So, what the hell *IS* Jeff gonna do about SiC for 1.10?

[jbouley]

I don't know that I'll be starting just this weekend, but I will be starting work soon on SiC for 1.10.

The bad news: I won't be simply porting it over to 1.10 as-is. As such, I'm not sure if 1.09 characters will be able to enter into the game. It's always worth a shot, of course, but don't expect anything.

The good news: While I will be using SiC 1.09 for about 90% of the 1.10 mod, I will be making some new changes. Here are just a few:

>> Skills will be re-tooled. Many will stay the same or similar, some will be shifted to other characters, some will be changed altogether, and I intend to add 3 (maybe 6) new skills for each character, to bring the total to 33 or 36 skills for each character. I have not yet decided if some will be above level 30 or if I will simply expand the number of mid-level skills.

>> New items will be added, and new additional runewords, to take advantage of the new magical modifiers.

>> Map changes will be made. Owing to lack of time, many (perhaps all) of them will be from plugins at Diabolic Cartography.

>> New monsters will be added. How many, I don't know. But I will add at least a few.

>> More sensible and realistic treasure drops (No more halberds from Fallen or swords from birds )

>> Other stuff, I'm sure...just don't know what yet.

Now, many of you may be wondering why I would actually increase my workload on SiC for 1.10, instead of just porting it over as best I can.

Well, for one thing, I don't want to release a half-assed product. I have the opportunity now to make some skills what they were intended to be and perhap fix some problems. Of course, I'll create whole new problems along the way, but who cares, right?

Secondly, I'm not sure when I'll have time to really tackle the Rise of the Old Gods mod. That mod is something that would be far different from SiC and (I hope) different from any other mod out there right now. That will take time, which it's quite possible I will never have.

By ramping up SiC to a new level and giving it some new functionality for 1.10, it will almost be like giving y'all a new mod. It will be very similar, you'll still get the same clues and quests, probably, but you'll get to face new nasties, with whole new skills sets, and even more items than ever before in the unique and set realm.

No timetables...no deadlines...just "as soon as I can get it out."

And yes, I will desparately need alpha and beta testers at some point.

[Vhaeghar]

fantastico... this is indeed good news. dont work yourself too hard but i'm sure we'll love the end product ~_^

[jbouley]

Quick update:

Sometime within the next week or two, I will probably post a list of my planned skill trees for all 7 characters.

I should point out that I'm going to be changing things much more heavily than I originally planned, and even if 1.09 characters can be imported into the game, they might end up a little weird...we'll have to see when I run tests once the SiC for 1.10 build begins.

I'm going to reorganize things quite significantly.

All characters will have a combat tree with weapon and combat skills. They will vary from character to character. The sorc will likely have a sword and throwing mastery, and perhaps a staff mastery as well (not sure if that exists or can be made...I don't play barbs and I haven't gone into 1.10 skill editing yet). Amazon will have bow mastery if possible, spear mastery and possibly sword mastery. Paladins will get sword and polearm masteries, and perhaps others. Barbarians will lose sword master and possibly one or two others. Etc.

In addition, various characters will have passives for combat purposes. The number of skills in the combat tree will vary a great deal between players. I anticipate that the tree will always have a minimum of 8 skills in it (the sorc and necro are likely to have the smallest combat trees...the paladin, barbarian and amazon the largest).

The other two trees will be reserved for Talents and/or Spells. Likewise, the number of these skills will vary between characters. More combat-oriented characters are going to have fewer spells than the sorc, necro and druid, for example, to compensate for their greater degree of combat skills.

Many combat skills will not use mana at all, or very little, unless they are some sort of weapon-enchantment kind of thing.

I anticipate that in total, each character will have either 36 or 40 skills each to choose from among the three trees.

Furthermore, say goodbye to many of the existing spell-style skills. I probably won't replace all of them, but many will get serious makeovers, and many will be replaced entirely.

However, the skills will still exist in-game. Existing items and affixes and runewords from SiC for 1.09 are not going to change, and they will still have skills that launch when the character is hit and will still have charges of "old" skills.

So, it's going to be an interesting mish-mash of old and new. I hope y'all will like it.

[KillBurn]

oh sounds neato its been ages since i played sic now cause i have 1.10 so im really looking forward to this whenever it comes


gonna play some farcry now the landscapes on that game is really impressive but i have doubt that any game will last as long as D2 has and its all because of you mod makers

[bloodcore]

ya, sound awesome, and just to let you know jeff, i get hella sick of bnet, so if u need a beta tester, im up for it. i also have a few ideas to throw in if you dont mind... ive seen quite a few mods since sic and i still think its the best, the other mods have good features and all, but just not anything that sic has. one thing that would really own in sic is if certain sets would morph you into into different heros to make it more versitile. the way i see it is, the more , the better. like for instance, a set for barbarian morphing you into a balrog, blunderbore, possibly even a misshappen, etc. each character could have a class specific morph set or along those lines. another thing that would own is having the necromancer be able to summon alot of different things, like your "summon efret" which was absolutely genius, i love that lil guy, he owns, lol... being able to summon a variety of different monsters adds to the whole environment of an actual necromancer. your summon banshee is also one of my favorites. maybe making a sort of hell dog like a wolf but undead like in diablo 1, the acid spitters. one of my favorite things ive seen sofar tho is what lothar and perfect cell did in eastern sun with the bone golem, having totally different looking monsters and summons just owns, it keeps ppl hooked. i saw in another mod called seven lances huge red dragons that i have no idea where they got em but they looked ownage. and i also saw a screen shot of the tree of inifuss with ents as woodfist, i was like . a great thing you also did is merging diablo one and 2, i miss diablo 1, it still owns in my view, and the music i think was way better, maybe that can also be changed somehow where certain lvls have diablo one music.... and is it at ALL possible to bring the old tristram back and make the buildings burning and have the same features like cain and wirt?? i miss the old tristram, blizz really messed that one up, it barely looks like trist.. hmmm, lets see, should i ramble on about ideas on top of ideas or should i just leave the poor guy alone... lol well ill tell you what, i do have alot of ideas for diablo and what blizz is holding back on to make it 100x times better, so if you like, get in touch with me and ill share the rest of what i have, peace and take care

[jbouley]

I haven't done any map work myself, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to learn enough (or fast enough) to do a "rebuild" of Tristram.

However, there will be more summons for characters most likely, and definitely several items and/or sets will morph characters into other creatures.

[bloodcore]

oh i didnt mean a complete rebuild, i meant as in say, put the old tristram in d2 and add some destruction

[bloodcore]

oh and i forgot to mention that duration on morphs suck. lol, as in delirium helm, u get a meager 1% chance to cast when struck and it only lasts for maybe 45 seconds, there is really no point to that, i have no idea why blizzard has to make everything so weak

[jbouley]

oh i didnt mean a complete rebuild, i meant as in say, put the old tristram in d2 and add some destruction

Well, putting the old Tristram from D1 into D2 would be a complete rebuild of that area.

A lot of work (for a map newbie like me) to make it come anywhere close to the original Tristram layout and appearance. So, I doubt it will happen. But if I can, I will.

I doubt any of my morphs will turn out to be useless. The bigger challenge will be making sure I don't make them overpowered.

[Vhaeghar]

okay if its okay i'd like to make some bug reports and suggestions ~_^

i've finihed your mod in hell hardcore and tis fantastic, i just love my ama =)

anyway.

Bugs: Elixers of chance do nothing about 75% of the time. they do 'occasionaly' raise a stat but mostly the dont. is this a bug or a feature? =)
Suggestion. Add elixers of skill as very very rare courier bag gifts ~_^

Mechanical weapons often fail to work with runewords. This is a 1.09 bug and i'm sure that 1.10 will allow it to be fxed.
Desert of Suffering doesnt, and neither does the runeword that uses the spri rune. Snows of purity and the Aut rune one work fine though.

Suggestion- make the auras on the weapons always active in 1.10. My ama could use her skills + the aura as all her skills were left button ones, but other characters are not so lucky.

suggestion. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE (sorry for the shouting ~_^) make faceted skyshards and amberstar jewels drop a MILLION times less. i know they are in recepies, but meh =)
also increase stack size for treasure objects and make gold soverigns drop in game please. I love collecting treasure, so if you could do this it'd be funky =)

Add in the uberstash suvival kit if you are allowed *grin*

if i think of more i'll post 'em =)

[kingpin]

Add in the uberstash suvival kit if you are allowed *grin*

The modmaker never need to add PlugY, The Survivial Kit. You as modplayer can always add it afterwards

And its developed to be used by any mods, so Jeff is welcome to add it to his mod if he want.

[jbouley]

Sorry about the skyshards and such...I'll be redoing treasure drops pretty heavily.

I'm not sure about the runewords with mechanist weapons...are you sure you're not using runewords that only work on limited weapon types...as opposed to those that work with any weapons?

The survival stash plugin will almost certainly be part of my mod. There is so much stuff to stock up on for recipes that it will be an essential addition (now that it's possible and available ).

The elixirs seemed buggy in general, and I blame Blizzard's code . Not a feature at all that they work so infrequently. I'm glad they DO at least work occasionally...

[kingpin]

The elixirs seemed buggy in general, and I blame Blizzard's code . Not a feature at all that they work so infrequently. I'm glad they DO at least work occasionally...

In 1.10 this isn't a problem anylonger

You can just make your own custom potions instead of using blizzards own elixir that was indeed buggy in 1.09x

[jbouley]

The elixirs seemed buggy in general, and I blame Blizzard's code . Not a feature at all that they work so infrequently. I'm glad they DO at least work occasionally...

In 1.10 this isn't a problem anylonger

You can just make your own custom potions instead of using blizzards own elixir that was indeed buggy in 1.09x

Yup. And I have plenty of ideas on that front already I'm not sure how long the new SiC will take, but I will get it out ASAP. I recently discovered that we have to buy a house (about a year or two ahead of our original plans), so I'm understandably not going to be long on free time for the next month or two.

[Vhaeghar]

There really is no rush old boy ~_^ My 1.09 SiC ama is collecting every item she can. I have a LOT of complete sets and my treasure mules are probably worth a billion gold =)

anyway the mechanist weapons dont seem to work on just the two epic runewords i mention. I think its an ability clash that causes them to crash the character and unsocket themselves *thank god they do that, it takes me about 3-4 hours of trav runs to get the gold for a pair of godseye...*
in 1.10 i'm sure it'll work though =)

by the way. gold drops are screwy atm. Balrogs and Frozen horrors both drop around 5 times as much gold as any other monster. with modest goldfind 10,000 in normal, 25,000 in nightmare and 60,000 a drop in hell seems to result =) all other monsters drop about 10k with the same gold find in hell

Balrogs drop set items almost every time in normal and nightmare, but not in hell.

Cerberus wing is generated by small courier bags about 1 in every ten bags. its a good unique but i dont need the 40 or so one of my mules has *grin*

A compliment though, i really like some of your new sets. Kalons, Mated fists, wizards king and heroes of Legend are all awesome, but my favourite is Champion of the downtrodden. its such a useful low level set its untrue. some of the new uniques are pretty funky too =)

Charms though...

they seem to vary wildly in fairness. A necro can get +20 skills from charms fairly easy but my poor ama can only get +4 *grin* probably balance issues i guess =)

Add more unique charms if you get time *i know, you are busy and its work, but charm making is uber* Upgraded versions of the elemental charms using a pile of seasonal runes might be funny =)

one last suggestion. The indestructible recepie needs to have a variant, a replenish quantity recipie. my Desert Of Suffering matriarchal javelins became unrepairable after 1 was used, spiarlling to 11 million repair cost ~_^

[jbouley]

Thanks for the input...that will help a lot in making the new SiC work a bit better.



I'm a fan of Champion of the Downtrodden myself...I was determined to make at least one set that a character wouldn't have to throw away for a while.

EDIT:

Drapper's posts about general SiC (for 1.09) questions split into new thread, which you can find here.

[Vhaeghar]

hmmm.. now i'll hate myself for saying this... but Glory of Uranus is 'maybe' a touch too uber. It must be a thing with 'Glory' items, as we all know about magewars =)

anyway, 3 str per level and 2 energy per level.... well at lvl 70 which is easy to get to thats 240 str... then you get lots of energy and three sockets after the recepie... plus 60% LR, which makes you kinda LR.... a clever trick is to socket 3 godseye runes in it, making you resist all like a god, giving around 40% DR and still have change for a fiver =)

combine it with glory of the mage wars and a sorc can make angels tremble =)

[jbouley]

Must have been tipsy when I made that...I don't even remember that set item.

I'll look into fixing that one. Of course, Glory of the Mage Wars isn't nearly so glorious as it once was, after multiple nerfings. At least, it should be pretty tame now when it drops...

[Vhaeghar]

well mage wars is still prety good, but not imposiibly so. btw, Glory Of uranus is a unique =)

The unique sword Jade Talon, while sharing the name of a set quhab i think, or set claw anyway, has one flaw. it has +6 to poison dagger. and its not dagger class ~_^

Theres also a few problems with mage sword/staff requiring skills being on innapropriate weapons. when i see them i'll point 'em out =)

Oh yes, and having just completed my fires of summer helm i have to say volcano on hit is really quitr cool. Helps me out killing phis/cold immunes a lot faster =)

[jbouley]

The problem of inappropriate skills on staves and mage swords is known.

You'll also find (if you play an amazon) that the one-handed amazon spears can spawn with bow skills.

This is a function of the fact that I cannot really control which skills show up on the item.

Well, I could, I suppose, but it would require a rather long workaround. Much less painful for me to set a single column in the file to say "give this items skills for x class" and save myself a lot of headaches

My explanation (or is that "excuse"? ) has always been that vendors will try to sell you anything...even items that don't work right. At least that's somewhat in line with the "real world."

Glad Volcano is helping you kick some evil critter butts.

I do appreciate your input, by the way...you've helped point out some things I didn't notice or realize before. Not sure why the jade talon has a + to poison dagger...I'll assume that I was either very confused that evening, or that I typed the skill ID # wrong.

[Vhaeghar]

well since its a feature rather than a bug thats okay then =)

something else which may be a feature rather than a bug is when you runeword an item it rerolls the properties of the item being socketed. which is odd.
and also sad when i socketed some good utems =)

But one thing... razor carapaces and massacre braces... are they really supposed to spawn with +14 to claw mastery? i have seen a lot that do. oddly its always +1, +2, +3, +8 or +14, no other numbers =)

Massacre braces are the best socketable armour in the game, as you get +14 claw mastery, +19% DR and attacker tajes damage of roughly 10-25 plus the runeword powers. of course it takes like 10 goes to get this as the properties reroll, but still +14 claw mastery is not an insignificant damage bonus =)

Sorry to bomb you with so much feedback, feel free to class stuff as features, as you did above ~_^ Just thought since i'm playing and noticing stuff might as well share.

and sadly my merc now wears my volcano helm. got her a well socketed winforce so she can volcano for me. Moved a twin godsE vampiregaze onto my head to sort out my DR problems. with that and orb of mydavhi have 70 DR which hels a lot against the toughest monster in the game.. which may also be a bug/feature

its not minions of destruction. even fanat minions arent too hard. Nor is it minotaur demigods. they are pretty tough but not enough to kill me.

the winner is PHASE WOLVES. my last hell HC character died to them, and my ama has almost gone 3 times. theuy are fast, massive resists and DR, awesome damage and a pain to target. i'd say if i was baal achmel would be gone, and i'd have Wolfie, the phase killer ~_^

not sure if they are meant to be so massively hard. i like the challenge, as they are the only monster that makes my pulse race, but maybe swap their stats with the chimera stats might work beter to balance the Minions of destruction out? as ever, only a suggestion, love the mod, take your time =)

[jbouley]

I don't play HC and I've rarely spent much time in Hell difficulty, so I have to admit I'm not sure how deadly some monsters might be later in the game. I know phase wolves can be pretty rough in general, of course, because of the targetting problem.

Not sure about your runeword question...you cannot put runewords into magic, rare, set or uniques items (as far as I know, that's Blizzard hardcoding), so I'm not sure what you mean about re-rolling the properties...do you mean the durability and item quality?

[Vhaeghar]

nay. say you add a runeword into an item with variable spawn properties such as a staff. a nonmagic staff can spawn with +3 hydra say, and still be white.

in 1.09 LoD the +3 hydra syats on the sfaff when runeworded, same as in 1.10 LoD and most mods, but in your mod you 'might' have +3 hydra, you might have nothing, or you might have +2 firewall and +2 glacial spike.

it rerolls the item then adds runeword properties. it even rerolls the defense on an item =)

so finding that killer +14 claw massacre brace doesnt hlp you, you just take any 5 and socket them all, and one of them will eventually be +14 claw mastery. see? =)

[jbouley]

I see what you're getting at now. Thanks for the clarification.

[Vhaeghar]

well if its a feature thats fine too. takes more efort to socket the perfect gear but it can still be made. anyway one bug and one balance issue today. man you must be sick of me onopolising your thread =)

Bug.. Blade Barrier shield shows as having sockets but cant be socketed. kinda annoying. had to use a monacrh instead...

Balance issue. One of the faceted orbs has necro skills in shields. And crypt charm of zholum counts as a shield. thus a necro with 5 dawn orbs can make a +11 skills charm minimum, +14 on average and +18 perfect. seems a little strong for one 3*3 charm and a couple of million in cash. The necro is my new character and he is using that. its very helpful =) perhaps tooo helpful =) maybe change the shield skill to a different character? =)