Sacred Underworld: Newbies and Veterans alike, how do you like play and level new characters?

[xeyp 53]

Hello All, 
   Several days ago I suddenly became cognizant of the specific way/ ritual in which I play new characters and wondered what other people do?

Leveling  
Here are a few general options, feel free to add whatever I've missed of course:

1. Good old Single-Player Ancaria Campaign (Bronze or Silver) from start to finish.
2. No Campaign! Hack 'n Slash 'multiplayer' game.
   2.1. Do you do quests? ( are there any particular quests which you've found give more experience?
   2.2.1. Do you farm a specific high xp cave/dungeon?
   2.2.2. Do you go to Underworld at lvl 25 - to continuously assault the poor Sakkara demons?
3. A bit of everything!

Goals

What are you looking for in a new character? What Goals do you set for yourself, do you have any particular landmarks you like to hit
to consider a character successful - any Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Relevant-Time based goals?
Maybe it's immeasurable, subjective goals, do you perhaps have a scale of and measure (very precisely) the Fun Factor!  
What drives you to create a new character in the first place, when do you move on - do you come back?
 

My stupid little process
Here's how I generally do it - and now that I'm aware of it I will try mixing up the Leveling part and maybe have some Time-based goals!
   First of all, definitely a good solid build plan:
      - Which:
          - CAs
          - Skills
          - Methods of Scaling Offense and Defense
             - Itemization - will I be relying on a set/ Unique or will I be gathering equipment pieces that fit a very specific role
                - Item acquisition - Will I be pulling all the stops or will be going 'Solo self found' - I.e. No Gear Muling and help from other characters (also no 'professional' Trading!).  
       - Most importantly I'm usually looking for something whacky and if I have to ask 'Can I make this work?' it's up my alley.
          - Some other times I just want to enjoy the class fantasy and will roll the most run-of-the-mill stuff.

A lot of my Goals come from this part, especially the 'making this work' part. 
My little admission of guilt here is that I haven't reached Niob yet even after years of playing, there's just another idea that I have to try! (trying to work on it)
   (One of my first "very bright ideas" was a spider spawning Wood elf that'd release a flock of tarantulas with a Multishot and watch the dragons squirm, fun for awhile - but hadn't much thought about scaling)
A fun goal and a landmark, of course, will always be the dragons, especially the two ones up in the forests, next to the high elves.

Now we're at Leveling, where I'm borderline clinical.
For some reason I cannot tell you why - every character must always go through the Ancarian Campaign on Silver. It doesn't feel right to take it to 'Multiplayer' otherwise - or god forbid - FARM!
So I patiently go through the campaign and pick up all of the portals and after (depending on how fast/ at what level I've finished it) I would do an Underworld Campaign run on Silver or Gold. 
What's funny ( or very sad ) is that during my Silver Campaign run I would do the same few side quests in the same order almost every time and I always run to Mascarell after Porto Vallum, to grab the portal.
After that's finished, if I'm still up to it I start a very loose Gold campaign. Loose in the sense of that for every Story quest I would farm a bit and do many Side quests, this might stretch to early to mid plat.
By this point the character has hopefully taken shape and usually something else is brewing in my mind and I would start anew!

Now that I've realized my condition, I think I'll be taking a more liberal approach, long live the caves! 
It's honestly such and underrated feature of the game that you don't need to finish one difficulty to start the next as long as your levels are above a certain limit. 
This frees us up to play in any way we see fit and most importantly Hack 'n Slash! I somewhat dislike ARPGs that make you sit through the same story time after time, as if you didn't hear it the first time. 
Here, I think, Sacred has another bonus - the campaign is fairly brief, but there's side quest aplenty! 

Please let me know in the most excruciating detail what your little rituals are, I'd love to hear them 

[Sethi22 373]

Well, my rituals are pretty simple, and I think most people would think I'm missing something in the head (which is true, by the way......) I never play multiplayer, I always start in bronze, and most importantly: I do EVERY quest! Every single one of them, by now I could finish each one blindfolded, I think. And after completing them, I always save and reload until I get the right runes from the quest giver. That's the only acceptable way for me to get them, I never dupe them (any more, like in my younger days...) it's doing the quests and getting rewarded (in the right way!) I even developed a special pose for my keyboard and left hand so I can hold the alt key to see what drops and do the quick load thing with F8 in the quickest and most comfortible way...

And when going to the combo master, I always put in three runes, and save-reload to get the right one in exchange. This way, I have a pretty accurate number in my head now, as to how many runes I'll find till the end (it's between 650 and 700 till the end of Niobium) and I plan my combat arts based on this number.

And If I die in any way, I start a new character. Sort of "hardcore", although if I die, I still export the "corpse" and give the items to my mule characters.

And that's it. Not very creative, I know. But it is, what is is. This is Sacred for me, the whole process is sacred, the campaign, the quests, the saving and reloading part... everything is sacred! And it will remain like this till the end.

Edited July 28, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

3 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

Not very creative, I know.

Well, my rituals are pretty simple, and I think most people would think I'm missing something in the head (which is true, by the way...:braintumoremoji:...) I never play singleplayer, I always start in bronze, and most importantly: I do almost none of the quests! With my eyesight I always feel like I'm blindfolded, I think. I repeat those few quests that I know and get runes from them and farming enemies. That's the only acceptable way for me to get them, I never dupe them (any more, like in my younger days...) it's doing the monsters and getting rewarded (in the right way!) And when going to the combo master, I always put in four. This way, I have absolutely no clue in my head now, as to how many runes I'll find till the end and I never make it till the end of Niobium though I plan my combat arts.

And If I die in any way, I restore a copy of my character. Sort of "hardcore", although if I die, I still might export the "corpse" and give the items to myself.

And that's it. Stealing from Sethi22 for comedic purposes. Not very creative, I know. But it is, what is is. This is Sacred for me, the whole process is sacred, ignoring the campaign, the few select quests, the never saving and reloading part... everything is sacred! And it will remain like this till I end.



I've heard "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" though I must admit in my attempt of "Imitation" I felt everything but "sincere".

I got the dumb idea when you said you're missing something in the head (same for me) and than went on about singleplayer and quests, which sounded like the exact opposite of me so it felt like the perfect template

[xeyp 53]

@Sethi22 @SLD 
You two are a comedic duo powerhouse, almost spit my lunch reading this (and I'd just cleaned my screen)

I did the reloading trick to tailor my quest rewards so much when I was younger, I prefer to farm for runes and items now. 
I wonder if the quests wouldn't be more popular if all gave concrete rewards and you could tailor leveling a build around getting a 
weapon from here an armor from there, and they dropped 'rune fragments' which you could take to a combo master and for a small fee make
into any rune you wanted... wait that last part is exactly how it works hahah. I recently watched a documentary on sacred development and if I
remember correctly the team was split in two, geographically. I like to imagine one team pushed for RnG and the other tried to put mechanics
to lessen the RnG. 

Sethi22, do you really need all those runes though? I've never had a problem with lacking runes, quite the opposite, the problem is always finding
more RSM or its magic equivalent. I also try to get most CA levels from the equipment and thus never need to learn that many more on-top - and the 
damage is never lacking for me to want to increase my cooldown. 

[Sethi22 373]

1 hour ago, xeyp said:

Sethi22, do you really need all those runes though?

Yes! Absolutely. I'm addicted. 100%. I want as many as I can get. And I do love the save-reload part too. I love gambling, and I like random things generally. And this is a gamble where I will surely win, so it's definitely worth it! It might take hundreds of tries, but I will eventually come out on top in the end! And then I feel satisfaction, showing the world how stubborn I am, and that nothing (I mean NOTHING!!!) can beat my stubbornness! I win.

Edited August 1, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

1 hour ago, xeyp said:

do you really need all those runes though? I've never had a problem with lacking runes, quite the opposite, the problem is always finding
more RSM or its magic equivalent. I also try to get most CA levels from the equipment and thus never need to learn that many more on-top - and the 
damage is never lacking for me to want to increase my cooldown. 

"need" might not be the case here, "want" would depend on build. A trapper darkelf might be able to get "enough" poison mist and testosterone levels form gear but he can also easily reach enough regen reduction that he could eat 255 in poison mist without the regen time feeling "limiting". And of course you can always eat 255 testosterone runes without the reg ever reaching the duration. At least with some regen reduction. But technically the poison mist darkelf can also eat and use 255 runes in adrenalin and both pak-dain and pak-nakor. Does the trapper darkelf "need" all those runes? no. But he might "want" them anyway
And then there are builds like bow woodelves that might not want to read more than one rune in multi-hit and thats it. Everything else they get from bonus and they probably never reach enough combat art regen to allow for more eaten runes. They also don't necessarily have any support combat arts worth the effort.

Odd. We just stopped in one thread and now I already feel like derailing another

[SLD 524]

1 hour ago, Sethi22 said:

Yes! Absolutely. I'm addicted. 100%. I want as many as I can get.

1 hour ago, Sethi22 said:

I will eventually come out on top in the end! And then I feel satisfaction

Oh, I think I found the hidden message.
You want as many as you can get and eventually come out on top of them otherwise you can't get no (dududum) satisfaction

Edited August 1, 2024 by SLD

[gogoblender 3,583]

On 7/28/2024 at 5:15 AM, SLD said:

With my eyesight I always feel like I'm blindfolded, I think.

Sorry about this experience here  SLD,

Im with my mom here in the states for the week and a lot of the stuff im doing is mainly making sure her accessibility to her favorite websites is good (and of course the passwrds... alwaaaaaaaaays the passwords!  ...  She was saying that she didnt like using the IPAD because she found the fonts or writing difficult to read. We were able to work our way through settings and found that some adjustments to the font type, size and the contrast setting made it for perfect reading and she now reaches for it over her phone. 

Regarding darkmatters, have you tried our light colored skin? would the contrast help or be better? Us having a dark skin is a relatively new thing, less than 10 years I think, but others have mentionned that it can be difficult to read

you  can get to the change of theme links bottom left hand corner of this site's index page here:

 

https://darkmatters.org/forums/

hope this helps

 

gogo

 

 

[SLD 524]

11 hours ago, gogoblender said:

regarding darkmatters, have you tried our light colored skin? would the contrast help

No darkmatters contrast is actually ok for reading, just reading in general takes some time and thereby strains the eye. The only "bad" parts of the theme are the top and bottom parts basically everything with a brighter background for obvious contrast reasons. The light colored skin has good contrast, that is correct however it creates a different problem as my eye generally doesn't like light too much. Just imagine my eye has a broken cable. Eyes are sensitive to light so they try to pass on what light they recognize. The broken cable doesn't allow as much information through as usual and the eye isn't "intelligent" about what to pass on. Therefor the more light the less relevant information makes it through. Dark red and dark blue might be easily distinguishable but bright red and bright blue on a bright background will at some point just be bright and bright on bright. To a certain degree this is the same for healthy people in bright sunlight, that colour contrast might suffer it's just worse for me. And remember that is just on top of all other kinds of "broken cable" stuff. T&he quality of sight is just very bad for me in general and too much light usually makes it worse. There is no science about this damage as far as I know, so all the complicated stuff like which colours I can tell apart and which I can't and why etc. it's just guesswork. It is also affected by how I feel. So smetimes it's better, sometimes it's worse.

Oh and it is a lot different from a broken monitor cable because there is a brain on the other end applying massive amounts of aftereffect work. When the brain is missing information in a picture it will just fill it up with what makes sense. That also applies to a certain degree to colours, so I have had something where I knew the colours that was however printed in "shades of grey". When I looked at the print I saw the colours... makes me wonder how much "actual" colorsight I do have...
Brains are really freaky stuff.

So to summarize, darkmatters should please stay as is.
Also reading sucks, sunlight hurts vampires
and it's always nice to hear someone cares

Just some fun test:
moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo ||

From the standard text colour palette available here NR5:"moo" NR11:"moo"  maybe NR20:"moo" and of course NR24:"moo" are among the worst to read, and a few others certainly not too great. But only 24 is actually impossible to read. If you however tried to use the others to make a point visible through their colours, forget it. Most don't look that different to one another and I would also not dare to speculate what colours they are supposed to represent. I mean 24 is obviously supposed to be black and the other problem cases 5 and 11 are probably somewhat blue while 20 has definitely a red portion. But what exactly 1,2,3,6,7,8,12,15,17,18,21,22,23 are supposed to be I don't know.
I just noticed 24 can be made visible by highlighting the text while highlighting 5 or 11 makes it worse

So this was just a fun test for me and to give you a hint on how freaky my eyesight is.
To give some information on what that might cause ingame: The way from Silver Creek past the trading post towards the bridge into Porto Vallum is as far as I remember supposed to be some kind of "grey stone" road mostly. It goes across the gobling lawn which is mostly green. It's usually a way I follow whith all of my characters. I know where it starts, I know where it ends and more or less everything in between. Yet I can no longer properly see it. The colour basically doesn't help at all, the "Stone pattern" on the ground is really hard to make out in some spots on the way easier in others. The best indicator wether the way I see is actually the "way" that is there and not a misinterpretation in the grass pattern or something is to listen for the sound my character makes when walking on it. The stone creates a different walking sound. Imagine that
Is this a problem? No of course not, you get a feeling for where the way is and when in doubt you can always go "below" the way. You might hit the river first, but it will also guide you to the Porto Vallum bridge. It's just an example for what kinds of things that we usually take for granted like "seeing the road" might suddenly go away whith messed up coloursight.
With my small field of view I can also get to the problem of: I hear a goblin shooting arrows at me. But at what part of my screen do I have to look to be able to find that goblin? That thing can be hiding quite well. The power of the alt key at least gives that tiny goblin a large nameplate. That is really great to find the goblins. But when you killed a pack of goblins and you now want to loot, you press the alt key and you get a bunch of items mixed in with all the goblin corpse names. Yes, I know the corpses are grey and the items are not but how does that help me now? I can of course always wait for the corpses to disappear if I have to.

Just a bunch of example stuff I just came up with what playing Sacred with my affliction might entail. Don't worry guys it's not gonna keep me away from playing it, but it might explain why I play other games that I have less problems with more.

Did I ramble on enough? Yes? Ok, than it's time to conclude with my beloved

[xeyp 53]

@SLD Have you tried the ReShade on top of Sacred and other games? There might be a way to manipulate value contrast or shift all the hues to where you could have an easier time. 

[SLD 524]

15 hours ago, xeyp said:

Have you tried the ReShade on top of Sacred and other games?

No, I have not. You might be correct about the fact that this could help in some cases. I have never tried this so far and honestly don't plan on doing so. I guess I am just too lazy to put in the work required to make things better. I apologize for my lack of quality, that makes your genuine efforts to help me seem so "wasted".

Now that I think about it I'm also not sure what pushes me more away from playing Sacred. The mechanical and accessibility issues or the gameplay loop becoming too boring. After all I did play a bunch of characters recently and despite all my problems I did just yesterday reach Gold on a Gladiator build I had never played before. But then the levelling is slow and with all the game knowledge I have it feels like there is no mystery left in where this build would be going.
I'm still curious how much/often I will return to this character, how far it will actually get over time. I have no clue.

The more I think about myself the less I seem to know. Interesting