Detailed differences to Jarulf und Why Black Death?

[toastmartin]

Hello,

I just noticed the project and find it great, i love how fluent it plays, and how original it feels. I just have two questions:

• Is there a detailed list of changes comared to the original game (referenced by Jarulfs Guide)? I am asking because I like to min/max and there are alot of important details regarding for example number overflow of armor values of hell/nightmare monsters. Or the excact functionality of the "of thieves" suffix (does it still count against ALL damage, that ist not physical melee?)

• Why on earth did you add an option to disable hero destroying shrines but left the hero destroying Black Death-Zombies in the game? They encourage players to start new games just not to damage their character, that is a clear design mistake in diablo/HF. Starting new games just to evade a certain monster is not fun! If you want to keep them creepy, you could have the "reduced max HP"-effect removed, when a new game is started. I think then, the most players would take the challenge and figth the Black Death!

Thanks!
Toast

[AJenbo]

https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/blob/master/docs/CHANGELOG.md

Because on earth it's not easy to make that change and still keep the game in sync. Don't like them; make a mod (very easy in 1.6.0).

[toastmartin]

Thanks for your answer. The detailed list ist very nice.
The log regarding DevilutionX 1.2.0 contains the line "Corrected behaviour of Thieves, Speed/Haste, Balance/Stability/Harmony, and Piercing/Bashing/Puncturing" Do you know wht exactly that means? The latter were prevented from stacking, right? But what changed with Thieves?

The behavoiur of the Black death was very unexpected to me, because I read here https://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/thread-15760.html?highlight=DevilutionX that this project "will offer as many or more bug fixes & QOL improvements as my patch-mod ever did". So I assumed, that the HP loss was fixed here too. Also, I do not understand the technical difference between a mod and a recreation of the source code (probalby because I dont know much about coding).

[toastmartin]

@julealgon You are correct. When I grew up, I saw the game as I decribed above and of course I had no clue, that there were other visions of games :-) So, when I want to play Diablo/HF today for nostalgia, I try to resemble that notion, although it has probobly been shaped by other games in the meantime.
Do you remember the time when there were no fanpages/forums to spoil the game? When the documentation was slim/english and you had to EXPLORE the game. Not only the contet but also the rules! That were the times ..

Do you still have a link to that interview?

[DakkJaniels]

This is probably one of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_CXw4x61E

Here's the original design document:
https://www.graybeardgames.com/download/diablo_pitch.pdf

[toastmartin]

:-) The video and the "design document" are really interesting. The background that David Brevik describes clearly came from tabletop RPG's and Rougelikes. On the other hand they intentionaly went away from that with the real time action property.
The replayability seemed to be important from the start. But the storys David tells seems to suport your view that the replayability is referring to the game, not the single character. Although "character development" was mentioned too .. but the balance on nightmare/hell is so bad, that seemed to be limited to completing the story on normal once.

Maybe I should widen my vision of the game ..

@julealgon and all the other folks here: How are you playing this version of Diablo? Multiplayer? Singleplayer? Fresh Hero for each session? Are you restricting yourself somehow: No shopping in town? No Saving? Only playing full games clearing alle levels?

The other thing that feels "so long ago" about that video: Imagine! They are finishing the game, and then they are SHIPPING it. Like .. with a ship! Afterwards, they can't change it any more. No bug fixes, no cheat protection, no balance tweaks. Games were much smaller back then. :-)

[julealgon]

@julealgon and all the other folks here: How are you playing this version of Diablo? Multiplayer? Singleplayer? Fresh Hero for each session? Are you restricting yourself somehow: No shopping in town? No Saving? Only playing full games clearing alle levels?

Been a while since I've actually played through the game, but the original is a bit too easy normally for me now, so I always play with some sort of self-imposed challenge in mind, usually Ironman. One of the last playthroughs I attempted was an axe-wielding melee Sorcerer, for instance, and I do play in "hardcore" mode, meaning death = restart. No duping, no mana-shield bug, no exploiting of vendors (save/loading, entering/exiting town, etc to refresh items, in case of the Sorcerer run).

As much as possible, I also try to avoid exploiting the AI too much with the whole visibility bug where you can hit monsters with a bow but they can't hit you back (4-tiling, etc). I just don't see the point in these exploits, it doesn't make the game more fun to me (on the contrary).

The other thing that feels "so long ago" about that video: Imagine! They are finishing the game, and then they are SHIPPING it. Like .. with a ship! Afterwards, they can't change it any more. No bug fixes, no cheat protection, no balance tweaks. Games were much smaller back then. :-)

Yeah... games these days are released in completely broken states and fixed later (including day-1 patches and all that). For the most part (very few exceptions, usually Nintendo games).

[HuskyMACE]

I agree that Black Deaths and crippling shrines are not "bugs" that need "fixed". That being said, if a "change" were to be implemented regarding these, I wonder if it would be easier to give Pepin and/or Adria some kind of "Remove Curses" option (akin to the removed "Receive Healing"), where your maximum Life/Mana are recalculated based on your other stats. Such an option would mean that "curses" are present and meaningful in challenging contexts (namely Ironman or other self-imposed limitations), but are not irreversibly character crippling in more normal or casual circumstances. Further, purists can ignore the option as with many of the other QoL changes, and there could be one less toggle in the options menu.

I understand this suggestion may be moot and/or naive (and frankly unimportant), but just thought I would put it out there.