Current Author: Belix
Game Version: Diablo 1, Hellfire Expansion [mod]
Direct Download: http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/attachment.php?aid=228
Belix wrote:Hellfire v1.02.A5 - an Unofficial Update for Hellfire
Contained herein is my update project for Hellfire. Its simple goal is to make Hellfire better without radically altering it or using any sounds or graphics from any other games. If you're looking for a Hellfire mod that adds new spells, monsters, graphics and so forth, you'll want to look elsewhere and check out stuff like The Hell, or The Dark.
If, however, you enjoy Hellfire largely the way it is, you should appreciate this update. Read on.
What it does:
• Fixes various bugs with the game
• Improves issues that aren't bugs, but are undesirable
• Tweaks a few things for player convenience
• Customizable (if you're comfortable with a text editor)
• 100% Pure Diablo & Hellfire: No audio or graphics from other games will ever be used in this project
Highlights:
• Many combat bugs (blocking, ranged attacks, bow affixes) fixed
• Anything that permanently damaged your character in a way that couldn't be restored (e.g. Max Life, Max Mana) has been fixed or disabled
• Improvements to Multiplayer (shared experience, see others on map)
• Most screechy/loud Hellfire sounds replaced with sounds (sometimes unused extras) from the original game
You can peruse the complete, most up-to-date list of fixes, changes and features included in this project here on the Lurker Lounge at the link at the top of this post. This documentation is also included in the download for your convenience, but may be not be as current as the one here on the website.
The customization aspect of this project is not as simple yet as I would like it to be - the file in each new version will essentially reset any features you turned on or off, and I'd like it if turning said features on or off was even easier than editing a text file to, but I am considering investing a significant amount of time to improve on this in a future version.
I hold my work to high standards and try my best not to break anything in the game. If you encounter a serious issue, please report it! If it is the fault of my work, I will make every effort to issue a fix or updated version ASAP!
► Show Spoiler
SECTION 3: FULL CHANGE LIST
........>>> Changes in effect from Marsh's Mod
Marsh achieved many nice bug fixes and improvements. v1.02.A5 incorporates most of these.
Some of Marsh's changes have been altered or disabled; only active, unaltered changes from his mod are listed here.
• Gillian Stash: You may give items to Gillian for storage or transfer between your characters
• Command.txt: This file is now ignored; all features except the Cow Quest are enabled by default
• Automap: All players now appear on the automap in multiplayer if they are on the same dungeon level
• Friendly Fire: Your projectiles no longer strike other players unless Player Hostile is enabled (Fire Wall etc. may still harm allies)
• Ending Cinematic: Disabled by default so you can finish clearing the level, go play in the Crypt etc. rather than get ejected from game
• Diablo: Now treated as a Unique monster for item drops in MP Games (but consequently, in SP he always drops the Undead Crown)
• Network: UDP is now a connection method. It sometimes has problems seeing games. In my experience IPXWrapper works better.
• DiabloClicker: Included in the mod, run this (as an admin) after starting Hellfire, click 'Setup -> Install' to use Diablo II mouse behavior.
• Random Seeding: Improved; more random monster behaviour and to-hit chance, making long missing streaks less likely to occur
• Blocking: Now behaves like Diablo; you won't try to block spells that you resist, reducing the threat of 'Block Lock' (too busy blocking to fight)
• Sweep Attack: The 3 new Hellfire classes now have reduced effectiveness against adjacent enemies with sweep attacks (as intended)
• Monsters: Fixed bug that caused monsters AC to wrap around to 0 in Hell diffulty, now monsters will have very high AC in Hell
• Volume: Fixed bug which prevented players with a version of DirectX greater than v3 from changing their volume in game
• Rage: Barbarian's Rage skill no longer removes life, as this was very buggy and life could be returned by moving items in your inventory
• Mana Shield: Mana Shield no longer subtracts too much life when it is removed through damage
• Mana Shield: Mana Shield no longer becomes worse at reducing damage taken as the spell level increases; all levels have 33% damage reduction
• Flash: Now deals the correct amount of damage in all 9 directions around the caster
• Jogging: The Jog/Walk in town option now works in Multiplayer mode
• Oils: All oils can now drop in Multiplayer mode
• Enchanted Shrine: Can now be obtained from Cauldrons and Goat Shrines beyond dungeon level 8
• Fascinating/Sacred/Ornate Shrines: Now remove 1 point of the Magic stat rather than reducing Maximum Mana by 10%
• Balrogs: No longer pause for several seconds deciding between casting Inferno or meleeing (not sure this works, they still pause sometimes)
• Monsters: Unique monsters that were placed on levels where their monster type doesn't appear have been corrected
• Staves: Many weapon prefixes and suffixes have been added to staves to give Monks more options
• Uniques: Due to design flaw, it was difficult/impossible for many unique items to drop; now have a fairly even chance of dropping on all difficulty levels
........The following changes are also included in Marsh's Mod, but were undocumented (there may be more I haven't found yet):
• Monsters: A couple new unique foes appear in Diablo's dungeons
• Fleshdancer: Marsh brought this unique Soul Burner over from Hellfire: Fixed, but forgot to enable it - this has been corrected
........>>> Bug Fixes
These changes correct what appear to be errors and/or oversights in the game's design.
• Monster Double Deaths: In MP games, monsters could die more than once, dropping duplicate items and granting extra experience
• Player Deadlock: Switching gear during combat could freeze your hero indefinitely
• Portals Into Walls: In MP games, other players' portals could deposit you inside solid walls
• Stone Curse: Quickly Stone Cursing a monster more than once, then leaving the floor stoned it permanently
• Service Menus: Item lists shown when getting services from Cain, Griswold and Adria didn't show uniques in gold text
• Fire Arrow Traps: Insanely high damage significantly reduced; beware though, they can still kill you if you're weakened
• Loading Screens: Most computers should now load into town or dungeons up to 3x faster
• Shrines: No longer can your Magic be reduced to a negative value (Barbarians rejoice!)
• Shrines: No permanent Life/Mana loss when a shrine tries to reduce your Magic or Vitality and it is already 0
• Monster Ranged Attacks: BEWARE! Most monsters previously couldn't hit you up close with arrows or spells; now they can
• Item stat overflow: Chance To Hit less than 0% could roll over to a positive value under 65536%
• Item stat overflow: Armor Class less than 0 could roll over to a positive value under 256
• Block Bonus: Each class now gains its intended chance to block bonus (previously always ignored in Hellfire)
• Doppelganger's: Cloning effect disabled in MP games due to sync issues and crashes
• of Peril: Now properly updates your Life Orb to show damage taken (previously only updated if you had Life Steal)
• Quick Attack (Melee): Did not actually increase your attack speed; now it has the same effect as Fast Attack
• Diablo: Now makes his death cry even if the ending cinematic is disabled
• The Shredded: All 528 animation frames are now properly centered; were too far to the left
• Resurrect: The spell sound effect was set incorrectly and would never play; now you'll hear it as intended
• Rejuvenation Potion: A bug with the amount of Life and Mana restored for Monks and Bards has been fixed (50% more effective for each)
• Rejuvenation Potion: No longer looks identical to Full Rejuvenation while on the ground; is now a dim gold, as seemed intended
• Long War Bow: Gains what appears to be its intended inventory graphic (previously looked identical to Long Battle Bow)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Now enabled in Multiplayer, appearing in 33% of games (single player should be unaffected)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: No Warlord speech in Multiplayer (his speech would not activate for all players, making him invincible to them)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Steel Tome dialogue does not replay every time you re-enter floor in Multiplayer
• Warlord of Blood: Loses Lightning Immunity, gains Lightning Resistance (now the same as his lackeys)
• Sir Gorash: Gains Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, and Magic Resistance
• Na-Krul: Retains Fire Immunity, but Lightning and Magic immunities lowered to resistances
• Devil Kin Brute: A missing walk animation that resulted in a sliding motion has been improved
• Footstep Sounds: Disabled since Hellfire's original release, the subtle sounds of your feet may now be heard once again
• Combat Effects (Bows): Many combat effects ignored or bugged when using Bows now work correctly
........Affects: • Jester's • of Bashing • of Blood • of Devastation • of Peril • of Piercing • of Puncturing • of the Bat • of the Leech • of Vampires
...................• Deadly Hunter • Ring of Engagement • The Undead Crown
........Notes...
............Deadly Hunter: Yes, the +200% Damage vs Demons on this bow finally works now after all these years - good luck finding one though!
............Penetrate Target's Armor: Unchanged, listed for reference: Piercing = 1, Puncturing = 2, Bashing = 3, Ring of Engagement = 4 (multiple sources stack!)
............Penetrate, 1 Point: Unchanged, effectively ignores 25% of monster's Armor Class (resultant AC rounded down)
............Penetrate, 2+ Points: Unchanged, 1st point ignored, every point after it accumulatively halves effective AC: 2 = -50%, 3 = -75%, 4 = -87%, 5 = -93% etc.
............Penetrate, Point Bug: In plain Hellfire, Bows affected by Penetration actually raised a monster's AC by the number of penetrate points!
............Blitzen & Flambeau: These attack as spells, and will not gain these modifiers
............Remember: Life Steal, Mana Steal and Jester's don't normally appear on bows (but you can use the Undead Crown for Life Stealing bows now!)
• Attack Speed Behavior (Bows): Bows with Fast Attack Speed or better now fire faster; arrow speed bonus removed
........Reasoning: Diablo had it right! Hellfire made Swiftness bows & The Needler junk: Fast Attack granted +2 arrow speed, flying a mere 6% faster at best.
........Affects: • of Haste • of Speed • of Swiftness • The Needler
........Notes...
............Behavior: Should be identical to melee; 1 frame faster with Fast, 2 frames with Faster/Fastest. Rogues will benefit most
............Gnat Sting: Unaffected; has Quick Attack which doesn't shoot faster, but retains its +1 Arrow Speed behavior
............Remember: Speed and Haste don't normally appear on bows
• Monster Chance To Hit Overflow (Melee): Chance To Hit more than 255% would be erroneously reduced by 256%
........Affects: • Nightmare • Hell
...................• Diablo • Na'Krul • Flesh Thing
• Black Death permanent max life damage
........Black Deaths now have a 75% chance to steal 1 Vitality per hit, offset by Magic Resist (75% Resist Magic = immune to Vitality drain)
........Reasoning: Restores Black Death life reduction without the old permanent damage to your max life. Also less harsh as the effect is resistable.
........Notes...
............Drain Limit: Black Deaths will never reduce your Vitality below your current character level
• Search spell duration
........Now matches the formula in Jarulf's Guide: 12.25 + 10 * Spell Level + Character Level seconds (Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc = 3.2~ minutes)
........Notes...
............Original Behavior: 12.25 + 0.5 * Spell Level + 0.1 seconds; Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc: = 20~ seconds (yes, it ignored character level)
............Duration Stacks: Unchanged; every cast of Search adds the spell duration to its current duration if it is already active
• Text Descriptions
............• Jester's: "Random 0 - 500% Damage" >>> "Random 0 - 600% Damage" (correction from Jarulf's Guide)
............• of Devastation: "Occasional Triple Damage" >>> "5% chance of 300% Damage"
............• of Speed: "Faster Attack" >>> "Fastest Attack" (these do the same thing; they should have same description)
............• of Thieves: "Absorbs half of Trap Damage" >>> "Reduces Ranged Damage 50%" (Thieves suffix acts this way in Hellfire)
............• Bone Chain Armor: "Extra AC vs Undead" >>> "+20 Armor vs Undead"
............• Demon Plate Armor: "Extra AC vs Demons" >>> "+40 Armor vs Demons"
............• Flamedart: No longer states its Fire Damage twice
............• Helm of Spirits: Name corrected (mistyped as 'Helm of Sprits' since Diablo's release)
............• Auric Amulet: Removed "Doubles gold capacity" (obsolete now; always have 10k gold piles)
• Unique Monsters in Hellfire's New Areas
........Originally introduced in Hellfire: Fixed, Marsh brought these evil doers over to his mod (which this project is based on).
........With them came some unreasonably high stats, which made most of the new bosses in the Crypt behave one difficulty level higher.
........For example, the new Arch Lich boss on Crypt 4 did almost as much damage on Normal as a Blood Knight does on Hell difficulty. Yikes!
........I have since rebalanced the Crypt bosses; unreasonably high hit points and damage ranges are now closer to Diablo's original bosses.
........Lastly, none of the new uniques should have triple immunity any more (Fire/Lightning/Magic), as this seemed unfair to Sorcerers on Normal.
........>>> Improvements
These changes alter arguably negative aspects of the game.
• Griswold: Stops favoring the sale of item types you don't have (now I can stop calling him "Grisbald the Junksmith")
• Wirt: Stops favoring the sale of item types you don't have (i.e. if you carry 3 bows, he'd virtually never sell a bow)
• Blood Fountain: Restores 12.5% of your current Vitality as Life per click (instead of 1 Life per click, which took forever)
• Purifying Spring: Restores 12.5% of your current Magic as Mana per click
• New Game/Quit: To prevent accidental exits, these options are now disabled while you are dead in a multiplayer game
• Chain Lightning: No longer scans for targets further than the corners of your screen (reduces gapping)
• Defiler Speeches: You will no longer hear the Defiler speak before you actually encounter it (no more awful disembodied taunting)
• Blocked Doors: No longer highlighted for interaction by the mouse; it can no longer obscure items behind it
• Skullwing: Previously identical in appearance to the stronger Bone Demon, they have been granted their own distinct color
• Oils: Mostly junk items, many Oil stats have been increased, and the description of their effects improved (still a work in progress!)
• Multiplayer Characters are no longer saved as Hidden System Files
........They're still saved in your WINDOWS directory as hr_info#.drv (but now they're a lot easier to find!)
........Notes...
............Existing Characters: This change will only unhide existing characters after each one is played again (just host/exit with each one quickly)
• Experience is now shared between all players
........In the current implementation, exp is always divided by the number of players in the game, NOT just the same floor! So play together!
........Reasoning: In the original game, only players who struck a monster got a cut of its experience, divided by the number of entitled players.
............Marsh's mod introduced a Shared Exp feature that rewarded all players on the same level, but it gave everyone 100% of the experience,
............making leveling in MP games faster. This is my attempt to retain the Shared Exp feature while returning Exp gains to normal behavior.
............Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work without dividing when players are dead or absent, but this does have the unintended benefit of
............making it harder to get ahead of teammates. I will further refine this to act more like the original game when/if I can.
• Shorter Spell Wall Durations
........Extra time per level halved, Lightning doesn't last longer than Fire any more
........Reasoning: Wall duration was more annoying than helpful. Level 15 Lightning Walls lasted 3.4 minutes!
........Affects: • Fire Wall • Lightning Wall • Ring of Fire
• Altered Monster Animation Speeds
........Some Hellfire monsters died too awkwardly; death animation speeds have been slightly adjusted
........Affects: • Arch-Lich • Biclops • Devil Kin Brute • Felltwin • Lich
• Altered Monster Animation Frames
........Some death animations looked confusingly like stun animations at first; hit-like frames removed
........Affects: • Hork Spawn • Crypt Demon
• Altered Monster Sound Effects
........Many Hellfire monsters now use other fitting sounds from the game to reduce silly/loud/screechy sounds and improve atmosphere
........Affects: • Crypt Demon • Devil Kin Brute • Firebat • Hellbat • Hellboar • Tomb Rat
...................• Biclops • Felltwin • Flesh Thing • Grave Digger • Hork Spawn • Spider Lord • The Shredded
........Notes...
............The Shredded: You will actually hear a sound when you hit them now; they were previously silent
• Unidentified Uniques:
........Some Hellfire uniques are too powerful if used unidentified; these will be made less potent, but still useful this way (like Gotterdamerung)
............• Bovine Plate: Armor: 150 >>> Armor: 100, +50% (150) Identified (less armor without ID)
............• Armor of Gloom: Armor: 225 >>> Armor: 180, +25% (225) Identified (less armor without ID; on par with good Awesome Plate)
• Altered Unique Staves - Fast Block
........In the spirit of Marsh's Mod adding Staves of Blocking, Unique Staves without spells now gain Fast Block
........Affects: • Immolator • Staff of Shadows • Storm Spire
• Altered Unique Bows - Life & Mana Steal
........Now that bows can leech as of v1.02.A4, 4 mid-range unique bows gain Life or Mana steal
........Affects: • Bow of the Dead • Flamedart • Fleshstinger • The Blackoak Bow
........Notes...
............Amounts: Bow of the Dead: 3% Life, Flamedart: 5% Mana, Fleshstinger: 5% Life, The Blackoak Bow: 3% Mana
............Vitality Curses: Bow of the Dead had no room for a new enchantment, so I replaced -3 Vitality; for consistency, I replaced -10 Vitality on Blackoak also
• Altered Hellfire Unique Jewelry - Improve Usefulness
........Most Hellfire jewelry is of questionable use even if found as early as possible. They get a boost but will remain inferior to possible Magic jewelry.
............• Ring of Magma: +60% Resist Fire, +15 Strength (was: +60% Resist Fire, -30% Resist Magic, -30% Resist Lght)
............• Ring of the Mystics: +60% Resist Magic, +15 Magic (was: +60% Resist Magic, -30% Resist Fire, -30% Resist Lght)
............• Ring of Thunder: +60% Resist Lght, +15 Dexterity (was: +60% Resist Lght, -30% Resist Magic, +60% Resist Fire)
............• Acolytes Amulet: +50 Mana, +10% Resist All, Faster Hit Recovery (was: 50% of Base Mana to Life*)
............• Gladiator's Ring: +40 Life, +5 To All Attributes, +15% Chance To Hit (was: 40% of Base Life to Mana*)
............• Amulet of Warding: +40% Resist All, +4 Armor, -3 Damage, +20 Armor vs Undead (was: +40% Res All, -100 Life)
*The Life/Mana trade jewels were buggy and didn't always work.
• Altered Diablo Uniques - Improve Usefulness
........This is by no means a comprehensive rehaul of Diablo uniques!
........These are a few Uniques I found I felt would be considerably more appealing with only minimal changes.
............• Blackoak Shield: -10 Vitality >>> Fast Hit Recovery
............• Harlequin Crest: +2 All Attributes >>> +4 All Attributes, +7 Life & Mana >>> +15 Life & Mana (AC penalty might be worth it now)
............• Helm of Spirits: Life Stealing (was: Hit Steals 5% Life; this very rare helm can now be stacked with normal Life Steal)
............• Messerschmidt's Reaver: -50 Life >>> +2 Damage From Enemies
............• Ring of Engagement: 1-3 Damage to Attacker (qlvl1) >>> 5% Chance of 300% Damage (qlvl1)
........>>> Tweaks
These aim to make certain aspects of the game more convenient, but aren't technically fixes.
• Level Up Meter: A meter drawn at the bottom of the user interface shows you how close you are to your next Level Up
• Item Outlines: In the dungeon, the color drawn to outline items on the floor now match the type of item (e.g. Gold outline = unique item)
• Adria: By popular demand, when you speak to Adria she will now recharge your magical energy if you were not full
• Sierra Logo: Skipped automatically
• Hellfire Logo: Skipped automatically (intro still plays)
• Elixir of Strength: No longer looks identical to Potion of Mana while on the ground; is now a bright white bottle, like Vitality Elixirs
• Spell Scrolls: Unlearnable spells (Identify, Infravision, Resurrect) have blue ribbons instead of red ones
• Oils: Oils that might be something other than Blacksmith, Sharpness or Accuracy have a thin black vial (could still be those, though)
• Durability Warnings: Now appear 2 points earlier (yellow and red at 7 and 4, instead of 5 and 2)
• Gold Piles: Always up to 10k without Auric Amulet
• Town Respawn: You now respawn within sight of Town Portals (rejoin other players faster)
• Cain: Stops assailing you with his 'bode well' & 'quite grim' speeches in Multiplayer (heard this a thousand times)
• Griswold: Merely says "Greetings!" when spoken to (short greeting)
• Adria: Merely says "Hello, good friend." when spoken to (short greeting)
• Adria: Her shack has moved near the Town Portals (bridges leading to her old home are gone, to help remind you she moved)
• Wirt: Now located at the big tree south of starting house (he's about as far from the start now as Griswold)
• Glowing Shrine: Won't appear below Level 3 (removed from Goat Shrines & Cauldrons, -5% experience is too nasty for high level chars)
• Mendicant's Shrine: Now single player only (multiplayer experience cap often prevents full benefit, not worth the gold it can steal)
• Tainted Shrine: No longer appears (reducing your friend's attributes by accident is not cool)
• Murphy's Shrine: No longer appears (damaged your gear or stole 33% of your gold)
• More Player Information: To improve coop play, mousing over other players now additionally shows their Armor Class and Resistances
• Maxed Resistances: Now display their value (75%) instead of MAX for better display consistency with the above feature
........>>> Changes in effect from Marsh's Mod
Marsh achieved many nice bug fixes and improvements. v1.02.A5 incorporates most of these.
Some of Marsh's changes have been altered or disabled; only active, unaltered changes from his mod are listed here.
• Gillian Stash: You may give items to Gillian for storage or transfer between your characters
• Command.txt: This file is now ignored; all features except the Cow Quest are enabled by default
• Automap: All players now appear on the automap in multiplayer if they are on the same dungeon level
• Friendly Fire: Your projectiles no longer strike other players unless Player Hostile is enabled (Fire Wall etc. may still harm allies)
• Ending Cinematic: Disabled by default so you can finish clearing the level, go play in the Crypt etc. rather than get ejected from game
• Diablo: Now treated as a Unique monster for item drops in MP Games (but consequently, in SP he always drops the Undead Crown)
• Network: UDP is now a connection method. It sometimes has problems seeing games. In my experience IPXWrapper works better.
• DiabloClicker: Included in the mod, run this (as an admin) after starting Hellfire, click 'Setup -> Install' to use Diablo II mouse behavior.
• Random Seeding: Improved; more random monster behaviour and to-hit chance, making long missing streaks less likely to occur
• Blocking: Now behaves like Diablo; you won't try to block spells that you resist, reducing the threat of 'Block Lock' (too busy blocking to fight)
• Sweep Attack: The 3 new Hellfire classes now have reduced effectiveness against adjacent enemies with sweep attacks (as intended)
• Monsters: Fixed bug that caused monsters AC to wrap around to 0 in Hell diffulty, now monsters will have very high AC in Hell
• Volume: Fixed bug which prevented players with a version of DirectX greater than v3 from changing their volume in game
• Rage: Barbarian's Rage skill no longer removes life, as this was very buggy and life could be returned by moving items in your inventory
• Mana Shield: Mana Shield no longer subtracts too much life when it is removed through damage
• Mana Shield: Mana Shield no longer becomes worse at reducing damage taken as the spell level increases; all levels have 33% damage reduction
• Flash: Now deals the correct amount of damage in all 9 directions around the caster
• Jogging: The Jog/Walk in town option now works in Multiplayer mode
• Oils: All oils can now drop in Multiplayer mode
• Enchanted Shrine: Can now be obtained from Cauldrons and Goat Shrines beyond dungeon level 8
• Fascinating/Sacred/Ornate Shrines: Now remove 1 point of the Magic stat rather than reducing Maximum Mana by 10%
• Balrogs: No longer pause for several seconds deciding between casting Inferno or meleeing (not sure this works, they still pause sometimes)
• Monsters: Unique monsters that were placed on levels where their monster type doesn't appear have been corrected
• Staves: Many weapon prefixes and suffixes have been added to staves to give Monks more options
• Uniques: Due to design flaw, it was difficult/impossible for many unique items to drop; now have a fairly even chance of dropping on all difficulty levels
........The following changes are also included in Marsh's Mod, but were undocumented (there may be more I haven't found yet):
• Monsters: A couple new unique foes appear in Diablo's dungeons
• Fleshdancer: Marsh brought this unique Soul Burner over from Hellfire: Fixed, but forgot to enable it - this has been corrected
........>>> Bug Fixes
These changes correct what appear to be errors and/or oversights in the game's design.
• Monster Double Deaths: In MP games, monsters could die more than once, dropping duplicate items and granting extra experience
• Player Deadlock: Switching gear during combat could freeze your hero indefinitely
• Portals Into Walls: In MP games, other players' portals could deposit you inside solid walls
• Stone Curse: Quickly Stone Cursing a monster more than once, then leaving the floor stoned it permanently
• Service Menus: Item lists shown when getting services from Cain, Griswold and Adria didn't show uniques in gold text
• Fire Arrow Traps: Insanely high damage significantly reduced; beware though, they can still kill you if you're weakened
• Loading Screens: Most computers should now load into town or dungeons up to 3x faster
• Shrines: No longer can your Magic be reduced to a negative value (Barbarians rejoice!)
• Shrines: No permanent Life/Mana loss when a shrine tries to reduce your Magic or Vitality and it is already 0
• Monster Ranged Attacks: BEWARE! Most monsters previously couldn't hit you up close with arrows or spells; now they can
• Item stat overflow: Chance To Hit less than 0% could roll over to a positive value under 65536%
• Item stat overflow: Armor Class less than 0 could roll over to a positive value under 256
• Block Bonus: Each class now gains its intended chance to block bonus (previously always ignored in Hellfire)
• Doppelganger's: Cloning effect disabled in MP games due to sync issues and crashes
• of Peril: Now properly updates your Life Orb to show damage taken (previously only updated if you had Life Steal)
• Quick Attack (Melee): Did not actually increase your attack speed; now it has the same effect as Fast Attack
• Diablo: Now makes his death cry even if the ending cinematic is disabled
• The Shredded: All 528 animation frames are now properly centered; were too far to the left
• Resurrect: The spell sound effect was set incorrectly and would never play; now you'll hear it as intended
• Rejuvenation Potion: A bug with the amount of Life and Mana restored for Monks and Bards has been fixed (50% more effective for each)
• Rejuvenation Potion: No longer looks identical to Full Rejuvenation while on the ground; is now a dim gold, as seemed intended
• Long War Bow: Gains what appears to be its intended inventory graphic (previously looked identical to Long Battle Bow)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Now enabled in Multiplayer, appearing in 33% of games (single player should be unaffected)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: No Warlord speech in Multiplayer (his speech would not activate for all players, making him invincible to them)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Steel Tome dialogue does not replay every time you re-enter floor in Multiplayer
• Warlord of Blood: Loses Lightning Immunity, gains Lightning Resistance (now the same as his lackeys)
• Sir Gorash: Gains Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, and Magic Resistance
• Na-Krul: Retains Fire Immunity, but Lightning and Magic immunities lowered to resistances
• Devil Kin Brute: A missing walk animation that resulted in a sliding motion has been improved
• Footstep Sounds: Disabled since Hellfire's original release, the subtle sounds of your feet may now be heard once again
• Combat Effects (Bows): Many combat effects ignored or bugged when using Bows now work correctly
........Affects: • Jester's • of Bashing • of Blood • of Devastation • of Peril • of Piercing • of Puncturing • of the Bat • of the Leech • of Vampires
...................• Deadly Hunter • Ring of Engagement • The Undead Crown
........Notes...
............Deadly Hunter: Yes, the +200% Damage vs Demons on this bow finally works now after all these years - good luck finding one though!
............Penetrate Target's Armor: Unchanged, listed for reference: Piercing = 1, Puncturing = 2, Bashing = 3, Ring of Engagement = 4 (multiple sources stack!)
............Penetrate, 1 Point: Unchanged, effectively ignores 25% of monster's Armor Class (resultant AC rounded down)
............Penetrate, 2+ Points: Unchanged, 1st point ignored, every point after it accumulatively halves effective AC: 2 = -50%, 3 = -75%, 4 = -87%, 5 = -93% etc.
............Penetrate, Point Bug: In plain Hellfire, Bows affected by Penetration actually raised a monster's AC by the number of penetrate points!
............Blitzen & Flambeau: These attack as spells, and will not gain these modifiers
............Remember: Life Steal, Mana Steal and Jester's don't normally appear on bows (but you can use the Undead Crown for Life Stealing bows now!)
• Attack Speed Behavior (Bows): Bows with Fast Attack Speed or better now fire faster; arrow speed bonus removed
........Reasoning: Diablo had it right! Hellfire made Swiftness bows & The Needler junk: Fast Attack granted +2 arrow speed, flying a mere 6% faster at best.
........Affects: • of Haste • of Speed • of Swiftness • The Needler
........Notes...
............Behavior: Should be identical to melee; 1 frame faster with Fast, 2 frames with Faster/Fastest. Rogues will benefit most
............Gnat Sting: Unaffected; has Quick Attack which doesn't shoot faster, but retains its +1 Arrow Speed behavior
............Remember: Speed and Haste don't normally appear on bows
• Monster Chance To Hit Overflow (Melee): Chance To Hit more than 255% would be erroneously reduced by 256%
........Affects: • Nightmare • Hell
...................• Diablo • Na'Krul • Flesh Thing
• Black Death permanent max life damage
........Black Deaths now have a 75% chance to steal 1 Vitality per hit, offset by Magic Resist (75% Resist Magic = immune to Vitality drain)
........Reasoning: Restores Black Death life reduction without the old permanent damage to your max life. Also less harsh as the effect is resistable.
........Notes...
............Drain Limit: Black Deaths will never reduce your Vitality below your current character level
• Search spell duration
........Now matches the formula in Jarulf's Guide: 12.25 + 10 * Spell Level + Character Level seconds (Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc = 3.2~ minutes)
........Notes...
............Original Behavior: 12.25 + 0.5 * Spell Level + 0.1 seconds; Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc: = 20~ seconds (yes, it ignored character level)
............Duration Stacks: Unchanged; every cast of Search adds the spell duration to its current duration if it is already active
• Text Descriptions
............• Jester's: "Random 0 - 500% Damage" >>> "Random 0 - 600% Damage" (correction from Jarulf's Guide)
............• of Devastation: "Occasional Triple Damage" >>> "5% chance of 300% Damage"
............• of Speed: "Faster Attack" >>> "Fastest Attack" (these do the same thing; they should have same description)
............• of Thieves: "Absorbs half of Trap Damage" >>> "Reduces Ranged Damage 50%" (Thieves suffix acts this way in Hellfire)
............• Bone Chain Armor: "Extra AC vs Undead" >>> "+20 Armor vs Undead"
............• Demon Plate Armor: "Extra AC vs Demons" >>> "+40 Armor vs Demons"
............• Flamedart: No longer states its Fire Damage twice
............• Helm of Spirits: Name corrected (mistyped as 'Helm of Sprits' since Diablo's release)
............• Auric Amulet: Removed "Doubles gold capacity" (obsolete now; always have 10k gold piles)
• Unique Monsters in Hellfire's New Areas
........Originally introduced in Hellfire: Fixed, Marsh brought these evil doers over to his mod (which this project is based on).
........With them came some unreasonably high stats, which made most of the new bosses in the Crypt behave one difficulty level higher.
........For example, the new Arch Lich boss on Crypt 4 did almost as much damage on Normal as a Blood Knight does on Hell difficulty. Yikes!
........I have since rebalanced the Crypt bosses; unreasonably high hit points and damage ranges are now closer to Diablo's original bosses.
........Lastly, none of the new uniques should have triple immunity any more (Fire/Lightning/Magic), as this seemed unfair to Sorcerers on Normal.
........>>> Improvements
These changes alter arguably negative aspects of the game.
• Griswold: Stops favoring the sale of item types you don't have (now I can stop calling him "Grisbald the Junksmith")
• Wirt: Stops favoring the sale of item types you don't have (i.e. if you carry 3 bows, he'd virtually never sell a bow)
• Blood Fountain: Restores 12.5% of your current Vitality as Life per click (instead of 1 Life per click, which took forever)
• Purifying Spring: Restores 12.5% of your current Magic as Mana per click
• New Game/Quit: To prevent accidental exits, these options are now disabled while you are dead in a multiplayer game
• Chain Lightning: No longer scans for targets further than the corners of your screen (reduces gapping)
• Defiler Speeches: You will no longer hear the Defiler speak before you actually encounter it (no more awful disembodied taunting)
• Blocked Doors: No longer highlighted for interaction by the mouse; it can no longer obscure items behind it
• Skullwing: Previously identical in appearance to the stronger Bone Demon, they have been granted their own distinct color
• Oils: Mostly junk items, many Oil stats have been increased, and the description of their effects improved (still a work in progress!)
• Multiplayer Characters are no longer saved as Hidden System Files
........They're still saved in your WINDOWS directory as hr_info#.drv (but now they're a lot easier to find!)
........Notes...
............Existing Characters: This change will only unhide existing characters after each one is played again (just host/exit with each one quickly)
• Experience is now shared between all players
........In the current implementation, exp is always divided by the number of players in the game, NOT just the same floor! So play together!
........Reasoning: In the original game, only players who struck a monster got a cut of its experience, divided by the number of entitled players.
............Marsh's mod introduced a Shared Exp feature that rewarded all players on the same level, but it gave everyone 100% of the experience,
............making leveling in MP games faster. This is my attempt to retain the Shared Exp feature while returning Exp gains to normal behavior.
............Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work without dividing when players are dead or absent, but this does have the unintended benefit of
............making it harder to get ahead of teammates. I will further refine this to act more like the original game when/if I can.
• Shorter Spell Wall Durations
........Extra time per level halved, Lightning doesn't last longer than Fire any more
........Reasoning: Wall duration was more annoying than helpful. Level 15 Lightning Walls lasted 3.4 minutes!
........Affects: • Fire Wall • Lightning Wall • Ring of Fire
• Altered Monster Animation Speeds
........Some Hellfire monsters died too awkwardly; death animation speeds have been slightly adjusted
........Affects: • Arch-Lich • Biclops • Devil Kin Brute • Felltwin • Lich
• Altered Monster Animation Frames
........Some death animations looked confusingly like stun animations at first; hit-like frames removed
........Affects: • Hork Spawn • Crypt Demon
• Altered Monster Sound Effects
........Many Hellfire monsters now use other fitting sounds from the game to reduce silly/loud/screechy sounds and improve atmosphere
........Affects: • Crypt Demon • Devil Kin Brute • Firebat • Hellbat • Hellboar • Tomb Rat
...................• Biclops • Felltwin • Flesh Thing • Grave Digger • Hork Spawn • Spider Lord • The Shredded
........Notes...
............The Shredded: You will actually hear a sound when you hit them now; they were previously silent
• Unidentified Uniques:
........Some Hellfire uniques are too powerful if used unidentified; these will be made less potent, but still useful this way (like Gotterdamerung)
............• Bovine Plate: Armor: 150 >>> Armor: 100, +50% (150) Identified (less armor without ID)
............• Armor of Gloom: Armor: 225 >>> Armor: 180, +25% (225) Identified (less armor without ID; on par with good Awesome Plate)
• Altered Unique Staves - Fast Block
........In the spirit of Marsh's Mod adding Staves of Blocking, Unique Staves without spells now gain Fast Block
........Affects: • Immolator • Staff of Shadows • Storm Spire
• Altered Unique Bows - Life & Mana Steal
........Now that bows can leech as of v1.02.A4, 4 mid-range unique bows gain Life or Mana steal
........Affects: • Bow of the Dead • Flamedart • Fleshstinger • The Blackoak Bow
........Notes...
............Amounts: Bow of the Dead: 3% Life, Flamedart: 5% Mana, Fleshstinger: 5% Life, The Blackoak Bow: 3% Mana
............Vitality Curses: Bow of the Dead had no room for a new enchantment, so I replaced -3 Vitality; for consistency, I replaced -10 Vitality on Blackoak also
• Altered Hellfire Unique Jewelry - Improve Usefulness
........Most Hellfire jewelry is of questionable use even if found as early as possible. They get a boost but will remain inferior to possible Magic jewelry.
............• Ring of Magma: +60% Resist Fire, +15 Strength (was: +60% Resist Fire, -30% Resist Magic, -30% Resist Lght)
............• Ring of the Mystics: +60% Resist Magic, +15 Magic (was: +60% Resist Magic, -30% Resist Fire, -30% Resist Lght)
............• Ring of Thunder: +60% Resist Lght, +15 Dexterity (was: +60% Resist Lght, -30% Resist Magic, +60% Resist Fire)
............• Acolytes Amulet: +50 Mana, +10% Resist All, Faster Hit Recovery (was: 50% of Base Mana to Life*)
............• Gladiator's Ring: +40 Life, +5 To All Attributes, +15% Chance To Hit (was: 40% of Base Life to Mana*)
............• Amulet of Warding: +40% Resist All, +4 Armor, -3 Damage, +20 Armor vs Undead (was: +40% Res All, -100 Life)
*The Life/Mana trade jewels were buggy and didn't always work.
• Altered Diablo Uniques - Improve Usefulness
........This is by no means a comprehensive rehaul of Diablo uniques!
........These are a few Uniques I found I felt would be considerably more appealing with only minimal changes.
............• Blackoak Shield: -10 Vitality >>> Fast Hit Recovery
............• Harlequin Crest: +2 All Attributes >>> +4 All Attributes, +7 Life & Mana >>> +15 Life & Mana (AC penalty might be worth it now)
............• Helm of Spirits: Life Stealing (was: Hit Steals 5% Life; this very rare helm can now be stacked with normal Life Steal)
............• Messerschmidt's Reaver: -50 Life >>> +2 Damage From Enemies
............• Ring of Engagement: 1-3 Damage to Attacker (qlvl1) >>> 5% Chance of 300% Damage (qlvl1)
........>>> Tweaks
These aim to make certain aspects of the game more convenient, but aren't technically fixes.
• Level Up Meter: A meter drawn at the bottom of the user interface shows you how close you are to your next Level Up
• Item Outlines: In the dungeon, the color drawn to outline items on the floor now match the type of item (e.g. Gold outline = unique item)
• Adria: By popular demand, when you speak to Adria she will now recharge your magical energy if you were not full
• Sierra Logo: Skipped automatically
• Hellfire Logo: Skipped automatically (intro still plays)
• Elixir of Strength: No longer looks identical to Potion of Mana while on the ground; is now a bright white bottle, like Vitality Elixirs
• Spell Scrolls: Unlearnable spells (Identify, Infravision, Resurrect) have blue ribbons instead of red ones
• Oils: Oils that might be something other than Blacksmith, Sharpness or Accuracy have a thin black vial (could still be those, though)
• Durability Warnings: Now appear 2 points earlier (yellow and red at 7 and 4, instead of 5 and 2)
• Gold Piles: Always up to 10k without Auric Amulet
• Town Respawn: You now respawn within sight of Town Portals (rejoin other players faster)
• Cain: Stops assailing you with his 'bode well' & 'quite grim' speeches in Multiplayer (heard this a thousand times)
• Griswold: Merely says "Greetings!" when spoken to (short greeting)
• Adria: Merely says "Hello, good friend." when spoken to (short greeting)
• Adria: Her shack has moved near the Town Portals (bridges leading to her old home are gone, to help remind you she moved)
• Wirt: Now located at the big tree south of starting house (he's about as far from the start now as Griswold)
• Glowing Shrine: Won't appear below Level 3 (removed from Goat Shrines & Cauldrons, -5% experience is too nasty for high level chars)
• Mendicant's Shrine: Now single player only (multiplayer experience cap often prevents full benefit, not worth the gold it can steal)
• Tainted Shrine: No longer appears (reducing your friend's attributes by accident is not cool)
• Murphy's Shrine: No longer appears (damaged your gear or stole 33% of your gold)
• More Player Information: To improve coop play, mousing over other players now additionally shows their Armor Class and Resistances
• Maxed Resistances: Now display their value (75%) instead of MAX for better display consistency with the above feature
