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Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
August 10th 2000, 03:55 CEST by andy Diablo II and The Patch That People Hate. What's going on? You want to be kept informed, I know you do. You've got questions that you want to ask, and baby you know I want to get those answers for you! And I nearly managed it too... But you see, Blizzard is one of those game companies that still insists on locking its developers away in a dark room and putting a load of PR people out front to defend them against the perceived evils of journalism. And so, it is my sad news to report that despite the best efforts of your friends at the Planet o' Crap, we've been defeated by the lovely Ms Debra Osborne of Havas Interactive, Blizzard's parent company. For the curious, it went like this...
And that, my friends, is where the curtain closes. Apparently the questions were passed on to the QA team as promised, answered, handed back to Debra, and then, for some unexplained reason, she was asked not to send them to me yet. Will she send them? Did she ever intend to send them? Were they ever answered? Did she even pass them on to the QA team in the first place? Believe whatever makes you happy, folks! |
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Topic: Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
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"I know this is all pointless bitching." Your right. At least you understand your pointless with this bitching. Your trying to rationalize a Bug or Balancing issue that you enjoyed and many others exploited.. Your mad because you developed your character around that Bug. Now why is it that other Necro's like myself are quite happy with the tweak because it doesn't bother us at the moment. Because we developed a balanced character.. Its nice to be flexible. Because you need to be flexible with the Bosses in D2. And CE doesn't help against them. |
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<b>VeeSPIKE</b> (#93): <QUOTE>Or they would figure out how to fix it more to their liking, and implement that change, either for themselves, or release it to the community. That was done for Q2, there was a mod that made the Q2 rocket more like the Q1 rocket, in rate of fire, damage, and missile speed. Kind of fun, but nobody played with it online as I recall. </QUOTE> Yeah but I meant on an offical patch lets say, as in 'its forced' unless you wish to play offline <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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let's get this bug/feature bullshit out of the way, okay? http://www.blizzard.com/support/diablo2/information/patch.shtml <b>Blizzard says it ain't a bug.</b> it's a balance change. oh, and the sports analogy that will work here, for football(UK)/soccer(US): the guys on the front line on the ends (flankers? wings? strikers? dunno wtf they're called) run too fast. thus, they must now wear four pound shoes. but wait! now the center runs too fast and kicks too far. let's put four pound shoes on him and a knee brace on his right leg so he can't kick as hard. but lo, now the fullbacks can cover defense too well, and no goals are scored. make the fullbacks use walkers, and stick the goalie in a wheelchair. and the inside front-line guys are running rampant, so let's remove them from play. but now the guys on the end are running too fast again; let's cut their legs off at the knee. who the fuck is going to watch this "sport" after five or six iterations? how can anyone possibly think this would be fun? and why would anyone want to play this? the thing about nerfing is this: when you hammer the high-end out-of-whack peg down, you reveal another that's highest, but lower. hammer THAT one down, and you'll find three or four more. pretty soon, your arm is tired from all the hammering, and all the pegs are equally and levelly embedded in the board, and everyone's happy... except the guy with the wet jacket that needs a fucking peg to hang his shit on. nerfing is bad, nerfing is sloppy, and nerfing should be bad for business. unfortunately, "games" like everquest and diablo 2 prove--to publishers, anyway--that nerfing players is acceptable, because they suck it up and take it. kind of a shame.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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oh, and this: i, too, would very much like to see The Seven Questions O' Doom(tm) that were sent to Blizzard. :)<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Post <b>#98</b> by crash: <quote></i>let's get this bug/feature bullshit out of the way, okay?</i></quote> I'm really sorry for starting it, wasted quite a bit of time ;( <QUOTE><i>nerfing is bad, nerfing is sloppy, and nerfing should be bad for business. unfortunately, "games" like everquest and diablo 2 prove--to publishers, anyway--that nerfing players is acceptable, because they suck it up and take it. kind of a shame.</i></QUOTE> I know for sure they lost some part of Bnet-playing crowd after that patch, but they probably don't care, they sold way too much copies to worry about loosing few players. They probably don't understand the consequences of that step, hence no public announcements, no explanations, cut-and-paste answers about "balance". The only semi-official statement from Geoff Fraizer (yes I know he's a web guy, and has no direct say on the game development, but better that than silence) said that they would not hesitate to do further changes to classes when they see necessary. It is a shame. <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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I am glad many left... less immature illogical people to deal with. Less whiners and crybabies. Means More people can play D2 on battle-net with less lag. Oh and If I come off as a hearltess un-sympathetic person.. So be it. Because There are tons of games we can play. Oh yes.. Guess what I have played many other RPGS and many times companes have had to tweak balancing for character classes before. And guess what? PEOPLE didn't BITCH Then. Baldur's Gate is one example. Why should D2 be treateed differently. As far comparing it to Everquest. Its not even close. Everquest cost 50 dollars and an extra $120 dollars a year. The investment in TIME And money is a whole lot more costly then D2. I can always create a new character. And use him differently in D2. And guess what? IT doesn't cost me extra a month to keep playing. Even if I had the money to pay for Everquest I wouldn't. 50 bucks is a nice simple one time price. |
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<QUOTE> Remove the ladder. It seems to be the root cause of the problems - not the skill sets. </QUOTE> I agree with removing the ladder. In the first game the general opinion was that a high level sorcerer was the most powerful character in the game, but no one really seemed to mind. I still think Blizzard should at times tweak some skills downward if they feel that is the best way to balance the game. CE was overpowered. It's still quite powerful from what I can tell. WW may need to be adjusted again to make it more effective. It would be nice for Blizzard to implement a one-time option for characters to reallocate 10 skill points or so. Probably won't happen, though. |
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Andy it chould be much worse. Try e-mail any one in the US government (not like you'd want to), what you get is an auto responce telling you to snail mail your request to the listed adress. Anyway would just saying we are preparing a public statement on the issuse arising from the new Diablo II patch, which should be avalible shortly. Really have been all that hard even with serverl thousand e-mail comming in a simple copy past would have handeled it (hell depending on what software their using this could have been handeled automaticly). -- None-1a. Sure the spelling looks stupid, but how stupid do you look, after all your only argument is that I'm spelling poorly.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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EvilAsh says: <QUOTE>I am glad many left... less immature illogical people to deal with. Less whiners and crybabies.</QUOTE> EvilAsh....do you not read the posts that reply specifically to your own post? Perhaps you need to scroll up this thread and read them because those replies are the most mature, logical arguments I have ever seen. And guess what? They are in reply to an immature person who sees fit to call someone who doesn't like their time being wasted a "whiner and crybaby". I could've sworn Charlie, crash, Piramida, and everyone else had proven their points beyond doubt... EvilAsh says: <QUOTE>Guess what I have played many other RPGS and many times companes have had to tweak balancing for character classes before.</QUOTE> DIABLO 2 AIN'T A RPG! I am positive this was said somewhere else....even if the game is a RPG, I have never seen anyone on B.net role-play their character. It's all for the development of the skills and the pride of creating something unique, not making a Clvl 75 Paladin to go around to "the young folk of today to spread the glorious message of Zakarum." Man alive...is anyone else getting tired of EvilAsh? <QUOTE>Remove the ladder. It seems to be the root cause of the problems - not the skill sets.</QUOTE> Yes! Get rid of the competition factor! It might even stop some annoying PKing! Ok. I'm done. |
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<QUOTE> -Corpse Explosion (Necromancer) Reduced the extra radius gained per level of the skill from 1 to 1/2. Reduced the explosion damage so that it is not scaled up for each additional player in the game -Revive (Necromancer) Removed the hit point boost for extra levels gained in this skill .</QUOTE> My character that I had, Mordof the Necromancer level 30, is being fucked up. I am glad I wasn't into this game and uninstalled it, I would have been ranting like a whore right now <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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I can't beleive the sheer amounts of vitriol dredged up over a click click die monster game. |
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<i>#include "disclaimer.h"</i> EvilAsh (#101): <i>I am glad many left... less immature illogical people to deal with. Less whiners and crybabies.</i> yep, now all that's left are the masochists. enjoy. and btw, laddie, i must say, you're easily the most subtle troll i've ever seen. almost coherent, on the verge of having a good point, and very close to being--but not quite--logical. well done.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>bagofmice</b> (#106): <QUOTE> I can't beleive the sheer amounts of vitriol dredged up over a click click die monster game. </QUOTE> Thats like saying "I can't believe the sheer amounts of vitriol dredged up over a click click rocket jump game" <I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<i>Thinking...</i> |
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<b>Guido</b> (#104): <QUOTE>is anyone else getting tired of EvilAsh? </QUOTE> You have no idea ... <b>bagofmice</b> (#106): <QUOTE> I can't beleive the sheer amounts of vitriol dredged up over a click click die monster game. </QUOTE> It's not. It's over an investment of time and effort that's been negated by a company arbitrarily changing the rules. -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#93</b> "VeeSPIKE" wrote... <QUOTE> Well, ok, this is true, but andy has confirmation that she has his answers, but she is not able to send them to him. Why the holdup? My thought would be that she cannot give him these answers due to some internal policy, and is waiting for instructions on what she CAN send to him. While this is typical of any PR situation, you have to wonder what is being hidden. </quote> Well, OK. You say, "You have to wonder what is being hidden," when it may be that the answers were hastily put together and were rendered "wrong" by another decision elsewhere. Or that they answered the questions, then decided to wait on releasing whatever information was in them because they're planning a big announcement, or that they need to make sure they have their ducks in a row and not release conflicting statements. --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#110</b> "Warren Marshall" wrote... <QUOTE> It's not. It's over an investment of time and effort that's been negated by a company arbitrarily changing the rules. </QUOTE> Negated? Hmm, is that really accurate? It's not like they wiped all of the characters, right? --- "My life is a patio of fun."<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>The questions that I put to Blizzard...</b> To balance gameplay, some skills of the Barbarian and Necromancer characters have been dramatically weakened. Could this balancing have been done before release with more testing, or was it only found to be necessary once the game was being widely played? Many players, including your own webmaster at the official site, have expressed their feeling that skills in an online game should never be changed once the game has shipped. Do these people have a valid complaint? Some players have said that rather than the Barbarian and Necromancer characters being too powerful, it was actually the other characters that were too weak. Thus, by weakening the Barbarian and Necromancer, it is felt that all characters will find it very difficult to survive in the game's more challenging areas. Is this a fair summary of what has happened? One common suggestion being made by players is that skill points which had previously been invested in the weakened skills could be 'refunded', so they can be reinvested in other skills. Is this a workable solution, and is it likely to happen? The more controversial changes in the latest patch were not listed in the official documentation. After players noticed the changes and complained about them, Blizzard then amended the documentation. Why were the changes not made clear in the first place? On a slightly different subject, there are still complaints about Diablo II servers being unreliable, with some players complaining that they repeatedly get disconnected before their game data has been saved. Are there any hopes that this situation can be rectified soon? Finally, can you provide any details about what will be changed or fixed in the next patch, and when it is likely to be released? |
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All I can say is, thank god I don't play Diablo 2 and worry about this sort of thing :) |
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Andrew, I'm right with ya baby! haha I haven't played D or D2...though I was sooo close to picking up Diablo years back...just never made it...<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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The parallels between cheating/exploit abuse and game balance changes are certainly intriguing to say the least. Especially since only the hardcore players would know enough to take advantage of allowable exploits/unbalanced skills. - [g.man]<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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The analogy to putting weights on soccer players' feet isn't a very good one. A better one would be, fer instance, making headers illegal, or letting coaches make as many substitutions as they want. Those would be rules tweaks that players and organizations could adapt to, much as the CE and WW tweaks can be adapted to. A better sport to look at when thinking about this sort of analogy is NHL hockey. A few years back, the NHL allowed for trapping zone defenses, and this caused the game to slow down and become much more defense oriented. To use the giving/taking system that Charlie talks of, this would be the NHL giving the defense more power, and thus ruining the game in many people's eyes. Of course, you can always think of this as taking power away from the offense, as well. In D2, taking away experience-earning power from the Necro and the Barb has resulted in a subtle increase in power for other classes, as Necro and Barb players can no longer join multiplayer games and easily wipe out every creature in every map and thus reduce the exp-potential for people playing other classes. Blizzard could have raised the power of 'zon, sorc, and paladin skills, but that would have simply defeated the point of having a skill tree. If 90% of the players of a particular class are using one skill 95% of the time, what's the point in having the rest of the skills at all? I like this "adapt or die" approach much better than giving every class a supergodly skill. I'm currently playing a Clev32 'zon and having a blast because I have to think about how I should use my powers to defeat certain situations that the RNG tosses at me. I believe that games should make players think, and that if they don't, then the game is flawed. heh. Now I'm wondering how chess traditionalists a millenium ago felt when people started playing the queen as being a bishop+rook as opposed to rook+knight. I can just see a couple of Arabs sitting around complaining about the queen being "nerfed". ^_^ |
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Perfect questions. |
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Just get Icewind Dale (yes it's AD&D) until Baldur's Gate 2 comes around. |
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<b>EnergyMan wrote in post #119:</b> <quote>Just get Icewind Dale (yes it's AD&D) until Baldur's Gate 2 comes around. </quote> <i>Very</i> good game. -- Dethstryk Damage Gaming |
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Post <b>#113</b> by Andy: <QUOTE><i>The questions that I put to Blizzard</i></quote> Andy, great questions, but you forgot to directly ask them "Would you continue to balance the player classes when you see fit or was it a one-time thing", they might get around your last question... I think what you'd get in response (if it ever comes) would be like 1. Oops 2. We feel sorry for them 3. Try teamplaying 4. Unfair to others 5. Oops 6. Sure working on it 7. Bugfixes I hate those corporate rats, it seems that they spend few days working out lengthiest press releases which are so successfull at not answering direct questions that you wonder if they forgot what was asked in the first place...<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Responding To post #117. Great Points made..But unfortunately they will fall on deaf ears..Those hear who "invested" 95% of their skill points in one of those skills are now forever damage to the point that they have been an still are whining about it. I mean Shrinks would have a field day reading this through this vitriol. As to Warren's Comments aw Common ... Now your taking it a little too extreme. I mean seriously You make it seem like Blizzard reach out.. Grabbed your heart.. Ripped out of your chest.. Threw it on the ground and danced on it..all the while laughing and pointing at you saying.. Things like.. "Sucker! haha ,We got you good and there is nothing you can do.. Mwhaaha!" I Will ask this. How were you going to beat Duriel or other bosses with only CE? This to the necro's who are all bent out of shape over the CE being Nerfed. I want it to be explained to me how a necro would be able ALONE to beat Duriel and the rest of the Bosses with only the use of CE. |
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Good practice, if you are completely out of arguments, return to the very starting point of the conversation and ask the questions which has been answered 100 times. Oooh, see, no one answers, you win.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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You haven't answered my question.. In fact one has yet to refute my point YET. I asked quite simply.. ON B-net by yoursel if you totally were a CE HOG how in the world would you be able to BEAT any of the Bosses with CE alone? The reason no one has answered is simple. Because you CAN't. You have to Join a group and let them Beat the Boss for YOu. That would be the only way and the most unsatisfactory way of doing it.. IF you beat the boss by yoursel.. more often then not.. Especially the first time you beat it.. A unique item will drop. If progress through game in solo...just using CE..And then once you come a boss section.. You leave to start a group game to allow others to BEAT the Boss for you.. Then that's your only option. Every other Necro who has a balanced skilled character has no problems.. Fighting a boss and clearing a room of monsters as well. I asked the question and it was a rhetorical one..I just knew that No one would admit the truth. And you P. Just took the bait and perfectly supported it. Thanks for playing Glad this argument is over. Who's NEXT? |
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<i>Thinking...</i> |
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I just gotta say to everyone who's going apeshit over this whole D2 thing, chill and go get and play Planescape: Torment. No doubt the best RPG I've played in so many respects. Black Isle deserves a more for this game-- it's a masterpiece yet I have heard it did not sell all too well. I didn't have expectations for it to surpass BG, but for me, it blew BG out of the water in so many respects. |
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<b>#124</b> "EvilAsh" wrote: <QUOTE>You haven't answered my question.. In fact one has yet to refute my point YET. I asked quite simply.. ON B-net by yoursel if you totally were a CE HOG how in the world would you be able to BEAT any of the Bosses with CE alone? </QUOTE> http://www.planetcrap.com/stories/123/#965892825 of course, if you are ignoring answers to your questions, you would never know that.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#124</b> "EvilAsh" wrote... <QUOTE>I asked quite simply.. ON B-net by yoursel if you totally were a CE HOG how in the world would you be able to BEAT any of the Bosses with CE alone? The reason no one has answered is simple. Because you CAN't. You have to Join a group and let them Beat the Boss for YOu. That would be the only way and the most unsatisfactory way of doing it.. </QUOTE> You're right EvilAsh - CE isn't overpowered. If you concentrate only on it, and no other skills, you'll never be able to beat a boss. It's pretty obvious this insures it can't be unbalanced, since it doesn't work on only 1 enemy. Your argument is the best support yet I've heard for not changing the play balance. -Whisp |
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<b>#126</b> "Diseased" wrote: <QUOTE>I just gotta say to everyone who's going apeshit over this whole D2 thing, chill and go get and play Planescape: Torment. </QUOTE> Are you suggesting that each time a game developer pulls some dirty trick we should silently go and play something else? Quite sheepish that would be ;) And of course, Planescape Torment is an awesome game, it's just that it falls under single-player games category for me, and for multiplayer I prefer brainless killing games like Quake and Diablo.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>#128</b> "Whisp" wrote: <QUOTE>You're right EvilAsh - CE isn't overpowered. If you concentrate only on it, and no other skills, you'll never be able to beat a boss. It's pretty obvious this insures it can't be unbalanced, since it doesn't work on only 1 enemy. Your argument is the best support yet I've heard for not changing the play balance. </QUOTE> No, he's just trying to prove he's superior because he did not understand the usefullness of CE, ignored it for his character, and now feels that it was a very smart and flexible decision. We need another poster, a barb who ignored whirlwind because he thought it was too weak (I've seen some), and who would be now bragging about how smart and flexible he was not to use this skill (of course, he would never admit he simply did a stupid character planning decision which with the help of Blizzard's magic turned into a right one). I respect each individual playing style, but I don't like lying people.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Dethstryk</b> (#120): <QUOTE><I>Very</I> good game. </QUOTE> Except for the extremely lame path finding. In most areas, I tell the party to go somewhere and 5 of the 6 go the right way ... and there's 1 straggler who decides to be different and goes WAY out of his way, finds a dead end, has to backtrack, and then take the route that everyone else took. It's really annoying ... Is there a fix or something for this? It actually does keep me from playing the game since I waste so much time just sitting there waiting for the party to arrive at the location I asked them to ... <b>EvilAsh</b> (#122): <QUOTE>As to Warren's Comments aw Common ... Now your taking it a little too extreme. I mean seriously You make it seem like Blizzard reach out.. Grabbed your heart.. Ripped out of your chest.. Threw it on the ground and danced on it..all the while laughing and pointing at you saying.. Things like.. "Sucker! haha ,We got you good and there is nothing you can do.. Mwhaaha!" </QUOTE> Do you intentionally TRY to miss the point as badly as possible? You seem to have perfectly honed the skill ... -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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No My CE is level 8. My IM is Level 9 My Iron Golem is level 8 MY Blood Golem is level 6 My Golem mastery is level 5 MY Skeleton MAstery is level 6 MY Bone Wall is level 4 My Bone Spirit is level 4 My Bone Spear is level 6 MY Fire Golem is level 5. Its called options learn to use them. Its not as hard as you make it out to be. :) |
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<QUOTE>Are you suggesting that each time a game developer pulls some dirty trick we should silently go and play something else?</QUOTE> Not really. I just had been playing D2 and a few days ago went back to playing P:T (which I had started before D2) and as far as the single play experience goes, D2 doesn't compare. I am loving every minute of torment. |
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<b>#132</b> "EvilAsh" wrote: <QUOTE>Its called options learn to use them. Its not as hard as you make it out to be. :) </QUOTE> So you are specializing in Iron Maiden. Remember, it can get screwed any day. It is obviously your first try at necro (4 bone wall/spirit, rrrright), so you would regret some of your skill investments when you reach harder levels. I just don't understand why you decided to teach people (some of whom finished the game at hell/hell) with your level 30-something necro how to play. You like to spread skills evenly - good for you, but be warned that it gets much harder with this setup later on. If I were you, I'd start at least increasing the masteries ASAP instead of concentrating on absolutely useless later on bone skills. My screwed necro had BG at 5 with 1 golem mastery and 3 IM, it was enough for most bosses (Amp damage, IM, life tap, BG). Most of the points went to skel mastery, revives and CE. It was a well thought out decision after my first necro was spread out like yours to try everything out. I don't understand why you have to teach others how to play though, without even playing enough yourself.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Warren Marshall wrote in post #131:</b> <quote>Except for the extremely lame path finding. In most areas, I tell the party to go somewhere and 5 of the 6 go the right way ... and there's 1 straggler who decides to be different and goes WAY out of his way, finds a dead end, has to backtrack, and then take the route that everyone else took. It's really annoying ... </quote> Did you ever try increasing the AI path nodes or whatever like I told you? ;) -- Dethstryk Damage Gaming |
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Hmmmm, Can anyone think of any better solutions Blizzard could have put in place here? Personally, I think they should have just increased the mana cost. This would have prevented CE happy Necro's from corpse exploding an entire screen of baddies. Probably would slow down the rampant use of Whirlwind to kill everything in a few clicks... Then again, the point of Diablo II is to kill as much as possible in as few clicks as possible.. :-) Did anyone play in the stress test or closed beta? How did CE work in the beta/test? Was it the same in post 1.03 or pre 1.03? Archadon The fire wielding, ice throwing, pyrotecnic sorceress that makes pretty lights before she dies in one hit! :-)<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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Actually Bone walll works great.. Sufficiently leveled and with +4 bonus to all my skills due to +1 necro amulet. +2 wand and Sigon's Shield.. I have am able to experiment.. Bonewall doesn't cost much mana.. and Combining that with Im is a great thing..You can create veritable fortress of bone around a boss like Diablo2..and just cast Im... As far as investing in Im more than others.. Its not really by much... And as far as masteries.. Oh trust me.. I am going to be investing in them.. My character is only level 35. Recently I was playing a game in Act4 on night mare setting and I made the mistake of waypointing into the city of flame at the start of the game..And Was immediately humbled by about 20 monsters.. I died.. Another Necro in the same game was Level 46 and proceeded to laugh and say I was a newbie. I knew for a fact No Player could escape that area without dying within seconds because there was about 10 atomic knights. Surrounding the Waypoint.. And one unique Atomic with them.. So I goaded the cocky Necro and said if he was so good he could go there and grab my gold there was like 30 thousand on the ground.. He took me up on the challenge.. And within 20 seconds..I was greeted with the sweet announcement that His character had died at the hands of a FleshBeast. :) Trust me.. I do bettter than most with the skills I have. And I am creative in there use. But sometimes.. I make mistakes and die like the rest. IT happens.. But MY necro is fine. We shall see how he is when I reach level 50.. It should be interesting. |
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<b>EvilAsh</b> (#132): <QUOTE>Its called options learn to use them. Its not as hard as you make it out to be. :) </QUOTE> I'm going to speak slowly -- try to follow me. I don't care what characters you're playing. I don't care about what style of play you use. When I speak against what Blizzard did, I'm speaking against the -principle- of it. The exact action and the exact consequences of it are irrelevant. Try to understand this before responding again ... <b>Dethstryk</b> (#135): <QUOTE>Did you ever try increasing the AI path nodes or whatever like I told you? ;) </QUOTE> Yeah, I set them at the max value (like 100,000 I think) ... made no difference. I still get the straggler. I think it's just born dumb ... :-/ -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Warren Marshall wrote in post #138:</b> <quote>Yeah, I set them at the max value (like 100,000 I think) ... made no difference. I still get the straggler. I think it's just born dumb ... :-/ </quote> Damn. Well, I do agree with you on the dumb path-finding then, but I always looked at it as a minor problem. They <i>eventually</i> got to their destination. ;) -- Dethstryk Damage Gaming |
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Why did Blizzard do it? Simple it was needed the balance was not there. Here is the question for you Warren.. IF there was abviously an out of balance issue... How would Blizzard be able to take care of it differently? Only thing I agree was that they should have had an announcement... Fully Disclosed That the patch was going to make these changes,.. Explain the changes.. And Why. And give players the option of redistributing their skill points. That's it. That's my only beef with them. As for your principle issue your belief is that they will now for the next year tweak the game to the point its unrecognizable... You see the game Half-empty. I see it Half-full. What's should have Blizzard done? MAde the monsters even tougher? Think about logically if it thats at all possible for you. |
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<b>#136</b> "Archadon" wrote: <QUOTE>Did anyone play in the stress test or closed beta? How did CE work in the beta/test? Was it the same in post 1.03 or pre 1.03? </QUOTE> Stress test was limited to 1st level skills and to barbarian class. But anyway, there were few problems with barb, like sword use, no one used anything else. With whirlwind, it changed. Now, it changed back :) Only a crazy barb would swing anything but swords. You can still use ww but frankly, frenzy seems better to me. Swords are much faster, deal alot of damage, can be equipped in two hands for frenzy... It's all about swords now.<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<QUOTE>Yeah, I set them at the max value (like 100,000 I think) ... made no difference. I still get the straggler. I think it's just born dumb ... :-/ </QUOTE> Strange, I was going to suggest the same thing but it really makes no diff. I wonder why BI took a step backwards in the pathfinding with this one...P:T actually has pretty decent pathfinding as compared to BG especially. |
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Post <b>#140</b> by EvilAsh: <QUOTE><i> What's should have Blizzard done? MAde the monsters even tougher? Think about logically if it thats at all possible for you. </i></QUOTE> I *love* that guy. Ok, assuming that you present an average Diablo player (one of the reasons I never read Blizzards forums btw), here's a pointer to the beginning of the thread about the patch (this thread and the very first one). Please read through the messages and have a pencil with a piece of paper to write down your favorite answers and what the threads are about, if you tend to forget it. There are answers for following questions, and much more: "CE was overpowered wasn't it", "what should have Blizzard done", "what's bad about balancing characters midway", "why do you care about it", etc. Also please see the article mentioned in #72 by Charlie Wiederhold, read it. The first thread is at http://www.planetcrap.com/stories/123/, the second thread is what you are reading now. The answer to your particular question: It's not about what Blizzard should have done, it's about what Blizzard should *not* have done. If you are still interested in what they could have done, here's a list, best first: 1. Do nothing, leave two classes powerfull one medium and two weak, remove ladder 2. Make weak classes medium/powerfull, remove ladder 3. Acknowledge your failure at balancing the game, refund people their money, declare it an open beta (;]) 4. Keep ladder at all costs, cut experience gains and make one powerfull class weak, the other one medium, most probably starting endless class rebalancing, etc etc etc Please read the answers to why this is so at the threads mentioned above. Don't jump in with questions like "yeah and what if it's all left as is then CE would stay too powerfull", please, please, please?<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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<b>Dethstryk</b> (#139): <QUOTE>Damn. Well, I do agree with you on the dumb path-finding then, but I always looked at it as a minor problem. They <I>eventually</I> got to their destination. ;) </QUOTE> Yeah, but I get sick of waiting for them. :) "I want to enter this temple." *click* *wait* *wait* *wait* *wait* :) <b>EvilAsh</b> (#140): <QUOTE>Here is the question for you Warren.. IF there was abviously an out of balance issue... How would Blizzard be able to take care of it differently? </QUOTE> Apparently I wasn't speaking slow enough. The exact details of what happened are not important. It's the principle. <QUOTE>You see the game Half-empty. I see it Half-full. </QUOTE> No, I don't. I like Diablo2. <QUOTE>Think about logically if it thats at all possible for you. </QUOTE> Yeah, keep going with the stupid insults. It appears that's your best debating technique... <b>Diseased</b> (#142): <QUOTE>Strange, I was going to suggest the same thing but it really makes no diff. I wonder why BI took a step backwards in the pathfinding with this one...P:T actually has pretty decent pathfinding as compared to BG especially. </QUOTE> Yeah, I agree. Torment never seemed to have problems getting the guy to go where I wanted him ... -- Warren Marshall - Professional Nuisance<I><B></B></I><I></I><I></I> |
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What does it matter that you like or I like Diablo2.. We are discussing the Principle as in regards to how and what Blizzard did with the PAtch. My opinion and many others agree it was needed.. In how it was handled is where I also agree that they were wrong. You dislike Nerfing? In this case it was warranted. And if you say that the beta test should have shown this.... Really? IT was a limited beta. I ask again.. Since there was a balance issue which many did notice.. How would you have handled.. Since you seem to know all the answers. |
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Topic: Rules of Engagement, Lesson #1 -- Say Nothing
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