To go on a little tangent that's at least partly relevant to the latest discussion (and that will probably also start a huge forum battle that I won't be taking part in, since I've been there before), there are three old ideas still kicking around the CRPG world that need to be repeatedly killed with fire:
1)
Enemy level scaling: thank God Larian hates level scaling as much as I do. It robs the player of the option to ever explore a tougher area and try to take on a bigger challenge - or on the flip side, to feel the satisfaction of actually getting stronger vs. enemies that could previously kick the player's tail - and essentially makes every... single... battle... the... same.
2)
Hard level caps: especially when you hit the level cap significantly before the end of the game, again, this kills player development - which is much of the fun of a good RPG. It's a clumsy and lazy attempt to force "balance" on the endgame, which should properly be done by ensuring battles consistently require strategic thinking, while not stifling the player from exploring new equipment, skills and abilities.
3)
Abuse of random factors (RNGs, etc.): all this does is encourage tedious save-scumming. As Arjiki explained, I want combat challenge to be based on the relative strength and strategic skill of the enemies and player characters - not from some lame RNG throwing off the entire fight. That's just cheesy, sloppy programming, IMHO.
OK, getting back off the soapbox now.
There's some interesting discussion in this thread, anyway.
