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    Diablo [x-post] I made a program which checks your connections to the D3 servers and tells you whether your server is bugged

    August 16, 2020

    Diablo [x-post] I made a program which checks your connections to the D3 servers and tells you whether your server is bugged

    [x-post] I made a program which checks your connections to the D3 servers and tells you whether your server is bugged

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 03:52 PM PDT

    Recently got back into Diablo 2 after ~ 10 years. Made a game for trading some gear and people joined just to talk shit. Any reliable guide for trade values or does only the best of the best gear trade?

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 12:40 PM PDT

    Sorry for what's probably a common question - I play games pretty casually. Got my sorc to Hell and found a Homunculus and extra Tal's ammy. Made a game to see what I could trade 'em for and the only people to join weren't too friendly. One guy literally offered me a mal to never create a public game again hahaha.

    submitted by /u/SausageLincoln
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    Auto Loot Vacuum

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 12:42 PM PDT

    Playing some TQ and wish D3 had the option to press a button to auto loot mats.

    In TQ (guess its a new feature, now sure if it was from a patch or part of the Anni version) but def. press A and it will auto vacuum gold, potions & runes.

    submitted by /u/Uzur9
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    Focus Ring

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 06:55 AM PDT

    So I'm at about Paragon 500 running a Might of the Earth Barb build in D3 and am starting to really doubt a Focus Ring even exists. I've had about 20 Restraint Rings drop and have pulled many other greens from the BloodShard vendor, but still no Focus. Any tips on farming one quickly other than running high level rifts?

    submitted by /u/BenEBoy24
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    Hello guys I see primal amulet here

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 12:19 PM PDT

    D2 is broken: eliminating the concept of "chance to hit"

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 01:13 PM PDT

    The concept of "chance to hit" in Diablo 2 needs to go. It and all its related components are what makes melee classes so hard and boring to play. In this thread, I'd like to discuss a bit more on this attribute, and what my suggestions would be to get rid of it entirely, making the game better in the process.

    Chance to hit in Diablo 1

    For context, I'd just like to bring the D1 CTH here for context. In D1, you had an explicit stat in the character scree that displayed your "chance to hit". Similarly, many items gave "+% Chance to Hit", like weapons, jewelry, etc.

    However, the way this worked in D1 was incredibly misleading. "+20% CTH" didn't necessarily mean you'd hit enemies 20% more often. The stat presented in the character screen was used in a complex formula that took your level and your enemy's level into account, as well as other factors like distance from the monster (in case of ranged weapons).

    Thus, you could end up with something like "185% chance to hit" which is completely nonsense, and still have an effective change to hit a certain monster of 80%.

    On the other hand, your chance to be hit was based on your Armor Class: the more AC you have, the lower the chance that a monster hits you. Again, this highly depend on clvl and mlvl.

    Chance to hit in Diablo 2

    In D2, they clearly set out to fix that inconsistency by introducing the "Attack Rating" stat: a number that represented your effective chance to hit indirectly.

    Now, items don't give "chance to hit" directly, but instead grant you some amount of "attack rating". This value is then used in a similar formula to compute the final chance to hit a given monster. The fact that the character screen displays the final chance to hit a specific monster (the last monster you hit) is an improvement over D1, as you were completely in the dark there (no matter the value you had in ToHit, you never really knew your final effective chance to hit a particular monster).

    Similarly to D1, armor in D2 works by adding "Defense" (previously known as Armor Class). This is then used in a formula to compute your chance to be hit by a monster.

    Diablo 3's 'Armor'

    D3 drastically changed this system to a different one. Instead of having stats that influence chance to hit or to be hit, you now always hit, and have reduced damage the more armor you have. This is much better.

    Ideas to streamline CTH and AC

    Since I'm focusing on D2 here, I'll try to share my thoughts in regards to D2. I think Blizzard is already going with the D3 system for D4, so I won't be covering that specifically. However, I'd really like to see some of these improvements come to D2 as part of a MOD or a Remaster in the future, so I think the discussion is still relevant.

    1. Remove clvl and mlvl in all tohit calculations
      This one is easy to do. Make it so that the calculations only take into account the player's Attack Rating stats vs the monster's Defense Rating stats. This is a more logical and simple approach than what blizzard did with D2, and would drastically improve gameplay.
      Goes without saying that rebalancing would be needed to make this work. To hit a high level monster, you'd need high Attack Rating.
      This doesn't eliminate CTH, only makes it more streamlined.

    2. Armor should reduce (or negate) damage
      My idea of an ideal system is similar to D3 here, but not exactly the same. IMHO, armor values should directly impact the damage you receive, and not indirectly like it happens with D3. The indirect system in D3 is too hard to understand, first because it is a meaningless arbitrary number (like Attack Rating) and second because it is not linear (there are diminishing returns).
      For example, if you have 10 total armor, and take a 15 damage hit, you should take 5 damage. A direct formula like this is harder to balance, but infinitely simpler to understand. This is how games like StarCraft work.
      In my view, this system should also be able to completely negate damage, if the armor value is higher than the total damage.
      This direct system would be similar to what The Hell MOD does in Diablo 1 with it's "-X Damage From Enemies" focus, which works the same way as the attribute in D2, but the whole game has a much bigger focus on it: going about without any -DFE gets you killed very fast in The Hell.

    3. Shield armor should be used when blocking
      My idea on shields is eerily similar to D3, but more inline with my idea for all armor. Shields would have the same "Armor" stat as any other equipment piece, however it would usually have a very high armor value. Whenever blocking takes place, only the shield's armor value would be used to calculate damage reduction. In the example above, if you had 10 total AC (excluding shield), a shield with 13 AC and blocked a 15 damage hit, you'd take 2 damage.
      Again I think this system is more intuitive and simpler, and that's why I advocate for it.

    4. Make it so all attacks always hit
      Similarly on the offense side, all attacks you made should always "hit". Note that "hitting" doesn't necessarily mean "doing damage". As long as the enemy's armor is high enough, some of your hits would do no damage at all to it. Damage ranges could play an important role here... Today in D2, there is little reason to have weapons with high damage variability, because few mechanics are affected by it. However, a Bardiche could be very interesting on this fixed armor scenario, since it's damage ranges from 1 all the way to 27. That's 14 average damage, but can still kill a monster with armor 20. A 12-16 sword would never be able to kill that same monster.
      The idea of doing zero damage like that can be a bit scary though, so perhaps a system with "ranges of armor" would make sense as well (instead of each equipment piece having a fixed armor value, it could block X-Y damage, like weapons deal X-Y damage). See below.

    5. Armor pieces should provide "From X to Y damage reduction"
      Armors today (in all 3 games) have fixed values. They can vary when spawning (for instance, a "Quilted Armor" can have between 8 and 11 armor), but are set to a specific value after creation.
      I think that, combined with the changes above, all armor pieces could provide a "range of armor". Taking this "Quilted Armor" as an example, instead of potentially spawning with either 8, 9, 10 or 11 armor, it could instead protect you from 8 - 11 damage.
      When applying this principle to all armor pieces, there could be some really interesting "controlled" randomness going on. Whenever a hit took place (either yours, or an enemy's) a roll would be made and a final AC value would be used. Depending on your gear, damage spikes could be more or less dangerous, for example.
      At the end of the day, this one is similar to "block damage" from D3 shields, extended to all armor pieces.

    6. Durability loss should be related to "over/under" damage
      Durability is a strange beast in D2. On one hand, it is a dumb money sink, on the other it should be a way to add more strategy to picking items (it fails at that).
      On this new system I'm proposing, I think durability should be changed accordingly. If I take a hit, all absorbed damage should "go to the armor" as durability loss. The idea is as if each armor piece had its own "health points" that are reduced when absorbing damage.
      Say I have a 20 AC armor and take a 25 hit. My character should lose 5 HP, while my overall armor should lose 20 durability points.
      Obviously, durability values would need dramatic adjustments for this to work, but that's to be expected.
      For weapons, say I hit a monster with a maul, 30-43 damage, against his armor of 14. Say I rolled 41 damage on the hit. Now the enemy loses 41-14 (27) damage, while my maul takes a hit of 14 points of durability.
      If I hit the same monster with a dagger for 10 damage, my dagger would suffer 10 durability loss and the monster would not lose HP.

    I think these changes would simplify the game considerably and make it more fun to play. What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Do you have other suggestions to change the "chance to hit vs armor" aspect?

    submitted by /u/julealgon
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    D2 is broken: Improving white items

    Posted: 16 Aug 2020 09:37 AM PDT

    White items in Diablo 2 are mostly an afterthought. Save for the runeword usage with Larzuk's quest (which only matters after a high level), these items are completely useless and only serve to clutter the screen. This goes for not only standard white items, but even more so for "low quality" items. I'd like to propose and discuss a few modifications to itemization that would perhaps give some purpose to white items.

    White Items in Diablo 1

    Back in Diablo 1, white items were significantly more important, for numerous reasons. It was common for players going for the "ironman" mode to try and purchase something useful with the initial 100 gold the game provides. Even a white cap or rags made a huge difference to survivability there. Of course, the reasoning for these items being so useful was due to how important armor was in D1. I'll try not to dive too deep into the AC usefulness in this particular post and tackle the issue from another angle however.

    Similarly, finding your first Falchion or Large Axe was a huge deal in D1. The damage scaling was quite significant back then, and enhanced damage was a rare attribute, meaning a white Falchion or Large Axe had a huge chance to be much better than whatever you were holding at the time, even if magical.

    Another aspect that made these items more valuable in D1 was the fact that items in general were more scarce in the game: in effect, every item was more important in one way or another because of that. The absence of "rare" items also reduced the overall strength of items, which could only have 2 affixes: the chance for a normal white item to be better than a magic one was non-zero.

    Admittedly, D1 was far from perfect in this regard still. After some leveling, white items also became useless there. They could have an impact in early levels, but not so much in mid/high levels at all.

    White Items in Diablo 2

    Now, in Diablo 2, the situation became even worse. The game has (as is becoming more and more common) followed the path of "making the player feel awesome" by introducing many more affixes and item types, while at the same time making items drop much more frequently. Magic items in D2 are incredibly common, and even rare items are not that rare at all. This means the likelihood of any white item being useful at all drops dramatically. This is basic statistics: if there are more items overall, if every item has a much higher chance of having multiple affixes, and if the affixes are much stronger, white items have a much lower probability of being an upgrade.

    Additionally, item progression in D2 is all over the place. Right out of the gate, one has access to many "power levels" of each weapon type. While in D1 you only have access to a "Short Sword" for some time, D2 introduces several swords that are better than it right at level 1. With a few minutes of gameplay, short swords are outperformed by pretty much everything else. Unfortunately, this applies to mostly any weapon type. Even Daggers are immediately obsoleted by Dirks, which are substantially more powerful (yes, no one uses dagger-type weapons, but you get the point here...). Obviously, there is always a chance for one to find a really strong Short Sword or Dagger, but that's much more difficult.

    To make matters worse, "Low Quality" items were introduced to the game. If standard white items are hard to justify equiping, low quality ones are exponentially worse. The only time I ever equip any low quality item is right at the beginning of the game as my "first item in slot" option. Literally anything else that drops will be better than it, guaranteed. There is a cube recipe to upgrade low quality items to standard items, but again, that's just not useful at all: it comes too late into the game to be useful for actually using the white items themselves, and only serve as a late game option for Larzuk's and imbue quest.

    Let's check what D2 offers right our of the gate in a clvl1 character when shopping in Charsi (speeds are on a bard char):

    Swords:

    • Short Sword (2-7, Fast)
    • Scimitar (2-6, Very Fast, 21DEX Req)

    While Scimitars require the 21 dexterity to wear, this is a non-factor almost immediately. Most characters can reach that at level 2 at most (or just have the base DEX already on level 1). The power difference between these makes the Short Sword immediately obsolete.

    Shields:

    • Buckler (4-6, 25% Block)
    • Small Shield (8-10, 30% Block, 22 STR Req)

    Here the difference is even bigger. The Small Shield has effectively double the armor, and 20% more blocking chance (25 -> 30 is a 20% increase). There is literally never any reason to ever buy or equip a Buckler over a Small Shield, unless the Buckler has incredibly good affixes. Remember we are talking about white items here, so effectively it is useless.

    Armors:

    • Quilted Armor (8-11)
    • Leather Armor (14-17, 15 STR Req)
    • Hard Leather Armor (21-24, 20 STR Req)

    Again, look at the massive power increase here that is available to the player out of the gate. Effectively, you can get 3x more armor on a white Hard Leather Armor compared to the Quilted Armor, and that's available to you on clvl1. Most characters again can wear it right away, as the 20 STR requirement is negligible. The only reason to ever wear a white Quilted Armor is if you have nothing in the armor slot, or have a low quality armor. The only reason to ever wear a white Leather Armor is similar: only useful if you have a Quilted Armor.

    Helms:

    • Cap (3-5)
    • Skull Cap (8-11, 15 STR Req)

    Once again, look at the power difference here. The Skull Cap has more than 2x the amount of armor as a normal Cap, with only 15 STR requirement, which most classes can equip right away, or can just get as a level 2 character. Using a white Cap is only useful as the first item in the slot and nothing else.

    Bows:

    • Short Bow (1-4, Fast, 15 DEX Req)
    • Hunter's Bow (2-6, Very Fast, 28 DEX Req)

    Look at how insanely more powerful a Hunter's Bow is compared to a Short Bow, and they are available at level 1 on vendors... Even with the (comparatively) steep 28 DEX requirement, it's still usable right in the first or second level up depending on the class. There is just never a sensible reason to wield a Short Bow: it's weaker and slower.

    Ideas to make white items more useful

    ​

    1. Drop white versions of items earlier than their magic/rare counterparts
      A white "Composite Bow" should be able to be dropped before its magic and rare counterparts. By enabling these items to drop earlier, they have a higher chance of being more useful to you even if you are already using a magic "Hunter's Bow" for example.The same applies to all items types: let the white version drop earlier for a while, before allowing the magic versions drop.How early an item is allowed to drop could be controlled for balance reasons: if some particular class of white items is not being that useful, make them drop earlier than the rest.
      .
    2. Make item progression more evenly distributed
      Too many upgrades are available to the player too quickly. There should be bigger gaps between item upgrades, so that each item can have its time to shine. The game should be changed to not provide "Leather Armor" and "Hard Leather Armor" for some time, and/or make them a much rarer drop early on. Then, "Quilted Armor" has a bigger usefulness window than "5 minutes".This goes against the "we gotta make the player feel awesome as fast as possible" mantra, so it would probably never be implemented.
      .
    3. Reduce power of affixes
      Again, another controversial idea that "slows the game down" and "removes power from the player". I think affixes in D2 are too powerful in general, and that's a big reason why white items are mostly useless. By reducing the power and occurrence of certain affixes, the chance of a white item being useful increases. For example, "+1/2/3 to maximum damage" early on is incredibly powerful due to the low damage numbers. These kinds of affixes make the player "skip" progression levels and obsoletes certain types of items. Additionally, faster weapons benefit more from this kind of stat, removing options from the player (faster weapons are always better).
      .
    4. Reduce chance for multiple affixes on high quality items
      Similarly to my idea of dropping white weapons before their magical counterparts can drop, I'd like to see single-affix items dropping before 2-affix ones do. Make 2-affix items on high quality base items much more rare, while making them more common on low quality items.Today, the number of available affixes do not take item quality into account: they always have the same chance of spawning.
      .
    5. Reduce affix quality on high quality items
      Similar to the above, I think more powerful affixes should be rarer on higher quality items. A "Cruel Spear" has the exact same chance of dropping compared to a "Cruel War Pike" when dropping a normal Spear or an exceptional War Pike. If you have just reached the level required for dropping War Pikes, this is completely unbalanced. Having these really powerful affixes available to you right out of the gate make messes the whole item progression aspect of it. If you are seeing a War Pike drop for the first time, it should not be possible for it to be this powerful. Make affix power progression on items depend on how rare they are to you.Sure, "high quality" should depend on the monster you are killing. A "Cruel War Pike Of Quickness" should never drop in Nightmare, but be a fairly possible drop from Hell Ball for example.
      .
    6. Consider combined affix power when dropping items
      A "Cruel War Pike" should be on a similar rarity to a "War Pike of Quickness", as should a "Massive War Pike of Alacrity". However, a "Cruel War Pike of Quickness" should be much, much harder to get and only available if the monster level is much higher.
      .
    7. Reduce number of magical items overall
      White items are useless because magic items are too common. Make magic items rarer overall, so that the player can make more choices containing white items. This would dramatically improve progression as well.
      .
    8. Reduce the number of items overall
      In addition to all the points above, items drop too much in current Diablo 2. Make items themselves rarer, so that each drop is more meaningful and has a higher chance of being useful.

    Do you agree that the current itemization on Diablo 2 makes white items useless? Do you have any other suggestions that would improve the game on this aspect? I understand some of these modifications would not be popular, especially with Blizzard themselves, as they reduce power creep significantly and reduces the "awesomeness factor" of the game. To me however, they would improve on the game massively.

    submitted by /u/julealgon
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    I never let a noob outta my sight back in the day

    Posted: 15 Aug 2020 11:42 PM PDT
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