Diablo II 1.08 Patch fansite chat transcript

Originally published at Blizzard’s Web site.

This Fansite Chat was moderated by Bridenbecker and Beau Yarbrough who voiced the questions from the fansite webmasters in the channel. The DiabloIIDevTeam consisted of team members: Max Schaefer, Matt Householder, and Tyler Thompson with a special appearance by Ken Williams and the PR support from Lisa Bucek, and Beau Yarbrough and everyone knows Bill Roper .

[Beau-PR] Hi, guys. The fun will start in a moment.

[Beau-PR] The last few people from Blizzard North are logging on right now. If you guys can hold on for a few more moments, we’ll be good to go.

[Beau-PR] OK, looks like we’re ready to start. Thanks for coming on short notice to this fansite chat about the 1.08 Diablo II patch.

[Bridenbecker] Why have Casting Delays for most spells been linked together so you can’t switch between skills that have Casting Delays?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Those casting delays exist for the same reason that casting delays exist at all; to cut down on the graphic overload that was causing so many people trouble. To compensate, the spell damages have been increased greatly. If you could switch between the skills with no delay, it would defeat the purpose.

[Bridenbecker] Was there any intention to use the Patch 1.08 changes to force users to buy the Expansion?

[BRoper] We wanted to give players some of the benefits of the expansion set without requiring them to buy the expansion. There was no conspiracy to use this as a tool to “make people buy the expansion” and, in fact, we wanted to do just the opposite by giving people some of the excitement, challenges and benefits of expansion just for being loyal Diablo II players.

[Bridenbecker] Why does it seem you are pushing people to party by giving better drops and experience bonuses?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Because we encourage people to party! Many of the character skills were designed with parties in mind. Previously, people would exploit the fact that multiplayer games gave the same bonuses without partying. Besides the strategic elements, parties playing on the same level cut down our server loads, giving less lag to everyone.

[Bridenbecker] There seems to be a problem with repair costs. Is this being addressed?

[BRoper] We are aware that some items have seen their repair costs increase. We are identifying which items were effected and will be handling this as we find the items. This was not an intentional change.

[Beau-PR] OK, we had a computer crash, so I’m asking this one: Some server side changes were recently announced. Were these planned, or done in response to complaints about the 1.08 patch?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] There are several categories of changes: mistakes we made in rolling out 1.08 (which was huge!), bug-fixes that 1.08 introduced, and some responses to customer desires. With a patch this big it is to be expected that there will be a few glitches. For example, the monster levels for expansion crept into classic D2 for the patch. It was corrected quickly.

[Beau-PR] Next: Can you now gamble for exception items?

[BRoper] You will not be able to gamble for Exceptional items in classic Diablo II, but you *will* be able to gamble for them in the Expansion.

[Bridenbecker] The Gems show what will happen if placed into armor. Will socketed armor be available or is this a bug?

[BRoper] We are going to make the Horadric Cube recipe that will allow players to get a socket in a rare item work for Armor in classic Diablo II games :)! This will be available in patch 1.09.

[Bridenbecker] We can now gamble for throwing weapons, however, they still cannot be magic or exceptional, just superior. Why is this?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] There are no magic throwing weapons in Classic D2! There will be, however in the Expansion. Because of the oddity of having them in the gamble screen we might just add some magic properties for Classic D2! 🙂

[Bridenbecker] How are players like Barbarians supposed to deal with physically immune monsters?

[BRoper] Berzerk is a good skill for the Barbarian to counter this. Any melee character having weapons with elemental damage will do that damage to the monster, and finally, partying with other characters that are not dependent soley on physical damage is a great way to deal with any threat.

[Bridenbecker] Why are things like chipped gems and damaged low level items dropping in Hell?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] The whole drop system has been rewritten to allow for a greater dynamic range of drops. We have had some reports that indicate the slight possibility that there is a bug with the system that will resolve itself as server code is updated.

[Bridenbecker] How will sorceresses handle Hell with the immune monsters?

[BRoper] No monster is ever immune to every type of damage, so having some points in other skill trees will carry her through, especially since many of her spells have had their damage greatly increased and are more effective at lower levels. Also, finding secondary items with non-specialty spells on them is a good back-up. And again, finding someone to party with is always a good option. And FUN too :)!

[Bridenbecker] Was there a change to item dropping / magic find?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Magic find has been changed. It was possible previously to stack enough magic find to allow for a ridiculously good item drop. However, there is also the previously mentioned treasure class bug that could be affecting magic find to a greater degree than we intended. As mentioned before, this will resolve itself as all the game servers are updated with correct code.

[Bridenbecker] Is Gold supposed to be split with Party Members, and be split across acts?

[BRoper] Gold that is picked up off of the ground is split across party members, but NOT gold from selling items and NOT when you pick up gold you drop when you die. This was a bug that was up for a little while, but it has been fixed. Finally, this applies to both the expansion and classic Diablo II.

[Bridenbecker] With the new focus on party play, how are single player characters balanced to handle Hell and Nightmare modes?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] There are always options for single players. All the character classes can deal all the damage types. Even if a character has spent his/her skill points in too specific a spectrum, they can find items to compensate. When 1.08 went up, the monsters were of too high a level. It may have seemed impossible to play. This bug was fixed, and everyone should be able to finish the game solo. It is a bit harder now, though, as was requested by legions of our customers.

[Bridenbecker] Are you planning on adding more server side Horadric Cube recipes for Diablo II classic?

[BRoper] Yes

[Bridenbecker] We have followed up on a 1.08 patch with some server side changes, what about people who do not play on Battle.net?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] There will be a downloadable patch (1.09) that gives the non-Battle.net players all the same changes that are on battle.net. This should be available within a couple of weeks.

[Bridenbecker] Was the reduction in walk speed intentional, or was it a fix?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] People were able to run too fast, and it caused a number of de-sync bugs (like not having NPCs in town). These usually happened when a player would run at top speed for long distances.

[Bridenbecker] What changes are made to Iceblink?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Iceblink was way too powerful. Combined with Multi-shot or Strafe, it was way out of balance. The current IceBlink functionality is that it works 13-50% of the time. However, due to a bug, it is not displaying the percentages, so it seems broken. This will be remedied in 1.09.

[Bridenbecker] How have Boss drops been changed / modified?

[BRoper] End Bosses (Diablo, Duriel, etc) have had their drops modified so that they are MUCH better and will be better EVERY time to kill them, not just the first time. This makes risk/reward better.

[Bridenbecker] Why did you cap the number of times strafe hits at 10?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Strafe was actually a very dangerous spell at high levels. You would be stuck shooting for too long, and in this way was similar to why we changed Zeal for the Paladin. We capped the number of shots but upped the damage for Strafe. Also, we increased its range!

[Bridenbecker] Does Magic Find work with minions in the new patch?

[BRoper] Yes, any +s to magic find that your character has will apply to kills scored by your minions.

[Bridenbecker] Some new features were listed in the patch.txt but are not in the game, will they be added?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Some of the expansion changes crept their way into the patch text (I blame sleep deprivation!). We’ll update the patch text to the correct changes ASAP. Sorry for the confusion!

[Beau-PR] OK, with the end of the beta period (thanks, beta testers!), do you have anything SPECIAL planned?

[DiabloIIDevTeam] We’d like to invite all the high level hardcore players to voluntarily take part in a dueling tournament!!! Since the characters are being erased anyway, there’s nothing to lose, so we thought it would be fun to have a little informal tournament. We’d like to invite all hardcore players to join the channel that we will announce on our forums shortly. The tournament will take place June 27. This will be totally voluntary, informal, and with no prizes or anything, but since the beta’s ending, a champion must be crowned! Details will be posted on our forums shortly!

[Beau-PR] OK, thanks guys for coming. I know this was short notice.

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Goodbye from the Development team (Max Schaefer, Tyler Thompson, Matt Householder, and a special appearance by Ken Williams.)

[Beau-PR] This was also the first fansite chat for Susan Sams’ successor, Lisa Bucek. Say hi to Lisa, everyone.

[DiabloIIDevTeam] Hi Lisa!

[BRoper] Thank you all for coming out to the chat — we will see you on Battle.net when the Lord of Destruction arrives on June 29th!

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