I should love this game, but the combat gets in the way :(

Ok, Arcanum is a game that I should love.

1. I love steampunk

2. I love story-driven rpg's with lots of text to read

3. I love rpg games that offer multiple ways to get around the same situation

The one big fly in the soup however, is combat.

I don't understand it. The combat engine is similar to Fallout at least on a superficial level. Yet, I love Fallout's combat, but I hate the combat in Arcanum.

What is the difference between fallout's combat and arcanum's combat?

Why do they feel so different, when they're supposed to be similar?

I have tried playing Arcanum as a gun man, a bow weilder, a magician. None of these were enjoyable combat-wise.

Of course, you could say that Arcanum is about story, not about combat. And I understand because I don't play rpg's for the combat (as I stated above, I love reading text, and background lore). However, the combat in Aranum is just plain boring to me. I can't seem to find a way to ignore it and just focus on the story.

There is no tactics, and no strategizing, like there is in the Infinity engine or Fallout games.

I know there is a wonderful story in Arcanum in a wonderful setting which I love, but the combat... :cry:

I hope you guys see that I'm not bashing the game. I'm just asking for explanations. And perhaps some tips and ideas on what I could do to make the combat a bit more tolerable.

What race, class, or skill combination do you think would offer interesting combat? Perhaps there is something I haven't explored as yet...

 

Do you use real-time, or turn based?

 

Does it matter?

Arcanum's combat system is flawed as feck. If you can't look past that and if you can't find enough other reasons to like this game, you should put it aside.

Seriously.

The only decent bit of combat to be found in Arcanum is the fight with Stingy Pete. You might want to think tactical there. But yeah, that's pretty much it.

 

I tried both at first. But real time combat was atrocious, so I stick with turn based. Obviously, even the turn-based combat is not that much fun. Turn-based was so much better in the Fallout series.

I don't know what happened here. Arcanum has some kind of weird mixture between real time and turn-based, and neither one works very well, in my opinion.

I suspected as much. I had hoped for some tips to help make combat more palatable, but it seems that there's not much that can be done about that.

It mattered to me because Arcanum is a game that I know I would love, and it's such a shame that the combat is so poor.

Can we blame Sierra for the implementation of the combat system? I read somewhere that Sierra forced the developers to include real time instead of pure turn-based because they wanted it to have wider appeal (aka Sierra wanted to make more $$$money)

 

UPDATE:

In case anyone cares, I actually have found a way to enjoy combat in this game: I installed the Carcanum mod

Well, I used to deliberately avoid Carcanum because I pride myself in being a "purist" and hate cheese of any kind in my games. Turns out that Carcanum is actually not that bad. If you read everything, and select your choices carefully at the start of the game, the changes aren't that drastic. It added just the right amount of difficulty and streamlining of the experience to make the fights more interesting to me.

So if anyone else is bored with the combat, try taking the plunge into Carcanum. It doesn't break the fourth wall as much I thought it would.

 

Carcanum broke my mind, and half the time I can't type the name right.

 

What is your proof then? Give me one valid reason and i will agree you.

 

Give us one good reason not to ban you.







Im just sayin...

 

I think we can all agree on three things:

1) Arcanum's combat is a bit flawed, mostly due to Troika being forced to make a system that could accommodate both turn-based and real-time simultaneously. The issues involved in making each work with each other causes a lot of problems.

2) Bumping old threads is bad, and you should feel bad if you do it, because that would make you bad.

3) Perhaps equally as lame: People bandwagon jumping onto the gravedigging hate, and incorrectly incorporating the moderation team in their use of the royal "we."

 

It probably comes with another account like it did with Warfreakanix/darkinvader/dreamwarrior.

 

This. I guess they don't realise how irritating it is to read a thread and find a heap of people bitching at new members to the point they never return; let's face it, TA is pretty stale these days so a couple new participants wouldn't hurt. A simple mention of gravedigging and a link to the FAQ would do just fine.

 

I play real-time combat exclusively and it's not that bad.

 

One thing you can do to make the game more challenging on replay and force you to employ advanced tactics is to do the main storyline as soon as possible. Only do the side quests that you want specific items for or when you find it too difficult to advance otherwise ar try playing solo or with just one follower.

I just started playing again and I was trying to try some new combat tactics and experimenting with the spells. I had some pretty good theorys on what I thought may work such as firewalls and unseen force and spatial distortion, but I found them to be mostly useless :-(

Next im going to try an archer next and use blur vision and illuminate on targets to make them easier to hit while taking out all the nearby lights so that my character is more difficult to hit. I did some testing today and a well lit up target can really improve your hit chance, also illuminate is only 3 fatigue.

on a side note
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaCZN2N6 ... re=related

 

Please don't post shitty music again.

 

I think its pretty decent for it genre but the video is epic. some people only like their limp bizkit tho so I understand, dawg

 

Limp Bizkit? Dawg? WTF?! It's not even decent for the genre. It's just another crappy R&B/Techno fusion that has over emphasized vocal synths to cover an apparent inability to sing. Not to mention the video itself was entirely pointless and only thing crappier I've seen in recent years were lady gaga videos; and (much like this comment) had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. It was posted in an (successful) attempt to derail a thread.

Summation: You fail at life and I fail for feeding useless trolls.

 

The entire genre is shit then, it's lame music coupled with an equally lame video.

And no, I don't like 'limp bizkit' either, dawg.

 

I guess you didn't really understand what was happening in the video since you didn't like it.

The thing, without explanation, is just awesome, and thoroughly hilarious, mostly because of the inspired absurdity, pointless and ridiculous violence, and the mischievous facial expressions of the bald guy. I also especially like a detail that skims by too quickly at the opening -- one guy is named "Kyng" and another "Mar'Vaine."

I think the video is about how the sexy overproduced musical acts such as the Backstreet-Boys-style group that opens are just the public face of music created by sickly-skinny nerdy bald Moby-looking white dudes. Fans would be horrified if they were confronted with this uncool source, and indeed one of the best parts of the video are the horrified looks of the fans, confronted by this unglamorous badly-lit weirdo at 1:09 and 1:29 -- in fact I would read the looks as disappointed more than anything else. The singers react confidently, thinking that cool will carry them but they are each destroyed in turn, after being mocked for their meaningless gestures -- and it is significant that they are taken down by energy that comes pouring from the mouth, like singing -- this is where the music comes from

At the end of the Hot Chip Video, it is this big black head, the African musical source, that gets the last laugh, destroying the Backstreet Boys style front band, the nerdy members of Hot Chip themselves, the fans, and the sign with the name of the band. The whole video is about the revenge of sources on the people that profit from them.

the director is Peter Serafinowicz who directed shaun of the dead.

Now I have to know, what music video do you guys think is worth watching?