Just finished Act III... wondering about challenge

[Mahtasooma]

So I just finished Act III and I'm wondering whether I'll meet an enemy which presents a challenge to my party anymore.

Which is a shame, because the game started off very very challenging, which of course led me into developing my party around safety and defense, but I really have to think hard when was the last time a group of monsters were presenting a challenge to me.

Looks like the difficulty of the game is spiraling downwards, where it really should be upwards. Because the better you know the game, the harder it should get, not the other way round.

Btw my party consists of
Paladin Tank (GM Light)
Blademaster Offtank
Shaman Earth/Water GM
Freemage Prime GM / Light+Fire M

So basically almost anyone can heal the whole party and Shaman and Freemage are immune to feeblemind (because I don't have Air Magic). I never (!) touched the Archmage spell, which would make fights like totally ridiculously easy, obviously. Whoever thought of that I-WIN button spell should be hit with a bat, anyway.

[Killbomb]

Which difficulty are you playing on?

[GAME OVER]

I thought better you know the game, easier it gets....

[ಠ_ಠBoB Dolen ಠ_ಠ]

It is an issue with most RPGs (always been a ES problem)

[Hermes]

Why do you think time stop is op? You can't attack targets outside, and the ones inside are unaffected. Well actually spell is bugged and so is useless.

[Mahtasooma]

Time Stop is totally OP because you can all drink potions, buff back up and head back into the fight. Every... single... time...

Needless to say I play on Warrior, otherwise the start wouldn't have been rough, or so I assume.

[stromming78]

I don't think it works that way?
you'll still have the closest group(s) of enemys whacking away at you - as far as i know it only affects enemies outside the closest sorrounding squares.

And if that's the case, it's not really that useful
(only just got it, havent used it more than twice yet so i could be utterly wrong)

[Defiance]

This is basically how every MM worked. At the start you start with a group of gimps with 0 abilities and mobs that are pretty tough. At the end when you get access to most master and grandmaster spells it becomes easy mode since some of them are heavily overpowered like liquid membrane which negates almost all damage even though tooltip claims otherwise.

This happened in almost every game in the series it's not exclusive to this one.

[Mahtasooma]

I agree, but this is a really major design flaw. Starting off hard is ending up easy is like learning chess, then playing hard players and when you beat them, opponents get easier.

WTF..

[Seltin]

I think its fine the way it is, you're supposed to get gear and start finding mobs easier and easier - makes me feel the more powerful I get with higher levels. Whats the point of getting new gear, more stats, GM'ing different schools and mobs still beat you down?

Remember Oblivion with monster scaling? The more stats and upgrades I got, I didn't feel any stronger at all. Not fun that way for me.

[Mahtasooma]

The point is I get to slay Dragons instead of Goblins, but the Dragon should still be pretty hard.
That is what I understand about progression.
The Goblins should not scale with you.. that's the second characteristic of progression. But it seems impossible to have both: slaying hard dragons AND having stuff not scale with you.

[ACS36]

crystal spider boss is probably hardest in the game(unless he bugs out, or untill you know how to kill him)

game starts off hard but gradualy gets easier like others have said

the only real way to make it challenging is to come up with challenges yourself like

-don't use relic items
-don't use potions
-don't use certain classes
-don't use certain schools of magic
-beat the game without doing side quests
-and so on.