So I decided to put together a huge bunch of little "cheats" that all the Diablo 2 players came up with to make life easier for us. I do most of this stuff, so this is just a little show thread.
Starting with...
Chaos Runs (From lvl 1) - Something that Blizzard just didn't want us to do. After getting "grushed", you have the ability to go do chaos runs which literally lvl you to lvl 60 in about 30 minutes. This involves clearing the entire Chaos Sanctuary.
Grushing (Glitch rushing) - The ability to be in hell at level 1 was first meant to be only for mules, but since the discovery of chaos runs (shown above), it has become popular to get characters to hell difficulty by having a character who can do the baal quest to do it while the lower level character stays in the game to get the baal quest (moving them up to the higher difficulty)
Uber Leveling (Power Leveling) - This might be one of the best "cheats" on the face of the earth, since it takes so fucking long to set up. This involves a minimum of 2 people, usually 3 though. You must trap mephisto in a specific house to do this, and once you do, one of the 3 people, a necromancer, will set up bonewalls to make mephisto spawn his skeletons while the other 2 people, usually hammerdins, kill them. This can literally get you from 1-90 in one hour. People known as leechers will stay in tristram and leech the exp that the hammerdins (known as spinners) and necromancer (known as BWers) will make.
I think I've only leached in one Uber Leveling game and I helped in a few. It is very fast leveling. Grushing I've been in and do a lot still, and, of course, I've done tons of Chaos runs with my Light Sorc last ladder and have been in countless ones to leach.
The irony is that even if they were to patch these things up, players would find another exploitation somehow, given enough time. Not saying that I agree that these things should be in the game, but if they're there for the using, I will use them to keep up with everyone else.
The little command that makes a Single Player game as hard as a multiplayer game of how ever many players (#) you set it to. 1 being the default and 8 being the hardest setting.
Raising the number of players, thus raising the difficulty, also raises the experience gained.
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-Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth.
Yeah Chaos Running is probably the easiest to do since you don't need ot pay and they are all over the place. Uber Leveling is way faster leveling it's just so complicated to do.
And I think that will also affect drops, won't it? Is that why people like to MF in games with more people in them?
It affects drops/experience, but only to a certain extend. I don't know if you're familiar with the drop mechanics in DiabloII, but it's something like:
/players 8 will make as if there was 8 players in the game. BUT the drops/experience values aren't exactly like if you were 8 players killing things. It'll be more like a game with 8 players, but 7 of them are in town or unpartied. So yes you get more experience with the /players 8 command line, but not as much as you would if 8 of you were in the 'range' to get more drops.
5. Number of players
The higher is the number of players, the higher is the number of items dropped by monsters. More precisely - monsters have lower chance to drop no items (this chance is defined in their main TC under NoDrop property). Now, how it works?
We have the total number of players in the game, let's say it's N players. Health and EXP of monsters is enhanced by this formula: HP=HP*(N+1)/2. In 8 player game, monsters have 4.5 higher HP. In off-realm games, you can simulate more players by "/players X" command, where X > N.
But drops are not affected by simply N (all players in the game). The "NoDrop exponent" (or "player bonus") will be counted this way: Players who are a) unpartied with you or not close to you (around 2 screens), count only as 0.5 player. You and partied players close to you count as 1 player. Players added in off-realm games by "players X" command count as 0.5 player. The NoDrop exponent will be rounded down if it's not an integer. For example you are killing with your friend who is in your party monsters in the Pit and another player is killing monsters in Ancient Tunnels (it doesn't matter if he is in the party or not). Your NoDrop exponent will be 2 (rounded from 2.5).
This other article about MF efficiency in 8players game is kinda interesting too :
6. Does it help when I MF alone in full 8 player games?
You should avoid trying to MF alone in 8 player games. You will find it takes much longer to kill a boss in a large game and due to this fact, (and the fact that other players can take your drops)--it's not such a great idea to try and MF in a full game. Also, the % chance to drop a unique item is not increased with more players; it is only based on the MF% of the last player to hit any given boss (see the chart above for drop rates of item types based on your MF%). One should also consider that if it takes you longer to kill the boss in a large game (there's a good chance you will die if you are using a lot of MF), you will end up finding less. So, in summary, there's no real advantage to MFing in a full 8 player game. And since you will kill the bosses slower, you will probably end up finding less.
Another one that abuses a game bug (I'm assuming that grush is a bug?) is when ethereal armors get an additional 50% armor when you socket them using the cube. Only really useful for mercenaries, but giving them armors with > 3.5k defense can make them pretty beefy. This is used an absolute ton on ladder games, especially for exile shields.
I don't really approve of cheats, when they're left in the game for so long they just sort of become part of the game, since everyone is doing it. Its sort of like driving 5 mph over the limit and not getting tickets. Its not right, but it is sort of socially accepted because of its widespread use.
How can you say this and have an opinion about respeccing along the lines of "you don't have to use it if you don't want to"? I've seen you say it at least twice!
Because, as you just quoted, I can use it if I want, and not use it if I don't want to, and so I wanted to use it to keep up with the other several thousand players on my server, and so I used it. Just like if you want to respec you can use the feature, and if you don't want to, you don't have to. It's a choice, no one makes you do either.
There are quests I've never done in my entire d2 experience. When I started it was commonplace to get rushed and to baal run 'till like 80. It's just how I've come to know the game.
I've done it close to 100 times during 9 years.. 1-80 lvl and the quests are so quick to do in this game that I don't see a reason to rush them. It would be different in some other games where quests are bigger part of the game.
There are quests I've never done in my entire d2 experience. When I started it was commonplace to get rushed and to baal run 'till like 80. It's just how I've come to know the game.
Starting with...
Chaos Runs (From lvl 1) - Something that Blizzard just didn't want us to do. After getting "grushed", you have the ability to go do chaos runs which literally lvl you to lvl 60 in about 30 minutes. This involves clearing the entire Chaos Sanctuary.
Grushing (Glitch rushing) - The ability to be in hell at level 1 was first meant to be only for mules, but since the discovery of chaos runs (shown above), it has become popular to get characters to hell difficulty by having a character who can do the baal quest to do it while the lower level character stays in the game to get the baal quest (moving them up to the higher difficulty)
Uber Leveling (Power Leveling) - This might be one of the best "cheats" on the face of the earth, since it takes so fucking long to set up. This involves a minimum of 2 people, usually 3 though. You must trap mephisto in a specific house to do this, and once you do, one of the 3 people, a necromancer, will set up bonewalls to make mephisto spawn his skeletons while the other 2 people, usually hammerdins, kill them. This can literally get you from 1-90 in one hour. People known as leechers will stay in tristram and leech the exp that the hammerdins (known as spinners) and necromancer (known as BWers) will make.
If I missed any, please tell me.
The irony is that even if they were to patch these things up, players would find another exploitation somehow, given enough time. Not saying that I agree that these things should be in the game, but if they're there for the using, I will use them to keep up with everyone else.
/players #
The little command that makes a Single Player game as hard as a multiplayer game of how ever many players (#) you set it to. 1 being the default and 8 being the hardest setting.
Raising the number of players, thus raising the difficulty, also raises the experience gained.
It affects drops/experience, but only to a certain extend. I don't know if you're familiar with the drop mechanics in DiabloII, but it's something like:
/players 8 will make as if there was 8 players in the game. BUT the drops/experience values aren't exactly like if you were 8 players killing things. It'll be more like a game with 8 players, but 7 of them are in town or unpartied. So yes you get more experience with the /players 8 command line, but not as much as you would if 8 of you were in the 'range' to get more drops.
I know it isn't clearly explained, you can see more info in this post:
http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=412453 -> See #5 for number of players info.
This other article about MF efficiency in 8players game is kinda interesting too :
source -> Go to number 6
Sorry, I'm :offtopic:, I'm out.
I don't really approve of cheats, when they're left in the game for so long they just sort of become part of the game, since everyone is doing it. Its sort of like driving 5 mph over the limit and not getting tickets. Its not right, but it is sort of socially accepted because of its widespread use.
Because, as you just quoted, I can use it if I want, and not use it if I don't want to, and so I wanted to use it to keep up with the other several thousand players on my server, and so I used it. Just like if you want to respec you can use the feature, and if you don't want to, you don't have to. It's a choice, no one makes you do either.
And /players X a cheat? Don't be ridiculous.
Read above.
And the player number thing is never something I used. I'll need to look into that.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
I'll be honest when I say that doing the same quests over again and leveling the longer way makes me want to spoon my eye out after the 50th time.
I feel sorry for you that you got spoiled
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Also hammerdins have a high position because of their abilities to Spin Ubers, which can get you 10 hrs a week guaranteed.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
What's that got to do with anything?