Who else thinks that ....

[ancalagon]

Who else thinks that ....

The legacy team was still busy with the WC3 map bugs or something else and instead Blizz hired some amateurs because they got tired of our (justified) complaints, wanted to save face and not let us wait another year for the patch? And that these same amateurs NEVER played
D2 and are all on crack. Let me explain why ...

Druid

?Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
?Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.

I dont care much for shapers but I stumbled (actually read it properly as I Skipped it before) across this patch note today ... and if you know your Diablo 2 .... then you will agree with me ....

WTF do we need more life on bears? THEY HAD ENOUGH.

1% ARMOR? WHAT ?!?!?! LOL ... COME ON JUST ONE MORE TOKE OF THAT CRACK PIPE ....

OH YES IM ALL JETFUELED UP NOW AND IM REAL HIGH AND GOT THE GREATEST IDEA EVER... a measly 15% enhanced damage (its actually something like an extra 18% from before at skill level 20, comparing both 1.12 and 1.13)

WHAT THE HECK WHERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!!? Yes, bears were usually ignored cuz wolves were better even though they had lower HP .... the reason was not cuz the bear was lacking more hp or damage or defense to make up for it, but because he had no AR bonus and not everyone was willing to sacrifice Oak for HOW, and the biggest problem was its attack speed was painfully crippled unless you had a Shael Shael Tomb Reaver, and there werent much options for the 1handers+shield users.

How about they fix THAT INSTEAD?

So bear lovaz discuss plox, and ISO answer .... is it me or are they really all on some new form of crack?

I'm not 'whining' as such, I think its more epic rage at this point, but seriously besides respecs and the IM removal, what other good has this patch brought? At least at its beta stage right now?

 

[Inokis]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

Well this is a PTR, that doesn't necessarily mean everything is set in stone, however with the track record Blizz has had lately I doubt much is going to be changed from what it is.

I do agree that theres nothing in this patch that should have taken 8 mos and multiple revisions to complete. Maybe they spent 8 mos contemplating what to push and a week to push it. Who knows.

From a content perspective, since this was supposed to be a 'content patch that significantly alters the way Diablo II is played', it is far from that. I don't consider a respec to be a significant alteration to gameplay, it just allows a character more flexibility rather than being forced to level up a new one.

 

[Noodle]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

I prefer bears to wolves. Shockwave = crowd control FTW!

 

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

Not sure what is meant by "15% across all ranks", but it's now 55% + 8% instead of 50% + 7%. I would have liked some more AR on my Werebears as well.

Also, the 5% synergy on Shockwave was pointless. They should have made it at least 15%+ or not have bothered at all.

 

[stillman]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

You can find similar evidence of too much pipe when looking at most of the class "balance" changes. I find it's helpful to just ignore that whole section of the read me file and only look at the major bug fixes (all TWO of them listed) and the windows screen upgrades people pestered Blizzard with so much.

It is pretty frustrating when they go "duhhhhhh...you know what really needs fixin' on that there red girl?
Fend? Impale? No
Plague javalin posion trail cloud not doing any psn damage? No
Torch's hellfire and lightning fury still crashing games? No
We've just GOT to make this immolition arrow more usable. Any ideas on how we can do that?"
[Crickets chirping]

Well, sorry for not talking about the bear, but we all got shafted equally if you ask me!

 

[Inokis]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

You can find similar evidence of too much pipe when looking at most of the class "balance" changes. I find it's helpful to just ignore that whole section of the read me file and only look at the major bug fixes (all TWO of them listed) and the windows screen upgrades people pestered Blizzard with so much.

It is pretty frustrating when they go "duhhhhhh...you know what really needs fixin' on that there red girl?
Fend? Impale? No
Plague javalin posion trail cloud not doing any psn damage? No
Torch's hellfire and lightning fury still crashing games? No
We've just GOT to make this immolition arrow more usable. Any ideas on how we can do that?"
[Crickets chirping]

Well, sorry for not talking about the bear, but we all got shafted equally if you ask me!

The window screen isn't really an upgrade though. Fixing the minimize bug is nice, the window buttons are nice, the new command line switches are nice, but as far as the window mode itself... its definitely sub par. I'm using Sven's Glide Wrapper and it has much better windowed rendering than what they (the Blizzard team) did.

Diablo II in Glide Window

Diablo II Innate Window (gamma was adjusted on the screenshot in order to see it)

The innate window is far more pixellated. It also uses 2d mode which doesn't allow for perspective to be used, nor does it allow for the gamma to be used. I have to adjust the desktop gamma in order to see the game. The Glide Wrapper allows for the game rendering in 3d mode.

 

[cralz]

Re: Who else thinks that ....

I also found that the window being maximized leads to crummy looking graphics. For some reason stretching the 800x600 to 1280x800 when in full-screen mode looks better than the 800x600 stretched to keep the aspect ratio in windowed mode. My laptop's chipset is not compatible with the Glide Wrapper, so I guess I'm stuck with the small 800x600 window still. Oh well...