Program the Zealous Doppelganger for Community Patch

[Balegrim 1]

First I'd like to start by saying hello! I was skeptical of the community patch at first, but upon giving it a try fell in love. I really respect and admire what the community here has done with the game to carry on support for it. I've been a long time player myself, but very quiet in the past. I'm presently in college for programming: Javascript, Jquery, C#, and SQL. That's a bit about me. Now onto the topic.

 

I think the zealous doppelganger is an awesome skill. Summoning a shadow double of yourself with the same equipment and weapons is actually an extremely unique principle in RPG games, and helps set sacred 2 apart from (and above) the rest. However, the AI is still fairly buggy. While it was initially cool that he copied your skills and casts some of your combat arts, this seems to have reaped havok with his pathfinding and AI. I think he functions better in the community patch, but playing as much as I do, I still notice he misbehaves a lot more frequently than the shadow warrior's skeletons.

I propose a simplification of this skill and it's behavior. Instead of trying to cast spells (remove this from the AI completely), his focus would just be to run up and attack mobs like the shadow warrior's skeletons. I think many players would greatly appreciate the increased precision and combat effectiveness of their doppelganger. The aspect mods for the skill could also be changed (the second mod) so that the doppelganger spawns with a scaling permanent buff from the representative tree (would be cooler if the buff level was equal to the players). IE: the equal mod means he passively gains the effects of Purifying Chastisement. And the domination mod could give him reverse polarity. otherwise, he beats crap up like the shadow warrior's skeletons and we don't have to worry about his malfunctioning AI. Just a thought.

 

I'd also be willing to program this myself if you can point me to software that interfaces with the game, and submit my work to you guys for testing and possible implementation.

 

Thanks,
~From a grateful fan of the game.

[gogoblender 3,066]

Hi Balegrim and welcome to DarkMatters!

A great intro, and even greater words for everyone here who's worked on the outstanding patch for Sacred 2. I'd always liked the Zealous Doppelganger as well, but it bugged out so often, that for HC, it wasn't something I could rely on...but you're right..seeing replica mini-me's in action was an exciting game feature.

 

I've added some info to your topic title here about your intent to offer programming with this, and perhaps someone can offer you feedback on your idea

 

 

gogo

[Balegrim 1]

Thank you! I seriously appreciate your response to my thread, GoGo. It's nice to see the place is still active.

'll be happy to help in any capacity I can. Sacred 2 had the potential to be the greatest hack n' slash RPG of all time IMO. It's one of those games where the skills makes the character, not the clothing. With the right polish, this game could easily be a contender and a model for future hack n' slash RPGs. It is one of those diamond in the rough games. And the fact the community loves it enough to keep polishing it up is joyful. : )

 

Since I don't have a compatible DE (development environment) I'm aware of, I've been playing with the doppelganger's text files to see if any of the token values and different tokens modify it's behavior. I believe I've made a few changes that have made it more aggressive and prone to strike things in combat (it still bugs out occasionally, but far less), and after I finish testing, I'll conclude my findings here. But college for me is full time, and I work as well, so sadly, this is a pet project. XD

And I believe the changes I make in the spells file is fixing symptoms, but not the cause.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Balegrim

[Flix 5,116]

I can't think of anything off the top of my head except for changing the entire spell class to that of Nether Allegiance. Of course, it would no longer be a proper doppelganger after that point.

 

But then, I never noticed any problems with his AI and I've been playing with him for years. He mows down enemies in all haste.

 

Not to start an argument but I'm not sure about the concept being "extremely unique." It's basically the Assassin's Shadow Warrior from Diablo 2 (although I feel the Doppelganger is inferior because you don't have fine control over its combat arts).

Edited March 2, 2015 by Flix