Current Events > Do difficulty levels in RPGs do anything besides increase grinding?

(+) Yeah! (+)

An action game requires better reflexes on "Hard" but RPGs are basically Strategy vs Stats, and by "Strategy" I mean Rock>Paper>Scissors or other such mechanics. When your tactics can only go so deep, stats have to make up the difference.
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Bump?
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The hard modes I've played in the Atelier series were really good. Didn't feel like I had to grind at all, just crafting more optimally.

Some of the harder hard modes might require you to constantly keep your buffs up and spend longer on set up because the window for when you can actually feel safe for doing damage is much smaller. Or you find ridiculous loopholes and take advantage of a specific strat. In action RPGs, there are also reactionary components that might give you the edge despite not passing the stat check.

But yeah most RPGs don't really do this all that well.
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any good rpg would give enemies new skills or include new enemies altogether in hard mode to make the experience fresher and have more complexities to consider

Any turn-based RPG system that has access to some form of reasonably reliable action delay, denial, or cancellation can easily push more strategic decisions through higher difficulty. That's especially true if grinding is impractical or impossible through various mechanisms.

I lile how in divinity original sin when you increase the difficulty, the enemies use more advanced and high level spells and abilities instead of just jacking up HP and damage
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Mechanics can be added or altered. Extra phases or forms exclusive to harder difficulties. And not just in MMOs. That said, I miss the old days where there'd be more "use fire anything while X is up and you'll nuke yourself and fully heal the boss" types of things. Nowadays I keep seeing the Diablo 3 formula of "kill the things the boss spawns to heal up before you go back to the boss".
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I like when RPGs do a NG+ or at least have harder dungeons to tackle after the story. Most difficulties are straight up damage/health buffs and just forces you to grind or it just evens out due to powerful gear a few hours in (Witcher 3 anyone?).
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Ki_cat_ posted...

I like when RPGs do a NG+ or at least have harder dungeons to tackle after the story. Most difficulties are straight up damage/health buffs and just forces you to grind or it just evens out due to powerful gear a few hours in (Witcher 3 anyone?).

Tales of the abyss had one of the worst ones. Enemies on the highest difficulty could have such high stats that they'd basically one hit kill you if not for certain skills you could acquire to survive at full HP. That said, most solo videos on those or any other difficulty are just 1-2-3 combos then running around until the enemy uses a certain move to create another opening.

Same with star ocean 3 when not abusing the god fayt strategy which nullifies nearly every attack in the game on normal difficulty.
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Proud or preferably critical mode in the kingdom hearts series are the only things that keep the game from being a mindless button masher
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Dodge roll for weeks worked on everything but the vanilla super boss in BBS. Oh, and I guess everything involving Terra since he had the longest animation and zero I-frames.
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