Things that should be implemented in the next patch.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 11:23 pm

Just an idea post and nothing more. Here, I have started a thread with ideas that should be in a patch and if they decided NOT to make another patch, then I might make one myself with a modder program.

Ideas-

Cow level should be WAY harder. It is a thrice in a game level and it deserves it's hardcoreiness.

Gems should be a little more equal with each other. Emeralds should be more like 3-4 points of damage (for chipped) over 3 seconds and Topaz's should be 3-4 as well. Sapphires should also be about 3-4 as with the Ruby.

Runes need to be a little more balanced. For instance-
Cham- +3 to freeze target should be about 10% chance per rune to freeze target.
El- should give WAY less than +15 to Armor. Maybe +7 would do because it is insane to be able to find it in act one from a monster in say the dark wood. And the +50 to attack rating is rather insane as well.
Ral, ort, and tal, should be a little more balanced like the gems above.
Some others as well

Diablo should have resistances to everything a bit higher than normal. It is 33, 50, 50 for normal, nightmare, hell and it should be more like 40, 60, 80. I mean, he is the freakin DIABLO for god's sake.

Set items should be a little more "worth it" for when you COMPLETE the set. These were rather dissapointing and I think the actual values should be multiplied by at least 1.5. The same goes for rune words.

Some uniques need to be tweaked a little. Like I gambled for a maul one time with a barbarian and got "bonesnap," by chance and it did very little for me compared to a pike. The pike was a little slower, but more effective in act three with the whirlwind. Bonesnaps's main effect "crushing blow" should be a little better than 40%. Not too much though, unless you lower the damage bonus. If the damage isn't lowered, then I'd say 45-50% and if it is lowered, then like 60-70%. Many other's are just as dissapointing.

Skills need to be balanced. The sorceress skill mainly. It has Ice Bolt with synergies from EVERYWHERE. It gets a 15% synergy from ice blast, frost nova, blizzard, glacial spike, and frozen orb. Not to mention the insane bonus from cold mastery. It needs toned down immensly. Say you had those 6 skills at level 7 (50 for the mastery and 90 for all the others) then let's take a look see at what our damage is with a level 10 ice bolt. that's an average of 93 damage with cold length to a 1st level NON MAXED spell. Now the same goes for firebolt. All the skills at level 7 that give it a synergy bonus and firebolt at level 10. 67 average for fireball the same. All in all, it makes fire and lightning look like wimps. Ice Bolt is only slightly, and I do mean slightly (.5 mana per level more than firebolt) more mana costly than firebolt.

All that said, that is all I have for now. This isn't supposed to be a "flame diablo 2 for this," but a "hey blizzard, if you look here, you might be able to improve this a little bit."

Any suggestions and ideas are welcome. If this is not allowed, then please delete it. I am trying my best to not break the rules (and yes I have read them). I don't mean to flame the game because it is an awesome game, but some tweaks should be made. If they won't come out with another patch, then I can make a patch with any and possibly all suggestions and ideas posted here.

GA_Havoc · Post by **GA_Havoc** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 2:20 am

I think this is an interesting thread that talks about what people want to see different, not what a lame game this is.
In my opinion there should be a better way to defend against magic damage then just a few points reduced, let's use percentages like with the other damage types.

Another nice tweak might be the use of curses by creatures, let them use more of this curse that makes you hurt yourself for casting spells to balance the frequent iron maiden usage of those knights.

BTW, I think the character types (sorc, druid etc.) are properly balanced, it's mainly dependent on your strategic choice.

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 5:34 am

Excuse me? Tuning down Cham runes? Let me say something: for players who like to play legit, it is extremely hard, nearly impossible to find high runes. The problem here is not with the Cham: the problem is with the dupers. High runes are so powerful because they're meant to be rare! And your example doesnt make much sense either: there's an incredible amount of cold damage sources available, so it would be plain stupid to socket a Cham in a single-socket weapon just for freeze target. Even a simple cold damage charm will do the same. El runes aren't that bad: most characters have 95% chance to hit in Act 1 normal anyway, so why would they want to waste an El in a weapon just to get some AR. The same for defense: the highest amount of sockets you can find on an item in A1 is 2, so thats +30 defense: who cares about that? Even in A1 thats peanuts. Ral, Ort and Tal aren't unbalanced either: they add a nice amount of damage, and can be used for a very handy and cheap runeword with a lot of resists when you need it most: at the beginning of Nightmare. Bonesnap is not a Whirlwind weapon per se and you have to look at other things than plain damage when comparing weapons. First of all, as a mace it doesn't require dexterity, unlike much lances and polearms, so it's suited to players who like to invest a lot in strength (for wearing high-defense armors or for the % ED boost). Secondly, it has a 40% CB, very useful against Act Bosses and enough to trigger it often. Bonesnap is actually a very good weapon: it does a huge amount of damage for it's level requirement, the Str requirement is relatively low, it has 40% CB, high resistances (on a weapon!), socketed with a Shael it can reach the -10 WW breakpoint (added IAS only makes sense when you reach a new breakpoint, but that breakpoint can boost your damage a lot!), and most importantly, it has an insane amount of Enhanced Damage for a normal unique weapon. For some cheap lowlevel runes you can upgrade it to it's exceptional version, which can easily carry you to nightmare and even through hell when you upgrade it again. You say Firebolt and Ice Bolt are ridicilously overpowered because there synergies add so much damage. Right, but those synergies add percentual damage, and IB's base damage is so low that those synergy points add almost nothing! If it's that overpowered, then why does noone use it past lvl 12? Let's take a quick look at your example: IB at level 10, all synergies at lvl 7 and CM at level 7, that's 52 skill points for 93 damage. I can get 250 damage on multiple targets with 1 skill point in Frozen Orb! Your argument about it being a lvl 1 skill doesn't make sense too, because all it's synergies have a lvl requirement of 6-24. Sure, many things can be improved in this game, but the things you mentioned are probably the last things players would ask Blizzard.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:40 am

Well, I am sorry that this didn't work out as planned. And being told that people wonder if I know much about the game is a major dis as well. I was trying to get an -opinionated- thread started about how you -think- diablo 2 should be. These were my opinions and they were shot down for some reason, but oh well. To each there own I always say.

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:26 am

I would like to have a sorceress skill chart with atleast two usefull skills on every thread, with one having many synergies and one having few but doing slightly more damage. This way you could perhaps bring back the old Tri-Elementalists again. They can very well be hard to play, but not this hard imo.

I would like to see an increase in the number of mana points you get for energy, and increase the spell costs as well. As it is now points in energy are wasted points.

I very much doubt there will be another patch though.

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:53 am

Sorry for the rough reaction, I edited the post slightly. I didn't mean to offend you, only to provide valuable counter-arguments against your suggestions, which I find mostly unnecessary.

What I would enjoy is a way to stop duping and an increase in rune drop probability. As I mentioned, a legit player has a very slim chance of ever finding the runes to make a highlevel runeword.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 11:17 am

Prolly my fault dude. I don't take arguments well all the time and I apologize for calling what you say bad. You have just as good an opinion as I do or anybody else here. I just take things a little too seriously sometimes, so I am sorry.

I can easily see your point on the frozen orb thing and totally agree with you. I am now going even -deeper- into the arreat summit site and I will provide a litle better information so here goes.

Poison nova and poison explosion are quite similar, but one is a lot better than the other. Poison Explosion (an 18th level spell) has a maximum of 1620 damage over 9.6 seconds whereas poison nova (a 30th level spell) has a maximum of 468 damage over 2 seconds. These both are without synergies and I think they are a little unbalanced. Poison explosion is a small radius that does a crapload of damage to anybody that walks through it. With a coupld of rejuvenation potions, you can kill off just a few enemies and then poison the rest of them with this spell. Whereas, poison nova, cost's WAY more and is less effective than the explosion spell. You also get a radius on this effect, but it is not worth the extra time spent to take this skill if you get mana and poison explosion pumped up which would be easier. Poison explosion shouldn't go above 1000 points of damage and poison nova should get a couple of more synergies. I'd say 15% instead of the normal 10% for the two it gets. Afterall, poison nova is a 30th level spell and it should live up to being a 30th level spell at that. I admit that poison explosion is quite small and not effective in big groups of monsters, but it is effective if you cast it about 6 times on creatures sorrounding you.

Let's pretend mana cost adds it's first level mana cost to each level. 20 at first level, 40, 60, 80 so on. You get my point. Well, Poison explosion is cheaper by far at twentieth level compared to poison nova. It would take 160 mana to cast 1 level twenty explosion and 1 level twenty nova would cost 400. I believe it does this in a fashion the same way, just with a different number. I think the formula is base cost x 1.5 per level. I am not sure of this so correct me, but the arreat summit didn't have the actual cost and I went by what I have seen while playing.

This is another example of something not to just re work entirely, but tweak some.

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 11:34 am

[QUOTE=moltovir]What I would enjoy is a way to stop duping -snip-[/QUOTE]

Yes, that would be my number one improvment as well.

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 11:49 am

Also, I'd like to see Weaken replaced by a spell that reduces magical and poison resistances. Why does the Necro have a spell to lower all resistances except the ones he uses? Sorceress can deal with immunities to their element with a backup spell, but Necromancers can't because all backup skills require synergies to be powerful.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:02 pm

Ok, I have decided that I will go for making a patch with the modifications. I will also probably extend the game some making level 99 seem like childs play in a new L33T level. I will add on a lot to act 4 like having 9 layers of hell like it should. Diablo will be on the last layer, but going by The book of Vile Darkness, I will change him to Asmodeus and so on to the first layer of hell. I will also add new runewords, sets, uniques, and a newly implemented Gemword. Give me some time though.

Any other suggestions are welcome to what you want me to implement. Just don't make it something like "have firebolt do 1000 damage per use." I won't even listen to that. I want the game to be balancing and fun at the same time. I have the skill required to do this and have been wanting to do this for a while so I will ask for suggestions from one of the biggest RPG forums I've seen.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:52 pm

[QUOTE=moltovir]What I would enjoy is a way to stop duping and an increase in rune drop probability. [/QUOTE]

I couldn't agree more.

@Siberys: If I were you, I would make more variated groups of monsters instead of always having packs of just one or two types of monsters with the same attacks and the same immunities. Another suggestion from me would be to balance the synergies more so that characters don't loose as much killing power when using other skills that those who are presently synergised. Synergies was a nice idea but it limits the number of viable builds.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:39 pm

Features to Diablo 2 Veil of Hate

Characters-
-Max level- 2500
-Mana/health is no longer gained through leveling up. It gives you more per point though.
-Fix/balance skills.
-Stamina drains at x4 speed.
-Start with Horadric Cube
-4 stat points per level
-1 skill point per level. At every tenth level it will be 2. At every hundreth level, it will be 3. and beyond level 1000 will be 3 skills each level.

Skills-
-level max 99 instead of 20
-Add several new skills to players/Get rid of pointless skills
-Implementation of skill point cost. I.E. every five levels of skills will cost 1 more point than before. (I have the plugin already)

Gems-
-New gem/rune bag to hold ALL thos gems and runes.
-1 new grade of gems called Aura.
-Gemwords will be implemented in.
-1 new type of EXTREMELY rare gem called Prismatic gem. (Will give you +1 to skills per grade of gem)

Runes-
-More runewords. (over 200 to be precise)
-recipes to upgrade ALL runes, not just some.

Items-
-Many new sets/uniques. Crafted Items will become obselete to these.
-Many new tools to help you in horadric cubing. Such as the Socket stone. Depending on what other items you have to cube it
with, you could get 1-6 sockets in an item.
-All items now socketable. Magical rings are not, but NORMAL (A new feature) rings with no bonuses whatsoever can be.
-A new grade of items called Godly.

Acts-
-Several new levels in all the acts to further buff your character.
-All bosses of the acts are replaced by Avatars of those bosses. When you fight Diablo and activate those seals,
then the other three REAL bosses appear to fight you and are MUCH stronger.
-New monsters (TONS)

So far this is an idea and I will add to it. I have most of the things to make this and should start by possibly mid July.

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:50 am

I'm sorry to say so, but many of these things have already been done in mods like ZyEl or Eastern Sun.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:11 am

Well there's a few things that have been bugging me with Diablo 2 some balancing issues may arise but still I think my ideas always have some sort of perverted logic.

Less of a reliance on using Uniques or Runewords for Nightmare and Hell: It seems like those modes were designed with the idea that every player wants to go online and trade their items, I sure as hell don't - I'm on dial up I have to connect each time I want to go on the net and I sure don't want to spend exp time trading.

Skills should all be unique Ice bolt, Ice blast and Glacial Spike are all essentially the same bloody skill - why invest on a lower level skill when higher ones are better? Synergies are nice change but I still hate the idea that one skill is a weaker version of another (essentially identical) skill.

Skills should get major bonuses at certain investments or do different things at higher levels Putting skills into Icebolt should turn it into Iceblast, then Glacial Spike with more investment, I think it's more logical than having three skills do the same thing. Also skill improvements should always be at equal increments, rather than getting smaller at higher levels.

Hirelings are stupid, stupid things DUH I SEE GREEN CLOUD, *SNIFF* OOH I DEAD. Also Iron Maidened hireings should avoid killing themselves.

Retrieving your body should not result in ten more deaths It's not that bad in normal but when you die in Nightmare and Hell, retrieving your body tends to result in excessive experience loss due to the fact you are totally retarded without armour, the negative resistances don't help either.

Putting 10 points in a level one skill should do more damage than one point in a level 20 skill A synergy problem but it still lacks logic to invest in lower level skills in light of more powerful ones.

Blizzard, please stop "balancing" the skills You have not idea how many characters I've gone through because of all the skill adjustments that have totally nuked the viability of my builds.

~

Still Diablo has found a nice Plateu of sorts Blizzard are good at what they do, still Siberys your ideas sound like some one who hasn't gotten their backside handed to them despite +10 to all skills, thousands of points of damage per hit and four digit armour class.

I've got a really cool idea for another class, but I think it deserves another thread...

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:40 am

As I said, I am getting rid of the more superfluous skills such as ice bolt, blast, and spike. It will be just blast now. All skills will be on one page of a character and the other two pages will be for passive (Buff your char. to the max) skills like strong (+2 to strength per skill level) or mindful (+1% permanent mana increase per level). Like those. Or even a mana using skill called Heal. +10 hitpoints per level expending half mana for the heal.

Sorceress as follows-
1st-
Static field
Warmth
Magic Missle

6th
Ice blast
Fireball
Schock blast

12th-
Fire wall
Shock wall
Ice wall

18th
Nova
Frost nova
Fire nova

24th-
Hail of meteors (Close to armogeddon)
Blizzard
Thunderstorm

30th
Elemental mastery (+25% damage and +5% each level; about. Need to work on it some)

For the teleporter users, don't worry, instead of getting rid of that, ALL characters have that now. It will be under Passive/useful skills.

That is just the sorceress and I will work on her first (Seeings how MANY people like the sorceress.) I think the sorceress has WAY too much variety. All of the skills are good, but I believe they should essentially be the same thing for each element. Just my opinion. Anybody else want a say?

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:46 pm

Necro unique skills-

1st
Amplify Damage- with gradual increase in damage instead of set rate
Summon skeleton
Skeleton Mastery- With BETTER bonuses to mages and the stats of what is increased on mages.

6th
Corpse Explosion-slightly nerfed
Golem
Weaken

12th
Bone wall
Bonering- essentially teeth and nova combined.
Skeletal Archer

18th
Iron Maiden- Buffed slightly.
Skeletal Mage- also buffed

24th
Hail of death- blizzard with poison and magic damage
Bone spirit- slightly balanced for 24th level
Wraith transformation- Transforms into a wraith giving you resistance to physical attacks with increased attack and damage.

30th
Poison Mastery
Bone Mastery

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:18 am

I'll be honest: I don't like your skill ideas. What's the point in having 3 sorceress skills which all do the same? You say Ice Blast, Ice Bolt and Glacial Spike are all the same, but you make one "wall" spell for each of the tree elements. You want variation, but you take it away?! The huge amount of possible builds and skills is what makes Diablo II such an attractive game; basically, all you're doing is taking away that attraction. You're only keeping 3 curses: amplify damage, iron maiden and weaken. Except Amplify Dmg that are the most useless curses of the whole tree, and what makes the curse tree so well-designed is that every curse has its use! Ïnstead you just add another spell which already exists: your "Bone Ring" is just plain old Poison Explosion but with magic damage, just as "Hail of Death" is Blizzard with another type of damage. And I'm not even talking about the deletion of all poison spells - congratulations, you just deleted two incredibly funny builds (daggermancer and novamancer). You delete Bone Spear because "it's the same as Bone Spirit". You couldn't possibly be further away from the truth: Bone Spear is used against big packs of lined up monsters because of its piercing ability, and Bone Spirit is used against single, strong enemies or monsters with a fast running speed. Variation keeps this game alive - your mod is trying to kill it. In my humble opinion that is, don't take this as a personal insult.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:54 am

Ok, I have noticed that you, moltovir, seem to be the paradoxal to this post. I don't mind opinions, but drop the sarcastic offensivenes.
"Hail of Death" is -yay!- Blizzard

Yeah, I don't need this. I am open to suggestions, not flames. As I said, your -opinion- is welcome here no matter what it is, but your -rudeness- is not.

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 11:06 am

[QUOTE=Siberys]Ok, I have noticed that you, moltovir, seem to be the paradoxal to this post. I don't mind opinions, but drop the sarcastic offensivenes.
"Hail of Death" is -yay!- Blizzard

Yeah, I don't need this. I am open to suggestions, not flames. As I said, your -opinion- is welcome here no matter what it is, but your -rudeness- is not.[/QUOTE]

My apologies. I was in my SYM mood, where sarcasm is considered as a normal way of communicating

I don't have the feeling my post is particularly rude, nor was I, in my opinion, flaming you since I didn't attack you personally, but I'll edit it just to avoid any further irritation.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:29 pm

@Darth Zenemij: I have removed a couple of your posts that were unrelated to the topic of this thread, general social chitchat is for SYM and not the game forums.

@Siberys & Moltovir and everybody else: In general, when you post suggestions and options about the game here, you must expected that people may disagree and critisise them. However, critisism should be honest but fair, sarcasm avoided.

Thank you both for continuing this discussion in a polite manner.