No, sorry...have to disagree. Forcing something onto somebody is never good.

A "good" difficulty ("good" meaning: well-balanced) allows every player to play the game the way they want.

It should be possible for every player - independent of which class (e.g.: warrior, mage, rogue, etc), race (e.g.: human, dwarf, elf, etc), playstyle (melee, range, magic), and/or gender they choose - to play through, and end the game successfully.

Example: I choose to play as a female dwarfen warrior, who prefers melee combat...but at some point the game forces me to use magic (or ranged weapons)...that's not "good" in any way, because that's not the way I want to play.
If my choice of playstyle isn't respected throughout the game, the game sucks.

Now - let's say, a certain item is needed, or a certain minimum player level has to be reached by the character, to defeat the final opponent - that's totally fine.

But the game needs to make sure, that EVERY character can use that item, respectively that EVERY character can reach that required player level while playing their preferred style.

And the same goes for everywhere in the game, not just final battles.

If there is a passage between (point A) and (point B) in the game, that requires magic to get through...then there either needs to be an alternative passage, that doesn't require magic (but allows character progression in the same way as the magic playstyle), or the game needs to provide some form of the magic needed (e.g: a magical staff, etc), that a non-magical player can use (again: while providing the same character progression) - and, of course: the game has to make it clear in some way, that that magical staff can be used by non-magical users, or else I - as a melee playing character - might feel inclined to sell it at some point.

What do you say, however, about games like Final Fantasy 4?

In FF4:
* You do not get to pick your character or your party; the game does so for you.
* Your party isn't random; instead, it's dictated by the story.
* In some parts of the game, particularly around mid-game, your party might not be balanced. For example, there's a significant difference between when your party has 3 full magic uses compared to later when your party has just 1 (and he doesn't have a lot of MP, even if he does have powerful spells), and later when you go back to 2, but without the powerful spells until later.
* As a result, different parts of the game are designed with different parties in mind, and you are expected to use the abilities of your party members.

What do you think of this sort of RPG design?

(This is in contrast to FF3 and FF5, which let you assign jobs to your party members and give you stable parties.)

Here's a situation that arises early in Final Fantasy 3:
* To continue on, you must make your party small, which requires a spell that the game just gave you. (And if you threw away the spell, just talk to the person who gave it to you to get it back.)
* Fortunately, if you have no mages, it's easy to make one.
* While in mini status, your physical attacks are useless, so you're basically expected to change everyone into a mage (again, easily done).

So, what do you think of parts like this?

There's also a boss fight where you're expected to use a certain job, and the caves with splitting enemies whose splitting can only be prevented with the swords of darkness, which again require a specific job to use.

(Worth noting that Final Fantasy 5 does not do this sort of thing, except for one short late game (optional, but more content is gated behind it) where you need to split your party, with physical attacks being needed on one side and magic on the other. Fortunately, there's a clue, but that clue was mistranslated in one version.)

I don't think every RPG has to give the player total freedom in creating their character. Giving the player a pre-defined character tends to allow the main protagonist to have a richer background and to weave that better into the plot. Examples of great games that do that are Planescape:Torment and the Witcher series.

OTOH, I agree that games that give the player the option of different classes/builds need to make sure as many of those builds as possible are viable.

I think my comment was pretty clear in that regard, in that it applies to RPGs who allow me to make my own character(s).
The situation you describe is basically "The Witcher", and as I have already mentioned in another (of your?) threads: I have no problem playing a preconfigured character, if the story demands that.

The spell is basically the "certain item", respectively "the magical staff", that I mentioned in my comment, so my answer is already given.

Again: that's the equivalent of the already mentioned "the game needs to provide some form of the magic needed (e.g: a magical staff, etc), that a non-magical player can use"...my answer to that is already given.

And again: the game has to offer me the item(s) needed (here: swords of darkness), in a way that allows me to use them even if none of my party members has that special job, OR it must offer an alternative (in weaponry, etc) for me to take/use.

If a game tells me 50 hours in: "haha,...none of you has chosen the right job at the beginning, now you played all these hours for nothing, haha!!!", it's a crap game, that I'll uninstall and never ever play again.
Furthermore I will tell anyone I know to stay the hell away from this steaming piece of shit.

I don't know, how much more clearer I could make that.

I agree that if a CRPG is going to require use of a specific item or ability to progress, then it should be useable by anyone, or the game should provide a convenient NPC that can be taken temporarily by the party, to fulfill that role.

Again, the golden rule: what would a tabletop DM do? If a CRPG does something that a good TT DM wouldn't, then it is probably suspect.

*shudders at time limits* Doesn't matter how they're implemented or what for. Just no. Period.

As for the idea that a CRPG should try to imitate a TTRPG... I'm not even sure that was the point of early ones, since even then the ability to have much more content and go through it in far less time created differences that went beyond quantity alone. In a TTRPG, sessions must be meaningful and there's only so much that can be done in each, so important decisions and battles tend to be compressed, but there should usually be a way out, so characters are expected to be able to survive and continue with their first choices. In CRPGs, while the need for it should be minimized to avoid frustration, saving and loading should always be an option, letting players try different things, or just try again, if they don't like an outcome, and orders of magnitude more content is needed, and while it'd be nice if it could also be meaningful, there are limits, maybe mainly on the creative side, to what can really be included, plus that there may be a point where if every decision and every fight feels important, or even if most do, it may become too much, some... down time being needed as well, things to make the player feel like they're good at it, pushing forward, not slamming against challenge after challenge all the time. Plus, of course, the main difference between CRPGs and TTRPGs, the former being (mostly) made for one player to play against the computer and a set world and game design, which therefore need to take varying player desires and skillsets into account from the beginning, and the latter being meant for a group of people to play with each other, and also interact with a human DM who also interacts with them, allowing for much more fluidity.

This is a pretty specific type of action RPG and misses the point Im trying to make.

Relating to your example however, I think Dark Souls and Monster Hunter does this best where you are able to make your own character but still does difficulty relatively fairly. In Dark Souls, everyone can equip magic and do melee but the relative effectiveness depends on how many stats the player puts in. Stats increases can also be chosen by the player. However, regardless of level every player has access to several moves, notably striking, guarding, and dodge rolling with the i-frames that result. So in Dark Souls, not all bosses can be killed by just spamming magic projectiles from far away. As the game progresses, players need to be able to use the options available to them to better understand and counter the bosses they face. In Monster Hunter, your weapons and armor loadouts provide different moves and effects but the monsters are the same and can be defeated regardless of equipped weapon although you still need to know the enemy's moves and opening to survive.

So for your example, even if you made your build a Viking warchief orc instead of a elf archer or a fox wizard, you still need to learn how the boss' (usually a boss) attacks, their effects, and where you need to stand or when to dodge or block of whatever to best counter and defeat the boss. This becomes very hard when you have a completely free selection of characters in a single character game since list of commonly available moves becomes more shallow but that is what I mean. A game sucks when the combat is just spam spell or attack and facetank everything, chug potions, I win. Its why a game like Skyrim is honestly not that good because the meta is just play stealth archer and headshot kill everyone. In a game with good difficulty, there should be characters with heavy helmets that prevent headshots, forcing the archer to shoot arms and legs to disable or slow the enemy and whittle down their health, dodge to avoid attacks, etc.

No decent game would block progress without an alternative. When it comes to difficulty, it usually delves in puzzle solving, platforming, or fight difficulty. In more standard JRPGs, you have a party which gives you access to more options. However, most fights likely delve into spam attack and win when fighting against mooks. When against a boss, a good boss should force players to explore the options available to them such as casting defensive magic, dispelling buffs the boss uses on themselves, using elemental magic to exploit weaknesses, steal, etc. A bad difficulty would have the player just grind to facetank the boss and never explore the various options available to them.

"Decent" being the key word here.

Well thats true but we are talking about the "ideal" difficulty so we have to assume the games themselves will be at least decent lol.

Another thing from Romancing SaGa 3: you chose the main character from among a pool, and the party included other characters that could have been main characters, plus people you recruit or not along the way: all that is perfectly fine. They all have their own story.

In some games with convoluted game systems, having characters created for you (with freedom to develop them later as you see fit) can prevent disasters. In Blackguards, that uses the system of The Dark Eye, the game really wants you t choose the already made Hunter. There is an already made fighter and mage. Just do not pick those, the game will provide you a fighter and a mage in no time. Then, people in forums asking for the ability to create their own characters led to the developers adding that.

Consequence: reviews by lazy reviewers who chose to make their own characters in the system of the Dark Eye, that they were not familiar with. Totally screwed since they did not care to research, and then complain about the game, when it was clearly warned that you could screw up. Just pick the hunter, ha, unless you really know what you are doing. If you do not, and the game warned you fairly, then do not come back complaining.... ¬¬ Hate lazy reviewers, you find them even in well known websites.


Also, yes, games that do not allow for making mistakes when assigning attribute or skill points... Really? D&D makes you take the most imporant decisions about your character way before playing, and there is no real way to fix that. You really have to know what you are doing. D&D can get away with that because it is widespread, but any game that comes with its own system cannot afford that kind of demand on the player.