Sin2x

The Caed Nua bounties slowly introduce you to the concept. The first bounties you get in Caed Nua are not too difficult, and spawn in areas you will have already cleared (so that they won't interfere with exploration). Then they get progressively more difficult, and start to appear in areas you may not have explored yet. Then by the time you get to the White March and get offered the Stalwart bounties, you should already know what to expect... The thing is, by the time I got the building that offers bounties in Caed Nuam I was already level 8 and a little tired of Dyrwood and decided to go straight to WM so I had no knowledge of the difficulty of bounty hunting.

Bounties are explicitly designed as optional combat challenges that are more difficult than the surrounding content. If you don't want that kind of challenge, don't accept bounty quests. And just how would I know that before you told me? There is no indication of that in-game AFAIR. Am I missing something?

I'd consider it OK if only bosses we involved -- they are bosses after all and you know that you need to prepare. But some random mercenary band that does'n even have dialogue before the fight? Preposterous. I remember that in Icewind Dale II -- which I consider the be the best combat-oriented RPG -- there was only one more or less difficult fight on Normal, and then it was optional -- the fight for Paladin's sword. I wish PoE could be the same, unless you play on Hard.

Man, is this Gleaming Society fight unbalanced. There is no curve at all -- I've just been taking out Ogres in Russelwood with no problems and then 10 minutes later I get obliterated by these guys no matter what tactics I try. Seems like a bad design to me. I'm pretty sure people will rush to defend Obsidian and tell me how my party is bad, my items are worthless and my stats are not minmaxed enough and that I need to wait a couple of levels before I return to that fight. Well, guess what -- I don't want to minmax and I don't see any reason to wait -- nothing in the story warrants that. And that's Normal difficulty for you. Bah. </end_rant> P.S. started the expansion at level 8 while the recommended range is 5-8. Reading that people in the thread have been tackling the fight at level 12 feels utterly insane -- there is simply no way to get that much experience when you reach the Longwatch falls unless you stop your adventure in White March and return to Dyrwood -- which -- again - is bad design in my opinion. P.P.S Managed to kill them by luring out to the narrow area. I'm still unconvinced that such a minor fight needs to be that difficult.

HD version, please. This is a bleeding eyesore.