Popular Post SLD 524 Posted July 18, 2024 Popular Post Posted July 18, 2024 8 hours ago, Sethi22 said: But it does change in the last 30 levels! The difficulty skyrockets at the end of Nio. Is that based on actual experience going from a lvl 186 char to a lvl 216 char? 8 hours ago, Sethi22 said: And a build is not finished until Nio Anducar is lying in front of me that woulld certainly happen long before lvl 186 right? 8 hours ago, Sethi22 said: 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.. there are no really tanky chars. The game has "defense rating", life, armour resistances, and some chars have CA with a "blocking" mechanic. As defense and blocking are chances that never reach 100% protection, they just make the inevitable less likely to happen. Relying on those, a streak of bad luck will still kill you if you played long enough. Obviously high enough values here could put the required playtime assuming you're not uberly unlucky way past your lifespan. But it remains a defense based on luck. Life and resists have certain boundaries. You can't have infinite values here yet a kinda "tanky" character might have more than another. All those mechanics basically do the same thing, they increase the time you get to react to being attacked before you are dead. And in that timeframe you have to refill your life pool by either doing something that causes enough leech or drink a health potion. Those are the only two reasonable reactions to taking damage. Higher level enemies and higher level players, the numbers might change around, but the core game remains the same. You can try to reduce the amount of damage you take with "strategy", using crowd control skills or preparing traps beforehand using the shape of the environment to your advantage and pulling only low numbers of enemies at once. All valid choices to prevent the more dangerous encounter that might kill you. Advancing in the other direction might sometimes also be a wise choice. Did I miss some part of the defensive game mechanics you wish to add here? I think UW added some kind of spell resist mod though I have to admit I have no clue how it works. What you're talking about squishy characters that have no defensive skills apart from a "crappy leech shield", I don't understand that one. All characters have access to constitution agility and parrying. Everyone that isn't a battle mage gets the "armor" skill, battle mage has spells that give resist bonuses for a duration. The real differneces start with the base life pool: The character classes base attributes make a lot of difference here and the question wether your build allows you to put your attribute points into strength/PhyReg. Beyond that it's just the characters combat arts. Gladiators can scale defense rating Seraphims get missile block dwarves can scale defense and resists demons can scale defense or resists Battle mages can scale resists and all kinds of block Vampiresses and Wood Elves get nothing and Dark Elves get evrything except resists. Everything beyond that is gear choices that may or may not fit in your build. Did I miss something here? And please explain what you meant by the "crappy leech shield". 8 hours ago, Sethi22 said: If you haven't tried it yet, I bet it could even be challenging for you if your're not drunk at all. Well I have played "real" hardcore characters back in closed net times. Dying usually happened when over confidence set in. Nowadays you are right. It might be impossible for me to beat anything more difficult now that it is already difficult to find the items inside my inventory. At least being drunk is an affliction that may pass, my disabilities will not. So you're right, I have absolutely no "player skill" and wether I can build a character that will beat the game for me, I do not know right now. That depends on the exact metrics of the number scaling stuff etc. Niobium might be too difficult. I'm not sure wether I will ever find out, because that would require a lot of boring levelling through the lower difficulties and I'm just not committed enough to getting there. There's also the problem that the game has very little qol and picking up items looking through the inventory stuff like that can be kinda painful. Who designedthat dumb transperent inventory? Sacred 2 is a lot more "no-skill" friendly. Auto pickup, the ability of making invulnerable characters etc. makes it just so much more accessible. But even there the boring gameplay loop keeps me from reaching max level. I just start playing something else One last thought for your hardcore endeavors. We just recently discovered that there is another "reliable" defense mechanic in the game. Should it actually be true, that there is no exception for the "cheat death" mechanic that makes you invulnerable for a few seconds instead of letting you die immediately, it would trivialise "hardcore". You will already be building a character that only rarely gets into this situation and the moment you die, I mean don't die, you just leave the game. There should be enough invulnerability time to do so. I just had that weird metaphor pop in my head. Imagine you're a soccer player. You have a lot of current game experience, you know how it's played... Then I am a guy in a wheelchhair, I have distant memories of playing it, now all I can do is bump my chair into the ball. I still know the ball is round and the grass should be green, but I wouldn't notice if someone spraypainted the grass blue. And yes, the wheelchair thing is an exaggeration(as I can still somewhat play sacred) but the grass thing is not. Told you it was weird 1 1
Sethi22 293 Posted July 18, 2024 Posted July 18, 2024 (edited) Ok, I give up! You know way more about the game than I do. I'm not here to argue with you, we're family here. And if you like Sacred 2 more, that's absolutely fine with me, as I love it too. What I wanted to tell you is how hard the game gets is up to you. If it feels too easy, go higher difficulty. If it still feels too easy, do it hardcore! If still easy, get most of your runes through quests as it was intended instead of duping them! Maybe that won't make the game actually harder, but it will sure make you think about what combat arts you pick up, and plan ahead. If still too easy, forget about your stored items and use only the ones you find with that char. And IF after all this you still find it too easy, you can still try different states of mind to make it more challenging. But of course it's totally up to you, how far you take it. I played my fair share of hack and slash games, and I wouldn't say Sacred 1 is among the most challenging, but it's not extraordinarily easy to beat either. But how on earth did we get here? Look at what you started SilverStreak809! I'm done with this topic. Good night guys! Happy hunting! Edited July 18, 2024 by Sethi22 1
SLD 524 Posted July 18, 2024 Posted July 18, 2024 10 hours ago, Sethi22 said: Ok, I give up! You know way more about the game than I do. And I had hoped I'd learn something new at least tell me what you meant with that "crappy leech shield" 10 hours ago, Sethi22 said: I'm not here to argue with you Neither am I. I love it how your suggested path to raising the challenge takes all the way to step number three to consider "not duping runes" 10 hours ago, Sethi22 said: I wouldn't say Sacred 1 is among the most challenging, but it's not extraordinarily easy to beat either. As xeyp the wise has stated in his master's thesis, to beat the game might mean anything from finishing the bronze campaign to fulfilling your dream of bathing in niobium anducar's blood. I mentioned lack of difficulty as reason for the "creative array of builds" because I was certain that while many of these characters may have been able to finish the bronze campaign, almost none of them ever bathed at all. 1
xeyp 53 Posted July 18, 2024 Posted July 18, 2024 (edited) On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: And that's where we get to see what kinds of odd stuff people play and that there's a "creative array of builds" Best compliment I've received in a while. Odd is the new sexy haha. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: 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... Again, define good, what does good mean - does it bring more fun, is it the most effective DPS? In the Grim Dawn community there's a solution to this problem by using a late in-game metric. When browsing the builds in forums or an auxiliary site they're rated based on how many floors it can complete in a floor based end game activity, that only gets more difficult. And another one from a DLC that is based on waves of monsters that get progressively harder. Not all builds that can fully complete all floors can do all the waves and vice versa - additionally there are many, very highly rated builds (possibly the most Fun Per Second) that can't fully finish either. If Sacred build guides were measured using metrics like - "can finish Niob this and that" and even timing certain bosses known for their tankiness and giving accurate estimate of strength versus things that the build is strong against and those it isn't - you would see that the case is that there really are fewer and fewer builds that can compete at the highest levels. Like you I don't necessarily think they all should be able to do everything well. After all that is the point of difficulty to be a filter(as you pointed out a little later), but to still allow you in the earlier ones to play and learn what works and what doesn't, so you can start again with improved knowledge and reach further next time, so little to no build should be viable to begin with and the requirements should only get more stringent. What we both are missing here is the perspective on how Niob scales, as I have a feeling from all of the information I've gathered, that the scaling is much harsher. @Sethi22 definitely adds to my suspicion. I also think that design-wise, we don't have 'cow level' or 'maps' or any other iteration of endgame content ( to be fair it would've been a shame given how gorgeous Ancaria is) but in an ARPG world dominated by 3 difficulties at that time we have 4+1, but if I had to fit them into diablo's Normal, Nightmare, Hell - I'd say bronze is Easy. So we have 3 difficulties + a bonus one for Challenge, I think Niob is our cow level. Also, if purgatory-hybrid man CAN beat Niob's hardest bosses, but isn't exactly optimal to the last attribute point that doesn't make him bad, just less efficient - however, consider that the hybrid build, while lacking in Damage Per Second, may offer a much better Fun Per Second. And as the great saying goes - if it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: I must admit, I never thought about the possibility that someone could find joy in intentionally failing I almost have a belief that a presumption of possible failure and the challenges that would entail is almost a prerequisite to wanting to engage in the task anyway. If you know with certainty that you CAN, why do it? (I'm certainly not talking about survival stuff here, thankfully I don't have to question whether or not I can fix my next meal ) On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: 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. Again, 'beating' PoE is loaded with ambiguity. Last time I played I watched a few guides, learned what ballpark of defensive and offensive stats I required and tried fixing up something that I wanted to play. The result is I finished all of the acts and even started doing some starter maps. Was my build inefficient - absolutely, thankfully they have re-spec so I was able to fill some holes and get some gear to fill other holes - what happened is I managed to progress a few levels further into mapping, then a stone wall again, but stone walls usually have writing on them and you learn and adapt, but that's besides the point what I was trying to say is that I got nowhere near Uber bosses. Did I feel like I beat the game? Sure, I went through the whole campaign, which was my goal for this character. Next character might've had the goal to finish all map levels and maybe attempt and Uber boss. As you know much better than I, assuming I'm a little younger, 'Beating' as a term comes from a time where games had much smaller scope and were of mostly linear style - it is a synonym for completing / completion. You (theoretically can) but practically CANNOT complete modern ARPGS. That would entail slaying all monsters, collecting all possible permutations of loot, trying all characters and all possible combinations of builds, which is why people set particular, unambiguous goals. So if you brush on its mechanics slightly and set an achievable goal I definitely think you can 'beat' that goal and have fun doing it. What I don't personally like about PoE, thought, and why I love Sacred and have high hopes for PoE II is the blazingly fast pace of clearing. It's just not attractive, all character fantasy is lost, they're all just blazing blazers of the blaze, everything dies so fast it doesn't matter how, everything reacts so quickly it doesn't matter what mechanics were involved. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: As for the superfluous character configurations in your hypothetical, from my perspective we already have superfluous combat arts like "throwing blades"... While for the specific case of 'Throwing blades' I agree absolutely - but every game has elements that are superfluous, game devs and designers simply cannot comprehend all of the possible combinations that may arise and what combination can make something else irrelevant. What matters is the proportion of superfluous things to those that aren't. Additionally, having been around ARPG communities enough, I can safely say that a lot of what is initially deemed superfluous could and does find viability, with enough creativity on the part of the builder. In fact I've seen superfluous turn into meta, the moment the perspective changes on how to approach builds. Different types builds require different gear. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: well usually I would start by asking myself wether it could be better when I did include a special move or spell. And here's my point on that continuing from the last paragraph. Approaching the question of a character that uses no CA or Spell with 'it could be better if with CA or Spell' negates the whole thought experiment by way of simply ignoring it's premise. Yes, CAs scale offenses very well, we know that and the game definitely leans towards that direction, however that is a singular type of build. As you yourself said, building this way you simply look of + Regen Spell/Special move on all characters and + to the particular skill. Btw, why Fadalmar and not Orla-Isling, you are fighting groups of monsters most of the time. Maybe even have both On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: 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. Absolutely, I get your point in general - if you know something works, why change it(too much) and I certain feel that we simply have a slightly difference perspective about reaching the same goal. You said that you feel like you haven't gotten out of chasing the meta, I wouldn't say I am not chasing 'a meta' I just think your approach is to stick to incremental improvement and min-maxing and I also assume you enjoy the 'manifestation' quite a lot, maybe a little more than myself perhaps. I try shooting in different directions to try and find alternative methods to reach a meta and then by enriching my mechanical vocabulary, loop back around and see what I can combine from the 'traditional' meta and what I've learned along the way. This is definitely not an original approach, I always try to learn from people who are much better than I, and am always fascinated by seeing something so bizarre that you ask yourself 'How did they think of that?'. Many times it's obvious, which makes it even more fascinating. I certainly wouldn't play something I EXPECT to be bad, let me rephrase myself: - After some time the playerbase of any ARPG knows where it generally leans(biases) towards in terms of builds. For Sacred that would be the complete and utter focus on CA's and Spells as a means of scaling damage and keeping their cooldown as low as possible. - Everything opposed to that general direction is more or less considered as un-optimal at best and unplayable at worst. Without any evidence of potential, there is no point in trying something you know is bad. For example by playing you come across a certain type of item here and there and you start to see a pattern that could be exploited with so and so character class. If there's no potential and it's proven it's bad, there's no need to try it out until something changes - I'm an empiricist first, so I'll never deny the data. My personal belief is that, knowing what works and sticking to it, gives little to no reward ( in terms of knowledge ) you'll certainly not uncover something new by doing the same thing time after time. Testing a hypothesis about an idea you have on something that MIGHT work, however, is almost entirely reward - even when you fail you will learn for certain that something doesn't work. For example, I am testing a character right now that isn't relying on spells or special moves offensively as I saw a pattern in the itemization ripe for exploitation and additionally a few weapons that are custom fit for the idea as a whole, one of which is easily obtainable and doesn't rely on RNG. I want to see whether it scales into the higher difficulties as I hope and whether it's a viable path for building for other characters, it would be an alternative to the 'type' of solely relying on CAs/ Spells for damage (I'm definitely not saying it will be better, just hoping it will be viable). What I am finding so far, after a really slow start - is that I can actually scale defense really well from the strategy and that I might start thinking about using it on CA based characters. Additionally, items that are very useful for this build are not considered very special by the game, due to it's design biases. I'd rather not go into detail, because I'd rather not contribute builds that work in gold and plat, but taper of in Niob. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: uff this one took me almost 5 hours. I hope it was worth it. Whatever impression of structured thought you might have been left with, it came after at least 2 hours of re-writes. But I think we both got our points across and believe we fully(should) understand each other's perspective. I, again, thank you for engaging with me, it's been a pleasure as always. On 7/17/2024 at 3:52 PM, SLD said: most of those ships probably didn't, but they still happily sailed across ancaria. And that's what matters most! - also on your post from next page, don't you use Sacred UW's auto pick (keybound to A)? Disable the pick-up animation from the settings and it's much faster. Sure it's not as fast as Sacred 2's if items are spread far apart, but usually they aren't. @gogoblender you sir have missed a whole lot of words over here! Edit: fixing wonky formatting after posting Edited July 18, 2024 by xeyp
xeyp 53 Posted July 18, 2024 Posted July 18, 2024 11 hours ago, Sethi22 said: I'm not here to argue with you, we're family here. I think arguing gets a bad reputation from screaming parents/ adults. I feel that we're simply presenting each other's points of view calmly and seeing what we can learn from one another I, xeyp the wise ;) , certainly am. There's no way for me to know you guys and gals better without the exchange of ideas Either we find out we agree, but word things differently - or have a certain angle that is correct for both parties(and we get to know one another better), or someone is wrong - which ultimately means, especially if I'm wrong, that I get to learn something and that's a 10/10 "master-thesis-was-worth-it" experience. I will definitely try to be as succinct as possible, but I'm afraid I'm not as good with verbal communication as I would like, so I write longer posts, which I hope to be able to trim down in the future while still retaining the same message. 53 minutes ago, SLD said: almost none of them ever bathed at all. Are you crazy, in this weather?
Sethi22 293 Posted July 18, 2024 Posted July 18, 2024 (edited) 23 hours ago, SLD said: at least tell me what you meant with that "crappy leech shield" Ok, I can't let you suffer. It's my bad, I said squishier characters lacking defensive skills. Of course I meant strong defensive combat arts, like Heroic Courage, War cry, Adrenaline, and so on. Compared to a Wood elf, who can only rely on her COTA or the RBOL of the Sera... Even my last poison trapper, who was by far the easiest char I've played (with his maxed out Adrenaline) had his moment, when a Nio Frazzler crept up on him from behind, while he was studying his inventory:) Oh man! I checked afterwards, the guy had 8% chance to hit me. But of course he did immediately, and the whole combo came through, resulting in like 50K damage. I was so happy I took riding and was on my mount! It would have been curtains if on foot. So I wouldn't call a game extraordinarily easy to beat, where one single creature, who's not even a boss, maybe not even a champion, just a regular guy in the endgame can oneshot you easily. And they of course come in hordes... Bosses are actually the easier part, it's cruising around in the Valley and the Ridge that was the most challenging part for me. Edited July 19, 2024 by Sethi22 1
Sethi22 293 Posted July 19, 2024 Posted July 19, 2024 (edited) But you know what, @SLD? I really respect your knowledge about this game, although I find it a bit sad that you don't play it any more and also that you don't want to drink with me (Just please don't quote this drinking part again, because I can already feel the ever watchful eye of @gogoblender upon us! I can feel his anger growing! Sooner or later he will surely strike at us with his unearthly powers, lifting this whole topic into the "The Daily Grind: Real life right here" section, (and then anybody interested in the AS mod on the Hack sword will never find it! )) But what I wanted to ask you is this: Remember the overflowing numbers thing you said to me a while ago? About the damage cap on single element damage? Now THAT was some really interesting stuff, that I think every sacred player should know! If there's a topic for it already, I've never read it. Could you point me to one, and if there is none, and if you have the will and the time, could you start a new topic about that and explain that in details? I've been thinking about that ever since, as it's really game changing information I had absolutely no clue about! Edited July 20, 2024 by Sethi22 1
Popular Post SLD 524 Posted July 25, 2024 Popular Post Posted July 25, 2024 On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Again, define good, what does good mean - does it bring more fun, is it the most effective DPS? Fun is a fully subjective thing and therefore a useless metric. It also doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the game. Back in the day people had lots of fun playing "Ogreball" or competing in the InSacred Marathon (stuff like who gets to Khorad Nur first in a multiplayer game). Yes you can write a guide on how to most effectively combat kick goblins over the lawn but its not reasonable to compare that to guides for playing the actual game. And before you ask what that means: I'm thinking of levelling characters, farming loot achieving certain campaign/quest completions, map exploration etc. Good build guides would include all needed information for their goals and help you achieve your goals with ease or speed. Good build guides can also be start like: "Melee mages are a bad idea, but if you really want to beat that challenge, here is my approach and some hints on how to deal with different problems along the way". The main part here is that it puts the build in perspective. When I think of "bad" builds, I think of: "This build combines CA1 and CA2 and is absolutely amazing", which turns out to have only been tested up to gold difficulty(yet doesn't say so). It explains basic game concepts it uses(only to prove that the guide-writer didn't understand those concepts) and it doesn't tell you that focusing on either CA1 or CA2 would already create a "better" build, meaning faster/smoother combat without any downsides to that. Our most beloved Sacred Hybrid builds, stick two builds into one making both worse. Maybe that is all my subjective problem, that I value the "power" of my characters too much, that I want to learn from guides about new strategies I haven't come up with and mechanics I never understood before. Maybe I don't value the emotional "I had fun with this so you might aswell" kind of guide enough. As for the fun stuff, I recently learned that cows walk away from your character. Of course I started pushing them around a bit and did not stop before I had brought one of them all the way into the farmer's house. Who doesn't want a cow in his living room? I can share the fact, that cows can be "pushed" with others. But I wouldn't write a guide about it. Because for a guide I would first want to cover all the questions I could come up with. It should contain, where in the game world cows can be found, are they a random spawn or always same numbers same spots. Do npc sove cows as well, do cows shove each other away? Do cows have any travel restrictions? Can they cross bridges, walk through shallow water etc. I'm pretty sure they can't enter caves as enemies can't either but I should test that before claiming it as fact in my guide, right? Are cows any different in behaviour from the undead cows in the swamp? Will normal cows also be attacked by the spiders? Does anything else in the game that usually wouldn't come into contact with them interact with cows? Can they die from untargeted stuff like dragon fire? Do they drop loot? Can they "block" your path? Or can multiple cows be stacked on top of each other? Is there a random component in how they get pushed or is it deterministic, which would especially matter if cows could be stacked on top of each other, as otherwise they could no longer be unstacked.... Does A guide always have to answer all questions? Certainly not. But a couple minutes on cow pushing already show how much knowledge there could be and I would consider it a let down in my guide if I didn't at least share the questions and edit the guide when someone found the answer to one of them. Enough of that bull... On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: What we both are missing here is the perspective on how Niob scales, as I have a feeling from all of the information I've gathered, that the scaling is much harsher. @Sethi22 definitely adds to my suspicion. Well I have played Niob to at least past clvl 170, but It has been a long time ago. To me it felt no different at all back then. Wether less powerful builds would feel the differnence more I don't know. Sethi22 claims that the last 30 levels change things but also hasn't answered wether he ever reached them at all. My guess that they wouldn't change anything was based on the second to last and third to last 30 levels not changing anything either. And to be precise I don't mean the numbers don't go up, they definitely do, but they don't change the way the game has to be played. Their numbers go up slowly and so do yours. The difficulties are the only breakpoints here and usually it tends to then go better and better for you at which point you hit the next difficulty. That is basically their purpose to reset the monsters to a new power level as you have outgrown the ones on the lower difficulty setting. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Also, if purgatory-hybrid man CAN beat Niob's hardest bosses, but isn't exactly optimal to the last attribute point that doesn't make him bad, just less efficient - however, consider that the hybrid build, while lacking in Damage Per Second, may offer a much better Fun Per Second. And as the great saying goes - if it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid. Less efficient is bad. The character oneshotting goblins and the fireball mage that does 1 damage per cast to a 1000hp goblin with a 3minute regen time that runs in circles while he waits for the next fireball are not comparable builds. Was the example extreme? Of course, but what can I do when purgatory hybrid isn't extreme enough for you to get it. You are right about different builds that are close to each other offering different benefits, but when the builds are far enough apart saying "it works" is quite a stretch. Again, yes purgatory-hybrid man is a valid (fun?) choice for someone who has done everything in the game and who wants to show the world his uber skill. The ultimate middle finger towards the balance team, "I made the worst build imaginable and still beat the game" mentality. It will take longer to achieve your goals it will be harder to achieve your goals, it mikght work, but it's still stupid On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: I almost have a belief that a presumption of possible failure and the challenges that would entail is almost a prerequisite to wanting to engage in the task anyway. If you know with certainty that you CAN, why do it? (I'm certainly not talking about survival stuff here, thankfully I don't have to question whether or not I can fix my next meal ) I finished the campaign once, not because I thought I could fail, but because I wanted to know the rest of the story. I usually play characters to find out where my build goes in terms of power, how things work etc. It's often rather a curiosity thing than a achievement thing. The other way around is also true. I'm now curious to see wether Purgatory-hybrid man can actually go all the way to niob but I don't want to suffer thorugh the process of getting there so I will never know. So failure would be possible but it doesn't motivate me at all. I know with certainty that I CAN take a shower... On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: What I don't personally like about PoE, thought, and why I love Sacred and have high hopes for PoE II is the blazingly fast pace of clearing. It's just not attractive, all character fantasy is lost, they're all just blazing blazers of the blaze it happens when you focus the action side of arpg. I would actually not be able to stand it the other way around, the full rpg of making quest choices with permanent consequences or starting your character by chosing a detailed lineage and basically writing a book about their background story. Btw. Poe did not start out that fast. Like everything it grew driven by human greed. And everyone would still want the double pace or triple pace league On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: As you know much better than I, assuming I'm a little younger, 'Beating' as a term comes from a time where games had much smaller scope and were of mostly linear style - it is a synonym for completing / completion. You (theoretically can) but practically CANNOT complete modern ARPGS. That would entail slaying all monsters, collecting all possible permutations of loot, trying all characters and all possible combinations of builds, which is why people set particular, unambiguous goals. So if you brush on its mechanics slightly and set an achievable goal I definitely think you can 'beat' that goal and have fun doing it. I disagree on beating=completing=experiencing every possible build combination etc. From my perspective games like poe have "content" like the campaign, endgame maps, uber bosses etc. "Beating" the game from my perspective, means engaging successfully with all "content" of the game, or at least all content you are interested in. Should you have succeeded in beating the current content you can still do so with different builds etc so the "beaten game" is not over or anything like that. Again thismight just be a linguistic or philosophical difference here. I understand the concept of setting a goal for yourself and then achieving it. It is usually something that happens more along the way of improving my character like trying to get certain gear pieces etc. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: In fact I've seen superfluous turn into meta, the moment the perspective changes on how to approach builds. Not sure if I would understand the example, depends on what game it comes from, but maybe you can give me a hint. Usually in a game that doesn't change the perspective doesn't change, just as "throwing blades" suddenly becoming meta seems quite unlikely On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: And here's my point on that continuing from the last paragraph. Approaching the question of a character that uses no CA or Spell with 'it could be better if with CA or Spell' negates the whole thought experiment by way of simply ignoring it's premise. Yes, CAs scale offenses very well, we know that and the game definitely leans towards that direction, however that is a singular type of build. As you yourself said, building this way you simply look of + Regen Spell/Special move on all characters and + to the particular skill. I don't "negate" the thought experiment. I know all the ways damage(and defenses) can bes scaled. Removing combat arts doesn't suddenly make new alternative options pop up. It's just gonna be a combat art character that leaves out the combat art and thereby gimps its damage. It gets even worse, as besides damage, useful combat arts ususally either hit quickly or multiple targets at once making them a guaranteed upgrade. Think of it this way lets set the no CA characters stats to magical lalaland values and give it infinite damage per hit. That would certainly qualify as an upper boundary. What is the best build we can get now? Well woodelf's multishot isn't allowed, so the only thing that can kill more than one enemy per attack is the Egill crossbow set with pierce. The fastest attack animation would be on a flying demon but that's a combat art again so we're stuck with the gladiator. So either piercing crossbow gladiator or some kind of single kill per shot bow woodelf or a fast melee weapon on any character... Would I play that? Maybe, but we still have infinite lalaland damage. If we take that away these characters don't look too great anymore. But they will suddenly all improve by adding a combat art. The crossbow gladiator and woodelf both improve with multi-hit and the any melee weapon character would be moved to a demon as base class for hellpower etc. It's not like I skipped your thought experiment, I just can't come up with anything new to think about. Oh and of course you kinda dismissed the one result for "character build without CAs" I did come up with(which proves me not negating the thought experiment) even though you adressed it right after. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Btw, why Fadalmar and not Orla-Isling, you are fighting groups of monsters most of the time. You think you caught me, he? Wrong! Both Fadalmar and Orla-Aisling get a 35% chance to cast a spell when you hit something. In the case of Fadalmar that is a single fireball that still does quite some damage in endgame and only under very weird circumstances can hit more than once. So form one original damage source you have a chance below 1 to spawn a fireball, that might hit once and then has the same chance to spawn another fireball etc. These fireball chains end very quickly because of their chance being significantly below 1. The build now usually revolves around making lots of hits and starting lots of potential fireball chains simultaneously. This may create a lot of fireballs bit also ends with the enemies dying and that doesn't take to long because of that still effective damage I stated earlier. Now lets move on to Orla-Aisling. It has a 35% chance on hit to cast a version of the energy demons charged bolts. This spell casts multiple projectiles capable of hitting one target each. I don't know the exact number of projectiles Orla-Aisling produces per cast but it is significantly more than three. That is important. The other important thing to know is that each individual hit does a lot less damage than fadalmar fireballs in endgame. Now you might know resistances effect lower damage more than higher damage making the approach of many small damage hits even worse compared to one big hit. So now we trigger our Orla-Aisling chain it shoots of a bunch of projectiles each having a 35% chance of starting another cast assuming they hit something and each doing almost no damage at all. The problem here is that this creates an on average never ending chain of growing projectile amounts that do almost no damage each. Standing close to an enemy can ensure that enough of these projectiles hit that enemy. It also removes the flight time before the next hit occurs. So the reason I didn't consider Orla-Aisling is not an oversight. It's because I have personally witnessed the test result of an endgame character hitting an endgame enemy with the Orla-Aisling set once. And that single hit created an infinite amount of tiny hits that crashed the game client in less than a second. If those lightning projectiles did at least Fadalmar amounts of damage maybe the enemy would die and thereby end the chain before the client crashes. But even then it would create a massive lag spike for sure and the leftover projectiles could still fly on and hit something else, at least this time with a delayed ramp up as there is distance between you and enemy number 2. The enemy that caused the crash chain btw was one of those champion brain things that line the border of the anducar fight. I called it "endgame" though I have no clue about the level and game difficulty that happened on. Therefore I don't know how tanky an enemy has to be for this problem to spiral out of control, but it was obvious that the infinite loop woild cause problems at some point. Is there hope yet? Actually I have to admit, you did catch me here. A way to scale the damage of orla-aisling could potentially solve the problem and make it even far better than fadalmar. And I have to admit that I have no clue how the damage of those two is calculated and what could be used to scale it. Sadly I do not know everything On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Maybe even have both Well wether someone finds the scaling options or not. Either way one of them will be significantly better than the other and you can't have both at the same time as one of them is a two-hander. Weapon swapping here would create another one of those dumb hybrid builds as sticking to one of those weapons would be superior in every case. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Absolutely, I get your point in general - if you know something works, why change it(too much) and I certain feel that we simply have a slightly difference perspective about reaching the same goal. You said that you feel like you haven't gotten out of chasing the meta, I wouldn't say I am not chasing 'a meta' I just think your approach is to stick to incremental improvement and min-maxing and I also assume you enjoy the 'manifestation' quite a lot, maybe a little more than myself perhaps. I try shooting in different directions to try and find alternative methods to reach a meta and then by enriching my mechanical vocabulary, loop back around and see what I can combine from the 'traditional' meta and what I've learned along the way. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: My personal belief is that, knowing what works and sticking to it, gives little to no reward ( in terms of knowledge ) you'll certainly not uncover something new by doing the same thing time after time. Testing a hypothesis about an idea you have on something that MIGHT work, however, is almost entirely reward - even when you fail you will learn for certain that something doesn't work. You are mistaken about me here. I do not "stick" to what works and min-max on top of it. For the min-maxing part, I don't think it is rewarding in a game like Sacred. Having a tiny bit more dps or something doesn't matter once you kinda have "enough". But testing a hypothesis is that might be worth my time would require me to come up with something that has potential AND that I haven't tested before. Especially the second part here gets more and more difficult to natch. I have around a hundred characters that I still have access to and who knows how many more I've played. Many things can also be tested without making a new character. And while I'm at it, yes I ate a ton of purgatory runes once to test wether it moves faster at higher levels. No it doesn't and therefore I wouldn't play it even if the damage was infinite. I've been playing this game less and less, but I played it alot when I first bought it. Sacred came out in 2004 and I bought my copy either in march or april, so it's been more than 20 years of testing hypotheses. There's not much left to do. Nowadays I just play every couple of months or years, for the nostalgia and all those memories. I return to it less than some other games though as the loss of almost all my vision makes more problems in Sacred than it does in other games. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: I'd rather not go into detail, because I'd rather not contribute builds that work in gold and plat, but taper of in Niob. There's nothing wrong about sharing build ideas that might not work as long as you make your victims aware of that On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: Whatever impression of structured thought you might have been left with, it came after at least 2 hours of re-writes. But I think we both got our points across and believe we fully(should) understand each other's perspective. I, again, thank you for engaging with me, it's been a pleasure as always. Same, I just wish for that magical hug that lets us exchange all our thoughts in an instant so that we don't have to put so much work into this tedious and imprecise form of communiction. On 7/18/2024 at 2:44 PM, xeyp said: - also on your post from next page, don't you use Sacred UW's auto pick (keybound to A)? Disable the pick-up animation from the settings and it's much faster. Sure it's not as fast as Sacred 2's if items are spread far apart, but usually they aren't. In Sacred UW it's only available in SinglePlayer games and I don't like campaign games... It is also a lot worse in filtering. Picking up everything is far too much and only unique would be not enough I guess, as you might want rares too. Also the interaction with the Sacred UW inventory is a big problem for me. Because of the transparency I have to mouseover sweep the entire inventory to find things in there sometimes etc. Just imagine a giant polearm stuck in the middle of your inventory but you can't see it. That is about as bad as it gets, but I guess you can imagine sight problems like that leading to all kinds of problems in video games. On 7/18/2024 at 2:56 PM, xeyp said: I feel that we're simply presenting each other's points of view calmly and seeing what we can learn from one another I, xeyp the wise ;) , certainly am. I fully agree with xeyp the wise On 7/18/2024 at 2:56 PM, xeyp said: and that's a 10/10 "master-thesis-was-worth-it" experience. I will definitely try to be as succinct as possible, but I'm afraid I'm not as good with verbal communication as I would like, so I write longer posts, which I hope to be able to trim down in the future while still retaining the same message. My "master thesis" comment was less about the length and more about it's quality of content and well structured approach. Also, the more thorough you explain your thoughts the less likely they are misunderstood. On 7/18/2024 at 7:16 PM, Sethi22 said: can only rely on her COTA or the RBOL of the Sera. ah so the leech shield is no actual "shield" item, you meant leeching with an ability that does so periodically to help keep your life up. On 7/18/2024 at 7:16 PM, Sethi22 said: it's cruising around in the Valley and the Ridge that was the most challenging part for me. I would also consider those some of the most dangerous areas in the game. On 7/19/2024 at 8:29 AM, Sethi22 said: I really respect your knowledge about this game, although I find it a bit sad that you don't play it any more Thank you, but much of that knowledge I did not come up with myself. I just have been around someone with an amazing brain I did just play it a couple of weeks ago, the only sad part is that I can't see it as well and enjoy it as much anymore as I once could. On 7/19/2024 at 8:29 AM, Sethi22 said: Remember the overflowing numbers thing you said to me a while ago? About the damage cap on single element damage? Now THAT was some really interesting stuff, that I think every sacred player should know! Yes that also goes back to that amazing brain I just told you about. So no, there is no source about that elsewhere that I know about. On 7/19/2024 at 8:29 AM, Sethi22 said: could you start a new topic about that and explain that in details? no. The recent resurgence of forum activity is already almost impossible for me to keep up with. Reading and writing stuff is definitely not my strength. That topic would need a lot of detailed information that I don't actually have, so lots of ingame testing would be required. Someone would basically have to do for Sacred Underworld what Maneus did for the Sacred 2 damage calculations. That is a lot of work, worth a lot more respect than my lazy ass popping in telling people I might know something. Should a volunteer be found I'd happily look at their work and point out flaws or other details to investigate. All I can say is, I won't do it myself. Too much work. The forum alone is already threatening tp become a fulltime job I'm sorry, that I can't be for you, what you would want me to. 1 1
Sethi22 293 Posted July 25, 2024 Posted July 25, 2024 (edited) 4 hours ago, SLD said: Well I have played Niob to at least past clvl 170, but It has been a long time ago. To me it felt no different at all back then. Wether less powerful builds would feel the differnence more I don't know. My gSethi22 claims that the last 30 levels change things but also hasn't answered wether he ever reached them at all.u No. My bad again, I misunderstood your initial post about the "last 30 levels". My highest char is I think 165. But I stay now in platinum Valley at least until level 150, and so in all of niobium I only do like 15 levels till the end. So it's definitely my "last 30". But what I wanted to say there is, that after finishing platinum, the start of niobium doesn't feel or play much different, and you can feel, you have what it takes. I never died in niobium main campaign. The beginning of Underworld is fine too, maybe the nuk-nuks can be a problem, but nothing too serious. After leaving the pirate island and going to the dryads is the point, where it can start to get hairy. Those guided arrows really hurt! Have two of them on you, and you're toast (Well, with my reflexes, you're definitely toast. Maybe you would survive them...) And then the ridge and the valley. That's where I lost all my "hardcore" characters. So it's the absolute endgame, I found challenging, it was pretty smooth sailing until then. Edited July 25, 2024 by Sethi22
SLD 524 Posted July 25, 2024 Posted July 25, 2024 2 hours ago, Sethi22 said: (Well, with my reflexes, you're definitely toast. Maybe you would survive them...) I wouldn't bet on my reflexes being better than yours. Unless you have some undisclosed illness or are very old, you should have a significant advantage here. As I said before, I have no player skill all I have is knowledge of the game mechanics and I got to admit Sacred might be one of those games where that may not be enough at the end. Thats why I like Sacred 2 and its D2F mod where I can make invulnerable characters 2 hours ago, Sethi22 said: And then the ridge and the valley. That's where I lost all my "hardcore" characters. So it's the absolute endgame, I found challenging, it was pretty smooth sailing until then. You are describing exactly what I meant as well. There is a difficulty bump from platinum valley to niobium valley, but there is not much difference between a lvl 150 hellgolem and a lvl 180 or lvl 210 hellgolem. Thats a smooth scaling that your character usually outpaces. The difficulty bumps are basically there to help the monsters catch up. 2 hours ago, Sethi22 said: My highest char is I think 165. But I stay now in platinum Valley at least until level 150, and so in all of niobium I only do like 15 levels till the end. Maybe that is the problem. Assuming your character would still outpace the enemies levelling you might have an easier time if you managed to level to 190-200 before approaching the valley or something. We have no clue what level the developers were trying to balance those places around. Of course levelling to such a high level would take forever, so I can understand that dying might at some point feel like the better choice 1
xeyp 53 Posted August 1, 2024 Posted August 1, 2024 Okay, I'm back, real-life scheduling changes can't stop me anymore. haha @SLD First of all, hard-agree on the Quality of guides. I think I just misinterpreted 'a good build guide' from your previous post as a 'good build guide' ,rather than a 'good build guide'. As for the Context, meaning where this build slots compared to others, unless the 'builder' has had experience with most others it would be hard to - that's why I consider having varied in-game accomplishments be the power/survivability metric as the ideal way to rank builds up or down. Would love a cow walking guide haha. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: Less efficient is bad. The character oneshotting goblins and the fireball mage that does 1 damage per cast to a 1000hp goblin with a 3minute regen time that runs in circles while he waits for the next fireball are not comparable builds. Was the example extreme? Of course, but what can I do when purgatory hybrid isn't extreme enough for you to get it. You are right about different builds that are close to each other offering different benefits, but when the builds are far enough apart saying "it works" is quite a stretch. Very extreme yes, but I agree about having builds that are enough apart that it makes a significant difference in gameplay. I was more-so referring to the fact that in ARPGs in general, some of the meta builds are so overtuned in terms of damage that they create a large amount of overkill. If you imagine that amount as a range, you can start taking away some of the damage over-tuning and replace it with QoL stuff for the build, or introduce variety and at the end of it, you would've exhausted a part of said overkill range, but you'd still be in it - but that in your definition wouldn't be that far apart. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: I finished the campaign once, not because I thought I could fail, but because I wanted to know the rest of the story. I usually play characters to find out where my build goes in terms of power, how things work etc. It's often rather a curiosity thing than a achievement thing. The other way around is also true. I'm now curious to see wether Purgatory-hybrid man can actually go all the way to niob but I don't want to suffer thorugh the process of getting there so I will never know. So failure would be possible but it doesn't motivate me at all. Yeah, sorry that was an assumption on my part for me difficult things make me curious whether or not I can accomplish them and where my limits lie - and about what I can learn doing it. Curiosity is a hell of a motivator, one of the best in my opinion. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: it happens when you focus the action side of arpg. I would actually not be able to stand it the other way around, the full rpg of making quest choices with permanent consequences or starting your character by chosing a detailed lineage and basically writing a book about their background story. Btw. Poe did not start out that fast. Like everything it grew driven by human greed. And everyone would still want the double pace or triple pace league Oh don't get me wrong I am the same. It's just the pace of combat is too fast and they have acknowledged that by slowing it quite a lot in PoE 2. From what I understand the game designers also dislike it very much. But yeah, it definitely didn't, oh the days of the open beta haha. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: I disagree on beating=completing=experiencing every possible build combination etc. From my perspective games like poe have "content" like the campaign, endgame maps, uber bosses etc. "Beating" the game from my perspective, means engaging successfully with all "content" of the game, or at least all content you are interested in. Should you have succeeded in beating the current content you can still do so with different builds etc so the "beaten game" is not over or anything like that. Again thismight just be a linguistic or philosophical difference here. I understand the concept of setting a goal for yourself and then achieving it. It is usually something that happens more along the way of improving my character like trying to get certain gear pieces etc. Fair enough. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: Not sure if I would understand the example, depends on what game it comes from, but maybe you can give me a hint. Usually in a game that doesn't change the perspective doesn't change, just as "throwing blades" suddenly becoming meta seems quite unlikely On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: The ultimate middle finger towards the balance team, "I made the worst build imaginable and still beat the game" mentality. It will take longer to achieve your goals it will be harder to achieve your goals, it mikght work, but it's still stupid This is usually early in a game's life or after a significant update - where the game designer has had one idea of how and from what things should scale, but has overlooked unorthodox interactions. I think the ultimate middle finger to the game design/ balance team is to make a build that is opposed to how the game is supposed to be structured and beating the game better than more 'conventional' builds. A little specific example: A game I played recently had a piece of equipment, meant for Fire-based builds that would give you a lot of critical damage on the condition that the target was Burning, at least double the average. There are also Ice builds, that do DoT ice damage by cooling the air rapidly in an Area of Effect, which is a 'world effect' meaning it exists in the world - and then it disappears after 4 seconds. There's a weapon that can create these Ice world effects on crits and it hits really fast, so it's not meant for you to be able to scale both the critical chance + damage and the ice damage, which would count as elemental, which is why the weapon is not considered very optimal for ice builds as if you build for the ice damage, the chance of triggering it becomes much lower. It is an intermediary weapon of sorts until you get to the higher tier. Lastly, there are effects, like healing upon the disappearance of the Ice Area of Effect / or / added vulnerability when an enemy is within its confines. So in this case, you'd just take the weapon, pretend you're not doing Ice damage, massively invest in crit chance and damage, find a way to set your opponents on fire (of which there are ways) to benefit from a massive increase in critical damage and have the benefit of healing/vulnerability. Additionally, looking at it from the PoV of a crit-only weapon its high attack speed can help trigger some crit-related effects from other crit equipment and turn them from a 'slow but powerful build-up effect' to an almost instant large increase in power. Looked at conventionally - an ice weapon with some promise, but also serious drawbacks. Looked at a little less conventionally, if we scale based on what is considered a drawback - wonderful crit weapon that synergizes well with things it's not meant to. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: ou think you caught me, he? Wrong! Absolutely not, haha, just asking as I've never found either to alluring to try. Thanks for the great information I'll definitely be more wary of Orla from now on haha. On 7/25/2024 at 6:10 AM, SLD said: Same, I just wish for that magical hug that lets us exchange all our thoughts in an instant so that we don't have to put so much work into this tedious and imprecise form of communiction. Definitely, I find that people are a lot more like-minded than they think they are and the most substantial disagreement, when communicated enough, turns out to be a disagreement in how they agree on the particular topic, in other words to be a little clearer - they have the same beliefs and wants, but communicate them in a particular way and expect everyone who holds these same beliefs to express them in the same way. It's too bad Scared does not have an active studio behind it, maybe if it did it would have more accessibility and be less straining for you to engage with. Now, I consider this topic officially closed. Else, gogoblender will ban me to the Underworld and back.
SLD 524 Posted August 1, 2024 Posted August 1, 2024 2 hours ago, xeyp said: This is usually early in a game's life or after a significant update - where the game designer has had one idea of how and from what things should scale, but has overlooked unorthodox interactions. I agree, that when things change not all might be immediatly known/figured out. People may find new strategies. But with Sacred being out for two decades with no major changes, the chances for finding something new are slim. The only reason that chance isn't non-existant is because sacred has never been tzaken apart as thorougly as stuff like diablo 2 and poe and a lot of community knowledge also disappeared with the loss of the official forums and almost all fansites. 2 hours ago, xeyp said: Definitely, I find that people are a lot more like-minded than they think they are and the most substantial disagreement, when communicated enough, turns out to be a disagreement in how they agree on the particular topic, in other words to be a little clearer - they have the same beliefs and wants, but communicate them in a particular way and expect everyone who holds these same beliefs to express them in the same way. Very few have the will, patience and restraint to commit to communication until understanding is achieved. "Xeyp the wise" was not an overstatement. You have a very valuable gift. 2 hours ago, xeyp said: Now, I consider this topic officially closed. Else, gogoblender will ban me to the Underworld and back. The Underworld isn't that bad, it's got the best levelling spot in the entire game. If he permanently banished us to bronze however that would really suck. After some time progress would get so slow that you might just as well go push 1
SLD 524 Posted August 17, 2024 Posted August 17, 2024 On 7/25/2024 at 5:10 AM, SLD said: Is there hope yet? Actually I have to admit, you did catch me here. A way to scale the damage of orla-aisling could potentially solve the problem and make it even far better than fadalmar. I just did some testing into this and have to say, I was wrong. The low damage alone is not the problem of Orla-Aisling. I actually think its damage would be high enough. I think the crash comes more from the fact that the massive amount of projectiles don't properly dissappear. When they hit walls etc they stick around for a while. That way you can easily crash the game in valley even at quite a distance to enemies. It seems to work fine in the bellevue area but I don't think scaling damage would have a chance at solving this one. Accidentally found a different non CA build however. It doesn't even need a skill. The Icon set doesn't turn off the darkelf's waterform set bonus. So he remains invisible while doing Icon damage. Icons do mostly physical damage and maybe some tiny bit fire. They can be scaled with +%phys/all dmg, Strength and widd but not +%spelldmg or weapon lore magic lore etc. It took quite a while to kill endgame niobium mobs with it but I had no proper widd so it could get from "super-slow" to "slow"... at least it's immortal btw phys demon can scale it well but won't be immortal.... Just wanted to slap this info here where we already talked about such stuff... Off topic madness for the win
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