Games need more scarcity. Death to quick Regen!

[Veliko]

What fights had a lot of depth?

I remember playing through Baldurs Gate 2, and whilst I loved it, I found the combat rather tedious after a while. I ended up playing it through on the easiest skill level in the end.

 

[shortylickens]

What fights had a lot of depth?

I remember playing through Baldurs Gate 2, and whilst I loved it, I found the combat rather tedious after a while. I ended up playing it through on the easiest skill level in the end.

In order to be interesting, you need to approach each battle as if it was a special tactical encounter. Dont be afraid to get killed once. Reload, think about what spells and equipment you need, prepare, and execute a masterful plan. Its extremely enjoyable, and there are literally hundreds of those encounters in the game.
For real fans its a treat. For casual players its just tedious.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Hmmm, regen thoughts.

I have two very different views on this, but they end up coming to the core issue.

I love Demon's Souls. I loved the challenge, the brutality, the always thinking about every step of the way and planning things out, learning from my mistakes. The sense of accomplishment that comes from that level of challenge is great and rare in gaming today.

The other side- the battles in FFXIII. I know, linear, story blah blah. Strictly from a combat perspective. The level of tuning you can do to *every* encounter is significantly higher when you know the player is going to walk into combat with maximum resources. Obviously being a TBRPG this is a very different approach, mechanics wise, then you could reasonably take with something like a FPS or even a dungeon crawler. Compared to Demon's Souls, FFXIII is considered an absolute joke in terms of difficulty. That said, Long Gui is *far* more difficult then anything in Demon's Souls(forget Vercingetorix). Obviously overall Demon's Souls is a far more challenging experience, but due to the health regen used in XIII any given encounter can be tuned to a much higher degree of difficulty.

What the two different perspectives come down to, and I appreciate both, is balance. If the game is designed with regen so they can make it more punishing per encounter, I think it *can* be an asset depending on the flow of the game. If it simply tacked on to make things easier, which seems to be the norm, then it is a detriment to gamers.

That is my take on it anyway.

 

[Veliko]

In order to be interesting, you need to approach each battle as if it was a special tactical encounter. Dont be afraid to get killed once. Reload, think about what spells and equipment you need, prepare, and execute a masterful plan. Its extremely enjoyable, and there are literally hundreds of those encounters in the game.
For real fans its a treat. For casual players its just tedious.

This is a joke, right?

What is a 'real' fan? Even the most ardent BG2 fans say that the combat is poor.

 

[shortylickens]

This is a joke, right?

What is a 'real' fan? Even the most ardent BG2 fans say that the combat is poor.

I see. And how many people did you poll when you came to that conclusion?

 

[Chiropteran]

The level of tuning you can do to *every* encounter is significantly higher when you know the player is going to walk into combat with maximum resources.

And this is a bad thing, not a good thing.

I miss the days when part of the game was conserving resources and completing fights efficiently. Now, you either win or lose, nothing in between.

Limited regen/resting was a great mechanic, because it was a way to tell the player he was in too hard of an area without outright killing him. You can't get through two encounters before you need to go back and rest? You probably need to go to another area.

 

[thespyder]

This is a joke, right?

What is a 'real' fan? Even the most ardent BG2 fans say that the combat is poor.

I have to strongly disagree with this. The combat was very tactical and (IMHO) thoroughly enjoyable. Taking the time to figure out what tactics worked against what monsters was a huge part of the fun of the game. it had levels of depth that very few games have had either before or since.