Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

Modern RPG? You would be right.
Old school? You would be so wrong.
You don't want to know how much of a beating I got playing the Baldur's Gates when I was small, not understanding a thing of the AD&D rules. I got punished... a lot. On easy!
Even now, when I do understand, and undoubtfully become 100x better because of it, play on normal, a lot of fights can be challenging for me. And then there are people who actually play BG2 "iron mode" and don't die at all for the entire game and expansion... and I'm like... HOW? I definitely could not do that.
In modern games, I definitely could do that though...

I've probably been playing RPGs longer than most folks here have been alive. Its not like I don't know what an old school RPG is. BG is relatively modern by my standards. If you were getting punished in BG early on it was probably mostly because you were small and not a very good player at the time. I've died my fair share in BG and all the infinity engine games, but never so much starting out. The only fight I remember being very hard were the mindflayers.

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Fortunately, it seems good old-style no-nonse who do not question your intelligence RPG's are on a rise. Where gaming is meant you need to rise to your challenge, rather than your challenge is so easy (or worse, a quick-time event... ugh) even without using any tools given or understanding the system normal is a cakewalk simply cause they cannot 'afford' to harm people who will be mentally scarred going to easy.


Hey I like hard games tactically, but there is a big difference between hard and completely blindsiding people. Some hard core stuff is just silly and only add tedium. Like forcing you to take notes rather than having a virtual journal.

[quote]The backing of Torment, Project Eternity and it's rank in Steam Sales do say otherwise. Also remember what a massive hit Dark Souls turned out to be?
No, it seems there's a gigantic market for this still.


There is a huge difference between a market and a gigantic market. I'm backing Torment as well. I love the old turn based games. However I realize that I'm not representative of the general population. Its common error on enthusiast forums of all stripes to assume that everyone is like them.

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Of course, nobody can convince a player who expects to breeze through on the first play that the fault isnt in the game.

Yay modern games and there difficulties being downgraded to not harm any potential souls (read: sales), eh?


The main issue is that the "hardness" of the game shouldn't be fighting the UI or fighting against something that you have no realistic way to know. Take a room full over traps. Making them impossible to detect and having you find your way across the room by reloading after each one you find is the wrong way to do it. The right way is have your party have a chance to detect them on perception and maybe there is a skeleton nearby with a jounral mentioning traps his party fell to. Maybe even enviromental stuff like a bone here or there or a tripline that a play with a good eye might catch. One is requiring thought and skill to get through. There other is just "you'll learn eventually" Yah I know that some old school games did pull the complete blindside on you. It was bad design then too.