Mod Release: Black Razor

[JDS]

Thanks again for the suggestions! It's good to hear from you.

Vanilla has simplified stats that mean little, some useless skills, etc. But hey, these ppl claim its the best.... Fan boyzzz.

You mean like, the only stat that matters is vit?

Right now item-isation feels too simplified.

Well, that's somewhat true; on some slots it's good, I think, but on others all items feel similar (weapons *cough* *cough*).

I dont know why u claim that uniques ruin build options. I mean, its up to you to design uniques, sure u can make them OP which will result uniques replacing rares but thats up to HOW you will design uniques. So i suggest u introduce uniques in the mod and i will give you some examples of uniques. BTW i dont know if you can add uniques if negative effects as well, let me know.

Uniques can have negative stats (is that what you were asking?).

My main problem with uniques is: players look for the strongest items. If those items are uniques, players will only want uniques. If those items are rares, players will only want rares. Similar to how blue items are much weaker than rares.

The second problem is that to make them truly interesting, they need a lot of time. Balancing, figuring out the right effects, etc. We don't have that amount of time right now

The third problem - somewhat related to the second - is that the game is so long. This means you might need unique variants of nearly every item (like vanilla has). But that makes it nearly impossible to really have useful, unique effects. Also, the uniques would be useful only in low levels (who gives a crap about the angelic set? Or the unique hatchet?). If the uniques are balanced like that, then the low-level uniques can not be relevant to builds, because they are just too weak. Unless, of course, each unique effect (like +1 oskill X) is copied on multiple uniques, but do you really want "Doub's Tooth" (unique dagger with +20 str), "Doub's bigger Tooth" (nightmare version with +40 str) and "Doub's really big Tooth" (Hell version with +50 str)?

The other option would be to only have high-level uniques. Those would not appear until very late in the game (e.g., until hell difficulty), which is quite close to not having any unique items to begin with!

The fourth problem are that if uniques are too generic, they're just like rares; but if they are too specific, only very few uniques will actually matter to your character. At that point, it will be very hard to get excited for a unique, especially since the item type already gives the unique away (unless I manage to put 5 uniques on each item type - yeahhh.... XP).


I would rather add more different unique abilities to the rare items, for example:
+30 strength, -15 vitality
+100% life regeneration
+100% extra damage, but increases monster defense every time you hit
+30% attack speed, but -30% damage

or gimmicky ones, like
+1000% gold find, -100% experience gain
+running no longer costs stamina

or really special ones, like
+1 maximum raised skeleton
+1 missiles to teeth
+1 missiles to firebolt, -20% fire damage
+50% of berserk damage dealt as magic
+2 seconds duration to firewall


All of these could appear as the third property on rares, making them more exciting without the need for carefully designed uniques. What do you think?

Now, a unique based on Broad Sword could appear with:

+200% damage
or
+75% attack speed
or
+40% damage and -35 defense per hit from monster
or
+4 to all skills
or
+15% attack speed, +15% damage, -15 def per hit from monster, +5-10 elemental damage (gives 4 properties but lower amounts compare to a rare)

etc.

Do you consider these examples of uniques for Broad Sword OP compare to the properties with which the rare Broad Swords can appear considering they will appear with standard number of 3 properties?

BTW, more properties on weapons are needed indeed.
I want to suggest: + Crushing Blow and + Open Wounds . BUT im not sure whether they should appear as properties on items OR its better to make them passive skills. Because for example, Open Wounds more than about 25% is meaningless, because it lasts a specific amount of seconds and if your weapon is fast, with 25% you can trigger it easily again before the effect ends.
So if you are to make it a passive skill, it would be something like 1% Open Wounds per lvl (20% at lvl 20).
But if u are to make it appear as property on items then i think its better if it appears at higher amounts, like, +7% chance to Open Wounds. 7% as the lowest amount and around 30% as the highest amount, i guess it will depend on the difficulty (norm/nigh/hell) and the weapon type. Because these kind of properties work better with faster weapons. So maybe the slower weapons will have higher % of Open Wounds compare to the faster weapons.

Same goes for Crushing Blow with the exception that MAYBE Crushing Blow could appear as a passive skill as well along with property on weapons because more than 25-30% of Crushing Blow is actually wanted, unlike Open Wounds.
So again, Crushing Blow works better the faster the weapon is but unlike Open Wounds, more than 25-30% for Crushing Blow is still ok. I believe if someone has 50% chance of Crushing Blow, he wont ask for more %.
All these being said i think u know how u can balance those based on the difficulty and the weapon type.

The problem with open wounds is that it can not be really balanced; the damage dealt by it is hard coded and depends on the level. In order to balance it, I would need to adjust the life of all mobs, weapons, skills, etc., to be consistent with the damage dealt by open wounds.

For crushing blow, I have thought about it, but I found it a rather annoying mechanic. Since each hit reduces a fixed percentage of current life, it favors fast weapons with high dex over slow weapons with high damage; in fact, unless a slow weapon can reduce a bosses hitpoints by 1/16, a fast weapon with a sufficient chance of crushing blow would likely be stronger -- which isn't what I really want. I don't want Diablo stabbed to death with a toothpick, I want him slain with a two handed sword, or two axes, or impaled with a spear.

Another thing u could do.
Give Open Wounds only to weapons that can cut or pierce, like: swords, daggers, spears, axes, etc. Ofc a dagger can have more chance to Open Wounds compare to a lets say an Axe, but an axe still has a chance to Open Wound, just a lot lower i guess.
So for example a Dagger/spear (weapons that use only their pierce type of attack) can appear lets say with 20-30% chance to Open Wounds, while Axes can appear with 7-12% chance to Open Wounds.
To give you my perspective. For my mod i was thinking to do this based on HOW the weapons animations looked liked in-game and what kind of swing they used for attack, and based on that i wanted to give them their properties (yes, realistic looking).
For example Blunts with no sharp edges at all wouldnt have Open Wounds at all.

That's such a cool idea : )

With Barb the chance to Block doesnt appear, is it normal ( didnt notce if i actually BLock or not....).

There is no blocking, except with the assasin's dual wield. Blocking has been replaced by additional protection on shields. The main idea was to stop "dex" from being the "get 75% block chance" stat, and to prevent the crazy "Oh, I leveled up! Now I am less good at blocking things! Yay!"

Regarding my feedback on Duriel and general monster defense.
I dont know if i told u but i did most of Act 2 with 75 base DEX and a weapon that gives -21% monster def. So i mean, maybe they dont need that much boost on their def? dunno. Lets see how i do in Act 3.

Also, dont boost Duriels dmg too much, his slow is already PAINFUL

Thanks for the feedback! We weren't planning on increasing the things too much; maybe +20% damage (to characters without protection) and +50% def.

[Doub]

Uniques can have negative stats (is that what you were asking?).

Yes.

My main problem with uniques is: players look for the strongest items. If those items are uniques, players will only want uniques. If those items are rares, players will only want rares. Similar to how blue items are much weaker than rares.

You can make with the idea that they are equal to rares, so that ppl dont expect them to be better, just different.

The third problem - somewhat related to the second - is that the game is so long. This means you might need unique variants of nearly every item (like vanilla has). But that makes it nearly impossible to really have useful, unique effects. Also, the uniques would be useful only in low levels (who gives a crap about the angelic set? Or the unique hatchet?). If the uniques are balanced like that, then the low-level uniques can not be relevant to builds, because they are just too weak. Unless, of course, each unique effect (like +1 oskill X) is copied on multiple uniques, but do you really want "Doub's Tooth" (unique dagger with +20 str), "Doub's bigger Tooth" (nightmare version with +40 str) and "Doub's really big Tooth" (Hell version with +50 str)?

lol at Doub's Tooth examples! haha

I didnt mean to have 3 versions of Broad Sword as uniques, that wouldnt really make it unique.
I gave Broad Sword as example simply because to my understanding, uniques are being made based on an existing weapon type.

The other option would be to only have high-level uniques. Those would not appear until very late in the game (e.g., until hell difficulty), which is quite close to not having any unique items to begin with!

Have uniques from normal difficulty, so what if they become useless in night? same things happens with rares anyways.

The fourth problem are that if uniques are too generic, they're just like rares; but if they are too specific, only very few uniques will actually matter to your character. At that point, it will be very hard to get excited for a unique, especially since the item type already gives the unique away (unless I manage to put 5 uniques on each item type - yeahhh.... XP).

Yeah my examples werent interesting. And again, i didnt mean to make uniques of each item type. I just didnt explain myself very well

I would rather add more different unique abilities to the rare items, for example:
+30 strength, -15 vitality
+100% life regeneration
+100% extra damage, but increases monster defense every time you hit
+30% attack speed, but -30% damage

or gimmicky ones, like
+1000% gold find, -100% experience gain
+running no longer costs stamina

or really special ones, like
+1 maximum raised skeleton
+1 missiles to teeth
+1 missiles to firebolt, -20% fire damage
+50% of berserk damage dealt as magic
+2 seconds duration to firewall


All of these could appear as the third property on rares, making them more exciting without the need for carefully designed uniques. What do you think?

I think its a very very interesting idea!! Just one questions, the total amount of properties would still be 3, right?

[JDS]

I think its a very very interesting idea!! Just one questions, the total amount of properties would still be 3, right?

Each of these counts as one property.
So you could have the following three properties:
+80% damage
+20% attack speed
+30% attack speed, but -30% damage

On the item, it would say:
+50% damage
+50% attack speed

Or you could have
+5-10 fire damage
+12% lightning resist
+30% attack speed, but -30% damage


On the item, it would say:
+5-10 fire damage
+12% lightning resist
+30% attack speed
-30% damage

[Doub]

i see. sound very good ! i look forward for the next release!

[Doub]

BTW. Currently, is it possible for the same property to appear more than once? Like for example, is it possible a rare to appear with Attack speed x3 instead of the 2 other properties? or dmg x3, etc etc?

[JDS]

no, it is not possible. Do you think it should?

[Doub]

I think it will add to the variety with which rares can appear. Btw i edited that last post but i will explain here again what i meant by x2 or x3 on a specific property, so that there is no misunderstanding.

An x3 example would be: If an item was to drop with + Dmg%, + Attack Speed and +Ele dmg. now it will NOT have the +ele dmg and the +Dmg% but instead only attack speed x3. So basically one property on the item.
An x2 example would be: 2 properties instead of 3, and one of the two being x2. If an item was to drop with + Dmg%, + Attack Speed and +Ele dmg. now it will NOT have the +Ele dmg. But will have +Dmg% x2 and +Attack speed (normal x1).


The above being said.
Now that i think of it, wouldnt it also be interesting if there was a chance for a specific property to appear x2 (or x3?) next to the other two properties? Like for example:
+Dmg% (normal x1), +Ele Dmg (normal x1) and +Attack Speed x2 (or x3?).

I honestly dont know if all these changes are even possible, technically. Since earlier we discussed about adding negative effects on rares as well.
OR maybe it will be more interesting if magic items (blues) adopt one of the above characteristics discussed?.

----

How exactly can the current Rare and Magic items appear?

Magic: 2 different properties x1 each?
and
Rare: 3 different properties x1 each?

-----

Hope this whole thing didnt get confusing...

[JDS]

How exactly can the current Rare and Magic items appear?

Magic: 2 different properties x1 each?
and
Rare: 3 different properties x1 each?

Yes, 2 affixes and 3 affixes. It is not possible to increase the number of affixes on blue items, but it is possible to have 2 affixes that have the same effect, and I also think it is possible to have 1 affix with a bigger effect (prevents the second affix from spawning).

x3 affixes are a bit difficult to implement and would be extremely rare, since they require essentially 3 equal affixes to spawn.
x2 affixes are entirely possible.

I'm against making rare items much stronger than they are right now (by adding what amounts to 5 properties), but Petro and I will discuss "x2" for magic and rares.

[Doub]

x3 affixes are a bit difficult to implement and would be extremely rare, since they require essentially 3 equal affixes to spawn.

Yeah, thats what interesting about x3, that it would be very rare since its harder to roll it.

[Doub]

Hey JDS, any news ?:)

[JDS]

Well, we implemented those changes a few months back, but hadn't had the time to playtest them extensively (I was out of country for a month).
I'll update the download link once we had time to test it.

[Doub]

cool. i look forward to it!

[JDS]

I updated the link in the first post to the current version.

We have decided to take the mod into a slightly different direction, so the next update will be a bit different. Upcoming changes (not yet in the current version):

• Classes get access to the same abilities
• Magic abilities: high mana cost, AoE Damage
• Combat abilities: low mana cost, high single-point damage
• Each class gets certain bonuses to the abilities, e.g., Necromancer Skeletons have 100% more hit points than other classes' skeletons, Sorceress can Teleport faster and deals extra damage with elemental magic
• Strength bonus for weapons and magic are reduced to a small value; 1hand and 2handed masteries increase the strength bonus to weapons, and magic mastery increases the strength bonus to magic

Not all abilities of the base game will make it into the list; for example, fire bolt and similar boring and weak abilities will be dropped. Also abilities that seem cool but are actually worthless, such as whirlwind, will be dropped. Other abilities, like the current masteries, are merged or changed quite a bit.

[Doub]

Interesting.
-

Will the current save be compatible with the next update?

[JDS]

We worked on it for a while but it turned out that too many abilities were character restricted due to animations and many things wouldn't work the way we wanted (for technical reasons... for example you'd need to copy every skill for each character you'd need, so +skills and +page wouldn't really work). We're now thinking about what else to do with the mod.

[Doub]

Thought you will never reply again
---
Personally i dont like the classless concept. Any game is more interesting with classes. Point is, classes have to be truly different, feel and play differently with their pros and cons. Many games/mods simply lack that.
Classes should have meaningful different gains from attributes. Should have inherit skills (you cant learn or unlearn), which will give them pros and cons compare to other classes.
Another feature that i have realized is good, are the specializations. Meaning, focusing on 1-3 skills and make a playstyle around them (sadly Diablo2 doesnt offer much diversity in skill effects/animations for melee).
I would also suggest. Whatever you do, make sure to not have passives that are learnable (the Inherit passives i mentioned above arent learnable/unlearnable, they are just there when u create a class).
Having no learnable and upgradeable passives allow you better itemisation by making it harder to max different stats.
So, active skills + Inherit passives is what i suggest to go with to make each class feel and play truly unique. I can give you some examples of Inherit passives if u want.
I had these ideas for my mod... but i dont see myself ever making them reality.... So here they are.

[mmpx222]

Good to see a modder still at work. I got interested, downloaded and is playing a Hardcore Lv16 Paladin. Just finished rescuing Cain and things were very easy so far. Protection made me nigh-invincible--barring the occasional berserkers, I took zero damage. And I was on /players 8. OTOH, defense is still useless, perhaps even moreso thanks to protection.

I understand that in cLoD, things get tough for melee chars at the monastery where packs of ranged monsters shoot at you. I doubt they would make a serious dent in my health globe, given my +10 total protection. Perhaps it's a little overpowered, or are the monsters underpowered?

Also, I was initially put off by the selling price reduction, but since have embraced it. It rewards my packrat-y nature to pick up every gold pile.

Also also, I peeked at Skills.txt to see how strength affects skill damage--and it seems Concentration no longer boosts Blessed Hammer. Welp, there goes my build plan. Got any paladin build suggestions?

PS. Strength increases spell damage by 1% per each point (synergy fields in skills.txt). You should probably have those numbers on the first post, or inside skilldesc.txt. Ideally both.

[JDS]

Good to see a modder still at work. I got interested, downloaded and is playing a Hardcore Lv16 Paladin. Just finished rescuing Cain and things were very easy so far. Protection made me nigh-invincible--barring the occasional berserkers, I took zero damage. And I was on /players 8. OTOH, defense is still useless, perhaps even moreso thanks to protection.

I understand that in cLoD, things get tough for melee chars at the monastery where packs of ranged monsters shoot at you. I doubt they would make a serious dent in my health globe, given my +10 total protection. Perhaps it's a little overpowered, or are the monsters underpowered?

Players8 does not increase opponent's damage, so it wouldn't help.
My sugggestion is to play with player 1 -- or however many people you are playing with. Otherwise you will level too quickly and get too many good items, and it will make the game too easy.

I think I also found out what the problem with the monsters is -- apparently, protection and magic protection are added together if the monster deals both magic/elemental damage and physical damage; I added tiny amounts of elemental damage to many monsters because I thought it would make the game harder, apparently it does the opposite. But because I thought it makes the game harder, I reduced the total damage output of those monsters.

I'll try to rebalance the mod to make fighting more exciting also for characters with heavy armor, and maybe more survivable for characters with less armor (as I had many complaints from (noob) friends who played with me in MP).

Defense is hard to make useful because Blizzard are using very horrible scaling formulas -- level is more important than defense, and defense has extremely diminish returns. That's why I replaced it with protection in the first place!

Also, I was initially put off by the selling price reduction, but since have embraced it. It rewards my packrat-y nature to pick up every gold pile.

I'm glad to hear that. Gold from monsters was completely useless in cLoD and I think I brought it to a point where both 1) picking it up and 2) not losing it by dying before returning to the city to load it off, is super rewarding.

Also also, I peeked at Skills.txt to see how strength affects skill damage--and it seems Concentration no longer boosts Blessed Hammer. Welp, there goes my build plan. Got any paladin build suggestions?

I think nearly everything works well.

PS. Strength increases spell damage by 1% per each point (synergy fields in skills.txt). You should probably have those numbers on the first post, or inside skilldesc.txt. Ideally both.

Thanks for the tip; I'll add it to the first post, but I think it's too much noise for skilldesc since it applies to practically every skill.

Thought you will never reply again

Personally i dont like the classless concept. Any game is more interesting with classes. Point is, classes have to be truly different, feel and play differently with their pros and cons. Many games/mods simply lack that.
Classes should have meaningful different gains from attributes. Should have inherit skills (you cant learn or unlearn), which will give them pros and cons compare to other classes.
Another feature that i have realized is good, are the specializations. Meaning, focusing on 1-3 skills and make a playstyle around them (sadly Diablo2 doesnt offer much diversity in skill effects/animations for melee).

Yeah, I think you're right -- it makes sense to have different classes and different builds within each class. It's why I originally removed all the oskills. Trying to make them all the same was a stupid idea and a waste of a lot of time.

The problem with D2 is how limited everything is, and very little can be changed through mods (without massive code editing). I once made a mod with a lot of code edits, but it is very error prone -- I think at some point I overwrote parts of the dll that I had fixed with old stuff, and it messed up the code completely.

I would also suggest. Whatever you do, make sure to not have passives that are learnable (the Inherit passives i mentioned above arent learnable/unlearnable, they are just there when u create a class).
Having no learnable and upgradeable passives allow you better itemisation by making it harder to max different stats.
So, active skills + Inherit passives is what i suggest to go with to make each class feel and play truly unique. I can give you some examples of Inherit passives if u want.
I had these ideas for my mod... but i dont see myself ever making them reality.... So here they are.

The problem is technical: getting these inherent abilities on the character. I already put a lot of stuff on the body armors, I don't know how I feel about adding more. In any case, you can get rid of the inherent passives added through these items by taking the item off.
Another option might be to add a 31st ability to each character which becomes a prerequisite for the others, which acts as the inherent passive.
In any case, it will be clumsy, and I dislike clumsiness.

[mmpx222]

My sugggestion is to play with player 1 -- or however many people you are playing with. Otherwise you will level too quickly and get too many good items, and it will make the game too easy.

I thought /players x didn't affect the ilvl of the treasureclass?

Defense is hard to make useful because Blizzard are using very horrible scaling formulas -- level is more important than defense, and defense has extremely diminish returns. That's why I replaced it with protection in the first place!

Understandable. This is why many people (including myself) have attempted to replace Defense with DR (=protection). Just as many people tried to make Defense more meaningful--if one of the greatest D2 modders on PK says it can work, then it must be.

PS. Defense actually provides a linear increase to your effective HP; not a "diminishing" return.

[JDS]

My sugggestion is to play with player 1 -- or however many people you are playing with. Otherwise you will level too quickly and get too many good items, and it will make the game too easy.

I thought /players x didn't affect the ilvl of the treasureclass?

No, but the nodrop and hence the number of (rare) items you get

Defense is hard to make useful because Blizzard are using very horrible scaling formulas -- level is more important than defense, and defense has extremely diminish returns. That's why I replaced it with protection in the first place!

Understandable. This is why many people (including myself) have attempted to replace Defense with DR (=protection). Just as many people tried to make Defense more meaningful--if one of the greatest D2 modders on PK says it can work, then it must be.

PS. Defense actually provides a linear increase to your effective HP; not a "diminishing" return.

You're absolutely right! I misremembered, it's ar that has the diminishing returns. Def is linear till the cap.

As you noticed I have two types of armor - high def (and speed) and high protection. Because protection is OP right now there's no point in using the high def armor, but originally the idea was that high def should be good against high damage hits since it always prevents hit recovery , whereas protection would prevent it only on low damage attacks.

[JDS]

Alright, I uploaded a new version. It got some drastic changes so you should not continue with your old character.
The maximum level has been reduced to 20, which are spread out over the first difficulty. The idea is that you don't have any points to waste, which allowed me to make some passives considerably stronger again (for example, going to level 15 on barb's resistances will give you +75 resall).
I found it impossible to balance protection at the level it was at; enemies just slightly below you did no damage at all, or enemies just slightly ahead of you (eg champions) one-shot you. So I reduced the protection considerably and removed it from nearly everything, except heavy shield and armor (and the paladin skill). On heavy accessories I added hp% to compensate, which can be split much more finely.
It may still be possible to get a nigh invulnerable build with the right affixes and the paladin shield skill, but you'll be doing a lot less damage than other characters, so I doubt it will be worth it.

The def ratio between the different armor types has been changed (light armor now has even more def than heavy armor), dexterity now gives a percentual bonus to def (1%/point), and monster TH has been considerably reduced, with the actual hit% formula in mind.

Other than that, most barb skills now only apply to 2hd or 2 1hd weapons, berserk deals damage based on lost life, and plenty of skills have been made stronger to suit the lowered max level. Some affixes and minor things have been rebalanced. Armors for the time being have required levels to prevent players from getting too much protection early on.

[JDS]

New update in first post. Drop rates have been adjusted (esp. potions drop less often), Berserk now reduces def based on lost life, Vengeance no longer gets a str boost, 5 new rare affixes, regeneration from vitality reduced, gambling made 16x more expensive and half as likely to drop a rare, and some other minor adjustments. (is it ok to multipost like this when there are weeks since the last post?)

[mmpx222]

Just tried mod version 2.1. Tried Amazon, Sorceress, Barbarian, and Necromancer.

Monsters in Blood Moor and Den of Evil have too much HP and defense. It takes too long to kill anything, which makes earning gold/items/XP very slow at level 1. I could not farm potions fast enough to keep fighting. As earning gold was impossible, I could not use (ridiculously expensive) town portal scrolls to sustain, either. In the end, I had to run to town back and forth to heal. It was tiring, and I gave up before reaching level 2.

The Necromancer might be able to actually get to level 2. The necroskeleton deals a whopping 60 damage at level 1--that's 20x your weapon damage! It can 1-shot most monsters. A pity it attacks so slowly. I can only sit back and watch as the skeleton slowly kills enemies.

You need to drastically reduce monster HP and AC. Maybe boost player AR a little. If you want to make the game hard, increase their movement and attack speed, instead of making them so durable.

You also have to make the mod less grindy at level 1. If you want to make leveling up so slow, at least give each class a fun, innate combat skill at level 1.

[JDS]

Hi mmpx222 and thanks for playing!

Early game monsters have too much HP and defense. My Amazon, Sorceress, and Barbarian ran out of potions after killing a dozen fallen. Lack of potions in vendors was not a problem, because I could not earn enough gold to buy anything.

I tried to reproduce the problem and started a fresh Amazon (who starts with a bow and hence deals the lowest amount of damage).
So far I have not had problems killing fallen or even zombies, without taking many hits.

Shortly before I reached the cold plains, I got hit by a quill rat and badly poisoned though. I'm playing on a mousepad in windowed mode, so I'll use that as an excuse for not dodging the quill rat's spike

I was lucky to have found a wand, which turned out to be very valuable!


I then started a fresh Barb, who at first was much more difficult on account of having to go melee. I misclicked with my mousepad and ran into a group of Fallen.
I really had to drink two potions with him.

Then I was lucky and found a mage armor. With the added def and regen it became a lot faster, and I could engage Zombies 1:1.

Under the influence of an XP shrine I nearly got to level 2. I reached Flavie, but then my weapon broke...

I went back to the den of evil and managed to lure a few fallen away from their masters, which I could then quickly slay. I faced a Garaguantan... and right before I could kill it, it tore my armor to shreds. Without an armor on my body, I had to run like hell. I escaped with my bare life. Here's a picture of my celebrating that I could escape the den of evil and see the light of day one more time...

After replacing my destroyed ethereal armor with some cheap, shameful rags, I went back to face the Garaguantan one more time. In an epic battle that consumed half my potions I finally managed to slay the beast -- and was immediately rewarded by my first level-up!

(The next Garaguantan beast was completely trivial to slay by the way, and only got a single hit in)

So maybe you were just unlucky that you didn't find enough gold/items to get some basic gear? I haven't had big problems like the ones you mention so far.

If you're really having problems, check out the following tips and see if it becomes easier:
1. roam around and get some gold to buy rags from Gheed. They will give you passive health regeneration.
2. fight tactically against fallen and zombies, lure them out one-by-one, use house entrances as choke points, and don't let yourself get surrounded
3. if you're really having trouble earning some early money, lure enemies to Flavie, she can 1-shot most mobs and even though you won't get XP you might still get some items
4. disengage every time you enter hit recovery (run around, then turn back to fight). There's a bug in D2 that prevents you from attacking if you went through hit recovery (it will play an attack animation, but not actually attack).
5. disengage after every miss, to avoid being hit in the first place; and evade missiles
6. start going into the cave of evil once you have a bit of gear (at least body armor) but don't try to kill everything in there; just go there for xp so you can reach level 2 quicker.

In the end, I had to run to town back and forth to sustain myself (town portal scrolls are ridiculously expensive). It was tiring, and I gave up before reaching level 2. [...] I didn't try the other classes because it felt masochistic and pointless.

Geez, that sucks! That's really not what the mod is supposed to play like. I never went back to town with the characters above except for repairs/trade.
I understand that it didn't make you feel to play anymore. But really, I think you need to give it another try -- just play a bit more carefully next time. Maybe you're used to the pure hack&slay playstyle of LoD (and many other mods), where the fun is in the splashy abilities, drops, and high-end builds. In this mod we tried to focus on the tactical movement and positioning, the thrill of not knowing what you'll find and having to make go with what you do find, and the near endless possibilities of itemization and builds.

The Necromancer might be able to actually get to level 2. The necroskeleton deals a whopping 60 damage at level 1--that's 20x your weapon damage! It can 1-shot most monsters. A pity it attacks so slowly. It is incredibly boring doing nothing while the skeleton slowly kills enemies.

Ouch! I haven't looked at Necro balancing yet and I had no idea it was that bad. Thanks for pointing it out! I'll put it on my to-do list for one of the next releases.

You need to drastically reduce monster HP and AC. Maybe boost player AC a little.

You also have to make the mod less grindy. If you want to make leveling up so slow, at least give each class a fun, innate combat skill at level 1.

Thanks for your opinion, we'll keep an eye on the monster HP and AC and adjust correspondingly.

I agree that at the beginning it can feel a bit grindy. I'm still looking for the right balance between "too quick" and "boring". Originally the first level up required 2000 XP, I already scaled it down to 500 after some initial tests, and increased the density of the blood moor. The big issue is that there's only a single level 1 area, so there's not a lot of total XP to farm.
After level 1 it gets a lot better because there are a lot more level 2 areas, and the difference between level 2 and 3 is not nearly as large as between level 1 and 2, so with some good gear you can fight in level 3 areas (which is not the case in level 1, no matter how good your gear is).

[mmpx222]

Thanks for your reply. I won't have any time to play during the Lunar New Year, but maybe I'll have another go next week.

I understand that it didn't make you feel to play anymore. But really, I think you need to give it another try -- just play a bit more carefully next time. Maybe you're used to the pure hack&slay playstyle of LoD (and many other mods), where the fun is in the splashy abilities, drops, and high-end builds. In this mod we tried to focus on the tactical movement and positioning, the thrill of not knowing what you'll find and having to make go with what you do find, and the near endless possibilities of itemization and builds.

So the mod is designed like a roguelike? I kinda see your point. Maybe I did have a different expectation of how to play the game. I expected to skim through act 1 within a few hours, but given that each monster is so durable, it would actually take days.

It seems the zombies are specifically overtuned. As a Barbarian, fighting one costs too much HP to be worth it. Maybe I should avoid them and rely on Flavie a bit.

Thanks for the tip on regen. Self sustain is a big problem at level 1, so having some would be great. If I'm having trouble healing, should I invest in vit?

About point 4: After a hit recovery, do all my attacks miss as long as I keep right click pressed?