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Strange game balance behaviour


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Game: Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel

Mode: SinglePlayer

Char: Dryad, level 133

Difficulty: Niobium, Chap IV

 

At Silver level I was grinding a lot, exploring every corner of the map, doing every single mission. All was great - my char stats, skills, attributes, drops, got better and better... till middle of Charapter II, I exceed maximum level for that area (level 48-53) and got punished, new drops was worse than ~5 levels before, same scene in merchant shops. Lost all motivation. Few weeks later I resume that game with idea to rush through silver to gold, never did it before. So I did, doing just main quest. I don't remember - situation got better or not, at least at Charapter III it still was crapy. At Gold / Platinium I wasn't so diligent, did much less side quests, stayed less longer at same area, got no noticeable problems with level penalties or so.

But now... at niobium I thought... I should do maximum, thought my char level was just over 100 at niobium I got another 100 levels to grow, to hit the roof. So I did, and again, when Charapter II was close to end my excellence got punished, same story... for example:

I had some simple rings: Damage: 40, 42, 44, 46... but now... I'm getting drops with attributes like 32, 35...

for Relics: armor 260... later exactly the same Relics came with 259, then 258, then 257... on next charapter same...

Same for shrunken heads, weapon, armor attributes... I even got unique pendant with no attributes at all!!

Few attributes ar strictly character level dependent, those don't regress, but all others - for randomly generated items DO REGRESS, or don't progress.

Googled for known factors which may cause that, found nothing! I'm short on ideas, just killing fun to play that game, I want to finish. :)

 

Somebody - thoughts, ideas, suggestions, solutions?

 

p.s. I can provide any stats of my char, if it may help. and I have ~100 backup copies of save game folder to use if needed.

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I think what you are seeing is just a slowdown in the progression of the development of your character. Leveling at high levels is a much slower process and the quality of gear that you will find is based on your character level.

 

Because you are remaining the same level for a longer period of time you are seeing much more gear drop that is appropriate for that level. The gear will continue to improve as you make your way closer to level 200.

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I think what you are seeing is just a slowdown in the progression of the development of your character. Leveling at high levels is a much slower process and the quality of gear that you will find is based on your character level.

 

Because you are remaining the same level for a longer period of time you are seeing much more gear drop that is appropriate for that level. The gear will continue to improve as you make your way closer to level 200.

 

It's not about speed of progression, it's about constantly getting drops (all of them) with much, MUCH lower attributes, than before. There should be a factor who triggers that penalty.

I'm at Charapter IV now and nothing have changed.

 

p.s. enemies are still +23 level from mine.

Edited by frukc
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I think what you are seeing is just a slowdown in the progression of the development of your character. Leveling at high levels is a much slower process and the quality of gear that you will find is based on your character level.

 

Because you are remaining the same level for a longer period of time you are seeing much more gear drop that is appropriate for that level. The gear will continue to improve as you make your way closer to level 200.

 

It's not about speed of progression, it's about constantly getting drops (all of them) with much, MUCH lower attributes, than before. There should be a factor who triggers that penalty.

I'm at Charapter IV now and nothing have changed.

 

p.s. enemies are still +23 level from mine.

 

 

There is a progression of Magic Find that, as u gain in levels it takes more and more to still find the same quality of items. I can't find the thread( maybe somebody can help me with that) but items are sorted into 15 tiers. 1 the lowest quality and 15 the highest. the highest also being the rarest. The amount of Bargaining/enhanced perception/chance to find valuable necessary to achieve the higher tiers goes up exponentially with char levels. 1 example explained that a level 4 character with a level 15 bargaining can achieve tier 12 items at merchants ( the highest level a merchant can sell) while a level 140 char would need a level 400 bargaining to get the same quality of drops. works the same with Bargaining and enhanced perception.

 

So if you are not able to improve your chance to find valuables stats as you level your char, you will find lower and lower quality of items.

 

lots of things go into chance to find valuable. kill speed, survival bonus, enhanced perception, % of map revealed. etc.

 

Hopefully this help explain a little. Its designed into the game that way. not to penalize you for leveling ( I know it seems that way) but to continue raising the difficulty as you level.

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thanx, locolagarto!

 

if so... thats terrible game design, even kid will understand - if you need to enhance some skill exponentially but skill points you get linear way, those functions won't meet again. what a great mind lies behind this! looks like I'm leaving this game, good I didn't bought the "ice & blood".

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I can't see any terrible design behind this as my Shadow Warrior at level 140 gets items with great stats on(without EP), like Relics with over 600 armor, Hafteds with Leech Life %, Opponents Chance to Evade up in 40-50%, Critical Hits up in 15%.

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I can't see any terrible design behind this as my Shadow Warrior at level 140 gets items with great stats on(without EP), like Relics with over 600 armor, Hafteds with Leech Life %, Opponents Chance to Evade up in 40-50%, Critical Hits up in 15%.

 

 

True as your Kill speed, SB, Map revealed and such are adding you in finding valuable.

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That's right, so if I get these great items then should the OP get something similar, or perhaps he hasn't explored enough map or lost his SB?

Edited by Spunky
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From my own experience in SP, Survivial Bonus depends quite a lot of the quality of the items you will find.

For example, if your character just died, it's kind of normal that you won't find "good" items right after you respawned, and if you're high level (133 in this case), it can take quite a while to get back to that amount of Survival Bonus that was allowing you to get good items with good attributes on it.

I think that Survival Bonus not only decides the kind of items you will get (rare, unique, set, etc.), but it can also affect the quality of the Attributes on it (such as bonuses on a relic in this case, or the amount of Max Hitpoints on a piece of Armor).

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

Max

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from char's stats file:

 

...

Map revealed: 46.21

...

Respawn: 0

Survival Bonus: 0.96

...

SKILL_DISTANCE_WEAPON_LORE: 174

SKILL_CONCENTRATION: 147

SKILL_DR_HUNT_FOCUS: 210

SKILL_DR_NATUREMAGIC_LORE: 83

SKILL_PERCEPTION: 142

SKILL_TACTICS_LORE: 228

SKILL_COMBAT_REFLEXES: 94

SKILL_COMBAT_DISCIPLE: 100

SKILL_ARMOR_LORE: 108

SKILL_DR_NATUREMAGIC_FOCUS: 170

...

BONUS_MAGICFIND: value=630

...

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I made an experiment: used cheat tool to edit my char's attributes. Changed 1 thing - EP to 134 (char's level) with bonuses it's now 268, high enough. And took a walk at Chapter III area, got more good stuff - yellows and greens, but... damage ring I got had attribute only 36... hmm... maybe all good stuff I had at Chapter II was actually from desert runs... will try to hunt there and report after.

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I think devs mentioned somewhere that there is a penalty to mf or items if you play in areas that you outlevel, and a bonus if you fight higher level mobs. Perhaps that's what they meant.

 

I'm pretty sure this was also the case in the first Sacred, I think I've seen some details at Wolfe's Lair when it was still online.

 

Or maybe you just got unlucky a few times.

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