Hardest encounters in RPGs

[Twizman]

For SCS Bandit Camp I go to the western side of the map. There is a bit of a tree-enclosed entrance. From there a lot of web and wand of fire spam. A tough fight of crowd control.

 

[Cryomancer]

One more thing about challenge. I found Dark Sun : wake of the Ravager far harder than Dark Sun Shattered Lands and Wake of The ravager is far higher level. One encounter which took like 8 tries was against a high level defilers woman protected by a army of defiers almost all above lv 12 while my party was 100% bellow lv 10.

If wasn't by my half giant gladiator dealing ludicrous damage buffed by haste, stoneskin and prayer and lucky saves + lucky fails from enemy which allowed me to dominate their defilers, I would't won that encounter.

 

[Crichton]

The final battle of Shattered Lands. You need to multiclass and min max everything to beat the game

This is indeed a tough battle, but it is nowhere near as tough as this guy in the video makes it out to be; he's totally ignoring a) the narrow defile to right which would help him deal with enemy numbers and b) LOS-blocking magic that would ameliorate (among other things), the magic of those defilers he claims could have toasted his party. You don't need a level 9 party to win (although you should have one); you certainly don't need a min-maxed party, my first party back when I was 12 playing for the first time was complete garbage. You really need to do three things,

1) Cast dust cloud (or one of the equivalent LOS-blockers with a big radius) before you fight the first wave, (which isn't all that impressive)
2) retreat to the narrow defile on the right while dust cloud is still active
3) cast wall of fire across the defile, which will screen you from enemy LOS and damage enemies as they enter.

If you position your party on the far side of a wall of fire and hold that line, you'll win 100% of the time with pretty much any party. What that won't do is save the lives of those fools from the villages that are sent to assist you. Many times throughout the years, I have tried to find some strategy that would let me win the battle so fast that they would survive. Obviously the steps above don't work because they're too stupid to retreat with you, but I can't find anything else that works either. Anything that blocks LOS keeps you safe from enemy magic, but keeps you from using it as well. The talk from the genie tells you that killing the commander will cause the whole army to crumble, but apparently only includes the guys off-screen. Buffing your allies doesn't help because they're just too weak and there are so many enemies; stoneskin doesn't buy them anywhere near enough time. I thought for a time that the key was mass domination, that turning enough of the enemy would flip the entire battle, but I've never managed it fast enough. Even a single round of attacks from a black mastyrial would finish any of them. But someday...

 

[Desiderius]

Pools of Darkness seems like it was a long slog pain in the ass, but that was a long time ago.

 

[Puukko]

Others have already posted JRPGs so I'll write about my highlights and include some mods:

Code Vein: Cannoneer & Swordbearer. Very competent O&S clone and probably the hardest boss in the game. Requires paying attention to both bosses' mechanics and not getting blindsided by a surprise attack. Will probably take ten attempts for most people using an AI partner. There is an optional refight later on with the added mechanic of the remaining boss absorbing abilities from their comrade, but the area is bigger and the player has better gear and experience so I wouldn't say that version is as tough.



FF8 Ragnarok mod: a consistently difficult mod (for a first playthrough, at the very least) with most bosses requiring 4-6 attempts and random enemies posing a slim but real chance of party wipe. I would say the military base bosses come to mind due to the limited resources, the ruby dragon for its damage output and Adel for the additional pressure of keeping Rinoa alive.

FF12 Struggle for Freedom: very similar challenge with some tough as balls bosses throw in there. Adrammelech and Cuchulain both put high pressure on the team and the latter brings a heavy dose of status ailments as well. Chaos and Fury get honorable mentions as well as the AIDS dragon as they put heavy pressure to keep the party healed while somehow sneaking in damage.

SMT Nocturne Hardtype: the single hardest JRPG I have touched without being bullshit. Every boss (and there are many, 40+) requires a specialized party with weaknesses well covered. Even with prior knowledge, every boss takes about a dozen attempts and you can never be at ease due to the lethality of random encounters.

 

[Desiderius]

Guild Wars Thunderhead Keep with henchies was nearly impossible, and PUGs were PUGs, so almost forced to join a, you know, Guild.

 

[Prehistorik]

There are two extreme for Endurance.

YOu can go the majority way and keep it down to 4-5. Which HP is 99- waaaay up to level 16. Meaning ONE fail roll in stealing and the hostile will put a burst through your carcass.

Or you can scrimp and save and invest END to 7 or 8. You will have 100+ HP pretty early in the game and it feel, I dont know, easier. At least, if you eat TWO critical burst in one turn you dont have to die right away.

I like more stat elsewhere so I generally choose END 5. But in my Luck2 runs I can spare more for END8 and it's bloody different.

END 5 or 7 makes no sense. Only multiples of 2 add health.

 

[laclongquan]

Aye. Typo. 4 or 8. And 8 is only possible with a Luck2 build as I hate to dump Charisma.

 

[Cryomancer]

How you take screenshots from dosbox?

I take mine from google

And do you know a good dark sun wake of the ravager walktrough? IDK what I need to do in many parts...

There is this one, beats me whether it's good or not.

Sorry for quoting after many time but please. I need to find the Luckout tunnels but the directions are just too hard to understand. This part of mines is a nightmare. Even with the cluebook, I don't have any idea on how to reach this daan tunnels. I an with some party members at lv 13 walking up and down for 3 hours and no clue. Any guide showing with maps, how to reach that area? Mines lower levels are just too confuse.

Last time I had this much trouble in a CRPG was house at edge of time. I hate this type of dungeon design designed to make you waste your time and get frustration. The guy says to flip a switch to get to this tunnels BUT NO ONE, say what switch. IS THAT HARD TO SAY 'FLIP THE SWITCH IN MAP X?" Literally every walktrough that i searched assumes that I have divination magic IRL and could foretell where is this piece **** switch!!!!

Here is the map of the cluebook

EDIT : IN REALITY I already found the tunnels and din't noticed. But is just too hard to figure out what I need to do in this nightmare. The guy in question insist that I never visited places where I not only had visited but also rested. What I need to do?


EDIT 2 : AFTER ALMOST 5 HOURS, FOUND THE EXIT TO UNDERDARK. Looks like I need to face a army of mindflayers without a place to rest...

 

[Kruno]

My hardest experience with cRPGs is Fallout 4's tutorial. I couldn't get passed it because I got lost every time we were supposed to run somewhere. Anyway I really hope Fallout 5 is a much simpler and less confusing game.

I frequently send letters to devs and publishers asking them to make their games more simple and streamlined. An idiot should be able to play a cRPG like Fallout 4 and Diablo 3!

 

[Cryomancer]

I frequently send letters to devs and publishers asking them to make their games more simple and streamlined. An idiot should be able to play a cRPG like Fallout 4 and Diablo 3!

Play? Yes. Fell immersed? No... Faggout 4 and Diablo 3 are the biggest pieces of trash ever. Seriously. Fallout new vegas, you start with a improvised rusty bolt action rifle in 556 cal, then get a semi auto in the same caliber and in the final game, can use LMG and marksman carbine in that caliber, you have a great progression curve without making a 556 round dealing 666 times more damage on end game than on beginning. And you have so much options on weapon usage. 12 gauge can be dragon breath, flechette, slugs(...)

On faggout 4, you get a freaking minigun in the first hour and a power armor and **** the logic if power armor requires training since every fallout game. You learned how to use it from nothing.

Diablo 3 is a generic gear farming cooldown management boring work that has less RPG element than 99% of survival games AKA generic wow clone. Is so retarded that the size and sharpness of your axe determines how strong your monk can punch.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

About Dark Sun : Wake of the Ravager, is the most brutal game which I had played from a long time. After a ultra complex frustrating maze on mines, they lock your way back and force you to face army and army of mindflayers with no way back and no place to rest and regain spells/hp, throw gimmicky boss after gimmicky boss, respawning monsters and when you pick 3 pieces of a key and open a door, you need to fight a army of mindflayers, intellect devourer and powerful half giant slaves.

I confess that I had to save scum a lot, if I lose control over my party member, reload. If i took too much damage in a encounter, reload and so on to beat and even considered lower the difficulty to "balanced".

And I forgot to mention, after you destroy this army, you can't rest yet and when you attack the elder brain, more mindflayers appears from nothing and attack you. After you defeat then, now you can loot key and open a place to rest before you need to fight lv 25 earth drakes in a game where you can't go above lv 15.

Honestly, IDK why the first Dark Sun appears on the list of best RPG's on codex but the second doesn't appear. The game is much better on every aspect. Including encounter design and story. If I ever replay this game, I will play with 4 half giants, One Gladiator, one Fighter/Preserver, one Fighter/Cleric and one Fighter/Psion. It would made the game far easier.

 

[Jasede]

Man, that is a lot of mind flayers. I wonder how the game compares to KOTC 2. Of course, KOTC 2 gets you trapped with high level opponents that outnumber you with no chance to rest constantly - however, this fight you showcased could probably rival some of those in that game. Keep in mind, though, that KOTC 2 is poorly designed and most fights are lost on turn 1 because an enemy caster got initiative and destroys the entire party with a maximized spell.

 

[Chippy]

The Beast in the first chapter of the Witcher 1. WTF were they thinking?. Still, if you read the description of the Barghest, I think it states that they were susceptible to stun. So I just ran around like a little bitch until I cast Aard on it and then got the 1-shot.

 

[mondblut]

Honestly, IDK why the first Dark Sun appears on the list of best RPG's on codex but the second doesn't appear.

Everyone imports a 8/9/9 party from Dark Sun 1 and breezes through illithids without noticing them.

 

[Cryomancer]

I wonder how the game compares to KOTC 2

Never played KOTC 2

Everyone imports a 8/9/9 party from Dark Sun 1 and breezes through illithids without noticing them.

Even importing a party, they are far harder than you think and other monsters too...