Diablo II Complete Adventure Mod - Please Try It!

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Great, thanks! Glad to hear it worked.

Sigh.... it seems there is no easy way around the super elite item problem. What I mean by that is, my mod adds a new tier of item above elite, called super elite. So it goes normal -> exceptional -> elite -> super elite. Only problem is, due to the way the game handles item drops, they drop too early. I'm level 85 in act 5 nightmare, and am seeing a few super elite item drops. They should appear until probably level 95, maybe even later. Probably hell difficulty at earliest.

Looks like its back to the drawing board. They all have high level requirements, so even if you find them early you wont be able to use them. I think the problem is caused by the fact that Diablo 2 doesnt use item levels over 99, so as far as I know, any item with an item level of over 99 will never get dropped. Hmmm, I think I need to experiment so far.

Otherwise, in my current playthrough it seems to be working fine.

 

Here's a few thoughts about the mod.

Generally I like what you've done. I personally don't enjoy multiple runs and farming for items, so having more experience and more items in the regular game means I can play the way I want to without having to worry about not being strong enough when I get to a certain point. Nevertheless I feel you've gone too far in the player's favour and made the game a little too generous.

The increase in magic item drops is noticeable. It's not so much that more magic items appear, but rather that sets and rares are more frequent. Many will frown on this, but as I only play single-player I like knowing that there's now a chance (even though still small) that I will get a full set one day. The item generation has its problems however. I've noticed that gems drop FAR more frequently than before. It used to be that I would find one gem every once in a while, now every time I go back to camp to sell items (which is more than once per area or level) I have four or five gems with me. Sometimes the same enemy (not a unique or even a champion, just a regular) drops two gems at once, something I've never seen before in the game. It's not a huge issue, but if you can separate magic item drops from gem drops you might want to tone down the gems a little bit.

The changes to shops are a more serious matter, and frankly I don't like them. Diablo II has too much money as it is, but by completely removing the price for scrolls you've made things even easier. Why scrolls anyway? Would you remove the price from potions? I don't think anyone ever has a problem with affording scroll prices, so they're just here to delay the point at which you have far too much money and don't know what to do with it. As such there's really no point in dropping their price, especially since pretty quickly you stop needing to buy scrolls (thanks to Cain and the Town Portal scrolls you start finding everywhere). The more serious matter is with the perfect skulls that are now being sold in the Rogue Camp. Sure, they cost 90K, but when you think about it 90K is little money for something so powerful so early in the game (my Paladin had over 300K total by the end of Act 1 Normal). I purposefully stayed away from them because I think that using them in a socketed item will completely break the game. As it is I already have way too many gems and will be able to have some high power ones once I get the cube, so these Perfects really shouldn't be there.

The experience progression is a little overdone. My Paladin, who had finished Act 1 at level 20, got to level 23 when I imported him into the mod. I played around a bit with him and he didn't seem too affected by the level difference. The big difference was with the Necro, who had already gone through half of Act 1 and ended the act at level 26. I'm assuming that a character starting fresh would be level 30 by Act 2. This is too quick, not just in term of making the game easier but also because it won't leave anything for the last few acts on Hell difficulty. I don't know if this excessive levelling is due to me using /players 8, but even if it is I would suggest either going back to a larger experience requirement per level or toning down the XP gains a bit, possibly reintroducing softer experience penalties. I feel that being able to get to level 150 is great, but you also have to make sure people don't get there too soon, otherwise that will kill a lot of the motivation behind continued play. Rather than aim for people to get to 150 straight away the first time they beat the game on Hell, you could space things out a bit so that it becomes possible but, for example, only on /players 8, or only if people go back through explored areas from time to time and clear them again ("quasi-runs" if you will).

I think I'm coming across as too negative, so I want to point out I'm actually enjoying the mod. The increased frequency of magic items is fun because I'm constantly shuffling equipment around. Instead of waiting forever for a much more powerful item like in the vanilla game, I get to upgrade in small steps, which makes more sense. I've not yet gone above 20 with any skill, but I'm guesing this will make deciding which skills to max out trickier, but the overall larger pool of skill points makes experimental builds more viable. The larger tome capacity is welcome, as it makes inventory management easier without changing game balance. I'm looking forward to experimenting with tempered items and with some of the new recipes and runewords.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

Yeah, I also notice more gems than usual, it is something I can fix I think. I'll get on it.

I agree with you actually. The changes to shops were more experimental than anything else, I forgot that they were in there and so forgot to remove them. I wanted to make some low level socketable items available in select shops, but apparently you can only do this for normal difficulty so I decided to abandon it. The sheer amount of socketable items that you see is because I allowed a whole bunch to be bought from shops, more as a debugging test than anything else. If I could get them to appear at higher difficulties I would choose a smaller selection to include.

The thing about scrolls.... I dont see the reason for paying for scrolls. Scrolls are an irritating piece of inventory management, they dont really enhance the game in anyway. If you wanted gold management to be more important, I'd rather raise repair costs and hireling costs, because scrolls are... well unimportant. Modern games dont even require you to identify items, and have an unlimited use return to town type item. It just made no sense to ask the player to pay for scrolls.

The reason for that is that you imported your characters across. As part of the changes to experience gains, I not only lowered the amount required for a level but also lowered the amount that monsters give (but by not as much). The whole point was actually to create a smoother experience gradient. Right now, your level gains are very bottom heavy - you gain a huge amount of levels in act 1 normal, and everything slows down a lot from there. So I wanted to even out the experience gains. When I start characters from level 1, they finish act 1 at level 16 (I dont use players 8). I just finished act 5 normal with a sorceress, she was level 56, which is a bit high (you are supposed to be level 50 at the end of act 5). Level 30 in Act 2 is a bit high, but then as I said you imported a character - not only did that give you a major experience boost but it also made it easier for you to proceed and thus gain even more experience.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoy it overall. I've got a list of things to fix for the next release, I'll be lowering exp gains slightly for acts 3, 4 and 5 (since gains were highest there).

I'm also giving thought to dropping the maximum level from 150 to 125.

The reason for that is a slightly complex one. Okay... Diablo II has lots of different kinds of levels. Theres skill levels, item levels, monster levels, and character levels, all different and interrelated. Item levels go up to 99 maximum, but no monster will ever drop an item with an item level higher than 90. So, given that I added new items at the top to be used by characters greater than character level 100, I thought I would scale the items down, so that a level 150 character might be using level 90 kit (for example). With me so far? The problem is that the way item drops are calculated is based more on the monsters level than I thought. This means that, a level 90 monster will drop level 90 items. Currently, you will be fighting level 90 monsters in act 5 nightmare. This means a monster in act 5 nightmare can drop the most powerful items in the game. Obviously this isnt a good thing (although character level requirements provide some protection against abuse). I cant fiddle with the monsters stats so that a level 150 character fights against level 90 monsters, because they will get zero experience. What I'm thinking of doing, is making Hell difficulty into a kind of endgame, by scaling the monster levels so that you fight level 80 monsters in act 5 nightmare and level 120 monsters in act 5 Hell. End result - you can only get items for Hell difficulty either very late in nightmare or most likely, in hell difficulty itself. You might get lucky and find an item early, but you most likely wont be able to use it. Alternatively, I can keep things as they are and allow for more endgame... well playtime, since there will be more levels to gain.

 

Frankly I've always disliked the unlimited town portal items. I have nothing against simple, but there is such a thing as oversimplifying. Now what you've done with the scrolls doesn't bother me that much because scrolls were never an issue for me in the first place - I always have waaaay more than enough to buy as many as I want. I feel the change is unnecessary, but it doesn't make a big difference, aside from at the very very beginning, possibly only the very first outing outside the camp. On the other hand, you did mention in the readme that you've also lowered the price of repairing some items, so all in all there's a tendency towards accumulating more wealth when using the mod.

I've not noticed lower experience given out by monsters - if anything it seemed as if I was gaining more experience. Even level 50 is I think too high for Normal - I don't think I've ever finished at higher than 40. I think this may have something to do with the way you've tweaked the experience penalties (not the requirements), so I'm ending up gaining more experience than I should on /players 8. I'll have to go experiment a bit with this. I may have to go back to the normal level if that's the case, because otherwise I could end up hitting the level cap while still at the beginning of Hell. Lowering XP gains for the later acts sounds like a good idea too.

That could solve the problem with the items, but by doing so you'll the max character level to max skill level back to the ratio it was in the vanilla game. I think the slant towards character level is a good thing actually, as you get more flexibility in assigning skill points, you have more leverage if you end up putting a couple of points in a skill that isn't as good as you thought, and it means more diversification and maybe one more skill you can max out compared to vanilla. It might be overpowered in a multiplayer game, but in single-played it can make some interesting builds more viable. Unfortunately I have no idea how you could solve the item problem otherwise. As you said the level requirements for the item will prevent mose abuse, but it could get frustrating if items start dropping 30 levels earlier than you can use them.

 

I think its the kind of thing that, if town portal and identify scrolls were removed completely, you wouldnt even notice. Thats why I made them nearly free - you only notice them when you run out of town portal scrolls and need to go back to town. Completely unimportant compared to the business of killing monsters.

You wouldnt notice it unless you examined the numbers involved in building the experience tables. A level 58 character in an unmodded game as about the same amount of experience as a level 99 character in my mod, and the amount of experience each monster gives has been reduced. Whats more important is the average number of monsters needed for each level up, and in my mod, its about the same until you reach higher levels, at which point it starts diverging more and more away. Levels in the unmodded game become further and further away, forcing you to grind for hours for a level up, that doesnt happen in my mod.

As for finishing normal on level 50 - thats exactly right because thats how I set it up. Monsters in normal mode get to about level 50 themselves, so players will too. In the release you have:
Normal mode: Level 1-50
Nightmare mode: 50-100
Hell mode: 100-150

In the new release (more about that later), its changed to:
Normal mode: 1-45
Nightmare mode: 45-80
Hell mode: 80-125

Yes, it has its drawbacks. But the other goal of this mod (which for some reason I havent really mentioned before) is to extend the endgame of the game. By endgame, I mean the point at which you have pretty much built your character and got most of the important items.

In the unmodded game, theres still a lot to do in hell difficulty, since you should start it at level 70. In my mod, you start it at level 80, and should already have some of the better kit available.

I need to finish cooking supper now, but when I get back I'll post more on my plans for hell difficulty and the next release (which is soon).

EDIT: Okay I'm back

I dont want to nerf Hell into oblivion. I want it to be challenging, but fair. Not frustrating. Right now, all monsters in hell do slightly less physical damage, but have a higher to hit rating. Also, the resistances penalty is higher in nightmare and hell than the unmodded game. The reason for these changes is that better gear is more commonly available. I'm hoping that things will stay in balance, with better gear available to everyone, but also slightly tougher monsters who can hit more often but do slightly less damage per hit. I want hell to be challenging but rewarding. And by rewarding I mean rewarding without needing to endlessly grind for items and experience.

Lowering the monster and player levels a bit in nightmare and hell difficulty lets me restrict the items a bit better and hopefully make for a more balanced game.

Ziad, have you noticed any of the new monsters? The Liches and Mage Archers? The super uniques guarding Andariel and Duriel? The Storm Lord in Kurast, and another super unique guarding one of Khalim's relics in the sewers.

The new version does the following:

Corrects item drops a bit. Bosses were inexplicably nerfed, this returns them to the drops they should have. Jewellery of various kinds should be slightly less common now.

Fixed a bug with level generation in nightmare and hell difficulty, the result of trying to expand the level sizes a bit. They have been reset to their default values. Some of the less monster dense areas in hell difficulty are now more dense in monsters (The Blood Moor and Kurast chiefly).

Fixed a bug with the damage of one of the super elite items.

The above mentioned change to character and monster levels, also needed to change item levels a bit.

Fixed a bug with monster HP in hell difficulty - was far too high. Restored to default values (ie, the values in my mod were about triple normall hell hitpoints).

Theres one or two more things that I want to do, then it will be released.

 

Sounds pretty interesting, you should get a few multiplayer sessions going!

 

Hi guys, new version of the mod is up. I recommend that everyone upgrades - the mod fixes several important bugs. Thanks guys.

From the readme:

It also adds one or two new runewords.


Thanks to Tal for help with uploading, and SP for kindly hosting the mod.

 

True, but it also gives you something to think about, even if it's a very tiny thing, other than constant monster mashing and treasure looting. Yes, Diablo's strength is in the mindless hack and slash, but adding a tiny layer of complexity to this, no matter how thin, helps me not get too bored with it. But anyway it's your mod

See that's what I'm worried about. From my experience (granted very limited until now) the number is lower in your mod, even at low levels, hence why my Necro levelled like crazy. It's not just an initial boost at the very beginning - I could sense that I was gaining levels faster than with the Paladin (which I'd played in the unmodded game). The initial level boost when transferring may make things a bit easier, but that shouldn't change the amount of experience I'm gaining because I'm not grinding or going back through previous areas and clearing them again, or anything like this, so I should have gained the same experience and ended up on the same level as with the Paladin. But anyway I think this will no longer be an issue with the new version of the mod.

Again that's my worry. You've made levelling a lot easier, therefore you've made it possible to reach the max level (whether it's 125 or 150) much earlier. I think this will make the endgame less extended, because after reaching this level there's pretty much nothing left to do. In the vanilla game it's impossible to reach without crazy grinding. I like the fact you've eliminated the grinding, just be sure it's not possible to max out too early.

I was wondering what was going on with these archers casting Frost Nova! I thought this was something to do with an aura from a unique or something like this. They're nasty, especially as they managed to slow down my Necro then pumped him full of arrows until he was dead (his only death so far). I like the challenge!

 

I prefer having to decide what equipment to use or what skills to level up than whether I have enough scrolls on me!

The lowest levels (1-20) have hardly been affected at all. The higher levels have been afffected a lot, but not as much as you think. As I said, you should reach level 45 in normal difficulty without too much grinding. Yes, the levelling does tend to be a lot faster than unmodded. I recommend using the latest version of the mod, which should reduce the experience per monster quite a bit and also lower the max desired level (ie monster level) in normal from 50 to 45. Lowering the monster levels has the added effect of slowing player level ups down.

Its not as easy as you think. Nightmare level ups will still happen faster than unmodded, but slower than normal. Gaps between levels in my mod do increase, but not as fast unmodded. Although I havent got to play through Hell yet, I really doubt that a player would reach level 125 on his first playthrough. Levels do get longer as the player gets further, the current speed isnt sustained throughout the game, dont worry. My guess would be level 115. Does this shorten the endgame? Quite possibly, yes. I might consider extending the last 10-15 levels considerably, although this goes against the intent of the mod as then a player would be forced to grind to gain experience. I have nothing against people rerunning areas to look for better equipment, but I would think you would rather play through new areas and progress further in the game. I might change the intent of the mod to reduce grind in normal and nightmare and make the endgame more interesting in Hell. For Hell, this could be a combination of added challenge without cheese, longer levelup times and other tidbits. Again, please download the latest version, will slow levelling quite a bit.

I mean... dont get me wrong, its a work in progress and I do value your feedback. As time goes on, and I get more feedback, and play a bit more myself, I'll strive for a better balance. This might mean reducing the exp gains even further and making major changes to Hell's balance to increase its... well life.

Ha ha, yes they can be quite nasty. In fact, more nasty than Liches I must admit. Liches cast meteor, glacial spike, amplify damage and lightning I think, mage archers cast lightning, cold arrow and frost nova.

Look out for the StormLord in Kurast, I might move him to the entrance to Travincal so players are forced to fight him. He should be in the Kurast Bazaar/Upper Kurast.

As for the other Super Uniques, Andariel and Duriel each have two super unique guardians. Duriel has the one with my favourite name - Bluntforce Trauma (one of those huge monsters with clubs). There are two in the Kurast Sewers, the Storm Lord as I mentioned, and I think thats it.

And beware the Rocky Tomb - the rocky tomb of each difficulty is only intended to be challenged when you have killed Baal in the current difficulty, and even then if I remember correctly its hard as nails. As far as I remember, there are high level gloams and megademons down there, and at least one type of monster has a conviction aura as standard.
EDIT: I've just checked, the tomb appears to be normal. I lost some work a while back, so thats probably what happened. I can see the monsters exist but arent used in any levels. I'll think about making the rocky tomb into a high level treasure area.

Question: Do you think there are enough set and unique item drops? And runes?

Since I wanted the player to be able to basically play through the game once and end up with some good kit, I'm a little disappointed with the low drop rate in my current games. Admittedly I'm pleased its higher than it used to be, but I'm kinda wondering whether to increase it. Of course, I know that any potential increase might make the game completely boring, giving players no real incentive to look for loot. So its a difficult balance to achieve. What do you think of the item balance thus far?

 

OK, that's good to know. From the quick level chart per difficulty that you'd posted this wasn't obvious, but if you do slow down the rate of levelling on the higher difficulties this should solve the problem of too-fast levelling and strike a nice balance.

That sounds like a good way to do things and strike a nice balance for levelup time vs game difficulty, regardless of /player setting used.

I didn't notice which super uniques were around Andariel, mainly because I was keeping as far away from her as possible and sending my skellies and golem to plummet her and her guardians. Trying to keep Decrepify running while gulping down mana potions by the truckloads kinda kept me busy

I don't remember where the rocky tomb is. Is it one of the tombs in act 2?

Being in Normal Act 1 I don't get that many uniques (I think I only got one with my Necro). Definitely enough sets - I got 2 in half of the act, which I'd say is good enough this early in the game. I'll have to keep an eye on how many I get in the later acts and on the higher difficulties. I'm not getting that many runes though - one from the Countess and one from Andariel, which is what I sometimes get in the unmodded game too. Again though this may change in the later acts.

I think it's good as it is. It's higher than usual (having played the act unmodded and modded only a couple of days apart, it's easy to see), and as you said you don't want to make it too high and bore players. Besides do keep in mind that /players is there precisely for this reason - so that if people feel they're getting fewer drops and no challenge, they can increase both drop rate and difficulty. In a way what your mod does is add an increase on top of this, which is good because the increase is more obvious at the higher /players setting, so people can sort of have a wider range of drop frequency to pick from.

On a completely unrelated note - is there a problem with switching a mod character back into the unmodded game? He'll lose a few level (and gain some unlawful skill and stat points I suppose), but aside from this does it cause some game-stopping bug, due to having the new items?

 

No, I dont think the new items will cause problems. As always, make a backup before you do. My guess is that the game will simply accept the items for what they are. However, if they are some of the new high level super elite items, then the game wont like them. Of course, you need to be at least level 90 to even use them, so I doubt thats what you are talking about. Regarding experience.... the game might decide that you are at a lower level than you say you are, and make you level up again. You might get some extra skill points, but thats about it.

In my current playthroughs on nightmare difficulty, it seems okay. It might be a little fast, so I'll have to see how it goes. There may well be another experience nerf in the works. I'll also need to get to Hell difficulty and check that out.

The Stony Tomb (its Stony not Rocky sorry) is a bonus tomb in Act 2, its in the Rocky Waste which is the first desert area. As I said though, right now its normal, I thought I had changed it but apparently I havent. Will get round to that soon.

You know, I just cant make a bowazon. I redistributed some points from strength into dex, I tried several skill layouts, I'm using a fairly good but admittedly not brilliant rare crossbow, and I just dont see her being nearly as powerful as a javazon. Javazons decimate legions of monsters with lightning strike and lightning fury, and take down bosses in seconds with charged strike. Their only problem is lightning immunes of course. Bowazons, meanwhile, struggle with just about anything. Freezing arrows passing through monsters and hitting multiple times is nice, and they do a fair bit of damage, but while she can kill 1 or 2 monsters at once, the Javazon kills dozens. Maybe I should look for a video on youtube of a good bowazon player, I just cant fathom how they can be effective chars unless you have the most godlike bow known to man.

 

I so completely forgot everything you said previously about the Stony Tomb. So I installed the new version of the mod yesterday, booted my Necro and started act 2. Finished the sewers pretty easily, then went into the desert and got into my first dungeon. I spent HOURS clearing it, inch by inch, thinking something must definitely be wrong. I stayed until 4am before I managed to clear it! Then I remembered that this was the Stony Tomb. Oops.

So if you're worried abou the tomb not working or being too easy, let me tell you: it works. It's HARD.

I did some switching around back and forth between the modded and unmodded and there seem to be no problem, at least not until the superelite items show up. The unmodded game seems to have no trouble accepting tomes with 50-something scrolls in them, or huge stacks of keys.

The experience distribution is MUCH better now. I seem to get about 10% of the experience I got in the first version, but I'm still getting more than in the unmodded. I my Necro is getting far less XP because he's much higher level than he should be at the beginning of the act - I'll have to experiment with the Paladin, who should be gaining more experience.

I met some more spellcasting archers in the Stony Tomb, and those were REALLY though. Loads of HP, regeneration, ice arrows and Lightning spell all the time. They would decimate my skeletons in no time, and I had to exclusively rely on the skeleton mages and the golem (and a lot of luck) to beat them all.

Also, the gem drops are now good. They're back to the same proportion as the unmodded game, but their frequency seems slightly higher and follows the general increase in drops.

Generally I think the frequency of drops is good. I'm getting lots of items all the time, perhaps too many, but that's not necessarily bad since the proportion of magic items (and above) is unchanged, so the vast majority of the items are still useless crap, but it's nice to see rares more frequently. I've got 5 set items now (combined from 3 characters, so not as bad as it seems at first) but two of them are actually the same - the Arctic Belt. I don't know if this is because there are very few set items of for my level or if I just got very lucky. I've got two Arctic items now and am eagerly waiting for the third and my very first complete set in Diablo II!

I've also found that it was incredibly easy to edit scroll and key prices in the text files, so I'll replace them with the original values and play your mod my way

 

I hope no one minds me necroing my own thread!

Ziad, are you still playing the mod? I havent done any more work on it, but I did play a bit more of it. Torchlight occupies much of my time now. I wish Diablo 2 had a random dungeon generator like it!

Yeah, thats kind of how this mod started. I realized thats exactly what I was able to do - edit the text files to play the game how I liked. Some day I should finish my own mod I guess! That is, beat Hell Baal. I've never killed Hell Baal I think.

As far as I remember, the Stony Tomb should be populated with monsters that even a character that can kill Baal on that difficulty would struggle with. In fact, I'm a little surprised that you were able to do it in Act 2, I mean at all. I think the monsters in it are around level 50. The pity is, given that they were so many levels above you, you would have gained less experience.

I thought I should explain what I actually did with the experience in the mod. In early versions of the mod, I used the same system that D2 uses to apply the experience penalty after level 70, to boost experience. But, I'm fairly sure I ran into problems because the numbers got too big for Diablo 2 to handle, and weird things happened. You either got no experience or several levels at once.

Anyway, so I abandoned that idea. I needed a way to allow the player to level up faster - but not only that. It was the way that they gained levels that mattered. Put it this way - if you plotted a graph of the players level over time, in unmodded Diablo 2, that graph would climb steeply at first and then slow down massively. By the time you hit level 70, not only do you need huge amounts of experience, but you are penalized for any experience that you do gain. So, the time between levels becomes huge. I wanted the time between levels to be more consistent, so you didnt have to spend, say, 12 hours to go from one level to another. I still wanted levelling to slowdown as you got to a higher level, but not as much as it did. It just about stopped altogether in the unmodded game, I wanted it to continue with a slight decrease in speed.

So.... I did two things. First, I lowered the experience that you needed to reach each level. Level 20 my mod: 508994. Level 20 unmodded: 671891. Level 99 my mod: 98846341. Level 99 unmodded: 3837739017.

As you can see, you require a lot more experience to each levels in the unmodded game than in my mod. This is the reason why, if you swap characters from modded to unmodded, their level will change. At higher levels, the change becomes huge, and in fact level 99 unmodded will mean you have more experience than level 125 in my mod.

But theres more to levelling up to that. Theres a very important file that governs monster statistics per level, and its called monstats.txt. It affects how monsters change as they increase in level - including their hitpoints, attack rating, damage and experience. The values in this value are multiplied by the specific monster experience value and then divided by 100 to arrive at the actual experience value. These values then, are multipliers for the monsters base stats.

So... the experience value for a level 20 monster in normal, in the unmodded game, is 300. In my mod, its 358 (I actually thought it was lower already, anyway...). At level 99 in Hell, unmodded value is 70221, and modded value is 6507. No, I didnt miss a digit on the end. Thats less than 10% of the experience, but then thats in keeping with the experience that you need per level.

I didnt just make these numbers up. They were obtained using OpenOffice Calc - I wrote formulas that let me know what progression was from level to level. I also wrote a formula that worked out the average number of monsters that you would need to kill to gain a level, at a specific level. So, I made sure that the numbers were meaningful. Testing allowed me to refine them.

I hope that makes sense. Its a major change to how experience worked in the unmodded game, because I didnt just tweak the old system, I rewrote it.

 

Heh, I think the only reason I managed to complete Stony Tomb was because I was using the Necro. Any other character would have been torn to pieces very quickly, but hiding behind my summons meant I could get things done, even though it took many, many hours.

Thanks for the detailed explanation on how you recalculated experience. It's interesting to see what you were aiming for and it does make sense.

Unfortunately I haven't touched Diablo II in months. Back in May I still didn't have my desktop PC or even an apartment so I was playing D2 on the laptop. Then I got both the apartment and the desktop in quick succession and have switched to playing other games. I tried to go back and play a bit of D2 a couple of times but I just couldn't. I think I played the game so much over the years, and especially earlier this year, that I'm kinda burned. It may be a while before I can get enough interest to play it again. Besides there are a lot of games that I want to play and considering how many times I have finished D2 the others get priority

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes I'm addicted to that game, sometimes it doesnt interest me. Right now, I'm interested in it again.

I'm playing through with a sorceress and an amazon, on hell difficulty with both. Well, they arent new characters, just old characters that I'm finally getting further with. And its given me some ideas for balance changes.