[Feedback] The Siege of Crägholdt quest is not bestowed at the right time

[IanTheWizard]

My 4 story-related characters are level 9, and my 2 hired adventurers are just level 8. And the Siege of Crägholdt quest is already available to me, which it shouldn't be.

Those mercenaries are noticeably tanky and slaughtered my party. I was frustrated that my party was slaughtered by them easily, and the difficulty of the quest also puzzled me. After doing some searches on the internet, I found that I'm not alone. The quest is a high level quest and is not meant for a level 9 or 8 party. I find it disappointing that there is no warning or hint about the quest difficulty. It's a waste of time to travel to there and then have to travel back because of the difficulty.

Please reconsider the time of bestowing this quest, or at least add some warning so that players know that this is a high level quest. We play the game to enjoy it, not to get frustrations.

Besides, the field outside the mercenary encampment, which is the lower-left portion of the map, is not large enough. My party was at the left edge of the map and was trying to stealth their way through the encampment, but the patrolling gunman discovered them and triggered the battle. In a real-life scenario, my party was supposed to be able to keep moving leftward when they saw the approaching gunman to avoid being discovered by him. But in the game, my party is already at the left edge of the map and could not move any more leftward. Please also reconsider the map design.

Edited July 13 by IanTheWizard

[Boeroer]

10 hours ago, IanTheWizard said:

I find it disappointing that there is no warning or hint about the quest difficulty.

Your steward, who informs you about Crägholt Bluffs, does explicitly warn you about that area and suggests that it is high level content. Level 8 or 9 doesn't even cut it, at least not on PotD difficulty. Iwould suggest at least lvl 10, 11 is better and still challenging.

Maybe you didn't read the dialogue thouroughly at that time - or maybe you forgot about that warning because unfortunately it is not included in the journal entry for that quest:

The Steward of Caed Nua has informed me of a recent conflict on a remote bluff in the Dyrwood. The Torn Bannermen, a feared collection of mercenaries, have besieged the manor of a local legend, the archmage Concelhaut. The conflict is over a mysterious magical artifact. The Steward believes I should investigate the problem to ensure the safety of Caed Nua.

[IanTheWizard]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Your steward, who informs you about Crägholt Bluffs, does explicitly warn you about that area and suggests that it is high level content.

In my opinion, the warning is not clear enough to make players being under the impression that the quest is a high level content, and the area being available for players to travel to right after the quest is bestowed further suggests that players can go to do it now. I'm not alone in seeing this issue, so I believe the dialog or the journal can really use some adjustments so that no more players would have to undergo the same thing.

Edited July 14 by IanTheWizard

[Boeroer]

12 hours ago, IanTheWizard said:

I'm not alone in seeing this issue, so I believe the dialog or the journal can really use some adjustments so that no more players would have to undergo the same thing.

Sure, I do agree that it could and should have been more obvious.

But you said:

On 7/13/2024 at 1:07 PM, IanTheWizard said:

[...] there is no warning or hint about the quest difficulty.

which is false.

True though: a bigger warning than in dialogue form would have been great, given how many players missed this and expressed frustration about it.

The designers learned from that mistake: in Deadfire this is solved with the "skull meter". It informs you about the difficulty (compared to your current party level) for any region you are about to enter - and even with every enemy in the game you are about to fight. This would have been really nice to have in PoE + DLCs, too. Unfortunately they didn't think of it at that time.

[Chaospread]

On 7/13/2024 at 1:07 PM, IanTheWizard said:

Besides, the field outside the mercenary encampment, which is the lower-left portion of the map, is not large enough. My party was at the left edge of the map and was trying to stealth their way through the encampment, but the patrolling gunman discovered them and triggered the battle. In a real-life scenario, my party was supposed to be able to keep moving leftward when they saw the approaching gunman to avoid being discovered by him. But in the game, my party is already at the left edge of the map and could not move any more leftward. Please also reconsider the map design.

Yes, it's true. But do you use autopause on enemy discovery? It can help in such situations

[IanTheWizard]

35 minutes ago, Chaospread said:

Yes, it's true. But do you use autopause on enemy discovery? It can help in such situations

I use it, but it didn't help. The level gap between my party and the mercenaries is obvious.

[Chaospread]

Ok, I said it to not be discovered by enemies. You can put your party in stealth mode when autopause kick in, so the battle doesn't automatically start.

Anyway, with your party level, as you say, Crägholdt is too hard, I agree. And also I don't be aware of the difficulty from steward message the first time I played the DLC.