Out of curiosity, what difficulty will be your first playthrough?

[JFSOCC]

From the IGN wiki for P:E

Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game:Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.

 

 

'Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.

 

If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!

 

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

 

The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.

If I could have polled more questions, I'd have asked if there are those with a personally imposed handicap for difficulty.

And whether you'd use the ability to change difficulty settings during the game.

[Nonek]

I will probably make a couple of demonstration characters, just to serve as an introduction to character creation, the mechanics and the advancement route that appeals to me then restart on hard, with trial of iron and expert mode enabled, as well as toggling a few other features to my personal preferences.

[Sacred_Path]

I will go with default difficulty and default setting, which may or may not be the most streamlined experience.

 

I am very tempted to go Trial of Iron rather than save scumming for multiple approaches.

[Sensuki]

Hard or Very Hard, Expert Mode, will have a look at optional features.

[Gfted1]

Ill be playing on whichever difficulty allows unlimited resting and saving.

[Jarmo]

One step down from the default.

the additional options based on whatever seems to make the most sense to me.

[forgottenlor]

I like playing normal mode, as I don't like min/maxing my parties, but taking a group which appeals to me. For example In Icewind Dale 2, I went with a bard, even though I knew it was one of the weaker D&D classes. I also didn't drop any of my character INT or CHA down to 3. I

[Keyrock]

Normal difficulty, expert mode.  Beyond expert mode I don't plan of fiddling with the settings until after I've had a good taste of the game (i.e. a playthrough).

[Failion]

It really depends how the difficulty is handled. If its simply the enemies hit twice as hard and have 2x the hitpoints? MAYBE I would play it on hard if it made me have to be more tactful then having to use the stronkest character builds and relying on the roll of the die. DnD games I don't bother playing on hard because it came down to using the stronkest classes you can. Way too unbalanced when it came to combat. Dragon age franchise was bearable because it wasn't dnd. First game still suffered from the pitfall of having to use the stronkest min max rpg build to win. Second Game was better in that it came down to using class abilities to win encounters. But a lot of people hated the second dragon ages combat. Most rpg fans are traditionalists and prefer having the best character build to succeed.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Failion

[Sensuki]

Dragon age franchise was bearable because it wasn't dnd.

??????????????

 

I played Dragon Age: Origins on Insane difficulty on my first go and the combat was so **** it made me never play the game again. Pretty much involved cheesing your way through everything. Every encounter was 10 archers with knockdown arrows trolling u hard (yes I finished it). Combat was also ridiculously boring.

 

The hardest fight was definitely against Ser Kauthrien in my opinion, to beat that (insane, v1.0 of the game) I had to cheese the resurrection timer/distance and doorways.

 

 

In contrast to a game like Expeditions: Conquistador where it actually optimizes your tactical play significantly and is generally fairly enjoyable (even if the combat in the game becomes a bit stale over time due to lack of assets etc)

Edited July 8, 2013 by Sensuki

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Default difficulty, Trial of Iron. I may actually create a few characters and play through only the "tutorial phase" of the game to experience the ruleset and character options first; however, I want to capture the full weight of all choices and actions before I have the experienced "tainted" by the irreversible and unavoidable meta-game of prior knowledge. Games are almost always the best the first time. I intend to maximize that novelty with the gripping challenge of wading through the unknown.

[Jarmo]

 

Dragon age franchise was bearable because it wasn't dnd.

??????????????

 

I played Dragon Age: Origins on Insane difficulty....

 

......combat was so **** it made me never play the game again.

 

.....cheesing your way through everything.

...Combat was also ridiculously boring.

 

...I had to cheese the resurrection timer/distance and doorways...

 

 

 

So... did you enjoy the gameplay on insane difficulty? Because it sounds like you didn't.

Can't really see why people do stuff like that, there's no medals for it.

 

Why not play on lower difficulty where you don't need to cheese and things are fun?

[Night Stalker]

Normal difficulty, expert mode (unless it just add mindless busywork), and for other gameplay options I will wait and see what they will do before I turn them on.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I'm going to play on whatever difficulty allows foes to play by the same rules as the party(no +/- damage, no more/less effective abilities, etc.) and has friendly fire. I'll take a better look at the modes when the game comes out, but I'm currently leaning towards expert if anything.

[teknoman2]

im going with the majority here. i played FNV in hardcore, and i didnt find it difficult at all. i played metro 2033 in ranger mode the first time and the second time in normal seemed too fake with the hud on, so i quit and restarted on ranger. i played the IE games at core rules, deus ex at realistic and human revolution on the deus ex difficulty... so in short the setting the game was meant to be played on for the best experience... usually its also the most balanced

[SophosTheWise]

I really don't know yet. I haven't played the game and therefore don't know how it handles. Expert mode seems cool, on the other hand I want to know what the "turned off" features are. I like knowing how my game works (concerning reputation - I find those systems to be interesting).

 

If I HAD to choose know, I would probably go with the default setting, seeing as this was the planned way, the intended way to play it.

[Sensuki]

Why not play on lower difficulty where you don't need to cheese and things are fun?

The combat is still crap, it's a lose/lose either way. Nothing about Dragon Age: Origins is fun. Even making fun of the game is not fun.

 

The writing is not good enough to suffer through the combat again on any difficulty, I hated it that much.

 

Also notice the contrast I made to a game where the combat is not completely terrible

Edited July 8, 2013 by Sensuki

[Failion]

 

Dragon age franchise was bearable because it wasn't dnd.

??????????????

 

I played Dragon Age: Origins on Insane difficulty on my first go and the combat was so **** it made me never play the game again. Pretty much involved cheesing your way through everything. Every encounter was 10 archers with knockdown arrows trolling u hard (yes I finished it). Combat was also ridiculously boring.

 

The hardest fight was definitely against Ser Kauthrien in my opinion, to beat that (insane, v1.0 of the game) I had to cheese the resurrection timer/distance and doorways.

 

 

In contrast to a game like Expeditions: Conquistador where it actually optimizes your tactical play significantly and is generally fairly enjoyable (even if the combat in the game becomes a bit stale over time due to lack of assets etc)

 

But you have to admit even though it was stressful experience u probably had more fun with dragon age origins combat then Conquistador was too simplistic. 

[Amentep]

Whose fault is it? Default.

[curryinahurry]

Will play at Expert level; which I am assuming is the same as IWD 2's "Core" (Hardcore?) setting since that is the comparative difficulty level P:E is balance for as of now.

[Pshaw]

It depends on the gameplay. I will pretty much always do my first playthrough on normal or a step above normal with some additional tweaking in options to get things how I like them. After the first or second playthrough I start looking towards the more challenging difficulties. But if the gameplay is just tedious I won't bother with harder difficulties. There have been more than a few games I've played in the past where the harder settings made the boring parts of the game take longer and if that is ever the case I'm not interested in increasing the difficulty. Sadly I find the combat in many RPGs to be only mildly interesting most of the time and if increasing the difficulty just means I'll be making combats take even longer in order to get the parts of the game (story and choices) I enjoy most then I'll be just leaving it on normal.

[LadyCrimson]

I dunno...I typically play on whatever the "normal/default" settings are, initially. I usually don't care about super hard combat/game challenge the first time through, I just want to see the game, do the quests, see the sights, explore, take my time, etc.

 

But if it turns out that's easy enough where I feel like I could play with my eyes closed or something, I'll start over on something harder until I find my preference. As long as "harder" doesn't only mean food and thirst meters.

[NerdBoner]

the hardest diff that still allows me to save/reload.

 

ofc by difficulty i think more tactically challenging encounters and better enemy AI not just "creasture has 10000 more HP than before"...but we'll see.

[Elerond]

I usually start with default as they should be settings that are optimal for the getting familiar with the game, but if game feels too easy I usually increase difficulty or start new game on higher difficulty level.

[Sensuki]

But you have to admit even though it was stressful experience u probably had more fun with dragon age origins combat then Conquistador was too simplistic.

Nope. Dragon Age you select a target, wait and spam ability cooldown buttons when they come up, and sometimes switch between characters to stop them from doing stuff in retard mode.

 

Expeditions: Conquistador you have to actually think about your moves a little bit oh and you have full control of all your units - which is more fun than derpon age combat.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Sensuki