How challenging should combat in an rpg be?

[Andhaira]

Most crpg's of today feature easy combat to appeal to mainstream audiances, especially when they are ported over to consoles. This wasn't always the case with crpg's hwoever.

Whats your preferred challenge level in an rpg?

IMO Baldurs gate 2 had the best level of challenge in an rpg. It was tough but not ridiculously tough. The realms of arkania games were also cool in this regard, albeit some of the challenge in those games came from how successful your spellcasters were at casting spells.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Betrayal At Krondor level of difficulty.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Challenging, but fair. You suck at the game -> your character dies.

 

[Major_Boobage]

It has to be though, but not irritatingly hard as in have-to-reload-20 times.

Btw AndhairaX BG2 wasnt hard at all. You could spam with mages outside the viewing area of the opponent and they would hardly do anything.

 

[Regina Falangie]

As hard as the player wants it to be, of course. The Elder Scrolls are ideal in this regard, you can decrease difficulty at any time if you feel you want to relax a bit, and switch it back on if you start feeling bored.
The best RPG is the one where you don't even think about combat difficulty, of course.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Just to elaborate on how I feel about it.

In a singleplayer game, there is no "fairness", for me. It's just you and the computer, and it should all come down to how much you can endure until you stop.

Because there is no other human opponent, you have all the time to consider what you are going to do, and hence bring out your best against what the computer throws at you. Hence, the game can never afford to be predictable. It must always reach some higher standard which to you as a player must feel like is beyond your reach.

Often, RPGs will have such fights, but they will be made optional. Supposedly the makers of the game don't want that fight getting in the way of you completing the game. And yet all the same, I, as a player, want to experience the game fully, so it's not like I am going to let go of the optional fights anyways.

Which is why I liked Betrayal At Krondor. It always threw fights at you which were ridiculously and monstrously hard, and I loved it. It would range from a dozen moredhel with poisoned quarrels to nighthawks that would respawn within the combat round to a handful of witches who manage to keep casting Unfortunate Flux at you to the endless ghosts at Sethanon who can batter your party down quite quickly.

And yet, with long days of patience, reloading, changing your plans, keeping your characters in the best shape, even they were defeatable. The first priority of any good RPG is to have a dynamic character creation/development system, which allows you the potential to waste those enemies anyway.

Thing is that even in Wizardry 6 Expert difficulty, the bossfights are designed to be impossible and unbeatable, and yet a player with enough perseverance and understanding of the game can defeat them.

There is never supposed to be a limit to difficulty in a singleplayer game. Ever.

 

[Andhaira]

Wyrmlord, if yuo enjoyed Betrayal at Krondor so much (and it was a great game btw) you should definately check out return to krondor.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I should. And I will.

But I have seen it has a funky camera angle. What's up with that, Andhaira?

 

[Andhaira]

Well the camer can GET funky sometimes, because its fixed. But honestly, it actually adds to the atmosphere and looks cool. Only very, very rarely does it get annoying.

Get a copy of the game somehow and play it. Its a great game with a FANTASTIC soundtrack. The story is pretty tight (it was written with Rayond E Feists collaboration)

 

[FeelTheRads]

you should definately check out return to krondor.

Yes? Why? Because it's a completely different game and more like an adventure?
Then sure, yes, do check it out.

 

[Wyrmlord]

All the same, I remember the strong positive recommendations given to RtK in last year's thread about it.

 

[Andhaira]

No, its a proper rpg. The reason it FEELS like an adventure is that it features full voice acting, 3rd person point and click view, and requires you to do a lot of talking and investigating instead of just running around killing stuff. Every encounter in this game is hand picked and put in there with the purpose of driving the story forward.

I still recall that jailbreak fight with bear. Bloody fantastic.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Challenging, but fair. You suck at the game -> your character dies.

This. It's okay when I'm outnumbered 20:1, it's okay when I get ambushed with no spells readied and everyone half-dead, it's even okay when I get bumfucked by a single enemy that is just simply overpowering, but I seriously hate when the computor just blatantly cheats, and his monsters are like, 5 classes in 1, with unlimited mana, 489475684 attacks per round when the max is 3 or when he has sixth sense and knows all my stats/skills/spells/queued actions beforehand.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Shouldn't be any combat at all IMO. I roleplay to avoid conflicts.

 

[Monocause]

All the same, I remember the strong positive recommendations given to RtK in last year's thread about it.

I recommend against trying it. From what I remember, the game's design sucked balls. First of all, it was not similar at all to BaK, apart from being set in the same Feist's world. Second, the movement speed was intolerably slow. Third, combat was dumb. Fourth, movement speed was intolerably slow.
Slow.

 

[Lemunde]

Ideally if an enemy is too difficult you should be able to go grind a little bit then come back stronger and defeat it. Unfortunately a lot of RPGs won't let you do that. If you happen to hit a brick wall in a game such as KotOR 2 you're pretty much fucked. Can't level up when there's nothing left to kill.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ideally if an enemy is too difficult you should be able to go grind a little bit then come back stronger and defeat it.

Nothing like that should ever be happening, because it's a dead giveaway that the devs fucking fail at balancing and adjusting difficulty for specific encounters.

 

[Castanova]

Unless the game allows exploration...

 

[thekdawg21]

As hard as the player wants it. From ridiculously you can't die easy to masochistically hard. Best example of difficulty? Tough guy mode from Fallout: Tactics.

 

[Zomg]

You should have to generate and execute a nominal plan in every encounter, and a multiple-contingency plan for set piece encounters (even better - there are no encounters that aren't set pieces - but that's not about balance).

 

[1eyedking]

Please stop with these inane threads, it's not even remotely funny.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Combat should be impossible if you are stupid.

 

[Relayer71]

It should be at least 5x as difficult as in your average Bioware/Obsidian game.

 

[Erebus]

The story is pretty tight (it was written with Rayond E Feists collaboration)

Yeah, well, I've read the book Feist based on RtK's story and it's worse than most D&D fiction.

 

[sheek]

No, its a proper rpg. The reason it FEELS like an adventure is that it features full voice acting, 3rd person point and click view, and requires you to do a lot of talking and investigating instead of just running around killing stuff. Every encounter in this game is hand picked and put in there with the purpose of driving the story forward.

I still recall that jailbreak fight with bear. Bloody fantastic.

Yeah the set fights were good. I was obsessive about crafting/alchemy so every one of my characters had at least 3-5 greek fire flasks, poisons, greases. By the end I had a huge number left over unused.

I remember the trolls cave when you're in the Wilderness. The Vampire family in the small village. The necromancer and his armies of skeletons in the Black Pearl Temple.


However...

It was tough but not ridiculously tough. The realms of arkania games were also cool in this regard, albeit some of the challenge in those games came from how successful your spellcasters were at casting spells.

I disagree with. RoA1 was not difficult at all. I remember being hugely disappointed at the Orc end boss. I sent my secondary fighter (I had both a Warrior and a female Thorwalian), equipped with that magic sword, one of each attribute point potions, a couple types of poison and the rest of her inventory full of highest quality health potions.

I didn't have to use a single health potion or poison, the battle was over without being hit in one minute.

The real danger to your party was nasty traps, disease, failing a check jumping across a canyon and I believe there was some kind of artefact which if you touched you would die instantaneously.