Which is more satisfying to you: a combat that you dominate, or a combat which you barely survive?

[King Crispy]

Of the two, which do you find more satisfying:

- Combat in RPG's that you are clearly well-prepared for, that you execute nearly flawlessly and which there is not much chance of failure, leaving you with the feeling of superiority,

or

- Combat that tests you and your party, pushes you to the brink, possibly with several members of your party going down, requiring extraordinary measures to overcome and likely aided by luck?

---

Personally I derive more satisfaction out of the former, but I recognize that too much of a good thing loses its luster if never tested by situations like the latter. Even if I think I've prepared myself as well as possible and give my party every chance in the world to succeed in every fight, never facing uncertainty and always being assured of success gets boring very quickly.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I much prefer the hardfought victory rather than a god-like cakewalk.

 

[Gregz]

This should be an anonymous poll. I'm curious as well.

Edit: this thread is nothing but bluffing and e-peen exaggeration if it isn't anonymous. All data within is unscientific, and should be disregarded.

 

[Sacred82]

- Combat that tests you and your party, pushes you to the brink, possibly with several members of your party going down, requiring extraordinary measures to overcome and likely aided by luck?

This, though I tend to discount the luck thing as it can just well work against you.

If a combat is piss easy I often chalk it up to gaming the system too much and I'm not happy about it.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Why not both?

 

[vmar]

Good mix of both is preferable. Every trash fight doesn't need to be a nail biting near death experience but if there's too many easy encounters that you just steamroll the game gets boring.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

What about a combat that's about in the middle ground of this?

 

[Ellef]

Both of course. A multitude of lesser foes with the aim of wearing of slowly wearing your resources, then a tough battle against the BBEG with you limping back to town carrying your wounded with perhaps a resurrection scroll on the menu.

 

[mondblut]

Superiority all the way. If a combat is challenging, I am doing it wrong and probably need to create a superior party.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Depends on the context. If I'm slaughtering enemies left and right without challenge then it rapidly becomes boring. However, comprehensively defeating a high level opponent is very satisfying. Likewise, barely scraping past some cut-and-paste trash mobs is not fun, but just surviving a climactic set-piece battle that I'd spent time preparing myself for is what makes playing RPGs fun. Games that space out the really tough challenges a bit (or else it becomes exhausting) and don't overload the rest with low level gimps around every corner are the games I like to play. I can't remember the last time I played a game like that - maybe I'm imagining their existence.

Given the choice of either/or I'll take a tough battle against a difficult opponent rather than a cakewalk any day. Of course, if I then have a near identical encounter a few minutes later and sail through it then I'll wonder what I did wrong last time and it will spoil both encounters retrospectively. That's why designing a game that provides a consistent challenge and level of interest is (presumably) difficult. Or perhaps I just don't like games very much.

 

[an Administrator]

Sometimes "barely surviving the encounters" has nothing to do with combat difficulty and plainly means that you're doing it wrong.

Having trouble with every single trash mob encounter doesn't feel good for me. I think one should feel dominant when fighting trash mobs and have to struggle when fighting the big bosses.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Having trouble with every single trash mob encounter doesn't feel good for me. I think one should feel dominant when fighting trash mobs and have to struggle when fighting the big bosses.

Trash mobs are the scourge of RPGs. Placeholders for when the designers have run out of ideas. See DA2 for the textbook example. In a properly designed game every encounter should provide some level of challenge and the encounters should be spaced sufficiently to stop them becoming exhausting. Challenging doesn't automatically mean 'near impossible' - just something that keeps you on your toes and doesn't allow you to nod off.

 

[moraes]

The question seems to presuppose that the way a player experiences combat does not change as he plays the game.

Once this false presupposition is discarded we can see that one is able to enjoy both sides of the question in the course of one game, and that this experience (of enjoyment of both sides in a single game) is called a power progression curve. Of course, one can ask what type of power progression a player woul prefer. Some players may prefer a more flat one, where they are constantly struggling against worse odds and harder enemies, while others would like to feel their character growing in power by eliminating once dangerous enemies with ease.

 

[laclongquan]

Combat should be something that you use brains power to prepare well before it happened, as well as during it happens. Cakewalk fights, by definition, dont fit that, so no.

Example? Take a less known game UFO Afterlight.

You can prepare before battles with production of firearms, training of your toons, and composition of your squad so you you can have a well equipped, well trained, full squad. You can fight in battles with proper tactics, like contrl doorway, narrow passage, sniping from heights, trapping on the ground. You can even save and reload.

There are no cakewalk battle unless you expressly choose lowest difficulty in both Strategy ption and combat portion. And even then the quirky AI still can fuck you up, despite save and reload.

 

[Sykar]

A mixture of both and some inbetween.

 

[DraQ]

The latter when I manage to execute it like the former.

Otherwise the latter, duh.
Minus the luck part - the luck should take part in how the combat plays out, but mostly cancel itself out in the outcome.

 

[Jazz_]

When you barely scrap it like in Underrail. Well, at least with my shitty crossbow build.

 

[Konjad]

When fucking Emma would you rather have her dominated, sobbing and squeaking, leaving you with the feeling of superiority,

or

scratching you with her fingernails, screaming at you in joy and forcing you down so she could ride the bull, requiring extraordinary measures to overcome and likely aided by luck??

(((Crispy)))

 

[DraQ]

Having trouble with every single trash mob encounter doesn't feel good for me. I think one should feel dominant when fighting trash mobs and have to struggle when fighting the big bosses.

Trash mobs are the scourge of RPGs. Placeholders for when the designers have run out of ideas. See DA2 for the textbook example. In a properly designed game every encounter should provide some level of challenge and the encounters should be spaced sufficiently to stop them becoming exhausting. Challenging doesn't automatically mean 'near impossible' - just something that keeps you on your toes and doesn't allow you to nod off.

Trash mobs are only excusable when they make sense in the context.
Even then they hint at bad systems design - in a well designed system there shouldn't be a moment where a group of enemies just stops posing a threat (and if there is, then said enemies should run for their lives the moment they see you).

 

[Naraya]

Where I barely survive - hands down. Even if it's frustrating.
Example: Adra Dragon (no cheese).

 

[Tick Tock Crocodile]

For me, it's mostly the latter. I particularly like a kind of difficulty that forces you to learn the systems and basically says 'no' to your trying to brute-force it by grinding. Out of the games I played over the past year and really liked, I think AoD sticks out for that kind of thing. When I played it I was forced to consider weapons, positioning, item use etc. if I wanted to succeed, whereas in plenty of other games I would keep falling into the habit of hoarding every combat item I came across and using the same (winning) strategy in every fight. Even when I worked out a good approach, fights didn't magically crumble into cakewalks, and I liked that.

A bit of the former scenario is great to have later down the line--because it's great to finally feel powerful, it's great to be able to appreciate your character's growth--but to me, games get boring much quicker if you can completely make the system your bitch. In NEO Scavenger,

Spoiler

once you realise the slingshot turns the whole game into a David and Goliath scenario, combat is never quite as tense. . .

 

[Somberlain]

Dominating enemies through clever character building, equipment choices and ability usage is satisfying. Dominating enemies because game is piss-easy isn't.

 

[worldsmith]

Combat in RPG's that you are clearly well-prepared for

There is some ambiguity in the phrase "well-prepared". To some that may just mean "get gear repaired, load up on health/mana potions (and other commonly used consumables), be fully rested/healed, be high-enough level". That is boring - it's the same every time. To others it may mean "investigate, what's there? mages? find out what kind of magic they're packing, find out what kind of critters they use as 'guard dogs', travel to an island city where the more hard-to-acquire necessary counters can be had, and get some nets and do some net training as nets are the most effective way to disable their critters". (Or it might mean acquiring an interior map from someone who infiltrated there once before, or hiring someone to monitor the comings and goings so you can attack when the heavy hitters are away, or many other things.) That's better - that's a fight where even if it goes very much your way you can see how it could have gone bad if you hadn't prepared specifically for this mission. That said, if doing the same type of prep-work but going against someone a bit tougher provides a better risk/reward, then that would be even more satisfying. Ideally there should be a variety of difficulties, a variety of potential rewards, and the player should be searching that landscape for good opportunities and also trading off time and other resources vs risk in terms of how much to prepare for a given mission (and ordering missions to keep busy while still allowing for missions which will require a longer time to be prepared).

that you execute nearly flawlessly and which there is not much chance of failure

pushes you to the brink

I think you're excluding a lot of middle here (as Nekot-The-Brave pointed out). I think it's better if even in cases where you're well-prepared (or at least you think you are), there's at least a solid 20% chance of something going pretty wrong - something you didn't manage to find out about in advance, or something you thought was going to work that completely fizzled and now you're kind of up shit creek. It's those cases where things do go unexpectedly wrong that will still have you sweating a bit even when things all appear to be going right... so far.

Superiority all the way. If a combat is challenging, I am doing it wrong and probably need to create a superior party.

If you're achieving superiority all the way, game devs are doing it wrong and probably "need"* to create a superior RPG. (And/or you're playing on easy and/or save-scumming.)

(*: Of course, they don't "need" to do any such thing - just crank out dumbed-down shiny stuff for $ which is probably the root cause of your reaction.)

In a properly designed game every encounter should provide some level of challenge

Oppression!

So what exactly is the form of your oppression? You don't want to let me take candy from babies, or when I take candy from babies you don't want it to be like taking candy from babies? (Babies shouldn't be eating candy anyways, so I'm doing them a favor!)

Anyways, I would agree with you for encounters the player is forced into (whether a random encounter or a part of the game's fixed plot), but my view is a bit wider in that I don't think a player should have to go through encounters (or a lot of other things when they are boring) just because the PC does, and I think the game should allow the player to essentially set their own goals and choose their own challenges (so it's then up to the player to decide what kind of challenge they are up to - with better rewards generally being associated with harder challenges, though there can also be "stupid" hard challenges with little/no reward that a wise player would likely figure out to ignore but a fool might rush into).

and if there is, then said enemies should run for their lives the moment they see you

I agree with you in spirit, but I don't think they should run until they realize (or fear) they are outclassed (or evenly classed - people don't actually like fair fights where they are likely to take some losses). Since I prefer that one can't instantly tell another character's level, sword skill, strength (unarmored barbarians excepted), dexterity, etc. just by looking at them, they may not realize they are outclassed until a bit later than "the moment they see you" (with the one exception being if they specifically recognize one or more of the PCs so they in fact know exactly who they are dealing with just by sight).

 

[Neanderthal]

Would have said a mix years ago but now every RPG has you playin a fuckin superhero who can kill thousands, makes enemy no real threat, makes dungeons trivial affairs you can clear, an makes other options than combat suboptimal cos you're missing out on loot an XP. No attrition, no strategy, no real consequences to scrappin at all really.

I liked early levels o AD&D where one arrow, blow or spell could fuck you.

 

[laclongquan]

When fucking Emma would you rather have her dominated, sobbing and squeaking, leaving you with the feeling of superiority,

or

scratching you with her fingernails, screaming at you in joy and forcing you down so she could ride the bull, requiring extraordinary measures to overcome and likely aided by luck??

(((Crispy)))

Likely both. I mean, it's fucking Emma, mang~

 

[Dux]

If I were to endure a particularly hard fight and then giving up the ghost at the end, I would be pissed. Especially if it were to happen over and over again without any real remedy. That's just the way it is. At that point, I'd rather be stomping motherfuckers like a godling. However, a fight where I have to use my entire arsenal and possibly survive with the skin of my teeth would leave me feeling much more fullfilled than any roflstomping could. It's all about context. I fucking hate HP bloat. Fighting something which requires you to think tactically and methodically always leaves a good impression on me, if I know the playing field is somewhat level. I've endured too many bullshit fights where I constantly die because the game is retarded/unfair, rather than being legitimately challenging. If a game throws a fair challenge my way, though, and I do get incinerated during the encounter, that's fair enough. I'd back off and re-evaluate my options and then come back stronger. Even if I were to get pissed at getting beat up, it would still be a good kind of anger. That's how it's supposed to be. Too many games out there are made to be these sadistic horseshit affairs with no real purpose to them.

One example (surprisingly from a good game) is Fallout. There are some prolonged fights in that game where at any moment the RNG gods can promptly fuck you in the ass and take away enough health to kill you thrice over. I remember going the distance with a few foes, using every advantage I could think of, and then just dying randomly because the game suddenly saw fit to take away 200+HP from my 70HP guy.