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bongwizzard posted:I have never made it very far in that game but I loved every second of it right up i until get stuck. Is there a good guid out there for it? I kinda remember reading some thread about the game years ago that had some good info in it but ai don't remember what t was called. If you just want to romp through Arcanum, just play a wizard in turn based mode. You can harm spam your way through most of the game and use disintegrate later. I picked up throwing as a back up combat skill. Most creatures will never even close with you. It's ridiculous. Everything just melts.
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Sep 18, 2017 05:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:In theory, you could have still played Darklands without the manual, you would just have needed an encyclopedic knowledge of Catholic saints to understand the magic system
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Sep 18, 2017 05:14
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Dick Burglar posted:Wasn't one side of the magic/tech side like infinitely superior to the other? I want to say tech blew magic completely out of the water past like the first portion of the game. I remember it being the reverse but yeh one wad way better.
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Sep 18, 2017 05:14
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It was a coin flip and I guessed wrong v v
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Sep 18, 2017 05:15
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Mechanically speaking Magic is a lot stronger than tech in Arcanum and is much easier from a QoL perspective, but once you're familiar with the game's mechanics it doesn't make much of a difference because it's so easy anyway. It really is a brilliant game (that I played again for the first time in ten years a little while ago) and I'm surprised it went so under the radar.
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Sep 18, 2017 05:39
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bongwizzard posted:I remember it being the reverse but yeh one wad way better. So yeah, Arcanum had some balance issues. Still a real good fun game though, even if the weird ogre rape camp subplot was one of the most  writing choices I've ever seen in an RPG.
Apraxin fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 05:41
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rope kid posted:You'd also need to know the basics of alchemical/planetary symbols. That you could probably trial-and-error I think, but the saints were impenetrable source: trying to play a cracked copy of Darklands in 1993 Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 05:42
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Hey is Divinity 2 good
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Sep 18, 2017 05:44
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StashAugustine posted:Hey is Divinity 2 good So far it's pretty good. It still has the same core "you will need to make a spreadsheet to optimally build your character" and " wtf do I do next" issues, and there are some launch bugs and imbalances etc. Writing is improved at least so far but we'll see how the overarching plot develops -- DOS 1 had good individual quests but the overall story was a hot steaming mess, so far this seems more coherent. There doesn't seem to be as much reactivity as I'd like -- for example, if you kill all the jailers in the starting newbie jail zone, the game doesn't really react. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 05:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:My dream RPG has a code wheel Scorchy posted:Best DRM is answering lore questions from the manual Who hurt you? ~*~ Arcanum is in many ways a brilliant game, but honestly, I find it increasingly unplayable due to how poorly set up, uh, most of the mechanics are. You want a perfect example of pointless complexity helping ruin a game, it's right there. It's an easy game because it's like a decade old and everything about it has been "solved." Walk in blind, you'll probably walk right back out not long after.
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Sep 18, 2017 06:14
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I could see a system where instead of picking 16 str, 14 dex and 8 int, you just tell the game "I want to be a fighter that tanks" and it gives you the stats for it working from a gameplay perspective. The dev side of it would be hard though as you'd have to create templates for all the different things players might want to play instead of letting them at it. That, and templates or "recommended" builds in rpgs tend to universally suck compared to what a semi competent player can come up with.
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Sep 18, 2017 07:02
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I kinda like the way Diablo 3 handles leveling. You pick a class, and pretty soon you have more abilities than you can use, but you can switch between them as much as you want as long as you aren't in combat, you can basically respec your character at will.
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Sep 18, 2017 07:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That you could probably trial-and-error I think, but the saints were impenetrable 
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Sep 18, 2017 07:12
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Lol if you dont know your hagiographies
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Sep 18, 2017 07:29
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Scorchy posted:Best DRM is answering lore questions from the manual QFT. That gate in Day of the Tentacle was great. Don't have the manual OR the magic glasses? Let's nuke the place.
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Sep 18, 2017 07:37
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Avalerion posted:That, and templates or "recommended" builds in rpgs tend to universally suck compared to what a semi competent player can come up with. This is because pre-builts generally avoid doing things like tanking dump stats and the like. If I'm building a Ranger for PotD, my final stats after race/country are taken into account might look something like 18 Might, 8 Con, 20 Dex, 19 Per, 10 Int, 3 Resolve, because I'm willing to sacrifice Will and Deflection for extra offensive power since I know that buffing and positioning can make those tradeoffs negligible and since I know that there's no real Resolve checks that actually matter. No pre-built character is going to make that tradeoff, so any pre-built is going to be inferior to the player-built that's willing to do it. Honestly, I sort of like systems where you just pick between different templates instead of setting your own stats simply because it limits your ability to do things like that. I've never really liked dump stats because of how metagamey they feel, but dumping them is so beneficial that not doing it feels extremely wasteful.
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Sep 18, 2017 08:25
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Naw, dropping Res down to 3 is already powergamer territory, I'm thinking more like the old Neverwinter nights games dumping all your skills into the useless parry skill. Or stuff like Durance picking Bear's endurance if you let the game auto level him.
Avalerion fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 08:33
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Dick Burglar posted:Wasn't one side of the magic/tech side like infinitely superior to the other? I want to say tech blew magic completely out of the water past like the first portion of the game. It's less one side being superior to the other and more Harm being brokenly good while guns are subpar until you get the late-game weapons. Since almost everyone who went into tech wanted to be a fantasy gunslinger, that's obviously less than ideal. But yeah, Arcanum owns. Still the only game I know where you can play as a bomb-throwing anarchist Half-Orc. 
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Sep 18, 2017 12:12
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I played Arcanum as a dumb half-ogre who used magic weapons. Was also broken in my favour, particularly when I picked up an arcane sword that didn't get damaged by rock monsters or whatever.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:15
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I figured magic being stronger was intended, the downside being that the setting's clearly moved past it - with the stuff like not being allowed to board trains.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:16
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I know it isn't, but I hope the secret Obsidian project is Arcanum 2.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:30
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I hope it's Bravo Protocol.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:42
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Samuel Clemens posted:It's less one side being superior to the other and more Harm being brokenly good while guns are subpar until you get the late-game weapons. Since almost everyone who went into tech wanted to be a fantasy gunslinger, that's obviously less than ideal. Not me, I just wanted to play build-your-own Power Armour/spider-shaped robo-buddy. And the game delivered in spades. Honestly, I was amazed to discovered that magic was considered so much stronger than tech. I'd found the pyrotechnic axe schematic early on and that just about broke the game in half. That plus Dog* plus the ocean of xp you're drowning in from the word go. The idea that the game could be even easier blew my tiny child mind. *That ain't no goddamn Dogmeat expy, that's a loving wanamingo in disguise. Fintilgin posted:I know it isn't, but I hope the secret Obsidian project is Arcanum 2. I hope it's something cool and new! And that they have someone else doing the system design. I love those guys, but, uh...
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Sep 18, 2017 12:49
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Apraxin posted:At some point reasonably early in the game, like beginning of act two I want to say, your main story quest is to investigate a mine somewhere. There is nothing to indicate this is going to be more difficult than quests so far. Then it turns out the mine is a long, long way away and the fast travel system is one where you could get hit with literally a dozen random combat encounters before you even get there. Once you do, it's a massive dungeon, maybe three or four times the size of anything you've been to so far. There's no vendor, no way to restock your supplies. If you've gone tech, turns out the enemies are super hard to hit and resistant to guns so you run out of bullets before you're halfway through. if you've gone with melee, the enemies are magical constructs that damage your weapons on being hit, so your sword's broken before your halfway through. If you've gone mage, one of the most basic spells blasts the enemies apart with ease and you sail through without issue. Also if you've gone deep into one tree, you can just teleport there ans skip the whole fast travel thing. I remember the mines being my usual quitting point, no memory of ogre rape.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:49
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bongwizzard posted:I remember the mines being my usual quitting point, no memory of ogre rape. The ogre rape camp thing is one of the longest, most obscure and most convoluted quest lines in the game, IIRC. If you even find it, I think there are multiple points where you can get a false ending with no indication that there could have been anything more to uncover. (The gnomes have formed a conspiracy to forcibly breed male ogres with human women to create a steady supply of half-ogres for use as bodyguards. Oh, and you can't actually shut it down. Gross, weird and unwinnable by design.)
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Sep 18, 2017 13:01
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Autonomous Monster posted:The ogre rape camp thing is one of the longest, most obscure and most convoluted quest lines in the game, IIRC. If you even find it, I think there are multiple points where you can get a false ending with no indication that there could have been anything more to uncover. Extremely unfortunate too considering its a literally conspiracy to defile women by a minority known for running banks
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Sep 18, 2017 13:43
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What I am getting from this last page is I should buy arcanum. Also going through some of the hacker update videos again has made me excited for this game, so I am going to need to play something good and nerdy.
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Sep 18, 2017 15:09
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Re: Obsidian chat. I also didn't realize they were so big, especially since (as I recall) they handed the Armored Warfare development over to the Russians. I would prefer it if Obsidian stayed small-ish. Maybe just enough to keep producing Pillars/Tyranny content on a regular basis. One could imagine "B teams" making DLCs while "A teams" work on the major new games or whatever. I realize this is just wishful thinking, and the owners want to keep increasing their business as is the rule in the way our economy is set up. Everybody wants to be the maker of the next Mass Effect or World of Warcraft or whatever but AAA games are a dangerous business. One gets cancelled and it all falls apart (and Obsidian knows this better than anyone... I think?). I don't want Obsidian to shut down by taking too much risks (business wise, not game design wise) is what I'm saying  (although rope kid et al. would probably create a new studio from scratch that would do just what I was saying. Like Obsidian was after Black Isle...).
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Sep 18, 2017 15:46
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funmanguy posted:What I am getting from this last page is I should buy arcanum. Somehow I'd never played it but yeah bought it on steam last night, it's like four dollars or something I think I'd been confusing it with "Avernum" for a long time
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Sep 18, 2017 15:48
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rip troika, the only game company where every single game they made was great (ToEE is good now, fight me  )I haven't been keeping up with deadfire development to go into it blind, but I heard the dual classes are now named??? Is there a complete list out there?
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Sep 18, 2017 16:20
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Samuel Clemens posted:It's less one side being superior to the other and more Harm being brokenly good while guns are subpar until you get the late-game weapons. Since almost everyone who went into tech wanted to be a fantasy gunslinger, that's obviously less than ideal. This is indeed the heart of it. Tech and magic are about equally busted it's just that the most intuitive way to play tech (guns) isn't very good at first. The optimal way to play tech is to make finely balanced swords and charged rings and to melee blender poo poo to death as a techno knight.
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Sep 18, 2017 16:26
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Meyers-Briggs Testicle posted:rip troika, the only game company where every single game they made was great (ToEE is good now, fight me They're probably still coming up with them
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Sep 18, 2017 16:51
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Furism posted:Everybody wants to be the maker of the next Mass Effect or World of Warcraft or whatever but AAA games are a dangerous business. 2house2fly posted:They're probably still coming up with them
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Sep 18, 2017 16:59
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The gnome conspiracy was like the one good quest in all of Arcanum, which is funny because it's incomplete on paper but functionally perfect as-is
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Sep 18, 2017 17:35
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rope kid posted:I don't. Yes but you are the CRPG Prophet, that's different.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:36
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Going off your Instagram, I imagine your dream game is a historical German fantasy setting but instead of people, all the characters are bicycles. Also going off said source, all the multiclass names are cool and good.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:37
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Nasgate posted:Going off your Instagram, I imagine your dream game is a historical German fantasy setting but instead of people, all the characters are bicycles. The servants of der Geisterbeschwörer approach! 
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Sep 18, 2017 18:17
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That poor chrome skeleton being forced to cycle forever, instead of in his natural habitat in a dungeon or sewer of somesort.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:48
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Nasgate posted:Going off your Instagram, I imagine your dream game is a historical German fantasy setting but instead of people, all the characters are bicycles. cats riding bicycles instead of horses
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Sep 18, 2017 20:49
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if you finish the gnome quest in arcanum, you are morally obligated to murder every gnome you see, regardless the costs to alignment/reputation.
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Sep 18, 2017 20:53
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