Challenging

I enjoy a challenge, but not all the time. Morrowind got that part perfect: the towns and surroundings were relatively tame, but you could easily find all the challenge you wanted (sometimes more) by strolling a few hundred paces into the wilderness, or into some cave or tomb. The level of difficulty was MANAGABLE, so if you were in a mood to pick ingredients and admire the scenery, there wouldn't be too much chance of something really out of your league disturbing your outing. If you wanted to fight Daedra, undead, or other tough creatures, it was easy enough to find them.

In OB, the challenge was boringly and annoyingly consistent, no matter where you went or what you did. Nothing was ever "too difficult", but very little was "easy"; it was all that frustratingly constant degree of "semi-difficult. The few quests that actually had CONSEQUENCES for a wrong move were interesting and memorable in comparison.

Morrowind's potionmaking failures were annoying only because the level of difficulty was NOT controllable. Cast spells weren't as much of an issue because you could choose or tailor a spell to your own level of proficiency, in order to regulate the chance of failure to something acceptable. Potionmaking had no such mechanism were you could choose the "level" of the result to change the difficulty; all potions were at the maximum strength that the apparatus and your skill allowed, consequently with a high degree of difficulty.

As several posters have stated, higher difficulty should NOT mean more hitpoints for the opponent or nerfed damage by the player character. That's just a way of prolonging the resolution of the situation. Let me just be done with it (one way or the other) and get on with the game. I want a definite possibility of failure in the game, but generally CONTROLLABLE, based on what I'm trying to attempt.

This brings up the point that these aren't games you just "play." So it shouldn't be all about a level of difficulty or "gameplay." It should also be about the experience.

The wilderness in Oblivion was one perpetual battle from city to city. Yeah, I died now and then and had to prepare and was caught off-guard several times. But that didn't create challenge for me. It was just annoying.

That's because I don't expect to be continually assaulted by wolves that take 10 or more hits to kill when I'm exploring.

I'm not thinking about fighting, nor do I want to fight. I'm trying to explore.

Challenge or difficulty shouldn't always equate to fighting. The challenge in exploring is finding your way around, getting lost, maybe stumbling across a pack of angry khagouti now and then. But, to have an arrow point exactly where I need to go, and slow down the trip by hitting me with a cumbersome battle every 5 feet... that's not challenge, that's just a big pain in my ass.

I voted for challenging. I don't have much time to play games anymore so I really enjoy being able to feel a sense of accomplishment when I overcome a difficult challenge or when I complete a trying quest or dungeon.

I want some actual challenge in my games, thank you very much. When a game is outright easy, there's just no sense of accomplishment when you complete it.

This is a great anolysis, Kovacius. I agree with everything you say here. Well done.




I agree with this too. You guys have expressed my opinions so well that I don't have anything to say.

I voted "difficult at times". To be honest, I'm not that interested in too hard games. I tried Ninja Gaiden on PS3, but I ended up handing it back to the store. It was too hard, and that becomes a chore for me. Having that said, too easy is boring too. I think a mix between Morrowind and Oblivion would be quite perfect for me, as I play these kind of RPG-games to immerse myself into a world and roleplay, not to give myself a hard challenge.

I prefer games with a great level of difficulty. But, I don't value my difficulty under an "enemies that are just mindless tanks" mode. When I want difficulty, I expect to see enemies use a more intelligent AI. I expect them to work together, and to take cover, where appropriate. I, personally, just don't see the satisfaction to longer, repetitive battles. I'm often let down by the workings of difficulty modes. They never work as I would like.

But, saying that, I don't want my random everyday rats and Mudcrabs to be some mega hell-spawn. I WANT these types of enemies to be easy, it's the whole point. I actually think the difficulty slider shouldn't affect non-sentient wilderness creatures like wolves and rats (except if difficulty will affect AI - working wolf packs would be amazing).

I guess I'll have to go for "difficult at times"

Challenging. But that's an understatement imo. ADOM, Nethack, URW, all those games that are unforgiving, even cruel at times. But it's fair, since when you play them you know what you're up against, so in the end it your own damn fault no matter how you're killed.

TES2 was challenging, but when decades pass you become too good in it. Same with TES3. But they still give you choice to make harder characters, or even 'cheat' to get bad stats to begin with. Battlespire I haven't played enough to know if it comes easy, but now it sure aint.

Then there are games like The Witcher, and best ones of Bioware, where the challenge comes in form of making tough, even very tough choices and living with them. That I LOVE.

(This whole thing made me feel like playing UFO:Enemy Unknown through with hardest, and without save/loading. Love how those plasma guns just rip your crew apart. You ending up losing expensive crew, craft and equipment, and money.)

Edit: let me bring up multiplayer games. I, myself play Warcraft III. I'm pretty good at it (of course), so when the enemy team is obviously weaker it gives no satisfaction. The best games are long, and when you manage to turn the tide from certain defeat into a victory, especially when you know the enemy was (on paper) a better player than you, then it feels like something. Pwning noobs is just boring. Put against impossible odds and winning, now that's something. And usually it takes thinking/strategy (obviously, in a RTS)

One quick example: 3 versus 3 game, big map where no one usually attacks fast but builds an army. On the enemy side is one of the best players on battle.net, and I know we lose unless I pull a stunt so cunning I get the other 2 enemies quit/leave. I send my hero (Blademaster) harassing the enemy side, luckily finding the enemy who is not the good one. I manage to kill his whole bunch of units and hero, plus the creeps he was trying to kill to gain experience, making it clear to him that he has no chance against me alone. He shows just what I wanted: poor teamplaying abilities, so instead of hanging in there and asking for his allies for help, he quits the game. Disheartened of this sudden event, the other mediocre enemy leaves too. The gosu is alone versus the 3 of us, and even if he still has a chance to play and even win, he doesn't want to try since I know it's very frustrating. Good Job he says and leaves, giving us a very fast victory, even when there was no real combat yet in the whole game. So striking the weakest spot when they still had one, gained success.

How to manage this sort of balance/challenge in a single player game? Gothic series was mentioned, and there you never get the feeling of 'pwning noobs' when you're fighting even the weakest enemies. Endless armies of rats and goblins that die from one hit are no fun. Unless you die from one hit too, when facing them

To add to that, I always svcked at Warcraft 3 and was constantly getting yelled at and called a "noob." But, I kept playing.

You can't truly say you enjoy a game unless you enjoy losing, too.

Some games are "throw my controller at the wall because I wasted money on something that svcks" challenging.

Then there's "laugh at how bad I svck" challenging.

To quote Totalbiscuit, why play a game you can't lose? There's no challenge then.

RPGs like the TES-series I play for roleplay and immersion more than for "winning", although I will of course play through the main quest and stuff as well.

I suppose "Difficult at times" fits me best. With the already-mentioned caveats that massive HP and DR does not necessarily equal "good" difficult. I like...hmmm..."fairly predictable with the occasional surprise?" Wandering through the wilderness at a decent level being relatively safe, but not 100% safe- the chance, but not a guarantee, of running into a few "nuisance" encounters only to walk into one you expect to be the same only to realize it's an "OMG this is gonna end in a reload" situation.

Still one of the most impressive fights I've personally run into (my own opinion, obviously) was the first warehouse encounter with the military in the original Half-Life. By the time I finished the fight I was sure I'd find a dozen or more corpses, and found 3 dead soldiers. And never failed to feel similarly no matter how many times I did that sequence. Invariably, there was always fire coming from some unexpected angle, some grunt who moved to another position without me noticing- somehow that fight just never got stale or predictable.

I like games that challenge me without getting to the point of banging your head against a wall. If playing a game starts to feel like you're working a second job instead of playing a game, it's not fun any longer.
I like games with a plot and characters that are interesting, not games that are only hack and slash searches for loot. "Hellgate:London" that I'm currently playing is borderline Diablo-style hack and slash, with NPCs that you care nothing about, but it's still fun for now.

Fo sho yall.

ya and maybe at higher levels the "lesser" creatures like skeletons, mud crabs, and rats, would become greater in number instead of making a level 100 rat from hell while you won't find a level 10 storm golem they have like a level 20 minimum.
hmmm maybe they should implement a sort of duck/role/cover kinda system this time around, but that works better for shooting games don't know if it would be good for fantasy.

I actually prefer Morrowind's static conquerable wilderness. Just because when the creatures start to drastically change directly because of my level, it is clear evidence of the hand of the developer manipulating the world. I've hit that magic number of 7, so the mudcrabs beefed up their forces to accomodate.

It makes the world feel less "natural" and reminds me that I'm just in a video game.

I guess it's that gameplay vs. roleplay argument again.

Oh god, no. I really don't want any more level scaling. I love static worlds, perhaps with some randomisation, but never leveling. And remember Cliff Racers? People cried because they had three Cliff Racers at once, and ridiculously over exaguratted the problem (they still do). Imagine what people will do if there actually IS a lot of a creature? I shudder to my bones to think of the crying on these forums.


Well, TES has always been a benchmark for FPS/RPG hybrids. I don't see why we can't use FPS conventions here.

And Hamsmaago, this is about diffiulty, not levelling. I think most people actually agree with us on this one

I would like to see stealth enemies become a possibility. Perhaps when you are charging through the dungeon, you missed someone who is now sneaking up behind you to backstab you. Or perhaps, if some enemies are alerted to you presence they could run for help. Like someone said, smarter NPCs not stronger ones.

Depends on what I'm playing. I enjoyed R-type's difficulty (can't count the number of over the top, hillarious and sometimes stupid deaths I've had on that game) but I wouldn't want it on a game like TES. I think that others have said it better than I. Instead of making it to where everything just has more health and takes an hour to kill the weakest thing in the room why not have the enemies fight smarter?

Regardless of ease or difficulty I think combat is way over-used in the TES series (in RPGs in general, actually) why not challenge peoples perceptions, morals and convictions, memory? Combat gets monotonous and boring after a while, so they need to break it up with such things to keep players on thei toes.