Sacred 2: The Reluctance

[claudius]

I thought the funnest parts about sacred 2 were: 1 beautiful scenary - i know it's all relative but I enjoyed the visuals 2 fun multiplayer crowd - good friends, not too much aholes and very helpful people because no 'wealth' 3 fun to create builds

Regarding builds the TQ dualmastery was pretty cool but as we see from Poinas guide to skills there is something to be desired in terms of variation in builds. It seemed like Sacred 2 took more creativity. No respec could be looked at as a pain, but considering my 3 enjoyments it didn't seem a problem to re-roll a new toon all excited to try a new concept.

Oh another thing I liked about sacred 2 is the little things they did such as the humor. "it wasn't that great being a skeleton anyways" as the bones make a satisfying crunch

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Yeah, Sacred 2 did look pretty nice from the little I've seen. Sounds like they've continued the humour side of things from Sacred 1 too, that had some funny bits in it.

No respecing didn't really bother me in Sacred 1, it was more that once I used a skill they were all unavailable until they each recharged. In TQ when I'm playing my Brigand I can swap between throwing bombs and traps very quickly as even at low levels by the time I've swapped over the next is ready to use. I never could get my recharge times low enough to use more than one skill at a time during a fight. I also like the buff abilities in TQ which can be left on all the time or ones like Herbal Remedy that need to be recast but last a long while. I wish things like the Gladiator's Heroic Courage could be used like that, for me it was always a choice between having the Courage buff up or ignoring it in favour of Fist of the Gods as by the time my skills had recharged Heroic Courage had usually wore off.

[Fozzie]

@Medea:
If you want to rush Sacred 1 easy as pie just make a Magician (Wizard? Sorcerer? Don't know the English version) using that ice shard spell. Also, get as much gear with +X to the spirit aura that reduces cooldown (again, don't know what it's called in the English version) and put it in a combo (with no other spells along with it) wearing it, after that, you can reequip your normal stuff. Your mental regeneration attribute should be high and keep the combo's cooldown itself near to or even below the "comboed" aura's duration. Then make sure you have some life leech (by courtesy of some socketed Vampire skill runes, for instance).

With that, you're practically set, just balance out the cooldown of the shards, but you should get it as high level as possible. The use of any other spells is basically icing on the cake, you can experiment with that - supported by Sacred's skill rune system. That toon killed his first dragon with two uses of the shards spell. Yes, you read right: TWO. That spell gets ridiculously powerful with each additional level: more shards with higher individual damage and the damage type is such (50% physical/50% magical) that enemies with substantial resistance against both are hardly found anywhere in the game.

In that way, you can experience the whole game rather comfortably and frustration-free

[essjayehm]

@medea... I guess the timer system is somewhat different to get used to. 'Twas another aspect I enjoyed figuring out how to abuse. Not much different than just spending the time finding the recharge gear you need to spam your favourite TQ skill, etc.

But if you are looking for help with either of the Sacred games... darkmatters is there to help! If there is a ARPG site out there that can be considered nicer than this one, it's D.a.r.k

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Thanks, Fozzie, that might be a good one to try. Have details of a build called Meteor Storm Battlemage which sounds similar, although uses more skills than you suggest.

That's one of the sites I haven't visited yet, essjayehm, though I keep seeing it mentioned on various forums. I got most of my info for Sacred Gold from Wolf's Lair as I found that very informative. It hasn't quite disappeared, it's now hosted on www.pctalk.info under their fansite section as is Pevil's Place. Hasn't been updated, but still has good info for learners like me. Might have a look at darkmatters and see if they found an alternative to the free mode camera in Sacred 2. And any other useful info of course.

[defboy99]

I didn't enjoy Sacred Gold enough to even consider any sequels. I played through one time with a Dwarf bomber/artillery toon and uninstalled it. I hated the respawn system--you'd clear a screen of all enemies, walk three feet off screen, then go back and find all the enemies had respawned. It became a chore just to travel from one point to another, and as a result many players simply ran from place to place and ignored the mobs altogether. Also, the sequel won't run on my antiquated PC anyway, so I suppose that's a blessing in disguise, considering all the bugs people have reported. Like Medea says, TQIT is so much more enjoyable that I'll never bother with Sacred again. (I'm keeping an eye out for Grim Dawn, though, you can be certain of that.)

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Yeah, that is a nuisance. One of the reasons why I never take any of the escorts quests if I can help it. I uumed and aahed about getting Sacred 2, but the gold edition was a good price at the time so I thought I'd give it a try and see if it was better than the original when I got a machine that could handle it. Silly me. I can't say I've found many sequel games better than the earlier ones. Doesn't bode well for my gaming future as most of the ones I like are 95/98/XP ones so not sure how long I'll be able to get them to run as the machines/programs get updated all the time.

Edit: Fozzie, your idea made me wonder if you couldn't do the same with a TQ Storm toon. Interesting idea, might try it out and see how it goes. Think I would keep it as a single mastery though, so all the points could make the toon as strong as could be. Would need a staff as backup as well I think.

[flix]

Well, last post is a few months old, but I just have to say it: Sacred 2 freaking rocks. It is just as addictive and rewarding to play as TQ and the content is much more massive.

I haven't had any more crashes than I've had with TQ, and as far as bugs, there is a fan patch just as there is with TQ.

Modding the game is also ridiculously easy, including full modification of the camera settings, giving you complete control of it.

I think it's a shame people are avoiding it because of Sacred 1 (which I don't particularly enjoy either) or a bad installation experience.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

Glad to hear you're enjoying it flix. I must have another go at it with the camera swing turned off and see if I can do better. It's just I'm having so much fun playing TQIT again and restocking my Vault that nothing else is getting a look in at the moment. I haven't even played Two Worlds II apart from a brief visit to try it out a little, and Two Worlds was the RPG that got me started on RPG games. I will get round to trying them though, I know that - it's just a question of when.

[flix]

Well I certainly can't encourage you to STOP playing TQ. But if you do....

Customizing the Camera View in Sacred 2

Another really awesome thing about Sacred 2 is that almost all aspects can be modded with notepad or with simple programs designed to handle the bigger text files. It makes TQ modding look like a wilderness.