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Arcanum Arcanum is, by far, one of the worst *games* I've ever played... emphasis on "game" and not "RPG"

ortucis

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People complaining about combat in Arcanum.

All Infinity engine games had shit combat with shit DnD ruleset ruining the fun. Fallout games weren't DnD but were still shit when it came to combat. Only reason I played these games was for the storyline, not for the turn-based diarrhea they called "combat".

At least the blueprints made the combat more interesting, gave you more options and choices when it came to combat.
 
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Excidium II

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That was clearly intended. It's the last of the old-school CRPGs, a throwback to an earlier era when games weren't as polished and the player was expected to figure things out on their own.
my face reading this

ittmsw.jpg
 
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Excidium II

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All Infinity engine games had shit combat with shit DnD ruleset ruining the fun. Fallout games weren't DnD but were still shit when it came to combat. Only reason I played these games was for the storyline, not for the turn-based diarrhea they called "combat".
Cease posting altogether. Fallout combat suffers from balance issues but is very satisfying to go through because of the great audio/grafics/text feedback to actions.

also saying IE games have shit combat and DnD ruleset is shit...in an arcanum thread. lmao
 

thesoup

Arcane
Joined
Oct 13, 2011
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I could post a thing or two about IE and fallout's combats, but let us not fall for the enemy's plan and talk how other games' combat is shit when we are shitting on arcanum's combat

I wouldn't even actually mind the horrible garbage that they file under "combat" in arcanum if there wasn't so many of it. Fine, I can just harm my way through it, but I don't want to spend hours in god damn dungeons just exploiting the game's broken and ultimately boring combat mechanics. Had it been a proper storyfaggot game, it might be even worth playing, like PS:T.
 

ortucis

Prophet
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Apr 22, 2009
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so saying IE games have shit combat and DnD ruleset is shit...in an arcanum thread. lmao

Hurr!

Only reason I played these games was for the storyline, not for the turn-based diarrhea they called "combat".


Which part of that read like "I LOVED ARCANUM RULESET AND COMBAT U GUYZ!"?

Anyway, Fallout had shit combat. Infinity engines are the only games where I'd have a "SKIP COMBAT" button. Well, god mode should fix that. DnD ruleshat works in board games, not in fucking computer games. People trying to replicate DnD rules in video games need to be banished from game development.
 

laclongquan

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Searching for my kidnapped sister
Final Fantasy 7 got some good inventory movement. You can use button to page-scroll, and combined with arrange you can move inside the item list pretty fast.

IIRC, someone please enlighten me, Fallout 1 doesnt have page scroll button, but until Fallout 2. It's why F1 inventory is such a special pain. That and the limit of number of caps we can use in barter. F1 generally lack all the polishing you need and expect, of which are provided in F2.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Arcanum is a deeply flawed game. There are enjoyable ways to play it, but you have to actively look for them, and a lot of that involves avoiding obvious ways of breaking it in ways that trivialise everything.
 

Ash

Arcane
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Oct 16, 2015
Messages
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lucas9 said:
And hell, if you are pushing me, I may as well say we shouldn't need to "examine" an item to get its description: any other game would place it somewhere in the UI.

No this is more a difference in how complex a particular UI is, as well as how descriptive a description is. If hovering the cursor over an item automatically displayed its description and effects, what about the UI element the description overlays? Is that information still needed? What if the description itself has interactive buttons, like a scroll bar of its own? There's nothing wrong with forcing a player to first examine the item if it fits with the overall design.

Also I'm not a fan of arrange buttons in some games. Fits for tedious scroll lists but in grid-based inventories I prefer to arrange myself (Inventory tetris ftw). Still not really any harm in adding an option though...do it for the whiners.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
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Feb 6, 2016
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Unless someone modded mouse control in, they also have a huge list that you have to scroll with the keyboard. Absolutely retarded.

Who plays a console RPG on a computer?

OK, who's alt is this retard?

I'm sorry you think a fixed camera angle that obstructs a lot of things is a good thing. I, personally, didn't enjoy Fallout's "go into corners to find hidden stuff". At all. I'm not going to hold it against Interplay because that would be simply unfair.

IIn reality all examples in this thread are all a bit shit compared to how some other games with massive inventories have handled it, like Morrowind (subcategories) or Ultima Underworld (separate bags). Fallout's while shit is not that bad because you don't get a great deal of items throughout the game like in all these other examples. Still shit though.

Yeah, still (if I remember correctly) the good thing about Final Fantasy is that you could autoarrange the inventory and easily see the different kinds. Moreover, if you wanted to see your equipment, one would generally go straight into the equipping menu, yet in Fallout you have to look for the armor itself from the common inventory because it's a one-man party. Still, autoarrange is a good thing.

Careful dude. You need to specify what makes it shit. Because static cameras aren't inherently shit. I say as someone who prefers dynamic cameras and 3D worlds. Word of warning though: you're on a site dedicated almost exclusively to old RPGs with fixed, isometric camera angles (note their top 5 RPGs, for example), and they will eat you alive for saying shit like that. This isn't so much RPG codex as it is Isometric RPG Codex. Other games are covered, but the main players and majority in general are isofags. I suffered gravely for favoring First Person perspective (for interactivity and immershun potential) over iso.

I like isometric cameras as long as the game doesn't abuse their limitations, the Fallout 1 example again with skilll books hidden into corners you just had to search, or when you can't see your character because he is "behind" a wall. It's incredibly annoying, I wish the walls turned transparent whenever you were inside a room instead of having your view blocked by walls your character doesn't see.

Hell, I mention Vagrant Story because the isometric view was fantastic and allowed me to inspect the rooms as I saw fit, plus it made it harder for devs to purposedly hide stuff in front of my eyes.

Motherfucker I thought we were fighting on the same front here.

The truth is

The thread was rigged from the start.

"virgil back off". Or just hit F5.

Oh crap, I forgot about that command

Maybe next time try actually reading the dialog when you talk to people. Next you'll be asking for a quest compass.

Nice strawman. Morrowind had a perfectly good journal because it recorded everything important that the NPCs told you. But I guess it is my fault for not remembering every single thing told to me by NPCs...

It works like pretty much any grid-based inventory of its time, and the sorting feature was obviously a late addition not worth using. Organize your shit yourself and it's not a problem.

Organizing my shit gets tiring real fast when I have to accomodate for picking new items. I know because I gave it a try a few times already and I always remembered why I stop doing it.

And this info is further outlined in a few conversations in the Shrouded Hills.

Arcanum's far from perfect, but I wouldn't call it a terrible game because it lacks accessibility. That was clearly intended. It's the last of the old-school CRPGs, a throwback to an earlier era when games weren't as polished and the player was expected to figure things out on their own. And read the fucking manual.

I know, I read the manual. And I had to consult forums to know what exactly did the percentages like "magic power" meant, because "more aptitude = stronger items" is simple in concept, but you are left wondering what the percentages mean and how your skills actually affect them.

Or maybe I skipped it, who knows, if only the manual had a fucking index like every manual ever made for anything.

No this is more a difference in how complex a particular UI is, as well as how descriptive a description is. If hovering the cursor over an item automatically displayed its description and effects, what about the UI element the description overlays? Is that information still needed? What if the description itself has interactive buttons, like a scroll bar of its own? There's nothing wrong with forcing a player to first examine the item if it fits with the overall design.

You lost me there, buddy. Basically, I want things such as stats and effects to be readily available to me, if possible (very complicated in games like Baldur's Gate, for example, what with the huge amount of classes, stats, long descriptions, and so on).
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
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I just recently replayed SotN with a hardcore difficulty hack/mod. Not possible on console.

That's fine, but one shouldn't really blame a game for playing it on PC instead of console as god intendentended. Like Dark Souls. Fuck that port, just fuck it.

Only in the feeble mind of a gridfag are little pictures better way to list things than their names.

I like little pictures but they tend to have many more disadvantages compared to name-based inventories.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,715
Excidium: Bullshit. You're missing the point. You've played underworld or System Shock 2, right? Grid-based inventories render all of the inventory at once, which in those games you can grab the icon, and move it from your inventory into the game world (to drop/throw in any direction) and vice-versa. Try doing that so smoothly with shitty lists that scroll for days.
Secondly, I love inventory tetris. Adds additional gameplay depth to inventory management that I find enjoyable.
 
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Excidium II

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Drag n Drop is perfectly doable with lists. Also lists only have a lot of scrolling on a bad implementation.

"Secondly, I love inventory tetris. Adds additional depth to inventory management."

lol ok
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,715
"Drag n Drop is perfectly doable with lists."

dragging from the world into the inventory, and out of the inventory into the world to throw in any direction? Doable, perhaps. Executed as fluidly? No.


Enjoy your shitty lists, listfag.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,684
Excidium: Bullshit. You're missing the point. You've played underworld or System Shock 2, right? Grid-based inventories render all of the inventory at once, which in those games you can grab the icon, and move it from your inventory into the game world (to drop/throw in any direction) and vice-versa. Try doing that so smoothly with shitty lists that scroll for days.
Secondly, I love inventory tetris. Adds additional gameplay depth to inventory management that I find enjoyable.
Lastly, grid inventories are usually just generally smaller in capacity than list inventories, which forces strategy.

I find that games with tetris inventories tend to rely more on interaction with the world, whereas games with lists don't. So it makes sense to have a readily accessible tool to interact with a machine, but in a game like Final Fantasy, those important items just get brought up through dialogue or pop-ups.

I like what I've seen of your GMDX mod by the way. There's a review on YouTube that absolutely destroys your "rival", and I found it pretty fun.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,715
Yeah, it is certainly a case of context and designing the inventory to suit the overall game. Still, love my grid inventories.

The mod is massive incline. Codexers have given the verdict. I also expanded on the inventory and UI function in some important ways, on that note.
 
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AwesomeButton

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Arcanum is a game for people of taste, who can appreciate the ideas, forgive the execution, and place the game in the context in which it was released, instead of just being a bunch of crybabies. Irenaeus played vanilla PoE and liked it, so seeing him complain of Arcanum is a bit of a paradox. -- well I saw he just quotes some guy.

Seeing that guy's complaints, they are exactly what I expected, and what I imagined when I said "crybabies". Sheesh, I almost expected to see "lacks romances".

However, I find Arcanum to be fitting the description of "a classic" - a game I like to praise, but I would have a hard time convincing myself to sit down and actually play it.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
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Feb 6, 2016
Messages
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Arcanum is a game for people of taste, who can appreciate the ideas, forgive the execution, and place the game in the context in which it was released, instead of just being a bunch of crybabies. Irenaeus played vanilla PoE and liked it, so seeing him complain of Arcanum is a bit of a paradox.

However, I find Arcanum to be fitting the description of "a classic" - a game I like to praise, but I would have a hard time convincing myself to sit down and actually play it.

I like the aesthetic of the game and how it is more than just an aesthetic: the world is believable, I especially like that part of the main quest where you learn about the steam engine. It's such a shame the game has so god awful mechanics, because other than that, it actually managed to grab my attention even more than the original Fallout (which granted I play mostly because I feel I have to, given my love for New Vegas9. Rate my RPGs to play list btw.
 

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