Topic: Decyphering the Doll Stash

[Bubonous]

After doing some hellforge testing and getting a fair % of Andariel dolls I was curious as to whether or not they are particularly valuable for the doll stash.  First I tried putting in nothing but hellforge Andariel dolls into the doll stash:

(information deleted at Steven's request)


Merry Christmas and Happy Doll Collecting

[T1001]

we will see, if other people want to know the secret of the stash.

i for myself do not want it, because its the mystic, that you dont know what is coming next. and when you put a few k dolls it will be great without knowing the best combination.

in adidtion to that, 105 andariel dolls are possible in sp but in mp wihtout duping it will be a litte bit more different i think^^

[ChaosEmpire]

also he didnt tested what happens when doll X is used...skil X raises..but what happens with Skill Y ...muahahahaha

[webwalker]

Thanks for the info steve!

Since I'm online only, I won't be able to contribute any analysis.

I'm not sure what Chaos was driving at... there are times I can't decypher him...

I wonder if there are doll sequences that are best.  If I had a clue, I'd happily store a few dozen dolls to put htem in in the most benificial order to build the best stash.

[DrowElf]

He means that some dolls will increase value(s) and decrease other value(s) at the same time.

This is the reason, why you can´t use this testing rows if you cube the dolls into the stash without having great numbers of the needed doll.

Cubing one single other doll in the dollstash can change the results.

[Bubonous]

I also take it that Chaos means that while a doll adds points towards benefit X it may very well subtract points accumulated for benefit Y.  Negative effects are harder to test and would have to be looked at much later.  Chaos has hinted in the past that we may not want to put dolls from the hellforge in the doll stash.  If and when I get to the point of looking for negative effects, that will be a good place to start.

I guess I love the puzzle, so instead of playing I've gotten results for these six other dolls now.

(information removed at Steven's request)

[bdpf]

 

What about the gold, anitcent waytest dolls,<SMILE>

Doll stash takes up too much room in inventory for the benafites......

Needs to be smaller (4) square not Six (6)...

Personely I just have a vast collection in shared stash... SP of coarse

Waiting for someone to find a good use for them other than the stash....

Like use with a morpf forula to add extra points to an Item bouns / SET Item, etc

EXAMPLEL... Use ten xyz dolls + ten P Skulls + Ten Oils x(or body parts) to add lech points to weapon <SMILE>

Just find something to do with them<GRIN> Doll Stash is weak / poor use for collectable item

Of coarse I just mainly wack monsters.

bdpf

[back2toxic]

dont forget about limited space in the txt files, also dont forget that there is not much left/nothing left.
so chaos wont waste this needed space for recipes you can already do, maybe not in the form you want it, but ya know..temp'rin'

[AoATheAvenger]

look, it's simply unintresting which dolls have what effect. because 1. you dont have an amount of like 100 andariel dolls in MP, 2. you dont know how these dolls work negativly on another effect

-> just put the dolls in the stash however they drop from your eggs (thats actually also how it was supposed to be handled) =)

[Bubonous]

I would have responded earlier, but for some reason it has been days since I was last able to log into the forums.

The purpose of this thread was to share information as I got it and possibly to get information back from other people.  Now that my investigation is done (at least for now) and I have a guide written, this thread is no longer needed.  Some of the questions raised here are answered in the FAQ in my guide which should be posted shortly (assuming I don't lose forum access again).

[webwalker]

Dear Steve;

Inasmuchas anybody with a puppenkeiste would like to know what you discovered, would you be so kind as to edit your post to include al ink to your guide?

[ChaosEmpire]

it would be nearly worthless

[webwalker]

Unless you're being exceptinally cryptic, a map of dolls to skills could be worthwhile... my necro might want to get all dolls of a group, while handing off all dolls of another group (which perhaps the Zon wants).

See.. the necro couldn't care about getting AD nor LR, but would like other skills (i've just never gotten enough dolls to see them on my 'Keists), so dolls that accelerate getting LR or AD are 'junk food' for the necro's 'Keist, but are tasty and healthful for the Zons' or Paladins'.

[sunglass]

Hi, nice idea
have you also testet what happens if you use random dolls and only doll 45 kaa the soulless, 89 alkor etc?

[Kano]

Nice work. At least I kinda have a clue on which dolls to use to get a certain skill.

Where is the Guide?

Kano

[ChaosEmpire]

the guide has been removed, cause of being worthless with current and upcoming versions, cause it only rflects the behaviour under a special cicumstance...
also in 764 and up, the recipes have been modified a lot..so that you have dependencies on time, char and more...

[sualk12]

@ Steve Brammer
 I have always thought and i think Chaos is with me in this opinion that duping anything in the CE-Mod is frowned at here in this Forum. I know that there is no possibility to stop anyone from doing it in Single Player but i think it is not something to be proud of and is not to be used to write guides with information gathered from duping.

Just my 2 cents

[webwalker]

...duping anything in the CE-Mod is frowned on ... it is not something to be proud of

Analyzing the elements of the game and reporting on them is worlds different from 'duping'.

I appreciated Steve's work, and wished that the results had been published months ago, and would enjoy having a similar guide soon after the next release.

I would like to save dolls that increase cold damage for my zon or throw-barb, and resists for my characters that need them (zon and assassin), while boosting other things according to other character's needs.  Lower Resists is something that my necro doesn't need, but skills boosts are in desparate short supply more than any other class.

Perhaps there is for some people a love of game elements where there is an unknown and un-knowable mystery, like you never know what's gonna pop out of an Evil Urn.  I, for one, like being able to build a character towards particular results.

[ChaosEmpire]

the doll stash is a special mysterious item..and should be like that...
move the stash around all your char...so you can easy putevery doll you find in it..and every char will have a benefit..

[sualk12]

@webwalker

So u do think that getting 105 ancient kaa dolls is normal in the game and not at all related to copying the character in sp?

[Kano]

Spam alert:

I just think Steve has put a lot of effort into finding a tiny piece of the Doll stash mystery. That should be appreciated.
If anyone has criticism, it should be kept in a constructive manner. The sole purpose of duping is to cheat the game. Steve is not cheating the game, but he's just trying to put a little science into a piece of mystery.

...my 2 cents.

[Olfmo]

but he actually wrote in his guide (which i read when it was online) that he duped dolls in sp to do the tests

besides, if chaos changed the recipes again it's useless anyway

[webwalker]

@olfmo and @sualk12: research is not cheating the game.  We can research a build by making characters in Single Play with the -act5 switch; we can research the puppenkeist by making a character Read Only and giving the same doll into the 'keist many times.  In both cases, the point is to find out how things work.

@all, Steve and I have reached a peaceable agreement with CE (without having to ask him): We do things his way.  He doesn't want the study published to the community, so it won't be done.  We'll leave it a mystery.

[hamil]

thats a nice idea and steve ur work was nice tho and i think to let the puppenkiste in a mysterious light it would be much exciting for everyone who is using it like me ( just put in every doll u find) and then everybody will be happy when he will get a new mod on his Puppenkiste.
A friend of mine / SSX-Ender has 2100 dolls on his chest now and he got a bunch of mods like xp and amp and bo and so on and many other useful things

greetz ham and dont reveal too much of the truth because it is sometimes scary

[Olfmo]

@brian: why do you call it research?

a quote from the guide:

Q: Why don’t you have doll benefits up to 1000 or more for all of the subcategories and up to the doll stash maximum in general?

A: Because I’m not a masochist – well not too much of one.  All of this information was obtained by experimentation, not hacking into the game code.  It took many hours of duping dolls in single player and cubing them into test doll stashes to collect all of this information.

correct me if i am wrong but in my eyes he admitted to have duped the dolls... and that's clearly something we DON'T want

[Tamttai]

and he did so offline if got him right so whats the problem ? dont tell me downloading characters from the last ladder and putting their items on other offline characters isnt duping in a more global way (cuz everyone is downloading and thus these items r multiplied)

[Olfmo]

first of all there's a difference because chaos uploaded the file with the chars, but chaos always said duping in ce is not tolerated (whether in mp or in sp)

also with duped dolls you won't get the same results as with legal found ones, so the guide is nearly useless

[webwalker]

@brian: why do you call it research?

Because that is clearly what it was.
The difference is on the one hand, study the game to find out how its mechanics work, and on the other, to defeat, bypass, or cheapen the challenge of the game.

If you fill up a stash with 16000 dolls at level 36 just so you have an easier time of playing the game, that's duping to bypass the challenge of the game.  Finding out (the key is the intention) what happens if... is research, not hacking, cheating, duping.

Since Chaos has said explicitly that the doll stash is intended to be a mystery object, further research is abandoned.  Since I don't imagine anybody having the time to build 100+ characters to put *only* anya dolls in the character named "xXxAnYaDoLlSxXx", and ... (etc), I don't imagine this research will be done any other way, either.

[Olfmo]

just by calling the duping research it doesn't get better... so i don't get your point

if somebody would hack into the game files just to reveal some secret recipes (i am sure some exist, but that's not the point^^) you could call that research too but it would still be cheating

i agree with you that the doll stash research is very hard and probably is not possible without duping, but we gotta deal with that...

[Bubonous]

I seem to be lucky today to be able to post in my own thread.

As many other people would tell you, having these sort of discussions through PM is usually the way to go.  We may want to consider that option.

but he actually wrote in his guide (which i read when it was online) that he duped dolls in sp to do the tests

FYI, I “duped” by backing up and restoring save files in single player, not by using some third party program while on the server.  The “duped” dolls have not and will not be used by my regular characters.  ChaosEnergy created ChaosEmpire by “hacking” D2LOD v1.10.  People created attack speed, faster cast, and faster hit recovery breakpoint tables and other such collections of technical information by “hacking” the game to make it run in a debug mode and reveal what happens frame by frame, “hacking” the game to make it run differently to test an equipment modifier more easily, or “hacking” into the game to read the text files.  There is a big difference between creating dupes purely for experimentation and creating dupes for use in trades or to sell on d2items.com, just as there is a big difference between hacking into the game to create a mod and hacking into the game to create a cheat or bot to use on BNet.  Furthermore, copying and pasting save files on my computer does not violate the EULA; setting up the game to run on a server other than BNet does.  People in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones.

besides, if chaos changed the recipes again it's useless anyway

also with duped dolls you won't get the same results as with legal found ones, so the guide is nearly useless

Working hard to dissuade people from getting a copy of the guide, are we?  Certainly the Doll Stash Guide was worse than useless for keeping how the doll stash works secret.  Had Chaos told me he wanted it kept a secret rather than continuing to post “hints” that were really misdirections, the guide would never have been posted.  Now that I know he wants it a secret, it shall not be reposted or distributed by me.

Anyone who calls duping for the sole purpose of finding out how the game works wrong and then trades for high runes or jewels on BNet and/or uses character guides or web site references other than Blizzard’s site that include IAS, FHR, FCR, or other such technical information or God forbid actually mods the game is being hypocritical, whether they realize it or not.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kano]

Hmmmm, seems like your hard work has created a cultural problem here:
Somehow, German-users seem to see your work as "duping". US-users like you, Brian, and me tend to think of this as a scientific experiment. This "black-or-white" mentality is something I still don't understand about Germany, despite living here for over 20 years.

Anyways, Chaos told us to leave the stash a mystery. We should respect his wishes and close the topic here.

Kano

[Bubonous]

Thank you, webwalker, for bringing this to an end.

(mod: I'm going to tone down the temperature of the language in this thread)
(Along with the "no duping" rule is the rule that we are a happy family together)
(I'll act after some thought so I'm not injecting my own emotion here).

[webwalker]

@kano: Agreed.  Although I'm "moderator" of this board, I can't lock the thread.  *sigh*

[ChaosEmpire]

for me it does not look like th result of an experiment, it looks like hacking the bin files (and...those only half way...)

to prevent confusion and to prevent upraising trade prices for some dolls, mentioned in that guide, i unpublished it...

no one of you will ever be able to get the functionallityonly by putting dolls in it..

the only way to decipher would be to hack the bin file(or to get my txt)

there are many things, depending what happens
character class, time when cubed, difficulty where you cubed it and more...

all this is not covered by the "guide", so it is only a guide to raise market prices, and will probabkly frustrate some people, buying expensive dolls, and not getting the wanted results...

[Bubonous]

I did not hack bin files.  I don't even know what they are.  I simply don't have the skills presently to hack bin files.

I have no problem with the unpublishing of the guide.  Had I known that you did not want it published, I wouldn't have.

I did exactly what I described.  I put dolls that I had collected into the shared stash.  I backed up files.  I put the dolls into a fresh doll stash with a level 1 assassin created specifically for that purpose in normal difficulty.  I restored the shared stash and repeated until I had the desired number of dolls cubed.

All of the factors which you say I did not account for, I could test for, but I don't think we want to get any further into the mechanics of the doll stash, do we?  Though if you want, I can test and report back in vague generalities on whether or not I saw differences from difficulty level or character type.  I will happily admit flaws in my past work when I find them.

[ChaosEmpire]

hi steve

i respect your work

but when i tell you, that myself needs ~ 10-15minutes to find out, what doll does what effect when i put it in the box..in this moment...
you can believe me, that you can make a double long guide, and it wont help anyone...

the guide remembered me a little bit on jarufls guide for d1, and i really respect it..but most info in it has been worthless for the public...
only a few "cracks" have been able to get information from 90% of the text

so, if the public wants the guide i reactivate it...
but, i can only think, it will raise doll prices...

[Bubonous]

Thanks for being a gracious host, Chaos.

Part of the purpose of the guide was to drum up interest in the doll stash.  It certainly is a marvelous invention.  Too many people think that it is worthless, when in fact it is far from it.  I think it is okay for me to say that I've seen +4 all skills, +10 battle orders, and +14 valkyrie among many other useful features (but it takes a lot of dolls).  All it takes is time and it takes far less time to get that than it does to get a legit Zod in vanilla D2LOD.

In that spirit, I will test under other circumstances.  For now people should assume that the guide is flawed due to not being tested for unforeseen factors -- character class, difficulty level, etc.  Should I get comfortable with the results and decide to put them into guide format for publishing, then I will send you a private message.  Approval of posting of a new guide will be at your discretion.  The community simply will not know anything about what I am doing with the doll stash unless and until everything is done, things look good, and it meets with your approval.

Sound good?

[ChaosEmpire]

you really should wait for new version...everything changes..like every version

[HCSoul]

I am still lucky with this mystery as it is.
yesterday i got +2 Allskills and i was so happy about this surprise
Its like some kind of casino...i enjoy this action

Greetz

[mrmud]

I met this Doll but she would'nt get in my Puppenkiste ... still a mystery

[Olfmo]

perhaps it is now impossible to put hellforge and a5q2 dolls in the doll stash?

i can't check right now but perhaps that's the reason

which doll did you try to use?

[webwalker]

"doll" == "interesting girl"

Problem is he didn't press the correct "transmute" button sequence.