Arx Fatalis must-have mods?

[Gargaune]

Thinking of playing Arx Fatalis for the first time, I've got the GOG copy. I take it Arx Libertatis is mandatory for input and UI fixes, anything else? Worthwhile QOL mods or I wouldn't mind a graphics spruce if it ain't too fiddly to install. I'm getting tinkering fatigue, these days it feels like I end up modding every other byte I slap on my hard drive.

 

[Suissant]

I replayed this game some months ago and couldn't find any mods at all. There was one called Arx Fatalis Extended, but judging by its description it only added items and such, nothing very impressive.

https://www.moddb.com/games/arx-fatalis/mods

 

[Gargaune]

I replayed this game some months ago and couldn't find any mods at all. There was one called Arx Fatalis Extended, but judging by its description it only added items and such, nothing very impressive.

https://www.moddb.com/games/arx-fatalis/mods

For what it's worth, I started playing with Libertatis and I'm happy, don't need anything else. The control scheme's a little screwy, but manageable. I was originally wondering about that texture pack, but the game doesn't need it, looks fine for its age.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, you don't need anything besides Libertatis. Things like Arx Insanity Overhaul might be cool for a replay, but it changes the game so much it becomes the modder's view of what the game should be, not the original game anymore. And you definitely should experience the original game.

I also don't recommend using any HD textures. The original textures have this almost watercolor style that is very iconic and leaves a lot to the imagination, the AI upscalling mod kills the vagueness of the textures and makes everything look like a mess.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You can find a list of mods here, but I doubt there's any you should use for a first-time play through:
https://wiki.arx-libertatis.org/Arx_Fatalis_mods

To the best of my knowledge there's no reason to prefer the "original" version over Libertatis as Libertatis is built upon the original and not a rewrite. Features added are optional, rest is just compatibility stuff.

 

[Nikanuur]

Has anyone played Insanity overhaul extensively? Care to share the experience?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I don't remember using mods and liking it just fine. Just be mindful of your resolution. Higher resolutions will look nice, but they will significantly increase the difficulty of drawing runes to cast spells.

 

[Nikanuur]

Yeah, you don't need anything besides Libertatis. Things like Arx Insanity Overhaul might be cool for a replay, but it changes the game so much it becomes the modder's view of what the game should be, not the original game anymore. And you definitely should experience the original game.

I also don't recommend using any HD textures. The original textures have this almost watercolor style that is very iconic and leaves a lot to the imagination, the AI upscalling mod kills the vagueness of the textures and makes everything look like a mess.

Agreed. And indeed, for us who have replayed Arx several times, the re-imagined version seems like a nice option
Btw I didn't know it wasn't released yet. There is only a demo or something. It seems it's coming out in October.

https://arxinsanity.weebly.com/news

 

[ds]

I don't remember using mods and liking it just fine. Just be mindful of your resolution. Higher resolutions will look nice, but they will significantly increase the difficulty of drawing runes to cast spells.

At least with AL 1.2, high resolutions shouldn't really make spell casting harder. For unlocked FPS on the other hand there are still reports that it negatively affects the recognition. But completely unlocked FPS is also something that will result in (minor) issues elsewhere too.

Really, the casting difficulty even in unmodded AF isn't too bad once your realize that it doesn't do shape recognition at all but rather stroke recognition. So the overall shape of the runes you draw doesn't matter at all but you better make those lines straight and corners hard or else it will interpret it as more strokes than you intended. Each rune has a number of different stroke sequences it will accept but there is no help beyond that. The new (optional) algorithm in AL uses an algorithm to find a similar stroke sequence instead of having hardcoded lists per rune. For high (and especially wide) resolutions the flares showing what you have drawn didn't really align too well the cursor position towards the edges of the screen but even that is only a minor problem as the overall shape not mattering means you can just draw the runes blind without even looking at the screen. And in AL that too is fixed now.

Btw I didn't know it wasn't released yet. There is only a demo or something. It seems it's coming out in October.

They hang out on Discord so progress is unfortunately not publicly visible but AFAIK it's still worked on.

 

[BruceVC]

I decided to play Arx Fatalis as my next game, I am using the Arx Libertis game overhaul mod

https://arx-libertatis.org/

And I installed Arx Extended and Arx Neuralis mods

I just reached Arx city and Im having a great time with the CRPG mechanics and design