Cthulhu

Cthulhu is suddenly reminded of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Cthulhu doesn't foresee the need to be afraid of this; but it would be both a hindrance and (slight) amusement to see the AI starting fights with things that the player isn't currently interested in fighting (or doesn't want to fight). Cthulhu seems to remember that being a problem in Sacred 2, actually...

You're making me recall the "Star Spawn of Cthulhu" character I threw in the Sacred 2 "Wishing Well" a while ago. Much of the character's CAs were built around making enemies go insane (and exploiting said insanity) or casting weird buffs that made the Star Spawn unleash a huge attack upon dying or playing dead. Oh, and of course... it had some CAs that revolved around eating enemies. For some reason I always found the site of enemies running off and doing stupid crap very amusing. Seems to be a shame there wasn't much utilization of lunacy in Sacred 2 beyond good ol' "fear" and the Inquisitor's "Mortifying Pillory" debuff... if that even counts.

I'd like to see more variety with the quests (in terms of the tasks and rewards). Sacred 2 had some... interesting ideas, but a lot of it came off as "quantity to the EXTREME", and there was not a whole lot of incentive to deal with said quests (for a while anyway; things did get better towards the end, but it still felt poorly executed). One example I can think of right now are the character specific quests. I was disappointed they left them out of Multi-Player and only let you do them in single player. I know that it'd be a "balancing problem" from a rigid standpoint, but it was fun to run into those kinds of situations when exploring. That or having quests that actually reward you something that adds to your character (I.E. Skill points, HP, attribute points, etc.) And yes, again... balance complaints can arise from such generous rewards. But there comes a time where balance becomes conducive to predictability and/or dull "play it in your sleep" game play that just requires you to be there at your computer/console to hit the start button (I.E. WOW). I feel ashamed to suggest mimicking Diablo when it comes to the quest rewards... but I honestly feel those quests do need something more to themselves besides random drops and inherent chance to find valuable decimal points. The execution of the multiplayer itself was .... well disappointing to say the least. I'd rather they do something to keep the multi-player tied to the campaign world, but at the same time, provide more accessibility to other players who are not matched with you on progress. And of course, I think they should drop the "alignment" thing... unless they're willing to put in more characters who are alignment locked. Also, and I know it's a lot to think about... but I'd love there to be more to character potential over the long haul. It was a little disappointing not to see a character unlock "hidden" combat arts and only have the "mastered" skills to look forwards. The skill mastery in itself was a good idea... but it got dragged too much for my taste (especially when they decided to get rid of soft point mastery). And alas... making the game more understandable goes a LONG way. It was kind of fun at first to have the depth of mystery surrounding sacred 2... but there was just too much cutting around the corners and/or intentionally left out info that made the game seem more frustrating than it needed to be. I've always felt making certain things like the location of awesome treasure/shrines/empowerment, hidden weapon / spell combinations, hidden abilities, easier ways to kill monsters, etc were always good. But other things such as the almost useless enemy info menu or misleading skill explanations... or the seemingly random fluctuations in monster damage... ugh... a little more in-line help could've gone a long way, IMO. I'd say more, but I'm thinking it may be better to wait and see something more concrete beyond what we know ATM.... and then have a more direct outlet to DS.

More MMO glut... no thanks. I appreciated Sacred 2 for its simple approach, since it came out in a time when too many MMORPGs began to choke the market. It seems now, many of those said MMORPGs are either kicking the bucket or flailing to keep up with more established games. Still, even now, there's more room for a Sacred 3 that'd cater to the same audience as 1 and 2, without having to try and be a huge "enterprise" of some sort.

Hmm... if the Inquisitor makes a come back, I will definitely give it the play time it deserves. However, I probably will end up getting it, regardless of which characters are available. And another greeting from SOTW.

@Colif I do not have Blood and Ice, alas no comment on Ravok's. I think they're supposed to look like Sauron from LOTR, but there is another Inquisitor helmet that looks even more like Sauron's than the one for that set. But now that you mention it good sir, I think I see the resemblance to the Black Knight from Monty Python. That pathetic fighter had the same ... what would you call it .... a "bucket" shaped helmet. Quite amusing, wouldn't you say? @ -NoMan- In order to make them drop, you will need to find the blueprint IDs for the T-Energy items; I believe there is already a category list made for them in the droplist.txt; you merely need to allocate it to some other drop list in the game; I.E. any list that also includes the standard set list.

I don't have the heart to get B&I. After having gone through 2.3x-2.4x and all of Ascaron & Deep Silver's vacillating balance changes, I don't want to put up with the mercurial nature of B&I and its upcoming patch.

Sadly... There are no "secret" set bonuses hidden within the non-set items. You can verify this for yourself if you study the bottom of the blueprints.txt script. The bottom fo the blueprints.txt script has the section for all of the set item bonuses. Within each bonus, the set items are listed by their integer numeric code, separated by comas. You can highlight any one of them and then search for it and typically type find the the item that belongs to the set within the first search (I suggest searching upwards, if you're using Windows notepad). For what it is worth, you can make your own custom sets by adding set bonus blueprints, or add extra set bonuses to your favorite set. It has been a while since I've dabbled in that though. If you're interested, I will post a tutorial in the mods section; otherwise, I am going to refrain since I'm very burned out on Sacred 2 ATM. ----------------------- As for secret set items, aside from the sets that -NoMan- mentioned, there are also the unused "T-Energy" set items. There are also a few sets that look to be nothing more than works in progress, or preliminary versions of sets that are already in the game. Of those secret set items, the "T-Energy" sets are the most interesting. They all use special textures that which are not used elsewhere in the game, for their corresponding items. They are a little lacking in actual equipment effects (I think they are unfinished), but they make up for it since all of the items have 3-4 mod slots. I'm not sure if the T-Energy items are still in the blueprints; the last version of the game that I played was version 2.40 - which has the T-Energy sets still present in the blueprints. I don't know if the T-Energy sets were added in Blood & Ice (since I do not have B&I, nor do I plan to get it). Edit: IIRC, the T-Energy set for the Inquisitor uses the texture set on the left; from my understanding, the three on the right are regularly occurring textures in Blood & Ice. Edit #2: For the sake of silliness, I believe that set's graphics are a tribute to Sauron from the LOTR movies.

Haven't you always wondered if the lesser potion dry spell between level 40 and 60 is really a bug? What makes me say this... because I always found it weird how between 40 and 60, you start getting lots of regular healing potions while all of the lesser potions become extremely scarce. Or maybe it was all just a result of Heiko having a strange rationale after a long night with a hallucinogenic substance....

Boy, am I glad I deleted all of my Closed.Net characters back when I officially got tired of playing Sacred 2. At least I can enjoy a Dragon Mage without having to waste 5+ hours fooling around with my shared stash. But for the rest who don't care for having their jewelery being messed up and feeling like the game's not being made any better in return - I understand where you are coming from.

Awwwww, seeing Frank and Peter (Kullgard) in that video made me giggle. Glad to see Lars Hammer made it into the video as well. Sigh, they looked like such a swell bunch. At least they looked like they were taking it the best that they possibly could. It's a shame, but as the German phrase goes - Nichts dauert ewig.

::sniffles:: First Carolyne and now everyone else as well as you too Anca. This is a sad day... but hopefully - as you pointed out Anca - it will not be the last time we see each other. Abschied Anica, mit Gottlieben, alles Gute. Viel Erfolg!

Inexorable Subjugation is a tribute to Darth Vader's force choke... and besides that, you can use it on the last bosses and keep any of them frozen as long as you're able to keep laying IS on them without letting your regen-times get in the way. I've noticed however a small bug that you can use to get yourself to move again while I.S. is still in place... but it's only on the PC version (to my knowledge). If you start clicking the mouse really fast right after you apply it, you should be able to start attacking while the spell is still activated. It's a good way to unload Fanaticism on the enemy if you still have it going. But otherwise, Inexorable Subjugation + Dislodged Spirit + Mortifying Pillory (or Levin Array*) + Callous Execution is IMO the Inquisitor's best boss killer. The only drawback of that setup is that you're going to have to get IS up pretty high in order for it to last long enough for you to pull off the other 3 Combat Arts... and the regeneration time is going to be pretty high when you're doing a cross discipline combo like that. *(As much as I love pillory... well aside from my previously expressed concern due to the game's high amount of poison resistant monsters in Niobium, I also am still worried that Pillory causes the Inquisitor to debuff his own physical armor every now and then. Thus, I think Levin Array is the safer bet. )

I think I should update this. I'm glad it's been getting some use

Wow... I never saw this topic! Lars, if you ever happen to stop by again, I had a few (silly) sound related questions, 1. Is it just me, or does the Inquisitor start making a sound similar to Darth Vader's breathing noises when he wears one of the Blood Poison/Ilgard helmets? I'm pretty sure I am not confusing the sound with Soul Reaver/Seelen Faenger's sound effect. 2. Do you know if the expansion will be making use of the un-used voice recordings that were made for the game? Specifically, I mean there are some recordings called "region_pacified" and also a few story-dialogue specific recordings that are never used in the current game. 3. Who's Eliza...? Thanks for visiting us!

Heh... it's surprisingly useful in HC mode if you do give it the life drain debuff and then use it as a second combo to follow up Ruthless Mutilation. More life drain = MOAR DAMAGE AND INVINCIBILITY FOR TAH INQUIZITOR~~~!@!

Being able to play as Vader > Any of the other Sacred 2 characters (although I must admit I'm very partial to the SW since he's a homage to Spawn). But yeah... the Inquisitor does have a lot of deficiencies, as well as the Temple Guardian if you ask me. Both of them seem to suffer from late game development, if you ask me. Thankfully as it turns out, it seems that the console version of Sacred 2 looks to be using an older patch for the game - so it doesn't make the game a crap ton more frustrating for the Inquisitor and the Temple Guardian. But it's probably also much less of a worry since there's no HC mode... so you don't have to worry about making character builds that can actually play all the way to 200 without having a single death. That right there has made it a pain in the ass to play as an Inquisitor if you ask me. Glah, I'm on a rant though. Getting to my conclusion - regardless of inherit deficiency, there will always be bits and pieces of each class that seem imbalanced. If you ask me, the game's not intended to be a super multi-player intensive game as, say WOW. ARPGs typically leave a lot of leniency for characters being overpowered in their own ways since a lot of the fun in the game DOES come from being a one man/woman army.

EDIT: Redacted post, I see your question was answered in another thread.

Calleous Execution and Clustering Maelstrom all the way.

All of my criticism draws from the Inquisitor's state on the PC version of the game. That state also leaves him very inappropriate for hardcore mode, which tends to be the preferred mode of the PC Sacred 2 players on this forum (or so it seems to me). Also, the community for the PC version is biased towards the light campaign (which I cannot blame them). I am going to stop here though, since you've pointed out you are using the console version of the game. The PC version of the game is on a different version than the console version... and sadly, the PC version's had a number of changes that have caused the game to be much more difficult, and IMO, frustrating. However, I will say this much on your commentary - I agree with you on the mod selection for purifying chastisement. That mod selection pretty much removes the need to rely upon the enraged damaged bonus that chastisement gives the Inquisitor. Sadly though, it irritates me that the game's instruction manual and tool tips try to make you think that the Inquisitor can do just as well using Purifying Chastisement as an enraged damage buff. As of version 2.40 on the PC version, in HC mode - it's asking for a sudden, cheap death IMO.

Levin Array's main use is for combos due to its status effects and modification changes. I think you'll find it to be a good opening for Clustering Maelstrom , or a follow-up to Ruthless Mutilation.

The console version, as far as I can tell from the comments in the PC version's files - shouldn't be using anything different.

Yes, I didn't mean raising the level cap. But as you've oh so kindly reminded me llama8, I'm not going to get my hopes up for them doing any of the changes that I mentioned. Still, I think it's lame that they went to the trouble to allow for skill and attribute point rewards from quests, but then went back and set them all to zero. I'll leave it to the idea that it probably made the campaigns too easy. Hmph... oh well. ........... Something else - I wonder if the T Energy sets are going to be enabled before the Expansion is released... or if they will ever be used at all...?

Cthulhu would like it if they did the following*: - Enabled skill point & attribute point rewards for campaign quests (they are disabled ATM) - Allowed us to pick 4 more skills (the memory allocation for skills currently has 4 unused slots, so it would not be too hard.) - Add in a couple of more new skills - Opened up the inaccessible parts of the Wasteland *in addition to making the Inquisitor more enjoyable...

Drachenmagier = Dragon mage. BTW, speaking of the Inquisitor... I hope he gets some strengthening. Edit: Perhaps the new combat art system will help improve him...