Crazy difficult

[Guest JinnersJQ]

I'm just starting here on these forums, but I wonder how difficult this game will be.  Will it be crazy difficult like Baldur's Gate 2 TOB or more gentle?

[JerseyP]

From what I understand based on interviews, the game will be as difficult as BG2. Josh Sawyer is the lead designer, and he considers Icewind Dale 2 to be crazy difficulty. This game will be less difficult than that. I think the game will start out medium and increase the difficulty over time to allow you to get used to it. You won't just get thrown into a crazy complicated mess. This is a game for veterans of the style, yet will be designed to be as open as possible to new players. It won't be super difficult to learn, but by the end of the game it will be an accomplishment to get through certain fights.

[Sir Chaox]

Here is a quote from Josh in another thread regarding difficulty.

 

Our normal difficulty will not be tuned for casual players at all.  It will not be as hard as IWD2 but should be in the IWD/BG2 range.  Bumping it to Hard should put you into IWD2+ territory. 

 

Original Thread

Edited February 20, 2014 by Sir Chaox

[J.E. Sawyer]

From what I understand based on interviews, the game will be as difficult as BG2. Josh Sawyer is the lead designer, and he considers Icewind Dale 2 to be crazy difficulty.

 

I don't think it's crazy difficult, but it seems to give IE players more trouble than any of the other (unmodded) IE games.

[lolaldanee]

for the record:

i've found BG2 to be a lot more difficult than any of the icewind dales

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

on the other hand, i've hardly even had to reload in any of the ID battles, and managed to kill the final bosses without too much trouble

Edited February 21, 2014 by lolaldanee

[Sad Panda]

What interests me is how much the difficulty will be tied to character builds. It's been implied that you'll be able to sneak past or talk your way out of combat situations, but I wonder if this is an approach that will carry throughout the game, or will there be boss battles etc. where fighting head-on is your only choice. In the latter case, at least on harder difficulty the case may be as in e.g. the ID games, i.e. character builds or party compositions non-optimal for combat will instantly get churned to butter. >_>

[MasterPrudent]

What interests me is how much the difficulty will be tied to character builds. It's been implied that you'll be able to sneak past or talk your way out of combat situations, but I wonder if this is an approach that will carry throughout the game, or will there be boss battles etc. where fighting head-on is your only choice. In the latter case, at least on harder difficulty the case may be as in e.g. the ID games, i.e. character builds or party compositions non-optimal for combat will instantly get churned to butter. >_>

The devs have indicated that while sneaking and talking will occasionally let you avoid combat it's not going to be something that you can rely on frequently. Having said that they've also mentioned that one of their goals is to make sure that all the classes will be viable combatants and I think part of that was giving noncombat skills some combat utility or not making you choose between either a combat or noncombat ability. Also companions that you leave at the stronghold will still gain xp - albeit at a reduced rate - so it's probably going to be possible to switch your party composition without too much pain.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

My ideal would be for a game with difficulty roughly equivalent to BG 1/2 using the Sword Coast Stratagems mods. Which is to say, very tricky in many cases and not dumbed down for casual players at all, but also not obnoxious or cheap or cheesy like Wesley Weimar's Tactics mod. If an enemy is difficult, it should be for reasons that make sense in-game, not because the person creating the encounter is trying to create the RPG equivalent of I Wanna Be The Guy or Kaizo Mario World.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Death Machine Miyagi

[Death Machine Miyagi]

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

 

Are we talking the last TOB battle with or without the Ascension mod?

[HansKrSG]

I'm just starting here on these forums, but I wonder how difficult this game will be.  Will it be crazy difficult like Baldur's Gate 2 TOB or more gentle?

 

Can't say I agree that TOB was crazy difficult. Yes the enemies was crazy powerful, but so was your characters. I understand that the last battle is pretty hard, if you have the "wrong" party configuration, but the rest was challenging at times (except when doing the "right choices"), not crazy.

[HansKrSG]

 

From what I understand based on interviews, the game will be as difficult as BG2. Josh Sawyer is the lead designer, and he considers Icewind Dale 2 to be crazy difficulty.

 

I don't think it's crazy difficult, but it seems to give IE players more trouble than any of the other (unmodded) IE games.

 

 

Not sure if I agree that IWD2 is harder than BG1/2. I couldn't win it playing only 1 or 2 characters, like I can with BG, but I guess that has much to do with the XP-system in 3.0-3.5. Full party IWD2 vs Full party BG2, I feel BG2 is harder. Am I alone in this?

[Lorfean]

Yeah, I never had any major problems beating unmodded BG2 / ToB content myself -- stuff like the Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, Demogorgon and Melissan tend to take a few re-loads, but I've never been stuck on them. I never got stuck on any of IWD2's content either but agree that it was definitely more challenging overall.

 

To the OP -- I think it's fair to say that we can probably expect the difficulty to be somewhere between BG2 and IWD2. Though I think we're also getting some extra options to customize the difficulty, so everyone will probably get (close to) what they want in the end.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Lorfean

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I didn't have that much trouble with a BP BG2.

 

Then again, the game was modded so that protection items stacked, and my sword 'n' board Paladin had and AC around -20 and saves in the negatives.

Edited March 13, 2014 by KaineParker

[Stun]

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

Got a dedicated thief in your party? If so, the Melissan fight(s) is super easy. In fact you barely have to fight at all. There are 4 phases in that fight. Just litter the area with spike traps before every phase and she'll die by herself

[Jarrakul]

I too have little trouble with any IE game, with two situational exceptions. I have not been able to beat TOB with a character started in TOB. The lack of optimization just tends to kill me. On the other hand, I haven't tried in quite some time, so who knows. The other exception is IWD2 on Heart of Fury mode, even with an imported party. It really seems as though eventually anyone who can't summon or mind control becomes useless because of the weird way scaling works, and I can't beat the game with three party members who've been sharing their xp with another three.

 

Fortunately, it doesn't sound like either of those situations is likely to be relevant here. It sounds like Eternity is likely to be in the BG2/IWD2 range, difficulty-wise, which sounds great to me. Especially since we have some cool options for making it harder.

[lolaldanee]

 

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

 

Are we talking the last TOB battle with or without the Ascension mod?

 

vanilla

i guess it's mostly due to my habit of building parties with people i like in BG vs effective parties that work well together in IWD and IWD2

Edited March 13, 2014 by lolaldanee

[Stun]

IWD2's heart of fury mode is most definitely the toughest challenge of any of the IE games. I still don't see how it can be done without importing a fully decked-out high level party that already beat the game on normal, and thus treating HoF mode as if it was an NG+ playthrough.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Stun

[Madzookeeper]

IWD2's heart of fury mode is most definitely the toughest challenge of any of the IE games. I still don't see how it can be done without importing a fully decked-out high level party that already beat the game on normal, and thus treating HoF mode as if it was an NG+ playthrough.

my brother took a level 1 party through to the ice palace before stopping. basically it took luring a single goblin away from the others, killing, resting, and basically getting an instant level from that. basically it was patience and playing EXTREMELY carefully. i watched him do it. it was kinda silly.

[Sarex]

my brother took a level 1 party through to the ice palace before stopping. basically it took luring a single goblin away from the others, killing, resting, and basically getting an instant level from that. basically it was patience and playing EXTREMELY carefully. i watched him do it. it was kinda silly.

 

Pretty much this and as far as I remember there was an optimal party composition, that you needed to take. Or just take a bard and spam songs. XD

[Stun]

I don't know. Here's what you're looking at when you start a game with a level 1 party of 6 in IWD2's HOF mode.

 

1) You're naked and armed with Quarterstaves as you step off the ship. Your Party members have between 6-15 HP each

2) you all have 1 attack per round, and you can do anywhere between 1-15 points of damage per successful hit.

3) If you're quick, you can manage to equip half of them with leather armor before you start seeing goblins all over the place. But you most definitely won't be able to equip more than one or two of your guys with missile weapons (in order to "lure" or "kite" individual goblins away from their packs)

 

In the meantime...

 

4) In HOF a goblin has about 100hp, and does about 15-20 points of damage per hit. In other words, 1 hit = 1 kill, so you simply cannot get hit... at all

5) there are... a LOT of goblins in the docks and in the warehouse, and in the tunnels. Twice as many as there are in normal mode. You cannot exit the prologue before they're all killed.

 

I'm not sure what a bard song from a level 1 bard can do against this. or how a level 1 party who dumps points in stealth can succeed in whittling down a goblin via sneak attacks, let alone several goblins. And your mage is totally screwed. There are no scroll merchants in the docks

 

Of course if you manage to kill 1 goblin, you'll get several thousand xp, enough to level everyone up. But all that's going to accomplish is that some members of your party will be able to take 2 hits from a goblin before they die.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Stun

[Sarex]

I don't know. Here's what you're looking at when you start a game with a level 1 party of 6 in IWD2's HOF mode.

 

1) You're naked and armed with Quarterstaves as you step off the ship. Your Party members have between 6-15 HP each

2) you all have 1 attack per round, and you can do anywhere between 1-15 points of damage per successful hit.

3) If you're quick, you can manage to equip half of them with leather armor before you start seeing goblins all over the place. But you most definitely won't be able to equip more than one or two of your guys with missile weapons (in order to "lure" or "kite" individual goblins away from their packs)

 

In the meantime...

 

4) In HOF a goblin has about 100hp, and does about 15-20 points of damage per hit. In other words, 1 hit = 1 kill, so you simply cannot get hit... at all

5) there are... a LOT of goblins in the docks and in the warehouse, and in the tunnels. Twice as many as there are in normal mode. You cannot exit the prologue before they're all killed.

 

I'm not sure what a bard song from a level 1 bard can do against this. or how a level 1 party who dumps points in stealth can succeed in whittling down a goblin via sneak attacks, let alone several goblins. And your mage is totally screwed. There are no scroll merchants in the docks

 

Of course if you manage to kill 1 goblin, you'll get several thousand xp, enough to level everyone up. But all that's going to accomplish is that some members of your party will be able to take 2 hits from a goblin before they die.

 

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24839

[Madzookeeper]

I don't know. Here's what you're looking at when you start a game with a level 1 party of 6 in IWD2's HOF mode.

 

1) You're naked and armed with Quarterstaves as you step off the ship. Your Party members have between 6-15 HP each

2) you all have 1 attack per round, and you can do anywhere between 1-15 points of damage per successful hit.

3) If you're quick, you can manage to equip half of them with leather armor before you start seeing goblins all over the place. But you most definitely won't be able to equip more than one or two of your guys with missile weapons (in order to "lure" or "kite" individual goblins away from their packs)

 

In the meantime...

 

4) In HOF a goblin has about 100hp, and does about 15-20 points of damage per hit. In other words, 1 hit = 1 kill, so you simply cannot get hit... at all

5) there are... a LOT of goblins in the docks and in the warehouse, and in the tunnels. Twice as many as there are in normal mode. You cannot exit the prologue before they're all killed.

 

I'm not sure what a bard song from a level 1 bard can do against this. or how a level 1 party who dumps points in stealth can succeed in whittling down a goblin via sneak attacks, let alone several goblins. And your mage is totally screwed. There are no scroll merchants in the docks

 

Of course if you manage to kill 1 goblin, you'll get several thousand xp, enough to level everyone up. But all that's going to accomplish is that some members of your party will be able to take 2 hits from a goblin before they die. 

all i know is i watched him do it. i never once said it was easy in the slightest, but it was one of his fav things to do. he used a half-orc paladin that worked... surprisingly well, dwarves druid, aasmir fighter, moon elvish wizard (if he wanted a "super party" he'd use a crow), wild elf sorcerer, then either a dwarven monk, a cleric or a ranger.

 

the wizard is basically the key to the whole thing, you use magic missile, so you have a kite pretty much period, and using stealth is also kinda a key factor. it takes being extremely micro-managing of EVERY single action, movement, and pausing as soon as people do things. it's basically playing it like a turn based game. also dash on everyone, while not required, is stupidly useful.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Madzookeeper

[Reever]

Sadly, I haven't played BG yet, so I don't know what to expect. But if the "easy" difficulty doesn't cut it, I'll just cheat my way through the game =D

[Jarrakul]

 

I don't know. Here's what you're looking at when you start a game with a level 1 party of 6 in IWD2's HOF mode.

 

1) You're naked and armed with Quarterstaves as you step off the ship. Your Party members have between 6-15 HP each

2) you all have 1 attack per round, and you can do anywhere between 1-15 points of damage per successful hit.

3) If you're quick, you can manage to equip half of them with leather armor before you start seeing goblins all over the place. But you most definitely won't be able to equip more than one or two of your guys with missile weapons (in order to "lure" or "kite" individual goblins away from their packs)

 

In the meantime...

 

4) In HOF a goblin has about 100hp, and does about 15-20 points of damage per hit. In other words, 1 hit = 1 kill, so you simply cannot get hit... at all

5) there are... a LOT of goblins in the docks and in the warehouse, and in the tunnels. Twice as many as there are in normal mode. You cannot exit the prologue before they're all killed.

 

I'm not sure what a bard song from a level 1 bard can do against this. or how a level 1 party who dumps points in stealth can succeed in whittling down a goblin via sneak attacks, let alone several goblins. And your mage is totally screwed. There are no scroll merchants in the docks

 

Of course if you manage to kill 1 goblin, you'll get several thousand xp, enough to level everyone up. But all that's going to accomplish is that some members of your party will be able to take 2 hits from a goblin before they die.

 

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24839

 

 

I don't know the specifics, but summons seem to get some or all of the HoF buff. Hence, while they're often lackluster in the main game, they are flat out the best spells in HoF (other than things like Dominate Monster, which works on the same principle but isn't as reliable). This odd quirk explains why the party from the link can do it.

[Madzookeeper]

apparently you didn't pay attention to what i said at all... so hey. whateves.

 

and summons more than once saved my tail in IW2, they weren't the early ones mind, but after about fifth level they were more than useful. elemental swarm anyone?