1.13 Public Test Realm online!

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

By the way guys, Bashiok said that they will add more features to the final patch based on popular threads on b.net forums. :unimpressed: That is, the thread on b.net forums with the most suggestions and feedback (aka most posts) to the beta patch might have their ideas and suggestions incorporated. I suggest we all spam the thread asking for bug fixes.

[OT]

@poops: At the moment, there are no mechanisms stopping a 1.13 SP character to go back into 1.12a. The thing is, if you join b.net's test realm, it automatically upgrades to 1.13, and if you join the normal realms, it switches you back to 1.12a. So I just made a test character in 1.13, reverted back to 1.12a via joining the nornal servers, and then my 1.13 character was back as a 1.12 character. I also deleted said character.

Also, just a quick question: I've already upgraded a selected few characters into 1.13 beta (an old LFZon, an old Meteorb, and several 1.10-based builds). Should 1.13 final come out, and I simply upgrade those characters into 1.13 final, are they really "1.13 beta" tainted? Wouldn't it just be the natural flow of patches, and thus no taint at all? Just curious.

[/OT]

 

[sirpoopsalot]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

@poops: At the moment, there are no mechanisms stopping a 1.13 SP character to go back into 1.12a. The thing is, if you join b.net's test realm, it automatically upgrades to 1.13, and if you join the normal realms, it switches you back to 1.12a. So I just made a test character in 1.13, reverted back to 1.12a via joining the nornal servers, and then my 1.13 character was back as a 1.12 character. I also deleted said character.

Thanks for that knowledge. I assume (and hope) they'll put those mechanisms in place for the final 1.13 release, as they've done with every other previous release.

Irregardless, our policy about moving backwards is unchanged right now - that's the one to keep in mind if you want to trade/MP, whether or not Blizzard's implemented automatic protections to deal with it.

If they don't replace the mechanisms in the end, we'll reevaluate this policy at that time (though for consistency it wouldn't make sense to say "you can't go from 1.11 to 1.10, but you can from 1.13 to 1.12"... too much headache potential for keeping it all straight and having newer members understand the concept intuitively).

Also, just a quick question: I've already upgraded a selected few characters into 1.13 beta (an old LFZon, an old Meteorb, and several 1.10-based builds). Should 1.13 final come out, and I simply upgrade those characters into 1.13 final, are they really "1.13 beta" tainted? Wouldn't it just be the natural flow of patches, and thus no taint at all? Just curious.

... well... if they remove the respec ability in 1.13 final, and you respec'ed in 1.13 beta to change some skillpoints, wouldn't that make your character 'beta-tainted'? In my opinion, yes - when you compare it to those of us that'll probably go from 1.12 to 1.13 final without playing the beta.

However, I don't foresee that scenario as realistic, and I'm doubtful it'll really have any effect on your 'status' when 1.13 is finalized anyways, so let's worry about that when 1.13 is finished and we can better measure the full effect of this beta release. If we're not careful we could end up discussing and debating this endlessly and to no effect.



... ah, how much simpler my life would be if we didn't allow interaction with game-mods or previous versions at all... just one trade pool to deal with... no trade tags... one main MP thread... :cloud9:

[/whine]

 

[The Lord of Darkness]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

@ omg: Good luck to Bashiok and the rest of the team for having to sift through all the garbage already being spewed over there. The forum wipe was useless. lol

 

[mattinm]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

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.

This point is true; however, I'm operating under the assumption that one will have to work toward the ceiling of power and will therefore have multiple builds prior to that.

In the case of a sorceress, one could start a Meteorb (or FW/Orb ) for general MFing. After you gain a decent amount of wealth, you could create a pure Blizz sorceress. There is nothing, of course, stopping you from converting the old character, but I have a distinct loyalty to my characters (I wouldn't just change end-game builds), and I'm assuming others in the SPF do as well.

Therefore, you'll still end up with a stable of builds. If you have to work your way to the top, why not take a bunch of characters with you. If you're already there, then, I think your point gains even greater value.

All-in-all, I still think respecing is much more beneficial for battle.net. It should/could reduce the number of accounts for build types (I used to run 3 accounts just for different builds), but allowing a shared stash could have potentially meant one account per person with unlimited build possibilities, which should have reduced server side storage significantly. I guess the main problem would have been the increase in load on the servers with potentially thousands of people searching stashes of great size at the same time. And turning b.netters into pack mules like the SPF.

Respecing is just something I'll use to make the beginning of the game less monotonous, and hopefully b.net does the same (less rushes, etc). It's just a different branch to get to the end-game (Hell), where I'll convert to my final build after defeating the Den, if I haven't done so already.

 

[skiffcz]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Really? You're going to call Blizzard lazy?

That is not the way you should see it, and few people here pointed this out. They are not lazy. The question here is not if they worked hard. No no, they have been one busy bee. Yup. The question is whom they worked for.

Thats why some of us are so upset, becouse they treat us just as numbers. Not only Blizz is turning this game into a testing polygon, they showed even greater amount of disrespect to anyone using his brain by calling this "content patch".

WHAT?! Am I through the rabbit hole or what?

And its not just SP problem, in fact those 12yr olds bnetters are treated far more egoistically by Blizz then us. They want their souls. SP? We are just insignificant. Crew expendable.

But I dont care anymore. In fact, changes are not for the worse or for the good. They are just changes and its up to us what we want them to be. The community will remain the same, anyways. Cheesy things will remain to be seen cheesy, epic feats will remain to be seen epic. Trust will remain, and also suspision sometimes. I dont like the content of this patch, but I like that its finally here. Thats its greatest merrit - being a checkpoint. But this deserves its own thread and 1.13 gold, so more on this some other time :wink:

 

[EmperorMoo]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

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.

I prefer the word "fragrance", rather than "taint", thank you very much... ropeller:

I play self-found and don't MP, and personally I'm very happy with the loss of IM - as I play HC only, it means I don't live in fear of the CS and WSK. The respec I can take or leave, it's a nice idea and will be helpful after :guiness: makes me do things I may or may not regret in the cold light of day.

By the way, does anyone else think that "extra fast" monsters have been speeded up? They now seem to move like lightning...

edit: I just had something called "An evil force" drop from Hell Andy:

on floor
in inventory

It can't be identified, and freaks ATMA out (ATMA was working fine before).

edit 2: it's the essence of suffering. Bah! I thought it was going to be something funky that unlocked the ubers...

 

[UllaV]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I play self-found and don't MP, and personally I'm very happy with the loss of IM - as I play HC only, it means I don't live in fear of the CS and WSK.

As do I, but I don't fear CS or WSK. I respect them and take measures. Now I don't need to anymore.

Btw. No-one has commented on the stash cealing. To me it seems like noob SC players have whined that they want to save their cash from death. Well duh!

Ulla

 

[Kimppi]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Don't know about those extra fast monsters, but I could swear there's something strange going on with the FE death explosions. I backed up my stuff and ran the council a while and got pretty much one-shot killed many times.

In 1.13 I got 100hp or so left in the extreme cases while in 1.12 it took at most maybe half of my lifebulb with it (2,6k life, ~60 LR/CR, /p5).

 

[TheNix]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I ran an untwinked kickersin through Act 1 Normal yesterday and found 5 set items and dozens of rares with <50% MF. I hope that I was just lucky and the drop rate hasn't been tweaked. BTW, the Andy bug is still alive and well.

 

[Arkardo]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

edit: I just had something called "An evil force" drop from Hell Andy:

on floor
in inventory

It can't be identified, and freaks ATMA out (ATMA was working fine before).

edit 2: it's the essence of suffering. Bah! I thought it was going to be something funky that unlocked the ubers...

So these things drop in SP too. I was wondering, do these items prevent others from dropping? I mean, like the Keys do? If so, running Mephisto and Baal in 1.13 suddenly became a lot less appealing.

 

[Fabian]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Yeah no kidding Kimppi, I upgraded to 1.13 and have run the Council a bit with my WW barb who's built to handle that place. I figured it'd get tougher because of Hydra being stronger or something, but it's A LOT tougher. I have way more NDE's, and I died twice in like 40 minutes. The merc dies much easier too. Fun with a challenge I suppose, might have to raise those resists after all

 

[Rhone]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

By the way, does anyone else think that "extra fast" monsters have been speeded up? They now seem to move like lightning...

Not sure, but I've run WSK in 1.13 a few times now with my Fishyzon (hey, the rune drop rate alone is enough for me to move forward in versions and not look back) and one of those runs included a large pack of frenzytaurs that were much faster than I expected. They killed my merc and decoy instantly and I had multiple NDEs as I ran like mad to get enough breathing room just to drop another decoy so I could get enough space to portal out. That's a very atypical experience for my Fishyzon, who can usually stand up to a few frenzytaurs and CS them to death with no difficulty.

Gloams have actually been more trouble for me than usual in 1.13, but that's mostly due to bad luck with some nasty spawns.

Edit: @Fabian: Whew, I feel a lot better now. Your posts inspired me to try out Travincial in 1.13 with my MFing Whirler, and I felt very noobish when I died quite unexpectedly on the 5th run.

 

[Fabian]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

The council always had the potential to deal huge amounts of damage, with various combinations of FE/CE/LE/Conviction/etc. It's a reasonably dangerous place to begin with. But yeah, it seems tougher than usual for sure.

 

[Triple Helix]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

I ran an untwinked kickersin through Act 1 Normal yesterday and found 5 set items and dozens of rares with <50% MF. I hope that I was just lucky and the drop rate hasn't been tweaked. BTW, the Andy bug is still alive and well.

Running a Fishymancer untwinked right now that I started yesterday. He's currently in Act 2 Normal in LK and haven't found a single unique or set item so far, zero MF BTW.

On another note, I downloaded RWM (1.12) for my Mac and installed it on my clean copy of 1.13 today. Sadly enough, even though I assume the RWM was working (not going to twink him any time soon) and the screen says it's 1.13, I noticed CE went from 70-120% back down to 60-100% (so I took RWM back out and CE went back to 70-120%).

 

[smips]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

That is not the way you should see it, and few people here pointed this out. They are not lazy. The question here is not if they worked hard. No no, they have been one busy bee. Yup. The question is whom they worked for.

Thats why some of us are so upset, becouse they treat us just as numbers. Not only Blizz is turning this game into a testing polygon, they showed even greater amount of disrespect to anyone using his brain by calling this "content patch".

WHAT?! Am I through the rabbit hole or what?

And its not just SP problem, in fact those 12yr olds bnetters are treated far more egoistically by Blizz then us. They want their souls. SP? We are just insignificant. Crew expendable.

But I dont care anymore. In fact, changes are not for the worse or for the good. They are just changes and its up to us what we want them to be. The community will remain the same, anyways. Cheesy things will remain to be seen cheesy, epic feats will remain to be seen epic. Trust will remain, and also suspision sometimes. I dont like the content of this patch, but I like that its finally here. Thats its greatest merrit - being a checkpoint. But this deserves its own thread and 1.13 gold, so more on this some other time :wink:

I do see your point skiffcz and for the record, I wasn't calling Blizz lazy(I'm not sure if it was interpreted that way). Sadly, yes, to Blizzard we are but numbers. Unfortunately, that's how the business world works and Blizzard is indeed a business. I'm sure the 'goal' of the patch was to spark some big Diablo 2 news, get some old players to pick it up again, and then begin to anticipate Diablo 3 even more. So basically, other than the cost of some man hours, Blizzard saw this as an opportunity for a free marketing campaign. So in the end, this isn't about Blizzard hating SPers or adoring B.net, it's about drawing people back in so they can make some more money.

 

[veryfakename]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Don't know about those extra fast monsters, but I could swear there's something strange going on with the FE death explosions. I backed up my stuff and ran the council a while and got pretty much one-shot killed many times.

I can back this up. They claim to have weakened FE explosions but I'm almost certain they made it more dangerous. I ran through /p1 Travincal three times with my lvl 86 frost zealot with max block, ~6k defense, ~85% fire res, ~23% pdr, ~24pt mdr, 1050 hp and he received the exact same amount of damage from the two exact same council members all three times. One took him from near full to about 500, the other took him from near full to barely 100. I don't think I'll be running Travincal with melee again any time soon, especially if this is just a bug.

And if the hydra upgrade also applies to the Council's hydra, that's definitely not a good thing. Hydra has always been the #2 merc killer for me after IM even if I max their fire resistance. I don't know why but it just tears them apart in no time.

I also agree that extra fast packs seem even faster but can't confirm. Sure didn't have an easier time with gloams at all either.

 

[Kanonfutter]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

FE bug returned much? :crazyeyes:

 

[LprMan]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

Bleh This whole "patch" only makes want to quit playing altogether. The only relatively good stuff are the technical improvements (resolution scaling etc). Most of those things could have been done with a glide wrapper anyway.

Seeing how many bugs (there a list at Phrozen Keep) they have left untouched (AFAIK, some of them have been around since pre-LoD times!), weird skill balance changes, removing things from the game instead of fixing them... :steam: I guess the coding Blizz did for the game back in the day is one huge mess, and no-one really knows how it works, especially since the original dev team has left. Now I only hope Blizz will make everything they can softcoded, so modders could create an unofficial patch to fix as much as they can.

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.

Well said.

 

[Aconite]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

On another note, I downloaded RWM (1.12) for my Mac and installed it on my clean copy of 1.13 today. Sadly enough, even though I assume the RWM was working (not going to twink him any time soon) and the screen says it's 1.13, I noticed CE went from 70-120% back down to 60-100% (so I took RWM back out and CE went back to 70-120%).

You need to install RWM on 1.12 and then upgrade to 1.13 to get it all to work. Replacing the 1.13 Patch file with the RWM one pretty much reverts you back to 1.12 in all but name.

Note you have to use the RWM only modded file (if you use the RRM/RWM one then the 1.13 patch will fail to install).

 

[skiffcz]

Re: 1.13 Public Test Realm online!

and for the record, I wasn't calling Blizz lazy

I didnt mean it this way, but after rereading, it sure can be misinterpreted this way. Im sorry about my poor reaction choice (it was some bitter captian obvious for the rescue anyways).

So to be more constructive, few here and theres:

So the council kicks *** now? Well, if its survivable (not OHK) Im somehow glad for it. If its now the most reliable source of HRs, it better be challenging. I know how utterly boring can LK be. But what does this FE boost mean for the boss dolls? Does anyone experienced FECE/LE extrastrong/convicted dollpack and is still alive to talk about it?.

What about hydra for players .. is it new backup skill for pure tree sorcs? Anyone tried hydrasorc yet? Remember, cheats are available on the patch (or is it just on the realms?)
Gold # - Will provide the amount of gold specified
Level # - Will increase your level to the number specified
Waypoints 1 - Will activate all waypoints. You must still reach an act before that act’s waypoints will be unlocked with this cheat.
For anyone who missed that on bnet.com. Btw, one more reason not to accept this beta into our trade/MP pool. (Sorry EmperorMoo ... eh)

Anyone has found Jah yet? Hrm, jjscud? Whats up with RoF runedrops? (Im sure your on it, just cant wait).

Respec - strangely, if they are limited, they dont seem that wrong. It will allow to ditch other leveling support (i.e. I skip N/NM anyway with every characters the same way with Kuko and enchantress). Also to try some builds with no love (recent hammersin anyone?). Plus I expect tournament gallore. Anyone tried cubing and using the free respec in SP yet? The fact that trash takes up precious slot in boss drops doesnt mean it works (keys anyone?).

edit: Im sorry if some of these were answered before, but this thread is getting a bit huge, so its not that hard to miss something