How's this game, Sup Forums? I'm thinking about either starting this or Arcanum

How's this game, Sup Forums? I'm thinking about either starting this or Arcanum.

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Not popular around these parts but I personally loved it. Fun classic CRPG with an interesting setting, a fun plot and some great companions. The expansions are pretty comfy as well.

What are the expansions about?

It's quite okay. It's not great but a solid RPG.

However, if you want to play a great RPG you should look into Age of Decadence instead if you haven't already.

Age of Decadence is fucking awful.
I can forgive its garbage graphics and poor transitions, but the indie quality maps and map navigation, the boring, simplistic and repetitive combat system and the atrociously clunky interface I cannot stand.

It seriously plays like a game released in 1990 and I'm sorry, but that shit just doesn't fly. It took 7 years to develop and this was the best they could come up with, fucking embarrassing.

The writing may be excellent (I cannot confirm or deny, did not go far enough into it), but everything around is is awful. Pretty much every other CRPG released in the past three years is much better than that piece of shit.

I thought it was fairly boring. Extremely linear and a pathetic plot.

Wasnt made any better by the combat, which was ruined by resting/spell system.

i thought it was alright. just ignore the wall text you get when reading peoples memories. they not impotent.

Go with Arcanum. PoE is the most soulless, boring RPG experience of last years i can remember while Arcanum is an immortal classic.

>the boring, simplistic and repetitive combat system
How many time have you put into the game? The combat actually has quite a bit of depth. It's easily one of the most complex out of the tactical single player RPGs.

Not to mention that in terms of choice and reactivity the game beats pretty much any RPG ever made - even Torment.

I'd seriously recommend giving the game another try, since this is definitely one of the most important RPGs of the last ten years or so.

Play Underrail

>fun plot
how the fuck can anyone call that fedoracore garbage where you spend 90% of the entire game on a pointless mystery chase a "fun plot" is beyond me

Not him, but expansions are great. In my opinion better than base game

Not him but I also stopped playing Age of Decadence because of the combat. It's bloody awful.

I tried playing it without combat and it was basically a CYOA book at that point, except it had shitty graphics and interface.

Extremely over rated game.

This.

icewind dale basically
still drowns you in hordes of trash mobs

PoE with the latest patches and expansions is pretty good. They helped balanced combat,made the stronghold more interesting and removed trash mobs.

Arcanum is just a classic as well and I love it but it suffers from balancing issues

Not him but, how quickly can you jump into the expansions?

Didn't they lower the mob counts or something?

I haven't played it since the expansion release but I keep going through patch notes from time to time.

Are there any nearly completely useless skills I should know not to invest to before playing? Underrail looks like it has some.

they are both awful games

Arcanum sucked me better maybe because of real time battle option, pot bored me after about 4h

>Didn't they lower the mob counts or something?
dunno, went through the DLCs once on potd and will never touch the game again
if they truly removed trash mobs then i can only say that they did it too late for the majority of players to care

>Not him but I also stopped playing Age of Decadence because of the combat. It's bloody awful.
What bothered you? Lots of people who fail at the combat system usually went into the game with false expectations. If you want to play a fighter you need to have a character that is fairly skilled at fighting since the people who you're going to fight are in many cases professional mercenaries.

While playing a hybrid character who has a wider array of skills is possible, it's pretty hard at the beginning, since you need to meta game quite a bit in order to maximise your skill-gain. Otherwise, you'll have to focus on playing a fighter - as you would expect.

>I tried playing it without combat and it was basically a CYOA book at that point
Except for the part where it beats any CYOA in terms of quantity of choice and reactivity. CYOA is not a negative thing as long as it's not bound by the same limitations of the medium.

You won't find another RPG that took this concept to a comparable level, actually driving it to the point where the inherent issues that come with the mechanic itself become apparent. From an academic perspective alone AoD is important, and any genre enthusiast should have played it.

Arcanum is better.
Just don't play a gnome.

there's none but some are support skills, and you need to have at least some reliable source of damage
though one of the best things about underrail is ability to create a fuckton of hybrids so just experiment a little, if your build is able to get through the dedicated casual filter zone then you're all set for the rest of a game

It's a decent game, dragged down by extremely generic story and setting, and Josh "Balanceman" Sawyer's obsession with making the game unfun by nerfing literally everything into the ground.

>Arcanum is just a classic as well and I love it but it suffers from balancing issues
Not just balancing issues. The combat system is utter shit - there's no way around it.

However, despite having shitty combat it's a great RPG since it offers a fairly 'complete' RPG experience. You have exploration, non-linearity to a certain extent, combat, and of course role playing choices and multiple solutions to quests. Few other games manage to be as well-rounded in all aspects as they tend to focus on a single one instead.

>Lots of people who fail at the combat system usually went into the game with false expectations. If you want to play a fighter you need to have a character that is fairly skilled at fighting since the people who you're going to fight are in many cases professional mercenaries.
I was forewarned to make my character combat heavy if I wanted to be in combat. I specced him 100% that way. The combat was still terrible and unfun.

>Except for the part where it beats any CYOA in terms of quantity of choice and reactivity
You haven't played a lot of CYOA games lately, mate. We're not in the Fighting Fantasy days anymore.

>From an academic perspective alone AoD is important, and any genre enthusiast should have played it.
Pirate it, play it for 2 hours, realize that your nice ideas are useless if the core gameplay and polish is terrible. There's your lesson.

>The combat system is utter shit - there's no way around it.
The map, the walking speed, the companions and the aesthetics are garbage too

i will take an ability to play as a mage who literally disintegrates his opponents and can revive the dead to talk with them over an overbalanced mess of PoE

I think it's somewhat in the middle of the game. I started them when I was at the end (finished the game before release, it was my only save), so I don't know exactly

>muh balance
Hi Josh

...

>his bantz with Keldorn

mercantile is virtually useless, other than that as long as you make a decent build you should be fine

though I must say it may be better not to go crossbows on the first run, while most of the game will be fun and doable, a certain lategame area will be a royal PITA to complete if you aren't prepared

Basing abilities and spells around per rest and per encounter limitations should just fucking end.

as with nearly all things bad regarding rpg's

blame D&D

>I specced him 100% that way.
And it still didn't work out for you what kind of build did you play? What were your skills?

Personally, I really enjoyed the combat system due to how different the various types of weapons felt and because they required completely different tactics. In most RPGs, no matter which weapon you use, it's always a matter of approaching the enemy and hitting him until he dies. In Age of Decadence, the different weapons have different strengths and are played completely differently. E.g. with a long spear you need to keep a distance and use its length as your primary defence since it allows you to interrupt approaching enemies. A dagger is used by first attacking legs and limbs of your opponent to minimise their chance of wounding you and evading your attacks before finishing them off, etc.

How is this not infinitely more complex than Fallout for example where it comes down to shooting people in the face?

>You haven't played a lot of CYOA games lately, mate.
I can guarantee you that you won't find anything comparable to AoD.

>Pirate it, play it for 2 hours, realize that your nice ideas are useless if the core gameplay and polish is terrible.
Within 2 hours you won't have seen even half of what the game has to offer. Overall, your criticism reminds me of the types of people who dismissed Bloodlines when it came out because it was bug-ridden, failing to see past the flaws. Same with Alpha Protocol, which was brilliant in the interactive storytelling department.

If you consider yourself a genre enthusiast you should definitely give the game another try.

it's fine if one buff can last 8 hours till the next sleep
poe just combined vancian casting with a fucking 15 seconds long buffs with no prebuffing which is so retarded i can't find proper words for it

Game is pretty boring for a new release to be honest. I'd say if you have a wife or a girlfriend play this dude. Dope graphics, environment plays a huge part in combat, funny moments some voice acting don't have to read everything like I'm pillers

Plus confirmed sequel coming out

Great way to end up with a bunch of bland spells to play with.

>it's D&D faults if developers creating a non D&D game use vancian casting

underrail has a great spell selection with no vancian casting and psi pool regenerating between each encounter

Can't be blander than PoE spells

It's fairly weak when it comes to role playing though. Also, the procedurally generated loot is rather crappy too.

The combat system is great, but it should be treated more like turn-based Diablo than a 'proper' RPG. Still a great game though.

Didn't catch myself a girlfriend who likes vidya. Showed her Deadly Premonition once because we both love Twin Peaks. Couldn't get through the tutorial.

Altough pretty shitty choice for a first game, my fault, I guess.

thing is they wanted to also avoid ensuring that wizards are better fighters than the fighters and rogues than the rogues through the power of buffing

choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/swamp-castle/#utm_medium=web&utm_source=ourgames

Not that guy but this is a good CYOA

Also, payoff for some long and expensive things in AOD was shit. That fucking portal with no point to it ...

and they ended up exactly with that
poe's core design philosophy is so fucked it's just hilarious

People Herald this game as the best rpg in a while. I played it for like 10 hours and I could not get into it. Combat is alright but due to level going out underleveled will get you raped and you level at a snails pace

nah compared to every single D&D game in existence wizards are fairly balanced

>Hey guys, how would we make sure than no one spell/class is overpowered and renders the other classes/spells useless?
>I know, lets make ALL the spells/classes completely underpowered and unfun to use!

Good job Josh, I am genuinely impressed.

It's the kind of game you play with a friend, or don't play at all. It's boring as sin solo.

>Also, payoff for some long and expensive things in AOD was shit. That fucking portal with no point to it ...
I assume you're referring to the arc which could have offered a bit more after all that build-up. Still, there were other comparable things which offered a lot more than that, e.g. the Abyss or the whole quest in regard to becoming a god.

That would explain it because I was bored as sin

poe's mages are ridiculously overpowered thanks to having a scepter with spammable aoe attack that charms enemies alone, they are as powerful as dnd mages when properly specialized, just nowhere nearly as fun to play as because of how boring and generic your arsenal is and how limited your tactics are

they're not even close to D&D mages mate
and PoE fighters are not even close to how useless D&D fighters are

To me PoE seemed overbalanced to the point where everything felt kinda same-ish.

>they're not even close to D&D mages mate
they are exactly as overpowered dnd mages are in their own setting as poe mages in their own
spirit lance alone is a blatant game breaker
and don't make me get started about current ciphers
>and PoE fighters
yeah bless sawyer for forcing even them to rest after a few encounters because of an HP pool mechanic because surely running back to the inn is fun

Buffs; especially Priest buffs, are extremely good and dominate the meta you shitter.

Wizard magic DPS is good but meta for them tends to be CC with emphasis on personal tankiness due to how easily your rear lines get fucked at high levels if they can't take a hit. Wizard glass cannon + magic weapon doesn't work well late game and their DPS suffers if you want them to reliably survive the later encounters with jumping barbarians, charging warriors, and teleporting monks.

D&D Fighters were actually really good in games like Baldur's Gate. Just that the REST system nullified most of their advantages. If you weren't a shitter you could easily pre-buff a group of warriors to destroy almost all dungeons within a single duration of improved haste (after clearing traps in advance of course)

>HP pool mechanic because surely running back to the inn is fun
Just play on an easier difficulty then you omega shitter. Baldur's Gate style rest system was a complete joke.

PoE fighters are not inferior to wizards summons, that alone makes them better than D&D fighters

and spirit lance at least is a high level spell, D&D wizards have FIRST LEVEL spells more gamebreaking than spirit lance by a god damn longshot, they aren't just the best at combat they are better than entire classes with a SINGLE SPELL

PoE does not even begin to come close to the level of bullshit mages can get up to in D&D

Boring is indeed the right word to describe this game. Combat is a mess. The campfire system sucks, its impossible to carry more than 4 sticks for some reason. The story is so boring I almost gave up. The keep is pointless.

>tldr boring.

how the fact that buffs are good by themselves contradicts the fact that vancian casting doesn't suit the game with 15 seconds long buffs?
virtually any rpg in last years balanced casting way better than poe

instead of taking a fighter you could have taken another wizard, had them summon something, then buff the shit out of that and have it be more effective than a fighter
while still having an additional wizard

And BG is very kind to fighters compared to the tabletop version

>PoE fighters are not inferior to wizards summons
that's because in poe wizards have no summons because no fun alowed lmao

other magic classes have summons
why should wizards be able to do everything?

bet you're also mad wizards can't go invisible and cast knock as to replicate the entire rogue class with 2 spells

I couldn't get into it. Tried 3 times but the farthest I ever got was 4 hours in.

Not the guy you're talking to, but I fail to see the issue with wizards being overpowered. It makes sense that a guy who can hurl fireballs at people would be more powerful than a guy who cuts them with swords.

>Buffs are good they just need to last forever for casuals such as myself
Heaven forbid if there is an element of skill, risk, and resource management.

>spirit lance at least is a high level spell
at low level mages have Chill Fog which is more overpowered through the entire game than any low level dnd spell is with the exception of dweomer maybe

Wizard does have summons though. At the least it has that doppleganger that rapes the early game due to benefiting from the blast perk. The tentacle summon; despite being immobile, actually does disgusting DPS if you can keep an enemy within the range of multiple tentacles.

actually it doesn't
for the world to make sense wizards must in fact be significantly weaker than fighters

after all if there is a group of people who can throw fireballs, and yet most wars are still fought with swords, then by all logic, given the advantages throwing fireballs should have, even the folks capable of throwing them should suck monkey balls at actually throwing them

otherwise all wars would be fought with fireballs


pure simple logic: for rpg worlds to make sense wizards should be inferior in all matters combat than fighters

Great game. There should be an option to disable those backer characters though - it's annoying to see so many godlikes everywhere.

>It's fairly weak when it comes to role playing though

?

Choosing dialog options is not role playing.

color spray is basically chill fog on steroids
not to mention things like say grease or if we go 3'rd level the ungodly bullshit that is flight

I decided to use him instead of Imoen for once. He's such a fucking pain. Pretty cool multiclass though.

>It's the kind of game you play with a friend

Three friends, you mean.

nobody is telling that wizards should be able to do everything
they should, however, have their own unique utility like in underrail, otherwise there's no point in making casters to begin with if you're just going to make them a boring dps class

Summons could not kill things as efficiently as a fighter by a long shot. Summons were primarily used by rest exploiters to expend enemy mage spellbooks and to exploit damage resistances with things like Mordenkainen''s sword.

>after all if there is a group of people who can throw fireballs, and yet most wars are still fought with swords, then by all logic, given the advantages throwing fireballs should have, even the folks capable of throwing them should suck monkey balls at actually throwing them
Not at all, because in most settings wizards are a tiny minority since it either requires extraordinary intelligence or some innate talent to become one.

Not to mention that what you're mentioning is mostly a high-level problem. Low level wizards are fairly shitty.

>actually it doesn't
>for the world to make sense
>thing that doesn't exist and is completely fantastical must be significantly weaker than other thing

Second this, somehow AoD is the only CRPG I have gotten into and thoroughly enjoyed.

I tried Fallout 1 and 2, VTMB, Torment and non gripped me like AoD.

But it is. Role playing literally means the definition of character traits which can be done by picking a definitive line of text.

>skill, risk, and resource management
vancian casting with long buffs but heavily restricted rest is what includes the element of skill, risk and resource management
vancian casting with 15 seconds long buffs but inns open for resting at any point of virtually any dungeon only promotes extreme boredom

thing is, wizard, as presented in PoE, is not equivalent to full psi in underrail
rather its equivalent to a single psi discipline, with druids and chanters being the other 2

what you're asking is not for psi to have full utility, its asking for metathermics to also have mind control powers

>after all if there is a group of people who can throw fireballs, and yet most wars are still fought with swords

Yeah dude, that's why all wars are fought with Apache helicopters these days. No humans involved.

>if you're just going to make them a boring dps class
Wizard spell DPS is mediocre though. They have the best magical weapons. They have the most versatile CC. But they are typically outclassed by Druids when it comes to pure spell damage and Priests aren't bad either (although Priests are limited primarily to fire damage)

Overall though raw spell nukes tend to be pretty mediocre in these style of games anyways without being able to rest everywhere so that you can kill every goblin with Time Stop + Horrid Wiltering.

congratulations: you get the point I was trying to make
go have a cookie

yup everything has its place in warfare, you need brawlers right?
what about spearmen? Can't go to war without a good phalax after all

three caster classes in poe rerpesent boring dps, boring cc and boring buffing
psi and psi hybrids in underrail are all extremely unique and have cool synergies and utility

Combat is unserviceable trash, the rest is just mediocre. Obsidian decided to play safe with everything, including the writing, so it doesn't stand out in any way.

>Age of Decadence
>great RPG
Eh. It nails stat checks, that's about it.
Still worth checking out though.

>rest exploiters
hahah you "hardcore" players are fucking pathetic sometimes

Story is okay, above average
Companions are good
Character progression is good too
Fights/Encounters are boring and a lot of areas are just pumped full of those boring encounters.

I stopped playing the game half way through because fighting felt so stupid.

>Role playing literally means the definition of character traits which can be done by picking a definitive line of text

Can you write a sentence that makes sense please?

I've role played more in this game with a few friends than I have in any single player RP videogame. And that's mostly attributable to the fact that between human beings, the amount of dialog "options" is near infinite.

You had no point m8.

>yup everything has its place in warfare

lol

Why would you need brawlers if you have Apache Helicopters? Why would anybody pit brawlers against apaches?

and if the mage supremacists played Underrail they'd be complaining high and low a sniper build could easily take down enemies faster and more efficient than psi

combat and character creation wise its a vastly better game for a wide variety of reasons. Succeeding in making psi unique but not overpowered is just a part of it.

The games have a level system for a reason. It is less that Fighters or Wizards are common but that level 20 demigods should be rare and potent.

>vancian casting with long buffs but heavily restricted rest is what includes the element of skill, risk and resource management
Objectively wrong. It is less skillful, it shares the same risk (dispell), and it simplifies resource management.

Heavily restricted rest is a must but the old IE style games didn't even try and POE halfasses it. However at least POE TRIES to limit rest. It can't be helped if you are such are a dumbass that insists on playing on harder difficulties and constantly must run back to inns to compensate for the camp reduction.

>Eh. It nails stat checks, that's about it.
>Still worth checking out though.
It's not just the amount of checks but also the reactivity tied to them. The fact that you can 'jump' between the branches of the plot through betrayal and the fact that the plot branches fairly early on rather than only at the very end sets it apart quite a bit.

Also, I still maintain the position that the combat system is pretty good (would be even better with multiple characters). It takes a bit of knowledge how to distribute skill points though in order to be efficient which may not be all too straightforward. Otherwise it can be a bit frustrating.

>thing that doesn't exist and is completely fantastical must be significantly weaker than other thing
was exactly my point matey
its silly and everyone calls out how silly it is when supposedly fighters should be more powerful than wizards, but other way around it stops being silly somehow?


guess I gave you to much credit

>The games have a level system for a reason
that reason is: characters of similar level should have similar power

so a lv 20 wizard should be a virtual god, but a lv 20 fighter should be a godslayer