Advise needed: What to expect when I start as a Sacred 2 Newbie?

[RicG 2]

Hello you all on this lovely Forum I just found! 

 

I never played Sacred 2 and now started 4 days ago with my Seraphim and dived deep into the Game. After 30 Hours I woke up and asked myself: how were I able to never play this game in over 10 years? I love it!

I took a look into Sacredwiki, involved myself into the drop/merchant mechanics and now I have some big questions lying before me that I cant answer myself. And I would appreciate if you can help me out!

 

Iam a person that enjoys to put time into things and share them with others. And over the last days I thought the same over Sacred 2. How was it to play with other people that enjoyed the game like me? 

 

1. Is it possible to play the game ( I saw a post about a new chance to open servers) with other players? Are there still people that I can connect with around here to get a deep dive into some sacred 2 multiplayer?

2. When I play Multiplayer what are the best and most fun things I can do? What were the things that you enjoyed the most? Tell me more about your experience!  

3. If you play the Game for years now, what are the things that hold you and make the game still enjoyable for you? What can you give me as an advice to highlight for myself when I play the game that I should appreciate?

 

I would be happy if you could share a part of your story with me and I hope that there are still people involved with sacred 2!

 

And now out of my CET-Perspective: Have a great third Advent and a good time with your Family and Friends! 

 

Best regards,

Richard

[RicG 2]

And in addition: I would be really happy if somebody explains me how I can level with maximum efficiency (iam Lv 40 now and I play on Gold Dif) and what toons I should invest time in. 

I wish everybody a great Week!

[Androdion 884]

I bought Fallen Angel back in 2009, played it like hell, even without understanding much of it at the time because of so many standalone patches and modifiers. I eventually tried the 2.43 patch which introduced the dreaded memory leak, reverted back to 2.40 and played some more, only to somehow forget about the game for a few years. Then all of a sudden I saw Sacred 2 Gold on Steam for less than 4€, and since I was never able to buy I&B physically (I tried!) I went for it. I clocked well past the 1000 hours this time, discovered this community, worked with the CM Patch team at the time of v.1.60 and then played some more. Tried some of the mods and then went on a hiatus. I should make a return to it in the coming future with the Purist Pack though. Why do I always get back to it? Old school game with a sort of new school vibe and look, extensive game content and a love for the open world grind. Oh, and all classes actually feel different, much like the races on Starcraft vs Command & Conquer, if you will.

The best way to level up in lower difficulties is to grind in populated areas. Depending on your skills and ability to do crowd control you should probably avoid some of them, the Swamp for instance where you have loads of deadly critters. You can do mini-boss runs depending on how much of the game map you've discovered, or you can just grind the Orc Cave if you want a simpler route. Quests don't give that much XP in lower difficulties that you'll notice much advance in char level, more often than not you'll notice that you get more XP from killing everything in the path to do the quest than from the quest itself. If you're in Gold you probably don't want to rush the main quest that much, stay a bit in some of the more known areas of the first few areas, and when you get your ninth skill (level 50) you can go to the Swamp and Desert areas and have a bigger challenge with a greater return. Alternatively if you don't want to grind the main quest you can just head East from Thylisium all the way to the T- Energy pools and then head South, so you can enter directly into the Bengaresh Desert without passing through the Swamp region.

As for chars, well, it really depends on your play style. Can't say much more than that. My fan favourite ones are definitely the Shadow Warrior, High Elf and Seraphim classes.

[Timotheus 416]

To let a different noise be heard:

My favorite was always the original game. I never really got into Sacred 2 as I did with Sacred, and I actually only finished the (light) campaign in single player last year.  But, like Androdion, I am planning to return to the world of Sacred with the release of the Purist Pack, a patch one of our members is preparing to basically iron out all the last bugs, and restore some never-used content. 

 

 

1. Is it possible to play the game ( I saw a post about a new chance to open servers) with other players? Are there still people that I can connect with around here to get a deep dive into some sacred 2 multiplayer?
Difficult to answer, really. I haven't really set foot on that path and with the Sacred franchise now under THQ, there is a possibility that any attempt to revive the lobbies might be met with frustration by the new owner.

2. When I play Multiplayer what are the best and most fun things I can do? What were the things that you enjoyed the most? Tell me more about your experience!  
Just the teaming up, wreacking havoc on all our foes! Also, setting your own challenges was fun. We used to organise Kamikaze Sundays, where everyone started with a fresh character and we started levelling together, playing until you died. No respawn, just a level 1 hardcore character and find out how long you last. Go dragon hunting, etc.

3. If you play the Game for years now, what are the things that hold you and make the game still enjoyable for you? What can you give me as an advice to highlight for myself when I play the game that I should appreciate?
I really should let someone else answer that. Although every now and then I get the itch to play again, I would not say I have played this game regularly for the past... *gasp* 13 years already?! 

 

And before I forget: welcome to the FDM

[Androdion 884]

For mutliplayer nowadays try this thread. I don't know how alive it I though, as I haven't been following it on recent times.

[Lindor 438]

13 hours ago, RicG said:

how I can level with maximum efficiency (iam Lv 40 now and I play on Gold Dif)

On the german forum they always said that the fastest way to gain experience is to do the blood forest quest over and over again in niob.

Here in the darkmatters forum there's also this topic: Sacred 2 13 levels in 5 minutes

 

And welcome to the forum 

 

[Androdion 884]

Valid point, in Niob. OP is in Gold though, and hitting the Blood Forest in Gold with a sub-par char is pretty much suicidal.  It's not an easy area and should only be approached when your char is fully developed, but afterwards it does provide a steady and hefty amount of XP that few areas can. It's a mix of huge density of mobs, lots of champions, several bosses, and a huge chain quest spanning the entire area.

The best areas for grinding XP are usually harder than the rest of the game's content, like Southern Hissil'Ta in the Swamp region. You have such a huge density of mobs, and some are so deadly, that if you get there casually you'll end up dead. But if you have a proper build then you can easily grind several levels on your way to mastery level. At Platinum and Niob difficulties you can easily grind a million XP in that region in what, 30 minutes?! Just head Southeast from the village and into the Swamp dragon's lair. It's great grind!

[Shinryuu 15]

Yo! It's too bad you didn't get to experience Sacred 1/2 when they were new. Especially Sacred 2 was so hype back then. Frigging Blind Guardian did a concert in game! Like Holy Hannah!. That was the craziest. I still remember endlessly running around in Thylysium trying to find the way to start the quest (Back then there was a dude there that said "Oh the concert is going to start soon". Clearview did not come to mind).

Anyway I just signed up to the forums since I'm so surprised this place is still alive. It's been a week tho, so not sure if this still helps, but as others have mentioned Orc Cave (It's buggy though, it *shouldn't* respawn, but it does, mostly I think because you kill the monsters and run back out too fast for the game to register, so it doesn't always work) and swamps, I have a bit more specific info.

Quests: It seems quests that also give gold give higher experience too. High star quests that are easily completed with gold rewards would give most experience, but since you are level 40 in gold, it's clear you cannot "Farm" quests since that's only possible in LAN free play. Quest rewards don't care about bonus experience, so I don't think quest experience is only good when combined with a high level char or at early game when killing speed is really bad. It's just nice to get a quest for killing mobs that you are already killing anyway for experience (There's a quest in swamps for killing undead for instance, although I don't get it because it's annoying to get to).

What I do at low levels is "Statue farming". There are experience statues all over the map (there's one right outside Sloeford). Some of these have massive mobs around them, and portals/monoliths nearby. Before you get high +experience bonuses on items, these will be far more effective with an Area of Effect build than anything else I have found. Remember that with ANY experience bonus on ANY item, you cannot get this bonus. Even experience bonus locked with enhanced perception (so it won't give statue bonus experience even if you don't have EP). The best ones I have found is the one near the monolith in the swamps near the boss there (Ruins of Gazath). Another is near Orc Region Za Zuruik portal, at the first crossroads. There's many more statues, but these are easy to get to, have absolute tons of mobs near them, and can be used to easily port to other portal areas and wipe the mobs out around there. North Hisilith portal is one I love, as well as the Grunwald portal can be great. The moment you go out of these portals you'll be surrounded by mobs and can easily Area of Effect them with the experience bonus from statue still active. Clearview portal also has a statue right near it, but it's mostly useful for lower levels as experience is not great there. Useful when doing undead legion quest chain, however. Mobs seem to not like respawning a lot, so it can be troublesome to only farm one area (I Find it really doesn't work).

Southeast swamps work with mentor potions or high +experience if you have high Detrimental Magic Effects reduction (you want minimum 60%, though probably 80% is better). This reduces the Root and DoT duration, it's best to also have some damage mitigation for the DoT Damage. Bloodforest requires high Combat Art block/reflection in my opinion, as well as the DME reduction/Damage Mitigation. Those eyes will kill you in the blink...of an eye if you don't. High HP or shields is also not a luxury there. It certainly can be done with certain chars at lower level, though. Some classes get good buffs with high combat art reflection and set pieces with DME/Damage mitigation. Seraphim, Dragon Mage, Temple Guardian come to mind. Invisible Shadow Warriors or High Elves should also be good. If you do not have the luxury of awesome items/Buffs with high numbers in these, you need to wait until level 75 and master Spell Resistance. This instantly gives large amounts of DME reduction (like 64% I think at level 75. 80% at 200) and permanently fixes the whole DoT/Root issue. Then all you need is gobs of HP or high CA reflection. Always be careful there tho, it's a graveyard of HC chars there.

 

Edit:

Oh right... why I still play the game and love it? I'm going to sound really old now, but new games are just terrible. I find myself going back to the same old games I used to play, and they remain enjoyable. Neverwinter Nights, Sacred 1/2, Dungeon Hack, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire II, Final Fantasy V... the list goes on and on. I really wish I could buy one of the new consoles and have as much fun with the new RPGs/RTS games as I have with these but as I've only been disappointed the console stuff is a no-go for me with the exception of NES/SNES/Playstation. The N64 was my last console and the very moment console gaming became trash in my opinion (although it still has some gems like Mischief Makers that I still play). After Playstation the quality just went off a cliff. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by Shinryuu