Thanks for the feedback,

To be fair, the Fury Druid (Fury + Lycanthropy + Wereform ?) shouldn't do a lot of damage since he's intended to be a tanking build. PoisonJav + LFury is more of an AoE Ranged setup, so also isn't intended to be a high damage build. In both cases, I'd expect you to have had no trouble surviving since both were likely durable characters. Did the tested Sorceress builds' reduced durability feel worth their increased damage?

I think I recall folks having skill levels around 50 when I last played HU (i.e. +30 skills was pretty normal), while in v1.7 +14 skills is normal. If it helps folks feel like their gear is good, then they could pretend the +Skills are all doubled, since they effectively are (+3 in v1.7 is the same as +6 in some versions of HU).

Similarly, I recall 10k HP being fairly average when I last played, but in v1.7 1.5k is probably a closer average to expect. If you find an item that gives +100HP in v1.7, then that's like finding +700HP in other versions of HU.

Usually a unique is Elite when the mods given to it were not percents and large (e.g. +100%HP is just as balanced if you're level 1 or level 99, but +100HP is only balanced end-game). I didn't always have the cube recipes set up the way they are now, where they give +1-2Skills when you upgrade a unique item, so the original class set and elite uniques were created just to ensure that players were getting closer to +14 skills end-game.

Previous versions of HU had many normal and exceptional uniques that were nearly pointless to pick up later in the game, so changes were made to reduce that effect. In v1.7, if you're willing to use the upgrade recipes (Starstone gems aren't hard to find end-game, Gem shrines will upgrade Perfects to Starstone for new players), then most uniques work fine end-game if they're upgraded to elite. Most runewords and sets work fine end-game. Your progress isn't as limited by farming, with the intention that people spend more time questing.

The goal of v1.7 is to be a good starting point for folks to build HU in another direction. Next year everyone can enjoy the version of HU that grows out of v1.6.

If people are farming v1.7 forever, then I agree they're wasting their time. Feel free to collect all the items (including an Exceptional and Elite version of Basic uniques) and stockpile runes, but then consider trying a new character or build, to experience something new. If they get bored of that character by the end of Norm, then feel free to start a new one rather than play one you didn't enjoy. Let us know what you didn't like in that build, so it can be improved for HUv1.9.

I remember from 05-08 the main boss killers were barbs and druids I wouldn't just consider them tank builds.. they had high life high dmg for reason because they were in the bosses face... The Zons plague javalin recast timer needs to go . Going from 140k to around 16k and having a recast timer on it makes the build gimpy ... 16 k is with all the plus to poison skill synergies.. The Blade sin well you can build it around cb or venom but venom is pointless because there no claws for poison that I have seen. The way the sin casts blade fury slows her attack drastically from what use to be. Pallys fist of heavens and hammers .. these to builds were boss killers now they can barely kill in hell shenk ... I don't have any of my old modding tools to give numbers but I'm giving you in game testing on icp with 3 chars loaded to mock the difficulty as if it was on the realm.... I spent around 20 hours with these builds... I will test others in the next day or so cheers..

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P.S. Have I superceeded your infininate need for proper English now or will your mind forever be locked in a perpetual stacis.

When is the full version of 1.7 being released ?

We found a bug with the final, packaged, delivered version which set us back a bit.

Given the lateness of the set of changes that caused the issue, I think it's pretty reasonable that this will be the only bug that we don't try to sell to you as a "feature". HUv1.7 is still expected to be released in early (1st week?) January, although I might get a Solo version to you faster (it's up to Duff to update and reset his realm, and he might be busy at this time of year).

The issue was that when I gave hidden oSkills to weapons (these deliver the WeaponMastery stats if you've got access to the WeaponMastery skills, and this way no one can have more than 2 WeaponMastery passive states on them), I forgot that oSkills will increase the required level of the item to the skill level (level+6 for other classes). This resulted in fresh not-Barbs going to buy a weapon and being faced with a level 12 selection. I was willing to grab a rock and give it a go, but alas the Testers won, and everything is being repackaged after giving the oSkills a level requirement of -10 (apparently this works, I expected D2 to treat a negative level as zero, in which case not-Barbs would still be facing level 6 weapons).

I'm also mulling the idea of distributing a BitTorrent file the Community could use to distribute files. Does anyone like the idea of using BitTorrent? That would require you to save a copy of your HUv1.7 file in your download folder and to keep your torrent program actively seeding the file for quite a while (maybe just don't turn it off, I don't expect folks to seed (upload) more than 1-5 copies of their file). Although BitTorrent is considered sketchy, it should be legally fine in this case since it's unlikely Blizzard put a copyright on "patch_d2.mpq". The BitTorrent solution would get around DropBox download limits.

I don't need the SP version but the multi. We gonna play it with few streamers Would it be challenging if we are 5 6 people ? We gonna play it on TCP I guess or if your server is fast maybe there I don't know.

There are probably going to be servers in the US as well as UK so you shouldn't have latency issues playing on realm.

5-6 people will breeze through norm and nightmare. Samy and other bosses will still hit hard, but to me the game feels balanced for a 3-4 man party. I'm not sure what 1.7 has done with increased players/increased difficulty.

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While testing this year, v1.7 was toned down in difficulty, since it was agreed that getting used to the changes themselves would add extra challenge and could get frustrating for many. I expect one of the main changes in HUv1.9 would be to ramp the difficulty up. Having played v1.7 for a few years and about half of the intended builds, I consider Norm pretty soloable despite Multiplayer files. When I played recently with my brother (choosing builds that wouldn't synergize each other, e.g. 2-Handed Paladin (Might BAim) with 1-H Fanatadin, PNova Necro with BlizzSorc, etc), we had no problem in Norm at all. Considering the current number of HU players visible in the community, HUv1.7 was balanced more towards 1-3 players per group.

@Rakehell
If you intend to play TCP/IP anyways, then I don't mind producing a one-off version for your group of 5-6. It would take me a while, since several skills would need to be changed (They're currently balanced to assume they wouldn't be stacking with other skills, but with 5-6 players/mercs/pets, they'll be silly-strong). Aside from about a dozen player skills and monster HP, I don't think much more would need to be changed to make the game enjoyable for twice the originally expected players. Maybe just let folks know that your version is very similar to but not exactly the same as v1.7. You can discuss details with me later if you're interested. Maybe for now just take a look at v1.7.

Well my rant for 1.6 was it's to easy even for one person playing the MP version. Well when you get to Mephisto on norm you get rekt but only some bosses are hard not all. So if you really would like to do a separate version buff the normal monsters and give them some nasty skills so we can't just clean them up easy.

Make the regular gameplay except the bosses harder. The guys who will play are not noobs and they would like a challenge besides the bosses. That's my only request if it's doable or maybe make the game load on players 32 or something. Regular monsters are too weak

Trash is hard in 1.7. Much harder than any HU version to date. Bosses still hurt, but will die quickly with a large team.

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Also I would like to suggest you to add more bosses that guard certain areas like you did for most of the quests. Like add boss where Khalim's hearth is and on act one tree where you get the scroll for the stones. It will be more interesting to earn those. Can't remember what other places you didn't added bosses but it would be nice Brevan

It is too late to add stuff to v1.7, but when a v1.7 Suggested Changes thread comes out, I'll try to review some of the suggestions I know didn't make it into v1.7 and put them on that list for whoever wants to turn v1.7 into v1.9.

Keep in mind that Khalim's Heart is guarded by 3 Leviathan and 3 groups of unique Frog Demon. Sure you could run around them, but for those who choose to stand their ground, that battle has the most exp (relative to its area) of pretty much all battles in HU.

I suppose the unique Brute-type guy that guards the Inifuss Tree could be made more interesting, I'll leave that choice to the folks behind v1.9 or maybe v1.8 (lots of BigBosses might become a good theme for that strain of HU that helps keep it apart from v1.7).

But you must make it so you must defeat the bosses to access the items like you did with the other quests (via portal) also make Deckard Cain impossible to rescue until you beat the bosses, again via portal to original D2 Tristram maybe and make it so if you don't complete all quests you can't go further in game Just suggesting something you already did but you haven't on all places

Righto, the inconsistencies could be annoying if you favour a particular style.

For what it's worth, when Soulmancer first implemented the sub bosses that open portals to the end-bosses, he did place quest restrictions on those portals. Perhaps it was the version after the first where the restrictions were implemented, I forget. Either way, the next version had them removed since enough folks didn't like the change.

One of the penalties of portal-spewing bosses is that it discourages players from playing with HolyAuras, BladeShield, or Thorns. When a monster dies to the aura-pulse, BShield, or Thorns damage, the game doesn't spawn their portal. I'm not aware of any experiments to get around that problem, nor have I heard of solutions to it.

So maybe make them drop something like Khalim's flail and make altars that you smash with them so a secret stairs open and you enter to get the quest items I said about. Or make a red portals that are near the bosses and you can't enter them until you kill the boss. Or make the bosses drop items that grants you 1 time only use of spawning red portal where is the quest item.

Also the Anya quest should be done like that and the barbs from act V The barbs can be locked in the red portals that doesn't have any meaning but every group of barbs ca'n be freed before killing the boss (see above)

Also the Gidbin and the statue should be earned that way too. No pain no gain.

there is no "unlimited" stash ?!!?! not even for solo version ?;/

Sorry, but I'm not sure what this is. If you mean Plugy, which is a mod unrelated to HU, then that's up to you to install and configure. I've seen support for Plugy in the D2SE.ini file, so it's probably easier to get working if you're already using D2SE.

I'd recommend setting up a new folder in D2SE for HU to experiment with Plugy, since I don't know if it would interfere with your ability to play multiplayer.

Yes bro, i mean plugy. And yes i am using D2SE.
Hmmm ill see if i can make it work.

(if anyone has a working plugy for HU solo plz give a link! )

EDIT:
Ok i have download the Plugy from http://plugy.free.fr/en/index.html
but honestly i have no clue how to make it work.....
any halp ?

Whenever i tp to Dark Woods i get this error after 1-2 seconds. Currently Dark Woods is the last portal i have unlocked.

The best way I've found to get around the DWoods WP bug is to take any other WP first (let the "Entering ..." message disappear, this is necessary), and then take the WP to DWood. I don't think anyone really knows why this bug exists, it might have been introduced by the D2ModSystem itself, since it's quite well known.

Suggestions:

I would like to see Fist of the Heavens / Holy Bolt hit all monsters with the bolts and not just the undead.

I would like to see Holy aura's increased by about 3% from synergy instead of just two. As well as their pulse frequency synergies max levels be raised to 15 instead of 10.

I would like to see a use for Conviction with Paladin skills rather than just for Vengeance / Zeal (with elemental damage weapons).

I would like to see the maximum level for runes be 80 rather than 90, as this requires too much grinding to get interesting runewords.