Sacred Underworld - What is the Attack Speed -% Stat/Modifier on Weapons? A Quick Question about a Stat in-game on Weapons

[SilverStreak809 3]

So I finally got the game up and running again finally, so happy to jump in again! But I was wondering, what is the As-% stat/modifier on weapons? It seemingly lowers attack speed with the weapon but I was wondering why that is or like how to get rid of it if you can? I noticed it on the Hack reward sword in the beginning of the game from the Smith quest.  Thanks for the help! Sorry if this is a dumb question.

[gogoblender 3,406]

13 hours ago, SilverStreak809 said:

So I finally got the game up and running again finally, so happy to jump in again! But I was wondering, what is the As-% stat/modifier on weapons? It seemingly lowers attack speed with the weapon but I was wondering why that is or like how to get rid of it if you can? I noticed it on the Hack reward sword in the beginning of the game from the Smith quest.  Thanks for the help! Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Hi SilverStreak809, and delighted your Sacred journey has led you to our little corner of the Universe where Ancaria lives!   That Hack sword is a always-generated unique that will always drop no matter what level you are... this is useful if you're trying to stay to a specific build...theres a list of weapons with these peculiar qualities on the sacredwiki here:

https://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:All_Class_Unique_Special_Quest_Items

Attack Speed modifies your right click actions button not your left click ( Combat Art Regen) .... it actually increases your attack speed, despite the negative sign.

A -10% Attack Speed means your attacks are 10% faster.!!

Faster attacks generally translate to more damage dealt per second (DPS) Valuable stat for toons who need rapid strikes like some gladiator or elf. 

Left click modifies CA's and you will see your regen drop pending on which slot you cast form.  Attack speed is very fun to work with, you can swing faster! Higher the AS the faster you can execute actions that are right click dependent.  Underworld is a elegant dance or balance tween the executions time of CA regens which comes from left click and the "swing" speed coming from the right.

Its actually kill speed and your delight with enemies dying quicker  that lets you know whether you got the balance right or not

Hack has an early game advantage, it will help you level up smoother, and you may not have access to better weapons yet.  

Hoping this questions helps!  And, my own take on questions asked here... every question is a perfect question because the person answering is not at solution yet.  

Keep asking, and welcome to DarkMatters!

gogo

 

PS I've invited @Sethi22 and @SLD and @xeypand  @VilyaTheWhite to this topic, as they have been working with Underworld over the last wee while recently  in some threads and modding  and may have even more in-depth and insightful analysis and info than  myself!    

[Sethi22 271]

Hi there, It's good to see people still play this great game! I think the - attack speed on the sword is because you don't have sword lore yet. Also if you see - movement speed on armors, it means you don't have the armor skill yet, or it's not high enough. Once you get the relevant skills to sufficient level, it will disappear.

[SilverStreak809 3]

Wait so its a buff to attack speed? When I put it on my attack speed dropped and felt like it swung slower to me.. but with CAs it's a buff? Sorry if I'm confusing things.

[Sethi22 271]

No, it's a penalty you have, until you have the skill that's needed. There are swords that can be swung without sword lore, without penalty, but some require the skill to be picked. And I think Hack is one of them. You'll swing it slower without sword lore. I don't know what char you play and if he-she can take sword lore already, but you can check it, if you start a gladiator for example who can take sword lore at the beginning. I think the penalty will disappear, or at least be smaller.

Edited July 14, 2024 by Sethi22

[gogoblender 3,406]

3 hours ago, SilverStreak809 said:

Wait so its a buff to attack speed? When I put it on my attack speed dropped and felt like it swung slower to me.. but with CAs it's a buff? Sorry if I'm confusing things.

Sacred underworld is pretty deep...besides us being able to work with the execution speed of right click vs Attack Speed modifier (AS) ...I believe each weapon TYPE  has its own native min-max Attack speed. range

daggers therefore are SUPER fast, while spears with their weight and length have longer swing time.  You'll find this for example with cross bows vs bows...bows are pretty fast, but cross bows, significantly more damage, but DANG do they ever take long to reload!!

Unless...you're in flight mode.. and have a Daemon build... Booyah...

theres a load of machine gun builds out there I believe...which transform the huge loading, attack speed of a cross bow into a ratatatattta thing of beauty

I hope I got this right guys?

Any Sacred Underworld fans out there please throw something at me if I'm wrong

just... not too heavy

gpgp

Edited July 14, 2024 by gogoblender

[Sethi22 271]

Well every weapon states what kind of skill it needs, it's in the top row of the tooltip. Sword lore, Blade combat, Ranged combat, whatever... If you see a - AS% number under it, it means, you're lacking the required skill, or it's not high enough, and you can also get this penalty if your char level is too low for an item. So the actual number is somehow calculated from the relevant skill, your char level, and the item level. Maybe someone can clarify the actual formula, I have no idea. And as mentioned before, the same applies to armor and movement speed. (Which can be a real pain in the beginning, as the better armors you find each slow you down, until you rise in levels, or take the armor skill. And some classes, like the Daemon or the Wood elf for example have to wait till level 20 to get it, meaning that at the beginning, you'll move like a snail. And you'll get slower, and slower, until it's almost unbearable:) But then once you reach the required level to get the armor skill, it's complete rejuvenation! You start a new life, and transform from a snail to a proper fighting machine!)

(Concerning the ratatata part, I think Assault dwarf with a gun takes the crown! )

 

Edited July 14, 2024 by Sethi22

[VilyaTheWhite 148]

16 hours ago, SilverStreak809 said:

So I finally got the game up and running again finally, so happy to jump in again! But I was wondering, what is the As-% stat/modifier on weapons? It seemingly lowers attack speed with the weapon but I was wondering why that is or like how to get rid of it if you can? I noticed it on the Hack reward sword in the beginning of the game from the Smith quest.  Thanks for the help! Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Im not quite sure what it is u are looking for, so Ill tell u what I know. Most weapons acquired on lower levels will slow down attack speed like Hack, because the item level is higher than you tho u can equipt it. This value will decrease as u level up or get the 'skill': sword lore (which increases attack speed and damage, while lowering the penalty u suffer from high level weapons). U can notice it with armors too, that high level armors will slow you're overal movement speed (this too decreases and then disappears altogether when you're level is high enough, u can limit and even remove this penalty with the 'armor' skill (which reduces a the movement slow penalty on armor pieces, which can stack, and also increase you're overal armor). 

In short high level sword like Hack on early game = -% attack speed due to you're lower level compared to the level of the sword
(IF the same occurs with bows ull need ranged combat, for spears/staves ull need long handled weapons, for axes ull need axe lore etc.
      To counter it: level up or get sword lore skill 

Same with armors of higher level = -% movement speed
      To counter: level up or get armor skill

[SLD 524]

4 hours ago, gogoblender said:

I hope I got this right guys?

Oh boy, what's going on here? Almost nothing in this thread makes sense.

So to answer the original question:
Every weapon and every armor piece in Sacred has an Item level and a required level to wear it. The required level is 20% lower and another flat 2 down example Level 10 items need level 6 to wear(11->7, 20->14 etc.).
Items that have a higher item Level than your character impose a speed penalty when worn. Armours reduce movement speed, weapons reduce attack speed. The closer your character level gets to the item level the smaller the penalty until it disappears at equal level. There is no benefit for being higher level than your item only a penalty for being lower.
This penalty can be reduced by putting points in armor lore(for armor pieces) and the appropriate weapon lore(for weapons). For the "hack" in question points in sword lore would help. The weapon lore and armor lore basically increase your character level for the calculation of this speed penalty meaning it can be brought down to no penalty this way.

The same mechanics apply to sacred 2 as well with the exception that the required level is only (Itemlevel*20%+1) lower.

 

 

8 hours ago, gogoblender said:

Attack Speed modifies your right click actions button not your left click ( Combat Art Regen) .... it actually increases your attack speed, despite the negative sign.

A -10% Attack Speed means your attacks are 10% faster.!!

8 hours ago, gogoblender said:

Left click modifies CA's and you will see your regen drop pending on which slot you cast form.  Attack speed is very fun to work with, you can swing faster! Higher the AS the faster you can execute actions that are right click dependent.  Underworld is a elegant dance or balance tween the executions time of CA regens which comes from left click and the "swing" speed coming from the right.

I have no clue what all this crap is about.
Left clicks make your character do basic attacks with their weapon.
Right clicks use the currently active combat art. Combat art regeneration has absolutely nothing to do with attack speed.
Combat art execution of weapon based combat arts can be effected by attack speed. Wether it is depends on the combat art. (see link below)

The different weapon types have different anymations for all characters and on horseback/in flying demon form. These anymation determine a basic attack rate with that type of weapon. This attack rate is then increased or reduced by your characters attack speed value. You find the current attack speed value when you hover the mouse over your resists in the inventory. There is no information on the different base attack rates visible ingame.
This post gives some more details on this and also on the combat arts that are effected by attack speed:

https://nightwolfe.proboards.com/thread/2343/attack-speed-info-guide-characters

Gogo what happened to you? Since when do you no longer know the difference between attack speed and combat art regenerations?
Combat art regeneration time formulas are known and listed on the wiki here:

https://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:CA_and_Spell_Regeneration_Formulae_(%2B_Base_Value),_by_Telenochek_and_Covenant_and_edited_by_Myles_(Part_1)

 

I hope this clears up most of the misinformation here and most importantly, answers the SilverStreak's question.

If any of Gogo's crazy ramblings are in fact true I'd love to hear more about that but so far these claims seem so outlandish that I just assume they are wrong.
In case someone wants to test them, I'm talking about attack speed penalties supposedly making combat arts execute faster, or regenerate faster or attack speed effecting regeneration times at all.

[gogoblender 3,406]

1 hour ago, SLD said:

Oh boy, what's going on here? Almost nothing in this thread makes sense.

So to answer the original question:
Every weapon and every armor piece in Sacred has an Item level and a required level to wear it. The required level is 20% lower and another flat 2 down example Level 10 items need level 6 to wear(11->7, 20->14 etc.).
Items that have a higher item Level than your character impose a speed penalty when worn. Armours reduce movement speed, weapons reduce attack speed. The closer your character level gets to the item level the smaller the penalty until it disappears at equal level. There is no benefit for being higher level than your item only a penalty for being lower.
This penalty can be reduced by putting points in armor lore(for armor pieces) and the appropriate weapon lore(for weapons). For the "hack" in question points in sword lore would help. The weapon lore and armor lore basically increase your character level for the calculation of this speed penalty meaning it can be brought down to no penalty this way.

The same mechanics apply to sacred 2 as well with the exception that the required level is only (Itemlevel*20%+1) lower.

 

 

I have no clue what all this crap is about.
Left clicks make your character do basic attacks with their weapon.
Right clicks use the currently active combat art. Combat art regeneration has absolutely nothing to do with attack speed.
Combat art execution of weapon based combat arts can be effected by attack speed. Wether it is depends on the combat art. (see link below)

The different weapon types have different animations for all characters and on horseback/in flying demon form. These anymation determine a basic attack rate with that type of weapon. This attack rate is then increased or reduced by your characters attack speed value. You find the current attack speed value when you hover the mouse over your resists in the inventory. There is no information on the different base attack rates visible ingame.
This post gives some more details on this and also on the combat arts that are effected by attack speed:

https://nightwolfe.proboards.com/thread/2343/attack-speed-info-guide-characters

Gogo what happened to you? Since when do you no longer know the difference between attack speed and combat art regenerations?
Combat art regeneration time formulas are known and listed on the wiki here:

https://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:CA_and_Spell_Regeneration_Formulae_(%2B_Base_Value),_by_Telenochek_and_Covenant_and_edited_by_Myles_(Part_1)

 

I hope this clears up most of the misinformation here and most importantly, answers the SilverStreak's question.

If any of Gogo's crazy ramblings are in fact true I'd love to hear more about that but so far these claims seem so outlandish that I just assume they are wrong.
In case someone wants to test them, I'm talking about attack speed penalties supposedly making combat arts execute faster, or regenerate faster or attack speed effecting regeneration times at all.

heh, I was saying up above that right click is attack speed and left click is combat arts...modified by regen time

and that weapon types have innate weapon AS ranges... swords have faster attack speeds than spears and cross bows have slower AS then small bows

 

gogo

 

[xeyp 53]

Okay, so first of all As: -x% is something that I was going to ask about myself when I got to it and now I'm 'forced' (in the best way possible) to confront it.

Here's our theses on As: -x%: 
@gogoblender : It's Positive, meaning AS: -25% increases your attack speed. Links it to an increase in Casting Speed for CAs?*
@Sethi22 : It's Negative, meaning AS: -25% slows your attack speed down. Rationalized as having similarity to Movement Speed penalties from armor.

First before we start I want to state that I have not performed manual counting of attacks per minute in game, instead I've looked at the itemization, confirming or denying my conclusion and therefore 
my take at this point is simply a conjecture, which by definition (for those of us that aren't native English speakers) is opinion based on incomplete information. 

*However, before I get to what I think is more likely I want gogblender to clarify something for me because
I'm a little confused. Let me quote you in full:
 

8 hours ago, gogoblender said:

Attack Speed modifies your right click actions button not your left click ( Combat Art Regen) .... it actually increases your attack speed, despite the negative sign.

A -10% Attack Speed means your attacks are 10% faster.!!

8 hours ago, gogoblender said:

Faster attacks generally translate to more damage dealt per second (DPS) Valuable stat for toons who need rapid strikes like some gladiator or elf. 

Left click modifies CA's and you will see your regen drop pending on which slot you cast form.  Attack speed is very fun to work with, you can swing faster! Higher the AS the faster you can execute actions that are right click dependent.  Underworld is a elegant dance or balance tween the executions time of CA regens which comes from left click and the "swing" speed coming from the right.

Its actually kill speed and your delight with enemies dying quicker  that lets you know whether you got the balance right or not

Hack has an early game advantage, it will help you level up smoother, and you may not have access to better weapons yet.  

Here's my confusion - and I believe it's purely a matter of punctuation, but I'd rather be thorough.
Let's call the Left Mouse Button "Weapon Auto-Attack" and the Right Mouse Button - "Casting".
"Attack Speed modifies your right click actions button (Casting) not your left click (Auto-attack) (Combat Art Regen).
   - Do you mean the opposite - that Attack Speed modifies the left click (Auto-Attack) and not your right click (Combat Art Regen**) 
         Also As: -x% definitely does not increase your attack speed despite the negative sign (test/evidence a bit below) but is exactly what @Sethi22 says it is.
         I also have a feeling that there's a link between how many levels you have in the specific weapon lore and how many levels above you a weapon of the same 
         lore can be without experiencing the As: -x% penalty - I just don't know if it's linear I.e. 1 lore level = +1 level above yours or logarithmic?
     Going back to the quote - doesn't Attack Speed increase both the Auto-Attack and Combat Art speed? I'm not sure about Spells, however, especially since they
     have a specific cast-speed increase from the related Skill I.e. Fire Magic Skills for Fire spells (Battle Mage).

Now back to gogoblender's quote and my confusion: "Left click modifies CA's and you will see your regen drop (de?)pending on which slot you cast from"
 confusion a) Based on my Left Mouse Button = Auto Attack -> Left Click modifying Combat Arts makes no sense? It is 2am here so I might be misreading something.
 confusion b) How do slots affect regen speed? Do you mean weapon slots, but you say 'cast from' and we technically cast from the right slots(Combat Arts), the left slots (weapon) we cast with/ via.
                      **Why are we confounding Regen and Attack Speed, in other words why are we talking about Regeneration in a conversation about Speed?
                      (double-checking if my fundamentals are off) Regen is downtime(time between executions), Speed is uptime(speed of execution) - correct?
                       (again this might sound sarcastic, but I'm really experiencing a short-circuit over here and want to know if 
                        I'm so tired I misread/misinterpreted simple stuff or maybe a fundamental assumption I have is wrong.)
In general this whole paragraph about Left click - Right click has left me perplexed, are we still talking about the original question or are you providing further information? 
(me being on one topic and someone quickly moving on to another does leave me confused quite often, so that might be it ;D)
Can I ask that you re-write it so that I can understand what you meant better <3 

Now here's the pudding... I mean the proof:
- Assuming gogoblender is correct would mean that As: -%x is not a penalty and therefore NOT under the effect of the ratio of Character level : Item Level 
- I first went to my lvl 1 Dwarf trader (with a whopping lv33 Trading) and went to look out for a As: -x% weapon.
  - I discovered something curious, level 1 Traders don't generate weapons over level 1, another finding is that there was no As: -x% weapon.
- I jumped on my Wood Elf (lvl 82) - she went to a merchant and quickly found many As: -x% items - however, no bow had it and she has Ranged Lore.
- Then I observed a pattern that outlined the requirements for As: -x% to appear on an item:
   a) It has to be of a level higher than that of the character.
   b) It has to be of a Weapon-TYPE Lore that the character doesn't have. 
           b-2) Could be that if a weapon is high enough level(but still wieldable) one must have Weapon-TYPE Lore level over a certain threshold to use it without the As: -x% penalty.
- Also, another observation I made:
   - Items at the same level above the character level have the same As: -x% making for a pattern that suggest relatedness to level, rather than (like regular attributes on items) unique values based on the item itself.

- The final nail in the coffin - the Wood Elf was quite close to hitting 83, so I found a sword at that level with As: -x%, I also bought 2 lvl 86 weapons with the same value for x in As: -x% and went Hunting.
This is the result (showing just the sword, the values for the lvl 86 weapons fell the exact same amount for both)

  

    As you can see this is the same sword, the difference in the damage and Price are due to natural stat increases in Dexterity & Strength because of scaling + Charisma ( for the sell price increase ) 
    Also the As is nowhere to be found. 

Now here's a question: 
 - We know that different characters are faster with different weapons and that the maximum attack speed is 220. Do we know if Cataract of Agility improves the attack speed if it's capped? 
   I will get to test it at some point soon(just haven't hit attack speed cap on my BM yet), but don't have the eq for a substantial Cataract of Agility level to guarantee a perceivable difference
   if there was a level dependent +x% Attack Speed that goes beyond cap just on this skill considering that it's a specialized Speed / Attack buff. I'm asking because the game is 'strange'
   enough to the point where this to could be the case. 

[xeyp 53]

48 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

heh, I was saying up above that right click is attack speed and left click is combat arts...modified by regen time

I still don't get that statement 
Is it a metaphor? If so and also assuming combat arts modified by regen time = Combat Art speed - where does that leave Skills that directly increase the Casting Speed of Combat Arts?

[gogoblender 3,406]

55 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

heh, I was saying up above that right click is attack speed and left click is combat arts...modified by regen time

and that weapon types have innate weapon AS ranges... swords have faster attack speeds than spears and cross bows have slower AS then small bows

 

gogo

 

Oops ..I stand corrected!!I just saw the wiki... LOL.. ahh, cant believe i got this wrong... my dearest apologies...I gogo shall recant!!!
Summon the excecutioner... I lay forth my neck for...

woah, wait^^ 


..... left click is attack speed and right click is cast..

left click is attack speed and right click is cast

sooooo..if I say this five times while looking at the mirror...will I get rewarded for recanting?

okay guys go on ... DO shoot heavy stuff at me!!

gogo

[xeyp 53]

14 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

Summon the excecutioner

This is getting ridiculous!
Just the other day I started a classic heavy(est) hitting Gladiator with a build centered around the hardest hitting 2Handed Axe Lore Weapons and multiplying that by the Fist of the Gods & Crit Strike and I named him the DoomSla.. I mean: 

... and you're calling for the executioner haha lol. The name is a riff on the Monty Python sketch Biggus Dickus, but Maximus Aximus sounds better than Biggus Axus Also even better(more ironic), when he finally finds the hardest hitting Axe ... that is a Two-Handed Hammer.

EDIT: 
I can't stop laughing - or should I be concerned - you got the Red Emoticon with an AXE. 
... his name is Red and has an Axe... Still unsure if this is mega funny or creepy hahah. Collective consciousness y'all.  

Edited July 15, 2024 by xeyp

[SLD 524]

3 hours ago, gogoblender said:

left click is attack speed and right click is cast

and sometimes right click is also attack speed according to the source I linked above.

At least we know now that the right click left click confusion was just a mistake.

So far my explanation seems the most coherent here and xeyp's data turned out just as expected.


I'm stlill baffled by the fact that noone here knew their way around this basic mechanic.
I just checked, the original Sacred handbook basically says the same thing I said above. Higher level stuff slows you down unless you're properly trained.
I guess there are some downsides to the new age of digital copies. No box, no handbook, no clue about the game
 

3 hours ago, xeyp said:

Do we know if Cataract of Agility improves the attack speed if it's capped? 

no we don't
 

3 hours ago, xeyp said:

if there was a level dependent +x% Attack Speed that goes beyond cap just on this skill considering that it's a specialized Speed / Attack buff. I'm asking because the game is 'strange'
   enough to the point where this to could be the case. 

I don't know how you got to the "level dependant" idea here but I agree that the game is strange enough for anything to be possible.
Btw. with Quick as a Flash there's another speed combat art like that, this time for the woodelf.

[Sethi22 271]

Lol, what were you smokin, Gogo, can I get some? For once I think I didn't write that big of a mess and I felt very clever actually answering a question and not asking it. (At least I knew it was a penalty, right? After two decades, that's something I guess. At least I didn't start ranting about left clicks and right clicks like this admin guy ) I just didn't know how it's calculated, as I hate maths and I despise of calculating things altogether. What really matters is getting your levels in and pounding the enemy into the ground afterwards. If however you are too low level, you can still decrease the penalty with the skill. So you can pound them into the ground earlier.

Edited July 15, 2024 by Sethi22

[xeyp 53]

4 hours ago, SLD said:

I guess there are some downsides to the new age of digital copies. No box, no handbook, no clue about the game

To be honest, Sacred Gold on Steam comes with a digital pdf of the handbook. (I believe, otherwise I don't know where I have it from*) But I've grown used to not reading those for ARPGs since the ones I've read followed a certain pattern:

- Very small amount of mechanistically useful info and mostly trivia / lore and very-very basic info (left click is for walking type stuff, although, (and here's the axe you asked for, with love and respect haha) @gogoblender should probably read this)
- If there is a guide section - it's very basic and even naïve with no regard for proper exploitation of mechanics - to the point where it's actively bad in higher difficulties where such exploitation is required to progress. 

So I assume by default that there isn't anything useful 

That being said: 
- This is a very basic piece of information 
- I have read the Sacred guide multiple times, so I should know better (though it was mostly due to nostalgia then actively looking for something)

In regards to the level-dependent idea (of the skill) I just followed regular game logic. 

- Higher CA level = higher CA properties.

However, you 'questioning' how I got that idea made me question myself and think of something else:

- I do think it's most likely if there's a somewhat 'hidden' increase in speed over cap, it's probably a static number like 5% or even a flat 20 pts increase.

- However, given both Sacred 1 and 2's mastery mechanics (for skills, not CA's I know) where at certain levels 50-100-150, there's a certain difference between what the skills return - So there is a possibility, however slim, if there is hidden speed buff over cap, that doesn't get bigger every level, it might get 'bumps' every 50 levels or so. Or maybe it doesn't appear until CA lvl 100.

It's all just speculations, trying to think like their game designers did to arrive at possible conditions for testing. 

But even 5% would be huge especially at higher levels, where all other avenues of damage scaling have tapered off, even critical strike chance.

EDIT - wrote it on a phone and in bed so editing + spelling was poor. 
* On my PC, can confirm in Sacred Gold's folder is "Docs" folder containing 21 page Manual, Map & Quick Start. (This is on Steam, I'm assuming the same is valid for. GoG)

Edited July 15, 2024 by xeyp

[SLD 524]

7 hours ago, xeyp said:

- Very small amount of mechanistically useful info and mostly trivia / lore and very-very basic info (left click is for walking type stuff, although, (and here's the axe you asked for, with love and respect haha) @gogoblender should probably read this)

I thought your Executioner was supposed to use "Fist of the Gods" not "Throwing Blades"

I agree on that such basic guides are usually quite useless. But that's the interesting part. I was wondering why this slowing down mechanic felt so common sense to me in the Sacred universe. Had a hunch, so I unburied the manual. Turns out I was right, it does introduce the basic idea of this. You're right as well that it is confusing naive and in this case even contradictory with itself claiming on one page that the speed penalty on armour could be reduced by agility(which is wrong) and on another page tells us the correct skill is Armor lore. I guess both might have made sense so it could have changed during developement. Interesting fact here is that agility would have been availible to all classes while armor lore is missing on the battle mage forcing him to crawl or ride a horse. I woder whether the developers originally thought of that
 

7 hours ago, xeyp said:

- Higher CA level = higher CA properties.

I understand. You thought the skill might not just have a speed bonus but also a hidden "maximum speed" bonus. I just thought the game is so weird it could be generally ignoring the cap on the skills speed bonus.

7 hours ago, xeyp said:

- However, given both Sacred 1 and 2's mastery mechanics (for skills, not CA's I know) where at certain levels 50-100-150, there's a certain difference between what the skills return - So there is a possibility, however slim, if there is hidden speed buff over cap, that doesn't get bigger every level, it might get 'bumps' every 50 levels or so. Or maybe it doesn't appear until CA lvl 100.

Skills(not CA's) in Sacred 1 don't have any mastery unlock mods and the Sacred 2 one's unlock new mods and a different scaling function at 75 but other than that there is nothing I like that that I know about. Your line of thought however is more correct than you give yourself credit for. If you were looking at CA's(not skills) there are lots of examples of things that only change at certain breakpoints like mages getting an extra meteor or another ice shard. So expecting a similar behaviour from an invisible mod on cataract doesn't seem so far off.
I agree that there should be more to this skill assuming the developers have put any thought into it at all. According to the wiki it gives more than 400% speed bonus at level 200 which would put a capped out one at over 1000% speed bonus. In a game that caps speed at 220.
But there are many things like that in the game, which just lead me to believe my assumption must be wrong
 

7 hours ago, xeyp said:

It's all just speculations, trying to think like their game designers did

I'm not sure they did.
After all, they also designed a whole Gladiator CA around throwing away your weapon.
 

[gogoblender 3,406]

10 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

Lol, what were you smokin, Gogo, can I get some? 

Nothing but the finest for my dearest DarkMatters!

gogo

[xeyp 53]

8 hours ago, SLD said:

Skills(not CA's) in Sacred 1 don't have any mastery unlock mods and the Sacred 2 one's unlock new mods and a different scaling function at 75 but other than that there is nothing I like that that I know about.

Yes, I am aware - but I meant that the idea was largely there - of certain breakpoints changing scaling in Skills and Improving certain attributes in Spells - even in Sacred 1.

8 hours ago, SLD said:

I thought your Executioner was supposed to use "Fist of the Gods" not "Throwing Blades"

Yeah, we should stop teasing @gogoblender as I'm already starting to feel his "Dagger Stare" and I feel a "Combat Kick" up my behind will follow :)) and if I dodge it poorly despite my "Heroic Courage" it'll be a "Back Breaker".

 

Ultimately I think you're right, a lot of things were seemingly not thought through, but at the same time the itemization and some other (more or less hidden) interactions allow for such a creative array of builds that I ultimately prefer it to a highly thought through but rigid and inflexible game.

[SLD 524]

6 hours ago, xeyp said:

but at the same time the itemization and some other (more or less hidden) interactions allow for such a creative array of builds

I hate hidden things. I want to know the rules so I can decide how to play around them. I don't like the need for finding the right bug by accident. Ok bugs will always be there and at least they're unintentional. But intentionally hidden mechanics are just so annoying. The devs could just have told us the details but no, someone has to put in countless hours of testing to figure it out.

hmm, to me the itemization always feels like this:
does it use special moves? -> everything has to have +reg special move
does it use spells? -> everything has to have +spell regen
Never felt very versatile there.

as for the creative array of builds, that is being allowed by the game being extraordinarily easy to beat. This allows for enormous inefficiencies in your build without causing you to fail. But when you examine some builds that weren't put together because the skills "looked cool" you quickly see a pattern of odd bugs and other unexpected irregularities being at work to make them imba.

6 hours ago, xeyp said:

I ultimately prefer it to a highly thought through but rigid and inflexible game.

I prefer some creative freedom over an inflexible/uncomplicated game as well. And the Sacred devs certainly hit their goal in making a fun and successful game. But I do want to know what made them decide stuff like that a character's gold amount should be stored in a signed integer. With no protection from overflowing either. One moment you are the richest guy in ancaria, your pockets stuffed with 2 billion gold, the next you're 2 billion in debt. Did some actual thought go into this? Was there a plan to use negative gold coins for something? 

[Sethi22 271]

11 hours ago, SLD said:

 the game being extraordinarily easy to beat.

 

Oh don't be so hard on us poor addicted souls! It was easy for you maybe, and easy with my poison trapper that I've just finished, after I don't know how many years, but believe me, I've suffered with this game a LOT! I lost countless "hardcore" characters in niobium, and even in lower difficulties. If it's so easy for you, I recommend playing it dead drunk in Nio Valley of tears! See how you fare that way! When you see multiple of everything and forget to use your protection spells- arts regularly... It is NOT that easy! Sometimes finding the space button can feel pretty challenging as well!  

Edited July 16, 2024 by Sethi22

[xeyp 53]

12 hours ago, SLD said:

as for the creative array of builds, that is being allowed by the game being extraordinarily easy to beat. This allows for enormous inefficiencies in your build without causing you to fail. But when you examine some builds that weren't put together because the skills "looked cool" you quickly see a pattern of odd bugs and other unexpected irregularities being at work to make them imba.

Now here's a semantic can of worms which I'm interested in dissecting with you. I'll take a few sentences to fully deconstruct the argument so bare with me.
The creative array of builds - depend on the game being extraordinarily easy to beat. 
Let me start with the underlined part, because it's just ambiguous, while the bolded part is more of an unintentional fallacy.  
   'Beating the game' would be completely unambiguous if the game was a completely linear experience, while the Campaign is, I don't think many people 
   serious about this or any other ARPG measure their wits (expressed via their build) based on the Campaign. Usually the real challenges 
   are optional. With the array of bosses Sacred has, it's no different. Also, even if it's the Campaign - which one, I'd argue that Underworld is like a half step above at least.
   Also, at what difficulty, is it under other arbitrary restrictions such as time?
   Beating the game I feel is a very subjective notion, add to that the open-world nature of Sacred and it becomes very muddy what that might entail. (completing all the side quests for example)
   However, for the sake of the argument let's assume that we all have the same idea about what beating the game is. 
The bigger offender here is 'difficulty'. 
      Let's define difficulty - while carefully differentiating the word from the concept of difficulty used in games. 
   The word stands for, and I'll just copy out of google here, for my ease: "a thing that is hard to accomplish, deal with, or understand". 
   However, I'd like to add that difficulty must also include intensity of effort - doing a simple thing a million times, while hard to accomplish is not difficult, but tedious. 
   In addition, difficulty implies that the thing that is being done is within the range of capabilities of whoever's doing it.
    (I find sayings like 'Too Hard' amusing as 'hard' would imply it's possible for you to accomplish it, but 'too' sends it out of the realm of hard, straight into impossible)
   And that brings us to the fact that even this simple definition implies a thing that something is done on by a doer, but we'll come back to that in a second.
      The concept of difficulty in games while carrying the same 'spirit' of meaning is slightly more complex as it is used to represent a range of, well, difficulty.
      That way we can have an "easy difficulty", without it being an oxymoron, but rather a descriptor of the effort and dedication required. 
   Now back to the Thing and the Doer.
 Assuming the Thing doesn't change, the Doer will. Even if the difficulty of the task changes (which IS the best method of getting better at anything) and becomes more difficult
 over time - as long as those jumps are still within the range of capabilities of the doer. This is actually crucial for difficulty in games to be a thing, otherwise there would just be games
 you can complete and games that you can't - and From Software would be absolutely bankrupt.
Also another question - how do you actually measure and more importantly communicate difficulty in games - because saying Dark Souls is hard, taken at face value would imply that everything is of one homogenous difficulty, which would be terrible for pacing by the way. But we subconsciously understand how difficult it is to communicate it so we do a broad generalization, an average - which in a way
is terrible, but it's the best that we can do without describing everything individually , because communicating difficulty efficiently is incredibly ...difficult (HA! :D) because of how subjective it is. 
It is a fallacy to assume that difficulty is and can be communicated objectively without full understanding of ourselves, who we are communicating it to and the task, because it is a relationship between the ability of an adaptable system(us) and the ability required to perform a task that stays the same. If you don't have full information of these three variables you're assuming and that is, when I think about it quite funny to imagine - like an interior designer who never met their paraplegic client (high shelf storage is a bi*tch) or two guys who have no experience in something assuring one another they'll crush it.
Difficulty IS measurable, but it's not objective* - it could be objective for identical systems that don't change, but we are never identical and ,when working correctly, change to fit the demands of the tasks we are subjected to.

(*It is barely even subjective as the doer will not remain the same after doing the thing, so what can be perceived as hard will never again be this hard, assuming you continue doing the thing (this is getting very sexual sounding, lol) )

Now with that semantic drivel out of the way, let's talk specifics. Sacred is not a skill game, the kiting is rudimentary, positioning takes minimal skill and if everything in your build comes together 
you can even ignore that unless you're trying to set a world record killing oddly positioned groups of goblins with a skill that has to be manually aimed. It is, however,  a game of knowledge of 
and exploitation of systems.
I'm sure I've heard a joke about old school ARPGs (since the new ones tend to actually have Action and a skill component) that you play the game in excel/paper and then the 100hrs in-game are
just trivial manifestation.
That being said let's really get specific since we've defined difficulty and where it is
in regards to Sacred - can someone with no knowledge of the game or its systems / mechanics sit down and complete:
- Bronze: Yes, that is definitely EASY.
- Silver: Starting to get really hot in here, very arguable, and definitely not for Underworld.
- Gold and Beyond - definitely not. 
What I don't think you realize, especially while saying you prefer "some creative freedom" is that the variety of builds is not a symptom of the game being easy, but of your understanding of how 
to exploit the systems in a game that has creative freedom to do so. Creative freedom implies that there are more ways than one to do something, the difficulty in Sacred, as we defined earlier is 
the knowledge required - and you have more than ample, certainly more than most - so it appears easy.
Look at it another way - a hypothetical Sacred-like that has narrow range of actual configurations of builds that can complete the game, it's actually just 2 of 8 classes that HAVE TO pick
certain 8 skills, put Attributes in a certain stat and farm for specific items - then the game for them is trivial, but for all other possible permutations and combinations it's not just hard, but impossible. 
Ignoring the fact that that would make all other skills, classes, items and their configuration simply superfluous - how do you even communicate the difficulty of the game, from which perspective.
Is it a trivial inflexible/uncomplicated game or is it an impossible but creative? (you're free to fail in any way you like)
 

13 hours ago, SLD said:

hmm, to me the itemization always feels like this:
does it use special moves? -> everything has to have +reg special move
does it use spells? -> everything has to have +spell regen
Never felt very versatile there.

This to me feels like that example personified only slightly less extreme. You're automatically excluding all builds that are not in a specific known-to-work meta bracket.
(and I'm excluding the exploit based builds)
Here's a simple question to prove this - what if the character uses neither special moves, nor spells and you have to ensure viability?
How would you build it then and would you look at items and itemization the same way?
What I refer to as itemization is that wide array of properties each item can roll with. You can have armors that add flat attack and swords that have flat defense etc. you can fill any holes you want to try 
and build anything you want.

Meta builds trivialize any game, that's their point, by definition.
  Chasing them exclusively is interesting in the beginning of a game's life or after a big update (like Leagues in PoE) when things are unclear and you use it as a tool to understand the systems for future 
  exploitation. In many cases the first such effective builds are how the game wants to work - at least in the apparent biases of its mechanics.
  (The only place where meta builds are really meaningful is in cases where you're racing with others - even then depending on the game and its state some builds are banned because the game's
  mechanics or an exploit simply coincide to make them the only most effective choice.)
If you always do what you know works, how can you find something that might work better or just as good?
(and I'm factoring in fun and other personal goals here as well, I've played the acclaimed GoW BM builds, was fun for the first 50 levels and can probably beat the game with ease, bit it definitely wasn't doing it for me in terms of fun.) 

Now, Sacred certainly doesn't have PoE's complexity so our pool of cross-interacting mechanics that can be used to turn the game around and reinvent the meta-wheel is very much
non-existent in comparison. But we do have a much bigger range of builds that can be viable* and ARPGs' most potent gameplay loop is the thinking, and the main goal is the the
application of accumulated knowledge to do what you want, in the specific way that you want to do it - within the confines of the system, while completing whatever goals you have, possibly
deriving from that a certain class fantasy as well as the feeling of "intellectual" accomplishment. (it feels good to beat the system in whichever way you pick, lol)
The joke I said earlier is somewhat bound in truth, gameplay is seldom the best feature of this genre, it's the depth and ability to modify how you get to your subjective goals as well as to an shared end-game.

Judging by myself and looking at other ARPG communities like PoE, Grim Dawn etc. - after the mechanics are well understood, a lot of the people interested in building switch to "meme builds", to things
that are unlikely to work or even shouldn't and then try to force them to viability and with some compromises they almost always make them work. In some cases that gives rise to a new meta, it always gives new insights and it's never easy.

(*I wouldn't call them enormous inefficiencies(from your reply), you still have to play by the rules and plug the holes or your ship will not traverse the troubled waters of the higher difficulties)

14 hours ago, SLD said:

I hate hidden things. I want to know the rules so I can decide how to play around them. I don't like the need for finding the right bug by accident. Ok bugs will always be there and at least they're unintentional. But intentionally hidden mechanics are just so annoying. The devs could just have told us the details but no, someone has to put in countless hours of testing to figure it out.

The rational part of me agrees, but the creative's response would be - without mystery there is no intrigue. 

@gogoblender attack speed this, attack speed that, I swear we're on topic. 
Do you agree, where do you stand on difficulty and finding your fun in Sacred/ARPGs.

[SLD 524]

On 7/16/2024 at 11:11 AM, Sethi22 said:

Oh don't be so hard on us poor addicted souls!

On 7/16/2024 at 11:11 AM, Sethi22 said:

I recommend playing it dead drunk in Nio Valley of tears!

No I will not poison myself, life is bad enough already.
It's also quite an odd idea to claim a game can't be easy because dead people can't beat it.

On 7/16/2024 at 11:11 AM, Sethi22 said:

It was easy for you maybe, and easy with my poison trapper that I've just finished, after I don't know how many years, but believe me, I've suffered with this game a LOT! I lost countless "hardcore" characters in niobium, and even in lower difficulties

The game does not require you to play "hardcore". You can die as often as you want. I'm also pretty sure that more than 90% of all characters ever created, never reached niobium. Those characters though weren't abandoned because they could no longer make any progress at all. They were abandoned because it got boring or too tedious to progress. Yet the players of those characters probably did not feel like they missed out on something, that there was something they couldn't reach, but wanted to. As the game looks the same in all difficulties, there's nothing new to experience in niobium. I have never played the niobium campaign and I have never reached maximum level either. I always got sidetracked, starting a new character or playing a different game. I don't feel like I haven't beaten the game, that there is still something I have to achieve. I know the game won't suddenly change in the last 30 lvls when it hasn't changed the previous 100 lvls. The character is decked out in 400% bonus xp yet I still can't be bothered to continue, as the feeling of progress is just gone. When I say the game is easy and that creates room for all kinds of crappy builds, I mean there is nothing forcing you to restart with a better character. You aren't forced to play the campaign, there is no necessary goal to reach at a certain character level or in a certain timeframe or on limited resources. And the minimum requirement to still make progress, to level your character, gather loot, or finish a quest is so low that with a character that can barely beat one goblin at a time(yes a bit exaggerated) it is still not impossible to continue making progress. The guy that for some odd reason decided his character had to be a purgatory battle mage isn't excluded from seeing all content the game has to offer. It will take him a while but it's still doable.
Imagine if the game was "difficult" and you needed a character of a certain quality, like your trapper to continue the campaign past a certain point. Some kind of brick wall like enemies regenerating life faster than you can kill them etc. Mr purgatory would have to abandon his mage for something that actually works to see the end of the campaign or to find out that higher difficulties look just like the lower ones as you have to reach them first to find out. You wouldn't consider the game as having a lot of space for creativity in your character design, if the journeys of purgatory man and the likes of him would end at porto vallum. The game would be "hard", as you would have to learn how to play it, what works well and what doesn't etc., or you would be excluded from the rest of the content. Sacred is "easy" because purgatory man can get through the campaign even if he decides to make a melee hybrid out of his "build"(there's always a way to make it worse ). He might even make it all the way to niobium if he wanted to and wasn't entirely clueless. Won't be a fast build, won't be a strong build, but because the game difficulty allows it, it's gonna be a trash build that made it all the way. And then he's gonna write a guide on the amazing melee/purgatory hybrid battle mage. And that's where we get to see what kinds of odd stuff people play and that there's a "creative array of builds". If Sacred where a "hard" game you'd only see a few "good" build guides and lots of people on the forum complaining that the game was impossible to beat because their throwing blades gladiator went bankrupt after accidentally throwing too many expensive weapons into the ocean...

I hope that clarifies a bit what I was thinking there.

 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

Now here's a semantic can of worms which I'm interested in dissecting with you.

You certainly wrote an impressive essay, sadly I lack the capabilities of understanding and remembering it's contents properly. THe language barrier doesn't make it easier either. I feel like I understand it when I read it, but when I ask myself what the paragraph I just read was about I'm unable to find the answer
Have been rereading certain parts over and over and am slowly starting to see some of it stick... You have some amazingly well structured thoughts there...
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

Assuming the Thing doesn't change, the Doer will. Even if the difficulty of the task changes (which IS the best method of getting better at anything) and becomes more difficult
 over time - as long as those jumps are still within the range of capabilities of the doer. This is actually crucial for difficulty in games to be a thing, otherwise there would just be games
 you can complete and games that you can't - and From Software would be absolutely bankrupt.

there are certainly games that I can complete and games that I can't. That doesn't cause any bankruptcies because I am neither the only potential customer nor am I capable to perfectly distinguish these two types of games before I try(buy) them. There may also be people intentionally chosing to engage with games they can't complete for various reasons that may or may not be related to their ability to complete them.

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

I'm sure I've heard a joke about old school ARPGs (since the new ones tend to actually have Action and a skill component) that you play the game in excel/paper and then the 100hrs in-game are
just trivial manifestation.

Long before there were video games, we already had countless board and card games that skipped the excel sheet and went directly to the trivial manifestation. As a disabled person I who may not have the ability to follow the common advice "l2p"/"git gud", I certainly like the presence of games like sacred that don't demand that much skill from the player
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

What I don't think you realize, especially while saying you prefer "some creative freedom" is that the variety of builds is not a symptom of the game being easy, but of your understanding of how 
to exploit the systems in a game that has creative freedom to do so. Creative freedom implies that there are more ways than one to do something, the difficulty in Sacred, as we defined earlier is 
the knowledge required - and you have more than ample, certainly more than most - so it appears easy.
Look at it another way - a hypothetical Sacred-like that has narrow range of actual configurations of builds that can complete the game, it's actually just 2 of 8 classes that HAVE TO pick
certain 8 skills, put Attributes in a certain stat and farm for specific items - then the game for them is trivial, but for all other possible permutations and combinations it's not just hard, but impossible. 
Ignoring the fact that that would make all other skills, classes, items and their configuration simply superfluous - how do you even communicate the difficulty of the game, from which perspective.
Is it a trivial inflexible/uncomplicated game or is it an impossible but creative? (you're free to fail in any way you like)

I must admit, I never thought about the possibility that someone could find joy in intentionally failing  
I consider sacred easy because it's not impossible for purgatory man to complete it. I may have a lot more knowledge about the game mechanics but that knowledge is not required. The opposite would be something like poe where I can have as much knowledge as I want and still won't beat it as the developers actively push that skill requirement in there that I might not be capable of overcoming. I also don't have infinite amounts of time to rise to the challenge as the game gets replaced by a new one every couple of months. Both the knowledge from before and progress you have made in the past may just turn to worthless dust when the next patch hits. So we got time constraint, the need for knowledge and having that, not being enough, compared to sacred's do whatever you want and you'll be fine.
Interestingly both games have a creative array of builds. Now that I think of it they are quite similar, as when you increase the difficulty most trashy sacred builds would disappear, but it would be exactly the same in poe. There's just a seemingly higher minimum requirement for poe builds...

As for the superfluous character configurations in your hypothetical, from my perspective we already have superfluous combat arts like "throwing blades"...
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

Here's a simple question to prove this - what if the character uses neither special moves, nor spells and you have to ensure viability?

well usually I would start by asking myself wether it could be better when I did include a special move or spell. I can only come up with one case of a build where the answer wouldn't be an obvious "yes". You can use the full Icon set in conjunction with a full fadalmar set. That basically requires no combat arts to successfully level up etc. What would I do about the gear? Well I don't need any regen boni so I can go for the next thing I would want. Some leech is required but other than that I'd guess it's +xp because I'm impatient or +mf when I'm curious about what else could drop... Maybe there are modifiers that can scale the fadalmar fireballs, that is one piece of knowledge I'm missing right now, but if I knew something that helped the built I might consider it here.
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

Meta builds trivialize any game, that's their point, by definition.
  Chasing them exclusively is interesting in the beginning of a game's life or after a big update (like Leagues in PoE) when things are unclear and you use it as a tool to understand the systems for future 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

If you always do what you know works, how can you find something that might work better or just as good?

I enjoy trying to make the best builds and those are obviously subjective as things like fun are part of that as well. I only very rarely try to make something work of which I know it is "bad". If I come upon an Idea of something I havent tried that might be good/interesting, I try it. I might miss out on build options that I misjudge but I can't just play everything and I'm certainly not motivated to play a build that I expect to be crap all the way to endgame just to prove that it is.

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

ARPGs' most potent gameplay loop is the thinking, and the main goal is the the
application of accumulated knowledge to do what you want, in the specific way that you want to do it - within the confines of the system, while completing whatever goals you have, possibly

I am usually challenged enough by trying to make my character the best for a certain purpose. I don't often feel the need to confine myself first and then make the best under those restraints. 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

a lot of the people interested in building switch to "meme builds"

Seems like I remain stuck in the finding the meta phase and never get so bored by it that I move on to maken odd stuff work.
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

(*I wouldn't call them enormous inefficiencies(from your reply), you still have to play by the rules and plug the holes or your ship will not traverse the troubled waters of the higher difficulties)

most of those ships probably didn't, but they still happily sailed across ancaria.
 

13 hours ago, xeyp said:

attack speed this, attack speed that, I swear we're on topic. 

yes of course, we were just discussing how fast your executioner can throw blades at Gogo

uff this one took me almost 5 hours. I hope it was worth it.

[Sethi22 271]

But it does change in the last 30 levels! The difficulty skyrockets at the end of Nio. Of course really well built, strong chars can make it, or it can even be easy for them, but if you play hardcore (And I do, because that way it's far more challenging, even if the game doesn't force me to,) You'll likely lose a bunch of them before getting to a point where you can beat the endgame. For me, playing before Niobium is rather misleading because of this. As you can feel tough as nails and feel ready for anything. But the real test comes at the end! Oh how many times I thought I was ready for it, but I wasn't! Beating Platinum difficulty means abolutely nothing, as even tankier chars can die easily at Nio Valley if not careful. Not to mention the squishier ones, that have no defensive skills, apart from a crappy leech shield maybe... If you haven't tried it yet, I bet it could even be challenging for you if your're not drunk at all. I'm really not a great or resourceful player, and probably know less about rules and calulating stuff in the game than most of you. But what I am, is stubborn. As a mule. And a build is not finished until Nio Anducar is lying in front of me. And if I die, I start a new one.  And I'm so in love with this game, that getting bored with it is out of the question.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Sethi22