Arcanum Arcanum Multiverse Edition

[Drog Black Tooth]

-Remove Real-time mode
-Combat starts when enemies become hostile (no free move to the player first)

YES.

-Lower the AP scale from 1-20 to 1-10 (half speed boosts from dex)

Very easy to implement and I've been thinking a lot about it. The whole thing about Arcanum's TB being so much more overpowered than RT is that if your Speed stat is crazy high you can do WAY more attacks in TB. So yeah, maybe cut it in half, so that it doesn't change the outcome THIS much. Somebody's bound to get butthurt about this though obviously.

-Increase gun damage by 50-100% OR add a ranged damage buff from Perception OR add more ammo types

I'd do the following:
- First make a spread sheet listing all the guns, their damage and speed, calculate the Damage Per Second in a separate column.
- Decrease the weapon speed by about 1/3 maybe while keeping the same DPS, in order to reduce the wtf ammo consumption. Do the same for bows.
- Bump the damage output of most low tier guns by about 10-30%.
- Maybe add extra ammo types (such as shotgun shells) for some guns.

-Add more tech items that duplicate useful utility spells (teleport, unlock, identify, etc)

There's one Russian mod that adds a teleportation device. I don't really feel good about this, since this is a slippery slope that kinda makes technologists just reskins of mages.

-Allow NPCs to gain apprentice/expert/master status without that one Player background

Done, I have a working engine patch that does this. They gain training in a skill after reaching a certain skill level and character level, all the way up to master.

-Allow player NPC leveling by default OR change the auto-level schemes so NPCs don't waste points on health/fatigue, and everyone isn't specced for melee (more variety; throwing, guns, archers, etc)

Done, a la Dragon Age: Origins. NPCs start with an auto-level scheme which you can disable and distribute their CPs as you see fit once they become your party member. See the screenshots in this thread.

 

[Brancaleone]

I'd say the single most glaring problem is enemy AI, i.e., you practically never see the enemy utilizing the repertoire of spells/tech items. Spellcasters at most summon a creature, and then it's fisticuffs or staff. So it matters little whether for example spells are imbalanced or not, if they are never used against you, and that's because of that random based choice among just a few actions that passes for AI in Arcanum.

I'd say balance comes second, and by far, in the scale of magnitude of the problems that affect Arcanum combat.

Edit: a small example is aimed shots: apart from the fact that they occur once in a blue moon and therefore they are a waste of accuracy (which is a balance problem), the thing is that the enemy never uses them against you (at least, as far as I am aware of).

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I'd say the single most glaring problem is enemy AI, i.e., you practically never see the enemy utilizing the repertoire of spells/tech items. Spellcasters at most summon a creature, and then it's fisticuffs or staff. So it matters little whether for example spells are imbalanced or not, if they are never used against you, and that's because of that random based choice among just a few actions that passes for AI in Arcanum.

Guess we could increase the chance of an NPC critter casting a spell. There's several AI categories for spells in Arcanum, like offensive, defensive, healing, fleeing etc. It's just that not a lot of NPCs have any spells to cast.

Also, another thing DA:O was p smart to do is scripted spell casting. Remember those encounters where an enemy mage would ALWAYS cast a certain spell with some special condition (like his health being low or at the start of the battle)? We could do the same in Arcanum to spice things up.

Edit: a small example is aimed shots: apart from the fact that they occur once in a blue moon and therefore they are a waste of accuracy (which is a balance problem), the thing is that the enemy never uses them against you (at least, as far as I am aware of).

Actually I've no idea if the NPCs ever do aimed attacks, since the combat log/floats doesn't specify that. Were the called shots used by NPCs in FO1/2?

 

[Brancaleone]

I'd say the single most glaring problem is enemy AI, i.e., you practically never see the enemy utilizing the repertoire of spells/tech items. Spellcasters at most summon a creature, and then it's fisticuffs or staff. So it matters little whether for example spells are imbalanced or not, if they are never used against you, and that's because of that random based choice among just a few actions that passes for AI in Arcanum.

Guess we could increase the chance of an NPC critter casting a spell. There's several AI categories for spells in Arcanum, like offensive, defensive, healing, fleeing etc. It's just that not a lot of NPCs have any spells to cast.

Also, another thing DA:O was p smart to do is scripted spell casting. Remember those encounters where an enemy mage would ALWAYS cast a certain spell with some special condition (like his health being low or at the start of the battle)? We could do the same in Arcanum to spice things up.

That would be simply amazing, and it would represent a big chunk of 'additional content', since up to now it is not something you have to plan against or counter. Besides, lack of spells cast by enemies also trivializes the dichotomy between magic and technology routes.

Just imagine all of a sudden enemies casting a multitude of spells against you, or consistently using tech items and aimed shots, i.e., a great lot of things you now have to take into account (and counter): probably the combat wouldn't still be balanced, but it would instantly become 10x more interesting.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

After my recent gun playthrough I'd say the lower tier guns are okay, the high tier are strong but cost too much ammo, and the mid-tier are hopelessly weak and useless.

Balancing all the costs in terms of DPS/Damage per AP makes sense. The mid-tier rifles would need a big boost because right now they offer marginally more damage than a pistol at half the speed, and sometimes a higher ammo cost. Basically they're all worthless, you go from a Fine Revolver to a Looking Glass Rifle or Elephant Gun for any kind of an upgrade. The heavy machine gun is super fast (1AP per shot) but costs 6 bullets each, which is ridiculous and needs to be changed. No gun should consume multiple bullets per shot if the damage doesn't make up for it or have some kind of burst-fire AoE effect.

Most NPC builds right now are terrible and make no sense. Virgil maxes melee and dodge but no strength; he takes lots of willpower but only one spell school. He should really be a pure support/healer mage and never touch melee. Jayna maxes dex and dodge but only takes 3 melee... wtf? She also maxes perception but never puts a point in guns. Something is just broken there. Just being able to mule out skills like lockpicking/trap disarming would be a huge benefit.

Can NPCs use found schematics?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Well between Virgil, Magnus, Loghaire, and Raven, they all have some relevance to the story, Virgil most of all. Story character really shouldn't be so crappy.

 

[hell bovine]

I'd say the single most glaring problem is enemy AI, i.e., you practically never see the enemy utilizing the repertoire of spells/tech items. Spellcasters at most summon a creature, and then it's fisticuffs or staff. So it matters little whether for example spells are imbalanced or not, if they are never used against you, and that's because of that random based choice among just a few actions that passes for AI in Arcanum.

Guess we could increase the chance of an NPC critter casting a spell. There's several AI categories for spells in Arcanum, like offensive, defensive, healing, fleeing etc. It's just that not a lot of NPCs have any spells to cast.

Could those added spells be somewhat random? So that the enemy mages aren't as predictable? The SCS mod for Baldur's Gate does something similar (though I think it cheats a little and checks for player character resistances).

 

[Sranchammer]

Drog - is it possible to mod in animal romances? We have discussed before but I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Could those added spells be somewhat random? So that the enemy mages aren't as predictable? The SCS mod for Baldur's Gate does something similar (though I think it cheats a little and checks for player character resistances).

Sure you could make several pre-made mage enemies and then make them swap between one another randomly (or not) on sector load.

I'd love to include at least two ice spells, otherwise the Water spell college is close to useless. Also the game definitely needs more AoE spells and maybe some CC spells.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Drog - is it possible to mod in animal romances? We have discussed before but I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

Sure, if we could hire DGaider to offer his excellent penmanship.

 

[hell bovine]

Could those added spells be somewhat random? So that the enemy mages aren't as predictable? The SCS mod for Baldur's Gate does something similar (though I think it cheats a little and checks for player character resistances).

Sure you could make several pre-made mage enemies and then make them swap between one another randomly (or not) on sector load.

I'd love to include at least two ice spells, otherwise the Water spell college is close to useless. Also the game definitely needs more AoE spells and maybe some CC spells.

It'd be fun if the enemy mages used CC on your party. :D

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Can NPCs use found schematics?

No, and this is impossible to implement. The found schematics index (basically the object field that stores this shit) is unique to the player character object. Sad, I know. Same reason NPCs can never be cursed or blessed.

'Course, we could implement a workaround where the PC's found schematics would be extended to the whole party, so e.g. you open a party member's schematics menu, click on "found" and they would be able to craft the schematics that YOU've learned. This is doable, engine wise.

 

[Brancaleone]

Were the called shots used by NPCs in FO1/2?

Rarely, but they were, especially on hard dificulty. I don't know if the NPCs just rolled a chance to hit another body part or if they truly did aimed attacks.

Yeah, extremely rarely I got a crippled arm or similar in FO 1/2, so I assumed they did sometimes. With Arcanum, given how rarely an aimed attack provides the additional effect (I had the impression you had to score a critical, and then once every 10-15 criticals you got the additional effect), it's very difficult to tell.

 

[Old One]

-Remove Real-time mode
-Combat starts when enemies become hostile (no free move to the player first)

YES.

This is great and I support it 100%, but doing this does require fixing that bug Daemongar mentioned that makes turn-based combat get stuck sometimes. Switching into real-time mode for a second is the only way I know to break the lock-up.

Nerfing Speed is a really good idea.

I also suggest nerfing Dodge versus bullets, because dodging bullets is silly.

 

[passerby]

I don't get why RT mode has to disabled. Just make TB default. Why do you care how people play their game ?

If regardless of your best efforts, Arcanum combat still fail to entertain someone, why deny a possiility to spec a party for melee and dispatch at least trash mobs Ultima 7 style ?

 

[SDeden]

There need to be more cheap tech enemies. Where are the highwaymen holding you up in random encounters for some gold, like orcs do? Revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. Someone should mod that in.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I should really write a wrapper for Arcanum.exe, I already have way too many binary patches, and while my current solution of using scripts to apply patches to the exe is fine, it is limited. I can't really expand functions to do cool shit, like draw 10-15 follower portraits instead of 6 or add other completely new UI elements or new functions that do cool shit, like buttons for full party control. Because there's no space for this all.

I'll have to look into DLL hooking and ideally rewrite both the UAP engine patches and the high resolution patch like this.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't get why RT mode has to disabled. Just make TB default. Why do you care how people play their game ?

If regardless of your best efforts, Arcanum combat still fail to entertain someone, why deny a possiility to spec a party for melee and dispatch at least trash mobs Ultima 7 style ?

The reason why is because I don't think it's possible to balance the game for both modes. A rebalance patch that disabled turn-based mode, fixed all the DPS rates, fixed the attack animation issues, and made the spacebar an actual pause button would also work. I just think overall most people prefer turn-based to real time, so that's the one I'd pick for balancing.

Lots of developers have tried to create these hybrid systems and none of them really work.

 

[passerby]

Drog wants to redesign TB and I'm fine with that, I don't want him to waste his time with RT mode at all.
TB is what he wants and in the mess that is Arcanum combat TB mode should be easier to salvage anyway.
I'd give this mod a try with pleasure, but if in the middle of the playthrough I find out, that I still don't enjoy arcanum combat.
Why prevent me from breezing through trash mobs on autocombat then ?

Why is making TB default and stating it's the way it's meant to be played and RT is cheating not enough ?
Why do you care if I cheat, why do you care how I play the game ?

It's just like my opinion, I don't want to derail this thread further, neither I'll complain more when RT mode gets disabled.
Sadly, I doubt the mod will see the light of the day anyway, but this is fine too. Drog, you gave a lot to the cause

 

[Anomander Rake]

If you wish to release a combat mod, even if a lightweight one, please make it an optional component.

 

[Andkat]

RT is critical for quickly clearing irrelevant trash mobs.

 

[Anomander Rake]

so... how much time left before a new release? Be it UAP or multiverse edition ? I'm anxious to begin a new playthrough

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I want to do the DLL hook thing. So... however long it takes me to learn how do that and port all my binary patches over? And once done I'd like to do some more engine tweaking for the extra "oomph".

 

[Hirato]

Hey Drog,

I kind of want to write an open source engine reimplementation for Arcanum (ie, kind of like OpenMW).

I did get a small stub going that can open the archives and print the names and paths of all files inside it (shouldn't be too hard to open them from here, problem is figuring out how to pass them to zlib...).
But I am much too intimidated by the daunting task of having to reverse engineer all the file formats (I have 0 skills at this) to continue...

So I'm wondering, do you have any documentation on how to read the file types? ie, the art assets, the maps, the item/character prototypes, etc.

 

[Average Manatee]

Trains don't remotely make up for lack of teleport, especially in the late game when you are backtracking across the world multiple times. Basically the whole idea of spending character points to buy items is pretty flawed if those items don't provide unique benefits that carry forward throughout the game (like spells do). Instead you just get a mid-tier piece of gear that is quickly replaced. No melee character ever feels they wasted points pumping Str and Dex, so why do so many Tech points feel like an utter waste?

If you wanted to fully rebalance the game I think the best option would be to make tech items in general stronger but much more strict on the tech-aptitude requirements. This way your tech investment goes into making all tech-related equipment stronger, not just your single crafted items.

Actually I've no idea if the NPCs ever do aimed attacks, since the combat log/floats doesn't specify that. Were the called shots used by NPCs in FO1/2?

It was primarily a difficulty level thing in FO I think. Enemies love to crit your eyes on hard.

What exactly are the modifiers for called shots? Manual is vague.