Hatred

You should make a bug report of that. I am so doing this.

Hello there. We don't want the game to be too hard for you. It is the hard difficulties we are complaining about. Its also the later part of the game we are complaining about. I'm totally fine with there being a difficulty for everyone. The OP is clearly being facetious. Heck if they changed the game on hard/potd and it made normal too hard for anyone who liked playing on normal I would fully support your complaint that normal needed tweaking. .

The game gets a lot easier as you go on. Unless you avoid a lot of content it gets to the point where you only need auto attack. Its not a skill thing.

Hah! Getting the bestiary XP as a half-measure toward combat XP was the fanbase's big victory during the backer beta. Now we're complaining it's too much. I wasn't a backer. If I was I would have been in these forums screaming my head off about those things. As it was just reading them made me ... well you can see my user name. The fan bases biggest failure was not wanting the game to be fun. I hate filthy casuals who 'want to level up' or 'I want xp because ...x,y,z". Who the hell cares if picking a lock gives you xp. What matters is if the game is balanced and fun and interesting. Since lockpicking XP makes it less balanced and less fun and less interesting anyone with a lick of common sense should want it gone. Even those who dont care about balance or fun, why the hell do they want this bonus xp ? Is it really so fkn important? Why ?

Yeah I truly think the side quest XP is one of the bigger issues. At the risk of opening a can of worms I encourage everyone to tweet J.E.S. and OE and Pillars about the XP issue. Not to say that without the XP issue there wouldn't still be problems. Not sure if anyone here has played Endless Legend? The attack resolution system in that was not wildly different from this one. There were limits to just how invulnerable tanky units could be though. Also a limit to just how much better accuracy could get. Maybe if they had a system a bit more like that and a bit less like this one where each extra point in a stat is so much better than the point before. I haven't even tried a custom tank but considering that you could definitey improve Eder(or your main tank) by at least 15 points of deflection ... that is a worry. I have considered trying a playthrough and just banking all of my XP once I feel its getting out of control. It is a bit hard to know what level to restrict yourself too though. Also I heard the main was built to be defeated by level 8. Not so sure you are supposed to be able to do all of the side content at level 8 though. /throws hands up in air and shakes head.

The IE games were more heavily dependent on a few things. Some classes were just far and away the best for the PC to be. I played a Kensai Mage and Sorcerer in BGII and I steamrolled it. There's also a ton of cheesy spells and tactics. But it boiled down most of the time to knowledge more than it ever did tactics. In PoE you need both, but it leans heavier toward tactics. You can't cast a bunch of spells to totally counter a particular enemies' gimmicks. I beat the Demilich by Polymorphing into a mustard jelly. It was funny, but it wasn't particularly tactical it was just one piece of cheese against another. Ok so you played a Kensai mage on your first playthrough of BG2 ? Seriously? . I wont disagree that you could cheese a fair amount of bg2. The easy response to that though is to not cheese in my opinion. I played bg2 as a fighter first time round and I didnt cheese. Didnt use summons spells because they felt cheap. That kind of thing. I restrict myself the same way in PoE. As I have said before in PoE it devolves into only auto attacking. BG didn't do this. How can not having to be at your computer during combat be described as harder than having to be there cheesing it ? It certainly isnt harder for people who instinctively shy away from anything which gives them what they feel to be an unfair and unrequired edge. If you avoid or do not know about how to cheese bg it is leagues harder than poe. There is no way to make poe harder without either failing to level up or just skipping a heap of content. Edit : I dont even have a good team for auto attacking. Im using a hunting bow on sagani and have 3 casters auto attacking without weapon focus at all. In BG you had to at least get someone to a reasonable thaco if you wanted to auto attack everything down. Also you did mention casting spells. So that does kind of imply more effort than PoE ends up taking.

I was doing a completionist playthrough.... I wanted to read all of the lore books, explore all of the areas, meet all of the people, find lots of named weapons. I kind of thought that was supposed to be half the fun of a game like this.

If anyone can do that, it is a very small group. I can't do it. Since you talk big, can you make a video and link it for us? How about we learn from recent TB history. The game will be balanced much further over the next 6 months. I do find Hard like a Normal, but far from a total roll, unless you've found a super combo and if one did, why need buffs on top then? I'd say report it and see if they can nerf the power, but then are you really after that or wanting to prove that there are crazy powers, but also reap the benefit of those in the comfort of your own? Fantasy games need to adopt the rule of alcohol, do not mix. So here, have your buff, make it strong, make it long, but no mixing. At least it alleviates the chore of it and would be easier to balance a single state boosted vs every one. NWN's was ridiculous, imo. Nope anyone can do it. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72554-hard-mode-is-too-easy/page-16?do=findComment&comment=1637512. This is a link to the forum about hard being too easy. Just to clarify it doesn't start off too easy. Its the XP issue. If you are stupid enough to explore and do sidequests you get horribly over leveled. Its not some kind of skill thing or anything. Just get to defiance bay and make the mistake of doing all of the quests there. After that you will rarely if ever need to use abilities in combat. If you happen to go down into the Dungeon of the Endless or go and do some bounty quests because it sounds like fun .... you will seriously be in trouble.

It is not arbitrary if it is believed to unbalance the game. That's everything but arbitrary. Also, got a link? A link to what? Also they never balanced the game. Its like say ... having an unpainted house. If someone were to randonly get some paint and paint a few strokes of paint on a few random walls would that not be arbitrary ? If you asked the person doing the painting "why are you doing this?" and they responded with "its because the house needs painting" wouldn't you feel like that doesn't answer the question ? The removal of pre-buffs is like a teensie tiny polka dot piece of 'balance' put into a game which otherwise doesn't have any. Oh if you meant a link to where the devs decided to take out or not include pre-buffs no I don't have a link to their original statement on this. I did read it in the backer beta forums a couple of years back. The backers had a good old time arguing about it. Personally I feel like a fair amount of the reason they do not have pre-buffs is because in the context of pillars of eternity it would mean priests wouldn't exactly have a lot to do during actual combat besides auto attacking. That is just a guess based on my game experience though.

How does this matter if they don't balance any of the fights and encounters ? No matter how much you think the encounters haven't been balanced, they could be balanced much, much worse. How ? you can literally afk during combat on hard. How could the balance get worse than that ?

Well you could go and make a coffee during combat. That might alleviate your problem to some degree.

There is only one answer to this question : No reason at all. The developers (people seem to think it was entirely J.E.S.) arbitrarily decided it would somehow unbalance the game. Since they went to no effort at all to balance the content this is meaningless. What is the point in stopping people from pre-buffing if the content of the game is all trivial ? How does it even matter. The game is already too easy. Why are the forums clogged with people asking why it isn't even easier. I could understand if they specifically complained that easy was too hard. Maybe it is for some people I really do not know. Your complaint that it doesnt "feel right' from a story perspective is as arbitrary and strange as the decision to leave out pre-buffing. Surely using spells which are a prelude to combat would make anyone around you who was inclined to fight you aware of your presence and have them rush on over ? Surely if they were inclined towards fighting you but waiting upon you starting to cast they would immediately take counter measures ? From a common sense standpoint pre-buffing doesnt make any sense.

How does this matter if they don't balance any of the fights and encounters ?

I'll be happy if they just fix this version of the game within the next 3 months. If they do that I will buy any DLC or expansions indiscriminately out of gratitude. (not that I hold out any hope of this at all) On a more serious note they are partnered up with Paradox now. Although I mostly love Paradox they do have a wee bit of a reputation concerning DLC's.

tbh mate I wouldn't consider the extra engagement talents. The AI almost never run away from your tank anyway.

On topic I would say you can definitely not worry about dex on your wizard. I have tried mine out Aloth in plate and the slower cast recovery times just aren't that big a deal. By comparison every single point in Int feels more useful than the point before. Eventually the extra foe only AoE gets quite big.

Not according to Rincewind.

I really wish that the game just told you your attack speed and recovery speed. You could put on or off a piece of armour or add to your dexterity and actually see what kind of difference it makes. In the old IE games you knew what your attack speed was

cheers.

Are there no rules about making multiple copies of the same troll threads repeatedly ? Stop asking for a simulation game. You have a very personal and arbitrary list of wants as to what you want simulated anyway.

It has only been the weapon in that place which I have noticed lacking so badly.

It's harder than any of the IE games were. It has some pacing issues though. Some encounters early on are abnormally difficult due to accuracy/deflection/defense disparities, while the mid-late game starts to get much easier as that disparity lessens. Same could be said for IE games with a few exceptions though - Mind Flayers for example were very difficult for people to deal with unless they knew how to counter them. Which is a great example of how IE games was also way more tedious and preparation based with more encounter pre-knowledge requisite. Having all the right buffs stacked before a fight was very important. Using the right sequence of save/resist lowering spells could make a difficult fight trivial. They tried to avoid that, and I think that was wise and a success. There are some new issues as a result but overall I think many players are just seeing through rose tinted glasses when comparing PoE to BGII/IWD at least. How is it harder than the IE games ? I will admit I only played through IWD2 and BG2 once each. I don't remember steam rolling those games. Maybe when I was younger I was somehow slow in the head in a way in which I have miraculously improved now but I actually think I was a bit more mentally agile back then. My very first playthrough of PoE and I just have gotten sick of it because it is so very boring. Started off having some fun and got very bored very quickly. I'd have to play through BG/IWD again (in fact I am done with PoE atm and I intend to play those games again since I really want me some rtwp that isnt quite so boring) to give you a fair assessment I guess. I didn't stroll through the IE games with ease first playthrough. When I stopped playing Pillars I got to the point where I just started a fight then started reading my book while I wait for combat to end. Don't need to move my characters or use abilities or anything. Maybe bg and iwd really were so easy that you could afk in combat and I was somehow just so damaged as a young adult that I didn't notice. I'm doubting it though. Admittedly if they fixed the XP issues I would take back most of what I have said. As it stands I think PoE is easier than Dragon Age on easy right now. I was playing on hard btw and once the GoG has the hotfix to go with the patch I intend to use that helpful little IE mod and see if I cant squeeze a little bit of fun out of it. edit:the ie mod will let me switch to potd but I am still expecting it to be too easy going off what people have been saying about how xp borks the game

Personally I feel like Obsidian really dropped the ball with difficulty and of course the XP issue. In an interview I remember hearing J.E.S. say that Pillars of Eternity was a 'niche' game. It feels a lot more like a game which was designed so that anyone who owned a mouse and keyboard could win and feel powerful instead.

Only mod you need for difficulty is sword coast strategems. For TOB you should also install 'ascension' before sword Coast strategms. Theres a readme with scs about the options for each difficulty component. Turn on pprebuffing mages/clerics, stick on all the improved encounters and improved creatures and have fun dying over and over again . There's a mod called tactics which basically makes every enemy godlike but you also get godlike items I hear, scs is just the standard game with a very well scripted AI and some extra abilities for some enemies which were previously a bit lacklustre. Far easier to mod the enhanced editions. Thankyou for this information !

Fair enough. I will probably be waiting quite a while if not forever for Obsidian to actually make the game playable anyway. Haven't been this sad about a game for a while.