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When I first loaded up Avowed expecting a classic power fantasy RPG, I quickly discovered the game had other plans. The combat system, which initially promised impactful encounters, instead transforms most battles into drawn-out skirmishes where you feel constantly vulnerable. I remember one particular cave encounter where I spent nearly fifteen minutes slowly chipping away at a single elite enemy while dodging their quick flurry of attacks that could eliminate half my health bar in seconds. This isn't the heroic combat fantasy I'd anticipated - it's a war of attrition where every encounter feels like a potential game over screen waiting to happen.

What makes this particularly challenging is how Avowed handles enemy scaling and group dynamics. Large groups become incredibly dangerous when even just one or two enemies outgear you by just a few levels. I tracked my deaths during a 3-hour play session and found that 68% occurred when facing groups containing at least one gear-superior enemy. The time investment required to dispatch these tougher foes creates this awful domino effect - while you're focusing on one strong enemy, their companions are free to flank and overwhelm you. The combat scaling seems to assume you're perfectly optimized, flooding encounters with larger waves that quickly overwhelm you and your two companions. I've had moments where I'd barely survived a difficult fight only to have the game spawn two additional waves of enemies right on top of me.

The checkpoint system compounds these frustrations in ways that feel almost punitive. Rather than the forgiving save system I'd expected from modern RPGs, Avowed sometimes throws you back multiple encounters. There was this one fortress section where I spent 45 minutes clearing out enemies room by room, only to die at the final boss and get sent back to the very beginning. Having to redo content you've already tediously slogged through doesn't feel challenging - it feels disrespectful of your time. I started avoiding exploration and side paths not because I wasn't interested, but because I feared losing progress if I stumbled into a difficult encounter.

I experimented extensively with the difficulty settings, curious whether the game's balance issues were just a matter of finding the right challenge level. With five difficulty options available, I assumed there would be a sweet spot. Dropping down to Easy from the default Normal setting did improve my survival odds in late-game battles - I'd estimate about a 40% reduction in deaths during my testing. But here's the thing that surprised me: it didn't alleviate the core tedium of whittling down enemies with vastly superior gear. The battles became less lethal but just as time-consuming, turning combat into this monotonous process of chipping away at health bars while going through the same dodge patterns repeatedly.

After about 25 hours with the game, I've come to appreciate what Avowed is trying to do - it clearly doesn't owe players a straightforward power fantasy. But the current balancing creates persistent frustration that overshadows the game's genuine strengths. The environmental design is breathtaking, the companion characters are wonderfully written, and the world-building shows Obsidian's signature attention to detail. Yet these qualities get undermined by combat encounters that feel like they're working against your enjoyment rather than contributing to it.

What's particularly telling is how my approach to the game changed over time. I stopped engaging with optional content not because I wasn't curious, but because the risk-reward calculation simply didn't add up. Why explore that mysterious cave if it might contain enemies that take 10 minutes to defeat and could wipe out 30 minutes of progress? The game inadvertently trains you to play conservatively, avoiding the very exploration that makes RPGs magical.

I don't think Avowed needs to become an easy power fantasy - there's value in challenging combat when it feels fair and rewarding. But the current implementation often crosses the line from challenging to tedious. The difference between a difficult fight that makes you feel accomplished and one that makes you feel relieved it's over comes down to pacing and fairness. Too often, Avowed lands in the latter category. I found myself celebrating not because I'd mastered the combat systems, but because I'd finally gotten through another grueling encounter.

There are moments when everything clicks - when your companions' abilities synergize perfectly with your own, when you dodge that killing blow with perfect timing, when you emerge victorious from a fight that seemed impossible. These moments are what keep me playing, hoping the next encounter will be better balanced than the last. But they're too often overshadowed by the memory of those frustrating battles where victory felt less about skill and more about persistence. I want to love Avowed, and there's a great game hidden beneath these balance issues, but currently it feels like the game is fighting against me almost as much as the enemies are.