Information Vote on how Chris Avellone will LP Arcanum!

[Murk]

gunslinger + throwing explosives = great fun

or, techno-archer ;D

 

[SoupNazi]

Because he's someone with extreme focus on systems and mechanics, and someone just summarily dismissed his company as a "storyfag developer". It must sting a bit regardless if he's personally responsible.

He doesn't care about these kinds of statements: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/1383503655

Ugh. That link lead me to read more of Sawyer's Q/A, which lead me to this: http://nexus404.com/2010/11/05/the-...ut-new-vegas-just-cant-surpass-fallout-3-yet/

Now where do I get a gun and a plane ticket to wherever the author lives?

 

[Roguey]

Playing a gunslinger is the only correct way to play Arcanum.

If you want to have a needlessly frustrating early experience.

I'm aware there's one low-level spell that makes the critical choice with your character progression in the game meaningless because that spell is overpowered.

This coming from the guy who said he was taking useless skills in Wasteland if they fit his imaginary "character".

Brainrot is apparently attacking Obsidian hard. This, together with Tim Cain's "how to grapple centaur???" are real gems.

Oh I forgot. If you think that's bad you should see how he finishes that thought. http://gamestar.ru/english/1925.html

Also, I feel combat mechanics are neglected in a lot of current titles except Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning. KoA's combat felt very fluid and it felt like they'd put a lot of care and attention into its mechanics.

 

[Infinitron]

Still think Feargus made the wrong decision about who should be designer of PE, Sawyer-haters?

To be fair though, who cares what MCA thinks about combat mechanics? The man's job is to write.

 

[Carrion]

If you want to have a needlessly frustrating early experience.

What are you talking about? It's not frustrating, it's fun. It actually resembles a real game because you can't just use the same spell or attack over and over again but actually have to think about what you're doing. The overall balance and the difficulty curve are much better with gunslinger/tech builds than they are with mages or melee characters. You get to make cool new toys regularly and in general can make the best use of Arcanum's character system.

Of course, some people think that they'll be able to just shoot their way through everything without bothering to invest any points into non-combat skills or secondary weapon skills, and then they'll find themselves in trouble sooner rather than later. It's not really Arcanum's fault that people make wrong assumptions about it, because it does the whole gunslinger thing pretty damn well aside from the actual combat system. It's just that other games have taught players to use some fucked-up logic that only applies to certain types of games and is not connected to reality in any way. (Okay, Arcanum does have a bit too much filler combat that eats away all of your ammo, but that's one of my biggest gripes with the game in general, regardless of your build.)

Besides, who would even want to play a boring mage if you can play a techie instead? Every game has mages. Screw them.

 

[Esquilax]

Bingo. Moreover, the entire appeal of Arcanum's world is the whole technology/magic duality. You get to be a mage in every single fantasy RPG ever; where else can you be a mad inventor who creates tesla rifles and automatons?

That being said, there were definitely times when Arcanum became incredibly frustrating gameplay-wise as a gunslinger. Getting involved in a dungeon crawl (especially BMC mines) and having to make return trips for bullets or saltpeter + charcoal to make my own bullets was irritating, and that's not getting to the awful slog combat could be at times playing an underpowered techie.

Still, with a setting like Arcanum, you pretty much have to play as a techie, despite the annoyances of combat and the way overpowered Harm spell.

 

[Excidium]

Besides, who would even want to play a boring mage if you can play a techie instead? Every game has mages. Screw them.

Bingo. Moreover, the entire appeal of Arcanum's world is the whole technology/magic duality. You get to be a mage in every single fantasy RPG ever; where else can you be a mad inventor who creates tesla rifles and automatons?

Playing a mage in a setting where magic is losing the spotlight to technology seemed more interesting than steampunk cowboy to me. Too bad it wasn't very well handled in either way. Still had its flavor, like when you're told to sit on the back wagons of the train from Tarant because your magical aura interferes with the engines.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

That was still a minor bit of dialogue. The NPCs make it sound like the train is gonna explode if you go near it, it was a good opportunity to make mages play differently - you aren't allowed on the train, find another method of transport.

What are you talking about? It's not frustrating, it's fun. It actually resembles a real game because you can't just use the same spell or attack over and over again but actually have to think about what you're doing.

Hobo simulator. Keep diving into them trashcans, brah

 

[Saduj]

I recently played Arcanum for the 1st time and chose to be a dwarven techie concentratiing on Firearms for exactly the reason Carrion stated. I did rely on Melee quite a bit in the very early game but really didn't use it much after I got to Tarant. Never had a problem keeping bullets in my inventory and only one fight that I came across gave me a hard time. Granted, I've only played the game once and may have even avoided some of the tougher fights but I have no idea why anyone would need or even want the game to be "easier" based on my initial experience.

 

[Excidium]

That was still a minor bit of dialogue. The NPCs make it sound like the train is gonna explode if you go near it, it was a good opportunity to make mages play differently - you aren't allowed on the train, find another method of transport.

Yeah, well, Arcanum is the game of failed opportunities.

 

[tuluse]

He can't because the ~path of least resistance~ option is spamming harm. Though melee tech can be pretty good. Just as long as he stays away from ranged.

It's pretty easy to get through Arcanum with any build you want. I got pretty far with a thief character who threw boomerangs most of the game. I could have finished, but I lost steam.

 

[St. Toxic]

He better be stoned while playing.

 

[Excidium]

Who cares about animations? Just pop a GRAPPLED! message, have an icon there or something. It's not worth sacrificing combat depth just because you don't have the budget to implement unique animations for everything. The limited sprites of Fallout didn't stop it from having dozens of different weapons, critical effects, etc.

I think Tim just has something against grappling since TOEE didn't have it either.

 

[Excidium]

Yeah, grappling is p. unimportant in HtH combat anyway. I am sure Josh will give melee characters more nonsensical abilities to compensate for the lack of proper combat maneuvers.

 

[Excidium]

It's not about realism, for fuck's sake. It's verisimilitude. There are loads of combat techniques you can draw inspiration to design the game's mechanics, and have a fighter whose main tools are his weapon skills and his grit instead of magical sword slashes that stun.

 

[villain of the story]

Playing a gunslinger is the only correct way to play Arcanum.

If you want to have a needlessly frustrating early experience.

"Needlessly frustrating"? It was fun and occasionally provided challenge, as opposed to the WIN button with a mage or melee character. Nay, apart from a few very specific encounters, a technologist build is the ultimate interesting way to play Arcanum and to uncover most of its intricacies.

Now get back into the kitchen; it's neither needless or frustrating.

 

[Shadenuat]

I can't believe people are arguing about techies (imba sniper rifle + 2 electro rings = kill everything AND humongous amount of secondary schemes and gadgets everyone wants to unlock) and mages (imba Harm + potions AND humongous repertoire of spells from creating zombies from plot characters to summoning bunnies) in Arcanum.
There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play that game, it's terribly unbalanced and terribly fun all together, it can be as brainless you want it to be or very smart. What a load of bullshit here.

 

[RK47]

Yeah, MCA should just play a better rpg. like Shira Oka.

 

[Excidium]

And if it wasn't for the massive animation requirements that grappling has, especially when you have non-humanoid enemies, grappling would be a good candidate for abilities for unarmed characters to have.

How many computer games with squad based combat have grappling? I'm sure there might be a few but it's not going to be very many. That is because the animation requirement for grappling is massive, especially when you have non-humanoid enemies. No, just popping an icon or text over the characters heads is not adequate.

Yeah, massive animation requirement on all those tactical games that have very rudimentary animations, if at all.

It is a 4 million dollar game, coming out in 2014, from a professional development studio with developers who have decades of experience. While you may not mind if they just popped an icon almost everyone else will.

Somebody should go warn those people that they are buying a game with decade-old graphics, then.

 

[Infinitron]

So, Vault Dweller, why doesn't Age of Decadence have grappling?

 

[Excidium]

And why do you think those animations were rudimentary? Was it because developers back then were lazy and didn't try very hard? Think about it a little bit and we come back to the point. Resource limitations.

Yeah, but the devs didn't let resource limitations hurt their design, see Fallout example above (not a tactical game, but you get the idea). If those games didn't have grappling it's because the devs didn't find it necessary to implement, maybe because the game was mainly about ranged combat, maybe because the mechanics were more primitive than that. Not because CENTAUR GRAPPLING OH FUCK!!

Project Eternity will be having contemporary graphics, not decades old graphics. I doubt it will even run on a computer that is a decade old.

It doesn't look much better than TOEE did 10 years ago. Will have higher resolution, physics, some prettier shaders but that's it.

You know why animation is important? It's not just because it is pretty. It is because of verisimilitude. For most people having stuff be static icons harms verisimilitude more than monks with mystical abilities not based around grappling. It is especially harmful if it is the only thing not animated when everything else around it is. Static icons work well enough at larger scales where it is understood to be an abstract representation of something, like a city or an army. But when you are at the scale of a dozen individuals it doesn't work so well.

That's a good point, but for RPGs the actual systems are more important than the visual representations.

So, Vault Dweller, why doesn't Age of Decadence have grappling?

Good question.

But it has nets and bolas. When you throw them, you don't see the enemy tangled, they just have an icon next to them. Actually, I don't even remember if it has that icon or if it's just for crippled limbs. What the fuck, how did this shit get on steam?

 

[Infinitron]

See, this is a great example of how having information about a game's development makes people butthurt. If the game had just been quietly released with no grappling, nobody would have given a fuck. It's not like people have been trained to expect grappling, since very few RPGs implement it.

But once you learn WHY they can't implement grappling, you have a reason to be butthurt about it. That's despite the fact that you never expected or really cared about grappling in the first place!

 

[RK47]

I heard they wanted to implement food mechanics and drinks too.
Ala New Vegas hardcore mode.


tee hee

 

[Marsal]

So, Vault Dweller, why doesn't Age of Decadence have grappling?

You're such a jew sometimes, Infinitron... 3 more years.

 

[Excidium]

See, this is a great example of how having information about a game's development makes people butthurt. If the game had just been quietly released with no grappling, nobody would have given a fuck. It's not like people have been trained to expect grappling, since very few RPGs implement it.

But once you learn WHY they can't implement grappling, you have a reason to be butthurt about it. That's despite the fact that you never expected or really cared about grappling in the first place!

Yeah, but it's the developer's role to keep the community informed. The open development process is half of what makes kickstarter happen.

I heard they wanted to implement food mechanics and drinks too.
Ala New Vegas hardcore mode.


tee hee

Yeah, but the devs didn't let resource limitations hurt their design, see Fallout for an example (not a tactical game, but you get the idea). If those games didn't have grappling it's because the devs didn't find it necessary to implement, maybe because the game was mainly about ranged combat, maybe because the mechanics were more primitive than that. Not because CENTAUR GRAPPLING OH FUCK!!

Of course resource limitations hurt the design. Good designers designs around the limitations though. You can deny it all you want but the reason grappling is rarely implemented is because of the animation issue that Tim Cain brought up. The point of Tim Cain's centaurs comment was that the problem is even further exacerbated when non-humanoids are thrown in the mix.

Yeah, man, I'm sure those old games had primitive mechanics because of sprite limitations.

It doesn't look much better than TOEE did 10 years ago. Will have higher resolution, physics, some prettier shaders but that's it.

So you've seen the screenshots already, and presumably not just some alpha shots. Mind if I borrow your time machine?

I wish I could lend you my ability to deduce that from the WIP stuff that has been shown, the engine being used and the project's budget.

That's a good point, but for RPGs the actual systems are more important than the visual representations.

For CRPGs, which are Video games, the visual representation is very important. Having good mechanics that mesh well with the visual elements is doable. It is bad design to design mechanics, even if they are good, that do not play well with the visual elements.

This is why we can't have nice things. I'm off to sleep because it's almost 8 in the morning here.