I was playing the Original diablo 1 yesterday with my Brother and Father, I realized there were lots of doors to open. The only doors i've needed to open in the SC2 remake were only the bosses. Why is that? Also are you planning on adding the monk barbarian and the bard from Hellfire? Last thing i need to state is that when i was doing multiplayer i found a passage to Hell in town. I tried to go in it but it said you require lvl 17 to go to hell. I believe the way to do hell levels is to make sure that the player is lvl 17 before activating (and going) to HELL

I didn't add doors because monsters are respawning. Else it would be possible that 50 monsters spawn in a small area while the population in the dungeon shrinks very fast.
In addition to that, teaching monsters to use doors would require me to code all of the pathfinding and that would most likely cost a lot of performance. Also, I would need to code all of the monster AI then.

I would like to create more classes one day. Since the monk has sound files afaIk, it's likely that I might add him. But since I plan to add skills like in D2, it's a long road till then. Just moving around and attacking melee isn't super exciting with D2 and D3 in your head where you constantly use your skills.

Shortcuts into the deeper dungeons need to be opened by yourself before they become visible for you in my diablo version. So, you have to find the corresponding stairs in the dungeon and use it once per hero. Then you can use them every game to enter the dungeon.

edit:

news:
- I improved the performance of loading dungeons. ConvertStringToUnitType was a function I didn't require and which required 1 real time second per dungeon.
- I fixed a problem in the data for monster casts. Now it will cost less performance, if those units are outside the range of a hero.
- I just learned that we can alter/add tactical AI and that would be the best way to deal with spell usage. I hope I can improve my map with that someday after learning how to use its strengths.

edit:
Updated to version 0.415.


Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 2 2013, 3:20 pm by Ahli.

If you were going to make it so the monsters could open doors I think only a specific type of monster on that specific dungeon level should be able to open doors. So you wouldn't have to code them all. Ex: The Butcher, Leoric, etc

Hey Ahli, been playing your map again and noticed that if you have a portal open and you go into Farnhams Cellar and then leave, you can no longer use your portal. You can still go down to where it was and go through it from there, but you still are unable to enter it from town. Figured I would let you know of this issue.

Anyways on a positive note, I am really glad you finished up all the catacombs quests! ^_^ So many skeletons to fight in Chamber of Bone level. Have you decided how you might approach adding in Hell Levels since it appears you are done with all the current missing locations?

Also when do you believe you might have the skills available for the warrior class? I saw the vid you posted and really would like to be able to put those skills to use on my warrior guy.

Thanks for the report. Found and fixed the issue.

I think I'm going to try to fit the hell levels into the map replacing the cathedral levels when hell is activated... but I need to test if that works...

I wanted to release the skills in a tree... maybe... I've 16 skills on my list that I need to implement to have 18 skills for Rogue and Warrior.
So, I would release that when I've put that all in a usable form.

I still don't know how I should approach the Sorcerer. Maybe a passive tree that improves the arcane spells?... :S

Well using passives would probably be a good way to improve spell damage or just generally improve sorceror ability. You might also maybe consider having the synergy bonuses for spells be something that's part of the skill tree as well? Like having Fire Bolt mastery would also improve fireball and hydra similar to how it works in Diablo 2? I still think that a improved regeneration for Sorceror might be a nice skill to be able to improve.

Secondly, have you considered that maybe the skill tree could enhance spells already being used in a different way? Such as maybe a spell that would allow single piercing of charged bolts or if thats too powerful maybe allow it to add an additional bolt per skill level, max of like 3 for that one since that could get a little OP? For Firebolt, could be a similar thing or maybe a little different. Maybe for firebolt passive could make it have a small aoe similar to fireball and then for fireball you could have it be an even larger aoe with possibly a 1 square Fire Wall at the impacted area? These could be of course things you can get from skill points though not stuff that would already come with the spells right away. You could still expand the Sorcerors arcane damage tree though since theres only like one arcane spell available(flash). I don't know how exactly you could go about this but of course you could always use spells like those found in The Hell. Also maybe you could add in knowledge passives since the Sorceror is known to be the most knowledgeable of the 3 classes. Maybe you could choose from one of 3 skills that could enable you to deal criticals to a certain monster race with magic attacks or something. You could just make the critical damage diminished rather than double damage like physical classes have. Maybe a 15-20-25% bonus critical damage and you could also have a critical chance increase per point spent. Just a few ideas I had, might post more later if I think of them.

P.S. In regards to the arcane thing I was mostly just trying to think of things that only the Sorceror should be able to have spellwise. Of course you have the magic limit so that technically only the Sorceror would be able to fully use certain spells but I would very much like the idea of certain spells only acquirable for the Sorceror via skills. You might also consider adding in like golem mastery similar to the one in Diablo 2 for the Necromancer so you can improve your golem.

Hmm, if I can come up with interesting improvements to spells, it might work. Maybe multiple ways to improve/alter a spell, so the user can chose from something and decide how he wants to use his spell.

This is a bit like D3's skill stuff, just with D2 skill points that you need to spend. You would be required to have a spell learned to improve it with your points... yes, that can work out. Thanks for your suggestions.

edit:

news:
- I implemented everything required to make a hell dungeon creation possible within the map. Opening the hell dungeon will remove the cathedral levels in the map.
- I don't know how well I can alter the ground. Maybe I just flood it with red liquid... like hell's ground is flooded by blood. You need to know that D1's hell is not the same hell that you visit in D2. D1's one is just some sort of manifestation within the mortal realm while you really enter the hell realm in D2 via the portal to hell that Diablo and Mephisto opened.
- I'm going to change the Archbishop Lazarus quest to make a proper entry into hell (which can explain why you can't enter the cathedral dungeon anymore... shifting dimensions, string theory, magic, etc...). I never liked that you simply walked into "hell" in D1. One does not simply walk into hell by walking 13 floors downwards...
- I need models for hell. Pretty important would be a Diablo model with a few animations. SC2 has a model of diablo for the campaign which isn't thaaat bad, but it has no animations... the direction the anatomy of that diablo model is relatively fine, though. Also, I need walls consisting out of bones, impaled corpse models, etc. Some evil, terrorizing hell doodads...

Well, at least I started with the hell dungeon.. "I must be getting close."

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 7 2013, 12:20 am by Ahli.

There is already a Diablo model in SC2? Wait for what campaign is this for?

Secondly, I would love to be able to help you find "doodads" for this use but I have not really ever used the SC2 Editor so I doubt I would be able to provide much assistance. However it might help if I knew how you even get custom models for your map without having some kind of 3-D editing software to use in the first place for making your own 3D models.

Also I agree that it should have been a little more descriptive about how you got into "hell". But since this game is based off of the original Diablo game, you could always just use the theory you presented first in that it is just Diablo's will mutating his surroundings in a primitive manifestation of what hell might look like. Because of this though, you wouldn't have to go too far out but personally I think the Maiden of Anguish quest from Diablo: The Hell was a much better representation of what hell should have looked like in the original game. Much more ominous and foreboding in my personal opinion. (Secondly the music that played during it was awesome as well. I wish I could get that track they made for it just as stand alone. )

You could always consider the way the ground looks like in the original Diablo Butchers chamber could be how the ground looks like in hell in this version as well. Although I am unsure how you would translate that into map physics for SC2 Editor...

Lastly, I am very happy that you are starting work on the hell levels and it looks like you may have figured out a way around the map limitation on rooms as well!

The diablo model appears in WoL and in HotS campaign. For example, you can find him in the mission where you gather resources for Tosh on that lava planet. In the south east area of the map, you can see him standing around. But he can't do more than standing around with his animations. =/

SC2 doesn't have proper doodads. My only source for models is the wow model viewer. For everything else I have to depend on other people.

Do you mean the layout of the dungeon walls in that quest area? I just watched a video and it contains out of huge areas with smaller walls placed within. Also, I liked the red light in that dungeon. I didn't play with lights in dungeons, yet. SC2 supports 4 layers of lights, so I got 3 layers I could use in dungeons.
Here is that video. It also shows the bone walls appearing in hell. I wish I had models of those...


^ Diablo The Hell mod

The problem in sc2 is that I can't alter ground textures on the fly. Maybe it's possible to use splats for that, but I think it will have problems with the black fog I use. I would need to test it. Else, I need to use water.

When I use the music in The Hell mod, then I would need to ask Mordor and/or the music creators for permission.

Ah I see. I never actually completed the SC2 Campaign yet, it's something that is on my "To-Do" list heh. I did however play that map I think, but I am not really a Terran player and those random ling attacks plus the rising and falling lava levels annoyed me too much to not just get the mission done and over with.

Anyways besides that, I thought you said there was no way of getting those wall textures into SC2 because it was an "image" and not an actual model? The lighting thing though was nice in that mod although I would probably prefer it to not be THAT dark since it sometimes made things hard to see in some levels.

I did have another idea though regarding how you could make the levels look different. I was wondering since you had lava working in the cave levels it appears that you are able to overlap ground on top of eachother in the case of bridges. Would you consider maybe using some kind of grating-like ground texture for the hell levels? That way you would seemingly be walking overtop of the "lava" or whatever texture you wanted to give it. I mostly got this idea from the crypt levels in Diablo: The Hell. Let me see if I can find a video depicting it.

Also I am unsure how hard it would be to add in a grating-like floor since both are technically using the same rooms, but for the cathedral levels maybe you could have a different underlying texture or just somehow have a different top texture instead so nobody could tell there was liquid under it?

I just think a ground effect like this could add a cool feeling to the hell levels but of course it might not give the right feel. It is up to you to decide of course and if it is even possible to have this kind of thing be in the map.

Also I did a little hunting and found this video, but it might be incompatible with the newer versions of SC2:

I liked this one since it shows an actual attack animation as well as walking animations. The angel model is just a statue though so you probably wouldn't have any use for that.

Ah thanks. I found that Diablo model on mapster and on the korean site where it was posted.

It doesn't have the classic Diablo look, but it's the best diablo model that I can get my hands on.

edit:
- I just experienced a bug with the yellow stone of stuffing when used on staffs with spells... It's deleting the spell... Going to fix that with the next update then.
- I'm able to change the ground texture via a splat actor created in the dungeon

edit:
I'm going to update my map when I've a solution for trigger-created Actors with Snapshots. When I've solved that, the map should have less units in a dungeon meaning it loads/saves faster and costs less performance as long as the dungeon is active.

edit:
news:
- layout of the walls for hell dungeons seems finished
- finished implementation of 2 quests of the hell levels. Now only Diablo & Lazarus are remaining and maybe an improvement for the Anvil of Fury quest.

edit:
Updated to version 0.416.

edit:

For my skills I require one more Lightning spell that is aquired by books.
I will consider the following ones as Lightning:
- Chain Lightning
- Charged Bolt
- Lightning
- Nova
- Teleport

I need a low-mid magic requiring spell that can be count to the lightning type. Then I would have 6 spells per type: fire, magic, lightning.

I could make Mana Shield count as lightning, if a magic spell would be better. Maybe Bloodstar or something like Bone Spirit with magic damage? That doesn't sound too bad.

-----
As I initially planned, the spell book levels will improve the skills for Warrior and Rogue. Then I would have 90 levels (1-15 per arcane spell) which act as synergies for the other skills.

I'm going to start to think about the Sorcerer's "skills" where he can alter the arcane spells with his skill points to add additional effects or alter them in another style. Also, he needs some passive skills that can alter the way you play/build your Sorcerer. For example, casting spells with a percentage of the costs as life instead of mana...

edit:

I just found out that it's now possible to detect right clicks on dialog items. I'm going to improve the UI with that like right clicks will "use" items instead of shift + click.

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Jun 17 2013, 7:04 pm by Ahli.

Regarding the Lightning Spell thing: I probably mentioned this already before but maybe you could use Blood Star spell to count for all 3 magic types. Either you could allow the player to choose what type of damage it does which would also change the color to indicate what it does. Also along this line each one would do something different. For instance a "fire" based blood star could be red colored and have a slightly smaller AoE and also this would be considered a synergy boost for fireball since it would be a fire based spell. For lightning it would be a yellow star and maybe you shoot 3 of them similar to how the multishot skill works for rogue class, being of course lightning based it would act as a synergy boost to either lightning or chain lightning. And of course magic it could either work like it does in vanilla or maybe you could add in a piercing effect for the magic version? Also of course this one would be blue to go along with the theme heh.

However simply making the Mana Shield spell a lightning spell would be fine but I don't really know how it could receive boosts from other spells aside from maybe small duration boosts from every lightning spell level you know. OR! What you could do instead is maybe do something similar to the blood star example I gave above. You could have each of the 3 magic schools have their own version of mana shield. For the fire version maybe it would have a chance to cast a firebolt at ranged or melee targets similar to the way ice armor works in D2. You can decide if you would want the firebolt effect or not I just figured it would go along with the theme. Note that you would most likely have to have it fairly nerfed or a pretty low chance to proc or it would be OP. Then for the lightning version you could maybe have a lightning based flash spell that may have a low chance of proccing when you are hit. For the Arcane version it could just be the way it works normally but here's the real bonus: the arcane version would have the highest absorb out of the 3. You could decide of course how much of a handicap you would want to give the other 2 versions based on balancing and such, maybe like half the absorbtion or maybe half the duration or a third idk, you can figure that out probably lol.

Also regarding the level 15 max for spells might need a little tweaking considering I doubt the warrior and rogue could learn these spells unless they go full on magic which would defeat the purpose of playing those classes over a Sorcerer imo. Of course if you are thinking of modifying how the spells work for them and the Sorcerer as well as the magic costs for them learning spells compared to the Sorcerer provided the Sorcerer is not limited to only 15 spell levels himself.

I was also thinking of another passive option if you wanted to change up how people could play their char a bit. Maybe have a choice between 2 passive skills: one of these skills would grant you a bonus to your magic stat thus allowing you to learn higher level spells, but the other one could give you a magic damage % boost allowing you to deal more damage with spells you learn. I am thinking though that the second one might be fairly OP if you don't give it a fairly low % damage increase. Maybe the magic boost one gives you like +25 magic and then the damage boost one might give you like 5-10% more magic damage or something.

Edit: I just recently got my internet back so I have been playing on Version 0.415 so you may have fixed this problem in Version 0.416. But in case you haven't, I will let you know that it seems like there can be a conflict in doodad placement and the Halls of the Blind room entrance. I found this out in one of the recent games I played which will be displayed in the screenshot at the bottom. As you can see in the screenshot the crate is completely blocking the whole doorway entrance into the room so it is impossible to complete the quest.

Edit 2: I also discovered something rather interesting that I figured I would share as well. I found out that it is possible to stack the %gold find bonuses together on a single rare item. I realized this because the item I found it on was giving a 75% bonus to gold find and only required level 13 to use. I know for a fact that to get 75% gold find normally on an item requires the Mcduck's prefix which requires level 30 to use. Secondly if you notice in the screenshot the item only has 2 buffs on it and every rare item comes standard with 3 buffs on them which also indicates a stacked buff.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 20 2013, 6:02 am by SeraphicStar. Reason: Forgot to add something to original post

I can't wait for hell to be finished. Keep working hard at it, my lv 35 sorc can't wait either >.<

Wow, I am so glad I stumbled upon this thread. Your map looks quite impressive, Ahli! I am about to play it now, though when I initially searched for it I turned up no results for Diablo. I think the space (Dia blo) is more harmful than helpful.

Will spam-clicking on the cows open up a portal to the Secret Cow Level, as was foretold many moons ago? =oD

This intrigues me. I thought the map limit was 20mb, so when I read this I expected to have to download the map from this thread -- especially when it didn't turn up in my first search. How is a map able to exceed the 20mb limit and still be fully usable over Battlenet? I am just starting to get into SC2 mapping, so sorry for what is probably a pretty newb question.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 28 2013, 7:43 am by Hercanic.

"Diablo" is a word that I can't use. The editor won't publish the map with such a filename. I still wanted to name it Diablo in some way because that's what I've created, so I added a space into the name to be able to publish it.

No... at least not in the current development progress... I planned to add it in some way, but I've a space problem... so it's not that easy. I guess I will do what I did to allow myself to add hell: permanent removal of dungeons after certain actions.

I think the file size might be unlimited now.
At least, you were always able to push your imported files into mods and add a dependency to them. That's how you can use more.

Also, battle.net doesn't delete files (it's just hiding them), so, in theory, you got unlimited space, if you delete your published mods after adding the dependency into your map...

Played the map for 5 hours today -- boy did time get away from me! Very nostalgic. You did a phenomenal job, Ahli!

A couple suggestions:
1. I never liked how the Diablo spell swapping system worked. It always felt clunky to me, where hitting a hotkey swapped the skill on your right mouse button rather than just casting the ability. Back in the day, it was on the F1 to F* whatever keys, way up there on the keyboard and difficult to use comfortably. I'm glad you're at least using Q through T, but I wish it was more modern by actually just using the ability when pressed.

2. I've played Path of Exile quite extensively, and like how you included their "item finessing" system. However, I think even that system could be improved. Both here and in PoE, you are innately encouraged to horde these items. They are too rare to waste on low-level loot; you want as many as possible saved up for later when you try rolling for your 'perfect' end-game gear. Because they are items, they also demand a lot of micro-management.

I've thought about how PoE's system could be better, and one idea is to move all the functions onto the Blacksmith or an Enchanter, and have a gold cost based on the action and the level of the item it is being used on. This removes the hassle of juggling tons of little 1x1 items, and opens the system up to players at all stages of the game with the scaling gold cost. The downside is you lose out on the loot-drop excitement, and each function is less limited (if I only have two of a type of oil, I can only use it twice). You could achieve some limitation through additional tiered crafting reagents, though.

Another idea would be keeping these items, but giving them 'charges', where lower-level items consume less charges than higher level items. It'd still have the tedium of item management, but you keep the "ooo what just dropped?!"


When I search for "Diablo" I get two maps by a dude named MarineDiablo and a third map titled SanDiablo 1.0. This tells me you can circumvent Blizzard's limitation by attaching a few other letters onto it.

If you were to name your map "DiabloMortalShroud", it should come up on searches for Diablo. You could play around with the name in other ways, too. Maybe "iDiablo - Mortal Shroud"? You get the idea.


I see. Well, here's to hoping!

You're probably already aware, but the whole Secret Cow Level came about from a Diablo 1 hoax that said if you clicked on the cows enough times, like a SC1 critter, a portal would open to a secret level. I think it'd be kinda cool to make that hoax a reality. =o)


So when a user tries to play a map with a 100mb custom mod dependency, they download both the map and the mod archive, right? That's crazy! But, why even have the size limitation on maps when it can be circumvented like that? Is there some sort of tradeoff? I don't get it.

The unlimited size trick sounds utterly lolzy!

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 28 2013, 3:46 pm by Hercanic.

I'm aware of that problem. I thought about giving these items tiers in some way. But I think that won't feel right. Another idea I had was that the item would save a max level value within itself. So, let's say an oil potion dropped from a monster with level 10, then the oil can be used only on items till level 15, etc... That would encourage selling or using the items on your gear immediately instead of hoarding them. Since I've no stacks for items, this seems like a nice solution. In a stacked item environment, this wouldn't be possible or the item's couldn't stack unless the max level fits.
I would need to display a level on items, too, if I add that. Creating levels for items wouldn't be a problem, though.


I assume they wanted to prevent people from using it as a data storage or reducing the amount of memory space they need to provide for the user content.

Btw, I was thinking about the skill hotkeys, too. I thought about adding a way to directly cast them or transfer them onto the mouse buttons using another button, but direct usage seems more natural I suppose.

Fixed a few things, added small chance to spawn the item that grants access to the current state of hell.

It has no hell wall models, doodads nor quest level nor last level... but the dungeon has a unique wall pattern and monsters.

Hey Ahli, just wanted to say thanks for allowing us a chance to get a glimpse of a few of the new hell dungeon levels. I have yet to find the item myself though. I was wondering if you can only find this item in the caves level 4 or if you can find it on any of the cave levels? Also can you only find it from certain monsters there or is it like the anvil of fury/fungal tome items in that it just spawns somewhere in the dungeon level.

Anyway if it is the latter, I discovered something rather disturbing regarding the way the current cave maps seem to spawn. Mostly regarding the right edge of the maps there seems to be some kind of glitching going on resulting in missing wall segments. This of course allows you to go "outside the map" per se. I will post a few screenshots of this but I noticed in the few runs I did that it can happen on any of the 4 cave levels.
Also regarding this monsters seem to be able to spawn outside of the level as well. I do not know if they always are able to spawn outside of the level or only when you are outside the level as well. I suppose I could start trying to use the infravision spell from the optic amulet to check for sure.

Anyway I also had one more question for ya. Do those new skills you showed in that one video awhile back still need a fair amount of work? Or are you missing skill ideas to fully flesh out all of the classes skill tree? And do you have all the skills you are planning on giving them in mind but still need to work on implementing them?

It spawns somewhere in the dungeon level. The spawn chance is about 2.4%, so very rare.

Oh... that's not supposed to happen.

I'm missing ideas for the Sorcerer and I require more time that I currently don't have to be able to finish the skills. Another problem is that there aren't many effects/animations I can work with.