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oniwara

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Old D2 player here, started at launch at a friends LAN party and been enjoying a few runs from time to time.

Amazing job on Cactus, i always wanted to play early classic but never managed to navigate the technicalities until i found it! Installation was smooth.

Currently leveling a Sorceress on 1.05b. Trucking in the Arcane Sanctuary atm!

If that's ok, let me take advantage of this introduction post to ask a confirmation about a couple things.

The only way to mule in 1.05b is launching several instances of the game via cactus and hosting tcp ip to swap gear from a character to the other? ATMA V seems to only work for 1.07+, is there an older version i could use?

I found the purediablo and diablolurker guides via links on the forums here, are there other specific 1.05 guide i could find? Are the 1.0 or 1.09 guides any use for 1.05b? Looking for tips re leveling, builds, etc. My knowledge is close to zero!

Thanks!
 
Welcome to the forum @oniwara, I'm glad you are finding Cactus useful and that everything went smoothly!

As for your questions:

1. TCP/IP is the only way to mule in pre 1.07. There are no other muling applications that I'm aware of for these versions.
2. 1.00 guides will be the closest when it comes to 1.05b. The changes between 1.00 and 1.05b aren't massively different besides stability/bug fix improvements that were made, some base item types didn't drop in earlier versions, and there were some balance changes with multiple skills (like the super strong 1.00 Barb WW, several necromancer skills, etc), and things like the Cow Level being able to be opened even if King was killed, which allows you to to efficiently farm for rares by just killing the cow king forever. I personally play 1.05b since I wanted a more general stable game experience at the expense of the rest, but it really depends what you want and what your goals are. There is definitely nothing wrong with going with 1.00 and enjoying its peculiarities. 1.07+ guides will pretty much be useless since pre lod is (IMO) completely different experience and game balance than lod (even classic in lod versions is very different than original classic).
 
Hey!

Thanks for the confirmation, I landed on 1.05b after reading through the forums here actually, it seemed like the best compromise of balance, stability and original classic spirit. It is much rougher than the runs i sometimes do on later versions for sure. The sorceress is a bit of a pain mana wise but the gameplay is great and much more involved. Glacial Spike at lvl18 changed my life after many levels of heavy mana struggle!

I am gathering info here and there, like about crafting those insane (bugged?) Mana Per Kill rings, the recipe i found seems different than the one that worked in game, i am wondering if i'm using the wrong one (only got some cold resist, hard to come by gems!). Things like that arent easy to find/confirm. The recipes are mostly the same with those from 1.0?
Also i read Magic Find is not super useful and does not work on champs/uniques/bosses?

In any case, having a blast! Cool to see there's a community going. Is there a discord of d2 time travellers?
 
- Bugged MPK ring is exclusively a 1.07 thing, it doesn't exist in any other version.
- That's correct, magic find and things like crushing blow only works on white monsters. From my understand, this was an explicit design decision that was changed when LoD came out (1.07+). I can see the logic in it though so I'm not against it. It's definitely adds a more difficult feeling to the game. So those melee boss fights in prelod are ruthless :D.

You can check out my 1.05b Barb's Normal A4 run (and adventure) here.

- There is no discord channel and I actually deleted my discord account around 2018. When I started the forum, I actually explicitly wrote about Discord. You can take a look at that here.
 
Your take on discord is very fair, i think it shines for certain types of games/activities more than for others. I have often struggled trying to find pieces of information for certain games, especially single player games. Forums do make people try to be more cohesive.

Thanks for the precision on MPK rings, gonna save my sapphires and max Warmth it is then i guess!

Just killed Diablo on Normal difficulty with my lvl23 eponym sorceress. I have a lot more questions to ask but I think i'm going to carry on for now and see if i hit any brickwall before laying them out (in a proper post!).

Cheers!
 
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That sounds good. Good luck and have fun. You'll also want to eventually find a Spectral Shard, since that has MPK properties on it (and FCR). Damn, I love Diablo II. So many good memories, and nostalgia is a hell of a drug lmfao!
 
Interesting!

Is gambling with a character at the appropriate level (25 in the case of the Spectral Shard) the best way to farm for a specific item? If i outlevel the Spectral Shard will i still be able to gamble for it later? I can't say I am showered with gold atm, I could afford two blades and i'm broke!
 
Not sure about that, I never really got into researching the specific levels for optimally gambling stuff, so my knowledge on that subject is limited.
 
Welcome to the forum, @oniwara! I'm glad you found us. There is a gold mine of D2 knowledge here. 😁

@fearedbliss and @galaxyhaxz have often been like my own personal encyclopedias, lol.

To answer your question on gambling though -- in LoD, there is a minimum level and an optimal level to gamble for certain items, but yes, you'll still have a chance to gamble for Spectral Shard once you've passed that threshold. And I think the same is true for classic.

The following quote is from this page: Gambling

  • Once you've unlocked all the item types at level 48, the items shown will be the same from then on. However, as you reach higher Character Levels, more Magic Prefixes and Suffixes will show up on items Gambled and you'll have a better chance to get Exceptional and Elite items.
Click to expand...
 
Oh, and another thought... assuming you aren't against forwarding items... gambling in 1.00 is pretty dope. ;)
 
Manny said:
Oh, and another thought... assuming you aren't against forwarding items... gambling in 1.00 is pretty dope. ;)
Click to expand...
Hello and thanks!

I am on 1.05b atm, is gambling the same here as on 1.00? I am not sure how forwarding works with Cactus, copying a character savefile from a platform folder to another one?

But i understand i can just level up and come back later to gamble for the spectral shard. It seems even on 1.05b the chances to get it arent too bad (3%? or so?).

My lvl24 sorceress' Nightmare adventures are quite rough! I'm not sure if i should power through (with probably lots of deaths / no leveling up) or pause and get some xp. A bit of both i guess. Mana scarcity is real. 1.14 LoD throne room xp farming post acts formed bad habits for sure!

I am pretty familiar with the sorceress in terms of gameplay and how to allocate points without respecs while still being operational. All the other classes much less, that's probably going to be the biggest challenge to face in those pre-lod platforms.
 
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Gambling is the same in both 1.00/1.05. You cannot take a character from 1.04-1.06 back to 1.00-1.03 because the item format was changed, you can only go forward. Spectral Shard can be gambled but not found in 1.00 as the base item was not in the drop tables due to a bug, which was fixed in 1.04. You can find it normally in 1.05 if you though.

Being level 24 in nightmare isn't uncommon either. The game was originally designed with a max level of 50 like Diablo 1, so you end up finishing hell around 30-45. They raised it to 99 at the last minute but didn't bother with rebalancing the XP tables, so getting past 70-75 is a major slog and not worth it.

Something to know about pre LoD is that the game is much more doable for everyone. Monsters are less aggressive on hell, no immunities etc. So you don't really have to worry as much about carefully allocating skill points. You can just freely put a few points into things as you go. LoD is what introduced both power creep and difficulty hikes that require you to grind for specific loot and plan out the build.

Cheers and welcome to the forums!
 
Hello @galaxyhaxz,

Thanks for the precision on gambling. To forward a character i can copy the file and paste into a later platform?

I made it to act 3 and grinded a few levels here and there, at 28 now.

Finishing Hell at 30 seems rough. I am scouting the flayer jungle in Nightmare atm, trying to find the dunjeon, I am heavily relying on town portals to refill and lots of deaths during that process. I get swarmed and stunned pretty quickly!

I wonder how Hardcore works!
 
oniwara said:
To forward a character i can copy the file and paste into a later platform?
Click to expand...

Howdy @oniwara,

Yes! When you are ready to forward a character - just copy/paste the character files into the later platform folder. Those character files will automatically be updated to the later patch once you enter Sanctuary. Note that once a character has been transferred to a later patch, they will not be able return to an older patch.
 
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