Heros of Diablo II unite!!

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Ura

Guest
As of the morning of June, 19 tuesday. The 1.8 patch has been available for Diablo II. This patch was a double as it also contained the 1.7 patch as well. Contained in this patch were several major changes to characters, items, shops, and most importantly the rules of the game. For any low level characters (lv1 1-15) the most drastic of the changes will go unnoticed, however there is yet to be a high level character that isn't feel the pinch, the higher up you go the more useless the character becomes. I personally have a 63rd lvl Bowazon who now not only can't hit anything, but does so little damage I'd be better off trying to throw rocks. My redeemer in training paladin is also greatly effected by this as an enemy that used to take 1 or 2 hits to kill now take 5.
Already due to the patch changes several major (80th lvl+) characters on the hardcore ladder have died and several months of work by all players has been flushed down the tubes.
Several supposed reasons have been given in the b.net chat areas such as, "They're just getting the game geared up for the expansion pack." or, "They're trying to put heavier emphasis on team play."
The problem with these arguments is that in the first, by doing this, they are forcing you to buy the expansion if you want your game to work right. Or more simply, they pulled a microsoft by giving us a patch that plugged our programs full of errors and that we MUST by the newest version coming out if we want it to work right. I call this extortion marketing, and no one likes to be extorted.
The second reason, and one I'd like to believe more in is the heavier emphasis on team play. This is good and fine, but unfortunatly because of the patch it also effects your games when you play on your own without using b.net. Most of my home characters when in hell difficulty in various stages of the game, but now I don't think any will advance as I can't seem to kill anything and get swarmed to death. This to me is no fun and makes the game highly unenjoyable. Think of it as if you went to a magic tournament with your brand new rebels deck and everyone was playing pre-bannings Trix. Sounds a little unbalanced doesn't it?
Also with this second reason, they have the difficulty on the monsters jack up everytime a new player enters the game which means that by using a team, they still are no easier to kill. Myself and a group of 7 other players including a bowazon, high level sorceress, 2 barbs, and 3 pallys al died a number of times trying to finish the 3rd act on normal difficulty. This has never happened before to any of us as the area in question was known as tough, but very beatable with one character. Now 8 all died more then they care to admit.
So please fellow heros of diablo, look at and sign the petion to have the game restored to its 1.6 functionality, where we could adventure on our own without having to fear being run over by a metaphorical freight train.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/d2ep/


For those who are interested, a short review of major changes both good and bad:

The good:
Shops now price and carry items that are balanced to your character level.
It is possible to get superior socketed items now.
several short cuts to buy potions and scrolls have been introduced to make it simpler and faster.
Keys now stack to 12 instead of 6 in the inventory.
Characters are all more balanced in dueling so that barbs and pallys don't simply take all.
More experience from more difficult monsters (if you can kill them)

The bad:
The life and mana leach abilities now now longer work properly, taking a major part out of the amazon and barbarian strategy.
Unique monsters will now drop superior quality throwing weapons insted of magic items as they are now considered magical by the game due to the way item stats are processed.
There has been a spell casting delay time added to several higher level spells and abilities effecting all classes but most especially the Sorceress and bow style amazon. This basically means that they must stand around and wait a few seconds after casting certain spells before they may cast them again, making the character far more useless.
Monster difficulty jacked up an unreasonable level by both giving the enemies more hit points and better armoring. As well every other monster in act4 is now fully immune to an elemental type making several attack strategies useless in all classes.
Monsters now hit ALOT harder in all areas making it much easier for them to kill you.
Forcing you to buy the expansion pack so your game can be playable again.

Thank you and good night
 
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Lotus Mox

Guest
I've tried the 1.08 patch and got slaughtered with my bowazon in SP in Hell/Hell, but I like the patch and the new challenge, because it was way too easy before.
Remember when Blizz stated that the Hell difficulty would be impossible to survive alone, and very hard in a team? That's what they've done and it is IMO a better gaming expierience than soloing in Hell w/ 8 players, and still having no challenge.

about Life/mana leech, AFAIK it doesn't work with Undead and is reduced by 50% in Hell and Nightmare difficulty.

The casting delays are weird, but neccessary due to lag.
Do faster cast rate items work with them?

You're saying they're forcing you to buy the expansion pack, I hoestly don't see why?
I also don't know why any D2 player wouldn't want to buy it in first place.
 
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Ura

Guest
Its not just hell difficulty, its hell period, even Kurast was insanely more difficult. The pally I was making got his rear handed to him on a platter after the patch was installed when I was breaking even before hand on normal.
They can make hell difficulty as tough as they want, power to them, but when its almost impossible to beat normal difficulty now by yourself, theres something wrong. Plus why should we only be able to beat hell difficulty on b.net or in group games. I didn't buy it to play an online game, I bought it to play a home game with online support.
I find no gaming experience about having a character I've been working on building up over the last 5 months get wiped out by the first enemy I fight because the difficulty has been jacked up so heavily. Dying is not fun.
They also slowed all the walk/run speeds down so that now everything is faster then you, except zombie types, unless you have really good speed up items. Makes the idea of a strategic retreat or running away pointless cause you'll get run down.
But at least they managed to get rid of all the duped crap even though everyone had to suffer for it.

The leach doesn't work at all, at least with some characters. I had a 20% life leach on my above said pally and he couldn't get a drop of life out of anything in normal difficulty.
This seems to be a problem only affecting certain players along with serveral other glitches and errors. One person I talked to could no longer get magic items in shops anywhere, and another had a bunch of his items tinkered with like his Cathan's Seal ring which now acts like an Angelic Halo ring.

The casting times wouldn't be nessessary if they upgraded the stupid servers so there wasn't so much lag, which causes no end of grief for many players. And as above, why should I have to deal with b.net lag fixes on my home system or be punished because other people have slower modems even when I'm not playing online.
The faster cast items don't work with them as you still have to wait the few seconds between casting, the items just make you cast it faster.

I was going to buy the expansion, but now i don't know. I mean whats the point other then the two new classes?
If I can't beat the entire game on all difficulties on my own it doesn't give me alot of incentive to add more to a game I can't finish. And according to Blizz, the expansion if just an act 5 and is going to follow the difficulty scale, which means if you can't beat act 4, then theres no way your gonna see act 5. Right now I know the pally I have is never gonna beat act4 normal difficulty on his own without an absurd amount of hours put into leveling in act2 and act3.
All they've done here is punch up the difficulty on all settings so that old characters get wiped out like nothing, and give us all the "toughening" adjustments the expansion is/was going to have with none of the good things to go with it. Thats basically saying, "we're gonna make it so you have to make all new characters, force you to use our crappy b.net servers, or buy our expansion and still have to use the b.net servers if you ever want to totally beat this game."
To me thats just dirty pool.
 
C

Chaos Turtle

Guest
...and counting.

Actually, the only problem I have is with the malfunctioning leech abilities. The other stuff can be compensated for, even if it's a pain in the mouse.

I also (and damn if I didn't forget to mention it in my petition comments) think that if all gemmed items are to gain level requirements (I have a chracter with 4 items that became instantly unusable until some 12 levels later) and newly-dropped uniques, then existing uniques also should have been given level requirements. The only thing accomplished with the way it was done is creating a superclass of "old" uniques that will be inherently more valuable than the "new" ones.
 
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Lotus Mox

Guest
Check this out

I hope they bring out 1.09 soon, which implements this changes. Although I still hope it is a bit harder than it was before.

The casting times wouldn't be nessessary if they upgraded the stupid servers so there wasn't so much lag, which causes no end of grief for many players. And as above, why should I have to deal with b.net lag fixes on my home system or be punished because other people have slower modems even when I'm not playing online.
The faster cast items don't work with them as you still have to wait the few seconds between casting, the items just make you cast it faster.
AFAIK the lag is caused by the bad graphics code of D2, which causes a general system slow-down, I don't think you have to transmit more data from client to server and vice-versa for casting a Meteor than for firing an arrow. Although I'm not really sure about it.

If I can't beat the entire game on all difficulties on my own it doesn't give me alot of incentive to add more to a game I can't finish. And according to Blizz, the expansion if just an act 5 and is going to follow the difficulty scale, which means if you can't beat act 4, then theres no way your gonna see act 5. Right now I know the pally I have is never gonna beat act4 normal difficulty on his own without an absurd amount of hours put into leveling in act2 and act3.
You'll get much better Items, to balance out the greatly increased difficulty, and have you tried the new Hirelings? They are quite powerful now.

About Leeching, well if it doesn't work it's a bug, which you can expect to get removed.
 
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Ura

Guest
Wow, the petition has grown alot since I signed it last night, I was 3029 I think. Good for the players of b.net to stand together. :)

If the leaching problem is a bug then once its fixed it'll be good, till then I keep my pally on hiatus.

I really wish they would make a slight adjustment to the run/walk speeds though, maybe half way between 1.06 and 1.08 stats to be fair. At least then we could run away and live rather then get squashed.

Nice to see they'll put the difficult closer to where it was before till the expansion comes out, then at least we'll get equipment that can help us keep up with D and the boys. When LoD comes out then I won't mind the increase in difficulty at all cause we'll be able to keep up to it.

I'm not sure if its bad graphics code, though I would believe it. But the b.net servers are also well known for having problems of their own as well with fall offs and splits and such.
With StarCraft at least, things like server lag came from players with slower modems and older computers.

I have tried the new hirelings as well, they are vastly better then the old ones, they're actually useful now, can be healed in the battle field and go up in levels. Much better on that part, the ice mages from act 3 are especially good cause they shoot glacial spikes almost all the time.

The only other thing I really hope they fix is how items are classified now. I hate beating those nasty powerful electrically and ice enhanced beasties with stone skin only to have it drop 100 gold and a set of superior throwing knives. Blah to that.
 
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FoundationOfRancor

Guest
I really hate the online playing base, I dont know why anyone plays it. I have a cable, and everyone else in my party had a cable, and I got kicked out every 10 minutes or so. Frusterating to no end.

Do you guys know where I can download .7 and .8 patches? And does anyone know when the expansion will be out, and how much it will be?
 
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Ura

Guest
Rancor:

You can get the patches by either logging into b.net (auto download and instal) or by getting it from Blizzad's web site. www.blizzard.com

The xpac is supposed to be out in July, but we'll see, Blizz is known for delaying a month or two on all their products.
 
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nodnarb24

Guest
Originally posted by Lotus Mox
D2X has gone gold and will be released June 29. :)
Only delayed by one day of the original projected release date (June 28), I'm amazed. That has to be a first for Blizzard.
 
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Almindhra

Guest
I'm going to poop my pants when D2 exp. comes out...Can't wait to play it with you guys...
 
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FoundationOfRancor

Guest
You are the most vulgar girl I have ever known...

Thanks for the info everybody! If the online base gets better, we should form a group!
 
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Almindhra

Guest
Just want to tell you all that me and Luke have preordered the expansion...If the store is correct, we should be getting it this Wed, although Blizzard says it comes out Fri...
 
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Loafing Giant

Guest
and the damn game screwed me over

i have hands of broc ang pluckeye on my bowazon and was killed by 2 moon clan and 3 skelaton

and i have 90 for defense and shoot multiple shot arrows


all i have to say is wtf



by the way ura i got your cards and will b sending mine today

happy trading
 
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nodnarb24

Guest
Diablo is all frigged up on my computer. IT KEEPS FREEZING ON ME!!!! I've tried everything, reinstalling, turning down all the graphics, turning of everything that is running in the background. The only thing I can think of is my cd-rom rom drive which is only a 4x-read cd-burner, I used to have 16x but some of the pins on the cable to the power supply are missing. I HATE MY COMPUTER!!!!!!!

[color="336699"]* Nodnarb24 takes a baseball bat to his computer.[/color]
 
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Ura

Guest
Loafing Giant:
Cool, glad to hear it. I'll let you know when they arrive.
Otherwise I warned everyone about the difficulty jack up on it.
I have one character that can play in hell difficulty now and thats my maxed out 99 lvl Necrozon, (necromancer played bowazon style), and thats only cause I had already beat hell difficulty with him before patching.

nodnarb:
How much RAM do you have and how much space is left on your hard drive? If you want to use your faster CD drive again just remove the power plug from your burner and put it into your other cd drive. you won't be able to use your burner anymore though unless you switch it back.

General populace:
I'm not gonna buy it for a while, I just did a big RAM upgrade and got a CD burner today, so I'm through spending money on my computer for a while, at least till I sell off the majority of my cards.

Oh yeah, when I was on b.net today I logged onto USeast and someone was in there talking about this very thread and mentioned me. Who was it? Come on, admit it, I wanna know. Don't you know that curiosity can kill kitties? :(
 
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nodnarb24

Guest
Originally posted by Ura

nodnarb:
How much RAM do you have and how much space is left on your hard drive? If you want to use your faster CD drive again just remove the power plug from your burner and put it into your other cd drive. you won't be able to use your burner anymore though unless you switch it back.
Well I have 128Mb and about 5gigs free on my hard drive which should be plenty. Also I can't use the other CD-rom drive anymore because we got rid of it since there were more things wrong with it then just the pins. Also I got the info backwards, the pins on the Cd-rom drive, were missing and were found lodged in the ribbon cable, so I would have to use that cable to just have it work. As a result my computer would turn off spontanious at random times since the pins wouldn't always connect and interrupt the flow of power.
 
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Almindhra

Guest
Could we all have one room that we convene in?...What about going into CPA/CPA whenever we want to play with each other?...I'll be on USAEast...
 
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Ura

Guest
nodnarb:
Thats more then enough RAM and HD space. I've tried running D2 on my new burner which is only a 24X read and my roommates comp which only has 12X read with no issues. It could be that your quad is too slow for it, but it shouldn't be as thats the requirement and with 128mb of RAM it shouldn't be accessing the cd all that much anyhow.
Perhaps a video error caused from the slower cd speed is making your video card drop out, but thats all I can guess at for the moment.

Almindhra:
good idea
 
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