Here's a quick PTR FAQ posted by Bashiok.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Q: How do I begin testing on the PTR?
A: When you start Diablo II change your Battle.net gateway to ?ClassicBeta?. When you log in the 1.13 patch will be applied to your game and you can begin testing the changes made in the patch. Since it's a new realm you'll need to create a new account.
Q: I don't see the ClassicBeta realm in my gateway list!
A: Log into one of the other gateways first, then back out and the classicbeta realm will appear.
Q: What if I want to play the normal game again?
A: Simply choose any of the other (non-PTR) gateways. Your game will be reverted to version 1.12 and you?ll be able to play on the live realms as normal.
Q: Where are my characters?
A: The PTR realm is separate from the live realms so your current characters aren?t carried over. You?ll need to create a new character to begin testing. But, cheats are enabled and you may use the following cheats by typing them into chat while in a game:
Gold # - Will provide the amount of gold specified
Level # - Will increase your level to the number specified
Waypoints 1 - Will activate all waypoints. You must still reach an act before that act?s waypoints will be unlocked with this cheat.
Q: What happens to my characters once the PTR testing period ends?
A: They remain on the PTR realm to be removed once the test ends. Characters on the PTR realm won?t transfer to the normal realms.
Q: How long with the PTR run for?
A: As long as we deem necessary to ensure the patch and changes are solid.
Q: Where can I give feedback and what kind of feedback do you want?
A: All 1.13 PTR feedback and bug reports should ONLY be posted in the Diablo II Test Realm Forum here: http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=20601702&sid=3000
- All post should have a subject line that clearly describes the bug or feedback being given
- Use the search feature to ensure a thread doesn?t already exist before posting
- When reporting a bug include as much information as you can, including steps to reproduce it if possible
- Any non-constructive posts may be deleted and the poster?s privilege to post revoked
- This is a chance for you to ensure the 1.13 patch includes changes and balance tweaks that you think would lead to a better overall experience. Getting the information to us in a clear and logical way helps us understand your view and makes it easier for us to collect feedback for any potential updates to the 1.13 patch before release.
Q: What is the new "Mystery" mentioned in the patch notes?
A: It's related to the respec system implemented in the patch and can grant additional respecs beyond the three given for completing the Den of Evil quest in each difficulty. You'll have to play to find out how though.
Here's the new patch notes!
Patch 1.13
A new Mystery has been revealed!
- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again,
that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies
within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil
to the Throne of Destruction...
Major Bugs
- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.
Minor Bugs
- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it was created.
Specific changes/improvements
- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
- Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- Updated two Act 5 mercenary names to Klar and Tryneus.
- When creating a single player game, pressing the 'Enter' key now automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
- When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode. This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound in background.
- Added support for '-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed' command line options.
Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes
Amazon
-Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and Immolation effect by 50%.
-Immolation Arrow - Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.
-Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.
Assassin
-Shadow Master - Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.
Barbarian
-Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
-Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.
Paladin
-Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.
Druid
-Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
-Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.
-Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.
Necromancer
-Blood Golem - Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
-Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100% to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
-Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.
Sorceress
-Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and Blaze and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Blaze - Synergy receives 2% damage per point of Firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
-Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.
-Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.
-Lightning Mastery - Reduced overall effect by 15%.
Anyways blizzard still haven't gone to the root of the leeching problem. There were no leechers before LOD because all the exp were fully shared with party and if you grouped with a character higher than 10 levels than you, your part of exp would be so tiny that there would be no point leeching. Well a lot of things were better back then, but that what they should do if they'd want to remove leeching.
You didn't even read my post? What does iron maiden do to casters that are majority in this game.. nothing. And yes I have only 600-700 hp on my sorc in Classic. I know it is easy in LoD with all the uber items you get there.. the game is a joke in LoD, in classic thers still some challenges every now and then.
I didn't say that melee couldn't do it.. I only said that why is there 2 crucial areas in game where melee can't go all in while casters have nothing to fear there. As I said 1.09 challenge in CS was great but 1.10 is pretty much a suicide.
Why would you even care about iron maiden if u get rushed to 90 lvl in 2 hours? You don't play the content, other people do it for you.
In Classic HC all you see barbs doing is being either BO bots or BO bot/corpse popper. Now that they remove IM maybe they could do something else there too.
Anyways this seasons barb have gone to CS only about 5 times once soloed the whole thing with ww and 2hander mace.. it took 20 mins to lure the monsters out of mages etc. Then I've done it 4 or something times with a pala friend, I did a tanking job with lvl 1 war cry, wasn't very exciting.. and oh infector with conv does hurt, howl was handy though. Rest of the exp came from soloing river of flame, but I think it's fun that I could go to CS some times in 1.13 with a barb when River has sucky monsters that doesn't give exp at high levels.
Because the Chaos sanc is still a huge part of the game and one I don't want to see pussified. Just cause I am not running the content 10000000000000x doesn't mean I don't go there every now and then for shits and giggles. This will make it alot easier to go PK chaos games with a barb tho, so thanks Blizzard! Nothing to fear for Barb PK's now.
Well, they rape mercenaries, which usually have our Infinities or Insights on them. Good-bye mercs, hello immunities, limited mana (and then you have the monsters that steal all of your mana in a single hit, like the ghosts in Chaos Sanctuary that are everywhere), etc., etc.
Say what? What does?
BS. They just half-assed this patch...They may as well have called it 1.12.2
Ahh, I was wondering why I had some smelly, brown stuff all over me.
I agree with you for the most part. I think the patch is definitely nothing what we expected because the excitement around it was pretty high.
By the way, I see you're in Tennessee. What part? I am too; West TN!
Yea i agree with you, Diablo is the bastard child of Blizzard. I am just returning to D2 again and saw a new patch so I was like OMG! a new patch, but after a quick sweep of the forums I was soon disappointed.
We waited a long time for the patch and the speculations were getting crazy.
Yup. A great post and summary. That guy was on the ball. Definitely brought the pain!
Bashiok responds with "I hear ya". That's just his way of saying he acknowledges the opinion, not that he's in agreeance. I believe you misinterpreted it.
The patch definitely doesn't meet my expectations. I didn't even have that high of expectations. I was hoping for more balancing of the characters. Though, Respec'ing adds quite a bit of game play variety. Now you can splurge your points into low level skills instead of strategizing your skill tree for the later levels. The first 30 levels should be more interesting.
Still not enough changes to get me playing again.
I expected balanced skill. Nothing done except minor change.
Too many skills are still useless to put more than 1 point in it (bad design) (example : static lv5 could be the lv20, lv1 could be lower than 25%, it will be more coveted to put more points in it).
More "gameplay" change in few skills like vengeance/conversion combined with zeal or smething like that. Fist of heaven mustn't triggered anymore when you click next to a monster (when you want escape, you don't click on monster and the spell is cast anyway !)
Many change like that it's a must I waiting for...