Usually I just skim through reviews, but..

Here is a small part of one of the reviews on Arcanum off the front page of TA.

"..Arcanum pulls no punches. It's a RPG that will challenge even expert RPGers. For that and for providing a lovely reality-forgetting experience, I award Arcanum 4 1/2 GiN Gems for their treasure chest with just a slight deduction for a few gameplay flaws."

Ok, what the hell is this guy smoking?

An Rpg that will challenge even expert RPGers. What a load of horse ****

As a person with 17 years of gaming experience and countless RPG's behind me from the PC, to consoles, to tabletop games.. Arcanum gets about 2 out of a possible 10 when it comes to DIFFICULTY and CHALLENGE. Only reason I give it a 2 is sometimes it is a minor challenge playing a tech based character.

Sometimes I wonder if people who write these reviews even play them beyond the 10 minutes or so it takes to come up with stuff to write about the game and fill up a review on them.

Arcanum -could- have been challenge, and still might be if they would ever fix some major issues with a patch. I SO want to like this game, it drives me nuts because I just can't seem to look past all the broken parts and imbalances. Grrr.

Anyway, what would the rest of you rate this game in terms of how much of a challenge it is/was on a scale of 1 (being way too easy) to 10 (being way too hard) ?

Oh, and assume you were playing it on moderate difficulty.

 

stop typing so much stuff u should type in less sentances and then i might help u

 

Bah the guy never played an RPG. The most challenging moments are the slow downs, and numerous bugs. It's a pretty good game, but very far from fallout... it's funny to see all those people talk about greatest RPGs who haven't played the early ones... whose idea of old rpg is BG1..

 

an old RPG would be Ultima(well actually it would be Dungeons and Dragons)

 

Stop typing less sentences? What the hell kind of suggestion is that? :smile:

At least I don't have horrible grammer and run it all together in a huge lump and cause people a headache just trying to read it as I have seen many, many people do over the many boards where I have voiced my opinions.

What does it say about a persons attention span when they can't read a handful of sentences?

Oh, and I was not asking for help, just an opinion. If you choose not to give me one, or read my 'numerous' words, then so be it

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vyme on 2001-10-10 05:33 ]</font>

 

calm down i was just saying that sometimes it is annoying to read a bunch of stuff at once.....u dont have to get angry

 

I am not angry, but you did put me on the defensive by criticizing my choice to use 'a lot of sentences'. It isn't like I am making you read a book :smile:

All I did was take a little extra time to flesh out my thoughts and words to make it an easier, albeit lengthier read.

I have to say I have seen many much, much larger than mine _

ER... POSTS that is, yeah.. posts..that last line sorta leaves a guy open. At least I caught it before anyone else did :roll:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vyme on 2001-10-10 05:44 ]</font>

 

u should do like all of us do and post sort(but more) posts

 

Don't listen to him, Vyme. I like reading well thought out posts that actually have something to say.

(Yes, I fully realize that this is a short post with one point to it.)

 

Yeah Milo's right, besides is nice to read a sensible post for a change( not that my posts makes sense :grin: ).

About the game you are very right especially if ur playing the heavily imbalance mage, so try using a tech for a change, it will still be easy but the character build up will be more challenging, also try to solve the Maze, man, that was a challenge nobody ever solve yet.. :grin:

 

Yeah, its hard for me to enjoy magic using characters right now. Straight up mages, mage-thieves, Melee guys with limited magic, simply because the majority of spells are just broken or overpowered.

I have been playing a tech gnome (I named him Wyatt Earp! hehe) who has throwing, and firearms. I allow myself to use 1 molotov per turn (pisses me they didn't catch the bug with no ap cost) and whatever gun I have.

Working on electrical, gunsmithy and explosives disciplines. Trying to max 3 disciplines, max firearms, dodge and throwing, and get int, perception, dex and str up is a real bitch

I just don't have enough CP's. I can juggle a few things around though :grin:

Game is still too easy, I am playing on Hard diff. The early game is difficult though, which is how I like it. I am hoping it will stay difficult, though I see it steadily getting easier as my little man grows in power :sad:

If enemies would just cast some SPELLS!! That would make things interesting eh?

 

Wow - not just a well written post about Arcanum, but a whole thread of them. I think I might frame it (after editing out Q's nonsense, of course) :smile:

BTW, Vyme, when criticising grammar you might want to spell the word correctly

I would rate the game as around a 5 or 6 on the difficulty scale. The combat is easy, since I play in turn-based mode, but there have been several quests where I have had to ask things here or check the walkthrough.

My rating is probably more for "How difficult is it to finish the quests you want to?" rather "How difficult is it to get to the end of the game?"

If you're finding combat in particular too easy, Vyme, maybe you should try realtime mode? Then you wouldn't have to worry about limiting the number of Molotovs - you'd be dead before you could target more than one successfully :grin:

Also, don't forget this is an RPG. Being the veteran you are, I'm sure you're familiar with the whole RPG's-are-about-enjoying-not-winning argument.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sheriff Fatman on 2001-10-10 08:54 ]</font>

 

Which is why I said I don't have 'horrible' grammar. No claim of perfection or excellence on my part, though if need be I could go slow and make sure to use proper sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. I really don't see the need for that so long as I get my point(s) across though, right? :smile:

I didn't criticize anyones grammer either! That is one thing I cannot stand! People who point out spelling mistakes and such need to have their geek arses beat good :grin:

As for real time. In this game it REALLY stinks. Any of you ever play Fallout Tactics? I know Saint P. has because I remember seeing posts from him on various FT boards. That game was another pos, but the way it handled real time combat was actually rather decent.

It is one of a very few games where I actually enjoyed real time combat, though I am a turn based fan. I like to think my moves and actions through, execute them, and watch the results.

If I want real time hacking and slashing, I can always go waste more time with Diablo 2

I guess playing as many games as I have does give me quite an edge over the casual gamer. I just feel the game should be a real challenge and for those that don't want or cannot handle the challenge, slip the difficulty down to easy.

Easy, Moderate and Hard difficulty levels should not limit it to just amount of experience gained and hit percentages. It should also affect the number of monsters/hostile npcs you find in random encounters, affect their levels/equipment and skills. With hard difficulty having more enemies of higher level and caliber with better skills and equipment.

It should also affect the AI. I fully expect EASY to mean stupid AI. Spellcasters not utilizing the best spells at the best times. MODERATE should give you enemies that gang up on a single target, utilize skills, spells and items to good effect and make only a few mistakes here and there to give the player opportunities to capitalize on those mistakes.

HARD should be HARD. The AI and scripting should be downright BRUTAL!! Spellcasters should pull every trick in the book to wipe your silly little ass out! Monsters should make a beeline for the weakest characters and eat em for lunch!

I know they could have made it this way. There are games upwards of 10+ years old with better scripting and AI routines than what you will find in Arcanum.

Which makes me very, very sad :sad:

Arcanum just has too much wasted potential.

Phew. If Quethim makes it to the end of this his head will probably explode

 

You spelled grammar wrong again. Beat my geek arse :wink:

I am also a big turn-based fan, because I like the tactical side of things, rather than the clicking quick and accurately side.

Having said that, games having realtime modes are always quite easy in turn-based. I've played FOT and found that pretty easy too, although it allowed for more sophisticated tactics.

I agree that AI in Arcanum sucks. As does the pathing.

What the hell is it with the AI that makes your followers spend all there AP's in a longggggggggggg jog to a target, only to do nothing when they get there. Enabling them to pick a more sensible target would surely not have been too hard.

This is definitely a design issue. It's pretty clear that the AI for enemy selection at the moment is pretty much "attack the same one as me" which belongs back in the dark ages.

 

well...

Most people who enjoys the game based their combat on real time.

 

Sheriff said "This is definitely a design issue. It's pretty clear that the AI for enemy selection at the moment is pretty much "attack the same one as me" which belongs back in the dark ages."
I actually have had the opposite thing happen several times where my people went off and attacked someone other than the one I attacked, sort of leaving me out on a limb. But that did make it more challenging. - Edythe

 

And after writing that, I just figured out why. My strength is throwing so when I see enemies ahead of us I use the fight icon and attack first from a distance, hitting a couple of targets, which I guess gives my NCPs choices on who to attack. - Edythe

 

At last. A person who seems to have a full quotient of wits. I congratulate you Vyme. You seem to be the only person on this forum who will answer my question if that answer runs for more than one paragraph.
Sherrif Fatman from London - get off the lads case (though I agree about editing out Q's pathetic posts - how can you flame someone with a line like "u should do like all of us do and post sort(but more) posts". Wombat!!!
I agree with Vyme. The biggest challenge with this game is the damn bugs. Real-time combat is impossible. A character that can get in 6 hits in turn-based combat is limited to one hit in real time. Que? What were the programmers thinking?
As a game reviewer I can tell you that we often only play them for 10 minutes - enough time to come up with enough stuff to write the review…but damnit, this one has me hooked. Maybe it's the fun of combining junk to make cool items - like rebuilding PC's.
I've got over 20 years XP with RPG's. D & D and Odessy (text based Apple game from 1981) through to Ultima, Diablo, Fallout, Baldurs Gate and now Arcanum. This has to be the slowest, most infuriating, bug filled piece of crap I've ever installed.
Unplayable out of the box (see my other posts/tirades), hopeless AI, ridiculously processor intensive (why didn't the boys from Black Isle/Troika ask other game designers how they did lighting and animations?), pathetically limited scrolling around the character(s), no zoom on the local maps, memory drain after 30 mins of playing, stupendous caching (which requires regular defragging), load time exceeding that of Windows, sound issues (I'm sure you've all heard the dreaded "echoes" that mean it's time to quit and restart Arcanum), the "hold that mouse button down if you don't want to lose all those waypoints" bug, the "yes, I really want to barter" double click issue…I could go on, but I'll probably fry Q's brain.
Why the farknl do I like this game so much? Perhaps I'm perverse.
I love a challenge, and I can't believe that a game with so much potential could be so damn frustrating. I'm stuck on the third quest - find out what happened to the Dwarves. I've searched that mine 3 times and I still can't find the "pillar of truth".
It's supposed to be immediately behind the mad dwarf, but all I can find is a pile of rubble.
Was it me? Did I accidentally blow the bloody thing up? Or is this another bug?

 

Well, the reason I haven't answered your question is that I don't know the answer. My full quotient of wits has enabled me to traverse that particular part with no trouble

Maybe the others on the forum are in the same position. I've certainly posted some decent length questions here and had them answered in very informative and helpful ways.

Some of the bugs are annoying, aren't they? I wouldn't judge them as harshly as you did, since the game is demonstrably not unplayable out of the box, and plenty of the guys here use real-time combat, but I see what you mean.

Still, at least it's given you a chance to get in touch with your perversity.

 

Oh, my dear Sheriff, I've been in touch with my perversity for a long time…in fact, I'm touching it right now!

Am I the only one who suffered the "save game and exit" bug? That alone made the game "unplayable" out of the box! Surely you've suffered from the "echo of restart" or even the "yes I really want to barter" bug?

If you haven't I'll try removing and re-installing Arcanum…anything is better than this!