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adamarama posted:I'm going to start my first play through of Arcanum soon; I've got the GOG version and seen the modding thread there, so I'll patch up. One thing though, I hear the combat is pretty unbalanced, favouring magic and backstab over melee, guns, and tech. Are there any good balance mods that make tech and guns viable? I'd like some challenge in the combat rather than every encounter being trivialised. Or are there any builds I should go for that make the combat challenging yet not a chore?
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Apr 8, 2013 10:26
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Tech and guns are viable. Magic breaks the game.
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Apr 8, 2013 10:27
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A hilarious example of this is the Disintegrate spell. Which does enough damage that if the target makes the save for half damage, and has 95% energy resistance (the max possible)... They still take enough damage to straight up die, nothing in the game has enough HP to survive even two and a half percent or the base damage. (The final boss is just outright immune to the spell, though.)
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Apr 8, 2013 10:54
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Tech gun characters partly get the shaft because the Firearm attribute prerequisite is Perception which only has the lovely bonus of helping detect traps (and is still not good enough on its own without the Spot Trap skill). The primary attribute for tech disciplines is Intelligence, which has a bonus (lets you maintain more spells at once) that doesn't even synergize with tech characters! Tech disciplines is essentially investing your character points for a crafting system; some disciplines have marginal usefulness and not all items within a discipline will be worth, so there can be times when you level up but not get anything of note out of it. A high tech aptitude has the unfortunate effect of causing beneficial healing magic to fizzle on you, locking you out from purchasing stuff from magic equipment shops (which has equipment you'd still want for your nontech followers), and potions, scrolls, and magic items will have little or even no effect on you. Technological weapons also have a to hit penalty against magical creatures (and there's a lot of them). Compare that to mages and fighters. Melee fighters' skill prereq is tied to Dexterity, which is probably the best attribute because it gives you better AC and Speed. Assuming the same investment in their combat abilities, a dumb fighter with a dagger will dish out more DPS in one round than a comparable gunslinger because of his better speed. High speed simply breaks the game in terms of combat later on, if you max out Dexterity you can become a whirling dervish that puts down a slew of enemies within one round. Melee fighters also don't have to worry about ammo and they have a flexibility in types of equipment choices so they can tackle magical and tech enemies alike. Mage's prereq for spells is Willpower, which gives more health and fatigue so they become tankier the more they build up their casting abilities. (Intelligence, by the way, isn't a very important attribute for mages, and the two slots for maintained spells that you get with the default 8 Int is generally enough for almost all of the game--there's only a few buffs that are worth maintaining and you won't have enough fatigue to keep a bunch of them running at the same time, anyway). Spell colleges are better than their tech discipline counterparts because of the way magical aptitude works for mages. Magical aptitude factors into the damage calculation of your spells. So even if a particular spell within a college seems lovely, you are never "wasting" character points by getting it because it raises your magical apt which makes all your other spells effective. Magic spells are also crazy damage dealers and they'll hurt even the rare tech enemy just fine. High magic apt does lock you out of the tech and firearms shops (you can still find a lot of crafting materials scattered around Tarant/mines or purchased from blacksmiths and junk shops) and prevents you from using railroads (but mages have the much, much more effective Teleport spell). All that said, the game gives you plenty of character points to make practically every character viable in Arcanum. Tech characters are just trickier because their stat distribution is wider and there's a chance that you'll hit the wall at a certain mine because you aren't as combat effective as other character types. Tech gunslingers are still my favorite because there's something charming about a dwarf tossing molotovs everywhere and melting everything with his tesla gun.
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Apr 8, 2013 19:55
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Thanks for the tips, guys.moot the hopple posted:Tech gunslingers are still my favorite because there's something charming about a dwarf tossing molotovs everywhere and melting everything with his tesla gun.
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Apr 8, 2013 20:21
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adamarama posted:Thanks for the tips, guys. I dunno about pumping Willpower just for fatigue, the added health is nice and all but it does thin out character points for not much benefit. If you find yourself passing out from combat, just make sure you're not getting the fatigue penalty for making more attacks than you have speed for, i.e. end the turn without the action bar going red. Maybe get Willpower back up to the default 8, you'll run into less fatigue issues as you level up. A really good strategy to protect your weak main character is go follower heavy with Charisma. You get an additional follower slot for every 4 points of of Charisma. If you do this, you might as well get Persuasion, which is used for many quests and gives another follower slot. Even if your main is quite weak, not much is going to stand up to a pack of six goons watching your back. You will get less experience due to getting less hits in on enemies and also followers making kills, but this loss is very marginal and not really a concern. Don't feel like you have to game the system by getting in the last shot, the game gives you plenty of experience opportunities if you do sidequests and you'll probably hit the level cap before the game ends. Tech wise, it depends. Explosives and Herbology are nice one-point wonder investments because they let you make molotov cocktails and healing salves respectively, both of which have free and easily found components; molotovs will do nice splash damage even against magical enemies you can't otherwise hit and healing salves might become your only reliable means of healing as your tech apt increases. If you want to do a full on Throwing build, maybe go into Explosives until you can make Stun and frag grenades, they are big game changers. A lot of your followers will already put points in Smithy, which is geared towards weapons and armors. I found I could get by fine with the gear they created for me, probably only invest points into Smithy yourself if you plan on going full tech melee character. If you're going to go guns, invest fully in Firearms because the best guns you're going to get will be crafted yourself. Electric gives a slew of useful items (charged rings in particular returns a nice Dexterity bonus if you make two of them), and is a cross-disciplinary college for some of the better melee weapons and guns once you find the schematics (a mid game follower can also make a few Electric things but he only shows up after the story has reached a certain point). Your followers will already cover the important stuff you want from Mechanical (auto skeleton key, those eye glasses that increase perception), the rest is useless for the most part. You can make robo allies if you invest fully in Mechanical but before you get too excited, they aren't as good as normal followers, need a lot of repair maintenance as they take damage, require pretty rare components, and the schematics for the better robots might be bugged. Chemistry and Therapeutics you can probably safely ignore, they're mostly to make buff and debuff potions. I'll give you some more wordswordswords if I think of more when I get home.
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Apr 8, 2013 21:07
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Or just play in realtime combat mode and continually walk away from every enemy as you automatically shoot them to death.
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Apr 9, 2013 07:20
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The Joe Man posted:Or just play in realtime combat mode and continually walk away from every enemy as you automatically shoot them to death. Yeah, I basically abused a bug early in the game to get a ton of money and purchased every bullet I could in the game. Then I quickly beelined to any firearms trainer I could, and was eventually shooting so fast with a little pistol that enemies couldn't even approach me before they fell down dead.
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Apr 9, 2013 20:39
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I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. Yes, I have played Planescape: Torment.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:18
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. I assume you've played The Witcher?
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Apr 10, 2013 17:18
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ImpAtom posted:I assume you've played The Witcher? Yeah, both of them. Not quite what I was looking for, mostly because I prefer making my own character rather than play as a pre-defined one.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:28
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. Avernum: Escape From The Pit or Geneforge.
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Apr 10, 2013 19:16
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The Joe Man posted:Avernum: Escape From The Pit or Geneforge. Will check those out, thanks.
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Apr 10, 2013 19:33
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer is like a spiritual successor to Torment. Suikoden games are generally about countries at war rather than saving the world.
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Apr 10, 2013 22:55
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Friendly Factory fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jun 4, 2018 |
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Apr 11, 2013 01:02
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If your PC is powerful enough to run PCSX2, the entire Playstation 2 library is yours to pick from. The emulator has matured enough that it can run basically anything these days.
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Apr 11, 2013 01:05
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Friendly Factory posted:What are the good console-style RPGs (or JRPGs if you prefer) on PC? I own all three Zeboyd games and they scratched the itch, but I'd like something that takes itself semi-seriously (like SNES Final Fantasy games). I've also played both Last Scenario and Exit Fate, which were both good. Are there any others? Well there's The Last Remnant. I talked above about how I didn't like it much but a lot of people loved it and the PC version improves on the Xbox version in various ways, even in the mechanics.
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Apr 11, 2013 01:05
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Friendly Factory posted:What are the good console-style RPGs (or JRPGs if you prefer) on PC? I own all three Zeboyd games and they scratched the itch, but I'd like something that takes itself semi-seriously (like SNES Final Fantasy games). I've also played both Last Scenario and Exit Fate, which were both good. Are there any others? This is far from Final Fantasy-style console RPGs in terms of battle system, but The Last Remnant is a pretty good Squenix RPG that I believe is made by a some people that worked on the Saga series. I know for sure the director of Last Remnant worked on a lot of the Saga games: http://www.giantbomb.com/hiroshi-takai/3040-5502/ Edit: Beaten 
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Apr 11, 2013 01:07
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Friendly Factory fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jun 4, 2018 |
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Apr 11, 2013 01:16
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. That game of thrones RPG is another good one, two POV protagonists each with their own personal agenda. Oodles of political backstabbing if you're familiar with either the books or tv.
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Apr 11, 2013 01:44
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm looking for an RPG where I'm not saving the world from anything and it's a more personal story, perhaps involving political intrigue, backstabbing, spying, etc? Something along the lines of the Leliana's Song DLC for Dragon Age Origins or Fallout New Vegas. I think Drakensag: River of Time is along these lines. It's probably not as great an experience as New Vegas (which I haven't played), but I had a lot of fun with it. Spotty translation at times, terrible voice acting, but really engaging and fun. And it's loving gorgeous!
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Apr 11, 2013 01:57
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Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is another great RPG that fits the description. You're not some legendary warrior or chosen hero, you're just some poor sap that got turned into a vampire and now you're everybody's lapdog.
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Apr 11, 2013 05:11
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symphoniccacophony posted:That game of thrones RPG is another good one, two POV protagonists each with their own personal agenda. Oodles of political backstabbing if you're familiar with either the books or tv.
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Apr 12, 2013 01:22
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Friendly Factory posted:What are the good console-style RPGs (or JRPGs if you prefer) on PC? I own all three Zeboyd games and they scratched the itch, but I'd like something that takes itself semi-seriously (like SNES Final Fantasy games). I've also played both Last Scenario and Exit Fate, which were both good. Are there any others? Septerra Core, it has very slow combat but if you can get past that, I think it fits your requirements almost exactly. You can get it at gog.com
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Apr 12, 2013 02:30
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Skwirl posted:Septerra Core, it has very slow combat but if you can get past that, I think it fits your requirements almost exactly. You can get it at gog.com
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Apr 12, 2013 02:40
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Accordion Man posted:Also get Anachronox, its also on GOG and its also has slow combat but there's a button to speed up animations. It's pretty well written in the sense of having amusing dialogue and quirky characters and setting but be warned it ends on a cliffhanger that will probably never be resolved, its not enough to ruin the game though. Wait, when did that arrive on GoG? I've been waiting for that since I saw the LP.
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Apr 12, 2013 03:40
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Wait, when did that arrive on GoG? I've been waiting for that since I saw the LP. Over a year ago.
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Apr 12, 2013 03:54
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Friendly Factory fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jun 4, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2013 04:59
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Since the Dragon Quest thread has been rather quiet lately, I'll just mention here that I recently started up the fan translation of Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart. It's kinda rough starting out because the focus on keeping enough rations on hand so that your slime doesn't die of starvation, along with how little gold/rations early enemies drop, means you can't really just wander around and grind unless you want to run to an inn every 2 minutes or so. Once you start following the hints of where you need to go and get more people to join your caravan, you get a lot more options for sustainability. I'm just past the first continent in the game and things are going a lot smoother. Now for once I'm in greater danger of enemies killing me before my stomach can. 
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Apr 12, 2013 05:16
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Cardiovorax posted:Is it really any good? I can hardly imagine a licensed game like that not being awful. I'm only about 1/3 through the game, it lacks the refinement you can get with a triple A budget. Combat plays like poor man's version of Dragon Age, but so far the story is quite engaging. Definitely something I would play to the end to see how it all unfolds. The one caveat would be that you need to be familiar the GOT universe and major character to get the most enjoyment. Got it on one of the steam sales so I would say it's worth $20. Just don't buy that other GOT game that is a RTS; critiques panned that one.
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Apr 12, 2013 06:22
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Accordion Man posted:Also get Anachronox, its also on GOG and its also has slow combat but there's a button to speed up animations.  Holy poo poo, really? Then maybe I should finally finish that game, as I stopped playing somewhere near the end out of sheer frustration with the combat animations taking so long.
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Apr 12, 2013 17:26
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Has tri-Ace ever made a mediocre game? I thought about it recently and I'm pretty sure every tri-Ace game I've ever played I either absolutely loved or absolutely hated. On a more 'searching for a game' note, is there any game that has the same sort of apocalyptic everything-will-be-reborn aesthetic as Nocturne? I haven't played other SMT games but I absolutely loved Nocturne's setting (and it reminded me a lot of Baroque, for whatever reason, which I also loved both as a game and as a setting/story, even if the designs were a bit anime). Any suggestions for other games with similar settings/aesthetics?
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Apr 14, 2013 06:13
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I dusted off my PS3 today and fired it up for the first time in months. Not sure why, but it did remind me that the only PS3 game I've played in over a year is Final Fantasy XIII-2, and beyond that I didn't look into any other games in 2012. I've been snooping around some best of 2012 lists to see if I missed anything RPG related in 2012, but other than non-RPG games (people need to seriously stop calling ME3 an RPG) the only other interesting non-PC game I saw from last year was Dragon's Dogma. Am I missing some that are buried underneath the big names (FF, Skyrim, and Mass Effect) or was 2012 a dead year for PS3 RPGs?
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Apr 14, 2013 06:19
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Francois Kofko posted:Has tri-Ace ever made a mediocre game? I thought about it recently and I'm pretty sure every tri-Ace game I've ever played I either absolutely loved or absolutely hated.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:25
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Rascyc posted:Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean Last Hope? Infinite Undiscovery is awful. Star Ocean 4's story is enough to qualify it as awful.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:28
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You know, I kind of missed the absolute hated part of the previous post. I just immediately saw red when I read the "has tri ace ever made a mediocre game" :V Yes, those are both certifiably awful games.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:31
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What are thoughts on Valkyrie Profile Plume? I never read or hear anything about that game.
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Apr 14, 2013 06:32
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Francois Kofko posted:Has tri-Ace ever made a mediocre game? I thought about it recently and I'm pretty sure every tri-Ace game I've ever played I either absolutely loved or absolutely hated. Digital Devil Saga (the first one specifically) has that post apocolyptic style vibe Nocturne had, not completely the same but it's similar enough. Same battle system as Nocturne too, so that's a huge plus in general
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Apr 14, 2013 06:34
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Tae posted:What are thoughts on Valkyrie Profile Plume? I never read or hear anything about that game. It's a wonderful game. It combines VP mechanics and a fun SRPG system and it's honestly one of my favorite DS games. The biggest thing to understand is that the Plume system is *there to be used.* It's possible to finish the game without using it (and I strongly recommend trying) but if you find the stages too hard, use a Plume. The way the game is designed is that you can play through it 3 times and not encounter the same stages, assuming you use the plume to alter the plot, and to unlock the rockass bonus dungeon you need to see all three endings anyway. Seriously, the Plume is there because you're supposed to be tempted to use it. You don't HAVE to use it though if you don't want, and every stage is perfectly finishable without doing so. It's up to you if you want a challenge or not, but don't treat it like a failure. If you don't use the plume you'll miss huge chunks of the plot, a bunch of characters, and you have to do it to unlock the bonus dungeon anyway. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Apr 14, 2013 |
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Apr 14, 2013 06:34
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Radiata Stories was mediocre for me
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Apr 14, 2013 06:35
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