Slayer's Hellfire mod - Based on Marsh's Hellfire 1.02 mod

[Slayer_X64]

Really great to see more another person working on Diablo mods.

+1 to this.

Increasingly I believe un-modded HF's 'sorta incomplete, closer to unfinished' state is a blessing in disguise.

It was bad that it was not a completely ready expansion pack. But it did give a sandbox for modders.

Anyhow. I do like some of the things I see here. Anything that makes the multi save file folder locations is good.

How does the bard play with the changes to her blocking, casting, and attack speed? I mean in general, she's a generalist. At least for me, that's her charm.

Well the reason why I increased the bard's attack speed was just to make it so that she could actually stunlock things in melee combat. From all the testing I did, it just didn't seem right for her to not be fully capable as a melee combat character. Same reason for the block speed thing.

That being said, she doesn't have the critical hit ability of the Warrior, so even then she still isn't the strongest at melee combat.

As for the casting speed, I *believe* I bumped it up to match the Rogue's casting speed. I seem to recall that her casting speed before that was no faster than the warriors. She is a generalist, so jack of all trades master of none was something I wanted to remain the same - that being said, when you look at how high her magic rating can go, as well as the concept for the character class as well, it just didn't make sense that she would be as terrible at casting magic as the Warrior. That being said, it would have been completely unjustified to have her casting speed as high as the sorcerer, for obvious reasons.

As she plays now, she is still a generalist, but she plays almost like a melee version of a glass cannon. She's got a very high damage output when dual wielding, and can fairly easily stunlock things. In single combat she is incredibly scary. With a shield, she plays similar to the warrior with a little bit less damage output, but a little bit better blocking once you get your dexterity high enough - and the increased attack and block speed make this a viable defensive option, which can be handy especially if you need to rely on a shield for some defensive bonuses if you're playing say, on hell difficulty (she can still dual wield on hell because of her damage output, but you have to be incredibly cautious because it is very easy to die if you mess up). However in combat with large groups of enemies, you'll find you may have to rely a bit more heavily on spells, as it only takes a handful of hits to kill her, even with mana shield. On the bright side, she can use an ok amount of ranged spells like Holy Bolt and fireball with good efficiency, and of course she can also do everyone's favorites like firewall or stone curse.

Goal: the goal of this mod is to both make a hellfire that includes all quests in multiplayer

Ambitious! Were that I could do more than contribute a few minor adjustments.

I was always sad that so many of Diablo's quests only appeared in single player. They do add a little more personality to the game. It'd be really neat if they could all be made to work in multi properly. While I was perusing The Dark mod notes, I noticed they fixed the synchronization issue with Oily Shrine fires not appearing on everyone's screens... perhaps, if they could fix that, there's hope to fix some of the quest behaviors too.

Well I *think* I've at least managed to pinpoint the majority of the reasons that most of the quests dont work - ie. NPC X doesnt accept an item to complete a quest, or the Optic Amulet continually drops when the area is re-entered(perhaps this could be solved with a simple check to see if it has already dropped once in this game or something)

Some quests like Arkaine's Valor, while they work, I dont think I have a clue how to fix the bugs associated with them.

For now though I have no idea how to implement these changes - I will have to study their mod notes before I attempt anything else.

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Another thing I want to eventually implement was additional Hitstun resistance based on your character's un-enhanced Vitality rating.

The main reason for this actually applies more to Warrior's than any other class(and I suppose to a lesser extent it COULD apply to a barbarian, though they already have additional stun resistance) and it is because:

a) since a warrior-type character can be stunlocked so easily without a shield, it really limits the use of two-handed weapons.

b) it doesnt really make sense that the majority of hell-difficulty monsters can stunlock a character, especially a hardened warrior, simply by landing a minimum damage blow. I certainly agree the chance to get stunlocked should be very high on Hell, but not guaranteed. Something that makes this a little worse, is that because the game's loot is random, you wont always find a set of very high AC gear(even though in this mod it is easier to find, its still not guaranteed), so the aim is to make it more viable to play straight through the game if you dont have high AC gear (ie. less equipment grinding, especially in singleplayer games). This also plays into the 'viability' of two handed weapons - you essentially cant use one, because if you do, you lose the AC bonus from a shield, and will end up getting stunlocked constantly. This would at least allow the barbarian character to shine with a two-hand on Hell, and would allow the warrior some limited use out of them in Normal(and perhaps a little in nightmare.

It also makes it so that you dont necessarily have to be level 50 to avoid getting stunlocked like crazy.

Another thing i've thought about modifying is both the warrior's and the Barbarian's hitstun formulae in order to help in this regard, in relation to their un-modified Vitality rating. The ideal range is to essentially have them at a point where they can at least have a chance of not getting stunlocked on hell difficulty when they meet the minimum level required to get into hell, while still making it plausible for them to get stunlocked at each and every point in the game (a good reference is - can they be viably stunned by the butcher? For the warrior I put this as within falling within 3 points of his minimum damage range, at 9 points of damage - butcher's damage on normal is 6-12)

Some sample formulae I've potentially playing with are:

Warrior:
-Clvl * 1.15 + (Vit/15)
-Clvl * 1.10 + (Vit/15)

gives a somewhat decently rounded amount of stun resistance. a touch high for normal mode, but nothing out of range that makes it so that most monsters cant stun you.

Barbarian:
-Clvl * 1.25 + (Vit/15)
-Clvl * 1.25 + (Vit/20)

gives better high-end stun resistance, to meet demands of higher difficulties. Unfortunately it does make stun resistance a little bit high for normal mode, but endurance wise, the barb is already very powerful on normal anyways. Besides the barb DOES lack magical ability, and if he focuses too much on vitality, he'll pay for it by not being able to hit anything very well, thus taking more damage in the long run.

Monk:
-Clvl * 1.10 + (Vit/15)
-Clvl + (Vit/15)

Bard:
-Clvl + (Vit/15)

Rogue:
-Clvl + (Vit/20)

Sorcerer:
-Clvl + (Vit/20)

And of course these things would be further helped by putting a hard cap on experience gain to prevent overflow beyond 65535, and by removing the multiplayer character caps on gainable experience.

Essentially the idea behind these changes is to allow a character to viably be able to start Hell difficulty immediately after finishing nightmare (which especially helps melee characters - other characters dont really have a problem doing so as long as they are careful) Of course even with these changes, the most powerful monsters will still easily stun a Barbarian with minimum damage, but this at least evens out the playing field a little, and gives a bit more practical use to two handed weapons as well.