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Sacred Series

jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
So I guess I'm specifically directing this first post to @BelgarathMTH, since I know he is a big fan and defender of the series. I only recently got these two games to work on my modern laptop (Sacred 2 is easier with the patch, Sacred Gold took a bit for digging for workarounds). While these games certainly are gonna get labeled as ARPGs, they are WAY more deliberate than that. To be perfectly honest, I feel more like I am playing a single-player isometric MMO. It's an actual open-world that is hand-crafted.

So I started with a Wood Elf, which may or may not have been the best choice. A couple questions here: it seems my Plant Cage power being able to even be used on certain mobs is determined by how many ranks I have attained, without it, I feel like a sitting duck. This may be because I insisted on starting the game on Silver rather than Bronze. The other (and again, this is in Sacred Gold) is this game literally does not have any way to reset the keybinds, and they are all tied to the number keys on the top of the keyboard, and I ALWAYS have my ARPG keybinds tied to Z-V and A-F for easy reach. Do you know of ANY way to reset these?? I downloaded a mod that claims to do it but it doesn't work.

Comments

  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited May 2019
    I found single targeting the monsters in Sacred rather problematic compared to Diablo 2. Like monster's hitbox being smaller than its sprite, or something like that. Tried playing as Daemon, Dwarf, Seraphim, Dark Elf, Mage, Vampire, and all of them kinda sucked except for Seraphim and Dwarf, who's got powerful and wide AoE skills without a need for targeting (Celestial Light and Flamethrower, respectively).

    Some skills do depend on their rank to affect enemies of a certain level. Not sure about Wood Elf's skills, but Dark Elf's Fog iirc could affect enemies up to 8 levels per skill rank. And enemies on silver and above have higher level compared to bronze - I think equal to player's on silver and with extra bonus on gold/platinum. So yeah, just eat another rune or two if it doesn't affect monsters anymore.

    Keybinding - I have recently discovered AutoHotkey program, which can be used to override key input in specified programs. E.g. adding this to the script would treat pressing z-key in Sacred as if you'd pressed 1:
    #IfWinActive, ahk_exe path/to/sacred.exe
    z::1
    x::2
    
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited May 2019
    Sorry, but it's been a *really* long time since I've played the first Sacred. For the past ten years or so, I've done all gaming on an 82" HDTV that can't handle 1024x728 resolution without putting it in a tiny box in the center of my screen, and stretching it with the TV takes the edges of the image off the screen. It's the one resolution my HDTV can't do well. I mean, I can play it, but the image is very small, so I never use that resolution.

    Unfortunately, that's the *only* resolution that Sacred Gold will play in. That particular game is hard-coded to that one resolution. So, I haven't played in a very, very long time. The last time would have been in the early 2000's.

    When I did play, I played quite a lot, but I only played a few classes, usually battle mage or gladiator. I could pretty much break the game with the builds I chose. Ice Shards battle mage, Gust of Wind battle mage, Stomping Jump gladiator. I also built a really broken seraphim one time using a skill that I've forgotten the name of - she didn't need a weapon, and instead used a spell where she was shooting laser beams out of her hands. It got so fast, she was like pew-pew-pew at machine gun speeds.

    I only played a wood elf one time, and I didn't go very far with it. I think that's a class where you need to do a lot of kiting, especially early on. You have to be really careful with a low level battle mage, too.

    I always found it helpful to do Sloeford on Bronze level, up to about level 8 or 9, and then switch to Silver level and start again. That always gave me a balance that felt about right through Silver level. Bronze gets very, very boring really fast after you get enough levels with a good build.

    Don't fall into the trap of reading too many runes. You need to be looking at your cast speed, not your amount of damage. The goal is to spam one skill or one combo, with a cooldown of 1 second or less. Make attribute choices and gear choices that keep your attack speed or your casting speed maxed.

    There's a steep learning curve to it, but once you get the hang of making of good build, it's a pretty easy game. I used to be able to just walk around like a god blasting enemies 20 and 30 levels higher than mine with single shots. It got kind of boring, really. :)

    EDIT: Oh, and I never used any keyboard controls. I always played with just the mouse, using one right-click spell or ability. Every once in a while, I'd right click a circle icon on the screen to activate this or that long-lasting buff. I have two programmable mouse buttons - one would be drink a health potion, the other would be stand still and attack, or sometimes I put the second one on highlight loot and objects.
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    edited May 2019
    I also built a really broken seraphim one time using a skill that I've forgotten the name of - she didn't need a weapon, and instead used a spell where she was shooting laser beams out of her hands. It got so fast, she was like pew-pew-pew at machine gun speeds.
    Energy Bolts, or something like that. I believe BFG is superior in damage, though, as it's shots can pierce multiple targets and it's attack speed can be boosted by the spear skill just the same.

    That still requires some manual targeting however. I instead used the extremely lazy build - picked armor, meditation and parry, then heavenly magic and constitution, then agility. Leveled up only Lightning Bolt and Celestial Light spells, and the anti-arrow one later on. And wore about 10%-15% life leech on equipment (vampire runes in early game). And that's it, just run around in circles to gather a large mob, then dump CL at yourself and simply stand and watch, then collect the loot.
    With all the four defensive skills available in game combined with lifeleech from continuous damage by CL, precious few things can kill Sera, and those who can, e.g. dragons and bosses, can be dealt with by unloading a 4xCL combo.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited May 2019
    I've decided Sacred 2, with it's fan patch, is the way to go to experience the series. Sacred Gold would be great with a remaster, but as it stands, it's just horribly dated. It's actually hard to think of a single game in this genre whose sequel doesn't make it nearly obsolete.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    I've decided Sacred 2, with it's fan patch, is the way to go to experience the series. Sacred Gold would be great with a remaster, but as it stands, it's just horribly dated. It's actually hard to think of a single game in this genre whose sequel doesn't make it nearly obsolete.

    Sacred 2 is definitely an improved version of pretty much the same game, and it supports widescreen resolutions.

    Steam says I have 583 hours in Sacred 2, but that's not counting all the years I played the disc version before Steam even existed. I'm sure my life total is well over 1,000 hours. Sacred 2 rivals Baldur's Gate as far as number of times I've replayed it and total hours spent.
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