Reasons I sorta dislike Arcanum

[Redeye]

I think the most I ever had without cheating was 14:

10 from AGI
2 from jet
1 from Action Boy
1 from a cookie


That's still only 1 or 2 more shots, maybe.

There is a second cookie. Sierra base.

I think you can do a second jet dose, but I don't remember.

Add another action boy lvl.

I have to look this up- as I remember there are 2 action boy and 3 movement boy levels at 1 and 2 points each, respectively.

With fast shot/bonus hth you can have much munchkinism.

 

[Thrasher]

I was wondering what the cookie did. Raises Agility permanently or temporarily?!

 

[Xor]

Give you an extra AP for a few days or so.

There is a second cookie. Sierra base.

I think you can do a second jet dose, but I don't remember.

Add another action boy lvl.

I have to look this up- as I remember there are 2 action boy and 3 movement boy levels at 1 and 2 points each, respectively.

With fast shot/bonus hth you can have much munchkinism.

At the time I was trying to get as many AP as possible so I could kill Horrigan. I still had to reload twice, because the fucker kept getting 300 damage crits off.

 

[Thrasher]

LOL, sugar high.

 

[AzraelCC]

Arcanum's story was boring because despite the twists, it was still shallow compared to Fallout and PS: T. It has something to do with the lack of focus on the game's setting--steam punk. I think the real dilemma in the story should be not the hero quest/chosen one cliche (or the reversal of it) but the technology versus magic aspect.

Planescape was able to utilize the Nameless One's immortality and question issues of life, death, morality and memory up to the climax. Fallout nicely explored the effects of isolation and devastation in the human psyche while catering to dark humor and absurd encounters.

Arcanum just didn't have that 'dove-tailing' with the world.

 

[elander_]

I don't understand the hatred for Arcanum combat from those who liked Fallout/2 combat. Turned-based is almost the same, except in Arcanum you can actually give your companions orders rather than having to try out a bunch of AI settings that don't always do what you'd want them to do (FO2), or have no control over their behavior at all (FO1).

They are both crappy when you get to play much better TB games like JA2 or FT. When will people learn that TB games are good because of combined team tactics.

 

[kris]

The combat isn't much worse than Fallout's in TB mode. But that's not saying much.

And yeah, there's way too many dungeons; and the worst: they're all too easy. (In before some retard having trouble with the golems.)

You shouldn't look for Arcanum's goodness in the combat. It's in the world, the setting, the scope, the mood, the music, the many paths you can take, the relative freedom.

Combat IMO was much worse. But you can get a lot out of the game with barely touching the dungeons and combat. The actual roleplaying opportunities is unequalled in other games and they have a lot of nice little details.

 

[ixg]

Arcanum's story was boring because despite the twists, it was still shallow compared to Fallout and PS: T. It has something to do with the lack of focus on the game's setting--steam punk. I think the real dilemma in the story should be not the hero quest/chosen one cliche (or the reversal of it) but the technology versus magic aspect.

Planescape was able to utilize the Nameless One's immortality and question issues of life, death, morality and memory up to the climax. Fallout nicely explored the effects of isolation and devastation in the human psyche while catering to dark humor and absurd encounters.

Arcanum just didn't have that 'dove-tailing' with the world.

you are a faggot
and that goes for anyone else who criticizes arcanum
i have nothing else to say

 

[luckyb0y]

Is this thread full of fanboys, or what? You are a moron because you criticise my most favouritest gaem!!11!!1. This is truly a failure of the free market I reckon.

Arcanum combat is bad. It's easily exploitable (most solutions to golems could be calssified as exploits - running in circles in RT, thowing weapons, spamming harm, dog). The biggest flaw is it's just not fun - it's tedious, unexciting and not challenging. That would be forgivable if it wasn't forced on you so much. Sure you can avoid it many times using sneak or invisibility spells, but that applies to very fe builds and is just as boring as the actual combat.

Plot is just barely decent. Sure it exceeds the usual aRPG generic shite, but that's hardly a redeeming quality. The setting is oh so awesome, but it's barely utilised in the story and quests. A few gems like an orc uprising or rich tossers collecting elven artifacts don't help much. The atmosphere of the game just isn't consistent and lots of things feel like they were thrown in just to make a game bigger but are very out of place. Too few victorian themes too many generic fantasy ones.

However it excels in the RPG gameplay. You can develop your PC as you want, handle the quests in unbelivable number of ways. That makes this game great.

If you want great story you are better off playing PS:T
For better realised setting go for Fallout
You want to have fun playing many different characters? There is probably no better game than Arcanum.

 

[dagorkan]

Fallout's combat is nothing great either. Defending either of them makes you look pretty sad

 

[luckyb0y]

Fallout combat is simple, easy, but it works great. It's fast, it's fun, it can be easily avoided most of the time and all these other times it can be avoided with a little bit of thinking.

 

[Lumpy]

Besides, combat is part of the post-apocalyptic genre - you can't have a game without a decent amount of gory rat and mutant killing. But Fallout threw it at you at small doses, which is smart.
In Arcanum, after clearing the first level of P Schuyler, you went on to the second level which was pretty much identical, with the same enemy. Really, what's the point?

 

[Earth Nuggets]

In Arcanum, after clearing the first level of P Schuyler, you went on to the second level which was pretty much identical

1st level: cellar

2nd level: catacombs

3rd level: ancient Dwarven tomb

Bad example, bro'.

 

[Murk]

yeah and that was one of the smaller 'dungeons' - just stick to comparing all the dwarven mines together, that's insta-win

Spoiler

or the idiotically long forest trek when you're looking for nasrudin

 

[Texas Red]

spoiler changed

 

[Thor Kaufman]

I think the most I ever had without cheating was 14:

10 from AGI
2 from jet
1 from Action Boy
1 from a cookie


That's still only 1 or 2 more shots, maybe.

There is a second cookie. Sierra base.

I think you can do a second jet dose, but I don't remember.

Add another action boy lvl.

I have to look this up- as I remember there are 2 action boy and 3 movement boy levels at 1 and 2 points each, respectively.

With fast shot/bonus hth you can have much munchkinism.

if you really want to munchkinize exploit the jetbug to get like 99AP or something.

then get infinite exp at the hubologists, become lvl99 with 999hitpoints and be the next Horrigan

 

[Thrasher]

It amazes me when people complain about a game being too easy when they take advantage of exploits and cheats.

What kind of fucked up reasoning is that?

 

[Xor]

It amazes me when people complain about a game being too easy when they take advantage of exploits and cheats.

What kind of fucked up reasoning is that?

Doubling your APs with haste isn't an exploit, it's an intended game feature. I'm also pretty sure haste and tempus fugit don't stack.

Throwing weapons costing no AP could be considered a bug, since every other combat action in Arcanum costs AP.

The Jet bug is just that: a bug.

Arcanum is easy without using time spells, disintegrate, or throwing weapons. It's just not a hard game.

 

[Murk]

Your skill at spoiling is unparalleled.

tee hee, fixed (now change yours)

 

[Murk]

Arcanum is easy without using time spells, disintegrate, or throwing weapons. It's just not a hard game.

i don't really see that as a bad thing though, i definitely didn't play Arcanum for the combat. even if the combat encounters were "fixed" to be challenging and all that i still doubt that it would be anything note-worthy or strategy requiring, it basically boils down to "are you strong enough?" and it's a yes/no. In ToEE for example you can defeat enemies you "shouldn't be able to" by using tactics and clever spells/abilities, but in Arcanum its all go go go (or you haste yourself and spam the enemy with more attacks per turn than you should have).

But anyway, none of that really detracted from the fun of the game, like everyone else basically said, combat was its weak point and the actual game itself was plenty well done and more than made up for the faults of the combat system.

 

[Ismaul]

Arcanum's story was boring because despite the twists, it was still shallow compared to Fallout and PS: T. It has something to do with the lack of focus on the game's setting--steam punk. I think the real dilemma in the story should be not the hero quest/chosen one cliche (or the reversal of it) but the technology versus magic aspect.

Planescape was able to utilize the Nameless One's immortality and question issues of life, death, morality and memory up to the climax. Fallout nicely explored the effects of isolation and devastation in the human psyche while catering to dark humor and absurd encounters.

What he said. I don't think Arcanum's story is bad, but if it was tied to the technology versus magic in a stronger way, the game would have been much better for it. Because honestly, Arcanum's strong point is this conflict and its impacts, political, economical, social and personal. And the game sadly didn't insist on this enough, the player/character wasn't directly involved/touched by this problem.