Arcanum Arcanum isn't especially flawed in any way

[bloodlover]

NWN2's combat feels terrible compared to the IE games when it comes to things like responsiveness. The free resting in the OC also makes anything that isn't a boss a complete waste of time and the bosses are also a waste of time because they tuned everything really low so people who can't/won't learn the rules can get through it.

Also third point five edition is awful, but so is every other edition of D&D.

There is free resting in most games and if you take this as being a major flaw, we are talking about a shitload of games. It is necessary though as a gameplay mechanic in video games since you don't have the flexibility of a real PnP session.
I think having certain risks when resting (and I am not talking about random kobolds that ambush the party) or requiring food and water might be a good option.

I don't agree on learning the rules. You have to be really retarded to fuck up your character right from the creation screen to the point where you can't beat the game. Like pumping intelligence on a barbarian :D Besides, D&D rules are not that hard anyway and it does not take a long time to learn them.

 

[t]

I love Arcanum to death, but anyone claiming it isn't flawed in any way after having crawled through the Black Mountain Mines is a fucking liar.

Approximately 213 harms later...

 

[Infinitron]

I don't agree on learning the rules. You have to be really retarded to fuck up your character right from the creation screen to the point where you can't beat the game. Like pumping intelligence on a barbarian :D Besides, D&D rules are not that hard anyway and it does not take a long time to learn them.

You didn't actually read Roguey's post did you

 

[Night Goat]

Also third point five edition is awful, but so is every other edition of D&D.

 

[Broseph]

Arcanum is good but also shitty and I don't think I'm ever going to replay it.

NWN2 is Obsidian's worst game.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

So taking fifth place isn't enough, the game has to be perfect too? Uh.

Yes, after you've finished it, and after you've read 3 guides and 10 forum threads about it, it's somewhat easy to create a character that isn't challenging to play, but this is true about almost every game. In fallout you put points into small arms and destroy everything, in F2 you can immediately go for the best armor, in Morrowind you can have 1000000000 strength within 5 minutes with alchemy, in BG2 you can cloudkill cheese the twisted rune for the Staff of the Magi, and so on.

Finding out about charged rings + balanced sword / harm spam isn't really that hard.

By the way:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/arcanum-balance-issues.23803/

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I played the game for a while and every time I kinda got into it due to great writing or interesting quests shortly thereafter I ran into the next stupid bug, the next broken quest, the next fucking annoying bullshit combat that sucked the fun right out of it. I finally rage quit in that elven town due to a broken quest. May return to the game one day .. but fucking hell.. No one can tell me something about holy trinity or flawed gem or shit like that anymore. It is a mediocre clunky broken mess with few redeeming qualities.

 

[Gozma]

It has like 10 or 20x more combat than the design can make interesting

 

[Quilty]

Although deeply flawed, to me it is a game that fired up my imagination during my teen years with its stories, characters and (I know, weird, but what you gonna do) stunning 2D visuals that somehow appealed to me much more than any 3D world before or since. Whenever I step into that place I feel like a kid discovering his love of fantasy all over again, and once you pair that with the amazing soundtrack you get an atmosphere of an alien world there to be explored and enjoyed in its strangeness and beauty. It is broken and ugly and poorly animated and maybe even barely a game by today's standards, and yet I can't help myself: every time I read the name Shrouded Hills or hear the first few notes of the main theme I feel that sting in my chest that only bittersweet childhood nostalgia can cause.

 

[Renegen]

I disagree. The balanced sword you get to craft 15 minutes into the game is more powerful than some of the most powerful firearms in the entire game. And how many firearms are there, 10? If you play Arcanum like it's Fallout or something and just waiting for the game to hand you good weapons, your character will get killed before that ever happens. You need to invest heavily in gun crafting, you need to find the blueprints, you need to seek the ingredients. The ammo is lacking, you need a proper character build so you don't miss 80% of your shots, everything. And the game still has many bugs after the unofficial patches.

 

[Shadenuat]

If you play Arcanum like it's Fallout or something and just waiting for the game to hand you good weapons, your character will get killed before that ever happens. You need to invest heavily in gun crafting, you need to find the blueprints, you need to seek the ingredients. The ammo is lacking, you need a proper character build so you don't miss 80% of your shots, everything.

And that's bad how?

And how many firearms are there, 10?

Wat. A fuckton. The right question is more like "how many actually useful firearms are there?". It's about 3-5, and the problem lies with attack speed and bullet per shot ratio.

(I know, weird, but what you gonna do) stunning 2D visuals

It's not weird, but developers idiotic choice of resolution hides a lot of great pieces like Bate's or Caladon's castles.

 

[DalekFlay]

I remember making a pistol focused guy who sucked so badly I stopped playing. Not sure that's a flaw or not, depends on how you feel about "every class should be able to finish the game" shit.

 

[Shadenuat]

I remember making a pistol focused guy who sucked so badly I stopped playing. Not sure that's a flaw or not, depends on how you feel about "every class should be able to finish the game" shit.

I can understand people who don't like Arcanum combat, but it's hard to believe somebody actually can have trouble with it. If your guy sucked that probably means you did not use right weapons and items and did not focus on right stats&skills. The first time you get Expert in Firearms and lay your hands on quality revolver you should be fine to explore. Then it's just a matter of a few more gadgets to improve your speed and perception and you can finish the game by changing revolver for a few more various pistols of your liking.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Why are people so whiny about the BMM? "oh noes a hard dungeon, wot now!"

Well, one thing that can be said against it is that it is incredibly boring. There is literally nothing of any interest in that whole dungeon, there is only combat.. which would be okayish if it wasn't a game with absolutely horrible combat.

So after you slowly crawled through this mess, presumably without having any fun in the process whatsoever, the next thing that happens is that shortly thereafter you end up in yet another dwarven mine with exactly the same shit all over again. (I am aware that dungeon is optional)

 

[Arkadin]

Why are people so whiny about the BMM? "oh noes a hard dungeon, wot now!"

Well, one thing that can be said against it is that it is incredibly boring. There is literally nothing of any interest in that whole dungeon, there is only combat.. which would be okayish if it wasn't a game with absolutely horrible combat.

So after you slowly crawled through this mess, presumably without having any fun in the process whatsoever, the next thing that happens is that shortly thereafter you end up in yet another dwarven mine with exactly the same shit all over again. (I am aware that dungeon is optional)

This. I actually enjoyed it the first time I played through, but the long obligatory dungeons in Arcanum cause me to quit the game on every subsequent playthrough. That and a lack of content/quests outside of Tarant are my main complaints...the combat is at least amusing if you toggle between real time and turn based, just a burden if you only use the latter.

 

[DalekFlay]

I can understand people who don't like Arcanum combat, but it's hard to believe somebody actually can have trouble with it. If your guy sucked that probably means you did not use right weapons and items and did not focus on right stats&skills. The first time you get Expert in Firearms and lay your hands on quality revolver you should be fine to explore. Then it's just a matter of a few more gadgets to improve your speed and perception and you can finish the game by changing revolver for a few more various pistols of your liking.

It was so long ago I couldn't possible tell you what I did or didn't do. I'm far from an RPG idiot though, I doubt the problem was being derp with my skills. Someone else just posted below you that guns suck in Arcanum, so I'm just going to leave it.

 

[Koschey]

Why are people so whiny about the BMM? "oh noes a hard dungeon, wot now!"
Did you lose your epic sword on a Golem or something?

Black Mountain Mines...a hard dungeon.

Try mindnumbingly boring instead.

 

[Average Manatee]

The Arcanum combat system had a lot of potential in its design. Unfortunately the generally poor encounter design, lack of control of party NPCs, and a number of outright broken spells/items (getting 30 attacks a round with balanced sword, disintegrate killing literally everything, etc) make it banal shit boring.

It's the kind of thing where if Troika had given 1 or 2 guys the explicit goal of balancing the combat system and making the encounters interesting, it would have been awesome with a few months of effort. Sadly this was not to be.

 

[janjetina]

Arcanum appears as though it was designed to be a game with twice as much content as it is now. It looks as they stopped in the middle of development and decided to release an intermediate iteration. Hence the areas lacking in content and areas where the only 'content' is filler combat, with filler in this case probably being literal. Like watching an uncut movie, the player is presented with areas disjoint in content, where the detailed and polished ones from the first half of the game are contrasted by empty areas, or even worse areas with long combat sequences paired with boring encounters. Arcanum should have had Kevin Saunders in the lead production role.

 

[SCO]

Arcanum is terrible, and all the people who crown it 'best rpg ever' are filthy steampunkfags

Major flaws in my mind:
1. Not enough dialog tree complexity or amount to support the game it wants to be, undeveloped features like necromancy
2. underdeveloped quests (with exceptions)
3. terrible combat, xp system, balance and vendors
4. steampunk + magic dichotomy, a sure sign the writers were not even trying
5. villain who parachutes down into the game 3/4 of the way through to replace the tepid original 'conspiracy', doesn't appear anymore until the last 3 minutes, you can't even ask about him (probably to keep his oh-so-original motivation a secret until the end)
6. chosen one bullshit who makes no sense in setting
go hipster cosplay in facebook or something

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

The best part of that game is character creation. It's full of promise, and seemingly offers so much variety.

It goes downhill from there.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I love Arcanum to death, but anyone claiming it isn't flawed in any way after having crawled through the Black Mountain Mines is a fucking liar.

Why are people so whiny about the BMM? "oh noes a hard dungeon, wot now!"
Did you lose your epic sword on a Golem or something?

I would say its a lot bigger deal the fact the game constantly tells you Firearms are teh l33t, but in practice they're absolutely shit until you get a hand cannon, any average melee warrior (not even one of the cheese builds, like a Half-Ogre with the proper background) will be doing more and faster damage hacking people to pieces than you. Tech-Melee or Tech-Throwing are a lot more powerful.

Firearms are the worst part of the Arcanum combat system, which is bad already. Enjoy firing a revolver like its a frigging automatic.

What about a gunslinger trying to get past BMM?

 

[Sranchammer]

Arcanum is perfect.

 

[Haba]

I've played literally hundreds of cRPGs, yet I can't bring myself to finish Arcanum. I wonder why?

 

[Xor]

I was reading the Top 70 RPGs post and once again the old lie rears its head - Arcanum is a buggy mess, unbalanced, flawed, etc.

Pretty much all of those things are true - Arcanum was fairly buggy before Drog's patch, its combat system was obviously horribly rushed and is completely imbalanced, the dungeons are full of filler combat with little regard to enemy placement, the enemies themselves rarely do anything more special than melee attack, the later stages of the game feel strangely empty, etc. The game was clearly rushed. Fortunately the game is very well written, has a unique and imaginative setting, and a non-linear approach to quests, which completely save it from being just a mediocre Fallout clone.

Yes, after you've finished it, and after you've read 3 guides and 10 forum threads about it, it's somewhat easy to create a character that isn't challenging to play, but this is true about almost every game.

1) Arcanum's combat system isn't easy to break. It's trivial to break. You don't need a guide to discover broken combos, it takes minimal experimenting to find them. I discovered how abusive haste was with 25 AP on my first playthrough before ever looking at a single guide. I discovered harm spam on my second.
2) Arcanum is full of traps - things that completely waste character points. Completely off the top of my head, there's the entire Find Traps skill, the Beauty stat, several spells that just don't work, several spells that are criminally underpowered, and a few entire tech branches that are useless.
3) In spite of all of those traps, the game is still really, really fucking easy. Most of the challenge just comes from figuring out things like Quench Life being bugged, or that Summon Ogre will gimp your xp, or whatever. Once you find a build that is even remotely effective, you will steamroll every encounter in the game.

Few other games have combat systems this broken. Off the top of my head I can't even think of any. Even at its most broken, there's always a risk of criticals bypassing armor in Fallout 2 and at most you'll kill 3 or 4 people a turn, whereas in Arcanum I can play a mage and literally kill every enemy on the screen before they have a chance to move regardless of numbers.

Magic is easier to grasp than tech but it's not more capable at all. I've created tech firearms characters that had an easy time from start to finish without any party members. If you think tech sucks you just haven't figued it out yet.

It's true that it's completely possible to break the game as a tech character (as I stated above, breaking the game is trivial). It's also true that breaking the game as a magic user or just a pure melee character is much easier and requires less effort. Mages generally have more character points to waste (you only need 18 WP and about 10-15 spells) and straight melee builds just crush anything in the game by around level 20. There is a reason why players generally prefer magic over tech in Arcanum.

Arcanum simply isn't special in its brokenness and this meme needs to go away.

No. You need to go away. Get out of here.