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

[Athelas]

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.

If you're playing on hard, you should be facing two bears.

 

[Redshirt #42]

I have two parallel playthroughs - one on Hard (because I didn't want to min/max too much to get more dialogue choices) and one on Path of the Damned (min maxed 20 Perception / 20 Resolve tank character).

The Hard run started off relatively easy. All I had to do was use my abilities properly for the harder encounters and have proper positioning. Now it's pretty much completely fucked up - I found out about the "stacking" bug too late (I thought it only affected Attributes and that I was safe when I removed +1 INT gear from Kana) and now my Edér is pretty much invincible (due to the Modal talent that adds to his Defenses at the cost of attack speed stacking every time you save and load the game in Gilded Vale). He had double, sometimes even triple the defenses of my other characters at level 4 (over 100 Deflection with Defender turned off). I think it doesn't stack anymore, since I turn the talent off after combat but Edér is still overpowered defensively. I didn't even have to bother sneaking into Rad Rick's Hold. With Edér I could just force my way through the main door no problem. I suppose I could just stop using him but I really like the character and it's kind of funny because it looks like he's stealing from my main character. Maybe there are some console commands that could fix it but I don't want to taint my saves with "cheating".

The Path of the Damned run is about as hard as I would expect. Since my main character is the tank there, I'm not using Edér (actually my entire party is almost made up of min/maxed henchmen). Challenging but fair. The only frustratingly difficult fights are the ones that can be initiated only after forced cutscenes / dialogues (because they refuse to use my custom formation).

 

[Old Hans]

I've been playing hard/ironman, although I feel like bad cause during one big battle that went terrible, I quit the game cause I was trapped with just my main guy and a bunch of monsters hanging around the downed group.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Considering changing to Normal, because I have to reload every other battle. Then again, I'm just level 3 and have 2 NPC's. Maybe things will improve (get easier / less micro). At the compass now. And who would be the Viconia equivalent in this game..

 

[Shadenuat]

I almost finished game on Hard (need to clean up a few side quests and I couldn't reach lower than level 13 of Od Nua because of a bug, so I am waiting for developers to fix it). The start for most players will be rough just because some retard had put most of teleporting enemies right into the beginning of the game, but don't fear, you'll stomp on them later on and won't meet anything too challenging after.

Now I wanted to go on a long rant about how Sawyer ruined everything, mainly about rounds and speed, buffs, overpowered control spells and alpha strike & unprotected spellcasters. And as it usually happens I ranted in my head until fell asleep and now I don't remember anything.
And I'm also lazy. I'm so lazy I need to hire somebody to rage and whine for me while I am finishing the game. Why can't I break in two?

 

[jagged-jimmy]

I switched to Hard at Dyrwood and the game is still easy, but became more spicey. I actually take some damage now. Atleast on hard there are tougher enemies to kill.

Eder with his 95 Deflection is untouchable and thus tanks everything, while my nuke squad AoE nukes everything. Just found the Druid and oh gawd he insta pwns anything with bouncing flame balls, bouncing lightning balls and whatnot. Also GMs Rape Blades...

Not sure how there can be some challenge in the game, where some classes are so awesomely hot - just trigger AoE from each and it's over/almost over. Only had troubles with dominating plants so far (more like annoyance, because dominated dudes don't do anything).

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I always play games the first time around on "Normal" just to see what's what, and/or what the developers think is "normal". Usually this works out well as a learning curve and by the time I'm ready for the next play through I'll then up the difficulty to the higher end. I'm not a huge RTwP fan, so I'm not terribly used to the combat, but I have played enough to know...essentially...how to succeed. That said, I've "died" quite a few times but am at the point now where dying is very rare though I can't just let every encounter run it's course without any interference from myself.

 

[Abu Antar]

I play on hard. It was really challenging at first but it is becoming easier as I go. Shades and spirits are still a pain in the ass, though. Eder is basically untouchable and my monk has also got some nice defences thanks to talents, modals, items and buffs. Kana chants and summons, GM uses Cipher abilities and so on.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I must say things are getting a bit easier now that I've picked up Kana (total party setup is PC + 3). I cleared out all beginning areas (save for Raedrick's hold, the keep and the bridge) now entering Compass. Only enemy I couldn't handle yet are the two forest lurkers. Will keep playing on hard, don't regret starting choice.

 

[Carrion]

I'm still fairly early at Act I, but Hard feels pretty good so far. There have been a few challenging encounters, especially one particular fight with shades, although I don't know if that was intended to be tackled after gaining a couple of levels first (I recruited an additional companion just for that fight). The mandatory fights so far have been mostly of the "click on enemies once and watch as your party slaughters them" variety, though. I'm playing a Rogue but haven't really found that it'd be clearly superior to any of the other classes yet. Maybe that'll come later on, I don't know.

 

[ArchAngel]

Someone voted they are playing on Easy. Time to organize a angry mob and burn him at the stake.

 

[MicoSelva]

Playing on hard and while I experienced some early game deaths, I stopped having any problems after I learned the system a bit and got the full six-people party.

Although persistency bugs making some of chars OP help here in some way - my Kana has 25 INT and my Eder is indestructible with his 115 Deflection. I am looking forward to being challenged again when these are fixed.

But I think soloing this game won't be easy without using some kind of exploit. Unless you can make some legit indestructible high-deflection build and just win fights with stubbornness.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Playing on hard and while I experienced some early game deaths, I stopped having any problems after I learned the system a bit and got the full six-people party.

Although persistency bugs making some of chars OP help here in some way - my Kana has 25 INT and my Eder is indestructible with his 115 Deflection. I am looking forward to being challenged again when these are fixed.

But I think soloing this game won't be easy without using some kind of exploit. Unless you can make some legit indestructible high-deflection build and just win fights with stubbornness.

You can get 100+ deflection without bugs. Also did you kill the Ogre bounty in Elmshore? This is the first fight i did not manage after several tries (and actually needed a re-try). Went on to Twin Elms.

 

[Broseph]

I am gitting gud. In the beginning I was getting my ass kicked on Normal and now I'm crushing mostly everything on Hard. In between the easily disposed trash mobs there's the occasional kinda tough setpiece encounter which makes me feel good when I beat it. Nice.

Will definitely have to try Path of the Damned at some point, probably after all the patches and the expansion comes out.

 

[Globbi]

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

You create a challenge by clicking an options button, others do it by taking premade companions. I don't see how is one way playing like a retard and another is not.

Hard is laughably easy without custom adventures though.

Yeah, that's the stupid part. I'd like the game to only have 2 difficulty levels: normal and challenge (hard should be normal and POTD as challenge for minmaxing if you alredy know something about the game). I chose normal for first playthrough because I thought that's how the game was originally designed. Instead I got a super easy game designed in a way to make stupid people feel good about beating the game on normal. Gonna switch when I got back to game after the patch.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I play on hard, battles are pretty challenging. I usually use almost all my spells in a single combat and have to rest after every battle - something which I never did in IE games. I guess if you construct your party purely from non spell users you might plow through battle after battle without resting.

 

[Blackstaff]

Playing Path of the damned. It's challenging, but not impossible or out of this world. The thing I like the less is that you just have to follow the easiest path in the game, level enough and come back later for the parts you struggle with. I would have liked that some encounter couldn't be overcome without proper tactical planning. That would have been truly challenging.

 

[GrainWetski]

Hard, not very hard. I'm like 27 hours in, so I'll finish this one even though it's pretty boring and I only need to position melee properly to win just about every fight, and then move to PotD for the next playthrough with some hopefully fun custom party.

I see people whining about the difficulty and supply limit on easy/normal all the time.. Ridiculous.

 

[mutonizer]

Playing Path of the damned. It's challenging, but not impossible or out of this world. The thing I like the less is that you just have to follow the easiest path in the game, level enough and come back later for the parts you struggle with. I would have liked that some encounter couldn't be overcome without proper tactical planning. That would have been truly challenging.

Just a warning, be 100% sure to make a hard save BEFORE going down the "place where the sun doesn't shine" (you'll understand). If you go in there, there's no message, no warning but you cannot get out and nothing in the game has prepared you for the final fight on PotD unless you're like maxed out level already and completed everything. Be sure to save man, and keep that save safe.

 

[Mazisky]

On the official forum there are lot of folks saying\complaing about normal and easy mode being too hard;

Say thanks to those people for crap balance and no challenge

 

[Trodat]

On the official forum there are lot of folks saying\complaing about normal and easy mode being too hard;

Say thanks to those people for crap balance and no challenge

It would be interesting to observe how these fine people play PoE.

 

[mutonizer]

On the official forum there are lot of folks saying\complaing about normal and easy mode being too hard;

Say thanks to those people for crap balance and no challenge

It would be interesting to observe how these fine people play PoE.

Probably something like that...

End battle spoiler, you've been warned...

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLwe3s-86oQ

 

[jagged-jimmy]

I play on hard, battles are pretty challenging. I usually use almost all my spells in a single combat and have to rest after every battle - something which I never did in IE games. I guess if you construct your party purely from non spell users you might plow through battle after battle without resting.

You mean bounties or Dragon fights, right? Hard is very easy and i played BGs on normal and was decently challenged. I don't even spam spells with Aloth. Hiravias and Grieving Mother just need to cast 2-3 times and the rest is finishing off for any non-major encounter. And by this i mean any quest/wilderness fight. Only challenge so far are bounties and the Fampyrs.

Spoiler

Just barely did the returned Lord Raedric... Everyone fell, but did their job. Pelegrina and my Monk sorted it out.

Just returned to the Orge bounty - Hiravias critted the flame balls - 170-200 burn dmg to all. GM did a normal hit with a modified Estoc for 104 dmg on the Boss. End. Not sure why i had troubles before.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I play on hard, battles are pretty challenging. I usually use almost all my spells in a single combat and have to rest after every battle - something which I never did in IE games. I guess if you construct your party purely from non spell users you might plow through battle after battle without resting.

You mean bounties or Dragon fights, right? Hard is very easy and i played BGs on normal and was decently challenged. I don't even spam spells with Aloth. Hiravias and Grieving Mother just need to cast 2-3 times and the rest is finishing off for any non-major encounter. And by this i mean any quest/wilderness fight. Only challenge so far are bounties and the Fampyrs.

Spoiler

Just barely did the returned Lord Raedric... Everyone fell, but did their job. Pelegrina and my Monk sorted it out.

Just returned to the Orge bounty - Hiravias critted the flame balls - 170-200 burn dmg to all. GM did a normal hit with a modified Estoc for 104 dmg on the Boss. End. Not sure why i had troubles before.

I'm still rather early in the game, just got 5th character in my party. I my character class is Rogue which doesn't seem to be very effective at combat - this is probably making the game harder for me. The fights against wraiths and specters were quite tough with 5 party members.

 

[Shannow]

Also did you kill the Ogre bounty in Elmshore? This is the first fight i did not manage after several tries (and actually needed a re-try). Went on to Twin Elms.

It was one of the toughest fights I've run into so far. But I managed it on the first time. Unfortunately one of the last two ogre druids hit me with the insect plague bug. So reload anyway...
Now I'm doing other stoff and waiting for the patch to become available or for my chars to become so powerful that I can reliably take them out before the ogres cast insect plague.

I'm playing on hard and mostly it's been piss easy. In Act 1 the bears and the shades were difficult for my party if I went in as soon as possible. But with 1-2 more levels and companions that too became a cakewalk. Searing Falls and Elmshore were overall welcome spkes in difficulty. And the ogres in Od Nua. I just don't understand why they made the lower levels easier again.

If the eventual expansion turns out to be an add-in I'll probably roll a new char on PotD. Cause so far "Hard" is what I'd expect "Easy" to be with the exception of 4-6 fights.