions/Concerns

[Fragbait]

Hi,

I figured I'd post a link to this thread at the battle.net forums, if you haven't read about it already.
Basically a Blizzard guy (NickJS) asks for suggestions and major concerns people have about the game right now, in case there will be a future patch. It's a bit full of whiners and the dominant wish is 'get rid of the cheats and hacks', which I think is nothing new to Blizzard, but oh well.

Before the AB went down, there was a pretty interesting thread about it over there, basically AB members telling what they would like to see improved / nerved, which bugs should be fixed urgently. Maybe we can have a similar thread here.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Fragbait]

Hi,

Found a rather nice response in the battle.net thread by a user called Spirit_x33x:

1) Rune drops should be increased. Right now there's like a 0.000000571% chance of a Zod being dropped. That's really low, I mean, Ive got a bigger chance of getting hit by a falling plane that's been struck by lightning on a sunny day.

Increase the runes by a factor of 1000.
So 0.000000571% becomes 0.000571% - that would be more reasonable, yet still very rare. I've never found a rune higher than Vex and Ive played for 5 years now. Increasing rune drops will decrease dupes and legit players have a chance of making the good runewords.

If you dont increase the rune drops, get rid of the over-powered, over-expensive runewords. Come on, Last Wish? It's like Blizzard is encouraging runes to be duped. Nobody will ever make that legitly.

2) Diablo is supposed to be played with the map revealed (after you explore it). Look at single player. Once a map is explored, it stays. That's the way the game was made. Why can't it be like that on Multiplayer? It should be, then there wouldn't be any map hacks.

3) Spell Fixes:

a) Hydra - (Increase dmg boost from its synergies)
b ) Firewall - (Synergy: Blaze) [+Fire Dmg]
c) Blaze - (Synergy: Firewall) [+Fire Dmg]
d) Thunderstorm - (Synergy: Lightning) [+Light Dmg]
e) Telekinesis - (Synergy: Teleport) [+Light Dmg]
f) Nova - (Synergy: Thunderstorm) [+Light Dmg]

g) Smite - Make it AR dependant. A lvl 2 char shouldnt be able to hit Hell Ball 95% of the time.
h) Hammer - Make it ignore Undead resistances, but not Demons.

i) Immolation Arrow. Get rid of the timer, make it like cold arrow.
j) Decrease mana cost a little for elemental arrow spells.
k) Fix Fend Bug - (Synergy: Jab) [+Dmg]

l) Increase synergy damage for Fire Traps.
m) Display Fade's damage reduced %.
n) Make the blade spells alot better. Give them synergies.
o) Make the elemental kicks a little better.

p) Let the Druid have a Bear and 1 type of Wolfs at the same time.
q) Get rid of the requirement that you must have Hurriance before you can get Armageddon. Armageddon doesnt deal cold damage so it shouldnt have cold damage spells are a pre-requirement.
r) Give vines synergies.

I'm not so sure about point 2), but the rest of it sounds fairly reasonable.

I had crafted an answer to the corresponding AB thread which I can't access now, but several points adressed by this user were in it, too.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Munkay]

Hi,

Found a rather nice response in the battle.net thread by a user called Spirit_x33x:
I'm not so sure about point 2), but the rest of it sounds fairly reasonable.

I had crafted an answer to the corresponding AB thread which I can't access now, but several points adressed by this user were in it, too.

Greetings, Fragbait

Very interesting ideas, thanks for the post Fragbait - and hopefully when the AB opens back up we can bring in some more discussion from both sites.

I have to agree with our friend Spirit_x33x about number 1. Increasing the rune drops would help out the legit player - I haven't seen any of the top 5 runes drop, let alone find one myself, in 3 years worth of solid playing. And getting rid of the absurd high end runes would help everyone out immensely. The super high end words create a class disparity, one that a legit player can very rarely overcome. Through trading it is possible for the legit player to get their hands on one, but if you are morally against high end trading (due to the high chance of trading a bot hacked/duped item) there is no hope.

As for number 2, I have to disagree. As much as I'd like to think revealing a map would curb Maphack use and make it a level playing field, from what I can glean map hack adds features not available in the game - meaning it will be around regardless of map reveal. Not to mention having the map revealed everytime would make the game a bore.

The suggestions about spells by Spirit_x33x are solid suggestions. Although at the moment I don't have any concrete ideas about how to do this, but will some one for the love of god fix the barbarian class? I'm not a large barbarian player, but for good reason - the class has basically been broken since 1.10. For a class based entirely on brute physical strength, they play more like a mouse than a lion.

As for the necromancer, sigh. I love the necromancer class immensely, but it still needs some polishing. Poison Nova, Bone Spear, and Bone Spirit need some kind of slight boost to be hell viable. Other spells like Poison Dagger have a whole lot of potential, but no real pay off.

I'll have to mull this over some more. Good idea for a post Fragbait,

Cheers,

Munk

[librarian]

Heiho,

a lot of the stuff I've recently posted over at the Phrozen Keep was covered in that AB thread. Since I seem to have a somewhat other approach to the game than most bnet forum members it's most probably useless, though I'll crosspost it here for reference:

1) Tomb Vipers

It's the subclass which attacks with poisjav_viper. This missile behaves odd, because it seems to transfer not only poison damage but also physical damage in the emitting clouds. A char will loose really _fast_ lots of life while moving through the poison clouds. It helps to wear lots of _physical_ damage reduced gear.
Also there seems to be an odd collision routine (which has the prupose to prevent a unit to take too much damage in too short of a time), because if you stand still you don't get as much damage unless there is another friendly unit in the same cloud, which seems to neglect the collision routine.

1b) the latter part is also true for the poison mats a druid's Poison Creeper (Plague Poppy) will spawn, at least here happens 'only' poison damage.
That is, if you have more than one foe crossing one mat, they'll be constantly poisoned, which increases their taken damage to an enormous amount (due to the first frame of poison damage is always applied)

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

_________________

2) Willowisps

aka Souls, they do an incredible amount of (pure) lightning damage. Excessive testing indicated that there is a wrong lookup routine to the El1, El2, El3 columns in MonStats.txt. It seems that everytime the game rolls El1 it actually uses the figures from El2 and vice versa. Since Willowisps have mana damage in El1 and added lightning damage in El2, and mana damage has always higher numbers than 'ordinary' life damage it'll increase their Lightning's damage vastly with the mana damage number.
The same is confirmed for Tainted ones, who also have mana damage in El1.
Most probably it happens all the time with all monster classes, but only the mana damage figures differ a lot from other figures used in that columns.
I don't know anything about El3, since that one isn't used in vanilla LoD.

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of
__________________

3) a silly one: Fangskin
SuperUnique Fangskin has a nonexistent treasure classe assigned for Hell difficulty. Easy to fix, replace the 'Fangskin' string in that column with any existing TC (or invent a 'Fangskin' TC, if you like).

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4) various Pets granted via oskills go poof
While 1.11b removed the ability of hirelings getting Pets through trigger events (a minion can't have other minions of his own, so the game crashed), still Pets from oskills are not very stable. Prominent is the Valkyrie from Peace&Harmony Runewords, who can't stand to be shouted at, and the Ravens from Heart of the Oak Runeword, who go poof without further reason. Maybe it's something along with equipping order checks in realtime, nobody knows.

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5) if you socket an ethereal item or upgrade a low quality ethereal item via Cube Recipes (both with all kinds of armor items, not weapons) it'll cumulate the ethereal 50% defense bonus again onto the item.
I'm not sure if it happens only with one of that recipes or both, my notes are a bit cross-eyed here, sorry.

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6) again a silly one: Runeword Principle
In Runes.txt it has as third attribute 'life', which is not the correct string (should be 'hp'); this prevents not only the bonus to life on that item but also all ones in following columns (which is in that case only the 150% bonus against Undead, but it may be interesting to you what happens when you use a wrong string in a column here)

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7) using oskills or charges while having stuff with that skill in inventory and hovering them with the cursor
ehm, sorry, that sounds incredibly confusing ...
You play a Necro. You use Battle Orders as oskill from an item, because of being a whimp and not knowing how to play a char properly with his native skills. You find a Primal Helm with a bonus to Battle Orders. You can't wear it, so you want to sell it at the vendor's. You hover over the Primal Helm to sell it.
What's happening is you loose that BO ability from your gosu item, it vanishs from your spellboard, and you can only get it back when reequipping that gosu item. Then the spell is again available at your spellboard and can be assigned again with a Hotkey.

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8) Questdrops from Andariel and Duriel
There is something wrong in the quest code here. If you have defeated Andy and talk to the NPCs in Camp, the quest state regarding quest drops is resetted and you'll again get a Quest Drop.
If you don't talk to anyone in Camp and create a new game, killing Andy again, she won't drop the Quest Drop but the normal drop.
But well, to proceed to Act2 you have to talk to anyone, be it just Warriv.
It is of no matter if you talk in the old game to anyone after defeating Andy or if you talk to anyone in the new game before killing Andy again.
Same for Duriel.

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9) various Attack Rating bugs
ok, this is more serious, and since all that AR stuff seems to be hardcoded I don't have a clue.

9a) Amazon/Penetrate and Paladin/Blessed Aim
an Amazon looses her Penetrate AR bonus when she comes under a friendly BlA Aura (Pal or hireling).
I only know german testing sources, so you'll have to take my word for it, it's not just a display bug.

9b) Amazon's (ranged) elemental skills
the AR Bonus on all elemental skills (bow&xbow, poison and plague javelin) doesn't work. But this one is displayed in the screen ... ^^

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

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10) boss-mods
I just quote myself:
- a combination of FE+CE will cause each death nova to happen twice (yep, four spells at cost of one here, you can't say you don't get anything for your money)
- a combination of FE+LE will cause with each trigger (Hit Recovery) the lightning bolts to carry also the damage of the death fire explosion, to the range of the original explosion (not to full range of the bolts)
- a combination of CE+LE will cause with each trigger (Hit Recovery) the lightning bolts to carry also the damage of the death cold nova, to the range of the original nova (not to full range of the bolts)
- a combination of CE+FE+LE will add the former listed effects, so it will cause with each trigger (Hit Recovery) the lightning bolts to carry also the damage of the death cold nova plus the damage of the death fire explosion, to the range of the original nova/explosion (not to full range of the bolts); when the monster dies it will trigger cold nova and firte explosion twice

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

During 1.10 there was a serverside (dll) patch to nerf Hell FE boss' death damage, this was also implemented in 1.11 for SP. They didn't nerf NM damage, so in vanilla in NM the FE bosses are in fact more dangerous than in Hell.

10b) oh, and BTW we are quite sure the MonUMod.txt *constantdesc string is not always correct. It lists percentages where we think it's most probably an absolute number added for various boss/champion enhancements

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11) not really a bug, but interesting
We always thought monster damage is not increased by player count. This seems to be wrong. There seems to be a slight increase of roundabout 6% in damage with each player.

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

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12) Zon's Impale doesn't work with Zon's Critical Strike ?
I'm not sure about the testing scenario, because AFAIK you can't get mindam=maxdam, but maybe it's just a typo

testing thread thread in Amazon Basin

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13) Leeching on PIs due to Bash ?
Again I'm not really sure about the testing scenario, but it seems you can leech via Barbarian's Bash skill when you can't with other pure physical attacks

testing thread thread in Amazon Basin

13b) the absolute bonus damage of Bash seems to only increase mindam, not maxdam

{13c) I'm not sure if this also happens with Zon's Magical Arrow}

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14) +XXX damage
in damage order the attribute +XXX damage should be applied to the resulting damage after calculating offweapon damage. But it is added where +mindam/+maxdam are applied, too, and thus gets an incredible boost of damage while multiplicated via offweapon ED.

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15) Barbarian's Leap / Leap Attack
If a Barbarian is forced to GH mode in midjump he has to rejoin the game, because he can't attack anymore.

15b) Barb can hop into Lava, but can't get out of it
-> rejoin/recreate game

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16) Paladin's Sanctuary
The bonus damage against Undead doesn't work.

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17) slowing animations
If a monster is slowed by item_slow and gets another hit with another percentage of slowing it'll play its attack animations with the wrong velocity.
the new slowing percentage is smaller than the previous one (monster becomes faster serverside)
-> the graphics displays no punching or an interrupted punching, but still you get a whack round your ears
the new slowing percentage is bigger than the previous one (monster becomes even slower serverside)
-> the graphics displays a faster hit, but the pause between hits is longer
In both cases the graphics doesn't match anymore with events.

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18) strbug (MultiPlayer only)
if you wear items that grant you Faster Run/Wlak, but you're only able to wear them due to str charms other players won't get a correctdisplay of your movement.

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19) another damage bug
%ED in combination with a bonus to mindam or maxdam, all on the same item, works irregularly

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

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20) a damage reduction issue
if you deal with very small amounts of several damage kinds absolute physical damage reduction works like Magical Damage Reduction

best reference thread in Amazon Basin I'm aware of

another thread at the Lurker Lounge

<edit>
more stuff

21) various hireling related ones

21a) Dream. You know that one already. If it's fixed it was done very recently.

21b) after resurrecting a deceased hireling Barb's Cries won't have an effect upon him
solution: re-enter game

21c) min/maxdam from equipment is added to base damage of the naked hireling and damage of his/her equipped weapon, thus works twice
(haven't rechecked that one on 1.11)

21d) 'Aura when equipped' doesn't work with just resurrected hirelings
solution: re-equip item

21e) especially Act2 hireling - the Smurf, the Sick and the Catatonic
- sometimes they don't get rid of the graphics overlay from cold/chill or poison
- Catatonism is noticeably more common since 1.10 (maybe due to increased leash), even more so when having lots of Pets; mercenary seems to have an AI implemented which cares a lot about masonry and botanics, not about fauna.

21f) 'Fires Exploding Arrows/Bolts' doesn't work on Rogues. It shows the graphics, but doesn't do ExAs. Funny thing, 'Fires Magical Arrows' works fine.
Of course I'm talking about the replacement of her normal arrows, not about when she's shooting her special arrow.
___________________

22) weird Map issues

22a) monsters spawning on places where the map should forbid it; most common in Abbadon, Acheron, Infernal Pit (monsters spawn in Lava)

22b) via Teleport you sometimes hit a gap between map segments

22c) doors and doorways sometimes are closed, but treated by NPC units like they're open
Seems to happen when many units with door opening ability and/or the char himself try to open the door at the same time.
Appropriate settings of sound and graphics get easily confused by such manners.

22d) sometimes NPC units fight on each side of a wall through a wall just beneath a (closed or open) door
noticeably better since 1.11

22e) sometimes you meet two Rogues at the farm and in very rare occasions in some of the outside Act1 maps (IIRC Dark Woods). They fight for themselves, but will profit from your friendly aura effects, if you have some, just like the regular Act5 Barbarian Warriors.

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23) charges on items
last charge won't work

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24) exp in 8ppl (Baal run) games (Multiplayer, don't know about /players8 in SP)
Since I don't do Baal runs I can only write from hearsay:
Achmel and his unraveling brethren don't give exp to a full party, one player has to leave during that wave.
The subordinated Skeletons give exp as they should, still in 8ppl games.

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25) conversed monsters
without being tackled by Conversion/Mind Blast/other such spells sometimes monsters fight on your side. They're selectable, but won't take damage from your attacks. They stay in about the same area where they spawned.
I know one way to force this, but sometimes it happens randomly with certainly no AI bending spells involved before.

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26) Spear Cats
there was a rumor that they don't damage pets, only players. I've found in Act5 guest Spear Cats (who had additional elemental damage) who in fact could damage my Skeletons, but the Javelins still hurt me. So they're somehow able to pierce. Couldn't find a clue in MonProp.txt.

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27) Paladin/Charge
no further comment ...

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28) sorc/Inferno
Druid/ArcticBlast?, IronWolf/Inferno?
only the first two parts of the missile do damage, the third is only graphics

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29) Amazon/Lightning Strike (also sorc/Chain Lightning)
doesn't work at all against tight groups, even when considering NextHit/NextDelay; works well if the first and second target are about 5-6yd distance from each other, distance between second and all following targets doesn't matter at all.

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30) Amazon Jab / mercenary Jab
most probably not a bug, but caused by the merc's own sequence animation; Zon has three hits, merc has two (merc is still overpowered, but that's another story)

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31) Necromancer spell range
range of curses is given in 'yards radius' but means 'yards diameter', same for CE.
not sure about all AoE spells, at least a lot of the others are listed with 'radius' and match ingame experience

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<edit#2>

32) probably not a bug, but a leftover from some beta business, or a blizz coder just disliked that crossclass business as much as I do:
when a Paladin uses Necromancer's Revives, Raise Skeleton Warrior or Raise Skeleton Mage he will loose 12,5% of his maxHP for each usage. Without intermediate healing he will die with the 8th usage of aforesaid skills. Happens in vanilla along with Revive charges from Bloodraven's Bow and was confirmed with modded testings.
Red Havoc mentioned it was known here already a looooong time ago.

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33) uncomplete crossclass animations
due to different setting in sequence animations and business like that Arctic Blast causes very irritating behaviour with all classes (except for the druid, for obvious reasons).
Screenshots
(I think I messed up the order of the pics, but you get the idea.)
If I ever would do serious modding by myself, this either useless or completely unbalancing stuff would be the very first things I'd wipe out right away, instantly and completely.

Other weird things are known to happen along that line, since a Zon can transform into a Werebear (Runeword oskill stuff), but the D/A/E Animations then will be replaced by flickering of shapeshifting back to human form and back again to WB form.

Or the Necro TO Vampire's broken Cast Rate.

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<edit#3>
34) Necromancer's Life Tap
works with ranged attacks since 1.1x.
This is not a bug.
Gives far more life back with ranged attacks than the attacked unit has.
This is one.

<edit#4>

35) again slowing, especially Baal
If Baal is under stacked slowing effects, namely Decrepify and Clay Golem (item_slow), he barely moves anymore, and worse, he almost never casts anything anymore. Basically helpless then, the poor sod. BigD deals a bit better with it, but is also very restricted in the variety of his actions.

</edit_all>

Of course removing bugs would be nice. Achieving better balance between classes and getting rid of some ridiculous stuff would actually cause me to download a new patch. If a new patch just would appear.
If it only brings more imbalance and silly stuff I'd rather write a modification of my own than download it, bugs given or taken.

<actual LL edit>
The PK thread you'll find here. Note some of the answers offer other reasons/solutions than my mere listing.
</done>

[Fragbait]

Hi,


Whoa! That's a couple of bugs...

1) Tomb Vipers

It's the subclass which attacks with poisjav_viper. This missile behaves odd, because it seems to transfer not only poison damage but also physical damage in the emitting clouds. A char will loose really _fast_ lots of life while moving through the poison clouds. It helps to wear lots of _physical_ damage reduced gear.
Also there seems to be an odd collision routine (which has the prupose to prevent a unit to take too much damage in too short of a time), because if you stand still you don't get as much damage unless there is another friendly unit in the same cloud, which seems to neglect the collision routine.

That one is surely bugged, but the effect that walking through poison clouds does damage even if they already have disappeared shortly before is intended, I think:

[Explanation by Gta-maloy]:
----------------
Q u o t e:

A percentage of their charge damage is included in the secondary cloud of poison. The AoE cloud. This means that you could avoid the initial poison from the spear but still get the physical + poison damage of the cloud should you run into it.

THE CLOUD IS NOT VISIBLE. This is why many people think they get killed by something that isn't really there. The cloud will stay about five seconds AFTER the initial spear's cloud vanishes. If you do not move in this time, the second cloud will not effect you. Getting knocked back will also not trigger the second cloud. You will get poisoned by the viper and get a nice percentage of life taken away from you but it won't be over time.

Best thing to do is stand still when they fire or run past them at high velocity. The cloud will only form a second or two after the spear is thrown, this gives more than enough time for a character to run past them. Should you need to stop... stop and don't run or walk until five seconds after all the clouds have gone.
----------------


As for whether or not this is a bug; I recently saw the Blizzard forum moderator MicahW making the following statement:
----------------
Q u o t e:

----------------
Q u o t e:
Wheres the fix on those pesky Tomb Viper in Nihlathak place?
----------------

Working as intended.
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- from this thread.

22e) sometimes you meet two Rogues at the farm and in very rare occasions in some of the outside Act1 maps (IIRC Dark Woods). They fight for themselves, but will profit from your friendly aura effects, if you have some, just like the regular Act5 Barbarian Warriors.

That one is actually interesting. I'd like to see it more as a feature, not a bug, and it would be nice if we could see warriors in each act taking on the monsters. Would add to the atmosphere.

Good Stuff.

Greetings, Fragbait

[librarian]

Heiho,

That one is surely bugged, but the effect that walking through poison clouds does damage even if they already have disappeared shortly before is intended

I know they claimed INABIAF and that it 'works like intended' here, but it is not ok when Clouds of Poison deal physical damage continuously without appropriate collision checks.

That one is actually interesting. I'd like to see it more as a feature, not a bug, and it would be nice if we could see warriors in each act taking on the monsters. Would add to the atmosphere.

According to Nefarius over at the PK that are Rogues which were first drafts for hirelings, but never managed it into the game. He says they are most probably only spawned in closed bnet, cause there is no evidence of their spawning in the local files for them.
The AI of the other townsfolk (including the Rogues you see commonly at the camp) doesn't support fighting in the wilderness, they'd just stand still. Of course the Act5 Barbies aside.

I'd also appreciate that weenies in Frigid Highland would get out of their cages, grabbing random stuff dropped by monsters and do some serious whacking (heck, even barehanded would do) before they cowardish tp home. But we must not forget it is a six year old game here.

[Merlinios]

***Pre-emptive edit***
This is extremely disjointed. Even the sections it is divided into may be somewhat off, and I don't have time to edit right now, but want to get it out there. Read at your own risk.



First off, STOP ADDING MORE AND MORE TOO-POWERFUL ITEMS TO THE GAME. I don't care how common they are. I don't care how easy they are to obtain. It's not about class disparity. It's about game difficulty. A bot can now find and kill the final boss in the hardest difficulty. Problem? Yes.

I forgot the majority of what I was going to post, but after reading through Librarian's list, there are a few items I'd like to comment on.

The fixing of the double ethereal bonus via Horadric Cube socketing is NOT a good plan, at least for the non-ladder trading economy (not that I care, playing only Ladder). These items will skyrocket in value if left in the game. They should be either removed entirely from the game (including those existing in inventories), or better yet, retroactively fixed. Even if possible, this doesn't sound easy. I'm not sure what else to do here. Scaling the defense progression differently doesn't sound any easier.

A fix to the bots (removing them, obviously) would be gravy, but I'm not too hopeful there. I don't have enough coding experience to know how feasible this is.

Revert the mercenaries back to their old hiring scheme with regard to level OR make Hell mercenaries identical to normal mercenaries. Do the same with Nightmare mercenaries (barring Desert Warrior auras, of course).

As much as I would like some actual balance changes (to the good, not this catering to what we feel people have always wanted to make their characters more ub3r), I don't think they're going to happen. As such I would settle for some bug fixes. I think Librarian has covered most of what I was aware of.

Howsabout a ladder reset? Or maybe a ladder reset schedule? I got juked on the last one because I had to move about a week after it started.

Add some of the "features" of maphack. Things like different colored rune text and ilvl display.

Regarding the quote librarian posted:

Increasing rune commonality looks like a plan if we're keeping all of those high-end words.

Constant map revelation would not necessarily be a good plan, but I can see where he's coming from. Is there a problem with doing something like storing the map server-side (to alleviate map-hack).

The spell fixes don't look too bad, but I feel it should be said that someone will always find the "best" skill for speed killing, and as such, the others won't be used too much.


***WISHLIST***
I'm aware that most of these not only will not happen, but are not even feasible given the current budget, player environment, etc. I also wonder how much of this Blizzard WOULD be willing to do if they had the time, money, and manpower. For example, it has been shown that the Diablo I dupe fix was relatively simple, yet Blizzard left it in the game. Since many many other bugs were fixed, the obvious conclusion is they left it in on purpose, probably because they figured (correctly) that a large portion of their gaming community used and enjoyed it. There is an official aggressive stance against maphack and whatnot, but I'm not sure how much is actually being done.

More intelligent synergies would be great. The "Let's have skill X synergize skill Y because there's a logical relation" track is cool, but I'd prefer balance. In fact, let's get rid of them altogether while we're here. They were an awesome idea, but didn't really work. I've heard it said that a better fix would be to scale the level requirement on skills to end at something like clvl 75 (and of course scale the power level as well). This might have people actually using the low-level stuff. But once again, I don't think any of this is realistic, just what I'd like to see.

-Do SOMETHING about Blessed Hammer. No one skill should be that dominating; AoE damage that hits and kills everything but a single obscure monster in Act III is just too much, ESPECIALLY at that kind of level of damage. Remove the breaking of immunity. Scale down the damage. Make the flight path more erratic. Do SOMETHING.

-Do something about Holy Shield. I think the problem (bug?) is that it multiplies ALL armor rather than the SHIELD'S armor. As such, a high level Holy Shield grants max block and potentially fifteen thousand-ish defense. That's akin to the defense of a Barbarian with full-on Shout and Iron Skin.

-Remove Infinity. Conviction on a Sorceress is too much. It creates a very Blessed Hammer-esque situation (as on the straight Lightning Amazon). These classes cannot break/lower immunity/resistances for a reason.

-Remove Enigma. Teleporting should be restricted to Sorceresses. You want to teleport? Get an amulet with charges. Alternate fix: Make Enigma VERY weak, but leave the teleport oskill on. Maybe give it negative "bonuses".

-Call to Arms is not nearly as broken as these two, but you could make a case for stunlock while teleporting.

-Hellfire Torch is out of control. Annihilus is to a lesser extent, but it seems to be stabilizing, at least in terms of numbers. Hellfire Torch, however, seems to be one of the most common items on Battle.net. Before unique charms existed, people would have killed for 5 resist all/+20 life. Now people routinely throw out a less-than-perfect Torch or Annihilus because it's "not good enough". I don't know how to fix this, but it is a problem.

-Annihilus is a known quantity. Perhaps this was the original intent, but I feel that Blizzard implemented it to add a special item to the game in their long-standing tradition of randomness. Not only is it no longer random, but there are people who have enough CD keys to sell enough Stones to break a server all by themselves and still make a profit. Something is wrong with that picture.

-Half-joking here, but what if we could revert (Realm/Ladder) back to a 1.08ish state of the game. Get rid of all of that Enigma nonsense. It's not just the fact that the words are impossible to make without cheating, but the fact that they throw balance out the window. Paladins were not meant to teleport. Sorceresses have to work obscenely hard to obtain the 20,000+ defense your average "Hammerdin" has.

-Make mercenaries beyond the Desert Warriors "useful". I know they're not BAD, per se, but nothing is even close to Desert Warrior power in hell.

-Item transfer between characters. Perhaps a small shared storage.

-"Item decay mode". A mode that creates a stable, vibrant economy--items must have some OUT. Thus far, to my knowledge, only cube recipies, selling Stones of Jordan, using non-repairing, non-indestructible ethereal items, and just plain leaving stuff in a game are the only means of destroying items. What if EVERYTHING eventually died. Maybe a week after it's found? Or X hours of logtime while equipped? Make everything ethereal, but without bonii (wands and such must somehow lose durability). Right now the game is basically to see who can generate the biggest pile of junk. But then that junk just sits there forever. It never gets traded, used, given away, or anything else. Give someone a reason to use that perfect <item that is not used>.

-I think I posted this already, but remove synergies. Find another way to make those "useless" skills useless. Right now they are a resource, but they are still not USED. There are any number of ways to do this. Here's an example. Instead of requiring ONE point to access a skill, have the requirement equal to the level requirement, drawn from any combination of skills of a lower tier within that tree. So to access, say, Frozen Orb, you need 30 hard points in any combination of < level 30 cold skills. To access Fireball, you need 12 hard points in any combination of Warmth, Inferno, and Firebolt. This is somewhat similar to the synergy structure (and as such, I realize it is still very much flawed), but it accomplishes something that synergies do not; it leaves some room for experimentation. How many people even bother anymore? Can't pick up Thunderstorm because it doesn't synergize anything you KNOW you will use. Can't use Blaze for the same reason. So no one even bothers TRYING OUT the skills. I'm sure there are many better fixes than this. Perhaps I'll post some later.




One last comment before I go. I've noticed a trend in what I see as maybe happening, and what I believe will be immediately dismissed. Anything that will be seen by the majority of players as weakening one (or all--probably in relation to monsters) will be dismissed. Blizzard is (probably correctly) afraid that much of their player-base will be upset if something like this happens. But if they add something extremely overpowered, especially if it's for ALL classes, everyone will rejoice. I'll have to take the only real-life example I know of here; Guild Wars. They have implemented the opposite policy, which is to keep the game and its balance intact. Players have roared with vexation upon learning of several updates, but as a result, the game is still as playable (perhaps more so) as when it was first released. It is not BORING. Diablo II is rapidly becoming (read: already is) such. Once clvl 85 is passed, unless you're playing a caster with low armor, there really isn't any thought anymore. Anything with over, say, 10,000 armor becomes "Click on something until it dies. It can't hurt you anyway." This is not "fun", despite what a large quantity of the players would have themselves believe. As evidence, I present both the level bots and the item-finding bots. Uber Tristram was a step in the right direction on the challenge front; Hellfire Torch was a step in the wrong. Ya grok?

--me

Edit: FIX THE LYING CHARACTER SCREEN!

Edit again: Not as important, but howsabout a different scaling for diminishing returns. Perhaps the same endpoint, but extend it differently. For example, my Barbarian has level twelve-ish Find Item. The next point does not actually change the value (46% as I recall). What if it was more like 30% at this level and continued to scale up slowly? Worth looking into?

[Merlinios]

Here's one that's more realistic than most of my other suggestions: alternate set endings. Especially, and perhaps exclusively for the class-specific sets. What if I want to wear Immortal King but I don't like mauls (I love mauls, but that's beside the point.)? Sooo what if there was an Immortal King's (Glorious Axe) that would complete the set in place of the maul. Same with the M'avina Set, potentially Griswold's Legacy and Aldur's Watchtower as well, but they don't seem quite as...needy in that regard. Barbarians have six weapon disciplines they can train themselves in, but their "ultimate" set has but one weapon. Amazons have two (three) weapon classes, but only one set ending. I'm not saying we should give Amazons an Axe set, but it seems rather natural for them to get Javelins and Spears, neh? Seems like a way to create new items without completely throwing balance out the window like many of the Runewords do (Although who can tell what will come if it's imposed?).

Oh yeah, and in case it was somehow missed, FIX THE LYING CHARACTER SCREEN.

Seriously though, I'd settle for a massive rust-storm, more (deservedly) banned accounts, and some routine maintenance. I know a lot of people on other fora have whined about cheats, hacks, and dupes, but I think the majority of them are lying, either to Blizzard, or to themselves. They do not realize the ramifications of such, since a lot of them have never played the game in a cheat-free environment. I have both thought about it, and played before the cheats were there, so it is with certainty that I can say I liked it better that way. I remember when finding a unique item MEANT something. Now it means you watch four people dash at it and see it hit the ground ten seconds later, identified. Yes, I realize this means that at MOST, people will have maybe two or three of the upper end runewords. And this will be the coffee-addicted guys who play for 10+ hours a day, doing nothing but magic-finding and trading. Unless of course runes are made more common (and I'm all for that, if the current runewords stay in place). There are people that argue that the cheaters and botters make the rare items available to the masses. To what end? So they'll grow bored with the game too fast? The "best" equipment is no longer something that is strived toward. It's something you can go out and get in a week, from scratch, if you know what you're doing. It's disgusting. Let's make it a game again. Let the treasure hunt resume. What's the point in buying a lottery ticket if you've already won?

--me

[Merlinios]

Bug that (I think) was missed:

When a character dies, that character loses bonus resistances from the Anya quest for the duration of the game. The fix is fairly obvious (and I would think easy as well). The LCS does not, of course, show this.

--me

[librarian]

Heiho,

have a quote from bnet forum's summary, note that no-one says that any patch is in preparation.
<span style="color:#FFCC00">coloured comments by me

Diablo II Suggestions/Concerns Report

Character Changes
- Have the ability to reset skill points.
- Increase the Stash/Inventory Size.
- Display magic resistances.
- Display physical resistances.
- Have the ability to view the entire map.
- Change the Synergy System: Changing the Synergy System will allow more diverse builds.
Synergies should only be added to native skills which have at least one point investment.
Give every skill at least one synergy.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">yeah, make all that stuff possible some 3rd party tools offer ...


Items
- Add more crafting recipes for specific classes.
- Increase the Rune/Runeword drop percentage.
- Make it so the order you put runes into an item doesn't matter.
- Make durability decay more slowly.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">yeah, do that so my five year old brother doesn't bother me again and again to buy him WF at ePay ...


Battle.net/Multiplayer
- Run regular Ruststorms weekly to help remove Duped Items.
- Have the ability to categorize Battle.net game types such as: Trade, Experience, Difficulty, etc.
- Have the ability to search for a game using keywords.
- Add a new mail box system for trading or a hub to trade items at.
- Have the ability to control hostile attacks. Both players must accept a hostile agreement.
- With the current setup, if a player is killed by another player, their corpse should return to a Town to prevent Corpse Camping.
- Decrease the amount of gold lost when killed by another player.
- Have the ability to open the Cow Level even after you have defeated the Cow King.
- Have a new option for automatically accepting party invites or to send party invites.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">Make botting more even more easy so my five year old brother can do it himself, allowing me to surf ePay more often. Oh, and I hate dupes, of course

Balance
- Make hired mercenaries more appealing after Act 2.
- Only allow the highest ranked aura to be up instead of stacking the same auras of different ranks.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">Give the mercs all at least three aurae. Oh, and I don't have a clue how aurae stacking works, but let always mine be the best, so I can always yell at other ppl in party

User Interface
- Fix the numbers 5 and 6 on the character sheet. These can easily cause confusion because they look very similar.

The following class suggestions/concerns were the most requested ones to be addressed:

Paladin
- Reduce the damage of the Blessed Hammer.
- Make it so that Smite can be blocked more often.
- Sanctuary Aura: Bonus is not working properly against Undead.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">
My five year old brother has hacked into my account, I don't want changes on Pal


Amazon
- Shorter cool down on Immolation.
- Impale should get an attack speed bonus with increased points, or from a synergy.
<span style="color:#FFCC00">
I don't like attacks with RPG touch. It's a Hack&Slay!!11

Assassin
- Increase damage for Fire Traps
- Increase general skill durations
- Dragon Flight: Revert back to how it was in 1.09
<span style="color:#FFCC00">
Make Sin's fire damage at least as powerful as her lighning damage, otherwise I'll quit the game!!!111

Barbarian
- Add a synergy that increases the radius for Battle Cry and War Cry.
- Allow them to get +1-3 Bash and +1-3 Stun on helmets and not just charges
- Give them Dagger Mastery

<span style="color:#FFCC00">When I yell all monsters of the map should instantly die. I don't like daggers, but it's a shame there is no mastery for it. Oh, and make daggers with 6 or more socks possible, my five year old brother accidentially deleted that line while he was hacked into my account

Necromancer
- Poison Nova should get a higher Next Hit Delay of 25 Frames similar to Twister.
<span style="color:#FFCC00">
I don't have a clue how this NexxtHitDecay stuff works, and for sure not with PN.

Sorceress
- Increase amount of damage down by Thunderstorm.
- Blizzard does too much damage in PVP.
- Add a cool down timer to the Teleport skill as well as increase the amount of mana it requires.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">Make Thunderstorm as least as powerful as Lightning Fury to show that Zons who is the real Mage!
My five year old brother always kills me with his xxxblizzingChickxxx 99er sorc.
He can do that just because he has more FC, could you add FC to Enigma?

Druid
- Increase fire skills damage
- Add something new to the Spirit of Barbs skill to make it more appealing.
- Increase the attack speed of Werewolf form.

<span style="color:#FFCC00">Make Volcano to eradiate all map population, make it ignoring fire resistance! Let SoB reflect cold damage as well as physical. Make Fury even more faster, so even when chilled my Werewolf won't punch slower than 4fpa! I want to win against my brother's sorc with my max Wolf, max Volcano, max SoB Druid !!!111

Additional Item and Class Suggestions are scattered through out these two threads:
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread...ral&t=1247096&p
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread...ral&t=1255812&p

<span style="color:#FFCC00">My brother had problems to hit the correct answer button while logged in my hacked bnet board account.

Bugs
- All current bug reports should be sent to support@blizzard.com
<span style="color:#FFCC00">
That bloody Well in Lut Gholein and that other one in Harrogath still don't work. FIX THIS NOW!

Miscellaneous Suggestions
- Add a permanent ignore option on Battle.net. <span style="color:#FFCC00">I really don't like the way my brother follows me around.
- Both players must accept a friend invite in order to add each other to their friends list on Battle.net. <span style="color:#FFCC00">I don't know all of my brothers accounts.
- Allow the Single Player "/Players 1-8" command to be added to Battle.net.<span style="color:#FFCC00"> I want to give my smart brother a hard time when he teles down to Baal, just to see him cry ###
- Add official Clan Channels for Diablo II players. <span style="color:#FFCC00">My brother is not in my clan
- Both genders for classes <span style="color:#FFCC00">I want to see more funny names of chars in channels
- Allow the option to copy over your closed Battle.net characters to single player characters. <span style="color:#FFCC00">I don't know how to dupe at home, ePay just sums up too much.
- Add a PVP server and PVP Rank/Ladder Systems <span style="color:#FFCC00">My brother surprised my once with going hostile immediately when I took his tp to Baal.
- Make events/items/etc. that are normally only available on Battle.net, available in Single Player Mode. <span style="color:#FFCC00">ePay really just sums up too much.
- Change the way Uber Diablo is spawned. <span style="color:#FFCC00">Let him spawn via selling tp scrolls.
- Increase the amount of experience gained <span style="color:#FFCC00">Make leeching more easy
- Add a new difficulty mode <span style="color:#FFCC00">Make leeching still more easy
- Add new items, quests, monsters, etc. <span style="color:#FFCC00">I don't like the way my Druid looks

Ok, to be fair, there are two or three suggestions which aren't that bad. In average I don't regret to have retired from bnet. It seems to get more silly per day, not per month anymore.

[Merlinios]

Some of those are pretty nutty. And as much as I'd like to see Rust Storm run as frequently as possible, I don't think that's really all that possible. The full-on Rust Storm, IE, the one that actually does something, only seems to be able to run by turning off the servers.

And I can't believe no one else wants to get the lying character screen fixed. They just want to add more columns for it to be wrong about.

Anyone else find it odd that it is the general assumption that a one dollar-ish monthly fee would remove a large quantity of the players who are generally denounced as eBayers that shell out hundreds for items?

Here's my viable want list:

Do SOMETHING about the runewords and their insanity. Last Wish is utterly ridiculous. There is no way that should ever legitimately exist. Make runes more common. Make runewords that use actual findable runes. Do SOMETHING. Since Lord of Destruction was released, I've found an Ohm and a Zod. Assuming a one-for-one trade of the so-called high runes, this is not enough to make quite a few of those added in 1.10. And lest we forget, we are supposed to find all of these in a single ladder season.

Decrease the power on...just about everything that is commonly used. Sounds a bit whiny, I know, but I think this is a pretty solid suggestion. Actually, eliminating oskills and aurae-on-equip would go a LOOOONG way toward fixing this. These are probably the worst offenders in this poor, tired game's balance. Conviction is unfair on Sorceresses and Lightning Amazons (PvM). Enigma aside, the others really aren't THAT overpowered. Nothing else grants that kind of destructive capability. I have mixed feelings on Enigma. I do like teleporting on some of my other casters, but I feel it creates overpowered niche characters (IE, Blessed Hammer paladin). So what if we made it...suck. Negative armor bonus? More so? I don't know. Do SOMETHING so it isn't an automatic choice. Make it a Gotterdamerung item. Making Barbarians playable again as more than walking Battle Orders would be pretty cool, too. We don't really need to go back to the 1.01 days of everyone plays the blurry lancer, but maybe seeing one or two that do more than yell at the party would be good.

Fix the Lying Character Screen.

Amazingly not listed, and yet extremely simple and useful is just changing the textual color display on runes. Third party programs offer it. Mods offer it. And it really doesn't effect gameplay at all beyond a minor convenience. It will save people from needing laser surgery for another year or two, desperately searching all of those white letters, only to find a Rune Bow right next to a Vortex Shield.

And last, but certainly not least PLEASE don't add anything else overpowered to the game. I've had all of the Annihili, Hellfire Torches, and stupid runewords I can handle without vomiting. Uber Tristram was a very cool idea. Hellfire Torch was not. Characters were already powerful enough. The game certainly does not need to be any easier. Harder areas are good; better rewards are not, unless they are necessary to complete even harder areas (and preferably equippable ONLY in said areas).


I don't think those are all that much to ask for. I know some of the stuff I posted earlier was really out there, but those three seem not only entirely feasible, but like they would help the game's longevity. Right now, I'm well aware that I have no realistic chance of ever creating an Enigma. Increase the rune drops, and I might have something to work for. Bad example, since I want Enigma removed, but you get the idea.

Something should PROBABLY also be done about the synergies, but as I'm not a programmer nor a game designer, I'm not sure what it is. I'm sure eliminating them would cause a mass outcry, invalidate whole accounts full of characters and whatnot. It therefore is probably not in Blizzard's best interest, but I'm still not sure what it. But synergies as we know them are pretty dumb.

Another would be nice, but is not necessarily necessary is including some more information. Why should we have to plumb the internet to find out the NextDelay on Poison Nova. And even if we do, it doesn't really help us, because that means nothing to the guy standing next to me spamming it. A little bit of information about our own skills would be pretty rockin'.

I'd also like to address the absurdity of a few of those suggestions.

Allowing skills to be reset completely eliminates any balance in Sorceresses, even beyond what Infinity does. Cold immunes? Let's open a portal, head back to town, and click in a hundred for Meteor and friends. Sorry folks, this one's just stupid.

Blessed Hammer. Damage reduction isn't the answer. Howsabout fixing the resistance/immunity penetration? Blessed Hammer, without that, is nowhere near as powerful as Blizzard (even with casting delay) and is harder to aim, especially if we take out/make teleport unplayable on Paladins.

Holy Shield. I find this is actually more powerful than Blessed Hammer. This skill is completely stupid right now. It makes people indestructible. I might even go so far as to say it is the single most overpowered skill, but I think either Teleport or Conviction hold that slot.

Dagger mastery for Barbarians? Not much sense there. Howsabout for Necromancers? Make the dagger guy viable instead of just fun.

Battle Cry/War Cry are VERY powerful right now. Increasing the radius would be rather...unbalanced. With some increased speed, teleport, and/or Taunt, it is possible to keep literally several screens worth of monsters stunned at once right now. Be nice if they tried playing the game instead of getting Blizzard to make the characters play it for them.

Not sure what the deal on Spirit of Barbs is. Why is that one particular skill mentioned? How many people put points into increased stamina? Blaze? Hunger? Redemption? Terror? Why Spirit of Barbs? Not that I'm saying all of those should be powered up. While it would be nice to be able to utilize all skills without playing a variant, it may also be necessary to have "bad" skills so the good ones are good. Skill X is only "good" as long as there isn't something better.

I don't think both genders for all classes are possible unless Blizzard starts taking in fan art or for some reason has them unreleased on file already. Cool idea, but not very feasible, considering how many animations they all have to go through.

Changing the way Uber Diablo spawns seems pretty solid as well. The current system is both monopolistic and highly exploitable. I'm not sure what fixes this, though. While selling a unique item was certainly a cool idea in a role-playing sense, and would have worked wonders on the economy if duplication wasn't rampant, it has some practical issues. Perhaps it would be truer to the spirit of the game if the spawn were actually random? Still sounds exploitable, though, unless there is a way to do it randomly gamewise instead of serverwise. Otherwise those with multiple accounts and bots and whatnot will just camp games for weeks and still monopolize the Annihili. The randomness via games would also have to occur at random intervals, or bots still win. If it's upon joining, it becomes whoever makes games the fastest. If the spawn occurs after X minutes, that's still a programmable goal. I'm not sure how realistic any of this is, but the current system is pretty fractured.

[librarian]

Heiho,

<advertising_on>
maybe you'll find something you like in the HoB read1st file. I've found a modding guy who thinks along pretty much the same lines as I do.
We can't fix everything, but the game will be more interesting without changing Look&Feel of D2/LoD too much.

I think at least some of the LCS issues - as long as they're connected with skill descriptions - are in fact tedious, but manageable to fix. Reasonable Rune Droppings is already fixed ('reasonable' like in 'you won't find a Jah under every wet stone'). Crossclass stuff is already removed. Synergy stuff gets a redesign while working on each class, 1st drafts of Zon and Nec are ready.

Will need a lot of monster behaviour changes before any form of beta release goes public. Keep an eye at that file, we keep it pretty much close up to date.
<advertising_off>

[AtomicKitKat]

Meh, drop immunities altogether. You can have max synergies and be utterly useless 33% of the time, or be a sorc with 20 in the "top spell" of each tree and still not do enough damage. Heck, tone down damage overall. That would make synergies actually mean something. I really think immunities and the obsession with ever bigger numbers are what keeps driving people to use "only the best" skills of each class.:unsure:

[Hammerskjold]

>Basically a Blizzard guy (NickJS) asks for suggestions and major concerns people have about the game right now, in case there will be a future patch.

Keeping in mind that bliz stated that there will be no more major (gameplay) changes after 1.10, and this is just a suggestion post and it doesn't mean that there will be a patch like you said etc.

I think it's not unreasonable at all of people asking for less division of offline and online contents. I personally don't quite like the way bliz balances and adds content for mostly online ladder, as if that is the only game in town. Security reasons is one thing, but the rest of the reasons just seems ridicilous. Online is probably the biggest or at least biggest looking game in town and therefore needs the most attention and priority. But it's definitely not the only one. But looking at past patches, bliz seems to have made their mind on the matter.

Everything from treasure drop probabilities and monster immunities seems to be balanced for a full party of 8 in mind. I might be the minority here, but I actually believe some of the runewords with cross skills is the best solution bliz has under the circumstances. If some players believe they're overpowered, I don't see the problem of not using it themselves.

Basically I'd be very satisfied if they just fix most of the technical bugs, and tear down some of the 'online ladder only' fence. I'd be ecstatic if they give some (affordable) Spear class specific runeword recipes.


Other than that, I think one of 1.10 best features was it more modder friendly, too bad the D2 game structure doesn't allow more modding something like a total conversion. And really at this point, I think my personal 'want' list can only be achieved by either a mod that hasn't been made yet, or a different game. But if this future patch just promises more pseudo MMORPG with more online only contents, with a dash of non-sensical nerfings (and nerfs disguised as buffs), and more ridicilously rare recipes\items that almost no legitimate player in the standard game can even hope to find. I'm happy enough with just playing 1.10 and some mods, offline.

[Hammerskjold]

mistaken double post.

[Jarulf]

Three sugestions by me:)

Stop all nonsense with having some features being realm or ladder only.

Change the /player X command so those players count as partied and close by players (that is as full players and not half players). Alternatively set max ammount to 16 but that will just confuse the heck out of people.

Fix the algorithm for the sparkling chest type ot work correctly with the new TC system introduced with the expansion (version 1.06 of the game I believe or was it 1.07?).

[Merlinios]

Everything from treasure drop probabilities and monster immunities seems to be balanced for a full party of 8 in mind.

Not so, at least on the immunities. I won't even begin to claim to know what "balanced" drops are. But there is literally no reason your level 70+ Sorceress can't kill nearly all hell enemies. Yes, you will get that ridiculous boss pack every once in awhile that neither you nor your mercenary can dent, but those are really almost never on the beaten path, and easily avoidable for the sorceress, who is probably the worst "victim" of the immunities.

Except she's only the victim because people feel they NEED to utilize the synergies fully. Meteor (for example) kills just fine synergized halfway or less. As do almost all of the other skills. For a dual-elemental Sorceress, which is moderately easy to equip and play, you need to have a monster that is immune to your primary, highly resistant to your secondary, and immune to your mercenary to stop you. Mono-elemental only has the greatest kill-speed in parties of eight or when Conviction is present (which it is and shouldn't be).

I might be the minority here, but I actually believe some of the runewords with cross skills is the best solution bliz has under the circumstances.

So you feel that because the game is balanced toward parties of eight, it should be okay for individuals to load up a Conviction Thresher on the mercenary, join a full game, not party, and one-hit everything? If not, please explain your logic here. I'm genuinely curious. These runewords distort the game beyond what it is, for lack of better terminology. As one who has been playing Diablo II since the release, the game in question is no longer Diablo II to me. It is something entirely different.

If some players believe they're overpowered, I don't see the problem of not using it themselves.

This fix works for everyone but ladder contenders, of which I am one. And since the backbone of your post seems to believe that Blizzard aims the game at them, I must begin to wonder at this statement. Last time the ladder reset, I was 50-ish in the opening days/weeks, despite a late start and much solo/duo questing. The problem came when I had to move out. I didn't get my internet up in the dorm until about a week later, and came back to teleporting Enigma-equipped Blessed Hammer bots. If you've ever seen one of these SOBs, you know there isn't really a realistic way of catching them. Teleport has created this problem.

Basically I'd be very satisfied if they just fix most of the technical bugs, and tear down some of the 'online ladder only' fence. I'd be ecstatic if they give some (affordable) Spear class specific runeword recipes.

No problem with the technical bugs, but I'm not sure how hard all of those would be. Myself, I'd prefer a little game balance. None of the bugs are ruining my gaming experience. Enigma is. Infinity is. Except for a select few runewords (mostly Spirit and Insight), Ladder-only gains very little and loses much. Most of the runewords and definitely the Hellfire Torch are more of Blizzard throwing balance out the window because they feel that is what their fans want. For the sake of fairness, I'll cede the point, but most of those runewords just make life hell, especially when they're dirt cheap and don't mean anything. I'd much prefer they just took most of them out, along with the Hellfire Torch (although Uber Tristram is welcome to stay).

--me

[Hammerskjold]

>Not so, at least on the immunities. I won't even begin to claim to know what "balanced" drops are.

I didn't claim I have a solution for perfectly 'balanced' drops across the board either. What I do mind is, the type of excuse bliz trots out that they obviously can't let a Zod drop every 30 seconds for everyone. What I do mind is the newer runewords (Insight-Spirit etc) that can help out solo\sp players, are designated online Ladder only.

> Mono-elemental only has the greatest kill-speed in parties of eight or when Conviction is present (which it is and shouldn't be).

? So, Convict paladins are not welcomed in multiplayer? Or just Convict on a Stick?

>So you feel that because the game is balanced toward parties of eight, it should be okay for individuals to load up a Conviction Thresher on the mercenary, join a full game, not party, and one-hit everything? If not, please explain your logic here. I'm genuinely curious.

What I want or my logic doesn't really matter in the long run of how others choose to play in B.net though, does it? But if you're curious, yes I have seen that type of thing online. Yes, it can be very annoying at times. However if that player has acquired all that gear and level legitimately, so what? Where does it say that you -have- to party up? Oh yes Bliz certainly encourage you to do so, but where does it say you or anyone else should follow everything bliz suggests in terms of gameplay style? (We'll leave out the obvious case of cheating online etc, because we both know this isn't what we're discussing.)

Here is the bottom line for me about the matter. Bliz patch histories shows they're at least inclined towards balancing and rewarding online-multi-ladder. Exp slowdowns at higher clvls, hey just party up. It's more fun that way and makes the game last longer and we all know longer game=better game. I say bunko to that. Most of the changes can make the game longer, but not necessarily better.

D1 didn't have this type of scheme. Yet multiplayer didn't die out because of it. For some strange reason some people still chose to play together. But again, where does it say in D2 you have to hold hands with each player you meet and play nice nice with each other? (I'm all for politeness and civility, but nowhere in the terms of agreement is it mandatory. Obviously I'm not talking about cheating or criminal harassment. Just your average jerkocious behaviours that makes b.net and life in general so endearing. Bliz can not and imo, should not even try to regulate that type of thing. Futility aside, it's out of their depths.) And I'm saying this as a player who enjoys co-op style gameplay.

>These runewords distort the game beyond what it is, for lack of better terminology. As one who has been playing Diablo II since the release, the game in question is no longer Diablo II to me. It is something entirely different.

I've also played since D2 classic, back when Immolation arrow didn't have a timer, Sorceress had a slightly bad reputation due to TK thieves, Necromancers were booed on sight due to lag, and Barbarians can still be taken more seriously as a melee champ. But D2-LoD pretty much became a slightly (sometimes greatly) different game with each patch. To 'distort' it we have to agree on which version it was distorted from. How far back does that go, the original 1.00 D2 classic, or 1.09?

To say the x-skills runewords changed\distort the game can be true to a degree, but the same could be said by many other patch changes. (I know some people who quit around 1.08 declaring this is no longer the D2 they know and liked.) When I said some of the x-skills runewords is the best solution bliz came up with, under the circumstances, I meant exactly that. Emphasis, under the circumstances.


>This fix works for everyone but ladder contenders, of which I am one. And since the backbone of your post seems to believe that Blizzard aims the game at them, I must begin to wonder at this statement. Last time the ladder reset, I was 50-ish in the opening days/weeks, despite a late start and much solo/duo questing. The problem came when I had to move out. I didn't get my internet up in the dorm until about a week later, and came back to teleporting Enigma-equipped Blessed Hammer bots. If you've ever seen one of these SOBs, you know there isn't really a realistic way of catching them. Teleport has created this problem.

I thought bots were the bigger problem. John Henry type racing aside, I thought Ladder was a ranking for players, not bots.

Look this is basically what it comes down to, keeping in mind my own bias caveat emptor etc. I'm not trying to take away anything from online-multi players. I also don't want the biggest and bestest goodies for only SP. What I'd like to see is less to no difference between the 2 modes. The biggest problem I have is most of the changes bliz makes even if its targeted for multi-ladder, does effect other modes, more often than not negatively.


>No problem with the technical bugs, but I'm not sure how hard all of those would be.
>Myself, I'd prefer a little game balance. None of the bugs are ruining my gaming experience.

I should've wrote that clearer. Things like Fend bugs do affect my gameplay. Unless by the mythical next patch they're calling it a feature. NDelay bugs affects my gameplay, unless again, by the next patch they're fully declaring it a feature.

But as enjoyable as this debate is, I think bliz will do whatever it feels it needs or wants to do. Including not doing anything, outside of maintenance\compatibility update patches.

[Merlinios]

What I do mind is the newer runewords (Insight-Spirit etc) that can help out solo\sp players, are designated online Ladder only.

Fair enough. Add them to SP. Or better yet, take them away from Ladder.

? So, Convict paladins are not welcomed in multiplayer? Or just Convict on a Stick?

Brain fart. That should have been "Infinity."

What I want or my logic doesn't really matter in the long run of how others choose to play in B.net though, does it? But if you're curious, yes I have seen that type of thing online. Yes, it can be very annoying at times. However if that player has acquired all that gear and level legitimately, so what? Where does it say that you -have- to party up? Oh yes Bliz certainly encourage you to do so, but where does it say you or anyone else should follow everything bliz suggests in terms of gameplay style? (We'll leave out the obvious case of cheating online etc, because we both know this isn't what we're discussing.)

I have no beef with people partying, not partying, or playing however (non-cheating) they want to. The issue here is that one (similarly leveled) character can join the game I created to, for example, co-op through a quest with friends, and have a single person blow through it and take all of the experience, potentially the drops, all with greater kill speed than my entire party combined.

As for legitimately acquiring the equipment, I believe that's a rather grey area. I don't believe I know anyone who has found two Bers in the same ladder season. Trading for items that rare is a near certainty of getting duplicates.

To 'distort' it we have to agree on which version it was distorted from. How far back does that go, the original 1.00 D2 classic, or 1.09?

Howsabout this: the most prominent skill on just about any given character now no longer comes from that character, but from an (overpowered) item. Solo mono-elemental Sorceress, Amazons are not much without their Conviction (most blatant offender). Blessed Hammer paladins lose much without their various goodies, and while they are still viable, they are not the killing machines we all know them as without everything else. You can make a case for Teleport--it is used mainly as a movement utility, but Conviction? Do most of those builds even work without it? The game has been distorted when the "best sorceress skill" is a Paladin skill, AND is equippable, either on oneself or on a mercenary.

To say the x-skills runewords changed\distort the game can be true to a degree, but the same could be said by many other patch changes.

Perhaps it's not balanced the same way, but at the core, a 1.01 Sorceress is a Sorceress. A 1.08 Sorceress is a Sorceress. A 1.10 Sorceress is at least half Paladin.

I thought bots were the bigger problem. John Henry type racing aside, I thought Ladder was a ranking for players, not bots.

Bots are the problem, but not only would they be (at the very least) much less widespread without Enigma to teleport the paladins in question to their killing zone, but they would be raceable. Even if possible, do you know how long it would take, how many potions/town trips it would take, etc., for a bot Paladin without teleport to kill with Blessed Hammer? Yes, there are other offenders, but none even close to this severe in terms of the ladder raceway.

Look this is basically what it comes down to, keeping in mind my own bias caveat emptor etc. I'm not trying to take away anything from online-multi players. I also don't want the biggest and bestest goodies for only SP. What I'd like to see is less to no difference between the 2 modes. The biggest problem I have is most of the changes bliz makes even if its targeted for multi-ladder, does effect other modes, more often than not negatively.

I suppose Single Player is probably more desirable, but I occasionally need interaction, and Battle.net makes that a hell of a lot easier. Diablo II was originally a challenge, what with the 133 MHz processor and dial-up. From there it progressed to a treasure hunt. Now I'm not sure what it is anymore. Addictive, maybe. Fun, not really. It's a time waster. And it's not even that good at that. I can run the ladder, but as soon as that first hammer-bot hits his teleport/indestructible with Holy Shield setup, game over. Treasure hunting (in multiplayer) is about down the tubes. I found a Zod a few weeks ago. When the immediate elation died down, I realized that on multiplayer, this means absolutely nothing anymore. People have entire accounts full of runes duplicated. And while I'm all for taking pride in my personal finds, it's ridiculous now. I could go out and get a handful of Zods in under a day via trading intelligently.

So here's what I want from the new patch: I want a reason to play again. I want a goal to achieve, be it equipment that I can trade for and have no fear of contamination, be it a competitive goal that is actually achievable because I play against more than machines, or whatever Blizzard can come up with. Because right now, the game as I know it is essentially dead.

I should've wrote that clearer. Things like Fend bugs do affect my gameplay. Unless by the mythical next patch they're calling it a feature. NDelay bugs affects my gameplay, unless again, by the next patch they're fully declaring it a feature.

Apologies. I misunderstood this one. I'm all for getting those things fixed, but if sacrificing them to the time/money gods would allow Blizzard to impose some semblance of balance toward any ONE of the aspects of the game I enjoy, I would gladly do so.

But as enjoyable as this debate is, I think bliz will do whatever it feels it needs or wants to do. Including not doing anything, outside of maintenance\compatibility update patches.

It is well to remember that Blizzard is a corporation whose primary goal is profit. The main purpose of Diablo II is, at this point, to serve as a good-faith gesture to the players. Blizzard will do what they feel will make the majority of them happy (or possibly what the majority of them SAY they want). Unfortunately, judging by the vast amounts of maphack account bannings, multiple CD-key usings, and all of the other crap that goes on, I'd say this likely leaves me and my balance in the minority. People want to have the game played for them, seemingly, so they can be "ub3r". And if Blizzard caters to this any more, I hope that even my long-standing addiction can't bring me back to the hell the game will become.

--me

[Mavfin]

[snip]

It is well to remember that Blizzard is a corporation whose primary goal is profit. The main purpose of Diablo II is, at this point, to serve as a good-faith gesture to the players. Blizzard will do what they feel will make the majority of them happy (or possibly what the majority of them SAY they want). Unfortunately, judging by the vast amounts of maphack account bannings, multiple CD-key usings, and all of the other crap that goes on, I'd say this likely leaves me and my balance in the minority. People want to have the game played for them, seemingly, so they can be "ub3r". And if Blizzard caters to this any more, I hope that even my long-standing addiction can't bring me back to the hell the game will become.

--me

Yeah, Blizz isn't going to do anything that takes much time or costs much money for a game this old, especially to help the multiplayer side. They're deeply invested in another multiplayer game. I understand that many of you have rejected said game, but, that doesn't change the fact that bandaids are all you're going to get. And, you guys can bitch about Blizz all you want on this, but I know of very few companies who would even *touch* a game of this age, let alone patch it.