Median

[Brother Laz]

@Rattlecage: and acid dogs, too.

Problem...

The book setup doesn't work.
Yep. The mod was completely done, and I started a test character. And I didn't even have to buy books, enough dropped to make it easy to get everything even as a barb.

Making books rarer didn't help. It resulted in a level 2 Lightning in act 3 Normal instead of a level 8 Lightning. Good, but level 2 can't kill a damn thing. And you'd be beeped, because books were now so rare that you'd have to do the area like 100 times to get 6 more books... bleh.

The problem is that D2 is much larger than D1. In D1, books appeared at a good rate, but the game was much shorter so you needed them all, very quickly. Emulate this in the 10x larger D2 world, books'd drop almost never.

Besides, 24 spells isn't much for such a setup. Again, D1 was much shorter, so you'd constantly be learning new spells. Using the same old spells for 4 acts is bad.

The nail in its coffin was the broken D2 randomizer. I had one spell at level 10 and another spell of lowerby the end of Act 1. ARGH.

I need to do something different, and it should not have to do with skill points because I need them for something else [which stays a secret until the release]. GRRR.

I do have an idea, but I'll have to balance it real good... and if that doesn't work either, I have a very big problem.

[Char]

some ideas.....

buyable books? everyone has about the same amount of gold at a given time. lowerlevel books cost less, higherlevel cost more. you get approximately 25k gold in act1 if you dont gamble and buy stuff.

emulate the skill thingie with something else? depending of what you want to do with the skillpoints, it might be possible to exchange them with sth new.

level requirements for books so you dont get too high in skill level? okay, not really good, i know....

craftable books? blank books that need to be crafted with sth else to make the "final" books?

book drops as quest drops? so you can only get them once, but you will get them for sure.

a very short way to get through the acts if you just run through them, but a lot of interesting levels (tower, mausoleum, caves, ....) that you can train in if you arent strong enough for the levels? so you can always play according to your skill level (okay this is level editing and a lot of work, so not really good either).

drawbacks when using skill books? (e.g. skillbooks "cost" something if you use them, so that you have enough skillbooks, but are quite "naturally" prevented from using too much of them).

only one skillbook usable per level (should be implementable softcodedly with some tricks)

....

out of ideas now.

[Brother Laz]

The idea was originally to have a bunch of passives [single resist, stat% boosts, etc] with diminishing returns to put your skill points into. What if I added the actual spells in there as well?

They'd all have a level 1 requirement, max at slvl 10, and be based on more than just skill level, so that in order to do good damage one'd have to not just max a spell but also bend their character around getting as much energy as possible, or some other variable. This ensures that one would not be overpowered when maxing a spell at character level 11 - not enough energy or mana or life or whatever the spell uses as damage synergy.

Mage characters, whose main offense are their spells, would max several spells to combat immunities, and have less points for their passives, and be weaker physically. Fighter characters would need one or two spells to combat phys immunes, but can otherwise spend all their points on passives and become very tough. [this is why spells would max at level 10, as opposed to passives which max at 30]

As for how to balance firebolt vs chain lightning: firebolt is only based on slvl and clvl, so even a dumb barb can cast it efficiently, and would do more damage with it than with lightning, which is based on energy, or CL, which is based on mana. Minimage-type chars such as asns or amzs with manashield would choose lightning, because they'd have a lot of energy, but not much mana. Spellcasters would choose chain lightning.

And of course, there are no +mana or +enr items or passives, only +mana% and +enr% [and equivalent vit/dex/str%], which is already the case to stop the CLoD 'ignore energy, get +mana items' abuse.

And some spells such as bone spirit [which is based on amount of life lost] are for specialty builds [stock up on +life% and +vit% items, and use manashield] but very effective if you do make a build around them.

It'd basically replace the quest for books with the quest for items that boost the stats that would make your spell do more damage, at the cost of resistances and hit points and FCR etc. - unless you're a fighter and are using novice spells, which aren't based on any of those but more powerful if you don't focus on piling on the +enr%, which fighters likely won't do anyway.

Would this be a good idea?

......

Or would Char's be better?

drawbacks when using skill books? (e.g. skillbooks "cost" something if you use them, so that you have enough skillbooks, but are quite "naturally" prevented from using too much of them).

Dunno... mine seems a bit ad hoc and metagamey...

[Joel]

the idea sounds right. i think you can go up with it, it could finally ends REALLY good[/u]

[Char]

your idea sounds very interesting, and like something entirely non-vanilla-d2 like. if it works, i think it could make a great mod, although it needs a LOT of balancing. i'd say try it .

[Brother Laz]

Currently in act 2 normal testing with a barb. So far the difficulty seems to be right, except cold skeleton mages are a terror [they freeze you, and run]; the deserts seem to be too easy, but the claw viper temple has a heinous stair trap.

May have to nerf the entire CV temple just to get rid of the stair trap.

......

Will let ya know when I'm almost ready to release a beta.

......

Unless 1.10 is being put on hold by Blizzard [see PK front page]...

[jbouley]

There is no 1.10 "on hold" They released a patch file that we can play with and make stable mods with (the beta)...so the genie is already out of the bottle.

The only issue now is whether Blizzard releases a final patch (they probably will, and probably not too far in the future...they need to do something positive to keep their heads above water) or whether the modders modify 1.10s to make a "final" patch.

Fear not, Brother Laz...1.10 is here, one way or the other.

[Brother Laz]

Well... no. There's no way we can fix the gigantic list of bugs in 1.10s. The only one who could, has left the company. Half of my deaths in Median were due to the range-5 whiff bug augmented by the multi-hit whiff bug and the knockback whiff bug, and the fact that my 104-108 damage with backup weapons kept dropping to 10-14 every time I picked up my corpse until I hit weapon switch twice. It's near unplayable in its current state.

Besides, no one is going to download an extra patch to just play mods. Mods that are not based on the current mainstream patch are doomed.

I do agree that if they don't release anything, that's it for Blizzard, because no one would play WoW, just like no one's bought an Olds anymore in recent history.

But they can't release anything if Soda's gone, because he's the only one who knows the patch code. You can't expect other Blizzard people to be able to bugfix something they've likely never even seen.

[Alkalund]

Isolde has not left the company yet; work on the patch is still going on, and there will be another release. Now let's just please not turn this thread into a '1.10 is dead' and such kind of thread, okay?

[Voodoo_Sun]

Brother Laz.... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE finish and release this mod. I've been looking forward to every mod u start and I haven't got to play one yet!. This looks amazing!!! I've been looking for a mod with a d1 like skill system and skills that are basedon more then just skill level. everything that you have posted so far looks great. I really liked that brain idea with the skill books. No way to make that work eh?? Maybe make skill books easy to find. high drops etc... but then make them cost a lot of gold to ungrade and actually make useful..or maybe make fire type spells tramsmute with rubys to level them up. I'm just making these suggestions because as i understood it there was trouble finding enough books to make it worth it when they were rare and too many books that it was unblancing to make then easy to find.

Or hey just make it harder. make us players rn around and play the game and explore and level up before we can move on. Your game looks to amazign that we won't mind having to play in the same area for a while to level up and find more books. lol.

Anyways just some ideas ...not sure how gerat they are because i don't understand the exact problems you are finding and how to mod well.. so ya.. Your mod looks great , keep it up!!!!!

and that idea of only a few basic items that increase depending on your elvel was good. better then normal/expetional/elite. are you keeping that??

thanks... for the work and for an answer.. if I get one. lol...

VooDoo_Sun


Edit.... btw.. please dont take this as bad critisim. Your mod will be great no matter what you do. make one you like. others will too.

[Brother Laz]

Isolde has not left the company yet; work on the patch is still going on, and there will be another release. Now let's just please not turn this thread into a '1.10 is dead' and such kind of thread, okay?

*shiver* I won't do it again, I promise... but you gotta understand, I saw my future just go up in smoke.

I'm just making these suggestions because as i understood it there was trouble finding enough books to make it worth it when they were rare and too many books that it was unblancing to make then easy to find.

The problem is that someone playing through one difficulty of D2 needs at least several dozens of hours [not the twinked out turbo characters with Bloodfist, Hotspur and Bonesnap, of course]. When book drops are balanced so that one could get lucky or unlucky and there'd be an incentive to actually buy books, they drop too far apart. When books drop regularly, too many drop in the long run. The game's just too big. No suggestion's going to change that, cause you'd have to balance ruby drop rates the same way and fail too.

and that idea of only a few basic items that increase depending on your elvel was good. better then normal/expetional/elite. are you keeping that??

Yep, and [oops, didn't I mention that] I've already converted all uniques to runewords. So far I've found 8 Els already, 1 Eld, and no 2-socket armor for Golden Youth. Grrr.

......

Testing's hit a minor snag: I screwed up my character build. :p I'm stuck in early act 3 with no elemental skills yet and no Stone Curse and there are dangerous PI's around. argh Will need at least 3 more levels into Immolation and 3 levels into SC, but how am I going to level up if I die to every ghost and skeleton mage mob I run into...?

Time to start over. :p

[Brother Laz]

Home stretch now. Hmm, how about a beta on Monday?

[Myhrginoc]

Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears crap in the woods? Does a fat baby break wind? Ya sure, bring on the beta!

[HashCasper]

Home stretch now. Hmm, how about a beta on Monday?

Hey Laz, you would actually ask that question?

HOLY SH... COW!

./me humps a random leg
unf. beta. unf. beta. unf. beta, oh oh yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

[LordOfTheWastes]

First of all let me say I am a big fan of you modding work Brother Laz. And it would be awesome if you could release a beta, but only if you think it is good to go. I can hardly wait for this mod to be released, i think its going to kick some major butt.

[Joel]

Does a fat baby break wind?

Man everytime you use this expression, it seems you had a new term

[Rattlecage]

Do bears crap in the woods?

This reminds me of a joke a teacher at my old school (my old school that I liked)...

Does a fat baby break wind?

Everybody breaks wind. Especially my dad.

[Alkalund]

Home stretch now. Hmm, how about a beta on Monday?

If it is good to go, bring it on! I only sadly regret I won't be able to playtest it

[Rattlecage]

.<b></b> humps a random leg
unf. beta. unf. beta. unf. beta, oh oh yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

I see that you're excited about a beta of Median, but don't get any on the keyboard because you'll ruin it.

[HashCasper]

Very funny!

Although if you think about it, how can I get anything on the keyboard, if I'm humping a LEG! Unless that person had his/her legs on my keyboard, I don't see how its possible to ejaculate over it. Then again, I was merely kidding, YOU SICK TWISTED DEMENTED ...

[Myhrginoc]

Too much detail...let's stay on the subject of the thread.

[Brother Laz]

Guess what day it is?

Btw: it's very unbalanced ATM, but I don't have the time to test all of it myself... so tell me what is unbalanced and in which direction, and I'll gladly fix it for you.

http://d2mods.xfernet.com/~laz/index.htm

Only had 5 minutes and found out that direct linking doesn't work, so I modified my old Acid Reign index page for the downloads. Of course, *IF* it finally becomes bug-and-unbalance-free, I'll upload a proper website.

You need the mpq and the dll [or you'll have problems in act 5, with the Anya quest reward], it only works properly in 1.10s [second beta, early August], there'd be missing monsters and some broken skill gfx in 1.10a [first beta, early July], and it doesn't work at all in 1.09.

Tested with a barb up to WSK2 in Normal, then I broke my character. So Baal is still untested after the latest major modifications. Let me know how it turns out.

- Goat priests [the goatmen that cast the yellow spirits] do more damage with their spells when they are close to death. Don't just *damage* them and let them live, or you may indeed get one-hit killed. [also don't get completely surrounded by their minions, or you're toast because of CE]

- When a lightning demon [council member type that shoots lightning bolts] dies, watch out for the corpse until it stops buzzing and emitting light, or it'll emit powerful charged bolts when you step on it, and you'll probably die.

- Monsters do not regen, so when you run into immunes, stone them and take your time.

- There's a lot of strange stuff in the error log file in act 5, and it has to do with the rust monsters [those that lower defense when they hit]. Someone tell me wtf is wrong with them?!

[Joel]

yeaw ... got it first

well, that will busy me a few day ... I DO need a break from CWAT

[LiNkIn_PaRk]

From what I've seen/played it looks very nice Carrion Swarm > jOO

Good Work Brother Laz

[LordOfTheWastes]

im gonna need a mop bucket to clean up all of this drool. This is one amazing piece of work Laz, excellent job !!!!