Androdion

I'm currently alternating between dailies on MTGA, and VOW quick drafts which started yesterday, and a newly bought Grim Dawn Definitive Edition. To say that GD has sucked me in is an understatement since I've already spent too many hours playing it. I was always reticent to buy it, but this edition for the price GOG made was too hard to ignore. It really is a great game and it has a huge amount of content, so I see myself sinking in a lot of hours into it for the foreseeable future.

Ha ha, thanks mate. I haven't cooked much lately, but I'll be sure to drop a pic or two once I do something different.

Today was definitely the calmest Black Friday I have ever witnessed in my country. Very very few people were actually in shopping malls, from North to South it was basically a regular day without any sudden increases in movement or flow. No lines, easy parking, barely any fuss about anything at all. It was such a chill day that I actually left work with a smile on my face, as opposed to the usual massive headache and will to go roadkilling. So yeah, very weird day today.

Yeah, those two modifiers have been pretty much broken from the start. Nevertheless, if the idea is to keep it a bug fix patch with the least changes possible to how the devs made the game then trying to rebalance it just won't work. I'd be all for the fix Dmitriy was going for with %LL not being correlated to the absolute life total rather than its relative value, but I'm not even sure he ever made that change work. On top of that there's no way to implement Addendum fixes that are hardcoded without bringing the rest behind as well, so that's that.

I have to concur with this post. Sacred 2 was always imbalanced from the start, some classes and CAs absolutely brutal in comparison to others, some stuff apparently unusable in Niob whereas others would be functional and borderline OP. Let's face it, you can kind of force "god mode" in this game, assuming you choose a certain path and stick to it. That's probably why so many people tried to rebalance the game over the years and it still seemed like something was missing, and honestly speaking I don't think you can ever achieve a true consensus regarding this game. Either it's "too strong" or "too slow" or "too easy" or "too RNG"... It's pretty much the same argument over and over through the years. Let's face it. In a perfect world we could have an open game code and full control over it, but we can't. People who've studied the code for years still find new things in it. So it's never going to be or feel "whole". Thus I guess that the best we can have are efforts like this, and other older examples of modding in this game. Will it be perfectly corrected vanilla Sacred 2? Nah. But will it be closer to that, without the dreaded memory leak and a million other issues? You bet. So I guess that we have to be happy about this materialising, and try to understand that it won't be perfect. Expectations meet reality, let us face reality and enjoy it.

I agree mate.

That's also news to me, but I guess it's due to the fact that CM changes started so long ago that they've indeed blended with the base game a bit too much. Most likely yes, and when you come to think of that the Abishai is the perfect testing spot since he has several. I think it was his yellow one that was totally brutal. Not sure how much of this is an actual rebalancing though.

Ha ha, yeah. It's pretty much what many have been asking for years. And it's finally materialising!

So basically there's no interaction and to use HD textures the recommendation is still to use the trimmed Elite Textures? Thought as much, it's Addendum stuff as far as I can remember. Either you don't use buffs that will stack when transformed, or you do and abuse it, or you reload a save after using it to "reset" it, I guess. I had no idea about this. Well, I think I remember vaguely that Power of NIF had a sword-like behaviour, but it was so long ago that I can't even remember what was vanilla and what was CM stuff in the end. But the fact that the Willpower attribute isn't being accounted for the damage is interesting, since a lot of stuff was built around that factor (lightsaber Shadow Warrior with Grim Resilience buff for instance). I'm not sure what the dilema about the Unlock Items is. Sure they're vanilla stuff, yet not present on drop lists. But it's like you said before, if they don't drop and people get to summon them from the air because the codes are public knowledge then why not have them drop anyway? That's my two cents on that. As for the Mutation sets, yeah, I remember the no-bonuses versions. They were OP due to the amount of sockets but the absence of modifiers did balance that, so I'm cool for vanilla Mutation Sets. I think the Dragon Mage's could be included for consistency's sake, though the set pieces should have the same no-bonuses treatment to mirror the vanilla pieces. Poor Dragon Mage had so little of his stuff finished and is such a peculiar class that I think it deserves to be treated like the rest of the other classes. Aye, they dropped... You know the joke about that. But it's what I thought, they shall now drop as legendaries, which they already were in drop tier. Works for me if the mini-sets were never official anyway. Oh, my bad. So is this common behaviour for all traps and the poison one was acting differently? Why the change on this one in particular? Ha ha, ok then. I'm here imagining a sub-level 10 char running into giant meteor shower Gartor and thinking "WTH?!". Ah, excellent then. Finally those quest markers can act "normally" then. Furthermore, I can live with the Christmas content being a separate module. In fact I remember being awfully confused when it first became a part of the vanilla game. And it avoids players having two chain quests running at the same time in the same region, which was great for doing XP runs, but other than that it was mighty confusing even for experienced players.

Hey there! So, some questions on the changelog if you'd be so kind. I'll make it point by point, as I hope it's easier for you to quote->reply. Performance & Tech - All textures were reviewed with respect to file size and compression faults (normal map reprocessing). Should improve load times and performance without affecting visual fidelity. -> What's the relation between this and the trimmed Elite Textures pack, if there's any? Do you still need to use the trimmed version to have HD textures? Is this about the reworking you did on the char's items or something like that? Game World - Corrected the alignment and positioning of several points-of-interest on the world map. -> Could you expand on this please? Interface - Character sheet UI is rearranged to present attack/defense/damage/spell intensity in a more logical way and with misleading/incorrect parameters removed. -> Screenie please? A before and after since probably no one even reminds what vanilla Sacred 2's inventory menu looks like. Interface - Prepared some savegame thumbnails that were missing. This should prevent the blue placeholder icons in the savegame list. -> Again, a screenshot with be interesting to have a better visual idea, though I think I understood what you meant here. Combat Arts: General - Combat Alert, Rallied Souls, and several other buffs no longer cause drop in FPS. -> It's like when we had that change that allowed for the Idol mod to be used with Nether Allegiance right? Combat Arts: Dragon Mage - Berserk Form & Dragon Form: Now have access to potion and buff slots. -> Does transforming still shuts down the buff and you need to recast for it to be active? I also remember something around the lines of the effects stacking after you turned back from those forms, so how's the current status of this? Items: Visuals & FX - Damage Converters and Relics now have their missing sound profiles, which should prevent them making inappropriate sounds. -> Ah, so no more lightsaber "swoosh" sounds on relics? Great! Items: Drops - Added several missing items of all tiers (Junk/Normal/Magic/Rare/Unique/Set/Legendary) to the proper drop lists, notably almost all Legendaries, some unique jewelry, and several of the mini-sets. These items were present in some, but not all, appropriate drop lists, making them inordinately rare if not impossible to find. -> So, does Kira's Wall now actually drops (joke) or is this the same change made in the past where some pieces just wouldn't drop like the Black Death jewellery? I.e., new change or old change? Items: Drops -> I'm confused by both item lists you presented. On the first you mention the Mutation sets, but the Dragon Mage's is absent, why is that? On the second you mention the jewellery of the Black Death mini-set dropping as legendaries, so what happens to the hammer? The same for Kira's Wall and its respective jewellery. Do they also drop as legendary items now? Enemy & NPC - Damage of Poison Trap spell has been changed to DOT. This should prevent being reliably one-shot by the spell. -> So, are the Abishai's traps less deadly now? I remember insta-dying a few time due to them. Enemy & NPC: Spawns - The Alpha Ursacin (crystal bear boss) will now spawn in the cave west of The Blue Star in the Crystal Plane. -> I can't for the life of me remember this boss... Enemy & NPC: Spawns - Gartor the spike turtle boss will now spawn in the Legendary Pirate Treasure cave. -> More precisely? It's kind of a small place and kind of a big boss. Quests: General Fixes - All mortal quest escorts should no longer be subject to unfair one-shot kills (within reason). -> But they do die again, right? Quests: Specific Fixes - "Epic Office Quest" - Once the task is taken from tom Felde, blue markers appear at each of the developer's locations. That's how they can be tracked. Logbook "Tasks" section no longer keeps contact track for this quest, until after all the developers are found. "Benny's Promise" is now received along with the rest of the loot at the end of the quest. -> So you know where all of them are, except you don't know which ones you've contacted already? Christmas Patch -> So you're "physically" separating this from The Northland Expedition, as in, a separate piece of content? Can I ask why? And... that is all. I'm anxiously awaiting for your completion of this long sought out patch. Anything you need just let me know. Cheers mate!

Yeah, I had seen the announcement of it being 40USD. It's the standard Blizzard milking, they still demand 15 for the same rendition of the original Starcraft. Has anyone took a look at the minimum requirements? D2R only runs on Windows 10. Not a surprise for a game releasing in 2021 but still, meh.

And that's why you're a chef and I'm just an amateur cook! My mother-in-law bought a box of brown mushrooms which weren't playing along after a few weeks, so she gave it to me to take care of them. So today was mushroom day, ha ha.

Glad to hear. Have fun!

Ha ha, that's actually what a butcher really is, not just a guy who sells meat but who prepares it. The new management of the butcher shop I've gone for years is tip top, sadly the previous owner passed away last year, but they managed to keep the standards very high. To be honest I think the meat is even better right now, and it was already very good! So yeah, we usually order specific cuts when we want to do stuffing or other things. You can order the meat from specific parts of the animals, as well as whole/cut/with or without bone. It's an art actually to work with those knives. I have a bit of my own food profile if you will, and then sometimes I get more adventurous with different spices or veggies or stuff like that. Sometimes doing something you've done your whole life with a different technique or with a different spicy touch makes for a whole new dish. The mushrooms we purchase fresh and then freeze them, it's more convenient this way as we can always have them around. As for the ossobuco, well, it was good for my first time. But I've already learnt a couple of things I shouldn't do next time. Living and learning!

Have you started the game before installing the patch? The game needs to run for the first time and only then should you install the patch.

To be honest it took me around two to two and a half hours total, from preparation to being on the table. The meat was prepared for stuffing by the butcher shop, so I only needed to do the rest. The stuffing was prepared aside with purple onion, celery, a mix of portubellos and brown mushrooms, raisins, nuts and almonds, seasoned with nutmeg, salt and black pepper, with a bit of ghost pepper for added bite. The base of the roast was white onion with a bit of red habanero, bay leaf, orange zest, and what you see on the sides are chestnuts. Roasted slowly at first on both sides and then at max temp on the lower grill for the sauce to caramelise a bit since it had white wine and whisky on top of the olive oil and butter. It was left slightly sweet as well as fresh and spicy, very balanced. The chestnuts absorbed all of the flavours and after the sauce caramelising a bit their flavour was pretty intense. All in all the flavour was incredible. I was very happy with the result, and so was the wife who ate it like three times since then. Yesterday I grilled baked chicken breasts with bread crumbs, oat meal chunks and parmesan cheese all mixed up. This was the end result: Tomorrow I'm making ossobuco for the first time. Wish me luck!

Are you running with CM 1.60? That patch removed a lot if not most of the "waltzing around". If you are using it already try targeting the ground ahead of you (CTRL+CA) instead of targeting mobs. I can't recall if that actually works with this specific CA, but CTRL+mouse click is usually used to attack without moving, mostly for ranged attacks. Give it a try.

On your left ladies and gentlemen we have fish and sweet potatoes, oven roast, and on the right stuffed portobellos with a coating of grilled Grana Padano and sprinkled with a heavy dose of Parmesan. Sad realisation of the day was that I hadn't done stuffed mushrooms since the last lockdown... It's nice to feel the warmth here, but my head really isn't at its best for a long time now. And the situation here is on the brink of total collapse, so I guess I'm finding some refuge in the meals and drinks these days.

First week of lockdown here, back to Masterchef mode (it's not like I can do anything else).

So it's probably for the best to wait up until 3.1 I guess. Well I still have to find some spare time since I've been on a constant "left and right" run. No worries, I'll get there.

I'm late for the party, but what's with the doubled boss thingy? I haven't been very present here at DarkMatters due to a shortage of time and mental availability. But as we're going into lockdown starting tonight that could change. Any recap on quick fixes for EE 3.0 that I should know about?

Yes, the dragon. The chests in its lair are very nice.

I can vouch for this as well, it's an easy and rewarding run. And it has a boss in the middle with some really nice chests too.

Basically any region that has a high density of champions is good for item farming. The path between Entruag and Zazaruik, Southern Hissil'Ta, some areas in the Desert, the Jungle has a lot of champions as well. If you have access to the Orc Cave that's also a good option, but playing those regions with Super Spawn gives you more bang for the buck than doing runs in the Cave.