Massachusetts, USATAS Runs exist in most games, don't see why they shouldn't exist in D2.
Hey cheers for hosting the event. I'm a maybe for now.
We had some success with weapon swapping to time out the same intervals as the Sorceress timing. Swapping as fast as possible (so that the swap actually can't keep up with your key inputs) seems to equal 2 swaps = 1 sorc animation. So 18 swaps before you leave the room, and 10 swaps before you cross the line and back out.
Weapons swapping seems to be consistent across characters regardless of gear (tried 1 hander with shield, and 2x 1 handers). This is of course building off of Blazes timing method, and trying to find a universal, countable, action.
Video out with our findings from today, tried to detail the how/why and uses as well. This is so ridiculously cool.
@Daz86 has the right of it. Allowing classic increases the ways this game can be played. It incentivizes runners to theory-craft new routes and strategies. It increases the amount of decision making and risk/reward gameplay. One of the most important rules set currently is the definition of any% for this game. "Timer starts on character creation of a lvl 1 Char in Act 1 and ends when Baal dies within the category difficulty." This captures any and all strategies, routes, possible skips, and potential time-save innovations that may exist in the future.
On Classic start is a "Different Game": It decreases items available from loot, very specific character skills, monster stats starting in NM and continuing into Hell, and whether or not you need to complete A5 in Normal and NM, sometimes. It doesn't make Duriel fly, or SOJs to spew out of every monster. It has always been available as an ingame mechanism. Why would we limit what's available for the speedrun of the game?
As for skipping ingame content: There's a reason we don't go kill Bloodraven, don't clear the Ancient Tunnels, and poor Radament hardly gets killed. We're trying to speedrun a game in the fastest way possible. Also if we're saying A5 is the DEFINING part of this game, we can just do D2:LOD Only runs. Using command line -act5 you only run A5 and call it a day. Enjoy the 10-20 minute speedruns.
The pressure/relevance of viewership: I personally care that I have an audience that watches me play this game. I may personally change what i'm running for the viewer's enjoyment. That has nothing to do with how the speedrun of this game should be moderated/maintained.
Adding categories: Cut that out, I see you Entropi :p
While I don't want to just list off differences most people might know there are some interesting additional benefits of being Classic:
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Flawless gems drop at a significantly higher rate since there are no charms/jewels to otherwise occupy the drops. This opens up the 3 flawless gems plus a magic weapon for iLvl 30 outcome. A Maul can have up to Alvl of 25 with this recipe. Since classic has a reduced pool of affixes available as well, it's much easier to roll a +ED% +AR +6% Mana stolen per hit. Then you have your pick of Flawless (or gem-shrined/cubed into perfect) gems to socket into it.
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The reduced affix level also means that imbues should be considered for classes differently.
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Jewelry rolls very high single Resistances and +life while in classic as well, making stacking res a bit easier without having to shop it on boots/gloves/belt etc.
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Gas potions can be employed on most classes for decent clear speed, and accelerated with class specific skills. This does mean that there may be potential for different skill usage that is only viable at lower levels (prior to 16), or that gains time back in other ways. Basically: reconsider skill order all together and leveling requirements for more time save.
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The reduced pool of droppable items, and possible sets/uniques does mean you can "count" on getting specific drops more aggressively. Grinding out a Jail map, and then Andy dropping run/walk boots and or Crushflange, becomes a much more likely occurrence. This can set up some pretty unbeatable Normal difficulty starts if ground out.
These are the primary things I've been considering and have seen running the Hell Barb through with classic start.
Hello Sawal, and welcome! Let me start by first saying if you run into any issues (getting things set up) or trying out the runs, feel free to reach out for help. Many people, myself included, would be glad to help walk you through things that might come up.
To answer your question: We only recognize the official downloader/installer available from Battle.net (Blizzard proper), or original CDs, for Diablo 2 and it's expansion Lords of Destruction. Any other program, installer, or downloader cannot be validated as a true installation of the game, and cannot be validated as an unmodified version of the game files.
The Moderator staff for D2:LOD can not make an exception on this case. We currently employ an honor system that the runs submitted are from an unmodified installation of the game. There is no meta-data analysis or some such which can be done from a recording of a speed run. Be smart, and understand that runs submitted with the understanding that it is an unofficial installation of the base game will be denied.
Speaking as just a member of the community, I believe it's undesirable to foster pirating of this game.
I think for the most part, the changes that were voted in were good for the overall health of this game's speedrun. Feedback:
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Classic: Bring it back. The ONLY argument that holds any merit for why to remove it was that not all classes could utilize it. (Sin/Druid) The issue here is that the Class runs don't get directly compared to any other class runs. All hell runs need to buy a TP staff except Sorceress, Ele classes need LR wand except Necro. There are plenty of tools available to only certain classes. I believe it set a negative precedent and stunted the growth of potential strategy development and future time saves/innovations.
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Timer/-ns: Amazing outcome and probably the best decision from the entire conversation. If people have stopped running the game because they cannot have Sound options set to 0 manually in game, i'd be fine with someone needing to do an options flash after Baal is dead, or if the client crashes, having to flash when the character first reenters the game. The last flash would need to be added to the checklist used to verify runs, but I think that's minimal overhead.
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Old runs being retimed: I think this has to come down to a programming solution. I'm really ok with someone sitting there and measuring the time save and resubmitting their runs if they want to. It won't be %100 accurate but i'm not sure that this will really shake up the current positions. And quite frankly, i'd be fine if it does. But i think others are properly identifying this as a problematic solution, Unless someone is going to write the code (which I cannot, idk how that works) I think we'll run in circles on this one.
-Mods: I'm very aware that i've, at the very least, bugged mods about run verification. That's what sucks about being acquaintances/friends with someone who does free work. I'll be a Mod if y'all would have me. Out of everyone running this game, I think I have the next most free time.
The items you are carrying will remain in the lower inventory window (where you would keep your Town Portal and Identification Tomes normally). Any equipped gear (i.e. body armor, weapon, shield) remain on your body until you retrieve it.
The potions that are in your additional belt rows will first attempt to fill into your available inventory and then any additional items will fall on the ground. Your carried gold will also fall onto the ground.
@Teo- This would be my preferable way to IGT to be measured. If this is a simple change to the script, let's make it happen.
TCP/IP should be part of your run time because it's part of the gamble for a better map. The thing which can be argued is "unfair" is when the game decides that you need to wait 5 seconds between S&E.
Everyone is being very eloquent and i'm sorry i don't have the spoons to do so.
-ns is a bad viewer and runner experience and we should just ban it from use on submitted runs. It's impossible to enforce unless we add the caveat that you must flash the options tab at the beginning of a run showing that Sound is not grayed out (which it is if you have -ns active). That's an unnecessary time loss so it would be an honor system based thing. If we have someone submitting runs continuously with no sounds because "they play with sounds off" and their load times are instant I think it's fair to say they're using -ns.
IGN vs RTA: I think it needs to stay RTA. Even elegant ways of managing when the timer stops does not address invalidating historic runs/stop people from abusing it unless we add even more rules on how long a pause can be etc.
Someone realized -ns saves time. It's exactly what we should be doing as runners of the game, and that's innovating. Sadly this one breaks more than it gains for us. Everyone runs -ns and the exact same differences in RNG and skill level play out except load time was faster. This doesn't actually mean we're speed running the game faster.
The current runs submitted with -ns: I've gone back and forth on this a bunch. I'm fine with them standing because i honestly think they'll be beat sooner rather than later. That being said i agree that decisions by the community should have retro-effective changes.
I do agree with @Teo- that i think the best way would be to get everyone that cares on a discord call over this weekend (or next) because a lot of this is hard to hash out even on forum.
Quick note, Scroll wheel only work on the right button click spell. You still gotta swap the hard way on your left click. Sorry fam :(.
Only posting because I had not heard of this previously or been recommended this. If this is covered somewhere else lemme know and i'll throw this away.
I have an issue keeping swap casting consistent. I use W for swap, G for my Desired Animation, and F for my Desired Skill.
I started using scroll wheel for my swap and now feel instantly more consistent.
For scroll wheel (Scrolling Down) the Desired Animation needs to be earlier in the English alphabet (for English installation of the game at least) and the Desired Skill needs to be later in the alphabet. I use F in this technique for the Desired Animation and G for the Desired Skill.
You begin to scroll down at the same time that you begin to depress the swap skill (W in my example) and viola! It's swapped. Important note is you only scroll one click or you'll actually go multiple skills down your hotkey set up. If you find Scrolling Up to be easier, then reverse the alphabetical arrangement of your skills.
Is a there a best resource to review what using the -seed xxxxxxx command actually does? I have not personally used it and if i could avoid reading through a bunch of old Diablo wiki posts, that'd be great.
I like the concept as a whole and think that it's a great addition to the categories currently available.
We should also hammer out the accepted naming convention so we're all on the same wavelength, not necessarily excited to add "UNSEEDED" to the already long Normal SC P1 Sorc/Sin/etc.
ex: A seeded run would be "SEED (xyz) SC P1 Sorc" vs adding "UNSEEDED" to every other run which isn't using the -seed command.
Reading through a lot of this seems to come back to a cyclical argument. HC and SC are either different, or the same. There is either a distinction, or no distinction.
If HC = SC Deathless, then SC Deathless = HC. To accommodate this reality then there should only be Any%. You could still choose to do "challenge" runs of HC setting but you don't get another category distinguishing it.
We can all agree that SC and HC are actually different, there are different strategies, you do play the game differently, and just because individuals don't care about death-strats doesn't mean they're not viable and abusable.
Individuals having faster HC completion times than their SC completion times does not actually define the categories, it's a singular occurrence.
If we can submit HC for SC, then we want recognition for doing 2 things, when we've only done 1 thing. If that's the case, then we would need to get rid of the distinction. If that's the case, then why run HC? You will complete less runs, meaning you have to grind more, which is what some people seem to want to avoid.
Hey Teo,
Are the mods looking to deputize some people and get these runs processed more quickly? So it isn't a 5 person job. Let us know how/if we can help.
P.s. During this time, should runners postpone submitting new runs for P1? Maybe only submit for Px/P8 or not submit new runs at all?
Howdy Sebastiangus,
For the Sorc you want to be level 24 by Normal Ancients, this will level you to 25 and you'll be able to farm nightmare mobs for Exp starting then.
You want to be minimum level 40 for Nightmare ancients, and it's fine to move onto Hell at 41+. Typically you'd pick up 2-4 levels while finishing out the NM throne room +baal kill +finishing any quests you didn't complete in NM. Walking into hell around level 45. Anything higher is a bonus.
Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Mac
Hey Lav,
I appreciate you working through those. It's the wierdest thing, they just don't show up in your pending queue.
Cannon - Glad i wasn't the only one, lol.
Thanks, Mac
