Mod Release: Black Razor

This forum is for members of the public to post any announcements relating to Diablo 2 Mod Making including mod and patch releases amongst other similar subjects.
User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Mod Release: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Wed May 03, 2017 7:12 pm

Hi everyone,
a friend and I have been working on a simple -direct -txt mod. We're playing every other week with a big group and it has been a blast. Here's a download link for version 2.2 as a d2se plugin:


It is a casual PvE mod, aiming at people who want a short exciting trip into the maws of hell, without having to learn obfuscated new rules, cube recipes, rune words, best farming locations for set or unique items, new maps, etc.

Some features:
  • Strength increases spell and weapon damage (+10%/point)
  • Vitality gives passive regeneration
  • Dexterity gives magic find, stamina, as well as %damage
  • New stat "protection" on armors that reduces damage taken
  • Three types of armor: Heavy (high protection, reduces speed), Light (high def), Mage (no protection, increases mana and mana regeneration)
  • No stat restrictions on weapons or armor
  • Resist potions for all elemental damage types
  • Most of the crap and bloat removed, such as trash affixes, low-level affixes, low-level item drops, worthless items, ad-hoc synergies
  • No more free healing and mana potions
  • Most of the things that limit builds removed
  • Max level 20, only normal difficulty
  • Most skill cooldowns removed
Some of these bonuses are only active while you wear a body armor. Gheed sells rags for 1 gold that you can use until you can afford a better armor.

The mod is fully implemented, but balancing is still off. Feedback welcome :)
I also suggest not using the cube or mercs unless you find the mod too hard; although in some spots, it can become necessary.

The mod has been tested with the current patch (1.14 something), but since it's a txt only mod it should work with nearly all recent patches. It certainly works with every patch that has the token of absolution.

Older version: 1.3
Last edited by JDS on Mon Aug 19, 2019 3:50 pm, edited 9 times in total.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Thu May 04, 2017 9:24 am

Im excited just by reading the Features.

Got some questions and favors to ask.

1)Pllleeeassse make it D2SE compatible !!
2)What do you mean DEX gives damage to armor?.
3)Protection reduces ALL dmg or just physical?
Last edited by Doub on Thu May 04, 2017 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Thu May 04, 2017 10:58 am

1) Let me see what I can do. EDIT: updated first post. there's now a download link to a d2se modplugin. I haven't tested it yet and created it on my mobile, so please report whether it works or not.
2) When you hit an enemy, it decreases the defence rating of the enemy. The amount depends on your dex. It works exactly like the affix "hit decreases armor" or something.
3) There are two types of protection. Heavy armor only offers physical protection, light armor both.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Thu May 04, 2017 11:55 am

The game started normally with D2SE.

I can give u first glance feedback based on the Features.

Some features

Strength increases all damage (cant confirm yet)

Vitality gives passive regeneration (i increased VIT by 5 points then wait for more than a min but no regen at all)

Dexterity gives magic find, stamina, as well as damage to armor (Doesnt increase stamina. MF doesnt incease at stats
board either, cant confrim dmg to armor)

Enemies are exciting again - lower HP, much higher damage; skills and equipment have been adapted for this (seems so!)

New stat "protection" on armors that reduces damage taken (confirmed)

Three types of armor: Heavy (high protection, reduces speed), Light (medium protection), Mage (no protection, increases mana and mana regeneration) (if Field Plate is considered Heavy, i noticed Protection but not the penalty written on it (speed reduction)

No stat restrictions on weapons or armor (confirmed)

Resist potions for all elemental damage types (you will need them) (cant confirm yet)

Most of the crap and bloat removed, such as trash affixes, low-level affixes, low-level item drops, worthless items, ad-hoc synergies (seems so)

No more free healing and mana potions (confirmed, not in shop)

Most of the things that limit builds removed (skill pre-reqs are still here :D )

No more character stagnation after level 50 (cant confirm yet)

Most skill cooldowns removed (what cooldowns ? :)

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Thu May 04, 2017 12:31 pm

Thanks for playing :)
Dex/Vit effects will kick in once you have a body armor.
Cooldowns used to exist with many skills like meteor and hydra, and those cooldowns have been removed.
You should be able to see the armor type in the bottom right corner of the armor (H, L, M for heavy, light, mage). The speed reduction, like in vanilla, is not written on the item, but you can notice it easily - especially if you stack up multiple heavy armor pieces (gloves, helm, body armor, shield, etc.)

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Thu May 04, 2017 12:44 pm

NP!
I see!
I never played Sorc. lol. I only play melee fighter type classes :)

-----

1)Regarding potions. I do like the idea of potions being scarce! your approach is good but i have another suggestion. Wouldnt it be better if potions exist in Shop but are VERY expensive and heal little compare to the average HP pools?
Ofc expensive is subjective, since it depends on how gold is being handled in the mod. So if later on u get a lot of gold i guess that wont make potions scarce.

2)What do u think of the idea to remove all skill pre-requirements? Because the vanilla type skill tree forces you to spend points to specific skills just to get access to other skills.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Thu May 04, 2017 1:31 pm

1) We originally had potions expensive, but incomes were too high. We opted for making potions find only. We have a barb on the team who mostly looks for potions, he is a great asset :)

2) That's a good idea. I discussed it with Petro and we will put it into a later version of the mod.

Thanks for the feedback!

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Thu May 04, 2017 1:48 pm

cool, i look forward!

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Thu May 04, 2017 7:10 pm

Ok i finished act 1 with Barb lvl 21 (no skilled used at all) and here is some feedback.

1)Blood Raven needs boost. I would suggest to increase her damage and chance to hit. Those stats hit her, since she is an archer and bows can deal good dmg!

2)Griswold needs boost as well. His HP is fine. I would suggest more attack speed and chance to hit and maybe poison attack, since he is a zombie type thing, high physical dmg doesnt really fit him.

3)The mini boss called Pitspawnfouldog is OP vs melee units, it hits like a track and slows to death, plus uses curse (not sure which one it is). I wasnt able to kill him as melee Barb.

4)Anadriel needs a little boost as well. Stronger physical attacks would be fine (Andariel was easier than Pitspawnfouldog).

The rest of the bosses were fine.
Generally the beginning of ACT 1 is very easy, when u are about to enter the church then it gets good (difficulty increases).
I didnt waste any skill points since i wait for the next update.
One thing i noticed about rare weapons is that their properties are very similar. Like, -def from target, +dmg %. I believe if the properties were more "free" and not set, then the customization would be more interesting.
I like the fact that properties are very few on items, it makes the whole itemisation meaningful.

those for now.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Thu May 04, 2017 8:42 pm

Thanks for the feedback!
Pitspawnfouldog is a randomly generated boss monster. We have not added any super uniques yet.
Your complaint about the weakness of superuniques is noted and added to the list of future changes.
About the skill points, don't worry about it. Akara sells a respec item (token of absolution), you can use it to respec later in the game.
I also think that rare weapons are a weak point of the mod so far; but as you play longer you will notice a greater variety. I think there are about 10 or so options. We'll check if there is a problem with the probabilities. If you have suggestions for additional abilities, we are always listening (but no guarantees that we will implement them).

PS: As you probably remember from the first game, Griswold is a blacksmith - it's not surprising that he packs quite a punch.

PPS: I'm looking forward to your opinion on the second act - it used to be unplayable for melee characters until I added the resistance potions and considerably lowered damage from enemies.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sat May 06, 2017 9:41 am

Yeah. Something about Rare items (yellow items) is definitely wrong, more than half of the time the 2 properties out of the 3 are -to monster def per hit and + % Enhanced Damage, unless its intended.

I think the thing that makes melees' life so hard is the freezing, the amount of the freeze is big enough to make u useless for that duration. so u basically cant do anything.

Something is off with chance to hit as well, for example it says 85% chance to hit but i highly doubt thats accurate cause i miss like 50% of the times. Or maybe there are other factors im missing, but the display of chance to hit is definitely off.

Suggestion for abilities? you mean class skills for Barb etc? If thats the case, i will certainly come up with some abilities !!

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sat May 06, 2017 1:48 pm

Yes, the probabilities on the sheet are way off. Sadly that is a bug in Diablo; already in vanilla the numbers are wrong. The bug is known as LCS - lying character sheet. I can not fix that bug but I'll think about a workaround.
Suggestion for abilities? you mean class skills for Barb etc? If thats the case, i will certainly come up with some abilities !!
We are not looking to replace skills at the moment; we don't have the time to implememt such drastic changes. I was thinking about abilities on rare weapons, where some of them seem to be inadequate.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sat May 06, 2017 2:47 pm

Ok, while i am playing the mod, there are many things that are awesome but i will make *the Praise List* later :)
So what i am thinking are suggestions and thoughts that pass through my mind, many of those are personal taste. I will share them with you and you guys decide.

1)Thoughts regarding Magic Find. Its interesting that its so common, its your way to balance drops? I personally think (and i have noted before this personal taste of mine), that MF is actually a negative thing. Assuming that the goal of a game like Diablo 2 is to: Equip your best gear and go slay monsters, i find MF to be an annoying distraction, because many times you are in dilemma whether to equip that awesome gear or just equip MF.

2)I can sure come up with skills. either passive or active but before that i want to suggest you guys something that i wanted to implement for my mod (which is currently frozen).
The idea was to give each hero unique passives from birth, such as: bonuses and penalties with weapons and other passive stats. With the goal to simply make each hero truly different.
I was thinking to do it by creating an item with which every hero would start. This item would have all these personal buffs and debuffs.
Let me know if you are interested i can show you some of my examples.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sat May 06, 2017 3:26 pm

Thanks for your thoughts!
Doub" wrote: 1)Thoughts regarding Magic Find. Its interesting that its so common, its your way to balance drops? I personally think (and i have noted before this personal taste of mine), that MF is actually a negative thing. Assuming that the goal of a game like Diablo 2 is to: Equip your best gear and go slay monsters, i find MF to be an annoying distraction, because many times you are in dilemma whether to equip that awesome gear or just equip MF.
Our drops have been finely balanced *without* MF. MF also only slightly improves the chances for the higher rarity classes. Which is why MF is considered a trash stat that never appears on really good items (except for gloves). We kept MF in the game in case a player has bad luck; then he can farm for better items with a very high MF (I think 1000+ MF are totally possible by level 20). Generally though, if a player wants to progress, items with MF are too weak. When playing the mod, I have never been tempted to equip an MF item if I had something stronger.

Doub" wrote: 2)I can sure come up with skills. either passive or active but before that i want to suggest you guys something that i wanted to implement for my mod (which is currently frozen).
The idea was to give each hero unique passives from birth, such as: bonuses and penalties with weapons and other passive stats. With the goal to simply make its hero truly different.
I was thinking to do it by creating an item with which every hero would start. This item would have all these personal buffs and debuffs.
Let me know if you are interested i can show you some of my examples.
Like I said, we are not planning to replace/add skills to the characters at the moment. It is also not possible to do this with starting items, since starting items are white and have no automods. Of course you are still free to share your ideas with us, but it is unlikely at this point that we would actually implement them.

We have actually reduced the difference between the characters a bit. Look for example at the res-all and defence passives of the barbarian: the values have been decreased drastically. The reason for this is that it allows us to have items and enemies that are balanced for barbarians, paladins, and amazons, while still having a noticeable difference in the possible builds. So Barbarians no longer get +300% defense, but they still get +30% - enough to make light armor really good with barbarians, while heavy armor is better for the paladin (who can get a bit of extra protection using the holy shield).

In general, if we would add more differences between the classes, we would prefer to do it by passive skills in the skill tree (like "Iron Skin" etc.), not as a static effect.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sat May 06, 2017 6:56 pm

all good.

-----

1)I havent yet seen any Throwing Axes as Rare or Magic, they always appear white, dunno if its intended or not, just letting you know it.

2)The abilities/properties (dunno if properties is the correct word) i have encountered so far on rares are:

+Elemental dmg on weapon (example + 1-6 Cold Dmg)

Prevent Monster Heal

+% Enhanced Damage

+1 To All Skills

-To Monster Def Per Hit


If you want tell me else your list has, if not, its totally OK, i will suggest what i have to suggest and you guys decide.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sat May 06, 2017 8:03 pm

1) Yes, that is currently intended. We originally tried to make these items have an infinite stack, not consume stack, have incredibly high stack replenish, but none of these worked. We opted not to have rare/magic throwables, since nothing prevents them from disappearing when they get empty and that's just frustrating.


2) Here are the remaining effects for rare items (select to read)
knock, blind, freeze
howl
indestructible
(rare only)

life/mana leech
attack speed
(magic and rare)

There are a handful of additional effects on specific weapons; for example, daggers can have "pierce poison resist", two handed weapons can give a small resistance bonus.

"-To Monster Def Per Hit" should be there only on about 1/4 of rare items.

EDIT: Some effects that have been on my mind: stat bonus based on the weapon type, e.g., swords give mana, hammers give strength, etc.; skill on hit, such as chain lightning or meteor; but I haven't yet thought about it deeply enough to implement any of it.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sun May 07, 2017 9:02 am

JDS" wrote: There are a handful of additional effects on specific weapons; for example, daggers can have "pierce poison resist", two handed weapons can give a small resistance bonus.

"-To Monster Def Per Hit" should be there only on about 1/4 of rare items.

EDIT: Some effects that have been on my mind: stat bonus based on the weapon type, e.g., swords give mana, hammers give strength, etc.; skill on hit, such as chain lightning or meteor; but I haven't yet thought about it deeply enough to implement any of it.
You want effects such as: Swords give mana, because thats how u balanced the mod? or its just a random decision? I mean you could apply effects more realistically as well.

---

Are there unique and set items cause i havent picked one yet :)

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sun May 07, 2017 11:22 am

Doub" wrote:
JDS" wrote: There are a handful of additional effects on specific weapons; for example, daggers can have "pierce poison resist", two handed weapons can give a small resistance bonus.

"-To Monster Def Per Hit" should be there only on about 1/4 of rare items.

EDIT: Some effects that have been on my mind: stat bonus based on the weapon type, e.g., swords give mana, hammers give strength, etc.; skill on hit, such as chain lightning or meteor; but I haven't yet thought about it deeply enough to implement any of it.
You want effects such as: Swords give mana, because thats how u balanced the mod? or its just a random decision? I mean you could apply effects more realistically as well.
It's not about balance; it just seems to be fun: spellswords (such as the iron wolves), extremely heavy hammer attacks, that is kinda how I imagine these weapons to work. Anyways, I have not thought too deeply about what to do with the weapons.
Doub" wrote:Are there unique and set items cause i havent picked one yet :)
No ;) They restrict itemization, are extremely inbalanced, and most of them turn out to be useless anyways. I decided to give all the cool stuff to rares instead.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sun May 07, 2017 11:28 am

so i cubed some gems and i got Palimpsest - El Rune. what am i suppose to do with them?

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sun May 07, 2017 11:44 am

Palimpsests contain riddles. Akara also sells palimpsests.

Hint: [the riddle describes the effect of the El rune in the cube]

Spoiler: [cube a palimpsest with an El rune to get a random other palimpsest]

I'm very interested in what you think about these features (palimpsests, no uniques/runewords/sets), considering they are the weirdest features of the mod (I think everything else is within moral limits :)).

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sun May 07, 2017 1:03 pm

Yeah i cubed the Palimpsest - El Rune and got Palimpsest - Zod Rune. Now i need a Zod Rune which i dont have... Still i feel dumb but i dont understand whats the point of this feature? Is there a final Palimpsest? Can i use them on items like with gems?

So its not possible anymore to cube lower gems and get higher?

---

I like innovation as long as it does the job. I mean, my mind isnt stuck on "how D2 is supposed to be".

I have played mods with 3-4 item types but didnt like how the itemisation worked, the number of the item types doesnt really matter if it isnt done well.

The itemisation in your mod is meaningful and for my taste its definitely the highlight of this mod.
But since u dont have more item types, u definitely need more properties types on items. Just to clarify, i dont mean MORE in number properties on items, i mean a bigger variety of properties that CAN SPAWN on items (as we discussed above).

---

Also why you removed stats requirements from weapons? i think it would really fit the way attributes work in your mod but i can see that it would require more time to balance things.

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sun May 07, 2017 1:25 pm

Doub" wrote:Yeah i cubed the Palimpsest - El Rune and got Palimpsest - Zod Rune. Now i need a Zod Rune which i dont have... Still i feel dumb but i dont understand whats the point of this feature? Is there a final Palimpsest? Can i use them on items like with gems?
It's an in-game reference for all cube recipes; each recipe has one Palimpsest, containing the recipe in riddle form. For example, the recipes for upgrading the gems are on some Palimpsest. (EDIT: strictly speaking, it is one palimpsest - a palimpsest is a document where the writing has been erased and overwritten with a new text, in order to save papyrus. In the real world, we can sometimes look at the previous writings using X-rays, and the old writings often contain forgotten knowledge, e.g., Archimedes' attempts at calculus. In D2, we use El-runes rather than X-rays, and the palimpsest has tons of layers, but the end result is the same).
Doub" wrote: I like innovation as long as it does the job. I mean, my mind isnt stuck on "how D2 is supposed to be".

I have played mods with 3-4 item types but didnt like how the itemisation worked, the number of the item types doesnt really matter if it isnt done well.

The itemisation in your mod is meaningful and for my taste its definitely the highlight of this mod.
But since u dont have more item types, u definitely need more properties types on items. Just to clarify, i dont mean MORE in number properties on items, i mean a bigger variety of properties that CAN SPAWN on items (as we discussed above).
I agree; it is just very hard to find meaningful affixes. We actually went through all the possible stats and decided very carefully which items should have which; there just aren't many meaningful affixes left. I'm glad you like the itemization; together with the rebalancing of enemies and skill progression it was the main concern of the mod.
Doub" wrote:Also why you removed stats requirements from weapons? i think it would really fit the way attributes work in your mod but i can see that it would require more time to balance things.
We removed them because Petro felt they add nothing to the game, and only limit builds. I also agree with you that they are hard to balance. In my previous mod (which I never published) I went the opposite route and had very high stat requirements; in the end, the weapons decided how you would spend your points, rather than you. I personally like the flavor of stat requirements a lot, but we favor gameplay over flavor.

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sun May 07, 2017 2:31 pm

So u separated the stats into 2 categories? Weapons and armors?

-----

I would suggest to not give stats such as "pierce poison resist" specifically to daggers, because even if you look at it realistically, Bows/Crossbows and even some type of Swords could have that property (anything that can pierce).
I say let all these type of stats for all weapons.

A thing I noticed in many mods is that melee 2H weapons aren’t worthy compare to melee 1H weapons simply because the difference in damage inst big enough, plus, usually melee 1H weapons are faster. So why equip melee 2H when you can equip 1H and a Shield?
To be fair mods like Eastern Sun did a good job to balance melee 2H weapons (at least for Barb, since I played only Barb).
In your mod I noticed that u changed all the damages on weapons and I like that but I didn’t go in-depth to check how balanced are 1Hs compare to 2Hs. That being said I would suggest to separate melee weapons into 2 main categories: 1H and 2H.
To balance 2Hs so that they can compete with 1Hs, give 2Hs additional offensive stats such as: +Damage or Attack speed (and not resists, why resists ? :) )

I honestly think weapons in D2 arent well thought and that creates the problem in the first place.
In vanilla there are many types of weapons with very similar dmg and attack speed, so what matters in vanilla isn’t really the base stats but the magical properties on them, which if kind of lame if u ask me cause it defeats the whole purpose of having many types of weapons in the first place.
So when a modder wants to make each type of weapon meaningful its own way he simply realizes he cant do it (because base stats don’t matter and properties matter in vanilla) without drastic changes on the weapon system in general (at least this is how I see it).
That’s why some mods have restricted weapons to specific classes, other mods have very serious requirements of Attributes (STR, DEX etc) for weapons and some other mods removed all kinds of restrictions, which isn’t good because again, it makes weapon types meaningless (the way I see it).

And again..... damn it.. I have written on "paper" the weapon system on how i would make my mod.. but for your that will require re-balance of Nightmare and Hell difficulties.

-----

User avatar
Doub
Dark Alliance Beta Test
Champion of the Light
Posts: 257
Joined: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by Doub » Sun May 07, 2017 2:52 pm

JDS" wrote: We removed them because Petro felt they add nothing to the game, and only limit builds. I also agree with you that they are hard to balance. In my previous mod (which I never published) I went the opposite route and had very high stat requirements; in the end, the weapons decided how you would spend your points, rather than you. I personally like the flavor of stat requirements a lot, but we favor gameplay over flavor.
This is an interesting topic but i am not sure it comes down to more or less build options.
I actually think you can have more build options with restricted systems.
For example, you will never use a Staff with low Damage as a Barbarian anyway, so in practice it doesnt really matter if its open or not since you will always prefer specific weapon.
Ah dunno :/
The more i think of it the more complicated it becomes and i conclude that everything needs an overhaul, which doesnt help you in any way :)

User avatar
JDS
Junior Member
Paladin
Posts: 198
Joined: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:31 pm

Re: New Mod, working title: Black Razor

Post by JDS » Sun May 07, 2017 3:02 pm

Doub" wrote:So u separated the stats into 2 categories? Weapons and armors?
Not at all. The system is actually quite complicated. Each stat appears on some item types but not others, but there are no categories as such.
Doub" wrote: I would suggest to not give stats such as "pierce poison resist" specifically to daggers, because even if you look at it realistically, Bows/Crossbows and even some type of Swords could have that property (anything that can pierce).
I say let all these type of stats for all weapons.
The only characters that effectively use poison are the necromancer and the assassin; the poison pierce has been added for them. For everyone else, the stat would be wasted.
Doub" wrote: A thing I noticed in many mods is that melee 2H weapons aren’t worthy compare to melee 1H weapons simply because the difference in damage inst big enough, plus, usually melee 1H weapons are faster. So why equip melee 2H when you can equip 1H and a Shield?
To be fair mods like Eastern Sun did a good job to balance melee 2H weapons (at least for Barb, since I played only Barb).
In your mod I noticed that u changed all the damages on weapons and I like that but I didn’t go in-depth to check how balanced are 1Hs compare to 2Hs. That being said I would suggest to separate melee weapons into 2 main categories: 1H and 2H.
2H weapons have much higher base damage (ca. +50%), and stronger affixes to top it off (for example, elemental damage bonusses also have +50% damage on 2H). In our playgroup, we have a barb and a paladin that use 2H weapons, and a paladin and an assassin that use 1H+Shield (the other players have ranged characters). I think 2H weapons are very competitive :) Like mentioned above, there are no clear-cut categories; but the mod distinguishes a bit between 1H, 2H, and staves (e.g., no +ED on staves). Scythes are somewhat in between, since IIRC they can get both 2H bonusses and stave bonusses.
To balance 2Hs so that they can compete with 1Hs, give 2Hs additional offensive stats such as: +Damage or Attack speed (and not resists, why resists ? :) )
+resists have been added as a "middle ground" between full-offense 2H, and 1H+shield. Considering that characters have a lot less life and enemies hit much harder (than in vanilla), a melee character without a shield can be in serious trouble; the +resist helps mitigate this a bit.
Doub" wrote: I honestly think weapons in D2 arent well thought and that creates the problem in the first place.
In vanilla there are many types of weapons with very similar dmg and attack speed, so what matters in vanilla isn’t really the base stats but the magical properties on them, which if kind of lame if u ask me cause it defeats the whole purpose of having many types of weapons in the first place.
True; in the mod, some stats appear on some weapon types but not on others, in order to make the difference more pronounced.
Doub" wrote:For example, you will never use a Staff with low Damage as a Barbarian anyway
But what about a sorceress that wants to use a hammer and Enchant? :) Or a necromancer that wants to go to battle in heavy armor and a scythe, leading his army of undead into battle?

Post Reply

Return to “Member Аnnouncements”