What difficulty are you playing on and how do you fare? (Poll)

[Ulminati]

Well, 90% of the encounters on hard you just roflstomp with subpar Obsidian NPCs spamming all their per-encounter abilities. :3

 

[mutonizer]

I play on Path of the Path of the Damned AKA - Normal. Its just right for me.

If I actually wanted a real thought-provoking challenge I might play Normal @ Ironman and see how far I can make it. That would actually be enjoyable and fit the definition of the word "challenging" to me. Save scumming on a Hard or Harder difficulty is not. It is being really adept at hitting the F5 and F8 buttons when the arachnid horde eats your group's faces off.

Wouldn't call reload when everyone dies "save scumming" but heh, to each his own.

As an aside, my real beef is that there just isn't any "shit, run!" system, which makes every fight a "do or reload" situation, which is a bit annoying. I don't mind a character being killed off if rest of the group manages to run away and live another day, but that just can't happen unless you're really careless, it's nearly always complete win or complete lose. Bit sad about that and that really prevents me from finding any interest in an ironman run.

 

[Rostere]

A QTE is just pressing buttons, a good mage battle revolves around knowing what is actually possible in the game and devising a plan around that knowledge. We're not talking about the first main quest boss here, just a bit of extremely challenging optional content that you can grind yourself against for hours before figuring out how you could crack it. The BG games and their expansions both had that kind of content (or at least attempted it, until the proper cheese strategies were figured out, mods were developed to combat them, etc. etc.).

Sorry, I meant to say that it becomes like a QTE when you know what to do. It certainly is not before you know which spells to use/ nerf the Inquisitor.

Another example were the beholders during the Unseeing Eye quest, which were buffed in my game to cast level 7-9 spells and had a bunch of contingencies and charm abilities, while player immunities was capped at 50% (no hard counters!). There were multiple ways to combat these guys, and figuring them all out was fun. FUN.

Well, it is fun when there are "spikes" in difficulty, especially large spikes in optional content (which you can't cheat by doing at a later level).

What I'm saying is that the class design ruined much of the difficulty in the BG games for me. The fun only starts when you like the game enough to intentionally gimp yourself by choosing less optimal classes, or with mods which rebalance that I guess.

 

[Bubbles]

From the results so far, it looks like Normal mode is the best tuned mode, offering the highest level of satisfaction for people who chose it. No surprise really, it was probably the most extensively tested.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Playing on Normal and I'm finding it to be a pretty good difficulty, with the disclaimer that when I started I did not understand the mechanics well and was playing very sub-optimally. The game has gotten a lot easier as I've figured out the combat system, but I wouldn't say it's too easy even so.

 

[Kattze]

What's the point of playing on Hard then, aside from slightly increased challenge?

 

[Nael]

What's the point of playing on Hard then, aside from slightly increased challenge?

You send them your score at the end of the game and they mail you a frisbee with an Obsidian logo on it. I don't know. What kind of question is this?

 

[Jaesun]

What's the point of playing on Hard then, aside from slightly increased challenge?

You send them your score at the end of the game

I really miss that.

 

[Night Goat]

I've been playing on hard, and the only fight I've lost more than once is that fucking bear in the murdercave near the beginning.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Normal. Im thinking on restarting on hard, but will wait till they patch the gamebreakers like the inflated stats and the bugged keep.

 

[Kaldurenik]

I play on hard, i do die once in a while against certain creatures. Vamps and ghosts are so far the most annoying things. Also some times i rush ahead to quickly and don't prepare. Also all my character builds are wrong, with overall a bad selection of spells / stats / skills.

Next time i play i will make a much better character

 

[ZagorTeNej]

So, some people are boasting about the game being easy even on Path of the Damned. And you know what, you can't feed me with that BS. I might believe that there might be some super hamsters who are metagaming the shit out of the system, but I don't believe it that you have to play PotD to have a challange.

Lets put an end to it. What difficulty are you playing on and how do you manage the game on that. Is it just right or it is easy?

Playing on Hard and the main difference I've seen so far compared to BG series is that the difficulty gap between trash fights (if you can call them that anymore) and hand placed encounters/party vs party/boss fights is much, much smaller. I'd say PoE is more strenous to play in prolonged periods but you're also far less likely to run into anything that will make you take a step back and rethink your tactics/approach.

That said, I'm not that far into game (I'm level 6) so who knows what else awaits me before the end.

 

[Wizfall]

I play normal and it's a bit on the easy side.
I don't play hard because i fear i will need to minmax my character and micro manage much more before the fight, things i do on normal but not extensively (too boring to my taste to accurately optimize positioning everytime).

I think people playing on PotD difficulties (and maybe hard) and saying the game is easy are doing one of the following thing :
- creates more than the one original starting custom made character (which make the game much easier).
- cheese one way or another, have a metaknowledge of the game, minmax like crazy and micromanage extensively the start of every fight.
- almost always play with the max party number.

 

[LizardWizard]

I think people playing on PotD difficulties (and maybe hard) and saying the game is easy are doing one of the following thing :
- creates more than the one original starting custom made character (which make the game much easier).
- cheese one way or another, have a metaknowledge of the game, minmax like crazy and micromanage extensively the start of every fight.
- almost always play with the max party number.

So you're saying they play like a non-retard? Since when is min-maxing or metaknowledge cheesing?

Hard is laughably easy without custom adventures though.

 

[J_C]

I think people playing on PotD difficulties (and maybe hard) and saying the game is easy are doing one of the following thing :
- creates more than the one original starting custom made character (which make the game much easier).
- cheese one way or another, have a metaknowledge of the game, minmax like crazy and micromanage extensively the start of every fight.
- almost always play with the max party number.

So you're saying they play like a non-retard?

So you are saying that not min-maxing, using only companions is a retard way to play?

 

[Zetor]

Out of curiosity, are any of the "hard / potd is easy!" people affected by the stat inflation bug (thus nigh-invulnerable tanks, etc)?

 

[Gord]

Playing on normal with a full party but only one additional custom NPC (a rogue), the game is a bit on the easy side, but occasionally has a fight that's a proper challenge (e.g. some of the ogres on level 2 of Cad Nua). I do micro (of course I do, why wouldn't one micro in a game like that), but as usual don't minmax much.
Guess Hard might have been the perfect mode for me to start in after all, but I wanted to learn the system first, since I went into it blind.

Anyway, looking at the other big Kickstarters, I guess the initial release of PoE similarly can be considered a late-beta-stage game and a major balancing patch (insert Sawyer joke here) will drop in the next months.

 

[Parabalus]

I've been playing on PotD with default companions and find the difficulty to be just right, very much like the IE games (when not excessively power/metagaming or cheesing them).

Most of the thrash fight you can plow right throught, but if you get careless you get wiped in seconds. Then you reload, much wiser because you know exactly what awaits you, think about pre-battle positioning, maybe place a seal and you get them.
There were several harder fights which took me a few tries to complete, but funnily enough most of these were random packs, not bosses.
The greatest challange was the end of the Endless Paths which took me quite a while, but nothing really comes close to comparing difficulty wise.

The only thing I dislike about PotD is it seems to raise the DR of monsters, which affects dual wielders much more adversely, so I would probably have given my PC rogue two-handed instead, if I had known about it .

 

[Jools]

I play on normal and it's mostly piss-easy, apart for a few "spiked" fights. Considering upgrading to hard for next playthrough. Truth be told, I've always been fairly shit at combat in IE-like games, but I like the fact that, by dying over and over, I'm actually getting better at it and am actually not dying that much anymore.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

beat the game

bottom of endless paths boss took 7 tries, nothing else in act 2 or 3 killed me

 

[mutonizer]

Out of curiosity, are any of the "hard / potd is easy!" people affected by the stat inflation bug (thus nigh-invulnerable tanks, etc)?

I keep checking since I heard about it but never had that happen to me so far. Nor any bug whatsoever really, apart from cursor acting up once during battle.

The only thing I dislike about PotD is it seems to raise the DR of monsters, which affects dual wielders much more adversely, so I would probably have given my PC rogue two-handed instead, if I had known about it .

Hmm, as far as I know, PotD gives enemies +15ACC, +15DEF and +25-50% Endurance. It also spawns the maximum of all possible creatures from all other difficulties so you get lots of mobs. No change to DR.

 

[Roguey]

What's the point of playing on Hard then, aside from slightly increased challenge?

Difficulty settings exist so people can choose which one they'll enjoy playing the most.

 

[Mystary!]

What's the point of playing on Hard then, aside from slightly increased challenge?

What's the point of playing on Normal if its just slightly more challenging than Easy?
Maybe if you play on Easy one of the moderators would be kind enough to reward you with something special, like say a custom "I'm speshul!"-tag. Wouldn't that be nice?

 

[Bio Force Ape]

Normal, which I'm finding challenging thanks to the shitty NPCs they stick you with. And there's too many fights. At this rate I risk burning out before finishing and I'd like to see the story through to the end. I felt the same about all the recent "incline" games lately. Maybe I'm just getting old and impatient, but damn, let me just get through the dungeon and talk to so-and-so and move on. Don't make me slaughter 87 giant spiders on the way there cuz that shit's getting tedious.

 

[Blaine]

Except for the annoyance of Shadows and Shades (which are annoying and cheesy, but not actually hard per se), now that I've restarted with a Rogue PC, Hard is shaping up to be fairly easy. I think I'm actually getting the hang of a lot of the combat system's intricacies now, which obviously helps.

That's one of the main reason I prefer somewhat harder difficulties: I know that with time and patience, I'll adapt to them, and I'm more concerned with avoiding feeling a game is too easy than worrying it'll be too hard. I'd rather suck and be frustrated than feel like I'm not being challenged.