I am all against it, it breaks the spirit of the game.
If you look at the left side of the screen, this is Diablo 2 LOD speedrun page, there's a picture of the Diablo 2 LOD box, at the top of your screen, is speedrun.com/d2lod/forum.
Classic has it's place, and you can do Classic%, with Conversion as part of a Classic%+ category.
But I don't agree on allowing that into D2 LOD Any%. It really breaks the of the run. Progressing past a difficulty, then double backing to kill Baal, just doesn't make sense to me at all.
Normal Baal should be a requirement before going into NM, and NM Baal before going into Hell.
I have no problem with the current category allowing classic characters to convert to expansion.
I would like to see an official ruleset on the d2lod page though.
Diablo 2: LoD comes with playing a classic character and upgrading a character as features of the game, and I believe any features the game allows can be used for the purposes of speedrunning, as long as characters are brand new and no old characters are assisting the run. Whether or not running a classic character and upgrading it later (probably more applicable to hell runs :P) is actually time saving is a different question, though, and all it takes is someone to show that it does save time. The rules state that timer ends on killing Hell Baal, but doesn't specifically State normal and nightmare Baal, or any act boss for that matter, have to die. They are only required to progress. Classic to expansion conversion removes two acts from a Hell run, so it could be viable. No runewords would suck though, and you would still have to level to 60 to get past hell ancients
Starting a character in classic to skip act 5 2 times is the closest we can get to a sequence break in Diablo 2. It's an any% run - the goal is to beat the game as fast as possible. If you can skip something and it doesn't slow you down in the long run - skip it.
Converting (unlike patching) is something the game enables you to do...
Personally I don't think it's necessary to specify that in the rules, but I could throw an extra line specifying that you can start the character on whatever game mode you want (if that's what the community wants/agrees to)
I do not think something like "classic%" should be a category in /d2lod/ - if people actually want run classic I will gladly create the game for them Diablo Series.
I did add the pre-lod (<=1.06) category as misc category here, but I only did that because I did not expect it to be very popular. General classic runs could be more popular and it would be a shame to hide them in a misc category.
Im with the Any% allowing a feature of the game (its LoD without expansion features) to be used as a skip, it comes with drawbacks. I wanna see like some fun crazy speed run, not some play through on Any%.
IF it was found that you could skip act 2 using some palace/jehrin bug or getting past the hitting the orb in travical for example, would that be banned in an Any% run cause its not in the spirit of the game? I think not.
Food for thought = )
"Must NOT use a pre-generated map Must NOT use any modification of the game"
i think map hack overlay counts as both these?
As an observer, I think any% LoD should start and finish as a LoD character, and have classic as a separate thing. A lord of destruction any% run could potentially be 12 out of 13 acts played in a different game, which seems silly to me... imagine the scenario where getting lvl 60 and diablo hell is all done in classic and then the last 15 minutes of the 6 hour run are act 5 hell are in the actual game you're attempting to WR.
I think the miss understanding is that "classic" is not exactly classic. It is still LoD without the expansion features.
Edit: an example, Command and Conquer generals and Command and Conquer generals: Zero Hour, are two different game.exe and Diablo LoD is one game.exe
If you don't install LoD, is the game as a non-expansion character different if you upgrade to 1.14? By "classic" I mean just most recent patch but no act 5, runes, etc.
Technicalities aside, you can just make some basic rules as a community if players and viewers mostly prefer them. I'd cast my vote on "Must be 1.14b and expansion character at all times" to qualify for a standard LoD run. You can have Diablo 2 without LoD as a seperate category and different patches as sub-categories if enough people are interested.
Doesn't mean I'm right, just what'd be preferable to me as a regular viewer and potential future runner. There's usually a bunch of confusion in the chat when a runner does a "classic strat" so I'm not alone.
I understand from both perspectives, but as a viewer and started learning the speedrunning side, i prefer new and different changes stratergies. This being an example.
Im not fussed either way, but some things with this stratergy will help my future HC p8 runs = )
Classic has different mechanics, and different stats for monsters. It is an entirely different game. Drop rates are different as well.
As for the map, it says no pre-generated and no modifications.
Overlay isn't a mod, it just reads data and displays it. I'm sure it can be a separate program and show you the map as a different program, and that would not be against the current rules.
And that is why we need clear rules.
I had always assumed creating in classic then converting was an option that just wasn't utilized (as part of being an any% category allowing game options). I'm all for allowing it, but if I'm being fair I don't actively run hell categories.
Do I really have to specify that cheating is not allowed or that any form of maphack counts as modification to the game and thus is not allowed?
We are not lawyers. We can't write rules without loopholes - we tackle problems as they appear. If we would have to adapt the rules for every new little bug or piece of technique that was found and decide whether we should allow it or not that would be super annoying and force players to take a more straight forward path?
Why not just surprise us with cool new bugs and techniques while not cheating?
That's what I like about Diablo 2 - being more free than in other speedruns, not being stuck to a route that has been more or less the same since 1985 like Super Mario Bros.
Well - we won't be able to make any changes today anyway.
As a viewer, I think this should not be allowed because D2 LoD is the expansion pack and the classic checkbox is just a feature within the expansion to play the original version (maybe you didn't like LoD and want to play the original), so basically you have two games in one and can switch between them, so when you choose classic you play a different game. If there was https://www.speedrun.com/d2, then it perhaps had two different categories: vanilla and latest patch (LoD classic).
As someone who is watching the speedruns, I too think there should be a whole different category for classic%, how i view it its supposed to be just LOD and no changing to classic d2 and this means if you start with a classic char then it should be just classic% and if you change to LOD mid-run it invalidates the run. Since this is not a bug/glitch that you can abuse to skip its not cheating or anything, its just feels off to just do 80% of the run on classic and then just switch to LOD at the end of the run even though i know any% means go as fast as possible to kill hell baal.
Again this is just my personal opinion in this, the admins/mods can decide however they should think best of it.
Hey guys,
currently there is no runs, that get close to using the classic -> convert to LOD strat. Apart from hell p8 sorcs? Runners are attempting those runs, but in my opinion this is something that will result in no time save.
There are multiple reasons for that: a) Runewords are a pretty crucial part for most of the speedruns b) You still have to reach lvl 60 in order to complete the game, since you have to kill the hell ancients anyways. This potentioally leaves you with issues on where to lvl your character.
For these reasons I personally believe that this strategy will turn out to be unusable.
In the end we have come up with a set of "game rules" which generally allows this strategy. Hopefully we didn't leave open too many holes in those rules.
currently there is no runs, that get close to using the classic -> convert to LOD strat.
I do have these https://www.speedrun.com/d2lod/run/z1jk579z https://www.speedrun.com/d2lod/run/z57wej5m
Ohh, It's allowed again and there is already a record in the category Any% Hell HC Players 8 - Barbarian. We are waiting in the category Players 1? As a viewer, I cannot accept this. For me, this is not a LoD run, you can skip some quest and even flit past the act, but you must kill the main boss for further progress.
