Post by Admin on Jul 5, 2009 14:40:56 GMT -6
I've got a mod for you that will totally revamp the game and give you massive replay value. Median XL:
modsbylaz.planetdiablo.gamespy.com/
This has occupied all my time for the past week, and that's on ONE CHARACTER. It's primary change (in addition to changing up all the characters/skill trees) is in making the Horadric Cube infinitely more useful. To sum up my favorite parts (not to sound like the website itself, which you should definitely look through before playing the mod, anyway):
- The Cube, which you have from the beginning of the game, is much bigger:
- All wearable items, besides jewelry, have Tiers (indicated by a number after the item name and any runewords (which are also changed up) or other prefixes/suffixes). The higher the Tier, the greater the damage, defense, etc -- but also higher level and stat requirements:
- More Gem Types offer a greater variety of stat modification:
Yes, that's 2% increase to TOTAL resistances. With enough gems, you could theoretically boost resistances to 100, halving elemental damage.
Cube Features:
- Add sockets to items by cubing them with unused Jewels (not Gems). Total possible socket count is limited by Tier, however, and you can't add more later. Check the site's Item list to see maximum socket number for each tier.
- Find or purchase "Mystic Orbs" which you can cube with items to gain a boost in stats, resistance, or even things like REDUCING enemy resistances:
There are, of course, rarer MOs that you can find from enemy drops at higher difficulties, usually with bigger level bumps as well.
Note: In the armor and weapon pics I provided above, a lot of those upgrades/perks came with Mystic Orbs -- notice the level requirement increase at the bottom of the perk list.
- Gems and Runes now only take two of the same to upgrade to the next level (which partially explains my massive perfect gem count. The other part of that is that, in the upper difficulties, you're finding normal (no prefix gems), MINIMUM. And they're common.
- Cube Unique or Set Items that you don't need with a Mana potion of any level and get 'Arcane Shards'. Cube 5 shards together to get an Arcane Crystal. Cube THAT with an item, and increase its tier (and get the appropriate stat jumps).
- But none of the cubing is that simple. For each Tier, you need more 'crafting points', a stat granted by an item or by Ring/Amulet MOs. To cube two Flawless gems for a Perfect, you need 50 points, total, when all of your equipment is added up. Tier 1 to Tier 2 requires 50 points; 2 to 3, 100; 3 to 4, 150; and so on. Highest Tier is 6th, AKA "Sacred" Tier.
If you don't have D2, there's a torrent out there I can vouch for -- PM me if you want the link. I used it until I found out about the newest D2 Patch, which is needed for the mod -- no CD is required. So, since Median XL doesn't support Battle.net anyway, I asked my brother for his copy of D2 and installed it, gave it back to him, and patched. You can also manually patch even that torrented version, yes, and run it fine.
So why do I like this mod so much? Well, because it's so complete. Most 'mods' are like, "WELL, I GIVE CUBE AT START OF GAME AND BIGGER STASH AND INVENTORY". Yes, this mod does that, too. However, but for the fact that, of course, missions are the same, it's almost a completely different game. Classes have different skillsets, there are a ton of new perks, runewords are changed up, and best of all, there is a massive increase in Cube usefulness (see the Cube Recipes section of the website, found in the Items Menu). I am sure that I am going to drive every class I can up to the L. 100 mark at the least, and with my current character (Paladin) at 70-something, already he's insanely overpowered -- but so are the enemies. And this is only Terror (second difficulty level), Act 2.
Even AFTER I beat the game on Destruction (hardest difficulty), there are "Uberlevels" for me to undertake: subquests that turn some of the old optional dungeons/areas from the original game into situational missions. It's not the original at all: go into a 'cave', and the Kurast 3000 BA mission starts -- waves of skeletons attack, rendered invulnerable from statues that you have to destroy before you can do anything to them -- oh yeah, and the statues create more as time goes on. That's the EASIEST uberlevel.
modsbylaz.planetdiablo.gamespy.com/
This has occupied all my time for the past week, and that's on ONE CHARACTER. It's primary change (in addition to changing up all the characters/skill trees) is in making the Horadric Cube infinitely more useful. To sum up my favorite parts (not to sound like the website itself, which you should definitely look through before playing the mod, anyway):
- The Cube, which you have from the beginning of the game, is much bigger:
- All wearable items, besides jewelry, have Tiers (indicated by a number after the item name and any runewords (which are also changed up) or other prefixes/suffixes). The higher the Tier, the greater the damage, defense, etc -- but also higher level and stat requirements:
- More Gem Types offer a greater variety of stat modification:
Yes, that's 2% increase to TOTAL resistances. With enough gems, you could theoretically boost resistances to 100, halving elemental damage.
Cube Features:
- Add sockets to items by cubing them with unused Jewels (not Gems). Total possible socket count is limited by Tier, however, and you can't add more later. Check the site's Item list to see maximum socket number for each tier.
- Find or purchase "Mystic Orbs" which you can cube with items to gain a boost in stats, resistance, or even things like REDUCING enemy resistances:
There are, of course, rarer MOs that you can find from enemy drops at higher difficulties, usually with bigger level bumps as well.
Note: In the armor and weapon pics I provided above, a lot of those upgrades/perks came with Mystic Orbs -- notice the level requirement increase at the bottom of the perk list.
- Gems and Runes now only take two of the same to upgrade to the next level (which partially explains my massive perfect gem count. The other part of that is that, in the upper difficulties, you're finding normal (no prefix gems), MINIMUM. And they're common.
- Cube Unique or Set Items that you don't need with a Mana potion of any level and get 'Arcane Shards'. Cube 5 shards together to get an Arcane Crystal. Cube THAT with an item, and increase its tier (and get the appropriate stat jumps).
- But none of the cubing is that simple. For each Tier, you need more 'crafting points', a stat granted by an item or by Ring/Amulet MOs. To cube two Flawless gems for a Perfect, you need 50 points, total, when all of your equipment is added up. Tier 1 to Tier 2 requires 50 points; 2 to 3, 100; 3 to 4, 150; and so on. Highest Tier is 6th, AKA "Sacred" Tier.
If you don't have D2, there's a torrent out there I can vouch for -- PM me if you want the link. I used it until I found out about the newest D2 Patch, which is needed for the mod -- no CD is required. So, since Median XL doesn't support Battle.net anyway, I asked my brother for his copy of D2 and installed it, gave it back to him, and patched. You can also manually patch even that torrented version, yes, and run it fine.
So why do I like this mod so much? Well, because it's so complete. Most 'mods' are like, "WELL, I GIVE CUBE AT START OF GAME AND BIGGER STASH AND INVENTORY". Yes, this mod does that, too. However, but for the fact that, of course, missions are the same, it's almost a completely different game. Classes have different skillsets, there are a ton of new perks, runewords are changed up, and best of all, there is a massive increase in Cube usefulness (see the Cube Recipes section of the website, found in the Items Menu). I am sure that I am going to drive every class I can up to the L. 100 mark at the least, and with my current character (Paladin) at 70-something, already he's insanely overpowered -- but so are the enemies. And this is only Terror (second difficulty level), Act 2.
Even AFTER I beat the game on Destruction (hardest difficulty), there are "Uberlevels" for me to undertake: subquests that turn some of the old optional dungeons/areas from the original game into situational missions. It's not the original at all: go into a 'cave', and the Kurast 3000 BA mission starts -- waves of skeletons attack, rendered invulnerable from statues that you have to destroy before you can do anything to them -- oh yeah, and the statues create more as time goes on. That's the EASIEST uberlevel.
