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 Post subject: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 6:59 pm 

Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2012 7:24 pm
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Post here if you have any suggestions for fixes or changes, and comment on what others put as well.

If there is a 1.6b, it would be hotfixes only, and would not require a reset, just a server restart, so don't panic.

Things to note:

-Items cannot be changed without the old items still remaining, thus creating "legacy" items

-Set bonuses, skills, runewords, and monsters are some of what can be changed

Validate your argument:

Why does something need changed? What level are you? solo? group? sc/hc? what options/changes do you propose?


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 8:31 am 

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So I have a few things that I want to bring up, and I hope this generates general discussion as to what is being done and the level of entertainment that this game is to provide the small community that plays it.

Before the 1.5 reset, basically a group of friends and myself were likely a third of the active community that were still playing and creating characters, and I know with the reset and the changes that were made we brought back a number of people that had been watching the forum specifically waiting to see what is new.

That being said I rather enjoyed the brief moments of 1.6 that we got. It was nice to see that there was balance and even more love shown to the melee classes that for the most part struggle a fair bit in this game on anything other then killing bosses or tanking. I was one of the people that voted against the reset because the new release offered something new and refreshing and allowed me an one other friend to enjoy the game without having to require another two or three people on to progress past act bosses.

So here is my experience with the newest release, even though it is limited.

-It isn't harder to progress, it is more tedious to progress
I went through all of act 1 on normal without a single set drop and only a single unique dropping for me. This drop rate in an 8 player game is horrible, and while xp is good, when you are forced to farm monsters that give you no xp for a tiny chance to get something that would help you kill Andy, well its not fun, or challenging, but more a chore. With the vast number of items that drop in this game getting what you need to progress past current content in an 8 player game should happen during the time it takes you to clear equal tiered content. If you are on normal General and you are still rocking a Lenymo on a tank because nothing else has even come close to dropping for you, well that is a problem.

-Make it more Difficult to Gamble, or Reduce the amount of Gold that Drops Not both.
Reducing the gold that drops in the game already makes it more difficult to gamble for the items or set pieces that you need for the character. Doing both makes it so you completely invalidate the use of the gambling mechanic as a whole. In the previous 1.5a, the values and time it took to farm gear for alts and finding facets (this is the biggest problem, as they don't drop) had me spending 10+ hours a week gambling for perfects that were needed for endgame gear. If you are making this even more difficult then previously pushes me away from classes that require a number of facets to make their endgame a reliable source of damage.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:06 am 
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I went through all of act 1 on normal without a single set drop and only a single unique dropping for me


Don't bosses still guarantee unique drops, and some guarantee set drops?

Need uniques > spam inner cloister + boss.
Need sets > spam gris/smith.

Was that changed?

Edit, if you mean for your build then that's just luck based. Guaranteed unique/set droppers is about as easy as you can get. Just run bosses who are fast and easy to get to.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:27 am 

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In my experience they are not 100% drop chance anymore. Rares and Magical items with a gem or a rune.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:58 am 
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If a boss is supposed to drop uniques but drops a rare instead then either:

1: The unique version has already dropped in that game (This is why you should remake the game after finding a very rare unique, so it has a chance to drop again.)
2: The rare item that dropped has no unique equivalent (Doubtful)
3: The enemy was too low level for the item to turn unique due to a difference in the uniques ilvl and the base items ilvl.
#3 really hurts when you find a failed tyraels in hell kurast. As mobs there are high enough to drop the base item, but to low for that base item to turn into it's higher ilvl unique version.

Ie. boss A is level 20. When killed his base items are picked based on his level (so items up to ilvl 20).
One of the items picked has a unique version but the ilvl of the unique is 30.
The item is spawned as rare, but with triple durability.


The same is true of sets, except they can drop multiple times in 1 game and failed set drops as magical so either:
1: The magical items have no set equivalent
2: The enemy was too low level for the item to become a set due to a difference in the uniques ilvl and the base items ilvl.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:02 pm 
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In previous installments when you killed a boss you were guaranteed 3+ uniques per kill of the 6 item loot table. I am now finding that its not guaranteed to get uniques per kill at all, let alone a good number of them. I spent 6 hours last night killing Countess 7 times (for runes not uniques), Inner cloister 10 times, Outer Cloister 10 times, Blood Raven 10 times, and preboss to Andy twice and Andy once.

The grand total of my items consist of 2 tarn helms, 1 lenymo, 2 shields, and 3 set pieces. Either I am getting some exceptionally bad luck or the drops are not as strong as they used to be. Considering that gambling/money was nerfed if drop rates were nerfed too... this will be very tedious.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:05 pm 
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Start a fresh game and quickly run to blood raven and destroy her without killing anything else. If she doesn't drop mostly uniques then something is wrong (unless that was changed since I last played around 1.4x). Evry version I played, bosses drops were set up as outlined above. If they are not still dropping guaranted uniques then the chance might have been lowered or the Ilvl of uniques has been set quite a bit higher than the base items the enemy can drop.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:21 pm 
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I appreciate the advice and the info. When the servers get a reboot and we are able to start it up again I'll do just that.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:32 pm 
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If you can do the same with mort in the cathedral and griswald that would be really good and post the drops from each like so:

Raven:
Skull cap (unique)
Skullcap (rare)
Sash (rare)
Short Bow (unique)

etc. etc. we can get a rough idea of whats going on. (make a new game for each raven and mort)

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:59 pm 
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Will do.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 1:02 pm 

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To clarify, I didn't change any boss loot chests or item rarities since what was in 1.5a

I didn't see any uniques until level Catacombs lvl 2, but then I started seeing a bunch. That's just the way it goes. Also, gambling is the same as 1.5a, the gold drops are nerfed from Inner Cloister in normal, that's all.

I believe the balance for drops was already very good, so I didn't touch it. The only thing that I did that really affects drops is the new lvl 95 zones dropping ilvl 95 gear. I actually lowered the requirements of some level 99 items to 95, because having to be level 99 to use something is just silly.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 4:55 pm 
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Per the earlier discussion here is some drop information from attempting to kill as little as possible.

Blood Raven. (My Weapon accidentally killed random skeletons she had around her.)
Unique Scimitar
Unique Bardiche
Unique Javelin
Unique Cap
31 Gold
138 Gold


Griswald (my Weapon accidently killed a few of everything.)
Blue Skullcap
Blue Skullcap
Blue Leather Armor
Set Ring
Chipped Sapphire
Chipped Skull

Mortanius hellsoul ( My weapon accidentally killed a few skeletons)
Unique Morning star
Unique Pilum
Unique Belt
Unique Sabre
59788 Golds
24854


So it Looks like killing as few creatures as possible and taking out a boss then restarting a game gives the highest chance of set/uniques dropping. I would say I killed about 2-5 skeletons from mortanius, and I killed 6-8 from Blood Raven. I killed like 30+ things on accident with griswald. I guess this is not gonna go well for the servers if the best solution is to just keep making more games faster, however, this proves Rages comment and Ensleys statement.


Last edited by MrMeowzrz on Fri Jan 15, 2016 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 5:00 pm 
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Seems fine to me. Just keep in mind what I said earlier. If you are getting rares from bosses it means there is no unique version, the unique has already dropped in that game somewhere or the monster is too low level.

In the third case, the item will have triple durability.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 5:05 pm 
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Again, Thank you Purerage for weighing in on this discussion. I appreciate your input and the work you do for this mod community.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 5:38 pm 
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Making a new game doesn't increase your chances, it just means that any unique can drop again. It's only a good idea to make a new game if a unique drops and you want a chance at another of the same item.
Same deal with not killing trash, it's fine to kill trash too. I just wanted you to not clear the screens as you went and possibly have a lenymo or something drop on route, then raven dropping a rare sash because leny had dropped but you'd missed it by accident.

Just play on as you normally do, but if a boss drops a rare without triple durability, you might want to retrace your paces because the unique version has already been dropped in the game you are in and you maybe missed it.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:01 am 
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Thoughts Act1 Norm (Zealer Paladin)

killed BloodRaven and Griswold at level 18.
-tried BR at 12, looked bad fast
-Gris-his area fireblast (where he throws out several in a circle). Not sure if more effective in parties, but is too spread out to affect any melee.

Killed Leoric at 20.
-still hits like a truck, but seemed like less life than previously. Had to use a decent number of reds, and needed to walk around to let them act.

Killed Tobial at 22.
He isn't all that dangerous until he has a lot of the rock storm (or whatever you want to call it) on you at once...which can be avoided pretty easily.

Killed Smith at 22.
-hits harder than Tobial. I think the main one is the actual attack. Nearly tanked near the end due to 2 successive strong hits (about 1800 max life)

Killed Andariel at 23
1900 life, 25 lifesteal, 4%cb, bloodrise(just found at tobial, so empty sockets) mace, and misc sets/uniques+about 100 pois res and reduced duration, rest of resistances, at least 75. about 500k worth of gambling some decent low level jewels.

-The bone prisons have a pretty heft amount of hitpoints. I would rather see these drawn back a bit so she can hit a touch harder. Used about 15 reds, got to pretty low health 3ish times...to where I had to kite...kited away from prisons , and as otherwise needed...could not just yawn and press attack.

I farmed gris, leoric, 1st level of tower, inner cloister+Mortanius and tobial twice.

Snakechord and the new Farnam's ring with lower poison length is too high in my opinion. Neither of these should be above 25.

Oh, and thanks (Mrawskrad for putting in a marker for us on Mortanius fire from the sky skill in inner cloister). Overall this fight felt good. had to move pretty often. Skills were dangerous, but not insane. oh killed him I think at 21.

Overall it felt in a decent spot to me for act1 norm untwinked. If you play twinked, it would be pretty easy I think. Don't know what people's feelings are about this. Just putting it out there.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 7:00 am 
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I don't have much time to play but I've been playing 1.6a solo. I rolled a new meteor sorc and I'm still face tanking every boss without farming. I don't even have to avoid the big hits like Mephisto's lightning strike that gives you a warning. I'm only at act 4 normal now. I'll give another update when I get father. I know its normal, but I think normal is too easy. If normal is too easy it gets boring.

Think about it...I'm face tanking in caster gear as a sorc...how easy is this for a true melee tank?

Edit: just facetanked norm diablo too

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:45 am 

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Just got to a5 norm on pala. Its easy. Hardly any gear farming needed to be done. Every item has so many sockets


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:05 pm 
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Just out of curiosity, would either of you mind giving some stats, like life, DR/MDR/DR% at Diablo?
I have (almost) always solod at least to NM D before bothering to join parties, so I would like to compare to what my values looked like in the past. (and yes, i have repeatedly killed D with a fire sorc...quite easily. This isn't meaning facetanking everytime, but I have had to be the glutton in a party of melee characters and me the lonely sorc eating most of the more dangerous attacks, etc in more than one patch).

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 2:53 pm 

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level 59 now but my gear hasnt changed

also im curious why some of the runes changed - +25 vit 100 life io? thats huge
25 ias 25 frw for shael
einsly do you know how breakpoints work? trying to give every char 3 fpa?

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:17 pm 

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I feel normal is a bit easy as well if you get some good drops. I think it really evens out later on, and some people have also told me normal is too slow, so I'm not sure how that could really be changed to please everybody lol. Purerage can work on it for 1.7 if he wants to fix normal. I'm curious about how everyone feels once they get to chaos sanctuary NM and beyond.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 5:57 pm 
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Thoughts on Act2 Norm

Killed Radamant at 24, no changes to gear. Can have a decent damage spike if you are in the middle of a chain of spells. The bone spirit one seemed to be doing most of it, but nothing really dangerous. Used about 6 reds and 4 blues.

Thanks to whoever made shrine effects 'unhealable' again.

Queen's nest. Put found jewels in weapon. otherwise unchanged gear. Killed at 27. Barely dropped health. The cold spell could be upped, and the physical attack the comes from underfoot didn't hit very hard. Easier than Radamant. Don't think I potioned. I do have 25 lifesteal.

Juggernaut: Killed at 27. Slight updrage in helm. Harder than previous two fights by a margin. 2.1k life. Most dangerous part was stacked volcanoes. Avoidable, but if you stand there and keep attacking like a dolt, you are likely going to die. Not as dangerous as he has been in the past. He could use a lil more life, and physical resistance or straight DR. Not a lot, but it should take a bit longer overall. Killed the one in the portal before he got off a 2 boulder. Used about 10-12 reds.

Ardual: killed at 28. Firestorm from sky most damaging spell/attack Probably couldn't have taken on a full 2 of them in a row..but i have like zero MDR. His lightning jav seems a lot weaker. It tickles, but that is about it. Could use a damage boost. It used to damn near one shot at crits...wasn't a huge fan of how variant it was in previous iterations in this regard. No gear changed.
Don't think I have noted dmg...about 700-1k at lvl 28.

Dark Night (palace level 3) His health seemed pretty reasonable. Used about 3-4reds to face tank him. I think the damage would be ok, if he had a higher attack speed, though his forced teleport on attack would be annoying as hell if set too high. I would prefer this to a straight damage increase.

Summoner: Killed at level 30. Frozen Orb doesn't do much, and firewall barely overcomes 100ish replenish life. Meteors took reasonable chunks of health if they hit consecutively. Relatively easy to avoid these though. Probably used more reds than need, so that could test stacks of getting hit by several things.

Thrack: Killed lvl 31. I like the twister spell that starts at a local and spreads. His overall damage is low. The poison mat wasn't very strong. I engaged once, and swung away. 1 health potion used.

Druiel Killed level 31. Used sockets in helm finally, and felt like I needed to change my shield to steelclash for at least some straight DR. Rock storm is pretty dangerous, along with whatever was stunning. Used about a belt of health potions, and moved away almost every time this spell was cast, or was caused by counters. The cold spell (same one as queen's nest is decent at stopping regen, but not much more. Could use a smallish increase in damage I think. Not huge, but some. To 'face tank' Duriel, you need a lot more than the 20DR, 2.4klife,1-1.5kdamage/25lifesteal that I was using...at least double this from my best guess.

About breakpoints. In the last patch, it seemed like wolf builds took a massive hit in this regard. There were very few items other than crafts in which you could obtain 4fpa fury (and almost as importantly the delay btwn 1st attack and second+), much less 3. At least until quite late. I understood this, as it was probably too easy before, particularly with a some of the other boons they had over other melee classes.

I forget which claw it was (maybe fist of magi or somethin like that) which had 6% crushing blow. This should be dropped to 2-4 or something. CB is low for a host of reasons, and should be kept that way for the most part.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 6:15 pm 
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As a side note: The price of gambling jewels in the early game is way too cheap in my opinion, particularly with the availability of sockets. Prices should be at least doubled if not tripled at this stage of the game. It probably isn't as big of a deal later on, where gems are often used in many sockets instead.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:31 am 

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I miss 1.1 normal Meph :(


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 2:24 am 
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Mas notas

Thoughts on Act3 Norm

-Sszak - Killed lvl 32. No gear changes. With the removal of immunities, the spider got a lot easier. Damage should be upticked a bit. The poison is still long lasting, just not nearly as hard to deal with.Used about 4-5 (and several more to keep A1 merc up)health potions, and a row of manas. I do like the idea of actually being able to kill this damn thing with a phys melee character...at least in normal

-Sarina : killed lvl 35, same gear. Hits like a fairy. Most I saw taken off was maybe 200 life.

-Empyream band ring. The FHR at 45% is too high in my opinion. The rest of the stats are fine, but this should be lower to something like 15%. Hitting higher FHR breakpoints this early should not be given with a pair of these rings and nothing else.

-Chimera - lvl 35 or 36 seems essentially the same is it always has. Moderate use of health pots, needed to move once to let health potions act without being poisoned and whatnot

Leviathan - lvl 36 Has never been a danger, and still is not. I would actually like to see this monster replaced (not a trivial proposition, but doable). Does anybody even ever fight this thing but me?

Hatestorm - his blades and jav attacks aren't so spikey on crits. Could use a bit more damage though. His light attack from sky. If you don't have at least decent MDR, I don't really see how folks are going to stand and yawn. With decent values, it can probably be mitigated almost fully though I would imagine...I currently don't have squat for MDR (+5). Killable, but not a lazy fight for a fresh character.

Travincal Council - 37-38. THE PHYS 'IMMUNE' ONE STILL KILLS HIMSELF. I did not notice this until 1.5.
Overall, the council is very weak. Killed them all, and only the cold one required a potion while just swingin away

Mithia: killed lvl 39. using lachdanan set, crap jewels in weap, nada in armor.
4 health potions. Meteors are only real damage dealer. Those aren't too bad, if hydra and/or tornado is beefed a little

Mephisto: killed level 41. switched to (well) jeweled Tancred helm, Manald and Empyrean rings, and put a little bit better jewels in Lach's weapon (i laughed when i ran into the old display bug of too many mods, oh the things i miss about this game:)

1.3k-3.5k damage, 12.1k AR, 7%cb, 24/40 MDR/PDR, 27% magic res, 32 lifeleach, 112FHR, 3.6klife. 75%block, 82%FBR, 169lightres (no, you are not going to pierce my res on norm).

When the spells stacked (2 lightning from sky)+lightning orb took me to less than 1200 life several times. Once, below 500.

I didn't have to prepare for this like in the past (as much much leech, MDR and light absorb as you can get) and level to about 44. Still, I don't think this is quite as easy as I was beginning to believe it was going to be. wiping 3k life on a set of bad rolls is not THAT weak.

-Map of Trials - level 35 - warning possible spoilers

I really liked the entering tileset and the bossroom coloration of the tileset.

I never did this before now, so this is complete conjecture as to what I thought the plan of this was meant to be...am probably totally wrong, and I have not read anything about it...It seemed that the boss would have been immune to everything if the new maxres mod wasn't implemented, and this seemed to mean that I would have to kill the orb...which had no life bar? it eventually summoned stuff, but this was after I killed the boss in about 15 seconds.

-Why is magic resistance so popular on items atm? It is essentially useless at low levels, as there is very little that does direct magic damage? Just curious.

Dunno how/when I can provide more heavy feedback like this since I start work again tomorrow, but I will try when I get the chance.

Thanks again for all that had a hand in the patch (wittingly or not). I have enjoyed playing again after being gone for close to a year.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 4:53 am 

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Glad you've had some fun Kramuti :P One thing to note is these bosses are no joke when in a full game, even in normal. Tonight we had 8 players (4 were lvl 1 bots) barb, sin, sin, zon - and I think we all died at least once to Mephisto. I had no lightning absorb but I had overcapped resists with flawless diamonds in sentinel chest/helm on barb, I think it was about 50 DR and 45 MDR total, I got rekt once and ran out of pots near the end the second time. I mentioned how Mraw said he facetanked Meph with a Sorc while being half afk and they all laughed.

So if anyone thinks they are roflstomping the game solo, try loading in some bots on multiplayer and see how well you do; at least you'll get more drops :P

I had a lot of fun and they did too and that's the entire purpose here.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:47 am 
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Ensley03 wrote:
Glad you've had some fun Kramuti :P One thing to note is these bosses are no joke when in a full game, even in normal. Tonight we had 8 players (4 were lvl 1 bots) barb, sin, sin, zon - and I think we all died at least once to Mephisto. I had no lightning absorb but I had overcapped resists with flawless diamonds in sentinel chest/helm on barb, I think it was about 50 DR and 45 MDR total, I got rekt once and ran out of pots near the end the second time. I mentioned how Mraw said he facetanked Meph with a Sorc while being half afk and they all laughed.

So if anyone thinks they are roflstomping the game solo, try loading in some bots on multiplayer and see how well you do; at least you'll get more drops :P

I had a lot of fun and they did too and that's the entire purpose here.


I'm playing 100% p8 on my sorc (I'm playing SP because I get like 400-500 ping on realm since I live in Thailand...QQ). Did you add hp scaling based on players again? I didn't notice.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 10:47 am 
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I really liked the entering tileset and the bossroom coloration of the tileset.

I never did this before now, so this is complete conjecture as to what I thought the plan of this was meant to be...am probably totally wrong, and I have not read anything about it...It seemed that the boss would have been immune to everything if the new maxres mod wasn't implemented, and this seemed to mean that I would have to kill the orb...which had no life bar? it eventually summoned stuff, but this was after I killed the boss in about 15 seconds.


The immunities removal means these will all be able to be illed without using the intended mechanic. The immunity in future patches will be changed to 100% avoid/evade/dodge.

The mechanic was:
Boss is fully immune until you bring it near the orb. The orb disables the bosses immunities but spawns wave after wave of skeletons while in range, so you need to balance crowd control with boss damage while staying in range of the orb. I need to redo all of these for 1.7 anyway so they'll be improved for next patch.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:08 pm 

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Mrawskrad wrote:

I'm playing 100% p8 on my sorc (I'm playing SP because I get like 400-500 ping on realm since I live in Thailand...QQ). Did you add hp scaling based on players again? I didn't notice.


I didn't think /players does anything on HU? Otherwise people wouldn't load in bots. When I was testing over Hamachi with a friend, I tried it and it said "players set to 8" but the game was exactly the same.

Edit: lol ya I just made a lvl 1 Barb in SP and went to kill a zombie, then did /players 8, and it was the same. In fact, if you type /players ANYTHING, it just says "players set to 8" I don't know if it gives you more drops, but it sure doesn't help the monsters. It makes one hell of a difference online though even if you just add 3 bots. I didn't adjust any player scaling - in fact I don't even know where that is, but AFAIK since at least 1.3 we've always had monster scaling based on players.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 11:14 pm 
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/PlayersX has never done anything on realms. In SP it used to at least.
The monster scaling that is being referred to is really Boss scaling. This has been changed numerous times over the years to allow single spawning, forcing spawning of effectively 2-4 (maybe even 5 in one patch) so that single spawning is no longer the way to beat every bloody boss. This was annoying as all get out to those that actually wanted to fight the bosses as intended, rather getting yelled at for not leaving, allowing some plub to spawn, and then feel great about killing a nerfed boss...I don't know how many times I left, solo'd NORM ANDY rather than having some level 60+ come kill the first act boss. If left untouched...I think at the moment it should be 3spawn mimimum...I can take a look at some point, but it should be this way in my (and many others) opinions.

The thing I always forget is if these numbers are additive or absolute.
Example. If it reads 100/150/200...is the 100 added on top, or is it just full value, then 50% more for 2 players, etc.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 12:37 am 
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Yeah I remember single spawning last time I played... I suppose all it did was make the fight faster, which I didn't really mind, but then to have someone bring in their level 95... for Norm Andy...

/PlayersX is single player only. It is controlled by d2mod.ini (in the base folder, outside of the data folder if it were present). You can set a minimum and maximum X, which might be behind Ensley's "always 8" results. Normally if you type something weird for X outside of the range, then D2 just sets the players to 1.
E.G. (the following in this order)
/players1 = "players set to 1"
/players99 = "players set to 8"
/playersasdf = "players set to 1"

The HP table in d2mod.ini is additive, so 0 = base HP, 100 = double HP. A nice feature of this that I included in my version of HU is that Crushing Blow is based on the base HP, so my Players1 = 150 while the base HP in monlvl.txt is around 40% of what I wanted. The end result is that monster HP is what I wanted, but CBlow is reduced from 25% to 10% HP as phys damage. This way I can put reasonable CBlow numbers on gear (maybe 10% per item, or 30% per character) without completely breaking balance.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:35 am 

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Well for me, having "players set to 8" in SP is exactly the same as playing in a game by myself on MP, and these are the same settings that were in 1.5a/b


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:48 am 
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It could be that this was standardized at some point. I do recall at least having a conversation about it in the past. I do not recall what was actually done.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 4:16 am 
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the settings for it is under d2mod.ini

in 1.5 I changed it to 350% hp for p1-p8 to stop single spawning cheese.

Unless someone changed it again it should still be the same 350% for p1 - p8

Also, /players does work on HU on SP, but you it doesn't work on already spawned monsters if you change it mid-game same as on realm.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 4:06 pm 

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It doesn't do anything for me, and if it did, the game would be basically unplayable from what I've seen on MP.

This is what my d2mod says

; minimum "/players X" value allowed, normal is 1
PlayersXmin = 8
;
; maximum "/players X" value allowed, normal is 8
PlayersXmax = 8
;
HPTable = 350,350,350,350,350,350,350,350

It says it was last edited 12/9/14

So clearly it does nothing for SP unless you have your own personal edited d2mod. Again, it really makes a difference online though, so I say if you are facerolling in SP, go online. :P


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:59 pm 
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the d2mod.ini should be the same on realm as it is on SP unless you or duff changed it. Duff and I changed it in 1.5 to 350% for P1 - P8 on realm.

I don't see why it would be changed now unless someone changed it.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:03 pm 

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the monster hp is fixed regardless of how many players are in the game. however, the amount of xp you get still increases significantly per extra player in the game (i don't know the exact numbers).


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:16 pm 
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Pious wrote:
the monster hp is fixed regardless of how many players are in the game. however, the amount of xp you get still increases significantly per extra player in the game (i don't know the exact numbers).


Yes, exactly, monsters also get a small hard coded damage boost iirc.

I just did a test as well to make sure nothing was strange was happening:

Barb with 14-17 damage

multiplayer players 1 = zombies die in 2 hits, sometimes 3
multiplayer players 8 = zombies die in 2 hits, sometimes 3

singleplayer players 1 = zombies die in 2 hits, sometimes 3
singleplayer players 8 = zombies die in 2 hits, sometimes 3


The /players command is exactly the same as having that many players on realm and always has been. I don't know why you think MP players 8 is different or harder than SP players 8.

What are you smoking?

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:25 pm 

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I just did these tests too. I made a level 10 character with charms that add 500 life and ported to Black Marsh (level 10 monsters vs level 10 char)

It appears there is a damage boost to monsters that is noticeable once you reach 4 players, and moreso with 6, and seems the same after 6. I have no idea where this is listed? It seems like 4 players give monsters about 15-20% more damage, and 6 players gives them about 20-25% more damage.

Vile Archer was hitting me for 16-21 by myself (it never went above 21) hit me for 16-26 with 4 players (never above 26) and hit me for 18-28 with 6 players (interestingly the min went up to 18, with a slightly higher max range) I ignored their crits.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:11 am 
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Act4

Lazarus - went straight there, skipping other quests. killed lvl 47 (i have 55 statpoints unallocated). No gear changes. 12ish health potions. Most dangerous were the falling ice orbs. Not as damaging as Mephs lightning spell (see above). Consecutively, they did force decent potion usage, and a time or two of walking away to let heals act. It is quite a bit easier than before, considering level and gear that I would normally have at this point.

Izual - lvl 47: provided no danger. biggest hit I took was about 350 damage. His counters+casting of the ice and light nova are quite abundant. Raising damage a whole lot would make this pretty crazy, but this is the easiest subboss by far up to this point.

Amon: lvl 50. With 32/52 MDR/DR his ice spell and twisters did zero damage...and i do mean zero.

DeSeis on the other hand killed me with 3 repeated lightning strikes, through a heal potion. guess that means it's time for bed.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:14 am 

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it took a long time for my Hydra Sorc to kill Lazarus and DeSeis. Amon and Moloch seem to be a real step down from those 2 and they pretty much got melted. I'm not sure why that is, since resistances have been somewhat normalized, it's not just because I'm fire and they resist fire.

A1 merc died instantly to all of them so at least that's fixed. :P


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:57 pm 

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im just judging by the skill description here, but shouldnt sorc mastery only add to its own ele by hardpoints? by the looks of it a single ele sorc would benefit from choosing mastery from the wrong tree(extra ele pierce to her element)


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:35 pm 

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Here's Mraw's explanation

Elemental Masteries
-removed the absorbs from mastery
-you can now only put 1 hard point in any ele mastery; once that 1 pt is in you get locked out of the other 2
-say for example you choose fire mastery, you will get:
-2% fire mastery per character level
-2% cold mastery per char lvl
-3.8% lit mastery per char lvl
-these values are based on slvl 55 mastery, you get 66% of the value of slvl 55 mastery at clvl 100 for 1 hard point, what about the other 33%? keep reading
-you also get 50% of your chosen elements pierce stat added to the other 2 elements pierce
-for example you choose fire and you have 100% fire pierce, then you will gain 50% cold and lit pierce
-you only need 1 hard point to get these benefits but if sorcs can still focus more on a single element and be rewarded.
-for 19 more hard points in your chosen mastery you get 7% fire/cold and 12% lit damage per hard point which combined with the per char level bonus at char level 100 is about the equivalent of a slvl 60 mastery


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:45 pm 

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yeah i get it, just feels abit odd that if i do a pure fire sorc, then the worst thing mastery i can choose is fire mastery :P and if i went hybrid i most likely wouldnt max a mastery :)


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 7:31 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:12 am
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Poison creeper bug is back. Glad that we've re-introduced it.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:26 pm 
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gews wrote:
yeah i get it, just feels abit odd that if i do a pure fire sorc, then the worst thing mastery i can choose is fire mastery :P and if i went hybrid i most likely wouldnt max a mastery :)


There's no reason.to go.hybrid anymore because of the res cap on monsters. Sorcs could be reverted if that's what everyone wants.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 9:53 pm 
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DeSeis2: Farmed Chaos to 53, quad socketed a rare pally shield for topaz, plus upgraded to most other items.
5k dmg, 7cb, 23LL, 25 LightAbsorb, 270maxlightres 4.1klife, 31MDR, 39DR. Taking 3 light storms in a row still takes me to about 1k life or so.

Moloch: poison damage is low, and duration is short. Also the poison storm counter/cast should be lowered some and the duration of the poison lengthened (and strengthened).

Beveri'ts Keep Dropped and put prubies in it for D.
20 fire absorb, 218 maxfireres 31MDR, 39DR, rest essentially the same. hit 54.
Diablo 54: spells in general are a lot weaker. Also his lifesteal effectiveness is higher than I remember. A lot easier fight than it should be.

Generally as a melee I wouldn't try to solo that until double that MDR, and roughly double the lifesteal, and nearer 75MDR as a caster. With that preparation flamewave was taking up to 1/2 life.

It seems that ObK's and D are using a version of Lower Resistance that is a lot stronger than all others. They are taking btwen -50 to -60ish to all res, including magic. Not saying it is a bad thing, just something of note.

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 4:26 am 

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In vanilla monster damage increases by +6.25% per additional player for a total of +43.75% at 8 players. This is hardcoded somewhere and I doubt Mancer or anyone else changed it.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 10:08 am 
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The psn creeper bug that thrack has in hell is over the top , the vine doesnt die the same time as thrack , makes it really dangerous for hc players to beat him. Deathnovas Druid died to the vine after thrack was killed And Pious Pally nearly died aswell .

is there something to do about that one or just beware and spread the word ?

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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 5:12 pm 

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I haven't heard about this bug in ages. Thrack in 1.6a is the same as 1.5a, and the Vine Attack skill from Plague Poppy was not changed. All that was changed is poison creeper (the plague poppy summon) has more HP, and benefits more from Rabies synergy. His Vine Attack is level 1 and should die within 2 seconds of when he dies.

Also, if it kills you, it can't just be the vine since the vine can't be lethal to players AFAIK. He has many strange attacks, and it might be one of them geeking out.

Edit - He's been fixed for 1.6b. I don't know what was wrong with the vine or not but he uses different skills now. Tested and I didn't get rekt by any buggy stuff. As for Nova's Druid, ripperoni in spaghetti, never forgetti.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:08 pm 

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+Fist of Fire mod on merchant claws is massively more expensive than any other mod, and it has been like this for a while now.

(+1 FoF superior white claw level 6 costs over 40k gold)

It would be nice if this was fixed one day.


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:33 pm 

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Riem821 wrote:
+Fist of Fire mod on merchant claws is massively more expensive than any other mod, and it has been like this for a while now.

(+1 FoF superior white claw level 6 costs over 40k gold)

It would be nice if this was fixed one day.


Looked into it, it has the same cost multiplier as Blades of Ice and Claws of Thunder. It is high for a level 6 skill, but not as much as many of the level 30 skills (Hurricane costs 4x more, for example)

I've lowered it some for 1.6b so low level FoF users can afford the claws. #MostRandomBalanceChangeEver


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 Post subject: Re: 1.6a balance feedback
PostPosted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:59 pm 
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A1 NM
Blood Raven is quite weak. The spell and attack damage is just low overall. Did with no prep, straight from norm.

Gris: overall damage is somewhat low, it takes a minute to kill him, and if you have to back off at all, the stun is pretty effective.

Leoric: stronger than Gris. had to at least have some potion management. He won't nearly one shot any more, and his counter rate is kinda low compared to others (not bad...but damage should be ticked up).


Countess, with stacked fire res (100ish over max before LR) and 20% fire absorb would still have to break off at some points due to fireball counters+cast

Mort: I needed 100 stacked res for both fire and lightning, +20 fire abs to take Mort. I didn't have Sanctuary aura, but this was actually the most dangerous fight in act 1.

Tobial: my merc could tank him (act5 wolf) pretty easily. With me swinging as hell, counters did get heavy enough to kill him. Alone, however, was pretty constistent with only a few potions used.

Andariel: offense was more important than def. I had overcap of DR%, 52MDR, 82PDR 125 PLR, +cleansing vs more life steal (37 vs 28) more damage (about 8.5k), (10% vs 5%) CB, and (52 MDR, 54 PDR. The damage route made it quite a bit easier, and shorter.

Bone cages were pretty effective at absorbing swings, with zero lifesteal on them. If these are spammed semiquick, it's best just to move.

ACT 2
Overall this was a lot easier than either Mort or Andy.
Radamant, basically suffers the same way he did in norm, but is even a little weaker on spell damage.

Ardual: Tstorm sure does repeat quickly (can we change the sound on his). It isn't super strong, but it will take pretty fast small chunks of life without absorbs. Other than chasing all around as usual , was pretty straightforward.

Juggernaut: his first version will cast/counter a slew of volcanoes and the like, but not much behind them. Second version still hits roughly like he has in the past.

Summoner. Once you get the zombies cleared, and can engage in melee his is pretty simple. His meteors are pretty strong, but dodgeable at that point. (granted i wasn't carrying any absorb, and DR% is only 30...shield is nekked with 3 sockets to use)

Thrack: did pretty much zero damage even standing in poison mat.

Duriel: Didn't really use many potions. Only time was really needed was during a few of the rock storms. He doesn't counter with these as much as other bosses either.

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