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[buckets]

Or better, flying pants.

Oh man, on one of my playthroughs I made some invisible pants, those things were godly.

[Soadreqm]

Also, something's wrong with an RPG's balancing if you never have to run scared from something (or at least never end up barely defeating something).

Really? I can't really remember running scared very often in RPG's, unless there was like some kind of Set Piece "run away" scenario going on. In Baldur's Gate, I ended up trying to fight the encounter to the death, several times, eventually quitting in frustration and loading a quicksave and going the other way without ever encountering the encounter. And it really felt that I was playing the game WRONG if I couldn't kill an enemy. Same in Fallout. And PS:T. And Morrowind.

I remember a presentation by Sid Meier, possibly linked in this very thread, where he explains that most gamers are self-important jackasses who like to think they're better than average and start hating the game if they're doing badly. If they're to run away scared, the setup shouldn't be "here's some monsters, let's see you deal with them". If you do that, running away will be a losing condition, and the average player will resent the game for making him lose. Something closer to "are you a bad enough dude to escape these dragons" would work, though.

[PTTG??]

I still maintain that seeing three bosses, any one of which should (ideally) be a serious challenge, all working together, is a fine hint that you should run away.

[Sordid]

Also, something's wrong with an RPG's balancing if you never have to run scared from something (or at least never end up barely defeating something).

Really? I can't really remember running scared very often in RPG's, unless there was like some kind of Set Piece "run away" scenario going on. In Baldur's Gate, I ended up trying to fight the encounter to the death, several times, eventually quitting in frustration and loading a quicksave and going the other way without ever encountering the encounter. And it really felt that I was playing the game WRONG if I couldn't kill an enemy. Same in Fallout. And PS:T. And Morrowind.

I remember a presentation by Sid Meier, possibly linked in this very thread, where he explains that most gamers are self-important jackasses who like to think they're better than average and start hating the game if they're doing badly. If they're to run away scared, the setup shouldn't be "here's some monsters, let's see you deal with them". If you do that, running away will be a losing condition, and the average player will resent the game for making him lose. Something closer to "are you a bad enough dude to escape these dragons" would work, though.

That's actually a very good point. I only ever run away from ordinary enemies in RPGs for two reasons: One, to retreat behind a conveniently placed corner, box, or tree to heal up. Or two, because they're too weak and I don't want to waste time fighting them, so I just run past them. I wouldn't say gamers are jackasses, it's just a mindset we've been trained into by dozens and dozens of games with linear difficulty progression.

I think the key to the problem is the health bar. By giving the enemy a health bar that the player can reduce you're effectively telling the player that he can beat the enemy if he just tries hard enough. Which, being players, we try to do until we get frustrated enough by having to reload every ten seconds. Consider now Exhibit A, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Believe it or not, I actually loved that game, in no small part due to the chase scenes with the immortal instakill asshole that you spend the whole game running away from. Precisely because said asshole instakills you and you can't even land a hit on him, you won't waste more than one quickload trying to fight him. That is if you disregard the very blatant message of "you can't win this" that the game whacks you over the head with a couple of times before you even meet him for the first time. And you know what the result of all this was? No frustration due to being unable to win, and an utterly satisfying final boss fight. Boy did it feel good to finally kick that guy's ass after having to scurry away from him the whole game.

The opposite of that would of course be one of the dickiest moves of computer game design, an enemy whose health bar you can reduce almost to zero but who suddenly becomes invincible when he has 1 HP left. Bad game designer, no twinkie!

So yeah, I think encounteres with undefeatable dragons could work in Skyrim. Possibly early on, before the player acquires the necessary powers to fight them. But only if it's made clear that the player isn't supposed to fight them and if they are actually physically impossible to be fought. Granted, that would require some scripting and the encounters wouldn't be entirely random/natural. But they would maybe entertain players instead of just pissing them off, so I think that'd be a price worth paying.

[LoSboccacc]

point is, if you go for a game world with non linear story, linear difficulty feels awkward.

baldurs gate and fallout, while they had multiple paths and lots of possibilities, regions had a sort of linear progression. you couldn't get to another region until you were strong enough - or resourceful enough to beat higher level opponents.

But you had a precise sense of the increasing difficulty and of the game progression. There were few very demarcated path, even in fallout, you don't get to wander around until you discover the places locations, and by then you're strong enough to reach them.

oblivion and morrowind, differently, had roads, so you can effectively explore the landscape way before you're ready.

but, as I said, linear scaling to non linear game feel awkward and gamey. grand theft auto did this via roadblocks and areas, not very good fit for the elder scroll series but just an idea of a third way between open and linear.

[Psyco Jelly]

If you feel bad about running away from fights, never play Demon's Souls. Then again, no on will blame you if you do. I have had huge games of cat and mouse across entire levels where me and a black phantom (or sometimes I'm the black phantom) chase each other, waiting in ambush spots and using terrain and enemies against each other. The longest such encounter lasted an hour. Not running from fights you are not prepared for is a good way to get yourself killed.

[Shadowlord]

In Morrowind in New Vegas, though, you could wander into dangerous areas pretty easily, especially when you weren't capable of surviving a battle with anything there.

With New Vegas, you could just walk north from the starting town and meet a deathclaw, and Boom! Dead! Your weapons have no effect, and the thing does an alien pounce attack and instakills you. You know you went the wrong way, the townspeople told you not to go that way because of the deathclaws, and you realize that this game is different right away.

With Morrowind, you can go places with just animals, not even monsters, that are fast enough and strong enough to catch you and kill you early on, and it's down to you not being tough enough, fast enough, and strong enough to outrun them, survive their attacks, or outfight them yet. The only way to beat them is to get them stuck on an obstacle and plink them to death (and that doesn't even work in New Vegas because of the damage resistance - your puny weapons in the beginning won't even scratch a deathclaw).

Another example is Gothic II. That one didn't have level scaling at all. If you went somewhere, you would always know what to expect if you'd been there before. It was terribly easy to run into something that you couldn't handle, and it wasn't a matter of "This game sucks, I can't kill everything easily, damnit," it's more "I have to kill weaker stuff to get stronger, get experience, and get money and get better equipment, before I can handle the tougher stuff." Although, this was one which had grinding, because, if you just played through for the quests... At no point was I ever able to successfully fight an orc and win, which caused me to restart the game once to play it again and try to get more XP that time, and then to quit it the second time when I still couldn't beat orcs when I got to the point in the main quest where I was sent to an orc-filled area, and there was no way to survive it (or to run through).

I ended up figuring that in order to survive it I probably would have had to kill every enemy in the entire available area twice (which is possible, you just have to know they're all going to respawn when you turn in one particular quest, and then kill them all again before going to the place with the orcs... That didn't seem like a fun plan, so I didn't restart again).

[LoSboccacc]

..and then there is dwarf fortress, where you get killed... arbitrarily
 

[Sordid]

Heh, I was actually going to mention Gothic and its orcs as an example of a game that handles this problem very badly. Had the paragraph all typed up and everything. Ended up deleting it because my post was long enough already.

[Yoink]

I know I run away a lot...
In Fallout 3, if I was just wandering along minding my own business and spotted a freakin' behemoth coming at me over the next ridge... Well, I didn't stick around!
...Unless I had my Fat man.

[Africa]

I would consider the assumption that you can always kill any enemy the result of a design flaw, that being that you often CAN kill any enemy by reloading enough times until you achieve the proper mix of luck, and employing the right combination of items/heal potions in your inventory. I kind of dislike heal potions because oftentimes you can just carry so many of them that all fights just become a matter of chipping away at the enemy, no matter how strong they are. Even if they can annihilate you in a few hits, you can just keep chipping away and guzzling the red juice until they're dead. I think a good design would somehow discourage that type of thing.

I'm not sure how exactly - maybe limiting heal magic and the number of heal potions you can carry? Or changing their function - I had an idea that potions should function on a continuing, subtle basis, like medicine does, instead of being digested and maxing out your hit points in a split second. So, you chug a health potion or two before a fight, and they soon kick in and start gradually restoring your health, but it's more like having that Constant Effect: Restore Health 1 thing in Morrowind where a hard-hitting enemy will still wipe you out regardless, unless you carefully pace the battle with timed withdrawals and retreats to let your health come back. Then there's the system they showed off in Diablo 3, which I have no idea how it'll work, but it might have some effect.

I was thinking about this the other day when playing Quest for Glory 2 as a thief, and quickly coming to the realization that my character was just too pathetic to ever really enter combat. Townspeople told me bandits were a pushover, but even one would completely dominate me - it took me maybe 30 hits to kill one, while they only needed to hit me about 8 times AND they had a very difficult to dodge knife-throwing attack which they always seemed to spam right when my health was low. And I couldn't block and for all practical purposes couldn't parry. Due to sheer stubbornness, I spent probably close to an hour reloading until I finally managed to take one down, using multiple health potions of course. But it felt cheap and I realized the thief just wasn't meant to win fights, or get in fights. I think a lot of games could benefit from having that situation with too-high-level enemies. Whereas even in Morrowind, if I had enough potions along, a level 3 or 5 character could often kill a Dremora assuming he didn't have any extra-nasty effects on, like Reflect.

I'd be especially interested in people's thoughts on the issue of health potion reform.

[Vibhor]

I know I run away a lot...
In Fallout 3, if I was just wandering along minding my own business and spotted a freakin' behemoth coming at me over the next ridge... Well, I didn't stick around!
...Unless I had my Fat man.

I pelted it with my pea shooter pistol.
Damn that game was easy.
Also, why the hell are you peeps talking about difficulty curve?
No open world game has done difficulty curve right. Fallout sucks for newbies, Morrowind is idiotic when it comes to higher levels, Daggerfall is just insane and don't even get me started on Oblivion.

[Sensei]

In Morrowind in New Vegas, though...

Oh my god, I definitely want to play Morrowind in New Vegas.

[buckets]

In Morrowind in New Vegas, though...

Oh my god, I definitely want to play Morrowind in New Vegas.

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for an ash storm...

[Draignean]

In Morrowind in New Vegas, though...

Oh my god, I definitely want to play Morrowind in New Vegas.

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for an ash storm...

House Dagoth, Where the Jackpots are higher than the red mountain.