Dear Blizzard's Diablo II Legacy Team:

In September of last year, following the first six-month ladder reset in memory, many people wrote to express their need for longer ladder seasons in order to make their legitimate playstyle effective. Bashiok posted a poll, and the results were solidly for one year in a range of possible choices from 3 months to 18 months, so a number of players expected that the new season would last for the duration of the winning vote. Six months later, near the beginning of this month, a sudden rush of comments demanding another six-month reset or a new poll began surfacing. Bashiok agreed to post a new poll, but not to placing an in-game announcement in order to truly comb the whole base of Diablo II players. The poll itself was to have run until April 4, but even that was suddenly cut short and an abrupt ladder reset announcement came giving players less than one week in the current season.

[Edit: updated this paragraph]
Much has been written about the fairness/unfairness of this situation, but throughout all of it winds the one path to fairness for everyone: equalizing content between ladder and non-ladder. So it is that I am proposing that before the next reset of the ladder, you also release a patch containing the following very simple changes.

The two files, data_global_excel_CubeMain.txt and data_global_excel_UniqueItems.txt, contain a column titled "ladder." Also, the file, data_global_excel_Runes.txt contains the column titled "server." In these columns is a simple bit flag under which some entries have a "1" entered. This proposed unannounced patch will only clear that column of bit flags so that all content will be available for everyone. Such a patch will not need testing, as no structural changes to the game are being made. Only the following entries in CubeMain.txt need to be changed by removing the "1" from the "ladder" column:

    3 rune 14 + 1 chipped emerald -> rune 15

    3 rune 15 + 1 chipped diamond -> rune 16

    3 rune 16 + 1 flawed topaz -> rune 17

    3 rune 17 + 1 flawed amethyst -> rune 18

    3 rune 18 + 1 flawed sapphire -> rune 19

    3 rune 19 + 1 flawed ruby -> rune 20

    3 rune 20 + 1 flawed emerald -> rune 21

    2 rune 21 + 1 flawed diamond -> rune 22

    2 rune 22 + 1 standard topaz -> rune 23

    2 rune 23 + 1 standard amethyst -> rune 24

    2 rune 24 + 1 standard sapphire -> rune 25

    2 rune 25 + 1 standard ruby -> rune 26

    2 rune 26 + 1 standard emerald -> rune 27

    2 rune 27 + 1 standard diamond -> rune 28

    2 rune 28 + 1 flawless topaz -> rune 29

    2 rune 29 + 1 flawless amethyst -> rune 30

    2 rune 30 + 1 flawless sapphire -> rune 31

    2 rune 31 + 1 flawless ruby -> rune 32

    2 rune 32 + 1 flawless emerald -> rune 33

    r17 + r21 + perfect emerald + exceptional unique weapon -> elite unique weapon

    r18 + r20 + perfect diamond + exceptional unique armor -> elite unique armor

the following entries in UniqueItems.txt by removing the "1" from the "ladder" column:

    Djinnslayer

    Warshrike

    Tomb Reaver

    Nature's Peace

    Azurewrath

    Seraph's Hymn

    Shadowdancer

    Cerebus

    Tyrael's Might

    Runemaster

    Deathcleaver

    Executioner's Justice

    Stoneraven

    Leviathan

    Mang Song's Lesson

    Demonhorn's Edge

    The Reaper's Toll

    Darkforge Spawn

    Widowmaker

    Shadowkiller

    Griffon's Eye

    Thunderstroke

    Andariel's Visage

    Fathom

    Kira's Guardian

    Gheed's Fortune

    Heaven's Light

    Metalgrid

    Wraithflight

and the following entries in Runes.txt by removing the "1" from the "server" column:

    Spirit

    Oath

    Obedience

    Harmony

    Fortitude

    Faith

    Brand

    Death

    Destruction

    Dragon

    Dream

    Edge

    Ice

    Infinity

    Insight

    Last Wish

    Lawbringer

    Phoenix

    Pride

    Rift

    Widowmaker

    Winter

    Wrath

[Edit: Please also reference the thread below regarding Onderduiker's observations on monster stats.]

Doing this easy thing will undo any damage done toward a large base of the players of this game by an unexpectedly truncated ladder season, and with this exceedingly simple change there will be not a peep of complaint for any shortened seasons ever again, since non-ladder gameplay will not be hobbled gameplay. Happily, we shall ride off into the sunset, and you truly will have served the Diablo II community to the utmost. [Edit: this is probably melodramatic, but whatever.]

Thank you.

[Edit: Updated current status]
*7thHeaven: USW-SCL
*SixthSense: USW-SCNL
5thElement: USW-SCNL
4thDimension: USE-SCNL

*SixthSense is the account I've played this ladder. Feel free to check my history and play frequency. 5th was the previous ladder, and so on. No longer active or available are ThirdCharm, SecondChance and the first one which has been forgotten. Feel free to check the history of every one of them, too. I also have a fansite dedicated to this game, devoting time to documentation and software related to the game, at http://d2game.info/. I am no casual player of Diablo II, and my suggestion is right for nearly the entire Diablo II community.

[Edit: Added this final appeal]
I also started over again like everyone else, and I'm still going to legitimately grind through in the hopes of finding certain items by chance, as it was intended to be and is designed to accommodate. Please do not push legitimate players toward a hobbled version of the game. Please equalize content as soon as possible, and prior to or coinciding with the next planned ladder reset.

The problem with this?

What you're asking is far too reasonable.

Eureka.

Blizzard:- J u s t D o I t


problem solved.

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Q u o t e:
Originally posted by 4thdimension

I am proposing that come Monday and the reset of the ladder, you also release an unannounced patch containing only the following very simple changes.

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/signed

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Q u o t e:
Originally posted by Breywood

The problem with this?

What you're asking is far too reasonable.

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:LOL: That's because it makes sense!

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Q u o t e:
Originally posted by Bimbostar

Blizzard:- J u s t D o I t

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/signed

Justin Perusoe Darkwater

I would love to see this as well. I have made the plea for removing the content differences between ladder and nonladder play in my responses to both of the ladder length polls and have felt from the beginning this would be the best solution for casual players. The ladder can still be a place for those who want to have a fresh economy or to compete in the race to 99, while people like me can play our one-game-a-week characters without having a bunch of item possibilities taken away after 6 months.

It would also be nice for any differences in monster stats and behavior removed as well, but I don't know if those are quite as easy to implement. The item changes outlined in the OP even alone are a big step in the right direction.

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Q u o t e:
Re: Attn: Legacy Team

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one guy... locked in a tower.

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Q u o t e:
one guy... locked in a tower.

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Without permission to use a keyboard

I believe UT is available off-ladder, as long as you're on the realms.

There is, however, yet another aspect of NL that is hobbled: monster difficulty. I did not know that monsters in NL are weaker than on ladder, so it isn't included in my OP. After asking around, however, Onderduiker supplied information that could also equalize that aspect, as well.

The columns, L-AC(N), L-AC(H), L-HP(N) and L-HP(H), in MonLvl.txt can be be copied and pasted over to the AC(N), AC(H), HP(N) and HP(H) columns in the same file. There would be an unintended side effect of about 1/3 increased Bone Fetish death explosion damage in Hell on ladder and in SP, since that is calculated using HP(H) values, according to his research. This would present a drawback to this fix, it seems.

Regardless, I believe that if just the changes outlined in the OP were made, it would be a phenomenal start and clearly a welcome change for a lot of people.

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Q u o t e:
I believe UT is available off-ladder, as long as you're on the realms.

There is, however, yet another aspect of NL that is hobbled: monster difficulty. I did not know that monsters in NL are weaker than on ladder, so it isn't included in my OP. After asking around, however, Onderduiker supplied information that could also equalize that aspect, as well.

The columns, L-AC(N), L-AC(H), L-HP(N) and L-HP(H), in MonLvl.txt can be be copied and pasted over to the AC(N), AC(H), HP(N) and HP(H) columns in the same file. There would be an unintended side effect of about 1/3 increased Bone Fetish death explosion damage in Hell on ladder and in SP, since that is calculated using HP(H) values, according to his research. This would present a drawback to this fix, it seems.

Regardless, I believe that if just the changes outlined in the OP were made, it would be a phenomenal start and clearly a welcome change for a lot of people.

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There's always the /players command.

EDIT:

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Q u o t e:
Not on non-ladder realm play, there isn't.

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My bad, 4th. I should have read a little more closely. And I agree with your post below.

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Q u o t e:
There's always the /players command.

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Not on non-ladder realm play, there isn't.

Focal point: people who wish to have access to all content the game has to offer, but who also play the game at a more leisurely pace, taking time to smell the roses, and earning their rewards by their own efforts. It cannot be overstated how truly different is the feeling upon acquiring something that way versus the ordinary trade/buy way. These people do not wish to be directed toward a closet to play by themselves (single-player), but wish to remain in contact with their friends and associations for exchanges and cooperative play. They do not want a hobbled version of the game offered to them as a purported equivalent, when it is quite obviously not so.

Reminds me of the commercial I now can't find anywhere on the Web in which two girls sitting there and a man asks them if they want a horse; the first girl gets a toy, and the second girl gets a real horse. An announcer said something like, "Even kids know when something isn't fair."

If the reason for separating content like this was originally to encourage play on the ladder, but now the reason as stated by Bashiok is about the economy, then it's time to end the distinction in content. All of that stuff is available off-ladder now, except to the people who want to work for their own stuff. And so it is at present a double-slap to anyone who has adopted this indisputably legitimate playstyle.

So what your saying is that you want all the ladder only gear to become non ladder as well?

That's dumb, ladder is harder and u get better loot but you know that ladder is season based and when the season finishes you become non ladder and keep all your fancy loot from the ladder season.

If you don't want a reset then don't play ladder nuff said.

P.S. in non ladder you don't need as godly, like in ladder because the monsters have less life do less damage and have lower AI settings.

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Q u o t e:

Not on non-ladder realm play, there isn't.

Focal point: people who wish to have access to all content the game has to offer, but who also play the game at a more leisurely pace, taking time to smell the roses, and earning their rewards by their own efforts. It cannot be overstated how truly different is the feeling upon acquiring something that way versus the ordinary trade/buy way. These people do not wish to be directed toward a closet to play by themselves (single-player), but wish to remain in contact with their friends and associations for exchanges and cooperative play. They do not want a hobbled version of the game offered to them as a purported equivalent, when it is quite obviously not so.

Reminds me of the commercial I now can't find anywhere on the Web in which two girls sitting there and a man asks them if they want a horse; the first girl gets a toy, and the second girl gets a real horse. An announcer said something like, "Even kids know when something isn't fair."

If the reason for separating content like this was originally to encourage play on the ladder, but now the reason as stated by Bashiok is about the economy, then it's time to end the distinction in content. All of that stuff is available off-ladder now, except to the people who want to work for their own stuff. And so it is at present a double-slap to anyone who has adopted this indisputably legitimate playstyle.

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wtf you talking about, you want all the game has to offer but you wanna play casually but you wanna play on hard ranked mode?

ladder = hard ranked mode
non ladder = casual mode

Don't be pissy about the reset you keep your stuff and you can still trade for ladder gear, oh and hell you ever hear of gear you cant get any more but it is still lingering around like 0.8 storm shield. So ya you technically get to experience even more of the game in non ladder.

Quit crying and take it like a man, you wanna play casually then play the casual mode don't play hard ranked mode and ask for it to be casual.

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Q u o t e:
So what your saying is that you want all the ladder only gear to become non ladder as well?

That's dumb, ladder is harder and u get better loot but you know that ladder is season based and when the season finishes you become non ladder and keep all your fancy loot from the ladder season.

If you don't want a reset then don't play ladder nuff said.

P.S. in non ladder you don't need as godly, like in ladder because the monsters have less life do less damage and have lower AI settings.

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Q u o t e:
wtf you talking about, you want all the game has to offer but you wanna play casually but you wanna play on hard ranked mode?

ladder = hard ranked mode
non ladder = casual mode

Don't be pissy about the reset you keep your stuff and you can still trade for ladder gear, oh and hell you ever hear of gear you cant get any more but it is still lingering around like 0.8 storm shield. So ya you technically get to experience even more of the game in non ladder.

Quit crying and take it like a man, you wanna play casually then play the casual mode don't play hard ranked mode and ask for it to be casual.

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The really amusing thing is that you don't even seem to realize that you are totally contradicting yourself.

To paraphrase:

"You don't need godly gear on NL, and that's why it doesn't belong there"

"You can get even more godly gear on NL, because it belongs there."

If you're going to be "pissy" about opinions expressed, then at least try to make sense.

nonladder doesnt need ladder only zodbug runes words imo :/

hybrids are @#*#ty enough

about the rune cubing... guess thats ok

I don't think Psi915 has any idea what he's talking about and completely misunderstands the the definition of "ladder" and that some people actually play this game differently than others. I think that's something that really annoys me about a big chunk of the player base. They're so used to JSP and rushing that they've completely lost perspective on how to actually play the game without these things. They don't realize that some people choose to play the game how it was originally intended, and it actually takes TIME for them to get a character to a high level because they don't skip quests or use forum gold to twink charactetrs. Ladder is barely more difficult than non-ladder, and *NEWSFLASH* some of us have lives and can't be playing on the ladder constantly, so why shouldn't content be expanded for us? There's no reason why it shouldn't. If you want to be a hardcore godly-geared gamer that uses JSP and plays non-stop, then by all means, go for it, just don't push your play style on the rest of us please.... I think what we're asking for is very reasonable, so why the objections?

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Q u o t e:

nonladder doesnt need ladder only zodbug runes words imo :/

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so by that logic ladder shouldn't need them either, so maybe they should be removed from the game completely?.... -_-;; And I think you're forgetting about runewords like Spirit, Insight, Edge, Harmony, Obedience, Voice of Reason, Lawbringer, etc.... there is no reason why these runewords should be exclusively ladder. And it's hard enough for some of us to get the runes to make some of the godly runewords, why should we have that privilege taken away when the ladder resets? 6 months is not long enough for some of us to accumulate much, don't you guys realize that? You're so one-sided about how this game should be played, you make it sound like we're noobs just because we don't rush our characters and MF for hours on end... again we have LIVES and we actually prefer playing the game at a NORMAL speed because it's more fun for us.




Anyways, I'm completely in support of this thread. Well done, 4thdimension.

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Q u o t e:
I don't think Psi915 has any idea what he's talking about and completely misunderstands the the definition of "ladder" and that some people actually play this game differently than others. I think that's something that really annoys me about a big chunk of the player base. They're so used to JSP and rushing that they've completely lost perspective on how to actually play the game without these things. They don't realize that some people choose to play the game how it was originally intended, and it actually takes TIME for them to get a character to a high level because they don't skip quests or use forum gold to twink charactetrs. Ladder is barely more difficult than non-ladder, and *NEWSFLASH* some of us have lives and can't be playing on the ladder constantly, so why shouldn't content be expanded for us? There's no reason why it shouldn't. If you want to be a hardcore godly-geared gamer that uses JSP and plays non-stop, then by all means, go for it, just don't push your play style on the rest of us please.... I think what we're asking for is very reasonable, so why the objections?

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Because we're being reasonable. People today have no interest in reason, or discourse, or critical thinking, or even literacy. Such old-fashioned niceties are sneered at today. Gossip, smack, blame and taking what you can are the new "realities" of this dim population of bestial fools. Just look at how items stores have proliferated. Clearly not enough of us around, otherwise there would be none. Now they're spamming in-game to get people to buy their own bots (because they view the traffic and see interest in it growing), 100% guaranteed or your money-back! You can believe that they are going to make money from their effrontery, as morons line up saying, "Heck, why not, when it's so easy to bot?"

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Q u o t e:
Anyways, I'm completely in support of this thread. Well done, 4thdimension.

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That is very kind of you to say, Flcl115. I'd love to read them say that they hear us, too.

Pretty much. I think ladder should stand on its own merits, harder AI and a challenging fresh economy for those who wish to have a release-like experience. I don't think we need to artificially beef up the population with casual completists trying to make 300 spirits and insights for next reset every time. I'd long for a shorter season if I didn't not only need to rush for a high level but rush for gear for my next NL char as well. Getting to 98 is hard (idk about 99 not there yet). doing enough forges for a hr or two to make CoH or infinity is also very hard. Doing both is rather insane and having done that in two of the seasons, which were 3 and 5, I don't wish to do it again. I'd support these changes (and still play ladder).

level 99 on ladder = obvious botter.

It really is that simple.

I know a guy who does it every time on HC

he doesnt bot


your just mad

QQ noob