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

[lordgizka]

I'm starting on Normal, with influence lost/gained messages turned off. That way I'll hopefully be actually capable of roleplaying something specific and not a regular sociopath while reloading almost all party conversations.

[Adhin]

@Prometheus: Yeah I remember that but what they want and what they end up with can be 2 different things. I just have high hopes its how im hoping for (which is what they want to so, yay). Why I'll start on hardest diff and 'see how it goes' before deciding if I'll keep with it. It's what I do with every game I play. RPG's just tend to be the thing I am more likely to change difficulty due to the vast majority of it just being random chance and math where your skill matters so little higher difficulty just comes down to 'how much do you enjoy reloading?' and less about actual skill.

 

DA did a pretty good job at some of that, though there random immunities killed it for me for playing on harder difficulties. It didn't make it 'hard' it just made it kinda stupid. Also why was a bandit just immune to fire, or lightning? **** made no sense what so ever. That kinda thing should be universal in normal+ difficulties. Fire Elemental? Things immune to fire, surprise I guess. I can see playing on an easy difficulty and it removing immunities to higher resist for some folks but... yeah.

 

I'm seriously looking forward to this game heh.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'll play on whatever setting creates the most level playing field.  The party and its enemies should be governed by the same rules.  Friendly fire should exist, and be equally deadly to everyone.

 

I don't really understand why any settings other than this even exist.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Sylvius the Mad

[Tsuga C]

I'll start off on Hard (level playing field) and I'll ignore the various modes designed to make things tough on those who make a mistake or encounter a glitch. I'm playing for entertainment and have nothing to prove to myself or others with regards to this game or any other, so the various modes hold no appeal. Bragging rights for playing a videogame? Silly. 

[Adhin]

@Sylvius The Mad: Crazy people Sir Mad, crazy people. I don't get that kind of 'difficulty' change in RPG's either. If its not twitch based then it's all a math stream with bad random rolls. better off changing the actual encounters to be more difficult then the 'rules'. Which they seem to be shooting for ^.^

[Archmage Silver]

I'll start off on Hard (level playing field) and I'll ignore the various modes designed to make things tough on those who make a mistake or encounter a glitch. I'm playing for entertainment and have nothing to prove to myself or others with regards to this game or any other, so the various modes hold no appeal. Bragging rights for playing a videogame? Silly. 

Uhm... what? Some of us actually enjoy the tactical challenge, it has never been about proving anything for me. Just sayin'.

[Karkarov]

I play these games for fun and to enjoy the story/lore of the world so likely I will play at normal most of the time if not only normal.  I will never turn on trial of iron because it does nothing to enhance what I play the game for.  Expert mode I might do at some point.  Settings wise I always go through and tweak those in every game.

[jamoecw]

i don't get people who play iron man mode on 'fresh' games that haven't been debugged by loads of people playing them.  in my experience there is always something that needs to be patched either because it is game ending, or game breaking.  beating a game on iron man mode when a glitch prevents you from dying is lame, likewise dying and losing your game progress due to a glitch is also lame.

[Valsuelm]

I've played all previous IE games as well as other D&D franchise games on what's usually called the 'D&D Hardcore rules' difficulty. Since PE is obviously not going to use these rules I do hope that there's a recommendation by Obsidian on which difficulty to select that most represents an equivalent to the "'D&D Hardcore rules"" difficulty found in the IE games as well as NWN2, and I very much hope that equivalent exists in PE.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Valsuelm

[Faerunner]

I'm not trying to win any achievements, here. I play RPG's for the interactable story and characters, not the combat. I'll probably play the game on easy while I get used to the game mechanics, then maybe crank it up to normal if combat becomes so easy it's boring. (Which itself seems unlikely as it took me about a year of playing to feel that way about DA:O.) The classes and builds I'm drawn to tend to be difficult to use in combat anyway, so I need all the help I can get.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Faerunner

[Hormalakh]

path of damned, trial of iron, expert mode. if a game is worth beating, it's worth beating on hard. i'll explore all the different options at lower difficulties after i beat the game on hard. no metagaming and all...

[JFSOCC]

path of damned, trial of iron, expert mode. if a game is worth beating, it's worth beating on hard. i'll explore all the different options at lower difficulties after i beat the game on hard. no metagaming and all...

I think it'd be cool if you recorded yourself and posted it to youtube, because that would be an interesting game to follow.

[AW8]

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).

Same here. I really prefer it when mechanics and effects in games are made clear to me, instead of short descriptions like "You do more damage with melee weapons" (how much more??).

 

At the same time, Expert Mode is intriguing because of the hidden skill check, influence and reputation numbers. I will actually have to note how party members and factions react to my actions, and when I attempt to treat an injured soldier I won't know that I need exactly 30 Treat Injury to succeed, just that I need more skill.

 

Hopefully all difficulty settings except Trial of Iron are adjustable during the game. If they are, I will probably start on normal without any extra mode, then after the tutorial phase when I've seen what kind of magnitude in actions that are needed to change influence and reputation scores, I'll turn Expert Mode on. I will most likely play the game on normal and leave higher difficulties and modes to second playthroughs.

[Prometheus]

Hopefully all difficulty settings except Trial of Iron are adjustable during the game. If they are, I will probably start on normal without any extra mode, then after the tutorial phase when I've seen what kind of magnitude in actions that are needed to change influence and reputation scores, I'll turn Expert Mode on. I will most likely play the game on normal and leave higher difficulties and modes to second playthroughs.

 

They said that, if you choose Expert Mode at the beginning you can't turn it off. But if you don't, you can manually turn on/off options of the Expert Mode during the game. See very old quote below.

 

If you are turning on Expert Mode at the beginning of the game, you're permanently (for that game) setting all dials to 11. You don't need to do that, though. If you start a normal game, you can manually turn on/off the options of Expert Mode that you enjoy at any point in the game. If you want combat to be standard but you prefer having companion influence messages turned off, you can just select that feature (and/or other story/dialogue-based elements).

[Kore]

If you are turning on Expert Mode at the beginning of the game, you're permanently (for that game) setting all dials to 11. You don't need to do that, though. If you start a normal game, you can manually turn on/off the options of Expert Mode that you enjoy at any point in the game. If you want combat to be standard but you prefer having companion influence messages turned off, you can just select that feature (and/or other story/dialogue-based elements).

I'll be playing on hard mode, but I won't be too upset if I decide that I'd rather tune the difficulty down mid game. I enjoy the tactical challenge, but if it's distracting m from the story or tempting me to cheese I'll dial it down a bit; in my mind future playthroughs are for hard modes.

 

I was considering expert mode, but I think that I'll simply turn off the various options that I don't want on instead. Thanks Prometheus for that quote.

[Lord Weh]

I generally play games on the standard settings first... Then look to the harder settings afterwards to provide some challenge and add some replay value to a game.

[moridin84]

I'm going to play on normal initially. And maybe play hard later on. 

 

I've played hard difficulty for quite a few RPGs and regretted it. Not because it was "too hard" or anything. The combat just wasn't very fun for those games, at least on normal difficulty it's easy enough that you can just breeze through it and not have to pay much attention. 

 

We'll see how Project Eternity ends up being. 

Edited July 17, 2013 by moridin84

[robersend]

I'll do as i always do, i'll start in normal to get used to the gameplay mechanics and in subsequent playthroughs i'll choose a level that's inmediately higher than the level i chose before.

[Tick]

I start with normal on the first playthrough. I plan to go with Expert mode, if it's similar to Harcore, which is an awesome concept and did well in New Vegas.

 

I'd try Trial of Iron in a different playthrough. It's something I want to mess with, but I'll probably make a crack character and see how far I can manage to go.

[ViolentManatee]

I'll always pick the hardest available difficulty.I always had. I'm weird like that. The most satisfying experiences I had while gaming always came from situations that were directly caused by extreme difficulty setting - having 30 goblins chase you for 35 minutes while you slowly try to smack them with your tiny shield, doing your best to save up your potions like they are made of liquid gold ( because you will sure be needing them when you come across something better built than goblins ), literally screaming of joy when you manage to split them up, if only for a minute - just so you can actually see what are you beating on ( hoping it's still those goblins and not your local innkeeper) - imagine, if you can, the pure satisfaction when you actually manage to outwit them ( I know, it's an AI, who can't outwit that. WRONG! you can outwit one or two, not 30 little sneaky f***ers who stick to you like they haven't eaten for weeks and who can probably beat you to death with their tiny hands in about three seconds. Playing on easy or normal difficulty, I would probably never got to enjoy these situations.

 

So no, I'm not one of those people who pick hardest difficulties just to rub it into faces of other gamers, thinking that makes them superior in some way ( what's up with that anyway ), I'm one of those people who would rather spend 10 months trying to finish a game and enjoy the hell out of it than blaze through it in 3 weeks.

 

But as I said, that's just me. I'm weird like that

[kjrubberducky]

Normal, no Trial of Iron, some Expert options turned on (no visible skill checks, influence, or faction stuff).

 

Trial of Iron is really tempting, and I have just started getting into some games with rogue-like elements like persistent saves and perma-death. But those are fairly short compared to how long I expect it to take to play through PE. I really want to try again if I die, not just have my 20-hours-played save deleted outright. If I can have my single persistent save without the delete on death stuff, I'd definitely take it.

 

I would also like to turn any "floating numbers" off, and I see that for skill check requirements, companion influence notifications, and messages for faction standing changes. But I would also like to see something like that for damage and hit points. For example, a grazing hit, a solid attack, or a vicious blow instead of a discrete damage value; and the monster is alert, tiring, exhausted for stamina or healthy, wounded, crippled for health. Anything to keep me immersed in the world and not tracking numbers on a spread sheet in my head, please!

[Lephys]

I like playing on the hardest difficulty, if it's a game type (i.e. gameplay) that I'm familiar with. UNTIL it's just plain stupidly "difficult." Like... DA 2. The first boss in DA2 was ludicrous on Nightmare (or whatever the hardest setting was). I expended all the potions I could afford, and used the utmost strategy, and could only get him down like 1/4 of his health before everyone died and I was out of healing.

 

When the difficulty just beefs up the attrition-level of everything, I don't like it one bit.

[Ffordesoon]

I started both DA games on Normal, and switched to Casual before the end in both. Not because I was having a difficult time with the fights, but because the difficulty was almost

entirely attrition-based, and that's the most boring sort of RPG design imaginable. I should be intellectually engaged at any given moment during combat; the DA games both fail utterly at this.

[Lephys]

I started both DA games on Normal, and switched to Casual before the end in both. Not because I was having a difficult time with the fights, but because the difficulty was almost

entirely attrition-based, and that's the most boring sort of RPG design imaginable. I should be intellectually engaged at any given moment during combat; the DA games both fail utterly at this.

Funny thing is, I played Mass Effect 2 on Insanity (which was, admittedly, a bit ridiculous), and it wasn't anywhere NEAR as bad as either DA game, even though they're both using almost the same engine. Mass Effect 3 was even less ridiculous than 2. In 2, there were only a handful of encounters that were just ludicrously difficult, no matter what you did. In 3, there were a lot of encounters that seemed ludicrous at first, but after exploring various tactics for a couple of tries, I ALWAYS found at least one way (usually multiple ways) of virtually dropping the difficulty of the encounter down to about Hard, if not Normal, via the efficient/effective use of my tools, rather than through attrition.

[nikolokolus]

I usually play most games on "normal" my first time through, just because I'm always curious to see how the game was designed to be played.  The only exception to this is that I will probably turn on "expert" mode, just because I like friendly fire and some of the other considerations that this will (hopefully) add to the game.