I Dusted My Diablo Disc

[Alienated]

Diablo was one of the first PSX games I played... and enjoyed. I anicipated Diablo 2 very much but it was disappointingly easy. I got to Tristram and killed the zombie Griswold without distributing any points or skills and that's where I got bored of Diablo 2 and abandoned it. I remember how hard the Butcher and the Skeleton King were in Diablo on just the SECOND and THIRD level.

 

So now I tried to play Diablo without any points distributed. I planned to use elixirs of STR, MAG, VIT, DEX as many as I could buy but I abandoned that idea because I collected a half a million gold coins. I used some shrines and the spectral elixir to boost my stats and the elixirs found in dungeons. And I bought and used three elixirs of STR before I abandoned the idea. So I could beat the game with a warrior with 43 STR and now I am playing a rouge and a warrior quest parallelly with the original stats; no shrines, no elixirs at all.

 

I browsed through the Diablo forums and saw no such thing. I am not a member of those forums and I never will be so I enquire here; what is your opinion? Have you played a challenge Diablo game? Do you feel the urge to try one?

 

Anyway, this challenge isn't so great as it seems. The HP and mana are increased at each level up and I noticed that your attack power also increases at certain levels. Add some useful weapons and armor and you go like a tank. Almost. Actually the Gnarled Root was my favourite weapon because it can be used by starter characters too (no high STR REQ) and does great damage. I felled Diablo with it. The only drawback of it is I have to repair it on almost every level (DUR 20/20).

 

I can report more about my quests if you request.

[Bomb Bloke]

I also first played Diablo on the PSX. Achieved about five or six levels before someone came over and explained how to assign points and stuff. No memory card space, so I couldn't save, I was just messing around at a friend's place after a sleepover, waiting for them to wake up.

 

Later got the full thing for PC, but never found much challenge in it. Once found the enemies all started to take in way more damage for some reason - took me a while to work out I'd busted my weapon and had cleared out a couple of dungeon levels with my fists.

 

Now, if you want a challenge, that'd be Diablo II, all three difficulties, all patches installed, without using any guides/FAQs. If you don't build your character correctly, you will lose, and since you can't re-assign points... Well, you see where this is going in terms of being a "challenge".

 

Me, I got my Paladin halfway through the ratmen jungle on the highest difficulty, then they released the final patch - each one they put out made the game a bit harder, and this one cranked things to the point where the frickin' mosquitoes would freeze and red-line me with a single blow.

 

Well, maybe they released more patches after that, I don't know. I gave up.

 

Barbarian might be a bit easier, my brother played one in hardcore mode, eventually got killed by Diablo's mage guard things on the second difficulty mode.

[Alienated]

So there is a reason why they patched Diablo 2 so many times. The original version was too easy, wasn't it? And certainly there is a reason why I don't play PC games. There is hardly a PC game debugged and beta tested properly. I don't say PSX games are far better than that in that aspect, I say PC games are just unfinished crap. As a comparison, you buy a Porsche for a lot of money and they give you instructions what and where you should replace mocked parts or install missing parts otherwise you can't drive your car.

 

For your achievements in Diablo, I mean playing without a save and the like, I can congratulate, maybe you are a talented man or you played many games before Diablo. You know it counts how much you are versed in video gaming. For me, everything was so new in Diablo that I could hardly tell what to do. Now I know Diablo is a very eased rougelike game, nothing new, nothing complicated. It is a very good game to introduce gamers into the rougelike genre. There are far better rougelike games than Diablo. Unfortunately the businessmen don't like the genre, and they just don't release such on platforms like PSX. The 99% of PSX games are brainless crap.

 

And I am not alone in the opinion about Diablo 2. The guy who gave me the game to try also told me he rather played Diablo than Diablo 2. They invented a lot of things that made the game more complicated but not better. And without guides and FAQs, EVERY game is hard. Without proper knowledge about what does what, the player just feels in darkness and struggle to beat the game. With proper knowledge, he finds the game a silly and easy one and immediately has a lot of ideas how the game could have been made far better. Proper documentation could just disqualify the developers, maybe this is the reason why such as Prima releases user guides way after the game release.

 

Probably you, BombBloke, know me by my posts as never satisfied man, which is wrong. There are (or used to be) some software companies and their games I am 100 per cent satisfied so far. Maybe 99. I know there is quality in video games and can recognise it. Diablo on PSX is not the cathegory. For example I discovered some annoying bugs now that I know much better the workings of the game, I even managed to crash the program dead by completely normal playing (therefore I am not talking about foolproof).

 

You wrote you cleared out a couple of dungeon levels with your fist. You probably played the warrior class. And it isn't much challenge fisting monsters to death because the weapon strength doesn't make much difference in Diablo. For example you give a dagger to a character with 40-40 basic damage, his damage increases to 40-44. Now you can lay your bet on a fight of an expert fist fighter and an expert knife fighter in reality... I for one would certainly bet on the latter. Video games can be silly, all right.

 

The point in my challenge game (I know this isn't a challenge for you, BombBloke) is that I the player have to combine the equipment very carefully and I experienced the 99 per cent of items are useless crap. There are a very few useful magical abilities, one is the HASTE ability on weapons. That makes a huge difference. Almost every ability is better than nothing, but not significantly. They are not even much better than your fist. The RADIANCE for one is completely useless. But my fovourite is: -1 DAMAGE FROM ENEMIES. Come on. And this increases to -4 as you approach Hell. I don't know what was in their minds but they surely kept changing that through the development. Now that means a lot when they turn away of the game design through development for certain reasons (marketing or the inabilities of the coders). So it is a real challenge to kill a boss a hundred times and wait the PSX loading to get an equipment I can fittingly use. A challenge to train patience. And I also learned how poorly working the random generator of the game is. A newbie would expect to find any item fitting to the level, for example theoretically you could obtain a GOLD HUNTER'S BOW OF MAIMING for your rogue on the 5th level, but it is not the case because the dropped item generator (or anyhow it is called) calculates the abilities of the item by certain game data (for example the actual hit points of player character).

 

To be continued...

[Alienated]

I had to interrupt and log out because the place had the closing time.

 

As I began in the previous post, the so called random number generator is really a random number calculator. It uses the system time to create a value to a random seed variable on machines with a clock. I guess the PSX doesn't have a clock so they take values from certain game variables to change the random seed. At least this is what Blizzard did. This results you always get exactly the same items dropped if you kill the boss the same way. I don't know how the item data is stored, so let me say the 1st byte means the item type, the 2nd one the primary effect, the 3rd the power of the effect, the 4th the secondary effect, the 5th the power or the effect, and the 6th the durability. So the program calculates the same item from the same random seed because it doesn't use a random seed for each byte of item data. The system time can give you approximately 60x60x24x31x12=32140800 variants for a random seed. I don't know how many variables with what range the program uses in Diablo, I just suspect some items don't exist because the corresponding random seeds don't exist as well. The program takes a random seed from your game data and the random calculator creates a serie of six numbers for the item data, but who on earth has ever tested whether what series exist and what don't? For example it is possible by my suspicion the item GOLD HUNTER'S BOW OF MAIMING +30% TO HIT ADDS 5 POINTS TO DAMAGE just can't be obtained whereas you can obtain a GOLD HUNTER'S BOW OF MAIMING +21% TO HIT ADDS 5 POINTS TO DAMAGE or a GOLD HUNTER'S BOW OF MAIMING +30% TO HIT ADDS 3 POINTS TO DAMAGE, or worse, a HUNTER'S BOW OF MAIMING ADDS 5 POINTS TO DAMAGE or a GOLD HUNTER'S BOW +30% TO HIT, or a GOLD SHORT BOW OF MAIMING +30% TO HIT ADDS 5 POINTS TO DAMAGE.

 

I am trying to get a JADE SCALE MAIL OF HARMONY RESIST ALL +30% FASTEST HIT RECOVERY. Maybe I could get one if I had named my characters "1 XS6 IU Z" instead of "LOOTER" or "SCAVENGER" or "RAIDER" in case the random seed initializer uses the character's name given by the player. I mean you input a certain name and have just "erased" a variety of items from the game, never see them. For example I know there is a shield category of THORNS ATTACKER TAKES 1-3 DAMAGE because years ago I obtained one, I clearly remember, but not in my recent item hunts, and you can bet I have identified a hell of a lot of dropped items. Incidentally, the THORNS ability is one of the almost useless ones in the 99%.

 

Here is what I guess why the game has so many of junk. They planned the damage to monsters as the weapons do that, for example CLUB DAM: 1-6. Later in the game you get more powerful gear, for example BROAD SWORD DAM: 4-12 with certain STR requirements. Then somebody said "Let's make the character development more 'colorful' and let's change the turn based rougelike to real time action game." Maybe the alpha game was too boring for they were too lazy to code a decent AI for a wide variety of monster abilities and there were a few as there are a few. So they changed their minds but did not want to touch the item data and item generator, for example because they had not time to do that again (maybe every code again) or the coder who made it wanted to stick to the turn based old school version and left the team. So we actually get items for an entirely different game. Let me say the monsters of the early levels originally did 1-4 or 2-12 damage and the RING OF TRUTH with a ROBE OF HEALTH and the RING OF ENGAGEMENT (-1 DAMAGE FROM ENEMIES) reduced that to 0-1 or 0-9. This counts. And you could do 1-6 damage to them with your club and 1-3 damage from the retaliatory effect of the RING OF ENGAGEMENT, 2-9 altogether. This counts. And now the early monsters can knock you out in three or four blows, so their attack power is around 20-30, so the -1 DAMAGE FROM ENEMIES reduces it to 19-29 or the three items does it to 17-27 (so this makes little difference) whereas an item of EAGLE gives you 20-30 extra hit points that is far better than the three damage deleters together. And I guess your starting HP was equal to your VITALITY, for example the warrior started with 25 HP and the HP booster items gave him 50-125 HP by the end of the game. Now he starts at 70, and the player can boost it up to a few hundred by distributing points to VIT and levelling up. And the developers raised the monsters' attack power accordingly. So in the original version you could beat the game with a LARGE SHIELD OF THE TIGER and a CLAYMORE OF SLAYING because they were powerful enough and didn't need to reload constantly or to hack the save file to gather a super strong equipment and avoid the penalty of the rhapsodic random calculator. There are about three bosses on every level, so it wasn't hard to find at least two fitting items for the final fight, now you have to gather a lot of stuff without the change of your sources.

 

Another type of junkness is when a weapon does extra fire damage and makes you resist fire. The monsters that attack you with fire usually resist or are even immune to fire, so it is a far better choice to wear a fire resistant armor and wield just a brutally strong weapon. The same goes with lightning. Such junk items are the FLAMEDART, the INFERNO, the IMMOLATOR, the THUNDERCALL, the STORM SPIRE, the LIGHT SABRE, the SCHAEFER'S HAMMER, the COBALT SHORT STAFF OF LIGHTNING, the RUBY COMPOSITE STAFF OF FIREBALL, the CRIMSON LONG BATTLE BOW OF BURNING, and so on. The top of this junkness is the SHAEFER'S HAMMER that does -100% DAMAGE with 1-50 lightning hit damage, therefore it is not better against the storm demons than your bare hands. And rare items are supposed to ease your adventure a lot. Well, if you sell them and buy a sackful of POTION OF FULL HEALING, then they indeed ease your adventure because you get a practically infinite source of healing. In other words: lame game design.

 

One element in my challenge game is I never buy healing or mana potions, I have to use them wisely. Incidentally, I don't buy anything anyway in Diablo except SCROLLs OF IDENTIFY so I could immediately see what the killed boss dropped. Sometimes I have to descend into dungeon five or more times to get a supply of 3-4 scrolls per level because it is not enough you have to pay for them, you have to chance upon them in the witchy shop.

 

To report about my current quests: I saved a level 20 rogue character for nightmare mode with a SHORT BOW, two POTION OF HEALING shots, and a SCROLL OF IDENTIFY (instead of the default 100 gold coins). A level 20 rogue has 83 life, 60 mana, and 6-6 damage. I already tried to fight skeletons, scavengers, and fallen ones in the dungeon to see how I can survive. Just fine. The critters drop around 100 gold coins in nightmare mode so I ain't gonna get flat broke as you may in normal mode early in the game. And I also got an idea soon: I will attempt to beat the game playing sorcerer without reading spell books. Only scrolls and staves, and the level 2 firebolt so I could save a beginner (default) level 20 character for nightmare mode. How fantastic I can be!

[Space Voyager]

Well, this is a fully blown Diablo AAR! Cool!

[Bomb Bloke]

Indeed, many older consoles didn't have a persistent system clock, but they did have one - for example, the PSX just starts counting from the moment you turn the system on. In certain games, it IS possible to generate the same results by performing the exact same actions at the exact same times (eg, power-on console, mash "start" button as fast as you can = get the exact same "random" map, for eg).

 

PCs also have a system clock that starts at 0 (midnight) and counts up until the next day. Used to cause problems with some older games that used it, if people still happened to be playing when it suddenly looped around...

 

That doesn't mean a game HAS to use the system clock, of course. Beats me what PSX Diablo relied on.

[Alienated]

I saved a L20 warrior character with no items. I will get the default items (short sword, club, buckler, 2x healing potion) from another multiplayer warrior in normal mode and save again. I went on playing with this character and will save him again before killing Diablo. The bloody warlord dropped a definitely good shield (EMERALD (+44%) GOTHIC SHIELD OF THE TIGER (+49)). The all-resistant and fastest-hit-recovery armor just doesn't want to show up. I tried to get it from Griswold and Wirt by several loads of game without success. However, I found a perfect amulet and a ring of PERFECTION (both +30) in the labyrinth. I also found a GOLD (+22%) AMULET OF POWER (+14) in a chest. I wish for a perfect GOLD (+30%) RING OF TITANS (+30). After I have got it, I can clone it by saved characters. You can bet I will clone the EMERALD/OBSIDIAN armor OF HARMONY too! I have already found a JADE RAGS OF HARMONY. I hope there may be better things in hell difficulty and I may find what I want.

 

The challenge game with the rogue came to a victorious end. I wasn't too lucky with rings in this quest. I actually had to buy a ring or two from Griswold, it was so bad. I bought a RING OF POWER (+15) to be able to wear a CRIMSON (+38%) SPLINT MAIL (32) OF THE STARS (+8). Then I found a DRAGON'S (+59) RING OF TITANS (+25), which helped me to wear the splint mail anytime I put on a JADE (+25%) RING OF VIM (+11) instead of the RING OF POWER. Later I found a GARNET (+44%) STUDDED LEATHER ARMOR (15) OF THE STARS (+11), so I left the splint mail in town. I got an AMULET OF THE ZODIAC (+16) from RUSTWEAVER and the ROYAL CIRCLET from FANGSPEIR. I wished for a RING OF PERFECTION or rather a DRAGON'S RING OF PERFECTION so I could have used the WINDFORCE that I had obtained on the 9th level already. It turned out I didn't fire a single arrow with that bow. I used a LONG BOW OF THE BEAR against the bloody knights and the hell horrors, and Diablo even. It worked surprisingly better against the dark lord than my JADE (+30%) LONG BATTLE BOW OF SHOCK (from the slain hero). I expected him to burn off my head by his apocalyptic shots but fortunately he was quite busy at running on me and got shamefully felled by the bow I obtained somewhere on the 4-5th levels. I have to mention I lured him near me by using a STAFF OF FLAME WAVE. I pulled the skull levers and started to fire in the direction of his den hoping I was just going to kill him before he got to me. The flame wave is supposed to be a strong magic. Not so strong. I suppose I didn't even kill the advocates around because the fireballs also got to me after about the tenth shot of flame wave. I had to change position quickly not to get scorched to ashes and dust. All in all, I died some times before I started to use the bear bow, and used up several healing potions. It was much harder than with the warrior in the opening post. However, the clean-up of this level was much easier with the rogue. The JADE bow and GARNET armor gave me 74% fire resistance, the advocates were pieces of cake with a bow. The only annoyance was the constant exchange of the jade and the bear bow. The blizzard guys could have made the weapons "togglable" by a single button: primary weapon & secondary weapon. The program loads from disc by each inventory entry. This game can destroy your machine for sure.

 

My L25 rogue had basically 93 life, 70 mana, 65% chance to hit and 7-7 attack power; and 20 str, 15 mag, 30 dex, 20 vit of course. She learned healing L5, town portal L2, stone curse 1, phasing 3, guardian L2, and telekinesis L2. I didn't count my gold this time, there was a foot ball ground between the healer's house and the tavern. I could have bought anything useful.

[NKF]

Makes me feel like dusting off my old discs as well.

 

I don't know how many weeks of my life this game (and Dungeon Siege 1) sucked out of me, playing the multiplayer mode solo (both games) just to get the harder difficulty levels and access to all the really good items. Sad thing was, I did manage to get the best equipment, but almost always on the wrong class.

 

- NKF

[Alienated]

The dark lord was a piece of cake. Actually it was easier this time than with the stronger character (warrior) in the opening post because I had better equipment. I again used the GNARLED ROOT, and:

EMERALD (+44%) GOTHIC SHIELD (14) OF THE TIGER (+49)

CRIMSON (+32%) STUDDED LEATHER ARMOR (17) OF THE STARS (+8)

COBALT (+50%) GREAT HELM (15) OF HARMONY

GOLD (+22%) AMULET OF POWER (+14)

RING OF GIANTS (+17)

IVORY (+35%) RING OF THE ZODIAC (+17)

I just beat off his highballs wearing such gear.

 

I had also the DEMONSPIKE COAT at home but I could not use it at all because I had not a decent strength booster jewelry. I had a LARGE SHIELD OF THE MOON and I could equip them that way but that could have reduced my resistances quite much.

 

My L25 warriror stats were:

STR 30/86

MAG 10/40

DEX 20/55

VIT 25/50

TO HIT 60%/119%

DAM 8-8/33-45

LIFE 118/217

MANA 34/64

AC 4/47

M 0%/MAX

F 0%/MAX

L 0%/MAX

 

On the way to the ultimate fiend, I wielded GRISWOLD'S EDGE and CIVERB'S CUDGEL. The former worked fine against the bloody knights, pit beasts, and hell spawns with two gold rings. My to-hit ratio was around 145% and the panzer generals could not even touch me. Sometimes I did not even know which boss I killed (GRAYWAR THE SLAYER or STEELSKULL THE HUNTER?) because their names didn't get OSD. The latter weapon worked well against the wizards and succubi. One hit or two knocked them out. Somewhere I read the +200% damage of the cudgel against demons counts the total damage, not just the weapon damage (1-8). Now I see this may be true and this weapon can be the best of all then. However, the GNARLED ROOT also felled the hell horrors like porcelain vases so this must be tested in nightmare mode.

 

But before I play with my saved characters, I started a quest with the sorcerer. Just as I declared before, I am using his two-level firebolt, staves, and scrolls only. I'm on the 5th level (1st dirty level of the stinky catacombs). I could easily fell even the bosses with firebolt as long as they weren't fire resistant. I got (made) dropped some useful staves: SPIDER'S STAFF OF FIREWALL and RED (or BLUE) STAFF OF FLASH. I also found a fat 74-shot STAFF OF CHARGED BOLT. I found a STAFF OF HOLY BOLT while looting the tomb of Leoric, a bit too late because I had to cremate him with the firewall staff, his royal bone needed three shots to rest at last. And the burning dead... I spent unusual amounts at Adria the witch to recharge the charged bolt staves. I never did such things before. I ain't gonna be a millionaire on this quest. Still I already have about 15000 pieces of gravel... er gold coins. I also have several scrolls like mana shield, stone curse, inferno, and so on; Tristram looks like a military graveyard with the little white bars. Tristram always impresses me as a graveyard anyway, seven residents total... And they used to have a king! Tristram rulez!

 

Sad thing was, I did manage to get the best equipment, but almost always on the wrong class.

I also noticed this. I suspect there is an element in the item generation by which the bosses drop "warrirorish" items for the rogue and sorcerer and vica versa. Just take a look at my reports: my warror gets two perfection pieces of jewelry whereas Wirt wanted to sell a DRAGON'S RING OF WIZARDRY to my rogue. I guess something was mistaken in the code/data or the developer thought the items should have strengthen the character in parts where s/he is weak. Bad idea. Well, I will just exchange the items between the saved characters as a solution.

 

I also started a multiplayer quest with a warrior and sorcerer even before the single player ones, I still have the save file. The problem is I am a bit too lame with my left hand and you have to run (retreat) a lot when you don't distribute points to your characters. Situations like this result quick defeat. Not to mention I can fight only with one chraracter at the same time, I have to have the other do some parking in the while. You know the two multiplayer characters must be on the screen in the PSX version unless one of them laying dead.

 

The multiplayer mode is indeed harder. I believe the monsters are tougher and the experience points are shared at the two. You fight Diablo at lv25 in single whereas that is lv20-21 with the two. As the two fighters can support each other, they should be stronger even if they are weaker but this is not the case. A sorcerer may easily do great damage to his companion by a lamely placed firewall or stray fireball. And I noticed monsters usually pick one of the two and all attack that. You can even exploit that. For example I usually get the sorcerer (primary target mostly) parking behind a wall and hack the monsters away one by one with the warrior. They don't realise who is killing them really. It is very funny. A good precedent for lame A.I. programming. But I don't blame them for that. The A.I. isn't so pathetic in Diablo and sometimes foolish enemy is worse than smart enemy. Fools do unexpected things.

[Alienated]

I am reporting about the sorcerer's quest. I wasn't lucky with the staves. I tried to kill the flayed ones and lava maws zapping the 74-shot STAFF OF CHARGED BOLT. It could fell only one, maybe two monsters, so I had to hack them up by metal. I used CIVERB'S CUDGEL against the flayed ones and the LIGHT SABRE against the lava maws. And I had to save game frequently because this guy, the sorcerer, died so easy! "Ya-ah!" I can reproduce his deathscream perfectly by now. He didn't just wielded the sword in slow-motion, he also fell on the ground in slow-motion. The worst character of the three, for sure.

 

I found a STAFF OF LIGHTNING on the 13th level. It was a great relief indeed. It killed the lava maws and the fire drakes nicely. However, the monsters' resistances were increasing. For example 10-20 shots of flash were required to kill a steel lord. I killed the soul burners on level 15 by a bow, the BOW OF THE DEAD. The rest of the monsters was killed by firewall and firebolt.

 

On the last level, at Diablo's place, I shuttled so much between hell and town that my sorcerer learned the town portal spell by reading those many town portal scrolls. I'm just kidding of course. I made the witch busy with recharging my staves of firewall (13 charges) and holy bolt (55 charges). It is almost unbelievable that I did not chance upon another staff of firewall (and holy bolt) beside the aforementioned SPIDER'S (+11) STAFF OF FIREWALL. I burned everything that was not immune to fire: azure drakes, blood knights, advocates, and almost all the bosses.

 

Finally, I perfectly swept Diablo's room clean expecting him to die due to loneliness. He didn't. I even collected the droppings using a STAFF OF TELEKINESIS. I could not have done that by simply walking for them without his notice. Then I took a SNAKE'S (+21) STAFF OF FLAME WAVE (26/26) and tried the same thing I did with the rogue. The only difference was that I didn't stand in the room with the two skull levers but I stood at the wall of the spiral room because the stairs could have been in the way otherwise, so I was closer to the target. I fired in the direction of the dark lord like crazy, and I just used up all the 26 charges until he got to me. Then I ignited a SCROLL OF FIREWALL between his legs and started to zap the remaining shots (25) from the STAFF OF HOLY BOLT at him. I don't know which of the three hurt him the best part. He died, that's what I know. I had to use only two or three POTONs OF MANA (I used a SCROLL OF MANA SHIELD before the flame waves). If he hadn't died so easy, I could have used a SCROLL OF GOLEM, a SCROLL OF GUARDIAN, and a SCROLL OF APOCALYPSE additionally.

 

I had the best pieces of armor all the time. First I obtained the TORNFLESH OF SOULS, then I changed to ARKAINE'S VALOR. While I was working on the theft of the anvil of fury, I got NAJ'S LIGHT PLATE dropped. On the level 14, STAREYE THE WITCH dropped the GOTTERDAMERUNG and LACHDANAN gave me the VEIL OF STEEL. However, I never wore the veil. Instead I wore the ROYAL CIRCLET dropped by BLACKJADE.

 

My attributes and equipment when I faced Diablo were:

Lv 25

STR 15/60

MAG 35/85

DEX 15/60

VIT 20/65

TO HIT 57%/80%

DAM 4-4/20-25..19-23

LIFE 54/99

MANA 118/299..278

AC 3/99

M 0%/20%

F 0%/20%

L 0%/20%

SNAKE'S STAFF OF FLAME WAVE..STAFF OF HOLY BOLT

NAJ'S LIGHT PLATE

ROYAL CIRCLET

AMULET OF THE STARS (+9)

RING OF THE STARS (+11)

RING OF THE HEAVENS (+15)

 

It was a really challenging (fumbling) quest without spells. I don't plan to do it again on nightmare difficulty. I saved the level 20 character with the level-two firebolt, and I am saving the level 25 character with decent equipment and spells. For example I found a goat shrine with the "enchanted" effect. As I found or bought all kinds of spellbooks, increasing my spells on the cost of town portal spell spared me a lot of money/spellbooks. I also got dropped an ARCH-ANGEL'S LONG STAFF OF SORCERY (+19) and I bought a LONG STAFF OF WIZARDRY (+30). If I could put this two together, I could own the best staff of all. I will spend all my money on spell books and gear (if they sell me the gear I want).

 

Oh, I almost forgot. The bitches' blood stars could not hurt me too much because I wielded AGUINARA'S HATCHET most of the time. I sold it only when I entered the last level and changed to the MINDCRY (in moments I did not use firewall, holy bolt, or healing). And there were a crimson and an amber pieces of jewlry to increase my resistances. Unfortunately they increased only my vitality as a second magic ability. I changed equipment a lot depending on which monster was before me. And the monsters were mixed, all right.

[Alienated]

During the hunt for ultimate equipment, I created some funny characters with special gear. I created HEALER with some levels of heal other spell, a SHORT STAFF OF HEAL OTHER, a BOOK OF HEALING, several scrolls and potions of healing, and a few scrolls of resurrect. I left him with zero experience.

 

Before I go on showing these saved characters, I report what happened while I was creating HEALER. I had his companion (SHADOWER, warrior) kill him on the first level, just near the stairs. I hoarded up the spell books nearby his corpse. And the strange thing all about this was that the location of the corpse was radiant on every level of dungeon, catacombs, cave, and hell. And the monsters were also visible who could see SHADOWER too no matter there was thick wall or anything between. For example they came at me even from the farthest spots, and the succubi just played artillery in the caves if they happened to be on the radiant area. The lines on the map were also drawn there as if I had already been there. On the last level, the hell horrors came to the room with the double levers as soon as I opened up the walls because the certain location was the same location of the signed room. Interestingly, I had not seen the dark lord among the alarmed monsters when I had walked by the signed room. Maybe his appearence is triggered by the two levers.

 

I also discovered that Wirt and Griswold sell items depending on the character's level (or experience points). Until now I have thought it depends on how deep you have got in the dungeons. Adria sells items depending on both that and the experience. And in addition, Adria and Pepin did not sold SHADOWER elixirs because HEALER was level 1. You can imagine how mad I was! I did this multiplayer run to gather a lot of money and planned to actually spend it all. I expected to increase my chances to find some ultimately good equipment in the shops if I could check them out with two characters. HEALER was offered ultimately junk things and I could not even spend money to boost SHADOWER's attributes. So... I bought SHADOWER some mediocre gear and did the run again in normal difficulty. I set the game speed fast and swept through the levels using bows (I did not need to wait until the monsters got up to me, and I also did not need to approach archers and magi) and when I got some kind of crowd around me, I removed the bow and fisted them on heaps. The only problem with this was that SHADOWER's level 25 changed to level 26 just on the last few levels, and he reached only level 27 on the last level. Maybe I should have done it on nightmare mode.

 

However, the jump from level 25 to level 27 resulted somewhat better gear in shops. Still not the things I want.

 

I started another multiplayer quest (rogue and sorcerer) and wanted to kill the sorcerer in town in order to avoid the aforementioned ghostly bug. To my surprise, the second character just can't die in town when he unequips hit points booster gear. His HP gets 1. The best thing I could do was killing the character in a corner spot of the level. I am going to see how good the spot is by the end.

 

I created BASTARD. Anytime I found a certain bastard sword in the shops, I teleported it in the inventory of BASTARD by some memory card operations. Poor Wirt and Griswold could not realise that my shoppings was actually free. I did not spent a coin on the bastard swords for BASTARD. Let me tell you what my punishment was. The idea of BASTARD came from the previously related quest. I found a BASTARD SWORD OF THE BEAR and I saved it in HEALER's inventory in the reverence of the rarity of this sword. You know the BEAR (knocks target back) ability vanishes from the game just where bastard swords start to show up, and this thin line is somewhere in the catacombs, therefore the item is extremely rare, I suppose. I guess GREAT SWORD OF THE THE BEAR does not exist at all. This is how the BLOCKING (fast block) ability of shields vanishes and you get none but silly TIGER shields in the end of the game. Well, I had this BASTARD SWORD OF THE BEAR in the inventory of BASTARD because I moved it from HEALER's inventory with delete, I mean I saved HEALER again without the sword because HEALER is supposed to be a healer and not a swordsman. And as the collection of bastard swords was getting pretty, I made a silly mistake. For a moment, I had to save BASTARD's swords in the inventory of the time traveller SHADOWER because I had to sell the collection in order I could have bought another bastard sword from Wirt in BASTARD's time. BASTARD dropped the swords, and SHADOWER picked them up, but he automatically got the BASTARD SWORD OF THE BEAR in the hand (silly game designers, how much I hate them for this: in most cases I don't want to equip the weapon I pick up from the ground, so I have to enter the inventory menu to remove things, and additionally you have to wait through the loads from disc for the weapon sprites in vain) and I saved SHADOWER with the sword in hand. And when I reversed the procedure, I dropped all the bastard swords from SHADOWER's inventory but I forgot to drop the sword in hand. By the time I noticed the disappearence of the sword, it was way too late. My bad luck! It could have been a BASTARD SWORD OF HASTE, a BASTARD SWORD OF BLOOD, or a BASTARD SWORD OF BASHING, these could be obtained easily from shops. No, the rarest one, you can bet!

 

I created DRATSAB too. I realised the collection of bastard swords can't fit in the inventory of one character. So one carries the OF SOMETHING category and the other the other. None of them carries the KING'S BASTARD SWORD OF GORE and the MASSIVE BASTARD SWORD OF HASTE. These two are near ultimate equipment because I have not found better sword yet. SHADOWER delivered them to more important characters, not these two level 1 weaklings. I had to give them a perfect LEATHER ARMOR OF GIANTS (+20) so they could have equip a bastard sword.

 

And here comes one more interesting thing. It seems the item disappears from the inventory of both characters if they carry the same item (duplicated by memory card operations). I can't tell how the program can tell they are duplicated items but I tell you I am quite pissed off by this. This means I don't have to find one perfect GOLD (+30%) RING OF TITANS (+30) but several such rings, optimally four ones for two multiplayer warrior characters. I guess the GOLD ability of rings vanishes just about when the TITANS ability shows up, the thin line again...

 

I created KNACKER. This is a very easy character. The objective for this character is that he must use two handed weapons only. He has now a LARGE AXE OF HASTE, a MAUL OF HASTE, a GREAT SWORD OF HASTE, and a GREAT AXE OF HASTE. He can use only the first one as yet because I supplied him with just a STUDDED LEATHER ARMOR OF GIANTS (+20).

 

I created KAMPFWAGEN. This warrior carries equipment of the OF AGES ability (indestructible). The policy is that he goes through everything unstoppable if he has enough fuel (potion of healing). Isn't it funny when you use a combo of indestructible CLUB, CAP, RAGS, and BUCKLER? Tanks can't really be destroyed but the tank aces may burn away inside.

 

I created CHALLENGER with cursed (bad) items. I have already found a HUNTER'S BOW OF TROUBLE and a LEATHER ARMOR OF THE PIT, and a DAGGER OF WEAKNESS and "teleported" between times. This challenge is greater than I originally thought because our dear Griswold (and the dearer game designers behind) just won't repair items identified as cursed. Unless you find several religious shrines, I can't see how you can get to Diablo with cursed items. They just wear off on you. I guess you can't even complete one level with just one cursed bow. A warriror can repair cursed items but what if I want to do it as a rogue? And a club or a buckler lasts not too long under the hand of a warrior, not to mention rags.

 

I also had a USELESS (-100% DAMAGE) CLAYMORE OF RADIANCE. The problem is that no character can equip it because of the strength requirement, especially when the original attributes are reduced by a cursed armor. And a useless sword or club is better than bare hands because of the 50% total bonus for edged or blunt weapons versus beast or undead. The usefulness of this weapon could have been that Griswold would have repaired it because of the radiance ability which actually does nothing but increases its price.

[Bomb Bloke]

And the strange thing all about this was that the location of the corpse was radiant on every level of dungeon, catacombs, cave, and hell. And the monsters were also visible who could see SHADOWER too no matter there was thick wall or anything between. For example they came at me even from the farthest spots, and the succubi just played artillery in the caves if they happened to be on the radiant area. The lines on the map were also drawn there as if I had already been there.

Normally the game won't let you out of each other's sight, yeah? My guess is it has no concept of you being on different levels, so taking the warrior between them drags the spellcaster along with him, same as it would if he were alive - but it doesn't relocate him to the stairs, since he's dead.

 

I've got a vague memory that if the game picks the dead character as the stronger of the two, the monsters might even concentrate their efforts on killing him again (continuing to fire in the direction of the body, rather then picking on the remaining player). But that might just be my mind playing tricks on me - I've only played PSX Diablo co-op once, and that was far too many years ago.

 

The complaints about repairs bring back memories. In the sequel, I had a liking of the glass swords - weapons which dealt a large amount of damage (for the level at which you'd find them), but had a very low durability stat. Much like the "ultimate weapons" of the Ultima series (which were one-swing-only, but one was all it took...).

 

By the late game (mid-nightmare mode), I'd be paying about 50k each time I got back to town just to repair my sword. I will confess, I ended up cheating - I hacked the most powerful variant of the weapon (a dimensional blade, I think it was) into my inventory, with the precise amount of sockets required to enchant the weapon with what I'd decided was the best rune-word available (can't remember what it did, but it required the "Zod" rune (something else I could only hope to obtain through hacking), so it certainly packed a punch).

 

The result was one of the most powerful weapon types with an "undamageable" enhancement, and my cash total zipped up right quick after that. Until the Hell mosquitos of doom had me give up the challenge, that is.

 

Edit:

 

I looked it up. I had that thing and I still lost. One part of me is patting myself on the back, telling me I'd already wasted too much time on that game. The other part screams at me to reinstall it and finish it properly.

[Alienated]

Normally the game won't let you out of each other's sight, yeah? My guess is it has no concept of you being on different levels, so taking the warrior between them drags the spellcaster along with him, same as it would if he were alive - but it doesn't relocate him to the stairs, since he's dead.

Yes, that's exactly I tried to relate. The strangeness in this thing is that such bugs shouldn't happen. I believe this is a fairly serious one. The only solution is that I "carry" the companion to every level and kill him at the stairs and resurrect him after the level has been cleaned up. Get him pick up the loot and use him as a mule. Or I grow two extra limbs... In the previous multiplayer game I erased, I played a warrior and a sorcerer and used my foot to cast HEAL OTHER while I was fighting with the warrior. But I guess those fierce monsters in the caves and hell would surely confuse my hands and feet...

 

I looked it up. I had that thing and I still lost. One part of me is patting myself on the back, telling me I'd already wasted too much time on that game. The other part screams at me to reinstall it and finish it properly.

Reinstall it and finish it properly. When the addiction is over you say "I've wasted too much time on the game." The most important part of quality of a game is whether it is addictive. I wouldn't play Diablo now, I planned to play more serious games now that the summer with its maddening heat is gone but why change when I still have the addiction? I let this love last even if I constantly curse the development team for not doing their best.

 

And I take the opportunity to correct myself. I mentioned a MASSIVE BASTARD SWORD OF HASTE. It is really a SAVAGE (+123 % DAMAGE) BASTARD SWORD OF HASTE. And yesterday I shopped and teleported a KING'S LONG SWORD OF HASTE. I am getting close...

[Bomb Bloke]

Problem is, once I finished it on hell, then I'd try to do it all over again on hardcore mode (the equivalent of X-COM's ironman)...

[Alienated]

I visited a diablo-wikipage to read about spells. I had to experience that the entire spell book is messed up, all the damage values are incorrect. In the previous posts I related how weak some spells were, the flame wave, the flash. I also learned the apocalypse has none of fire, lightning, and magic type damage. It seems my all out resistance armor against the dark lord was not neccessary. I already knew the warrior can block it with the shield.

 

The damage of almost all the spells is much less than shown in the spell book because the combat part and the info part use different routines to calculate them. I guess they reduced the power of magic after beta testing because the magic usage was overpowered. And I bet they did the code in object oriented programming therefore the same codes were made twice or more times, and one, the info part, remained the old version because they forgot to modify both. OOP was supposed to reduce the number of bugs but it seems it just increases them because there are typical OOP bugs.

 

So my storm of flame waves against Diablo did not work becaue it does too little damage compared to the values in the spell book. The flash damage is not just reduced but is bugged too. There are three spots where it is practically ineffective. That's why I could not kill some of the steel lords by twenty shots of flash whereas some of them died after five shots. I thought their hit points fluctuated very much. Now I am sure this bug is still present in the PSX version and I was flashing the target at the buggy spots.

 

I noticed something about the fire wall spell. The wikipage gives these formulas for the spell book damage and the combat damage (clvl is character level):

Minimum damage = 4 + 2 x clvl

and maximum damage = 40 + 2 x clvl.

Real damage = (Rnd[10] + Rnd[10] + clvl + 2)/8

 

Therefore a level 25 sorcerer's fire wall does from 4+2x25=54 to 40+2x25=90 in the spell book (this is correct) and (1..20+25+2)/8=3..6 in combat. If the monster is fire resistant, this is 1..1. I guess the original formula is without "/8", so 1..20+25+2=28..47, and with resistance 7..12. Also, the wikipage mentions that the center of the wall is twice as powerful than the other parts, which I also noticed. But this isn't what I want to explain. When I burned the advocates playing with RAIDER (the sorcerer without spells), some advocates did not get killed by one shot of firewall, they needed two. I usually tricked them to stand behind a wall or by a corner, and laid a fire wall from the other side where they could not reach me with fire ball and just waited until they died. Sometimes I didn't change my equipment from resistance boosters to magic boosters and the tougher advocates were in these cases. I thought again, their hit points fluctuated so much. But when I played with SHADOWER, I noticed again some significant differences in advocates' toughness. I have to mention SHADOWER wasn't a challenge game character, I distributed points to his attributes and also he drank more of elixirs than Farnham can ever drink of booze. The point is I didn't boost his magic. I wanted to kill everyone except Diablo on the 16th level, so I used my level 1 fire wall spell to take out those in the corners of the signed room. There were two advocates and a hell horror. The hell horror was easy because he could not stand the flames and left his post to kill me, the spellcaster. He wandered out of the signed room and I smashed his skull in with my good old spiked club. But the two advocates didn't budge, they just didn't phase outside from the corner, they were probably stuck in there and they didn't die either. I had mana for three or four casts of fire wall and even three wasn't enough to kill one advocate so I saw I couldn't beat them and I was forced to return to town to buy and bring several mana potions. Unfortunately the fire wall was just one spot shorter to reach in corner to corner so the two advocates could not stand in one fire wall to spare the charges. So I went back, bought mana (previously sold a lot of such potions) but before I returned, I got the idea to boost my magic in order to have more mana for more fire wall shots. There were some armor and weapons of SORCERY to read spell books for both HEALER and SHADOWER. I put on everything. I laid the fire wall and lo! the advocate fell so quickly I thought my eyes had deceived me. I strongly believe that magic attribute plays an important role in the fire wall damage because I changed neither character level nor spell level, only magic. I don't know whether it is a PSX version issue. Incidentally, the PSX version differs a lot. For example there are no blood knights on level 16, there are hell horrors instead. They are tougher and stronger than blood knights, they are skeletons (undead) and vulnerable to blunt weapons. They are sometimes resurrect each other, so the player may find himself suddenly surrounded and trapped. Though hell horrors aren't a formidable enemy. Once you lure them out of the defensive artillery of advocates, they are mere vases to push over. They of course beat the tar out of you in odds but which monster doesn't?

 

I guess only you, Bomb Bloke, read this topic. Is anybody (else) versed in the PSX version of Diablo? What I read on GameFAQs and the wikipage is a bit outdated. For example everybody states that you can manipulate objects behind walls by the telekinesis spell. Wrong. Many praise the stone curse spell, but I believe that is the clumsiest spell of all. It is targeted the same slow way as fire wall, it is really hard to "hit" monsters with stone curse. They can easily click on monsters on screen on the PC version with mouse but the PSX controller can't do that. Maybe some bosses are worth the try, and through several reloads you may be able to hit and disable a monster. As I related in the posts above, I kill a boss sometimes 50-100 times to get it drop a useful item, still I never use stone curse. It is better to bombard them as much as you can and phase away if they still can get to you. I also read about "telekill". Teleport is also very clumsy for combat usage. When I want to get over a lava stream or a fence leaving the monsters on the other side for getting slaughtered by arrows or fire wall, I just use phasing. If it puts me to some wrong location, I just reload the game. Once I tried to escape monsters by using the puzzler, namely the teleport magic. My body started to sparkle with rainbow and vanish as the spell casting was successful but this did not stop the monsters of beating me to death. If it had been phasing, I could have slipped out of their dirty fingers in a wink of an eye. Teleport is way too slow for combat. If you don't want to play with Snotspill and company, just teleport through the bars to leave for level 5, but a SCROLL OF PHASING can do that too.

 

Another difference is there are no balrogs in the game, at least I have never met one.

 

And finally I caught the trophy fish, I re-obtained the BASTARD SWORD OF THE BEAR. It wasn't easy. First I made a ridiculously naive attempt to find it in the catacombs. Then I tried Griswold. I figured out that he starts to sell bastard swords at character level 9 whereas he still sells weapons with the bear ability. So I tried to repeatedly shop at him with a level 9 character. Then I found out I can increase my chances with two level 9 characters, so I quickly started a new game with a warrior and hacked through monsters until level 9 and saved the character. (And add to that they don't sell jewelry in multiplayer mode.) After several reloads I noticed they offer the same stock, I guess they have approximately 100 different rolls. I guess the random calculator gets its seed from the seconds (0-59) you spend in town and this restricts the variety of items you can get in shops unless you do other changes in experience points, attributes, or cash for example. So I started a more radical method to get the random calculator work harder. I saved a lot of cash on both characters and bought and sold the cheapest items from Griswold to replace them for the item I want. I met all the weapons with the bear ability except for the bastard version. However, I found and teleported a BASTARD SWORD OF RADIANCE and a FLAMING BASTARD SWORD in the collection. Then I noticed bastard swords tended to show up only in the last two slots of the stock (there are six slots) so I started to buy up the last two cheapest items (the cheapest meant sometimes ten grands) though the paging down was quite tiresome. I quickly found a BSotB, and not even one but three, it coughed up that times per one inventory of gold.

 

I thought the position of items in the stock didn't matter and I was wrong. It is actually works the similar way as at Adria, the spell books may always be in the last slots. So if you want to get a certain full plate mail, I suggest to buy up from the last slots at Griswold. I guess finding a perfect OBSIDIAN (40%) FULL PLATE MAIL (70) OF GIANTS (20) isn't a mere daydream if you better your luck. If you plan to obtain it in dungeons without reloads, you may grow old and die a thousand times before that, that's for sure.

 

I guess I will use this method in the near future to get an ultimate shield. A JADE (30%) KITE SHIELD (15) OF POWER (15) or an OF BLOCKING. Then I can pair it with an EMERALD (45) CROWN (12) OF HARMONY or OF GIANTS (20). And maybe I find a BUCKLER OF BRILLIANCE (15) and a DAGGER OF SORCERY (20) at Wirt to read spell books. Actually it is five points better than a SHORT STAFF OF WIZARDRY (30).

 

I also read on the wikipage that the harmony ability was bugged in the early PC versions and I am not sure what is the case in the PSX version.

[Alienated]

I have to correct myself again. EMERALD CROWN does not exist as any EMERALD armor, which is quite a shame because armor is supposed to protect you, isn't it? The pair should have been emerald shield of blocking/power and jade crown of harmony/giants. The problem is neither the former type of item exists by a different reason. If you are lucky enough, then you may obtain an obsidian shield of power for an obsidian crown but it may happen that the item is also never to be found. Therefore you can not get 75% resistance to all using up two prefices with the shield-helm combo. You have to be satisfied with a 70% (perfect jade shield + obsidian helm). But I wonder how this works in procession. For example if you wear a BLESSED (+99%) CAP (AC: 1), then it isn't a bit more better than a CAP (AC:1). Only a 100% gives you a 2x armor class. This may happen with resistances. I can imagine the program treats 0-24% resistances as -0 damage, 25-49% as -1/4 damage, 50-74% as -1/2 damage, and 75-100% as -3/4 damage. In this case a perfect emerald shield (50%) could be the same effect as a poor emerald shield (43%) and a poor obsidian helm (31%) or an average obsidian shield (35%) and an imperfect obsidian helm (39%).

 

I play a rogue-sorcerer game, similar way to the HEALER-SHADOWER quest. The difference is I follow the non-distributed points conduct. I also teleported some items to RANGER's inventory in order to already have the almost essential gear. I got the AMULET and RING OF PERFECTION (30) from SCAVENGER (the warrior in the related challenge quest), the LONG BOW OF THE BEAR from LOOTER (the bow that killed the dark lord), the JADE CROWN OF HARMONY and the SAVAGE LONG WAR BOW OF PERFECTION from SHADOWER. This was a good idea because the best item I got was a QUILTED ARMOR (7) OF MIGHT (8) and the TORNFLESH OF SOULS. I had to wear the mighty armor all the time otherwise I could not have used the bear long bow (REQ: 25 STR). The armor lasted until the 9th level when it was seriously worn off. I had to decide to spend money to repair it or buy something. I bought something: CROWN (9) OF GIANTS (19). I also got dropped a CHAIN MAIL OF POWER on the level. Now I can wear the JCoH and shoot the LBoB. I plan to use the JCoH from the 10th level and the SLWBoP with the perfection jewelry from the 13th level. Or I use even better equipment in case I obtain some though I know somehow it just can't happen.

 

I obtained a few rings and amulets, they boost dexterity, vitality, mana, magic. Several of them had to-hit booster prefices (STEEL, SILVER) so I didn't have problems with pinning glooms and goatmen against the wall with the bear bow in the catacombs. This is a very important rogue tactics otherwise they charge you or wander out of shooting line. I haven't read about this in the expert rogue guides. They go about how a level 40< rogue can kill monsters with level 10< chain lightning and use or not mana shield. I guess the greater difficulty is the normal difficulty with following some conducts. Sorcerers may have problems with enemy resistances in nightmare and hell mode but cash is plenty in those modes. You can afford buying full healing for example. You can't do that in normal otherwise you get flat broke. If you buy healing potions instead of scrolls of healing, then you may also get flat broke (scrolls restore more HP with the risk your spell casting my be interrupted by enemy hits). But nightmare and hell can be harder if you start them with the characters I saved, for example RAIDER, the level 20 sorcerer with level 2 firebolt and a SHORT STAFF OF CHARGED BOLT (CHARGES: 40/40). The only easiness in normal mode is the frequent level-up. You have several free full life and mana restorations which is worth to exploit. You just walk up and down with circa 1 HP among skeleton archers to kill the last enemy to level-up... Or you try to run faster than the arrows behind you for the stairs to get Pepin the healer restore your HP from circa 1...

 

Pardon me for the rambling. Playing RANGER does not seem more difficult than having played LOOTER (single player mode) so far. The mosters are tougher but it just means more arrows spent. The way I fight them is unchanged and sufficient. I guess my job is easier with the bear bow from the start. The only practical difficulty is I don't obtain the quest items (e.g. valor) and the several items in Leoric's tomb and the treasury of bone. This is a lot of money less. Good news is the dead sorcerer in the farthest corner of the 1st level does not seem to disturb things so far. I don't see how I can't beat this one with the conduct. I will save RANGER the rogue, however, I will then distribute the points, use the shrines and elixirs (I already found some). This will be a character like SHADOWER. A strong character with mediocre equipment. All the ultimate equipment goes to SCAVENGER, LOOTER, and RAIDER. When they have it, I will play them until level 30 on nightmare then restart on hell difficulty. I wonder how far I can get playing a warrior with 128 base HP.

[Alienated]

A weird thing happened again. I was on the 13th level and touched a cauldron with the spooky shrine effect (rejuvenates companion). I didn't reload the game because the effect resulted nothing; I didn't waste a good effect by the check (e.g. icrease all spell levels) and my mana didn't get reduced (e.g. sacred shrine), so why reload? At least I thought this. The consequence was more serious than a mere bad shrine effect. The cauldron didn't resurrect the sorcerer though it did something to him. I smelled trouble when the radiant area appeared nearby. I wondered whether the sorcerer was alive on the first level, and what if I just go there? Crash? (I had diligently collected several spell books so the sorcerer's name DESTROYER could have meant something after the long deadly sleep.) Well, after several saves and much fighting on level 13, I reloaded once since the cauldron event. There was nobody on screen, maybe it was an area between the two characters; the sorcerer was then alive on level 13! Nobody could move. The rogue had low HP, so I removed some gear expecting her to die that way. She still got 4 HP. I also had two scrolls of flame wave in her inventory, so I tried to kill the sorcerer. Some blocks of walls were in the way. I made the sorcerer fire in the direction of an unexplored area (he had full life and mana) expecting some monsters to come and kill him. No result, I knew already there was no line of fire. I tried to set a fire wall under the rogue pressing triangle twice with the fire wall spell selected. Now this really crashed the program. Even if I could have killed one of them, I can't tell it could have helped anyway.

 

There was nothing else to do but restart the game. Even a reloader may die sometimes.

 

I could not curse the development team enough. Now I won't kill the Butcher this time and I leave the wounded townsman bathing in his blood and suffer until The End. Anytime I walk by, I have a partly satisfying thought; guess what it means.

 

I couldn't restart with the same rogue because I used its save slot to store some items I saved when I was trying to get the BASTARD SWORD OF THE BEAR. Now I have a pair of HEAVY SHORT BATTLE BOW OF SWIFTNESS, a COMPOSITE BOW OF THE BEAR, a FINE HUNTER'S BOW OF THE BEAR, a FINE LONG BATTLE BOW OF THE BEAR, and the SAVAGE LONG WAR BOW OF PERFECTION. I still have the JADE CROWN OF HARMONY and the jewelry but the LONG BOW OF THE BEAR was replaced, it's gone. I have a VALIANT BREAST PLATE OF GIANTS. Actually I could use none of them. As soon as I removed the armor, I could not put it back. And without the jewelry I could not use the hunter's bow.

 

I had to get dropped some dexterity boosting armor. I got and kept a RED ROBE OF MIGHT (10) and a BLUE ROBE OF THE SKY (3) instead, so I bought a QUILTED ARMOR (10) OF SKILL (8) at Griswold for 2200 gc. The mighty robe may help me to put the breast plate on again somewhere on level 10 where I plan to use it. And what happens? A skeleton drops a RED RAGS OF SKILL on the 3rd level. Buying the armor was not neccessary and the level map has lots of grating walls, I could have shot the skeletons on heap at them using the SHORT BOW I had to buy at the very start; no need of the FHBotB. Never mind. I sold the SHORT BOW at 1/30 durability because I found a HUNTER'S BOW on level two, and I shot the skeletons on heap at the grating walls using the HUNTER'S BOW. The 3rd level can be hard to clear on multiplayer mode without grating walls because there are a lot of skeletons with the skeleton king among them. You can choose to enter the skeleton king's sublevel on single player mode. It may happen you must go through a room filled with skeleton archers and the undead king to reach the stairs to level 4. If the players miss at least a STAFF OF HOLY BOLT or a decent club (e.g. BARANAR'S STAR), then they just can't get through.

[Alienated]

I finished the 2-player challenge game with the rogue named RANGER. The second start did not give me more difficult monster setup. It was actually easier. For example I got all melee monsters except lava maws on the 13th level instead of maelstorms and I found an oddly excellent formation of barrels so I patiently lured the enemy there, I stood behind it and slaughtered them on heap. The only damage I took on the level was made by lava maws. I had to reload a few times because I accidentally destroyed an important barrel in the defence right after the last hit on the enemy. This is a tipical PSX version problem. The 14-15th levels were even easier because I got only ranged-weapon monsters (witches and wizards) so I wore an AMBER ROBE OF GIANTS and an AZURE RAGS OF AGES. My armor class didn't increase on the 16th level either, I wore a CRIMSON (40%) QUILTED ARMOR (7) OF THE STARS (9). This was a proper choice because the hell horrors could not get close to me due to the WINDFORCE dropped by one of the witch bosses on the previous level. It was a bit late drop but still in time because I killed the dark lord with it easy as pie. This time I used no auxiliary magic and I were standing right in the middle of the sign when the dark lord did the longest deathscream in the game. I either pinned him to one of the corners or knocked him outside of the room and got fewer apocalypse hits. However, I used up a beltful of fulls to restore HP. I just didn't want to die and reload so I healed as soon as my HP was about halved and I didn't die as well. It was a good idea to supply the character with the jewelry and stuff in advance. I can't say I didn't obtain decent items. For example Lazarus dropped the GRANDFATHER so I could see the item with my own eyes for the first time in my life. Maybe I hadn't played a rogue-sorcerer multiplayer game before that...

 

My gear and stats were when fighting Diablo:

WINDFORCE

VALIANT (62%) BREAST PLATE (20) OF GIANTS (20)

JADE (29%) CROWN (11) OF HARMONY

AMULET OF PERFECTION (30)

RING OF PERFECTION (30)

DIAMOND (51%) RING OF THE LION (55)

LEVEL 25

STR 20/45

MAG 15/15

DEX 30/90

VIT 20/20

TO HIT 65/95%

DAM 7-7/18-58

LIFE 93/148

MANA 70/70

AC 6/61

MAG 0/MAX

FIR 0/29%

LIG 0/29%

 

The most interesting part was I went down to kill Diablo with also the level 1 sorcerer named DESTROYER. I was unable to kill the fiend. At first I tried to cook him with five SCROLLs OF FIRE WALL. I tried a SCROLL OF GUARDIAN and a GOLEM too but the guardian was so weak it just showed itself and disappeared promptly. I had a SCROLL OF NOVA, this was the invitation shot. Unfortunately I can't tell the damage of nova because it isn't indicated in the full spellbook menu. (By the way, you can select scrolls and staves in general in the speed spell book only, so I can't understand why they named the uninformative and unfunctional menu full spell book.) Then I tried again with level 8 fire wall spell (therefore I could fill the inventory and belt of full mana). The damage indicated by the fool spell book was 20 in average, so the fire resistant fiend could not take more than 5 damage from the scrolls. And the level 8 fire wall spell created a fire wall lasting longer than the five scrolls together. Still I could not beat him because I ran out of mana before he could die. There was the option to create a mana carpet on level 16 but I didn't want to be fooling around. I guess the fight is doable with proper jewelry. A jewel trio of dragon's and wizardry could provide enough HP of mana that I don't have to use a potion so often. I didn't have proper sorcerer equipment, for this was a rogue quest after all, but I still had around 200 HP of mana in comparison to RANGER'S 148. The main problem was the low damage. For example my level 7 flash was 1-2 damage. Maybe I should have used holy bolt but who can be firing magic bolts and use belt items (mana) simultaneously? I bet I could do it playing a level 1 warrior and using the gnarled root or another fine slayer. Someday...

 

To finish this story, I can report I could reproduce the bug with the spooky shrine because I found two of them in the catacombs during the second run.

 

To reproduce:

1. Kill companion somewhere in the labyrinth.

2. Use the spooky shrine.

3. Go quite far from the radiant area and save the game.

4. Quit game or switch off and on the PSX and load game from the main menu.

 

I talked about the radiant area in the previous posts. It is in the absolute location where the companion's dead body is. After you have used the spooky shrine and entered another level, the radiant area is at the entry (it may be the stairs down/up or the link to the labyrinth in town). If you enter the level where you killed the companion, a frozen image (some kind of ghost; spooky, isn't it?) appears at the entry and the dead body is no longer where the kill happened.

 

To solve:

A. Load game again from the game menu.

B. Make one of the characters die somehow.

 

I managed to kill the rogue for the test because I had an armor with the LION ability. I had reduced her HP by her own fire wall and just removed it when the stuck situation occurred. Then the screen rolled to the sorcerer and I could move normally. So it turned out I shouldn't have restarted the quest, I should have just reloaded the game again from the game menu but, as I told you, I kept crashing the game by my trials of magical suicides (fire wall) so I always reloaded from the main menu.

 

However, this bug can be exploited. A SCROLL OF RESURRECT brings your dead companion back to life only with a few hit points and zero mana. If you use a spooky shrine and save game near the radiant area, you don't get stuck but you have your companion revived and fully rejuvenated; just quit game and load from the main menu. This saves you the price of a scroll and a mana potion if you have a purifying spring nowhere. It is really a cheap trick. The more important exploit is you always get the radiant area at the entry of the level after you've used a spooky shrine, therefore you don't have to deal with monsters alarmed by the radiant area because monsters aren't usually generated near the stairs and, if they might be, your played character alarms them anyway. Still, do not lure monsters near or by the stairs with the radiant area, especially goatmen archers and witches because they will behave like skeleton archers: you can't lure them elsewhere from there and they will keep on firing at you from greatest distances. That's why the radiant area is better at corner locations of a level; the route just can't be through a corner and it is often so that one or two corner locations are invalid areas of the current level. I guess the spooky shrine method is worth doing before the 16th level because the level is a fully built one and if you get a bunch of advocates in the radiant corner, they will be fireballing you outta the level until they phase themselves somewhere else from the radiant area.

 

To move on to another difficulty level, I consider playing a quest by the non-distributed conduct with a non-towned conduct. The non-towned conduct means by nature you can't buy potions to restore life and mana, you can't use all the magical equipment in the lack of identify scrolls and glimmering shrines, you can't recharge staves properly or at all in the lack of stone shrines, and so on. This can be a severe challenge but I already know a few tricks. Unique and rare items (gold letters) can be expected to be this or that therefore you don't waste an identify scroll on a junk item. Some of these golden items already have effective abilities unidentified. For example the TORNFLESH OF SOULS has its decent armor class of 8 and indestructibility for mere rags and the RING OF ENGAGEMENT gives you the 5 points of armor class even unidentified. I am not sure about the armor class of the DEFENDER, but if you get dropped an unidentified SABRE and gives you +5 AC, then it is the DEFENDER and isn't worth identifying otherwise it is the LIGHTSABRE that is an excellent slayer to hack horned and spitter beasts to pieces. Several players already use the GOTTERDAMERUNG unidentified. In the same manner, the BLACKOAK SHIELD may be almost a better use unidentified because its AC: 18 and high durability make it already the best shield you may get in the church, not to mention the GLADIATOR'S BANE. The blessed items in the church don't make much difference in effect therefore they are not worth identifying; you can do just fine with a SPIKED CLUB and a FALCHION against those skeletons, zombies, goblins, and scavengers and there is a high risk of getting a cursed item dropped by common monsters or from chests. If you find a blood fountain and a purifying spring anywhere in the labyrinth, then you may as well save all your healing and mana charges for the bosses. Doesn't now Diablo appear as interesting as the original Rogue?

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm curious, how many rouge-likes have you played? Diablo would probably be my first that even slightly qualifies, but one I've sunk a little bit of time into in recent years would be POWDER (built for portables, but ported to tons of other platforms as well). TThough I never managed to finish it in the way it was intended (... ironman), I do intend to do so eventually.

 

It's a rare game that lets you resurrect the monsters you kill as permanent companions. This one lets you level them, customise their skillsets, and equip them with all your surplus equipment; I suppose the more popular Nethack and so on would be the same, but I doubt they match the "pick up and play" value. Dunno.

 

The release of Diablo III is getting closer, and though I've yet to lose the itch to try II again, I really can't get excited for the next game in the series. So I guess I can see why you might not be interested in trying the second.

 

That said, dunno if you were aware that the original got an expansion? Not that you'd be able to play it on the PSX, but still, thought you might find it interesting if you haven't already heard of it.

[Alienated]

I have heard about Hellfire of course.

 

This Powder looks interesting. I downloaded the Linux version, I will see in the future whether it can run on my machine. The packed game went on a floppy disk. I like it when a start is so easy.

 

I may soon start a topic I Unpowdered My Powder Disc...

[Alienated]

The Powder game just wouldn't run on my machine but it seems it is very much like NetHack therefore too complicated to be fun. Just the description of how the game (NetHack) works takes a couple of megabytes in plain text, they call them "spoiler guides". Some people think complicated gameplay = good gameplay. Pigwash is actually a complicated food: the various dishes of breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one. The piggies like it.

 

I started a multiplayer quest of rogue (DERANGER) and warrior (BEATER) (undistributed). I had the rogue fight using only melee weapons (no magic and archery at all except HEALING) and I planned the level 1 warrior (too) was going to beat Diablo in the end. Well, everything went smootly except that I found only junk weapons, I didn't obtain one single sword or club with the BEAR ability, I also didn't obtain a shield with the BLOCKING ability. And as my level passed the magical 10-15, I could not hope to find any at Griswold or Wirth. I should have supplied DERANGER in advance with proper things just as I did in the RANGER-DESTROYER quest.

 

I was in the catacombs, I was able to beat BLOODSKIN DARKBOW, it took several healing potions and mana, but I can't see how I could have beat FOULWING. That is a difficult boss by melee fight even with a warrior. I didn't even try it without the proper weapon-shield combo, maybe a SILVER RING might have been neccessary too. I don't have to mention (but I mention) I didn't beat the BUTCHER and the SKELETON KING as well. I lured Leoric in a room and closed him in.

 

Now the saved characters can rest for a long while because I switched back to my Terror from the Deep solo - funding-only campaign. They need to gather some dust.