Game time/difficalty distribution by characters levels.

[Konst]

Hello game experts.

I often find out the phrase "this is only late game ability / gear / ...." in your answers.

But when I played before, I finished main game quest at 18 character (if I remember it right).
But next I played three addons which seems in total both more longer and more difficult (especially addon with long 2-phased battles on fighting arena).

So I'm wondering: how are right now high-difficulty challenging battles and game content distributed over characters levels?

 

PS
Excuse me, if I too vague or sophisticated.

Spoiler

The straightforward question is: in which part of game there are most of difficult battles (early- \ mid- \ end-game), in which part of game I will spend more time.
And the straightforward possible answers are:
 - early game most difficult, because you have very limited set of gear and abilities, think of it, when you are making your builds.
 - late game contain approximately half of all game content, due of 3 addons (but it very easy game-content).

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Konst

[dgray62]

In my experience, the game's most difficult battles include both early game battles on the starting Port Make island. Several of these, like Gorecci Street and the Dig Site, are very challenging for the reasons that you indicate. However, they can be avoided, and they get easier as you gain more experience with the game. But they also include a number of late game battles, particularly in the DLCs. They can be particularly tough if you rush to there areas to get the great items ASAP. If you wait and build up experience then they are easier, but then you have the items for a smaller % of the game. They too get easier with experience and with meta-game knowledge.

[thelee]

This is how I break it down these days (level range by quests i typically take on):

 

1-4: "port maje zone" very hard, but avoidable (as @dgray62 says)

5-8: "nekataka tasks, benweth, initial sansa islands, oathbinder" can be very hard, but if you properly chain quests together, it it actually pretty smooth; there's also many non-violent quests or options to help ramp up. some of hte difficulty is simply similar to 1-4, where you just don't have a lot of options or your gear is outmatched (heavy armor on potd is still almost irrelevant at this stage because of enemy PEN scaling)

9-12: "tikawara, family pride, old city" reasonable challenge but a little bit less than the previous section, especially for an all-out violent option in family pride

13-20: rest of the game, OK challenge that can occasionally be easy. at this point you can juggle main quests and other faction quests and have tons of options so you're never forced into a super hard situation. i take Beast of Winter around 13-14 and depending on what potd challenges i have enabled it can brutal or an OK challenge (e.g. an unlucky roll with galawain's challenge can be brutal; a squishier party will get wrecked by the rogue archers in the bridge section). SSS around level 17. FS is the biggest challenge, I start at level 20 (sometimes level 19), and can be very hard depending on my party. Megabosses are always the technical puzzles that that they are at level 20.

 

the most difficult battles are in the 1-4 range, and also FS. SSS and BoW have hard fights, but both can be over-leveled to make them easier. FS is special in that it's basically balanced at level 20, so you can spend the entire DLC at level 20 and face a decent challenge.

[NotDumbEnough]

It's worth pointing out that there are enough quests in Neketaka to basically get you to level 9 or so without any combat whatsoever.

You can also sail around for massive amounts of exploration XP, i.e. explore the entire map before you even reach Neketaka.

[thelee]

I also noticed that there's really also more to OP's question. To address the other:

 

8 hours ago, Konst said:

I often find out the phrase "this is only late game ability / gear / ...." in your answers.

I consider anything from mid-late SSS and anywhere FS or from the main quest pre-Ukaizo to be "late/end-game gear." Anything starting level 17 or so on I consider "late-game ability." Definitely the bulk of the challenge is before then, so having a build that relies so heavily on late/end-game gear to be not great. It also is a bit of a balance issue; for SC wizard, druids, and priests their tier 9 spells are so powerful that the need for the "right" build kind of becomes moot -- many players will likely need the most help far earlier in the game.

That being said, you can still have a build that takes advantage of late game stuff; like I said, even at level 20 FS is a challenge, and there's plenty of time to use gear you find there (especially if you decide to take on megabosses, which will also make the guardian of ukaizo harder). But it's kinda lame to have a powerful build that only comes fully online then; the builds I prefer also offer interesting things earlier, even if they might have certain components that only click at the end

Edited March 18, 2022 by thelee

[Helz]

If you turn on upscaling, you'll rarely overlevel any encounters and the difficulty becomes more evenly distributed. If you've already beaten the game, using Berath's Blessing will make the start of the next one significantly easier. You can also export a level 1 character equipped with a late-game item from your old game and import them into the new one, allowing you to use it for the entire playthrough.