It may not have been the most tactful reply, so I apologize for that.
My biggest problem as of now is that people seem to think they have a clear understanding of our intentions, all the while not listening to what we've already laid out for the beta participants, and the public.
Did you know half of the criticisms you have with SotR aren't even valid?
Until now, each Annihilus patch was capitalizing on the previous one,
keeping what was working and improving the rest. It was a really slow
and careful process. For that new patch, they made things different.
Most of old annihilus and some of the original gameplay is gone.
That's probably why they wisely made Legacy and i'm really thankful
for that. I hope some of the work that have been made on SoR could
be used in a 7.0 patch for Annihilus Legacy.They're not gone.That being said, let's be critical and see if we can find something
good out of it. Annihilus end content. Maps, dreamland, cruci, etc...
I just can't imagine play the game without them any more.
We've said that already. We've laid out exactly how we're hosting the beta and conducting the beta process, but I'll repeat it again here.
We have changed a great deal of the damage and skill calculations in the game for the sole purpose of fixing bugs, improving damage accuracy, and improving transparency as far as understanding how your damage works. Damage in Diablo 2 is like a black box - you put stats in, you get something (maybe the right amount of damage, maybe not) out. That goes for vanilla Diablo 2 and (almost) every mod that has ever been created for it. All of the skills in the game have been re-balanced or reworked. The main objective of the first beta period, once again, is to test how those skills progress through the base game content (act 1 normal to act 5 hell). That is all. Period. Nothing else. Before we can begin to present the endgame, we cannot ignore the early game. We have laid this out again, so to say that the old Annihilus content is gone is just plain wrong. We've told you this, personally, and hopefully it's understood this time around.
The second beta, which will come out once the first beta's mission is accomplished, will include the endgame content as we start to flesh out the rift system. The rift system is a thematic re-imagining of the legacy Annihilus content to get it to fit a bit nicer in progression and Diablo 2 as a game overall. It will feature brand new early, mid, and endgame mechanics, and many secrets we won't reveal right now (Because that spoils the fun). Maps, crucible, the old bosses, they're coming back. Things like trials are not coming back, because they were universally a bad idea. They're abusable by design, so the idea is gone. The bosses from the trials will more than likely be kept, but that's all from that. Trust me when I say that we're not just throwing out Annihilus' content. This whole entire endeavor was to allow Annihilus content to shine and not be held back by completely destroyed balance as far as damage, and items that have forced Legacy to be plagued by an unfix-able power creep. The other mechanic that will be available in the second beta is the soul system, which will allow you to capture boss souls throughout progression to power your Annihilus charm. Various bosses will provide special boss souls that can be used to open up whole new build options. Again, this is not in the first beta, because testing progression is our priority at the moment.
The third beta will be the polishing up phase where we try to glue it all together properly. This beta may not even be necessary, depending on how proactive the testers are.
Annihilus Legacy is the current live Annihilus server, as is, bar none. It's not getting any updates, it's not changing, that's the end of that. Maybe in the future, but that future will probably never come.
Now, onto the other points you placed in here:
The cube was not meant to be used as storage. In fact, it's one of the most frustrating pieces of storage I've ever used in a game. In the current version of Annihilus, it's not so bad due to the lack of cube recipes, but back when the cube served a multitude of core functions as far as crafting? It was abysmal dropping your items on the ground just to transmute something. We're of the opinion that the basic acts of progression shouldn't be obfuscated behind cube recipes that aren't available for people to see in the game. To us, you shouldn't have to have the wiki open in the background as a requirement to playing the game. The game should stay in the game, and until we find a really (and I mean really) attractive solution to using the cube, it will stay as a tool only for specific mid/endgame uses. As for charms, I have to ask that you wait and see what we have in store for charms.1. Use of inventory, cube and charms.
All this years of Annihilus brought me to LOVE organizing my inventory
and cube. Using my cube both for storage and crafting purpose was a
pleasure. The cube is a masterpiece of diablo2 in my opinion. The more
i use it, the more i'm feeling good and happy. Have you seen that
bright light when you finally click on that transmute button? Have you
heard that lovely sound when you store your mess in it? I know you
love it too. Was it also necessary to delete all those sexy and useful
charms in order to transform your inventory into a shopping trolley?
That's the perfect job for the cube! Inventory customization with all
those charms was part of extending the fun while preparing your
character imo.
2. Walking and books.
I have been called obsessional and nostalgic for questioning that. But
aren't we all, playing and modding that game 20 years latter? I got so
sad when i discovered books disappeared that i thrown up on the new
auto-id system. Sorry for that. I just despite identification and
books have been lost in the process. About walking, just go back in
time and remember walking in Diablo1 Tristram. I think it does make
sense that you should get tired at some point after running all around
and also that you get more tanky standing still and walking than running.
If we're going to use David Brevik's take on Diablo 2, can we then agree that stamina is a bad idea? It’s a pointless mechanic that serves no purpose. If not, we’ll have to agree to disagree there. As for walking, you look back to a game like Diablo 1, but what you seem to forget is that the overall velocity of Diablo 1 is much different than any other ARPG in existence. The entire game is balanced around your movement speed as a player. All of the monsters move in a similar fashion. In Diablo 2, walking, in many cases, turns into running by mid/endgame with how fast you end up going. Stamina becomes just a waste of space with no purpose, and you get punished for not speed walking. Modern ARPGs (Basically everything after Diablo 1) favor speed of progression, velocity through mod density, and mechanically challenging boss fights.
If you enjoy walking, Player, just for you, I will give you the ability to walk, as long as you let me remove your ability to teleport (Which I also think is a bad mechanic in ARPGs, but that’s another discussion). Just because a feature exists in a timeless classic, doesn't mean it's infallible. If that were the case, nobody would make mods.
Books. Town Portal scrolls and books just became a formality with the removal of in game gold. That happened before I even showed up here, I should add. There was no purpose to forcing players to keep books and scrolls for those in your inventory, so we removed it. As for identification scrolls, I want to make it clear - we are NOT locked in on our opinion of that particular feature. The one thing we universally don’t like is the fact that you have to keep physical identification items in your inventory. If you remember, we ran a poll on this exact feature - and I’m sure you remember that overwhelmingly, the beta members voted in favor of auto identification. But it is a beta, so we may test other solutions, such as an innate identification skill. Short of that, if you just don’t agree, that's unfortunate.
Potions as they are in SotR are not making their way to Legacy. See above for that. On the topic of repairing, it's the same problem we had with books. It's free. It's just an inconvenience. We didn't see it enriching the game in any way, so we got rid of it. The reasoning is there - if you don't agree, we'll once again just have to agree to disagree.3. Potions and Repairing
I kind of liked those new magical pots. Can't we find a solution to use
them with old patch? Its probably complicated since all effects doesn't
match with Legacy but who knows, one day maybe? About repairing, i
try hard to understand how the decision has been made to simply delete
it. I guess someone said one day: "Hey, this shit is annoying and pointless."
And at this moment no one responded: "Wait a second, this is roleplay. It's
making sense that you can break your gear in the middle of the battle.
Maybe we can improve it in case we make some end content where we'll
need to spend hours without going back intown."
We're considering basically that exact same solution to that problem.4. More players affect droprate.
I heard alex saying that this may come back at some point so i won't
insist to explain why this is a good thing. Obviously it does need
improvement to prevent the loading toons trick and to actually make
things better for those who love to play together.
> I already made a thread about this one year ago. (http://annihilus.net/showthread.php?t=12880) Forest responded with the perfect solution: "imo drop chance should increase still if you're within xp range of your party members.". This would be such a huge improvement! I'm sure this will also make Guilds much stronger. It's a must needed improvement.
Legacy has far too many problems to list, and far too many problems that enable other problems. Of those problems, most of them can't be fixed without a full server wipe. Guess what? That's almost exactly what we're doing with SotR.Legacy end content is perfect. Few improvements would make him
godlike. I do think marks should come back. They could work along
with trial. I'm not seeing any issue about getting those two working
together. They were 100% Annihilus. Beautiful stones and fanzy
gameplay to open them. I would jerk off just to pick up one again.
Chtulhu altar should go back on tracks. I loved to get extra goodies
from boxes there and it actually gave another good reason to collect
blue organs. Some project was to make maps corruptable in order
to get some extra boss in it that would give some more drop. That
idea was genius. Who should we masturbate to get it up again?
The haunted forest area is awesome and gives a legit way to get
those new charms without Halloween event. It would be so sexy to
use it (a little bit smaller) as an extra crucible level.
We're putting in the time and effort to make this project successful, the hours are rough, so if I come across as crass, forgive me. We need people who are going to be on our side. That side is on the side of making this expansion the best it can possibly be. That means testing, that means giving us feedback on SotR, that means engaging in discussions about it on the forum through the proper channels, and it also means taking off the nostalgia blinders and thinking a bit more objectively about what makes a game fun.
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