Fallout Combat Compared to Arcanum Combat

[Quaid]

I've always loved both Fallout and Arcanum - for they faithfulness to PnP, their character building, their rich stories, and interesting dialogue.

However, when looking at combat, I find Arcanum lacking.

And I'm trying to understand why. Arcanum seems to follow Fallout's turn-based combat, with an option for real time. Is this where it goes wrong? Does the real time actually degrade the turn-based combat?

I am interested in opinions, but moreso I am interested in those that can explain why Arcanum's combat is inferior to Fallout's on a technical level.

Of course, if you feel that Arcanum's combat is superior, please do speak up! The only advantage I saw was being able to go to real time when confronting a group of level 1 enemies when my character was level 15+.

 

[Brother None]

Arcanum suffers under a horrid lack of balance. Though the game's generally easy (barring the annoying mines), it's harder in RT, easier in TB.

So yes, the problem is that it wanted to do both. I can't think of a single game in which both RT and TB were implemented and balanced right. It's a pretty tough thing to do, and Troika certainly didn't have the means to do it.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

I think that what makes Fallout's combat better is that it's more versatile due to the critical hits, more balanced and more gorefull. Fallout's combat has all great little nuances. Critical Hits, Critical Failures, Aimed Shots, Burst Shots that can tear though two enemies at the same time (I love doing that), all combats skills are almost equaly balanced (except throwing, 'cause throwing fucking sucks). I think that Fallout combat has a entire set of rules that make a great combat system. I hate those Bethesda punks that go around saying that Fallout's combat system sucks.

 

[Quaid]

I agree. Fallout's combat system just seems 'tighter' and more robust. Due to the nerfing of guns in Arcanum, I chose to be a gunslinger, both for the challenge and the coolness that is schematics (I loved that addition by Troika). At first I thought the 'fatigue' idea was good, but then I just found it annoying over time. And I believe Arcanum had aimed shots, I just never used them; I don't think I really even knew about them until halfway through the game!

 

[Moving Target]

Yea, Arcanum's combat was easily some of the worst I'd ever used. To say nothing of the comparative build issues; to create a killer Magic user you just had to max out Hurt (or whatever that was called.) To create a killer Tech user...well, you couldn't really do it. Not to the degree you could with Magic.

In Arcanum, I basically just avoided RT altogether, and held my nose through the TB combat. It was maddening in RT to get wailed on for about ten seconds, only to have my character swing and miss, seemingly regardless of my particular skill level. The TB combat was...well, kind of boring, really.

But that's not what made Arcanum great. Despite its flaws, it's still one of those games you can dust off and play through again and again. The plot's a blast, the setting was spectacular and I really enjoyed the way they used the maps. If only Troika'd had an opportunity to fix the balance issues- perhaps even for Arcanum 2, which I'd heard was in the works until Troika went kaboom- the game would have been beyond amazing. As it was- still a classic.

 

[Josan12]

I can't think of a single game in which both RT and TB were implemented and balanced right. It's a pretty tough thing to do

XCOM apocalypse attempted to combine RT & TB -
and similarly failed rather miserably. (although i still
consider it an awesome game)

When a game dev resorts to doing this you can tell the marketing
exec panicked at the last minuite and said 'shit! we
need to try to appeal to ... well .... everybody, or this
game will flop!!' and so they desperately try to shoehorn
two COMPLTELY different play styles into the same game.

Having not played Arcanium i'm about as usefull to this
thread as a blind sniper, but i can say FO2
combat is indeed very tight in it's TB mechanics and
i beleive this to largely the result of Fergus and co. sticking
very closely to the SPECIAL system, and knowing it
fully and completely inside out.

 

[Daimyo]

I actually found Fallout: Tactics to be nicely balanced when it came to RT/TB - the player can select when to apply what, and allthough stuff like using stimpacks /FA kits /Doctor's bags is very hard in RT due to the computer multitasking and the player only being able to select certain thresholds for certain actions, I still liked it.

I have not sat down and cracked numbers though to find flaws, but for me FOT was nice.

I have always said that I think a nice way to approah FO3 would be to take the mood, humour, setting, flow and feel etc of FO and FO2 and use the FOT combatsystem.

 

[RPGenius]

I have always said that I think a nice way to approah FO3 would be to take the mood, humour, setting, flow and feel etc of FO and FO2 and use the FOT combatsystem.

So long as you only control yourself in the combat system, I could see that working. Control over NPCs would make them not NPCs. Being able to crouch, go prone and use skilldex skills such as lockpicking made combat good 'clean' fun in FOT, I will admit.

 

[cody92]

I beat arcanum on hard( turned it up because it was to easy) as a tech user using real time. i used turn based combat for 2 fights( one at the beginning vs the 2 ogres and the thief at the bridge and once againstead this weirdo undead paladin where you had to redeem some old skeleton for his ship, hardest fight in the game) but overall arcanum was an easy game. the combat was not that great but it was good enough.

fallout is the only game where i have enjoyed turn based combat, besides maybe homm 1,2,3 and sometimes in the m&m games but only vs swarms of enemies.

 

[Daimyo]

So long as you only control yourself in the combat system, I could see that working. Control over NPCs would make them not NPCs. ...

Ah, yes - a good and true point. I forgot that tiny and at the same time, huge, detail.

Thanks for pointing it out