Sacred 2:2-Player local co-op (PS3)

2 Player Local Co-op

Getting Started

One of the multiplayer modes that is not thoroughly explained is 2 player offline local co-op. 2 people can enjoy Sacred 2: Fallen Angel together at the same time, on the same PS3. Here's how to set it up:

Pre-game Setup

2 or more PS3 user accounts are required to play locally at the same time.

• Setup different user accounts on the PS3 - On the XMB (Cross Media Bar) go to the Users section and create a new user. This is just a user account on the PS3. The name of the user account has nothing to do with Sacred 2.
• Existing characters on one account - This is for those that may have already started working on a character on an account, taking turns with another individual, and now want to be able to play together with them locally.
  • Copy the Sacred 2 game save to a thumb-drive or USB hard drive. Then log in on a different PS3 user account and copy the Sacred 2 game save again. Now your 2nd account has the same game save as the original account.
  • NOTE: When you start Sacred 2 under the 2nd account where you copied the game save of the original account you will see a notice stating, "This savegame is linked with another User or Online-ID. The savegame can be used, but Trophies cannot be achieved and scores will not be submitted to the leaderboards." This is only bad if you care about the lack of trophies and leaderboard status.
  • WARNING: Copied game saves have been known to get a glitch that does NOT allow trading items online with other people. This has been stated as a glitch, implying that it will be fixed at some point in the future as of the writing of this guide.

Hosting the game

Now that you have characters on different accounts, you can get to playing together on the same console at the same time! Someone needs to host the game. 2 player local co-op is an offline multiplayer mode, therefore requiring a offline campaign as if you're going to play offline by yourself. Choosing that mode also has no level-gap limit, which is nice.

The account that is hosting the game is the "main" player. Once the main player enters the game and the saving icon goes away, the guest player can then hit the 'start' button on their controller. That will bring up a prompt allowing you to select from which account you want to pull a character into the game. Select the account that has the character you want, then select the character you desire to play with. That character will now appear right next to the main player character. You can now enjoy the fun together!

General Information

• Information regarding behavior and quirks of playing 2 player local co-op.

Shared Quests

Fact: Both players get experience and rewards for any quests done in a co-op game session. Catch: The quests only show completed on the host's game. Don't worry! As stated before, you have already received the rewards and experience from the quests when you were playing on the host's game. With the exception of the campaign quests and class quests, there's no real reason to have to redo most quests. Nothing is stopping you from running each and every quest again though, if that is your preference.

• Campaign Quests - Even if you do the campaign quests on the host's game, you still have to do them in your own campaign mode game if you're wanting to progress. This comes down to preference of the players. If you play co-op regularly with the same host playing, you may decide to just have a free-world game, maybe even under a different difficulty, for your own individual game. Do whatever you want, really. It is too easy to be misled into thinking that you're limited in how you want to play the game as your character.
• Class Quests - (UNCONFIRMED)The host of the co-op game is the only one that will have access to his/her class-based quests. The guest can help with the quests but will not be able to access or start their own class's quests in that co-op game session.

Shared Experience & Drops

• The general rule for Sacred 2 experience and item drops sharing is that any players in a party will split experience and item drops.
• 2 Player Local Co-op places both players in the same party, therefore causing drops and experience to be shared between both players.

In other words, you won't get the full experience for a mob kill when you're in a party with another player.

Experience

The algorithm for experience sharing is unknown at this time. Look for this to update soon.

Item Drops

The algorithm for splitting ownership for item drops is unknown at this time. This could be assumed that it randomly gives drop ownership per item, not per monster killed.

Host's map vs. guest's map

The host does just that--hosts. The host's map is the only map that counts. If a guest player joins in local co-op with a character that has more of the map explored than the guest, the guest will not get any of the map 'uncovered' other than what their character has actually seen and saved during that game session.

Example: Player A hosts a game and has lots of the map exposed. Player B joins Player A's game as a recently created character with very little of the map exposed. Player B shows up in far away Greenborogh with Player A, a place he's never been. They both travel around in the human realm for a little while and then decide to quit and go to Player B's game. Player B now has areas of his map exposed, but only in the areas he's actually been, like the newly traveled Greenborough.

The same thing happens on the flip-side of this scenario. If a player joins another player's hosted game that has less map exposed than his or herself, the map will be the host's map, lack of exposure and all. You can only go to portals the Host has activated in his hosted game.

While this has no negative effect on either player's game, it is good to understand what is happening when your map doesn't match up with the other player's.

Portals and Resurrection Monoliths

Activating portals and resurrection monoliths should be thought of as if you're playing a single player game. It only counts if you activate the portal yourself, even though you see the other player activate it, just activate it so your character gets credit for doing so.

Portals

• The first player to activate an inactive portal will generate the animation of the portal activating.
  • For the 2nd player to get access to that same portal in their own game it needs to be activated as well, which will bring up the map screen. Just back out of the map--you've activated the portal and that's what is important.
• If a guest player has portals active in their own game progress, those portals will appear on the hosts map during that game session.
  • This can be good if you want a low level character to be able to reach a high level zone.
  • The host player needs remember to activate the portals if they want to gain access to them when playing by themselves.

Resurrection Monoliths

• The last active monolith is where your player starts the game. As stated before, this is to be viewed as an individual player action. If the guest player doesn't activate a monolith, when they start their own game they won't start at that monolith but instead at the last one they did activate.
  • During the co-op game, even though the guest player may not have activated the monolith that the host player did, if you both die you will spawn at the host's activated monolith during that game session.

Trading

• Currently, for North American PS3 players, trading in 2 player local co-op is not possible.
• European players may enjoy trading since the 1.04 patch.

Saving Tip

• With save corruption occurences still happening the following save procedure has had a very high success rate.
  • Player 2 saves game, then leaves after the save icon goes away. Player 1 then saves, and leaves after the save icon goes away.

Glitchy Behavior

There are a few known glitches that occur specific to multiplayer modes, even some specific to local co-op play. Here are some known glitches and possible workarounds and/or preventative measures for them. (Subject to be outdated after system patches)

Character Switching

When hosting a local co-op game, a guest player can jump in and out of the game on the fly and even have a different character join. This will be called character switching for the sake of this glitch section.

• UNCONFIRMED: You may want to avoid using this ability. Switching out characters during a game session seems to encourage glitchy behavior as a whole.
  • Just save and quit the game, using the Saving Tip, to start a new game and choose different characters.

Mounts

The most common glitch regarding mounts is that the guest player sometimes loses their mount for that game session. It can be alarming, as the mount does not appear in the inventory at all but, in most cases, is only a temporary glitch of that game session. Saving the game doesn't 'save' the state of the missing mount. NOTE: Some players may never encounter glitchy mounts. This information is helpful if you have encountered it or are interested in avoiding it.

What to do when this happens:

1. If you want to recover your mount immediately, both players should activate the exact same resurrection monolith and then save the game.
2. Following the Saving Tip, the guest then leaves the game followed by the host.
3. Having both activated the same monolith, relaunching the game should mend the problem.

• This is not an all-around fix. It may or may not work in specific cases, but has been known to work in many cases.

How to avoid glitchy mounts

NOTE: This is not necessarily a prerequisite. At the very least it is something that can be done if you've encountered it before.

• If possible, both players should have the exact same resurrection monolith active in their individual game's progress.
  • This isn't confirmed as a perfect preventative but it seems to work.
• Avoid the Character Switching scenario.