Amen. I /nod my head a lot to what you say. We have much in common. I also hate save scumming. I tend not to make home rules because I hate to, yet I've done the same at times. I gravitate towards games which give me more of what I want instead, like survival games or generally "unpopular" games.
Help me out, Codex. I'm looking for something very specific right now.
Do you know that feeling, when you just begin to make first steps in random fantasy rpg world, count yer coins, try to save healing potions for later, curse those unbelivable market prices? Then one hour later you turn into uber-rich wizard in full plate enchanted armor, overloaded with loot and ready to face anything. And then midgame begins.
Well, I'm pretty sick of that shit. Give me some starving experience for a change. I want to feel myself in need - that makes my brain work, and micromanagment becomes FUN, not just tedious. All those RPGs I play lately are faceroll sims. Maybe some examples would speak better for me:
I have got that feeling before. I generally play games which starve me enough because I play on the harder difficulties at the start, don't save scum and specifically look for games which I know are probably going to deliver what I want. I can hate a game for other reasons.
1. Survival Horror games. I love early Resident Evil games (1, 2 and 3, to be exact), for you constantly feel like "God fucking DAMMIT, I've got 14 handgun bullets, 2 shotgun shells, and my last green herb mix. Besides, I'm wounded and limping. This way zombies, that way dogs, and there's gonna be boss encounter soon. I'm so fucked right now". There is somewhat similiar stuff in other games of the genre, like Silent Hill, Call of Chtulhu, Nocturne and whatnot. But I want a full-time RPG, with more or less freedom of actions, freedom of choices, etc.
I love survival games. I recently got Unreal World, but haven't played a lot lately. I'm doing Wurm Online at present. However, Wurm Online is offering me less and less of survival gameplay and more and more of just building things. I compensate by playing on Chaos. It's free-for-all pvp. Wurm Online is very lacking in many ways. Its skill are undeveloped and I don't think communities of players work well in terms of game mechanics.
2. Any Fallout game. I think that being inspired by "Mad Max", they actually wanted to make Fallout a "scarce resource" experience. But every time they failed miserably. Fallout 1, 2, 3, NV and even Fallout: Tactics - they all make you feel fucking ABUNDANT. You just don't know what to do with all that ammo and meds and explosives and moneh. The merchants don't help either. "Everything you desire for nearly-giveaway prices". I guess I can mod the fuck out of NV, but it won't make it interesting for me either way.
You know how you state later something about Witcher and Borderlands spending too much time in the inventory? Well I had a similar experience with Fallout 1. Not sure if Fallout 2 is any better, but the inventory management in Fallout 1 was horrible horrible horrible.
All in all, Fallout 1 didn't impress me. I did feel like I had to survive, but it was other things which made me not like the game. The most important was the random deaths which were virtually unavoidable. Second, the lack of preparation for the radiation area. Third, the terrible hireling code. Lastly, I felt there was a lack of content in the late-game. I found myself doing repeatables. It might not have been as bad if I the brotherhood of steel hadn't kicked me out. Also I didn't save scum, so I played through it, rather than restarting and getting powered armor. I play through mistakes most of the time, unless it's a bug.
3. Roguelikes. Any roguelike is either WAY too generous (Project Zomboid, URW, Elona) or total random (DC: Stone Soup, ADOM, Nethack). Do not want.
I like rogue-likes, but I don't like when dying becomes something unavoidable. My other problem with rogue-likes, like
Dungeon Crawl, is they usually are text-based. I'm not a huge fan of text-based, unless it's just for dialog, as opposed to the whle game.
Well, that's basically it. I'm also looking for something that's hard in vanilla (or in vanilla+mods), without making a shittion of home rules. I'm tired of home rules. "Aha, my first dungeon! Giant sewers, how fucking original! Take that, bat! Take that, rat! What's this? Rat has dropped Adamantinum Halberd of Awor +4? Err, I err never saw that. Yeah. Skip it. "No +2 weapons and above in first dungeon" rule. So, I continiue on and see my first chest. Open! What? 831 full healing potions? Hmm, good thing I got "no more than 2 potions on me" rule. Gods. So hard not to faceroll".
I'm comfy with playing without savescumming, it's not a "home rule" in my book. But as for other - I'm too old for this shit.
Any suggestions?
Try Notrium. It's a survival game and you'll die shit tons. Now, it's not a really good game. Just being tough doesn't make a game great. Yet if you want a challenge I'm sure you can find one in it. Thing I don't like about it is you'll die constantly and have to reload savegames. I've already said I don't save scum, but I will reload savegames if I die. The problem is you'l be reloading a lot and I don't enjoy that.
You miht also try NEO Scavenger. I haven't played itmyself, though. It's a survival game in an apocalyptic setting. I think you have to pay. I was reading about it a while back and it seemed like a very gritty tough game with lots of text-dialog - which intersted me at the time.
We should keep in touch. I don't really have any other gamers to talk to about this. I oftne feel alone. I tend to like games most others don't. It makes me feel isolated and unliked.
I didn't tried those but there a rebalance mods for Fallout.
Phobos mod for Fo2
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?193578-Economy-and-Combat-Rebalance-mod
Joshua Sawyer mod for FoNV + Hardcore
I don't think item are scarces in Wasteland 1, but you are limited to 30 items by characters, everything you drop is lost forever and the characters don't share money.
My memory of JA2 might be clouded but i think you have many needs of items and not necessary always the means to supply them. Beside that, all the mines/outcomes deplete over time. If you don't make new conquest quick, you might ended end up broke and unable to hire your merc longer, and get overwhelmed by infinite enemy patrols that try to take back your cities/mines/locations.
I am not the best FPS player and was pacifist agains't humans, but i recall ressources being scarce in the VANILLA Metro 2033. The Redux version has a mode for less ressources, but it is still more ressources than the original game.
I might be wrong, but i think you can change the quantity or ressources in Project Zomboid settings.
Otherwise, some upcoming games seems to advertize scarces ressources. I think of Pathologic, Dead State, amongs others.
I've been an avid JA2 fan and I can tell you it's a game with scarcity, for sure, if you play on the hard difficulties. It's very tough. I heartily recomend JA2 to the OP, but I'm not sure if it's his kind of games. it's tactical/strategic turn-based with some added rpg elements.
One note is there's a 1.13 patch for JA2. I've never tried it. I've read it adds a lot of features. Yet some of the tactics you use in vanilla JA2 are not present in 1.13. My overall feeling is it's a great expansion, but I never trusted it enough. JA2 alone always seemed good enough.
Another game similar to JA2 of which I have
not tried is
S2: Silent Storm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm
Has the OP tried Dwart Fortress. I loved that game when I tried it. It's unfortunatley text-based and is hard to get into. I know the OP wants a game that's VANILLA hard, but Dwarf Fortress is one of those games which depends a lot on its mods for its longevity. If you haven't, look into it.
I also haven't mentioned I rcently got Unreal World. I haven't played it enough to recommend, though. It may or may not have what I want. I know it's a survival game, but I also know not all survival games are good. Its graphics are fairly bad too.
Something else I want to add to this discussion. It has to do with designers and gamers and what they think an RPG should be. See, I think survival games fit perfectly into an RPG, if done right. The problem? The problem is gamers and designers have this unspoken agreement that the RPG is about acquiring more and more things until you're a god-like being. Disregarding other things which I might find disagreement with, the problem with never being able to lose very much because it somehow is opposite to the "more more more" motto is it's an impediment to making the kind of game where you have to struggle. The unspoken goal is to become god,
not to struggle! I think this unspoken agreement can't see its own shadow.
Besides, I think roleplaying games should be renamed role-progression games, as they're as much about progression as they're about role. If it was just a role-playing game then I could be whatever I want to be, without progression ever being a restriction. What if, for example, I want to be a rich warrior king? In most RPGs I have to start out as a peasant and rise up in rank before I can play the role of a rich warrior king.
