I think this game operates very much within the Baldur's Gate milieu, meaning it presupposes Meta knowledge on the player's part. The first time out on any fight is the surprise, second time you tease out a plan, third time you mop the floor, fourth time you try something else just for kicks etc.
BG is effectively Groundhog's Day, but with a D&D spin.
The game needs to remain challenging or at least engaing even when one already knows what's coming, or what's what and what's where. All the encounters are scipted out and the drops are set, cause that's Baldur's Gate 1 mode. You could design everything to be random but that's more like Diablo 1 mode right? Just a very different approach there.
I've played BG1 a thousand times, and enjoying a replay isn't really dependant on the surprise factor for its staying power there. It's something else that makes that worthwhile.
That said, I'm not totally taken with Tactician mode currently, even though it's now my default. I also find most self-imposed ways to increase difficulty are simply adding more time sinks into the equation rather than making a given scenario more challenging. It encourages the player to be even more Meta about everything and then to take it all 4 times as slow. I like the approach that has the Developer providing the playscales and awarding points or achievements based on what they think will provide repeat entertainment and to have some clear defaults for difficulty tiers, but I think they should cater to different playstyles rather than a one size fits all.
For example, I enjoy Tactical Combat, but dislike story gating via Conversation rolls. So my version of "Explorer" would only buff that stuff for the player. Again on a first out, it might be entertaining to lean into dice chaos for convos, but on a replay I often already know what's what there, so what I really want is to explore the thing I didn't see last time. Explorer mode allowing us to back up a conversation and choose a different branch would reduce uncessary save/reloads. Then the game could autosave anytime a character joins initiative and a battle is launched. Explorer mode done that way might not affect enemy buffs/nerfs at all but just grant something like Tides of Chaos for convo rolls, and then Enemy challenge scripting could be its own separate aspect of the 'difficulty' scale.
Again I will go with my default rule of thumb that 6 is better. If they want to have a 4th difficulty tier, I'd suggest that having 6 would be better than 4 - just to remain internally consistent with myself lol
Last edited by Black_Elk; 12/11/23 08:36 PM.
