Being overpowered,good or bad?

[Brazilianpeanutwar]

So i was thinking,when you get to a certain point in games where you're absoloutely untouchable and you have every resource and trick in the book at your disposal,do you feel like you want to start over again and the game has become less challenging?

Or like me do you enjoy having the game at your mercy and being able to exploit it?

Personally i love being overpowered in games like fallout 3 when you have all the ammo you can and all the weapons,but then i decide to leave all my weapons at home and go out wearing the weakest armour and only carrying maybe 25 bullets and a crappy pistol.

The same goes for mass effect,starting the game again with all your powers makes the game more tactical i think,you can be much precise in how a fight turns out.

So what are your opinions?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Oh, I dislike being over-powered. Unless it's the developer's intention, that is. This is why I LIKE enemy scaling, like FF8 and Oblivion.

This is why I don't exploit glitches in Oblivion and Morrowind, and other such games.

 

[ChaoticLegion]

Oh, I dislike being over-powered. Unless it's the developer's intention, that is.

This is why I don't exploit glitches in Oblivion and Morrowind, and other such games.

Exactly this.... Being overpowered kinda removes the challenging fun from the game. At the moment I'm re-playing through oblivion....again, with 6.5GB worth of Mods on it.. however I made sure each mod wouldn't add anything overpowering to the game.

 

[Dabox1]

depends on how I got there, if it took me a a long ass time and lots of hard work, then sure I'd love being OP, but if it was to incredibly easy then i'd rather be weak and challenged =/

 

[SonicWaffle]

Exactly this.... Being overpowered kinda removes the challenging fun from the game. At the moment I'm re-playing through oblivion....again, with 6.5GB worth of Mods on it.. however I made sure each mod wouldn't add anything overpowering to the game.

I dislike scaling enemies. It removes any feeling of accomplishment, and in case like Oblivion, can become downright idiotic. Why would a bandit be wearing the most expensive armour available, and swinging a powerful enchanted Daedric sword? If he just sold it, he'd be able to live like a king, so why is he hanging around in the woods mugging people for loose change?

 

[Bloodstain]

In Morrowind you always end up godlike...it's fun for a while, but soon gets boring. That's around the time you start creating your own nearly unbeatable enemies. ^.^

 

[tharglet]

I get bored if a game is too easy (or too hard). If I'm killing anything with no challenge, I'll lose interest after a time. With Oblivion I got to a point where I was either doing missions I could roflstomp through or left yawningly skilling up spells or somesuch to get through it.

I like games that have fights that feel as if it could go either way. Sometimes an easy stretch can be fun, especially after a tricky bit, but too much of the same can be a bad thing.

 

[Alex Cowan]

By the time I was about halfway through Oblivion I had enough cash to get a 100% Chameleon suit, which kind of negated the challenge somewhat, as I could just sneak through and ninja-kill everyone before they noticed me.

Although recently I've started re-playing X-Wing Alliance, a game where you're power level is exactly right. You are just an average starfighter pilot, neither weaker nor stronger than the others around you. Even at the very end of the game you'll still get pounded if you try and fly straight into a Star Destroyer. It's realistic* to the highest degree, and in this situation all the more fun for it, as you really need to be on your toes playing it.


*As realistic as a game set in space can be...

 

[Woodsey]

It depends on the game.

For example, TFU should have been a far easier game. I'm there to make storm troopers my bitches, not to have arse handed to me by someone with a stick[footnote]And yes, before anyone brings it up I know staffs and swords in Star Wars have a cortosis weave on them, that's not the point. *Shudders from his own nerdiness*[/footnote] and a force-field bubble around them.

Nowadays, games are more about the experience then the challenge. If the challenge is a part of the experience then so be it, but if I'm meant to be one of the best there is then make me feel like it. That doesn't mean you can't pit someone against me that's going to match me, but for the most part I should be slicing arms off and cooking people with force lightning (still on TFU here).

 

[Jedamethis]

depends on how I got there, if it took me a a long ass time and lots of hard work, then sure I'd love being OP, but if it was to incredibly easy then i'd rather be weak and challenged =/

That sounds about right.

 

[neoontime]

I like being over-powered, it really gives me an ego boost.

 

[Kiju]

Depends on the game in question.

Single player, it doesn't bother me too much. It's nice having everything and being self-sufficient in a game like, for your example, Fallout 3. It's rather difficult to survive until you start getting yourself spec'd correctly and with good weapons to boot, but there-in lies the fun of a survival game, in my opinion. Being a one-man army isn't too much fun when there's no real challenge in it...hence why I took stealth instead of just going in, guns blazing.

Now, as for online multiplayer, something that is overpowered is in this gamer's opinion something that shouldn't occur at all. Take for example: In Battlefield Bad Company 2, there are a few weapons in that game that are overpowered for the class. The AN-94 Abakan combined with magnum ammo is by far the easiest weapon to kill with, as it is burst fire with a ridiculously fast fire rate, and the ability to semi-auto that burst fire so you have pin-point accurate, fully automatic fire.

There is also the Engineer's rocket launcher; most notoriously the Carl Gustav which, if you fire it point blank, will not hurt you too badly, but will instantly kill anyone it touches, and badly hurt anyone surrounding the explosion except you and your team-mates. The same holds true for any sort of shot explosive device, actually.

These sorts of things, for an example, need to be removed from games that center around a group of players who want a clean, fair fight, with skill and teamwork being the deciding factor between victory and defeat, not the ridiculous effectiveness of an exploitable weapon. But in single player? They're absolutely fine.

 

[The Procrastinated End]

Being God is fun for a while but after a bit it gets boring once you've killed someone in every possible way.

 

[Zacharine]

I like getting powerful, but also fighting powerful enemies.

I dislike scaling enemies, if there is no reason for the scaling.

For example, you begin Baldur's Gate 1 as a flimsy level 1 character, with less than half the gear you need, who dies when someone sneezes too loudly near him. A single wolf might kill your entire party if you're unlucky. The first enemies you fight are Diseased Glibberlings and a lone hungry highwaybandit or two.

By the time the game ends, you slaughter single-handedly entire groups of both with relative ease. But you are also fighting elite assasins,corporate-funded mercenaries masquerading as bandits, ogres, sword spiders, private security guards and competent enemy mages. The challenge scales up, by introducing new and believably powerful enemies.

And at the end of Baldur's Gate 2, you have killed several dragons. You take on Adamantine Golems with little preparations. Your normal variety of enemies consist of either Drow nobles or various demons and elementals. The challenge is there, but when you do meet easier enemies you dominate them utterly; a panther charging at you is no reason to waste a spell, a single enemy cleric with an undead horde gets her soul ripped out and the skeletons and zombies turned to dust by your own cleric before her first spell is cast. It gives you the feeling you've made actual progress in power-scale and that you're a guy to be taken seriously, while still giving you challenge in combat because your enemies are now demons and vampires and wizards with golem armies instead of basic bandit grunts or natural wildlife.

By the end of the Throne Of Bhaal, Fire Giants are your average enemy, an elder dragon is a speedbumb and you can summon demons to fight for you... but your main villains are the few remaining brothers and sisters you have, all roughly as powerful as you with tricks of their own, and a demi-goddess on verge of full godhood.

To reiterate:
I like getting powerful, but also fighting powerful enemies.
I dislike scaling enemies, if there is no reason for the scaling.

The problems is, many games end on verge of ultimate power... and then get sequels. In Baldur's Gate saga, the progression is constant and once you achieve a ridiculous power level they stopped the saga in a suitably epic style and declared that that was it In Planescape, to my knowledge they didn't even try to create a sequel. Between Fallout 1 & 2, decades pass and you're an entirely different character with different background.

 

[DesertHawk]

I think that having some overpowered-ness (not quite a word) is an important element to have in a game. Players should have at some point, the ability to dominate the lesser enemies that gave them such a hard time at the start of the game. It's great fun, and it provides tangible feedback as to how far a player has progressed in a game. Now, it should certainly take a lot of effort and hard work to get to that point. A cheap victory, is not an enjoyable one imho.

All of that said, there still should be something offered in the game world to provide the player with a challenge. It gives them something further to work towards. That's why I feel a mix of static and scaled leveling is a good thing.

At a certain point in the game bandits and lesser monsters should be running from ME, yet greater demons and ancient swordsmen should be able to 'whoop mah butt' if I'm careless...

 

[tharglet]

Players should have at some point, the ability to dominate the lesser enemies that gave them such a hard time at the start of the game.

This is fun in RPGs, and can offer relief against the challenge, so you can roflstomp for a bit, before getting roflstomped in return .

 

[Flying-Emu]

No.

I like to play the character who is so ridiculously gimped that no one else will play as him.

That way I get a massive e-peen boost whenever I win.

 

[Chamale]

I don't like losing, but I sometimes deliberately gimp myself to get more of a challenge. That's why I played through Pokémon Heartgold with low-level Pokémon while keeping my high-level Pokémon in reserve on the team in case I suddenly needed them.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Well it all depends. If you're supposed to be an unstoppable badass, then overpowered is good for the grunts because they realistically should not even be worthy of a sideways glance, and you should be on pretty even terms with the bosses.

A good example would be God of War. You were evenly matched with the big guys and mostly tore through the small ones like wrapping paper. And they did a good job at the end boss too, making him overpowered, because frankly, Ares was a fucking GOD!