Arcanum Arcanum is, by far, one of the worst *games* I've ever played... emphasis on "game" and not "RPG"

[kwanzabot]

4. Combat still sucks. I only get XPs if I hit, and Virgil seems to kick enemies to death more than I actually hit. Remember old strategy of giving him a dagger so he only hits for tiny damage. Combat is gruelling, but I start to level.

i'm 95% sure with the newest official patch if get xp even if you don't kill what you're fighting

 

[thesoup]

Whose alt is this roqua wannabe?

 

[Beastro]

If there's something that takes three playthroughs to figure out is how to play a gunslinger, which mostly involves not using guns for a long time.

Played a gunslinger in 1st play through. It becomes obvious right away that very early game firearms are useless. You'd have to be MCA level bad at this game to play as a gunslinger for more than 20 minutes without starting over with a point in melee.

I think the reason why I fail to be appropriately edgy about this game is that I played it wrong. I read about Harm spam here and then failed to make a Harm spam wizard when I played. My bad.

Spoiler

In all seriousness: You deserve to have a shit time if you picked a wizard for your first play through. What kind of asshat picks up a generic fantasy meets steampunk game and then decides "You know what, even though there are no other steampunk RPGs out there, I'm going to stick with generic fantasy for my character..."

First time I played through I went melee and balanced between magic and tech to use lockpicks and make magic friends.

I find the harm spell hyperbole a bit much, you don't need to do a lot to get by in the game. I personally used Axe of Lost Time for much of the mid game and the curse was never did much against me.

 

[Sigourn]

i know english and logic aren't strong suites for monkeys but try a bit harder to at least not many shit up lol

Aren't you running late for your suicide bombing? Just kidding mayne, chll out, I'm sure you feel good for bashing on people you know nothing about.

1. Excidium II is right. The start of this game is imbalanced as all hell. Like clockwork, get a scar in the first combat or so reducing BE. Die more from criting myself. Drop weapon constantly. Combat it not fun, but unavoidable.

This was one of my biggest issues with Arcanum, before I decided to give the game a proper try and read most of the manual beforehand. Fallout's combat is pretty intuitive for anybody who played a turn-based Final Fantasy game before, Final Fantasy Tactics preferrably. But Arcanum's is a bit more complicated, with Fatigue, the ability to attack beyond your current AP, and having to rely on Virgil who will not heal you for some reason from time to time.

 

[Sykar]

If there's something that takes three playthroughs to figure out is how to play a gunslinger, which mostly involves not using guns for a long time.

Played a gunslinger in 1st play through. It becomes obvious right away that very early game firearms are useless. You'd have to be MCA level bad at this game to play as a gunslinger for more than 20 minutes without starting over with a point in melee.

I think the reason why I fail to be appropriately edgy about this game is that I played it wrong. I read about Harm spam here and then failed to make a Harm spam wizard when I played. My bad.

Spoiler

In all seriousness: You deserve to have a shit time if you picked a wizard for your first play through. What kind of asshat picks up a generic fantasy meets steampunk game and then decides "You know what, even though there are no other steampunk RPGs out there, I'm going to stick with generic fantasy for my character..."

First time I played through I went melee and balanced between magic and tech to use lockpicks and make magic friends.

I find the harm spell hyperbole a bit much, you don't need to do a lot to get by in the game. I personally used Axe of Lost Time for much of the mid game and the curse was never did much against me.

Not like that is any different in FO. Just that you have a lot less options there.

 

[Excidium II]

How can someone be this dense? You have such trouble understanding that the problem with Arcanum combat is not simply lack of balance? In fact, like I already said the broken mechanics work in Arcanum's favor.

Stop trying to compare it to Fallout because it makes no sense.

 

[kwanzabot]

i know english and logic aren't strong suites for monkeys but try a bit harder to at least not many shit up lol

Aren't you running late for your suicide bombing? Just kidding mayne, chll out, I'm sure you feel good for bashing on people you know nothing about.

1. Excidium II is right. The start of this game is imbalanced as all hell. Like clockwork, get a scar in the first combat or so reducing BE. Die more from criting myself. Drop weapon constantly. Combat it not fun, but unavoidable.

This was one of my biggest issues with Arcanum, before I decided to give the game a proper try and read most of the manual beforehand. Fallout's combat is pretty intuitive for anybody who played a turn-based Final Fantasy game before, Final Fantasy Tactics preferrably. But Arcanum's is a bit more complicated, with Fatigue, the ability to attack beyond your current AP, and having to rely on Virgil who will not heal you for some reason from time to time.

i dont need to know anything about you, all i know is you're a spic which basically makes you a monkey, reading your posts you're stupid even by monkey standards


like i said, keep drinking the dirty water retard

 

[Ninjerk]

jesus christ

 

[Sigourn]

i dont need to know anything about you, all i know is you're a spic which basically makes you a monkey, reading your posts you're stupid even by monkey standards

like i said, keep drinking the dirty water retard

 

[cherry blossom]

[*]It gets dull at some points, and it has this part in a mountain that can break even the mightiest player upon it's mighty enemies, unless you have blunt weapons. Then they are pushovers.

Elephant Gun.

The only problem was I was unprepared and ran out of ammo midway through the place.

 

[Reject_666_6]

There are no good RPGs, only different flavours of shit. The sooner you people understand this, the sooner you can go out there and become productive wage slaves.

That said, Arcanum has its fair share of gold nuggets and it's worth sifting through for them.

 

[Sigourn]

There are no good RPGs, only different flavours of shit. The sooner you people understand this, the sooner you can go out there and become productive wage slaves.

I'm no pen-and-paper RPG player myself, but I understand tabletop RPGs are the only ones that truly allow you to roleplay your character properly (and if I'm wrong, then true roleplaying doesn't exist).

 

[Reject_666_6]

But can PnP games be Art™?

 

[Fowyr]

roleplay your character properly (and if I'm wrong, then true roleplaying doesn't exist).

Have you read this thread that I posted to you earlier?
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...multiple-characters-in-an-rpg-larping.106393/

 

[RK47]

...well, a lot of people do that Fowyr when fapping.

 

[Daemongar]

[*]It gets dull at some points, and it has this part in a mountain that can break even the mightiest player upon it's mighty enemies, unless you have blunt weapons. Then they are pushovers.

Elephant Gun.

The only problem was I was unprepared and ran out of ammo midway through the place.

Yeah, first time I went there... I ran right out after breaking my weapon. I ran around and fought random encounters and bought some fist weapon that totally destroyed the golems. I was annoyed, but eventually made it through with no major problems. Once you can beat one golem, you can beat them all.

Also, I went melee/tech on my first playthrough. Ended up making the fancy power armor, but no guns Kind of obsessed over getting that armor for most of the game. That and some kind of technical axe. Then I destroyed all.

 

[makiavelli747]

Played a gunslinger in 1st play through. It becomes obvious right away that very early game firearms are useless. You'd have to be MCA level bad at this game to play as a gunslinger for more than 20 minutes without starting over with a point in melee.

as I recall you can get max skill lvl right from the start, use spell to boost your dex, buy potions for int(free tech) and speed, and around lvl 10 you can kill anything in a game.
playing a gunslinger is easy as fuck, I don't even understand why people calling Arcanum unbalanced, when every class is exactly the same OP

 

[Sykar]

Played a gunslinger in 1st play through. It becomes obvious right away that very early game firearms are useless. You'd have to be MCA level bad at this game to play as a gunslinger for more than 20 minutes without starting over with a point in melee.

as I recall you can get max skill lvl right from the start, use spell to boost your dex, buy potions for int(free tech) and speed, and around lvl 10 you can kill anything in a game.
playing a gunslinger is easy as fuck, I don't even understand why people calling Arcanum unbalanced, when every class is exactly the same OP

Because you need to put in a bit more effort into technology to make it work as well. Magic is fairly brainddead unless you refrain from using op stuff like Fireball and Disintigrate. That being said the system is overall fine. Arcanum's real problem lies with glitches and some really atrocious parts like BMC.

 

[Tacgnol]

Tech melee was my favourite build for Arcanum. You could craft some really nice weapons, and the steam power armour was pretty sweet.

I never enjoyed the loot aspect of playing magic melee or ranged builds in Arcanum.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Tech is the best way of playing Arcanum. You actually have to think a bit and looking for schematics and components is actually fun. Nobody should believe those who tell you that the best way is mage with harm...and then complain the game is shit because you spam 1 spell over and over again.

Mage with anything is just boring. Even just a regular melee character (no inclination towards either tech or magic) is way more fun.

why people calling Arcanum unbalanced,

Because you can't spam the same thing over and over again as a tech character, which means it sucks. ((

 

[Fowyr]

Tech is the best way of playing Arcanum. You actually have to think a bit and looking for schematics and components is actually fun. Nobody should believe those who tell you that the best way it mage with harm. Mage with anything is just boring. Even just a regular melee character (no inclination towards either tech or magic) is way more fun.

A little magic never harmed anyone, though.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I think I already posted this, but one my most fond memories of Arcanum is when I was playing that melee character I mentioned, but was probably not developed that well and I couldn't beat the melee master. So I bought a scroll of dominate will and cast it on him and stole all his equipment then beat him up while he was wearing only underpants.
Now that's emergent narrative or whatever the fuck it's called.
And means magic can be fun sometimes too, unless you play as a mage.

 

[Fowyr]

Because you can't spam the same thing over and over again as a tech character, which means it sucks. ((

But you can spam grenades again and again, replenish their supply at trash can and spam them again.

All good games have combat that can be exploited. From Wiz7 Cane of Corpus to JA2 night combat, FO's eye shots or Disciples of Steel's Wrath of Gods.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Have to admit, I really enjoyed the game first playthrough, but could never bring myself to complete the mines on every subsequent one. By that stage, you've done Tarrant, and had most of the game's greatness done in that one extended burst, and you've got a whole ton of shit to go before you can get to the next good part.

It's fine the first time round, but too great a slog for further goes. Mind you, I've always played variations of tech-gunner or tech-inventor. I'm fully aware that going magic or melee-brute would solve the slog, but that in itself seems like it would be missing so much of what makes the game great. And whilst making your own bullets is cool and all, the mines really aren't designed around a limited bullet mechanic (not that you run out, as you should be able to make your own by then, but it just adds the nail into the slog coffin).

Really, the game needed some alternate path for allowing high-int tech and non-combat magicians to skip the slog. Strike a better deal with Bates, or go to another, shorter, dungeon crawl to obtain some artifact that you can scientifically analyse or magically scry that leads you to the next part of the plot, with the mines being the 'brute force' method.

 

[Tacgnol]

Have to admit, I really enjoyed the game first playthrough, but could never bring myself to complete the mines on every subsequent one. By that stage, you've done Tarrant, and had most of the game's greatness done in that one extended burst, and you've got a whole ton of shit to go before you can get to the next good part.

This is often where I give up my attempts to replay Arcanum as well. It's a shame because there is some good content afterwards.