Paradox of awards for difficult, optional, combat encounters

[agris]

Vault Dweller

For those of us who enjoy difficult combat, there's a perverse reward system in most - if not all - such games that offer it. The rewards for difficult optional content usually make the game easier. Whether by rewarding the player with optional gear, heaps of experience or money, or all of the above. These rewards are perverse, in a way, for those of us who enjoy a good challenge. I've periodically thought that a good solution to this would be to reward the player's desire for challenge with new, tougher combat encounters that further stretch the player's skill and their character's build.

Sure, keep the skinner box loot rewards when it makes sense, but what about if the real reward was unlocking a new encounter that was even harder than the previous one - taking into account that the player's power plane is now increased by an amount commensurate with whatever the rewards from beating the previous encounter were.

I tend to go back to BG2 with SCS for my inspiration for hard combat, and perhaps that's where this idea took root. The progression from the optional fight in the temple district to the twisted rune, or making it to the bottom of Watcher's Keep to fight Demogorgon, even if it story-wise that isn't the best thing to do. Those are some concrete examples of the implementation of my suggestion, but also of the problem as I framed it. After the twisted rune encounter we're left with the staff of the magi, for example, which helps trivialize some genuinely hard fights. To me, that's a perverse reward for players who clearly love challenging encounters - the easing of future encounters.

Obviously there's a lot of nuance to this, I don't think players should be waylaid by liches as they traipse around Amn, and it's easy enough to just say "well the staff of the magi was a mistake", but the specifics of that set of combat encounters don't matter as much as what they represent: a trend in games with rewarding the player who enjoys tough encounters with new means to trivialize future content that was intended as a challenge. Some encounters should be trivialized of course - again, I'm not advocating for something extreme - but the rewards impact on gameplay feels so counter to what the player was originally seeking - a challenge.

I only have a sense of a few developers' personalities and tastes, but I feel as if your postures towards challenge and hand-holding are pretty similar to mine, so I wonder: what do you make of this? Is Colony Ship going to address this paradox in any way, can we expect a set of optional encounters that increase in difficulty without trivializing core content once completed? If I could wave a magic wand and proscribe the method of increased difficulty, it would be the SCS way: AI, stats, abilities, and Messing With The Player(TM) - such as temporarily stealing items from them that could trivialize an encounter. The way I would always avoid is 'dumb' stat bloat like 4x HP, 3x DMG, etc.

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, and actually I have a feeling we may have discussed it a bit in the past but I couldn't find a record of it, so apologies if this is a retread.

edit: typos

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I don’t think it is perverse, agris. It is a natural limitation. If the character is strong enough to beat the stronger optional enemies, he should be able to deal with vanila enemies of the main quest. To suggest otherwise is to want the cake and eat it.

This type of perennial challenge you want is only possible with multiplayer. You could make a team from scratch to fight with another player, and so on.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller

For those of us who enjoy difficult combat, there's a perverse reward system in most - if not all - such games that offer it. The rewards for difficult optional content usually make the game easier. Whether by rewarding the player with optional gear, heaps of experience or money, or all of the above. These rewards are perverse, in a way, for those of us who enjoy a good challenge. I've periodically thought that a good solution to this would be to reward the player's desire for challenge with new, tougher combat encounters that further stretch the player's skill and their character's build.

Challenging fights must offer rewards worthy of the challenge, we hold this truth to be self-evident. I'm not sure these rewards make the game that much easier but it's a question of balance. Either way there is no magical or uber loot in CS, so unique weapons won't make you too powerful. Let's say you acquire an iconic M16 rifle that freed the United States from the British Protectorate in the 19th century and has been the bane of them reds ever since:

It has the following stats: damage 6-9 single, 6-9x3 burst, range 12, mag 15, THC bonus (compared to junk) 10%, penetration 15%. The unique (a custom M16 made for a customer willing to pay extra) has a slightly different model and icon:

^ blued steel, improved sights, and allegedly better craftsmanship. Naturally, it has the same damage, but better craftsmanship makes the rifle slightly more accurate and gives it higher muzzle velocity, so the THC bonus is 12% and penetration is 20%.

Other rewards come in form of consequences, the gameworld reacting to what you did.

Overall though, the biggest problem isn't a reward for challenge but how the game is balanced. If you balance a game for hybrid fighter/something characters, then the game will be easy for pure fighters. If you balance it for specialists, then hybrids will have a very hard time and since 9/10 players make their first character a hybrid... Not surprisingly, that's the biggest complaint about AoD that accounts for 90% of the negative reviews.

PS.

The way I would always avoid is 'dumb' stat bloat like 4x HP, 3x DMG, etc.

We don't use HP or DMG bloat at all.

 

[Alpan]

There is no paradox. The lengthy original post could be distilled down to:

can we expect a set of optional encounters that increase in difficulty without trivializing core content once completed?

Also,

For those of us who enjoy difficult combat, there's a perverse reward system in most - if not all - such games that offer it. The rewards for difficult optional content usually make the game easier. Whether by rewarding the player with optional gear, heaps of experience or money, or all of the above. These rewards are perverse, in a way, for those of us who enjoy a good challenge.

Isn't the real issue here the fact that challenging encounters are encased in an RPG framework (as opposed to a pure tactics or turn-based strategy game)? You can opt out of money and gear (easy enough to just hoard items) but you can't escape the experience gain and level ups. Make the encounters award no experience and you've got the best of both worlds, I think.