Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition

[Silver_fox 397]

The wait for the last two chars to be released was worth it. You did a great job on them. I especially like how TG's new CAs look in the description. Maybe Lost Fusion aspect would become more playable by itself now. DM's changes also sound good. There does not seem to be a way to keep the shifted shapes equally balanced for the whole length of the game, except maybe for the way Llama took in his mod, by making modifications that change the creatures you shift into. But that takes away modification opportunities, so does not sound very attractive. Otherwise, DM's modified spells look like a way to make him more fun to play.

 

Ugh, it's so crummy. I replaced it with glee. Enjoy yourself though.

Consider my reply to be made out of general doubt about the usefulness of summons. I agree that Ruinous Onslaught is not the best CA around, but Death Warrior SW is so much a powerhouse he does not look like the one who desperately needs a meat shield companion. Though I'll give the horned guy a try, who knows, maybe I'll like him after getting to know him better

 

I don't think I did a very good job presenting Sonic Vortex...

I considered consolidating the Seraphim's two energy shields into one, but I think they actually managed to make them different enough that they would have different uses. So I kept them separate, but splitting them up into different aspects is not an idea that I like.

Then it's OK. I can't say that I really like the idea of splitting the shields between aspects, I just was a bit concerned about the possibility of losing one of the tech aspect's main features. Originally it was well rounded with one-target boss-killing CA, Area of Effect CA, shields and BFG. Squeezing another kind of CA in meant either losing some opportunities or moving out one of the shields, because these were the only CAs within aspect that overlapped in function. But as the new CA can fit in the old role, there is no functionality lost and no change required.

 

Though, of course, no change is REQUIRED or even needed anyway. I'm not trying to criticize your work, or to make you change something. I understand that it's your personal mod and your vision of what the game's CAs should look like. This vision may match that of the others or not, but either way it brings an alternate way for the game to be played. So I'm just voicing my praise about the things that sound exiting and concern about the things I doubt for the sake of conversation. Besides, it's always good to have any possible concerns dispelled just by asking about them, as in case with changes to Revered aspect.

[SX255 630]

if you know of or can find a better design that shows something that looks like Deathly Spears, why don't you share it with me, and I may swap it out.

 

I have an idea. But I need your new icon of Deadly Spears in its original format.

Could you send me a link to it? I don't believe the 75px × 75px is its original format.

[Little Faith 24]

Regarding Deathly Spears, you say you didn't change anything. While it's certainly a damn fine CA in the end-game as is, I think it could use some improvement.

First and foremost: The gold modifier Jab is pretty much required. Without it the CA is merely a toy. If it is possible to bake the extra pulses into the CA by default, that's what I would do. This would also free up the gold mod choice making it an interesting decision.

Another problem with the skill is that it is very weak at lower levels. Perhaps doing something about the scaling of the extra pulses per level could make this CA come into it's own sooner. It's endgame potential should probably remain mostly unchanged though.

 

This, of course, all assumes the CA isn't hardcoded too badly in that regard.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Little Faith

[Flix 5,116]

 

if you know of or can find a better design that shows something that looks like Deathly Spears, why don't you share it with me, and I may swap it out.

 

I have an idea. But I need your new icon of Deadly Spears in its original format.

Could you send me a link to it? I don't believe the 75px × 75px is its original format.

 

Here it is.

 

 

Regarding Deathly Spears, you say you didn't change anything. While it's certainly a damn fine CA in the end-game as is, I think it could use some improvement.

First and foremost: The gold modifier Jab is pretty much required. Without it the CA is merely a toy. If it is possible to bake the extra pulses into the CA by default, that's what I would do. This would also free up the gold mod choice making it an interesting decision.

Another problem with the skill is that it is very weak at lower levels. Perhaps doing something about the scaling of the extra pulses per level could make this CA come into it's own sooner. It's endgame potential should probably remain mostly unchanged though.

 

This, of course, all assumes the CA isn't hardcoded too badly in that regard.

 

That's a really a good idea, and easy to implement. The number of jabs is just controlled with a "hits_persecond" spell token. It scales very slowly by default, but the Jab modification doubles it and it also doubles the scaling.

 

I don't think I would double it right off the bat, but maybe give it 1 1/2 times the pulses to start, and make the pulses scale much better, so by higher levels it would be exactly as if the Jab modification had been taken. I was thinking a chance to cause a deep wound would be a good gold mod replacement.

[Flix 5,116]

Alright I updated the first post again, this time with the god spells and the new combo icons. I may do Horse CA's at some point, but maybe not.

 

I also updated Deathly Spears since I made the changes Little Faith suggested. It should now start out stronger, be perhaps a little weaker mid-game (since you can't jump straight to the Jab mod, instead you have to level up the CA to get more pulses), but eventually by mid-to-end game it will reach and maybe even surpass the power of the vanilla CA.

 

I'm moving tomorrow, so I may vanish for a little while. But hopefully I can get a beta release ready next week,

[SX255 630]

Here it is.

 

Ok. I tried editing the picture to have 5 spikes and resemble the original, but the best I could do is 3.

I included my original 511x518 circle filler pic, as I don't seam to give it the best scaled look

S.rar

[fly790420 7]

I am planning to have a fresh start of the game since Sacred 3 just isn't...."Sacred-ish" anymore... Would be great if I start with this mod. Was all pumped up checking through the contents until I scrolled to the bottom......"Download coming soon"....nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Flix 5,116]

Sorry about that. If you can wait a few more days, I just have one or two major kinks to work out before I can release it. Also, my living situation just turned upside down so I don't have any free time, but I will really try to find some time to get this mod out by the end of the week.

[Yoshio 91]

Back from my holiday and finding your great work! I'm really looking forward to it and would like to give it a try as soon as it is out and ready for us to play with!

[fly790420 7]

Sorry about that. If you can wait a few more days, I just have one or two major kinks to work out before I can release it. Also, my living situation just turned upside down so I don't have any free time, but I will really try to find some time to get this mod out by the end of the week.

Cool, no rush. Take as much time as you need man. It's gonna be worth the waiting anyways! Keep it up!

Edited August 4, 2014 by fly790420

[hawk2112 3]

Flix... this looks awesome. Very much looking forward to using this when you can release!

[King Angel 69]

Looks great

[fly790420 7]

This weekend seems to be the perfect time to start a new playthrough but not without this mod:/ Can't wait!

[Flix 5,116]

OK I just uploaded a beta version of the mod to the Downloads section. Once it's approved (probably while I'm asleep), you should be able to get your hands on it.

 

I'm designating it as a beta release because I haven't had anyone test it yet (other than myself) and there's still some issues to be worked out (they are listed in the readme so you can be aware of them).

 

If you have any other issues with the mod (balancing, bugs, etc.), don't forget to report them here so I can address them. One of my ongoing fears is that I've simply packaged something incorrectly so I'd also appreciate comments if it all seems to working right as well.

[fly790420 7]

OK I just uploaded a beta version of the mod to the Downloads section. Once it's approved (probably while I'm asleep), you should be able to get your hands on it.

 

I'm designating it as a beta release because I haven't had anyone test it yet (other than myself) and there's still some issues to be worked out (they are listed in the readme so you can be aware of them).

 

If you have any other issues with the mod (balancing, bugs, etc.), don't forget to report them here so I can address them. One of my ongoing fears is that I've simply packaged something incorrectly so I'd also appreciate comments if it all seems to working right as well.

 

AWESOME!!!! Thanks! Will try it and see how it works out!!

[gogoblender 3,068]

OK I just uploaded a beta version of the mod to the Downloads section. Once it's approved (probably while I'm asleep), you should be able to get your hands on it.

 

I'm designating it as a beta release because I haven't had anyone test it yet (other than myself) and there's still some issues to be worked out (they are listed in the readme so you can be aware of them).

 

If you have any other issues with the mod (balancing, bugs, etc.), don't forget to report them here so I can address them. One of my ongoing fears is that I've simply packaged something incorrectly so I'd also appreciate comments if it all seems to working right as well.

And done... Flix, this is a great mod... the amount of work and content you've put up for the fans here is just massive!

 

 

gogo

[hawk2112 3]

Thank you Flix for doing this! I've downloaded and installed, getting ready to head into the game to test with my Dryad, DM, and possibly my seraphim if the beer doesn't catch up to me first. Will report in tomorrow!

[Luthal 19]

first of all I wanna thank you for this awesome work. I can't test it atm but I'm sure it's an amazing mod.

 

btw how can you edit global.res? and how can u change the ingame tooltips for the CA or the modifications? I'd like to change something by myself

 

now, even if I appreciate very much most of you're changes to the CAs I'd like to share some of my doubts (personal opinions, nothing more)

 

-the summoning combat arts look awesome but I wouldnt' rely that much on the ally AI...will they be useful in combat or they ll just look at us killing enemies?

 

-summoning combat arts, again. aren't they a bit unbalanced? I mean the dm can summon a familiar that boosts him (alot) and fights (using spells) and/or up to 3 protectors with boosted stats and spells. the inquisitor summons a very nice harbinger but he's melee only...(same for the sw)

 

I was wondering that you could teach some spells to the melee summons (maybe we need an exception for the sw summon which has to be melee. he could have increased stats to compensate). I.e. some dark spells for the death harbinger and one of the tw aspects for the tw summon

 

also I would reduce the base value for the dm protectors...u boosted their stats and enhanced their spells, I thinks it's enough. three is a crowd (considering that he can also summon the familiar and spam the destructors)

 

-there are some others CAs that appear unbalanced to me after the power up:

grand invigoration has too many bonuses now...it was already good in the vanilla version. I would remove something (especially the buff remover that is really too strong for a pvp). maybe you could split all those bonuses in two different CAs.

 

dragon berserk is op at low levels (you said so). perhaps you can nerf the base dmg and increase the scaling? ok that's probably too easy and u cant but I'm just saying

 

dragon's wrath seems really nice, gratz for the idea, but I'd focus the dmg type in a single element (fire would be my choice, according to the aspect of the CA) also removing the ice modification.

 

elemental strike. again, gratz for the new CA. just a suggestion here: a modification that allows the player to focus the damage to a single element would be nice ( ill surely do that for myself)

 

Venomous Entrapment - New Combat Art (replaces Forest Flight). The Dryad sets a poisonous trap for her enemies that damages any who pass over it. The trap inflicts physical and poison spell damage as well as poison DOT. Can be modified to increase the poison damage, chance for poisoning, chance to stun, debuff enemy defense, chance for critical hits, and deathblow. This adds to the small list of spell-based combat arts that are boosted by Tactics Lore.

well done, great choice, but how could you do that? I tried to edit the skills but I couldnt find them in the txts

that's it. let me know what u think about these changes

Edited August 10, 2014 by Luthal

[Flix 5,116]

first of all I wanna thank you for this awesome work. I can't test it atm but I'm sure it's an amazing mod.

...

now, even if I appreciate very much most of you're changes to the CAs I'd like to share some of my doubts (personal opinions, nothing more)

 

Hey Luthal thanks for the comments. I'll try to explain more about how and why I've set up the minions like they are:

 

First off, I don't have very fine control over minion AI. First, there is a "behavior" line in the creatures.txt entry that I've adjusted based on other creatures and how I want the minions to behave. For example, the Mage's Familiar uses the "Hireling_mage_no_defense" behavior. There are also "Hireling_brave" and "Hireling_distance" behaviors I have for the other summons. However, I don't see a noticeable effect if I change these behaviors, but I have them set up just in case.

 

Second, there is the "spelllClass" line in the spells.txt entry for the Combat Art. This seems to be the crucial line in determining minion AI. Unfortunately, there are basically only two choices here: I can borrow the AI from the Fire Daemon or from Nether Allegiance.

 

If I use Nether Allegiance, then the summon will act like the skeleton warriors, charging directly into battle and attacking relentlessly with their weapon. This is a good behavior for the melee summons (Labyrinthine Warlord, Fusion Construct). I can confidently tell you that they attack reliably and efficiently. These summons score plenty of kills on their own. Importantly, however, they will not use any spells, ever.

 

If I use the Fire Daemon, the minion tends to act flighty, dodging enemies and standing still a lot, but most importantly, they will almost exclusively use their Combat Arts, and avoid melee attacks except when all Combat Arts are on cooldown and an enemy is very close by. In other words, there is only one choice for me if I want to make a minion that uses spells: use the Fire Daemon AI, which will not work very well for a minion I want to bravely attack with its weapon.

 

There is a way around this limitation: if I give the minion a variety of melee Combat Arts, that will provide a way for the minion to use their weapon in combat. For example, I gave the Sublime Guardian (Seraphim summon) the Fire Daemon AI, but because I gave her the entire Exalted Warrior aspect, she's still able to kill enemies with her weapon. However, she doesn't attack very often with her normal "left-click" attacks, instead prefering to use Soul Hammer, Pelting Strikes and Assailing Somersault. So it's a trade-off, powerful attacks less often instead of weaker attacks more often (like the summons that use the Nether Allegiance AI).

 

There is a third spellcontroltype I used for the Harbinger of Death, and that is the Sakkara demon's AI. I needed it to make the summon turn against the Inquisitor after a time period. However, like Nether Allegiance, it does not allow the summon to use combat arts. I don't really want to use this AI for other summons anyway because I don't want the player always fighting their minions. So, I can't teach the Harbinger of Death some spells, because I would have to sacrifice the "minion that turns against you" aspect of the CA.

 

I could try giving the Fusion Construct the Devout Guardian aspect, if players feel that his melee attacks are inefficient and/or boring, but I don't personally think that's the case. Also, I think his attacks will be somewhat more consistent and reliable if he keeps his current AI. Same goes for the Labyrinthine Warlord - I could probably scrounge up some melee Combat Arts for him to use, but I think I prefer the direct, fast melee approach he has now.

 

=======================================================

I hope that clarifies things about the minion AI. Now, on to balance:

 

It's true that the Draconic Ally and the Protectors more powerful than the Harbinger of Death and the Labyrinthine Warlord, however those Dragon Mage summons are buffs, and carry a stiff regeneration penalty. On the other hand, the Inquisitor's and Shadow Warrior's summons are "free," being only temporary buffs. So it follows that they're not as powerful. Also, this isn't intended, but right now the killing power of the Draconic Ally is very low. If players think that 3 Protectors is too many I'd probably choose to have 2 by default and change the extra summon modification to something different.

 

The Dragon Mage may seem to have gotten too much power, however, in my opinion my boosts were appropriate because many of his spells were pathetically underpowered and nearly broken. The Dragon Magic aspect in particular was in really bad shape. A single-aspect DM focusing only on Dragon Magic was not feasible through Niobium. So in balancing, I'm looking at the character as a whole compared to other characters. The Dragon Mage as a whole should be on par with the other characters.

 

My idea for the Dragon Berserk is to limit the duration in some way, so that the form cannot be sustained indefinitely, but can only be used in select situations, in short bursts. My experience playing the Dragon Berserk under the CM Patch 1.40 was that it was god-like in early levels and worthless by the time I reached higher levels. If I can't make the power evenly scale across the game, then I'll work on the duration in some way.

 

What you should understand about the High Elf's new Mage's Familiar is that it's not adding a large amount of things to Grand Invigoration. Basically all that is added is a summon that occasionally casts two lightning spells (randomly according to its own preference, you don't control it).

 

Dragon's Wrath is a CA I adapted from Llama's Mod. He can be thanked for the initial idea. Although I changed many things about it, I stayed true to the original idea of having it add fire/magic weapon damage with a modification that adds ice.

 

I'm not changing Elemental Strike. The whole concept was to be able to have a fire/ice mix on a hybrid-damage weapon attack. So I won't sacrifice the core of the spell.

 

Luckily you can of course make the changes you suggest, by making some edits to spells.txt yourself.

 

=======================================================

 

 

Venomous Entrapment - New Combat Art (replaces Forest Flight). The Dryad sets a poisonous trap for her enemies that damages any who pass over it. The trap inflicts physical and poison spell damage as well as poison DOT. Can be modified to increase the poison damage, chance for poisoning, chance to stun, debuff enemy defense, chance for critical hits, and deathblow. This adds to the small list of spell-based combat arts that are boosted by Tactics Lore.

well done, great choice, but how could you do that? I tried to edit the skills but I couldnt find them in the txts

 

The aspect lore for a Combat Art is determined in the Combat Arts entry in spells.txt. For example, all Combat Arts in the Capricious Hunter aspect have the line: lore_skill_name = "skill_tactics_lore", . I found that it's important to keep the lore skill consistent for every CA in an aspect, otherwise the way modification points are awarded gets screwed up. For example, the original Dragon's Wrath in Llama's Mod had Tactics Lore assigned as the lore skill, which messed things up for the other Combat Arts, which no longer gained mod points from Dragon Magic Lore. So, the new Venomous Entrapment skill gains power from Tactics Lore just like the rest of the Capricious Hunter Combat Arts.

 

If you want to edit the skills themselves then I think they appear in blueprint.txt. I don't have much experience working with them because I haven't tried to mod skills before.

 

=======================================================

 

btw how can you edit global.res? and how can u change the ingame tooltips for the CA or the modifications? I'd like to change something by myself

 

I edit global.res with an internal tool developed by and for the CM Patch team. It's not currently public, and there's not much I can do about that.

 

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, I hope you'll try out the mod at some point and give some feedback based on the gameplay.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Flix

[Luthal 19]

thanks for the quick and clear reply

 

your explanations were exahustive and now I understand your point about the CAs changes (especially the summoning ones). even the grand invigoration summon isnt that strong after all, considering that u cant control its spells.

 

If you want to edit the skills themselves then I think they appear in blueprint.txt. I don't have much experience working with them because I haven't tried to mod skills before.

ty. I'll take a look

 

I edit global.res with an internal tool developed by and for the CM Patch team. It's not currently public, and there's not much I can do about that.

oh...its a pity

I really hope it ll be released, loads of modders could create awesome changes editing it ;(

also I'd have loved to edit the tooltips and some other stuff....well, nvm

 

thanks again for this mod, I'll try it as soon as possible

[Flix 5,116]

Here's a couple cosmetic changes I whipped up tonight. The summoned Temple Guardian and Minotaur got new skins.

 

The Sentinel Construct now looks more like he's the freshly created product of T-Energy technology.

 

 

The Labyrinthine Warlord lives up to his namesake now. He looks raging.

 

 

EDIT: One more quick update tonight. I wanted a green-skinned blood dryad summon, so the Priestess of Doom now looks a little less demon-ish.

 

Edited August 12, 2014 by Flix

[Luthal 19]

hey I'm trying the mod right now but I cant get the new SW boost (shivering miasma) working well...it doesnt inflict any damages.

maybe cause of the SpellClass "cSpellInqEntsetzen" ?

it works if I change it to icy evanescence ("cSpellTwEiseskaelte") but I also get the graphical effect of icy evanescence

[Gilberticus 374]

You're right, Shivering Miasma doesn't seem to work well. I hadn't noticed that, I've been playing with characters highly leveled and they had it in combos that made it appear to be working. But I just built a new SW five minutes ago, and all that happens is little wavey lines.

[Flix 5,116]

Alright. I've seen the slow effect working with my own eyes, so that at least be fine (the other debuffs ought to work as well). I'll try changing the spellclass to something else and see if it allows it to cause damage then. If not, I may just take off the ice damage and come up with another modifier. The ice damage was just a late addition by me anyway.

[Luthal 19]

spellClass = "cSpellHeFeuerhaut",

this one is actually working fine for me