Sacred 2

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes the zoom is to close by default and TSAA is a real perfomance killer. Massive boost just using 4xAA.

Btw what could be the chances for native 720p option for Sacred 2 users on consoles through a patch?

Not sure, isn't Ascaron bankrupt? As such I'm not sure how much funding the company that ported Sacred 2 would get in order to do a patch.

Likewise, I'm not even sure what the chances are that Sacred 2 for PC will get anymore patches to fix remaining outstanding bugs.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not bankrupt. In adminstration, which means, as I understand it, business as usual while investors are found. And as part of that, they'll need to show they are professional and can support and improve their products and services. Certainly they have released patches since the financial news broke.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Not bankrupt. In adminstration, which means, as I understand it, business as usual while investors are found. And as part of that, they'll need to show they are professional and can support and improve their products and services. Certainly they have released patches since the financial news broke.

Ah ok, the Ascaron website said they were "under the protection of insolvency law." Which I just assumed was similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

And they only mentioned server services and securom activations would be unaffected.

Hmmm, scary thought. If they go under, will Sacred 2 no longer be activatable? Meaning all those PC Sacred 2 discs will become coasters?

Regards,
SB

 

[ban25]

Moreover, multiplayer may be history.

 

[ban25]

I played a bit more yesterday. My High Elf Ranger is now up to level 20. The game's definitely fun and I'm having a blast exploring the world at my own pace.

Here's some cool things I noticed:

The graveyard near the main city has tombstones for Sacred 1 and Underworld hardcore player characters that died. This is a really nice touch and something we wanted to do on my last game. It also reminds me of Sacred 1, but then again, it makes me want to play the Vampiress and Succubus again too.

The Kobald Chieftain on Silver is tough! I finally beat him, but only after adding poison to my bow to neutralize his regen. Even then, I needed a fire demon summon and a lot of time (~15 minutes) to actually kill him!

Achievements! 1000 GS looks possible for this game. Getting all character classes to level 15 should be easy enough and the rest of the achievements look like they can be accomplished through the normal course of the game.

 

[T.B.]

Hmmm, scary thought. If they go under, will Sacred 2 no longer be activatable? Meaning all those PC Sacred 2 discs will become coasters?

Totally unofficial answer: The activation servers are Sony's, not Ascaron's. So that should not be an issue.

Oh and Shifty, thanks for the review. All fair points I guess. No idea why your PS3 hangs, though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Totally unofficial answer: The activation servers are Sony's, not Ascaron's. So that should not be an issue.

Oh and Shifty, thanks for the review. All fair points I guess. No idea why your PS3 hangs, though.

I was actually talking about the PC version with regards to securom. I don't believe console games use securom.

I'd assume that the console version would just happily keep chugging along no matter what happened to Ascaron.

Regards,
SB

 

[ban25]

I was actually talking about the PC version with regards to securom. I don't believe console games use securom.

I'd assume that the console version would just happily keep chugging along no matter what happened to Ascaron.

Regards,
SB

Securom is of course a product of Sony DADC -- I think that's what T.B. was getting at.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Securom is of course a product of Sony DADC -- I think that's what T.B. was getting at.

Aaaaah, OK. Well that makes sense then. I wonder, does a securom license for a game have to be periodically renewed by the publisher of the game?

If not then I suppose it'd only be a problem if you ran out of activations or something?

regards,
SB

 

[liolio]

Good news it looks like a patch and an extension are on their ways

I'm really looking out for this game but some details have made me delay my buy.
First of all from the reviews I read the game is mostly unplayable at SD resolution (too tiny text mini cart).
And secondly perfs. After reading digital foundry analysis it looks like ~720p resolution is a sweeter spot for the engine. I would really like to see Ascaron implement a proper 720p mode.
Actually I would like to see them implement AAx2 too.

TB it looks like Ascaron implemented quiet some different rendering mode in Sacred2, from Eurogamer analysis, 1080p, 720p, 1376x768 and 1280x960. I know that you were left when "SD" modes have been implemented but still I've a question as you have to be really familiar (to say the least) with this engine.
Do you think that it could resolve in a reasonable amount of work to implement 720p and AAx2 in a patch(maybe along fixing your "torn frame bug" no offense)?
How about a performance mode? (slightly toning down some effects to ensure more consistent performances).
I mean Ascaron plan on a patch and an extension and so far 1080p has bring them much congrats, more it looks like it raised some more publicized performance problem, going back from 1080p to 720p would go mostly unnoticed while solid perfs would be more noticable and most likely reported in the press (on/off line).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Actually I would like to see them implement AAx2 too.

720p renders in 1080p and downsamples to 720p. Thus you effectively get SSAA when playing at that resolution but speed remains the same as 1080p.

I believe 480p renders in 720p and downsamples. Thus it's faster and still has SSAA.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Good news it looks like a patch and an extension are on their ways
...
And secondly perfs. After reading digital foundry analysis it looks like ~720p resolution is a sweeter spot for the engine. I would really like to see Ascaron implement a proper 720p mode.
Actually I would like to see them implement AAx2 too.

THEY NEED TO FIX THE BUGS!! Forget everything else. An expansion is an obscenity. A game with this many broken bits and frustrations shouldn't be released. Sacred 2 provides some hundreds of hours of bugged gameplay already, more content than any normal mortal will experience. Do we really need more? If they ignore the faults and try to sell DLC, they do not value their players. Such a company deserves to go bust IMO.

 

[liolio]

720p renders in 1080p and downsamples to 720p. Thus you effectively get SSAA when playing at that resolution but speed remains the same as 1080p.

I believe 480p renders in 720p and downsamples. Thus it's faster and still has SSAA.

Regards,
SB

I know that digital foundry article is pretty clear on the matter.
My point is that they use tiling to render at 1080p on the 360. To render with AAx2 @720p on the 360 you also need two tiles, but overall I think that perf would be better.
Tiling cost in regard to the perf is the same @1080p and 720p + AAx2 but you deal with half the pixels. I may also ended freeing some memory
IQ would take a take hit but 35 to 40 % of frames torn and non consistent framerate is close to unacceptable.

 

[T.B.]

Do you think that it could resolve in a reasonable amount of work to implement 720p and AAx2 in a patch(maybe along fixing your "torn frame bug" no offense)?
How about a performance mode? (slightly toning down some effects to ensure more consistent performances).

Short answer, as I'm typing on my phone and on vacation.
The issue with AA is how our deferred pass works. If we simply process all samples, you will not see that much of a speed-up, although it might be enough to push us over 30fps GPU wise. So that could work on the 360, but will kill IQ due to the massive amount of alpha-testing we do. Not pretty.
On the PS3, we are much more CPU bound, so lowering the resolution will not give you that much. To be honest, we hit 33ms GPU time most frames. CPU is the issue.

 

[rekator]

THEY NEED TO FIX THE BUGS!! Forget everything else. An expansion is an obscenity. A game with this many broken bits and frustrations shouldn't be released. Sacred 2 provides some hundreds of hours of bugged gameplay already, more content than any normal mortal will experience. Do we really need more? If they ignore the faults and try to sell DLC, they do not value their players. Such a company deserves to go bust IMO.

Shifty, you speaks for Bugs… can have you some description. We don't have much bugs in our party with my wife. The big problem is the disappear of the quests when she reach my game and left after to her game, and the non following for her character's quest.
But we don't have go for some live parties, so don't said something on that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On PS3 -

• Network games can freeze. The local game updates with animations, but the player gets locked into an attack cycle or walk cycle, or sees monsters that aren't there. Game can prevent saving, losing all progress since last save. The netcode also seems poor, with the worst lag I've ever experienced in a console game. This can cause pauses in game of a second or so, during which time you're getting bashed up but your PS3 isn't updating to show this. You just suddenly realise when it snaps back into sync and a screenload of damage numbers float above your character. Death = loss of Survival Bonus, yet sometimes it's out of your hands. Obviously this could be a network fault, but the same consoles have no issues when playing different network games.
• Quests not updated properly. You can have a target denoting the next checkpoint for the current quest appear in completely the wrong place, and have you running around trying to find access to impossible places. Or it doesn't show. Or you can partially complete a quest you haven't taken yet.
• Skills broken. Whether a bug or a change of features, I don't know, but it makes skill management ridiculous, to the point it doesn't much matter. Blacksmithing has no effect at all. Spell Intensity on weapons doesn't affect spell intensity, meaning the highi elf has no decent way to increase her damage unlike melee combatants. Regen bonuses aren't applied. Health regen bonuses from the high-elf buff works, but the dryad's doesn't appear to apply - the bonus certainly doesn't update the Overview screen.
• Graphical glitches. It's a well rendered game on the whole, but I've seen the text on the controls screen get corrupted. Not a big thing, but all the more disconcerting for that. The game can't even render text without errors, can we really trust it in other departments? (no, as they're broken too!)
• Apparently broken combat. It's next to impossible to shoot flying creatures with a ranged weapon, but they can be hit with melee weapons. Maybe it's a game mechanic, but it's not described anywhere. Had a ground based boss on Tuesday who couldn't be hit at all with arrows. Perhaps he had a ranged-combat evasion buff, but that wasn't communicated. Have to hit creatures for well beyond their listed hitpoints to kill them. eg. 5000 total damage listed in yellow numbers to kill a creature that the Overview page shows had 1,500 HP. Quaffing a Potion of Undead Death has no effect whatsoever.

If you don't pay attention and just load up basic skills and hit things, it's not a problem. But then the game becomes extremely shallow, moving from one place to the next holding down the X button to kill all the monsters. If you try to progress your character, you find one issue after another. Some of the above are rare, but happen enough to be incredibly frustrating. eg. The game freeze issue doesn't happen enough that we regularly save. Some nights it doesn't happen. Which leads us to a false sense of security, so a couple of hours can go by and then *bzzzzt*, no save thank you very much. The end result is a game you can't trust or work with. Why did you put all those points into a buff that lists a HP regeneration bonus when activating the skill doesn't affect the listed HP regen of your character at all? Why invest in Blacksmithing when it has no bonus? Why choose a high-elf on the expectation you will be wielding awesome powers, when the mechanics for making spells powerful don't work? Sacred 2 fails on the core requirements of this type of loot-and-level game.

 

[liolio]

Short answer, as I'm typing on my phone and on vacation.
The issue with AA is how our deferred pass works. If we simply process all samples, you will not see that much of a speed-up, although it might be enough to push us over 30fps GPU wise. So that could work on the 360, but will kill IQ due to the massive amount of alpha-testing we do. Not pretty.
On the PS3, we are much more CPU bound, so lowering the resolution will not give you that much. To be honest, we hit 33ms GPU time most frames. CPU is the issue.

First it's really nice of you to answer
I see CPU problems... not easy to solve.
Anyway I'm still attract to the game (especially for local coop game play with my wife) I will wait till I've a proper display and for the patch, if I'm lucky I could also get the game a bit cheaper!!

Enjoy your vacations

 

[rekator]

I see…not really please.
Don't have all your problems on local play on 360, need to trail live parties.
For blacksmithing we don't take this competence for now.
Next party my wife should choose a high elf so I trying to look closely the impact of spell increased…
When you are on the character presentation, you can see all the effects your equipments give you by holding RB on 360, R1 on PS3?. I don't now if you're already know this but if this can help you.
For freeze only 3 for around 150 h of total game, but it's also the time that our 360 love to go in vacation in germany after a year of work.
For flying creatures my wife kill them more easily with her driade after she take the distance skill, with my temple guardian and Seraphin I'm also kill them without the distance skill, generally one or two touch for three hits, depend also of the creatures, but I'm made less damages than her.
Our big black point is her loose for her character's quest, she can't made it maybe in her solo party.
And some quests need a restart for activating them, from now 5 or 6 only.

@liolio: when you got the game send a request, it's very rare and pleasant to game with other french couple ! or for some Halo 3 or Gears 2 parties!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Next party my wife should choose a high elf so I trying to look closely the impact of spell increased…

That was my first character. I played alongside a Temple Guardian and a Seraphim. They were doing on average 2x the damage, if not more, by level 15/16. That's when I switched to Dryad. Now she's totally overpowered. She can use rings of regeneration to spam multishot arrows, and wipe out armies of mobs in the time it takes sword whackers to dispense of one enemy. The High Elf can barely take down a single foe without needing to retreat and quoff potions. eg. Fireballs that track enemies miss 50% of the time. Levelling a spell to increase its damage to something substantial increases its regen time a HUGE amount meaning standing around without spells to cast. And there's no way to increase damage using equipped items, except Skill+ enchantments which are fairly feeble next to Physical Damage + 22%!

When you are on the character presentation, you can see all the effects your equipments give you by holding RB on 360, R1 on PS3?.

Yep, R1 for stats and bonuses. I look at these to see bonuses getting applied, and the Regen meter at the bottom of the inventory page or whatever it is. Some stuff just doesn't show.

For freeze only 3 for around 150 h of total game, but it's also the time that our 360 love to go in vacation in germany after a year of work.

I think I've had only one freeze offline, maybe none. Online it's dodgy

For flying creatures my wife kill them more easily with her driade after she take the distance skill

I put skill points every level into Weapon Lore and Ranged Combat for the Dryad. Plus I have the ranged combat buff. I hit airborn monsters one time in 50 maybe!

 

[Arwin]

If the game is CPU bound on PS3, does that basically mean it's PPU only?