Not really because paladin auras are OP.
Group play in D2 has always been easier than alone because monster life does increase in p8 but monster damage not as much. Add pala auras and voila…
As an educational channel it is uneducated and unprofessional for you to make an assumption about my gameplay experience having not participated in it.
I made games and random people joined, and sometimes I joined other peoples games. The predominant amount of games I played were public games i created.
People liked my games so they would fill up.
Any average player has access to the create public game button and also has access to attract other players who will in turn will fill up their games.
Now I will still acknowledge the issue of player count, ie: being dependent on having people join your game to get optimal experience.
There is an easy solution to that problem and it has nothing to do with terror zones or any content and that would be to have a dropdown option that blizzard could implement into the game creation screen:
Minimum Monster Difficulty:
Players 1 (Default Option)
Players 2
Players 3
Players 4
Players 5
Players 6
Players 7
Players 8
Simply make that when players join or leave game the monster exp yield, hp, and damage change as they do now with the minimum monster difficulty being the Players X option chosen.
For example if you made a game with Players 1 difficulty it would be exactly how it works now.
If you make Players 2 difficulty, and you are 1 player starting in the game, the monsters at minimum always spawn with players 2 difficulty but if 3 or more people at some point are in the game then it ratchets up to players 3 or higher, etc.
Basically enforcing a minimum “floor” of players 2 difficulty.
If you chose the players 8 option you would have a minimum “floor” of players 8 difficulty so even if you were having trouble with people joining the game you wouldn’t have to worry about getting sub optimal experience because people aren’t joining.
If you are starting out or feel undergeared you can choose to use a lower player count setting you feel comfortable with that will still ratchet up when players join the game.
If you feel more confident in your gear/setup you can opt to choose as high as players 8 to ensure you get optimal exp and do not suffer from sub optimal exp due to players not joining.
Once the game is created, setting is fixed for the game and can not be changed like the players x command in LoD.
Tell me if you think that idea would solve the “player availability/joining” issue that you are raising. If you think it would then maybe that might be a good suggestion to blizzard.
Another improvement to Terror Zones would be to incorporate the guest monster mechanic, which adds non-standard monsters (e.g. Venom Lords in Blood Moor).
2 Likes
BS
You make a public game they want to run with you ruining the exp share.
Your average player does not understand the whole p8 solo is more exp bit.
Mooching off of a premade p7 game sure but there are only a finite number of those before you run out at any given time.
I use my intuition as an experienced player, and my intuition as a player says two lvl 98 characters and a 99 you pulled some shenanigans.
The person who hit 99 first made a lengthy post on maxroll admitting that he had help, and credited all the people who helped him hit 99 first.
All the people that filled his games so he could do p8 solo, all the people who fed him diablo, Nil, and baals, and the people who fed him gear.
I know what it takes to level a character, and I am calling BS on you lvl 99 character being a casual play.
Just about none of them will let you exp solo, they want to join in which ruins the exp share.
Also making a game doesn’t even guarantee 8 players.
You make it seem like anyone who makes a random game instantly gets filled with 8 people when that is patently false.
Yay
Players command is never gonna be an option for online.
Players command was never meant to even exist in online as it’s governed by player count.
Because gasp they want people to play together.
But getting to 99 is just p8 solo runs. Which completely defeats the purpose of the mechanism.
If anything what they should do is remove the exp bonus from running p8 solo.
And return the players command back to what It was intended to be a reason to play together
2 Likes
How about i spell this out for you because you clearly do not know what you are talking about.
96 and below public chaos games, random people join, and we all kill together, better gear means we can be more aggressive and go faster.
The volume of level 88 minions on river of flame and in chaos sanctuary is higher than baal waves so we just killing everything as fast as we can and get more minion kills per time invested because there are more minions and time isn’t lost waiting for someone to find baal’s throne room.
91-94 took 1 day
94-95 took 1 day
95-96 took 2 days
96-97 took 4 days
at 97 i just joined existing baal games because baal games usually fill up and because everyone else is content doing baal so often i could solo chaos sanctuary minions.
if the host or other high levels in the game wanted diablo experience then after they tele throne we could top 2 or top 3 diablo together. if nobody in game was interested in diablo exp then i could solo him.
if the baal run wasn’t over by then i would just go to arachnid lair and river of flame more more solo minion exp.
At 98 i started hosting my own baal games
I would tele throne, tp, and help clear until people start coming in.
I would then immediately tele to chaos and pop and kill the seal boss and kill diablo if i had time.
In this scenario i usually had barely enough time to kill diablo and get back to baal and sometimes was not fast enough.
But thats okay because other players would join and we just communicate in game and work together.
When someone else joined who was capable of doing solo chaos, i would tele throne and they would start chaos. They would tp at star and after i helped tp/clear throne i would go act 4 and do top 2 or 3 depending how many people are high level needing diablo.
Then we could take a quick trip to nihlithak and then tp and on average get back in time for wave 4/5/baal and usually top 4 baal or occasionally top 2.
Conversely if someone else had games going occasionally i would join theirs and do the opposite. I would help tele and clear cs and tp for them for diablo when they return from throne, go nihlithak, and then go baal.
For the record 1 92 and died within a week, 1 98 and died in june. And then remade and got 99 towards the end of july.
Also intuition is not science. The 3rd attempt i used the things i had learned and the strategies that i basically had just tested and decided to leverage that knowledge i just learned and give it one more try.
Sorry for your disbelief but so was everyone else when they saw i died at 98 and couldn’t believe i came back so fast. They didn’t believe i could come back and make it to 99 but i did as a random public player.
And i will stand by my statement that at the start of the ladder i was a casual player that never tried it before and never got a character higher than low 90s in LoD and i got better and improved along the way.
You know i honestly don’t care about this i was just making a point that there are easy changes that could be made to alleviate the issue that you were complaining about and i would be happy to see some of things alleviated so its more reasonable for everyone. I definitely agree with making improvements in that way so by no means am i against that.
As for me i created/joined public games all the time with other people.
I’m trying to actually think through the issues but with the amount of complaining you are doing maybe you should learn to do a better job creating reliable games that people consistently want to join, improve your strategies, be more consistent and disciplined and stop making excuses.
which is a red flag not a sign that you are a god who achieved the impossible.
And you are a liar
It’s obvious you just wanted to brag about your very much so not casual achievement.
lol sure that is totally the issue
Which basically translates out to play the most overpowered character you can, with an enigma so you can do chaos runs while another party does p8 baal runs in the same game.
Well guess what not every character or build can do P8 Chaos Runs solo, and not every player has an enigma.
No Intuition is the gut feeling that something is off, and all of your friends had it to they told it to you and you repeated it here.
If you peaked your own friends intuition bell, and they didn’t even believe you what makes you think I am going to?
Where did all the items come from that you used in the now three characters you built? Donated by other players? bought from JSP? or did you farm them yourself?
I am assuming each player had an enigma right? So how were you able to farm 3 enigma sets in HC by yourself?
Let’s REAAALLY dig into the nitty gritty of things.
Let me just say it out loud for all to hear. Did you purchase all your items from RMT or JSP? Were the items Donated to you by your friends?
If you farmed the Ber and Jah Runes Three separate times by yourself where did you find them?
You said you played with Randoms, So I would assume when you died if you had corpse loot on they would have taken your items for themselves. Randoms are very seldom kind, either that or everything was lost each time you died all two of them now, which was one before. It seems like the circumstances keep getting worse around your rise to fame.
Also were you G Rushed? Skipping the majority of the game so you could jump right back into to grinding exp? Because that in itself is also a form of support. It would seem you had that happen not once, not twice but three times?
In My Opinion you have a very warped Idea of what is casual play, and that seems to be an epidemic across this game. Maybe in your mind you really see that as casual play, but it’s not.
Casual play is a guy who can’t find his first Jah Rune, Casual play is a guy who Dreams about building a Runeword enigma, or infinity.
Casual play is the guy who has sub par equipment, and Definitely can’t do P8 CHAOS SOLO
Once you get an enigma or an infinity, unless you purchased them or it was given to you, you have already left the realm of casual play in Diablo II.
If you purchased them that is a whole nother thing.
5 Likes
Hmm… maybe that could help with some of the “too easy” and “too easy for Hammerdins” complaints.
Give the guest monster an immunity. There would need to be some kind of predictability about it though. Maybe make it a specific guest monster in each Act? That has a specific immunity? Basically, which ever guest monster is sent to help Terrorize the zone has an immunity suited for that zone?
For example, Act IV it makes since to have a guest monster that is Fire Immune, since it’s the Burning Hells.
Act V it would make sense for the guest monster to have Cold Immune because it’s the mountains, and it’s got all those icy areas.
Both Act II and Act III kind of have poison themes going on, so let’s make the decision based on where there already are immunities. Act II has a lot of Poison Immunes already, while Act III has a lot of Lightning Immunes. On the other hand, Act II has the Scarabs with all the charged bolt. Well, it means one of them should have a Lightning Immune guest monster and the other a Poison Immune guest monster.
That would leave Act I getting the Magic Immune guest monster. This would immediately reduce the benefits a Hammerdin gets from say a Terrorized Moo Moo Farm.
But what should the guest monster be? Maybe two possible options to spice it up a bit?
Act 1: Magic Immunes: Overseer, Claw Viper
Act 2: Poison Immunes: Oblivion Knight, Zakarum Priest
Act 3: Lightning Immunes: Scarab, Slinger
Act 4: Fire Immunes: Goatmen, Stygain Fury
Act 5: Cold Immunes: Giant Mosquito, Council Member
Oblivion Knight and Zakarum Priest make sense for Act 2 because of all the undead. Overseer fits Act 1 with the Fallen and Cows, and all the cannon fodder, while Claw Viper sort of fit in the woods/moor theme. Scarabs and Slinger both fit in the jungle. Goatmen and Stygain Fury both fit Act 4 and the Hells.
Act 5 wasn’t so much about fitting as find something that wasn’t already in Act 5 as a guest monster. Mosquitos, Swarms, and Council Members are all I could come up with. I guess Mosquitos fit a battlefield, and Zakarum Zealots/Priest are already in Act 5, so maybe a Council Member or two can be there.
Something like that anyways. Act 5 already has a ton of Cold Immunes, same with Act 4 and Fire Immunes, so really this ends up making it more difficult for Magic type damage, but not so much that Hammerdins, or Bone Necromancers would become unviable.
I strongly agree that density increases are needed. I would add that these density alterations should be made along with slight reductions in experience gained in these areas to keep them balanced with Diablo and Baal runs.
Disabling teleport in these areas would be a big change to the meta. I like it!
That would be fine, the main issue here is that the Density is so low you are often just running around a barren area with nothing to kill.
Personally I like the way Terror Zones are right now.
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They are more difficult already than non-terrorized zones, there is no need to pile on additional difficulty to them. I died in the Crystalline Passage to a terrorized Dark Archer, enough said
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I think monster density is equivalent to non-terrorized zones right now. Some areas don’t have as much monster density as others, which is something you notice now because you visit these areas when terrorized
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I want to run these zones as a single player, as I don’t want to count on unreliable players joining and running different areas, go hostile to PK players, etc that happens already on Battle.net
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There doesn’t need to be any further restrictions to doing Terror Zones. You already have the option on game creation whether or not you want them in-game
I really like this idea and cannot wait to run a lot of areas I never visit when they are terrorized
I think monster density is a major thing we need more of in these Terror Zones. Partly for flavor reasons, and the other for fun reasons.
Flavor wise these are supposed to be zones that are being overrun by the demonic hordes. So more monsters than normal fits that very well. The other thing is that it’s just not very fun to be running around looking for something to kill. Double the monster density seems about right.
I agree they don’t need to make it too hard for a single player to deal with, but adding in a few more flavor things, like taking the Super Unique in the zone and buffing it to a “Terror” version. Maybe adding a few guest monsters that normally aren’t in that zone. Those are all things that are still within the ability of a single player to handle.
I feel those two things are needed.
Also, remove the bonus experience, we don’t need that. Increased monster density and higher monster levels already give more than enough additional xp to make it worth hunting here.
And give us the ability to see item level. With areas having variable levels now, it really makes it a lot harder to figure out the item level of an item, so please make it visible.
Another fun idea for Terror Zones is the developers could add a new feature called “Terror Holes,” where holes spawn on the ground in a Terror Zone and hordes of demons pours out. Imagine exploring the Blood Moor while holes spawn around you, spewing forth fire while Venom Lords climb out and start running towards you…
1 Like
Nice post mate. I agree with most of your suggestions, but I have some reservations:
Wouldn’t be better is Tristram was linked to the Stony Field? It makes more sense with the rest of your suggestions, even.
Why? You’re just encouraging “Baalruns” type of gameplay with high level teleport characters carrying others through a difficulty setting. Let me have a Solo Self Found run with random “high difficulty” spikes with more XP and maybe some extra loot. Again, there’s the option to disable it if you don’t want to use it, but don’t take it away from others, I want to have fun while going through the game as well as after I beat the game.
It would be lame if you go to a difficult zone for more and better loot (especially if you up the monster density like you asked) and you’re not able to get back to town to sell or save that loot. Also, many builds like ES/Nova, ES/FrozenNova, Summoner Druids and Necromancers rely heavily on teleport, and would probably be useless for high level zones like these. Remember that teleport comes also on staves/amulets/circlets with charges, and not just enigma.
I agree that they need to be more difficult, but they also have to be actually beatable by a majority of builds playing solo. If you want Terror Zones to be an alternative for single player characters that can’t or don’t want to have a team of people giving them Diablo/Baal/Nihilatak kills, and you want to nerf high end builds that use teleport (which I do NOT agree with, but it’s your suggestion), Terror Zones should be beatable by a high skilled and decently geared Bowazon/FuryDruid/BoneNecro/FrenzyBarb or any NOT high tier build
They could repurpose those unused Superuniques that are in the game’s data. That would be quite cool
Anyways, nice post mate. Thanks for the analysis and let’s hope Terror Zones become a nice mechanic for next ladder!
1 Like
I also want to comment on difficulty here. While it’s nothing significant, we are also testing this currently on non ladder, where monsters have about 15% less health, defense and slower ai than ladder/offline single player. When this hits ladder, there will naturally be a slight difficulty increase, especially for health in muliplayer games.
1 Like
The funnest D2 days for me was when everyone played together in cow games. If everyone joins TZ games and unites together to defeat challenging content for better rewards, then this game will become a new level of addicting.
We had 20 years of boring Baal runs. Hurr durr, we shoot spells in the middle of the throne room. We win!
1 Like
#2 zones need a big monster to feel real terror
Very good ideas! Should be at least 1 Super boss in it. I think the atmosphere needs to fix to, darker - like this video - Median XL 2.3 - ★NEW AREA★ ATANNA KHAN/ FULL FIGHT / Uber 125 / Poison Sorc - YouTube see the first 30 sec =). its feels scary =) i dont say every zone should have this? but Something similar.
#3 The Zones need to be more difficult
Now we know exactly which monsters we face in example Tal rasha? or in Dark Wood? If there were guest monsters, I think it could be tougher?? Guest monster something we seen i act5 hell? could work other zones to?
Can you blizzard dev team for D2 enter the PTR forum and answer our feedback? this silence you have feels like back in 1995?
1 Like
Good point I hadn’t considered the fact that the testing is taking place on non ladder.
1 Like
i love the idea. night terror zones could be scary. and make more light radius more useful too.
2 Likes
zones need to be bigger and include all the subzones, like arreat plateu and pit of archeron or abyddon - and terrorize more than one area, have higher density of normal mobs and 2-3 more groups of superuniques or rare monster packs…
If somebody is playing a stacked character (lightning sorc, poison nec or javazon), they’re going to clear the zones in less than two minutes and its just a little flat of an experience…
on top of that remaking the game just to respawn the monsters is tiring and annoying… Why not just terrorize an entire act? (expand act4 pls)
1 Like
no to more density because it makes melee feel worse than it already is, especially since they have been absent minded enough to scale the areas through mlvl rather than Playercount like mechanic
also, to feel real terror monsters dont need to be bigger, you need dangerous mechanics
give breakables a chance to work like evil urns
so when you clear magot lair, pop a pod, it has a chance to spawn an elite pack
terror could also come from shrines, whenever you click on a shrine, it not only gives you the buff it displays but also works like a monster shrine, turning a nearby monster into a elite or champ pack
just these 2 mechanics give more difficulty, potential terror jumpscare and dont mess melee characters