TL;DR:
- Upgrading recipes add some important stats, so yes you can use an upgraded basic item end-game if you want.
- Runewords with higher runes do contains differences, but let me know if you think you've spotted a problem. Upgrading most Superior weapons, shields and hats from exceptional to Elite gains a +Skill, so it is assumed on all recipes. You will have spare high runes.
- v1.7 is trying to promote playing new characters rather than focusing on the end-game item grind.
- I will try to get a final-release Solo version link up by next Monday.

The recipes for Upgrading items (uniques, sets, Superior, rares, crafts, etc) add +Skills and PDR/MDR when appropriate (the goal was to keep up with automods on exceptional/elite versions). The design document includes a poorly-formatted table that describes when an item slot should have more skills in order to maintain the end-game cap of about +14Skills, so the +Skills from recipes generally align with that. With this in mind, you should be able upgrade a Basic item to Elite and use it well, and in cases where that Elite item will be missing a +1Skills mod, I try to make the Basic item strong enough to overcome that (the unique cap has already been mentioned as maybe too OP for a Basic Unique, but add +2AllSkills and 10 PDR/MDR when it's Elite and I think it'd still be alright for a level 80 phys-dmg Fighter build).

One reason Elite runewords might not appear especially powerful compared to basic runewords is because I'm also considering the automods that exist on items, but higher runes should give access to some better stats. The DeadlyStrike and OpenWounds (or CrushingBlow and Slow if made in blunt weapons) on "ProwessInBattle" are offensively very strong. "Revenge" is defensively very worthwhile if you'd like to charge-synergize a Salvation oSkill or you need to weaken enemies via BattleCry, but make "Revenge" in an elite weapon with a +Skill on it (upgrading exceptional Superior weapons to Elite gets a +1Skill (+2 for 2-handed weapons) if the Elite wouldn't have had skills, "Revenge" still won't end up with the +3Skills allowed on Elite weapon slots, but you didn't spend many runes either).

There will still be (slightly?) imbalanced or dumb looking items though, I'm still not a fan of "HolyThunder" runeword (I made it back in 2012 when I was having fun with the TStorm onAttack mod, I basically derped-out with "Zomg, it's even got Thunder in the name!1!!"). I've debated removing that word, but I can't think of anything better and it's not worth removing (I did remove a Lightning onStrike bow because the Lightning spawned from the monster hit rather than the player, so it was pretty ineffective. My goal was to reproduce a Diablo1 bow that shot lightning bolts). When I see those types of items nowadays, I just remind myself that it's alright if HUv1.9 is better than v1.7.

One thing I didn't like about HUv1.3 is that the Elite uniques tended to make the game much easier, so the game's challenge started to decrease quite a bit. When I initially designed my changes to HU, I wanted players in Norm difficulty to gain power mostly from leveling while players in NM gained power mostly by gaining items, but players in Hell were on their own (I wanted Hell completion to be more of a trophy rather than just the start of item-grinding (Hell grinding might be partly responsible for the challenge in finding questing parties on the realm)). During testing earlier this year, I made it dramatically easier for players to find exceptional (even Elites in A5) items in Norm difficulty, which might take away some of the fun from NM, but I still think that was a good decision. I understand that some players enjoy the relaxing pace of farming for uniques, but I think v1.8 or maybe v1.9 will be better for that. In v1.7 I'd rather promote the questing of new characters.

I will try to get a Solo version link up in the near future (end of this week, after which I won't add items). Keep in mind that if you download that Solo version and play online, then you'll be playing with Multiplayer stats. Solo version stats only apply to SinglePlayer and hosting TCP/IP games. Personally, I'd recommend not downloading a Multiplayer version if you've already got the Solo version.

This is a point I often hear people say. But I think the game should be less difficult for those who commit to grinding hundreds of hours for elite gear. The people who often said "it's too easy for ____" were people stuck in nightmare while we had a party in hell grinding exp and farming 5-10 hours a day.

I'm doing some more testing right now on a char. Testing a blizz sorc with what I think would be perfect gear. See how she fairs on her own.

What I thought was good gear is apparently not. I was getting demolished in Blood Moor on Hell. I even died by Lazurus on normal mode...

I made gear to give me these stats.

14 All Skills
30% ele damage
30% physical damage
100 all res
40% damage reduction
60% frw
100% fbr
100% fhr
100% ias
100% fcr
30% max life
30% max mana
40 all attributes

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The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

Where are crafting recipes?

_________________
The body is but a vessel for the soul, a puppet which bends to the souls tyranny. And lo, the body is not eternal, for it must feed on the flesh of others, lest it return to the dust from whence it came. Therefore the soul deceive, despise and murder men.

Try dodging the meteors



Inside the 1.7 folder there's a folder called WebPages, go to the crafting recipes -> blue items.

EDIT: formatting

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Below is a v1.7 test package that includes recent changes to mitigate state overload (characters with 19 or more states cause problems in multiplayer). As a side effect, it's very important that your characters have access to +AllSkill gear most of the time.

This test package contains no music because apparently those files totaled 800MB while everything else was about 100MB. I'm pretty sure the HighRes package works, but my modding folders and files are getting numerous enough to be a hassle, which makes it hard for me to guarantee that I didn't miss a step of file (luckily already caught a problem before uploading, maybe it was the only one).

Pretty much the same steps as before, but you can skip dealing with HUv1.3 if you've done that in the past:

1. Get the HUv1.3 core and one of the resolution downloads from
   http://forum.arimyth.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4600
   It's a good idea to run the game to make sure you've got v1.3 up and going. I won't be able to help much with errors you encounter at this step.
2. Download only one of:
   HUv1.7_LowRes_TestPackage
   HUv1.7_HighRes_TestPackage (requires HUv1.3_HighRes)
3. Copy all v1.7 files into your v1.3 folder. You should overwrite files with name conflicts. Folders with matching names should get merged together.

There is a Webpages folder included, it includes every webpage produced by the webpage maker, and a "home.htm" page for you to start on (it might help organize the other pages for you). Feel free to drag that folder out to a more convenient location (or make a shortcut to it). If you'd like to use the Prefix/Suffix page's filtering buttons, then you need to allow javascript in your browser, and if you're using Chrome then the filtering is a bit buggy (search for the word "Group" to jump from mod to mod because the filtered rows don't collapse in Chrome). I recommend reviewing the cube recipe pages at least, since those let you see the testing-formulas (eg Put an item in the cube to return the EthUnique and Set for that item - this will double gems, runes, and other items without Unique or Set counterparts).

There is a Save folder included with HUv1.7_TestPackage, it includes some level 99 characters with every rune, PGem and StarstoneGem, some Respec potions, and some cheaty-charms (the two charms give you the +14 skills and +30%EleDmg expected at the end of the game, they also add damage to attack roughly equal to an end-game weapon). If you kill a monster with them then they convert to level 1 characters, so I've included a backup of each file if you want to test with them again. If you put a respec potion or gem and transmute then you'll produce a copy (useful if you want to use the Upgrade recipes or reset your stats a lot). I've also included copies of pretty much every character I've made for v1.7, some of which still contain cheaty-charms (for example I was recently rushing the sorc Shanova through Hell difficulty because I wanted to double check LoShadows with someone other than Pallaguy). Those chars might let you jump into some variety of test quicker. Feel free to respec them to whatever build you want.

If you have feedback to give, please use the feedback thread. I'm starting to have trouble finding v1.7 feedback when I'm making updates.

If you're confident that you're not missing something, then here's a link to just the files changed since the November update. I've organized it as a folder tree since a string file was also edited. It includes skilldesc_HiRes.txt, which you'll have to rename if you're playing on High resolution. You should be able to just merge it with your data folder.

Link to Update (This is not a test package)

Stupid question the text file you need to rename what name should it have lol..

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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.

Just remove the "_HiRes" bit, you will likely need to rename the existing skilldesc.txt to "skilldesc_LowRes.txt" first so it allows you to change the "_HiRes" one.

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I'm going to do a reinstall the mod so all the files are clean from conflict.. after that going to try you rename suggestions .. thx for the info..

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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.

Another question.. is there a 1.7 patch or are you guys using 1.3d's patch?

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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.

If you're referring to an mpq file, then we're using v1.3's patch_d2.mpq, and the data folder contains v1.7 data, so you'll need to run with -direct -txt.

When folks have finished with item suggestions or requests, then we'll prepare a v1.7 patch_d2.mpq file.

If you're running into some error, let me know. There's a reasonable chance that I made a mistake putting the test packages together.

I got it up and running.. tomorrow I will run low to mid lvl boss fights with your test chars.... Cheers for the tips you guys helping me get this up and running

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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.

Where can I find a working download link?
All I see is error messages from dropbox/megafileupload.

Sorry, but I have deleted the test package to make room for the final version. I've created some additional DropBox accounts (very likely that bandwidth will be exceeded), as well as some BitTorrent links for those who are comfortable with BitTorrent (potentially faster and more reliable than anything else if several folks seed their file).

I won't be sharing those download links until the finalized version has been double checked (already found a bug that was worth repackaging everything).

Here are the final webpages for items, monprops, bossstats, etc.