Median 2008 bugs and feedback thread

[lapsed]

*Laz edit - continued from beta thread. Use this thread to discuss the release version of Median 2008*

Thanks for the quick answer, Laz. I cannot really pinpoint why it felt slow in Terror. Maybe I will spend a bit more time and see how it goes. If not, I am going to try another build see how s/he fares in Terror and beyond.

Take a look at the uberquest' monster's level on the documentation: above 55. This means your hit rate against them will be pitifull, and therefore it will be harder than usual. Doing around 2k damage, having about 2k life, max resists, being at level 60+ and using a little strategy against the most difficult bosses should be enough to defeat most uberquests on hatred while playing SOLO.

I believe my lvl 60 thrower had around 3k life with 4k-5k ish damage (most are elemental from maxed snake stance), 75/75/68/68 resist, and about 1k AR and 1.5k defense. I did the first 3 easiest uber quests with several deaths. I tried Azmodan again after my initial post. I had to reload the game multiple times and get lucky with monsters positioning. He stood blocking the passage so I didn't have to deal with his minions while pounding him.

Cathedral of Vanity is impossible for me. In the two tries I did, the crystal ball would jump into the middle of the nuns which I painstakingly block with the ancient summon in the upper part of the map. I can't even imagine doing the quest with an amazon solo, who has zero crowd control skill.

Kurast 3000 BA was manageable, until I had to kill the necromancers in the corner. Apparently, skeleton archers don't move from their location when summoned. Each failed attempt would increase the number of summoned archers in the corner. So, I had a zillion archers summoned by Ennead necro and two totems shooting at me just as I approached the corner - not to mention the countless vortex spells from the necro. Defender ancients only lasted 1 or 2 seconds, and I would be very lucky to be able to click on the totem in the midsts of the archers. I set my shapeshifter merc with the Shockwave gemword for the slow effect, but it was still not good enough. The good thing though, my barb leveled from 60 - 65 in the 3 hours I played. If you have some tips for a bow specialist amazon which I am going to play next, I would be grateful

[dfnord]

I believe my lvl 60 thrower had around 3k life with 4k-5k ish damage (most are elemental from maxed snake stance), 75/75/68/68 resist, and about 1k AR and 1.5k defense. I did the first 3 easiest uber quests with several deaths. I tried Azmodan again after my initial post. I had to reload the game multiple times and get lucky with monsters positioning. He stood blocking the passage so I didn't have to deal with his minions while pounding him.

Cathedral of Vanity is impossible for me. In the two tries I did, the crystal ball would jump into the middle of the nuns which I painstakingly block with the ancient summon in the upper part of the map. I can't even imagine doing the quest with an amazon solo, who has zero crowd control skill.

Kurast 3000 BA was manageable, until I had to kill the necromancers in the corner. Apparently, skeleton archers don't move from their location when summoned. Each failed attempt would increase the number of summoned archers in the corner. So, I had a zillion archers summoned by Ennead necro and two totems shooting at me just as I approached the corner - not to mention the countless vortex spells from the necro. Defender ancients only lasted 1 or 2 seconds, and I would be very lucky to be able to click on the totem in the midsts of the archers. I set my shapeshifter merc with the Shockwave gemword for the slow effect, but it was still not good enough. The good thing though, my barb leveled from 60 - 65 in the 3 hours I played. If you have some tips for a bow specialist amazon which I am going to play next, I would be grateful

Your thrower has decent stats. Nowhere near to defeat cathedral of vanity, but still decent to do all others (took me about 25 tries to defeat cathedral, until the strategy was perfected to defeat the almightest bosses of all: THE INFERNAL CRYSTAL BALL). Kurast is tricky. My barb was already at lvl 85 when the patch 5 came. It was not a piece of cake, and i died a couple of times.

About Azmodan: don't be surrounded by his minions, and you will be fine. Remember to carry a pax arcana runeword to be able to do some minion management. Or read on for a little bug report:

FEEDBACK
Azmodan
When you have him very far off screen, his aura does not affect his minions, and then you can kill them. Kinda like when you go too far of tal rasha, and you return to your normal form. I managed to clear all his minions before defeating him.

Invunerable Skills
Ok, nice that conquest was worked around. Now it is the most useless invunerable of all (it is quite a good moving skill though, and good synergy for bear stance). However, unholy armor and holy armor can last longer than their timer. The math:

Slippers of Yaerius or Everchase tier 6 with 4 p saphires: 35 + 4* 5 = +75% buff duration
Which Drum tier 6: +40% buff duration
Wanderer's Hood tier 6 with 4 p saphires: 20 + 4 * 5 = + 60% buff duration

Total Extra Buff duration: + 175%

This means, a measly level 7 Unholy Armor (with original 11 sec duration, and 24 sec timer) will last 30secs, surpassing its timer.

A level 4 Holy armor, with 8.2 sec duration, and 20 sec timer would last 22,55 secs, again surpassing its timer.

When put it this way, conquest really is the most useless of all invunerable skills.

[Brother Laz]

Cathedral of Vanity is impossible for me. In the two tries I did, the crystal ball would jump into the middle of the nuns which I painstakingly block with the ancient summon in the upper part of the map. I can't even imagine doing the quest with an amazon solo, who has zero crowd control skill.

You are way below monster level, making it very hard to hit enemies and making it very easy for them to hit you...

Kurast 3000 BA was manageable, until I had to kill the necromancers in the corner. Apparently, skeleton archers don't move from their location when summoned.

Removed the Shadowgate Totems from the Necromancer locations in the release version.

......

FEEDBACK
Azmodan
When you have him very far off screen, his aura does not affect his minions, and then you can kill them. Kinda like when you go too far of tal rasha, and you return to your normal form. I managed to clear all his minions before defeating him.

Known, and has become a 'feature'. Separating him from his minions in opposite corners of the map is the tricky part...

Invunerable Skills
Ok, nice that conquest was worked around. Now it is the most useless invunerable of all (it is quite a good moving skill though, and good synergy for bear stance). However, unholy armor and holy armor can last longer than their timer.

Actually, Unholy Armor has a hard cap at 15 seconds and Holy Armor at 10 seconds.

[dfnord]

Known, and has become a 'feature'. Separating him from his minions in opposite corners of the map is the tricky part...

Some say tricky, some say fun, let's not argue.

Actually, Unholy Armor has a hard cap at 15 seconds and Holy Armor at 10 seconds.

I'll check on these as soon as baal falls to my barb's hands.All I know is that Conquest really lasts longer than 3 seconds with the extended buff mods, even though the game does not show it on the skill description.

[Brother Laz]

I'll check on these as soon as baal falls to my barb's hands.All I know is that Conquest really lasts longer than 3 seconds with the extended buff mods, even though the game does not show it on the skill description.

Fixed something like this in a recent patch. Is it still bugged?

[dfnord]

I'll check on these as soon as baal falls to my barb's hands.All I know is that Conquest really lasts longer than 3 seconds with the extended buff mods, even though the game does not show it on the skill description.

Fixed something like this in a recent patch. Is it still bugged?

On midterm patch 5 it was like this still. I had mentioned where the problem was on the skills.txt. I'll check it on both the game, the txt, and then give you a sure feedback, but conquest felt lasting a lot longer with +50 % buff duration.

Either way, there is a small complaint: the barbarian skills cost a lot of mana (on all patches until patch 5). That is, unless you use zeal rw on the off hand, which not only gives +100% mana, but also gives the needed mana coil when you use cautious strike. Maybe it was intended, to make sure people don't spam their 8 level 23 spirits, fortress, and still have enough mana to spam 10 shower of rocks, with cost of 100. Still, i found the barb to be quite mana intensive.

[Brother Laz]

Eagle Stance has a mana regen bonus synergy, maybe it would help?

As for Conquest, it does receive a bonus from buff duration, but has a hard cap at 3 seconds.

[dfnord]

Eagle Stance has a mana regen bonus synergy, maybe it would help?

As for Conquest, it does receive a bonus from buff duration, but has a hard cap at 3 seconds.

The mana regen sinergy does help (at least +300% mana regen does), but I find the zeal rw more reliable (and mana coil does nice damage with 2.5k mana). I just wanted to make sure the high cost was intened

About the hard cap, my comment was that it did not seem to work. On 1.24 it did NOT work (with +100% buff duration, conquest on my paladin lasted for over 10 seconds).

[WokenFury]

Woop! I'm glad to see that the final version has been released, so I'm going to be trying it out tonight. After I got to like level 65 I barely played anymore because your mod encouraged me to start work on my own mod

[dfnord]

Conquest duration limit Works!!!!
You are right Laz, the patch you made on midterm 5 put an welcomed end to the "invunerable for life" feast. I guess the impression was just a impression. I tested the limit with running distance with and without +%50 buff duration (the distance is a good measure, as conquest increases walk/run speed, and 1.5 secs more would mean a lot more distance).

Also, the skills.txt seemed fine.

[Berb_Wire]

Wow, Laz is working pretty hard. Guys go easy on him with the bug complaints or he might have a heart attack. Remember, sometimes ignorance is bliss, (for the developer)

[Jebbadiah]

punisher says energy adds magic damage, should be poison i think.

the skill tabs need a description in my opinion. (like holy skills, unholy skills, neutral skills for pal)

btw. the paladin's skill "holy armor" does not fit an unholy paladin. perahps skill name should be changed to a name which fits both ways of playing a paladin. suggestion "armor of faith" (can be both gods, good and evil)

very nice mod btw.

J

[D2 MOD player]

It looks like he even completed his site with updates on all the new additions! I'm going to download it all and put it on a CD for my brother, who for some odd reason, doesn't have internet. No paper releases for Brother Laz. He gives the real thing.

[Brother Laz]

punisher says energy adds magic damage, should be poison i think.

Gah!
Should be ignorable (it's quite obvious what it means), except there are other oddball synergies, like the poison damage synergy to Shadow Refuge, which do exist.

Still, a very minor typo. Nobody noticed the similar typo in the synergy desc of Frozen Crown in '2007.

the skill tabs need a description in my opinion. (like holy skills, unholy skills, neutral skills for pal)

Yeah, paladin. Others are more tricky.

btw. the paladin's skill "holy armor" does not fit an unholy paladin.

Actually, it is the counterpart of the necromancer's Unholy Armor. The unholy paladin is not really an 3vil d00d or Sepiroth wannabe, and still has connections with Zakarum, he just works in a less honourable way.

The priest in World of Warcraft, who coincidentally has Mind Flay and Shadowform spells, can also still use holy damage spells (not that anyone does, mind you).

[nec5]

It's been over a year since I've touched Diablo II. Your mod is extremely fun so far. I'm trying a dark Paladin on 1.10final. Two issues so far:

1.El+Eld on BroadSword did not produce the runeword "Dawn". My sword had two sockets. Putting the two runes in order only provided the two rune bonuses. No runeword activated. I checked out the .txt file and it is in there. Am I the only one that's tried this runeword? Also, I couldn't find the skill "celerity" anywhere in guides. What is it? It's in the runeword list (on the website and .pdf's) for "Dawn".

2. This probably has nothing to do with your mod. My rogue hireling often stays near an entrance and never moves. I seem to recall this being a 1.10 issue. Is there an easy fix for this? (1.11 or something?).
Overall: Very fun. Things are pretty easy for the time being. I'm going solo without using the "players X" command. If anything, I'm a bit overpowered with all the dark paladin skills. I'll let you know (if you want) if the easiness continues (I'm only at the Countess in Act I).

Keep up the good work. With my luck, the two issues above are something on my end .

This is easily one of the better mods so far. Nicely done.

[Little Faith]

1.El+Eld on BroadSword did not produce the runeword "Dawn".

Did you make sure the weapon was grey (non-magical)? While some mods allow runewords in magical items Median 2 is not one of them.

2. This probably has nothing to do with your mod. My rogue hireling often stays near an entrance and never moves. I seem to recall this being a 1.10 issue. Is there an easy fix for this? (1.11 or something?).

This bug has ridden Median 2 like a mare since it's earliest days and our dear Brother Laz still has no clue as to what causes it. Anyway any form of teleport (Waypoints, entrance/exit warps, town portals or perhaps even Blink) will unstick him or her.

Overall: Very fun. Things are pretty easy for the time being. I'm going solo without using the "players X" command. If anything, I'm a bit overpowered with all the dark paladin skills. I'll let you know (if you want) if the easiness continues (I'm only at the Countess in Act I).

Brother Laz deliberately made Hatred difficulty rather easy "not to scare the newbies away". Oddly enough he seems to care equally about popularity and integrity (something rather uncommon amongst modders).
Do not worry, later acts will show some more teeth, and then there is always those überquests and high level areas to put you back in place.

[Brother Laz]

1.El+Eld on BroadSword did not produce the runeword "Dawn". My sword had two sockets. Putting the two runes in order only provided the two rune bonuses. No runeword activated.

As Faith said, runewords work only in nonmagical socketed (gray) items. There are mods that do allow runewords in magical, rare and/or unique items. These mods are also known as 'power trip mods'.

If it is something else, my apologies. But from my experience, this solves 99% of all runeword complaints.

Also, I couldn't find the skill "celerity" anywhere in guides. What is it? It's in the runeword list (on the website and .pdf's) for "Dawn".

I'm going to add those item-only skills to the site at some point, because this is not the only one. Celerity adds a (large) bonus to run speed and grants cannot be frozen for 10 seconds.

2. This probably has nothing to do with your mod. My rogue hireling often stays near an entrance and never moves. I seem to recall this being a 1.10 issue. Is there an easy fix for this? (1.11 or something?).

It seems to happen in other mods as well, so it is probably not something obvious. The easy fix would be simply reverting mercs to their CLoD state and hoping for the best, but people do like the mercs in their current state. I'm not even sure reverting them would accomplish anything.

Overall: Very fun. Things are pretty easy for the time being. I'm going solo without using the "players X" command. If anything, I'm a bit overpowered with all the dark paladin skills. I'll let you know (if you want) if the easiness continues (I'm only at the Countess in Act I).

The mod starts out easy, and still people think it is 'hard'. If it started out hard, those people would consider it 'impossible' and quit. If you think it is too easy, try the various uberquests. On Destruction difficulty. In Hardcore. Under Attribute Challenge rules.

This is easily one of the better mods so far. Nicely done.

Thanks.

......

(...) our dear Brother Laz (...)

[Jebbadiah]

retaliate is showing and does (at least i feel like that) MORE damage than the normal attack, should be only 75% of normal attack damage.

enjoying this mod quite a lot. good work.

J

------------------edit
whew, thx for all the explanation. i'm getting better

[Brother Laz]

It shows your normal attack damage plus 3/4 (= 7/4) on the character screen, because when I made it show just the reduced area damage, people complained that their single target damage was going down and so the skill obviously sucks. (Well, the same thing with Overpower actually) Sigh.

And the reason it does more than 3/4 damage in real combat is partly because of this (normal attack + 3/4 damage vs. your initial target), partly because the knockback nova hits multiple times due to the knockback pushing the target in front of the moving nova again.

It is not too hard to hit the same target 5 or 6 times (possibly even 10 times with the increased skill level cap) with one Retaliate.

[nec5]

Yes, the socket issue was exactly the problem you guys mentioned. I feel like a (insert pic of donkey here).

This is a lot of fun.

[Woodsplitter]

Here is my two gold on the merc sticking issue.

From my testing and exerience, I'm quite sure the reason this is happening is because characters primarily are walking in Median, and every version of Median I can remember has been about walking instead of running.

This bug was never noticed in CLoD because everyone always ran everywhere. No reason not to. When running, the mercs primarily teleport ahead next to you when you run too far ahead. Very rarily would they get stuck anywhere (however in places like the arcane sanctuary my mercs in CLoD tended to get stuck a lot).

When walking, mercs seem to miss the 'teleport to player' check quite a bit and get stuck instead. I'm pretty sure this has happened to me before when playing a "Walking Paladin" variant char in CLoD. So, from what I can tell, this is a core D2 bug and has nothing to do with Median specifically.

edit: This is also me saying, "Please don't change the mercs! They rock!"

[nec5]

I haven't noticed the merc sticking ever since I hired an Act 2 spearman.

Possible Spoiler:

Is there supposed to be a surprise in the Halls of the Dead. I ran into someone who laughed quite a bit and randomly attacked. I won't list who in case this blacking out of the text fails.

If it was intentional, I enjoyed it. It's always neat to fight someone a few times before a final confrontation. It gives the battle some depth.

End Spoiler.

[dfnord]

Actually, on act 3+, you wil hear it again over and over. It is not really a spoiler, as this feature has been around median for a long time.

[nec5]

The Summoner just pops up and attacks before leaving in Act 3 too? Do all the belts allow only 2 rows of potions?

[Brother Laz]

The Summoner just pops up and attacks before leaving in Act 3 too?

This is not the Summoner, this is the 'Frog Prince' skill cast on death by Acid Prince and Ice Prince classes of frog demon.

Do all the belts allow only 2 rows of potions?

Yeh. Technical problem with multi-row belts.