[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Wow.  What modules are you using?

ALL OF EM. xD Just kidding.

Reduce Fog Mod and from Sacred 2 WW 3.0:
CORE_Required
Alternate Spells
Enhanced Music
Free-For-All Quests
Portrait Overhaul
Superspawn

 

EDIT: Maybe the Super-Spawn decided to double this one? I just imagined ... double the amount of nameless guardians?

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

I think I have a problem with a double variable:

I think that should be a singleton.

I am not mad about double XP and items, though. Quest was solved after the first one fell.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Helloooooo!

Back from my Cyberpunk-Hollyday. 30 days since release, I played ~250 hours counted on steam. xD

Today I installed the 3.0. Realy nice work. I like the green skeletal fortress. And I like the new animals. The birds fly fairly low, though. (Ravens hopping around in elven region, starting to fly and... well fly on ground level. Is this as intended? ^^)
Music is matter of taste, won't say much to this point.
But the most impression is (for me) done by the new npc portraits. After every type of enemy I stop and look at them in the character menu. I didn't realize how many of them there are. Especially when talking. First minutes my brain was always like "there is something different with that quest" until I stopped clicking the text away immediatly and started taking my time realizing all these new portraits. 
Kudos to all this work and thank you very much! Trying out the new twohander with a new Shadow Warrior. 

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

All those beautifull weapons.... how soon is end of the year?

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

39 minutes ago, Flix said:

You can kill your mount.  And quest escorts, and other friendly NPC's.  Even the wildlife lol.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Should be easy enough to remedy.  Knockback and the damaging "Hurl" are two different properties.  Knockback just pushes enemies away a little bit, causing no damage.  The hurl property only takes effect when an enemy is killed, and their ragdoll corpse collides with an enemy.  This property can actually be devastating. The problem is that it can cause friendly fire, so I keep the value extremely low in EE and just use to provoke the ragdoll corpse mechanics.

I'll replace the inherent knockback with area splash damage instead. This should mimic the "collateral damage" effect nicely enough.   If the player desires knockback they can take the bronze mod "Knockback."

Didn't dare to ask to... but if Sweep really looses that Knockback, I'll go full Berserk with the 2H weapons.

How does friendly fire matter? I play Singleplayer, so, not afraid of that.

And... am I the only one bothered by that all the years? xD

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

6 minutes ago, desm said:

Sure they are rare but there are some. I always loot at least one (have to be patient...) and I play self-drop without bargaining (with bargaining you can more often find some at the merchants). At first glance, there is little bonus from life leech (like +1.2%, something like that) so you can think it's not worth wearing it. But in fact it has terrible power (especially against bosses). Well, I guess it's a matter of taste if one want to dual-wield or have a 2 handed weapon.

Why is life leech linked with dual wield? I do dual wield without it. Oo

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

I think I am drooling a bit seeing all these weapons... 

On 11/3/2020 at 5:02 AM, Flix said:

I've tried to close the large gap between 2h weapons and dual wield.  I'll see what else I can do.  Maybe a boost to base damage across the board for all 2-handers.

 

13 hours ago, desm said:

I second you Roderik, love 2 handed weapons too: An exalted pole-arm Seraphim warrior or a death 2 handed sword Shawdow warrior are among my fav builds. Loving your art Flix, Enhanced Edition becomes more and more appealing to me and if you do the changes for Diablo 2 Fallen as well, well, great job, thanks for it.

Forgot to say: for 2 handed weapons, Roderick, bet on Life Leeching weapons.

I think I have to be more precise here. I don't think the gap can be closed with damage that easily and it isn't related to some defensive shortcomming. (I don't know how to read your bet as anything else... since the bet is wrong. I almost never find any life leech items and thus don't rely on them.)

The Shadow Warrior has the Demoic Blow, Scything Sweep and my beloved Frenzied Rampage as direct attacks. I absolutely hate the DB because of that jump animation. Sorry, it looks retarded. xD
Soooo... the FR does 5 hits with your weapon. Obviously, those will add up to 10 hits if you use two single handed weapons. Mathematically, a 2H would need double the amount of damage to one single weapon to do the same damage (not exactly since the higher damage breaks through armor better than a single heanded weapon, but just to make it simple here).

But that is just not it. A 2H is slower than 1H, so is the FR. Unless you hit a level where your attack speed hits the cap, two single handed weapon will pump out more damage in the same amount of time.
Then you can craft more into two single handed weapons and you can deal two different kinds of damage types. Thats not possible with a 2H.
Last but not least, if you are doing really high damage, a single attack kills a goblin. So with 2 single handed weapons you might kill 10 low level enemies with FR. With a 2H you can only kill 5. Even with more powerfull weapons, the access damage goes into thin air since you can't kill more than one enemy with one hit. Two single handed weapons just dispense the damage more equal against multiple small fries.

On the other side, a 2H seems to be good with Scything Sweep, right? Well... no. Scything Sweep has a inherit chance to knock enemies back. Maybe I play Sacred 2 wrong the whole time.... but who the hell thought it was a good idea to give an MEELE skill chance of knocking enemies AWAY? I should mention that this hurling effect hardly kills anyone, even with the Supwer Spawn Mod. Scything Sweep WOULD be awesome without the knockback, since you could pummel all enemies in front of you dealing more damage than with two single weapons (hitting 4 enemies would be 4 times the damge overall in that time). But the enemies get hurled away quite often a) out of range and you have to follow and b) they are hurled away in a circle. Means if you step forward, one or two enemies would be out of range from the sweep because they are know at your side and no longer in front of you.

A Dryade with the Rotate Mod in her Darting Assault is more made for real whirlewinding through lots of enemies than the SW with a 2H weapn and this strange Sweep.

 

 

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Seyr's Blade looks so ... greeeeeeeeeeeen.

I totaly love twohander. Sadly, can't find a build where twohander do as much damage in the same amount of time as two one hander. But these look so good, maybe I make a Char just to use this swords for a while. *.*

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

56 minutes ago, Androdion said:

Nah, you're just late to the party that's all.

We've discussed it extensively in the D2F topics, insane damage and auto-heal just make him impossible at higher levels. But Flix always said from then that he had to nerf it in the following version, which is this. Then the balancing should be transposed to a new D2F version. It's his usual cycle.

At least I showed up to the party! xD
Sorry, Diablo Mod never interested me, that's why I don't look there. Actually I just lurk in here from time to time to see how it is going with the S2EE. ^^'
Thanks for the answer!

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

7 hours ago, Flix said:

The picture does not do it justice.  The axe has FX that looks like red clouds swirling around in the metal.

Not buggy, just does too much damage.  Will be reduced (approximately half damage) in the upcoming release.

Am I the only one who was geeked by this guy? xD Or am I the only one strolling around in Ancaria trying NOT to die? x'D (Or did I miss the hint here on Dark Matters? ^^')

6 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

Yes, blood vapors actually, mixed with poison. The Addendum version is a Unique replacement called "Dark Lictor".

Thanks you two, looking forward to it!

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Those weapons look epic! Besides the random red one... looks so rusty it might break while hitting. xD
Don't worry about the Widowmaker... it definitly looks sinister. o_o
I can't believe the level of details which Sacred 2 can bring up. The little skeletons on the shield are awesome. (I ♥ skeletons...)

A little question... is the Lord of Thunder (Lighting), north in the swamp region, somehow buggy? Mostly I miss him since I go down straight south after porting there. But today I was strolling along in the vast world of Sacred 2 and found him. The Lord of Ice was no problem, due to 13k hp and 600 HP/sec reg its icy aura didn't do much. Lord of fire... well, the Carnach delivered more fire damage. But this Lord of Lightning did a 10k critical hit against my Shadow Warrior. I hammered space but a second crit came almost right afterwards. 13k hp, 1570 magic resistance, spellresistance 771 in the inventory menu and Level 82 (mastery) as skill. How the hell did this thing do such a massive damage output?

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

6 hours ago, jwiz said:

It's from the Wicked Witch of the West musical.

I love that musical. I bought tickets for the one this year... but it got postponed to next year. I don't mind much. I have 5 hours by train just to get there... but it's my absolute favourtie.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

10 hours ago, Flix said:

I wonder if might be interesting to have the class quests available to all characters too?  There's no technical reason preventing it, other than the text would not be well-suited to other characters.  But it would be a chance for the Shadow Warrior to fight the Black Seraphim, or for the High Elf to go up against bosses like the ghost Dragon or Varmin, etc.

I vote for Freedom to be the name of 5the mod!

And regarding the class quests... I would vote against. Would be too weird and somehow destroying the immersion for me. :/

[The Great Pumpkin has arrived! DarkMatters, Spooky Avatars Halloween Party!!]

Spooky teeth! Nice shading of the hair, Maybe I try that too... neither maestro nor courses here, just some bought books and youtube. ^^

6 hours ago, Androdion said:

You guys are making me hungry. And thirsty as well. How about them drinks, hun?! 

As for Keanu, yeah as much as I love Constantine you really can't beat that "there is no spoon" line. Sorry but it was one of those movies' series I grew up with, though I've seen all of those and all of the LotR and also Constantine on the theatre. Good times when you'd catch good movies and go there with your friends. Nowadays everyone loves their couch and their Netflix, so in retrospective those earlier days where much more fun than now.

It's been a couple of months now that me and the wife brought life into an old annex of our house, so now we have a wine cellar which is becoming a small monster. It's been fun to rack it up, and every supermarket seems to be doing wine sales these days. Oh my wallet... It has more than a few spider webs, and I have some pumpkins from my father-in-law getting dried up. Maybe I can raise myself the spirit to go all North American and carve them up. That'd be a first! 

Ohhh! Give us some photos of the pumpkins!
And remember: The money spent on wine isn't gone... it just converted to future happniess in bottles lying in your cellar.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Oh, I haven't seen that about the B.V., sorry! When it breaks the roots I will be very happy as it is. Thanks for all your work!

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Actually... I have another probably unworthy thing.
In my love for the SW my onliest annoying thing is running after rangers/casters. Especially with the Super Spawn it is super annoying running after 7 goblins when you want to play meele. Throning on top of that, basking in its unholy evilness, roots and stuns. Root even more, when you can't move and they shoot at you. Stun is ok, but rootet... you can only gnarl at your situation.
The Belligerent Vault has mod a to escape root... which doesn't work. The root just jumps with you and you stay rooted where you are landing. Second, in a combo, there is a somewhat 10% chance the SW won't attack the enemy you where jumping to, sometimes even runs back to your starting location and hitting somethign there. If you jump rooted, you may even land WITHIN your enemy, but the second skill in the combo - Franzied Rampage - won't go off.
So I remebered Ruinous Onslaught with its mod to escape roots with 50%+2% per level of ca... I really liked that. It's the only skill I am really missing from the originals. Is there somewhere a topic, survey or poll how many are using the Minotaurus buff? It is quite awesome to implement such a skill, I won't belittle that. I just love the skeletons and don't use the Minotaurus. So... if there is a slight chance to have the Vault really getting rid of the roots... or maybe the Onslaught comming back... I would like that.

(I will use S2EE 3 in any way, it already looks awesome. I may even play the Temple Guardian, despite my least played char... just for that Flamethrower. :D)

That will be the last thing I greedily mention here. S2EE was always like a charm and I will enjoy the 3 when it is ready.

[The Great Pumpkin has arrived! DarkMatters, Spooky Avatars Halloween Party!!]

6 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

I absolutely know that scene .... that single scene when I saw that movie stuck out in my head as... "how did they do that?"  the secret of it only showed itself when the movie finally appeared at *cough * home...and we were able to advance frame by frame and catch that absolutely evil substitution they used for his Jekkyl transformation... brilliiant!

I've only seen it done once so well in another movie...can you guess? 

Constantine... one of my favorite movies, with an epic and classy Dark Satan (maybe the best incarnation I've seen of him) ...and the particular scene I'm talking about that uses a substitution/jump scare scene was where she was walking through the underworld and the daemon ferociously jumps at her ...again this required fastidious frame by frame advancement to determine how this fright was accomplished

gogo

Oh yes, Constantine, I know and love that movie. I can't quite remember the scene you mentioned... good reason to watch it again.
I love it for the story... it is an absolute realistic approach on the whole pircture of God and Devil. Getting something gifted or earn it? I also think the latter one would be the better one. ^^'

What do you think about the rumours about a sequel?

[The Great Pumpkin has arrived! DarkMatters, Spooky Avatars Halloween Party!!]

Helloooooooo spooks!

Well... I hope all remember that scene from Lord of the Rings? I am quite easily spooked and seeing Bilbo going from nice old hobbit to this was jumpscare enough for poor me. It shows what greed might do to one, no matter how kind you have been in your live.

Hey Daedalus, how long did that drawing took you? I tried to draw myself, but I always want it too detailed, take to much time achieving it and giving up again. So I am mostly curious how much time others need for their drawings. Especially faces.... takes me aeon s to get the proportions right.

Don't overdo it with the drinks, party just started!

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

SHOCK! I am at Spookmatters.org? Damn nice optic!

Awwwwww... well, it was worth a try. I can't see myself using Reflective Emanation, since Grim Resilience makes the Shadow Warrior much more relyably tanky. I just thought that the mod Riposte could just be tempered with to do more damage. But I am no modder so that was just a naiv thought. ^^

You sir, are a very kind soul. I wish you bright green days lying ahead of you!

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Uhhhh.... that flamethrower... I am not a pyromaniac... definitly not... but I love how that flamethrower looks. And the skeletal fortres... I love that green glow. It may be a silly reason but green is my favourite colour... the reason I love the Nether Allegiance despite their low efficiency.

That said... if it is time to note a wish for S2EE 3, may I request a buff for the Reflective Emanation? Nether Allegiance gains Damage through Astral Lord Focus and (thanks to you) defense through Astral Lord Focus. Grim Resilience gets a HP and HP-regeneration buff from Tactics Lore. But Reflective Emanation... though it throws back incomming damage, that amounts to nothing against the normal damage output from the Shadow Warrior. Like the shiny green skeletons, against the Frenzied Rampage which melts down enemies in seconds, the damage is almost neglectable.
Even with the Riposte mod from the Reflective Emanation, a tiny goblin can take 10 shots reflected back at himself and doesn't fall. In that time the Shadow Warrior slays down the whole rest of the goblin camp, cleans his weapons, runs two circles around that goblin and still have to kill it himself.

So, is it possible to rise the reflected damage from Reflective Emanation? Maybe with Tactics Lore. Or more funny with Armor Lore, Constitution or Toughness.... the harder you are, the more it hurts those who hit you? With Blacksmithing maybe, because you add some spikes to your armor? :D

By the way... any way to donate to you? That S2EE 3 looks like a reason for me to buy Sacred 2 all over again. Impressive determination, to improve this game after all this time.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

On 9/28/2020 at 12:32 AM, Flix said:

While working on the portrait project, I noticed a several neutral "atmospheric" animals that were designed by Ascaron yet not present in the game.  I've been adding them to the game world. I think this gives the various regions more life and vibrancy.

To start with there are some various snakes.  Green are in swampy marshy areas, red are in the jungle, and brown are in the desert.

 

How the heck do you discover those in the code after all these time...? That will make the beatifull world of Sacred 2 even more lively!
Will that be in another S2EE?

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Wohooo! I will be in, too. ^^

I don't write here often, but all shall know that I am a big fan of S2EE.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

Hello!

1. Big thanks to you guys, dimitri, jwizz and flix, for finding out what was going on with the skeletons. ^^

2. I just tested with a shadow warrior and it works great.

2 a) The skeletons never stand idle deciding what to do, basicly rushing from one enemy to the next. Best thing about it: Before, when skeletons saw an enemy in a spot they couldn't reach by foot, they would just froze. They didn't react to any other enemy anymore. Right now, they still freeze, but seem capable of unfreeze again after some seconds, targeting another enemy. That is a great improvement!

2 b) The armor works. May I ask how it is scaling? Right now skeletons gain 5 resistance per Astral Lore additional to their normal armor. When I think about your screenshots, the old value on your skeletons was about 3.000 armor and with the new patch it was 10.000 armor. That would be Astral Lore level 1400... and I somehow doubt that.

[Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition]

5 hours ago, Flix said:

Well I put that character through every test imaginable, but in every instance the value stayed the same.  I can only conclude that the two spell tokens have an identical effect, and my test characters had become corrupt somehow, resulting in that single display anomaly.  Even now I can still see the difference on him when switching the spell tokens.

So I suppose there was no bug to fix.

Well.... happens. ^^ Good to have cleared that out. You need a new testchar! xD