Does Arcanum's combat become more fun at higher levels?

[Shadenuat]

dudes favorite game series is piloted by Todd Howard (lol brain damage), so he's sublimating on Troika which made much better RPGs. let the scaly fuck rant again, he does it p much in every arcanum thread, in same topic, in same worthless fashion.

if I would make a guess, guns in Arcanum are underdeveloped for same reason everything is: the scope is too big (combat includes from melee to guns to magic to summons to boomerangs grenades and sneak attacks).

 

[Daze]

Still don't know how they messed it up that bad.
Too much work to just copy Fallout?
Stupid success of Diablo 2.

 

[Shadenuat]

arcanum has around 40 guns or so and close to 100 spells etc

this game is simply too big for its own good.

you want answers, send cain chocolate box and ask. but stop with retarded "hurr brain damage", cause brain damaged don't make top best western RPGs ever made.

 

[JarlFrank]

The scope was just right. It wouldn't be the same glorious game if it were any smaller.

 

[Daze]

Everything on the other side of that mountain range sucks.

 

[Shadenuat]

im for quality over quantity but there's something about whole arcanum mess that just makes it an enjoyable one.

 

[JarlFrank]

im for quality over quantity but there's something about whole arcanum mess that just makes it an enjoyable one.

The presence of dozens of different weapon types that aren't even equally viable also makes the game world feel less artificial and the items progression less tiered. It's also why Morrowind has the best itemization of all Elder Scrolls games, and the sequels just suck in comparison.

Morrowind: spears, throwing weapons, bows, crossbows, daggers, short swords, katanas, long swords, axes, clubs, maces...
Oblivion and Skyrim: axe, sword, mace all in a strictly tiered progression (iron->steel->dwarven->ebony->daedric)

Arcanum with its various different guns, throwing weapons, bows, melee weapons feels the same. A lot of these weapons are plain useless, some are roughly equal in effectiveness, others are fucking OP (rapid fire bows are absolute roflstompers). Never does it feel like the weapons are shoved into artificial tiers.

A certain amount of quantity is needed to make the game world feel organic rather than artificial.

 

[Arryosha]

Thanks for all the replies. It's a bummer about the combat. Maybe I'll give it another go with a different mindset.

What I'm looking for even more basically than good combat is some reward for building my character in one way rather than another. In most RPGs I've played, combat is pretty much the end-all-be-all of character building, so if the combat sucks, I'm left thinking "where's the reward for all this planning?" (I'm lazy, I know.) But perhaps there are more, or greater, non-combat rewards to building a character in Arcanum, such as using high-level stealth to solve a quest, or other things my brain can't yet conceive of.

 

[Lilura]

What I'm looking for even more basically than good combat is some reward for building my character in one way rather than another. In most RPGs I've played, combat is pretty much the end-all-be-all of character building, so if the combat sucks, I'm left thinking "where's the reward for all this planning?" (I'm lazy, I know.) But perhaps there are more, or greater, non-combat rewards to building a character in Arcanum, such as using high-level stealth to solve a quest, or other things my brain can't yet conceive of.

Most build-based reactivity is exercised in Tarant. After that, it's not so interesting. If you want to feel like your build matters for 150 hours or so, I think Swordflight is the best example. But it's got a lot of tough combat, too. Still, it's better than Arcanum, imo.

 

[JarlFrank]

Thanks for all the replies. It's a bummer about the combat. Maybe I'll give it another go with a different mindset.

What I'm looking for even more basically than good combat is some reward for building my character in one way rather than another. In most RPGs I've played, combat is pretty much the end-all-be-all of character building, so if the combat sucks, I'm left thinking "where's the reward for all this planning?" (I'm lazy, I know.) But perhaps there are more, or greater, non-combat rewards to building a character in Arcanum, such as using high-level stealth to solve a quest, or other things my brain can't yet conceive of.

High persuasion lets you achieve some great things.

There is a high tier stealth quest that's pretty cool, but you can easily slay your way through the "dangerous" enemies that spawn if you fail the stealth checks when you're high level.

The skill mastery quests are pretty cool in general. Every skill has a mastery quest once you got it at max skill points and trained to expert.

 

[DraQ]

arcanum has around 40 guns or so and close to 100 spells etc

this game is simply too big for its own good.

Just throw out one of the redundant combat modes.
Why the fuck would you put disparate RTWP and TB combat modes in a project where you don't have enough time to get the core features right?

 

[MF]

Why the fuck would you put disparate RTWP and TB combat modes in a project where you don't have enough time to get the core features right?

Probably because Sierra/Activision looked at Diablo 2's sales numbers, saw that Arcanum was another one of those fancy 'RPG' things, and told Troika to make it a similar experience. Tim being Tim, he never scrapped his original TB system.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Just throw out one of the redundant combat modes.
Why the fuck would you put disparate RTWP and TB combat modes in a project where you don't have enough time to get the core features right?

Seems to me they realized early their combat system wasn't as good as they thought and added the RT mode.
Could have fixed it by cutting by half the number of AP and limiting the effect of speed boosts.

By the way, i'm not sure you can call it RTwP because the combat is so fast you can't manage it the way you do with your usual RTwP slog where everyone moves slowly and make fake attack animations in between real ones to keep the players from falling asleep.

 

[Shadenuat]

arcanum has around 40 guns or so and close to 100 spells etc

this game is simply too big for its own good.

Just throw out one of the redundant combat modes.
Why the fuck would you put disparate RTWP and TB combat modes in a project where you don't have enough time to get the core features right?

did we ever ask this in any interviews?

 

[Tigranes]

Thanks for all the replies. It's a bummer about the combat. Maybe I'll give it another go with a different mindset.

What I'm looking for even more basically than good combat is some reward for building my character in one way rather than another. In most RPGs I've played, combat is pretty much the end-all-be-all of character building, so if the combat sucks, I'm left thinking "where's the reward for all this planning?" (I'm lazy, I know.) But perhaps there are more, or greater, non-combat rewards to building a character in Arcanum, such as using high-level stealth to solve a quest, or other things my brain can't yet conceive of.

Thanks for all the replies. It's a bummer about the combat. Maybe I'll give it another go with a different mindset.

What I'm looking for even more basically than good combat is some reward for building my character in one way rather than another. In most RPGs I've played, combat is pretty much the end-all-be-all of character building, so if the combat sucks, I'm left thinking "where's the reward for all this planning?" (I'm lazy, I know.) But perhaps there are more, or greater, non-combat rewards to building a character in Arcanum, such as using high-level stealth to solve a quest, or other things my brain can't yet conceive of.

Then you should know Arcanum has some of the most glorious talky/persuasion moments in CRPG history, including being an actual diplomat

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Yeah, while the combat isn't the best, your ability to talk your way out of situations or use your character's attractiveness to get by has few to match it. It's a shame the combat in Arcanum ended up being a step backwards from Fallout, but the other things Fallout did so well only got better.

 

[DraQ]

Seems to me they realized early their combat system wasn't as good as they thought and added the RT mode.

And this is the kind of moon logic that drives company into the ground.

 

[JarlFrank]

Seems to me they realized early their combat system wasn't as good as they thought and added the RT mode.

And this is the kind of moon logic that drives company into the ground.

AFAIK Sierra demanded a real time mode so they had to implement one based on publisher mandate.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Yeah, from the things I heard the real-time combat was a demand from Sierra or Vivendi. It wasn't something Trokia wanted, it was something they were told to do by the publisher.

 

[DraQ]

AFAIK Sierra demanded a real time mode so they had to implement one based on publisher mandate.

Yeah, from the things I heard the real-time combat was a demand from Sierra or Vivendi. It wasn't something Trokia wanted, it was something they were told to do by the publisher.

And that's why the only legitimate use of a tie is to strangle the wearer with it.