Trouble with 1.10 beta runes poofing

[alerch]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for Cactus. I've been enjoying the software for years and have many many characters across several versions.

My issue is not with Cactus per se, but I've recently found interest in the beta versions of 1.10, specifically the rune words that can be created and forwarded to later patches.

I tried forwarding the runes for Crescent Moon along with a 3 socket phase blade from beta a to beta s on an otherwise empty character.
I simply moved the character .d2s from the one Saves folder to the other.
The result was that the phase blade is there, but the runes are gone.

I tried a second time, this time with runes from patch 1.07 and got the same result.

Am I missing something, is this a know issue, or did I mess up the process of forwarding?

Thank you for reading.
Regards

[fearedbliss]

Hey @alerch,

From what I understand regarding the 1.10 beta runewords, you can't use the original beta runeword combinations in the later versions of the beta or 1.10f. Meaning that once the runeword combinations got changed in the second 1.10 beta, the original beta ones won't work. So IIRC, you can only enjoy the original 1.10 beta combinations in the original 1.10 beta itself.

I hope that helps.

- fearedbliss

[fearedbliss]

Actually re-reading what you said, that’s a slightly different scenario since you are losing the runes themselves even before you created a runeword. You didn’t do anything wrong that I can see, but I wonder if some internal code changed between the way that runes themselves were defined and that is causing it to poof. The other thing I’m thinking about is anti-dupe code. Were the runes legitimately found or were they created with some program (Hero Editor)? But that’s strange and isn’t what I would expect. I would recommend forwarding items in this order to be safe:

EDIT: Check this post below for recommended version progression.

1.09b items should be able to go straight to 1.10f given that that’s what would have happened on battle.net at the time when 1.10f went live (1.09d was on battle.net to be specific but same thing pretty much for our purposes). 1.09b and 1.09d are also compatible so you can downgrade from 1.09d to 1.09b. The 1.10 betas are listed above for completeness if you happen to play those versions.

On another note, I’m moving this thread to the general d2 section since it isn’t a technical problem but d2 forwarding behavior. I can move it back if we discover it’s actually some other technical issue.

[fearedbliss]

@alerch I did a bunch of tests and wasn't able to reproduce your issue. Everything seems to be working fine. I made a 3os phase blade in Hero Editor and gave myself a Shael + Um + Tir in 1.07 and 1.09b (with and without Singling). Then I moved those save files to 1.10b (Beta 1) and 1.10s (Beta 2), and I also forwarded the items from 1.10b/1.10s -> 1.10f and everything worked fine and was retained. All the Platforms/Files are coming from Cactus.

Below are some screenshots:

1.07 Base (Vanilla Platform)

1.09b Base (Vanilla Platform)

1.10b (Beta 1) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.09b Character

1.10s (Beta 2) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.09b Character

1.10b (Beta 1) -> 1.10f

1.10s (Beta 2) -> 1.10f

1.10b (Beta 1) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.07 Character

1.10s (Beta 2) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.07 Character

1.10b (Beta 1) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.09b Singling Character

1.10s (Beta 2) (Vanilla Platform) - 1.09b Singling Character

[alerch]

@alerch I did a bunch of tests and wasn't able to reproduce your issue. Everything seems to be working fine. I made a 3os phase blade in Hero Editor and gave myself a Shael + Um + Tir in 1.07 and 1.09b (with and without Singling). Then I moved those save files to 1.10b (Beta 1) and 1.10s (Beta 2), and I also forwarded the items from 1.10b/1.10s -> 1.10f and everything worked fine and was retained. All the Platforms/Files are coming from Cactus.

First of all, thank you for the extensive testing. This gives me hope that I can make it work.
To answer a few of your questions, all runes were found in either 1.07, 1.09b or 1.10beta (as a hellforge quest reward) and the phase blade was from 1.07 IIRC.

My files comes from the cactus repo albeit from probably a good few years ago. I might have performed a minor hex edit to be able to launch multiple windows for that's all.

I will try to re-aquire the proper files and try again.

To clarify the forwarding process: I'm successfully forwarding the supplies from 1.07 -> 1.09b -> 1.10b. I'm trying to forward from 1.10b to 1.10s and the runes poof.

Thanks again for yout time and extenive testing!

[fearedbliss]

@alerch Np. Let me know how it goes.

[alerch]

@alerch Np. Let me know how it goes.

I just re-downloaded the "Platform" files for "1.10b (Beta 1)" and "1.10s (Beta 2)", created complimentary "saves" folders and tried again.

The behavior is sadly the same:
- I have a character in 1.10b (Beta 1) with a phase blade and shael+um+tir runes.
- I dont' make the runeword here - I forward the character with the ingredients to 1.10s (Beta 2).
- The character loads fine and has the phase blade, but no runes.

Re-reading your experiment, I'm unsure whether you created the runeword in 1.10b (Beta 1) or 1.10s (Beta 2).

I'm not really sure how to proceed, it seems like the problem is in my end, but I have made no changes to the platform files whatsoever.

EDIT: I managed to do some more testing, I can reliably reproduce the behavior.
- If I forward from 1.07 or 1.09b directly to 1.10s (Beta 2) it works fine; the runes are there.
- If I "layover" in 1.10b (Beta 1), do nothing but load the character and save it again, then forward it to 1.10s (Beta 2) - the runes disappear.
- I even tried (breaking the principles of time traveling) forwarding from 1.07 directly to 1.10s (Beta 2), then to 1.10b (Beta 1) and back to 1.10s (Beta 2) and the runes stayed intact.

So somehow the forwarding of runes (not items) from 1.10b (Beta 1) to 1.10s (Beta 2) goes awry, which is a bummer because I was hoping to collect forges in 1.10b (Beta 1) with my BK2-hunter and use the runes in 1.10s (Beta 2)

Cheers

[fearedbliss]

That’s actually what I was thinking as well, that given that 1.10b and 1.10s are both betas, there was ongoing development work within those betas in a way that didn’t guarantee backward compatibility. That would definitely makes sense and it’s probably what I would have done as an engineer. Beta releases are just part of the development process and things should not be considered set in stone. Only once a final release occurs, then we can guarantee backwards compatibility. This means that official release like 1.07 .08 .09 .10f are backwards compatible when it comes to runes and any other items, but development release like 1.10b and 1.10s may contain structural internal changes to file formats, types, and behavior that can break stuff. Final testing would have them have happened at least between 1.09d and 1.10f before release. I’m not sure if they tested 1.07 and 1.08 -> 1.10f backwards compatibility but I wouldn’t rule it out.

As for which versions I created it in, etc.. I used hero editor to create the runes in 1.07 and 1.09b characters since I don’t believe hero editor supports the 1.10 betas (only 1.10f), this would mean that the runes used and forwarded were in a backwards compatible / stable format. This also seems to indicate that 1.10b created runes were in a different format that is incompatible with 1.10s. But it also may mean that 1.10s to 1.10f may or may not be compatible depending on how much changed between those two points. Only way to test would be to actually have the game generate those runes in those versions. This could easily be done by modifying the MPQs for 1.10b and 1.10s’TreasureClassEx.txt and changing it in a way where monsters only drop runes, 100% of the time, particularly the runes you are interested in finding.

[alerch]

But it also may mean that 1.10s to 1.10f may or may not be compatible depending on how much changed between those two points. Only way to test would be to actually have the game generate those runes in those versions.

That's what's bothering me though. I was of the understanding that other time travelers were collecting forges in beta 1 and forwarding the runes to beta 2 in order to create e.g. CTA with greater Oskill levels or Bramble which can then be forwarded on to later patches retaining their rolls.

Those runewords can only be made in beta 2 AFAIK, so either the forge collection happened there or they don't experience the same issue somehow.

[fearedbliss]

@alerch Alright so I did some more extensive testing between 1.09b , 1.10b, 1.10s, and 1.10f. So this is what I've found.

I made a 1.09b character to start off and used hero editor to set up my testing environment (levels/skills/attributes/money, custom gear, cube, phase blade, TP books). I modified the game files for 1.10b so that I could easily just open the cow level, easily kill the cows (setting them to 1 hp with no resistances), and tweaked their treasure classes so they could drop only Runes. I then opened this 1.09b character in 1.10b and found myself a Shael + Um + Tir. So these runes are 1.10b generated. I did the same thing independently on 1.10s as well. Once I did that, I tested a progression of the following. You'll see the results as well. Also, I did re-use my 1.10b modified files in-place in 1.10s, but that doesn't matter since the important thing is to have the 1.10b/1.10s game engine generate and process the generated runes. My changes only tweaked the txt files not the dlls.

1.10b -> 1.10s = Runes will be LOST.

1.10s -> 1.10b (Downgrading) = Runes will be KEPT.

1.10b -> 1.10f = Runes will be KEPT.
1.10s -> 1.10f = Runes will be KEPT.

So it seems that if you forward the runes in between the betas, they will be lost, but if you go from any individual beta directly to 1.10f, they will be kept. However, I tried to "downgrade" a 1.10s character to 1.10b to see if I would lose the runes, and I didn't. So only moving forward within the betas seems to cause lose of runes. I didn't test this with any other rune combination, but I would think it should be the same. Although always keep backups lol.

I've packed up a 1.10b and 1.10s character that had runes generated within those individual versions. You can download the pack and test this for yourself. Let me know what you think.

I've tweaked my original message above for "safe versions" to:

1.00 -> 1.05b -> 1.07 -> 1.08 -> 1.09b -> | 1.10b (Beta 1) OR 1.10s (Beta 2) | -> 1.10f.

Screenshots

Phase Blade and Runes in 1.10b

1.10b -> 1.10s runes are gone!

1.10b (Beta 1) Made

1.10s (Beta 2) Made

1.10f Made

Runes! Runes! Runes!