Difficulty after 1.1 - Game is still too easy

[Shadenuat]

High level scaling still needs some work, but I also think we might get some more tweaks to increase difficulty via the upcoming “Magran’s Fires” setting.

Adding these modifiers to the game just makes PoTD as a difficulty level look like a farce. So, now PoTD is not the hardest, but you also would have to activate half a dozen things like reduced gold or something similar to fix the core issues of the game - that it's too XP dependant, too level dependant, AI is not good and encounters and monsters aren't properly hard.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[Tigranes]

We are getting to a weirdly fragmented system. "I just beat X on POTD!" someone says, and then it turns out they used that Berath thing to get a gazillion gold and XP to start off with, which means they had a very different experience. I mean, I'm going to like it if new settings allow us to tone down XP gain or something like that, it's just going to be interesting how we share build viability, etc.

[thelee]

 

High level scaling still needs some work, but I also think we might get some more tweaks to increase difficulty via the upcoming “Magran’s Fires” setting.

Adding these modifiers to the game just makes PoTD as a difficulty level look like a farce. So, now PoTD is not the hardest, but you also would have to activate half a dozen things like reduced gold or something similar to fix the core issues of the game - that it's too XP dependant, too level dependant, AI is not good and encounters and monsters aren't properly hard.

 

 

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

 

What's the hardest? Something that only 1% of players can beat? .5%? .1%? I feel like just saying "hardest" is too nebulous because there will always be (an increasingly smaller) fraction of players say "I beat this on blah difficulty without much sweat". I have The Ultimate achievement from poe1 and that's like a .1% clearance rate (possibly even rounding to 0.0%). I could tell you that with the right set up, the ultimate is not that much of a challenge, it's just tedious. But I would be wrong if I in the same breath said that potd needs to be tuned to that level because it's "the hardest."

 

Right now, I think the anecdotal discussion misses something; frankly PotD has a crucible in opening Port Maje stuff that will filter out the vast vast vast vast majority of players, so we have a bit of a survivor bias where only the people good enough to get through Port Maje get to the rest of the game, so we are only going to get people who are already good playing the rest of the game, which is a bit less well-tuned due to the open-ended nature of it (versus Port Maje). This is especially true if you didn't need to hire two hirelings for a five-person party to clear the digsite or gorecci st (or if you only hired one, which I found to still be a decent challenge).

 

I think PotD being a modest challenge for a general population of power gamers with a 5-person party is an OK target, because that's already like a fraction of the entire player base.

 

I think rather than spending lots of time tuning the difficulty of fights to be challenging for a further .1% of hardcore players, the magran's challenges could be a good way to layer on extra challenge rather than a "farce," and it's also something that could also be used to sprinkle in a bit of extra spice for people on veteran or lower.

 

EDIT: also if you haven't tried "level scaling: up only" for potd, you should. adds extra challenge and makes it a little harder to out-level encounters.

Edited June 12, 2018 by thelee

[Khagmas]

We are getting to a weirdly fragmented system. "I just beat X on POTD!" someone says, and then it turns out they used that Berath thing to get a gazillion gold and XP to start off with, which means they had a very different experience. I mean, I'm going to like it if new settings allow us to tone down XP gain or something like that, it's just going to be interesting how we share build viability, etc.

'Berath Blessings' broke balance. It would be better if they were did not exist. But if they are, then it would be good to weaken them in ~ 2 times.

 

 

• 3 points - +5000 Starting Money: Begin the game with 5200 copper, remember you always have 200 copper at the start, if both money perks are taken you can start with 55,200 copper.
• 3 points - Bonus Skills: Gain +2 to all skills from your Class such as Mechanics or Arcana, it also applies to all characters that join your party.  Bear in mind, it is class only, background skills get no bonus.  I say +2 specifically, because multiclass characters can potentially have only 1 point in a Class skill, which if doubled like the toop tip says implies you get 1 bonus point, but you will get 2.  Obsidian has not said if it was meant to be Watcher only but I assume this is by design, since the Stats perk specifically says Player Only.
• 4 points - Experienced Ship Captain: Start as an Expert rank Captain.
• 5 points - Fine Equipment: The wardrobe at the beginning of the game will contain a set of Fine armors (Brigandine, Robes, Leather, and Breastplate), a Fine medium shield, and a set of Fine weapons based on your proficiency choices.
• 5 points - Unique Item Vendor: A unique Vendor appears in Port Maje, see below for an item and cost list.
• 8 points - Upgraded Ship Sails: Begin the game with two Ship upgrades, Stormwind Sails which give +15% combat speed and +15% travel speed, and Improved Warship Reinforcements which give +15 hull health.  Both items work like any other ship upgrade and can be removed from the starter ship.
• 12 points - Start at Level 4: Begin the game at level 4 instead of level 1.
• 12 points - Explored World Map: Begin the game with the World Map fully exposed with no "fog".
• 15 points - +50,000 Starting Money: Begin the game with 50,200 copper, remember you always have 200 copper at the start, if both money perks are taken you can start with 55,200 copper.
• 15 points - Bonus Attributes (Player Only): Begin the game with a +2 bonus to all stats, these bonus points cannot be seen or modified in character creation, and as stated only apply to the Watcher.

 

 

 

Yellow is very strong abilities, i do not know why they are available to PotD.

And the green skills just to reduce the gold by ~2 times.

Orange is serious imbalance. Need rework?

 

 

The remaining skills are more or less, i think.

 

P.S: Can all these blessings be unavailable to PotD?

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by Khagmas

[knownastherat]

 

We are getting to a weirdly fragmented system. "I just beat X on POTD!" someone says, and then it turns out they used that Berath thing to get a gazillion gold and XP to start off with, which means they had a very different experience. I mean, I'm going to like it if new settings allow us to tone down XP gain or something like that, it's just going to be interesting how we share build viability, etc.

'Berath Blessings' broke balance. It would be better if they were did not exist. But if they are, then it would be good to weaken them in ~ 2 times.

 

 

• 3 points - +5000 Starting Money: Begin the game with 5200 copper, remember you always have 200 copper at the start, if both money perks are taken you can start with 55,200 copper.
• 3 points - Bonus Skills: Gain +2 to all skills from your Class such as Mechanics or Arcana, it also applies to all characters that join your party.  Bear in mind, it is class only, background skills get no bonus.  I say +2 specifically, because multiclass characters can potentially have only 1 point in a Class skill, which if doubled like the toop tip says implies you get 1 bonus point, but you will get 2.  Obsidian has not said if it was meant to be Watcher only but I assume this is by design, since the Stats perk specifically says Player Only.
• 4 points - Experienced Ship Captain: Start as an Expert rank Captain.
• 5 points - Fine Equipment: The wardrobe at the beginning of the game will contain a set of Fine armors (Brigandine, Robes, Leather, and Breastplate), a Fine medium shield, and a set of Fine weapons based on your proficiency choices.
• 5 points - Unique Item Vendor: A unique Vendor appears in Port Maje, see below for an item and cost list.
• 8 points - Upgraded Ship Sails: Begin the game with two Ship upgrades, Stormwind Sails which give +15% combat speed and +15% travel speed, and Improved Warship Reinforcements which give +15 hull health.  Both items work like any other ship upgrade and can be removed from the starter ship.
• 12 points - Start at Level 4: Begin the game at level 4 instead of level 1.
• 12 points - Explored World Map: Begin the game with the World Map fully exposed with no "fog".
• 15 points - +50,000 Starting Money: Begin the game with 50,200 copper, remember you always have 200 copper at the start, if both money perks are taken you can start with 55,200 copper.
• 15 points - Bonus Attributes (Player Only): Begin the game with a +2 bonus to all stats, these bonus points cannot be seen or modified in character creation, and as stated only apply to the Watcher.

 

 

 

Yellow is very strong abilities, i do not know why they are available to PotD.

And the green skills just to reduce the gold by ~2 times.

Orange is serious imbalance. Need rework?

 

 

The remaining skills are more or less, i think.

 

P.S: Can all these blessings be unavailable to PotD?

 

 

 

Why should they be unavailable? It's not mandatory to take them.

 

In other words, what is your motive for setting any baseline for others? You can set your own baseline and what others do is not your concern in my opinion.

[InsaneCommander]

Berath's blessings are optional. Just make the achievements like "triple crown" and "ultimate" unavailable to anyone who used the blessings..

[Shadenuat]

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

In modern game design it's "for people who actually like RPGs / combat".

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[lpro]

i agree it should be more difficult and said so during beta 1.1.  i also agree w/ earlier posts on here that one big problem seems to be that there is a tipping point mid-game after which everything is trivial. but from what i've seen, 1.1 //is// a major step forward.


that said, many posters are talking like BGI or BGII were so hard before modders got to them or something and i don't know about that. i have been playing BG2: EE and i'm not a hardcore player but i found that it hasn't been that tough after a certain number of hours and amount of experience. some fights like demogorgon seemed impossible but once you knew why you were dying it became laughably easy to game the encounter using some one-off spell...i mean, this was also a game that gave you friggin planetars....

Edited June 12, 2018 by lpro

[Shadenuat]

It's very hard to judge IE games difficulty because they taught many players how to play these real time with pause RPGs.

 

But D&D is more lethal, and has less handholding in it. Even vanilla IE games with maxed difficulty are infinitely more lethal than PoE in some of it's variations. You always have less hitpoints, the hits and crits destroy you and enemies (which is why people so often use ranged weapons in BG1 & IWD to get that early combat advantage), things like poison (anyone used antidote in Deadfire? I sell them for free moneys) and paralyze are simply brutal and can destroy characters, most of spells do truckloads of damage and only allow save for half, and there are effects that simply can't be ignored in combat less you die horribly, like confusion, level drain, and that not to mention death spells. Immunities are extremely more prevalent, and some creatures blatantly one-shot you moment you misstep (beholders, illithid), and they come in packs or even parties.

 

Yes, if you learned solid strategy fights can easily become trivial, but that's after you learned it.

 

Also, the fact that these games still hold up, and modded provide excellent challenge, and the fact that these whole discussions HURR TO KILL VAMPIRES YOU JUS NEED TO PREPARE THESE 3 SPELLS, EQUIP THESE 2 ITEMS AND DO THIS even exist shows that, well, PoE has ways to go.

 

I think some people will be surprised that, even after all these years Sarevok fight in BG1 actually holds up very well as a combat encounter compared to even much of PoE content; by design it's just a very decent fight: area layered with death traps which you can't do anything about, an almost immune to magic super-brute, dude with exploding arrows, mage with a contingency effect, another high damaging brute and something extra I believe. Google "sarevok fight" and people when EE for BG1 came out ask for help on steam and beamdog forums at defeating him.

 

Transfer 2018 and enemies like Concelhault and other seemingly "special" encounters just collapse when players arrive even somewhat leveled up and with decent equipment. After White March (which I praised for high difficulty, greatly improved encounters & epic itemization & generally saved PoE experience for me) it almost felt like a step backwards.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[Wormerine]

that said, many posters are talking like BGI or BGII were so hard before modders got to them or something and i don't know about that. i have been playing BG2: EE and i'm not a hardcore player but i found that it hasn't been that tough after a certain number of hours and amount of experience. some fights like demogorgon seemed impossible but once you knew why you were dying it became laughably easy to game the encounter using some one-off spell...i mean, this was also a game that gave you friggin planetars....

Baldur's Gate has a benefit (?) of being very obtuse. Playing it without learning D&D rules first was punishing. Goodness me I spent hours to beat some fights in the past. Not so challenging, if you actually know the ruleset. 

[cokane]

It's very hard to judge IE games difficulty because they taught many players how to play these real time with pause RPGs.

 

But D&D is more lethal, and has less handholding in it. Even vanilla IE games with maxed difficulty are infinitely more lethal than PoE in some of it's variations. You always have less hitpoints, the hits and crits destroy you and enemies, things like poison (anyone used antidote in Deadfire? I sell them for free moneys) and paralyze are simply brutal and can destroy characters, most of spells do truckloads of damage and only allow save for half, and there are effects that simply can't be ignored in combat less you die horribly, like confusion, level drain, and that not to mention death spells. Some creatures blatantly one-shot you moment you misstep (beholders, illithid), and they come in packs or even parties.

 

Yes, if you learned solid strategy fights can easily become trivial, but that's after you learned it.

 

Also, the fact that these games still hold up, and modded provide excellent challenge, and the fact that these whole discussions HURR TO KILL VAMPIRES YOU JUS NEED TO PREPARE THESE 3 SPELLS, EQUIP THESE 2 ITEMS AND DO THIS even exist shows that, well, PoE has ways to go.

 

Yep, arguing that the BG games were easy compared to PoE is just factually incorrect. PoE and Deadfire have no instant death spells, things like imprison and all the various things that could force you to immediately reload. Not to mention it was much easier to end up at -10 HP than it was to lose all your health in PoE or wound-death in Deadfire. I won't even talk about Deadfire, since we know that's easy. But in the original, even on PotD, you could basically charge into every fight and expect to win so long as you had the right level and didn't make immensely dumb decisions. Aside from maybe immunity to paralysis and charm spells, there were no key spells or key abilities you had to for sure equip in order to take on certain fights.

 

Contrast that with dealing with beholder rays, lich spells, high damage dragon breaths, and the difference is immense. Don't get me wrong, I think the original PoE results in an overall more fun, if easier, combat experience. But you cannot argue that the BG games were in any way easier.

Edited June 12, 2018 by cokane

[Tigranes]

Nothing wrong with Berath Blessings, they are basically an easy way to use the cheat console. If some people want to play with infinite money or just 5000 extra gold or whatever, that's perfectly fine. It's not like the devs are balancing the game around them. I expect the same goes for Magran Fires. In POTD I used the console to reduce my XP gain - now there will be an easier way to do it.

[lpro]

 

It's very hard to judge IE games difficulty because they taught many players how to play these real time with pause RPGs.

 

But D&D is more lethal, and has less handholding in it. Even vanilla IE games with maxed difficulty are infinitely more lethal than PoE in some of it's variations. You always have less hitpoints, the hits and crits destroy you and enemies, things like poison (anyone used antidote in Deadfire? I sell them for free moneys) and paralyze are simply brutal and can destroy characters, most of spells do truckloads of damage and only allow save for half, and there are effects that simply can't be ignored in combat less you die horribly, like confusion, level drain, and that not to mention death spells. Some creatures blatantly one-shot you moment you misstep (beholders, illithid), and they come in packs or even parties.

 

Yes, if you learned solid strategy fights can easily become trivial, but that's after you learned it.

 

Also, the fact that these games still hold up, and modded provide excellent challenge, and the fact that these whole discussions HURR TO KILL VAMPIRES YOU JUS NEED TO PREPARE THESE 3 SPELLS, EQUIP THESE 2 ITEMS AND DO THIS even exist shows that, well, PoE has ways to go.

 

Yep, arguing that the BG games were easy compared to PoE is just factually incorrect. PoE and Deadfire have no instant death spells, things like imprison and all the various things that could force you to immediately reload. Not to mention it was much easier to end up at -10 HP than it was to lose all your health in PoE or wound-death in Deadfire. I won't even talk about Deadfire, since we know that's easy. But in the original, even on PotD, you could basically charge into every fight and expect to win so long as you had the right level and didn't make immensely dumb decisions. Aside from maybe immunity to paralysis and charm spells, there were no key spells or key abilities you had to for sure equip in order to take on certain fights.

 

Contrast that with dealing with beholder rays, lich spells, high damage dragon breaths, and the difference is immense. Don't get me wrong, I think the original PoE results in an overall more fun, if easier, combat experience. But you cannot argue that the BG games were in any way easier.

 

I never argued that BG games were easier.  But like Shadenuat said, it's also a very tech-y sort of game in a way where you die to instakill spells or monster abilities until you learn the correct buffs to spend minutes applying first (there's something nobody misses) and then you waltz through every encounter of that type by solely  having the correct spells memorized. And that is how it goes: once you know how to handle Illithids, every single encounter w/ Illithids is easy and plays out the same. You might die to Demogorgon and have to reload -- sure, I did--but once you know how to kill him, you know how and virtually nothing can go wrong if you pre-buff correctly and have your mages have the right spells in spell trigger. You might be so mad because Kangaxx uses imprison on your entire party but then you remember you have a few freedom scrolls and again a bunch of situational buffs...It is more lethal and you spend dumb amounts of time reloading when you don't know the fights, but yeah once you know the solutions they never seem to fail.

 

I say this as I'm sort of just rolling through BG2 and ToB on ordinary difficulty. It was hard at first; even on normal difficulty I died alot in the first half of my first playthrough. I'll acknowledge that it is harder than POE2 on PotD, which means that even POE's normal difficulty ought to be a lot tougher, forget about path of the damned, which needs to be loads harder, since I assume a lot of the hardcore folks are coming out of the BG series. But I wouldn't want a Pillars hard mode to follow that same model, either -- enemies that instakill you under certain conditions but also have very specific vulnerabilities and countermeasures that prove extremely trivial once you know what to do.  Once I went to the second and third Illithid dungeon (in SoA and Tob) I was bored of Illithids; same goes for Beholders, and yeah, so far, dragons. 

 

I would probably just want to see PoE2 be generally harder although I don't have any solutions to offer except that on my first totally blind run I thought the dragons needed to hit like, 4x harder and force some desperate heals and wouldn't it be great if there were more fights like the Adra Dragon --although on POE1 that was another boss that resulted in plenty of reloads but that it turned out you could completely annihilate using a few scrolls.

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by lpro

[ThacoBell]

 

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

In modern game design it's "for people who actually like RPGs / combat".

 

No. Just no. RPGs can be fun without a high difficulty, heck story quality and game difficulty are not linked. Combat can also be fun without being masochistic. Don't conflate your taste with everyone's standard of fun.

[Shadenuat]

The lock & key features of IE are actually exaggerated, including what Sawyer said, really. You can beat BG2 without wizards (I actually did this on my 2d playthrough when game just came out, and I wasn't even that great at reading english at time; and I am no goddamn genius). You don't have arcane spells, you can use druid's spells like insect plague or improving your magic resistance. You don't have that, priests have protections; don't have a priest, paladin kit has dispel; don't have that, there are anti-magic kits, weapons, scrolls & potions of magic defence and other counters and summons and godknowswhat. You can't protect from level drain, you can try and melt the vampires; or use summons that are immune to their effects.

 

I think when people played these games for first time, everyone found something of their own to beat encounters they weren't totally prepared for or didn't understand their mechanics completely. I don't think anyone ever had a perfect party during their first playthrough, yet people did beat the game.

 

The game without any locks, see PoE1 before year of patching. Slicken for days up to dragons. Even PoE2 after patching often turns into routine of rotating same abilities. Summon something. Throw some buff or heal. Press the I Always Press These Buttons buttons like gouging strike on rogue, barbarian hit on barbarian, ranger mark on ranger. Done, next.

 

I say this as I'm sort of just rolling through BG2 and ToB on ordinary difficulty. It was hard at first; even on normal difficulty I died alot in the first half of my first playthrough. I'll acknowledge that it is harder than POE2 on PotD

That's kinda sad to hear.

 

Yes, Deadfire doesn't seem to have a super spike like adra dragon. Some monsters depending on level when you meet them can be tough, but they're not designed for you to completely re-think your strategy like Adra dragon was. Vampires seem closest to a truly dangerous enemy in that style.

 

No. Just no.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[cokane]

 

 

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

In modern game design it's "for people who actually like RPGs / combat".

 

No. Just no. RPGs can be fun without a high difficulty, heck story quality and game difficulty are not linked. Combat can also be fun without being masochistic. Don't conflate your taste with everyone's standard of fun.

 

 

They make RPG's for people like you nowadays, such as the Persona series, which is supposedly quite good. Wanting a game that focuses on party-based, tactical combat to not have challenging combat is asking a genre to try and be something that it's not. You're on just about every thread on here insisting that the game cannot cater to others' tastes. Just stop.

[ThacoBell]

 

 

 

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

In modern game design it's "for people who actually like RPGs / combat".

 

No. Just no. RPGs can be fun without a high difficulty, heck story quality and game difficulty are not linked. Combat can also be fun without being masochistic. Don't conflate your taste with everyone's standard of fun.

 

 

They make RPG's for people like you nowadays, such as the Persona series, which is supposedly quite good. Wanting a game that focuses on party-based, tactical combat to not have challenging combat is asking a genre to try and be something that it's not. You're on just about every thread on here insisting that the game cannot cater to others' tastes. Just stop.

 

Did, did you just claim that a MegaTen game wasn't difficult? So many of these threads are turning into echo chambers and I'm providing alternate viewpoints. THese are supposed to be discussions, and you are here telling me to shut up. I've never once said that the game cannot cater to others' tastes. My stance has been the exact opposite, the game shouldn't hold any one partie's taste above the another's. So stop putting words in my mouth.

[Shadenuat]

Obsidian had lotsa games (heck, almost all of them except DS maybe?) worthy of replaying simply because of their stories and companions. PoE series and Deadfire especially is just not one of them. What's there to discuss? How Xoti licks your ear? There are already threads about that.

 

I am personally waiting until fangirls will pull their **** together, up their game and since they're not allowed to marry Eder will remember good old days, when if you didn't get something, you opened notepad++ and made yourself some hot Edwin romance mod.

 

I can't wait

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[cokane]

 

 

 

 

This is going to sound pedantic, but we have to better define "the hardest."

In modern game design it's "for people who actually like RPGs / combat".

 

No. Just no. RPGs can be fun without a high difficulty, heck story quality and game difficulty are not linked. Combat can also be fun without being masochistic. Don't conflate your taste with everyone's standard of fun.

 

 

They make RPG's for people like you nowadays, such as the Persona series, which is supposedly quite good. Wanting a game that focuses on party-based, tactical combat to not have challenging combat is asking a genre to try and be something that it's not. You're on just about every thread on here insisting that the game cannot cater to others' tastes. Just stop.

 

Did, did you just claim that a MegaTen game wasn't difficult? So many of these threads are turning into echo chambers and I'm providing alternate viewpoints. THese are supposed to be discussions, and you are here telling me to shut up. I've never once said that the game cannot cater to others' tastes. My stance has been the exact opposite, the game shouldn't hold any one partie's taste above the another's. So stop putting words in my mouth.

 

 

Again, you're the one on these threads who doesn't play the high difficulties, constantly interjecting into threads exclusively about high difficulties. And yet you lecture me about holding one person's taste above another's. Physician, heal thyself!

[thelee]

 

 

It's very hard to judge IE games difficulty because they taught many players how to play these real time with pause RPGs.

 

But D&D is more lethal, and has less handholding in it. Even vanilla IE games with maxed difficulty are infinitely more lethal than PoE in some of it's variations. You always have less hitpoints, the hits and crits destroy you and enemies, things like poison (anyone used antidote in Deadfire? I sell them for free moneys) and paralyze are simply brutal and can destroy characters, most of spells do truckloads of damage and only allow save for half, and there are effects that simply can't be ignored in combat less you die horribly, like confusion, level drain, and that not to mention death spells. Some creatures blatantly one-shot you moment you misstep (beholders, illithid), and they come in packs or even parties.

 

Yes, if you learned solid strategy fights can easily become trivial, but that's after you learned it.

 

Also, the fact that these games still hold up, and modded provide excellent challenge, and the fact that these whole discussions HURR TO KILL VAMPIRES YOU JUS NEED TO PREPARE THESE 3 SPELLS, EQUIP THESE 2 ITEMS AND DO THIS even exist shows that, well, PoE has ways to go.

 

Yep, arguing that the BG games were easy compared to PoE is just factually incorrect. PoE and Deadfire have no instant death spells, things like imprison and all the various things that could force you to immediately reload. Not to mention it was much easier to end up at -10 HP than it was to lose all your health in PoE or wound-death in Deadfire. I won't even talk about Deadfire, since we know that's easy. But in the original, even on PotD, you could basically charge into every fight and expect to win so long as you had the right level and didn't make immensely dumb decisions. Aside from maybe immunity to paralysis and charm spells, there were no key spells or key abilities you had to for sure equip in order to take on certain fights.

 

Contrast that with dealing with beholder rays, lich spells, high damage dragon breaths, and the difference is immense. Don't get me wrong, I think the original PoE results in an overall more fun, if easier, combat experience. But you cannot argue that the BG games were in any way easier.

 

I never argued that BG games were easier.  But like Shadenuat said, it's also a very tech-y sort of game in a way where you die to instakill spells or monster abilities until you learn the correct buffs to spend minutes applying first (there's something nobody misses) and then you waltz through every encounter of that type by solely  having the correct spells memorized. And that is how it goes: once you know how to handle Illithids, every single encounter w/ Illithids is easy and plays out the same. You might die to Demogorgon and have to reload -- sure, I did--but once you know how to kill him, you know how and virtually nothing can go wrong if you pre-buff correctly and have your mages have the right spells in spell trigger. You might be so mad because Kangaxx uses imprison on your entire party but then you remember you have a few freedom scrolls and again a bunch of situational buffs...It is more lethal and you spend dumb amounts of time reloading when you don't know the fights, but yeah once you know the solutions they never seem to fail.

 

I say this as I'm sort of just rolling through BG2 and ToB on ordinary difficulty. It was hard at first; even on normal difficulty I died alot in the first half of my first playthrough. I'll acknowledge that it is harder than POE2 on PotD, which means that even POE's normal difficulty ought to be a lot tougher, forget about path of the damned, which needs to be loads harder, since I assume a lot of the hardcore folks are coming out of the BG series. But I wouldn't want a Pillars hard mode to follow that same model, either -- enemies that instakill you under certain conditions but also have very specific vulnerabilities and countermeasures that prove extremely trivial once you know what to do.  Once I went to the second and third Illithid dungeon (in SoA and Tob) I was bored of Illithids; same goes for Beholders, and yeah, so far, dragons. 

 

I would probably just want to see PoE2 be generally harder although I don't have any solutions to offer except that on my first totally blind run I thought the dragons needed to hit like, 4x harder and force some desperate heals and wouldn't it be great if there were more fights like the Adra Dragon --although on POE1 that was another boss that resulted in plenty of reloads but that it turned out you could completely annihilate using a few scrolls.

 

I agree with much that is said here, but I categorically disagree that BG/BG2 is harder than PoE2 on PotD.

 

In my mind, there is a difference between "oh I rolled a bad save and insta-died (from a lucky crit on a non-helmet wearer, from a lucky paralyze from a ghast, from one of a million instadeath effects, etc.) but then I reloaded my quicksave and roflstomped the same fight" vs"oh, I am just outmatched in this fight and this fight is challenging." Similarly, there is a difference between "boy these lich fights are hard" and the reality of "boy these lich fights are hard because I don't know what 90% of the things the lich does are."

 

Much of the difficulty in the BG/BG2/ToB world is a function two things that lead to one of those two above situations; 1) like you said, a significant amount of the harder fights are purely technical. And a part of that leads into the 2): AD&D and its Infinity Engine adaptation is extremely obtuse. Like, no where is it documented in-game that Liches are just straight up immune to level 1-5 spells. It's also extremely unobvious that mind flayers are actually attacking your int stat and poor Minsc if unprotected will just die really quickly and mind flayer's psionic attacks only work on sentient beings so some summoned undead can be really useful. And even the stuff that is documented is still obtuse. Like, can anyone off the top of their head tell me precisely what spell protection(s) Secret Word dispels? I eventually had a working knowledge of this stuff, but if I were to go back to BG2:EE right now I'd have to relearn this stuff for the umpteenth time.

 

But like you said once you do learn this stuff, most of the fights in the game become super easy. Get the right item/scroll/spell and roflstomp the fight. The first time is hard, the second time is easy. Meanwhile, I have 1000+ hours clocked on PoE1 and PotD, while I've certainly gotten better at it since 1.0, is legit just challenging (sometimes brutally so, mostly in Act 1 when I'm deliberately using a smaller party) and there's no magic spell/item/trick that you ignored the first time around because you didn't quite grasp its significance but would really trivialize a fight the second time around (well, except for that soulbound great sword that instakills vessels).

 

For Deadfire specifically, I am going to assert and hypothesize that 1.1's PotD is mostly fine and the main reason that people find it lacking at a certain inflection point (varyingly, depending on your level scaling settings) is for the simple reason that there just isn't a lot of high-level content and level-scaling isn't going to be enough to fix that (because a named xaurip that scales +6 levels is still a xaurip with lame xaurip abilities). I'm hoping that DLC can address this. I remember that in PoE1 there was a lack of decent high-level content (plus in 1.0 you could hit level 12--then the cap--way before act 3 thanks to bounties giving you a boatload of xp), and then with White March 1 you had the torn bannermen and concelhaut, and before WM2 introduced higher levels and more power creep I found that to be satisfying high-level content. I'm hoping Obsidian introduces more content targeting levels 14-20 without increasing the level cap. I think that might solve a lot of complaints here.

Edited June 12, 2018 by thelee

[Shadenuat]

You know what you say is somewhat ironic concidering creature abilities in Deadfire have no descriptions whatsoever and often you don't know if they are bugged or work as intended (retaliatory vampire gaze is the best); and unlike D&D, there is no monster manual to read.

 

Not that I believe that everything, including mysterious liches, should have a ****ing manual lying around telling you how to defeat them exactly. You meet something unreal and try everything, fail, guess, swear, until you find that weak spot, exploit and win. Why is the process of repeated trying and failing - and learning, feels so punishing for many people? It's a very natural process, whole real life is almost based around it.

 

That is not that different from fighting any battle. It's just that rules are more punishing and require more learning and knowing your abilities than average.

 

It reminds of a recent stream of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Dude goes into dungeon and dies repeatedly against bunch of skeletons. After a few deaths he says "Yeah, maybe I should read what my abilities actually do" and reads what his abilities do (turns out one of abilities he used was either innefective or even healed his enemies). Is it a big problem to read what Secred Word does and compare what enemy does?

 

I'm surprised what would people think of japanese Wizardry-likes or some other JRPGs that usually have 20 afflictions in the rulebook each countered in 3 different ways. Yet for some reason these are still kinda popular.

 

It's also extremely unobvious that mind flayers are actually attacking your int stat and poor Minsc if unprotected will just die really quickly and mind flayer's psionic attacks only work on sentient beings so some summoned undead can be really useful

They're--

 

They're called "mind flayers".

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[thelee]

You know what you say is somewhat ironic concidering creature abilities in Deadfire have no descriptions whatsoever and often you don't know if they are bugged or work as intended; and unlike D&D, there is no monster manual to read.

 

Not that I believe that everything, including mysterious liches, should have a ****ing manual lying around telling you how to defeat them exactly. You meet something unreal and try everything, fail, guess, swear, until you find that weak spot, exploit and win. Why is the process of repeated trying and failing - and learning, feels so punishing for many people? It's a very natural process, whole real life is almost based around it.

 

That is not that different from fighting any battle. It's just that rules are more punishing and require more learning and knowing your abilities than average.

 

It reminds of a recent stream of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Dude goes into dungeon and dies repeatedly against bunch of skeletons. After a few deaths he says "Yeah, maybe I should read what my abilities actually do" and reads what his abilities do (turns out one of abilities he used was either innefective or even healed his enemies). Is it a big problem to read what Secred Word does and compare what enemy does?

 

I'm surprised what would people think of japanese Wizardry-likes or some other JRPGs that usually have 20 afflictions in the rulebook each countered in 3 different ways. Yet for some reason these are still kinda popular.

 

Some learning and "mystery" is definitely an important factor. You could have a completely symmetric game (by which I mean the enemies and you have all the exact same things available), but that's more in the realm of designing an RTS than a cRPG. The problem is when in like BG2 that "mystery" is where alot of the difficulty is (random luck in failing a save or the enemy succeeding a save takes care of another good chunk of the difficulty).

 

Like the demi-lich has immunity to weapons less than +4 and can cast Wail of the Banshee and occasionally Imprisonment at will. If you have slayer form or even one of the priest kit's starting ability, you've taken care of the +4. There are plenty of ways to get immunity to instadeath or imprisonment (slayer form also does that). Once you have those the fight is stupidly easy. If you don't have any of that, the fight is virtually impossible. That's an extreme example, but is probably the simplest way to demonstrate the difference between "this fight is hard because i don't know the trick" and "this fight is hard because the encounter is challenging."

Edited June 12, 2018 by thelee

[Shadenuat]

Yes, it is an optional gimmicky fight. The whole point is the gimmick. It tests your knowledge, unlike some other, more brutal fights like parties of enemies that are more about common tactics. So?

 

This sort of thought lead to most bosses in new Dark Souls games turn into dudes in armor. Because players understand better how to mash buttons against dudes in armor and think it requires more skill.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Shadenuat

[cokane]

 

You know what you say is somewhat ironic concidering creature abilities in Deadfire have no descriptions whatsoever and often you don't know if they are bugged or work as intended; and unlike D&D, there is no monster manual to read.

 

Not that I believe that everything, including mysterious liches, should have a ****ing manual lying around telling you how to defeat them exactly. You meet something unreal and try everything, fail, guess, swear, until you find that weak spot, exploit and win. Why is the process of repeated trying and failing - and learning, feels so punishing for many people? It's a very natural process, whole real life is almost based around it.

 

That is not that different from fighting any battle. It's just that rules are more punishing and require more learning and knowing your abilities than average.

 

It reminds of a recent stream of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Dude goes into dungeon and dies repeatedly against bunch of skeletons. After a few deaths he says "Yeah, maybe I should read what my abilities actually do" and reads what his abilities do (turns out one of abilities he used was either innefective or even healed his enemies). Is it a big problem to read what Secred Word does and compare what enemy does?

 

I'm surprised what would people think of japanese Wizardry-likes or some other JRPGs that usually have 20 afflictions in the rulebook each countered in 3 different ways. Yet for some reason these are still kinda popular.

 

Some learning and "mystery" is definitely an important factor. You could have a completely symmetric game (by which I mean the enemies and you have all the exact same things available), but that's more in the realm of designing an RTS than a cRPG. The problem is when in like BG2 that "mystery" is where alot of the difficulty is (random luck in failing a save or the enemy succeeding a save takes care of another good chunk of the difficulty).

 

Like the demi-lich has immunity to weapons less than +4 and can cast Wail of the Banshee and occasionally Imprisonment at will. If you have slayer form or even one of the priest kit's starting ability, you've taken care of the +4. There are plenty of ways to get immunity to instadeath or imprisonment (slayer form also does that). Once you have those the fight is stupidly easy. If you don't have any of that, the fight is virtually impossible. That's an extreme example, but is probably the simplest way to demonstrate the difference between "this fight is hard because i don't know the trick" and "this fight is hard because the encounter is challenging."

 

 

But the demi-lich is a side quest. It's not required to beat the game, it probably wasn't designed thinking the average player would even attempt it on their first playthrough. It also only comes after fighting several other liches, meaning you had a chance to tune up and learn some of the tricks. Yes, the imprisonment is special. I'd also disagree that the fight is trivial once you know how to equip protections and the right weapons. Even if you prep some of the things you need, it's not a fight you can tackle immediately with low level characters.

 

But it's a super bad example. It's a reward specifically designed for completionists, you basically need to explore much of the city to even bring the fight up, unless you engage in the dumb dialogue options initially. So, it's already meant for players who would (at least after the first failure) learn to deal with some of the esoteric demands of the fight.

Edited June 13, 2018 by cokane

[thelee]

 

 

It's also extremely unobvious that mind flayers are actually attacking your int stat and poor Minsc if unprotected will just die really quickly and mind flayer's psionic attacks only work on sentient beings so some summoned undead can be really useful

They're--

 

They're called "mind flayers".

 

It's actually quite a leap to go from "they're called mind flayers" to "they literally do damage to your intellect stat and when your intellect hits 0 you die." That's really only the logic someone who's already played D&D or a D&D-like can possess. A lot of other RPGs let your non-health stats get to 1 or 0 with no repercussions if you get hit again. (poe1 and deadfire are two of them, actually)

 

 

 

You know what you say is somewhat ironic concidering creature abilities in Deadfire have no descriptions whatsoever and often you don't know if they are bugged or work as intended; and unlike D&D, there is no monster manual to read.

 

Not that I believe that everything, including mysterious liches, should have a ****ing manual lying around telling you how to defeat them exactly. You meet something unreal and try everything, fail, guess, swear, until you find that weak spot, exploit and win. Why is the process of repeated trying and failing - and learning, feels so punishing for many people? It's a very natural process, whole real life is almost based around it.

 

That is not that different from fighting any battle. It's just that rules are more punishing and require more learning and knowing your abilities than average.

 

It reminds of a recent stream of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Dude goes into dungeon and dies repeatedly against bunch of skeletons. After a few deaths he says "Yeah, maybe I should read what my abilities actually do" and reads what his abilities do (turns out one of abilities he used was either innefective or even healed his enemies). Is it a big problem to read what Secred Word does and compare what enemy does?

 

I'm surprised what would people think of japanese Wizardry-likes or some other JRPGs that usually have 20 afflictions in the rulebook each countered in 3 different ways. Yet for some reason these are still kinda popular.

 

Some learning and "mystery" is definitely an important factor. You could have a completely symmetric game (by which I mean the enemies and you have all the exact same things available), but that's more in the realm of designing an RTS than a cRPG. The problem is when in like BG2 that "mystery" is where alot of the difficulty is (random luck in failing a save or the enemy succeeding a save takes care of another good chunk of the difficulty).

 

Like the demi-lich has immunity to weapons less than +4 and can cast Wail of the Banshee and occasionally Imprisonment at will. If you have slayer form or even one of the priest kit's starting ability, you've taken care of the +4. There are plenty of ways to get immunity to instadeath or imprisonment (slayer form also does that). Once you have those the fight is stupidly easy. If you don't have any of that, the fight is virtually impossible. That's an extreme example, but is probably the simplest way to demonstrate the difference between "this fight is hard because i don't know the trick" and "this fight is hard because the encounter is challenging."

 

 

But the demi-lich is a side quest. It's not required to beat the game, it probably wasn't designed thinking the average player would even attempt it on their first playthrough. It also only comes after fighting several other liches, meaning you had a chance to tune up and learn some of the tricks. Yes, the imprisonment is special. I'd also disagree that the fight is trivial once you know how to equip protections and the right weapons. Even if you prep some of the things you need, it's not a fight you can tackle immediately with low level characters.

 

But it's a super bad example. It's a reward specifically designed for completionists, you basically need to explore much of the city to even bring the fight up, unless you engage in the dumb dialogue options initially. So, it's already meant for players who would (at least after the first failure) learn to deal with some of the esoteric demands of the fight.

 

 

Like I said, it was the simplest and most extreme example I could think of. It is not, by far, the only example. (And you really could tackle it at a relatively low level once you know the game. Traps - so incredibly OP - will get you through all the lich fights leading up to it without any problem. And you can hoard those protection from magic or protection from undead scrolls you periodically find.)

 

Yes, it is an optional gimmicky fight. The whole point is the gimmick. It tests your knowledge, unlike some other, more brutal fights like parties of enemies that are more about common tactics. So?

 

This sort of thought lead to most bosses in new Dark Souls games turn into dudes in armor. Because players understand better how to mash buttons against dudes in armor and think it requires more skill.

 

I don't see how this follows, other than a general gripe against Dark Souls. HP sponges are not "hard" they are just tedious.

 

It's also "gimmicky" in the way most problematic foes in BG2 are gimmicky. After ToB, Kangaxx isn't even unique (there's a random demlich in some room in that expansion-only dungeon; I remember once just going in solo with either slayer form or a berserk effect and getting rid of it like that.)

Edited June 13, 2018 by thelee