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

[aweigh]

and yes, i am a MILITANT COMBAT-FAG.

 

[kwanzabot]

i still dont understand why people bitch about the black mountain mines, i can zip through it in like an hour tops


wow big deal you need to kill like 15 wolves and a couple molten rock men, big deal retards



i bet the people bitching about bmc just suck dick at the game and considering combat in arcanum pretty much wins itself you need to be really retarded and shit to lose at it

 

[Xor]

In order to get to the point where you can breeze through the game you have to start by investing enough points into a combat-related area to be viable. For physical attackers, that means 5 points in melee, bow, or guns and 12 or so points to hit 20 dexterity, meaning if you invest in nothing but those areas you can do that by level 11. If you want to put a few points elsewhere it will obviously take longer. That's not a huge problem though because you can easily be level 15-18 by the time you start with the BMC mines. For mages, you need exactly 1 point to be viable, although you'll be spending a lot of gold on stamina potions. Once you hit the point where you can trivially kill things, though, the game is easy regardless of your build and you still have another 35+ points to spend on other things. Even for melee characters that want to hit 20 strength as well you'll still have plenty of points to spend on non-combat things.

 

[Kem0sabe]

i still dont understand why people bitch about the black mountain mines, i can zip through it in like an hour tops


wow big deal you need to kill like 15 wolves and a couple molten rock men, big deal retards



i bet the people bitching about bmc just suck dick at the game and considering combat in arcanum pretty much wins itself you need to be really retarded and shit to lose at it

The problem is not the mines themselves, its the nose dive the game takes in terms of content after tarant. A lot of the shit you are doing post BMC is utterly mediocre.

 

[Average Manatee]

Could one make a viable mage/tech build ?

Depends on your definition of "viable". It certainly wouldn't be very good, but you could probably beat the game with just about any build because Arcanum is really easy. For spells, you're relying on things that don't depend on magic aptitude, and there aren't many of those - the summon school comes to mind, as well as utilities like teleport, and not much else. For tech, you can't use the best items because your tech aptitude isn't high enough. You can still craft things like explosives, though. Your best bet would probably be maxing charisma, gathering a shitload of followers, summoning an ogre, and using buff spells (which will suck) and tech buffs on your allies while they kill everything. You'll be gimped on xp since you won't be doing any damage, though.

Buffs work at 100% regardless of magical aptitude. 20 INT is actually quite OP, letting you semi-dump DEX/CHA/CON all together. As long as you are weakly tech aligned you'll pick up a lot more buffs from some tech items and it starts getting silly. Whole party of 20 DEX characters getting 25 AP per turn while the average enemy has 10? Yeah, that's doable shortly after Tarant. Then as your party levels up and you get more buffing items you can start to switch out your +DEX buffs for Haste which turns your 25 AP into 50 and literally breaks the game.

 

[MrMarbles]

In order to get to the point where you can breeze through the game you have to start by investing enough points into a combat-related area to be viable. For physical attackers, that means 5 points in melee, bow, or guns and 12 or so points to hit 20 dexterity, meaning if you invest in nothing but those areas you can do that by level 11.

Or just take some points in Throwing, get Azram's Star and you're good to go.

 

[kwanzabot]

i still dont understand why people bitch about the black mountain mines, i can zip through it in like an hour tops


wow big deal you need to kill like 15 wolves and a couple molten rock men, big deal retards



i bet the people bitching about bmc just suck dick at the game and considering combat in arcanum pretty much wins itself you need to be really retarded and shit to lose at it

The problem is not the mines themselves, its the nose dive the game takes in terms of content after tarant. A lot of the shit you are doing post BMC is utterly mediocre.

the best part of the game is tarant and pre bmc for sure, but idk i didn't mind the later portions of the game at all and i've never had trouble finishing the game on any playthroughs :D

 

[Fowyr]

i still dont understand why people bitch about the black mountain mines, i can zip through it in like an hour tops
wow big deal you need to kill like 15 wolves and a couple molten rock men, big deal retards
i bet the people bitching about bmc just suck dick at the game and considering combat in arcanum pretty much wins itself you need to be really retarded and shit to lose at it

I concur with kwanzabot. THE HORROR!

If you, with your tech, magic or mixed build, can't find method for destroying ore golems, then what you are trying to play? Sheep fucking simulator?

 

[MrMarbles]

Plus the endgame has one of the best quests: trekking around the wasteland looking for divine altars and securing the blessing of the allfather or whatever

 

[vortex]

I found there is HD texture pack and unoffical patch. In what order should you install it?

 

[Kem0sabe]

I found there is HD texture pack and unoffical patch. In what order should you install it?

There's no HD texture pack, for instructions

 

[vortex]

I can't download these files. I can't progress to download window. http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
Are there more recent versions of these mods?

 

[Fowyr]

I can't download these files. I can't progress to download window. http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/arcanum/highres/HighRes1.1a.exe
Are there more recent versions of these mods?

Enable java script (if you use NoScript as I), allow some sort of flash thingy in center of screen, your personal link will be generated shortly.

 

[vortex]

Thanks, I've made it.
Btw, in which engine was made this game?

 

[aweigh]

same engine that troika made ToEE with. if you want to see what troika's Fallout 3-clone would have looked like google "troika post apocalyptic tech demo"; before folding they were shopping around to publishers an incredibly sweet looking proof of concept (rather proof of engine?) using a more polished version of the same engine.

obviously they made upgrades between arcanum and toee but it was still the same engine and it was a wholly original troika engine made in-house. the only reason they licensed steam engine for bloodlines was because they never imagined they'd be working on an FPS game ever so when Bloodlines happened they were like shit we need something to make an FPS on !

afaik the arcanum/toee engine never had a fancy name or whatever it was just the troika engine.

 

[Daemongar]

why is having to invest initial points into combat skills equal non-creativity? i don't understand. the game has to be deep enough in the nature of its gameplay mechanics and how they interact with each other that every choice, such as which combat skill to boost, is meaningful.

Well, to answer that: the first couple of hours of a game are pretty important to players and sets the tone. As much flexibility that Arcanum provides, its still a very combat heavy game with unavoidable combat. The beginning entices you with so much selection, but it's kind of false: you could create a beautiful thief or persuader, but you are making it difficult. Folks who do that (thinking it is viable) invest nothing or very little in combat, those first couple of hours are terrible. I played until level 10 and it took more than 6 hours. This is making it to Tarrant and finishing non-combat quests and such. It took so long because combat was a huge pain and even at level 10, I could not defeat 4 level 3 wolves.

Compare it to a combat or magic build. I hit level 7 in an hour and could probably make level 10 in an hour off of random encounters. Most fights I dispatched everything pretty easy. I'm killing most things in a round or two, and if I kept to combat only, I would pretty much maintain this unstoppable pace.

I'm saying the position they start you with at the beginning is bad. The penalties for no points in melee or magic is over the top. The benefits of investing in melee or magic swing it the other way. Maybe by creating a different point buy (some points for stats, some for combat skills, and some for non-combat skills) it would have had some balance, but it doesn't have much. Points in each area (like Fallout) don't hobble freedom, but prevent a player from being too far over the top, and too weak.

 

[Immortal]

Arcanum has such a charm. The Art, Music and Aesthetics all conjunction perfectly to set a really nice environment.
It's a mess.. totally granted. Could have used at least another 6 months of polish and fine tuning.

But I still love it to death. It's my guilty pleasure.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Aren't there any mods to make the beginning any easier for non-combat builds?

 

[Average Manatee]

why is having to invest initial points into combat skills equal non-creativity? i don't understand. the game has to be deep enough in the nature of its gameplay mechanics and how they interact with each other that every choice, such as which combat skill to boost, is meaningful.

Well, to answer that: the first couple of hours of a game are pretty important to players and sets the tone. As much flexibility that Arcanum provides, its still a very combat heavy game with unavoidable combat. The beginning entices you with so much selection, but it's kind of false: you could create a beautiful thief or persuader, but you are making it difficult. Folks who do that (thinking it is viable) invest nothing or very little in combat, those first couple of hours are terrible. I played until level 10 and it took more than 6 hours. This is making it to Tarrant and finishing non-combat quests and such. It took so long because combat was a huge pain and even at level 10, I could not defeat 4 level 3 wolves.

Compare it to a combat or magic build. I hit level 7 in an hour and could probably make level 10 in an hour off of random encounters. Most fights I dispatched everything pretty easy. I'm killing most things in a round or two, and if I kept to combat only, I would pretty much maintain this unstoppable pace.

I'm saying the position they start you with at the beginning is bad. The penalties for no points in melee or magic is over the top. The benefits of investing in melee or magic swing it the other way. Maybe by creating a different point buy (some points for stats, some for combat skills, and some for non-combat skills) it would have had some balance, but it doesn't have much. Points in each area (like Fallout) don't hobble freedom, but prevent a player from being too far over the top, and too weak.

Two big problems are:

- Too much experience comes from combat, and specifically PER HIT in combat, such that if you need to rely on allies you're advancing noticeably slower and if you are avoiding combat entirely you're advancing incredibly slow.
- The advancement rate is too linear, too slow at the beginning and too quick by the mid/end game compared to the usual RPG experience curve. Making a bad build in Fallout 1/2 is mostly fixable by level 3, just dumping skill points in small guns or melee or something. In Arcanum that's not really the case, even if we translate a level 3 FO character to level 5-6 in Arcanum, 5-6 skill points really doesn't do much when you need 10+ to have decent combat ability.

 

[Immortal]

non-combat builds

I thought this thread was about Arcanum..?

 

[aweigh]

why would anyone play an RPG for something other than its combat system?

 

[Irenaeus III]

why would anyone play an RPG for something other than its combat system?

To play a role.

 

[Ninjerk]

So much for Arcanum, then

 

[Daemongar]

Aren't there any mods to make the beginning any easier for non-combat builds?

There should be.

Arcanum actually has a lot of content for non-combat players. My shit build sucks in combat, but I talked my way out of Shrouded Hills, talked my way into Schuylers, talked my way into additional info in various places. There also seems to be a lot of thief build quests but you'd have to be a masochist to invest in anything other than combat skills.

Most agree the first half of Arcanum is better than the second half, but if the first levels are only on combat skills, so much content is wasted. There is some interesting stuff, but you'll never see it unless you are willing to bite the bullet and deal with a lot of combat horror.

My bad build - had to put all points after level 1 into combat, dex, (and add a point or two to CH to get followers to make up for lost combat skills.)

Spoiler

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I just read the OP and skipped the thread!

The commenter quoted in the OP is a retard basically asking for an easy button that would streamline everything and let him surf through the game. Not valid criticism. If you wanna have a compass telling you where to go and tutorials that treat you like an idiot, go play FO3 or something, smh.

That's one half of the comments, the other half is basically "I cannot read".


Arcanum has a crapton of flaws (like bugs and stability issues, bad RT combat, poor balance, and unfinished ending areas), but oddly none of them were mentioned in the OP.