What cRPG has the most ridiculously (unnecessarily) elaborate mechanics?

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Actually, I can't agree with that.

You can theoretically have much finer control in RTWP because of arbitrarily high input frequency instead of fixed input timing. The problem is that it comes at the cost of massive effort overhead on part of the player and stuff like pathfinding being harder to realize, so the primary question is whether you can make the advantages matter enough to be worth it and whether you can make it work well enough.
IE games failed hard at both fronts - being effectively TB emulators running in RT they obviously didn't benefit from fine timing control, and the AI, including pathfinding was an absolute clusterfuck.

The input frequency is irrelevant if calculation is delayed and queued up for seconds which is pretty much always going to be the case... none of the RTWP RPGs are really RT in my experience.

I can agree with that and phase based is generally superior to normal TB, though Wiz8 badly needed ability to speed up execution phase by making actions simultaneous, to fully capitalize on this difference. It would also be neat to have blobber with ability to split off party members or entire sub-parties, combining flexibility of non-blob combat system, with relative simplicity and reliability of blob.

Agreed.

 

[NotAGolfer]

I liken RTWP to driving my Bimmer in auto sport mode with all the driving aids on. Yes it is viable and efficient, but it will never give the feel or control I get if I turn stability and traction control off and shift manually. Never.

In auto mode, your party will never be as performant. The difference between the two is amplified exponentially when you are tracking 6 party members and 10 mobs.

The problem with this analogy, and most critiques of RTwP, is that it doesn't take into account the biggest advantage of adopting real time with pause into your game systems: the fact that it has simultaneous resolution of actions. That's a big deal because in certain systems it can be the difference between winning or losing an encounter.

I think simultaneous resolution is not the case most of the time. The appearance over a few seconds may lead to that assumption in most cases, but many games with RTWP were described by the devs themselves as essentially TB in all that mattered, with a real-time facade or "rounds" calculated in seconds. I suspect that calculations were very much the same as TB in many cases. I haven't cataloged this and have no interest to really, just adding to the discussion.

No, that would only be the case if rounds were synchronous for every party member and monster.
But they are not. From the BG EE manual:

Personal Initiative Rounds
In Baldur’s Gate, to allow for the real-time based combat and movement, each character and
monster is on an independent personal initiative round, which is six seconds long. Within the
personal initiative round, all of the rules of the AD&D game are used, including Speed Factors
for weapons and casting time for spells

You mentioned RTWP simultaneous resolution allowing the character to bring its talents to bear during resolution. This very same thing happens in TB combat so I don't see your point there. If a kobold tries to trip my bard as its turn, my bard is checked for various things that would thwart or perhaps even counter the attempt. This does not take a turn on my bard's behalf.

In TB it very much depends on your character's ability to interrupt the enemy turn. In RTwP you can control it yourself, but that also weakens roleplaying (because it no longer depends on your char build) and makes it more prone to cheese tactics so I also don't see what's better about RTwP combat there.

Having played a couple of both TB and RTwP games I am very convinced that RTwP is indeed much less time consuming and for trash mobs that's definitely a plus.

 

[Crichton]

I don' t know that it really has anything to do with the OP but there seem to be some fundamental misunderstandings about IE RTwP combat here. As a disclaimer, I'll point out that I'm a fan of IE combat even though I'll freely admit that it's probably not the optimal party-based combat system. The way IE combat works is the way 2E AD&D P&P combat works. I think a lot of pure cRPG gamers who've played the Gold Box games but never played 2E P&P never really understood that. Unlike the turn-based combat of 3E D&D with it's careful gradations of movement and action and it's emphasis on precise positioning, 2E D&D sort of abstracts movement and the primary decisions revolve around choosing actions in the context of uncertainty about the order of operations.

I've bolded the critical point here. Actions in 2E AD&D are not simultaneous, one rolls for initiative. But that roll is modified by the action that has already been chosen for the round. So unlike unlike turn-based combat where one chooses an action with perfect knowledge of not only when it will be executed but the outcomes of all prior actions in the turn, one chooses an action without knowing the outcome of the initiative rolls. If you choose to shoot at an opponent who could reach cover, you accept some chance that the shot will be wasted and you can calculate that chance based on your dex modifier, your target's and the speed factor of your weapon. If you choose to cast a spell with hostile archers trained on you, you accept a chance that they'll shoot you and the spell will be wasted. The situation in 3E where a wizard wins initiative and knows he can fireball the opposition with impunity does not exist in 2E.

In general, the combat of the IE games isn't difficult and I think people are inclined to misattribute that to Phase-based/RTwP combat rather than the encounter design or other deficiencies in the engine. The only necessary difference between TB and RTwP is what the actors know when they choose their actions. The switch to TB gave 3E D&D the license to implement things like five-foot steps and full-round-actions because the player can choose between them from a position of knowledge. If you don't know what the positions of your opponents will be by the time your action comes up, then all of that falls to pieces. I like the simulationist aspects of RTwP/Phase-based but from a gamist standpoint, I think TB can be an improvement. That does not mean that every TB combat system realizes that potential.

 

[NotAGolfer]

I don' t know that it really has anything to do with the OP but there seem to be some fundamental misunderstandings about IE RTwP combat here. As a disclaimer, I'll point out that I'm a fan of IE combat even though I'll freely admit that it's probably not the optimal party-based combat system. The way IE combat works is the way 2E AD&D P&P combat works. I think a lot of pure cRPG gamers who've played the Gold Box games but never played 2E P&P never really understood that. Unlike the turn-based combat of 3E D&D with it's careful gradations of movement and action and it's emphasis on precise positioning, 2E D&D sort of abstracts movement and the primary decisions revolve around choosing actions in the context of uncertainty about the order of operations.

I've bolded the critical point here. Actions in 2E AD&D are not simultaneous, one rolls for initiative. But that roll is modified by the action that has already been chosen for the round. So unlike unlike turn-based combat where one chooses an action with perfect knowledge of not only when it will be executed but the outcomes of all prior actions in the turn, one chooses an action without knowing the outcome of the initiative rolls. If you choose to shoot at an opponent who could reach cover, you accept some chance that the shot will be wasted and you can calculate that chance based on your dex modifier, your target's and the speed factor of your weapon. If you choose to cast a spell with hostile archers trained on you, you accept a chance that they'll shoot you and the spell will be wasted. The situation in 3E where a wizard wins initiative and knows he can fireball the opposition with impunity does not exist in 2E.

In general, the combat of the IE games isn't difficult and I think people are inclined to misattribute that to Phase-based/RTwP combat rather than the encounter design or other deficiencies in the engine. The only necessary difference between TB and RTwP is what the actors know when they choose their actions. The switch to TB gave 3E D&D the license to implement things like five-foot steps and full-round-actions because the player can choose between them from a position of knowledge. If you don't know what the positions of your opponents will be by the time your action comes up, then all of that falls to pieces. I like the simulationist aspects of RTwP/Phase-based but from a gamist standpoint, I think TB can be an improvement. That does not mean that every TB combat system realizes that potential.

Only that IE is not phase-based...

 

[aleph]

I was always under the impression that ridiculous and equally obfuscated world and game mechanics was a core of E.Y.E.'s appeal for a lot of people, as well as the crux of much of its criticism.

And since the complexity and obfuscation is the point of it all, it is no example of unnecessary or ridiculous mechanics, now is it?

 

[sser]

I was always under the impression that ridiculous and equally obfuscated world and game mechanics was a core of E.Y.E.'s appeal for a lot of people, as well as the crux of much of its criticism.

And since the complexity and obfuscation is the point of it all, it is no example of unnecessary or ridiculous mechanics, now is it?

You're confusing gameplay for atmosphere. Considering they tried implementing a (shitty) video tutorial system, I don't think the E.Y.E. guys intentionally made a shitty interface and blurred gameplay features. Trying to pass off poor design for atmosphere is a load of bullshit. Maybe it adds to the charm or appeal of the game, but I'm not falling for that huckster crap that it was "meant that way." The game's first fucking level is a glorified tutorial and there's a semblance of explanation in the game, it just isn't handled all that well is all. Out of its peers, E.Y.E. easily has the most elaborate mechanics. It doesn't take a genius to work your way through it, but if we're talking about games with bizarre and elaborate mechanics E.Y.E. fits that bill pretty well I'd argue.

 

[aleph]

You're confusing gameplay for atmosphere.

So, you think gameplay and atmosphere are completely separate?

It doesn't take a genius to work your way through it, but if we're talking about games with bizarre and elaborate mechanics E.Y.E. fits that bill pretty well I'd argue.

bizarre and elaborate mechanics that however you don't need to be very smart to understand, okay...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

No, that would only be the case if rounds were synchronous for every party member and monster.
But they are not. From the BG EE manual:

Personal Initiative Rounds
In Baldur’s Gate, to allow for the real-time based combat and movement, each character and
monster is on an independent personal initiative round, which is six seconds long. Within the
personal initiative round, all of the rules of the AD&D game are used, including Speed Factors
for weapons and casting time for spells

A personal initiative round is 6 seconds for all characters in BG as I mentinoed. Perhaps the T-0 is not aligned for all (I don't personally know but am willing to concede it is not), but six seconds is six seconds and stats and abilities are used in dice rolls in intervals not shorter than 6 seconds in the case of BG. It behaves as I have described. The difference is the game engine can animate everyone between those rolls and outcomes.

A key passage from the manual is: "In Baldur’s Gate, to allow for the real-time based combat and movement..."

A central purpose of RTWP is to allow continued animation of player and non-player characters... GRAPHIX... You lose tactical fidelity and I feel it is pointless to argue otherwise (Not saying you are NotAGolfer, this is a general statement). RTWP cannot give absolute control as TB does, it trades tactical fidelity for fluid graphical animation.

Some might label that dynamism, some call it loss of control or tactical fidelity. It depends on your tolerance levels..TB fans aren't as tolerant of the loss of control.

 

[sser]

You're confusing gameplay for atmosphere.

So, you think gameplay and atmosphere are completely separate?

Completely? No. But you can't entirely use one to excuse the other. Look at the Codex's review of Alpha Protocol.

It doesn't take a genius to work your way through it, but if we're talking about games with bizarre and elaborate mechanics E.Y.E. fits that bill pretty well I'd argue.

bizarre and elaborate mechanics that however you don't need to be very smart to understand, okay...

Phrasing. Dwarf Fortress doesn't take a genius to play, either, but that doesn't mean its game mechanics aren't elaborate, either. We don't live in a black and white world, dude. Compared to other FPS-RPG hybrids I'd say E.Y.E. is well above others in this category. But you know what? Why the fuck am I even discussing this? Literally every goddam review, let's play, and forum complaints says the exact same thing. You think otherwise? Okay, clearly we'll never ever agree on this, so agree to disagree.

 

[DraQ]

You can say the game would be better with more complexity, but adding complexity takes design resources.

At least as long as FO is concerned, removing complexity would definitely fail to make it better, though, as the combat is already pretty bare bones.

AI and Pathfinding are two different things, at least when it comes to the IE games.

Nope. AI is what makes characters act and react, make decisions and so on.
Pathfinding is the part of the AI involving making decisions regarding getting from A to B in possibly effective and efficient manner.

The input frequency is irrelevant if calculation is delayed and queued up for seconds which is pretty much always going to be the case... none of the RTWP RPGs are really RT in my experience.

But that also means that none of the "RTWP" RPGs are indicative of highlights and caveats of RTWP, being bastardized TB emulators running in RT.

Other genres, not fixated on outward PnP trappings that are counterproductive for making a good computer game don't seem to have such problems - would you imagine playing for example Myth or Homeworld in TB?

You mentioned RTWP simultaneous resolution allowing the character to bring its talents to bear during resolution. This very same thing happens in TB combat so I don't see your point there. If a kobold tries to trip my bard as its turn, my bard is checked for various things that would thwart or perhaps even counter the attempt. This does not take a turn on my bard's behalf.

That's not "this very same thing", as you cannot decide what your bard is going to do outside of your turn and are generally restricted to a subset of your character's abilities.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The combat in fallout is barebones, but you could take the complexity from elsewhere (like the aforementioned useless skills, or possibly some other mechanics that we aren't even aware are needlessly complicated. After all, I can put some ridiculously complex math under the hood for a damage variance and all you'll see is 10-14. We have no way of knowing the full extent of any game's unnecessary complexities. If they spent less time making gambling skill a thing (a broken stupid thing at that), maybe they'd have had time to take a look at the combat and say 'Oh fuck, shooting the eyes is way too fucking good.'

 

[DraQ]

The combat in fallout is barebones, but you could take the complexity from elsewhere (like the aforementioned useless skills, or possibly some other mechanics that we aren't even aware are needlessly complicated. After all, I can put some ridiculously complex math under the hood for a damage variance and all you'll see is 10-14. We have no way of knowing the full extent of any game's unnecessary complexities. If they spent less time making gambling skill a thing (a broken stupid thing at that), maybe they'd have had time to take a look at the combat and say 'Oh fuck, shooting the eyes is way too fucking good.'

True, but moving complexity somewhere else still isn't reducing it.

Frankly, until games start to demand routine bowel management I don't think we're threatened by too much complexity as much as just mismanaged one.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, the combat in fallout wouldn't get more complex with balance. It would in practice, but not in design. As it stands it's a rube goldberg machine. There's a lot of bells and whistles regarding called shots that amount to nothing when actually played.

While it's not a crpg, dwarf fortress is the perfect example of this shit. If he weren't so busy adding tissue layers and family trees, the fucker could have made goblin seiges something relevant instead of an amusing meatgrinder that produces a lot of free metal and small bloody socks on top of traps. If the game were simpler with the same amount of time spent developing it, he'd have fine tuned the interface by now and fixed all sorts of bugs. If he dropped dead tomorrow you can't possibly say that you'd rather have milkable goats and a cheesemaking industry than a good interface just because it's more complex.

That said, while something like gambling was a fucking wasteful, useless example of complexity, there are usually plenty of other things that could be axed from a budget as well to make for a better game. Especially these days, when it seems to be about 90% marketing and bloom.

 

[DraQ]

Well, the combat in fallout wouldn't get more complex with balance. It would in practice, but not in design. As it stands it's a rube goldberg machine. There's a lot of bells and whistles regarding called shots that amount to nothing when actually played.

Then how about scrapping gambling and using freed resources to develop repair or science beyond mere gimmicks?

While it's not a crpg, dwarf fortress is the perfect example of this shit. If he weren't so busy adding tissue layers and family trees, the fucker could have made goblin seiges something relevant instead of an amusing meatgrinder that produces a lot of free metal and small bloody socks on top of traps. If the game were simpler with the same amount of time spent developing it, he'd have fine tuned the interface by now and fixed all sorts of bugs. If he dropped dead tomorrow you can't possibly say that you'd rather have milkable goats and a cheesemaking industry than a good interface just because it's more complex.

Actually, isn't DF the kind of case where complexity IS the game?

 

[SCO]

Its scripts all the way down in the end; +/- the pathfinding algorithms, which are worse than scripts most time, being completely brainless to considerations not involving distance/fitting 99% of the time. And when they aren't, like in the dark mod (where there is actually a sophisticated queueing system for 'doorway passage'), it's still not especially integrated with other subsystems that don't have anything to do with movement.


I never saw even a single commercial rpg with a 'planning' AI ever ever.
Actually, one 'sophisticated' use i remember seeing was on JA2 where enemies sometimes would wait before rushing the doorways. If only they actually coordinated different doorways or threw grenades or opened holes or didn't initiate combat as soon as they noticed you

This btw, is one of the reasons i'm liking phase based more nowadays. Camping is harder to pull off.

In a saner industry there would be middleware packages for AI and things like this would happen: pathfinding detecting object is destructible and AI provides a plan to do it that lessens travel time? Enemy Wizard enlarges enemy fighter so he is stuck on the corridor, blocks the team and is a sitting duck? No problem.

 

[NotAGolfer]

No, that would only be the case if rounds were synchronous for every party member and monster.
But they are not. From the BG EE manual:

Personal Initiative Rounds
In Baldur’s Gate, to allow for the real-time based combat and movement, each character and
monster is on an independent personal initiative round, which is six seconds long. Within the
personal initiative round, all of the rules of the AD&D game are used, including Speed Factors
for weapons and casting time for spells

A personal initiative round is 6 seconds for all characters in BG as I mentinoed. Perhaps the T-0 is not aligned for all (I don't personally know but am willing to concede it is not), but six seconds is six seconds and stats and abilities are used in dice rolls in intervals not shorter than 6 seconds in the case of BG. It behaves as I have described. The difference is the game engine can animate everyone between those rolls and outcomes.

A key passage from the manual is: "In Baldur’s Gate, to allow for the real-time based combat and movement..."

A central purpose of RTWP is to allow continued animation of player and non-player characters... GRAPHIX... You lose tactical fidelity and I feel it is pointless to argue otherwise (Not saying you are NotAGolfer, this is a general statement). RTWP cannot give absolute control as TB does, it trades tactical fidelity for fluid graphical animation.

Some might label that dynamism, some call it loss of control or tactical fidelity. It depends on your tolerance levels..TB fans aren't as tolerant of the loss of control.

I would argue that this "personal initiative round" is just a buzzworld or a way to translate AD&D rules into RT if you don't want to allege anything. Many games with a RT fighting system kinda lock the player out during the animations. You just can't change how they play out. IE games are even more RT than most other RT games in that regard since they let you interrupt your chars at any point. They could instead have locked player input in the meanwhile. They also would have had to adjust the animation length so your char actually looks busy when he's supposed to do things (and not with a loop like in IE but using only one cycle of the animation). But I guess they didn't want to concentrate on creating animations that much and also wanted to make gameplay feel more fluid.
If they would have done it differently synchronized rounds for all participients in a fight would have been possible and then it would indeed play out like it was synchronous TB (or phase-based) in RT when you use auto-pause.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, the combat in fallout wouldn't get more complex with balance. It would in practice, but not in design. As it stands it's a rube goldberg machine. There's a lot of bells and whistles regarding called shots that amount to nothing when actually played.

Then how about scrapping gambling and using freed resources to develop repair or science beyond mere gimmicks?

While it's not a crpg, dwarf fortress is the perfect example of this shit. If he weren't so busy adding tissue layers and family trees, the fucker could have made goblin seiges something relevant instead of an amusing meatgrinder that produces a lot of free metal and small bloody socks on top of traps. If the game were simpler with the same amount of time spent developing it, he'd have fine tuned the interface by now and fixed all sorts of bugs. If he dropped dead tomorrow you can't possibly say that you'd rather have milkable goats and a cheesemaking industry than a good interface just because it's more complex.

Actually, isn't DF the kind of case where complexity IS the game?

That would be a better use of effort than gambling too, but I think I'd personally enjoy having fixed combat more. The bad combat stands out a lot more than the few bad skills.

As for DF, yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't have too much. If you're building a sandcastle but all you have is a big rough pile, you spent too much time piling it up and not enough sculpting. You need more sand to make a better castle, but you can still have too much sand relative to the amount of time you spent fiddling with it. Same goes with adding details. If you spend too much time adding details and not enough time polishing them, you're just adding a mess to the game. Everyone wants to put in a tech research system into their MoM clone. And that'd be fucking cool. But they keep putting it in without refining it enough, and the games are shit as a result. One of the things that made the original so great was that they knew when to stop adding features and work on fixing what they had. Complexity is great, but you have to respect how much extra effort it takes to maintain quality within that complexity. It grows exponentially. Balancing Dune 2 is easy; everyone has mostly the same shit anyways. Balancing starcraft is pretty fucking hard, and ultimately requires pathing in years of input from thousands of very skilled testers examining all possible strategies. Balancing your super cool starcraft killer with 10 times as many units with more damage types and extra dimensions and resources is going to be nigh impossible.

Starcraft is a good example of where you want to be. It wasn't perfectly refined on release, but it was at the point where if you had to choose between them nixing a unit from each race or nixing the patches, you'd have them nix the patches. If I had to make the same choice for AI Wars, I'd say go ahead and nix some fucking ships, I can't live without all the fixes. Could say the same about a lot of work in progress games that are being released these days. And for dwarf fortress it's true 10 times over. I can think of a dozen features I'd prefer he'd ignored until the interface was fixed up so you don't use two different command schemes for designating the same kind of shit because in one case you're making a farm and in another you're making a stockpile.

Nethack is another example of balancing this shit perfectly. The amazing thing about nethack isn't that they thought of putting in cockatrices that can petrify you, it's that they refined the concept to the point where if you walk over a cockatrice corpse in the dark, you'll petrify yourself by tripping over it, UNLESS you're wearing boots. They could have spent time adding another 100 spells or artifacts or colours of dragons, but instead they made sure that every last detail of even the mundane shit like blindfolds, towels, mirrors, and each monster in the game was looked after. SLASH'EM is a Nethack variant that adds a bunch of stuff. It's pretty fun for the novelty factor, but it's an inferior game. The races are hopelessly unbalanced (dopplegangers broken as fuck) and a bunch of really obvious shit wasn't implemented. You can get lightsabers, but you can't burn messages into the ground with them. What kind of fail is that? You had the time to add in lightsabers for teh lulz but not enough time to make sure they can cut into rock because you were busy adding in 'Star Vampires'? Kill yourself, dev team.

 

[deuxhero]

IE games failed hard at both fronts - being effectively TB emulators running in RT they obviously didn't benefit from fine timing control, and the AI, including pathfinding was an absolute clusterfuck.

AI and Pathfinding are two different things, at least when it comes to the IE games. AI is how smart the enemy is. In most of my favourite games (Gold Box, Civilization and Age of Wonders games) the AI is the weakest link, but in the IE games it can be really good.

Any system where an enemy between two archers runs back and forth unable to decide which to run at does not have good AI.

 

[Lhynn]

IE games failed hard at both fronts - being effectively TB emulators running in RT they obviously didn't benefit from fine timing control, and the AI, including pathfinding was an absolute clusterfuck.

AI and Pathfinding are two different things, at least when it comes to the IE games. AI is how smart the enemy is. In most of my favourite games (Gold Box, Civilization and Age of Wonders games) the AI is the weakest link, but in the IE games it can be really good.

Any system where an enemy between two archers runs back and forth unable to decide which to run at does not have good AI.

or extremely good AI, maybe the dude is just extremely indecisive.

 

[Cromwell]

If someone would argue that it takes less time to win or lose a fight with rt, then isn't the real problem in the games design having to much meaningless fights?

 

[laclongquan]

UFO Aftershock

Medic level 3 is desperately needed because its perk allow auto fast heal in base-hospital.

And in big scrums, your sorely woundeds will need heal, which Medic can provide.

Pity big and dangerous scrums are not that common. And you can ignore medium to light wounds, as injuries dont affect skills, so you just cant be arsed.

So dont train medic, but hire a Med3 recruit whenever they appear.

Complex but incomplete. Bah.

well, incomplete describe the game. Drugs and chemicals dont work, in that vein.

 

[NotAGolfer]

If someone would argue that it takes less time to win or lose a fight with rt, then isn't the real problem in the games design having to much meaningless fights?

Fights against trash mobs don't have to be meaningless. They can give you a sense of char progression (wipe the floor with that previously invincible basilisk after leveling up several times), make enemy forces feel more numerous if the story dictates that (goblin tribe attacking a village) or just let you enjoy the awesomeness of your char/party (barbecue, fuck yeah!).
Doesn't mean that it's impossible to make TB fights against trash mobs entertaining enough to not get tedious.
One thing Fallout showed is how even superficial stuff like gory animations can help. Interesting combat mechanics that let you fool around a bit if you're bored (JA2) can help too.

 

[pakoito]

If someone would argue that it takes less time to win or lose a fight with rt, then isn't the real problem in the games design having to much meaningless fights?

Fights against trash mobs don't have to be meaningless. They can give you a sense of char progression (wipe the floor with that previously invincible basilisk after leveling up several times), make enemy forces feel more numerous if the story dictates that (goblin tribe attacking a village) or just let you enjoy the awesomeness of your char/party (barbecue, fuck yeah!).
Doesn't mean that it's impossible to make TB fights against trash mobs entertaining enough to not get tedious.
One thing Fallout showed is how even superficial stuff like gory animations can help. Interesting combat mechanics that let you fool around a bit if you're bored (JA2) can help too.

Someone will kill me for this but South Park did trash mobs quite well. You can skip them by abusing the environment and still get the experience, go ahead into battle or cook up the enemies from afar first. And even if you got into a one sided fight it'd be over within 20 seconds.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just noticed, this is apparently the 10,000th thread in this forum. Glad it wasn't some megathread about a shit game.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

From what I have read, Knights of Legend fits the bill for this thread. All combat EVERYTHING is super complex with poorly implemented interfaces to further obfuscate and pad gameplay. To add further salt to the wound, the game has a literally arcane magic system COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO THE GAME