Yeah I released mine this year, so I'm sure most Arcanum players are more familiar with the WIP or Carcanum.
Basically the reason I made my mod is because WIP and Carcanum don't do what should've been done when the game was released: make the combat balanced and not super easy. Carcanum does a lot to combat, but it's absolutely ludicrous, and WIP barely addresses the matter.
My mod though is not really an overhaul, more of an extensive patch really. It changes things so that each way of playing is comparable to the other and will still face some modicum of difficulty from enemies, but the overall game basically stays the same.
An email from a player recently really made me feel good when he said:
"Previous mods that tried to addresses the lack of difficulty were a step in the right direction but I feel like this one goes above and beyond without changing the original gameplay too much or adding gamebreaking bugs like the one I had with Car Arcanum."
Mission accomplished.
WIP centers around extra content, without being a whole new world or making the existing systems better from what I understand.
Carcanum seemed to add a lot of extra content as well, while also reworking everything that was already in there, but what he did was all just so silly I couldn't stand it. It was worse than vanilla Arcanum, which is an unforgivable sin for a mod.
I made my mod to finally fix what was broken for 10 years (and unfixed for no good reason, sadly) so that I can keep enjoying this game throughout the years to come.
Here's the full email with that quote in it; should give someone a general idea of what Arcanum Equilibrium is like (hope the guy doesn't consider it a breach of privacy, nothing personal in there):
Yeah I've been telling my brother how awesome this mod is. Sadly he doesn't get into hard mode hacks like I do but know a decent amount about the game cause I've played it so many times over the years trying out new mods over the years an what not. I'm about to go to Vendigroth after finding Nasurdin at level 51 which is pretty cool because even though I'm close to the end theres still a decent amount of gameplay with more levels to be gained. I've noticed some pretty strong enemies at this point of the game which is refreshing because usually after the dredge or Quintarra (after level 30-35) difficulty took a nose dive. I'm still alittle disappointed I wasn't strong enough to take on the Stillwater giant at around level 30+ and didn't realized its a one time encounter so I let it pass. I'm glad some of the followers had their level up schemes adjusted to make them more useful but I still rather build the majority of the companions myself. I really can't imagine playing without the FollowerEditor mod. Especially if you want your tech followers to specialize in crafting items from their field or in my case I rather Virgil not level lockpicking since its raises his tech aptitude. Also hes starts out with 7 int and he wants to put 5 points into heal. I understand int is kind of important for mages since it dictates how many maintainable spells they can have active but to me it takes low priority compared to building a decent spell list/magic aptitude. I always loved using Franklin Paynes character buts its always a pain cause his str rating sucks so much and hes comes equipped with an elephant gun.
So I noticed I could work around the flood bug by switching turned based to real time and back and forth. This seems to trick Raven into deactivating flood and solves my lag/crash. Npcs tend to uses that and acid rain kinda dumb but whatever thats was a problem in vanilla too. I really like how Magic tanks can use most of their fatigue and still be able to stay in fights instead of passing out and being useless. And the cost is much more affordable too while making the heal amount lower. I love how divine intervention can straight up save a person and how magic/tech revive items are so much more affordable because you can expect to use them much more often. I misplaced my stillwater trap (full) lol. Thought is was worthless and it turned out I could have had a charged sword. I think I found a 5th ring of protection recently but yeah they are few. Loghaire is actually pretty strong as a magic tank. I just don't like followers with pure melee-dodge level schemes; its so plain. The werewolves guarding the Machine Plate schematic were definitely one of the tougher fights. I've made the elite plate but I actually like the electro armor more right now. I tend to have my magic tanks where shields which prevent them from getting the 20 dex speed bonus. So instead of using arcane gloves I tend to give them gloves of dex. For magnus its easy since his gantlets give him strength, constitution and dexterity. The magnetic inversion hat doesn't work correctly because of a vanilla bug right? Its suppose to use battery charges to deflect arrows or bullets but I don't think its does either. I actually like how strong guns feel early game. Realistically I would think they should feel lethal and kill level levels fairly fast. They sucked so hard in vanilla and the bridge bandits in shrouded hills could beat down tech gunners so easy cause they had 2 ogres. Dog is so strong. thats why I never let him reach 20 strength. He hits so hard already so its just makes more sense to leave it at 15 str. I wanted to see if anything was changed to the Void I forced Nasurdin to send me. Did you add more enemies or is it the same numbers. I'm hoping the game is challenging even at the end. I've got all the god blessings expect the last one and enemies can still kill me. lol I remember when doing the old gods quest meant you get 100+ health but you also became almost impossible to kill. I'm a tech gunner though so even with some of the better tech armor (50DR) its still fairly easy to die to level 50 monsters. Maybe I shoudl try clockwork decoys out more. There alot of items/tactics I didn't know about in the game cause you never really needed them to beat the game. One major difference I've noticed is tech armor tends to have DR with some AC while magic armor gets DR/AC from many sources. Arcane shields give like 12 DR while tech just get 30 AC. I used to think charged rings were cool but rings of protection keep tanks alive. There was a really good sword I found Island of Despair pits. 10-15 dmg, 15 speed. Its more effective on Virgil than an Arcane Great Sword. Maybe its too strong I don't know but he kicks ass with it kinda like a dwarf using the Harrow. I didn't even realize the damage the Harrow was doing in the past buts its definitely worth it.
Oh that reminds me, I might have found another bug other than the Virgil wall bug (apparently the Virgil wall bug was a vanilla bug but in all my play throughs I cant remember seeing it but I've seen it three times in the past few days). So anyway in Ashbury castle theres a bug that occurs on the bottom floor where the Lord of the Damned is. When I entered that floor all the zombies started fighting the skeletons on that floor and the Lord Slaves in the room with the Lord of the Damned gang up and kill him (hes takes out like 2 zombies before taking a dirt nap). Oh yeah and there might be a bug when you revive Virgil when he goes to confront the people that killed his brother. If I remember correctly Joachim is suppose to walk in and join the conversation mid way into but when I played he just stood outside the doorway and you have to be the one to talk to him. What he says just seems out of place though. Sometimes he just disappears if you take too long. Last possible bug; it seems if I dismiss Virgil now he does not go back to the Panarii temple in Caladon and instead disappears from my game (maybe permanent but I don't want to test it further) Anyway I expect to finish the this playthrough in the coming week and I've really enjoyed it. Previous mods that tried to addresses the lack of difficulty were a step in the right direction but I feel like this one goes above and beyond without changing the original gameplay too much or adding gamebreaking bugs like the one I had with Car Arcanum.
