User Guide
Thanks to KevinVickers for his initial draft of this guide!
Also thanks to Labarr, Dax, SlashPanda, and the rest of the HC crew for the feedback and discussions along the way.
Of course thanks to planqi, Danny and the rest of the BH devs for all their work making this possible.
With the Slash Diablo Maphack and its default configuration you will be able to benefit the following features:
A notification via in-game chat will announce when an item was dropped. Furthermore, a box with color matching the notification tier will appear on the minimap.
E.g.: Shako - A notification pops up in the in-game chat area that shows the item name. A red box appears on the minimap to mark the item’s location when the player is in proximity. In this case, red is the color of tier 3 items, and you can see the red box color is matching the T3 label on Shako.
Once in a game, you have access to the BH options menu. This allows you to modify things such as showing monsters on the map, showing their enchantments and resistances, showing missiles, chests, using max light radius, removing weather, etc.
Once you modify these settings in-game, they will be saved as part of your configuration and will remain this way until you decide to change them again.
To open the in-game settings, Ctrl+Left Click on the "BH X.X.X" box visible in game. Right click on the box title bar to close (where cursor is shown below).
The default maphack configuration features a tier system. Items are classified into tiers roughly based on how likely it is a player would like to pick up the particular item. The system combined with the new BH "ping level" feature allows the player to choose which item tiers generate notifications and map boxes (see feature #1) from the in-game menu.
For example, early in the ladder reset you can set the ping level to the highest value, enabling pings on all tiers. This will allow you to receive notifications for items like a cheap Insight base or a spirit sword base. Later in the ladder, you may want to start ignoring lower tier items (jewels and such) in this case the player could set the ping level to 3, meaning ping tier 3 (red box) items and better.
Note that the in-game setting uses the <= symbol. So interpret this as "ping all tiers matching this number and smaller". The smaller the number, the better the tier. So setting it to 4 will ping tiers 1, 2, 3, and 4, but not tiers 5 and 6. Also note that this setting will never hide items. It only controls the notification and map box generation.
Read more about tiers in the Item Tiers System section of this guide!
BH now supports the ability to change the aggressiveness of the item filter in-game (see image below). The default config takes advantage of this by configuring each of these filter modes.
The table below describes the item filter modes at a high level.
| None | Minimal/Moderate** | Aggressive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Show all | 3000+ | 3000+ |
| Potions | Show all | Super+ | Super+ |
| Arrows | Show | Hide | Hide |
| Gems | Show all | Show all | Flawless+ |
| Runes | Show all | Show all | Show all |
| Inferior | Show all | Whitelist only* | Whitelist only* |
| White Items | Show all | Hide useless | Whitelist only* |
| Magic Items | Show all | Hide useless | Whitelist only* |
| Rare Items | Show all | Show all | Whitelist only* |
| Sets/Uniques | Show all | Show all | Show all |
* See below.
** The minimal and moderate options are identical in terms of item filtering, but Minimal mode and lower enable notifications on crafting materials. See the Item Tiers System section for details.
Notes on the above table:
- For gold, 3000+ means all gold piles of at least 3000 are shown.
- For potions, Super+ means super healing/mana pots and both types of rejuvs are shown.
- For gems, Flawless+ means only flawless and perfect gems are shown.
- For white and magic items, "Hide useless" means to hide stuff that is truly pretty useless. A good example would be a 1 socket white item. There's just nothing you can really do with such an item. However, a 0 socket double axe is not considered useless. You might want such a thing for a CTA base, for example. Of course, a white double axe won't generate a ping, but we don't hide it as a "useless" item either.
- Whitelist only means only items explicitly whitelisted by the config will be shown. The config tries to whitelist items that conceivably someone might want to pick up. However, there is some risk to using the Aggressive filter mode. It will inevitably hide something that someone wished it did not. It's advisable to look at the config yourself before using the Aggressive mode.
The default configuration classifies items in various Tiers from 1 (very good/expensive loot) to Tier 6 (ladder reset loot). Find more information below regarding each of these tiers and examples of items that belong in them. For details, it is advisable to look at the config directly. That is the most accurate source of information regarding the item tiers.
The items in this category are top tier, the cream of the crop and often the most sought after loot in the game. These items get an orange T1 label attached to the name and an orange map-box. Some items in this category also get some special flair to make the notification more visible.
Example of Tier 1 items: Griffon’s Eye, Death’s Web, Unidentified* Crown of Ages, Ethreal Tomb Reaver, Jah rune, Ber rune, Sur rune, etc.
The items in this category are also of a very high quality. Although they aren’t Tier 1, these items have nothing to be ashamed of and can warrant a GG in chat whenever found. These items get a T2 label and a purple map box.
Example of Tier 2 items: Arachnid Mesh, The Stone of Jordan, Ethreal Reaper’s Toll, Zod rune, Cham rune, Lo rune, Ohm rune, Vex rune.
Only the most serious experience chasers with a hint of bad boy attitude would ever disable Tier 3 pings. Items in this category probably won’t make you rich but they surely are useful and sometimes even the best item possible in the character’s slot. Additionally, extremely rare items that may not see much use will also be in this category.
Example of Tier 3 items: Harlequin Crest (Shako), Tal Rasha’s Guardianship (Armor), Ethereal Titan’s Revenge, Andariel’s Visage, Rainbow Facet Jewel, Gul rune, Ist rune, Mal rune, Mang Song’s Lesson (Archon Staff), 45 all resist Sacred Targe.
Items found in this tier are usually common but nonetheless often very useful. On the other hand, items that are rare but have not much of a use will also appear in this category.
Example of Tier 4 items: Magefist, The Oculus, Vipermagi, Ondal’s Wisdom, Ravenfrost, Reaper’s Toll, Immortal King Soul Cage (Armor), Griswold’s Redemption, Um rune, Pul rune, Lem rune.
Items in this tier are usually very common and may sometimes provide temporary use. There are some items that are still best-in-slot in this category, but they are extremely common and/or very low demand.
Example of Tier 5 items: Laying of Hands, Ribcracker, Vampire Gaze, Bloodfist, Hotspur, Stealskull, IK Belt/Helm, Chance Guards.
This category of items is closely related to the ladder reset and the first few days leading to a week. They will help you during these fresh starts by pinging items that could be useful on your way to conquest Baal in hell.
Example of Tier 6 items: Basic insight bases, spirit sword bases, shoppable leaf fireball staves, shoppable White runeword bases with CE, various items that can be bought at NPC’s such as belts with life, faster run/walk boots, faster hit recovery or life armors.
Magic and rare items obviously cannot be judged until identified. This also applies to uniques that can roll as several different items, such as rings and amulets. These items are still incorporated into the tier system, but they receive some special treatment.
First, the map box color of these items will match the quality type. So an unidentified magic item map box is blue and a rare item is yellow.
Second, the tier placement is designed to to align with the natural progression of the game. Items that are often picked up, such as charms and jewels ping with tier 4, for example, while less sought after items, such as rare gloves and boots ping with tier 5.
Third, the tier designation of some of these items will change after identified. The default config does not attempt to judge the value of rare and magic items. It will attempt to classify identified unique items. For example, if a set amulet drops, it will ping in tier 4. If it identified as Tal Rasha's amulet, it will jump up to tier 3. If it's anything else, it will lose it's tier designation entirely.
The table below indicates the required ping level for several of the "special treatment" type items.
| Ping level | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rare boots/gloves | X | X | ||||
| Small & Grand Charms | X | X | X | |||
| Magic & Rare Jewels | X | X | X | |||
| Magic & Rare Circlets | X | X | X | |||
| Rainbow Facets | X | X | X | X | ||
| Unique Jewelry | X | X | X | X | ||
| Ormus Robes | X | X | X | X |
Gems and crafting runes also get some special treatment. Flawless gems get a small map box matching the gem in color. These map boxes are about 1/4 the size of the normal ones. See below.
Ral runes get a small, green map box, and Hel runes get a small, gold map box.
The small map boxes do not generate notifications, are unconditional, and cannot be disabled with the “Ping Tiers” setting.
Additionally, some crafting materials will generate drop notifications in certain Filter Level settings. See the table below.
| Filter level | None | Minimal | Moderate | Aggressive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flawless Amethyst | X | X | ||
| Ral | X | X | ||
| Hel | X | X |
The Minimal and Moderate settings are identical in terms of what items they filter. The crafting material notification are the only difference between these settings. This was done so that that crafting material notifications can be controlled independently from the "Ping Level".
Consult the latest config directly for details on the items tiers and filtering. See the main BH repo wiki for general info on how to write your own filter.
Question: What's with all the green boxes?
Answer: If not using glide, tier 5 items are colored “set item green”. Without glide, there are a very limited number of colors available for both text and mapbox display, and even fewer of those colors have good visibility. Unfortunately in this case, we have to share this color with set item text, so it takes a little getting used to.
If using glide, the green is more of a sage color to make it distinct from “set item green”.
Question: Why am I getting so many pings?
Answer: Your ping level is probably set too high for your liking. Use the in-game menu to change it to a smaller value. If you only like pings for very good items, a setting of 3 is appropriate.
Question: Is X item that pinged worth anything?
Answer: The tier system was developed in part to help new users evaluate the worth of items. In the beginning of the ladder, tier 4 (gold) and tier 5 (green) items are tradeable for mid-runes. In the later part of the ladder, only tier 3 and up items are easily tradeable for the most part.
Question: What should I set my ping level to?
Answer: In the early ladder, it should be set to either 5 or 6 most likely. Later in ladder, 3, 4, and 5 are all good settings. If you only want notifications on stuff that's highly tradeable, stick to ping level 3. If you still like being notified about potentially interesting drops, then go with ping level 4 or 5. Regardless of the setting, the item will still display the tier level in the item name.
Question: Why is X item in Tier Y?
Answer: We tried to organize the tiers so that items that the majority of people want to pick up are in the highest tiers: 1, 2, 3. Everyone will have different opinions on these choices, but if you feel that something is very off, please create an issue here or ask on discord.
Question: Can I get something added to the default?
Answer: Probably. There's obviously a possibility we missed something. You can ask in discord or add it yourself if you're good with github.
Question: If I make modifications, is there a way to keep them while still getting the updates from the default?
Answer: Unfortunately, any changes you make to BH.cfg will need to be maintained by the user. So if you update your config to the latest, you need to copy/paste your additions and changes back in. Fortunately, the in-game settings are now saved to a separate file, BH_settings.cfg, so your preferences such as ping level, filter level, quest bug warning, etc. will not be impacted by a config update. If you feel that your changes are fairly general and would be beneficial to the community, then we should think about incorporating them into the default.
Question: Can I remove the chat notifications but still use the boxes displayed on the map? / Can I remove the boxes on the map and keep the chat notifications?
Answer: The former is possible but the latter is not. However, this config does not use this feature, with the exception of gems and crafting runes. Otherwise, chat notifications and the boxes displayed on the map are always tied together. If you use the Ping Tiers option from the in-game menu, this will remove both the chat notification and boxes displayed on the map. If you would like to use this feature more, look into the %notify-dead% keyword in the BH documentation.
Question: Will changing my Ping Tiers level affect what items are completely hidden from me?
Answer: No. Changing the Ping Tiers level will only remove chat notifications and boxes displayed on the map. It will never affect which items are completely hidden from the player.