I'm all for increasing the challenge of the game, because it is far too easy. But I want a challenge without having to eliminate whole mechanics like gear and talents. We have different visions of challenge, but we're both interested in making the game harder. I just think your ideas would mostly kill diversity and make the game harder mostly by limiting your options and making the game more tedious.
The question of what makes an RPG actually challenging and not just tedious or basically impossible if you design your party poorly is a hard one. A lot of it has to do with designing fights and AI so that you have to come up with unique strategies for each combat. In a way, limiting yourself (and not using cheesy tactics ofc) will make fights more challenging because you might have to come up with certain strategies that you didn't have to before when you were so strong you could just hack and slash without a thought, but self-limitation can only go so far before fights just start taking forever and fights start to blend together because you don't have the variety to spice things up.
My point in my last paragraph in my previous post: is the game actually going to be more challenging if you don't save after a fight that doesn't have a questlog update after it (which many, many fights do not), or is it just going to be more tedious and annoying when you die and have to do a fight all over again? I mean, if you consider that a challenge, go right ahead, but I'm just saying you might find that obnoxious in practice.
I actually agree with a lot of your self limitations. Shields, savescumming, economy inflation from stealing, attribute inflation, many of the talents, etc. are all serious issues which in the current game state one simply has to avoid or seriously limit to get any sort of challenge. But I just think you go a little far in some regards, and of course it would be much preferred if they would just be appropriately balanced.
Last edited by Baardvark; 05/11/14 05:14 AM.
