Of Troika

[Cantousent]

I actually remember that. Troika fans were always trying to have it both ways. Apparently, they still are.

[Gabrielle]

I take it any way I can.

[Darque]

I take it any way I can.

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I used to be that way, but it can be painful at times.

[Gabrielle]

I take it any way I can.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I used to be that way, but it can be painful at times.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Depends what it is. "

[Spider]

If Gromnir hadn't already cited it, I would have a few choice words to say about Identify.  Was it a bug... or a design decision?  Oh, that had me riled.  Troika really could have used less help from the Troika Liberation Front on that issue.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not a bug, a feature. Apparently that's how the Troika fellows run their DnD games so they thought it'd be cool for the game as well.

 

It has subsequently been fixed though. I don't know if it's in the official patch or the Co8 one, but with all patches there is a right click option to read more about items (like what they actually do).

 

In fact, with all patches applied, the game is playable. At least if you play it as a combat game like JA2 or similar. It's still only decent, but at least it is tolerable.

[Tigranes]

What is this identify issue? For which game?

[kirottu]

I think Troika failed simply because they didn

[Ginthaeriel]

Yep, ol' Ginth is a "die at my keyboard before I give up" sort of poster, that's for sure.  I rather enjoyed Arcanum.  Not enough to engage in Ginth's brand of mental auto-eroticism by defending it.

Oh, c'mon, you know you want to join in the fun. :cool:

However, to the point, Troika had solid game ideas that didn't pan out in execution.  What bothers me isn't that Arcanum had flaws.  What bothers me is that Troika didn't seem to learn much between Arcanum and ToEE.

They both had a lot of bugs, yes, and they shared the same engine (but it was changed so much for ToEE it was nearly unrecognizable) but they were pretty different games in almost every other aspect... was there really that much to learn? I would venture to say that they certainly learnt a LOT (except for the virtues of good bug testing) before they made Bloodlines.

Edited February 22, 2006 by Ginthaeriel

[Ginthaeriel]

Possibly, but the standard tends to be on conquering the world to rule over it; this wasn't Kerghan's case.

But You argued that a lot of games these days have derivations of the standard conquer the world plot, as very few games actually have that standard by the book. So my question is: how does Arcanum differ that much from those games, in the end? Either way, it still involves mass genocide. I think that Arcanum's plot was not nearly as special as you thought it was-- perhaps all those plot twists did serve to obscure its actual originality.

 

There's a bunch of stuff here about character development vs. non-linearity that I started a new thread for, so I'll just cut it out to reduce my "verbage" upon Eldar's suggestion. I would just like to sum up my stance: since the developers wrote more background into the characters of JC Denton and TNO, the motivations for their characters were clearer since they were written like that, creating a strong narrative but at the expense of allowing a player to create their own character. In Arcanum, however, the character had absolutely no backstory, which is what I felt caused the plot to fall apart.

Clearly if the developers wanted me to rescue Imoen they would have only included that option in the plot, but they didn't. Hence why they added revenge or some thirst for power as additional motivation. Again, if they want something to be forced on players then go ahead; don't give them a motivation which is either meaningless or that relies too much on assumption.

And isn't that exactly what Arcanum suffers from? A motivation that is meaningless or relies too much on assumption. You have to assume a character who has just about no specific character history (the background you choose has just about no effect on the story) will choose to help a strange, dying gnome deliver a ring to some mysterious "boy". This motivation is meaningless anyways, because you HAVE to go through the hoops to further the main plot.

Entangle holds on position but the target is awake so if a PC was to approach them enemies would still be able to hit. The Tranquilizer Gun pretty much stuns them on their spot (which, unlike a Stun Grenade does not have kickback).

Thus lowering their actions points to zero- a debilitating effect. And only for a few turns, since they'll wake up. The only thing you really change are the numbers, because your PC

The Acid Gun can tear apart enemy armor and weapons as it fires acid rounds.

Thus lowering their defense- another debilitating effect.

Not sure I'd call these debuffs, unless we're considering different meanings for the word.

Debuffs are in my definition, a debilitating effect. Just because they are debuffs does not mean they lead to bad combat- but the specific debuffs you mention are extremely superficial in terms of gameplay depth. See Guild Wars for some well made tactical debuffs.

Not much advantage? Paralyzing opponents allows a PC to momentarily perform other actions with considerable safety; paralyzing opponents and throw a grenade which throws opponents into several directions allows the PC to use the gained distance between itself and the opponents to perform other actions with an even greater safety margin. During that time players can either heal or buff themselves and/or party members, keep attacking, take the chance to position themselves in more convenient locations, or even run away. Whereas stunning and closing in to stab may work great against one opponent but risks leaving the PC open to danger should the opponents wake up by the end of the turn.

When Arcanum is turn based, all knocking an opponent back means is that you'll either give them an advantge (in the extremely rare case that they're using a ranged weapon) or it just means that in their next turn, they won't be able to perform as many attacks on you in one turn as they wasted most of their AP's running to you, because run speed vs. knockback in Arcanum was ridiculously marginal. And in real time, you have just around two to three seconds max to use your ub4r twitch reflexes to heal/buff yourself, before your enemies are right back in your face because the realtime gamespeed was so hyperactively fast.

 

Also, because Arcanum has no Attack of Opportunity or Interrupt system put in place, paralyzing opponents really doesn't increase your safety margin much at all- it only increases the ratio of your number of attacks against theirs. This is because in turn based, your enemies might as well be paralyzed when it's your turn (allowing the "hit and run" exploit that has existed since Fallout). In Real Time, things became a twitch/click fest.

 

What you propose could work in another, more well-designed game, but the reality of arcanum is that everything was cranked out in such a way that it became a matter of who could spam their attack the fastest. The Tranquilizer gun was one of the few ways to get ahead in terms of speed.

It's obvious none of this compares to any tactical options that great wars are made of, but it's not as utterly ineffective as you seem to suggest.

I'm not arguing for its ineffectiveness. Arcanum was a pretty easy game in terms of combat. What I am arguing is that Arcanum has shallow combat that felt like spamming the exact same attack ad nauseam upon wave after wave of enemies.

Which doesn't make it any less valid of a combat option.

Of course not. But it doesn't make it any more special from any of your other combat options. You already have other damage-over-time spells and effects. You also have other area-of-effect spells and weapons. It's just more of the same: all it comes down to is when you click it, the monster's HP goes down.

Edited February 22, 2006 by Ginthaeriel

[Ginthaeriel]

Of course I have to keep attacking an enemy if it's not dead. You can replace "vapors, vapors, vapors" with any other desired attack option as long as it results in success, ie, replace an area of effect spell which causes damage every round with melee attacks, throwing grenades of various effects at them, attacking with firearms, summoning, or using direct damage spells on each target one by one.

What I'm arguing is, that none of these attack options play very differently at all in Arcanum.

Just compare to Guild Wars. A necromancer can disable enemy warriors using Spiteful Spirit to get them to slowly kill themselves, neuter the Monks by casting lingering curse on their tanks and therefore cut healing effectiveness by half, summon minions and then kill them by using Taste of Death to refill their health and fatigue so they can fuel their life-sacrificing skills, or instead use Putrid Explosion on the corpses to damage nearby characters. They can cast Tainted Flesh on all members of the group so that the disease can claim the other group, or they could use many life-sacrificing skills so that they're nearly dead... and then use Grenth's balance to steal a ton of health from nearby enemies.

Mesmers can use interrupt skills to disable enemy spellcasters, or use Backfire to cause them to kill themselves with their spells. Warriors could use Berserker stance to charge up their adrenalin and then unleash with sever artery, so that the enemy is bleeding, then follow up with a gash attack to cause a deep wound. etc. etc. etc. In a group, the combinations are endless. Regardless of your equipment, profession and level, if you are smart and skilled at the game, you could defeat anything, but then there is always something that can defeat you, because there are always counters to every tactic. That's when mindgames become involved. Should you perform move A when you think your opponent is going to counter it with move B? Or should you throw up move C and totally mess them up? Or what if they're EXPECTING you to know that they know you're using move A, and have secretly prepared move D? Then should you just go ahead with move A, because move A is better than D? There are almost 400 skills in that game, and being only able to pick 8 of them is already complex enough.

 

No, I don't think that game is anything like the "Vapors, vapors, vapors" of Arcanum. Not even close. Now I'm not saying that Arcanum's combat has to be THAT complex, but in comparison, its combat is pretty pathetic. Maybe you are right in that Arcanum isn't completely devoid of any combat depth, but it's damn close to having none. It is indeed the RPG with the worst combat that I have ever played.

Hardened Hands also doesn't risk breaking nor can it be damaged by hitting elemental opponents. That's three differences already when compared to using a melee weapon.

Differences which can be rectified with a few gold... of which tonnes can be found throughout the game. It's largely inconsequential.

Congeal Time basically halves opponent's action points while more dexterity increases the PC's action points by every point invested. It's clearly not the same thing. In fact, as a combat option it's much more immediate than developing a character for a long time until it has a large amount of action points.

Relative to your enemy, as I said: the ratio can be boiled down from any situation. And yes, congeal time is great if you're looking at developing a character over the long term course of the game... but in terms of the combat, a great ability is all it is. Congeal time is like saying "all technologists ought to get the Charged Ring schematic, because it's like getting FOUR dexterity points for only TWO character points!" and I know I've heard it all the time in Arcanum forums.

 

Stats are different from combat tactics. Arcanum is about who's got the bigger number, congeal time just happens to lower your enemies number by a lot: and that's all. I'm just about convinced that a mathematical model can be created which can analyze the statistics of any two opposing enemies in Arcanum, and churn out an extremely accurate prediction of who will win.

 

There is a difference between twinking a character, and having deep combat tactics.

Now I'm not arguing all RPGs should be as insane as Guild Wars. But it serves to highlight the fact that Arcanum just about hits bottom compared to what's already out there.

That's fine. I'd just appreciate if you would notice that I'm not saying Arcanum's combat is good or that it wouldn't benefit from more options and enemy attack routines that required their use, but what little is there isn't completely devoid of options.

Well I'm not saying it's completely devoid of options. Rather, I'm saying that the options are so similar that they might as well all be the same thing. I'm saying that the combat is utterly devoid of combat depth. I'm saying that no matter what combat option you take, the perceptible differences are largely superficial, and it all boils down to which one is more "effective", because the game is so darn unbalanced.

 

I guess you have shown me that there can be some creativity involved in Arcanum's combat, but I certainly do not see any signs of analytical skill required to plumb the depths of the system, of which there is none.

Why should the existence of crippling attacks, or critical hits and failures be disregarded because they aren't directly controlled by the character? It's a valid example of how physical attacks are different than magic.

It's a valid example of how physical attacks are different than magic in terms of effectiveness but not gameplay or use. They both just boil down to seeing who can click the fastest. Since you cannot control what debilitating effects the critical hits will cause, it is therefore not at all related to player skill or thought. It just becomes a matter of luck.

 

The difference between a mesmer and a warrior in Guild Wars, however, feels like two totally different games. And so was the difference between warriors and mages in Baldur's Gate II (while the former was very similar to Arcanum combat, which I suppose is fine if you just want to whack stuff, playing a mage in BG2 required a lot of finesse and study of the incredible myriad of spells).

Critical hits could cause characters to become stunned, drop their weapons, damage their weapons or armor, and instead critically hit themselves for considerable damage. Playerwise, a scar derivative from a critical hit would temporarily have a negative impact on the Beauty attribute.

Of all those possibilities, I only see stunning someone as having any real advantage, as I think enemies tend to pick up their weapons... but I've never seen that effect happen that much. The Disarm spell seems to be different from the critical hit version of the "weapon drop."

 

Sure, if that stuff happened to the player, it gets REAL annoying (I recall a lot of people hating the weapon decay system immensely) but that affects the character and inventory management, and the game, rather than the combat. I'm not arguing that the game isn't deep. It's the combat which isn't deep.

 

(P.S: To be fair, despite Eldar's claims, we are making definite progress. I think we've settled MANY different lines of discussion, especially concerning the story, and we actually essentially agree on a lot of stuff.)

Edited February 22, 2006 by Ginthaeriel

[CoM_Solaufein]

I think Troika failed simply because they didn

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I hate to say this, being a fan of theirs, but I think they had an ego thing going. It was like hey we are made up of the people who brought you that awesome game Fallout, buy our games because they will be that great. That seemed to be tha attitude they had, riding on past achievements.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Having a bunch of yes men as fans dosnt help.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Of course. When you have a bunch of die hards and fanatics, they take whatever is given to them, which will lead the rest of the new fans with a product that is lacking.

[Spider]

What is this identify issue? For which game?

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It's for The Temple of Elemental Evil. What it boils down to is that identifying a magic item would only give you it's name.

 

Like a magic staff would become Staff of Striking, but there was no description of what a Staff of Striking actually does. There was no way other than trial and error to figure out what the things did unless you knew beforehand (most items were standard D&D items).

[Diogo Ribeiro]

But You argued that a lot of games these days have derivations of the standard conquer the world plot, as very few games actually have that standard by the book. So my question is: how does Arcanum differ that much from those games, in the end? Either way, it still involves mass genocide.

 

How many games are there where the main villains' plan is to conquer the world trough destroying every life force on it? Most of the time it's centered around someone conquering a gameworld so they can rule over it trough power or oppression; or the simple act of conquering or triumphing over something which may or may not oppose the players but will regardless have the two entities clash.

 

But total annihilation to end the suffering of life isn't something I remember seeing used that often as a motive for a videogames' main villain, as compared to the many instances in a videogame where I've seen villains trying to conquer the world for a vague, sometimes even abstract notion of - and desire for - power.

 

I think that Arcanum's plot was not nearly as special as you thought it was-- perhaps all those plot twists did serve to obscure its actual originality.

 

I don't think it was terribly special; it just managed to be more appealing to me because for the most part the main villains' motives weren't exactly typical, and neither were the main events that defined the story.

 

I would just like to sum up my stance: since the developers wrote more background into the characters of JC Denton and TNO, the motivations for their characters were clearer since they were written like that, creating a strong narrative but at the expense of allowing a player to create their own character. In Arcanum, however, the character had absolutely no backstory, which is what I felt caused the plot to fall apart.

 

But this wasn't your previous point or at least does not seem to be an adequate follow up to what you had stated earlier, which was that J.C. Denton was not your or my character because he did not conform to a list of specifities which in turn justified that more assumptions of the character be made in lieu of his definition at the player's hands.

 

And isn't that exactly what Arcanum suffers from? A motivation that is meaningless or relies too much on assumption. You have to assume a character who has just about no specific character history (the background you choose has just about no effect on the story) will choose to help a strange, dying gnome deliver a ring to some mysterious "boy". This motivation is meaningless anyways, because you HAVE to go through the hoops to further the main plot.

 

Of course it is. If you'll note, I didn't say Arcanum's character motivation was better than that of Baldur's Gate 2; I said I found character motivations in Arcanum are just as lacking as most other games out there, Baldur's Gate 2 or Deus Ex being the examples you asked me to provide.

 

Thus lowering their actions points to zero- a debilitating effect. And only for a few turns, since they'll wake up. The only thing you really change are the numbers, because your PC

 

wait what

 

Debuffs are in my definition, a debilitating effect. Just because they are debuffs does not mean they lead to bad combat- but the specific debuffs you mention are extremely superficial in terms of gameplay depth.

 

I always considered debuffs to be spells which removed additional protections placed on characters, such as a Dispel effect clearing up the effects of a 'buffed' mage who had cast Armor or Ironskin on himself.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

See Guild Wars for some well made tactical debuffs.

 

Can't; 'am allergic to online games.

 

When Arcanum is turn based, all knocking an opponent back means is that you'll either give them an advantge (in the extremely rare case that they're using a ranged weapon) or it just means that in their next turn, they won't be able to perform as many attacks on you in one turn as they wasted most of their AP's running to you, because run speed vs. knockback in Arcanum was ridiculously marginal.

 

That, plus the character choices left open by that advantage gained by the distance.

 

And in real time, you have just around two to three seconds max to use your ub4r twitch reflexes to heal/buff yourself, before your enemies are right back in your face because the realtime gamespeed was so hyperactively fast.

 

There are hotkeys.

 

Also, because Arcanum has no Attack of Opportunity or Interrupt system put in place, paralyzing opponents really doesn't increase your safety margin much at all- it only increases the ratio of your number of attacks against theirs. This is because in turn based, your enemies might as well be paralyzed when it's your turn (allowing the "hit and run" exploit that has existed since Fallout). In Real Time, things became a twitch/click fest.

 

Hitting and running isn't entirely successful because Fatigue factors into movement. A character who uses distance and careful examination of Action Points to run, let the enemy move towards him, go to the enemy, attack it then run back will lose more Fatigue points - and therefore potentially making itself more open to attacks - than he would by taking advantage of other actions, like simply running away (which would cause less fatigue than moving to one place then moving to the other).

 

But it doesn't make it any more special from any of your other combat options. You already have other damage-over-time spells and effects. You also have other area-of-effect spells and weapons. It's just more of the same: all it comes down to is when you click it, the monster's HP goes down.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And it was this very thing I mentioned earlier in regards to the ordinary set of effects found in other games. For instance, I wound up not using most of the spells in Baldur's Gate 2 because they fit your very description - "when I clicked, the monster's hit points would go down" - and so I only used those that, among the basic damage-dealing effect, did so the fastest and hardest. Same for Torment. When it came to damage-dealing options, most were pretty standard and not all too special so it boiled down to only a handful being recurringly used; which doesn't mean there weren't more options but player discretion will unerringly gravitate towards the best or optimal solutions.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Just compare to Guild Wars.

 

Judging from your description Spiteful Spirit is "simply" a damage over time effect, Lingering Curse seems to be a specialized variation of Dweomer Shield, while Backfire also seems to be a different way of Reflection Shield. Now none of that is meant to dismiss Guild Wars' spellcasting system or the underlying combat mechanics they provide but likewise several of its spells can also be narrowed down in the same way you did with Arcanum's spells; and I'm sure this can be applied to several other games. It seems clear that Guild Wars' combat, at least when it comes to spellcasting is more superior in options and applications, but then again Guild Wars seems to be strictly based around combat so it's not surprising to find a combat-oriented game to succeed in that very field while a game that isn't exclusively focused on combat to not reach the same level of depth.

 

Note that this isn't meant to justify Arcanum's poor combat but you seem intent on reducing any and all of its combat options to things of less importance or to make them seem so indistinguished to the point of there not being a reason to choose one over others. I think it's sufficient to say that Arcanum is no Guild Wars, but it's also not trying to be. It could be much better but it isn't that abysmal. Though at this point this has become a circular point since it's obvious we both agree on this.

 

Differences which can be rectified with a few gold... of which tonnes can be found throughout the game. It's largely inconsequential.

 

Not really since a broken weapon can't always be restored back into its previous resistance, and relying on a form of attack that loses attack power due to continuous confrontations with a given enemy type may not work out for a character; it may be best for him to enchant his fists and use them as a more resilient attack method that won't crack (pun intended) under pressure.

 

Congeal time is like saying "all technologists ought to get the Charged Ring schematic, because it's like getting FOUR dexterity points for only TWO character points!" and I know I've heard it all the time in Arcanum forums.

 

But I think the issue here is fleeting because as you say it's relative. It can be used as a means to give the character an advantage over his enemies' action points but it's not the same as naturally having more action points than his enemies. And in some cases of characters who naturally have a high number of action points it may still be in their best interest to use Congeal Time because their action point total may not be enough to whitstand or counter the attack(s) an enemy with less action points would perform.

 

It's a valid example of how physical attacks are different than magic in terms of effectiveness but not gameplay or use.

 

I disagree, as I think that a physical blow which may miss but may also cause additional damage or effects compared to a magical attack that never misses but will not cause additional damage or effects have a considerable positive and negative attached to them which can influence players' decisions to character building as well as their use in combat.

 

Of all those possibilities, I only see stunning someone as having any real advantage, as I think enemies tend to pick up their weapons... but I've never seen that effect happen that much.

 

They don't pick up their weapons.

 

(P.S: To be fair, despite Eldar's claims, we are making definite progress. I think we've settled MANY different lines of discussion, especially concerning the story, and we actually essentially agree on a lot of stuff.)

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Obsidian's boards also make the argument seem bigger because of the quoting limits

[Diogo Ribeiro]

They both had a lot of bugs, yes, and they shared the same engine

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For reference the graphical engine was entirely different but apparently things like databases were kept in more or less the same way.

[metadigital]

Yep, ol' Ginth is a "die at my keyboard before I give up" sort of poster, that's for sure.  I rather enjoyed Arcanum.  Not enough to engage in Ginth's brand of mental auto-eroticism by defending it.  Still, I have to say that he has the uncanny knack for writing ponderously long posts that could really use a snip or two.  You'd have to use a machete, what with his determined approach and dense style, but I'm confident it could be done.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds like a half-baked, ready-to-be-perfected TOMBS report.

 

I concur, though, even my eyes are starting to bleed when trying to catch up on that reading.

However, to the point, Troika had solid game ideas that didn't pan out in execution.  What bothers me isn't that Arcanum had flaws.  What bothers me is that Troika didn't seem to learn much between Arcanum and ToEE.  That is the problem, not whatever Ginth is trying to foist on us in his multiple page dissertation.  Get a grip on yourself, man.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And please remember to use

spoiler

tags where appropriate. :angry: I skipped all your collective posts on the last three pages (which seemed to go on for thirty-four pages) because I didn't want to accidentally read any stuff I might encounter should I pick up and play Arcarnum again ...

[Ginthaeriel]

I don't think it was terribly special; it just managed to be more appealing to me because for the most part the main villains' motives weren't exactly typical, and neither were the main events that defined the story.

It was atypical, I'll give you that, but I don't think it was atypical in a good way. A lot of the tasks, though not the classic "kill teh minyunz!1", were goofy and weird and didn't inspire an engaging story. For example, looking for a copy of a published book? Not to mention that there was PLENTY of mindless dungeon trudging in the end, anyways. I think at this point it's a matter of taste. I think the positive qualities of Arcanum's plot are worth a lot more to you, while the negative qualities take away from my experience of it much more. Still, I think we can agree that Arcanum's plot was neither the best, nor the worst? It was not atrocious, but it wasn't memorable. It was mundane.

But this wasn't your previous point or at least does not seem to be an adequate follow up to what you had stated earlier, which was that J.C. Denton was not your or my character because he did not conform to a list of specifities which in turn justified that more assumptions of the character be made in lieu of his definition at the player's hands.

I told you that I exaggerated, and I already apologized for it. I wanted to simplify my argument and make my point stronger by relating J.C. Denton to one's actual real life persona, though I should have realized that a created character does not always have to be an alter ego.

Of course it is. If you'll note, I didn't say Arcanum's character motivation was better than that of Baldur's Gate 2; I said I found character motivations in Arcanum are just as lacking as most other games out there, Baldur's Gate 2 or Deus Ex being the examples you asked me to provide.

But I said that because of its anchoring to a plot that makes more sense, I felt the motivations of games like BG2 and DX could commit these sins, because it was necessary to act as a lynchpin for the plot. Arcanum has no such excuse. I felt DX's plot to have pulled off the conspiratorial angle much better than Arcanum did, and BG2 was although a simple plot, still more engaging than the void encounter at the end of Arcanum. If Arcanum has a mundane plot, it has nowhere to lean on, and so the senseless motivations are vastly more debilitating to it's quality.

 

I think though, that the developers had to sacrifice those aspects of the game to build in the non-linearity and absolute freedom in the game, which I have repeatedly praised again and again. I've talked about this in another thread: character development vs. non-linearity. I just do not think that they executed it with very much finesse, and that the relationship between the plot and the non-linearity could have been done much better: as we have already seen in Fallout or Fallout 2. I think they ought to have tried for a completely untraditional story if they really wanted to fit with the unique gameplay style: they did have some innovation but they should have gone further, and although they get an A for effort, the fact remains that the game still suffers because of it.

wait what

The guy already can't move when its your turn. So by paralyzing him, you're just giving yourself more turns to kill him. It's all numbers, man, all numbers.

I always considered debuffs to be spells which removed additional protections placed on characters, such as a Dispel effect clearing up the effects of a 'buffed' mage who had cast Armor or Ironskin on himself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh. Well I am using the definition used mainly by MMORPG players, an arena which the limits of RPG combat are tested to the extreme.

That, plus the character choices left open by that advantage gained by the distance.

Like what? Ranged weapons have, as far as I can tell, almost negligible penalties to hit when attacking at close range. All other things the character can do, they could have done when it was their turn even when the enemy is right up in their face.

There are hotkeys.

That still makes them twitch reflexes.

Hitting and running isn't entirely successful because Fatigue factors into movement. A character who uses distance and careful examination of Action Points to run, let the enemy move towards him, go to the enemy, attack it then run back will lose more Fatigue points - and therefore potentially making itself more open to attacks - than he would by taking advantage of other actions, like simply running away (which would cause less fatigue than moving to one place then moving to the other).

Fatigue is made pointless with the presence of fatigue potions. And even if it were an issue, it just means one less combat option available. Doesn't that serve to further my point more than yours?

 

There was no risk in Arcanum's combat. You either won, or thought to yourself: "Damn, this guy is too tough, I'd better level up some more". There was never a sense that with a bit of tactical risk, you could win battles that you wouldn't ordinarily think could be won. That is what made great generals great: to be able to defeat their enemies even when outnumbered and outgunned

Edited February 23, 2006 by Ginthaeriel

[Ginthaeriel]

And it was this very thing I mentioned earlier in regards to the ordinary set of effects found in other games. For instance, I wound up not using most of the spells in Baldur's Gate 2 because they fit your very description - "when I clicked, the monster's hit points would go down" - and so I only used those that, among the basic damage-dealing effect, did so the fastest and hardest. Same for Torment. When it came to damage-dealing options, most were pretty standard and not all too special so it boiled down to only a handful being recurringly used; which doesn't mean there weren't more options but player discretion will unerringly gravitate towards the best or optimal solutions.

I am not arguing that Torment has good combat. No. It had SUCKY combat. But I think it was better than Arcanum. Torment's combat was actually better than another game's combat, and that is a scary thought. And Baldur's Gate 2 had just so many spells that if you DID cut out all the repetitive damage dealing spells, you'd still be left with MILES more combat options than Arcanum. I'm not saying Baldur's Gate 2 had perfect combat, but it was still ridiculously better than Arcanum's.

Judging from your description Spiteful Spirit is "simply" a damage over time effect

Spiteful Spirit is a retributive damage-per-attack spell. So if the warrior decided that he just stopped attacking, he wouldn't suffer any damage at all. You see? It's a counter to the skill: the second layer of depth in the combat. He could decide to run until a monk could purge that curse from him, or he could say "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" and keep attacking the necro at risk to himself. The necro could then try and guess what the Warrior would do, which leads to the *third* layer of depth: the counter to the counter.

 

Here's a good example of what I consider deep combat (though it applies to a fighting game): http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_Yomi.htm

But you can't counter a direct DoT spell. No matter what you do, a poisonous vapors still makes your number go down.

Lingering Curse seems to be a specialized variation of Dweomer Shield

Lingering Curse reduces all healing on the target by 20%. This does not mean the monk cannot keep trying to heal the person, but it means that they'll be wasting mana. If they allow the person to die, then that's one less meatshield before the opposing team can rip the monk to shreds. But if the monk heals now anyways, he would burn up all his mana, and the guy would die... only later, and now the monk has no energy to defend himself. Or the monk could try and purge the curse, but necromancers have tricky spells that cause curses to cause damage if you try and purge them, etc. And would the time it took to purge the curse be enough? The monk is trapped at an impasse. There are options and counters to every move.

 

But Dweomer Shield simply shuts down any magical effects from happening on the guy. How exactly can he stop it? He can't disperse magick, since he can't cast magick in the first place. There are no options, the guy is left to run up and start slashing. The thing about combat is that a million combat options can result only if can fine tune the balance in a very precise way. Arcanum's combat felt like trying to kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer every which way because it was so unbalanced. Just look at disintegrate.

while Backfire also seems to be a different way of Reflection Shield.

Backfire only damaged the caster if they casted a spell: the spell would still go off. Again it was left to the backfired caster if they wanted to go ahead with casting the spell. Was the risk worth the reward? I'll point you to another sirlin article: http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_rps.htm. Good combat is the ability to make risk analysis. Take Chess for example. All the most glorious and legendary moves are always gambits.

 

But Reflection shield granted the player just about complete immunity to magic. How could you get through it? Not that it even mattered actually, since so few monsters in the entire game bothered to even cast spells at you.

Guild Wars seems to be strictly based around combat so it's not surprising to find a combat-oriented game to succeed in that very field while a game that isn't exclusively focused on combat to not reach the same level of depth.

Hence my apprehension to use it as an example, but since you were comparing the bad combat in Arcanum with the bad combat in other games, I felt I had no choice but to show the other side of the spectrum. I don't expect Arcanum's combat to be Guild Wars quality, it's unrealistic to do so, and I believe I've stated that. But with that frame of reference in mind, I think it's quite clear to me that Arcanum has some of the worst RPG combat ever. Maybe not quite as bad as I thought since talking to you (which is what is so great about discourse: you always learn something new). But I still think that it is absymal and that Troika could have done a much better job.

 

And indeed, they DID do a MUCH better job with ToEE, which I thought had a terrific combat system. Contrary to what other posters are saying, I felt Troika did learn a lot from their mistakes. Maybe not quite enough, and maybe they did forget a lot of their old mistakes because of the fanboys they were surrounded with, but I think it's unfair to say that the quality of Troika's games hasn't improved by leaps and bounds.

I think it's sufficient to say that Arcanum is no Guild Wars, but it's also not trying to be. It could be much better but it isn't that abysmal. Though at this point this has become a circular point since it's obvious we both agree on this.

Yes I think it is best we drop this topic. Perhaps I am too harsh on Arcanum's combat, considering the games I've played. I would wonder how your reaction to Arcanum's combat would change had you played some Guild Wars, but then I also remember when I first played Arcanum, before playing Guild Wars, I did not mind the combat as much. Only when I really tackled it again recently did I find it as atrocious. My original post about of the game was to tackle the issues I saw outstanding, but I guess if I were to put it into an actual review I would be much less volatile as I would be explicit in saying that fun combat is NOT what you would be expecting from Arcanum. I guess it's all relative, in the end.

 

Ignorance is bliss. Probably explains why FPS's have so many rabid fanboys.

[saintfrancisnudecenterfold]

I think Troika games could only be called quality when most of the other game designers are idiots: it's on a ship of idiots that suddenly the semi-literate garage band become rock-stars of the seven seas.

 

However, Troika had some pretty good talent involved with the company, it's only obvious if they didn't have a ghost writer or access to unpublished work by other writers.

 

Note, in Arcanum, it is the setting, the texts, small side-plots and certain verbose moments in dialogue that rose above the drab battles and grabbing blue and red dots. It's the moments of intense interpersonal plots and thematic atmosphere texts that made the game cool. But the guy who wanted monsters everywhere should've been put in charge of picking up office litter, and the guy who put sheep in brothels and wanted heavy-metal demons pouring out of the sky should be on welfare forever.

 

These three guys make another appearance in ToEE, where apparently the guy who did the epic sweeping atmosphere in Arcanum obviously went to work making sure everything was D&D. The sheep boy became gay and had a few splendid moments with pirates. The monster-litterer was most obvious in QA, because obviously no one looked at the gaping flaws in ToEE -- it was a boring branch of dialogue stories, without opportunity to sculpt ones own story in the setting of the Temple. Easy enough to do, really... (hint: mix a bunch of competing AI "sims" with a strategic game AI)

 

Bloodlines did have quite a bit of burlesque, but what it lacked was the strong political game that the Masquerade demands. The sweet scheme was there (but weakly). The guy who likes planting monsters was in full effect. The sheepboy was doing the bump and grind. It was all working, it was all... screwed from get-go because all they ever needed in the dialogue and plot design for any of their games was the guy who does the background writing and maybe three more guys like him. The problem was, it was a game for Brujah and Gangrel. It was really just an FPS.

 

The player character doesn't really get to play this game except as an outsider, but the way Vampire: the Masquerade operates, politics should've been a very strong option for gameplay. It was almost as if the designers suddenly decided to minimise all powers and skills to combat functionality. The same problem occurs in DDO: it's all about combat functionality, cutting out every single other possibility. Why not have combat, sociality, and crafting of ideas as well as tools? (By the way, the crafting of ideas can be modelled just as the crafting of objects or battle. All of these are actually very complex situations but are simplified in gaming terms, so crafting an "idea" needn't be portrayed much differently than crafting an object. Look at Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence, D&D's nine alignments, or heaven help us even James Bond RPG seduction method or Villains and Vigilantes Invention Point system).

 

I don't know if Troika was intentionally messing up in order to allow future innovation or if they had a particularly strong love for sativa. Regardless, it turned out sloppy and was just a massive slaughterhouse, a video (game) nasty that wasn't particularly different from other video (game) nasties. I wasn't impressed. I was very dissapointed, in fact.

Edited May 21, 2006 by saintfrancisnudecenterfold

[alanschu]

Oh dear god.

[Darque]

crap

[Musopticon?]

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