I suspect it’s less his character and more his build, Chronos. I had similar problems with the first characters I got to Hell because they weren’t optimally built and had inferior equipment; they just weren’t dealing enough damage to cope.
battle.net has very little to do with your framerate punha. That’s pretty much entirely dependent on your computer. Here are some things to do that might help:
- restart the machine. Often if your physical memory gets close to full you start dropping frames, especially on laptops with integrated graphics. This was my problem during the last two rushes.
- defragment the hard drive. If you’re using Alcohol 120%'s virtual drive to run diablo 2, this is especially important. Reading from the drive sequentially is a fairly fast operation on even the slowest hard drives, but if it has to continually stop reading and seek for the next chunk of data, you will experience a noticeable slowdown.
- Set diablo 2 to run in DirectDraw mode by running the Video Test. Diablo 2 is not optimized for Direct 3D, so the framerates tend to be MUCH slower in D3D mode. I run all of my machines in DirectDraw (even the ones with GF3 and GF4 video cards) because they will slow down with heavy effects (i.e lots of fire on the ground, orbs). The only one i run in Direct3D is the Shuttle, which is fast enough to get framerates of 200fps or so, so it never has a problem.
For comparison, my laptop (packing a GeForce4 Go) tends to get around 50-60 frames per second in DirectDraw (though it will drop below 30 in some extreme circumstances), while it hovers at 35 in D3D, and drops significantly with effects. Since Diablo 2 runs at a maximum framerate of 25, any time you drop below 25 fps you will notice a slowdown, and 25 frames is a much larger buffer to work with than 10.
In case you didn’t know, the way to check is to type “/fps” at the message window, which will bring up your framerate and ping. If your ping shoots up, then blaming battle.net (or perhaps your internet connection) is entirely justified.
Though for the record i haven’t noticed any serious battle.net slowdowns in the past few days. A few ping spikes, but nothing that lasted longer than a few seconds, and not very frequently. I assume this has something to do with either blizzard doing work on the servers to get ready for season 2, or people logging on to figure out what they’re going to do with their old characters after the reset.
Bear, if you’re on at all today, give me a holler, and i’ll set you up with equipment. I’ll be on *gand or *30-foot-smurf
I got myself back to a more respectable (only once under 25, and often over 50) FPS, but now I have occasional and slightly predictable (but that doesn’t mean I can stop it, only change it when it happens) screen wonkiness. Stuff changes color; one easy example is that it becomes incredibly difficult to distinguish between the yellow of a rare and the gold of a unique.
Sigh.
Sounds to me like your graphics card is dying.
I’ve had that problem with other computers. I haven’t figured out how to fix it however. One is my laptop and one was my old system after I fixed it up and hooked up a cheap monitor to it. It may just be the way it displays on those screens.
You may want to try running the game in windowed mode. you can do this by adding a -w flag to the target name in a shortcut. For example, my windowed mode desktop shortcut has a target like this:
"C:\Program Files\Diablo II\Diablo II.exe" -w -lq -res800 -nonotify -skiptobnet
-lq sets the game to low quality graphics, and -nonotify tells it not ot pop up an error message if it encounters a critical error. The other two are pretty self explanatory. you can also use -ns for “no sound”, but i’ve found that this tends to cause crashes when switching between acts, so i don’t use that flag anymore (at least in windowed mode).
For the record, i’m not sure if -lq, -res800, or -nonotify actually work without a program called d2loader. I’m certain the other three do though. You can see a list of all the commands here, but be warned that it doesn’t indicate which ones work independently (i.e. without the d2loader program).
Also, it’s worth mentioning that i don’t suggest downloading d2loader. I used to use it when i ran pindlebots, but i quit using it since then. I’m not sure if it’s detectable by battle.net or not. I’ll have to ask some of the people on irc who are more familiar with it.
I’ve always had that problem, when running in full-screen mode. I’ve learned to live with it. At worst, you probably wanted to identify that rare anyway (at which point, of course, the difference becomes obvious). And the colors are still slightly different, so it is possible to tell them apart on sight. If you need a quick reference, the game name information in the top right corner is in the “unique” color, so things that match that color exactly are uniques. And the problem goes away entirely when I run in windowed mode: There, I can easily tell the color difference. But windowed mode is much more accessible on a Mac than on a PC (command-M, and you can switch on the fly), so that might not be the best option for you.
And I do remember my first character to reach Hell… At the time, I didn’t yet have a good elemental weapon, and no more than one point in any elemental attack, so I really suffered against the physical immunes. Eventually, I maxed Immolation Arrow, and stuck a bunch of Orts into a socketed bow (and eventually later found a Kuko Shakaku), so the build was fixable. But Hell was nonetheless a big eye-opener.
punha suggested having a “faux” ladder reset so that’s what several of us did yesterday. I can’t post anyone else’s thoughts on it but mine, so here are my thoughts…
The players involved were;
Me, playing a summonmancer,
punha, concentration barb,
Punoqllads, trapsassin,
Yeti, playing a javazon hybrid
We all started a brand new character and started at the Act1 Den. No equipment mules allowed. The actual gameplay went fairly smoothly, at least for me. I had no period where I felt overmatched by the monsters in the game, with the exception of Diablo himself and we still killed him without going back to do levelling runs. Yeti and punha had to leave for stretches but in only punha’s case did we have to start a new game to catch him up. Punoqllads left while we were doing Act5. Levelling was not a problem for me just doing the quests on the way through the game. The only quests I did over was Meph and Diablo to catch punha up after the two times he had to leave and doing several Baal runs after basically finishing normal. My summonmancer is level 37 or 38 at the moment. I did build him a little differently than I normally do, although that’s only a difference of which skills to get first. I went with more points in raise skellies than I usually do to provide more tanks. Previously I would get to 5 or 6 skellies then max mastery before adding more skellies, this time I put more points in raising than mastery (about 12/18 at the moment). It seemed to work well.
Everyone else can post whether they noticed any problems or difficulties. The only one I noticed was that we had people leaving and coming back. As I said, we went back an act twice for punha to catch him up. This was no problem, but it begs the question-- When we are starting on the new ladder, how far back is too far back to go to catch someone up? The going back itself isn’t really a problem, but if we go back 2 or 3 acts to catch someone up that person will not get the experience that we got doing the quests the first time and may get left behind level-wise. Having a level 15 or 16 character in act5, you won’t get the same experience that a level 25-30 character will get… and you won’t be catching up. I have no problem with them there but it would probably be faster for them to level in a more level appropriate area.
Thoughts?
I’ve been wondering about this myself. It’s very likely that we’re going to run into this issue a lot when the ladder resets, due to our different schedules, time zones, punha’s tendency to take off to cuddle (j/k 
), etc. I think we’re better served as a party if the higher level characters go back and stick with the lower level characters, to help catch them up. If, as in your example, somebody gets stuck at 15 while the others are at 25, the others should come back and do arcane/travincal runs with the character that’s behind, or just play through the quests with them. This way they’ll get more experience faster (because party members are in the area), and the 25’s can still get a little bit out of it. If you can get the lower level character to 25 (or really 24, since you can then do the ancients for 25), they will start getting experience from baal runs, and the whole party can level very rapidly.
Of course, it is also possible to have two smaller groups going, if there are enough people on and enough of a level disparity. If a couple people are at 10 and another few are at 40, it makes more sense for them to split up (but maybe stay in the same game).
Sorry I couldn’t be there, but I wasn’t around at all yesterday. If you decide to do another one, let me know.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure that practicing would be of any real help since I’ve played a lot of D2. But I did learn some things. We got a lot more runes than I thought we would. I have about 10 runes myself, not including the ones I got from saving the soldiers and I didn’t do the forge. We didn’t get many uniques, I know Yeti got Gorefoot, and they found Wormskull and gave it to me. We got a number of set pieces, nothing real good… but sometimes better than what we had.
Seeing how the characters worked together was good and Punoqllads’ trapper did some nice damage. Early level javazons are sometimes underpowered until they get their high level skills in play, but Yeti’s wasn’t bad, the only problem was that he had played less and was a number of levels lower than punha and myself.
I think, unless we find good gear early on, that my Concarian will be primarily defensive from the start. There is more point to pumping vit and dex (vit moreso than dex; str-vit-dex-vit-dex-vit-str will probably be my stat allocation for the foreseeable future), since if you don’t have a proper weapon there isn’t a lot of point to pumping str.
I think it would probably be best to let lvl 15s level in their own party and let higher levels do their own thing. While a level 30 could gain some xp from an arcane run, it betters the whole group for the lvl 30s to get a bunch of LH Baal runs and let the lower levels do arcane and trav runs to get ready for baal runs. Obviously when the ladder resets this will be less of an issue since there will be far more arcane and baal runs going.
I do wonder, though; early-on, do we value 8-player runs more than we value drops? On the one hand, losing out to xp is no fun, but on the other hand we need gear to be viable (some of us, anyway;)). I’d suggest that public runs be done more for XP, while runs that include an act boss (or a countess or forge run, for example) be done in private for the drops.
I’m thinking that it’d be best for higher level characters to stay in the higher-level areas, at least at first. A very powerful character can help a lower-level more than a moderately powerful character can, by handing down equipment, Enchanting, rushing past unnecessary quests, etc. Just think about all we’ve been able to do this season to help new characters. It seems to me that the quicker we can get our highest-level characters to that point, the better.
I also strongly favor Doper runs over public, even if we can’t usually fill up a game. We’ll still get significant amounts of experience (even if not as much), we keep all drops, and we’re practiced at working with each other and know our strengths and weaknesses. If a stranger sees me throwing Glacial Spikes at a Doom Knight, for instance, he might assume I have the situation under control, while a fellow Doper would know that I could use a hand. Or a paladin might know that our javazon doesn’t have enough mana leech yet, and turn on Meditation occasionally to help her. On the other hand, I can’t deny that the folks who do play the public runs, like Who or theckhd, level much faster than I.
Oh, and meanwhile, if I hadn’t mentioned earlier, I did finally fix my problems with Acts 1 and 3. I had to reinstall, which is not something that I’m ever eager to do again. I had to re-do all my settings, and I still haven’t fixed all of my skill assignments.
I think, as long as we have at least 3 Dopers on, that we should keep to ourselves. Levelling alone is a pain, and with two is slow. Once you have 3, then two can do the quest, while the third can explore ahead. Of course the more we have the faster we can go. But the drops are what is going to give us the equipment to enable us to use our skills to the maximum. If I come on after the ladder resets and find no one else on, I’m going to find the first public game I can find to get a head start on everybody in order to be able to help the group the best.
And everybody remember… we’re a group. If you’re on alone and find good equipment for another Doper… stash it away. The worst they can do is have better and not need it.
When in doubt, stash it. This goes especially for +1 all skills items, life leech stuff, any charm (though I guess a +5 max stamina GC isn’t all that useful), and most any set or unique piece. We have seen Isenhart’s case drop something like 6 times now, but it’s always nice to have a level 8 character with a defense over 100.
Several weeks ago I applied to a position as moderator at The Dark Library. I received word about an hour and a half ago that I have the position (great, now that I’ve been accepted based on my writing ability it takes me ten solid seconds to spell that word) pending the approval of a few other folks there. The tone of the email did not suggest that there would be a gauntlet to run before I was given the official stamp of approval.
You heard it here first, though if you post to TDL or read it, don’t tell the folks there. They will find out soon enough:)
Though you can manage that at level 2 with the Arctic armour and belt, which aren’t uncommon either, and get 20% res all and 30% res cold into the bargain.
Just saying.
Add the gloves from that set for IAS, too. 45 str req, but still not bad.
Several things here. After the ladder reset practice, I’ve gotten to thinking about tactics. punha’s idea was to get to normal Baal and do Baal runs until we were in the 50-55 level range. Personally, I think that’s too high. I’d say 40-45 is enough, although we would have to take into consideration the lowest level of the group.
And thinking ahead… what level should we go from NM into hell? I think this one is more important than the norm to nm transition. Nightmare really isn’t that big a difference from normal, but nightmare to hell is a big difference. Level 70-75 is the usually stated level to hit hell.
theckhd made a comment that he’d like to be included if we do another ladder practice. Is there any interest in doing another “from the start” ladder reset practice? I really do enjoy playing untwinked in good groups so if we want to do another, count me in. If anyone is interested, just say so and when you’d be available. We can jointly decide when to do this, if at all.
Of course, if the ladder resets… all bets are off and I’m playing the ladder.
Say, speaking of items for other Dopers:
punha, I have a +1 combat skills mask for you if you like it and a pair of Treads for whoever can use them most effectively.
Bah, I hate hitting the submit button and then thinking of something else to write…
My trapsin, NoPrenup, is lvl 48 and is whuppin ass in NM. I have maxed the Lightning Sentry and am now maxing Charged Bolt Sentry. I’m just kinda running through it since nothing can really stand up to the assault in A1. I had forgotten how much fun a trapsin is!