If your thinking of a replay check out Drog's other work patching and improving Arcanum. The extra content part of the UAP restores three schematics as well so tech should hurt that little bit less
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2006
- Messages
- 31
I count Arcanum as one of my favorites, but I have to say for a really interesting and original skill system, it did lack balance. I also don't remember feeling either frustrated or bored by the combat, but I remember feeling extremely ticked several times trying to build my character, and by the fact that you're forced to choose between tech and magic with very little blending allowed. I loved the world, the story and the atmosphere of the game enough to finish it, though, which back then I hardly ever had the time to do.
What was worse was having to backtrack through cleared multi-level dungeons through one of the worst movement interfaces whatsoever (with extremely limited pathfinding), that you couldnt rest inside dungeons (which made healing a PITA for tech characters until they find the medical arachnid in the last third of the game), and the rather idiotic way companions level up.
I agree the muli-level dungeons were a pain to back track through. The map screen helped with that, I could just plot a course through it and let the computer do the walking. I wish I could of put more waypoints though, I don't remember how many you could put up but it was never enough to get all the way back to the beginning.
For the healing I always had plenty of healing salves. What made it easier for me is that I always had at least 3 people in my party and always one of them was the half-giant (can't remember his name something like Grogg I think) So I put the heavy stuff with him and virgil or whichever the other character I had hold the healing salves and fatigue restorers. If I didn't have them then the dungeons would of been a lot harder.
You're joking right?
The lack of waypoints was a serious limitation to that kind of movement. You needed to open the map 3 times or so to navigate through a dungeon this way. If you used it in a populated place (Tarant or the dwarf clan) the characters would stop moving if they collided with an NPC. As a movement interface it was horrible for a time when other games already had done this very basic thing right.
That's what I did too, but it ended up with a whole lot of micro-management in moving items between characters. And if you put the healing gear on a tech healer (Jayna Stiles?) she would burn through them extremely fast, and we are talking a finite resource (or rather one that it took a day or so for stores to resupply). Compared to having Virgil around (he succeeded often enough as long as you kept your aptitude fairly low) this was a major hassle and a horrid design. The healing salves and bandages should have been stackable and resting should have been allowed inside dungeons, there is just no sensible justification for the design choices.
I also recall one major imbalance in favour of techies. The molotov cocktail is a lvl 1 schematic that gives access to a fast and powerful area effect weapon that (unlike dynamite IIRC) doesnt hit friendlies, and can be made from fuel and crap Damn I've abused that weapon... Since it is extremely fast and wont explode on your friends you dont need any throwing skill to use it either
You dont find ToEE combat superior? I believe that its combat implementation was one of the best, if not the best in history of turn-based cRPGs.
You dont find ToEE combat superior? I believe that its combat implementation was one of the best, if not the best in history of turn-based cRPGs.
the engine was good. I just wished they had selected *any* other 'module' to implement. ToEE is a pure hack&slash module very light in the RP department. I didn't like it in PnP and didn't like it in the computer game.Yeah, ToEE had an excellent implementation of the D&D 3.5 edition rules.
But I think most of the credit belongs to the designers of the PnP rules - not Troika.
The game was a hollow and buggy mess. But it DID capture the feel of old-school hack and slash almost to perfection.