ComplyOrDie

I wouldn't want a mode between hard and PotD to be looked at ahead of upping PotD, but I think enemy accuracy and ai scripting should be the priority for both modes which should add some much needed depth. I also like the idea of radicalising some enemy resistances and abilities. Let's make those slimes really pierce resistant and give them a nasty poison or something etc. (min damage might get in the way of the resistance) many encounters currently quite samey. And let's sort the enemy human parties out so they are actually a threat! Clearly don't touch normal etc. no need for this.

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you. The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself. I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome. Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline. I think this is especially true in Baldur's Gate. It is filled with Mages which would be some of the most powerful ones in Faerun if they only knew how to open a door and well were smart enough for a sensible spell selection and usage of their spells. http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-stratagems.html The frustrating thing for me is this has been done for Baldur's Gate by one person in their spare time (albeit over many years). It's a solid, partially randomized AI that basically makes intelligent enemies do intelligent things, example, they actually use good contingencies and sequences, and precast spells like stoneskin because if you were a mage you would have an 8 hour spell on so you didn't get backstabbed randomly one day. It doesn't break immersion, and nothing breaks the rules, it's just the AI intelligently uses the same tools that the player has available precisely how difficulty should be done. I just don't think game developers see AI as a priority, which is partially understandable, although less so for single player RPGs like this. I don't care that the Starcraft single player AI doesn't exist because the replayability comes from human opponents, for a game like this you don't have that luxury, and many players want that feeling of challenge everpresent not once in a blue moon as it is with PoE on all modes at the moment. Overall I actually prefer the systems in PoE, nearly all your options in BG came from spellcasters and particularly Wizards, but at the moment the vast majority of fights are basically decided in the first ten seconds, because nothing is thrown at you which forces you to adapt. This is a mix of scripting and bad/inaccurate/"bland" enemies (they look cool but are usually a bag of hitpoints with varying degrees of (in)accuracy). You couldn't stand toe to toe not doing anything with many enemies for very long in BG no matter how pimped your tank was, certainly at higher levels. And yeah, the final fight in Vanilla BG1 was not more interesting than Vanilla PoE. Difference is Sarevok was fun but so were all the end chapter fights and a ****load more besides, here the final battle sticks out like a sore thumb in that you actually have to think a bit. SCS is nice but has its own problems. Most of them expanding on problems with the Vanilla game. Mages actually using spells appropriate seems logical but imo gives the game to many strong mages. The mages where only given such high levels in the vanilla game to compensate their crappy AI and when you are hit by an Abi Dazims Horrid Whitering for the first time you realize that enemies really casting spells at you works even worse than it does in PoE. Also SCS cheats with those contingencies and spells even more than the original game did and realizes a lot of them via scripts. This means they can't be interupted (intended for contingencies but not normal spells) and they are used even if they should not be able to be used. The game also turns into mage chess because mages are the only ones that can truly be protected against enemy spells and they are the only ones that can dispel the protections. And in vanilla fights against mages are: true sight, Breach, hack to death Really a lot of the problems with PoE are even worse in BG. Much of this is customiseable within the mod. The instant defensive buffs at the start of combat are a necessary evil because if they know you're coming this is what they would do, same way the players usually pre buff, either way you can turn it off. Not sure what you mean are used even if they shouldn't be able to, there's an option to allow or not allow all mages to be able to use sequencers. True that mages are the most difficult enemy, but they are overpowered in the game full stop as we all know. Many other enemies get significant boots to AI and appropriate skills/weapons etc.

I don't agree that it's essentially the same, since there's a cost associated with rest spamming in PoE i.e. the hassle of tracking back ot the inn etc. I thus almost never find myself inclined to do it. That's a benefit of the design. Yeah well for the purposes of this arguemnt it is, although I actually agree with you, prefer it, and avoid rest spamming (although I also did this in the IE games). The point is Sensuki that there are extremely abusable things in both games, you will always have to set a few rules of your own, but if that issue is largely fixed because of you that's great. My argument is that the system itself is not flawed, it is the poor AI scripting around it that impacts the game. Again, you do crap all based on what the enemies do because the enemies aren't scripted within the game system to do anything with much impact, or, they aren't good enough or don't have the abilities to actually make the impact that forces you to adjust. It is a difficulty problem first and foremost.

It's a bit double standards to point out you can abuse engagement with 6 fighters so the system sucks and then criticise someone for using summons against Illithids, which is, frankly, far more legitimate. You can't even mass summons in BG2. Illithids are a fun enemy because of the int drain and the ability to paralyze (SCS addition?), spells like Chaotic Commands were boring as if you had any sense you'd have them on all the time. This is the same reason I'm not thrilled with PoTD in it's current state, because there are certain things you have to do stupidly or half arsedly to keep a challenge going, and even then you struggle to do so. It all depends on your definition of what is Gimmicky and what isn't. Tank swapping at will without the Illithid cottoning on to what's happening could be interpreted just the same. Leaving guys in the other room due to the domination ability is also gimmicky because then they have plenty of time to just eat the brains of the guy on his own. SCS fixes this. Beholders were very badly implemented and the only reliable strategy was either a specific item or Skeleton Warriors. There would be nothing wrong with the Mustard Jelly or Ooze fights in PoE if the jellies actually had a decent pierce reduction and could actually do any damage to your party, it's not a system issue it is a tuning issue, everything is too samey and usually too weak currently. Seriously with a decent AI and properly tuned fights with more interesting enemy abilities and stat discrepancies the system itself is fine. There are very many different ways to tackle encounters in PoE, the problem is far too many of them work at the moment, so the strategy isn't there. Rest spamming is harder to do in PoE, but the systems are essentially the same, the only difference is the per encounter abilities in PoE. Again, there's nothing wrong with this system inherently, it's just very few encounters require them. It actually has more potential as you have more options per fight even when running low, you can use spells sparingly on PoE just the same as BG rather than rest spamming. All comes back to fights not being varied and hard enough, nothing to do with any systems.

That's a very pessimistic view, it would not be difficult to script so if the enemy isn't engaged, it changes target, if it is suddenly re-engaged, stop moving immediately. The goal should be for a non abusive player to be able to get difficulty and enjoyment out of the combat (though potential abuses should definitely be minimised - see the mod I posted above "better calls for help" for example). There are abuses in every game such as Monster Summoning Wands mentioned above.

Played an IE game before? For better or worse, there are no attacks of opportunity in those games. And for the record, many people in the discussion enjoy the idea of engagement but think it needs to be tweaked before it really shines. Even though D&D is irrelevant to this discussion, you were allowed to move within a certain number of feet without triggering free attacks or use a withdraw action iirc, which you can not even do in POE unless the opponent is disabled. My main issue with POE's engagement is that every movement action is an assumption that you are fleeing, so I can't even side-step without triggering a free attack with increased accuracy. Regarding AI, I have to wonder how difficult it would be to make a priority script where the AI always targets units with the lowest defenses or DR, only engaging the tanks when forced to due to engagement. Is it due to the fear of increasing the challenge across the board? Better to have players feel like gods instead of mere mortals? And the lack of attacks of opportunity makes the IE games poor simulations. They have a completely artificial set of rules that have been put on a pedestal to be worshiped uncritically. I'm playing parallel games of IWD2 (hard) and PoE (PoTD). They're both fun. The IE pathfinding is truly awful - as in, send critical party members or opponents completely the wrong way awful. PoE is light years better. If you fight opponents in an open room, as opposed to blocking them in a doorway, they *do* target backfield players. Archers target wizards. Fampyrs target backfield players. If I have a critique on the engagement system, it's that the AI should be able to use tools to break it. Things like this would do a *lot* more to up the difficulty of the game than amateur game redesigning and fussing with the experience level curve. This is also a very good point. Melee opponents crowd your tank, engaged or otherwise, and don't leave until the tank is dead (generally never). At the very least the non engaged ones should quickly realise there's a bigger threat. Further, if the tank is stunned briefly etc. by an enemy wizard (more of this please), go and kill the actual threats in the meantime. Having a couple of trolls rampaging through your casters and archers would be far preferable to the current situation. I have no issue with engagement the AI just needs to be better designed for it.

Remove Engagement and nothing changes. The AI still acts like it's there. Engagement is not a very large part of how combat is designed in PoE, all it does is inhibit movement and forces everyone to cluster up and stay there, and saves the developers from having to make an AI that would move around and make decisions that would improve their position on the battlefield, for the same reason the player won't do it; it'll murder you with instant free invisible attacks if you even try to move *towards* the opponent that is engaging you. The biggest problem with Engagement has always been for it to excuse it's own existence. I play with it on simply because the game is made for it, and there are Abilities and Spells and Talents that deal specifically with it, and I don't want to break pre-existing interacting functionalities, but it doesn't really add anything by itself. I can't think of any RPG that ever had half-decent AI myself. Certainly not the IE games where enemies almost always just mobbed the first thing they saw. Difficulty in RPGs single-player game has never, ever come from the AI anyway in my experience, unless it's a very tightly scripted boss battle. It's always hard by making the enemy bigger and badder than the player so they have a challenge to overcome. Not really disagreeing with you, just pointing that out. Albeit I do think engagement is preferable to everyone running around willy-nilly like in Baldur's Gate, I love establishing a frontline. I think this is especially true in Baldur's Gate. It is filled with Mages which would be some of the most powerful ones in Faerun if they only knew how to open a door and well were smart enough for a sensible spell selection and usage of their spells. http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-stratagems.html The frustrating thing for me is this has been done for Baldur's Gate by one person in their spare time (albeit over many years). It's a solid, partially randomized AI that basically makes intelligent enemies do intelligent things, example, they actually use good contingencies and sequences, and precast spells like stoneskin because if you were a mage you would have an 8 hour spell on so you didn't get backstabbed randomly one day. It doesn't break immersion, and nothing breaks the rules, it's just the AI intelligently uses the same tools that the player has available precisely how difficulty should be done. I just don't think game developers see AI as a priority, which is partially understandable, although less so for single player RPGs like this. I don't care that the Starcraft single player AI doesn't exist because the replayability comes from human opponents, for a game like this you don't have that luxury, and many players want that feeling of challenge everpresent not once in a blue moon as it is with PoE on all modes at the moment. Overall I actually prefer the systems in PoE, nearly all your options in BG came from spellcasters and particularly Wizards, but at the moment the vast majority of fights are basically decided in the first ten seconds, because nothing is thrown at you which forces you to adapt. This is a mix of scripting and bad/inaccurate/"bland" enemies (they look cool but are usually a bag of hitpoints with varying degrees of (in)accuracy). You couldn't stand toe to toe not doing anything with many enemies for very long in BG no matter how pimped your tank was, certainly at higher levels. And yeah, the final fight in Vanilla BG1 was not more interesting than Vanilla PoE. Difference is Sarevok was fun but so were all the end chapter fights and a ****load more besides, here the final battle sticks out like a sore thumb in that you actually have to think a bit.

You can have any number of enemies to be honest, the difficulty won't get harder if the AI isn't improved, six more trolls that can't hit your tank and wander round in circles doesn't help, which is why for me they need to focus on making PoTD harder , the mode people look to to provide them with the real tactical combat challenge before adding more modes. Base accuracy needs to be improved on hard and thus increased on PoTD. AI needs improving across the board, so the fight isn't sorted out positionally in the first 10 seconds. It's very static at the moment after the initial engagement, doesn't force you to adapt at all. Enemy casters need to use actually good spells, doing half damage to your wizard is pointless, either combine with someone else to kill him fast or cast a crowd control spell instead. Dare I say one or two more impactful abilities to make more enemies a little more interesting. What's the point in animats Lightning spell for instance. It does nothing to anyone. Just to reiterate. Love the game, so much potential. Go make the combat system work by making the game interestingly hard ! No point trying to have depth if you can ignore it all anyway as luckmann said.

True that there are a few (but not enough) enemies where the ranged guys will try and hit your back line. Phantoms/spectres do this quite well, the problem with tanks being so good is it makes the melee troops a non threat, so you don't have to juggle between keeping a ranged guy alive and keeping the tank up generally, because the tank is fine. In many fights you end up with 6 melee guys scrambling around Eder desperately trying and failing to even out dps his recovery trait, taking so many enemies out of the fight means generally there isn't much left to worry about. Personally I think non engaged melee enemies should have some kind of ai check every 'round' to assess if there's a better target, criteria for that is up for debate though. Certainly if you hit an non engaged melee opponent with. Fireball he should be running over to smack your face in asap,

Custom chars are boring, play PoTD with the normal ones.

Is a mechanics of 1 enough to find all caches given enough time, or do the caches have score checks?

If you play original BG on modern computer, it still takes a while to load. If you play EE, you don't see the loading screen it's so fast.

Lots of interesting points, I would strongly argue against any stat giving +2 deflection though unless the ability to acquire it elsewhere is severely reduced, you can already make unhittable tanks.

Well this is true in shadow fights, Aloth and durance can get perma deathed pretty fast by these guys who are some of the more fun opponents. Other than them though there aren't too many fights you get forced out of position and to adapt are there?I'd say that sadly a lot of the other fights rest on your initial angle of attack, if the enemies all run towards Eder, it's already pretty much done. Let me think. Banshees (not bothering with their crazy in-game name) also teleport and have an aoe paralyze that is quite nasty. Mind control effects can be real trouble as well, though if they don't mind control your cipher you can flip it rather easily. AOE attacks can do quite a bit of damage to your whole party, especially the squishies. I've lost a few fights due to the insane raw damage of plague of insects (which seems to hit a lot harder than other enemy aoe attacks). I've figured out counters to most of these issues as I've played, and leveling gives protection spells against mind control and paralysis, so again it does seem to get easier as you level up. I do get what people are saying and I do think there's some validity to it, but again it wasn't until I got past level 9 that things became "easy", and that's on normal. Then again for me almost losing a fight or having one or two people drop feels challenging. I don't need to party wipe and reload to feel challenged, and I think that's what some people are looking for. I've probably only party wiped four or five times, and most of those were the result of being caught off guard by an attack that I didn't expect (plague of insects and the final boss in endless paths' aoe attacks account for pretty much all of them). Funnily enough you've basically named the things I mentioned, I include phantoms and banshees with shadows as they're often together on path at least. Insects comes from pwgra/ogre Druids mind control comes from spores. Theyre pretty much the main fights with a bit of challenge to them on path. You already only get 2 supplies on both I believe hard and definitely path. For me part of the fun is stocking up supplies at an inn, food potions, resting bonus etc. then going off on the quest to get it done before you come back, I just wish it was necessary but it really isn't. Sure you can return at any time but in lots of contexts such as raedrics hold that doesn't make any sense, I would say it's pretty cheesy to go back for supplies all the time, i have no problems with an attempt to stop you using all cool downs every fight and for me it's worked because I make sure I Don't. Got this from mods for BG where you can't rest in many places such as starting dungeon more than once and illithid lair for example (youre trying to escape you can't spend 3 days napping) I totally get that it feels a bit metagamey UT prefer it to nothing. Fampyrs too. I do feel that human spell casters need more stuff like confuse, paralysis, etc. They aren't very scary in PoE, and they were always scary back in the BG games. I also feel that most melee bruiser types need to hit harder. Adra Animats are big and tanky but their damage is piddly. Same goes for trolls and forest lurkers. Ogres are the only big bruiser enemies that feel like they hit appropriately hard (plus they have that aoe prone attack). Can't say I've discovered Fampyr's, as I said, I did avoid a lot of side stuff due to finding things a bit easy. Animats and Lurkers are good examples of impotent enemies (bad accuracy), big packs of ogres can be really nasty when they have druids around, half the problem is that the encounters are extremely up and down in difficulty, just with a large tendency towards down. I wouldn't claim for a second every encounter is too easy, just the majority and it's that that kind of ruins the feel for me.

I feel exactly the same way I actually feel a little guilty when gaining side quest exp! I find that amusing :D Since I am trying to gauge what I should and shouldn't be doing in order to keep a challenging experience for myself, this post has been very helpful. My party just became level 6 in Act2 in PotD/ToI - have only done a couple of the Act2 side quests so far. Would you suggest sticking to the main path from here on out in order to maintain a good challenge? Well if you're doing Trial of Iron that's a tough one. Have you finished the game before? I wiped 40+ times on the last battle at level 9 and didn't get close, beyond that, I died a few times in Act 2 in Cliaban Rilag (Spores) and a few times on Burial Isle at level 8. Bet you'd have a great time in Od Nua at lvl 6.

Well this is true in shadow fights, Aloth and durance can get perma deathed pretty fast by these guys who are some of the more fun opponents. Other than them though there aren't too many fights you get forced out of position and to adapt are there?I'd say that sadly a lot of the other fights rest on your initial angle of attack, if the enemies all run towards Eder, it's already pretty much done. Let me think. Banshees (not bothering with their crazy in-game name) also teleport and have an aoe paralyze that is quite nasty. Mind control effects can be real trouble as well, though if they don't mind control your cipher you can flip it rather easily. AOE attacks can do quite a bit of damage to your whole party, especially the squishies. I've lost a few fights due to the insane raw damage of plague of insects (which seems to hit a lot harder than other enemy aoe attacks). I've figured out counters to most of these issues as I've played, and leveling gives protection spells against mind control and paralysis, so again it does seem to get easier as you level up. I do get what people are saying and I do think there's some validity to it, but again it wasn't until I got past level 9 that things became "easy", and that's on normal. Then again for me almost losing a fight or having one or two people drop feels challenging. I don't need to party wipe and reload to feel challenged, and I think that's what some people are looking for. I've probably only party wiped four or five times, and most of those were the result of being caught off guard by an attack that I didn't expect (plague of insects and the final boss in endless paths' aoe attacks account for pretty much all of them). Funnily enough you've basically named the things I mentioned, I include phantoms and banshees with shadows as they're often together on path at least. Insects comes from pwgra/ogre Druids mind control comes from spores. Theyre pretty much the main fights with a bit of challenge to them on path. You already only get 2 supplies on both I believe hard and definitely path. For me part of the fun is stocking up supplies at an inn, food potions, resting bonus etc. then going off on the quest to get it done before you come back, I just wish it was necessary but it really isn't. Sure you can return at any time but in lots of contexts such as raedrics hold that doesn't make any sense, I would say it's pretty cheesy to go back for supplies all the time, i have no problems with an attempt to stop you using all cool downs every fight and for me it's worked because I make sure I Don't. Got this from mods for BG where you can't rest in many places such as starting dungeon more than once and illithid lair for example (youre trying to escape you can't spend 3 days napping) I totally get that it feels a bit metagamey But prefer it to nothing.

There is a camping limitation. Everything can be abused, if you really want to, I think it's pretty clear that it was intended you don't abuse it. Stark Contrast to baldurs gate where you can pretty much rest anywhere and many classes have nothing to do if not rested.

I disagree on that, I liked the camping limitation, trying to stick to it as far as possible makes the harder modes more challenging if ultimately nowhere near enough. I think the only time I didn't finish a dungeon without returning was raedrics because it's massive and I couldn't find a way in to the priests room.

Well this is true in shadow fights, Aloth and durance can get perma deathed pretty fast by these guys who are some of the more fun opponents. Other than them though there aren't too many fights you get forced out of position and to adapt are there? I'd say that sadly a lot of the other fights rest on your initial angle of attack, if the enemies all run towards Eder, it's already pretty much done.

My playthrough was PoTD, expert mode, death over maiming doesn't feature too much as you tend to get knocked out first, Eder can easily do 5+ battles before his health is low.. As seems to be the case with everyone else, the game was much harder - and felt really really good by the way - near the start, with the exception of some random encounters like trolls, which can't do anything (they hit hard and fast on BG games), and the human parties which suck throughout the game (raedrics hold is decent though for lvl 3/4, except raedric who is no harder than some of the bigger groups in there). I hit defiance at 5, there is one fight in the city I missed and found on second playthrough (forge Knights) which is far far far far harder than anything else close to it. While this is cool, it shows up the rest of act 2, nothing else in Act 2 is hard for lvl 5-8 parties on path, with the exception of Spore room and potentially the lle la rhemen optional boss (I didn't do this fight but it looked decent if you don't cheese and begin the fight through dialogue). Pwgra Druid combos are tuned ok, the rest of the crit path is really really under tuned as in you don't even need to use abilities. Got to say it again, human opponents are comically easy. I did one bounty quest just to try the difficulty, chief xaurip guy, looked scary but xaurips and their friends can't really hit you. Was Lvl 7 for dyrford and the places around it which is still too high probably. I think on path you should be expected to do some side content to keep up, not avoid it to keep a challenge which I ended up doing, I just used the in game characters and didn't min max, I had many normal pieces of equipment still on by end game, Eder is more than good enough to tank the lot on his own and Aloth can blow most enemies up. I waltzed into the final battle with a half arsed level 9 party really a bit disappointed with it all. The last battle certainly doesn't disappoint at least, you need to bring your A game, have buffs and good equipment etc. but barely any of the rest of the game prepares you for that. I'd guess they play tested the last battle at least. I admit I can't comment on any other Act 3 content as I didn't want to experience all the brilliant content for the first time when over levelled.

My favourites were the first dungeon you are forced into, I just saw the paved tiles and the archways etc. and fell in love with the game straightaway, I also loved finding the dungeoun entrance by the Waterfall which was I think the first artwork released , stood there for a while and admired it while thinking, wow, this game happened, and it's great!

whats a good place to stop leveling? im currently level 5... do u think the end boss would be doable? Well the end boss is such a jump in difficulty compared to most other fights, I'd be impressed if you managed at level 5!

I've really noticed this too. Perhaps the human fights are the same size whichever difficulty you are on, so in these fights all you get is the same fight as easy but with 50% more stats and a poor ai, which doesn't make much difference. I've also noticed human opponents tend to have pretty trash accuracies probably mirroring what a pc character of that level would have but ultimately making them ineffective. Hope they do look at it in more detail than a quick fix but I'm not too optimistic, a mod to rework encounters is probably more realistic but would be interesting to see if it's on obsidian's radar.

In reply to atheo... I assume you haven't read the earlier discussions then. My issue was reaching the last boss on path at level 9 with very few memorable fights, over experience just compounds the difficulty problems, there are several others which have been well documented. People are suggesting ways to overcome the game getting too easy too quickly and increase the number of tactically fun fights (there are already some really good ones when done at the correct level), and experience tweaking is one of those suggestions, but a random mod to reduce experience is a decent idea but would be a pretty crude way to do it and theres more to look at in my opinion. Path was sold as a nod to people who like things brutal, so I hardly think expectations for it to actually BE brutal are ' silly'. Anyway no point derailing the topic further.

I would certainly hope so. I'm holding off on progressing much more into the game (just reached Defiance Bay) because I don't want to steamroll the last half of the game and not have any fun. It would be good to get a dev or Josh to come in and confirm that they are working on fixing the balance of the game as part of the next patch or two so I can have some idea when I can dive back in. The wait is really hard since I've loved every moment of the game so far. Many of us are perfectly happy with the way it is now. So I hope they ignore the loud minority in this thread altogether. A mod will come out for you guys at some point in the not so distant future I'm sure. You have a very odd attitude to this. It's perfectly possible to change the game for people who want more of a challenge without ruining modes that others are happy with, obsidian already realised this given the number of ways you can customise the game. Now, the people in here, and I'm sure plenty of others, hope obsidian does it rather than a mod because it will very likely be better done that way, and, if enough people want that I'm sure obsidian will listen to their fans, same way they did in including a path of the damned mode in the first place, they just haven't nailed it quite yet. Many months after release divinity original sin developers are working in a hardcore mode for their game, some people want this kind of thing, it's fine if you don't, but no reason for you to hope people with different views are ignored. I'm happy you are happy with the difficulty and hope if they do make changes they're optional so you can still have fun too.