Im going to write below how I THINK the game would be better.

1)Every point to every skill should be meaningful. This means the bonuses must be big enough to want to make u upgrade a skill.
I would dare to even suggest maxing skills at lower lvl if needed. Like 10 or so, instead of 20. For example:
If lets say skills max at lvl 8 and each time u upgrade a skill the bonuses are big then that system becomes meaningful.
An addition to this would be a system with more skills than vanilla for each class, giving ppl choices for more builds and ofc more meaningful builds.

I do understand that what i say now requires an overhaul of the entire mod and thats tonz of work

2)Characters shoulnt be able to reach lvl 80 or so in normal. Should be 30 or so. This way give players one more reason to continue playing in other difficulties.

So, I've done a lot of reading and very little talking as I play through this patch, I've leveled 3 or 4 characters, my main is currently a level 78 fury druid and I think I'm about done. It's been a mostly enjoyable learning experience, though not exactly satisfying gameplay (the only other HU patch I played was I think 1.5?). I have some thoughts from a (relatively) outsider perspective.

1.) Detractors seriously need to chill out with the rage. I don't think anyone is seriously claiming 1.7 is perfect, or even passable. It has its issues, some of them super glaring (mana costs, itemization, strange skill choices etc). But it seems like some of you guys have, given the level of anger and rudeness in some of your posts, switched from trying to provide constructive criticism to just wanting to be angry about it and make sure the people who made 1.7 are aware of how angry you are, and that you think they're stupid. While that is certainly a defensible position, if somewhat rude, it doesn't really help anything to spew bile and vitriol into the forums about how bad you think the mod is.

2.) This is a bit of a question and then a criticism I guess, but why do so many of the regular forum posters approach the game from a competitive standpoint? And why is it a general design philosophy for HU to approach it as if players are competing against each other? Unless you make every skill a pallet swap on the same numbers, for any individual class, there will always be a "best" build. And among those best builds for each character, there will always one character whose best build is the best of the best. Mathematically this is an unavoidable consequence.

Now, the way I look at it is there are two paths from this, you can either try and fight that, and close the gaps as best you can and try to make character power as homogeneous as possible across 7 characters and dozens of builds and item set ups etc etc. Or, you can let things flow naturally, be ok with there being a king of the hill, and mere peasants below and adjust the hill. Make it not quite so tall, and balance the game around the middle of the pack. You should be able to play the game as any reasonable archetype of a character, and if someone really wants to play the super awesome <insert best build here> and have no challenge in the game, or to farm items on autopilot, or because being the best most awesome demon killer in a game that is approaching the age of consent in America is really that important to their ego... let them. What skin off your back is it? Sure, it might make the game boring to have them in your group, if they aren't your friend, just don't play with them. Or if they are your friend, tell them to fuck off with the teleporting immortal hammerdin with 3.5 million effective HP that 2 shots everything from classic and play something interesting.

The game shouldn't be balanced around the top build for characters, because that means that either A.) you have a super bland soup where everything is mostly the same and there is 0 replay value, or reason to play a character beyond build completion, or B.) you have a bunch of builds that simply do not work because they aren't as good as the best, and they eventually hit a wall.

3.) To this patch specifically, I understand from a design perspective trying to mix it up, but the execution on that plan makes very little sense to me. In an attempt to foster build diversity and complex choices, it seems like you've just removed any cohesion in character archetype. As I am sitting here on my Druid, I'll take some examples of what I mean from there. A Fire based caster Druid has Firestorm, Fissure, Molten Boulder, Volcano and Armageddon as things that would fit within that archetype as valid offensive spells. Firestorm benefits from Twister and Hurricane, Fissure from Tornado and Hurricane, Molten Boulder from Arctic Blast and Armageddon, Volcano from Summon Spirit Wolf and Armageddon, and Armageddon from Frost Bite. The only synergies from within the archetype to reward a character willing to focus on fire damage exclusively (and suffer when they encounter something strong against fire) is a MB/Volc/Arma build, rewarding a 60 point investment with ~40% damage boost on 2/3rds of your kit, both of which have cast delays. Now look at Arctic Blast, take those 20 points out of Volc and put them into Arctic Blast, which has an 80% boost from those two Fire archetype spells, keep Arma up, MB now has an ~80% boost instead of ~40%, you only have one cast delay spell that is much stronger than the pure Fire track, a persistant aoe around you that receives 0 benefits from any caster choices, and a spammable AOE spell of differing element to weave between your spicy meatballs. And its the same thing on the other side with Hurricane/Fissure/Tornado. Why? Shouldn't you pay for diversity with a less powerful kit?

I guess to short circuit a in-depth and disappointed trip through the rest of my Druid skill tree, the overarching question I can just ask is: Why are there no rewards for a pure archetype? It seems like every class is an eclectic mixture of skill choices that don't have any cohesion and you are punished for not diversifying, a pure Fire caster Druid gives more benefit to Wind skills than his own kit. A summon Druid has literally 1 synergy within the 80 point investment on Raven/Spirit Wolf/Dire Wolf/Grizzly which is 20 life on Dire Wolves and 40% lightning damage on Ravens, which you can ignore Dire Wolf/Grizzly for and still get.

And 4.) A more light hearted question, can anyone explain why Madawc is killing me in less than a second after I facefuck Talic and Korlic, but only if I actually get into melee range with him?

You can't be constructive when the person who made it doesn't think there is a problem.

i don't know why madawc is doing that, but I do know it's a shit load of large packets hitting you very quickly. 80 mdr pdr didn't help at all, and I watched my bulb the second time and it's just chunks of damage every 2-3 frames,

A few things folks may consider:

Brevan and Rage do not (at present at least) see themselves working on at least the next patch, if not two. This deserves notice, because they simply are not going to be the ones that change it. It will be somebody (or several somebody's) to do the next patch. So bitching at Brevan literally has zero benefit.

Now, what we as a community need to decide eventually (NOT now) is this. What are the goods and bads (we are getting enough on this list i think) that we should keep or toss.

Will it be worth keeping a lot of the work that was done that has ZERO to do with gameplay. Aka, what file set will people end up using. I argue that at least the bosses, zones, and file structure changes should be kept. Cleaning these, and simplifying how the speak to one another is a massive deal. Those that have not dipped their toes into modding can't fully appreciate this kind of thing. (It is also a reason why I personally do not want somebody new to modding in charge of the next patch).

There are some things that I would like back from 1.5/6. The primary one being removal of juvs, and 1red+1blue potion only, based on % health (like it was in 1.5. it was mistakenly changed in 1.6).

Bahooka...i like a lot of your post.
as far as competition: most folks will consider themselves knowledgeable and also good at this game. Most of 'em are. Competency breeds competition. It is in our blood. Competition should not however necessitate a bad humour.

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The reader should not be discouraged if...he does not have the prerequisites to read the prerequisites. P. Halmos

Who will be?

The plan was to play this for 1 year, while someone adjusts 1.6c and it comes out as 1.8 sometime next january. Problem is most patches had a decent amount of replayability and people playing at least 6-7 months into it. No one is really playing this it's a graveyard.

I do not care if this is a graveyard. I want to know where and to whom to give suggestions and feedback about a new version.

Yeah, seems like most people are over 1.7 at this point, which is unfortunate because I was looking forward to it. Playing around with some friends in 1.6 for a bit here as I missed that patch on realm.

Would be nice if whomever was actively working on 1.8 would identify themselves so we can try as a community to avoid what happened with 1.7.

Also, is there any possibility of the 1.7 crew trying to make a "1.7a" if you will, and moving it toward some of the feedback that has been given? Seems like there is plenty of time between now and the plans for 1.8 to give it another go.

Not only has he said something, it's on the front page. Why it isn't stickied is beyond me, but it's there.

After playing 1.7 a bit, I seem to have the same feelings as many of the old vets:

The mana costs are absurdly high, especially when regen gets nerfed into the ground with smaller pools n thus slower rate to multiply off of. Leeching gets a double whammy as well from doing smaller amounts of dmg to apply leech from WITH smaller % values. Making this even worse somehow is skill costs going way up with increased level.

The items are very boring across the board. I feel little to no desire to level a character when the best stuff is upgraded shit that dropped from a1 norm. I always thought it was fun, especially playing an assassin as going from one set to the next was great! I do however miss what gems used to do (-resist in weps, leech for skulls), and feel with too many things with thorns dmg that many flag/onkill portals are missed from it.

There are a few good things this time around though, as there always is. Mana burn functions a bit better now, there's no skill prereqs now other than for BO and how that skill was squashed into a single aura is great. The rune drops make sense now (finding ELs past a2 always was a head shaker), too bad there's hardly anything worth using them on. I like how mobs can have random abilities like curses n things like that zerkers have WW, though how trash like the infidels having it seems too much; they aren't special enough for it and with so many of them spinning it becomes an issue of where we see them vs actual location due to server tear/latency.

Ah well, are 1.3 files for both ends still around?!? My buddies and I always keep refering back to those days...

I completely agree with Twilightdusk and the other vets!! and I would love to have access to each of the old patches, and really take the best of them and roll them all into 1 perfect version of HU, then I would really like to play more often.

For those wondering who is next to get throttled by the community...a few have already said they want to work on it, but I would not put a lot of weight into that so early after a release. Maybe it will hold, maybe it won't.

Those that are recalling 1.3 as a beautiful patch, I encourage you to go back and read the old threads. The consensus was not quite what people are remembering. It wasn't bad per say, but it surely did have issues.

I will reiterate that I personally think that there is quite a bit in 1.7 that should be kept in future patches. In my opinion, use this as the base...change it drastically if you want, but A LOT was done under the hood, and giving new areas/monsters. Losing these sets everything back. And ffs if you are the one to do things, don't use Excel, as you will bork nearly every bloody file you save...this has been fixed more than once.

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The reader should not be discouraged if...he does not have the prerequisites to read the prerequisites. P. Halmos

1.3 blew dicks too tbh fam.

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Working on it. Doing a rebalance and I'm going through old versions looking at different items they had, how different builds functioned, and different features.

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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.