Preview Sacred 2 ganderings at Action Trip

[bozia2012]

Forced to play shit like NWN2 (bought CE lol) and TQ... Something wrong is going on..

I must be dumb or whatever because I'm replaying TQ again... and enjoying tweaking the class system. But you will notice it only if you try to beat legendary. I finished the game dozens of times but only 1 on legendary. I still don't know nothing about the plot. What Uz0rnaem said about the game world is true, but why the fuck do you want story-whateva in a SPORTS game?! It's just phat lewt dummy decoy practice munchkin builder.

Well, back to OP. They (Ascaron) mention something about Gore Feedback. Must do some research (hoping for some blood & intestines) in that subject. TQ was real shitty in that department (12+ PEGI for a game in which 100% of time you kill teh monstarz with OMG sharp weapunz ). Yeah axes are blunt but swords are NOT. I'm not going for the Manhunt or Postal stuff but (plizzz) you got to see some blood on the battlefield...

 

[Texas Red]

Do all action RPGs have the retarded respawning system? I was somewhat entertained by TQ but quit right after I discovered about the respawning.

 

[Dementia Praecox]

Do all action RPGs have the retarded respawning system?

Thought you said you've played Gothic 3?

 

[bozia2012]

More and more games have retarded *cough*NWN2*cough* respawning/resurrection system. Anyone remember Diablo 1? There was no respawn - just "load game" button.


EDIT: added question mark

 

[Dementia Praecox]

Anyone remember Diablo 1? There was no respawn - just "load game" button.

How was that any better?

 

[bozia2012]

Dunno. Never said it was better :twisted:
But seriously it makes no difference if this kind of respawning shit is put into a treadmill simulator. It gets nasty when this kind of idea leaks into "normal" games...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Sacred 1 pissed me off with its 5 second respawning monsters. You'd work your nuts off to clear out an area only to walk back through 5 seconds later and find everything's respawned almost as soon as you've killed it.

You have to be a certain distance out of an area before things start to respawn again. One wacky thing about Sacred is if you kill a certain percentage of things in a given area, a HIGH percentage, the game will spawn some seriously powerful boss critters in that area. You're talking about killing close to 1000 monsters first, though.

The nice thing about Sacred is after a while, monsters won't mess with you if you're too high above their level. Then there's the funny items with trait of killing monsters a certain level below you on sight, so you can wander back through an area and just watch those monsters flop over dead when they appear on the edge of the screen.

 

[bozia2012]

Then there's the funny items with trait of killing monsters a certain level below you on sight, so you can wander back through an area and just watch those monsters flop over dead when they appear on the edge of the screen.

So you're saying that S1 is a better screensaver than DS?

 

[Micmu]

Sacred is hardly a screensaver, it's an incessant clickfest, just like 389346 other Diablo-clone action "RPG"s (except DS), while being better than most.

 

[Uz0rnaem]

So you're saying that S1 is a better screensaver than DS?

The game is not about walking around, watching enemies instantly drop dead. That trait Saint was talking about is merely some minor gimmick, which helps making the late game less tedious. It's also completely optional.

I must be dumb or whatever because I'm replaying TQ again... and enjoying tweaking the class system.

There's nothing dumb about that, really. As I said, the game is certainly not an awful abomination only lobotomized zombies could enjoy, it just falls flat compared to some other games in the genre.

What Uz0rnaem said about the game world is true, but why the fuck do you want story-whateva in a SPORTS game?! It's just phat lewt dummy decoy practice munchkin builder.

I didn't mention the story at all. In my opinion, Sacred's story was ridden with fantasy clichès and seemed artificially stretched out, too. It didn't distract from the fun though, and TQ's plot didn't make things worse either. I'm basically with you on this: If an action RPG has a great, motivating plot, it's a cool bonus, but not a requirement.

By the way, another nice thing about Sacred was the huge amount of (sometimes randomized) sidequests. Sure, they were all simple, but you always had something to do, so even if you really did hate the story, you could just forget about plot progression for a while and do small jobs for the locals.

 

[Volourn]

"Do all action RPGs have the retarded respawning system?"

No. Tons don't. JE, G3, and BL are just 3 examples.

 

[bozia2012]

...

Well, I gave Sacred another try several weeks ago... And for me, besides shitty skills system and sometimes awful art design (grotesque avatars' look and animations), the biggest flaws (paradoxically) are: the amount of subquests and the railroaded gameplay (the tracks are too wide ) You can't just focus on building your character and killing teh monstarz. Instead you have to read tons of shitty text just to complete some fedex/killthefoozle quests. The ALMIGHTY QUEST COMPASS helps a bit.

About the plot being a cool bonus: Bloodlines (also considered as action rpg) is great for everything but not the combat (the main feat of all A-RPGs ).

 

[no]

What's wrong with the combat in Bloodlines? Outside the glitchy respawning (which even Brian Mitsoda claimed to be a design flaw in a late interview, and which is by now fixed with unofficial patches) I found it at least as enjoyable as the combat in other FP RT RPGs like Deus Ex and System Shock 2 (forgive my lack of purism :D).

 

[Uz0rnaem]

You can't just focus on building your character and killing teh monstarz. Instead you have to read tons of shitty text just to complete some fedex/killthefoozle quests.

You found yourself unable to focus on the things you were most interested in, because of the amount of optional sidequests?

Well, I really like having options, the more the better, even in action games. If I'm bored with one thing, I'd like to be able to do another. In Titan Quest you were mostly stuck with the main plot, with barely anything else to do. Even exploration, something I immensely enjoyed in Sacred the first time I played it, couldn't keep me occupied, because there's just not that much to explore.

 

[Volourn]

"What's wrong with the combat in Bloodlines?"

The combat is nearly utter shit.

 

[taxacaria]

"Do all action RPGs have the retarded respawning system?"

No. Tons don't. JE, G3, and BL are just 3 examples.

G3 has a respawning system - a number of animals are respawning after a while.
But they do this one by one, so there's no area refilled with hundreds of animals at once.
Furthermore you have annoying respawn effects at certain locations (I remember a cave) and at certain quests (End with Xardas).
Respawned creatures give no exp points in G3, but you can loot them.

 

[bozia2012]

You found yourself unable to focus on the things you were most interested in, because of the amount of optional sidequests?

That's the problem. I have to complete ALL quests (don't ask why) and in TQ you can complete all of them while doing the main thang - they are not slowing your progress. In Sacred you have quests placed all over the map, so you have to wander a lot. If the writing was better and you had some choices to make - then doing all that shit would be fun.

I'm not saying BL combat was shit - it was just the worst aspect of the game. And it was better than G's 1&2 combat.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

...

Well, I gave Sacred another try several weeks ago... And for me, besides shitty skills system

The skills or the combat arts? Both are don't fairly well with a pretty hefty dose of choices on how you want to set your character up. Every few levels, you get to pick a new skill which can range from things like Horseback Riding(Yes, you can attack from horses) to weapon/armor skills to things that allow you to find better loot and such.

Combat Arts are the special attacks which you get from drops. There's skills devoted to making those attacks recycle faster, so you have a choice on if you want to do a massive attack that doesn't recycle often or be able to recycle them fast and get off weaker versions of them. You can also socket Combat Art runes to boost their power which has a lesser impact on recycle time.

the amount of subquests and the railroaded gameplay (the tracks are too wide )

I liked Sacred better when sidequests were randomly generated, even though they were fairly generic ones. You could still find them more often and it beat doing the same sidequests over and over again. Plus the sidequests that were randomly generated often took you to new landmarks you hadn't been to before if you were a new player.

You can't just focus on building your character and killing teh monstarz. Instead you have to read tons of shitty text just to complete some fedex/killthefoozle quests. The ALMIGHTY QUEST COMPASS helps a bit.

Sure you can. 70% of the gameworld is wide open to the player without doing any quests at all.

About the plot being a cool bonus: Bloodlines (also considered as action rpg) is great for everything but not the combat (the main feat of all A-RPGs ).

The sidequests in Bloodlines were great. It's the main plot that sucked. Way too combat oriented. Given the nature of the review rush where reviewers are trying to get through as much of the game as possible so they can write six papragraphs on the subject of the game, it doesn't shock me many viewed it as a crappy first person shooter. That's kind of how the main quest was set up.

 

[Elwro]

Sacred was quite fun for a while. Still, if I wanted a h&s helping right now, I think I'd go back to Divine Divinity which succesfully combined hackfest with quite an interesting setting. And good music.

But no dwarves.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Jesus, this is killing me trying to find out what other races are gonna be in sacred, and will you be able to choose between male and female variants?
I wanna choose a female gladiator named Ulga who uses massive hammers to smash her enemies.

 

[sabishii]

"What's wrong with the combat in Bloodlines?"

The combat is nearly utter shit.

Why do you lie? Combat was bad, but it was not utter shit.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Jesus, this is killing me trying to find out what other races are gonna be in sacred, and will you be able to choose between male and female variants?
I wanna choose a female gladiator named Ulga who uses massive hammers to smash her enemies.

There's an Undead Centurian, a Seraphim, ... I know I read a list of them somewhere. I doubt there will be male and female versions, but who knows?

 

[bozia2012]

Sacred's skill/combat arts system is weak compared to TQ. If you chose for example rogue mastery the second mastery choice can completely alternate your gameplay style. Rogue/earth master would focus on poisoning his enemies to slow them down and use fire-based spells to finish them; rogue/hunter master would focus on piercing weapons that can nullify the armor class of your enemy and deliver powerful one-hit kills; rogue/spirit master can slow enemies to point when they barely move and drain their lives, spike them with traps and then bleed them to death. You have 8 masteries a you're free to combine them as you want. All builds have their pros and cons so when you're playing a brigand you can kill enemies fast but you also very vulnerable. In Sacred you can choose wheter you'll be using axe or sword or do you prefer more hit points or more damage... The difference is how often you'll be drinking health potions. Mounted combat is good only when you're playing wood elf or battlemage so you can escape your enemies.

Bloodlines main plot is hmm... normal? You don't have to save the world, you're not the chosen one. You just happen to land in the middle of a war waged by several opposing factions. The game setting, the dialogues, the overall feeling is it's strenght. The main plot is extremely combat oriented - my first playthrough ended when my gunslinger malk ran out of ammo fighting Ming Xiao... Bloodlines thanks to it's writing is among the most immersive crpgs (other BI, Troika games )

 

[Uz0rnaem]

In Sacred you can choose wheter you'll be using axe or sword or do you prefer more hit points or more damage... The difference is how often you'll be drinking health potions.

Oh come on. Up until now I simply disagreed with your opinion, but at least you had your reasons for it, but this is just pure bullshit. Just because Sacred didn't take the holy skilltree approach to character development, doesn't mean it lacks depth or variety.

 

[bozia2012]

That's it! Swords or pistols?
I didn't say it has no depth or variety. Sacred character/class/skill/combat arts system is similar to Diablo. In my opinion TQ gives you something more. But, de gustibus non est disputandum. :D