SSS difficulty: Too much?

[danielbda]

I have just "finished" SSS on PotD upscaled, which I started at level 20. And by "finished" I  mean that I finished all the challenges on the path I chose, the Slayer one, plus the main quest and Porokoa fight.

I thought that the difficulty was a bit exaggerated. Having to respec and change party members, gear and have all types of consumables for each fight is not fun, at least to me. Some of the challenges are downright impossible depending on your party composition, such as the Shades one.

Enemies have too much HP. The Porokoa had 4k+ and each MINION had 1k+ HP. For a game in which you have very limited per encounter resources I find this to also limit which parties can actually beat these encounters. In my case I used a Tactician/Priest to keep healing and buffing once the enemy numbers diminished, but this can not be done in every fight.

I know the DLC is supposed to be some sort of "challenge mode". But is this necessary when the difficulty setting is already hard enough?

[Boeroer]

Hm... you chose the highest possible difficulty and managed to win. So I don't really understand where the problem is. That is was more difficult than the main game on PotD upscaled?

I found some fights in SSS challenging when I did them the first time, but usually they weren't hat difficult after that.

Often players are not used to prolonged fights and tend to spend all their resources right away and carelessly which is a mistake in SSS. 

There are players who beat these fights solo on PotD upscaled or even in the Ultimate challenge.

[xzar_monty]

It's exactly as Boeroer said. Dear @danielbda, you chose the highest possible difficulty. You have no cause to complain.

You're a bit like someone who orders a pizza and then complains that it's round and flat and has tomato sauce and cheese and other stuff on top.

[Boeroer]

To be fair: OP chose Veteran, not PotD.

One can't know that Veteran + upscaling might be harder (in some cases) than the higher difficulty setting without scaling. You'll only find out after trying.

But still: keep an eye on your blood pressure!  

Whoha I posted in the wrong thread. Had two tabs open and the topics were kind of similar... should stop with those tabs...

Edited February 5, 2020 by Boeroer

[wih]

Just to give newer players some context - there were numerous complaints on this forum that PotD was too easy during the last two years. Therefore Obsidian tried to silence the complainers by making PotD much harder. And SSS PotD is meant to be even harder, I guess (and it is still not hard enough for some people, so they find it necessary to torture themselves with the Ultimate challenge ).

So, yeah. I'm not surprised that the difficulty of PotD may look a bit exaggerated to some people. I learned not to touch PotD since POE 1.

Edited February 5, 2020 by wih

[wih]

8 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

To be fair: OP chose Veteran, not PotD.

One can't know that Veteran + upscaling might be harder (in some cases) than the higher difficulty setting without scaling. You'll only find out after trying.

But still: keep an eye on your blood pressure!  

Boeroer: you are writing in the wrong thread This thread's OP has indeed selected PotD upscaled

[Boeroer]

****!

 

[danielbda]

5 hours ago, wih said:

Just to give newer players some context - there were numerous complaints on this forum that PotD was too easy during the last two years. Therefore Obsidian tried to silence the complainers by making PotD much harder. And SSS PotD is meant to be even harder, I guess (and it is still not hard enough for some people, so they find it necessary to torture themselves with the Ultimate challenge ).

So, yeah. I'm not surprised that the difficulty of PotD may look a bit exaggerated to some people. I learned not to touch PotD since POE 1.

I thought PotD in POE1 to be way more manageable, since enemies only got a fixed bump when upscaled whereas in POE2 they scale to your level, or in bosses cases, up to 2 or 3 levels above you, even if at level 20.

 

By level 16 in POE1 I could destroy everything, which to me is not a problem if you minmax and go after the best gear. In POE2 I think I just managed to reach the end of the DLC BECAUSE I minmax and have the best gear. With like a flavour character the DLC is impossible. Hell, maybe even the main game is.

 

If that happened, maybe Obsidian should've tried a middle ground. I survived, but I can see people getting turned off by the difficulty.

Edited February 5, 2020 by danielbda

[danielbda]

5 minutes ago, danielbda said:

 

 

18 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Hm... you chose the highest possible difficulty and managed to win. So I don't really understand where the problem is. That is was more difficult than the main game on PotD upscaled?

I found some fights in SSS challenging when I did them the first time, but usually they weren't hat difficult after that.

Often players are not used to prolonged fights and tend to spend all their resources right away and carelessly which is a mistake in SSS. 

There are players who beat these fights solo on PotD upscaled or even in the Ultimate challenge.

I "did". As I said, some of the challenges are simply not possible depending on your party.

 

The Shades might be the worst example, but it is not doable with a DPS MC like mine. One needs a party built for such and encounter, and I don't think this is good design.

Edited February 5, 2020 by danielbda

[Boeroer]

That is not correct.

I beat SSS with several parties, all vastly different. I don't even use consumables. And I never had severe problems.

The only thing that can be really annoying for first-time players is that trappy fight which transforms you into a bunch of creatures (Ironclad, Lagufaeth etc.). Here it does indeed matter who gets transformed into which creature. But you can change the order of your party members to accomodate. 

As I said: players are winning that DLC solo while doing the Ultimate Challenge - so you can't argue that those fights are impossible for a whole party (no matter the composition - since a party on PotD upscaled shouldn't consist out of trap builds in th first place). 

Maybe instead on blaming it solely on bad design you could consider that you're not adept enough (yet) for SSS on PotD upscaled?

[thelee]

5 hours ago, danielbda said:

By level 16 in POE1 I could destroy everything, which to me is not a problem if you minmax and go after the best gear. In POE2 I think I just managed to reach the end of the DLC BECAUSE I minmax and have the best gear. With like a flavour character the DLC is impossible. Hell, maybe even the main game is.

 

that's the problem, unfortunately for you.

as alluded before, the raging debate over difficulty in Deadfire has sort of been resolved against being able to roflstomp everything at max level - the fact that you could do this in PoE1 was generally considered to be a bad thing. Personally, I still think the difficulty curve is a little light at the end (it's not helped by the fact that the actual main endgame didn't get any major bumps even as SSS and FS had significantly amped-up difficulty), but as one of those people who argued vociferously for a much harder PotD all the way to the top-end of the curve, I'm pretty happy with where it stands.

SSS will definitely test your skills, and FS even more. I've done it with plenty of parties so you aren't required to metagame to specific solutions, but there are certain setups that are dramatically easier, for example (having a paladin or two for the changeling encounter for example, since you don't lose the auras when shapeshifted). I think megabosses are far guiltier of requiring specific metagaming - for example I can't imagine doing Hauane O Whe without either a paladin or chanter, and lots of crossbow/arbalest proficiency (or a specifically built monk).

if you want a "harder" experience that maps onto PoE1's PotD i think veteran is actually a better fit - you can add in god challenges to mix it up a bit. Deadfire PotD+upscaling can be way more punishing than anything in PoE1, and at this point it's by design. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by thelee

[danielbda]

18 hours ago, thelee said:

that's the problem, unfortunately for you.

as alluded before, the raging debate over difficulty in Deadfire has sort of been resolved against being able to roflstomp everything at max level - the fact that you could do this in PoE1 was generally considered to be a bad thing. Personally, I still think the difficulty curve is a little light at the end (it's not helped by the fact that the actual main endgame didn't get any major bumps even as SSS and FS had significantly amped-up difficulty), but as one of those people who argued vociferously for a much harder PotD all the way to the top-end of the curve, I'm pretty happy with where it stands.

SSS will definitely test your skills, and FS even more. I've done it with plenty of parties so you aren't required to metagame to specific solutions, but there are certain setups that are dramatically easier, for example (having a paladin or two for the changeling encounter for example, since you don't lose the auras when shapeshifted). I think megabosses are far guiltier of requiring specific metagaming - for example I can't imagine doing Hauane O Whe without either a paladin or chanter, and lots of crossbow/arbalest proficiency (or a specifically built monk).

if you want a "harder" experience that maps onto PoE1's PotD i think veteran is actually a better fit - you can add in god challenges to mix it up a bit. Deadfire PotD+upscaling can be way more punishing than anything in PoE1, and at this point it's by design. 

That's surprising. The only megaboss I've killed so far was specifically Hauani o Whe and as boring as it was, once I figured out the padrons and got one more DPS I did manage to kill it without much trouble, other than using some healing potions since Eder had to go to the other side of the screen to tank of one the blobs once it separated. Granted, I used chanter summons as bait.

 

In SSS however, regardless of how long challenges were, if I did not do something specific at the very beginning it was a sure loss. The Nagas for example. If I didn't at least destroy the totems immediately it was a sure loss. Again, to me having to act desperately and to something very specific to win fights (and all chance based, one missed interrupt and it was over) is not good design to me.

[omgFIREBALLS]

18 hours ago, thelee said:

for example I can't imagine doing Hauane O Whe without either a paladin or chanter, and lots of crossbow/arbalest proficiency (or a specifically built monk).

HAIL PSIONS!

[thelee]

2 hours ago, danielbda said:

Granted, I used chanter summons as bait.

See my original comment.

 

Though omgFireballs is right. Psions have infinite interrupts and are also handy to have (though imo is a role that could be fulfilled by any other class with a crossbow or arbalest).

[Wormerine]

I did beat all challenges in SSS on upscaled Veteran with my completly noob character and party, and PotD with my 2nd, more thought out character. It was certainly a challenge, but not as extreme as OP suggest. I, for one, am yet to beat half of the Megabosses, though mostly, as I can't be bothered to repeat them more then 3 times with how poorly my laptop runs Deadfire. 

HPs to tend to be more inflated in DLCs but that works with per-encounter skill design. I don't remember it to be a problem in RTwP, but found it quite tedious in turn based. 
 

[ekt0]

On 2/6/2020 at 12:09 AM, Boeroer said:

That is not correct.

I beat SSS with several parties, all vastly different. I don't even use consumables. And I never had severe problems.

The only thing that can be really annoying for first-time players is that trappy fight which transforms you into a bunch of creatures (Ironclad, Lagufaeth etc.). Here it does indeed matter who gets transformed into which creature. But you can change the order of your party members to accomodate. 

As I said: players are winning that DLC solo while doing the Ultimate Challenge - so you can't argue that those fights are impossible for a whole party (no matter the composition - since a party on PotD upscaled shouldn't consist out of trap builds in th first place). 

Maybe instead on blaming it solely on bad design you could consider that you're not adept enough (yet) for SSS on PotD upscaled?

While searching for the best path (most rewarding) for the Crucible quest on SSS DLC, I stumble upon this thread.

As expected from Boeroer, he did not even use consumables. 

[uuuhhii]

devs really overcompensated with megaboss

but sss are still manageable for level 20 late game team

[Boeroer]

Megabosses are a pain in the rear for me. I only did them once or so and then steered around them. The gain is too little for the pain in my opinion.

SSS is not that hard for a high level party. Maybe players have to adapt a bit because some of the fights require you to NOT burn through your resources asap - but to be very patient and use resources in a meaningful way. For example the fight against the hordes of guls: it's very ineffective to mop the floor with the first wave while burning through all your resources - because there will be so many more waves. You have to keep your resources for the times where you really, really need them. Classes with replenishable resources like Cipher, Chanter, Monk and Bloodmage have an advantage in those fights (like with Megabosses, too).

Edited June 25, 2020 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Megabosses are a pain in the rear for me. I only did them once or so and then steered around them. The gain is too little for the pain in my opinion.

I felt there was also a slight problem of logic with the megabosses. It is only realistic to try them at the very end of the game. So whatever you gain from can be used for... what? The guardian of Ukaizo, realistically, but nothing else, really. I thought this was not enough.

If somebody likes the fights as such, that's fine, of course. But the fights as a means to an end don't really serve much purpose, in my view.

[Boeroer]

They don't. They are meant as a challenge for the most advanced players. Some people like those challenges a lot - and it's cool if they feel happy once they beat the Megabosses. It's just not that appealing to me. Just one/two times to see if I can do it in general and then "begone!".

[ekt0]

Now I see what OP meant. SSS is really hard on PotD upscale. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by ekt0

[darkling.lithely]

The (PotD) SSS challenges were all tough but doable except for one: I never beat the constructs. Even destroying the thing in the middle right off, I was wiped out after 2-3 rounds of them every time. They were so much more difficult than any of the other challenges that I thought it was a bug.

[thelee]

4 hours ago, darkling.lithely said:

The (PotD) SSS challenges were all tough but doable except for one: I never beat the constructs. Even destroying the thing in the middle right off, I was wiped out after 2-3 rounds of them every time. They were so much more difficult than any of the other challenges that I thought it was a bug.

you might have been doing it slightly wrong. you're not supposed to destroy the thing in the center. you destroy the things on the outside of the ring, and each time you destroy one they send a charge to the thing in the middle that launches an electric attack that stuns all the constructs. if you destroy the thing in the center, you can no longer do that.

 

that being said, the constructs can be real bad. most players can brute force their way through one or two steel constructs, but several successive waves of them (along with some filler constructs)? that's pretty rough, and you really need to be prepared to deal with AR and have very good sustain or anti-fire solutions.

edit: just want to add that many of the "Survival" challenges can be unfairly bad. Most fights in the game don't require you to slowly manage resources over prolonged periods of time, and suddenly have to deal with waves of enemies without knowing how many to expect can be extremely rough.

Edited June 26, 2020 by thelee

[darkling.lithely]

2 hours ago, thelee said:

you might have been doing it slightly wrong

lol--I'll keep that in mind on my current play-through. Thanks.