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The arcane sanctuary was one of the few places where I would split up when playing multiplayer. Most of the time it's more fun to clear things together (and exp is only shared with nearby players), but with distinct paths the arcane sanctuary is easy to split up. Also, like you said, the portal area does indeed suck as melee (minus barb with jump), so we always had a ranged character go down that path.
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Nov 5, 2022 12:34
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Portal area rules with Summoner because it ports all your skellies with you in a nice clump around you (also why teleport on necro is busto), so enemies waiting for you? Hell yeah
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Nov 5, 2022 13:00
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MagusofStars posted:This is also why regen and life-steal are fundamentally pointless. Even if life-steal was buffed, the deaths still occur over such a short time frame that life-steal is rarely going to be enough to tip the scales from dead to "barely survived". And Diablo just isn't built with any real endurance/gauntlet style dungeons, so the fact that steal/regen keeps you topped up between battles isn't particularly meaningful. The bit about mana leech here is absolutely correct. Most physical characters want at least a small amount of it, because it completely obviates the need to use mana potions except against unleechable enemies (of which there aren't that many, and you can use potions there). That said, I do think everyone is underselling life leech a bit. The thing about Diablo II, especially in lategame/endgame, is that there's a big imbalance in damage numbers between player characters and monsters. Monsters typically have tens of thousands of HP and deal ~100 damage per hit. Meanwhile, player characters have hundreds of HP (extremely durable characters might hit a couple thousand, but it's not too unusual for a glassier character to have under 1000 HP, and some of the most durable reached 5000 or so), and are outputting thousands of damage per hit. So even after factoring in all the penalties, the damage numbers were so big and life totals so small that it was definitely possible for a character to keep their life full via leeching and only be vulnerable to death from sudden big damage spikes (like Fire Enchanted explosions and such, or a lot of hits at once, getting stunlocked, etc). It isn't a perfect solution by all means, but it's not useless. Of course, if you really wanted near-immortality by leeching life from enemies, what you wanted was Life Tap, one of the Necromancer's curses. This let you recover some absurd percentage like 50% of the damage, was completely unaffected by all the other penalties leech normally suffered, and (I think?) worked on unleechable enemies. You could get charges of this on a wand, or there was a set of unique gloves called Dracul's Grasp that gave a chance to cast Life Tap on striking, and were more or less the best in slot gloves for any physical character who didn't prefer having other curses around.
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Nov 5, 2022 14:32
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Life Tap does work on everything, yes. Like skeletons. I also think leech shouldn't be underestimated. There's plenty of big HP sacks that you CAN leech on, and that won't kill a well-built character instantly, but will wear your potion stock down fast if you don't replenish your life. That's where leech shines: so you can do Baalruns, 4/5 waves and the big boy himself, without having to go back to town once.
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Nov 5, 2022 15:40
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As a heads up, it is extra life week and I've been spending it socializing in local events. I am definitely going to be late with this next update, (though not that late, maybe just a day or two late) but I figure it's a special enough occasion. It also gives me time to 
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Nov 6, 2022 08:50
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Alright, new update's up. It's the end of Act 2.
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Nov 7, 2022 19:46
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Duriel was the bane of like 12 year old me... I had no idea how the mechanics worked, and I got owned by the "monsters attack during loading" thing as well.
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Nov 7, 2022 21:29
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I really don't know what to make of the necromancer just being given a skill that effortlessly generates corpses. As frustrating as it could sometimes be, having to manage corpses was one of the things that made necromancers unique and interesting in the original game. This change feels well-intentioned, and I'm sure it smooths out gameplay considerably, but it feels like a mistake to me. (If you asked me, I'd say it would be better to overhaul the druid's summoning tree into a corpse-independent summoner alternative, and leave the necromancer alone.) Blood Golem is a fairly boring skill now, but it had an interesting history. From the beginning, the intent was that its life was linked to yours, so it healed you when it did damage (and healed when you used potions on yourself), but you lost life when it took damage. It tended to be very risky to use and very much not worth it (barring an infamous bug that made it OP when paired with the Iron Maiden curse, which got fixed pretty early; I don't remember exactly what this did though). Eventually, very late in the game's life cycle (I think it was 1.13), they decided the drawback was stupid and got rid of it entirely. So now, Blood Golem is just a golem that leeches life and heals you when it does so (and I think it still gets health when you use potions?), and is a lot more viable for it. DarkMatt posted:We don't have a good way to rescue Hirelings if they get in a jam...yet, and each time she dies we have to pay a gold fee to resurrect her, which is a cost I don't want to pay. I'm kind of confused what you mean by this, unless you're maybe thinking of a source of Teleport? Town Portals also kind of work, though of course you're jumping out of the battle and back into it (and it doesn't work that great unless you open a portal in advance before you need it). Also, you can feed potions to mercenaries. Either by dragging and dropping it onto their portrait (which is usually too slow to do mid-combat), or by holding shift when pressing the belt hotkey. Full rejuvs work just as well on them as they do on player characters. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it can help keep them from dying. Replacing Werebear with "Elemental Form" is a neat idea for the druid, especially because in vanilla wolf and bear builds tended to end up pretty similar. They used different skills and had slightly different textures of play style, but ultimately they felt fairly similar in being hard-hitting melee tanks that wanted to maximise their attack speed. (Werewolf was supposed to be the "fast and accurate" to Werebear's "slow, hard-hitting tank" but it just meant you took different paths to the end result most of the time, and balanced their gear a bit differently.) I'll be interested to see where the elemental form's play style lands. So, let's talk about Duriel. Oh, Duriel. Simultaneously one of the least and most interesting bosses in this game, because he's very straightforward and also often unreasonably difficult. He's not difficult because the game is asking anything elaborate or technical from the player, he's difficult because he outputs big damage numbers and inhibits your movement in a small arena. Ironically, the best strategy against him was often to employ slowing of your own, if you could (Decrepify is really good against him, if you can survive long enough to cast it). Also, it was often a really bad idea to try playing hit and run with him, because he won't use his charge until you get out of melee range, and that hits harder than his other attacks. Depending on your character, strategies often boiled down to "get better equipment" or "win via attrition using potions/town portal/reviving your merc". Duriel is also, interestingly, basically the only boss nobody ever did repeat runs of. He doesn't have any particular draws as far as loot tables go (even Andariel was kind of popular, due to having better odds for rings; I don't remember the technical details of why, but she was often a target for people seeking Stones of Jordan)... and on top of that, you have to find the right tomb again, and once you've completed the quest the log no longer tells you which one is correct. Once your map gets rerolled (e.g. on changing difficulties or entering a multiplayer game), you won't know which tomb to go to. (The false tombs are a thing, too, but nobody ever went into those either, even among players who were inclined to clear optional dungeons. There's a superunique Horadric Mummy in one of them, Ancient Kaa the Soulless, but that's about it. If you've seen the real tomb, the false ones are just more of the same.)
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Nov 8, 2022 00:10
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The angels take on a central role in Diablo 3, where Imperius is an annoyance (especially because he’s not a boss fight) and another member of the Council serves as main antagonist of the expansion (I won’t spoil that). Tyrael is an ally once again.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:20
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Tyrael is the most incompetent moron in a game full of them. He trained the Horadrim wrong as a joke, never checked back on them after they fulfilled their initial purpose, ignored Sanctuary entirely while the Prime Evils tried taking over - twice - then tried to do something way too late and hosed it up so badly he now has to beg mortals for help. And he's all "you gotta hurry" about it. gently caress you, do your job better. In 3, they write him as openly stupid, sometimes to the point of comic relief instead. I don't even know which version is worse. What a terrible loving character.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:55
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Getting your rear end kicked by Normal Duriel was practically a rite of passage for newbies. He's a huge difficulty spike, fought in a tiny arena, high damage, and also hits at a really awkward time in the leveling curve when most builds are just starting to really get off the ground. He also bears an uncanny resemblance to a Hydralisk. No idea if the design team intentionally copied the style, unconsciously modeled it due to playing tons of Starcraft while drawing graphics, or it's purely a coincidence, but it's pretty striking. quote:It was even worse in past versions of Diablo 2, which had the infinite wisdom of processing monsters and updating the game, as you load into the new area. This is extremely difficult to observe now, inbetween the patches fixing this and new computers not even blinking to load this 2000 game, but this lead to ever more infamy with Duriel and new players: you can try to teleport back in and you're already dead before you load in. Programming is hard. Explopyro posted:Duriel is also, interestingly, basically the only boss nobody ever did repeat runs of. He doesn't have any particular draws as far as loot tables go (even Andariel was kind of popular, due to having better odds for rings; I don't remember the technical details of why, but she was often a target for people seeking Stones of Jordan)... and on top of that, you have to find the right tomb again, and once you've completed the quest the log no longer tells you which one is correct. Once your map gets rerolled (e.g. on changing difficulties or entering a multiplayer game), you won't know which tomb to go to. (The false tombs are a thing, too, but nobody ever went into those either, even among players who were inclined to clear optional dungeons. There's a superunique Horadric Mummy in one of them, Ancient Kaa the Soulless, but that's about it. If you've seen the real tomb, the false ones are just more of the same.) MagusofStars fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 01:38
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Explopyro posted:Duriel is also, interestingly, basically the only boss nobody ever did repeat runs of. [...](The false tombs are a thing, too, but nobody ever went into those either, even among players who were inclined to clear optional dungeons. There's a superunique Horadric Mummy in one of them, Ancient Kaa the Soulless, but that's about it. If you've seen the real tomb, the false ones are just more of the same.) Yeah, nobody ever did Duriel runs in particular, but I specifically remember tomb runs being one of the most popular ways to powerlevel characters into the midgame. They were popular enough that people would run public games of them on battle.net, and you could easily find games of them to join on normal difficulty. I think it was something like Tristram runs to level 15 or so, tomb runs to 30, and then later game stuff we haven't seen.
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Nov 8, 2022 02:21
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Spoggerific posted:Yeah, nobody ever did Duriel runs in particular, but I specifically remember tomb runs being one of the most popular ways to powerlevel characters into the midgame. They were popular enough that people would run public games of them on battle.net, and you could easily find games of them to join on normal difficulty. Oh, yeah, I always forget about this because I mostly played offline with /players8 (where there's zero need to power level and just playing through the game normally will leave you at ~86-88 by the end of Hell). This is absolutely correct. Once again, I don't remember the precise technical details here, but the reason for this had to do with the way D2 has diminishing returns on experience if the level difference is too great (in either direction). If I remember right, this particular levelling path did eventually get superseded by another method, but a lot of people kept doing it anyway. Simply Simon posted:Tyrael is the most incompetent moron in a game full of them. He trained the Horadrim wrong as a joke, never checked back on them after they fulfilled their initial purpose, ignored Sanctuary entirely while the Prime Evils tried taking over - twice - then tried to do something way too late and hosed it up so badly he now has to beg mortals for help. This is absolutely the case, and also something I completely failed to notice as a kid because he looked cool and had an impressive-sounding voice. I remember when D3 came around thinking I really didn't appreciate how badly Tyrael came off in it, but going back to look at D2 pretty much everything that goes wrong is at least indirectly his fault, and every time he tries to fix something he makes it much worse. I would put this down to bad writing, but honestly, at least the first two Diablo games were nihilistic enough it might just be a theme. Spaceballs posted:"Now you see why evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."
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Nov 8, 2022 02:42
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Mentioning Tristram made me remember another small thing about multiplayer: when you're touching the cairn stones in the circle to open up the portal, they start making a humming noise. Each stone makes its own noise that stacks with the others, and if you touch 4 stones but leave the 5th one one alone, it will start making an awful humming noise at an unreasonable volume until you finally touch the last one and start the event. Only someone who had the quest to open Tristram could activate the stones, so if you were a low level character being escorted by higher level friends, you could just leave that last stone unactivated to torture your friends (and yourself) as a prank.
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Nov 8, 2022 02:59
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Seeing all of the maggots pour out of Duriel's corpse reminds me that, while it doesn't actually do anything (no EXP/gold/items), someone on the dev team went to the trouble of allowing players to squish those maggots/caterpillars/scorpions/creepy crawlies.
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Nov 8, 2022 03:05
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Diablo 2 is a gross game.
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Nov 8, 2022 06:59
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Explopyro posted:I'm kind of confused what you mean by this, unless you're maybe thinking of a source of Teleport? Town Portals also kind of work, though of course you're jumping out of the battle and back into it (and it doesn't work that great unless you open a portal in advance before you need it). Also, you can feed potions to mercenaries. Either by dragging and dropping it onto their portrait (which is usually too slow to do mid-combat), or by holding shift when pressing the belt hotkey. Full rejuvs work just as well on them as they do on player characters. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it can help keep them from dying. This is exactly what I'm talking about. I can use Town Portals but that's not a good idea for every single time the mercenary gets stuck in a tree, or drowned in a sea of demons, or otherwise pretends to not be here. It's worth noting that some mods make the mercenary much more capable of keeping up with you and that tends to solve most mercenary related problems because they'll never fall behind and then get stuck. I just wish this was all mods. Simply Simon posted:Tyrael is the most incompetent moron in a game full of them. I mean, I wasn't gonna say anything until we finish Normal, but you know what I suppose you don't have to play very much of either Diablo 2 or 3 to conclude he is a giant idiot, as I have. It doesn't help that, while I was going through those games, I kept on adding to the "list of bad ideas Tyrael had" list. DarkMatt fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 19:21
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It's one of those things where the plot couldn't possibly happen the way it does if everyone involved didn't have their heads firmly planted up their own respective rear end, but hoo boy is it frustrating when it starts to become apparent that that's the case.
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Nov 8, 2022 21:33
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Mechanics Talk 5: Item Affixes and Where to Find Them (All Mechanics Talk assume vanilla Diablo II unless otherwise noted.) Are you ready for  ? Because I have a lot of them today.There's many item affixes, and some of our mods add even more, ever more. Going over all of them isn't necessary especially since a lot of them aren't good, but today I'll be going over how they work, and the cool affixes you can find on magic and rare items. For starters, whenever an item is generated, it will be generated with an affix level, or alvl. It's an invisible variable that determines what affixes can show up. How the game determines alvl depends on two variables of the item: -The ilvl/item level, which is typically the level of the monster who dropped it, which in most scenarios is the area's level, but in Normal, monster levels won't necessarily line up with the area's level. Act bosses and a couple other superuniques and monster types do not follow this rule at all, and will have their own level per difficulty. -The qlvl/quality level, which is a level based on the item type being dropped. This determines two things: if the item can even drop from the monster, and it also influences what affixes can be rolled. Furthermore, there's also Treasure Class. I'll briefly describe this because this is sanity-blasting trying to truly comprehend this. What monster you killed will influence what can drop. We've already seen a practical application of this with the Countess, but many monsters, superuniques, and bosses will have their own biases to what can and can't drop. It's brought up here because certain monsters are more likely to drop magic items and up than others, like oh, act bosses. This is as far as I go describing Treasure Class though because it's nightmare material. Just remember: certain monsters are better targets for what you want than others. So let's start with magic items. All affixes are seperated into two groups: prefixes, (X Sword) and suffixes. (Sword of X) Magic items when generated have a 50% chance to have a suffix, a 25% chance to have a prefix, and a 25% chance to have both. Rare items are like magic items except they will roll anywhere from 3 to 6 affixes. I think I mentioned previously they can roll 2 but I might've been wrong back then. (Might've been because similar affixes will be read on one line. The game does that.) It's 3-6, with you being most likely to get 5, and the distribution of affix types being no less than 1, no more than 3 pre/suffixes. Other than that, they're the same as magics. All affixes also belong to affix groups, which are there to limit what you can get. If you get an affix from one group, you can't get another affix from that same group. The best example of this is guaranteeing you won't get the same affix twice, so unfortunately if you roll the highest tier of +Life, for example, you aren't getting the second highest tier of +Life as well. Ilvl and qlvl also determines if the item can even drop as a set or unique item, since they have their level requirements as well. Each unique and set item also has its own qlvl, and if the game decides to make the dropped item green or gold, if ilvl is not the same or higher, it will be downgraded. (Though as a pity prize, it'll have extra durability.) Some endgame uniques have very high ilvls that you'll only see matched by Hell act bosses and beyond. Each affix has their own affix level, or alvl, attached to it, which is a rough estimate of how well the item's level must be to roll that mod. Most affixes do not have a ceiling to the range, which means, unfortunately in vanilla, your magics and rares can roll affixes you can find in the very beginning of the game even when you're grinding in Hell. Mods fix this, mercifully, but I don't recall off the top of my head which ones do. I want to say all of the LP mods do, but don't hold me to that. Now then, to finally explain how alvl is calculated. I found this formula off a forum post on Amazon Basin, and here it is: If (ilvl>99) then {ilvl=99} if (qlvl>ilvl) then {ilvl=qlvl} ;** see note below if (magic_lvl>0) then {alvl=ilvl+magic_lvl} else { if (ilvl<(99-qlvl/2)) then {alvl=ilvl-qlvl/2} else {alvl=2*ilvl-99} } Here's the formula in layman's terms: -ilvl can't be higher than 99, and if qlvl is greater than ilvl, ilvl becomes the same as qlvl only for calculating alvl. -Magic_lvl is something explained in a bit. -If there's no magic_lvl, the formula changes depending on whether ilvl and half of qlvl equals 99 or more. -If it's less, then half of qlvl is subtracted from ilvl and that becomes your alvl. This means items with higher qlvl will have a worse alvl, and in turn roll worse mods. -If it's that or more, then only ilvl influences alvl, and this will create a range where qlvl will do nothing and only ilvl matters. This won't be for a while though. -It is impossible for an item dropped from a monster to have a qlvl greater than ilvl, since ilvl must be equal to qlvl or higher to drop in the first place. There are, however, ways to get an item with greater qlvl than ilvl. The biggest takeaways from this is that crap item types that drop much later on, will actually roll better affixes...which is not good news for builds based around using gear damage and defense because it'll be a pain in the butt until those builds are past the slump. Now, there's some extra wrinkles in this formula: qlvl is based entirely on item type, which each of them having their own qlvl. Jewelry have a qlvl of 1, and charms either have 1, 14, or 28 for qlvl depending on whether it's grand size, large size, or small size. Certain item types, however, do some extra tomfoolery with this formula. Namely, circlets, staves, wands, and orbs. These will have a secret bonus to ilvl (the previously mentioned magic_lvl) and it will result in rolling better affixes, because, instead of using qlvl at all, it will instead set the alvl to ilvl + the magic level bonus. While I'm here it's worth noting that circlet-type items can roll a lot of different high-power affixes, so they tend to be worth at least looking at when they drop. This is my rough estimation of how affix rolling works. The actual math is far more eldritch and incomprehensible. Looking for info on the web about this is a nightmare. Parsing it is even worse. So, I mainly just clap my hands and go, "Farther in the game you are, the better the mods it'll roll. The worst the item is, the more the game tries to make up for it by rolling better mods" That's a good rule of thumb, especially when you ignore gear damage and defense. Since it's in the neighborhood, set and unique generation is mostly similar: when that item type drops, it has a chance to be a set or a unique item in addition to being magic or rare. If it does, and it satisfies the other requirements, it'll become that set/unique. The exception to this is jewelry. If you get a amulet, ring, or jewel to drop green or gold, instead, it picks a random valid choice out of the pool of uniques or sets. Like item affixes, there's no ceiling to what can show based on ilvl, and ilvl still needs to meet a certain unique-dependent qlvl, so items like the very elusive Stone of Jordan has to compete with every other unique ring that can show up, which are far more likely to drop than that specific unique. Same goes for set jewelry. Now for the fun part of this Mechanics Talk: what you can find. This is not an exhaustive list, and it mainly just showcases the affixes you'd love to see on gear, and also on uniques, since some affixes you'll only ever see on sets and uniques. Mods do play with this concept, especially Eastern Sun and Median XL, but everything listed is going off vanilla knowledge. These mods can only be rolled on specific gear types, and I am not gonna go over every single one. Read Arreat Summit or somethin' if you want in-depth knowledge, but with very vital affixes I'll help ya out then. +X Added Elemental Damage: This is added to any weapon hit you do, and early on, your charms will generally roll this and you'll keep those to get good damage output, if you're going melee or ranged. +X Added Damage: The physical version of this affix is worth pointing out, because plenty of things look at your weapon's base physical damage, and completely ignores added elemental damage. This mod, because most affixes don't add that much, is generally brushed aside in physical builds, but it can help. +X% Damage: This is another weapon better mod, except it stacks with added physical damage, multiplying it as well, leading to wumbo physical damage with your stick. There's also an affix that gives a flat bonus to AR and a percentage bonus to weapon damage, and those work just as well. Do note that all forms of added damage act different depending on whether it's on the weapon or on something else. If it's on the stick, it'll multiply the base damage before skills multiply it either, but only apply to that stick when dual-wielding. Otherwise, the affix will be added to all weapons you're using, but be summed with skill-based +X% damage and be less effective. (though still useful) Ditto for +Defense and +X% Defense affixes on armor. +X Life: Self-explanatory. Is good to find on a rare for, uhh, everybody. +X Mana: Jewelry, orbs, and Circlets can roll this, and they do help with fueling magic spells, probably better than any other way to fuel magic spells honestly, including mana leech. (Based on Character Level): You may see affixes that will scale based on your level, but I am pretty sure most of them are very paltry no matter what. Not the worst thing to find on gear if it lines up with what you want it to do, but it won't be the same as rolling the top tier affix that doesn't scale with level. A very cool concept that'll get used in mods to varying success though, so I'm pointing it out here. +X Element Resist: This is the time I get to point out that oh hi, gear will be your primary way of getting resists, whether it be from affixes like this or having sockets you can put resist gems/runes/jewels into. It's very vital and I won't stop stressing this. +X to (Class/Class Tab) Skill Levels: One of the best prefixes to find, because it doesn't care about the level 20 cap of skills and most everyone can make use of it. Even if you're not relying entirely on skill level for damage, it'll still contribute, but is important to point out that it depends on the skills. Some skills don't care much about it, while others very much care. Some skills rely on your weapon damage instead and that'll make boosting that more important than boosting the skill's level. Anyway, comes in two flavors: all skills of that class, and all skills of a specific tab if you're that class. There's also just "X to all skills" affixes that can be lumped into here as well. The easiest way to get the affix you want is to use class-exclusive gear, which will roll skill affixes for that class and no others. Amulets and generic gear can supply them as well but can roll the affix of other classes, making them zonk prizes for you. [MXL] Also, Median XL heavily nerfs skill bonuses off gear in most cases, in that the big boosts will only care about base levels. While that's tragic, it does mean you can focus on different affixes in most case. +X% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items: Yeah this affix gets its own Mechanics Talk. Add Sockets: Some magic and rares can have an affix that gets them free sockets. However, runewords demand specific socket amounts and normal items, so you'll only be able to socket gems and jewels. On one hand, you can find really good rune and jewels to socket in those. On the other, some of the best things you can use this affix with? Are incredibly rare. Unfortunately, because a quest reward can punch sockets in, and this takes up an affix slot, it's not particularly desirable. +X to Stat: Largely useless, but +Vit/Eng is basically just free Life/Mana. ...Free Life/Mana that will be ignored by skill-based boosts like Oak Sage but what I'm saying is it's not quite a zonk prize. Sure, +Str/+Dex can help you equip gear, but uhh, there's quite a few fun bugs involving only being able to equip gear because of other gear you have, and then having to do things like collect your corpse or play multiplayer or have charms with this. +X% Increased Attack/Cast/Hit Recovery/Blocking Speed: So all these mods are being grouped together, because they are all extremely good and vital. They're all suffixes. Attack speed can be found on weapons and gloves; cast speed on amulets, circles, orbs, rings, and rods; hit recovery on armor, belts, and shields; and block on shields. Faster attack and cast speed just acts as an extra additional multiplier to your damage output, only hindered by if you get hit, but that can also be sped up by recovering from hits and blocks faster. Finally, while it says a percentage, it is kind of correct. Every animation has a base framerate in this 25 frames per second game, and to tick that down by 1, because it can't do percentages, you must have enough speed increase to get it down by a whole number. (This is referred to as breakpoints.) Several animations also have a hard cap on how fast it can go as well, so plenty of tools and charts exist to just tell you how much speed you need for what action you're doing. +X% Faster Walk/Run: Mentioned here because, when you don't have a skill to zip around everywhere, this is what you use. Find it on shoes and circlets. +X/+X% (Magic) Damage Reduction: So, early on, Magic Damage Reduction was fantastic because it reduced every single type of damage except physical after resistances. I have since been corrected by enough people that, no, unfortunately, it's done before resistance reduction, making it incredibly useless. I can't even redeem this by saying it does affect magic damage, because there's very few sources and I'm pretty sure none of them are so lethal to warrant using this. Maybe mods fix this, I can't tell. Normal Damage Reduction, however, can be useful if you are capable of stacking enough of it, since if you get the hit down to close to 0 Amplify Damage will be harmless, but it does have the issue of only affecting physical, and, offering really small amounts of reduction per affix. Man.  +Attacker Takes Damage of X: Mentioned here because this is the iconic zonk prize to get on an item. It sucks so bad. It gets no bonuses from anything else. There's some skills that also have this effect, but instead multiplies the damage they dealt and give it back to them. Also it only works on melee hits, which is plenty of hits, but not, all of them. Finally, you'll never get a good amount of damage returned, no matter what. It's trash. Knockback: Mentioned here because you may think it might be good, because you typically have better melee range than every monster, except, it doesn't work on some monsters and it only works one at a time. Also, you'll eventually knock them out of your range and have to move up to hit them, losing damage output. It sucks. Archers can somewhat benefit from it, though. Attack Ignores Target's Defense: This is not as good at it sounds. For starters, it treats target defense as 0 and proceeds as normal with the hit formula, meaning levels still matter. Also, it only works on normal monsters, and not champions uniques bosses and so on. So while it does give a considerable boost to hit, it's not reliable and it does nothing against the worst offenders. Prevent Monster Healing: Useful later because, upon weapon hit, that monster will no longer regen, which is useful in certain scenarios, but those are few and far inbetween. Doesn't stop reviving either that's a different affix. Half Freeze Duration: Useful. Applied after cold resist and it chops your chill length in half. Unfortunately getting this twice doesn't give you chill immunity, and for the longest time I and many others thought this. This is what happens when the official strategy guide gives up on setting things straight because it admits it itself cannot grasp the true form of Diablo 2's mechanics. Indestructible/Self-Repairing: Never have to repair this. Fun fact: Ethereal items can roll Self-Repairing, but not Indestrucible, which is a funny failure of trying to balance. Zod runes also grant these, and so do certain runewords. Fun fact 2: Ranged weapons and gear you are going to give your merc don't care about durability, because in those cases they never wear down. (fun quirk) In those cases, congrats on your zonk prize. Replenish Quantity: Okay, if you're using a yellow throwing weapon you will need this mod because it'll allow you to effectively throw forever. Otherwise you will run out of throwables far too often. Skill Charges: This is different from extra skill levels because it is tied to the item itself and has limited uses. Unfortunately those two points make them terrible for most cases. The level of said skill is tied to the ilvl, does not benefit from any skill bonuses whatever, and is really patheticly leveled. I'm not going over every such skill, especially the ones that just provide...uhh...an attack, or a low-grade damage spell. And those are what you will get most of the time. But, there are some good things to find, like most Necromancer curses, Oak Sage, Enchantment, or...Teleport.  You see, Teleport as a charge skill can show up on staves, (along with orbs amulets and circlets) and staves can not only be equipped by anyone, but they're sold in shops. Once you get far enough in the game to have the shops selling items with level 24+ affixes, you can go grind for a teleport staff. I recommend you do this, because Teleport is busted and will allow you to skip across most dead-ends with relative ease. Who cares if it has limited use and it'll cost a bunch of gold to refuel? You, weren't using gold for much anyway, and you can just save it for when you dead-end or it's faster to clip through pits and walls than go around. I've even had mods just delete the skill charge affixes because they're bad the other 90% of the time and Teleport is hella OP.X% Chance to Cast on Y: Oh, these things. Their effectiveness depends entirely on what they are, what level they are, and how they're triggered. You can either trigger this off hitting something, (on strike) getting hit, (when struck) or just attacking with a weapon at all. (on attack) 9 times out of 10 they're useless because it'll be 5% to cast uhh, Level 3 Charged Bolt, when struck. It'll do pitiful damage and you can't boost it. Sets, uniques, and runewords though do give better levels and are more usable. The chance to cast a damage spell on attack/strike though aren't bad since they will, at least, indrectly scale off attack speed. If they're strong enough you don't even need weapon damage, just maybe a good chance and enough speed. One of the best things to get, though, is 5% Chance to cast a Necro curse on striking. (if you aren't using curses already) Level 1 Amplify Damage on strike is pretty common as well. Freezes Target: On weapon hit, you freeze them. Only works on normal and minion monsters, the rest are only chilled, and it doesn't say but it's a chance to freeze, that while fairly high, is dependant on your level and theirs and nerfed if it's a ranged hit. It's also random how long it'll last. Nonetheless, it is useful because it'll be very consistent on melee hits. Now, the following affixes will only show up on uniques and sets. Possibly even runewords: -X% Target Defense: This is better than ignoring target defense, in that it applies at half effect for super uniques and bosses and full effect for everyone else. It'll eventually cap at setting their Defense to 0 but it'll be useful for weapon builds as you will, eventually, bring down everyone's defense. X% Piercing Projectiles: Applies to any projectile thrown or shot with a weapon. Since piercing projectiles apply to all non-magic skills shooting a projectile as well, this can be really good for Amazon and other classes using ranged, because on-hit effects, like oh say Immolation Arrow, will apply again for each additional monster hit. It's not easy to get a hold of, though, especially in good quantities, since only one belt and one set bonus gives this affix outside of weapons, but it is possible to get it very high, or even maxed at 100%. +X/+X% Elemental Absorb: Flat elemental absorb works like damage reduction, but will also heal you for the amount reduced. Just like damage reduction, its effectiveness depends entirely on whether you're playing in the past or the future. It's actually not bad though, especially the percentage-based absorb, since it's effectively applied at double the rate. I wouldn't expect it to actually heal you though. It probably never will. X% Deadly Strike: Or, chance to do a critical hit.  It doesn't just deal double your physical damage, it deals double your MAXIMUM physical weapon damage. This is a very sought after affix if you use a weapon for damage, but regrettably it won't stack with other ways to do the same thing, like Assassin's Critical Strike and the Weapon Mastery passives of Barbarian, for example. Once one of those succeed, the rest of the rolls are ignored. You can't do a double crit.X% Crushing Blow: This is the best affix you'll ever use for melee or ranged. On weapon hit, the target loses a percentage of their current life. By default, with melee, this is 25%. And let me remind you, you can swing reaaaaaally fast in this game. There are some "attempts" to balance this affix: that life loss is cut in half if it's a ranged hit, cut in half again if it's against a superunique or a boss. 1/16th per successful Crushing Blow though is still, uhh, yes much life lost, and nothing's immune to it. This is a boss killer and a crowd clearer. If you're melee, it's your best friend. Even the most terrifying bosses will eventually be brought low if you're allowed to hit them enough times. All the balancing Blizzard did to remove ways to dunk bosses and this one still exists. In case you don't follow, I love this affix, and I love using this whenever I can. Monster life scaling due to multiple players does not translate to Crushing Blow at all and it'll remove 1/4 of 1x that monster life, instead of what their actual max life is, but it's still very good and, that wrinkle doesn't stop me when I do most of my gameplay by myself without using /players 8. But, uhh, keep that in mind.Open Wounds: On weapon hit, causes life degen for a period of time. It's based on your level, but it's really only useful to counteract monster regen because, like poison, it doesn't stack, and it doesn't deal a terrible lot of damage. Better than Prevent Monster Heal though. Slain Monsters Rest in Peace: Never deal with shamans again! By the way, if you're with people who want those corpses, (or you want those corpses yourself) they will HATE you for utilizing this affix. Handle with care. Slows Target: This is the other busted affix to find on shiny things. It will slow their move, attack, AND cast speed by the listed percentage on weapon hit. It's capped at 75-90% slow, (depends on the speed type) each individual hit can only afflict 50% slow at a time, and there's some hard caps to how slow monsters can go. Other than that, nothing's immune, or even resistant to it. It also stacks with chill. All affixes sum together, and you can find this on plenty of things. No one is safe, not even Diablo.+X to Skill: Referred to as oskills, these items do not care who you are or what you are. You have this many levels in that skill now. Works best if you aren't the class that has that skill, otherwise, such boosts are capped at +3. You can only find them on uniques, sets, and runewords for good reason. Several mods do not care and want you to have fun. Regardless, oskills work in funny ways: all skill bonuses stack with them. If it's an aura, it is applied automatically and for free...in exchange for not benefiting from other skill bonuses. Non-auras get every skill boost except those that say (class only) when you're not that class. It is extremely powerful and allows you to do some real goofball stuff with your build. It's also delightfully buggy because they seriously underestimated how many interactions there would be by shoehorning this in! That's why I can say with confidence I have not scratched the surface of interactions with this thing. It's an extremely hard affix to grasp and understand how it works. Just get your +1 to Teleport off Enigma and stop thinking about it.   These mods specifically put in ways to just give you high levelled oskills as well. It's worth noting because that can lead to some extra bonus fun. I've already had rings that just gave me a free level roughly 15 Oak Sage. Oak Sage is a good skill.Phew. That's enough affixes. This is more of a cookbook on what affixes to hunt for while building than anything, and I figure I needed to pen this down as a list since we have been making use of a lot of different toys found on our gear. Because charms and jewels are different and there's still the matter of runes that all will be covered in a different Mechanics Talk. As for, how to get more drops and better drops, that's a topic for another different Mechanics Talk, so hang tight. Did I mention item generation is the Final Destination of trying to understand Diablo II?
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Nov 9, 2022 19:23
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Really nice summary!DarkMatt posted:X% Chance to Cast on Y
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Nov 9, 2022 22:51
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Simply Simon posted:Really nice summary! Ah right. That got lost somewhere. I recall that, while the chance to cast skills benefit from synergies, those skills do not provide any on their own. Also, I don't think I can properly explain the sheer disappointment I had finding out that, for a while, having qlvl and ilvl be close to eachother gives you worse affixes. Just, god, why even upgrade swing a stick or take a hit? ...Until later where it's not a problem.
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Nov 10, 2022 01:29
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New update. It's time to head into...oh boy.
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Nov 11, 2022 20:27
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The jungle loving sucks! Every part iirc has three side areas: one optional dungeon, the waypoint, and where you actually need to go. The waypoint will never be next to the latter (in spidertown at least), so that's cool if you thought finding the waypoint means you can stop for the day. Less of a problem in SP, but online ofc the map rerolls every time you start a new session. And there's one more big gently caress you but I won't spoil it just yet.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:44
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Cold-aligned Iron Wolves are actually fairly useful in vanilla for melee characters because their ability to freeze enemies can really help even the odds and prevent you getting swarmed. Long-term, yes, they're squishy, so you should dump them as soon as you reach Nightmare Act 2 (for the Desert Guards with actually useful auras), but for the remainder of Normal, they have a clear purpose and benefit. I have no idea why anyone would use the lightning or fire variants though; the damage is higher but still pretty outclassed by your character. I actually like the statue quest. The fact that you can't really guarantee when you get the drop off a corpse feels firmly in line with D2's loot finding ethos - except that the odds are high enough that it doesn't really get frustrating. And the reward is nice given that it lasts forever and is always useful regardless of class. It's also nice to have a quest that you never need to really go out of your way for; it just sort of happens at some point and that's that. Simply Simon posted:The waypoint will never be next to the latter (in spidertown at least), so that's cool if you thought finding the waypoint means you can stop for the day.
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Nov 12, 2022 02:21
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As I've mentioned before, I played Diablo 2 almost exclusively online with friends. This is the act that the people I played with hated; so much, in fact, that they had a high level character rush us through it every single time. The first time I played through Act 3 normally was probably a year or two after I started playing the game, and... yeah, they were right to skip it every time. The overall atmosphere of the act is great, but the layout of several of the areas, combined with the types of enemies present, makes things a terrible slog, especially for low mobility classes. There are some parts of it I like, and I'll point those out when we get there if OP doesn't, but this is definitely my least favorite act in the game, as it is for lots of people. Regarding Diablo's poor in-game worldbuilding and lackluster NPC dialogue, I think you're doing the game a little bit of a disservice by forgetting to mention how much worldbuilding and lore you could find in the manual and even on the Arreat Summit. You've done a bit of explaining, like when you talked about the Horadrim during the Arcane Sanctuary, but I think all of the out-of-game background information for Diablo was done rather well. As was normal for games of the era, D2 has a fairly extensive manual and a lot of lore and worldbuilding is tucked into it if you bother to read it. For one example, here's the skill description of the first skill in the vanilla Amazon bow skill tree: Diablo 2 manual posted:Far in the ancient past, Amazons found their glorious arboreal city of Tran Athulua under siege by the pirates of the Twin Seas. These cut-throats were determined to turn the Amazon Islands into their base of operations. The conflict lasted many months as the pirates laid in for a long siege. During the battle, supplies ran short, and the Amazon archers found themselves without ammunition. Realizing that their defense rested solely upon the ability of the archers to keep the corsairs at bay, the priests of the city prayed to Athulua to aid them. In answer, Athula infused the minds of the Amazons with the power to harness their natural spiritual energies. One by one the archers melded their determination and will into shards of physical force that they then unleashed from their bows by the thousands, firmly routing the corsairs back to sea. And another example from Arreat Summit, the monster description for corrupted rogues we saw back in Act 1: Corrupted Rogue posted:The corruption of the Sisterhood is perhaps the worst atrocity that the surviving Rogues endure. The sight of their own sisters, marching against them in service of their enemy, drives the Sisterhood into deep despair. The tainted Sisters are seldom caught alone, preferring to attack in groups. Many of the corrupted ones have forgotten their skills with ranged weapons, or are so driven by Hell's rage, that they blindly melee with whatever weapon is at hand. There are little blurbs like this about nearly every monster in the entire game, as well as many of the items, skills, and other miscellaneous features, should you go looking for it. None of this excuses the game for the nonsensical plot and lack of memorable characters, of course, but this was the kind of thing that I absolutely loved to dig through as a teenager when I was playing D2, and it let my imagination run wild and build up the world much more than the developers did in game.
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Nov 12, 2022 03:44
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You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby! You’re going to die! Somehow that line doesn’t have the same impact with this jungle. Huh. I mean, it’s Diablo. Of course we’re going to die. This post amused me. Hope it does the same for you.
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Nov 12, 2022 03:46
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Spoggerific posted:Regarding Diablo's poor in-game worldbuilding and lackluster NPC dialogue, I think you're doing the game a little bit of a disservice by forgetting to mention how much worldbuilding and lore you could find in the manual and even on the Arreat Summit. You've done a bit of explaining, like when you talked about the Horadrim during the Arcane Sanctuary, but I think all of the out-of-game background information for Diablo was done rather well. As was normal for games of the era, D2 has a fairly extensive manual and a lot of lore and worldbuilding is tucked into it if you bother to read it. I admit that this is a disservice and I will definitely see about fixing this in the future once I'm able to include pieces from said manual. I was unfortunately one of those people, way back then, who only understood Diablo through gameplay and whatever it said in-game. There's definitely a lot more setting outside the game and, uhh, I've already consulted plenty of it to describe the set pieces ingame so far. But to not fold completely, it does require you to, not play the game, to be able to really appreciate Sanctuary. I tend to wish this setting was better described where it matters most: ingame, because it's pretty easy to stop caring after one too many letdowns and just play a video game and not think twice about what you're doing or who's even there. If anything my love for the concept behind Sanctuary is a curse at times because of this.
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Nov 12, 2022 05:16
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Spoggerific posted:As I've mentioned before, I played Diablo 2 almost exclusively online with friends. This is the act that the people I played with hated; so much, in fact, that they had a high level character rush us through it every single time. The first time I played through Act 3 normally was probably a year or two after I started playing the game, and... yeah, they were right to skip it every time. I'm sorry, what's Act 3? I recall a jungle section where you get 20 health and then teleporting straight to the act boss because gently caress this entire act sideways with a rusty spoon. I do remember it not being absolutely terrible for a summoner necromancer (at least not yet), but it's a slog, a pain in the rear end to navigate, and incredibly boring.
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Nov 12, 2022 05:40
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I'm not that fond of Act 3 in general either, but I do have to admit I kind of like the Fetish Shamans. They keep you on your toes, especially if you're a melee character. Just gotta get a feel for the cooldown time they have after their attack. God knows the game designers had to put in something to keep you paying attention as you slog your way through. Also, I don't think you mentioned, but unlike in every other act there's no defined transition between areas of the jungle--those narrow tunnel-ish areas like Flavie is guarding in Act 1. Instead, the zone borders are arbitrary: you just walk forward and at some point you get the message saying you have entered whatever. Sometimes you can end up skipping areas because the third zone has an end forming a loop back around to the first one, etc. At least the act gets better once the jungle ends.
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Nov 12, 2022 06:17
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DarkMatt posted:I admit that this is a disservice and I will definitely see about fixing this in the future once I'm able to include pieces from said manual. I was unfortunately one of those people, way back then, who only understood Diablo through gameplay and whatever it said in-game. There's definitely a lot more setting outside the game and, uhh, I've already consulted plenty of it to describe the set pieces ingame so far. But to not fold completely, it does require you to, not play the game, to be able to really appreciate Sanctuary. I tend to wish this setting was better described where it matters most: ingame, because it's pretty easy to stop caring after one too many letdowns and just play a video game and not think twice about what you're doing or who's even there. All of the dialogue is voiced, which really cuts down on the lines of text they can reasonably put into the game. Besides that, this was an era where the manual was really expected to hype you up while you were installing the game (which took a lot longer back in the day than it does now!) or otherwise had to wait to play it.
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Nov 12, 2022 06:30
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Gnoman posted:All of the dialogue is voiced, which really cuts down on the lines of text they can reasonably put into the game. Besides that, this was an era where the manual was really expected to hype you up while you were installing the game (which took a lot longer back in the day than it does now!) or otherwise had to wait to play it. This is a fair point. Having to get all the dialogue voiced quickly spirals out of proportion though, which makes me think if I would like this game more if there was some sort of compromise on that to be able to better flesh out the world. Either that or all the gossip. ...But that aside my primary issue isn't with the quantity of in-game writing. It's the quality of in-game writing. But you know it's been so long since I read a manual that honestly I miss that. I miss reading good manuals. DarkMatt fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Nov 12, 2022 |
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Nov 12, 2022 06:37
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Come to think of it, I don't think I ever read the D2 manual. I usually do for games, but D2 I first borrowed off a friend, got hooked, and when I finally bought it myself, it was a bundle with LoD and I think that didn't even include a manual. I do remember, when writing my story about the game, that I often googled stuff (usually reaching Arreat Summit) like "Diablo 2 Sorcerer clans" if I wanted to name-drop something. A few of the readers were like "so you're reconning [x] in your version of the world?" and I'm like "I've never heard of [x] in my life, is that a thing? I'd have retconned it anyway because it sounds dumb". All of this isn't helped by the fact that I simply don't care about worldbuilding and I also don't want to write it. I don't give a poo poo about a magic academy existing far away and there's internal strife between different schools bla bla there's not a single sorcerer/ess character in the game unless you play one! What would it matter!
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Nov 12, 2022 09:25
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I think everyone hated the Kurast jungles; the first half of this act is one of the least popular parts of the game. I don't think I mind them as much as most, or at least I stopped minding once I got into the mindset of fully clearing all areas regardless; once the uncertainty of how much of it I'd have to slog through was gone, I was able to find some enjoyment in it. But they're a pain to navigate with all the rivers and narrow bridges, gaps between trees, windy paths etc, and a lot of the game's most annoying enemies live here. And on top of that, they're some of the biggest areas in the game, and have more map/layout variance than a lot of other areas. Welcome to the jungle! I always wondered if the Golden Bird quest was supposed to be a tutorial-ish hint or nudge toward trading with other players. You find a fancy thing with gold text from a monster, but it's useless to you, so you identify it with Cain and trade it to someone who does want it and get something that benefits you. The actual quest, though... uh, we just drank a dead guy's ashes and became harder to kill? All right then, sure I guess. I never understood Asheara's character design. Or, I should say, maybe I didn't until everything came out about Blizzard? Why is the leader of this supposedly-badass mage corps (who talks like she means business) wearing practically nothing? IIRC they actually did a bit better with that in D3, loath as I am to praise anything about that game. So, uh, let's talk about the Iron Wolves. As everyone's already said in various ways, they're disappointingly useless, easily the worst of the mercenaries (for a variety of reasons, which I'll get into). Which is a shame, because they're pretty cool, conceptually, and those red coats of theirs are snazzy. So what, exactly, is working against them? -Spell damage scales differently than melee, relying almost entirely on +skills and synergy bonuses. They actually do get synergies, but only from skills they actually have (which already puts them at a disadvantage compared to a real Sorceress, because they don't get access to all the possible synergies), but it's even worse for the fire ones because Fireball and Inferno don't synergise each other, so those guys are basically fighting with sparklers and confetti. -As mentioned, they have the worst survivability of any mercenaries. The Cold ones can actually do okay thanks to their Frozen Armour, but that only goes so far, and they're probably not able to equip good protective armour to benefit from the defence multiplier (and any armour that would be protective doesn't help them much otherwise). -Their AI sucks. This is especially noticeable with the Cold ones: they're really good at freezing enemies... but they have tunnel vision and will fixate on shooting at the same enemy until it's dead, which makes them terrible at doing the crowd control you'd want them for. (If they'd switch targets each time they fired, they might have actually been good!) They also have a regrettable tendency to just wander into packs of enemies and get surrounded, which gets them killed fast. (The Rogues do this too, unfortunately, but it's slightly more forgiveable because they're better at everything else.) -There is barely any gear that helps them (you want +skills, faster cast rate, and maybe +X% elemental skill damage if you can find that), and almost anything that does is among the top-tier caster items that would be better put to use on a real character. There are a few swords with +skills (including the +fire skills swords Hellplague and Hexfire, who else wants those? But we don't care, because the fire Iron Wolves just literally don't function), and if you played on Ladder the Spirit runeword was perfect for them... but their strength stat is so low they won't be able to equip it in a shield until the 90s. Other mercenaries at least can be given strong damaging weapons, and get better ones as you progress through the game to try to keep up with you. I wanted so badly for Iron Wolves to be good. I tried my best to optimise one in vanilla for novelty's sake, but it just never worked. The best kit for them was a Spirit sword and shield (I even made an ethereal Spirit shield just for him, so he could actually hold it), Ormus' Robes (a unique armour with +3 to a specific Sorceress skill and some elemental damage bonuses, I think I eventually got an Ice Blast one), and Griffon's Eye or Nightwing's Veil (helms that boost lightning or cold damage respectively), or something like Harlequin Crest if you couldn't get those (because they were incredibly rare and in high demand). And you could put a Rainbow Facet jewel or two in sockets, if you had them. Even with all of this working for them (and again, this is all high-demand stuff that characters can use better), it's just not enough. I think, maybe, if you're playing a Paladin whose primary aura is Conviction (which drastically reduces enemy resistances), a lightning one could do okay, but it's just so much work to get them up to the standard of basically any other mercenary with mediocre/decent stuff. (And that same Griffon's Eye you'd waste on a mercenary would make a Lightning Sorceress absolutely terrifying.) On the subject of the lore and writing, what I will say is that the first two Diablo games were fantastic at setting a tone and atmosphere, both with the ingame text and the manuals. A lot of it does fall apart when you look at it closely, but then, the vast majority of the time we spent playing these games was on repeat playthroughs and ignoring it entirely. It worked because we didn't think about it, except in little snippets out of context.
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Nov 12, 2022 16:41
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I remember playing D2 when I was young and not understanding poo poo about builds. As in In putting at least one point in every single skill because what if I need that one some time? Also rarely ever used poitions, but somehow still survived pretty well. Despite that I managed to make it surprisingly far, getting a level (iirc) 44 paladin to act 3 nightmare after stumbling into Fanactism+Zeal as a combo with a very fast weapon and lifesteal, making me nearly invincible in combat despite not updating my gear for several acts. Then I hit a dungeon with fetish shamans and was completelyunable to continue. I also couldn't play it anymore past that point when I did start learning how to specialize builds because my future computers couldn't run it for some reason. Still have the original CDs with keys to use, but can't put them to use. Sad times.
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Nov 12, 2022 19:16
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Ashsaber posted:I remember playing D2 when I was young and not understanding poo poo about builds. As in In putting at least one point in every single skill because what if I need that one some time? Also rarely ever used poitions, but somehow still survived pretty well. Despite that I managed to make it surprisingly far, getting a level (iirc) 44 paladin to act 3 nightmare after stumbling into Fanactism+Zeal as a combo with a very fast weapon and lifesteal, making me nearly invincible in combat despite not updating my gear for several acts. If you can get the game to install at all, you can download a patch to 1.14d which runs under Windows 10. I just re-installed from my 1.03/1.07 (LoD) CDs on account of this thread. It's also my first time running any mods, even if they're only D2DX and PlugY.
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Nov 13, 2022 20:40
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I'm pretty sure you only need the CD keys, then you can download the game itself for free
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Nov 14, 2022 00:21
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Simply Simon posted:I'm pretty sure you only need the CD keys, then you can download the game itself for free This would be great, as my current computer doesn't even have a CD drive.
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Nov 14, 2022 03:42
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I think you may have to register the codes on Blizzard's website, then they give you a new code that works in the downloadable installers.
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Nov 14, 2022 03:50
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Gnoman posted:I think you may have to register the codes on Blizzard's website, then they give you a new code that works in the downloadable installers. Yup, that's how it worked for me when I re-installed D2 and Median inspired by this LP.
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Nov 14, 2022 05:33
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Strike of the clock it's day 4 now. New update is now instead of when I go to sleep. What I'm saying is the sooner we escape this jungle the better. As an aside, like a decade ago I realized the install cds had like, no copy protection, and you could back them up to an .iso just fine. I did that with my cds, jotted down the cd-keys in a text file, set it next to the isos, and I've never looked back. Probably good that I did this if my San Andreas CD crapped out eventually.
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Nov 15, 2022 09:05
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