About Difficulties (one of those 'if I made the game' threads)

[Rolandur]

So I've done three full play-throughs (2 Vet. and 1 PotD) and 100+ hours modding, and while I'd like to see these as options I'll get to that later in the post as part of my Magran's challenge rant.

 

PotD was semi-fun but I think a lot of that was due to it being my 3rd play through and I was getting burnt-out. PotD has a decent balance but I don't want to cosign my thoughts on this difficulty here--I'm sure so many have, already. What I do see as having great potential, for those of that do like a modicum of challenge (Vet.) but don't want to wile away our days doing just a handful of battles (PotD), is having some options to make any Difficulty to the degree we like to play the game.

 

The features I'd like to have [as options] for any difficulty is:

- PotD encounter size & AI*

- Double Health

-- Triple Health

- PotD AllDefense upgrade (the +15)

- No map markers

- No [city] Quick Travel Legend

- Remove Weapon Proficiency abilities from character leveling / Add Trainers around select locations to add WP Abilities

 

The last two are mods I made but would like to see something a little more... professional. Currently have Items that can be bought (hooked into select Stores) for 5,000 that On Inspected grants WP Abilities; uses unneeded GlobalValue's to increment and check against so a character can't have more than 4.

 

Magran's Challenges Rant Time

 

Make these available for any difficulty, just like Berath's. For the sake of potential upcoming achievements (I suspect this is the reason) when a challenge is selected it 1) disables any selected blessings and 2) notifies the user that if they are not uses PotD as their difficulty they'll not get [potential] achievements.

 

You probably have a large player-base that would like to use some of these challenges but don't want to, putting it bluntly, Richard around with PotD. (lol it got censored)

 

Thanks for listening--ok let me have it! -laughs

 

--

 

* This top option I listed was my entire reason for making this post in the first place. I play on Veteran, just starting a 4th play through, but it's a cake walk and severally in need of more monsters in encounters.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Rolandur

[Tigranes]

A lot of these don't seem particularly useful - triple health would be an insanely boring chore, 'no map markers' hardly makes a meaningful difference in a game like Deadfire, and removing quick travel legend is like giving people an option to remove half of the inventory screen for no reason.

 

At some point, buffing numbers like HP and defences just breaks game balance and provides the unenjoyable kind of difficulty. If we did have to buff some numbers, I'd say buff attack values over defences, so that combat is far more lethal and unpredictable, instead of 800HP people pew-pewing at each other in trench warfare.

[Rolandur]

At some point, buffing numbers like HP and defences just breaks game balance and provides the unenjoyable kind of difficulty.

 

Completely agree and I wouldn't use any Health or Defense bump options in a game. I mostly want Veteran difficulty to have double the enemies for the encounters.

[xzar_monty]

Hmm. I wonder where the OP's playing strategy and immersion level falls within the playing community. In other words: is it reasonable for a company like Obsidian to even consider stuff like this. I may of course be completely wrong, but this may be a real hard-core gamer talking, one in a very small minority.

[algroth]

Double the enemies would probably be a better solution than tripling the health of the enemies, but I reckon that it also starts to make certain classes far more viable than others - basically any class with single-target damage and abilities gets shafted whilst AoE casters become essential. That's another aspect to take into consideration in all discussions which is how deeply you want to cut into the breadth of viable builds and playstyles: I know Josh has been vocal before about wanting to avoid unviable builds as much as possible, and yet PotD is a mode that is clearly designed to be as complicated as possible hence requiring some metagame knowledge and so on; obviously *some* builds will fall on the wayside as unviable for PotD if the mode becomes challenging enough, but to what extent does that begin to limit a player to specific classes and playstyles and make others which other players might enjoy more a veritable dead end? For me, the quick "blanket buff" propositions often made about balancing in these threads tend to create a very determined preference to one playstyle over others, hence only really contributing to making the game more one-dimensional or frustrating more so than actually challenging.

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

Scrap the health, double the damage. 

[Rolandur]

Lot of focus on that health, I see. which I thought PotD did just that, almost double the health of monsters. Anyways...

 

I probably should of just made a post stating that more monsters in encounters are needed for difficulties under PotD. =)

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

What's needed is a more careful rebalancing of the armour system and readjustment of the stats of the mobs. Sheer numbers won't do much in the end. 

[Rolandur]

They added Magran's to any Difficulty! Thanks!

 

 

What's needed is a more careful rebalancing of the armour system and readjustment of the stats of the mobs. Sheer numbers won't do much in the end. 

 

Seems they're doing this too.

 

So much great stuff in the beta! Really digging the new interface toggles. I always wanted them completely off my screen when playing while not in combat.