Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition

[Roderick 53]

Uhhhh.... that flamethrower... I am not a pyromaniac... definitly not... but I love how that flamethrower looks. And the skeletal fortres... I love that green glow. It may be a silly reason but green is my favourite colour... the reason I love the Nether Allegiance despite their low efficiency.

That said... if it is time to note a wish for S2EE 3, may I request a buff for the Reflective Emanation? Nether Allegiance gains Damage through Astral Lord Focus and (thanks to you) defense through Astral Lord Focus. Grim Resilience gets a HP and HP-regeneration buff from Tactics Lore. But Reflective Emanation... though it throws back incomming damage, that amounts to nothing against the normal damage output from the Shadow Warrior. Like the shiny green skeletons, against the Frenzied Rampage which melts down enemies in seconds, the damage is almost neglectable.
Even with the Riposte mod from the Reflective Emanation, a tiny goblin can take 10 shots reflected back at himself and doesn't fall. In that time the Shadow Warrior slays down the whole rest of the goblin camp, cleans his weapons, runs two circles around that goblin and still have to kill it himself.

So, is it possible to rise the reflected damage from Reflective Emanation? Maybe with Tactics Lore. Or more funny with Armor Lore, Constitution or Toughness.... the harder you are, the more it hurts those who hit you? With Blacksmithing maybe, because you add some spikes to your armor? :D

By the way... any way to donate to you? That S2EE 3 looks like a reason for me to buy Sacred 2 all over again. Impressive determination, to improve this game after all this time.

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, Roderick said:

So, is it possible to rise the reflected damage from Reflective Emanation?

Sadly, no.  All that can be done is to increase the reflect chance.  I think of it as a trade-off for being completely protected from damage, unlike say, Diablo 2 where you must take the full damage before reflecting it back to the enemy (albeit multiplied).  So Reflection in Sacred 2 should really be considered more defensive than offensive.

What I might do is mimic what Reverse Polarity does with the Death Magic mod, by adding some area damage against enemies with melee range.

1 hour ago, Roderick said:

By the way... any way to donate to you?

I'm sure I could have made a few hundred dollars over the years from donations but I'm reluctant to try to make any money from IP owned by others.

 

Green is also my favorite color.

[Roderick 53]

SHOCK! I am at Spookmatters.org? Damn nice optic!

Awwwwww... well, it was worth a try. I can't see myself using Reflective Emanation, since Grim Resilience makes the Shadow Warrior much more relyably tanky. I just thought that the mod Riposte could just be tempered with to do more damage. But I am no modder so that was just a naiv thought. ^^

You sir, are a very kind soul. I wish you bright green days lying ahead of you!

[gogoblender 3,066]

5 hours ago, Roderick said:

SHOCK! I am at Spookmatters.org? Damn nice optic!

Awwwwww... well, it was worth a try. I can't see myself using Reflective Emanation, since Grim Resilience makes the Shadow Warrior much more relyably tanky. I just thought that the mod Riposte could just be tempered with to do more damage. But I am no modder so that was just a naiv thought. ^^

You sir, are a very kind soul. I wish you bright green days lying ahead of you!

 

Loved...that movie! And dinna mean to get in the way of work...but a good drink calls ! Roderick, join up the party friend... bring your spooky best

 

 

of course... no exceptions?

gogo

[Roderick 53]

Actually... I have another probably unworthy thing.
In my love for the SW my onliest annoying thing is running after rangers/casters. Especially with the Super Spawn it is super annoying running after 7 goblins when you want to play meele. Throning on top of that, basking in its unholy evilness, roots and stuns. Root even more, when you can't move and they shoot at you. Stun is ok, but rootet... you can only gnarl at your situation.
The Belligerent Vault has mod a to escape root... which doesn't work. The root just jumps with you and you stay rooted where you are landing. Second, in a combo, there is a somewhat 10% chance the SW won't attack the enemy you where jumping to, sometimes even runs back to your starting location and hitting somethign there. If you jump rooted, you may even land WITHIN your enemy, but the second skill in the combo - Franzied Rampage - won't go off.
So I remebered Ruinous Onslaught with its mod to escape roots with 50%+2% per level of ca... I really liked that. It's the only skill I am really missing from the originals. Is there somewhere a topic, survey or poll how many are using the Minotaurus buff? It is quite awesome to implement such a skill, I won't belittle that. I just love the skeletons and don't use the Minotaurus. So... if there is a slight chance to have the Vault really getting rid of the roots... or maybe the Onslaught comming back... I would like that.

(I will use S2EE 3 in any way, it already looks awesome. I may even play the Temple Guardian, despite my least played char... just for that Flamethrower. :D)

That will be the last thing I greedily mention here. S2EE was always like a charm and I will enjoy the 3 when it is ready.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Roderick

[Flix 5,116]

2 hours ago, Roderick said:

The Belligerent Vault has mod a to escape root... which doesn't work. The root just jumps with you and you stay rooted where you are landing. Second, in a combo, there is a somewhat 10% chance the SW won't attack the enemy you where jumping to, sometimes even runs back to your starting location and hitting somethign there. If you jump rooted, you may even land WITHIN your enemy, but the second skill in the combo - Franzied Rampage - won't go off.
So I remebered Ruinous Onslaught with its mod to escape roots with 50%+2% per level of ca... I really liked that. It's the only skill I am really missing from the originals. Is there somewhere a topic, survey or poll how many are using the Minotaurus buff? It is quite awesome to implement such a skill, I won't belittle that. I just love the skeletons and don't use the Minotaurus. So... if there is a slight chance to have the Vault really getting rid of the roots... or maybe the Onslaught comming back... I would like that.

As I mentioned above B.V. is getting a rework in the next release.  It should be able to actually break roots and also be a functional part of a combo now.

About bringing back Ruinous Onslaught... well I maintain two versions of the spells, and I can't really go beyond that.  All the original CA's are present in the CORE module.  I direct everyone to play that one unless they specifically want the Alternate ones.  Sadly I cannot make numerous versions to accommodate every possible combination of CA's players might want.  Any given player seems to want about half the Alternate spells but not the other half.  As it stands, I have to draw the line at providing either all the Original CA's or all the Alternate ones.

[Roderick 53]

Oh, I haven't seen that about the B.V., sorry! When it breaks the roots I will be very happy as it is. Thanks for all your work!

[Daedalus 88]

 A question about the inquisitor's Battle Daemon if I can Flix:

I thought I read somewhere that this minion should keep her raving thrust once you upgrade her to either flame or poison form ... but this is apparently not the case. That being said, to be fair, I am assuming it might have something to do with the CA being inspired by the Demoness from Sacred 1

Just curious as I much prefer the version with the raving thrust in the current build I am experimenting, so I wanted to be sure before I start messing and chaning things around with the editor for testing this new build of mine  

Of course, I will never discount the possibility that there might be something wonky with my install. 

Speaking of which, though it probably doesn't directly involves the mod, it might be insteresting to note that some other mods are incompatible with the battle daemon. I believe mods like the new dark elf MIGHT (but I am not sure) MIGHT be messing around with the battle daemon in upgraded form. I had the issue when,ater the upgrade and summoning her, she just stayed stuck and paralyzed  

But a reinstall of the mods with just enhanced edition is working very well right now   (I will test to see if it's the dark elf mod or the new portrait mod ... or something else locally on my drive which might be the source of the problem and if I have something I'll give you a call and try to explain what I saw  ).

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, Daedalus said:

I thought I read somewhere that this minion should keep her raving thrust once you upgrade her to either flame or poison form

Raving Thrust is only used in her Physical form.  She trades it for a Poison Nova or Blazing Tempest skill if the modifications are taken.  There's no reason you have to take either of these mods if you're not interested in the damage conversion.

1 hour ago, Daedalus said:

I believe mods like the new dark elf MIGHT (but I am not sure) MIGHT be messing around with the battle daemon in upgraded form. I had the issue when,ater the upgrade and summoning her, she just stayed stuck and paralyzed

That elf mod is directly incompatible with EE as a whole, because it changes creatureinfo.txt.  Any new creature added in EE would be unable to do anything, and all other changes from that script would also be lost.

Portrait Overhaul will have no compatibility issues.  I build all my own mods based on EE.

[Androdion 875]

11 hours ago, Roderick said:

Actually... I have another probably unworthy thing.
In my love for the SW my onliest annoying thing is running after rangers/casters. Especially with the Super Spawn it is super annoying running after 7 goblins when you want to play meele. Throning on top of that, basking in its unholy evilness, roots and stuns. Root even more, when you can't move and they shoot at you. Stun is ok, but rootet... you can only gnarl at your situation.
The Belligerent Vault has mod a to escape root... which doesn't work. The root just jumps with you and you stay rooted where you are landing. Second, in a combo, there is a somewhat 10% chance the SW won't attack the enemy you where jumping to, sometimes even runs back to your starting location and hitting somethign there. If you jump rooted, you may even land WITHIN your enemy, but the second skill in the combo - Franzied Rampage - won't go off.
So I remebered Ruinous Onslaught with its mod to escape roots with 50%+2% per level of ca... I really liked that. It's the only skill I am really missing from the originals. Is there somewhere a topic, survey or poll how many are using the Minotaurus buff? It is quite awesome to implement such a skill, I won't belittle that. I just love the skeletons and don't use the Minotaurus. So... if there is a slight chance to have the Vault really getting rid of the roots... or maybe the Onslaught comming back... I would like that.

(I will use S2EE 3 in any way, it already looks awesome. I may even play the Temple Guardian, despite my least played char... just for that Flamethrower. :D)

That will be the last thing I greedily mention here. S2EE was always like a charm and I will enjoy the 3 when it is ready.

May I suggest a kind of workaround to this? You can still play melee as much as you'd like, but you can keep a single weapon slot with a staff+secondary weapon config, assuming you play with the Dual Wield skill chosen into your skill set. If you do then this weapon config together with Frenzied Rampage will unleash a homing barrage of projectiles which is great for getting those pesky casters and rangers. Just a thought, maybe you'll appreciate the option.

To be quite honest I haven't played in a while, though I have my High Elf on ice. I've had my first vacation in a whole year, plus I'm devouring Breaking Bad, so time is scarce. Even more so now that I've returned to my work. But I digress. Point being, there's not much beyond the integration of core fixes available in Addendum that I'd wish to get on a new EE version. I play Original Spells so I can't speak for the CAs on the Alternate Spells module. But in all honesty all I can see being needed is further bug fixing and any kind of cosmetic flair that can be brought to improve it further. On that respect I'm loving the reworked colour schemes and all of the other stuff. Go for it, it looks mighty cool! Other than that though, I can't see myself asking for any kind of changes.

[Daedalus 88]

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Raving Thrust is only used in her Physical form.  She trades it for a Poison Nova or Blazing Tempest skill if the modifications are taken.  There's no reason you have to take either of these mods if you're not interested in the damage conversion.

That elf mod is directly incompatible with EE as a whole, because it changes creatureinfo.txt.  Any new creature added in EE would be unable to do anything, and all other changes from that script would also be lost.

Portrait Overhaul will have no compatibility issues.  I build all my own mods based on EE.

Thanks for the explanations Flix!!!

Your post confirms my suspicions. And Yes, I will keep my Battle Daemon in physical form, since I intend to use her raving thrust to the fullest  

Also, I saw there was a CA from the inquisitor that reduces resistance to physical damage, so there's that as well  

And thanks for the explanation about mods interaction with each others. As you might have noticed, I have absolutely zero ideas how they work ... though I would be interested to create some custom Bosses sometimes just for the fun of it  

But, yes, your explanation makes total sense! Also, good news, I am going to be able to put the portrait overhaul back, which is nice, the portraits are really beautiful  

 

[Flix 5,116]

8 minutes ago, Daedalus said:

And thanks for the explanation about mods interaction with each others. As you might have noticed, I have absolutely zero ideas how they work

When I drop the next release of EE, I'll send Hooyaah an updated creatureinfo.txt so we can have an EE-compatible Dark Elf.  

[Flix 5,116]

I've reworked the library of lore books in EE.  The expansion and CM Patch categories have been broken up and had their books, among others, distributed to the various appropriate categories.  There's also some improvement to formatting that should make them much easier to read - titles are centered, and more chapters and sections are utilized as opposed to a wall of text.  Plus, the usual cleaning up of typos.  You might find it enjoyable to sit down and peruse these books in-game without your eyes bleeding.

"The Study of Anatomy" is an Ascaron-made book that can now drop. 

"A Sword of Light and Darkness" is an older CM Patch 1.20 book that was meant to be lore for The Redeemer legendary item, much like "A Northland Tale" was the lore for Kal'Dur's Legacy.*  This book now drops.

"Diaanja's Study Book" can now only be found in her retreat during the Cursed Forest quest - it no longer drops randomly during gameplay.

"Notes of Psychiatrist Hergabol Chambers" was written by dimitrius154 and drops during the "Weakening the Abishai" quest.

  

 

* In fact, Silver Fox once described in detail to me the planned side quest that would drop The Redeemer as a reward - it was meant to be a coda to The Unholy Crusade involving Baron DeMordrey's repentant son who takes over the Barony.  I never tried to implement this idea.

[dimitrius154 612]

6 hours ago, Flix said:

In fact, Silver Fox once described in detail to me the planned side quest that would drop The Redeemer as a reward - it was meant to be a coda to The Unholy Crusade involving Baron DeMordrey's repentant son who takes over the Barony.  I never tried to implement this idea.

Interesting. Kal'Dur's Legacy is not used as a quest reward either, I believe. 

Since Artamark 'borders' the Northland and has a history of uneasy neighbourship with the Thraconians it stands to reason that the De Mordrey family might possess both Kal'Dur's Legacy and The Redeemer as heirlooms. And is willing to part with them for a great service rendered. Hmm...

"Mending the Ties", requires Dark Crusade chain and the Hunt for Rats side quest completion:

Light Side: the repentant Baron's son laments the family's ruined reputation and mentions, that the only way to regain it would be via a tradition of monetary reparations to the Baron of Urthamark(250000 gold) and an offering to the King in Griffinborough(1000000 gold), but the treasury is empty, so it would take years. So as a good little hero that our PC is, he(she) takes it upon him(her)self to travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

Dark Side: the not-so-repentant Baron's son muses about the fickle favour of Ker and the cost of the failed ambition to the family's reputation, and that it has to be rebuilt, if the family is to continue  participating in the region's power games. The treasury is empty, but the family has a long-standing and time-honoured tradition of robbing merchant caravans in order to acquire funds. If the PC can appease both the Baron of Urthamark and the King, he(she) gets some vaualble De Mordrey heirlooms. So our PC has to rob 5 trading parties(a merchant + 5 veteran guards) and acquire the 1250000 gold, then travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

[Androdion 875]

2 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

Interesting. Kal'Dur's Legacy is not used as a quest reward either, I believe. 

Since Artamark 'borders' the Northland and has a history of uneasy neighbourship with the Thraconians it stands to reason that the De Mordrey family might possess both Kal'Dur's Legacy and The Redeemer as heirlooms. And is willing to part with them for a great service rendered. Hmm...

"Mending the Ties", requires Dark Crusade chain and the Hunt for Rats side quest completion:

Light Side: the repentant Baron's son laments the family's ruined reputation and mentions, that the only way to regain it would be via a tradition of monetary reparations to the Baron of Urthamark(250000 gold) and an offering to the King in Griffinborough(1000000 gold), but the treasury is empty, so it would take years. So as a good little hero that our PC is, he(she) takes it upon him(her)self to travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

Dark Side: the not-so-repentant Baron's son muses about the fickle favour of Ker and the cost of the failed ambition to the family's reputation, and that it has to be rebuilt, if the family is to continue  participating in the region's power games. The treasury is empty, but the family has a long-standing and time-honoured tradition of robbing merchant caravans in order to acquire funds. If the PC can appease both the Baron of Urthamark and the King, he(she) gets some vaualble De Mordrey heirlooms. So our PC has to rob 5 trading parties(a merchant + 5 veteran guards) and acquire the 1250000 gold, then travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

Sounds great to me!

[Flix 5,116]

 

14 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

Interesting. Kal'Dur's Legacy is not used as a quest reward either, I believe. 

Since Artamark 'borders' the Northland and has a history of uneasy neighbourship with the Thraconians it stands to reason that the De Mordrey family might possess both Kal'Dur's Legacy and The Redeemer as heirlooms. And is willing to part with them for a great service rendered. Hmm...

"Mending the Ties", requires Dark Crusade chain and the Hunt for Rats side quest completion:

Light Side: the repentant Baron's son laments the family's ruined reputation and mentions, that the only way to regain it would be via a tradition of monetary reparations to the Baron of Urthamark(250000 gold) and an offering to the King in Griffinborough(1000000 gold), but the treasury is empty, so it would take years. So as a good little hero that our PC is, he(she) takes it upon him(her)self to travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

Dark Side: the not-so-repentant Baron's son muses about the fickle favour of Ker and the cost of the failed ambition to the family's reputation, and that it has to be rebuilt, if the family is to continue  participating in the region's power games. The treasury is empty, but the family has a long-standing and time-honoured tradition of robbing merchant caravans in order to acquire funds. If the PC can appease both the Baron of Urthamark and the King, he(she) gets some vaualble De Mordrey heirlooms. So our PC has to rob 5 trading parties(a merchant + 5 veteran guards) and acquire the 1250000 gold, then travel to both interested parties and pay the fine. After that the PC returns to the Baron's son and is rewarded with Kal'Dur's Legacy, The Redeemer and their lore books.

Kal'Dur's Legacy would make a fitting reward for completing the Northland Expedition (I even have Haenir wielding it).  For some reason I chose Braggi's Law as the reward though - I may alter that in the next release.

  Your Redeemer quest plan sounds as good as any of the other ideas that I could recover.  It seems most of the original plans were lost, due to the posts residing in the now-defunct Mantis Bugtracker.  This was all I could find:

On 2/7/2011 at 6:23 AM, Silver_fox said:

But the quest for this sword is now the thing in question. There were several ideas for it, and therefore I don't know which one would be developed.

1. My idea was to create the quest chain that would match the lore. Something to do with intrigues, DeMordrey and human affairs. The idea was to make it different for the Light and Shadow charas - the Shadow ones work for the evil Baron, because they were promised to be rewarded with a treasure that was hidded in DeMordrey's castle. The Light ones work for the king and become a noble Knight and a hero that is rewarded with a title and a sword.

2. Munera's idea was to make a Shadow Warrior only quest based on him fighting the elves. Probably including saving and protecting humans from them.

Do note that for some reason they decided to make this Legendary a Shadow Warrior-only weapon, most likely due to him holding the sword in the promotional materials.  It may be worthwhile to make it all-class.

[Flix 5,116]

Some more updates on what I've been doing with spell FX.

Vanilla mounted casting FX is, for the most part, very lackluster.  There are only 3 mounted FX per character, with generic sounds and colors that are often not appropriate for the CA's.  Let's take the High Elf as an example.

The above FX is used for casting: Ancestral Fireball, Blazing Tempest, Frost Flare, Glacial Thorns, & Cobalt Strike.  The same generic blue, and the same faint 'swish' sound in place of the usual unmounted FX.

Now, in EE 3.0, mounted casting FX will better resemble the unmounted FX:

        

 

I repeated this process for all 7 characters.  About 90% of player CA's were affected.  A handful were better suited to the original mounted FX and so remain unchanged, notably the Dryad with her "leafy" mounted casting FX that was actually unique and interesting.

[Androdion 875]

DAIUM! 

[Dragon Brother 619]

That looks great, so much better than vanilla!

[Flix 5,116]

So I've developed a new optional module for EE.  It has the following features:

1) All bosses respawn each game session (with a few exceptions for bosses that appear in towns).

2) All quests are available in all game modes, regardless of single/multiplayer, campaign/freeplay, softcore/hardcore.  Shadow/Light quests still have to be separate because it would be buggy chaos to mix them.

What I should call this new module?

[Androdion 875]

Free for all?! Sounds fitting, and game-wise it's an actual term.

As for point 1), do you mean in SP or just in LAN?

[Dragon Brother 619]

3 hours ago, Androdion said:

Free for all?! Sounds fitting, and game-wise it's an actual term.

As for point 1), do you mean in SP or just in LAN?

I was thinking Freedom, but I like Free for All better.

[Flix 5,116]

4 hours ago, Androdion said:

As for point 1), do you mean in SP or just in LAN?

Well, the bosses get the "persistent" flag set in their taskcreature entries.  The flag is agnostic to game modes.

The exception would be if you've already killed the boss in campaign mode and saved the game, before applying the mod.  He ain't coming back in that case.

Quote

Free for all?! Sounds fitting, and game-wise it's an actual term.

...

I was thinking Freedom, but I like Free for All better.

Nice.  It almost seems to promise too much, I feel like I should be throwing in more features.    I suppose some notable elite-rank quest opponents could be made to respawn as well. 

I wonder if might be interesting to have the class quests available to all characters too?  There's no technical reason preventing it, other than the text would not be well-suited to other characters.  But it would be a chance for the Shadow Warrior to fight the Black Seraphim, or for the High Elf to go up against bosses like the ghost Dragon or Varmin, etc.

[Androdion 875]

And a chance to get specific legendaries as well, though not all will serve all classes I reckon. Seems like an interesting idea.

[Roderick 53]

10 hours ago, Flix said:

I wonder if might be interesting to have the class quests available to all characters too?  There's no technical reason preventing it, other than the text would not be well-suited to other characters.  But it would be a chance for the Shadow Warrior to fight the Black Seraphim, or for the High Elf to go up against bosses like the ghost Dragon or Varmin, etc.

I vote for Freedom to be the name of 5the mod!

And regarding the class quests... I would vote against. Would be too weird and somehow destroying the immersion for me. :/