Diablo II v1.13 beta is out, patch notes!

[Rubicon]

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- Patch 1.13
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A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again,
that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies
within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil
to the Throne of Destruction...


Major Bugs

- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.


Minor Bugs

- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it was created.

Specific changes/improvements

- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
- Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- Updated two Act 5 mercenary names to Klar and Tryneus.
- When creating a single player game, pressing the 'Enter' key now automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
- When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode. This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound in background.
- Added support for '-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed' command line options.


Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes


Amazon

-Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and Immolation effect by 50%.
-Immolation Arrow - Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.
-Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.


Assassin

-Shadow Master - Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.


Barbarian

-Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
-Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.


Paladin

-Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.


Druid

-Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
-Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.
-Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.


Necromancer

-Blood Golem - Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
-Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100% to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
-Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.


Sorceress

-Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and Blaze and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Blaze - Synergy receives 2% damage per point of Firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
-Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.
-Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.
-Lightning Mastery - Reduced overall effect by 15%.

Source - http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=21730644778&sid=3000

Finally a huge resolution, oh god yes! Respec! sweeeeeeeeeet

Now, to reinstall!

 

[Dave]

I'd rather have Diablo III but this isn't shabby!

 

[Draxo]

Always good to see Werebear buffs.

Even though I do not play that game any more.. always my favorite class.

 

[@Li3n]

Nothing for the Cold tree, aka the "use Blizzard" tree?! Frozen Orb needs some love too.

And this is interesting: - Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse. That's bound to change playstyles in areas they're in.


But from that log it looks like they could have finished the patch ages ago if they only left the mystery thing for 1.14...

And also, this is a beta for the patch...

 

[Rubicon]

And also, this is a beta for the patch...

as the thread title says O_O

 

[Krisken]

I have about a thousand things to say about this patch.

Runes- increased find only for high runes. Zod is still a one in 200 year chance to find. Legitimately, that is. The change in color has been a long time coming, and will make not missing the damn things so easy.

Skills- Some of these skill changes seem really weird. There are dozens of skills that need a boost or a reduction to bring balance to the different characters. Did Corpse Explosion really need a boost? You couldn't put that effort into the Assassin Claw tree, or the dozens of crappy Druid skills?

Events- Look, these are nifty and all, but these really should be enabled in Single Player. Here's hoping that after the testing is over they are implemented.

Death Knights- Thank Diablo! Losing your merc just because he attacks (and doesn't have an alternate option) really sucks. Combat characters will now be able to go through here without having to run in, run away, run in, run away, for fear of instadeath. The only question I have is this: Why wasn't the poison snake bug fixed? When you are punished for simply moving, where is the fun in that? It's like the bug requires everyone to have teleport (which means enigma).

Wide Screen mode- Holy crap, that is pretty awesome. I wasn't expecting this one, but simply for this, I am excited to get back into the game again (like it would take much).

Overall- Really, there are tons of skills that could have used some help. I also wish the other mercenaries got some kind of boost to make them more attractive. As it stands, there's no reason to use anything except the Act two mercenaries.

 

[@Li3n]

I hate mornings...

 

[Ravenpoe]

Just when I think I'm out...

 

[Covar]

I really should play Diablo at some point.

 

[Dave]

Just when I think I'm out...

You're out? When did you come out? Congrats!

 

[Rubicon]

I have about a thousand things to say about this patch.

Runes- increased find only for high runes. Zod is still a one in 200 year chance to find. Legitimately, that is. The change in color has been a long time coming, and will make not missing the damn things so easy.

Yes, a long time coming.

My favorite "hack" for diablo was actually something like this, back when MapHack was fairly common and Warden hadn't been implemented, there was an add-on tool that worked with MH, called MapHack Companion. You could change the color of the item names on the ground, make them bold font, underlined, etc.

So I'd always make uniques something like Orange colored, runes would be Purple (to stand out), set items would be lime Green, etc etc. This made getting items on the ground out of a pile of items, that much easier. And no, I never used PickIt cause that was just too easy, I used MH thats it. and the occasional bot when I was really poor to help build up a little bit of resources.

 

[Zappit]

Might have to boot the game up now...good thing the "expiration" of characters doesn't happen anymore. Expired chars can be used even if that clock runs out.

 

[Krisken]

This guy from the Blizzard forums hits it right on the fucking head. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=21730685647&sid=3000

This is a direct quote from the patch notes for 1.11 (ELEVEN, not 13)

\"A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again,
that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies
within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil
to the Throne of Destruction...\"
THEY USED THE SAME TEXT. Are you serious? They didn't even come up with any better flavor text for us? It would have taken some Lore guy 5 seconds to pen out something. That and, why do we need to be warned? In fact, no series of new and challenging tests awaits us! No new challenges have been added. Not only is this use of text from 1.11 insulting, it's also flat out wrong.

This is the list of changes from 1.10 which was released on time with no forum rage.
Notice how big it is, and how it contains many actual significant gameplay changes.
We were expecting something along these lines, a list of changes that makes any D2 player's mouth water with anticipation to play the new patch. Good or bad.
http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/beta/patchchanges.shtml

Now on to my point:
y'all trollin

I fail to believe that after over 6 months of delay and anticipation of a \"content\" patch that, being in all likelihood our last patch, does absolutely nothing in terms of major fixes of the game-breaking problems present in the current game.

Players in hardcore macro in command lines to instantly cast spells, open a town portal, enter it, and hostile other players resulting in an instant death for the people they use it on. This is truly game-breaking. These people's programs often display long ASCII images and lines of text expressing that they are pkers and have pwned the players they kill.

And what is your answer to this flagrant violation that so many players recommended you fix?
- Updated two Act 5 mercenary names to Klar and Tryneus.

Perhaps Klar and Tryneus can go down to the throne of destruction and do battle with the TPPKers. Who even uses Act 5 mercenaries? No one. Why? Because you also ignored everyone's requests to make all mercs useful. Until then, it'll just be Act 2 infinity/insight/pride mercs and Act 1 faith mercs. So in effect, you have made an update that is truly useless because of another, more pressing, update that you failed to make.

We asked you to buff specific skill trees, such as the Assassin's martial arts tree, and to make several skills that see no use in the current game useful. What was your answer?
-Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.

Dear god, man! Shockwave! Why? This may see some use in single player. But the feasibility of a werebear in pvp remains zero. Why? Because of the hammerdins. Try hitting a 4000 hp, max block, 14000 defense paladin with a melee character. Try doing it while they are surrounded by a literal field of death. Good luck.

The last thing that I would like to address is the inevitable \"I told you so!\" from Blizzard about our disappointment with the patch. Bashiok posted some time ago that 1.13 would never live up to our expectations. He was correct. And not because our expectations were too high. But because we were lied to.

You made us think you would listen. You created threads asking for our input into the patch. We made recommendations, you discarded the vast majority of them. The few that were actually well thought out, such as changing Enigma's oskill to charges, and halving the bonus that hammer gets from concentration, were not included. The list goes on. In short, you made us feel for a brief moment as if we were included in the development process, and then discarded us.

So don't think we are to blame for our own disappointment with your patch. It is not because you took so long to produce it. It is not because you hyped it so much. It is because you lied to us. And there is no one to blame for that but you.

That being said, excellent troll. Good day.

-Big Mike, diablo 2 player

I'm with this guy.

 

[@Li3n]

They've probably been dicking around with the stash for most of the patch time, and now that it's no longer in the patch what's left ain't much.

Less content and more fixes for the next patch pls (that's what we should be requesting).

 

[Krisken]

I think that is what people were requesting, from what I saw.

The problem is there are 4 types of players: Ladder players, PvP players, Classic players, and Single players. Since everyone wants something different, it's hard for the developers to balance the game for 4 groups of people who are only thinking of themselves.

 

[Rubicon]

I think that is what people were requesting, from what I saw.

The problem is there are 4 types of players: Ladder players, PvP players, Classic players, and Single players. Since everyone wants something different, it's hard for the developers to balance the game for 4 groups of people who are only thinking of themselves.

well, TPPK targets at least two groups of the crowd, PvPers and Hardcore players. In hardcore, TPPK has broken the game. In regular PvP, it sucks but its not as awful.

They spend so much time making Warden lock out something as harmless as maphack, but a game breaking hack like TPPK lives on for years and years and years.

Stuff like that is why I stopped playing D2. Yes, I was a PvPer and once I got my toons geared up as best as possible I'd just PvP but when they cant seem to patch that out? Ugh.

Stuff like that makes me fear for Diablo 3...

 

[@Li3n]

I think that is what people were requesting, from what I saw.

Pls, as soon as they saw there where no new runewords a billion threads about it showed up.

But of course fixes where always requested a lot, but alongside the content stuff.

 

[Dave]

This reminds me a lot of Robert Jordan. Stuck writing a huge story, he lingered and fussed about, not making the next book. Instead, he created a prequel that talked about some shit nobody cares about.

That's what this patch is. Fuck D2. You've given us screen caps of D3. Take your guys off of developing a past product at the end of its life cycle and give us the new game.

 

[Krisken]

This reminds me a lot of Robert Jordan. Stuck writing a huge story, he lingered and fussed about, not making the next book. Instead, he created a prequel that talked about some shit nobody cares about.

That's what this patch is. Fuck D2. You've given us screen caps of D3. Take your guys off of developing a past product at the end of its life cycle and give us the new game.

Guys? I bet they had ONE guy. Sometimes.

Mods like PlugY fix the lcs (lying character screen), have a shared stash (with millions of pages), increase the size of the stash (which Blizzard couldn't figure out in 7 months), and allow respecing. Honestly, there is no reason to play on realms anymore unless you like other people that much.

 

[@Li3n]

@Dave

D3 will take another 2 years at least... until then it's a good idea to use D2 to keep people interested (no one would care about SC2 after all those years passed if Blizz stopped supporting SC1 and/or if it didn't have all those koreean tourneys).

Also, the respec thing is obviously a mean to test it for implementation in D3.

And yes, they obviously haven't got many people working on it or it wouldn't take that much time for so little changes.

Of course WoW is probably taking the majority of their work force anyhow... and without the games that made Blizz famous WoW would be nowhere near what it is now... showing more love for them would be welcomed.

---------- Post added at 11:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 PM ----------

@Krisken

Apparenly the stash size had problems with bnet, as the hardware for it is very old (which is why they're delaying the beta for SC2 until bnet 2.0 is working).

The LCS has no excuses though.