"Balance" is a complicated term when applied to RPGs, isn't it? The obvious differences in challenge between classic RPGs and modern RPGs make clear the views on balance have evolved, at least for RPG designers, and by extension to players. This update is not so much about details of the game, but a rant about my views on difficulty and design and why things are the way they are in Exiled Kingdoms.
The old-school vs new-school balance
Once upon a time, games were harsh. They didn't care much about the player's feelings nor self-esteem, and developers didn't worry about player frustration, often throwing in encounters and challenges that even themselves didn't know for sure how to solve. "The players will figure out a way" they thought; and usually they were right. This finding of a way to win became the central part of the game itself, and without that search you were doomed. I can remember many games from my childhood I was never able to complete because back then, there weren't as many clues or hints available and I wasn't able to figure out how to beat them. Wizardry 6 was one of them, as well as Elder Scrolls I: Arena. For years that defeat lingered in my subconscious and only years later I revisited and found a way to beat them. Only then I became worthy and could finally sleep without nightmares :)
Sometimes the difficulty of these games was unfair, or was achieved by poor game mechanics or randomness, relying on constant save & reload. Not everything was perfect in the old days. But the sense of achievement I felt when beating those games was, overall, much higher than with modern games. The main reason is that they didn't feel like walking a road that has been laid out for me.
Over the years, the procedure to balance games became more professional, more refined, and took into account a wider variety of players. Designers came to the conclusion that most people should be able to complete the game, and frustration should be avoided at all costs.
I'm not going to dispute the validity of those conclusions because every game designer has the right to choose what he wants to do and why; and in a way, they could be right. Frustration and failure in themselves are not good things. The problem is that it's very hard to make a game fail-safe when you give full freedom to the player:
- What if he chooses poorly how to develop his stats? Then there must be no possible poor choices, all of them must be good somehow.
- What if he walks into the wrong area too early? Then we must make the game more linear (even if it still appears to be non-linear), or make sure the challenge scales down to the player's power.
- What if he becomes bored with a progression that feels too slow? There must be stat increments constantly, which leads to power inflation and in turn aggravates the above point.
These design choices that I perceive as a problem are actually fine for many players. Maybe even to a majority of players, given how most games are designed. But for me, and I suspect for many others, they make games much less satisfying.
How was Exiled Kingdoms designed and balanced
While Exiled Kingdoms has been rated very highly since release, some players complained about the balance, often claiming it is too hard. Some of the most common topics are the lack of health/mana regeneration and the high price of potions. Many players find themselves needing to return to town to rest, unable to reach the deepest parts of dungeons or most remote wild areas.
Regeneration is, in general, a very bad idea for offline RPGs. It trivializes any encounter that is not hard enough to kill you; all you have to worry about is to wait long enough, and you'll be fresh healed for the next fight. Certainly staring at a raising health bar is not my definition of "fun" or "strategy". That's why in this game, every goblin fight counts. If you find a way to take less damage from each individual enemy you fight, it can mean a big difference in the end, allowing you to find that extra chest at the bottom of a dungeon. If you break into dungeons carelessly, fighting monsters in groups and not using your skills right, you'll have to back off soon. Potions are meant to be used as emergency lifesavers or as a "little extra" push when you are very close to reaching an objective, and you think their cost is worth it.
This way, EK becomes a game of managing resources and assuming risks. You have several full health recoveries per day... should you use them as soon as half your health is gone? or maybe you can risk a couple more fights in order to optimize and go deeper? This kind of choice would be meaninglessif there was regeneration, obviously.
Regarding world and area balancing, it could be said the world areas have not been balanced at all. For the most part, the encounters have fixed levels. There are high level monsters not too far away from early areas, and they won't care if you are level 1 or 20.
What has been carefully balanced, however, are the quests. Your level 2 character certainly will not be able to "clear out" the early dungeons of the game. But if played right, he can get in, do his business, and escape alive. The quests are the primary way of advancement of your character, especially early on. The game has not been designed to be "grindy", so if you find your character lacks the power to solve a quest, it's time to move to another town and leave it for later.
Now, far from fanaticisms on old-school design, Exiled Kingdoms tries to be a fun game, enjoyable to a wide audience, but striving for the good things in old design. A Casual difficulty has been added, which provides limited regeneration. But this regeneration is capped to half the maximum health, and also hard-capped to 80 health so it is mostly relevant in the early levels. Also, there's a little encounter scaling in the game; not so much as to scale up or down the difficulty, but to keep some areas useful and interesting later on. for instance, at some point the basic goblins (level 1-2) may be replaced by stronger ones (level 4-5) which also provide better XP and loot. But you will not find level 1 dragons or level 30 bandits in Exiled Kingdoms.
Ultimately, a game is about having fun, and "fun" is not an universal concept. It's simply not possible to appease everybody; that's why I think a honest approach on what to expect in this game is essential. Now you know what you'll find in Exiled Kingdoms.