New version developement

[Elafar]

Nice speed of updating, and nice changes, I hope you will consider softening a bit nerf on loot on P8+ all classes that can't AoE at least on early game will take ages to gear up by this loot % drop. Since there are less mobs and with less drop chances the amount of loot it is now considerably lower compared to old Zy-El

[Eberhardt]

First of all, thanks for porting and developing Zy-el on 1.10, Montex - it's simply amazing, I've been waiting for updates for years. The game feels a bit different but I guess not all things can be ported and/or reproduced. I noticed ilvl have changed - I got some nice unique items in the beginning that I've never encountered before.

The amount of loot is ok imo - I have to empty my inventory more often than I had to when I played 4.4C. The new magic collector is absolutely brilliant! I don't have to save money to buy low level runes or elixirs. I'm playing a druid since it was somewhat troublesome in 4.4 - HP dropped to almost 0 everytime wereform wore off which was fatal when surrounded by monsters. Can't wait to get 100k+ damage output and test it out Hopefully, monsters' hp scales accordingly too.

I haven't had any trouble so far only noticed that lvl 21 cyclone armor absorbs - according to the description - 337920 damage. Spirit wolves seem to be (almost) indestructible while charged summons disappear pretty soon. Also feels a bit weird to see almost empty locations where you would expect hordes but I think it will be fixed in time

Now questions

1) How do you get, say, a Zy-el scroll from the collector now? I understand how the extractor works but what if I don't have a scroll to begin with?
2) Will piggy banks return? I couldn't find them at gamble NPCs. Also, they are not mentioned in the readme (except some old recipe).

Well, that's it. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to more updates

[Elafar]

Possible bug....everytime I lvl up minions that I got from Unique ring got destroyed.

Yes, nice touch on Collector upgrade gems and runes seems to be at reasonable cost.

However, rest of recipes are so much overpriced that I never even considered using them.
(there is much cheeper and better recipes to getting the same stuff...maybe adjusting price to about same value (comparing to cheeper way to get the same result ) would make it attractive to use it ?

[Montex]

Almost everything could be ported from 4.4 though there are some things i changed intentionally.
If you don't see that mentioned at the beginning of readme it may be some bug.
Unique drop... this is more like a bug i decided to leave as a feature Although the drop may be a bit too generous. I'm leaving it as it is for now.
The cyclone armor had totally screwed up description will fix in the next patch.
Summons probably have to much armor in the early game. Noticed similar thing on necro skellies.
Can you define those "almost empty locations where you would expect hordes". Elafar also complained about reduced monster frequency even though it should be the same as before. The areas i have visited seem to have the same amount of monster as before though i haven't counted them one by one Though i have only reached monastery with necro. After that i started melee zon which i am enjoying very much so far. Melee toons with decent thorns damage can be really fun... Not sure how long will it last.
ZyEl scrolls... Is it such a good idea to get those before doing insanity levels? Anyway will add upgrader recipes in next patch.
As for piggy banks, those are probably gone for good. The reason is that with the new item mod that reduces vendor prices they could be gambled cheaper that sold back later And i did not see their purpose in game anyway.

As for summon from charges - those disappear on level up and i think its a bug / feature from vanilla D2.

[Elafar]

Ah...I was editing my old post....

there is a copy / past from part about collectors I wanted to share...so just in case you are not reading old posts..
...
Yes, nice touch on Collector upgrade gems and runes seems to be at reasonable cost.

However, rest of recipes are so much overpriced that I never even considered using them.
(there is much cheeper and better recipes to getting the same stuff...maybe adjusting price to about same value (comparing to cheeper way to get the same result ) would make it attractive to use it ?

about density of mobs..
It is not that I am complaining actually. Imo at some places in old Zy-el was rather too many of mobs. However I am pretty sure that in this version is overall less mobs.
If there was any complaining it would be because of less mobs equals to less loot

And yes, "thorn" buff to melee is really nice one, thx on that ..playing barbarian is now much more fun

[Al-T]

Firstly, congratulations on the conversion and thanks for all the hard work you have put in so far Montex. It is much appreciated.

I have lots of things I could comment on that have been posted about but that would not be fair until I have actually tried out your "modifications" to the Mod and they would only be my humble opinions anyway but I would like to give my view on a couple of subjects that have been touched upon:

1.

As for summon from charges - those disappear on level up and i think its a bug / feature from vanilla D2.

It is indeed a bug as characters are "fully re-equipped" on level-up in patch 1.10 and above so it's just like gaining a level in 1.09 and prior patches and removing everything you are wearing and everything in your inventory followed by placing everything back where it came from before continuing to play which would have the same effect.

2.

As for piggy banks, those are probably gone for good. The reason is that with the new item mod that reduces vendor prices they could be gambled cheaper that sold back later And i did not see their purpose in game anyway.

It may be that you have balanced things enough that this is not relevant but in 4.4C you could gamble 100M Piggy Banks then use: 10K Full Collector + 100M Piggy Bank to make a 50K Full Collector followed by, 50K Collector + ID Scroll + Food Item (any) to make a Full Zy-El Scroll. Like I say, if you have balanced things elsewhere this is not relevant.

There are a few other things I could comment on but, like I said above, until I test out the changes you have made it would not be fair.

Looking good so far I must admit, certainly going by other players comments. Keep up the good work Montex

[Eberhardt]

Well, I missed dark ones in the inner cloister when I exited the jails They used to swarm on the way to the waypoint but that's the only location that jumps to mind. I've made it to the second act, everything good so far.

As for piggy banks - well, yeah, like Al said - I collected more money than I could keep so I was like "why bother with insanity levels if I can just craft the scroll?" Since my only problem with Zy-el was "adjusting damage" I think running insanity levels will not be a problem in this mod. Man, it was frustrating when monsters just wouldn't die so I had to restart the game, set a different "players x" and try again.

Anyway, I am quite enjoying the gameplay thanks again for the hard work!

[Rahhja]

Thank you for this! Nothing more aggravating then that stupid rollover....

Installed it quite easily and it works great except for plugy. Cant seem to get my shared/personal stash pages to show up. Any advice?

Rahhja

Edit: Though now I see the version number is different. Im using the same version of plugy that Eastern Sun uses and that's version 10. Does Zy-El still need 5.0.6 even though it runs at 1.10 now?

[Elafar]

Rahja....I am happily using D2SE version of mod....only what you have to do with each new update is extract and replace files in mod folder,
... VgyNmswMTg

credit for incorporating it to d2SE goes to themastercaster and the link is posted on first page.

[Rahhja]

Thanks for the reply!

I was trying to make it easier on myself and not have to dig out my disks and instead caused myself more headaches. It all works fine now after a clean install.

[Elafar]

Happy zy-eling than

[Al-T]

I downloaded and installed the mod today and have been testing mainly with a Druid Summoner in the Blood Moor wth a couple of quick sorties into Cold Plains to get the Waypoint. Here are my "observations" so far. Please take them as that...they are not criticisms and so far I am loving it:

From Level 1 to 10 I played at /Players 1 and everything seemed very familiar although, Skeletons and Zombies appeared to be a bit more aggressive while doing slghtly less damage so that is fine....more aggressive + less damage = balance.

From Level 10 - 25 I played at /Players 8 with Ravens only and drops and experience are equivalent to the Kato version in 1.09d.

At Level 25 I upped to /Players 127 (I assume you implemented this using "Utility.dll" and the d2mod system ). Although monster and summons life appears to be increased, their respective damage outputs do not appear to be any different. Drops are no better and in general, I found them to be worse than at /Players 8. Also there appears to be no improvement in Experience gains over /Players 8 so that allied to similar item drops means there is, at present, no point in playing at /Players 127 over /Players 8 other than for bragging rights. In Kato's version the Experience gains are:

Code: Select all

Players X        Monster Life        Experience
1                     1x                1.00x
8                     8x                4.50x
16                   16x                4.85x
64                   64x                7.25x
127                 127x               10.50x

Hopefully you are able to change the experience gains but if not, /Players 8 will be enough of a challenge for most players.

Keep up the good work. Im loving it

Happy Zy-Elling

[Eberhardt]

I think I found a bug

scythe.jpg (28.99 KiB) Viewed 4183 times

Reqs are somewhat low for a scythe and it seems to happen to all RARE monster-dropped gear (I haven't checked each and every, though). I specifically crafted a rare item but requirements were in order.

[Montex]

Players x above 8 were implemented with Utility.dll as Al said.
Thus i do not have any control over it except by specifying what the max player setting are.
I am aware that monster damage does not increase after p8 yet experience rewards increase and are even more generous than before.
just tested it on kobold: p1 = 3 exp, p8 = 3 * 4.5 = 13 exp p127 = 3*16.3 = 48 exp.
It seems there is no exp increase at p9 and from p10 exp is increase by 10% per additional player instead of 5% - cant really do anything about it myself besides requesting someone to fix the plugin
http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Player_Settings

patch 5 out along with slightly updated pdf:
P8+: decreased the penalty on cube scrolls and poster drop as i have increased those too much in patch 3. while cube scrolls seem to be somewhat ok and i think ill have to further decrease the penalty on posters.
fixed horadric cube crash - that one was annoying me to no end. not sure about other
removed food, returned potion drop - yeah, food was flexible, but it required too much hassle to be usable compared to potions which are usable as soon as yu pick them
cyclone armor description
upgrader reciper for zyel frag and scroll - frag uses id book as base, full scroll uses tp book as base
rare requirement fix in d2game.dll - lets hope some good-hearted hacker (...scratch that... i mean) asm programmer makes a d2mod plugin for that. Untill that you will have to bear with a quick fix in the dll. Backup your original dll. The fix only applies to new items you find. Doesn't affect existing items.

EDIT: rare requirements bug still exists. Should be fixed in next patch

[Elafar]

It seems that link for documentation is the same as for link for update..= no documentation
anyway, thx for update

[Montex]

My copy-paste skills have failed me
fixed that. The changes to the pdf are:
the new hireling section;
removed piggy bank thumbnail recipe (as we do not have piggy banks any more);
added updater recipes for zyel fragment and zyel scroll.

[Elafar]

Thx, and big thx and applause for softening nerf on drops on P8+ , IMHO now it's more in line with how it was in old Zy-el and since you changed /nerfed recipes for upgrade scrolls it still far away from becoming OP ..

EDIT.....Collectors doesn't increase the number after combining them with stuff...Upgrader and extractor doesn't work at all

[Montex]

Collectors / extractors work normally for me... Are you sure you copied all the dll files? Since i assume you use d2se to launch the game.
Also im not too sure where should d2game.dll go in d2se

[Elafar]

aaaah....that may be why...goin to migrate it to another location....will test it in a min ..

[Al-T]

patch 5 out along with slightly updated pdf...

I have just downloaded this patch and will use it from now on but before doing so I carried on testing with my Druid at /Players 8:

Den of Evil: Was as expected and no diference to 1.09d that I could see

Cold Plains: Mainly as expected but Bishibosh's camp seemed less densely populated (no Carver Shamen...maybe just the way it spawned for me and might be different next time) than in 1.09d and a good bit easier to clear. No hardship there

Burial Grounds: Went as expected

Mausloeum & Crypt: In 1.09d, even with lots of Rock Golems etc., I would have been able to go in "gung-ho" and clear it with the 30+ Ravens my Druid now has with little fear of being hit. It was nice to see instead, that Dark Archers are much more aggressive than they are in 1.09d and my Druid had to glug a few "Super Healing" potions to stay alive. After the first few encounters I was much more cautious in my approach with him. NICE JOB ON THIS ONE

Not convinced yet of the benefit of Skulls giving Thorns vs removal of Knockback from the Nef rune....tested a Barb to Level 11 and although it was nice to be able to stand "toe-to-toe" with a mob of 6 Skeletons + 2 Zombies and a bunch of Quill Rats/Spike Fiends, had he done so in 1.09d at that level with the gear he was using, it would have been "lights-out". I won't make up my mind on this until I have tested him a bit further along with an Amazon (**thinking Knockback is nice with Multishot when taking on large mobs of Monoliths in Dark Wood etc***).

fixed horadric cube crash - that one was annoying me to no end. not sure about other

That type of crash only happened today (all day yesterday was fine) for me and yes, it was annoying as heck Thankyou very much for fixing that

I am really looking forward to getting a few characters as far as the Insanity Levels and testing them out. I am intrigued as to how insane the damage will be on a Sorceress with Level 250 Hydras/Meteor/Fireball/Firewall (stacked )/Charged Bolt/Chain Lightning/Frozen Orb/Blizzard and even Melee Damage with Enchant...all with Masteries at Level 250.......Drool

Keep up the good work Montex

[Elafar]

Sadly migrating dll didn't do any good, unless someone with far greater knowledge about d2SE than mine helps, I may be reinstalling D2 back to 1.10 and doing installation direct txt way

[Montex]

While nef rune was probably the most common way to get knockback it isn't the only one for sure. And i think i will add some common cube scrolls with knockback as well.
Does anyone else has trouble with collectors after patch 5? Its true, that i changed the plugin that control this but it works for me without any problems.
my melee zon was just raped by black rogues. RIP... No more HC for now while testing. was playing on p8 and had 400 thorns damage at lvl 40. Sadly she was lacking resistances (skulls instead of dias) and armor...
Resumed my SC necro. After a few inner closter runs i decided to rearrange the mobs there a little bit. You should see the results tomorrow.

[Elafar]

Collector issue solved. I needed to reinstall mod using ordinary way following your instructions. Untill someone incorporate it ( your version of the mod) again with d2SE it should be the safest way to continue.
Regarding "nef" and knock back ..how about giving knock back to ranged rune words -those that have nef within ?

and yeah, playing HC is probably not the best idea for testing

[Eberhardt]

Thanks for the update.

I'm experiencing the same problems with the collector. I'm using d2se too, so far nothing helped (specifying the dll in d2mod.ini, copying it into the CORES/1.10f folder). The dll is referenced from the CORES folder but the collector stuff is not working for some reason. So technically everything is in order but in fact...

EDIT: The requirements bug is fixed btw even with the collector not functioning. I guess it's not dll problem then

I'll try to find a solution but it looks weird already

[Montex]

Patch 6:
P8+: less gems, jewelry, runes (but mobs drop slightly better runes), more cube scrolls, posters.
less armor for summons
slightly reduced dark ones group size
Inner closter map
D2SE installer
Another attempt to fix rare requirements

Rushed with this one as some of you had trouble with D2SE.
i think the drop for cube scrolls and posters is to good now. Cant find the amount i want
Also there is some animation for knights (Nee, wraith, mithril) missing. Will fix later