d0om on 30/3/2010 at 16:34
I played through most of Arcanum on two very different characters which both found combat quite fun (although still unbalanced) without using harm spam.
1) Used engineering skills to make finely-balanced-sword, electric+dex rings and the Dwarven Axe. So far, not imbalanced. Then you get some basic grenades (although I tried to avoid using more than 1 a round as that's retarded) and the Pyrotechnic-Axe. The axe is amazing, you hit something with it and it takes a load of fire and weapon damage. Its a lock-pick, golem-killer, people killer etc all in one! Not much can stand up to the axe spam.
2) Used time magic + throwing skill. Just have all the time spell buffs up (you can recast the +4dex spell on yourself as many times as you have spare spell slots BTW) With the time buffs all running and max dex you can just throw your throwing star and kill everything. Your allies all have stupid amounts of action points too so you can kill everything before it gets anywhere near you. (or just back away, they won't catch you) Advantage of this one is as you aren't casting many spells in combat, only the duration time effects, fatigue is never an issue.
I tried being an evil summoner, with an army of summoned minions but it didn't really work very well. Takes too long to summon everything when you get a random encounter and you die, which is a shame.
Bluegrime on 30/3/2010 at 18:19
I've found that playing as magic using characters makes the game substantially easier, while playing a technological character makes it a real challenge.That said, my favorite playthrough was as a gun wielding character. While 80% of the guns you find are total junk, the ones that work are buckets of fun.. Even though they aren't the "best", the flamethrower and grenade launcher are my favorite weapons in the game hands down.
My only complaint is that you can win almost if not every fight in the game by getting 18+ 20 strength and using a "Fine Steel Dagger". Iirc the Expert(?) level in Melee also gives you +5 speed when your attacking, which makes the problem that much worse. It's sorta balanced because it works just as well for your enemies with their attacking you, but this can also mean your gonna get slaughtered if your not a melee fighter.
gunsmoke on 30/3/2010 at 21:17
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
Apparently Saint had a fairly serious accident a while ago. Second hand info, but he certainly hasn't posted for quite a while and I can't imagine him using an alt.
Are you referring to Koki?
Phatose on 30/3/2010 at 21:39
Quote Posted by Bluegrime
My only complaint is that you can win almost if not every fight in the game by getting 18+ strength and using a "Fine Steel Dagger". Iirc the Expert(?) level in Melee also gives you +5 speed when your attacking, which makes the problem that much worse. It's sorta balanced because it works just as well for your enemies with their attacking you, but this can also mean your gonna get slaughtered if your not a melee fighter.
It's not 18+, per se. Actually, 20 STR is the real breaker, since the bonus for 20 str is double damage bonuses. With that, and a dagger of swiftness, or any other 1 AP weapon, the damage you can do just becomes unbelievable. Since any melee char is going to end up with 20 str and 20 speed and mastery, it's as broken as nades or magic.
The thing about Arcanum is that it's not just broken, it's broken in so many ways I can only imagine that was there intent for 'balance'. If everything is overpowered, then nothing actually is.
Zygoptera on 30/3/2010 at 22:01
It certainly is weird- like they worked out balance on a bunch of spreadsheets, coded everything then did absolutely no testing to see how it worked out practically.
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
Are you referring to Koki?
No, completely different person.
AltF4 on 30/3/2010 at 22:21
thats bad news about saint - always enjoyed reading his posts, especially his reply to some internet wag who called him saint proboscos instead of proverbius.
One of the weirder design decisions to me was the allocation of XP from combat awarded to characters based on the amount of damage they did during the encounter. My memory could be hazy on this, but I seem to remember this inspired me to take fireball earlier on, so that the AOE spell would garner more XP for my toon rather than my party members ? Even if I didn't actually lay the killing blow, I would still have done the most damage throughout the encounter...
Bluegrime on 30/3/2010 at 22:42
Yep. And IIRC party members leveled up as you did.. Even though them being more effective in combat actually came out to them leveling slower. Now that I think about it thats pretty confusing.
Quote:
It's not 18+, per se. Actually, 20 STR is the real breaker, since the bonus for 20 str is double damage bonuses.
Thats right. And it got really ridiculous with two handed weapons, since they got a time and a half of the doubled damage.
steo on 31/3/2010 at 16:26
Just the fact that the second level of training improved weapon speed by 5, rather than a percentage of it's original value was a major balance screwer, since the weapons were balanced before factoring the +5 speed bonus in. As such, the slowest weapons like the looking glass rifle were seeing a 500% increase in speed and thus damage, while fast weapons like revolvers were only getting +50% or less. Then there was the issue that you could still make a six action point attack with only one AP left, so you effectively got more AP with slower weapons. This led to the ridiculousness of being able to buy a schematic to make your looking glass rifle into a long range pistol, costing you a good deal of cash and requiring a lot of technical expertise, but ultimately leaving you with a weapon that did less damage because with the +5 speed bonus from training, the pistol was only twice as fast as the rifle instead of five times as fast.
Yakoob on 2/4/2010 at 02:59
Because of this darned thread I reinstalled Arcanum last night. Running around as a thiefing halfling... naked. Because my only suit broke and I am too poor to buy the expensive armor, the only clothing that is sold in Shrouded hills that would fit my short character. Hopefully Tarant has better choice...
Bluegrime on 2/4/2010 at 04:40
Quote Posted by steo
As such, the slowest weapons like the looking glass rifle were seeing a 500% increase in speed and thus damage, while fast weapons like revolvers were only getting +50% or less. Then there was the issue that you could still make a six action point attack with only one AP left, so you effectively got more AP with slower weapons. .
Except for a "balance mod" that gave the Looking Glass rifle 40-40 damage and fatigue, I found the most powerful gun in the game to be the elephant gun. (You can find one relatively early if your patient enough/know where to look) With training it fired fast enough, it packed a tremendous punch with damage and fatigue, and it seemed to work much better against golems/machines then "normal" guns. Infact, the elephant gun was better then the 'rifled cannon' you could make out of one.
Edit -
@Yakoob There should be a clothing shop straight ahead of you when you first get into Tarant. It'll be on your right, and they generally stock basic clothing in medium/small. ( Grab a smoking jacket if you've got the chink for it, +20 reactions from everybody makes everyone who isn't trying to kill you at least be polite. )
