Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity - By Vault Dweller and the Spirit of Grunker

[Telengard]

Difficulty settings should just die. No more tweaking the game without modding. If you're not good enough to play the one version as is, then you don't finish. Or you learn to mod.

Stop having multiple versions that have to made and playtested and tweaked, and let devs concentrate on making one good experience, instead of the mess that is a bunch of tweak-to-mediocrity versions.

 

[Blaine]

You're assuming that developers would design their games to be quite difficult.

They will not, and never will again outside of indie niche titles and Japanese games, because easier difficulty settings suit the vast majority of Westerners. This was true even in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Western versions of Japanese video games were often altered to be easier than their Japanese counterparts.

Those console gamers for whom the Japanese dumbed down their games are now also the majority of PC players, including Obsidrones and so on.

You might as well wish for Arcanum 2 or True Fallout 3.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

I remember the days when I had to play Diablo on normal. I never got to finish it but I had a lot of fun even with a lot of deaths. Diablo 2 was way easier on normal because I manage to finish it several times. Grim Dawn is challenging tho....

this is an anti-thesis of what fun in an RPG is supposed to be about (or in an FPS for that matter)

Difficulty settings should just die. No more tweaking the game without modding. If you're not good enough to play the one version as is, then you don't finish. Or you learn to mod.

Stop having multiple versions that have to made and playtested and tweaked, and let devs concentrate on making one good experience, instead of the mess that is a bunch of tweak-to-mediocrity versions.

 

[markec]

I remember playing IL-2 Sturmovik and you had options to alter every little bit of the game. You could play it as a realistic simulator or arcade action game, to me thats great way to allow players to alter their experience. One good example is also some mods for Mount and Blade which allow large amount of customization of gameplay by the player.

I take New Vegas as a good example of a game where devs completely failed to make good enough difference in experience based of difficulty setting. I played the game on Hardcore and on highest difficulty and still found the game to be piss easy. Its sad that I need mods to make the game remotely challenging.

So I dont see a reason why devs cant add custom difficulty to allow players to alter the game for their own preference.

 

[markec]

I remember playing IL-2 Sturmovik and you had options to alter every little bit of the game. You could play it as a realistic simulator or arcade action game, to me thats great way to allow players to alter their experience. One good example is also some mods for Mount and Blade which allow large amount of customization of gameplay by the player.

I take New Vegas as a good example of a game where devs completely failed to make good enough difference in experience based of difficulty setting. I played the game on Hardcore and on highest difficulty and still found the game to be piss easy. Its sad that I need mods to make the game remotely challenging.

So I dont see a reason why devs cant add custom difficulty to allow players to alter the game for their own preference.

Do you believe for a second that Bethesda would have allowed obsidian to make fallout NV challenging?

I do believe that very large part of Bethesda is either incompetent or simply dont care what they do. Many of new generation of developers are no different from new gamers in a way that they dont like challenge. If you let them make only one difficulty level they would produce very easy games. Part because they want to make the game more accessible to larger audience and part because they dont know who to make challenging game beside giving HP bloat to enemies.

Now in case of New Vegas, there is already several difficulty levels and highest ones proved to be difficult to part of Bethesda core audience (based on comments on Beth forum I saw ages ago) and Im sure its impossible to game journalists that are unable to pass opening rat cave of Fallout 1. To me on the other hand game was easy, but I dont think Im what majority thinks.

Thats why I would like for developers to expand difficultly settings by adding custom options. As I said, I fail to see how anyone would have a problem with it since It would allow players to shape the game for their liking.

 

[markec]

Aint gonna sell 5+ million copies unless the game is a cakewalk

Bethesda can wrap shit in tinfoil and it will sell 5+ million copies.

Just recently one publisher passed on a game saying its too hard and because of that it wont sell, that was Dark Souls.

 

[markec]

That's factually incorrect. You may be thinking of Demon's Souls, but Demon's Souls wasnt rejected over difficulty.

Edit: http://gamerant.com/sony-demons-souls-japan-mole-132811/

Basically, the first build was complete and utter unplayable shit.

Yeah you are right I always confuse the two. As for article I might be wrong but I think I read that game was rejected for difficulty and everything else was just excuses to cover publisher mistake. But seeing how I confused the titles I might just have faulty memory.

 

[Delbaeth]

Well, I still haven't played PoE, but if it is as 'good' as SRR (other than the TB vs RTwP thing), I could hope that future games will be as good as Dragonfall. But, honestly, with the expansion cut in two, I am afraid it won't, or at least, not until a proper new game will appear.
I don't know what to think atm.

 

[Arkhanor]

I really need to play this game as soon as possible! Looks fantastic.

 

[darthaegis]

I really need to play this game as soon as possible! Looks fantastic.

umm... sup Drog?

 

[Excidium II]

I really need to play this game as soon as possible! Looks fantastic.

umm... sup Drog?

Location:
Brasil

 

[Irenaeus II]

It's not my alt.

 

[Ninjerk]

It's not my alt.

 

[Mustawd]

Joined: 6/23/15

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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