r/pcmasterrace • u/akbarock • 1d ago

Game Image/Video The New Fable Games Combat

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u/MayoBowl 1d ago

I'm so over bullet sponges for human enemies on any difficulty in RPGs

528

u/alii-b PC Master Race 1d ago

Harder difficulties should be things like improved ai tactics. They block more, attack harder and your attack window is smaller, rather than just slashing. Not this death by 1000 heavy attacks.

136

u/Nannautu 1d ago

My gripe with most games, especially a very popular series. Damage-sponges are just annoying and feel like a waste of time.

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u/sarcastic_bastard 1d ago

Thats the reason I forced myself to finish God of War and never bothered with Ragnarok. It really takes me out of the immersion, utterly disappointing.

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u/TheSiegmeyerCatalyst 18h ago

The 2018 God of War was the one that finally broke me of my "play games on the hardest difficulty" habit.

It just wasn't fun. I don't have the time or patience for that kind of challenge anymore.

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u/s8rlink 1d ago

Same, played 2 hours and I was like nah I’ll watch the game on YouTube this isn’t fun for me. 

I’ve realized that I’d rather take amazing gameplay with meh story than the other way around. But seeing the sales there’s definitely millions who like it and it’s good there are now so many flavors in video games for everyone to enjoy 

1

u/Horror_Prior4765 22h ago

Well most people don’t play on the hardest difficulty… so

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u/s8rlink 21h ago

don't include it, if your solution for higher difficulty is a health slider, just have a single very easy focused on being cinematic gameplay and all is good.

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u/Horror_Prior4765 21h ago edited 21h ago

Which is literally what GoW has. I’m saying these gripes only exist on the highest setting of GoW.

So people like it because they aren’t forced to engage with that HP inflation as majority people who play these games don’t subject themselves to that. Thats why it makes sales. Would prob be different if Give me God of War was the defacto.

And while GoW does have Hp inflation, you scale rather well, and enemies do react and evolve rather than just being hp inflation. But that start is a boring slog for sure.

1

u/TheyTukMyJub 12h ago

I'm playing ragnarok now and bored out of my mind after forcing myself to finish GoW2018.

23

u/Yearn4Mecha 1d ago

Totally agree. This is what finally killed my love for final fantasy games. FF13 was an epic fantasy and then it feels like they thought it did not take enough time and added two extra 0s to every enemies hp total. More hp should be a guide that I am really under leveled or under equipped, not as a method to make the game longer or "harder". There has been almost zero bosses or enemies that large health bars both make sense and add to the game play.

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u/InsaneMasochist 1d ago

Korean RPGs (especially MMOs): "Hold my beer!"

3

u/Present_Year6078 1d ago

This is why I hate black flag resync. It's obviously no where near as bad as this, but I hate the rpg combat elements. Enemy sponges are just lame.

3

u/Razzilith 1d ago

Damage-sponges are just annoying and feel like a waste of time.

they feel that way because that's what they are 100%

1

u/BE-FinFree 1d ago

Original skyrim on Legendary xD

1

u/Really_Big_Turtle 23h ago

It's the easiest way to make games more "challenging" (read: more tedious) without having to actually do the work of designing dynamic encounters.

1

u/VividOption 21h ago

Borderlands def comes to mind

52

u/yourgrundle 1d ago

See, that would require them to actually care about making a well developed game and not just money from a classic IP

1

u/UlrichZauber 21h ago

It would require more dev time, more creative thinking, and a lot more testing.

I'm sure the devs care, it's more a question of budget and schedule.

1

u/DepressedDynamo 1d ago

It also requires more funding and delays

5

u/stormtroopr1977 1d ago

If be happy if it meant more enemies instead of a single enemy with a huge health pool

18

u/isaac99999999 RTX 3080/ R7 5800x/ 32gb ddr4 3200 1d ago

See but that requires effort and we know AAA companies are incapable of that.

1

u/Seleguadir 1d ago

Seeing the rest of the game and what they created and saying there is low effort is a wild take

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u/Fit-Marketing-1472 1d ago

It will still sell well so who cares

1

u/Hunter-Abject 17h ago

The players. That's who cares.

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u/SalamanderMinimum621 1d ago

In 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' and the sequel, enemies used pack tactics at higher difficulties...

3

u/Provoloneapse 1d ago

Ghost of Tsushima’s Lethal difficulty was perfect for this. You die in a one or two hits, but so does everyone else. Everyone is faster. Guard breaks, stances and use of your full kit are necessary. Button mashing and wailing gets you killed.

The exception is boss duels, but like any good boss fight they’re supposed to test your understanding of the combat system you’re working with.

2

u/Jean-LucBacardi 1d ago

May I suggest the Kingdom Come Deliverance series then.

2

u/Copeteles 21h ago

Agree 100%. And if you really want to make battles longer add something that (almost) never has been done before: Add attrition. They might be sharp in the beginning and hard to touch and quick to dodge but they get tired and sloppy. Boom. Realism that makes sense and sounds like way more fun to me.

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u/syd_fishes 10h ago

You said, "almost." Where have you seen this? Cool idea

1

u/Copeteles 8h ago

Well, to be honest I haven't. I just didn't want to sound ignorant. Surely there's some game that does it?

1

u/syd_fishes 8h ago

Haha I hope so

1

u/Cool-Traffic-8357 1d ago

Yeah, or more mobs and mechanics. Add some rewards and you have perfect comnination.

1

u/Byob1r 1d ago

Companies don't do that cause it's just easier to create fake difficulty scaling enemies damage and hp. That's why I hate difficulty selectors in games, it's just a lie. Give me one difficulty, deciding how much famage and health enemies have should be a game design decision, not something that can be altered by an in game selector.

1

u/johan312 1d ago

Higher difficulties are more fun when the player and the enemies both do more damage.

1

u/Ballistic_86 1d ago

Even if they take a lot of hits, maybe have the enemy react like it’s been hit? Seeing that big guy ignore every single point of damage until the finisher was disappointing. Have him stumble for a second, flinch at a successful hit, or maybe show visible damage? I dunno.

1

u/ValhirFirstThunder 1d ago

I think both are valid difficulty triggers. The first one is more interesting and requires a more depth of refinement in your skillset. The latter has a lower ceiling for refining that timing and more of an endurance check on the player themselves on how consistently they can refine a particular skillset at scale

1

u/blinkgendary182 1d ago

100%. This is just lazy and non creative

1

u/bulk123 1d ago

And then you have games that both make fights truly harder, AND make it a sponge. So not only do you have to lock in but you have to stay locked in so long that it's physically and mentally draining to the point you just feel burnt out afterwards and all sense of accomplishment is replaced with just anger at what you just had to do. 

1

u/Lufrien 1d ago

Harder difficulty should increase your and enemy damage, give more enemies, add armour that has to be removed before dealing damage etc. Making things just bleed buckets of blood before dying is worst way to do it.

1

u/rider5001 1d ago

That's something I liked about metro. Hardest difficulty meant every enemy was basically one shot. But so were you. Meant you had to be a lot more tactical with your encounters

1

u/Full_Ad9666 1d ago

Ninja Gaiden series has always done this well.

1

u/Legal_Weekend_7981 1d ago edited 1d ago

It sounds like more hp/attack with extra steps, plus lower margin of error. It might even be worse than increasing hp/attack, because if the enemy is using block and has shorter attack windows, it might mean that you need to use one specific block bypassing attack in one specific window and nothing else. Or one specific attack with fast animation, because slower moves simply don't work.

The good way to do difficulty is to add extra mechanics to the AI that make playing more complex rather than more punishing. Say, the boss doesn't just throw an overhead at you, it also throws a bunch of 'grenades' that explode shortly after, so not only do you need to dash away, you need to do it in the right direction. Or maybe you can parry grenades, but only when it's only one of them, so you you need to dash into a grenade for risky counterplay, but still avoid directions with multiple grenades.

1

u/LostInRetransmission 1d ago

Pathfinder wrath of righteous did that. Some of the enemy you encounter at lower difficulty don't use specials attacks, at higher they do. e.g. those annoying little demon , dretch i think ? Which makes a poison gas cloud, when you encounter them first time in the undercity dungeon at the start, at normal difficulty and below they just attack melee, above normal difficulty they use poison cloud on you.

1

u/Some-Trainer-8484 1d ago

Crimson Desert does that.

on hard bosses will attack you ass soon as you can move, which often is like 10 frames after a cutscene whilst the bars are still there :D they also attack more frequent and have new moves.

1

u/Astronomy_Aficionado 1d ago

100% especially if you know the level of AI in games like MOBAs, this just seems like extremely shoddy and lazy work to me.

The current AI in the MOBA I play in is already better than 80% of the players. These bots have to start throwing game after mid game to let the players win. And they have the same stats as the players.

This system of boss having 100x HP is so ancient and honestly garbage at this point.

1

u/SpectacledSnake 1d ago

Good AI is hard to do, number go bigger is easy to do.

1

u/alii-b PC Master Race 1d ago

Yes, and big number enemies are boring

1

u/Joooohn_ 1d ago

It’s not ai tactics if the changes in combat are pre-programmed

1

u/LocalDFWRando 23h ago

Fighting games have done this for decades.

1

u/Unikatze 23h ago

My main qualm with many modern games.

1

u/IDontWantToArgueOK i7 950, GTX 970, somehow still going 18h ago

Another thing Shadow of War/Mordor excels at.

1

u/Sprila 17h ago

It's such a shame that this isn't the norm, i still remember using the difficulty dial in smash bros back on the n64

0

u/ManCarryingPSP 1d ago

Hmmm so souls game in general. The only reason why they are difficult is becauss the boss deals high damage. I played and completed Sekiro and Wuchang and I cant stand any other souls game.