Diablo 2 - The Arcane Sanctuary is SOLVABLY UNSOLVABLE | A FULL BREAKDOWN OF HOW MAPS ARE CREATED

[@bobnewkirk7003]

my favorite part about this is the slideshow had a spot for llama to put his camera but llama didn't notice.

[@PSVmano]

This had me stressing out 😂

[@corexmaily]

I realized that 20 minutes in and was laughing every time he dragged himself around 😂😂

[@Kane0123]

Haha

[@manmademask7]

This was awesome. Thank you MrLlama! It’s fascinating to see how brilliant the map-making process is, even 20+ years later. It’s simple enough to be instantaneous, and yet it’s difficult enough not to make you feel like you’re playing the same game over and over again. The little nuances in signature tiles and backwards maps are the cherry on top. It just goes to show how well the game held up through the years. Marvelous.

[@Micloren]

The guy that came up with and coded this system deserves a medal for smarts.

[@zollof6699]

You just have to feel which path he's down. But it usually amounts to a fourth way.

[@Frittrich]

Yeah i have always kinda felt where the way is going to be. Going this deep into it is way to much for me

[@blu3h4t]

last times most often than not me playing means rushing, and i have noticed it also that quite often i just randomly choose a direction and end up on a right path because i subconsciously felt i guess where it is. Probably after doing it so many times. Im talking about different maps. I guess its what matrial artists dream of, training until the reaction is without thinking.

[@reeven1721]

The USB cable of dungeons.

[@Lones555]

my policy is hope he's not down the teleporter path as that's the worst one so I always leave it until last.

[@turbo_brian]

I was showing a friend the game when d2r came out and said "you have to go look for him, but it's basically always the last way you check." And he said "you mean the game doesn't spawn him until you've been to the end of the other 3 ways?" And I paused for a long time, questioning my entire life.

[@razetw]

I like the idea of static maps or reading maps but the forced random maps adds a lot to replay value of the game. You are happy when you get a short map generated but also get rewarded with long maps via exp gained. For solo speed runners this doesn't apply of course. Thanks for the great insight into the game.

[@xjaw911]

I love how their is a red box in the top right specifically made so that the face cam wouldn't be blocking anything...which bossman proceeded to completely ignore.

[@BestGamer1337]

I was hoping he will notice it and finally place cam there. :D

[@SirDehumanized]

This dungeon generation is one of the main things D4 is lacking.

[@Mercuery]

They had decades of knowledge from D1 to D2 to D3, but did not use them in D4, sometimes I wonder did they just get some interns to code and design the systems in D4.

[@someduder5044]

@@Mercuery It's a mistake to think that the people who created D4 are the same people who created D1. Or D2. Or even D2R. Maybe D3, but I kinda doubt it, given how quickly people change employers nowadays.

[@ailst]

How does dungeon-creation work in D4? (I don't have it)

[@RationalSlave]

@@MercueryI think it’s because they wanted D4 to be unique and different from prerequisites. Maybe this is what the audience wanted or maybe not or maybe some of them do and some don’t. There should be a way to tackle such issues. The only solution that comes to my mind is transparency. Devs should be transparent with target audience when making a new game.

[@Xenozfan2]

@@ailst As far as I can tell, they're all set maps. The cellars might be different, but dungeons can be memorized.

[@RedRamDRA]

Your map info has greatly improved the game for me (in terms of more efficient farming) - I still dread the bad Durance of Hate lvl2 maps though... I still feel so lost sometimes, wandering for minutes before finding level 3...

[@greggen63]

Macrobioboi did a good video on how speedrunners read maps, which included a lot about the Durance. As often happens, he got into a lot of detail and I lost what he was talking about, but it's worth a watch, you may understand it better than I did😅

[@MythrilZenith]

I love educational breakdowns like this!

[@Szederp]

Mr Llama is so professional about a videogame I feel like I'm back in school being educated. Amazing stuff.

[@trevorkreutzer4305]

This might be one of the most interesting videos I’ve seen on Diablo 2. The maps have always fascinated me since I was like 13. Super rad thanks llama!

[@ziegander]

@MrLlamaSC, thank you for this video! As a wannabe tabletop roleplaying game designer, this is endlessly fascinating as I've always wanted to make a Diablo 2 meets Ancient Domains of Mystery Style ttrpg, and this gives me a LOT of ammunition to run with. This runs parallel to the ideas I was going to design with when I worked on my Down We Go game that has now become defunct.

[@nolesdennhardt8986]

Unreal detail! Thanks for all your hard work on this. I learned lots

[@Moorb0y52]

Thanks Llama, now I always get Arcane Sanctuary first try just like you !

[@ksk31337]

MrLlammaSC fullfilling my special (tile) needs!

[@SteveJensen-c4z]

This is amazing! Thanks guys. I dislike the trite cliche "must watch," but if ever there was a "must watch" video for D2/D2R this is it. Wow!

[@JoblessPunk]

Thanks MrLlamaSC! I always love the deep dives into map readings, I'm not a speed runner but it's always great to have this knowledge of how the game works while playing through.

[@creed5248]

I always go down every path before I find Horazon . At least there are treasure stashes at each dead end ... LoL !!

[@choupetto85]

Also i just found my first ever Tyrael's Might today at 3:03 pm, 16th unique sacred amor , im shaking Just need the Hellfire torch to get and im done with my grail FINALLY found all runes made all runewords

[@mathewlovett6185]

Your lying

[@MLIIKNAD]

My lying?

[@tuskybarn]

This was super informative and well presented, thanks!

[@Mulukkis]

I've been binge-watching your D2 content while farming D2 myself for the first time in a long time. Just had a Shako drop from Andariel.

[@pawemackowski451]

Love your KZbin voice. 21:06 Maby observable things in Arcane Sanctuary are hidden in contrast or gamma options after map has been generated.

[@einar533]

I love the in depth look into the workings of the game.

[@Tankknspankk]

anyone else annoyed he never put his camera in the top right? the obvious spot for it

[@Lucyller]

Thanks you for this ted talk!

[@cremdilly7176]

The title is perfectly confusing. Very fitting for a llama video. "What it is is what it'll be".

[@Bowshewicz]

Always love to learn about what's going on under the hood in my favorite games, and your graphics made the explanations extremely clear. Thanks for presenting this deep dive.

[@SteveJensen-c4z]

The best way to navigate the Arcane Sanctuary is to ask Llama to rank the directions in order of most to least probable for having the summoner--and then run them in the opposite order. ;-)

[@greggen63]

I always just run the flat one first - I call it the "racetrack" - and hope 😁

[@marceelino]

I am glad that the youtube voice meme is still alive.

[@Karma.NG2]

Seemed like the red box in the ppt was for your camera placement, llama 😂

[@choupetto85]

The tiles stuff always amaze me with the amount of pit levels ive done so far online. The fact that i got 7-8 Pit level 1 with a map looking like a '' X '' and only one Pit level 1 with no fallen in it , i couldnt find any fallen/shaman. 1 out of 30 000 runs (online)

[@AlexandreBackes]

Awesome video MrLlama!! Thanks for the info dude!

[@SlimStarCraft]

its actually mind blowing how the fuck they created such a complex map system back in 2001 or whenever this game was made

[@simeontodorov9353]

D2 was relased in 2000, but you can assume that coding this took place sometime around 1998-1999. Not to mention, that Diablo, the first one, was back in 1996 and it also had some random level generation already.

[@arekwisniewski6933]

I'd love to see this kind of video explaining how Lower Kurast maps are generated and why it sometimes generates only 1 campfire and sometimes 2

[@Saren-yc1rk]

Really interesting video. Unsure how do I use this info, but still interesting.

[@Sanguen666]

now this is quality content! no wonder it has so little views.

[@DarkLeviathan8]

I don't play Resurrected but I assume this is the exact same for the original D2?

[@flamehunter911]

Good info, but red on black is hard to read; dark colors are good for night owls, but this is too much. I find white on blue is pretty good, but you can copy google night mode style - white on dark grey.

[@christopherlocke]

I think the overall brightness of the video is low too, making it extra hard to read at times.

[@zaratron]

I wish I had the time to become a D2 expert like you. I love the game

[@Amoeby]

You can actually solve where Summoner tile is placed. It is always in the end of the forth way :)

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

MrLlama is over here trying to crack the code of the Arcane Sanctuary like he's trying to solve the Zodiac Killer case while I just found my very 1st Gheed's Fortune this morning.

[@lry8133]

Nice! What roll?

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

@@lry8133 It's about average, honestly. I rolled a 100/14/30.

[@lry8133]

You’re still always happy to see it@@Tom_Van_Zandt

[@Tom_Van_Zandt]

@@lry8133 I would've been happy no matter what it rolled. Now I just have to make sure I don't drop it on the ground to pick up other loot. I have a habit of dropping Grand Charms in order to pick up new loot, open up a TP, ID and sell loot and then return to the spot where I dropped the charms. Sometimes I totally forget to pick them back up. I can see myself doing that with my very 1st Gheed's. lol

[@starlightxfury]

I was hoping someone would finally answer the AS question and while I do not like the answer, I greatly appreciate it finally surfacing

[@itsjoel13]

I just usually go the same order everytime so that way I don’t blame going 4th way all the time on my horrible luck

[@Lion8585]

Nice video! it's pretty good explained

[@trevdonovan71]

Mr Llama could you maybe do a deep explain like this only with durance level 3 ?

[@M0Rt3s]

Arcane is easy: is it a meme run? - 1st way. Is it a speedrun, 4th way.

[@TheSilv3r]

I guarantee if i ever got one of those 38 fastest maps, i would run the wrong direction in the catacombs

[@dire_prism]

This is the one we've been waiting for :)

[@videozoom12]

Can we get the same type of deep dive with item generation? I'm talking about something that goes into the required blue rolls, white drops, scrolls, TP and how it's related to magic find. We do know that MF does not affect rune drops however it could be argued that those with higher MF decrease their rune drops because of how items are generated. Can you help the community out with this one?

[@Kaktanternak]

That would be awesome to learn! Also, is every rune drop its own "base type" or is rune itself a base type and the type of rune is determined as the next step.

[@WinterDominus]

I don't think MF has any impact on rune drops. It should only improve chances of RNG stopping at higher rarity level of an already rolled non-rune item - "is it unique?" "is it set?" "is it rare?" and so on.

[@d8l835]

It chooses the item type before mf is applied. Mf has 0 effects on rune drops. If it rolls rune, than it chooses rune class, right after. If it chooses an item (weapon, boots, armors etc) than it chooses the base (light plate, mage plate or archon plate), than it chooses quality. This is why sometimes you can get failed uniques. If the game chooses a sash, rolls spiderweb sash, than rolls unique, but the monster cant drop it because it doesnt have a high enough TC (treasure class) than it will revert down a quality level but get double or triple durability. At least thats the way i have understood it to be. Please correct me if im wrong anyone

[@videozoom12]

Everyone who spoke here was correct for 1 kill and ty for the clarification but what about for 100 kills says 75 regular monsters, 20 unique monsters and minions and 1 super unique with their 4 minions. What can you expect as far as whites, no drops, scrolls, pots, runes, ect. Ty for the kind clarification in my earlier post.

[@Kaktanternak]

@@videozoom12 Google "silospen d2 calculator". The game is old and people figured out specific drops, it's such a wide range of stuff it's impossible to estimate, but you can get specific chances from that calculator

[@pehpunkthahpunkt4179]

28:11 You just have to love the Llama-map 😍😎👍

[@Krackalackamore]

Fun drinking game: every time he says tile, take a shot

[@clintbeastwood5116]

No, thank you. I enjoy living.

[@mikeguerrieri1918]

Three minutes in and I forgot my name already

[@Gilgamesh3six9]

@@mikeguerrieri1918 lol

[@lry8133]

That’s a quick way to be laying on the tiles

[@michaklis1792]

I swudrender

[@pirwzy]

Has anyone pinned down who made the decision for the randomization programming to work as described here so that MrLlamaSC could do an interview maybe on the thinking behind how all of this works? I feel like that could be a very interesting and nerdy talk.

[@leejordan001]

10% he is in the first way. 15% he is in the second way. 20% he is in the third way. 55% he is in the fourth way.

[@ColinDavidChen]

I hope for the next Diablo they include quantum-safe level generation.

[@Micloren]

Worth mentioning that Cold Plains ID3 & Lower Kurast ID79 are both prime numbers.

[@szalaierik]

Thank you for explaining this, helps tremendously to reverse-engineer how to make the - imo incredibly fun - map generation of D2 and build my own game somewhat similarly. Thanks, Master Llama!

[@Hyperion856]

I have documented literally thousands of arcane sanc runs with pathway types and where the summoner is. Nothing seems to ever make sense but through those runs the top left path has the best chance of being summoner.

[@95Probie]

Is there any new info about great marsh since your speed run guide explaining great marsh?

[@HonoluluBlueKirby]

I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but adding a comment to help the algorithm. Go Llama

[@Denvercoder]

Two of my last 3 runs I picked the right path.

[@szalaierik]

most important D2 knowledge sharing video ever and I am only 3 minutes in.

[@Ubeogesh]

16:37 not catacombs maps but jail, obviously. I don't remember seeing this "East" entry in jail...

[@changwang7596]

Have you ever played Netstorm? It reminds me of how you build the bridges

[@kruger1932]

Way to solve the arcane sactuary: if your name is mrllamasc, and you are currently attempting a speed run, you can almost guarantee a 4th way.

[@infinitebirch]

Dr Llama giving a free PhD-level D2 lecture, excellent

[@Ubeogesh]

Forgot to mention the Maggot Lair where special tiles rotate the other way...

[@Jakeypoo92]

LEARNING IS TAKING PLACE

[@Micloren]

It would seem that if you populated a spreadsheet with the entrance, exit, & waypoint tiles leading up to the arcane that you could reasonably guess where the summoner might be located? Maybe a reasonable system would be to: - Create game - Find summoner location - Go to Cold Plains & record 3 tiles data BvB - Repeat looking for pattern - If no pattern add Stoney Field to the matrix - Repeat looking for pattern It could be something weird like where the Tristram waypoint is = summoner position. Since the maps are based on a seed then there has to be an established pattern. Maybe a better question is how many map data points do you need to narrow down the seed. Maybe with minimal effort you can get the arcane down to 50/50 or better. /rant

[@adambrady564]

There won't be a single map generation example that will perfectly correlate because of the 60 unobservable prng advances. The only way to know for sure would be to list out all 2^32 seeds and what maps they yield, then figure out what seed you're in based on what maps you've observed so far, which is mentioned in the video. It probably wouldn't take too many observations to narrow this down, but it's very, very unlikely to have only *one* observation perfectly correlate 4 billion times.

[@Micloren]

@@adambrady564 The correlation between Cold Plains and Lower Kurast made me think that there might be an obvious weakness to map generation function.

[@adambrady564]

@@Micloren That's due to both map IDs having the same lower two bits and that prng pull being the very first roll from the input. It's not a correlation in the prng, it's the same initial state being used.

[@MrLlamaSC]

Yeah that's unfortunately not how it will work here due to the 60 rng advances. Only way to know is to exactly identify the seed.

[@karyoplasma]

23:25 Should be 0x9.... Binary is only 1s and 0s. In essence, what Llama wanted to say here is that in LK and Cold Plains, the entrance and exit are placed first and second, so there could be a relation because their level ids are similar. The Arcane Sanctuary is unreadable because it places the Summoner at the end of the generation process when the Avalance effect of the RNG algorithm already made it impossible to keep track of where it's at.

[@xzBorn_]

This is a wierd thing. I hate the portal path, but it almost always awards me a first way. If it’s fully random it must be the Universe telling me to go where I don’t want to go. At this point it feels like it must be linked in some way, it’s just too common.

[@zfeazcesd1047]

might just be a small sample size or misguided intuition. i recently did 70 arcane sanctuary runs where i kept track of what map was generated and where the summoner was located. looking over my data of the 70 runs the summoner landed on the portal path slightly under 26% of the time.

[@Benjamin-xv9le]

If you never go anywhere else first, the first way can not be anywhere else.

[@leejordan001]

The Universe allways wants you to the way you don't want. That's how it forces you to come out from your convinience zone and thrive. I'm not sure tough how does it apply to the portal way in Arcane Sanctuary...

[@xzBorn_]

@@zfeazcesd1047Highly probable

[@xzBorn_]

@@Benjamin-xv9leI mean, yes, good point 😂

[@itsjoel13]

I think I always get the longest route. The 2/4billion.

[@RavenousBear91]

Always 4th way.

[@aaronpriestley1500]

why do people often associate the character direction and not just clockwise or counter clockwise of the map start?

[@americanbaldguy]

Nice tutorial MrLlamaSC.

[@bloodfurypk666]

enjoy the next season also no tci ip mean he are left with any option with d2re

[@Nevermore2790]

How do you know the roll for the City of the Damned map with a Cathedral in the middle with those stained glass? All I know is it needs some kind of a big middle hole on the map and a bridge that connects the main part and that island.

[@Yaksonator]

Who made this presentation? It’s intense and awesome.

[@unlockablecharacter8134]

The maze maps are my favorite map type in d2

[@Kaktanternak]

I understood most of it, but I have no clue what "60 rng advances" mean. If it's a predetermined set of calculations, wouldn't there be something else in the game that shared similarities to the pre-advanced seed just like Cold Plains and LK? I'm by no means educated on that, nor an expert (hell, not even a novice) I'm dumb but just curious :V

[@MrAsphyxious]

think of RNG advances as rolling a d20 die. by the time you roll it the 60th time, its essentially impossible to determine what itll roll. but instead of each dice only being 1-20. if i rolled a 1, the first time, the next set of numbers i can roll arent 1-20 any more. but if i rolled a 3, i again have a different set of numbers. so doing that 60 times make its impossible to determine if im understanding it correctly, each rng advance is setting a tile and all the possibilities that come with it. so by the 60th time, like my example above with the d20, youre not going to be able to accurately determine what itll roll im probably repeating myself...hope it helps...or also that im right

[@adambrady564]

Computers are bad at randomness. It's not a random number generator, it's a pseudo-random number generator. Think of a prng as a set of calculations that always give the same output number for a given input number (seed), but the output is very, very different and looks "random enough" if you did statistics on all possible output values. The prng function here "advances" to the next (deterministic but chaotic) value by shifting the bits of the input seed over, throwing some away, then adding a few bits at the other end. The side effect is that most of the ones and zeros from the previous value are still there, just shifted over with new bits added. Adding in the known map IDs to the seed overrides part of the unknown base random seed, but after a few outputs those known bits are shifted out and scrambled into the unknown base random seed bits. Advancing the prng 60 times is basically an easy way to make sure those map ID bits have been scrambled and blended before placing the summoner. You need to know the base seed to compute the random number used to place him.

[@Sil11235]

I may be missing something, but I do not understand why the 60x RNG advances matters. If the game randomly assigns the wings and then randomly assigns the Summoner, you are never going to be able to guess even without 60 rng advances. The whole point of PRNG is that you cannot predict the next number based on the previous ones.

[@tarrantwalter524]

the 60 RNG advances matter because predictable maps are based on the entry tile. the entry tile starts from a specific state shown in the video, using the various seeds + level id. this number is not random. thus, correlations can be derived from it. the entry tile direction (and thus, its location) is placed based on a modulo of this number (or the first RNG advancement, depends on the PRNG i guess, i don't think the explanation clarified this). the issue with arcane is that its exit tile is placed the same way entry tiles are placed, but the base number used for the modulo is always after 60 advancements of RNG, and not using the initial state (which is not random). thus, no correlations can be derived from it, because too much RNG has happened for it to be feasibly possible for there to be a correlation between 60 advancements of an RNG state and any other initial (non-random) state of any level before arcane. it's not impossible. but the odds that something after 60 RNG advancements and then modulo 4 has a correlation with something that underwent 0 RNG advancements and then modulo 4 is significantly lower than the correlations between many of the initial seeds with modulo 4.

[@ColinDavidChen]

I think it has to do with the tile selection algorithms - there aren't literally 2^31 tiles and you have the same seed in each game at the start of each level generation only slightly modified by the level ID. That's why cold plains and lower kurast have related special tiles.

[@ColinDavidChen]

To put it another way, it's not really generating new randomness 60 times and it always gets some kind of selection/reduction down to a smaller number of available tiles. But 60 iterations means it has no relationship with any previous tile selections.

[@disgruntledtoons]

Pitspawn Fouldog is the boss you were trying to remember for Jail Level 2. AKA "why I hate melee builds"

[@MrDazzlerdarren]

I think the pRND is messed up on the PS4 version, I keep getting duplicate drops ....so it makes me think internally they use the same pRND number generator function for both, one natural and one with an offset ...but actually they forgot to add the offset somewhere along the line.

[@SpocksBro]

Very nice indeed.

[@adambrady564]

Great video! This brings me so much closure, but I'm a little bummed to see how easy it'd be to cheat at speed running with this knowledge. It's one thing to hide a map hack, but you could pretty easily have someone deriving your map seed just by watching a stream and feed the runner map directions on the side.

[@test-rj2vl]

Nice. Makes me wonder if it is possible to make maphack that only reads rng from Diablo 2 and then renders map on a separate window? That would be pretty much impossible to detect.

[@dominrael8658]

for me at least, its seems i find the summoner on NW side around 50% of the time, NE and SW around 20% each, and SE 10%, so that is the order i check in.

[@rzepa181]

Now break the world record

[@Primifluous]

I respect the video you've made, but I refuse to watch it so that D2 still has some mystery for me, 20 years on. Of course I recognize somewhat how maps are generated at this point, but I like that I don't know how to 'read' a map perfectly.

[@MrDazzlerdarren]

Right, so using this info ....could someone write an overlay arrow(s) showing best direction to go? (prob not needed for seasoned speedrunners) ......if so, has someone written one? AND would it be "legal" to use in speed running circles?

[@Not_Even_Wrong]

Would love to see more details on this, does anybody have a link? Would be readily cool to use this analysis method for seeded speedruns. Would be grateful for any tips, regarding more details on this.

[@gopooalreadyplease5842]

Wow. My brain has been exploded. Side note, I know my niece will be watching these vids and playing this game in a decade when she is old enough because her room has llamas all over the walls.

[@witheringhs7766]

"North".... because logic

[@lovefanye]

Quick comment, red text on a black background is very hard to read.

[@Mooseguy15]

I don't get why MrLlama always has to make the right/left thing complicated, it's so easy, turn the tile to where you are "coming down the stairs" looking forward and then left is left and right is right. Idk to me this seems so much easier to understand.

[@iszotic]

mmm, I wonder if for speedruns a list of seeds can be used to speedrun to make it less dependent on RNG

[@fnmikeygg]

Dope video

[@Ubeogesh]

If specials are always selected in order and "rotated" 90°, how does Barracks map work?

[@psf03077]

Any tips for getting into D2 speed runs?

[@creed5248]

Pick builds that aren't gear dependent

[@johnhardwick1736]

Play d2, but go faster

[@Derzull2468]

His channel is full of just that.

[@Kaktanternak]

just start a timer and go. It's amazing what the existence of a timer does to your playstyle. Apart from that, get stealth from countess and try to pick up some stuff that sells well early, you will need a ton of mana pots for teleport. And don't tp just to sell these either, you gotta sell them incidentally while you're in town for a quest like in act 2 or act 4 before going to a5 or while going out of town for the 1st time. Best advice, watch some speedruns and try to emulate

[@lry8133]

He literally just put out a speed run tutorial play thru, it’s a really good watch

[@RichRadd]

Confirmed Mr Llama approved, I'll go get a map hack

[@Bamzelot]

I cannot see anything, what's with the weird lighting of this video? :/