Sacred 2:Combat and Game Basics

Auto Leveling

Comparisons have been made between Sacred 2's method of balancing player to monster difficulty via leveling to that of Oblivion's. Sacred 2's auto-leveling of enemies is a wholly different method than Oblivion's and is, in fact, needed for Sacred 2 to function properly.

Oblivion vs Sacred 2 Auto Leveling

Many players interchangeably use the term auto-leveling with the understanding that leveling is handled the same way in both Oblivion and Sacred 2, while both in fact are different. An important consideration which distinguishes the two as being different, is that Oblivion would introduce a completely new monster type to offer a player challenge as his levels increased.

It would be difficult for a player to do what a majority of gamers have done in the past, which is getting ahead of the power curve. It is impossible to go and craft a perfect weapon, with the hope in returning to destroy the previous enemy with ease especially if was guarding a treasure chest that the player was curious about. This would have been impossible to do because the monster that was previously guarding the treasure chest had now changed into a more powerful monster to match the character's new level.

This is significantly different from simply having an adjustment to an enemy's level based upon a player's new level:

Sacred 2 auto-leveling of enemies will have a rat (enemy) leveling from 1 to 40, which is different from Oblivion's method of increasing player difficulty which could, for example, have the same rat at level 1, but would now introduce a completely different and new monster type, a Minotaur for example, at level 40.

The two types of leveling found within Sacred 2 and Oblivion are distinct and markedly different from each other.

Challenge and Difficulty

One reason why players may not like 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 is, actually, a moot point since the real issue is that there is no challenge and that gamers cannot get ahead due to the perceived auto-balancing. 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 to 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 leveling, the game was a constant but enjoyable struggle.In Sacred 2 the difficulty appears fleeting, if not absent. There are possible reasons why this exists:

• At least twice the number of different and distinct monsters would have been needed to emulate Diablo 2's method because of the very much larger number of levels in Sacred 2.

• The world is much larger, free-roaming and therefore needs more content to emulate the same sort of pleasant challenge that Diablo 2 offered.

• The level range in Sacred 2 is huge, 1-200, whereas Titan Quest's was 1-75 and Diablo 2 was 1-99.

One of Sacred 2's largest differences to Diablo 2 is it's 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 compared to your character level the better too as then the 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.

Diablo 2 did the same thing, except they capped the max too.

In Diablo 2 the world is linear (randomized, but closed) ,very much like a complex maze. The enemies are staggered in their level. Enemy levels as organized here, offer a good range, but are still around the same average level.

Players would constantly fight monsters around their level, by nature of the way the game was controlled. It was a closed system, and players were known to be of a certain level by the time they reached a selected, chosen area. And if not,a player would receive depreciating returns in experience, and thus would found the game difficult to play, as in the jump from normal to nightmare and nightmare to hell, as there were usually a few levels disparity between the two, due to the levels not matching up precisely.

Summary

It would be 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.