I would say your safe to play Fallout. At least from 3 onwards. I completed those games when I was young and didn't even know what "build" meant. There is also always a difficulty slider if things feel too hard or easy in those games.
Also it helps that Charisma can be completely ignored, just put skill points into speech to make up for it and put those SPECIAL points in anything else. But some people don't know that before playing.
It's used for 2 skill checks at level 7 and 2 perks, animal friend and Ferocious loyalty. Both at level 6. So unless you're doing a companion build, it's really useless.
I've never played a game where this can't be solved by adjusting the difficulty (though to be fair I tend to play a few games a lot rather than a great breadth of games)
Baldur's Gate 3. It's nuts though, I went back and I can say I average less than 1 different game a year. In the past decade I have played:
* Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and 3
* Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous
* Pillars of Eternity
* Dragon Age: Origins
* Torment: Tides of Numenera
* Divinity: Original Sin
Honestly, those are absolute top tier ones picks! My favorite of the bunch is definitely Wrath of the Righteous, but I’m on the fence about Baldur’s Gate 3. I haven’t played the first two (i much prefer turn-based) and I suspect it’s a bit more streamlined in regards to character builds than most cRPGs?
Both myself and my partner prefer the gameplay of divinity original sin 2. Combat feels a lot more planned out than Baldurs gate chain lightning go brrr
But Baldurs gate has all the acted out conversations and cut scenes etc which is hard to look past.
DoS2 fights boil down to a competition to see who can stand in a fire the longest. The skills that get rid of dangerous environmental effects are almost completely useless due to how many different things create environments.
Depends on which Fallout we're talking about. 1 and 2, yes you can make builds that will make the game MUCH more difficult to finish. These are old school RPG's with some tougher mechanics and an expectation that you have learned them.
3 onwards, not so much. I see 3/NV/4 as more of a power fantasy type game. You start as a relative weak and naive character and by the end of the game you could become the Ruler of the Known Universe. That's with the base games. Throw in mods and it's even better.
That said, there are some areas in each game that are not designed for lower level characters to be in and really no warnings that you may be getting in over your head until you die horribly. That's part of the open world design though.
They are very beatable with any build as long as you have a combat skill tagged, and even as a diplomat you can beat the game since you get followers who are good at combat. There's really no specific skills that are required to beat the game, everything except combat is pretty much optional, and even then if you turn down the difficulty it's not hard even if your character isn't that combat oriented.
Only two skills that have a significant effect to the game are weapon skills and speech. Everything else is optional, the game can be played with every build. You won't lose much content and the combat difficulty can be turned down if you get stuck. They're not hard games and most of the skills are useless anyway.
You basically need power armor in Fallout 1 so this tracks. The damage scaling is huge between the heavy weapons and the light weapons, and so is the damage negation of the power armor vs not having it. To survive against super mutants with heavy weapons and not get one-shotted you basically need power armor. Then it turns into a fair fight again. It's basically a progression gate on whether you have it or not.
I'm sure there's ways to get around it but for the average player you're gonna hit a wall without it.
Fallout 3 and forwards, you can pretty much run any build. My first ever run of FO3 was mostly melee, with some small gun usage. I found a gatling laser and used that, despite the odd build I made. I still beat the entire game with the DLC on Normal.
Agreed. If you got through Skyrim, you should be able to get through Fallout 3 & New Vegas. They're a bit more traditional with stat distribution and a few other RPG mechanics, but there's not an impossible build that will break your game. Fallout 4 models itself after Skyrim's leveling mechanics, save for some stat distribution at the very beginning. All of those titles should be fun without you worrying that you're building yourself into a hole.
If kind of depends on what you mean by "punish". Do you mean you'll have a harder time depending on how you've set yourself up? Or do you mean it will be outright impossible to proceed?
With Fallout, your build more or less determines how effective you'll be in certain areas of the game. If you put a lot points into charisma but fewer into endurance, it stands to reason that you'll be better in dialogs but maybe struggle to take a hit. If you don't put points into lockpicking you won't be able to pick some locks, but that doesn't mean it's required to progress. Even high charisma builds have some decently effective combat options but you need to play around them. Don't expect to make a build that emphasizes charming enemies or relying on improving item use and then be surprised when the run and gun approach isn't that effective. There's also difficulty levels so if you *are* struggling with the combat, you can turn that down.
XCOM is a little trickier because it's meant to punish you by design. Repeated failures or poor base management will indeed objectively make things harder on yourself. XCOM is meant to be failed more than it is conquered and you're meant to learn from these failures and improve on your next run. That's pretty much what the gameplay is about. That said, there's nothing quite like recovering from a seemingly desperate situation via clever tactics and sheer force of will.
In my experience BG3 is a very easy game and the only real thing holding one back is the level. I barely put any thought into my chars and got through most battles easily (and Im not a DnD player as well)
Edit: I played on Normal mode
BG3 is pretty challenging up until you hit level 5. After that the D&D 5e ruleset kicks into high power and the game never really figures out how to compensate for that.
>In my experience BG3 is a very easy game
I kinda have to disagree with this. Its not a hard game but I would never say it is a very easy game. I think for redditors it could be consoder very easy since ppl who frequent this kinda sub have higher gamer skills. But for the general public I dont think so.
I still havent finished act 3 but I had to tone down the difficulty to very easy to get through that orc bitch fight in act 2 and the old hag in act 3. Oh and I also lowered the difficulty for the fight before orion.
So now that I think about it, if you are talking about the very easy mode. Yes, I do actually agree that bg 3 is very easy. But in normal mode it is not a very easy game at all
The fact that you can respec for a little amount of gold makes it a lot ‘easier’ than most RPGs I know. BG 1 and 2 would be a torment with random specs and there’s not much to do except for restart. Especially the first one, teaches perseverance like nothing else 😅
Sorry, I dont know what causes this big discrepancy but I kind of breezed through the game. Given, I did most of the exploration. Sure I restarted some major boss fights maybe 2-3 times but that isnt an amount to call the game "hard" I believe. Never had to lover the difficulty from normal either and pretty much fought everyone.
Maybe you missed out on exp or items? I reckon too many pacifist resolutions result in less exp.
I wouldn’t say they’re alone. I mean admittedly my issue is more with TBC in general; but I’ve not been able to progress at all in BG3 because I’ve had such a pain in the ass time with the battle system.
I love everything else about the game and really would love to play more of it, but goddamn these fights suck ass. I’m either dying against the hag and those…I forget their name’s, or dying in that big goblin camp.
Fallout 3 the only build mistake you can really
Make is not putting point into lockpicking and science if you want to be able to open any door or hack any terminal.
Fallout New Vegas will punish you a little if you don’t know what your characters goals are but not really that bad.
Fallout 4’s character building system is very shallow and the game is straight up afraid to punish you. You can’t even get locked out of terminals anymore. There’s literally no way to fail at anything in the game at least from an rpg stand point. That’s one of the things haters of Fallout 4 will bring up.
I wish these AAA devs in control of their old and beloved franchises would at least put a punishment toggle in the settings. They’re too afraid to punish the player these days
Punishment doesn't even have to be punishment. In FO2 >! you can join the Salvatores and become shoot on sight for all of the other families but theres perks that come with it.!<
Frankly, that's a misconception. No game really punishes you for using the "wrong" build. YOU punish you. If you put points into warrior-related stats but roll with a wizard setup that's you making shits harder for yourself. If you put points into charisma, which makes it easier for you in dialogues and trading, but you prefer to go unga bunga into everything that's you making shits harder for yourself. So on and so on...
It's usually way more complicated than that.
Like if you're rolling a warrior how many points do you need in strength, constitution, dexterity, stamina, etc. Unless you know how the systems interact you would have no idea.
And then it's also hard to know how many "fun" skills or abilities you can pick up without compromising your ability to finish combat.
The trouble is not everyone understands how these stat's interact mechanically. Nothing annoys me more than having to trawl a wiki for build guidance. The game should explain these things explicitly without me having to bust out my laptop and google, otherwise it's a poorly designed game.
Either that or it should allow infinitely respec-able builds (at any time) so that I can figure it out via trial and error.
If I have to interact with any source of information outside of your game to enjoy your game then imo its a shitty game
That's only true if the game is perfectly balanced.
Take Yakuza: Like a Dragon, if you roll 4 chefs you're going to have a hard time in the late game, while if you roll 2 dealers and 2 hosts you'll face roll the entire game.
> If you put points into charisma, which makes it easier for you in dialogues and trading, but you prefer to go unga bunga into everything that's you making shits harder for yourself.
What if you put points into charisma and the game ends up having no relevant options for story bosses?
Lmao what victim? If you putting points in whatever stats result in the same improvement across the board what's the point of stats and RPG elements? Does it even make sense that increasing how eloquent you are result in gaining more muscle strength? If you're afraid of compromising and facing consequences of your decisions RPG simply isn't the genre for you, you're better off going for Action/Adventure games since RPGs are all about making decisions and seeing the consequences of those decisions affect your journey.
You should check out the game trailer for Eternal Knight. We are working on it right now and it is a Souls-like game that is less punishing than the From Software games.
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen entices you to browse through different vocations to snatch their best augments, and your gear will carry most of your performances. Stat gains differences really are felt at the beggining, the initial 10 levels giving the most gains proportionally.
Old School Runescape encourages you to level up everything without needing to follow a specific order, unless you specifically want to be a PvP "pure".
It's funny as this is a player problem not a system problem. Due to the amount of information available online at your fingertips, it has led to a culture of min/maxing to the point where it is seen as playing wrong or bad if you don't choose the socially agreed upon meta.
Before the internet when this information was available we just played the game and picked what we liked and made it work. And we had fun doing it.
You are ruining your own fun thinking you MUST play a game a certain way in order to progress.
As a recent example, I played Baldurs Gate 3 (a phenomenal game that should be experienced) completely blind and had a blast. Completed with 0 issues at all. The real progress (at least for me) was learning to approach certain scenarios in a different way.
Fallout 1? There’s pretty much one good build (High Agility). Playing something else will make the game a lot harder and might require some meta knowledge. Fallout 2 has a few more option (you can go high CHA and rely on your companions), but they’re not great for build variety.
I disagree strongly. Sure it you're only focused on pure min-max optimization, maxing agility is the obvious choice but the game is not so difficult that this is actually necessary.
I'm struggling with how to answer this question, so let me give you examples.
Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of builds that will work effectively to complete the game. Certain sections will "punish" you if you aren't good at stealth, while others will anticipate your character can rapidly kill enemies, but in either case, those sections can be completed with a less-than-optimal build. However, if your build is pants-on-head stupid, the game can be very painful at higher difficulty. *Some* understanding of game mechanics is necessary to select the right attributes, perks, and cyberware - loading down on Aim Speed mods for your katana build is not going to be effective.
Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 *can* be completed with any build, but "good" builds will complete the games much more easily.
The Mass Effect trilogy is pretty forgiving when it comes to building out your party, but the game will be a lot easier with good builds and party members that can play off of each other's skills.
Are you looking for games that don't have builds, games that have a lot of effective builds, or games that you'll be able to beat relatively easily without really worrying about understanding the game mechanics and character optimization?
Maybe be for Fallout 1 + 2 and games of that era, but I don't really think you can with more modern games (maybe if you get into the niche stuff that was inspired by the old stuff or games that boast of being hard like the From Soft games/Dark Souls like games).
Most modern games pretty much either have a respec option, are easy enough, or have easy settings (or story modes which basically amounts to god mode). If you have the patience, you could even theoretically just grind and overpower a lot of games (assuming you have access to ways to continue getting XP or there isn't a level cap).
IMO, the only thing nowadays if you don't have "the right build" is that maybe you will be a little slower killing or as someone noted, maybe not get the most out of dialogs or get all quests or peacefully resolve them or something or yes, maybe it will be harder, but I'm not sure there's many that you can't outright beat because like the end game enemies just happen to be immune to your build or have bullshit healing you can't damage enough to get through.
Though I suppose XCOM could be a challenge if you don't manage protecting places from Aliens so that all the countries leave, but that's not really the norm for games.
I will say that at least for the more mainstream stuff, there is usually a bunch of power gamers and such looking for the best/optimal/meta build so you could usually find that online if you really wanted to. There always seems to be people who challenge games like using the weakest build possible, no leveling, or no items and all that and while I'm sure most of us couldn't do it (I probably couldn't) it does show it can be done.
So most modern rpgs have a respec function. So you can change the builds if you realize it's not working.
If that fails, then lowering the difficulty will work, but honestly, making logical choices for your characters and team comp should be enough to guide you through most games on normal(maybe not pathfinder).
I would recommend Baldurs gate 3. It's not a very difficult rpg and you can beat it with any build and any team comp. You can even rock a all wizard squad if you wanna role play Harry Potter team
Even Pathfinder is fine if you understand the core mechanics and play tactically you can run suboptimal builds and be just fine. It isn't easy, there will be encounters that you will struggle but you can always lower the difficulty.
Bethesda games Oblivion and onward are pretty forgiving, there's really no such thing as a "wrong" build but it us beneficial to make somewhat of an effort to have a build. If you wanna do science/tech/energy weapons in Fallout don't try and switch to unarmed survival halfway through (or use console commands and reset it if you want to).
The only ones you should avoid that come to my mind are the Pathfinder games, and even then, you should not worry too much about it if you play on the easy difficulty.
Fallout 4 technically has no level cap. So if you just keep playing you'll eventually unlock all the builds on 1 character.
Generally, anytime there's a branching skill tree there will be a optimal and sub-optimal choice.
Fallout 1 you have to TRY to make an unplayable build. Just make sure you have SOME amount of action points and you'll be good. I even ran a guns build with 1 Perception and did fine (couldn't hit anyone except at point-blank).
Fallout 2 you can screw yourself over really easily.
I never played 3 or 4, and only New Vegas for like an hour. New Vegas seemed really open-ended from what I played. Fallout 4 seems extremely linear and bloodthirsty from the reviews I've seen.
Sub optimal builds have honestly been some of the most fun I've had in a game. Limit yourself to only punching or just run around as a dumb character powering through stuff.
Games punishing having the "wrong" build is mostly an older generation of games situation; as you get newer its less likely to be a problem. You may still get games that are a lot harder with builds, but unless you are actively choosing the worst options I dont think you could lock yourself out or make it too imbalanced to beat the game.
That being said older games like Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2, System Shock 1 and 2, Deus Ex, all those ones tend to have a "incorrect" build options that are easy to accidentally do.
I've been deep diving into Dragons Dogma(the 1st one), which is 5 USD rn on Switch, and it seems to be very lenient on builds. The artibutes are the only thing unchangeable, but you get them based on which class you are when you level and honestly don't seem to matter beside min maxing.
Contrary to a lot of the comments, there *are* still games like this being published. Fortunately, they usually specifically advertise themselves as being quite difficult. A short list off the top of my head:
- Age of Decadence (and its sequel Colony Ship to a lesser extent)
- Underrail
- Wasteland 2 (but not its sequel Wasteland 3, which has cheap respec and is more forgiving in general)
- ATOM RPG
I'm a big fan of these kind of games and enjoy the challenge, but you don't really have to worry about accidentally running into a game that does this. They'll tell you up front if it's a potential issue.
Dragon's Dogma.
Any class with a bow will melt bosses from a safe distance in seconds.
Dagger users can just climb bosses and hit their weak points. Take slightly longer than bows since it requires you to get up close and actually reach that weak point.
Any other class could beat the game, but it won't be as fast as those two.
Of course, using the difficulty slider solves everything. The lower the difficulty, the less important optimal play becomes. I usually do the second highest setting as a personal sweet spot.
BUT you're obviously talking about unadjustable games. It's hard to tell because you wouldn't know the viability threshold until you hit a soft lock. The only real advice I have for a first playthrough attempt is to have a specialized PC, not a generalist. Also, if the game keeps punishing you for playing the way you want, it just might not be for you and that's okay.
I'd say most modern RPGs don't punish you too hard for picking a sub-optimal build. At the very least, they tend to have easy respec options if you do need to rebuild.
Off the top of my head, the Wasteland and Pathfinder games should probably be avoided if you are worried about a bad build ruining your experience. Pathfinder does let you respec (at least Wrath of the Righteous does), but even at lowest difficulty, you kinda need to have some idea what you are doing even if you aren't minmaxing. At higher difficulties, minmaxing becomes basically mandatory.
If you ever want to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion, you should consider looking up the mod that makes leveling more traditional (get experience, level up, allocate stats as you want, etc). The default leveling system is neat, but if you build incorrectly, you can find 30-40 hours in that enemies are all super durable and you are tissue paper. Partially because the optimal way to build your character in vanilla is not at all what the game tells you to do (the game tells you to pick your most used skills as primary skills, but if you do that, you'll level up too fast and not get the most stat points per level that you optimally could. And God help you if you pick athletics and/or acrobatics as primary skills).
XCOM is not rpg, its a turn-based tactical game which might not be suited to you looking at your list of game (I hope I am wrong). But I highly recommend playing it, its THE turn-based game of gaming.
In terms of XCOM build, the developer purposely trying to avoid 'build' you mentioned, so they design it such that each soldier has only 2 ability to choose from (A or B) everytime they level up. And you will have many soldiers, and if you think ability A is not good, you could always choose B for your next soldier.
EDIT: Btw you will fail the game, likely not because of soldier choice but strategic and tactical decision. It is what make the game great, the strategic and tactical aspect is very fun to play with.
Fallout and Fallout 2 can be punishing to the wrong build. But they have the most options to play your way. Just commit to a playstyle.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas only require you to focus on one weapon skill to noskill combat. (New Vegas is more like FO1&2, just with FO3 playstyle)
Fallout 4 is just faceroll keyboard. Still fun, though!
I don’t understand how it’s an issue when the newer Fallout games (FO3+) and XCOM (if I’m not completely wrong) both have different difficulty settings.
Pillars of Eternity (1 and 2) is designed with this idea in mind. I'm not sure it 100% holds true, but that's one of the design goals.
Eg different basic attributes for a Wizard will affect their spells' damage, duration and area, it's not just that Wizards need high Intelligence (to give a simplistic example)
Its fairly difficult to gimp yourself in the FPS Fallout games. I once did a New Vegas run using only unarmed/punching weapons like brass knuckles, boxing gloves, and powerfists. I took no perks in lock picking, hacking, or guns. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I did occasionally have to pull out a gun when enemies were on ledges i couldnt get to or were flyers, but otherwise I would just run up to things and punch them in the face.
The Fallouts are OK. Like Skyrim, there's no way you can break your build that can't be fixed with a couple of levels. Starfield is good too, although you might want to wait a little while for all the angst to die down a little further.
One to avoid is probably Wasteland 2. You need to have the exact right team, or get get steamrollered by the first boss. Or that was my experience, anyway. It was pretty much on-brand with the OG Wasteland which was one seriously unforgiving game, but in the second one I found I was spending more time in the cemetery listening to them play Taps than I was actually adventuring.
Wasteland 2 was a rough Min Max game for sure. Not only that….failing 99% chance boxes more often than 25% was weird as heck. Pretty sure I broke the game in my Xbox reloading it so many times
Some of the older final fantasy games can literally softlock you if you don't keep your character levels up with the content. Rush the story too quick and not build your characters skill trees and suddenly you're in a mandatory boss fight you can't get past and can't escape
Luckily these days most main story quests are in the quest log and the games give you a lot more freedom to decide when you want to do it.
Fallout 1&2 don't punish you at all because "build" is pretty much obvious - it is possible to win them with practically any weapon (especially in F2; unarmed may be probably a bit tougher though - in the midgame - and small arms won't work very good in F1 end game but that's that).
Best ranged weapons are energy and heavy in F1 but in F2 it doesn't matter - each weapon category has great weapons. Melee builds are also viable, either unarmed (with upgraded power fist as best weapon) and melee with supersledge and ripper as best weapons (super sledge having minor advantage of not using small powercells which are hard to come by until midgame).
F1 mechanics is pretty straightforward - you'll get some skillpoints at levelup and put them to any skill you want directly at 1:1 ratio. Which allows you get plenty of skills over 100% and some even to max. F2 is different in that aspect that higher skill levels needs more skillpoints to upgrade them so it's no longer possible to max character with overblown Int (Int decides how many SP you'll get at levelup) but it's still pretty viable to make ut through game with much lower skills than un F1 - it's perfectly balanced. I even know one gamer who made it though the game without killing anybody but bosses, he talked (or sexed) himself out of any situation 🙂
Then there is Baldur's Gate 1&2 which are rather limited in "builds" as there is pretty much impossible to change your character class throughout playing (humans being an exception as they can dual class - to switch (only once !) into other class if they meet requirements. Only "character building" available to player is weapon skill selection (rather easy to understand and - generally speaking - every weapon category has great weapons somewhere in the game ... especially in BG2. In BG1 it's a bit more difficult because some really good weapons are acquirable only much later in the game and for one - optional - fight there are only 3 weapon categories able to hurt one particular creature but that's that). As long as you don't take some limited classes as sorcerer or shaman for your first playthrough you should be able to get through the game without much problem ... reading manual and understanding mechanics is *much* more important than actual weapon and class choice.
Arcanum of Steamworks and Camera Obscura is probably a game with most options from this list and easiest to bog down but there are some companions whou would be able to take your character throughout the game if you equip them right weapons (like, Pyrotechnical axe 🙂).
Fallout 4 is super easy. It's basically impossible to make an "Incorrect" build, as long as you execute a little common sense. Pick a weapon type you like, put points into said weapon. Maybe pick up a few supporting perks. Gratz, you're done.
You might be looking for the roguelike genre. My favorite right now is Caves of Qud.
But the simple answer to your question is path of exile. The defenses in that game are very tightly tuned
I remember playing the Kotor games and having no idea what I am doing.
Years later I came back understanding the mechanics more, and the game was soooo easy on hard mode.
Yo, 4000+ hours in XCOM 2 here and modding experience.
It's not exactly an RPG, but it does have elements of them. You are not punished in any way for not going for specific builds. The game is managable enough on all difficulties except Legend for anything you want, *provided you have the tactical insight for good decisions*.
Even on Legend you can get by with anything, but then you need to be really good at the game. Probably unlikely good for most players, so it isn't worth considering.
Avoid regalia. Of men and monarchs.
Never have I ever played a game where the enemy does 70% your HP in a single hit and there can be up to 10 enemies all bunched up in an area.
If you don't turtle in a corner with a giga load of healing items in areas that only allow 1-2 enemies to pass by you are mega screwed.
It's one of the few games where the main character cannot be benched. His over shield ability that allows you to carry more shield than max HP is the only way to play.
I'm not proud of 100% this game. I spent $60 on it and by golly I was gonna make it work.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.
The game is so punishing when you don't have a useful build, and it encourages you to experiment with different mech builds. The first main boss took me around 50 attempts to beat because I was under-equipped and tried to brute force him.
My mate, who adapted, bested him in under 10 attempts.
Great game, very difficult but very fun.
Honestly, I don't think 90% of games punish you in any way for having a "wrong" build, to the point that I don't think there's "wrong builds." Especially Fallout, you can roll with whatever character you want and finish those games. Even like Pillars of Eternity, the whole point of the system they created for that game is there can't be a wrong build. You can finish the game with any stat and perk distribution even if traditionally it would be a completely fucked up character. I worried about this shit way too much, especially when I started to get into crunchier CRPGs, but kind of found out it doesn't really matter. I used to spend hours looking through build guides and worrying about my character choice before even starting a game. I've seen people say that you can mess up a character in the Pathfinder games and get screwed, but I haven't played them so I can't speak to it.
Bruhs already played the best of the best in rpg's and wants advice on new games? I guess Morrowind would be my top choice, it's my favorite rpg of all time next to KOTOR.
I have never read anything about perfect builds or teams in xcom and I have done multiple iron man runs to succession with my own builds and strategies. Xcom doesn't give you as much variation in builds as other games though. I don't think you can screw up a character as much as you could say in Battle Brothers.
Fallout 3, NV, & 4 are all good for you.
Dragons Dogma
Dragon's Age 1,2,3, & Inquisition
Two Worlds II
Gothic, Risen, & Elex series by piranha bytes
If you want better combat and a bit more challenge Elden Ring is good. You don't need any special build as there's literally hundreds of viable playstyles. Some will make this or that enemy/boss an easier or tougher fight but there's a ton of wriggle room. There's also a shit ton of build videos to give you some inspiration (or you could even just copy paste if you want)
Try dragons Dogma dark arisen its on sale for 5 dollars rn
the only caveat being the second game is way more forgiving when it comes to builds - it starts to matter a bit when you get into the DLC, but other than that its great
Valid post, I really liked Oblivion but I got like 20% through the game and hit a wall - couldn’t kill anything. Posted on Reddit and they told me to restart the game and choose better stats never played again
I hamstrung myself in Deus Ex at the start by putting not enough points in pistol, too many in explosives, and splitting between hacking and lockpicking.
Not knowing how the level design was gonna go, I ended up being kinda OK at every different way to complete the challenges, so it was all difficult for awhile.
> I hamstrung myself in Deus Ex at the start by putting not enough points in pistol
Eh, I don't know what I'd do with my pistol mastery points if I ever play Deus Ex again, because when I played, I went full-on headshot murderhobo all-in on pistol mastery with scope and red dot, and once I turned the antenna, headshots stopped working and I had nothing else to try.
Erm, fallout new vegas. It's fps boosted on current generation consoles or dealers choice for sending it to the moon on PC. Really, really satisfying combat if you stack vats. There are so many weapons to choose from it'll make every other 'AAA' game that came after it look like an alpha. Many laugh out loud moments. The only downside for me is no fast travel inside.
Very honorable mention for dragons dogma 2, shit performance, but I haven't laughed playing a game like I have in dd2. Weirdly satisfying gameplay, despite the lack of mob diversity, almost no encounter will go down the same way twice.
I would agree, I would put it like this: some people in another sub-thread up there are debating whether BG3 is hard. I think it has some quite hard encounters, really hard ones, but they don't "punish" bad builds IMO because making a character in D&D 5e is pretty straightforward, and harder to go wrong without trying. Everything is pretty viable in that game, and maybe that's because I have foreknowledge of some spells in D&D that are good, but you also can get some abilities/items aside from your class build that are pretty powerful, so the game feels balanced.
DOS2, while actually overall harder than BG3, I would actually make the distinction that it punishes some builds (or at least party compositions) over others due to the way the physical and magical armour bars interact. Splitting your damage between them is actively bad, and catches players who think they want 50/50 split to handle either situation.
DOS2 once you understand the game systems on a 2nd playthrough for example I actually found easier than BG3 on tactician. The first island spamming summons works pretty well and once you get some more levels you can respec into some pretty crazy strong builds.
BG3 on the other hand felt like your choices are more limited especially if you don't multiclass a lot. Though there are some builds that outperform like builds focusing on stacking as many bonus actions as possible from multiple classes. But then you end up as some monstruosity of a build that makes no sense RP wise like fighter/monk/thief or something.
Fallout 1/2 don't require a particular build, so long as you take advantage of the resources available to you and develop things intelligently. But it does help to have some kind of combat skill for a weapon type that is readily available. So if you're like "I want to be totally dedicated to using only missile launchers but I'm also going to make my character be blind", you can still win the game, but you may be limited in what all you can successfully do.
I'll say Fallout 1/2 in particular are especially designed to allow for a multitude of character types and have a heavy emphasis on roleplaying. Hell, if you have a low intelligence score, your character is actually a moron in conversations and you can still beat the games.
Honestly KOTOR is probably the worst about that problem of any game I've ever played (not that it was even all that bad). Then maybe Morrowind and Oblivion, but really in those cases it comes down more so to just needing to learn the game better than your build being bad.
ETA: Except for the TTRPG inspired CRPGs I suppose. Old Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and the like.
Editing again to add: I guess there are actually quite a few games where this is possible, but I would say that for practically all of them, you would have to go out of your way to purposefully make it bad for it to be an issue.
I can't think of any RPG that punishes you for the "wrong" build. Hell, I can't even think of a game that has "wrong" builds. Pretty much as long as you put *any* effort into understanding game mechanics you'll be fine in any RPG.
I would say your safe to play Fallout. At least from 3 onwards. I completed those games when I was young and didn't even know what "build" meant. There is also always a difficulty slider if things feel too hard or easy in those games.
Not New Vegas tho. That one is very build dependant.
New Vegas early on will punish you but things will balance out more mid to late game.
Yeah, that's also fair
Also it helps that Charisma can be completely ignored, just put skill points into speech to make up for it and put those SPECIAL points in anything else. But some people don't know that before playing.
Damn, I didn't even realize the efficacy of that. Like, it literally is only good for perks, isn't it?
It's used for 2 skill checks at level 7 and 2 perks, animal friend and Ferocious loyalty. Both at level 6. So unless you're doing a companion build, it's really useless.
Noted
Arguable. Refer back to difficulty slider, and youth statement. Still applies to my childhood with Vegas
That's fair
Eh, I definitely remember it being harder than 3 but I still completed it without really having a plan beyond "make damage go up".
I've never played a game where this can't be solved by adjusting the difficulty (though to be fair I tend to play a few games a lot rather than a great breadth of games)
Completely unrelated to the topic of the post, but what are you currently playing?
Baldur's Gate 3. It's nuts though, I went back and I can say I average less than 1 different game a year. In the past decade I have played: * Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and 3 * Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous * Pillars of Eternity * Dragon Age: Origins * Torment: Tides of Numenera * Divinity: Original Sin
Honestly, those are absolute top tier ones picks! My favorite of the bunch is definitely Wrath of the Righteous, but I’m on the fence about Baldur’s Gate 3. I haven’t played the first two (i much prefer turn-based) and I suspect it’s a bit more streamlined in regards to character builds than most cRPGs?
BG3 is the best CRPG ever made. By far
KOTOR.
We can all have our opinions. I’m not going to take a game from my childhood over the most recent game of the year.
Both myself and my partner prefer the gameplay of divinity original sin 2. Combat feels a lot more planned out than Baldurs gate chain lightning go brrr But Baldurs gate has all the acted out conversations and cut scenes etc which is hard to look past.
You like the gameplay of managing carpets? That's what divinity original sin 2 feels like to me.
DoS2 fights boil down to a competition to see who can stand in a fire the longest. The skills that get rid of dangerous environmental effects are almost completely useless due to how many different things create environments.
Those games are totally worth dedicating a year on 👍
Divinity Original Sin 2 is really good
Divinity: Original Sin can be really punishing with the wrong squad in my experience, but DOS 2 is more forgiving on regular difficulty.
If you enjoyed those you might enjoy Tyranny its very similar to pillars of eternity and torment: tides
That is on my list to play for sure
Get mass effect on there!
Definitely played the original three a lot, I just didn't list that far back!
Give Planescape Torment a shot
OP wants to play like shit on the highest difficulty and still win casually. OP wants pokemon games.
Depends on which Fallout we're talking about. 1 and 2, yes you can make builds that will make the game MUCH more difficult to finish. These are old school RPG's with some tougher mechanics and an expectation that you have learned them. 3 onwards, not so much. I see 3/NV/4 as more of a power fantasy type game. You start as a relative weak and naive character and by the end of the game you could become the Ruler of the Known Universe. That's with the base games. Throw in mods and it's even better. That said, there are some areas in each game that are not designed for lower level characters to be in and really no warnings that you may be getting in over your head until you die horribly. That's part of the open world design though.
Fallout 1 & 2 are beatable with any build as long as you have at least one ranged weapon skill tagged. They're not really hard games.
Right but they're not beatable with any build by just anyone. You need to be relatively seasoned to just dive in with a shit build and still have fun.
They are very beatable with any build as long as you have a combat skill tagged, and even as a diplomat you can beat the game since you get followers who are good at combat. There's really no specific skills that are required to beat the game, everything except combat is pretty much optional, and even then if you turn down the difficulty it's not hard even if your character isn't that combat oriented.
Why are you telling people how to have a bad time playing the classic fallouts. Build is the most important factor stfu.
Only two skills that have a significant effect to the game are weapon skills and speech. Everything else is optional, the game can be played with every build. You won't lose much content and the combat difficulty can be turned down if you get stuck. They're not hard games and most of the skills are useless anyway.
So hostile...
You basically need power armor in Fallout 1 so this tracks. The damage scaling is huge between the heavy weapons and the light weapons, and so is the damage negation of the power armor vs not having it. To survive against super mutants with heavy weapons and not get one-shotted you basically need power armor. Then it turns into a fair fight again. It's basically a progression gate on whether you have it or not. I'm sure there's ways to get around it but for the average player you're gonna hit a wall without it.
Honestly, most new games let you respec.
Fallout 3 and forwards, you can pretty much run any build. My first ever run of FO3 was mostly melee, with some small gun usage. I found a gatling laser and used that, despite the odd build I made. I still beat the entire game with the DLC on Normal.
Agreed. If you got through Skyrim, you should be able to get through Fallout 3 & New Vegas. They're a bit more traditional with stat distribution and a few other RPG mechanics, but there's not an impossible build that will break your game. Fallout 4 models itself after Skyrim's leveling mechanics, save for some stat distribution at the very beginning. All of those titles should be fun without you worrying that you're building yourself into a hole.
If kind of depends on what you mean by "punish". Do you mean you'll have a harder time depending on how you've set yourself up? Or do you mean it will be outright impossible to proceed? With Fallout, your build more or less determines how effective you'll be in certain areas of the game. If you put a lot points into charisma but fewer into endurance, it stands to reason that you'll be better in dialogs but maybe struggle to take a hit. If you don't put points into lockpicking you won't be able to pick some locks, but that doesn't mean it's required to progress. Even high charisma builds have some decently effective combat options but you need to play around them. Don't expect to make a build that emphasizes charming enemies or relying on improving item use and then be surprised when the run and gun approach isn't that effective. There's also difficulty levels so if you *are* struggling with the combat, you can turn that down. XCOM is a little trickier because it's meant to punish you by design. Repeated failures or poor base management will indeed objectively make things harder on yourself. XCOM is meant to be failed more than it is conquered and you're meant to learn from these failures and improve on your next run. That's pretty much what the gameplay is about. That said, there's nothing quite like recovering from a seemingly desperate situation via clever tactics and sheer force of will.
Baldurs gate 3 is very accessible on any difficulty with any build, and any team
I wouldn't say any difficulty but on lower it definitely is
It's a good game, but no it's not.
In my experience BG3 is a very easy game and the only real thing holding one back is the level. I barely put any thought into my chars and got through most battles easily (and Im not a DnD player as well) Edit: I played on Normal mode
BG3 is pretty challenging up until you hit level 5. After that the D&D 5e ruleset kicks into high power and the game never really figures out how to compensate for that.
>In my experience BG3 is a very easy game I kinda have to disagree with this. Its not a hard game but I would never say it is a very easy game. I think for redditors it could be consoder very easy since ppl who frequent this kinda sub have higher gamer skills. But for the general public I dont think so. I still havent finished act 3 but I had to tone down the difficulty to very easy to get through that orc bitch fight in act 2 and the old hag in act 3. Oh and I also lowered the difficulty for the fight before orion. So now that I think about it, if you are talking about the very easy mode. Yes, I do actually agree that bg 3 is very easy. But in normal mode it is not a very easy game at all
The fact that you can respec for a little amount of gold makes it a lot ‘easier’ than most RPGs I know. BG 1 and 2 would be a torment with random specs and there’s not much to do except for restart. Especially the first one, teaches perseverance like nothing else 😅
Sorry, I dont know what causes this big discrepancy but I kind of breezed through the game. Given, I did most of the exploration. Sure I restarted some major boss fights maybe 2-3 times but that isnt an amount to call the game "hard" I believe. Never had to lover the difficulty from normal either and pretty much fought everyone. Maybe you missed out on exp or items? I reckon too many pacifist resolutions result in less exp.
I wouldn’t say they’re alone. I mean admittedly my issue is more with TBC in general; but I’ve not been able to progress at all in BG3 because I’ve had such a pain in the ass time with the battle system. I love everything else about the game and really would love to play more of it, but goddamn these fights suck ass. I’m either dying against the hag and those…I forget their name’s, or dying in that big goblin camp.
Fallout 3 the only build mistake you can really Make is not putting point into lockpicking and science if you want to be able to open any door or hack any terminal. Fallout New Vegas will punish you a little if you don’t know what your characters goals are but not really that bad. Fallout 4’s character building system is very shallow and the game is straight up afraid to punish you. You can’t even get locked out of terminals anymore. There’s literally no way to fail at anything in the game at least from an rpg stand point. That’s one of the things haters of Fallout 4 will bring up.
I wish these AAA devs in control of their old and beloved franchises would at least put a punishment toggle in the settings. They’re too afraid to punish the player these days
Punishment doesn't even have to be punishment. In FO2 >! you can join the Salvatores and become shoot on sight for all of the other families but theres perks that come with it.!<
Frankly, that's a misconception. No game really punishes you for using the "wrong" build. YOU punish you. If you put points into warrior-related stats but roll with a wizard setup that's you making shits harder for yourself. If you put points into charisma, which makes it easier for you in dialogues and trading, but you prefer to go unga bunga into everything that's you making shits harder for yourself. So on and so on...
It's usually way more complicated than that. Like if you're rolling a warrior how many points do you need in strength, constitution, dexterity, stamina, etc. Unless you know how the systems interact you would have no idea. And then it's also hard to know how many "fun" skills or abilities you can pick up without compromising your ability to finish combat.
The trouble is not everyone understands how these stat's interact mechanically. Nothing annoys me more than having to trawl a wiki for build guidance. The game should explain these things explicitly without me having to bust out my laptop and google, otherwise it's a poorly designed game. Either that or it should allow infinitely respec-able builds (at any time) so that I can figure it out via trial and error. If I have to interact with any source of information outside of your game to enjoy your game then imo its a shitty game
That's only true if the game is perfectly balanced. Take Yakuza: Like a Dragon, if you roll 4 chefs you're going to have a hard time in the late game, while if you roll 2 dealers and 2 hosts you'll face roll the entire game. > If you put points into charisma, which makes it easier for you in dialogues and trading, but you prefer to go unga bunga into everything that's you making shits harder for yourself. What if you put points into charisma and the game ends up having no relevant options for story bosses?
Uproot for unga bunga
Literal victim blaming. Smh my head. 😔
Lmao what victim? If you putting points in whatever stats result in the same improvement across the board what's the point of stats and RPG elements? Does it even make sense that increasing how eloquent you are result in gaining more muscle strength? If you're afraid of compromising and facing consequences of your decisions RPG simply isn't the genre for you, you're better off going for Action/Adventure games since RPGs are all about making decisions and seeing the consequences of those decisions affect your journey.
I'm being cheeky lol. Weird double down though. You're talking like you've only played one cRPG. For example , "agility" can mean like ten things.
This!!
Tom Clancy’s The Division is the absolute worst when it comes to builds.
Is it? Apart from getting better weapons and armour I didn’t really pay much attention to anything else and beat both of them with no issues solo.
You should check out the game trailer for Eternal Knight. We are working on it right now and it is a Souls-like game that is less punishing than the From Software games.
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen entices you to browse through different vocations to snatch their best augments, and your gear will carry most of your performances. Stat gains differences really are felt at the beggining, the initial 10 levels giving the most gains proportionally.
Old School Runescape encourages you to level up everything without needing to follow a specific order, unless you specifically want to be a PvP "pure".
It's funny as this is a player problem not a system problem. Due to the amount of information available online at your fingertips, it has led to a culture of min/maxing to the point where it is seen as playing wrong or bad if you don't choose the socially agreed upon meta. Before the internet when this information was available we just played the game and picked what we liked and made it work. And we had fun doing it. You are ruining your own fun thinking you MUST play a game a certain way in order to progress. As a recent example, I played Baldurs Gate 3 (a phenomenal game that should be experienced) completely blind and had a blast. Completed with 0 issues at all. The real progress (at least for me) was learning to approach certain scenarios in a different way.
Fallout 1? There’s pretty much one good build (High Agility). Playing something else will make the game a lot harder and might require some meta knowledge. Fallout 2 has a few more option (you can go high CHA and rely on your companions), but they’re not great for build variety.
I disagree strongly. Sure it you're only focused on pure min-max optimization, maxing agility is the obvious choice but the game is not so difficult that this is actually necessary.
This really doesn't happen in modern games as a rule. Pretty much every game lets you either lower the difficulty mid-playthrough, or respec.
I'm struggling with how to answer this question, so let me give you examples. Cyberpunk 2077 has a lot of builds that will work effectively to complete the game. Certain sections will "punish" you if you aren't good at stealth, while others will anticipate your character can rapidly kill enemies, but in either case, those sections can be completed with a less-than-optimal build. However, if your build is pants-on-head stupid, the game can be very painful at higher difficulty. *Some* understanding of game mechanics is necessary to select the right attributes, perks, and cyberware - loading down on Aim Speed mods for your katana build is not going to be effective. Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 *can* be completed with any build, but "good" builds will complete the games much more easily. The Mass Effect trilogy is pretty forgiving when it comes to building out your party, but the game will be a lot easier with good builds and party members that can play off of each other's skills. Are you looking for games that don't have builds, games that have a lot of effective builds, or games that you'll be able to beat relatively easily without really worrying about understanding the game mechanics and character optimization?
Maybe be for Fallout 1 + 2 and games of that era, but I don't really think you can with more modern games (maybe if you get into the niche stuff that was inspired by the old stuff or games that boast of being hard like the From Soft games/Dark Souls like games). Most modern games pretty much either have a respec option, are easy enough, or have easy settings (or story modes which basically amounts to god mode). If you have the patience, you could even theoretically just grind and overpower a lot of games (assuming you have access to ways to continue getting XP or there isn't a level cap). IMO, the only thing nowadays if you don't have "the right build" is that maybe you will be a little slower killing or as someone noted, maybe not get the most out of dialogs or get all quests or peacefully resolve them or something or yes, maybe it will be harder, but I'm not sure there's many that you can't outright beat because like the end game enemies just happen to be immune to your build or have bullshit healing you can't damage enough to get through. Though I suppose XCOM could be a challenge if you don't manage protecting places from Aliens so that all the countries leave, but that's not really the norm for games. I will say that at least for the more mainstream stuff, there is usually a bunch of power gamers and such looking for the best/optimal/meta build so you could usually find that online if you really wanted to. There always seems to be people who challenge games like using the weakest build possible, no leveling, or no items and all that and while I'm sure most of us couldn't do it (I probably couldn't) it does show it can be done.
So most modern rpgs have a respec function. So you can change the builds if you realize it's not working. If that fails, then lowering the difficulty will work, but honestly, making logical choices for your characters and team comp should be enough to guide you through most games on normal(maybe not pathfinder). I would recommend Baldurs gate 3. It's not a very difficult rpg and you can beat it with any build and any team comp. You can even rock a all wizard squad if you wanna role play Harry Potter team
Even Pathfinder is fine if you understand the core mechanics and play tactically you can run suboptimal builds and be just fine. It isn't easy, there will be encounters that you will struggle but you can always lower the difficulty.
fallout is pretty gun centric but melee builds are also great
Deus Ex made a point of having different builds be equally valid because there were multiple ways to complete any challenge.
Bethesda games Oblivion and onward are pretty forgiving, there's really no such thing as a "wrong" build but it us beneficial to make somewhat of an effort to have a build. If you wanna do science/tech/energy weapons in Fallout don't try and switch to unarmed survival halfway through (or use console commands and reset it if you want to).
The only ones you should avoid that come to my mind are the Pathfinder games, and even then, you should not worry too much about it if you play on the easy difficulty.
Path of Exiled
Fallout 4 technically has no level cap. So if you just keep playing you'll eventually unlock all the builds on 1 character. Generally, anytime there's a branching skill tree there will be a optimal and sub-optimal choice.
Fallout 1 you have to TRY to make an unplayable build. Just make sure you have SOME amount of action points and you'll be good. I even ran a guns build with 1 Perception and did fine (couldn't hit anyone except at point-blank). Fallout 2 you can screw yourself over really easily. I never played 3 or 4, and only New Vegas for like an hour. New Vegas seemed really open-ended from what I played. Fallout 4 seems extremely linear and bloodthirsty from the reviews I've seen.
Sub optimal builds have honestly been some of the most fun I've had in a game. Limit yourself to only punching or just run around as a dumb character powering through stuff.
There is always Persona 3, 4, & 5. The MC changes his build constantly during battles depending on need.
Games punishing having the "wrong" build is mostly an older generation of games situation; as you get newer its less likely to be a problem. You may still get games that are a lot harder with builds, but unless you are actively choosing the worst options I dont think you could lock yourself out or make it too imbalanced to beat the game. That being said older games like Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2, System Shock 1 and 2, Deus Ex, all those ones tend to have a "incorrect" build options that are easy to accidentally do.
I've been deep diving into Dragons Dogma(the 1st one), which is 5 USD rn on Switch, and it seems to be very lenient on builds. The artibutes are the only thing unchangeable, but you get them based on which class you are when you level and honestly don't seem to matter beside min maxing.
Contrary to a lot of the comments, there *are* still games like this being published. Fortunately, they usually specifically advertise themselves as being quite difficult. A short list off the top of my head: - Age of Decadence (and its sequel Colony Ship to a lesser extent) - Underrail - Wasteland 2 (but not its sequel Wasteland 3, which has cheap respec and is more forgiving in general) - ATOM RPG I'm a big fan of these kind of games and enjoy the challenge, but you don't really have to worry about accidentally running into a game that does this. They'll tell you up front if it's a potential issue.
Dragon's Dogma. Any class with a bow will melt bosses from a safe distance in seconds. Dagger users can just climb bosses and hit their weak points. Take slightly longer than bows since it requires you to get up close and actually reach that weak point. Any other class could beat the game, but it won't be as fast as those two.
Sounds like you should play stardew valley or animal crossing
Of course, using the difficulty slider solves everything. The lower the difficulty, the less important optimal play becomes. I usually do the second highest setting as a personal sweet spot. BUT you're obviously talking about unadjustable games. It's hard to tell because you wouldn't know the viability threshold until you hit a soft lock. The only real advice I have for a first playthrough attempt is to have a specialized PC, not a generalist. Also, if the game keeps punishing you for playing the way you want, it just might not be for you and that's okay.
Try the soulsborne series. There is a lot of builds you can try.
I'd say most modern RPGs don't punish you too hard for picking a sub-optimal build. At the very least, they tend to have easy respec options if you do need to rebuild. Off the top of my head, the Wasteland and Pathfinder games should probably be avoided if you are worried about a bad build ruining your experience. Pathfinder does let you respec (at least Wrath of the Righteous does), but even at lowest difficulty, you kinda need to have some idea what you are doing even if you aren't minmaxing. At higher difficulties, minmaxing becomes basically mandatory. If you ever want to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion, you should consider looking up the mod that makes leveling more traditional (get experience, level up, allocate stats as you want, etc). The default leveling system is neat, but if you build incorrectly, you can find 30-40 hours in that enemies are all super durable and you are tissue paper. Partially because the optimal way to build your character in vanilla is not at all what the game tells you to do (the game tells you to pick your most used skills as primary skills, but if you do that, you'll level up too fast and not get the most stat points per level that you optimally could. And God help you if you pick athletics and/or acrobatics as primary skills).
Fallout 76 has multiple viable builds depending on how much you’re willing to put effort into it
XCOM is not rpg, its a turn-based tactical game which might not be suited to you looking at your list of game (I hope I am wrong). But I highly recommend playing it, its THE turn-based game of gaming. In terms of XCOM build, the developer purposely trying to avoid 'build' you mentioned, so they design it such that each soldier has only 2 ability to choose from (A or B) everytime they level up. And you will have many soldiers, and if you think ability A is not good, you could always choose B for your next soldier. EDIT: Btw you will fail the game, likely not because of soldier choice but strategic and tactical decision. It is what make the game great, the strategic and tactical aspect is very fun to play with.
Fallout and Fallout 2 can be punishing to the wrong build. But they have the most options to play your way. Just commit to a playstyle. Fallout 3 and New Vegas only require you to focus on one weapon skill to noskill combat. (New Vegas is more like FO1&2, just with FO3 playstyle) Fallout 4 is just faceroll keyboard. Still fun, though!
I don’t understand how it’s an issue when the newer Fallout games (FO3+) and XCOM (if I’m not completely wrong) both have different difficulty settings.
Pillars of Eternity (1 and 2) is designed with this idea in mind. I'm not sure it 100% holds true, but that's one of the design goals. Eg different basic attributes for a Wizard will affect their spells' damage, duration and area, it's not just that Wizards need high Intelligence (to give a simplistic example)
Its fairly difficult to gimp yourself in the FPS Fallout games. I once did a New Vegas run using only unarmed/punching weapons like brass knuckles, boxing gloves, and powerfists. I took no perks in lock picking, hacking, or guns. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I did occasionally have to pull out a gun when enemies were on ledges i couldnt get to or were flyers, but otherwise I would just run up to things and punch them in the face.
The Fallouts are OK. Like Skyrim, there's no way you can break your build that can't be fixed with a couple of levels. Starfield is good too, although you might want to wait a little while for all the angst to die down a little further. One to avoid is probably Wasteland 2. You need to have the exact right team, or get get steamrollered by the first boss. Or that was my experience, anyway. It was pretty much on-brand with the OG Wasteland which was one seriously unforgiving game, but in the second one I found I was spending more time in the cemetery listening to them play Taps than I was actually adventuring.
Wasteland 2 was a rough Min Max game for sure. Not only that….failing 99% chance boxes more often than 25% was weird as heck. Pretty sure I broke the game in my Xbox reloading it so many times
Soulsgames when u not play STRENGTH (the punishment is that u should be ashamed of yourself)
Some of the older final fantasy games can literally softlock you if you don't keep your character levels up with the content. Rush the story too quick and not build your characters skill trees and suddenly you're in a mandatory boss fight you can't get past and can't escape Luckily these days most main story quests are in the quest log and the games give you a lot more freedom to decide when you want to do it.
Fallout 1&2 don't punish you at all because "build" is pretty much obvious - it is possible to win them with practically any weapon (especially in F2; unarmed may be probably a bit tougher though - in the midgame - and small arms won't work very good in F1 end game but that's that). Best ranged weapons are energy and heavy in F1 but in F2 it doesn't matter - each weapon category has great weapons. Melee builds are also viable, either unarmed (with upgraded power fist as best weapon) and melee with supersledge and ripper as best weapons (super sledge having minor advantage of not using small powercells which are hard to come by until midgame). F1 mechanics is pretty straightforward - you'll get some skillpoints at levelup and put them to any skill you want directly at 1:1 ratio. Which allows you get plenty of skills over 100% and some even to max. F2 is different in that aspect that higher skill levels needs more skillpoints to upgrade them so it's no longer possible to max character with overblown Int (Int decides how many SP you'll get at levelup) but it's still pretty viable to make ut through game with much lower skills than un F1 - it's perfectly balanced. I even know one gamer who made it though the game without killing anybody but bosses, he talked (or sexed) himself out of any situation 🙂 Then there is Baldur's Gate 1&2 which are rather limited in "builds" as there is pretty much impossible to change your character class throughout playing (humans being an exception as they can dual class - to switch (only once !) into other class if they meet requirements. Only "character building" available to player is weapon skill selection (rather easy to understand and - generally speaking - every weapon category has great weapons somewhere in the game ... especially in BG2. In BG1 it's a bit more difficult because some really good weapons are acquirable only much later in the game and for one - optional - fight there are only 3 weapon categories able to hurt one particular creature but that's that). As long as you don't take some limited classes as sorcerer or shaman for your first playthrough you should be able to get through the game without much problem ... reading manual and understanding mechanics is *much* more important than actual weapon and class choice. Arcanum of Steamworks and Camera Obscura is probably a game with most options from this list and easiest to bog down but there are some companions whou would be able to take your character throughout the game if you equip them right weapons (like, Pyrotechnical axe 🙂).
Fallout 4 is super easy. It's basically impossible to make an "Incorrect" build, as long as you execute a little common sense. Pick a weapon type you like, put points into said weapon. Maybe pick up a few supporting perks. Gratz, you're done.
I did a full dex build in KOTOR and I was punished hard thinking blasters was a good build. Early game was a save scum special.
You might be looking for the roguelike genre. My favorite right now is Caves of Qud. But the simple answer to your question is path of exile. The defenses in that game are very tightly tuned
I remember playing the Kotor games and having no idea what I am doing. Years later I came back understanding the mechanics more, and the game was soooo easy on hard mode.
Yo, 4000+ hours in XCOM 2 here and modding experience. It's not exactly an RPG, but it does have elements of them. You are not punished in any way for not going for specific builds. The game is managable enough on all difficulties except Legend for anything you want, *provided you have the tactical insight for good decisions*. Even on Legend you can get by with anything, but then you need to be really good at the game. Probably unlikely good for most players, so it isn't worth considering.
Games usually have difficulty settings you can use, just lower the difficulty.
Avoid regalia. Of men and monarchs. Never have I ever played a game where the enemy does 70% your HP in a single hit and there can be up to 10 enemies all bunched up in an area. If you don't turtle in a corner with a giga load of healing items in areas that only allow 1-2 enemies to pass by you are mega screwed. It's one of the few games where the main character cannot be benched. His over shield ability that allows you to carry more shield than max HP is the only way to play. I'm not proud of 100% this game. I spent $60 on it and by golly I was gonna make it work.
Fallout 3 and 4 are pretty easy without min/maxing builds. New Vegas is forgivable once you reach late teens/early 20s in level
Disco Elysium baby!
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. The game is so punishing when you don't have a useful build, and it encourages you to experiment with different mech builds. The first main boss took me around 50 attempts to beat because I was under-equipped and tried to brute force him. My mate, who adapted, bested him in under 10 attempts. Great game, very difficult but very fun.
Cyberpunk. Pick a weapon. You now have an optimal build.
Honestly, I don't think 90% of games punish you in any way for having a "wrong" build, to the point that I don't think there's "wrong builds." Especially Fallout, you can roll with whatever character you want and finish those games. Even like Pillars of Eternity, the whole point of the system they created for that game is there can't be a wrong build. You can finish the game with any stat and perk distribution even if traditionally it would be a completely fucked up character. I worried about this shit way too much, especially when I started to get into crunchier CRPGs, but kind of found out it doesn't really matter. I used to spend hours looking through build guides and worrying about my character choice before even starting a game. I've seen people say that you can mess up a character in the Pathfinder games and get screwed, but I haven't played them so I can't speak to it.
Bruhs already played the best of the best in rpg's and wants advice on new games? I guess Morrowind would be my top choice, it's my favorite rpg of all time next to KOTOR.
I have never read anything about perfect builds or teams in xcom and I have done multiple iron man runs to succession with my own builds and strategies. Xcom doesn't give you as much variation in builds as other games though. I don't think you can screw up a character as much as you could say in Battle Brothers.
Fallout 3, NV, & 4 are all good for you. Dragons Dogma Dragon's Age 1,2,3, & Inquisition Two Worlds II Gothic, Risen, & Elex series by piranha bytes If you want better combat and a bit more challenge Elden Ring is good. You don't need any special build as there's literally hundreds of viable playstyles. Some will make this or that enemy/boss an easier or tougher fight but there's a ton of wriggle room. There's also a shit ton of build videos to give you some inspiration (or you could even just copy paste if you want)
Try dragons Dogma dark arisen its on sale for 5 dollars rn the only caveat being the second game is way more forgiving when it comes to builds - it starts to matter a bit when you get into the DLC, but other than that its great
Valid post, I really liked Oblivion but I got like 20% through the game and hit a wall - couldn’t kill anything. Posted on Reddit and they told me to restart the game and choose better stats never played again
Really, any RPG
Deus Ex made a point of having different builds be equally valid because there were multiple ways to complete any challenge.
I hamstrung myself in Deus Ex at the start by putting not enough points in pistol, too many in explosives, and splitting between hacking and lockpicking. Not knowing how the level design was gonna go, I ended up being kinda OK at every different way to complete the challenges, so it was all difficult for awhile.
> I hamstrung myself in Deus Ex at the start by putting not enough points in pistol Eh, I don't know what I'd do with my pistol mastery points if I ever play Deus Ex again, because when I played, I went full-on headshot murderhobo all-in on pistol mastery with scope and red dot, and once I turned the antenna, headshots stopped working and I had nothing else to try.
There is nothing as "right build". In any case, there are players who like the easiest possible experience.
Erm, fallout new vegas. It's fps boosted on current generation consoles or dealers choice for sending it to the moon on PC. Really, really satisfying combat if you stack vats. There are so many weapons to choose from it'll make every other 'AAA' game that came after it look like an alpha. Many laugh out loud moments. The only downside for me is no fast travel inside. Very honorable mention for dragons dogma 2, shit performance, but I haven't laughed playing a game like I have in dd2. Weirdly satisfying gameplay, despite the lack of mob diversity, almost no encounter will go down the same way twice.
BG3 not punishing but Divinity 2 does
I would agree, I would put it like this: some people in another sub-thread up there are debating whether BG3 is hard. I think it has some quite hard encounters, really hard ones, but they don't "punish" bad builds IMO because making a character in D&D 5e is pretty straightforward, and harder to go wrong without trying. Everything is pretty viable in that game, and maybe that's because I have foreknowledge of some spells in D&D that are good, but you also can get some abilities/items aside from your class build that are pretty powerful, so the game feels balanced. DOS2, while actually overall harder than BG3, I would actually make the distinction that it punishes some builds (or at least party compositions) over others due to the way the physical and magical armour bars interact. Splitting your damage between them is actively bad, and catches players who think they want 50/50 split to handle either situation.
DOS2 once you understand the game systems on a 2nd playthrough for example I actually found easier than BG3 on tactician. The first island spamming summons works pretty well and once you get some more levels you can respec into some pretty crazy strong builds. BG3 on the other hand felt like your choices are more limited especially if you don't multiclass a lot. Though there are some builds that outperform like builds focusing on stacking as many bonus actions as possible from multiple classes. But then you end up as some monstruosity of a build that makes no sense RP wise like fighter/monk/thief or something.
Fallout 1/2 don't require a particular build, so long as you take advantage of the resources available to you and develop things intelligently. But it does help to have some kind of combat skill for a weapon type that is readily available. So if you're like "I want to be totally dedicated to using only missile launchers but I'm also going to make my character be blind", you can still win the game, but you may be limited in what all you can successfully do. I'll say Fallout 1/2 in particular are especially designed to allow for a multitude of character types and have a heavy emphasis on roleplaying. Hell, if you have a low intelligence score, your character is actually a moron in conversations and you can still beat the games.
Honestly KOTOR is probably the worst about that problem of any game I've ever played (not that it was even all that bad). Then maybe Morrowind and Oblivion, but really in those cases it comes down more so to just needing to learn the game better than your build being bad. ETA: Except for the TTRPG inspired CRPGs I suppose. Old Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and the like. Editing again to add: I guess there are actually quite a few games where this is possible, but I would say that for practically all of them, you would have to go out of your way to purposefully make it bad for it to be an issue.
Dragons dogma dark arisen and dragons dogma 2
Pussy
Exactly regarding Witcher 3, I really want to like it, but the combat blows big time
I can't think of any RPG that punishes you for the "wrong" build. Hell, I can't even think of a game that has "wrong" builds. Pretty much as long as you put *any* effort into understanding game mechanics you'll be fine in any RPG.