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Pillars, difficulty curve question

opium fiend

Augur
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
546
Hi. So I like the game and all, and have finally overcome my chronic restarter syndrome enough to progress past the hangman's tree. I found the hard difficulty sufficiently hard, with some sharp spikes like raedric on lvl 5, when I retardedly jumped in the sarcrificial pit in Caed Nua and fucking Galvino's shop with his exploding constucts (lvl 8). After I cheesed those out, I found that most of the other encounters are just too easy, I'm clicking through combat without almost any thought, no need for special abilities, spells, nothing.

Is Path of the Damned the solution to this problem? Or should I just avoid side quests or what? Does the difficulty of the main quest picks up after act 2?
 

Prime Junta

Guest
There are basically two ways to keep the challenge reasonable through the game.

One, avoid White March until the last possible moment. Then play it level scaled up. Even so, things on the crit path get pretty easy towards the end of the main campaign. The difficulty does go up a notch in Act 3, but if you've hit White March you'll be way over-geared and over-levelled for it.

Two, hit White March around level 7, and just... don't play the main campaign.

White March 2, some of the optional encounters in White March 1, and Siege of Crägholdt are quite hard even for level 14-16 characters. The lower reaches of the Endless Paths are challenging for level 10-11 characters but a yawn for 14-16.

The game does have a problem with you outleveling the content. Path of the Damned does make things tougher but the mobs are a quite a bit bigger and the challenge variety suffers.
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,386
Location
Copenhagen
What Prime Junta said is really the most important part. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest playing either White March or main content regardless of the order you choose, and saving the other half for your next playthrough. You can do Endless Paths regardless.

You should, however, play Path of the Damned if you're at all competent at roleplaying games and like to reload the toughest fights a few times. Hard will become very easy later on.
 

opium fiend

Augur
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
546
Thanks. I think I'll go with PotD, leaving WM at the end. Maybe even irom man it, so I can be scared of dying instead of just being annoyed.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Thanks. I think I'll go with PotD, leaving WM at the end. Maybe even irom man it, so I can be scared of dying instead of just being annoyed.

Ironmanning PotD is... monocled. It will punch you in the nuts hard from time to time and the game doesn't usually easily allow you to run away from a fight that's going pear-shaped.

Ironmanning Hard is feasible if you're competent and careful, even on a first playthrough.
 

opium fiend

Augur
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
546
Yeah, there's no way I'll make it. I'm hoping it'll force me to think and pay attention to tactics, consumables, spells, etc instead of just barging into fights and count on passive abilities and knockout. I played a chanter and I'm thinking of doing rogue next, we'll see how long he lasts.
 

Mexi

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
6,811
Pillars of the Damned is actually pretty great. I went to that wooded area and got straight killed by those Druids that one-shot your mage with those lightning spells. I stupidly ran right at them with no tactics or anything. It was my own damn fault thinking I could just bumrush everything like I did on hard.
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Yeah, there's no way I'll make it. I'm hoping it'll force me to think and pay attention to tactics, consumables, spells, etc instead of just barging into fights and count on passive abilities and knockout. I played a chanter and I'm thinking of doing rogue next, we'll see how long he lasts.

Path of the Damned brings all those things to the table. Just as an FYI, PotD and its far longer encounters is where Chanter really shines so you get the full effect of your Invocations.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
I wish there was a mode with Hard or Normal mobs but PotD stats. The only thing I don't like about PotD is that the mobs are always so damn big: that makes for monotonous tactics as it's always all about AoE crowd control. The combat itself is a lot more challenging and a lot less rote otherwise.
 

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