1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

There are four new items that drop from bosses.

1st drop from Andariel/Duriel (Essence of suffering)
2nd drop from Meph (Essence of hatred)
3rd drop from Diablo (Essence of terror)
4th drop from Baal (Essence of destruction)

When you cube all 4 items with the horadric cube you get an extra respec for skills/stats. In short, the event didn't bring any new challenge to the game and the reward is equal to what the new den of evil quest gives.
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Oh right lol, I knew about that ^ I just didn't realise that was all it was. I thought there was something else.
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

DeathMaster said:
@Tubba Blubba: you are referring to the good side of respec I agree with. But the dark side is far stronger.
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Luke: Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

There are plenty of ways to play that are quicker/easier/more seductive. HF rushing, softcore, twinked, time-travelling, ATMA/GoMule, rerunning areas, /player settings, multiplayer, trading, reading guides, 1.09 ravenclaw, save & exit, MFing -- all of these things make the game easier in some way. I used to play Angband a lot, which is kind of similar to D2 in some ways. In that game, what we call hardcore is the normal playing mode, and softcore is a 'cheating option'. When I first started playing, I thought town portals were cheesy, since the equivalent in the other game had a delay before working, and the dungeons were always randomly generated, so using it was like abandoning the level.

The only real problem I can see is someone lying and claiming to have guardianed a meleemancer when they really guardianed a respec'd summoner or something. I look at that as more or less along the lines of other forms of outright cheating, and similar to the "don't switch /player settings for opening chests" rule. I can't see a problem with someone saying, "I guardianed my summoner, then respec'd to a meleemancer to try it out." Honestly, if someone's going to be dishonest, wouldn't they be willing to use a trainer anyway? There are a lot of very knowledgeable people here, I don't think that kind of thing would go undetected.

Respec'd characters probably won't get quite as much respect, most of the time, but a respec'd guardian nakedzon is still going to get more respect than a patriarch summoner who didn't respec.

UllaV said:
I've had characters build by other persons; I cannot play them. There is no feel how to play that character.
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I think that says it very well. I've even had this to some extent with my own characters when I leave them alone for awhile.

I once rebuilt a Bnet trapsin, and ended up changing only one skillpoint (not putting a point in claw block). I actually love trapsins so much that I liked the rebuild, but I don't think I could do that more than once without changing something else significant about the build. I've also had plenty of characters that hit a brick wall in early hell. With respec I could tweak the build until it worked, or even just switch builds entirely. At least that way I could collect the hellforge with these otherwise failed characters.


 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

UllaV said:
We're still gonna build 51 or 134 guardians because we love to play the game. And part of that love is when building the characters they grow on us.
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Good point. Personally, I have no interest in turning one of my high level characters into a completely different build--it would feel wrong. The experience of trying a new build, for me, is all about going through Hell with that build (literally ;) ). I like having both a Frenzy and WW Barb; I like having both a CL/FO sorc and a Blizzballer, etc. I can't imagine having only one character of a class essentially covering 2 or 3 different builds, with "unlimited respec" in mind, especially considering unlimited respecs would involve spending hours running bosses that aren't part of my normal MFing. If I'm going to spend hours to have 3 builds of the same class, I might as well just make 3 characters!

What I can imagine doing, however, is switching around a few stat or skill points to optimize an end-game levelling or MFing character without completely changing the build. As a married adult without endless free time, it's hard to motivate myself to go through the game with nearly the same exact character I've already mat/patted. I think respec is a reasonable way to try some minor variations on an end-game build.

I can also imagine actually making use of low level skills that are worthless later in the game. That might actually make the early game more fun than plucking away with a jewel of envy bow over and over for every new character.

Regarding respec and pat/mat threads, I wholeheartedly agree with Ancalagon. There is already so much cheese that people can take advantage of to get through the game more easily, and there are already so many ways that people can make a pat/mat more impressive with self-imposed restrictions. Respec is just another option that people can use or restrict themselves from; we all play the game in whatever way is most fun for us. I don't see dishonesty being an issue, here--people seem pretty open about all the other cheesy tactics that get used, and it's not like you win some kind of monetary prize for impressing people with your pat/mat.


 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I'm a little curious about the respec. I hold Jainsonz in the highest regard. In my mind he is the best tourny player we have here at the forums. If tournies are held in 1.13 how is that going to affect his game play? As thorough as he is, I don't think the runes being colored orange is going to make a difference, but I'm sure the ability to respec once per difficulty would completely alter the way he played the game. Even if tourny rules say you have to use each quest before you leave the act. Jainsonz plays the game in the purest sense, and I'd wager he would love the respec option.
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I don't quite agree with the logic that respec equals limited builds; in fact, I believe the exact contrary.

In single player, we have can have vast (unlimited?) amount of character playable at any given time. Someone could conceivably start as a meteorb, transfer to a blizztress, then transfer to an Infinity light sorc down the road, but why would you do that to yourself?

In the SPF it's about the accomplishment of the character. I think people (at least me) will end up using respecing as a tool to aid leveling, eliminating the need for RC, utilizing more skills at lower levels (more fun imho), and generally removing the "grind". Then, when you reach hell, you respec into your final form (or save it for misclicks, etc), whether this be blizz, meteorb, light, whatever.

I for one wouldn't want to bother with re-gearing, re-stating, and re-skilling a character every single time I want to run a different area. I feel obligated to my characters and I can't just re-shape them on a whim like that. To each his own, and I certainly wouldn't mind if people "abuse" respec, but I think it's just silly to limit yourself to one character of each class and have to go through the hassle over and over again.

Mat/Pat threads will simply have to detail when/why they used respec. There is no way that using respecs will make the game easier than having a pre-1.10 RC and an enchantress. This will actually allow people who don't use/own those things the ability to enjoy the beginning of the game, which is never a bad thing imho.

In the end, respecs simply mean less grind and/or no rushing new characters for me. Part of the reason I'm not very obligated to my newer characters is because they all get to their end game the same way already, and it's boring.

The "one-character-per-class" idea has much broader implementations on B.Net, in my mind, than SP. BNet has only 8 character slots per account, so this potentially means less accounts are needed as players can simply respec the class, which is a good thing for BNet. However, like I said above, we don't have this problem in SP, so what's the point in not creating another character?

EDIT: Why did we have essentially the same thoughts at the same time Rhone?
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I don't know if anyone pointed it out, however a tiny bit of information seemed to be overlooked slightly.

Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
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Exacty as it says. If you have a character that is already partially through the game, you don't get 3 Respecs.

It does say that it is a bonus quest reward, but on all levels, that's only if you start from scratch. I went to Akara on my almost-championed Necro, and she doesn't offer a respec.

Good news then for some, because any builds you already have done/partially done don't get 3 free respecs- you will ONLY get one from Akara in hell...



On the other hand, I decided to backup all my saves, and play around in 1.13 for a little bit (So I can mess around as much as I want and still just use my backup to be back where I was.)

So far I've learned I hate using a pure Blizz sorc... I dislike the spell.. (FO wins though)
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I recently build a fire sorceress, my first PvP character. I built her with 200FCR and energy shield in mind. After playing with her for a while, I decided that max block would probably be better for me than energy shield.

So now my brand new sorceress is level 73. I had to go through the process of leveling a completely new character from the ground up just so I could shift my stat point placement around a bit. And if I ever get some better equipment, I will have to go through the process all over again to shift the stat points around again.

I, for one, am pleased by the option of being able to shift a few stat points this way or that way to optimize my character, rather than make continual copies of the same character. I do not think that respecs will be used to have "one character per class". I think they will be used to make the early game more enjoyable and to make last minute tweaks on highly optimized characters.
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

My stance on this patch right now is that I really can't be bothered upgrading, nor would I do so until it was officially released, confirmed by the mods here and guaranteed to not have any problems with GoMule and RWM. With how I feel about the patch right now however, changing my mind seems unlikely.

The laziness of Blizzard that long standing bugs like Inferno and Arctic Blast were not even fixed is totally inexcusable. Any other software company would have a lot to answer for if they left a bug intact in their program that was almost certainly trivial to fix, so why is Blizzard allowed to get away with it? Last time I checked, they are a software company afterall... That's not even the real issue here however, which is simply that the incentives to upgrade just aren't there for me. I completely agree with everyone who believes respec is a useless and cheesy feature, and I wouldn't even consider using it even if I had a character with messed up points.

And as for the rest of the changes, apart from high rune increases and no IM, the rest of the changes don't really hold much weight IMO. We already have RRM/CRM, so the orange runes are really just a token gesture and means one less mod to install... big deal, considering that the bigger one (RWM) still has to be installed since Blizzard has no consideration for single player. Even the high rune increases, while I would hope would make a difference still leave the odds at incredibly insignificant numbers, although I will admit my curiosity in the chances for council drops as was previously calculated is at least one "feather in the cap" for this patch.

All in all, I can't see myself using 1.13 unless I do a complete 180, and I'm incredibly disappointed more in what changes Blizzard hasn't made as opposed to the (pointless?) ones they have.

My $.02
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I feel, respec actually can helps make leveling the early levels less of a chore. Still not sure if I will use it though. All the regearing (and I don't even have a 1.09 RC) is really a headache. Depends on the forum I guess.
I think the benefit of respec for me is if I mess up my stats/skill allocations thru misclicks etc. (I am a perfectionist....the pain seeing an accidental point in e-shield for a meteorb)

Don't think I am gonna bother respecing to change a whole character since most of my char's names are in lieu with what skills they are using. And the hassle for requip, restat, reskill etc like matt mentioned earlier. Maybe I will go as far as change my max block Meteorb to a max vit Meteorb or something like that.

[Highlight]Mac users[/highlight]
Question for mac users who have installed 1.13. Is the game more optimize for OSX? In 1.12, I can sometimes get huge load times when I enter town or switch acts. Bad for MF runs...
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

One semi-interesting aspect of the respec's that I think has been overlooked so far is settling the age-old debate: Max Block vs. Max Vitality. :p

Respec makes it a TON easier to decide for yourself which approach you like better on a particular build... it still doesn't make it any less cheesy, in my opinion. But I do like to do some 'experiments' from time to time, and it will help there.
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

poops:

Is it cool to update to 1.13? Is there an official forum stance on this?
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

ProtoMagus said:
The laziness of Blizzard that long standing bugs like Inferno and Arctic Blast were not even fixed is totally inexcusable. Any other software company would have a lot to answer for if they left a bug intact in their program that was almost certainly trivial to fix, so why is Blizzard allowed to get away with it? Last time I checked, they are a software company afterall... That's not even the real issue here however, which is simply that the incentives to upgrade just aren't there for me. I completely agree with everyone who believes respec is a useless and cheesy feature, and I wouldn't even consider using it even if I had a character with messed up points.
Click to expand...

Really? You're going to call Blizzard lazy? I agree that they left long standing bugs untouched, but you do realize the game was released in 2000, right? There are few, if any, software companies that would put ANY amount of effort into a game they released 10 years ago. The fact that Blizzard paid employees to make an effort at adding some new things and fixing a few broken things in a game this old is surprising in my eyes. If we were talking about software that managed bank accounts or ran equipment that people's lives depended on, I'd agree that leaving bugs unaddressed after 10 years would be disgusting, but this a Diablo II. No one's going to die because Arctic Blast still doesn't work or because people can respec their characters.


 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Calamityy said:
If you like to just make tons of builds- everything you can think of and then some, and just Mat/Pat/Guardian them, then yea, respec is your enemy.
Click to expand...

Everyone can use they computer for whatever they want.

If I don't respec it doesn't mean that resepcing is my enemy. Only people who think in black & whites can say so.

Ulla


 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Fabian said:
poops:

Is it cool to update to 1.13? Is there an official forum stance on this?
Click to expand...

No 'official' stance really... we need to keep in mind that 1.13 is in its beta stages so far - so additional changes to the game are probably coming. But, whether you like the new features or not, it's an official release by Blizzard and will be allowed here as such.

Anyone wanting to upgrade may certainly do so.


One thing to keep in mind is the usual repercussions on trade & MP. We still don't allow 'moving backwards', so if you upgrade you can't join 1.12 MP games with your 1.13 characters/items (I suspect Blizzard has mechanisms that enforce this automatically anyways), and 1.12 can't trade/use items interchangeably with 1.13 traders and remain as 1.12 by our rules (i.e as soon as a 1.12 character uses a 1.13 item in game, that character and all his other items are considered as 1.13).

Since it's a beta-release so far, if you have any intention of trade or MP, I would strongly recommend backing up your characters & items in their 1.12 state. And for now consider thinking of 1.13 as no more than a temporary testing environment that you may want to completely discard later (or fully upgrade into 1.13, at some point). That way if they decide to re-add IronMaiden to Oblivion Knights and the community as a whole says "thank god - that beta sucked & I don't want anything to do with it" you're not stuck with the 1.13 beta taint (sorry EmperorMoo :() <--- I'm not saying this scenario is at all likely (in fact, I think it's pretty far-fetched), but it's a remote possibility, and backing up your characters before playing a new version is probably a good idea anyways.

In regards to RRM and Vanilla & the new coloured runes... those that were in the FAM group are still in the FAM group. That's unlikely to change going forward, even if all of the FAM additions were to get pushed into the Vanilla group by Blizzard (i.e. you had an advantage by game-modding before, and you're still tainted by having had that advantage, even if it gets removed later).


Anyone with questions/concerns/thoughts/ideas on these concepts may PM Thyiad & I, of course. I'd rather not hijack this thread with a trade-implications discussion, but we're certainly receptive to any thoughts, ideas or suggestions you may have.


Edit: I guess this post pretty much turned into an 'official stance' when it was all said & done. :D



 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

veryfakename said:
Given that gear is just about as important as stats and skills, what's stopping someone from saying the same thing about twinking new characters or using ATMA to trade that Tal Rasha's set from one sorc to the next ad infinitum? When virtually every build of a certain character type is suggesting the same gear every single time, there's already a strong push towards homogeneity, and yet we've survived and still play. And many still play untwinked.

So yeah, it *is* optional, and it *is* coming almost ten years after the game came out. We talk talk about "what if" it had been there from the start, but it wasn't. At this point, most anyone still playing Diablo had been playing it for years and isn't going to suddenly get bored because there's optional respecs.
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To be fair, skill and stat choices affect every single character - from naked ones to the most decked out. Items only supplement the characters themselves. If anything, items actually add to the diversity of possible character builds, due to oskills.

But the issue is not that this patch would somehow lessen the interest in D2. No, no. The problem is that the idea of respeccing in D2 is anathema to a long-lasting and thriving community such as this one. Blizzard's move toward respecs confuses me in the sense that generally you want to make the following of your game last as long as possible.

However, it's true that they're using the same tactic they use to keep WoW players involved before a new expansion arrives - filler content that in some ways 'breaks' the game. These changes will bring more players back into the game just in time for them to get really hyped about D3, but I think they're largely negative in the scope of just D2 as a game itself.

mattinm said:
I for one wouldn't want to bother with re-gearing, re-stating, and re-skilling a character every single time I want to run a different area. I feel obligated to my characters and I can't just re-shape them on a whim like that. To each his own, and I certainly wouldn't mind if people "abuse" respec, but I think it's just silly to limit yourself to one character of each class and have to go through the hassle over and over again.
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This point indeed has merit for some of the classes. However, when you reach the ceiling of power and functionality (such as the infinity lightning sorc) and can run any area you want with efficiency, there is no need to respec for MF purposes. And if you're bored with that style of play and want to play with that class' other skills, the 'bother' of respeccing is going to end up much less than that of creating a whole new character and getting to the same level.


Smips said:
Really? You're going to call Blizzard lazy? I agree that they left long standing bugs untouched, but you do realize the game was released in 2000, right? There are few, if any, software companies that would put ANY amount of effort into a game they released 10 years ago. The fact that Blizzard paid employees to make an effort at adding some new things and fixing a few broken things in a game this old is surprising in my eyes. If we were talking about software that managed bank accounts or ran equipment that people's lives depended on, I'd agree that leaving bugs unaddressed after 10 years would be disgusting, but this a Diablo II. No one's going to die because Arctic Blast still doesn't work or because people can respec their characters.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with this if Blizzard did not stand to profit from this type of activity. The money they put in to increase their standing in their customers' eyes is extremely well invested as long as they continue to produce games. Besides, the amount of effort they're actually putting into making good changes is incredibly small (just ask any WC3 fan). The little patches they release now and then are more show than they are content. How long would it take for members of the community to make these changes?

But I think the idea trying to be presented was 'If you're going to patch it after all these years, at least get it right'. It's hard to justify spending the time to buff an already strong skill (CE), but not the time to fix simple bugs in other skills.


 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

@Smips - Good point, I will definitely agree with you that Blizzard has taken the time to support a game this old, and they do at least deserve credit for that much. However, I still stand by my opinion (although maybe lazy is the wrong word) that their priorities are wrong. You said it yourself and agreed about the long standing bugs, and the primary point IMO about a patch from any software company should be to fix problems first, with new content only being considered and implemented after all such bugs are squashed. I guess in the end I'm also just miffed that again we as a single player community got very little love from this patch, so I'm bitter. :p

@QibingZero - your comment was exactly how I feel about the issue, thanks! :)
 
Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

TheDoctor said:
[Highlight]Mac users[/highlight]
Question for mac users who have installed 1.13. Is the game more optimize for OSX? In 1.12, I can sometimes get huge load times when I enter town or switch acts. Bad for MF runs...
Click to expand...

I still get extended loading time now and again in 1.13. Strangely enough, this started happening to me in 1.12 after I upgraded to 10.6. I don't remember it happening in 10.5. Finishing Den of Evil (or almost finishing it) seems to cause the game to hang for 5 seconds or so as well, as well as changing acts.

I don't think they've optimised the code in 1.13. It's still running under Rosetta (the PPC emulator) i.e. it's not native Intel code.

The graphics do look sharper than they did before though, in full screen mode.



 
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