Humanophage
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2005
- Messages
- 5,032
I was browsing various Pathfinder-related topics around the internet, and the whinging is bizarre. For example, many people are complaining about an optional easy fight with a swarm where you are supposed to use magic or AoE. A player complains that he is getting wiped out on normal by a boss who dies from a few hits by my party on challenging. Repeatedly, people say that it looks as if the game has a "DM who really hates your guts and wants you to die". A sampling:
It seems to me that RPG fans are almost uniquely uninterested in remotely challenging gameplay. For comparison, nobody seems to be troubled by the fact that Paradox games are somewhat complicated to understand. Civ4 is pretty hard at upper difficulties, but I have never seen anyone whine when they have to play it on below-average difficulty. Insane twitchy arcade games are considered good because they are tough. Nobody was intimidated by Hearthstone even though it was difficult to get far on the rankings. Puzzles in adventure games can be quite difficult to resolve, but nobody minds that. But the moment there is even mild challenge in an RPG, there come the tears - the player is not having "FUN".
It's not just low tolerance for any challenge, but also any complexity or mild idiosyncrasy. I recall people complaining about AC in Baldur's Gate. Is it really such a difficult and counterintuitive concept to grasp that in this game, a lower number means that you are harder to hit?
Do you agree with this observation and why do you think that may be the case?
P.S. The Codex is an exception here, obviously.
and lets you play by the rules, while he comes up with enemies, that ignore them and just slay everything. Level 4 fighter with 1d8+10 damage. Or Lvl6+ archer with 1d8+14, fighter with 1D10+17. You beat them and get regular, +1 and a +2 weapon from them. Enjoy! (Playing on normal.) I deactivated critical strikes. Enemies with +7 when you are fighting with +1 will just one shot you try after try. Stag Lord? Crits for 52 damage vs. level 5 party. Enjoy! Balance? ZERO. You can not cast/buy so much blur, mirror image, mage armor and barkskin potions/scrolls or cast them on everyone. Fighting feels like lottery. Bad roll? Dead. Reload! Bad roll? Dead. Reload! Just repeat, over and over... I never reloaded more often in a computer game! Never. The game gives you plenty of auto- und quicksave slots. For a reason. Once in combat you can not retreat. This random encounter will kill you. Ok, let's reload... FUN! You are not supposed to be here. Don't explore too much. You are dead.
How did you beat him? He wipes my party on Normal difficulty in about 6 rounds... makes me want to deinstall the game.
As someone who lives the pathfinder tabletop RPG, i can honestly say that the devs for this game did not mesh a video game over D20 rules very well. Every encounter is either a no-brainer curbstomp or a high risk total party wipeout. The closer you get to the end of the game, the less your prep work matter for your characters.
Clearly, those instances of challenge that encourage you to "get gud" are seen as very bad and poor design by the players.I simply can't stand the dice-roll combat system:
* skills descriptions are walls of text and contain many unfamiliar terms
* most of my skills are missing and I don't know what I'm doing wrong
* dice rolls introduce a huge RNG variance to the outcome of the combat
It seems to me that RPG fans are almost uniquely uninterested in remotely challenging gameplay. For comparison, nobody seems to be troubled by the fact that Paradox games are somewhat complicated to understand. Civ4 is pretty hard at upper difficulties, but I have never seen anyone whine when they have to play it on below-average difficulty. Insane twitchy arcade games are considered good because they are tough. Nobody was intimidated by Hearthstone even though it was difficult to get far on the rankings. Puzzles in adventure games can be quite difficult to resolve, but nobody minds that. But the moment there is even mild challenge in an RPG, there come the tears - the player is not having "FUN".
It's not just low tolerance for any challenge, but also any complexity or mild idiosyncrasy. I recall people complaining about AC in Baldur's Gate. Is it really such a difficult and counterintuitive concept to grasp that in this game, a lower number means that you are harder to hit?
Do you agree with this observation and why do you think that may be the case?
P.S. The Codex is an exception here, obviously.
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