Is it me? Or are mages boring?

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:53 am

I've played through Arcanum a few times now and tried a few things but to tell the truth I've tended to walk basically the same path over and over again. Usually this is a technolodgist of some kind with melee skills and fair charisma.

Though with that said more often than not I tend to have quite a degree of fun, cause there's nothing more satisfying than defeating all your enemies (by yourself) in one turn.

~

I remember the first time I played Arcanum I only got to Stillwater before I got bored, is it just me or are mages too dumbed down and simple to be interesting?

Not just that but you need a huge amount of fatigue to do the simplest of tasks. I compare this to my technologist using a Pyrotechnic Axe, he can more often than not kill an entire encounter in one round using maybe 1 fatigue at the end, where as a mage needs to cast harm or fireblast again and again using up a huge amount of fatigue to win a fight, ever worse is those times where you come up against a magic creature that takes a large amount of fatigue to defeat. Even worse is when you get the cool spells like disintergrate and it takes a huge 50 fatigue to use.

Finally most annoying is when you loose out on using the time saving underground transport in Tarant and the train line, when you get powerful. At the end of the day I hate to say playing as a mage in Arcanum really took the fun out of the game.

Would anyone like to dissagree?

Floyd_theBarber · Post by **Floyd_theBarber** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:53 pm

I have only played a mage to about lvl 30 before I got bored of him. He was so insanely powerful, nothing could touch him. Harm, disintegration, conveyance... fights became extremely boring. I enjoyed playing a gunslinger technologist because he was just the opposite. He needed planning and forethought and death was actually a possibility.
Mages who do not use disintegration and harm are probably much more enjoyable since these spells are brutal and fairly easy to use.

tom the terribl · Post by **tom the terribl** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:23 am

Mages

Mage fighting using Harm needs some enhancement before taking on the difficult fight like the Ancient Maze. So I go from Dernholm to Black Root and save the game and then kill and rob the magic shop. Two staffs there provide 50 mana that enhances your mana to provide killing power for everything inside the Ancient Maze with help from a couple of Fatigue Slower. Leveling there is good and sometimes you find good armor or amulets.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:57 am

[QUOTE=Floyd_theBarber]I have only played a mage to about lvl 30 before I got bored of him. He was so insanely powerful, nothing could touch him. Harm, disintegration, conveyance... fights became extremely boring.[/QUOTE]

That waws my experience, too. Since you can get Harm as a first pick, mages are over-powered from the word go; and it only gets worse. I think godplayers would enjoy a mage, but I find it quickly settles into a "I can kill anything, so what?" kind of game mood.

Deadalready · Post by **Deadalready** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 1:56 am

I remember with my mage I merely summoned Ogre Champion for every fight and won with ease :| unfortunately the ai is erratic and only one Ogre ever seemed to fight.

Also I found mages rather, annoying to play as I can't put my finger on it but there's nothing to actually look forward to.

Crunchy in milk · Post by **Crunchy in milk** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:41 am

How is the game's fault if you choose to play a boring blaster mage? The magic system is quite diverse and allows you to play different types of mages, just like there are different technologists. Have a big party and pick lots of buff spells, summon in demons and elementals or turn enemies into sheep. The fatigue requirements are met with adequate investment in willpower and constitution.

I found playing a technologist more boring personally, forever hunting for ingredients and hoping the next invention would make life more interesting, it never did. Just about every gun looks the same, sounds the same and fires the same, differing only in damage. Thrilling stuff. Grenades offer some differences but they require a lot of points spent in too many things to get interesting. The techno melee was no more interesting than standard melee... run up and whack, repeat. The pyro-axe is incredibly overpowered.

My favourite character was a backstabbing thief with a little magery on the side. 'Calm animals' made the early traveling a cakewalk and combining 'Stun' and the backstab skill make you unbeatable in small fights. Bigger fights require planning and really come to life when you start to max prowling and can slip in and out of the shadows to pick off targets in a group one at a time. calm, charm (prerequisite), stun and entangle are great early spells with low fatigue requirements, heal and cure can be added even on a half elf with a little natural magic aptitude and you can still ride the travel system of tarant so long as you balance your meter by maxing lockpicking. The best part of it all is you also get 'conveyance' from a staff if you do the spot trap mastery quest. You can pend all your points not on useless inventions or flashy spells but on skills, which means more (mastery) quests.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 6:52 am

[QUOTE=Crunchy in milk]How is the game's fault if you choose to play a boring blaster mage?[/quote]

Before you replied, who was trying to allocate blame?

There are two schools of thought on unbalanced gameplay options. One says that designers can basically include 'em, and you're free to ignore 'em if you wish. The other says that when you buy a game, it should be reasonably playtested ahead of time, with as little cheese as possible that allows the early creation of godlike characters, massive amounts of gold, etc. I'm in the second group, but you're welcome to feel otherwise. I don't want to take a spell choice like Harm at level 1 and find that it does horrendous damage which only mounts as my PC increases levels and attributes. And I don't like having to mess around with a game editor to remove that spell selection, and replace it with one which makes combat more challenging and...well, balanced. Just my two cents.

Crunchy in milk · Post by **Crunchy in milk** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:52 pm

RPGs are as much about what you put into the game as any designer. Hope and pray for the perfectly tested game all you want, but if it ever shows up its still only a great rpg if it ultimately leaves a lot of the play style up to the player.

Shame on Troika for having such variety, they should have thrown in a heap of guard rails or something to keep us all hemmed in to a strict roll play system. My deepest sympathies for your single point spent on harm that you couldn't get back and your distress at its performance. No one said you had to eat the cheese. The game's combat can be in either real time style or turn based style. Different spells, technology and skills dominate and/or suck depending on which style is used.

Your 'two schools of thought' boil down to being ok with a little responsibility in regards to enjoying the game to its fullest, and wanting to be led by the hand every step of the way. Its not like the game is an mmorpg where every character class must equal or balance out its peers in every way (and lord knows every mmorpg gets that right).

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 4:32 pm

[QUOTE=Crunchy in milk]Shame on Troika for having such variety, they should have thrown in a heap of guard rails or something to keep us all hemmed in to a strict roll play system. My deepest sympathies for your single point spent on harm that you couldn't get back and your distress at its performance.[/quote]

So if we leave aside the rampant sarcasm above, the logic goes as follows:

1) I like the magic spell Harm being offered as a first level choice
2) Fable said he didn't; therefore
3) Fable doesn't like variety of character options in Arcanum.

Gee, I wonder where the lack of logic is in this?

Of course, the problem is that we're not discussing whether Arcanum should have allowed a raft of character options; they should. We're discussing how a company seriously unbalances its gameplay, in this case with an overpowered spell choice available at the first level.

No one said you had to eat the cheese. The game's combat can be in either real time style or turn based style. Different spells, technology and skills dominate and/or suck depending on which style is used.

And no one but you has said I and others here who feel the same way can't criticize problems in a game we otherwise enjoy. Is there some reason you don't want people to have an opinion about a game other than "I love every aspect of it"?

Your 'two schools of thought' boil down to being ok with a little responsibility in regards to enjoying the game to its fullest, and wanting to be led by the hand every step of the way.

Actually, it boils down to taking whatever a company gives you in a game without critical judgment, or suggesting in casual conversation that the game couldn't have been made better in small ways--in other words, applying critical standards, or demanding that nobody else be allowed to even mention them.

EDIT: There actually *is* nothing wrong with avoiding the cheesy stuff in any game; I do it myself all the time, while playing that most cheesy of games, Morrowind; and I do it while playing BG2. But you got me being reactive to your sarcasm and pronouncements that only your view is right, and all others are wrong. In fact, as I said in my last post, there are two schools of thought, both right; and while I play to ignore the major balance issues in otherwise good games, there's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out those same problems in civilized conversation. Assuming two people can hold such a conversation.

Crunchy in milk · Post by **Crunchy in milk** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 10:03 pm

You are more than welcome to criticise whatever aspect of the game you like. My disagreement with the above criticisms doesn't mean I find the game flawless and dislike any criticism of it.

I never said I liked the spell harm being offered at first level, I understand it being there though and can see how it differs in effectiveness based on which combat system you employ. I'm sure everyone who plays a mage picks it and spams it at the first wolf they fight, then sits down and rests for an hour, then spams it at the next wolf... wait another hour. Maybe they're happy taking a fortnight to get out of the crash site, maybe they're not and use a different assortment of the many spells.

1) I like the magic spell Harm being offered as a first level choice
2) Fable said he didn't; therefore
3) Fable doesn't like variety of character options in Arcanum.

Not quite how I would have paraphrased it, maybe more like:

1) There's heaps of different types of mage you can play in Arcanum
2) But every time a discussion of Arcanum pops up it seems Fable has to discuss his use of the spell harm in the game.
3) Fable seems really hung up about that one harm spell not working how he'd like it. So much so I get the impression he'd rather talk about how much he disliked it rather than try other more interesting mage builds.

And I don't like having to mess around with a game editor to remove that spell selection, and replace it with one which makes combat more challenging and...well, balanced. Just my two cents.

You sure seem to make that two cents go a long way though.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:14 pm

2) But every time a discussion of Arcanum pops up it seems Fable has to discuss his use of the spell harm in the game.

Just a minor correction. I see that the last time I mentioned the spell was one month ago; two months before that, I responded to a player who dissed it. I said at the time pretty much what you've been saying, now: that it's not a bad spell, but if you don't like it, simply ignore it. That's not quite a record of bringing up harm like some idee fixe all the time, here. And Floyd in any case mentioned it this time. Officer, this is what's called a bum rap.

To quote Floyd's comment: "I have only played a mage to about lvl 30 before I got bored of him. He was so insanely powerful, nothing could touch him. Harm, disintegration, conveyance... fights became extremely boring."

Now it's easy at this point for you or I to know in advance what spell colleges to pursue and avoid to make the game more of a challenge, but a new player wouldn't know this. As a first time player when Arcanum came out, my experience mirrored Floyd's. Sure, I took harm. What other magical spell was available as a first level choice that administered direct damage? None. I found myself eventually losing interest with a character who was overmatched to all adversaries he encountered. This isn't by any means limited as a problem to Arcanum; and I think Troika's also gotten a bum rap for lack of balance between the magical and techno sides, when highly praised games like BG2 feature classes (such as the kensai/mage) that are heavily overpowered. But that Arcanum experience both Floyd and I had still bears repeating in a thread meant to look at the relative strengths of Arcanum's professional cultures.

You sure seem to make that two cents go a long way though.

As badly as the dollar is doing in world currency these days, I have no choice.

Skuld · Post by **Skuld** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 10:11 pm

Well here's how I see it: Pure mages with huge damage spells are easy(therefore boring for someone who wants a challenge), Melee/Tech and Melee/Magic with the second half being a secondary supplimental type of thing are fun to play but not easy(my personal choice), the Pure tech gunslinger which I didn't find too enjoyable because of the limited nature of bullets and materials needed to make them, and thieveswhich in battle tend to stand back and let others do the fighting so they don't even really qualify. I've been tempted to go back and try a tech character because I never took one very far before I decided I hated having to make everything I needed. It's a matter of opinion. The creators left character creation so open you can play the game a dozen times and never have a similar character, and it's up to you to not play the ones you don't like.

Crunchy in milk · Post by **Crunchy in milk** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:31 am

[QUOTE=Skuld]and thieves which in battle tend to stand back and let others do the fighting so they don't even really qualify.[/QUOTE]

What kind of thief are you making? I backstabbed my way through the entire game without a single npc. You can use either magic (stun) or tech (grenade) to keep enemies off guard and open to the backstab multiplier (you have to move behind your target!) until your stealth gets high enough to do the job almost exclusively.

I wore a smart suit the entire game and had a simple dagger of speed as my weapon of choice.

Of course he's only any good in turn based mode.

Razzy · Post by **Razzy** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:24 pm

well me personally, ive only tryed a mage once when i got tired of smiteing my foes as a godlike warrior with blade of unholy fire. what did i find? smiteing my foes as a godlike mage with apocalipticly powerful school-mastery spells. i beat the game with my mage. me personally, i like being able to pwn everyone who crosses my path. makes me feel like a badass. the thing with mages though, its kinda difficult to win in fights in the very beginning. i enjoyed takeing the cumlitive knowlage of spells i gathered and useing them to completely decimate any poor sod that dared look at me wrong. plus teleportation is really nifty as well when you dont wanna take the provided transportation, or you are in the middle of the wilderness