Zidster

I wouldnt call "doing quests" "grinding". It's just that in my first example, the tactics didn't make a big difference. I should've wooped even faster without any problems, but it just took as long as simply clicking the main mob and waiting it out. I just killed the Dragon also, beeing level 10. I mean... have you ever faced a dragon in BG? I wooped their asses at the end but the first dragon I took on needed multiple tries. But on my second playtrough now I'm trying full custom party on path of damned and its pretty hard. I keep getting killed by those Bandits and dont really know what to do lol I guess i keep trying though, just doesnt feel that anything I try against them makes any difference so the simplest answer would be -> leveling

Well those tough fights sure are hard to find. I have played most subquests, but most likely missed out on some, when coming to Twinelms my party was like level 9. I think this is kinda like you play, if you run to harder areas of the game early on of course they are going to be harder... I just feel like the "normal path", where you take things step by step and do most sidequests, is way to easy. And honestley, hearing that you are able to win this fight with tactics with a level 6 party just proves that. I mean you should get absolutely demolished with a midlevel party in and end level area.

Haha, I was really shoked when I voted with "yes" and saw the huge number of "NO!!!"'s popping up... it was then that I realized the question in the poll is actually different from the one in the thread title but anyways, here's why I love PoE The world is fun to explore, with great quest and decent companions. Even though I'm feeling pretty unchallenged by it on hard, I'm quite happy with the combat system and having fun and challenge on my second playthrough Path of the Damned, too (even though I play it more like I played BG, which means to reload when a character drops). I like that the story really focuses on two things, the curse of Waidwen and the status of the player character, which is better than a story that tries to include so many things. What I didnt like so much was the magic system in general. It's no fun that every spell and skill ends after such short time, like confusion for example. What I really liked about BG was that you had to negate it or defend it somehow, otherwise it could pretty screw you up... in PoE I never had to worry about those things so far (on hard mode) because they all ran out eventually. Im really looking forward to some balance overhauls, which make magic for both player and enemies much more vicous.

If I wanted to play a single character RPG, well there would be many great choices. I simply love party RPGs, especially the ones which let you create your own party, so PoE was a nobrainer to me. I dont need hyper super tactical thinking, I'm quite fond with having to asign a front line and a back line, managing the spells (though most of the time my front line would seal the deal regardless of which spells I land). I really love this game and was just curious about your experiences in this regard. I didnt even finish and yet created another save on Path of the Damned with a whole custom party. This is really challenging, but so far it seems my party is only getting kicked in the ass by a few type of enemies. Most of the time some of them go down, I just try to win every battle without having someone drop, which is really challenging to me. I think on Path of the Damned a character who gets knocked down should immediately be crippled, with the effect only beeing curable by a large fee.

Exactly, I dont feel the need to limit myself only to have a harder time. Just had an epic fight, though, in the Ogre cave where the druids spam Insect Swarm and stuff like that, had to try like 20 times and in the end one spell made the difference. I tried out several spells, just saved with beeing able to level up Aloth and giving him level 5 spell, and it was the AoE sleep spell (kinda BGesque if you ask me) which saved the day. So I'm really positive that with some balancing this game can become actually pretty challenging

I dont think its stupid or immersion breaking at all. Those items are HIDDEN, which means you have to look for them... if you feel the urge to put up every single piece of trash that lays out there, well then you have to keep looking very, very sharply. When I play I keep my eyes open for suspicious spots and only then I enter sneak mode.

I feel the same. So many times I wondered "is this really hard??" My party consists of one custom char besides my PC, the rest are normal companions. It really feels lame, havent had one challenging fight whatsoever.

Hi folks, I'm playing PoE on Hard difficulty and really enjoyed it so far. But what really botheres me is that the game feels pretty easy to me. Until now I thought "Well, you must be one hell of an IE player, so probably the game will be a real challange for you once you hit Path of Exile (or how's it called, the Hardcore mode?)" But yesterday I came across a fight in the warriors guild of Elmshore. Since the fight was foreseeable, I positioned my crew and thought of specific tasks for all of my characters... Eder had to block the door, Aloth, standing in a corner with my custom Ranger, would support him and take out the enemys that rile up behind, my PC and Pelegina had to battle the guild leader and his nearby allies, Durance kept switching between fighting and healing / buffing (which wasnt necessesary though). I was pretty happy that the battle turned out exactly as planned, without any casulties whatsoever. Than I got interessted and asked myself. "Well, how would that battle have played out if I didnt do any tactics whatsoever?" I reloaded, started the fight and just made my whole party attack the guild leader... without any further need to instruct my party members, the fight was won only with my pet going down and Durance receiving slightly more damage. I really felt disappointed by that. How can it be, no matter if the fight was an easy or a hard one, all my tactical planing and usage of skills and spells, in the end translated to a dieing pet (which in the end just stood up again) and some more damage taken by Durance (which he just regenerated). On other occassions, I totally got run down in the first attempt and mastered battles on the second try when I took some positions. But overall, I didnt have any challenging fights. How do feel about this? Do you feel the need for tactical thinking is too shallow in this game, or do you like it?