BleachFan

Yeah now that you mention it the NPCs do disappear frequently. Such a shame, the area is really beautiful. One thing I don't like is nearly everything is blue! (My eyes hurt after a while.) A few different colors - maybe grass, lava, or even snow - would have created some nice contrast in that "sea" of crystal.

I turned the settings down to Medium, but no change except minor increase in frame rate. I noticed that (1) the problem with disappearing RP's only occurs in the Seraphim hunting grounds and (2) only the graphic disappears: the damage keeps applying for the full duration. The testing time was too short to rule out the character-freezing bug. Really, I should be able to play on high settings with this PC. Phenom II 6-core processor, 16 GB ram, 256 MB SSD, 6950 2GB video card... I wish high settings were smooth; the frame rate sometimes plummets just walking around town. My other games load and run smoothly. Sacred 2 just seems to have problems with dynamically loading content.

Yeah I remember hitting that "can't move" bug a lot in the starting areas with a low-level Shadow Warrior (level 7 ?). But my symptoms here are different: I can't use Combat Arts, normal attacks (energy pistol), etc. even when swarmed by enemies in melee range. Normally, everything works fine except when I put Radiant Pillar and Archangel's Wrath in a combo with significant RPH. Then like I said the RP timers go haywire and after a while all the attacks/CAs/movement stops working. Maybe the wiki should have a section with information about serious bugs, or maybe just add a warning to the combat art's page about it having problems in certain combos. To be useful, the information would have to be concrete (read: tested and confirmed to fail in specific combos/situations).

Sacred 1: Underworld My "yay" moment was putting pistols and cannons on the dwarf. Funny yet effective. Daemon flying ability is a close second. Also some of those sakkara mage death yells were extremely funny. Aahhhh~oooh~aeiih~waaaaaaaaa! My "nay" moment was my battle mage getting swarmed and wiped out by those weird tentacled things that temporarily freeze combat art timers. I forget how to work around that - load up +meteor equipment and zoom out? - but from then on I played that area frequently. Sweet vengeance. Sacred 2 My "yay" moment: killing dragons with reflected damage. 'nuff said. The end-game area is a distant second: tons of T-energy, huge canyons, demons, high-tech environment, swarms of temple guardians including some massive end bosses - what's not to like? I love that place, only (minor) annoyance is that it's so remote. My "nay" moment was my extremely defensive energy-shielded temple guardian getting wiped out in two hits from boss mummies. While everything else in the game was hitting me for 50-250 damage, these guys hit for 3000 up close and personal: no time to react. It's been years yet I still avoid them like the plague. (I never had any trouble with the scarabs, though everyone else claimed scarabs were buggy.)

You're right, no cooldown on Radiant Pillar. I stopped playing for a while and am now trying to get back into the game. That still leaves the question about the timers getting messed up. Seeing a RP appear and disappear in less than one second is really weird... The character-freezing problem is deadly. Has anyone else experienced it?

Thanks for the answers! I suppose RP's cooldown being affected by RPH is a bug.

1. Does it affect god powers? e.g. Divine Devotion Mastery + melee character w/ lots of RPH = frequent god power usage? 2. Has your character ever frozen from too much RPH? EDIT: removed incorrect comment about RP having a cooldown. Thanks, everyone! RPH does weird things with Radiant Pillar's timer. With decent RPH (> 2.0 seconds) and a combo of Archangel's Wrath (Salvo, Explosive) + Radiant Pillar, it's possible to spam RP every few seconds. However, with this combo RP's duration behaves strangely. Sometimes new pillars disappear before old pillars. A few times I have even seen pillars disappear <1 second after they appeared. Furthermore, after repeatedly using the combo, the character will just hang. Things that do not work: normal attacks, combat arts, walking around with mouse/keyboard. I can use potions and teleport to the current save point, but that's it. No, it's not stun nor another status effect. The character stays locked up until I exit the game and re-enter. Is this my computer acting strange, or is it a game bug? 3. What happens with other combat arts with high cooldowns? e.g. Temple Guardian's Source Warden Area of Effect spells, Seraphim's Dashing Alacrity and Divine Protection, etc.

I just recently tried to search for the same thing, but the links seem to be down, so I figured it out again. Here are my notes, maybe Gogo can edit the info back into the mod compilation (since MysticOnion's information is incomplete). NOTE: Changing these scripts' values might only affect characters created AFTER the scripts are edited. I'm not sure... Step 1: Open the scripts\server\heroes\ files and find their creature #. Step 2: Open the scripts\server\creatures.txt and find the creature #, then note its itemtype_id #. Step 3: Open the scripts\shared\creatureinfo.txt and find the type #, then change walkSpeed and runSpeed. Example table of values: name creature type ---------------------------------------------- inquisitor 51 4 seraphim 1 1 I'm not sure how to locate the mounts. EDIT: Thanks for the correction, Malachor. I've updated the steps to make them clearer.

(bump) Out of frustration I quit working on this mod. The variables that control various parts of GUI rendering and input seem to move around in memory while the sources (I.e. constants stored in a file somewhere) are nowhere to be found. Anyone have experience hacking games? Knowledge of x86 disassembly is required.

As you know, with PhysX enabled and no supporting PPU/GPU in the system, the framerate of Sacred 2 drops to unplayable levels. Recently I upgraded from: E8400 (2 cores) o/c to 3.6 GHz 8 GB DDR2-1000 Radeon HD 5770 1 GB Vertex 2 60 GB SSD (for OS) 2x 320 GB HDD in RAID 0 (for games) to: Phenom II 1090T (6 cores) o/c to 3.8 GHz 16 GB DDR3-1333 2x Radeon HD 5770 1 GB Vertex 2 60 GB SSD (for OS) 2x 256 GB SSD (for data and games) Out of curiosity, I enabled Sacred 2's PhysX option and loaded up a game with and without the -nocpubinding parameter. Sadly the framerate is no better than on my old 2-core CPU. Why? No matter what, the game won't use more than 2 cores for physx/rendering jobs. Task Manager displays maximum CPU usage as brief spikes to 23% on this 6-core beast. I bet it would have been interesting if the game had offloaded PhysX processing to the other 4 or 5 cores that go mostly unused by the rendering engine. So, for any CPU in the next few years, you will need a PhysX PPU card or a PhysX-supported Nvidia GPU to get decent framerates when the PhysX option is enabled in the game's settings menu. It was worth a try, at least.

It seems fairly complete, but reorganization might make it easier to read. The question most people will have when looking for the guide is: When should I eat combat art runes, and what are the alteratives? While the guide seems fairly complete and well-written, it barely touches the first part and then jumps directly into the second part. IMO you should start the guide with something like this: (Sorry, this is just an example and my writing is crude. It needs rewriting and there are many incomplete places. It's just a summary, intended to provide a "quick start" from which the player can branch off into all the specific topics (e.g. armor regen malus, blacksmithing, bargaining, etc.) already covered in the guide.) Sacred 2 official loading screen tips mention a rule of thumb. IIRC, it says that combat art levels should be kept at around 1/4 the character level to remain useful. Obviously there are exceptions and this advice does not apply to every build. Types of Combat Arts Each character has 15 combat arts with different base statistics, cooldowns, animation speeds, damage progression, etc. The forum has a general consensus about each of these combat arts, but how do new players get a handle on this stuff? Let's break them down into basic categories. Quick Moves Examples include fireballs, sweeping weapon attacks, waves of ice shards, etc. Compared to other combat arts, the quick attacks have low regeneration times and relatively fast cast animations. These spells are meant to be repeatedly cast to take down many enemies. Rule of thumb: Keep regeneration time at or below the animation speed. The animation speed is the time it takes your character to use the combat art. This will vary because there are items, skills, and even some buffs that can improve the animation speed. But, whatever the speed happens to be on your character, try to keep the quick attack combat arts below their animation speed. Special Moves Examples include ice storms, meteor strikes, spell expulsion fields. These attacks are slower, more devasting techniques intended for use against larger groups of enemies (or bosses). They typically have special properties that make them unique. Some have cooldowns; some stun enemies; some have long durations, etc. and their mods can add even more special properties. Rule of thumb: Keep regeneration time at or below the duration. Duration and cooldown vary wildly between these combat arts, and so will the recommended regeneration time. For example, a meteor strike may only last a few seconds whereas a speed-boosting buff may last 30 seconds or more. These combat arts require special treatment. On the plus side, they have the potential to make difficult areas of the game incredibly fun. Temporary Buffs Examples include attack/defense boosts, speed boosts, invisibility, etc. These combat arts are meant to give the character a temporary advantage in difficult battles, but they typically have long cooldowns. Most cooldowns cannot be reduced except by some special mods. Rule of thumb: Read as many runes as possible. With proper character equipment and skills, the cooldowns are typically many times longer than the regeneration times. For example, on a combat art with a 60s cooldown, there is little practical difference between a regeneration time of 2s and a regeneration time of 6s. (60s + 2s = 62s, which is very similar to 60s + 6s = 66s.) You will appreciate these combat arts when their level is high. Buffs These are special combat arts ... (show graphic of buff in CA list, with red arrow showing it in a buff slot) When activated, they remain on indefinitely and provide certain bonuses ... however the buff also has a regeneration penalty ... Rule of thumb: Try to keep the regeneration penalty of each buff below 30%. ... Do Not Worry Early in the game, this will be difficult. Many buffs start with a 50% regeneration penalty and this decreases slowly at first. For a while it will seem like there is never a good opportunity to read buff runes. Later, this will change and you may find yourself reading a buff rune every few levels.

A related question: Does Damage Lore boost open wounds/serious open wounds? (They are secondary effects causing physical DoT, right?)

Thanks, but I'm a little tired right now. I have the saves backed up, so it'll be easy to load them and retest. Thing is, how is it possible for them to apply secondary effects? Perhaps they benefit from -enemy attack/defense on my equipment, or even crit (which I equip whenever nothing better is available). Someone mentioned that the Sharp Blades mod's code was meant to enable deep wounds, but I watched the health bar a lot and never saw it jumping around like that. Usually when my character applies deep wounds, I notice it (and find it very annoying).

As far as I'm concerned, "ice" opponents (guys who deal ice damage and are resilient to it) usually have high physical damage resistances (damage mitigation). Ice Lord for instance. You can't beat him with physical damage simply because you won't hurt him. Maybe we should look what your opponents' stats are in the Sacred 2 folders. You are correct, the game files say the skeletons' swords' damage is physical. Why do they often trigger the previously-described status effect? I.e. blue circle surrounded by yellow swirls

I think they only work for reg. time. I've casted so many times augmenting guidon and u always have to wait 20 seconds to do it again, doesnt matter how many times u hit with rph So your tests show that if you want to focus on the minions' damage (as AG gives enough defence and hp/s and RE protects them too), you have to take sharp blades and commander. More total damage, more damage per guy and maneuvers are easier. These skelletons inflict physical damage and I've checked that lowering opponent's physical armor increases their damage (Demonic Blow mod Frailty gives a lot of this) Yeah, I retested RPH and it only affects the regen. What I was seeing earlier was the direct attack combo reducing and immediately refilling (via RPH) the regens of the temporary buffs: lots of up/down motion in the timers but the RPH never reduced the cooldowns. No, I am convinced that the skeletons do mostly ice damage. Do some questing in the ghost region, or take on The Phantom, using nothing but the skeletons. Their damage against ice resisting monsters is terrible. On one character my skeletons were doing 500 damage to regular (I.e. only phys. resist) opponents, 250 damage to ghosts and ice elementals, and a mere 40-70 damage to The Phantom. The boss fight was painful to watch. About the mods, I said that my tests were inconclusive -- we can't compare anything with a 14s margin of error -- and for the moment I have found no reason to choose the Sharp Blades mod. There are advantages to having 4 skeletons, beyond damage. 4 skeletons will be better against larger crowds and will apply the status effect more often. I would need to see some meaningful DPS numbers that show Sharp Blades+Commander to be significantly better than Accomplice+Commander.