What was Ascaron Thinking of Regarding all the Changes with Add-On?

[Katran 0]

I will start this topic off with a short explanation of what kind of a player I am. I am a grinder. I love the long grind never use the camp. to get access to higher level of server I simply love the massive killing. Now Sacred in general gave this in large amounts. Sacred 2 gives this as well but even the original Sacred 2 there where some serious problems with the game. In my opinion this are some of them:

 

1. Limiting experience raze up to 5 people on server. After that only the game difficulty get harder. Now I dont know about other games but have you seen any more MP non friendly rule? I have seen many 5 people servers just because of this rule and in essence dividing people and not joining them.

2.Huge experience requirement for next level in niob + dropping experience per kill. Ok so this may not seem anything serious even I didnt think it was anything special but after a while it becomes a real nightmare. In a way it hits toon development where you list expect it. It forces one of 3 ways to finish the toon leveling. 1 play the toon as you like to have it grinding and be faced with the fact that it will take forever to get to 200. 2. Go for all experience gear and destroy all the fun in having a toon the way you wanted it. 3 Find a line of quests that gives more experience per short time then experience you will get by grinding in same time. (Yes I had to do bumber 3 it was so sad to think quests in 20min could give more experience then grinding in a full server of people).

 

Based on this two things what did they get as an end result.

a. People that dont even want to consider going to niob and taking there toons all the way seeing how there idea will turn out. Making them restart toons all over testing new things all the time and lets be honest no matter how deep a game is there are only so much things you can test silver -gold and restarting. In the end this people ether test everything out or get burned from the same thing over and over.

b. People that chose to go all the way and when they are done with it they get burned out and piffed off what it took to simply get a toon all they way to 200. And when I say piffed off I mean piffed off since in the end it wasnt the game difficulty that burned them but the pointless long time it took to get them there.

The problem or environment you get if you combine 1 and 2 is even worst for the long grind player. His worst enemy is not the games NPC monsters but the unfriendly and low return he gets at high levels of game.

 

 

So lets see what happened with the add on Ice and Blood.

 

3. Serious hit on +Skills. When hard points where introduced in the game I was quite new and to tell you the truth at that point I didnt know you could get mastery with soft points and in my mind that was how the game was suppose to be mastery only with hard points and I was perfectly fine with it. In a way it added much needed value to hard points. What I was long expecting was for them to implement higher value or better return for every hard point spent. In stead what we got was limit on +skills. basicly once you get mastery hard points are useless. You get what after spending some 100 of them some return of +0.01 on a feature? What a joke so at level 190 you level to 191 and get 5points to get return after spending all of them in one skill a return of +0.01. I mean Holy Hannah!. Wheres the reward system for the level. For all I care they dont even need to give those points since they are pointless. So you see where I am going with this you get nothing out of hard points and now get a hit on +skills gear and in the end serious damage the grinding play.

 

4. Death Blow useless. So lets make a noter great feature of the game useless. Something that LOTS of players found great to use gets limited to such extent that you cant use it on what 90% builds.

 

5.Cant spend more then 199level runes readon a CA? Come on the CA system was in essence hard as it was. You got serious bad return of regen on reading runes added to that the ability on most toons to cut down the regen time was hard as it was. So now someone finds a new way to take a a build using rune reading and they chose to smack him in the face? The system was hard as it was but it was workable now it simple brings in new feature that servers nothing and to make matters worst in reserts the CA to 1? I can just see people getting it to 199 and then trying to give a way runes to someone clicking the wrong button and getting there CA reset and getting all piffed off and not coming back for weeks. Even worst not seeing what happened going out in the field and losing there toon.

 

 

In the end what will niob be like in the days of Ice and Blood. for those that chose to take the adventure there. Better? I think not nothing improved only giving people harder toons to play with nothing to gain out of it. We all know how bad it feels to lose a niob HC toon and they make it more likely with all the new things they introduced. IMHO they simple made one hell of a mess with this changes nothing gained many things lost.

 

So what was the idea? Where do they want to take the game? Your guess is as good as any?

[Chrona 82]

They give us a NIOB diffivculty level.

 

Its now really hard to survive and we've to rebuild our toons. Say goodbye to your old toons- use them for tradin/smith and start the new adventure.

 

You can find uniquesets/weapons/rings etc... new bosses/areas/quests...

Niob isn't impossible, but you've to know your toon.

 

10 minutes ago :

6 players in Teamspeak

Blasco (level 199 SW closed-hc) kills the new boss "Abu Shai" and wooow lost his mount and survived with 3k HP

--->>> thats NIOB!!

 

you can lost your toon anytime there, but its great

 

The "old" areas are not so dangerous

Edited September 3, 2009 by Chrona

[ws5926 1]

What does NIOB mean? Does CA stand for Combat Arts?

[Katran 0]

I am all for it Chrona. But do you think that limiting +Skills making deathblow useless restart runes read and keeping the experience limit to five is the reason for it?

As you say the old areas are still easy. So its only the new ones. If I get it right they its the new monsters the way they are made that makes it hard. Not all this stuff they changed. This stuff only limits the stuff you can do with the toon and the burn factor to players not make the game harder. The game is harder if the mosters are harder. Plus only time will tell how really hard it is. OR if its the WOW new factor in play at this time.

 

Niob is the highest difficulty level in the game

CA is Combat art short

[Chrona 82]

The "old" area are not so hard...but not easy..

 

its a complete new game, you need now the def-skills to survive

and I'm sure in 3 month we'll see the first new funbuilds in niob

[Katran 0]

Thats the hole point isnt it? Its not a new game we are buying we are buying an addon expansion. It should take care of problems and improve not make a new game in the process. Plus we all have been using the defense skills already.

As for the difficulty it will be fun to a point but the difficulty adds time spent and that means more time to get to 200 like we didnt spend a lot of time already. Thats what I am saying.

[Chrona 82]

Firsttime I started my toons with ice&blood ->>>

but we've to accept the changes, there is no dev anymore...and the game is fun

 

Kat you'll like it

[Katran 0]

Hehehe I know I will like it I love the game! This topic was not to say I hate the game.

You know I play Yugioh the trading card game and we have a list of cards that are banned and limited every 6 months the list gets updated changed if you will to a point. And Konami the game maker and list changer has a clear mind when they do the changes.

I made this topic in a way for us to discuss what was there real plan what was the goal of this rules changes original and now with the expansion.

If there if they had any planing team had any reasons for making such strange rules in the game. And I really mean strange since they damage the game more then they add to it. Thats why I made this topic I really like to know what was the goal what did they plan to achieve with it.

 

Since I doubt non Friendly approach to MP is in any game designers plan.

[Chrona 82]

I think it was the last try from the devs to give a a lot of fun

 

and godmode is possible :

my destroyers---> level 97 niob 7 destroyers duration 10 sec reg 1,4 sec damage 1 destroyer 10,8 k

10 sec= 42 destroyer=500k damage

 

chance to reflec ca: 47%

damage mitigation 34% phy 38% fire magic/ice/poison 14%

armor 54.556

hp 20 k

[FrostElfGuard 9]

Hehehe I know I will like it I love the game! This topic was not to say I hate the game.

You know I play Yugioh the trading card game and we have a list of cards that are banned and limited every 6 months the list gets updated changed if you will to a point. And Konami the game maker and list changer has a clear mind when they do the changes.

I made this topic in a way for us to discuss what was there real plan what was the goal of this rules changes original and now with the expansion.

If there if they had any planing team had any reasons for making such strange rules in the game. And I really mean strange since they damage the game more then they add to it. Thats why I made this topic I really like to know what was the goal what did they plan to achieve with it.

 

Since I doubt non Friendly approach to MP is in any game designers plan.

 

And... you'd get best results with this topic in the Official Sacred German forum. I think some of the devs still log in there... they could answer these kinds of questions (unless they're not allowed to talk about under a non-disclosure agreement)...

[Chareos Rantras 0]

I think the point of this thread was also on the aspect of grinding.

 

Where Kat says he's a grinder, I'm the total opposite, I even hate grinding from 40-etc. (never got higher then 45 XD). For me Sacred 2 is more about challenge in combat, items, places & quests.

With Ice & Blood it will greatly increase all those aspects, thats the good thing. It'll get also challenging.

 

Only thing I would like is less grind in level 150+ (although I've never been there, I'm biased by other people's experiences with high level grinding).

 

 

cheers!

Chareos Rantras

[Katran 0]

Chareos got what I was saying. The way they ended up making the set up is that even a grind loving player like me will reach a point when he says thats all I can take its becoming beyond pointless. And someone like Chareos who doesnt like grinding will never even give it a go for 200 he doesnt even have an option to get there a different way.

[Zonc1 0]

Then why just not only increase monsters difficulty, instead of nerf +all CAs, skills. This way it will be harder (assuming that was devs intention), and it won't mean our current builds go to trash. Or this is their way if increasing the game's lifespan (becouse we have to reset some of the >120lvl chars) then I say: no, thanks.

Edited September 3, 2009 by Zonc1

[Chrona 82]

good news for all grinder (I hate quests and my level 200 toon had <20% explore )

 

the new world is good to grind. kat rember the quest in grunwald -you grind them over and over...

one run blood-area with the bigq and 3 bosses = 6-9 million experience =level 199(blasco do it today)

 

the big scarab I posted in my vid. He is in the ice-area-> kill him and come back 1 minute later->kill him again

no more server switching to kill the griffin 1000times....

[Katran 0]

Well thats some stuff I would like to read. Those are changes that are worth something. And at level 199 you say sweet!

[soldats 0]

all fairness, changes this monumental should warrant some kind of respec. I am NOT a fan of respeccing in any game, but when gameplay is going to be broken for existing high level characters, some way to reset them for the time invested should be available. do you know how many hours I spent on all my 150's? slaving away only to be slapped in the face

[Zonc1 0]

I never played multi in Hellgate London, but as I remember after patches which changed gear/skills all chars received a respec scroll. If the game is about loot&experience, then after messing with gear devs SHOULD give a respec option.

[Chrona 82]

I never played multi in Hellgate London, but as I remember after patches which changed gear/skills all chars received a respec scroll. If the game is about loot&experience, then after messing with gear devs SHOULD give a respec option.

 

Yeah HELLGATE...(level 50 mm hc-elte)..we got respec..but was another game

 

In S1/2 you've to start a new toon....

[Dobri 55]

But that's not right... This means that the people who didn't hit level 200 in S2FA simply get a kick in the teeth for all that time spent playing this game. Well, ok, that is unless they're level 200, unless that char is a smith, unless that char is a shopper... Nice.

 

I already deleted my Shopper Inquisitor, my Revered/Celestial Seraphim and will soon do the same with the caster inquisitor, as soon as I'm done utilizing his runes for the new BFG seraphim I've started. Heck... although I tried to write the book on the BFG, I never thought I'll revert to it in an online game - you all know the reasons. But that expansion - or should I say the new Sacred 2 - has got me grasping for the safest and the most overpowered char I ever known to exist.

 

Come to think of this... I have to change my signature now.