Diablo 1 bugs

[Lanthanide]

Post any interesting bugs you know of here (I'm not really expecting many, to be honest).

My favorite one is how to play NM or Hell in Single player, because normally you can only play Normal difficulty. Due to the way SP works however, when you start a brand new game you'll have to start in the church and go all the way up, so it's kind of tedious if you're level 20+ already wading back through the church.

Go to start a multiplayer game, and choose a local IPX game. You'll need a clvl 20 or 30 character to start a NM or Hell game. Start the game and then quit it. Go straight to the single player option, choose your character and start a new game and it'll be the same difficulty as the multiplayer game you just started and exited.

The most interesting thing here is that you can do this with a clvl 1 character and start playing directly in NM or Hell mode. I've only tried this with playing Hell, but it's fun to only have to kill 1-2 monsters to level up - typically you will get to clvl 9 by the end of dlvl 2. However this is only really practicable with the Sorcerer because his spells hit 95% of the time and do enough damage to kill monsters quickly, whereas the rogue and warrior have To Hit scores which are abysmal against the Hell-difficulty monsters (yes, even Hell difficulty Fallen - trying a NM game might be more successful here). If you play this way you need to be very cautious because the monsters will do enough damage to kill you in 1 or 2 hits.

[Swiffer]

I know of 2 big ones. The first is a bug with Mana Shield and Stunlock.

Basically, getting stunned in Diablo is based on the mobs damage vs your health pool, regardless of whether mana shield is up or not. To ensure new characters have a lesser chance of getting stunlocked to death on the first level or 2, the game is coded in such a way that if you have 30 or less HP, you cannot get stunlocked.

This is a bug with Mana Shield, since it checks your HP, not mana, for the purposes of stunlock, so it was not uncommon to see mages running around with minuscule hit points to ensure that even if they got totally surrounded by mobs, they could cast without issue. This was exploited by letting Black Death zombies hit the mage until their HP was reduced far enough (Black Deaths permanently reduce your HP by 1 each time they hit).


The second is that there are alot of wrapping errors when a value exceeds what the type can accept. For example, an Unsigned Byte can have a value of 0 to 255, and the bug with Diablo is that often the values are larger than 255 and wrap around. Biggest example is Diablo himself. In Normal, Diablos To Hit is 220%, in Nightmare it is 44% (likely meant to be 300%) and in Hell it is 84% (likely meant to be 340%). Instead of his To Hit going up, it goes drastically down, since the value wraps around.

[PerfectFifth]

Does the famous potion dupe count?

Dupe any item in the game manually:

Drop the item you want to dupe on the ground. Walk a fair distance from the item, to allow for preparation. Click on the item. If you click on a potion in your belt PRECISELY as you pick up the item on the ground, the item will go to your inventory and the potion will become a dupe of the item.

NOTE: Later versions of Diablo will auto-delete dupes that are both on the ground at the same time. So don't drop them both.

[Kunzaito]

I have always been irked by a strange Battle.net bug. It happens mostly with the random health and mana potions you find littering the ground in the dungeons (not dropped by monsters, the ones that are just placed there) but it can also happen to the "treasure room items," the magic (and occasionally unique!) items that are pre-placed in enclosed rooms with gold and enemies (mainly in the Caves). Sometimes you will click the potion item, and nothing happens. Then you wait a few seconds, and... poof. Item is gone. Mildly irksome when it's a potion, enraging when it's a magic full-plate mail! Especially since you have to sit there and watch it happen, knowing what's coming once the item doesn't pick up, but powerless to stop it...

[Lanthanide]

The 'absorbs 1/2 trap damage' modifier, frequently found on rings but it is a low mlvl (so you need to hunt around in Normal church/cats for it) is bugged and actually reduces all damage from spells (and possibly projectiles like arrows?) by half.

Pretty sure that was fixed in Hellfire, and possibly in the later patches also.


Also not really a bug, but the monster activation radius (or 'aggro' as it's now so quaintly called) depends on your light radius, so items that reduce the radius can be considered 'better', even though they're technically cursed.

[Swiffer]

Oh, another fun one, you can still get knocked out of your own light radius by knockback, which can make things get very very dark indeed :D

[Phredreeke]

The 'absorbs 1/2 trap damage' modifier, frequently found on rings but it is a low mlvl (so you need to hunt around in Normal church/cats for it) is bugged and actually reduces all damage from spells (and possibly projectiles like arrows?) by half.

Pretty sure that was fixed in Hellfire, and possibly in the later patches also.


It still absorbs half of all spell and arrow damage in Hellfire. It was fixed in one of the D1 patches though.


Also not really a bug, but the monster activation radius (or 'aggro' as it's now so quaintly called) depends on your light radius, so items that reduce the radius can be considered 'better', even though they're technically cursed.

There's a bug though that makes monsters respond to the highest light radius you've equipped while on the level. Also golems have an infinite light radius and such will activate every monster on the level!

[Lanthanide]

Also golems have an infinite light radius and such will activate every monster on the level!
I'm 99% sure that is incorrect. I remember many times using Infravision to watch my Golem beat up nasties over the wall, and he would only ever go up to and fight 1 monster at a time, while all the others stayed where they were.

Perhaps this would apply after the monsters were activated? Like if the player woke them up, but then ran away, and a golem walked around the corner, they'd wake up again?

[Kunzaito]

I'm 99% sure that is incorrect. I remember many times using Infravision to watch my Golem beat up nasties over the wall, and he would only ever go up to and fight 1 monster at a time, while all the others stayed where they were.

Perhaps this would apply after the monsters were activated? Like if the player woke them up, but then ran away, and a golem walked around the corner, they'd wake up again?

I've read that the golem's aggro radius is sort of "partially" infinite - basically, enemies won't activate and swarm him, but ranged attackers sense and fire at him from any distance.

[Flux]

Every succubus on the entire level with a direct LoS to the golem will fire at him, but other monsters don't react in that fashion.

[OverUsedChewToy]

You can make a golem walk in the direction you want simply by holding shift and attacking in that direction (his movement direction appears to correlate to where you are facing). Not sure if that's common knowledge or not O_o

[Lanthanide]

Every succubus on the entire level with a direct LoS to the golem will fire at him, but other monsters don't react in that fashion.
Ahhh yes, that's correct. It actually made it rather useful for detecting where the succubi were in any given room. They never actually activated and started walking around though, did they?

Not really a bug, but a quirk in the system - in MP, you get full EXP for any monster that dies that you have injured. So to maximize your EXP, you and your friend should each hit each enemy at least once. Stone curse doesn't do any damage, so a mage that is SC everything won't get any EXP from the level. I think in Hellfire (definitely in some mods), they made SC do 1 point of damage so that a mage would also share in the benefit from their invaluable service.

[mouseman]

According to jarulf's guide, the shared XP isn't full - the base experience is shared and then used in the XP formula. Players still get more XP from a monster collectively when killing it together than just killing it alone, AFAIK. But when factoring in the speed, it's not worth waiting for every player to hit a monster before you let it die :) It would be a good way to fast-level a character (take a low level char to deep level, stone curse a monster and let the low level hit it once before killing it) if it wasn't for the XP cap in multiplayer. However, it would still get you relatively fast to level ~15 (7-10 monsters per level in levels 3-12 if the XP cap is reached with every monster).

A sure way to kill Diablo: make a golem and let diablo kill you. Diablo will keep hammering your body and the golem will slowly kill diablo for you. Just remember to unequip all your items as the game will end after diablo is killed (and you would lose your gear that dropped in the ground because diablo killed you..)!

[fyyer]

I've read that the golem's aggro radius is sort of "partially" infinite - basically, enemies won't activate and swarm him, but ranged attackers sense and fire at him from any distance.

There's builds based entirely around the reverse of this. Essentially you stack -light radius items and use infravision to fight, it's pretty cool. No monster will see you unless you're right on top of them. (since light radius determines aggro radius)

[Phredreeke]

A sure way to kill Diablo: make a golem and let diablo kill you. Diablo will keep hammering your body and the golem will slowly kill diablo for you. Just remember to unequip all your items as the game will end after diablo is killed (and you would lose your gear that dropped in the ground because diablo killed you..)!

You don't drop your gear when killed on level 16 though.

[Lanthanide]

Also if he casts apocalypse a few times that could knock the Golem out. I don't know for sure if he'd do that in a 1-on-1 fight with a corpse, but I suspect he might.

[Lanthanide]

I've got Jarulf's guide now, and apparently 'of thieves', the 1/2 trap damage suffix, only does 1/2 trap damage in Diablo - you need Hellfire to get the additional half spell/arrow damage also.

One bug I forgot to mention which is quite nifty, is that if you double click twice quickly when using a scroll (either on the scroll in your INV, or when it is set on your RMB), you can get 2 casts of the spell off. So you can get 2x FW (good for low level mages in the cats), or 2x Nova or 2x Apocalypse - enough to kill some enemies in Normal difficulty. I believe this may also work with staves, although not sure on that.

[Swiffer]

You don't drop your gear when killed on level 16 though.

Which introduces a fun quirk for Beyond Naked variant characters.

Chances are extremely good that Byeond Naked variants will have an item that reduces their health. Now, when you restart in town, you restart on 1 health. If you have an item that reduces your HP equipped and you die on level 16, you will restart in town...as a corpse, since the item will drop you back down below 0 :D

[mouseman]

Which introduces a fun quirk for Beyond Naked variant characters.

Chances are extremely good that Byeond Naked variants will have an item that reduces their health. Now, when you restart in town, you restart on 1 health. If you have an item that reduces your HP equipped and you die on level 16, you will restart in town...as a corpse, since the item will drop you back down below 0 :D

Yeah I didn't remember that about lvl 16 :)

So if beyond naked characters dies in lvl 16 they will be permanently dead? Or will they just die in town and drop their gear? :) I guess that's the only way to get killed in town, eh? :)

[Ladvarian]

Not sure if this would be considered a bug or not (atleast I'd call it rather annoying). If more than one golem is out at any given time, wether or not the players are friendly or not, the golems will attack each other til one wins.
I've never had this problem since I only play multi by myself. But if I had to play with others I'd be upset to find this out after having say just purchased a book of golem spell. ;p Talk about wasted gold at the moment.

[Lanthanide]

Golem boxing for the win!

[Mislan]

Post any interesting bugs you know of here (I'm not really expecting many, to be honest).

My favorite one is how to play NM or Hell in Single player, because normally you can only play Normal difficulty. Due to the way SP works however, when you start a brand new game you'll have to start in the church and go all the way up, so it's kind of tedious if you're level 20+ already wading back through the church.

Go to start a multiplayer game, and choose a local IPX game. You'll need a clvl 20 or 30 character to start a NM or Hell game. Start the game and then quit it. Go straight to the single player option, choose your character and start a new game and it'll be the same difficulty as the multiplayer game you just started and exited.

The most interesting thing here is that you can do this with a clvl 1 character and start playing directly in NM or Hell mode. I've only tried this with playing Hell, but it's fun to only have to kill 1-2 monsters to level up - typically you will get to clvl 9 by the end of dlvl 2. However this is only really practicable with the Sorcerer because his spells hit 95% of the time and do enough damage to kill monsters quickly, whereas the rogue and warrior have To Hit scores which are abysmal against the Hell-difficulty monsters (yes, even Hell difficulty Fallen - trying a NM game might be more successful here). If you play this way you need to be very cautious because the monsters will do enough damage to kill you in 1 or 2 hits.

I've recently started playing Diablo 1 again and never knew that it was possible to raise the difficulty is SP ... is there a quick way to confirm tht the single-player game created this way is actually at NM or Hell difficulty? For example, is there a resistance penalty to the single-palyer as in Diablo 2?

Thanks!:thumbsup:

[HegemonKhan]

u could check the exp u get when u kill a monster.

if you're like around clvl 20, the fallens in dlvl 1, won't give exp if it's norm (duh).

if they do, than it is indeed nm.

[Mislan]

Thanks, I should have thought of that!:coffee:

[Arkardo]

I have always been irked by a strange Battle.net bug. It happens mostly with the random health and mana potions you find littering the ground in the dungeons (not dropped by monsters, the ones that are just placed there) but it can also happen to the "treasure room items," the magic (and occasionally unique!) items that are pre-placed in enclosed rooms with gold and enemies (mainly in the Caves). Sometimes you will click the potion item, and nothing happens. Then you wait a few seconds, and... poof. Item is gone. Mildly irksome when it's a potion, enraging when it's a magic full-plate mail! Especially since you have to sit there and watch it happen, knowing what's coming once the item doesn't pick up, but powerless to stop it...

I've never seen that, but I did have something else that was quite odd. I doubt it's a bug though, but it's very rare, I'm sure.
I was playing on Battle.net with some random peeps in the Catacombs and I seperated myself from the group. I opened a room and a complete set of equipment was on the floor (weapon, shield, armor, helm, amulet and two rings). I asked whether anyone had lost his equipment, but no one said he/she did. I don't remember whether these items were already ID'd or not.
I have only two logical explainations: either the game does indeed sometimes generate an entire equipment set, or someone dropped his load in there, because of lack of inventory space. But why would anyone ever drop an amulet and two rings?

Another 'bug' (not really, just a shortcoming of the system) is that only a limited amount of sprites can be on the screen. This makes Chain Lightning actually a better spell at a lower level sometimes.

Also, when hitting something with a Fireball directly, the blast radius damage is also applied. Whether this is intentional or not is debatable, though.
Fireballs have no blast radius when it has passed lava.

There was also something going on with the faster hitting mods. I think there was no difference with 'Faster Attack' and 'Fastest Attack'. Not sure though.

[Lanthanide]

I opened a room and a complete set of equipment was on the floor (weapon, shield, armor, helm, amulet and two rings). I asked whether anyone had lost his equipment, but no one said he/she did. I don't remember whether these items were already ID'd or not.
The most likely explanation for an entire set of character equipment is that someone was playing and was killed by a monster, so everything they were wearing was dropped. If no one said they'd dropped anything, it would have been a player in the game who'd left. The most likely scenario is that they got hit by a lag spike and killed by monsters, then dropped their connection. If, however, the items weren't identified, then someone is playing a prank on you.

There was also something going on with the faster hitting mods. I think there was no difference with 'Faster Attack' and 'Fastest Attack'. Not sure though.
There are 3 levels of affix speed modifiers, fast, faster and fastest, but faster is exactly the same as fastest. So there end up being 3 speeds for attacking: regular, fast and faster/fastest.

This means that a kings sword of speed is just as good as a kings sword of haste, which is nice because it doubles your chances of getting one :)

[helvete]

someone dropped his load in there

That's nasty... but can anyone confirm the game generating entire sets of equipment?

[Arkardo]

That's nasty

Pwned... :thumbup:

... but can anyone confirm the game generating entire sets of equipment?

Now that I think of it, I think all items I found were junk, which would make the possibility of it being generated more likely.

On a side note, I've also found a unique item on the floor once, in the dungeon levels. It was a sword, The Defender I think.

Items that have their durability raised to over 255 become indestructable. Might be a bug, might be a feature...

[The Sandcat]

The biggest "bug" is that Blizzard have not enabled NM and Hell in SP in the first place.I would really like to know if there is a patch to fix this without installing hellfire , which is as hard to find as chickens teeth.

[CoolDarkDragon]

I found a skeleton that revived it self once, originally i killed it with a barrel explosion. after i came back from selling some junk, it was there all happy to try to kill me :D. Also if you cast telekinesis just before diablo dies, then you can pick up whatever he drops :)

[Devil Squid]

I have the Playstation version and I have never experienced any bugs for it. Peace, Squid

[omega red]

Doombringer(-20% LR), Nightscape (-40% LR), Gotterdamerung (-40% LR) or Viel of Steel (-20% LR), Split Skull SHield (-10% LR) or Blackoak Shield (-10% LR), Then wear Constricting Rings.

Up to -110% LR (if no cap on LR deduction) or -90% LR. This makes you virtually unseen. The Doombringer and Gotterdamerung have nice stats, but the Gotterdamerung's Res All = 0 always is bad. But if thos ranged attackers can never see you until you're next to them, theres not much harm. The Viel of Steel is only availble in SP, not MP, so in SP use Viel.

I once had the Doombringer and I believe the Split Skull, and that significalntly reduced the aggro radius that I had to be2 squares within the monster to hav him see me. The Doombringer does nice dmg anyways.

And yes, the double usage of spells works for staves if you have only one charge left.

[omega red]

I was wondering though, how can you access the cut content on the Diablo 1 CD, ive been trying to get to the Butcher cutscene and other sound and pix files, but I just dont know how, anyone can help?

[cralz]

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but it is something very strange:
I have a single-player sorcerer, and he has the optic amulet from the SP quest. When I got to dlvl 13 I found he couldn't kill well, so I made a new game to get more xp. After getting to around dlvl 4 of the new game, I noticed that the optic amulet had "changed" into a mana potion. When I mouse over the "amulet" it's described in the bar at the bottom as a mana potion, unique item. In the unique description it's the Empyrean Band, with +0 to all attributes, +0% light radius, +0% light radius (yes, it appears twice), and absorb half trap damage. Is this caused by the halls of the blind quest not being in the new game? It's very odd.

[GuardianHadriel]

odd bug, cralz....the worst problem(bot a bug) i´ve experienced was saving 2 seconds before death....all i could do was to press new game...crap
playstation sux

[irontigran]

The 'absorbs 1/2 trap damage' modifier, frequently found on rings but it is a low mlvl (so you need to hunt around in Normal church/cats for it) is bugged and actually reduces all damage from spells (and possibly projectiles like arrows?) by half.

Pretty sure that was fixed in Hellfire, and possibly in the later patches also.


Also not really a bug, but the monster activation radius (or 'aggro' as it's now so quaintly called) depends on your light radius, so items that reduce the radius can be considered 'better', even though they're technically cursed.

WOW, really? I always throw away that trap damage rings I find all the time thinking theyre crap, but really they would cut a fireball in half??? maybe my warrior could beat a few sorcs after all! :)

[irontigran]

odd bug, cralz....the worst problem(bot a bug) i´ve experienced was saving 2 seconds before death....all i could do was to press new game...crap
playstation sux

yeah, and also a bad variation of that is in MP when youre getting whoops and you try to leave game (to save yourself) but you accentially die the same time you leave, and lose all your stuff :(

[Oldih]

I just encountered odd bug that after opening the last 'seal' (or skullswitch or whatever it was) and going close where Diablo and his minions are, the place was not there at all. No walls, no logo on the ground nor anything. I was bit wtf for a while, checked the place thoroughly but nothing. It was like that until I reloaded the save and suddenly the place was back there.

I don't know if this was random bug in Hellfire 1.01 or what. Atleast I didn't save in wrong spot in order to find up dying the moment I load the save :D