Silver_fox

This is a wonderful and in quite a few meanings godly set (at least it has godly names and appearance). I told you before that it looks incredibly good and fits the Inquisitor perfectly, but I'm willing to say it again every time I see this set. The mythological background fits the looks, fills the set with meaning, and is just interesting to read (re-read for me, as I knew all those stories, but still interesting). The modifiers are something special. At first you look at the set as it now is, and think it OP. Then you give it some thought - a lot of locked modifiers that require skill investment to shine, and the fact that the caster Inquisitors are not extremely powerful in general make the set appear adequate. Inquisitors were quite weak in the original Fallen Angel, I&B and CM patch made the melee ones fare a whole lot better (dual-wielding claws is a fine way to a boss-killer), but casters still needed this special something. With Disgraced Gods you've delivered it - quite special set that is really something. The set bonuses are like that too. The first reaction: "Lifeleech and Double Hit together at good values! ". After a bit of time:"Let's not forget that it's caster's set and both Lifeleech and Double Hit are weapon-only modifiers". They look powerful, but come handy only if the caster goes melee, and as casters do not usually excel in melee, they really need these modifiers to accomplish something this way. And the other way around - the melee Inquisitor can wear this set for the set bonus, but this way he'd be stuck with item bonuses that benefit the caster and not him. So it turns out to be balanced in the end. But I can easily imagine the glee of a player who finds one of these items - if these things are good at something, they are good in making an impression.

I had a feeling that the bows in Sacred 2 are quite close to what the crossbows were in Sacred 1 - almost everybody can use them, and they are quite powerful in dealing good damage per shot, but they are so slow that people usually do not consider them as main weapon. If you did not one-shot the opponent, you are in trouble. Maybe packing them with attack and/or cast speed or at least making the single shots very powerful would redeem the usually slow and not compelling weapon type. I actually quite like the idea of remodelling the Daemon shield with replacement. If the shape is the same but of better quality, than why not. If you take the cow skull, make it slightly elongated and bend the horns to accomodate the round base of the shield, you'd get pretty much the same appearance that won't look mismatching in the high-poly world of Sacred 2. Making it a new unique would be good either, but Sacred 1 has only one unique or set item that used that model - otherwise it dropped as rare. Making it a Sacred 1-looking shield that is not a reference to Sacred 1 is strange. Though maybe if the new unique would be made, it can reference a Daemon in general and not be a recreation of a specific item.

File Name: LazyTomcat's personal CM-Patch Mod File Submitter: Silver_fox File Submitted: 24 Mar 2014 File Category: Community Patch This is a visual mod for the Community Patch that was created by LazyTomcat back in 2011. You can find its full description in the respective thread: My personal CM-Patch Mod LazyTomcat was no longer able to keep his mod up to date, but he gave permission to share it "as is" with the community. This mod changes the following things: "Adornments of the Ancestors" got the graphics from "Golden Raven Mod" "Detheya's Agility" is a little cozy bauble "Faladal's Blizzard" got the graphics from "Diamond Ice Mod" Healthbar in rainbow design new make-up for Seraphim, High Elf and Dryad Cape of "Scourge of Lordaeron" removed because of clipping bugs (not on the shot) NOTE: LazyTomcat's mod was complied for the now outdated version of the Community Patch. It can be applied as is only to the version v120. However, most of the changes it does to the interface and textures are compatible with the later patch releases. If you are going to use it together with the latest versions of the CM patch, do not use the "scripts" folder from this mod. Click here to download this file

Thank you. I guess I'd be trying something with the bows once I'm done with armor textures I'm working on now (or when I get so sick and tired of them that I'd want to work on something different). >"...As far as I've seen, S1 only has three/four bow models, and they're pretty straightforward. With respect to the model I would recommend a new design..." I agree here. When I was speaking of recreating a Sacred 1 bow, I meant the stats and the general feel of a rather powerful ranged weapon, rather than exact look. That was why I asked about the "running glow" effect - I guess with this characteristic feature in the item appearance, it can be associated with Sacred 1 prototype even if we use another model. Or maybe the effect would be enough so that even a simple model looked interesting. I thought of working with the I&B crystal bow model, which I guess would be fitting enough even if the T-Energy effect won't look good on it. The model is this one:

Yay! The first release is finally up! I congratulate Flix and the rest of the community with the successful completion of this mod which is the biggest Sacred 2 treasure chest I've seen so far. So many new interesting items to find and use! It's amazing how much new stuff was completed in relatively short time, much to the delight of everybody who still plays Sacred 2 and wants new things to look forward to and new ideas for the character builds. Now I guess all of us would be off to spend some time playing with the new items. Though maybe not, as there are more ideas for this mod that haven't yet came to life. Maybe it's bad taste, but right on the day of the release I want to ask about one more feature for the future versions: How hard do you think it would be to make a T-Energy tube effect to run along the bow? Sacred 1 had several very good longbows that had a glow running along an almost transparent frame - Magical Elven Bows, Araelfi's Glorious Retribution and of course Ettol'Rahc-Notwen's Elaborate Longbow. In Sacred 2 longbows aren't usually the Dryad's weapon of choice, losing to fast-hitting blowpipes and life-leeching shurikens. Maybe recreating a really good bow from Sacred 1 would make the classical archers more compelling as a ranged build variety. (Yes, I'm a Wood Elf fan, as if you could not tell from my avatar)

I believe that Flix added the swordstaves to all the same droplists as the original two-handed sword uniques, so they should drop from all the same monsters (please correct me if it's not so and you did something different). But we've done nothing about rare (yellow) one-handed lightsabers. New uniques should drop just like one-handed swords do.

The last but not least update for this mod release is now done. And a good one it is. Finally we have a unique scythe with some nice stats, so maybe these weapons would get some more attention and show up in character builds more often. I like the Halberd of the Rocks, which finally made this beautiful model into a useful unique weapon. As a person who played Divine Divinity, I'm just happy to finally be able to equip the thing without worrying about the curse. Though probably the best part of today's update is the new stats for the Flash Eaters'. I'm very fond of the new way the modifiers are distributed - all items look good, but the best bonuses are reserved for set completion, just like a well-designed set should be.

I hope that you're right, Schot, and it would turn out that they sped up the gameplay for the fast theatrical trailer. Because when I finally saw your version and managed to figure what's going on... Well, while all of you are getting excited, I'm slowly becoming a nay-sayer. What I see is the following: very flashy animation for ordinary attacks, very narrow corridors (even Titan Quest and Torchlight had a bit more room width-wise) packed with enemies, only two or in some cases one combat art shown per character, for which the video was cut in a way as to show the various stages of execution and give impression of more variety than there actually is... If this would be packaged together with an incredible speed of the original trailer, we are getting a mindless straightforward beat-them-up where speed and lots of effects make it impossible to understand and control the battlefield and all you do is just click the monsters down as they come. What we were shown: 1. Safiri - ordinary attacks with his big hammer and a jump Area of Effect CA on 0.07-0.18. He just repeats the jump at 1.33. 2. Ancarian - ordinary attacks animated as swinging a spear in an arc in front of her (it hits only one enemy at the time and not hard, thus it is just an ordinary attack) and an impaling thrust, which is probably a CA, or a finishing animation at 0.19 - 0.34. 3. Seraphim - attacks with the blade and a kill-all-around-you CA at 0.36-0.43. Also some magical CAs at 1.24-1.27. 4. Malakhim with his Area of Effect CA that hits enemies in a circle, and another one that hits a row in front of him. 5. Archer - shooting arrows at the nearby (too close for comfort, in my opinion) enemies and fall-from-the-sky CA that hits enemies with some purple shards (purple ice?) at 0.56-1.05. Repeat at 1.39. Other than that we see animations of enemies (bosses?) displaying themselves before the fight and the fact that they can toss the player characters around with their CAs. And is it just me, or the enviroment at 1.10-1.14 looks like an exact copy of Torchlight 2 dwarf levels? I can understand your excitement with flashy, splattering attack and CA animations, but my experience with many games taught me that extreme effect galore is only cool and fun the first couple of hours of playing. At first you're curious as to which animations there are and try to see them all. Then, if effects are extremely multiple and omnipresent, if they stand in the way of noticing what's going on mechanics-wise, you start to get tired of them. The more I look at S3, the less it reminds me of S1 and Sacred 2, and the more of Diablo 3. Previous Sacred games could have been likened to Diablo, but just in the same way as any rogue-like ARPG can. They had enough of special things to offer in terms of the world, the side quests, the mechanics that is much more complex than it seems from the first glance, the tactical opportunities that come from using various weapons and CA combination - all that made Sacred games different fron Diablo, and in opinion of quite a few players, better. Here I see something very close to being the exact copy of the least fortunate Diablo game, with many monsters, little room for maneuvers and limited attack/CA variety. I'm sorry for being negative in the middle of your celebration, but I'm a bit concesned and sceptical about this game and so far the gameplay trailer did not make me feel better.

It was my exact reaction when I first installed I&B and saw this helmet... Though if you dig up the real Maul's portrait you'd see the difference. Maybe your old idea about making a Darth Maul's helmet/mask that still is listed in the first post is worth implementing now that we have the sword. I'm glad that you liked the writeup. I'm sorry for stealing the spotlight like this, but as the new two-handed lightsabers are unlikely to get a proper wiki page like all original weapontypes have, I decided to make a similar explanation here. Now I'm waiting for this update you went to make. I'm curious as to what you'd be showing next.

At first I thought them to be different too. After I got into item modding, I noticed that bueprint.txt has only one type of bonuses that gives a chance to block ranged attacks - it is called "chance_block_missile". There are various variations of it - the one to be used on armor, the one for shields, the one for creatures, and so on. But basically all these bonuses utilize the same mechanics codified by the "spez = "BLOCK_MISSILE" string in the bonus description. This means that the game's core has only one way to deal with blocking incoming ranged damage and the different names that appeared in game actually refer to the same thing.

I just saw it announced that the Malakhim class is not going to be a part of the main game, but instead come with the paid day one DLC called "Underworld", that also includes a quest about the Black Seraphim (they seem abusing familiar names). This DLC is conveniently included with the pre-order package... Deep Silver seems to be going high and low trying to convince us to buy the game before the release, before any reviews or unofficial gameplay videos are published. It does not sound very promising to me.

"Ranged" and "Projectiles" are two names for the same bonus. At different times both names could be seen in game. Quite probably it is just a translation issue - either the translation changed between versions, or it is the difference between british and american english versions. It's similar to how "Regeneration Penalty from Buffs" was called "Buff Upkeep Cost" in some versions of the game.

The blueprint for the seraphim's shield has not three but four bonusgroups, two of which are simple groups that consist of a single bonus and therefore should not be altered. The other two are very large and altering them would affect all the rare shields. From the testing I've done while making a rare blueprint for the swordstaves, it's not only changing bonusgroups inside a blueprint, but also changing a bonus list inside the bonusgroup that can cause all modifiers to reroll. Right now, the blueprint for this shield has the following: bonusgroup0 = {589,1100,1,9,0}, -- BGS_sec_shield_rare bonusgroup1 = {588,1100,1,5,0}, -- BGS_sec_shield_magic bonusgroup2 = {715,1100,1,2,0}, -- SB_def_eshield_shieldfaktor bonusgroup3 = {826,1000,1,9,0}, -- SB_shldl_chance_block_CC And you know, from what I've seen, the energy shield bonus does not always appear. The simplest way to enhance this shield is to open blueprint.txt, find a blueprint that has a string saying "id = 2235" and add the following line below the four I've listed: bonusgroup4 = {858,1000,1,9,0}, -- socket silver Maybe we can make it a permanent enhancement, as one of the current bonuses is rather erratic. Adding a socket to such blueprint won't make the shield OP. Besides, this alteration is unlikely to cause the random modifiers to reroll, it would just add sockets to all seraphim shields.

That's another awesome update! I really like all new fistweapons and the Troll Carver sword - the game needs more two-handers worthy of wielding and this is one good sword. I'm glad to see that you found some use for sword-unlocked "chance to hit additional opponents" - it's a simple but effective modifier that can appear on more items than just Maul's lightsaber. And I just love the design Pesmontis made for the Aeon Flux sword. It's good to know that you've furnished it with worthy modifiers and made it available to all classes, not just for the Seraphim as was the original idea. I'm looking forward to finding it for my Dual Wielders. I hope that you won't mind if I tell some more things about swordstaves. Just so that the people knew what to expect from the new weapon type. Rare Swordstaves: Just as Flix said, Dual-bladed lightsabers now appear as a new weapon type available as rare (yellow) items. These items can be found from all the same monsters that can drop two-handed swords and with enough bargaining can be bought at vendors. From what I've tested, for the characters who keep Bargaining at level, they are common enough merchandise to make it possible to use them as main weapons for a character biuld. All rare swordstaves share some common features - they sport the "chance to disregard armor" modifier that is a feature of a weapon class (similar to the original one-handed lightsabers) and starting from the Silver difficulty they have at least one high quality socket. In 90% cases it is a gold one, but sometimes it is replaced with silver. Other than that they have two more modifiers - an offensive and a defensive ones, that also have a chance to turn into sockets. They also have custom names, so that you could tell them apart from other things when they drop. If you want to find them, look for dropping items called "Saberstaff", "Lightstaff" or "Doublesaber". Here are some examples of what you can get: Maul's Swordstaff: This swordstaff was designed in the image of a lightsaber that Darth Maul wielded and offers modifiers that allow to imitate one of the fighting styles for such weapons. With it you can use both blades of your lightsaber to hit enemies, effectively reaching not just those who stand in front of the fighter, but to the sides and even behind. The "chance to hit additional opponents" is rather high, making it one of the main features of this unique item. However, just like Attack and Defense values it is unlocked by Sword Weapons skill and scales with it. At the height of its power Maul's Swordstaff is a formidable weapon, but you need to invest a whole lot into your character's skill with Sword Weapons to see it shine like this. Here is what it can become (Niob, 200 points in Sword Lore): Jedi Mind Trick: Mind Tricks are the type of Force power that alters the opponents' perception of reality. This weapon allows you to warp their sense of time, causing them to move slowly and think that you move at incredible speed. It also makes it easier for you to evade their slow clumsy blows. Though there is a limit to the weapon's power - you can only be seen as a fast fighter if you have some real fighting prowess. So "Attack Speed" requires the Sword Weapons skill and scales with it. The Jedi Mind Trick was intended as a "levelling weapon" - the more powerful it is, the more you can do with it! So if you see it dropping with different sets of modifiers at different item levels, it's not a bug, it's a feature. See how it grows:

I just checked and the Seraphim's yellow shield already has a separate blueprint of its own (number 2235). It shares two bonusgroups with other unique shields, and the third group is changed to combination of "absorbtion warding energy" and "block chance close combat". It currently has one more modifier than other rare shields, but it has decreased socket chance because it lacks the most common bonusgroup. Maybe the "block chance" modifier can just be swapped for silver or gold socket? I don't recommend swapping "magic" bonusgroup for "common" one as it would increase the chance of socketing but decrease the general quality of the modifiers. The only trouble is that any alteration of an already existing blueprint for a rare causes all items with this blueprint to change their stats, sometimes quite unpredictably. If you change this shield, all such shields that people have equipped or stored would change and we can't be completely sure that they would change for the better. The new update is of course a delight. I'm especially glad to see new energy pistols and weapons. These classes were underrepresented in game, so not many people considered building a character entirely around these weapons. You made a good design for the big energy weapons, these ones can actually be useful. The biggest problem with this weapon class is that they usually are too weak in comparison to BFG, so energy weapon-oriented Seras rarely even consider them. Kaleidoscopic Evangelist with its sockets and unusual modifiers can actually win this comparison. New bows are another good addition. Most people prefer blowpipes because of thier fast attack speed, but such good bows might make them reconsider. And the new blowpipes all have incredibly interesting look and the stats to match - an amesome find for any ranged Dryad!

So we were finally shown a couple of bits of gameplay... though sadly the trailer has more video compilation effects than actual playtime. What did we learn? The most obvious fact is that all battles we were shown take place in narrow corridors the whole width of which can be seen on the screen with camera zoomed out. That does not give much room for maneuvers and indeed, even the Ranger shoots the foes from relatively close distance. But at least now we know that there are some combat arts, though we were shown no more than a couple of melee ones per character. Oh, and the fact that the Malakhim has fancy demonic wings! The best thing about the gameplay is that it looks very dynamic. On the other hand, it can be both "pro" and "con" as tactical combat is never extremely fast. If some game forces a very fast pace, it usually boils down to the speed of reaction and clicking rather than to thinking and battle tactics. I hope that S3 would escape this fate and combine good pace with some interesting combat ideas that can be used in various creative ways.

The bonusgroups for the rare shields are very large. If you throw in the sockets, the chance of socketing would improve, but not drastically. I'm not sure that having a socket on one shield out of 30 is exactly what we were asked for. The only way to get a near 100% chance of a specific socket on a random item is to add this socket directly to the blueprint. But this means that all yellow shields and not just seraphim's ones would get additional socket and I'm not sure this is desired. They have a lot of bonuses (by sheer number) already and simply adding a socket would make them very powerful (more powerful than some uniques). Permanently changing a less valuable bonusgroup for a socket... may be an option, but it would affect all shields including those already in somebody's posession. So the best way to improve this Seraphim's shield is to create a new blueprint for it. How about making a unique with this skin?

Flix, do you know that you've just doubled the amount of unique shields in game? There were 8 shields below tier 15 (6 uniques and 2 from seraphim's sets) and your mod brings us 8 more! And these ones are really useful, unlike the original selection, out of which only Stalworth Safeguard, Glacial Defender and Unyielding Wall had some real use. Me and my shield-bearing caster characters can't thank you enough! The Reflector is worthy of its legendary status too, so now we have something other than Kira's Wall to look for when we go for the boss raids. For me the post about the shields is a thing I was looking forward to, partially because two of these shields were my suggestions in some way. It's an incredible feeling to see how your creative approach transformed a vague suggestion about "Elven shield for magic users" into a glorious item called "Celioth's Ward"! Now that's something my High Elfs would be aspiring to find and equip. I also like the little story you came up with to explain the shield's name. The wing shield is something special too - the fire-breathing dragons should beware of power of the Firebird! On this second pic the elf looks like she's preparing to fly... it's a pity you can't equip two of these shields and try. As for the tier change for the Kufferath Defender, I don't think you should make it a legendary. Now it's more comparable with Patience of Saints, Shield of Mirrors and Officer's Saber than with Kira's Wall. If Officer's with its three gold sockets and two modifiers, one of which is a unique (golden) bonus is a unique that frequently drops, why should a shield with many sockets and modifiers that only benefit characters who specialize in shields be a legendary? Granted, it's a treat for those with Shield lore, but for characters without it, the aforementioned three-socketed items would be a more beneficial way to fill a hand slot. And while we're talking about tiers, I think you can consider moving the Shield of the Cid to tier 14, because it is quite strong in comparison with Glacial Defender and Stalworth Safeguard. All three of them sport damage reduction and one gold socket, but the original shields only have two more other modifiers, and not a big amount of them. Shield of the Cid has an addition of three useful defensive modifiers and a damage boost, so it comes between those shields and tier 15 Kira's in the matter of strength.

I already told you that I'm glad to see how you expanded the pool of unique staves. But I have to say it again because these new addition are great. They finally make an idea of creating a staff-wielding mage look compelling. I love how you keep coming up with bits of lore or story to accompany every item. The simpler names suddenly have the whole new meaning if you have a story to associate with them. They stop being something you randomly got from enemies and become gifts of powerful beings, or interesting findings, or something else you wish them to be. So you decided to nerf Blood Dryad's. I wonder how high the final amount would be. Something like 900-1000?

I can't thank you enough for making this mod happen, Flix! Seeing familiar Sacred 1 names and stats makes me feel nostalgic and really willing to spend ungodly hours playing the game just to see these items drop. Special thanks to Pesmontis for fixind the sword. When Flix first posted the pictures I hoped that this model would be corrected so that the Thunder of the Sereish could be back. The sword is mighty, but being a legendary it has every right in the world to be so. Looks like now we have an alternative for Kal'dur's as a perfect melee boss killing weapon. The Daemon's shield won't compete for being called the best one in game, but it's a good and useful item. My characters would be using it if it happens to drop for them. And thank you for implementing the staves. This typical Battle Mage's weapon class was lacking in Sacred 2, now you've brought some good ones back (or forward in time). I was a bit surprised that you used Intelligence and not Stamina for Delior's, but I guess it's better this way. For magic users in Sacred 2 Intelligence is more effective investment. As for bringing full Sacred 1 sets to Sacred 2, I guess I should spill the beans and tell you that I'm currently working on a Xrystal's set for the Dryad. Because come on, guys, Sacred 2 even has a silly message about this set, and it's the one that can be implemented with decent likeness just by making new textures, without importing models. I know that this set was not exactly everybody's favorite, so to make the items useful and keep the things itneresting, I'm making it with a slight twist - I'm building a set around a throwing dagger that can be used for boss killing (like shurikens) and a damaging shield for people who would like to go melee or kung-fu. I haven't told you about this project before because it's unlikely that I'd be able to finish the set until 23rd, but I'm working on the idea.

Yes, I think you're right. Of course blue modifiers aren't necessarily better than white ones. At first I was under a wrong impression that Artamark's Star has relatively low defense value to offset the strength of armor, but I just checked blueprint.txt and actually its defense value is high for an amulet. So giving a regular amount of some skill that is useful only for a part of characters is a balanced alternative. The staff wielders probably would find that amulet better than Star, others would find it worse, and generally it is about equal. I'm sorry for always criticizing something or asking questions about your work. It's just that when I myself post something about my projects I'm looking forward to critique more than to praise, because I want to know the weaker point of my work and either improve it or be sure that these "weaker" points are not really weak. I know that not many people are like me. Your work is always great and even when I find something to nitpick or ask questions about, it's just a minor point of an otherwise incredibly good creation.

To return all interface to normal, you should find an archive called skin.zip in the game's "pak" folder, and simply unpak its contents. This would create a "data" folder in the "pak" folder of the game and this data folder would be used as a source of interface files when the game loads. This "data" folder would have a lot of subfolders. Not all of them are necessary to keep here, but no harm is done if you keep them all. The ones that are strictly necessary to keep if you want all I&B interface back are: bars, controls, cursor, frames, icons, menu, orb, outgame, Party, slots. All the others can be deleted from the "pak/data" folder and no harm would be done.

What can I say, you've came up with brilliant ideas for a set! I love the idea of dual-wielded staves and the models you choose for them. They match well and look good together, while being noticeably different and easy to tell apart. A well-matched set all the way! I like the name choice too, they match the items and sound good regardless of whether or not you played Dragon Age. The bonuses look solid, nothing is useless, and nothing looks overpowered. Except that the amulet seems to be on the stronger side from the first sight, but I need to compare it to the Artamark's Star of the same level. Arta-star is one of the best defensive amulets in game (probably the best unique) and it does not offer a skill bonus. If the resistances on "The Herald" (did I mention that I like the name choice?) are somewhat lower, than it's perfectly balanced, if they are the same, it might be a bit too strong, offering a good amount of skill points too. I understand that you probably meant to include "Magic Staffs" skill here because people with dual-wielding characters don't usually take weapon specific skills. But the parts can be used outside of the set, and ring+amulet make a perfect combo for any staff-wielding mage (especially if the first set bonus is for two items).

I guess that was the universal solution to equipping mismatching weapons - no matter whether both of your weapons can shoot, or one, in practice only one would. It's a hardcoded limitation. And well, making Desert Eagle or Winchester a magic staff is possible (rather coll idea actually), but how will it be wielded in close combat? As I remember, magic staffs shoot only while enemies are quite far, when they come close the character goes melee.