Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Official Ladder News and FAQ - READ BEFORE POSTING LADDER QUESTIONS!!

[:1]Updated 3/28/2011



Patch notes for V1.13c

[BLUE="http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23766804014&postId=23764677531 8&sid=3000#0"]

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Diablo II Version History

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- Patch 1.13c

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A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Adventurers of Sanctuary are hereby warned once again, that a new challenge

awaits you. Within Diablo's Bosses, spanning across the world from the

ancient Monastery Catacombs to the Throne of Destruction, is where you'll

find what you seek...



Major Bugs

- Fixed an item dupe bug.

- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.

- Fixed an issue where some players could kill other players while in town

("TPPK").

- Fixed an issue where some players could disconnect other players when

they had too many active states.

- Fixed two issues where players could stack auras in an unintended way.



Minor Bugs

- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed

before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).

- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the

window loses and then regains focus.

- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in

windowed mode when it lost focus.

- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it

was created.

- Fangskin should now properly drop loot in Hell difficulty.

- Fixed an issue where auras were not re-applied to your mercenary after

it was resurrected.

- Fixed an issue where if you had two items which provided auras to

a mercenary and you unequipped one, the aura from the remaining

item never became active.

- Fixed an issue where the Paladin class runeword 'Principle' wasn't

having all of its stats applied properly.

- Fixed an issue where the Paladin's Charge ability would become locked

out if Holy Shield faded while charging.

- Fixed an issue where the Barbarian's Leap ability could become locked

out if they were hit when they started to leap.



Specific changes/improvements

- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest

will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players

who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in

Hell difficulty.

- Increased the drop rate of high runes.

- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be

maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).

- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items

required for Uber Tristam.

- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.

- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.

- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.

- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.

- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.

- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.

- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana

globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.

- When creating a single player game, each difficulty button is now bound

to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.

- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now

bound to the 'Enter' key.

- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).

- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to

not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing in windowed mode.

This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.

- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound

in background.

- Added the following aliases for pre-existing command line options,

'-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed'.



Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes



Amazon

- Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and

Immolation effect by 50%.

- Immolation Arrow - Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.

- Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.



Assassin

- Dragon Claw - Synergy receives 4% additional damage per point of Claw Mastery.

- Dragon Talon - The bonus to Attack Rating per point has been increased to 35.

- Shadow Master - Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.

- Combo points awarded by combo moves now last 15 seconds, up from 9.



Barbarian

- Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.

- Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.



Paladin

- Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.



Druid

- Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.

- Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.

- Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.



Necromancer

- Blood Golem - Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer

loses life when the golem takes damage).

- Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100%

to 70% - 120% of corpses health.

- Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.



Sorceress

- Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and

4% per point of Warmth.

- Blaze - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Firewall

and 4% per point of Warmth.

- Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.

- Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.

- Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%. [/BLUE]

Information about the ladder, ladder characters, etc. Last updated 6/10/2008



All other threads asking about when the next ladder will start are subject to being closed or deleted without warning.

Ladder Only Items

When playing on a ladder, there are Ladder Only Items.

These include but are not limited to Ladder Only Rune Words and Ladder Only Uniques.

These items only drup during the current ladder season, and only in ladder games. However, these items do end up in the non ladder population after any ladder season ends.

Character Types

There are two main character types on the Diablo II Realms: Normal and Ladder. Players choose these character types when creating their characters via check boxes as they are naming their characters.

Normal Characters



Any character that is not marked as a Ladder Character is a Normal Character. There are two types of Normal Characters:

Normal: Normal (also referred to as Core)(Non Hardcore)

Normal: Hardcore

Restrictions:

Normal Core: Characters can only join games with other Normal Core characters. They cannot join games with Hardcore characters, or ladder characters of any type.

Normal Hardcore: Characters can only join games with other Normal Hardcore characters. They cannot join games with Core characters, or ladder characters of any type. To create a Hardcore Character you must finish the game on Normal Difficulty.

Ladder Characters

A Ladder Character is a special character type that is allowed to compete on the ladder. These characters are separate from Normal Characters with their own games and economy.

All characters created before 1.10 are considered normal characters. Characters created before 1.10 do not have the option of being ladder characters. You must create a new character after patch 1.10 is released, and mark it as a ladder character to create a ladder character.

Characters created before patch 1.10 will not be able to join games with these new ladder characters, although they will be able to play with other normal characters that predate the 1.10 patch or characters created after 1.10 that are not created as ladder characters. This means that for the duration of the ladder season - which is yet to be determined - these ladder characters will exist in a new separate economy from the other Battle.net Diablo II characters. After the ladder season is over, all ladder characters become normal characters. To be on the ladder for the next season, players must create a new character and mark it as ladder, after the new season has begun.

Only Realm Characters can be Ladder Characters.

There are two types of Ladder Characters:

Ladder: Normal (also referred to as Core)(Non Hardcore)

Ladder: Hardcore

Restrictions:

Ladder Core: Characters can only join games with other Ladder Core characters. They cannot join games with Hardcore characters, or normal characters of any type.

Ladder Hardcore: Characters can only join games with other Ladder Hardcore characters. They cannot join games with core characters, or normal characters of any type. To create a Ladder Hardcore Character you must finish the game on Normal Difficulty.



What's the advantage to creating a Ladder Character?

This is similar to starting out on a brand new realm. Players will be able to experience Diablo II like when the game was first released. When the Ladder Season first begins, players start at Level 1 and do not have powerful items. They also cannot use powerful high-level items or other high-level characters to help them level up faster. Players create a character in a brand new world (ladder character world) where everything (economy, levels) starts from the beginning. The main advantage of creating a ladder character is being able to join in on a totally new economy where powerful items are very valuable.

What if I don't play ladder or don't want to compete on the ladder?

Although they are called ladder characters, players do not have to compete on the ladder to play. You can simply play at your own speed and not worry about how you are ranked on the ladder.

Can I convert existing characters to ladder characters?

No, you must flag a character as a ladder character when it is first created.

How long will the ladder season last?

No one knows, but Blizzard tends to give a few to several days warning before starting a new season.

What happens when the ladder season is over?

All ladder characters become either Normal Core or Normal Hardcore Characters depending on what type of Ladder Characters they are. If you want to be a Ladder Character for the next Ladder season you must create a new character and flag it as a Ladder Character.

Do I get to keep my Ladder Only Items when the season is over?

A: Yes. Any Ladder Only Items will be converted over when your character is converted to a Core character. These items can now be traded with other Core characters. That is the only way for Core characters to get ladder only items, as leftovers after a season is over.

Do I have to beat the game with a Ladder Character to create a Ladder Hardcore Character?

No, you can finish the game with either a Normal character or a Ladder character to unlock Ladder Hardcore Characters.

Can you convert a Ladder Character to a Normal Character?

No. Blizzard does this automatically when the Ladder Season ends.

In addition, there are several Horadric Cube formulae that will only work for a ladder character.

Example : Rune upgrading, runes can only be upgraded higher than Hel on the ladder. There are other ladder only formulae. They can be found here noted with (ladder only) in red: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/cube.shtml

The Gheeds Fortune Charm is also ladder only, meaning it drops in ladder.

Though it can be found in non ladder after the end of a ladder season.





Any news on when the next ladder will start ???



Ladder season 7 started on the 28th of March, 2011. It is unknown how long this season will last yet.



Where should I look for information on the next ladder ?



http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/



http://www.battle.net/

http://diablo.incgamers.com



How long was the last ladder season ??


Code:
Season 1: October 28, 2003 - July 8, 2004
Season 2: July 8, 2004 - August 8, 2005
Season 3: August 8, 2005 - June 25, 2007
Season 4: June 25, 2007 - June 17, 2008
Season 5: June 17, 2008 - March 23, 2010
Season 6: March 23, 2010 - September 28, 2010
Season 7: September 28, 2010 - March 28, 2011
Season 8: March 28, 2011 -

How long will the current ladder last ??



We do not know, it may last as long as the last ladder or it could be shorter.



Have any new runewords been found ?



Yes, as of DEC. 12, 2004 there are 23 new runewords released, though the details have not been released, only the name of the runeword and the rune formulae.



They were also being searched for in these threads :



http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=239239



http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=220217



http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=275917|||6/21/2007

Made some changes:

Updated ladder season start and end dates.|||06/10/2008:

Updated Ladder Season 4 reset information|||Main post updated.|||Main post updated on 3/23/2010.

V1.13C Patch notes included.

Need In-Game Help With Quests/Rushes/Muling/Ubers/Help? Ask Here!

[:1]When asking for help, please make note the following in your post:
  • Realm (West, East, Europe, Asia)

  • Softcore/Hardcore

  • Ladder/Nonladder



If you are looking for a fellow forumer to help you with something in-game, please post in this thread or make use of our Player Matchup forum. Individual threads of this nature appearing in Community will be deleted without notice.

If you wish to post your game name and password in this thread, do so at your own risk. Scammers read this forum too. If someone agrees to lend you a hand, it's best to exchange account name and game info through our Private Messaging feature. When you do meet up in-game, be sure to double-check your new friend's account name carefully to help ensure that you are indeed dealing with the same person you met here.

Please be aware that, although this is a very active forum, it often takes time to get a reply to your request. Also note that, depending on the time of day/night, there may not be any compatable forumers available to lend a hand. Such is life.

You May use this thread to:
  • Ask for help with quests, rushes, muling or ubers.

  • Ask for a fellow forumer to assist in moderating a trade.



You May Not use this thread to:
  • Beg for free items.

  • Ask item value questions.

  • Chat about the game, your life, etc.

|||I need some help muling:)

Europe/Softcore/Ladder

*nagelsax|||I can help.

*aeg

edit: That was some nice stuff. :)|||I used to play way back when, like three years ago. Now I've picked it back up and get to start from scratch!

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could rush me through the difficulties :smiley:

West/Softcore/Ladder

*rutlab|||Holy Ground? Nope...........................|||could anyone help me mule please?

europe sc ladder, *wigi|||i can help if you aint got it already..

*nagelsax|||Ne help needed with any kind of rush, xfers, etc. Just Whisper me in Game, same name as on here!



You can also find me on JSP as ScriptGimp also

:smile:

SERVER: US EAST

-Non Ladder SC

Hammerdin: lvl 92


**Pms through HERE(Diabloii.net) are also allowed**|||I could really use a hand with Chaos Sanct/Diablo on NM, on non-ladder Europe, if any kind soul would have the time to spare for this now with the new ladder madness.

The damn Iron Maiden is clearly an opponent I am not yet ready to tackle on my own, sadly.

*fadedfenix|||anyone got a smiter? prefer someone trust worthy not to jack the ani, uw sc lad btw

The Noodle Compound

[:1]Red Alert!!!!!



Flux sighting in Community at 14:50:00 hours!

Run for your lives!



Hide the beer!|||Curses! I was just going to post in here that I saw flux. And then you beat me to it!

Foiled again...|||Why are the OT threads always horribly misnamed? It's not Spring yet for weeks!|||better question... why are ot threads constantly allowed...|||Post on first page! woot!

Grabs a beer


Quote:








Why are the OT threads always horribly misnamed? It's not Spring yet for weeks!




It's spring in Norway... sort of. At least south in Norway :laugh:|||Razen, they are allowed because they are part of the community in general. If you don't like them you don't have to read them or post in them.|||I wondered how long the 'Summer '07' thread was going to last.|||*Occupy the first page*

And by the way, isn't Spring starts at March?|||I loved that game... and woot first page...|||Heck, with the weather in Sweden you can call it Spring, Winter or any you'd like since it changes like every hour