Cthulhu

I've noticed EP do the following in this regard - -More traps show up in dungeons when you have EP as a skill. -Monsters (seem to) respawn faster in dungeons with EP.

I could have sworn he also does the Charleston... And even stranger - the Inquisitor doesn't do the Charleston when you put him in Vader armor. He instead just checks his watch. Edit: Ah, that makes more sense Schot. Although I don't think it would be very becoming of Darth Vader to be doing the Charleston... Edit #2: Doh, those guys in that video don't do the part of the dance that the Inquisitor does -

Very nice info Llama. This might be able to help explain what the heck are the "initialization types" that I was referring to in that post I made on the item drop mechanics.

Hey, I have too... and they said the same exact thing to me. However, I'm not sure if it'll be soon. The fact that they made that Viperish Disease fix makes me think that it's going to be a little while longer...

Your guess is as good at any at this point. The only thing that makes me skeptical is that a lot of the stuff in the script files (like in balance.txt) are actually percentages and not integers. So it could instead be "45%"... which could mean, well, anything.

Haha, yeah. I hope this leads to finding some more stuff out. P.S. If it does work, you may be able to confirm/dis-confirm if spell resistance is actually working.

Ahh, interesting. I can't wait. And I especially cannot wait until they update Sacred2.net with the features that are shown in the screen shots from the PS3 version of Sacred 2. I already spotted some uh... work in progress.... over at the Avarto website (and in the Tincat.DLL). *coughItemStorecoughCOUGhGuildFeaturescouGH*

... Check out my post in the thread on bargaining.

Funny you all posted this - I found this in creatures.txt last week: --always display item prices; offer better prices and rare levels at npc traders --Advanced: --better quest rewards +(1-2) rare levels mgr.createSkill { skill_name = "skill_trader", advance_level = 75, min_level = 1, mean_value = 300, advance_mean_value = 450, skillgroup = "SKG_WORLD", adv_skill_name = "skill_master_trader", }

I just saw this message when I tried to view something on sacred2.net - Hmm... does that mean it will just have a bigger rack? Or will it be... nah, no new patches for us till March.

What...was your level difference between yourself and the turtle? P.S. I hate. Those. Turtles.

An excellent comparison Cthulhu, though I'm interested to know how you could/would change the above. Quest rewards - I think this is an issue, but given the large number of quests & that people are already complaining that their characters are out-levelling the areas (if they do many quests), if they increased the rewards too much people would level up faster & get above the area's level cap even faster than they are now. I also think that it would be as much of a mistake to compare Sacred 2 to Oblivion as it would be to compare it to WoW. Oblivion is a "proper" RPG (well, more so than Sacred 2) where the story-telling is the important thing, in Sacred 2 killing hordes of monsters & picking up nice shiny new gear is the important thing... They also might not appreciate the fact that Sacred 2 laughs at itself (people already complain that some of the combat voice-overs "ruin" the immersion, I don't think they like that some them refer to Sacred 2 as a game & the character talks to the player). Edit: To specifically 'change' that formula and how it is applied to Sacred 2, or in general? If you mean for Sacred 2, I would like to think on answering that question. I think if I were to answer it right now, it would sound like something that would be unrealistic and too game wrecking. As for the changing the formula in general, that's something else that I think will slowly "evolve", but never actually "go away". ------------------------------------------ Onto your other comments - If it is not an issue, it could just be a conflict of ideas between the players and Ascaron . I think a lot of the quests should offer something else beyond the obligatory random drop, gold and experience points. However, for some reason or another, I am under the impression that the quests are not entirely finished. I'd like to wait and see until the game gets patched to the version that is going to be pressed on the PS3/Xbox 360 ports before I start throwing out ideas on how the quests could be improved. As for the ones complaining about the quests causing them to over-level, I have indeed seen those complaints as well. However, it is to my understanding that those individuals are not playing on the upper difficulty levels (gold, platinum, etc). Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that the quest experience in the upper difficulties doesn't provide enough incentive to even bother with the quests. The quest item rewards are enticing, but at the moment, too many of the quest givers are bugged and not giving their full rewards . And don't get me wrong, I am not intentionally trying to compare the game to Oblivion or any other pure RPGs. I am just saying that those games have been on the console market already, and when Sacred 2 hits the stores in March for the PS3/Xbucket, people will dive into it and use Oblivion and such as frames of reference. I think if they were to play the game as it is in its current state, I do not think they would be very thrilled with the quest rewards. They just do not seem to well... make you feel like your time was well spent. That being said, everything else about the game.... oh I love it. I find it as a refreshing break from the tired Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest wannabe RPGs who try to take themselves seriously, but end up looking like everything else I've already played. Plus, I'm glad someone finally made a game with a playable evil character who is actually cool.

Pfft, I grew up on "grinding". I'd make it a habit out of leveling all of my party members up to 99 whenever I got my hands on the latest Final Fantasy* game. But yeah, for those who are not accustomed to playing Sacred 2... WOW & such does offer a pretty good... "tutorial" on senseless slaughtering. *FF4 is my favorite game of all time, BTW

One thing that I did like about WOW (more than Sacred 2) is that WOW has a significantly better grasp on the concept of "quest rewards". That being said, I am sure Ascaron is working to get the quests up to the expectations of people who have played other "quest intensive games". Otherwise, I can't see the game flying too well on the PS3/Xbox 360... especially when you have people who are used to games like Oblivion. Edit: One comparison I forgot to mention - The graphics in WOW, compared to Sacred 2... suck.

Updated Callous Execution - http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacre...llous_Execution - Added a new combo recommendation. Updated Purifying Chastisement- http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacre...ng_Chastisement - I corrected the notes about the fire damage vs. magic damage mods; I took Llama's advice and I re-evaluated the GI aspect, and it does make more sense to use the magic mod vs. the fire mod. It also makes sense since I noticed that all of the offensive mods for PC are on the bottom mod row, while the defensive are on the top. - Also corrected the dumb wording on why use Armour Lore. - Everything else, I tried to make more sense out of where things were cryptic/unclear. Llama or anyone else - let me know how it looks. I'd like to get this one done before moving onto the other Inquisitor CAs. Edit: Can anyone confirm/dis-confirm the possible bug that I have noted on Clustering Maelstrom's page? Look towards the bottom where I talk about choosing both of the "Vortex" mods for Clustering Maelstrom. Unless I'm having memory problems, every time I've chosen both mods for CM, I never get any additional range beyond the first mod's range boost. Edit Edit: I went ahead and filled out the page for Ruthless Mutilation, I was bored.

I played WOW on and off for about 2-3 years. I purchased it on launch day and grew to hate it with every passing moment. I gave up on it after about 3-4 months of enduring the game's first expansion pack. There hasn't been a moment where I have missed it. Suffice to say, my analysis below will be biased (toward Sacred 2): The Similarities: - Both use large worlds with the occasional add-on/update. - Both use the tired and worn out Everquest formula of having you do hundreds of quests and/or kill lots of monsters to level up. - Both emphasize character builds and proper move/spell/attack selection as well as modifications for said moves/spells/attacks. - Both feature the addictive concept of getting lots of equipment, modifying it, etc. The Differences: + Combat - Combat in Sacred 2 is extremely fast paced and (at times) very violent. You can take on tons of enemies at once. - WOW's combat is extremely slow since it uses a psuedo-turn based RPG combat system (with the transparent feel of real time due to the fact that you can move around in combat, jump, etc.) To explain further: As with most turn based RPGs, you meet an opponent and chose a move as soon as it is ready, use it, and then wait for it to be ready again. The moves cost MP/Rage/Whatever fuels them. Unlike with most RPG games though, you do not control your weapon swings/default attacks. You have an automatic attack, but you only have to worry about turning it on or off. And last but not least: You cannot hope to take on tons of enemies at once; there is no mowing down monsters in WOW. + Game Mechanics - Sacred 2 has its share of rich game mechanics, but if you read up on the wiki and spend some time in single player, you should be able to get the jist of it in a couple of days. - WOW can take a very long time to get used to, especially if you end up trying out different characters before you decide on the one you like the most. + Story/Humor - Sacred 2 is heavy on silly stuff and being funny. It also features numerous implementations of things from other places in real life that which we wished we could play in an ARPG setting, but never had the chance up until now. Ascaron is apparently not afraid to exercise the "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" excuse. - WOW has a storyline, but it is almost ignorable due to the way the game "dumps" you in the middle of nowhere and tells you: "OK, YOU'RE IN AZEROTH, HAVE FUN!" However, WOW does have quite a few moments of jokes and such, but nothing as wacky as Sacred 2. + Character's Individual Power - Sacred 2 makes a great emphasis on your ability to become extremely powerful and a "legend" (as the trailers state). - World of Warcraft puts limits on your power growth early on and thus, does the exact opposite from Sacred 2 - groups are the only way to get almost anything done. Furthermore, the game emphasizes the over-used "holy trinity" cliche - a melee damage dealer cannot heal or do big explosive attacks, a magic caster cannot wear decent armor, and a healer is pretty much stuck as a support/healing character. There are a couple of "all purpose" characters who can do more than one thing, but they always end up getting shoved into a particular role due to people having biases about who does what for the party. + Time Sinkage - Sacred 2 currently has a time sink involved with leveling up, exploration, travel and finding your desired equipment. - World of Warcraft has an exponentially larger time sink (due to the fact that Blizzard is making money off of monthly subscriptions, and want you to take as long as possible to do everything you want to do). In fact, time sinks are prevalent throughout the majority of the game. For example, there are a lot of Guilds in WOW that will not keep members that cannot commit to the guild's weekly raid/dungeon schedule. + Social Support - Sacred 2 ATM has limited social support: primarily the forums, the pre-existing Sacred community/fan sites and the Sacred2.net website. - WOW has considerable (although arguably still limited in comparison to other MMO games) internal and external social support. Guild system being the most notable. + Cost - Sacred 2 is well, uh, free to play online. - WOW costs a monthly fee + Company Size - Ascaron is a veteran in the game world, but they are nowhere as nearly as big as Blizzard. I'm not going to get into the other ups and downs associated with this, but I felt it should be pointed out to reinforce/discourage any lingering ideas that you may have regarding what Ascaron & Blizzard are capable of doing/not doing.

Thanks. And yes, I am leaning towards the option of resorting to SC. The game's current drawbacks in both the balance and bug departments are not encouraging for HC play. None the less, I am remaking my Inquisitor in HC, but I may end up stopping once I feel like I've gotten to a good point where I'll be satisfied for making up on the lost character. And Coruskane - I share your suspicion as well regarding the PC version being a quasi-beta for the console versions of the game. In its current shape and form, Sacred 2 would most likely never pass the QA standards of Sony or Microsoft's Xbox division. Suffice to say, I imagine the next patch update for Sacred 2 will be VERY big. Edit: My suspicion arises from the fact that the PS3/Xbox 360 ports will be most likely going to the presser very soon. The release date is, after all, only about 6 weeks away. I just hope that it won't be so big that it will end up causing a bunch of rabble to spring up on the Sacred 2 OF, crying about how they don't want to download 1+ gigs worth of updates...

Uh... I am not sure if you WANT to know the level caps? But if you do, they're listed on this page - http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacre...and_Game_Basics ::confused:: I know caps, but I wonder why there is sometimes lonely 10 lvls higher enemy than player (Silver difficulty), when all others around area are white circled and at max cap level for that area. Now I have fresh case, and more details: Just bumped on lonely 10 level higher orc than my char (at level 83! :S ) near Karagh (silver difficulty, TG at level 73, level cap in area around 57 like wiki says and SB= 70%) I am stupid so I didn´t took screencapture..next time I will I think those lowbie monsters are bugged quest / storyline monsters. A lot of them do not scale to your level... like take the quest "Not a Normal Bar" for example (it's in the desert). When you do that quest, you get attacked by a bunch of level 34 were wolves. Their levels stay at 34 if you do the quest in Gold, Platinum & Niobium.

And that, would be what is on Ilgard's. And you're right... Deep Wounds doesn't do it. I've used it quite a bit on my new level 35 Inquisitor today, and he never suddenly dropped dead or had HP shrinkages. Edit: PS - You have my sympathy. What level was your trader?

On the German forums, if you look around, you can usually find posts from the Sacred 2/Ascaron QA Manager Frank. He has a link in his post signature that leads to a website run by him and some other German people who work on video games. Most recently on that website, he and some other people were having a lengthy discussion about the vast amount of resources that American and Japanese game companies have devoted to QA versus German. I haven't checked back, but I'm sure he is, in no small way, hinting towards how Sacred suffers from the lack of focus on QA. Edit: As for any further discussion of why they might have not been willing to fulfill my request... we can always hope in the upcoming patch that Ascaron is including a fix/compensation for everyone effected by the stupid Wounds bugs. :-/ Edit edit: If you looked at the links I left, you'll find some details on how the software that runs the servers looks. Unless it has changed between now and when that thing was published... maybe there really is no way for Ascaron to restore characters or do rollbacks - due to Avarto not programming in any means to do so? Sigh, who knows. It strikes me as terrible foresight not to include such a functionality and protocol... after Blizzard demonstrated its usefulness in D2.

Uh... I am not sure if you WANT to know the level caps? But if you do, they're listed on this page - http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacre...and_Game_Basics ::confused::

The quest: "Blinded". And I guess, hitting level 100.

Yeah, I had a feeling all of the programming stuff would be confusing. If I were not so brain washed from studying C++ and this game ATM, I might be able to come up with better explanations. But sadly, I think the explanations I posted are about as good as it gets for now until we get a better understanding of how the game handles picking items out of the drop patterns. Quest Drops------------------- As for your observations on the quest drop, I almost want to say that is evidence enough that at least a 4-5 star quest is required for there to be a roll on the quest table I referenced. However, I now wonder how much DOES Bargaining Mastery effect one's chances of getting any of the legendary/exclusive uniques to be a quest reward? For what it's worth, I am under the assumption that the "4-5 star quest reward table" is relatively new/improved - recall not too long ago that the quest drops were improved. ------------------------------------------ Shield of Mirrors / Spiegelschild--------------------- That is indeed true. I've had the Shield of Mirrors drop once in SP mode when I cranked the ZBONUSRARE scores (you can think of these as the default "chance to find valuables") all the way up. I don't know if it is caused by the fact that the Blind Guardian members fall in Danger Class 10, but it's a strong correlation. However, I haven't seen any of their other instruments drop aside from the cymbal, so it could possibly be a misplaced item that someone overlooked. Edit: Zinsho - it may then be possible that the mirror shield's slots get better in each difficulty. From looking at the blueprints, all of the blind guardian band members instruments are explicitly stated as being instruments. The mirror shield does not have the "SPECIAL_BG" affix at the beginning of its name. Furthermore, newBlueprint = { id = 2634, name = "unique_shield_Spiegelschild", palettebits = "1111111111111111", dmgvariation = 0, minconstraints = {17,14,0}, lvljump = 9, usability = 0, allotment_pmfpi = {1000,0,0,0,0}, uniquename = "unique", specialuseonly = 0, bonusgroup0 = {401,1200,1,9,0}, bonusgroup1 = {418,1500,1,9,0}, bonusgroup2 = {856,1000,1,9,0}, bonusgroup3 = {857,1000,1,9,0}, bonusgroup4 = {860,1000,10,9,0}, itemtypes = {10279,}, wearergroups = {'WEARGROUP_DEFAULT',}, / / / / newBonusgroup = { id = 856, name = "SB_neut_slot_bronze3 ", bonuslist = { 2,}, } / / / / newBonusgroup = { id = 857, name = "SB_neut_slot_silver2 ", bonuslist = { 57,}, } / / / newBonusgroup = { id = 860, name = "SB_neut_slot_gold3 ", bonuslist = { 758,}, } } / / / newBonus = { -- name = "sb_neut_slot_gold", rating = 10, basedonskill = "SKILL_INVALID", type = "BONUS_SLOT", spez = "SLCAT_GOLD", spez2 = "", usagebits = 65535, minconstraints = {10,7,0}, difficultyvaluerange0 = {0,1,1}, difficultyvaluerange1 = {1,1,1}, difficultyvaluerange2 = {2,1,1}, difficultyvaluerange3 = {3,1,1}, difficultyvaluerange4 = {4,1,1}, } Its last 3 bonuses are indeed multi-colored slots. I seem to recall getting an all bronze slotted shield in silver-single player and then later on a second play-thru, Blind Guardian gave me one with different colored slots. I could be confusing it with something else however... but if I am not being wrong, you might know what this means. ------------------------------------------ The Drop Patterns----------------- They're in one of the C++ script files located in the Sacred2/scripts/server directory. They're plain .txt files and don't take too long to understand, but it requires a lot of back and forth work between files in order to understand how to locate everything. I think if I were to save us some time, I should probably go ahead and try to at least make a listing of what each danger class can possibly drop, as well as what monsters belong to a danger class. Oh, and interestingly enough (I cannot believe I just noticed this)- barrels, chests, and the like don't use the weird "initialization types". That means we can, for now, clearly list everything chests, barrels, graves, etc. are capable of dropping!

Edit: Dobri- I know what you mean. From a practical point of view, it should not be that hard. But... http://www.e-eis.com/cms/upload/TincatCont...er%20Manual.pdf http://www.e-eis.com/cms/upload/TincatServerFramework.pdf http://www.e-eis.com/cms/upload/Leporello_...8-10-17_web.pdf ... I think I may have seen too much today. It does make some sense if you consider all of the lobby changes that have been going on this past month. I am guessing that the server vendor (I can't remember their name right now, but they're the ones who own the TinCat technology) may have worked out a policy change. A change that probably caused Ascaron some loss of control over the servers in exchange for the assurance of better performance. Also, with the way things are going right now over at Studio II... the PS3 & Xbox 360 deadlines approaching fast... the next patch being worked on... and all of the improvements that will be coming to Sacred2.net.... maybe the communication channels are too tight for Voss to get someone to fulfill my request. Judging from the way his email was written, in the least, it sounds like it's pretty hard to get a hold of the Sacred 2 team right now. Still, I'm not sure. I'll try to keep playing and not let it bother me, but I may get to a point where I'll just have to take a break until the next update comes. I'm pretty discouraged to play a my favorite character, who has an aspect that I love, but can't use their intended "best armor". An armor set that will end up killing them. Thanks again for the offerings of help Schot, and also, thanks for putting those warnings up.

Shouldn't the page on Serious Open Wounds and/or Ilgard's Judgement have a note about the dangerous bug associated with "Serious Open Wounds"? The email I received from Heye Voss confirmed that neither of those two are safe.