Sacred 2:Auto Leveling
Challenge and Difficulty
A reason why players may not understand the auto-leveling feature in Sacred 2 is due to the perception that monsters are not challenging enough, hence the blame on the auto-leveling feature. Auto-leveling in Sacred 2 actually forces the player to change areas or levels until he finds the same type of monster at a higher level or a different monster entirely that offers challenge and through that, more experience. A look at another popular hack 'n slash RPG, Diablo 2, demonstrates that a player could find a great weapon, and they would suddenly be at the upper end of the power curve. The power curve is the balancing mechanism that provides challenge. It ensures that a player is not too strong, and also that an enemy is beatable. The power curve mechanism in Diablo 2 would fluctuate, so that if a player found an enemy that was unbeatable at a certain level, the player could just gain levels, perhaps gain a new skill and then return to the previous monster which could then be beaten. While using that particular method of leveling, Diablo 2 offered a player satisfaction from killing an earlier enemy, while Sacred 2, as contrast, will have a player looking for another possibly same type of monster but at a higher level.
Why are there differences in balancing player v.s. monsters between the two games?
- At least twice the number of different and distinct monsters currently offered would have been needed to emulate Diablo 2's method. The level range in Sacred 2 is huge, 1-200, whereas Titan Quest's was 1-75 and Diablo 2 was 1-99.
- The world in Sacred 2 is much larger, free-roaming and therefore needs more content to emulate the same sort of satisfaction via killing static and unique enemies that never leveled up as in Diablo 2.
Sacred 2 offers a fully open world. Each area has level caps for the enemies. Rats, for example, in the first area around Sloeford possess a level cap of 37. The reason for this, is that as per the manual, players receive experience based upon the level of the creature defeated. A player would have no reason to kill thousands of creatures that are level 1, who provide no challenge for a level 80 Seraphim, because they would give the player 0 XP. The closer an enemy's level approaches a player's level, the better. The higher this is, ascompared to your character level, the better too, as then the surrounding highlight for the enemy creature is red which yields maximum experience. The reason enemies increase in level and power as a player does and, as well, the reason that enemies are capped in areas, is to allow a player time to explore a chosen massive area while continuing to level up, without exhausting the supply of enemies close to the player's level, which gives the player enough experience to level up with.
It is useful for a player to consider the auto-leveling in initial areas as a large tutorial section. The levels of challenge offered purposely so as to instruct the player via quests, while familiarizing himself with his character.
