Androdion

Well, that changes some things about planning a character's skill assignment. Thanks for the info mate.

Also install the CM patch. All of these tricks make the game more stable, but the fact of the matter is that it will still crash. It may take a couple of hours or a couple of minutes but it'll happen. When the game does keep crashing constantly reboot your pc. I've found that this helps when the game keeps halting constantly, probably due to the RAM being flushed out (but I couldn't really tell).

For sure? Damn, I thought I had to actually raise a skill to Lv.5...

What kind of crash and on what kind of system? If you're playing on Steam you should have Ice & Blood, and assuming you're on a 64-bit system I'll tell you upfront that the game will crash a lot. Quick save frequently.

You can go as far as having a blank character (I.e. no points attributed).

Check, I found the Kobold. He doesn't give the quest but there's another one in the island near the first snow machine that gives it. Nice! On my way I'll check out the other entrance of Haenir's cave. Thanks guys!

A few questions regarding that snow covered place. According to the Wiki the CM Patch should enable the christmas quest but I only get the typical Northland Expedition quest, how come? Even worse, I can't open the gate to Haenir's cave as it remains locked even now that I need to go in. Bugged much?

Glad that I was able to help.

That's weird. Take a look at this picture, it's there.

Try pressing the X key, it's the default hotkey. He doesn't run around with you all the time.

Well, that depends on which build you're playing. I'm playing melee HE and there's no way I'm not mastering the Delphic skills first. It all comes down to how you play and how fit for survival your character is, though I recon that if you're playing with armour lore that should be one of your priorities for early mastery (better gear, less penalty, lesser regen times for CAs). But to keep answering the OP, the way to go is to keep your toon balanced in terms of defensive and offensive aspects, which is the same to say that you need to invest in skills and skill points that make your toon able to survive at different difficulty levels, as well as being able to kill mobs at the same difficulty levels. It's not an exact science though, I myself have been trying several variations of melee HE for months now in search of the optimal skill set. It takes time, but that's kind of the fun of the game in the end.

Well, late to the party since I had to work today, but I'm glad you got it running.

Yeah, the main focus on the early stage of the game (Lv.1-75) is to get your first three masteries, with the remaining skill points being distributed as you see better fit (CA mods or pumping other skills for instance). After that things are different and the gear you're wearing will further impact on your lower level skills (+all skills; +all combat art skills; etc.), so you need not worry much about them being low level for the time being. A weapon lore increases your damage and attack speed, so basically it increases your DPS with that weapon allowing you for a better damage output. Pump your weapon with socketed modifiers that suit your needs and you'll be able to get the best of it. Can't say much about Dryads, never played with them, but in case you still feel like you're faltering you might as well pick up a character guide and follow it to get better acquainted with the mechanics of the game and then proceed with your own design.

Hi Al. Steam user here, playing Sacred 2 with just the usual CTD. Can you tell us more about your system (OS, configuration, etc)?

It's just that I wasn't expecting the diminishing returns to hit so soon, you know?! I'm still only getting like two blue items though, nothing to sweat about. Thanks mate. I made shoppers at levels 2, 15, 30 and 45 for starters and began playing with a new HE to try them out. I'm at level 25 now and I've scratched the Lv.30 shopper because the gear I got from the Lv.15 one still makes my HE quite OP in Silver. I managed to raise "+All Skills" to 20 at that level so that says a lot! Right now I'm just trying to push the boundaries on the progression to see where it slows down or halts. Speaking of which, the mention of diminishing returns above. I scratched the Lv.30 shopper and made it Lv.75, since I won't be needing new gear so soon. But like I said above, the Lv.45 shopper is already seeing blue items. Granted, those are few and far between, but out of curiosity I went shopping with the Lv.75 and the difference was abysmal. Something like a 50-50 ratio of blue/yellow at 255 worth of Bargaining. I managed to push it up to 365 via gear (that HE is now fully equipped) and the ratio now is more like 70-30. Mind you those are average numbers as sometimes merchants have a better ratio and sometimes a bit worse, but in general terms its around that value. I'm already getting "+All Skills" jewellery again so that's cool, but I was kind of expecting them to be pushing for higher values and normally it's just +3/+4. Nothing compared to the jewellery found on the D.A.R.K. toons, but I guess that must be the "nerf to +All Skills" that Hooyaah was mentioning in the screenshots thread. In retrospective you still get infinitely better gear than you'd ever be able to buy, and I guess that if I can push the Lv.75 shopper to a decent ratio of blue/yellow it should prove more than enough to support another toon, considering that by that level of the playable toon it should be hitting Niob already, so that's that. I still want to test drive this theory but it may take a while since I'll be out of the country over the next week enjoying my well deserved holidays. Anyway, I'll be sure to leave additional info on this matter when I get to climb up the ladder a bit more.

Quick question, is it normal that a Lv.45 toon with over 300 points in Bargaining is still offered one or two blue items amidst a sea of yellow items?

Gold, pure gold!

That's a great thread, lots of cool info! So I've played around with the S2CE.exe I pointed out above and it works like a charm. It also makes setting up a ladder of shoppers stupidly easy since you can change any statistic applied to your character. Watch this: - Create a Bronze HE, save the toon and exit the game - Open S2CE.exe, pick the savegame created, change the level to 2 and give it one skill point available, save changes - Start the game, load the savegame, put the skill point in Bargaining, save and exit the game - Open S2CE.exe again, pick the savegame and change the amount of hard points the Bargaining skill has to 255, also change the amount of gold to 1.000.000.000 and level reached to Niob, save changes - Start the game, go MP/LAN and pick that toon, start the Lobby and run Free Play in Niob Et voilá, you have a Lv.2 shopper with 255 in bargaining and a bilion in gold with no need to shop for "+Bargaining" gear! If you want to create the ladder all you have to do is copy-paste the save files, change the number of the save and edit the level and name of the toon. Since everything else is already configured all you need to do is adjust the name of the toon and the level you want it to be. Repeat the procedure with a SW to produce a Lv.2 Blacksmith with 255 in the skill and you have you have just created your own SP/LAN home ladder of shoppers/smith. And the best of it all? You haven't touched one single script file, which in my opinion is awesome!

Thanks mate! I was searching for a way to change the characters names after creation and I found this tool called "Sacred 2 Character Editor". I've only tried it a bit but the way to Niob is very easy to obtain through this EXE. Seems more like a trainer where you can alter your toon's variables with much ease, but I do have to ask if I risk corrupting savegames by using it. PS: I've used it a bit, on a superficial level I may say, and it doesn't seem to cause any issues with the game. But if anyone has any feedback on this please share it. I'm using the EXE Flix linked in this post: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/21611-possible-to-change-name-of-single-player-toon/&do=findComment&comment=6966036

So basically I need to: - Mod the script files to have access to Niob difficulty from Lv.1 in LAN, which was also made for the Closed Net accounts - Mod the script files for XP to emulate the XP gain you got in CN from having a Lv.100 toon level up a Lv.1 toon via XP share (I've seen that video of the quests in Aerendyr) and level up the shoppers to the desired level - Return XP gain to normal in the scripts for toons outside of the shopping network, leave the access to Niob from Lv.1 available for LAN shopping - Gear up the shoppers via LAN - Enjoy (?!) Is that it or did I miss something? By the way, you can just travel by portal between Start Island and Sloeford and the merchants change their stock. I've noticed one or twice that didn't happen, but another travel back and forth does the trick.

OK then, I'll wait for someone else to pitch in. But is it possible to replicate something like that in SP/LAN all by myself?

Ok, I opened those toons and I just drooled uncontrollably... HOLY MOLLY! Two question then: One, how? And two, imagine I want to build a shopping network like this in SP. Is it possible?

I actually have one of those in my uniques stash, but thanks anyway. Still don't get why you use Deathblow though, since you kill everything by spells it should prove rather useless. Unless you're still playing Fallen Angel 2.43 and not I&B. http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Opponent_level_for_death_blow

Thanks a lot for the thorough explanation. I get it now, having the lower level toon shop in Niob would turn the bonuses up very easily and that should prevent the tediousness of it. Just tell me, how can a Lv.2 toon shop in Niob? That's the part I don't get. I thought that even to join a MP game you'd be limited by level so how can that be? Another thing, and the sad part of it, is that since I don't do MP I can only use the LAN mode to play by myself. Kind of kills it when you're not doing it like you explained above. Even if I went for Lv.20/40/etc. shopper toons in SP, how would I be able to balance the odds with the Bargaining bonuses if I'm still stuck to a lower difficulty level? Shame there are only two sets of blank characters on the download section (Lv.41 and Lv.200), otherwise it'd be cool to test a SP shopping ladder like that.

I have my High Elf full-on tweaked with Chance to Halve Regeneration Time at 100%, for one thing. This allows one to "eat" more Glacial Thorn runes and allows for some ultra high damage potential. Add also some of the "additional damage" modifier via rings, especially ice and physical for a nice boost and then, "Opponent Level for Death Blow" to about 60+ doesn't hurt either. Finally, I use the Faladal's set, the Sigil set "KilthEmAl," Glacial Defender, and Nlovae's Mystery, each of which significantly increases the range at which you can fling the damaging Glacial Thorns. Because your toon is further away and the boss monsters don't "see" your toon, you should be safe enough. Still, being half the target's level, it takes much longer to bring a behemoth such as Nameless Guardian down. There is an advantage to getting to Niob early, of course, one may wish to shop for better equipment, and jewelry, all of which may be passed down to a player at the Gold or Silver level. One may make an adjustment in the quest.txt file and have anything drop as a reward. I just had Faladal's set, the Sigil set KilthEmAl, Glacial Defender, and Nlovae's Mystery all drop, at or above level 45, all of which had the Niob level attributes which are far better modifiers. There's a thread about that too. Or, you could PM me if you want more info. Again, awesome explanation! I thought you'd have modded the game's files to suit your needs, but it seems that apart from the gear requirements this build can be made without modding anything (apart from CS as a permanent buff). Very cool indeed! Just one thing though. I though Deathblow didn't work with spell-based or hybrid CAs, just with weapon-based CAs. Or are you just using that for when they get close and you need to hit them in melee?